Trump Just Hit Asia With This 😲

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Donald Trump woke up and chose tariffs.

On Monday, he announced a jump in tariffs on South Korea—autos, lumber, pharmaceuticals, and basically anything else that moves—from 15% to 25%.

That’s a full-on price hike with a megaphone.

Trump says South Korea never ratified a trade deal he claims was finalized last year with President Lee Jae Myung.

In Trump-speak (posted on Truth Social):
If the Korean legislature won’t pass the deal, tariffs go brrr.

Context matters: earlier this month, reports suggested South Korea was still trying to negotiate softer U.S. tariffs—especially on memory chips. Instead, they got a bigger bill.

Despite the tariff escalation, Asian markets shrugged it off on Tuesday.

Stocks across the region climbed, suggesting traders see this as more political theater than economic apocalypse… for now.

Meanwhile, money did what money always does when geopolitics gets spicy…

Gold jumped more than 1% to ~$5,070/oz, after hitting an all-time high above $5,100 in the prior session.

Tariffs up → uncertainty up → gold bugs popping champagne.

South Korea’s Business Survey Index (manufacturing) came in at 73 in January, up from 70 in December.

That’s improvement. But still well below the “things are good” line (which is 100).
Think: less bad, not great.

Philippines
The trade deficit narrowed to $3.52B in Dec 2025, down from $4.15B a year ago.
Smallest gap since February, thanks to exports growing faster than imports. Quiet W.

Japan

Why the currency chaos? Traders are sweating a potential joint FX intervention by Tokyo and Washington.

China

The People’s Bank of China kept setting weaker daily fixings, easing the yuan off a 32-month high.

But here’s the plot twist:
China’s industrial profits grew 0.6% YoY in 2025, way above the 0.1% pace seen earlier in the year.
December alone rebounded 5.3%, after November’s brutal 13.0% plunge.

Dead? No. Limping? Maybe.

Hong Kong
Hang Seng climbed 1.03% to 27,059, extending gains for a fifth straight session and nearing a two-week high. Momentum is back on the menu.

India
Sensex rose 0.39% to 81,826, as traders bought the dip after the index hit a 14-week low in the prior session. Classic post-holiday bounce.

Australia was one of the stronger performers:

The Aussie dollar traded around $0.691, heading toward its strongest level since Jan 2023, boosted by juicy yield appeal.

Business sentiment helped too:
Australia’s NAB Business Confidence Index ticked up to 3 in Dec 2025, from 2 previously.

Now all eyes are on inflation.

Markets expect trimmed-mean inflation to rise 0.8% QoQ, pushing underlying inflation to ~3.3% YoY—still above the Reserve Bank of Australia’s 2–3% target.

Rate cuts aren’t knocking just yet.

Trade tensions + tariff uncertainty pushed investors straight into safety mode, sending gold above $5,070/oz after tagging $5,100. When tariffs escalate, fear usually arrives before earnings do.

📌 Action: Add or increase exposure to gold ETFs like $GLD ( ▲ 6.36% ) or $IAU ( ▲ 6.24% ) on pullbacks. Trim into sharp spikes rather than holding forever. This is a trade the fear setup, not a marriage.

Asian equities rallied despite a 25% tariff hike — a strong signal that positioning was already defensive and bad news is priced in. When markets stop reacting to bad news, upside surprises hit harder.

📌 Action: Gradually build exposure to broad Asia or country ETFs (Japan, Hong Kong, Australia) instead of chasing U.S. megacaps at highs. Focus on dips, not breakouts.

Australia hit its highest level since Oct 2025, powered by materials stocks, while the Aussie dollar pushed toward its strongest level since Jan 2023. Higher yields + commodities = capital inflows.

📌 Action: Add exposure to Australian equity ETFs or global materials ETFs. Hold while AUD stays firm and inflation expectations remain sticky above central bank targets.

The U.S. dollar just slipped on a banana peel.

The U.S. Dollar Index $DXY ( 0.0% ) slid to a near four-year low, extending a losing streak that’s starting to feel less like a dip… and more like a slow leak.

And then came the commentary.

