Tariffs could hurt business, growth and earnings: Peter Cardillo

«The situation here is very tense in the sense that the administration continues to go back and forth on tariffs and so there is no clear vision of what is really happening,» says Peter Cardillo, Spartan Capital Securities.

For emerging markets, is it too late to get bearish and for US market, is it too early to get bullish? Can I put it this way?
Peter Cardillo: Well, the tariff situation is impacting the global markets and if this continues here in the States, then it is safe to say that the global markets, especially the emerging markets, will continue to act accordingly.

And so, the situation here is very tense in the sense that the administration continues to go back and forth on tariffs and so there is no clear vision of what is really happening.
For instance, yesterday, Mr Trump announced that he would postpone tariffs on aluminium and steel, that is, on aluminium and Canadian steel and that was after the prime minister of Ontario, Ford, who postponed raising electric surcharges and so, we are seeing this tug of war.
Hopefully, at one point, there might be some negotiations and we will have a clearer picture, but until then, the markets are going to stay rather unsettled.

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What will settle the market then because this entire rollout, rollback, rollback, rollout, it is just going to make markets nervous. It will make corporates nervous. It will make the trade watchers nervous. I mean, what does one do in this kind of a world when the US president himself does not know what is coming next?
Pete