100 days of Trump

Volatile share prices, celebrity advisers, and all-out trade wars… no one could accuse Donald Trump of a quiet re-entry to the White House.

After 100 days back in power, how is Trump’s second presidency shaping up? And, with such a volatile character leading the world’s most influential economy, how can investors plan for the future?

Back in 2017, when Trump first became president, his attention was focused on three core areas: immigration/border security (including the US-Mexico border wall), tax reform and deregulation, and attempting to undo some of the landmark policies (environmental and healthcare) of his predecessors.

This time around, on the domestic front, Trump has continued to focus on immigration (including some controversial deportation policies). He’s also prioritised federal government efficiency, managed somewhat ironically by a new government department, featuring Tesla CEO Elon Musk. However, it’s his policies on trade tariffs that have taken centre stage, propelled onto the front pages due to their ability to create disruption on a global scale.

Politically weaker, but louder

To state the obvious, the US is a democracy, not a dictatorship, and President Trump can only achieve his policy goals within the existing US power structure. This structure is made up a trio of factors designed to work in balance: Congress, president, and judiciary. In theory, Congress makes the laws, the president enforces these laws as he or she sees fit, and the courts interpret and/or judge them.

For a man who likes to work quickly and without opposition, this is frustrating. Trump’s Republican Party has a narrower majority in Congress this year than in the early days of his first presidency, making it trickier for the president to push through some of his main goals. But this time around, wherever possible, Trump is not waiting for permission to pursue his ambitions. He has opted to speed things up – and sidestep political challenges – via a spate of ‘executive orders’.

Flashing back to 2017 again, Trump signed 32 executive orders in his first 100 days in office. In 2025, he has already signed 139.

Whilst not precisely creating new laws, executive orders can allow presidents to act quickly, without waiting for agreement from Congress. And when it comes to trade and tariffs, substantial change can be created with a wave of a president’s pen…

Tariffs have taken centre stage

Unless you’ve managed to avoid the news entirely in 2025 so far, you know that Trump has waged a tariff war on a vast array of international trading partners. China – a key adversary during Trump’s first term in office too – has become the unwilling poster child in this war, and the taxes placed on Chinese goods entering the US escalated to 145% in April 2025. However, other regions around the world also saw new, higher and changeable levies placed on their exports to the US. This encompassed countries all over the world, including major US trading partners like Canada and Mexico, as well as mainland Europe and the UK, and manufacturing-heavy countries in Southeast Asia.

Should we all have seen this coming? It’s certainly a fair question. The US trade deficit (the disparity between what the US imports versus what it exports to other countries), and the option to address this perceived imbalance via tariffs, featured in Trump’s rhetoric even before his first presidency. But talking tough on matters of US dominance is one of Trump’s calling cards, and it may have become lost in the noise of a talkative man.

Put simply, the speed, scale and repeated escalations of Trump’s tariff wars have taken political leaders, financial markets, businesses and US voters by surprise. Trump’s approval rating among US voters has also dropped abruptly since his entry into office and the commencement of his tariff wars, which will no doubt weigh heavily on this notorious showman’s mind.

What’s more, trade is not actually what the US population wanted Trump to focus on during his first days back in office. Independent polling has shown that voters wanted Trump to begin his second presidency by concentrating on inflation, immigration, economic growth and jobs. Instead, the increased taxes on imported goods have created new economic uncertainty, and paved the way for higher prices for consumers who are still reeling from inflation at multi-decade highs. The trade wars have also created decision-making paralysis for businesses, and disruption for global supply chains still in recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Financial markets have not enjoyed the show

If there’s one thing financial markets don’t like, it’s uncertainty. The rollercoaster ride of Trump’s tariff war has unsettled investors, and consequently taken a chunk out of performance in stock markets around the world.

The US stock market was far from immune from this fallout. The S&P 500 index – which tracks the performance of the 500 largest stocks listed in the US market – fell by 7.3% in price terms over the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency: the worst first opening performance for a new administration since the beginning of Nixon’s second term in 1973.

Digging a little deeper, those giant US businesses whose higher share prices had led the way over the past couple of years – the so-called ‘Magnificent 7’ (including Amazon, Tesla and Nvidia) – saw their market performance fall sharply in the opening weeks of Trump’s second presidency. Trump’s tariff wars created concerns about the ability of these globally-oriented businesses to weather a combination of supply chain strains, higher production costs, and tit-for-tat international taxes on their products.

Since tariffs inevitably mean higher prices for businesses and consumers, the tariff wars also fuelled fears among investors about higher inflation in the future. Bond prices do not react well to higher inflation predictions, as inflation effectively erodes the value of financial assets that pay a fixed return to investors (as most bonds do). So, as tariff wars took hold and continued to spiral into new extremities, bond prices also fell.

This included US government bonds (Treasuries) – a famously very stable area of bond markets – which experienced sharp falls in value this spring. At certain points, there have been signs that this is a step too far for Trump, and the most significant deescalation in tariff wars so far (a 90-day consultation period) emerged at a point of US bond market turmoil. In his first term as president, Trump appeared to treat the stock market as a barometer for his success; in his second term, perhaps the bond market will serve as his flashing warning light.

What does this mean for our investment strategies?

As investors have shied away from two major types of financial assets – shares and bonds – it has been another asset’s time to shine. The gold price has repeatedly broken new highs in 2025, as investors have flocked to this traditional ‘safe haven’. This was good news for our multi asset investment strategies, which hold long-term positions in gold.

Traditionally, the opening act of a presidency can set the tone for the rest of the four-year term. Judging by Trump’s first presidency alone, we might have guessed that this would be a volatile four years, and the opening weeks have removed any suggestion that Trump intends to spend this second term quietly. Nevertheless, we suspect he may have more market-friendly policies up his sleeve for a later date.

For now, we watch and wait, making only careful adjustments to our investment strategies. In recent weeks, we have slightly reduced our exposure to the US stock market, and increased the level of assets we hold in Europe – a previously out of favour region which has come into its own amid US turmoil. Europe’s standing has been further boosted by Germany’s historic decision to loosen its purse strings and inject billions of euros into the economy via extra defence and infrastructure spending. This also serves as a timely reminder of why we believe in a global approach to financial markets: highly influential though it may be, the US is not the world’s only marketplace.

If you have any questions about financial markets, or our investment services, please do get in touch.

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