Speaking at an event in Iowa, President Donald Trump waved off concerns about the dollar’s decline with peak confidence:

“I think it’s great, the value of the dollar. Look at the business we’re doing. The dollar’s doing great.”

Markets heard that and said: Cool story.

Immediately after the remarks, the DXY dropped more than 1%, hitting an intraday low of 95.55 before stabilizing around 95.82. That’s the weakest level since February 10, 2022.

This move isn’t happening in isolation.

Investors have increasingly leaned into what’s being dubbed the “Sell America” trade — less appetite for U.S. assets, more side-eye toward U.S. fiscal and monetary policy, and a general sense that the exceptionalism narrative is losing its shine.

When confidence slips, capital moves. And right now, it’s not rushing into dollars.

As the greenback weakened, precious metals caught a bid.

That’s textbook behavior.

When investors start questioning currencies, they go shopping for alternative stores of value. Gold and silver don’t care about press conferences, soundbites, or spin — they just sit there, silently judging fiat.

Here’s the tension:

And markets don’t trade on vibes. They trade on trust.

Right now, the dollar is losing a bit of it.

A falling dollar boosts overseas revenue when foreign earnings get converted back into USD. If the “Sell America” trade sticks, multinationals quietly win.

📌 Action: Increase exposure to global-heavy U.S. companies or international equity ETFs like $VXUS ( ▲ 0.25% ) or $VEA ( ▲ 0.39% ). Hold while DXY stays below recent support. Currency does the heavy lifting for you.

When confidence in fiat slips, investors rotate into hard assets. This isn’t about gold hype — it’s about protection during policy uncertainty.

📌 Action: Add or top up positions in gold or silver ETFs like $GLD ( ▲ 6.36% ) or $SLV ( ▲ 6.24% ). Treat it as portfolio insurance, not a moonshot. Size modestly and hold through dollar weakness.

A softer dollar can eventually mean higher import costs and sticky inflation. Assets with pricing power tend to hold up best when currencies wobble.

📌 Action: Tilt toward real assets and cash-flow generators like $VNQ ( ▼ 0.22% ) (REITs) or dividend-focused ETFs such as $VIG ( ▼ 0.4% ). Reinvest payouts and let inflation work for you instead of against you.

After three straight sessions of gains totaling +25%, silver finally took a breather.

Early Tuesday? Futures dipped.
The bigger picture? The bulls are still very much in control.

According to Citigroup, this move isn’t done. Not even close.

Citi thinks spot silver could hit $150/oz within three months.
Yes, one hundred and fifty. Not a typo.

Why? Because silver isn’t just rising — it’s acting like gold on steroids.

That’s not Twitter hyperbole either. Analysts at Goldman Sachs put it best:

“Silver is behaving like gold squared.”

When gold sneezes, silver throws the whole gym through a wall.

Here’s where it gets spicy.

Historically, traders watch the gold-to-silver ratio — how many ounces of silver it takes to buy one ounce of gold.

Silver would trade near $170/oz, per Citi.

So yeah. $150 suddenly sounds… conservative.

Silver didn’t politely climb. It teleported.

That was silver’s biggest single-day percentage gain since March 1985.

Ronald Reagan was president. Top Gun hadn’t been filmed yet. That’s how rare this move was.

This rally has real fuel under the hood:

1. China is hoovering it up
Physical demand out of China is doing the heavy lifting. And silver’s market is thin. Big buyers don’t tiptoe. They stomp.

2. Rate-cut dreams are fading
Falling expectations for U.S. rate cuts are pushing investors toward hard assets that don’t care about central bank mood swings.

3. Silver got “upgraded” to critical mineral status
The U.S. officially labeled silver a critical mineral last November.
That came from the U.S. Interior Department. And it matters.

Why? Because it opens the door to tariffs, which has importers scrambling to secure supply now.

4. Supply is getting squeezed from both sides

Put together? Less metal, more buyers.

5. Gold is too expensive for the crowd
Gold at record highs has retail investors saying:
“Cool… guess I’ll buy silver instead.”

Silver has become the accessible safe haven.

Silver isn’t just tagging along behind gold anymore. It’s front-running, leveraged, and volatile — in both directions.

This thing doesn’t walk. It sprints.

Fast moves. Thin market. Big consequences.