No, the issue is half of Americans and American states are still into Red-state zero-sum policies which don't work very well in a modern world and modern economy. Today you want the black/female/trans/foreigner working at their absolute full potential, not slaving in your farm.

In the past it didn't matter so much economically because slaving in your farm was still one of the most important jobs. In 1900, ~40% of the American workforce was employed in agriculture. Yet even then the (ex) slave states were poor compared to northern states because they didn’t know how to invest in their population (still don’t).

Democrats can't unring this bell. Decades of trust are irrevocably lost.

Ordinarily, I'd say you're right about investment. Long term, the market goes up. Trying to time the market isn't very effective; you might as well invest cash now.

These circumstances aren't ordinary. This is potentially a decade-long depression. I really hate saying that; "this time it's different" always sound stupid. But every nation on earth has just looked at the US and said, "Maybe not", and that's really unprecedented.

I'm not pulling out of the market myself, so you have to take everything with a grain of salt. Without more information, I don't know what to do, so I'm sticking with inertia, and hoping I'm wrong about the magnitude of the potential cataclysm.

Yet he's already changed the amounts and/or start dates how many times in just a couple of months? It will continue like that because chaos is the nature of his whim-driven presidency.

Further, he won't be in power long enough to ensure nothing changes for 40 years – US trade policy isn't read-only form here on out. Painful tariffs might not even survive until the midterms next year, if Congresspeople start fretting about keeping their jobs.

This is larger than tariffs:

> But even before President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on imports, many of those projects were being canceled — leaving thousands of jobs and the shift to clean energy in doubt.

Sure, his energy policy was predictable too, but you'd have needed to predict the election results too to act on them. Who knows that'll happen in 4 years, will it be more of this or will we see EV subsidies returned? That's the part that's hardest to predict.

What isn't predictable is how long things will last. Many in congress are for free trade and have the ability to stop tariffs in various ways. (tariffs fall under some emergency ruling not a low passed by congress as the constitution requires). There is likely to be more elections in the future with different people in charge with different intents. The question is will the next people in charge also keep tariffs high.