• Global markets slipped this morning on the news that President Trump wants a 35% tariff on Canada. And if he puts a 200% tariff on pharmaceuticals it might wipe 4% off the GDP of Switzerland, Pantheon Macroeconomics estimates. Yet many investors are assuming that much of this will never happen.

S&P 500 futures slipped 0.7% this morning, premarket, after the index hit a new all-time high yesterday of 6,280. Around the world, markets in Asia sold off today but mostly at levels of less than 1%. In Europe, the Stoxx Europe 600 was down 1% in early trading. Many of those indexes have also hit recent all-time highs, so—fingers crossed!—this could be routine profit-taking rather than the first rumblings of an earthquake.

Emma Wu at JPMorgan noted that retail investors recently became more cautious. “Activity slowed further this week as profit-taking continued,” she told clients in a note seen by Fortune. “Over the past week, they net bought $5.7B – broadly in line with the 12M average but $1B below the YTD weekly pace.”

Nonetheless, it’s a stark contrast to the panic of early April, when President Trump made his first announcements about new trade tariffs and markets went into a nose-dive. This time around, investors are assuming that whatever Trump announces today will either not happen, get delayed, or be moderated in a future deal. 

In Trumpworld, tomorrow never comes.

This level of calm requires investors to ignore a lot of new elephants in various asset-market rooms. Last night, Trump announced he wanted a 35% tariff on Canada. But analysts today are noting that the tariff would only apply to goods not covered by the existing trade deal between the U.S. and Canada.

“So the bark is probably stronger than the bite here and this probably reflects why S&P futures are only down a couple of tenths so far this morning,” Jim Reid and his team at Deutsche Bank told clients this morning.

And then there’s the 200% tariff on pharmaceuticals. If that was to ever actually happen it would wipe 4% off the GDP of Switzerland, according to Claus Vistesen and Melanie Debono at Pantheon Macroeconomics. (The Swiss make and export a lot of drugs.) But there’s no need to freak out, the pair say. “The timeline is distant, and the threat was an off-hand comment in an interview—which we think is why most pharma stocks fell by less than 1% on the news.”

At UBS, Paul Donovan had a similar theme: “Most of Trump’s tax burden hits US consumers with a delay of several months,” he wrote this morning. “Investors are inclined to assume that Trump will retreat as Trump has done so often.”

Stock investors were also likely cheered by hearing two of the Fed’s regional presidents say yesterday that the effect of tariffs remains long-delayed and that companies are so far absorbing the price increases in their margins rather than pushing them onto consumers.

Thus the markets remain buoyant—so far—despite the apparent dangers. Investors in U.S. equities may be shaping up to take a more negative view, judging by the decline in futures prices this morning. We’ll see.

If the Americans stay optimistic, it presents the president with a paradox, UBS’s Donovan said: “Markets are strong on the assumption Trump will retreat; markets being strong reduces the incentive for Trump to retreat.” 

Here’s a snapshot of the action prior to the opening bell in New York:

• S&P 500 futures were down 0.7% this morning after the index hit another all-time high yesterday, closing up 0.27% at 6,280.
• Bitcoin went on a tear and hit another all-time high. It is now above $117K.
• The VIX fear index was up 6% yesterday.
• Stoxx Europe 600 sold off by 1% in early trading.
• The UK’s FTSE 100 was down 0.38% this morning after hitting an all-time high yesterday.
• India’s Nifty 50 declined 0.79%.
• South Korea’s Kospi was off 0.19% this morning.
• China was widely up.

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• President Trump’s 50% tariffs on copper, due to start August 1, are causing unusual distortions in the metal markets. Copper is now 25% more expensive in New York than London. And there’s a rally in copper scrap.

It’s happening. President Trump is indeed imposing a 50% tariff on all imported copper. He posted on Truth Social yesterday: “After receiving a robust NATIONAL SECURITY ASSESSMENT. Copper is necessary for Semiconductors, Aircraft, Ships, Ammunition, Data Centers, Lithium-ion Batteries, Radar Systems, Missile Defense Systems, and even, Hypersonic Weapons, of which we are building many. Copper is the second most used material by the Department of Defense!”

