Macro trends blogger and economist David Woo @DavidWooUnbound, CEO of David Woo Unbound, a global forum devoted to the promotion of fact-based debates about markets, politics, and economics, joins Julia La Roche on episode 260 to discuss tariffs, markets, and geopolitics.

Sponsors:

Monetary Metals. https://monetary-metals.com/julia

Kalshi: https://kalshi.com/julia

Woo, the former head of Global Interest Rates, Foreign Exchange, Emerging Markets Fixed Income Strategy & Economics Research at Bank of America, is known for some of his bold and contrarian calls, including Trump winning the presidential race in 2016 (https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/08/bofaml-analyst-got-ovation-from-co-workers-the-morning-after-election.html), and that the 2020 US presidential election would be much closer than expected and the results contested (https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/the-dangerous-groupthink-stalking-wall-street-20210909-p58q48).

Links:  

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidWooUnbound

Website: https://www.davidwoounbound.com/

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/Davidwoounbound

Timestamps:

0:00 Welcome and intro of David Woo

1:09 Macro picture and Trump's market influence

1:45 China tariff capitulation analysis

5:36 Trump as tactical trader

6:26 Understanding Trump's constraints

11:16 Investment strategy for trade war

17:32 How to win a trade war

23:03 Defensive positioning advice

24:30 Ukraine-Russia war failure

32:05 Geopolitical risk ranking

39:07 Do sanctions work?

43:55 Prediction markets on trade deals

48:53 Conservative movement struggles globally

49:28 Trump 2.0 performance critique

52:26 Elon Musk and DOGE disappointment

56:05 Closing thoughts