April 24, 2025· 45 min

David Woo: What Trump Started is Worse Than a Trade War

Orality
Model
88%
Highly oral (epic poetry, sermons, hip-hop)

Speaker Breakdown

HostJoe Weisenthal(1,424 words)
M:29%
HostTracy Alloway(933 words)
M:29%
GuestDavid Woo(6,032 words)
M:29%

Oral Indicators

Agonistic71%
completely, certainly, huge
Engagement80%
you, our, your
Memory Aids100%
listen, like, right
Repetition100%
know (135x), think (97x), trump (83x)
Parallelism73%
And I'm Tracy Alloway...., But the you know, even if we g..., But there is still this huge q...
Sound Patterns96%
89 question(s), alliteration: "markets move", alliteration: "barclays brief"
Formulaic Phrases9%
let me tell you, you know what, i mean

Literate Indicators

Hedging8%
may, apparently, could
Passive Voice5%
is seen, are used, being priced
Abstract Nouns16%
investment, community, business
Subordination9%
because, therefore, whereas
Sentence Length30%
Avg: 12.6 words/sentence
Word Complexity45%
investment, analyze, anticipate
Academic Markers0%
Impersonal Style20%
735 personal pronouns found
Descriptive Style97%
apply, actually, apparently

Description

For the most part, Americans haven't felt much pain yet from the tariffs that Donald Trump introduced (and then partially walked back) on April 2. The damage is highly visible in financial markets, but for the moment, shelves remain stocked, inflation measures have remained muted, and there hasn't been a significant wave of layoffs in official data. But according to our guest, real pain is coming. And what's going down is worse than a trade war. On this episode, we speak with the one and only David Woo, now the founder of David Woo Unbound. He also previously served as the Head of Global Rates, Foreign Exchange, and EM Fixed Income and Economics Research at Bank of America. He says that the administration has absolutely nothing to show for its initial months in office on any front. And he says this isn't a game of chicken, where one side can blink and avoid disaster. Instead, we're seeing a "war of attrition" where damage is being done to both the US and Chinese economies as we speak. As he sees it, the China hawks in the administration have been in control, and have the impulse to obliterate the Chinese economy, which makes the situation more than just a so-called trade war. He discusses the political, market, and real economy implications of this dramatic escalation. Read more: Trump U-Turns on Powell, China Follow Dire Economic Warnings A Bad Peace in Ukraine Carries Global Risks Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.