The markets are already behaving strangely. Copper futures spiked upward, obviously.

Now the price of copper is 25% higher in New York than it is in London, according to Bloomberg. This chart from Canaccord Genuity, via Dalton Baretto et al., shows the spread:

Copper is used in a vast array of consumer and industrial products.

Most businesses, even if only marginally, are affected by the price of copper. While the cost of copper is going up for American businesses and consumers, the rest of the world is scratching its head while it enjoys a considerable discount on the price of copper.

Trump thinks the U.S. will become self-sufficient in copper production, but that is extremely unlikely to happen, according to Bernstein analysts Bob Brackett and Andrianto Guntoro:

“The US is home to only two primary smelters. The cost of building a smelter is perhaps $6 bln per million tons capacity … The timeline of building a smelter from scratch is perhaps 5 years. Globally, smelters are oversupplied, and smelter economics are terrible (negative treatment charges/refining charges). It is highly unlikely that a company would invest $5-6 bln for a project that wouldn’t be operational during a Trump presidency with poor margins. Therefore, the tariff incents no proper economic action but rather simply adds cost to US manufacturers. Therefore, we think logic ultimately prevails, and the policy is radically transformed (keeping 50% on everyone else but exempting ‘friendly trading partners’ Chile, Canada and Peru from the tariffs solves the problem),” they told clients.

Jefferies analysts Christopher LaFemina and Patricia Hove agree: “The US will still rely on foreign mines to meet demand for the foreseeable future.”

In the meantime, weird distortions in the metals markets have already started to kick in.

In addition to the New York-London spread, there’s suddenly a rally in scrap copper.

Bloomberg’s John Authers reports: “A short-term fix … requires boosting production from copper scrap, which has traditionally been shipped to processors overseas. The surge in Comex prices invariably fed into scrap. That might now turn out to be a lifeline, even if temporary, while policymakers await the broader impact from tariffs.”

This is where we are now: The Golden Age of scrap metal.

Here’s a snapshot of the action prior to the opening bell in New York:

• S&P 500 futures were down marginally this morning, premarket. The underlying index rose 0.61% yesterday.
• The UK’s FTSE 100 rose 1.14% to touch a new all-time high.
• Stoxx Europe 600 was up 0.59% in early trading.
• South Korea’s Kospi was up 1.58% this morning.
• The Nikkei 225 was down 0.44%.
• Bitcoin neared its all-time high according to Bloomberg, hitting $112,009 on some exchanges. Coinbase rose 5.36% on the news. BTC is currently just above $111K.

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• The price of copper moved upward sharply yesterday after President Trump said he thought imports should be taxed at 50%. He also said pharmaceuticals should be tariffed at 200%. The U.S. is not self-sufficient in either product—which would make life more expensive for Americans if Trump follows through with his plans. This morning, investors seem to be betting that he’ll eventually climb down.

Forgive yourself if you haven’t given much thought to the copper futures market recently. But yesterday, the price of contracts for the not-very-precious metal spiked upward viciously because—you guessed it—President Trump announced a new tariff plan.

“Today we’re doing copper,” Trump said, while floating the notion that the U.S. should impose a 50% tariff on imported copper.

Copper prices were up 17% in New York on Tuesday but fell back this morning. Futures contracts were $5.54 per pound this morning, up 8% over the previous five days. There hasn’t been this much drama in the copper market since the financial crisis of 2008.

Analysts, investors, and economists are agog.

The U.S., as everyone knows, is not self-sufficient in copper. The U.S. imports 810,000 metric tons of copper every year, because the metal is used to make … pretty much everything! Certainly, every electronic gadget in your home and car contains copper.

This isn’t a debate, by the way. There’s broad agreement that the U.S. can’t produce all the copper it needs. Jeffries analyst Christopher LaFemina says so. The Mining Association of Canada says so. And Morgan Stanley says so: About 36% of copper consumed in the U.S. is imported, according to research cited by Bloomberg. It would take years to dig the mining capacity needed for the U.S. to generate all the copper it needs.

