Sam Dickie: Fisher Funds expert on the collective response to Donald Trump's tariffs

The expanded tariff measures announced by President Donald Trump are contributing to economic uncertainty held by multiple companies, according to experts.

Major trade partners, including Canada, Mexico, Australia, Brazil and the EU will likely be impacted by the incoming 25 percent tax on steel and aluminium imports into the US.

Sam Dickie from Fisher Funds explains how these changes could impact the US economy.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, I'm joined now by Sam Dickey for Fisher Funds.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Hello, Sam, good even Andrew Love a good piney coke.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Yep, and a cream donut for afters.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Exactly square anyway, So.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Tariffs they're on again, they're off again, but they're certainly around.
What's happening with the market.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, exceptionally fluid policy, right, And you guys have spoken
a lot about the will they want their tariff journey.
But it's not just tariff uncertainty. So there is uncertainty
on the one hand, how potential tax cuts could stimulate
the economy versus the DOGE or Department of Government governor
efficiency inspired federal government cost cutting, which could be a

(00:42):
drag on the economy. Then you've got uncertainty about the
independence of the US Federal Reserve. So Chairman J. Powell
retires it a little over twelve months. And Trump has
made no secret he A wants interest rates lower now
and B wants a loyalist to replace power. Power on
the the hand, is trying to do his job independently,

(01:03):
as it says on the tin, which is to control inflation.
And right now he's stopped cutting rates because the Fed
is as he said this week, close on inflation, but
not there yet. And then of course you've got the
US versus China computer chip war we've spoken about several times,
which breeds its own version of uncertainty.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
He's right, the fair guy, because in fact, yesterday US
inflation rates came in higher than expected, so it isn't
under control.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
That's right, close on inflation, but not there yet. And
we need independent central banks. That's why they are independent.
So any thing that erodes in independence is a concern,
and again creates that uncertain.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Well, and you just have to wonder, and I'm sorry
this is not trumped arrangement syndrome in any way, shape
or form, but you have to wonder if Donald Trump
is demanding the interest rates when inflation is still going
up and the figures came out yesterday, whether he knows
what could happen.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, well, he probably hasn't studied the nineteen seventies as
closely as J. Powell. I suspect when the Fed declared
victory on inflation early and inflation took off again, we
had a horrific great high cycle. But anyway, there result
the other there is not just tariff's.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
The point is so Look, what impacts is this happening
on companies around the place and their bottom line and
their projections.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, early days on the bottom line. But imagine sitting
in a boardroom in the US or say Southeast Asia
or even Mexico or Canada right now today and being
asked to sign off on a huge capital project which
sort of spans the US or imports product into the US.
All been as to sign off on a three year
strategy document with this type of extraordinary policy fluid in it,

(02:41):
and it is starting to show up. So a small
business survey in the US just released a couple of
days ago showed the second or third highest uncertainty reading
in the past fifty years. And the last thing I
would say on that is steels are a classic case
or steal as a classic case of the uncertain impact
of tariffs. So steel stocks, for example, ripped higher when

(03:02):
Trump was elected, and they ripped high a few days
ago when he did slap twenty five percent tariffs on
Chinese steel imports. But what's super interesting is this the
stocks now and now much lower than they were with
pre Trump's election, because it reminds us these things don't
happen in a vacuum that the average steel bar on
the US is not suddenly twenty five percent wealthier. So

(03:23):
there's a lot going on there and the impacts are
starting to show up.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Has this sort of thing happened before? And if it has,
what could we learn from it?

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah? The most obvious parallel, I think is his last term.
But the point of make there is that the starting
points are very, very different. So last time the market
was very arius about Trump getting in, the bar was low,
and he ended up being generally good for the economy.
This time the bar is much much higher. People expect
he will do very good things for the economy, and

(03:52):
that is already embedded in share prices before he has
even done anything. And the other thing, of course, is
that this time he's got a real head of em
up around policy changes, and policy uncertainty is significantly higher
than it was last time.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Okay, so what about the people with the money, the
investors who are trying to figure out which company they
should invest in.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Well, the easiest thing to say, I think, is what
Howard marks it is? I don't know, No one really does,
and I'm not sure some of his aides know. From
day to day what sort of policy is going to
come out. But what we do know for sure is
that this level of policy uncertainty is unprecedented and expectations
are high, and that's one of the reasons why Europe, China,
and even Mexican equity markets are significantly utperform in the

(04:34):
US so far this year. But one thing we do
know for sure, Andrew, is if you were sitting near
Trump at as inauguration, like the heads of Google, Meta
and Amazon were, this uncertainty didn't stop their boards from
signing a combined three hundred and twenty billion dollar CAPEX
bill for this year.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Okay, great stuff, Sam Fisher, you are very interesting and
very easy to listen to, and I thank you for
your time today. And Sam is from Fisher Funds.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
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