Trump’s 50% tariff would therefore be a straightforward price increase imposed on U.S. businesses and consumers. Copper prices actually fell in London this morning as producers anticipated reduced demand from the American market.

This poses a problem for Trump, who has been bullying U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to lower interest rates. But Powell won’t be lowering rates if the spiralling price of copper is lifting inflation. Research by UBS and Pantheon Macroeconomics—seen by Fortune this morning—suggest that a copper tariff would add 0.02% to 0.03% onto the inflation rate. That’s not a huge amount—so it might still give Powell the wiggle room he needs to cut the rate in September despite the copper problem.

And behind the copper chaos, there’s a bigger potential issue waiting: Trump’s proposed 200% tariff on imported pharmaceuticals: “A 200% tariff rate on pharmaceuticals would be a much bigger deal, as they account for 8% of total imports. But the president threatened this exorbitant rate after a proposed transition period of at least one year, allowing time for massive stockpiling, which would limit the impact on businesses’ costs and consumer price inflation,” Samuel Tombs and Oliver Allen told clients in a note this morning.

Not just a “bigger deal” for the markets, of course. It could be a political problem for the president. Somehow, Trump will have to sell more expensive copper and drugs to a voting public that, presumably, would rather not pay more for these essentials. 

Today, the smart money is saying that this is all drama for drama’s sake. It’s waiting for the actual tariff deals to get cut before it believes the headlines. S&P futures were sitting placidly this morning, up only 0.12%. It’s almost as if investors don’t believe that Trump will ultimately go through with these plans.

Here’s a snapshot of the action prior to the opening bell in New York:

• S&P 500 futures were flat this morning in premarket trading after the index itself closed flat yesterday at 6,225. 
• Asian markets were largely up this morning with the exception of China, where the CSI 300 sank 0.18% and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost more than a point. 
• Stoxx Europe 600 was up 0.5% in early trading. 
• The UK’s FTSE 100 rose 0.22% as it neared another all-time high. 
• Bitcoin remained above $108K.

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• U.S. stock markets reacted negatively on Monday after President Trump announced via social media that he would unilaterally impose 25% trade tariffs on Japan and South Korea. The tariffs target two of America’s closest allies and key suppliers of autos, electronics, and steel.

President Donald Trump jolted global markets Monday with the announcement that the U.S. will impose a sweeping 25% tariff on all imports from Japan and South Korea beginning August 1. The move, delivered via letters to the leaders of both countries and posted on Truth Social, marks a dramatic escalation in the administration’s campaign to force trading partners into what Trump calls “more equitable and fair TRADE”.

U.S. equities responded with a sharp retreat as the news broke. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged as much as 447 points (down 1%), the S&P 500 shed 0.8%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.9% by midday trading. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq had posted all-time highs last week, but optimism evaporated as investors digested the prospect of retaliatory measures and supply chain disruptions. Here’s how it stood during the middle of the day’s trading:

• Dow Jones: -447 points (-1%)
• S&P 500: -0.8%
• Nasdaq: -0.9%

The abrupt policy change injected fresh uncertainty into markets. Tesla led the decliners, falling nearly 7% as investors reacted to news that CEO Elon Musk’s attention was focused on building a new political party. The selloff was broad-based, with multinationals and manufacturers particularly hard-hit.

The tariffs target two of America’s closest allies and key suppliers of autos, electronics, and steel. Companies with global supply chains—especially in tech, automotive, and consumer goods—face likely margin pressure and rising input costs. Both Japan and South Korea are expected to respond, potentially targeting U.S. exports in sectors from agriculture to aerospace.

With Q2 earnings season about to kick off, analysts previously warned that tariff-driven cost inflation could show up in profit warnings and revised guidance, especially for S&P 500 companies with significant Asia exposure.

For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. 

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• Roman Starovoit, a Putin insider, has been found dead in a car in a Moscow suburb. Russian authorities say it is likely a suicide. Since 2022, there have been dozens of “suicides” among the political and business elite who orbit Putin.

Roman Starovoit, Russia’s recently ousted transport minister, was found dead from a gunshot wound in his car in a Moscow suburb on Monday, just hours after President Vladimir Putin abruptly dismissed him. Russian authorities have launched an investigation, with suicide cited as the leading theory.

Starovoit, 53, was removed from his post by Russia’s President Putin after barely a year in office. Before he was appointed transport minister in May 2024, he served as governor of the Kursk region, a border area critical to Russia’s logistics and military operations. His dismissal came amid mounting transportation crises, including widespread flight cancellations linked to Ukrainian drone attacks and a major ammonia leak at a Leningrad port.

The Kremlin did not specify the reason for his removal, but reports indicate Starovoit may have faced a looming criminal investigation related to alleged budget improprieties during his governorship.

‘Sudden Russian death syndrome’

Since 2022, dozens of prominent Russians—many in the energy, finance, and infrastructure sectors, often at the level of director or chairman—have died in ways that have fueled speculation about internal power struggles, corruption probes, and the Kremlin’s shifting loyalties. Starovoit is the fourth of Putin’s ministers to die in that period.

Starovoit’s sudden death is notable not only for its timing—mere hours after his firing—but also for its echoes of a troubling pattern among Russia’s elite. In recent years, a string of high-profile officials, oligarchs, and business leaders with close Kremlin ties have died under mysterious or violent circumstances. These incidents, often labeled as “sudden Russian death syndrome,” include apparent suicides, falls from windows, and unexplained accidents.

The episode underscores the precariousness of elite status in Putin’s Russia—and the unpredictable consequences for those who lose the president’s trust.

For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. 

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• President Trump’s latest tariff salvo—threatening 10%-70% levies on non-deal countries and an extra 10% for BRICs—would once have rattled markets. Instead, the S&P 500 now sits at a record high (6,279.35), with volatility muted and the VIX “fear” index dormant. Analysts say investors now treat policy chaos as background noise; uncertainty is simply the new certainty.

President Trump said last night he will begin sending letters to the various countries that did not sign trade deals with the U.S. since April, imposing tariffs upon them of 10%-70%. He also said he would punish any country aligned with the BRICs group (that’s Brazil, Russia, India, and China) with an extra 10% tariff. The new deadline for these tariffs to take effect will be August 1.

All of this would normally create a great deal of uncertainty in the markets, leading to dramatic selloffs and high volatility. Indeed, we saw that happen in April when Trump first proposed his new tariff levels. Markets plunged. Yet today, the markets will open in New York with the S&P sitting at a new record high. The VIX “fear” index is asleep.

Why are investors so unbothered by Trump’s tariff chaos?

As Fortune noted recently, everyone expected Trump’s policies to damage the U.S. and global economies, but that damage has yet to appear.

Some analysts are starting to conclude that investors have become inured to them, and regard all this uncertainty as the new normal.

Uncertainty is the new certainty, in other words. An example of that? The Bloomberg Trade Policy Uncertainty Index has declined in recent days despite Trump’s theatrics. 

Goldman Sachs published an interesting note recently titled, “A Surprisingly Small Uncertainty Drag,” by Joseph Briggs and Sarah Dong. They argue that while the tariffs are a big deal in the U.S., whose consumers will be paying them, the exposure of the economies of the countries that trade with the U.S. is relatively small. Too small to derail global growth, they say.

“Trade policy uncertainty rose after President Trump’s election but has recently pulled back according to standard indices. Our own and the Fed’s statistical estimates (as well as economic theory) imply that the drag on growth from uncertainty peaks shortly after it first increases, implying that uncertainty should have already slowed global growth. There are very few signs that uncertainty is taking a toll on activity, however, as investment, manufacturing employment, spending, and overall activity have all held up globally in 2025H1,” the note said.

At UBS, Paul Donovan noted that today’s trade letters will actually push back further any negative impact they create: “Allowing for some stockpiling ahead of Christmas, consumers may not experience the inflation spike from these taxes until January next year—assuming that Trump does not retreat again,” he told clients this morning.

Here’s a snapshot of the action before the opening bell in New York:

• S&P 500 futures were off 0.43% this morning, before the open. 
• The S&P 500 index closed up 0.83% on Friday, hitting a new all-time high at 6,279.35. 
• Bitcoin was above $109K. 
• Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.56% this morning. 
• China’s CSI 300 fell 0.43%. 
• Stoxx Europe 600 was flat in early trading.

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• Wall Street analysts underestimated June’s U.S. jobs report, expecting weak growth due to negative private payroll data and President Trump’s angry social media posts. Today, analysts have explanations for their error: “Seasonal noise” around government hiring skewed the numbers upward, they say, and payrolls are in fact pretty weak. Meanwhile, global markets saw mild declines today, partly from profit-taking after recent highs.

You may have noticed yesterday that there was a bunch of chatter prior to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest report that the number of new jobs created might be lower than the 110,000 consensus estimate. Analysts at Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Pantheon Macroeconomics all said they thought the number might be weaker than predicted. The ADP private payroll report, published before the official government number, showed a 33,000 decline in jobs. 

In the event, the number of nonfarm payroll jobs increased by 147,000 in June, the bureau said—way above expectations.

So why did so many people get this wrong? 

The fact that President Trump was tweeting angrily about U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell the night before distracted many, who read into those social media posts that perhaps he had seen a preview of the jobs report, didn’t like it, and was—as usual—trying to set up Powell as the fall guy.

That turned out to be a false signal.

A day later, the analysts have sifted the labor data and now have explanations for their errors. The report does show signs of weakness in private company hiring, these analysts say, it’s just that it is being masked by a sudden seasonal bump in government and education jobs.

“Private demand for labor is slowing,” Pantheon’s Samuel Tombs said in a note to clients after the official number came out. “The robust headline figure is entirely due to a massive 80K increase in state and local government payrolls, of which 64K are education jobs. … This large boost probably will unwind in July.”

“Private payrolls excluding healthcare and education rose by just 23K, well below the 50K average pace in the previous 12 months. Fundamentally, then, this is a weak report,” he said.

UBS analyst Paul Donovan took a similar line: “The US June employment report was strong enough in the headline to dispel ideas of a sudden US interest rate cut. It was troubling enough in the detail to suggest a more negative outlook for the US economy. Job creation was very narrowly focused.” 

As did Bruce Kasman et al at JPMorgan: “The June surge in state and local hiring likely reflects seasonal noise.”

Same tune at Daiwa Capital Markets: “Private-sector payroll growth totaled only 74,000, only a bit more than half of the approximately 143,000 average in the prior six months and the weakest reading since last October when the Fed was initially easing monetary policy in a recalibration designed to support the labor market,” said Lawrence Werther and Brendan Stuart.

Nonetheless, jobs are jobs. The overall unemployment rate stayed roughly the same. Analysts have largely been expecting Trump’s tariff regime to damage the U.S. economy (tariffs make everything more expensive and thus suppress hiring) but that damage still hasn’t really showed up—yet.

“The data suggest that firms are not yet slashing payrolls but are instead responding to policy uncertainty by slowing hiring,” Daiwa’s Werther and Stuart said.

The U.S. markets are closed today for the Independence Day holiday.

In their absence, global markets—many of which are at or near their all-time highs—seem to be selling off a bit to solidify their recent gains. Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.76% in early trading.

The biggest drama was in South Korea, where the Kospi lost 1.99% after a sharp recent climb. It’s not clear if that was triggered by anything other than traders locking in their gains, but Trump’s announcement that he would begin sending letters to foreign countries today imposing tariffs of between 10% and 70% likely did not help.

Here’s a snapshot of the action from this morning.

• S&P 500 futures are trading down 0.58% today.
• The S&P 500 hit yet another record high yesterday after rising 0.8%.
• Nasdaq Composite rose 1% yesterday.
• China’s CSI 300 was up 0.36% this morning.
• Japan’s Nikkei 225 was flat.
• Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.76% in early trading.
• South Korea’s Kospi lost 1.99% after a sharp recent climb.

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