Covid killed 7 million and left 400 million with long covid. I get what you are saying, but there were permanent global ramifications of the pandemic on many levels.

Yes. And it hit on a global basis. I am one of those with (thankfully mild,) long Covid, so I more than understand that it was not insignificant. It was, however, not the global repositioning of leadership. What we are seeing now is a seismic shift of power, along the lines of the decline of the British Empire. It is only with mitigation that will allow us to retain any world sentiment other than that of a laughingstock.

I know there are some seriously terrible outcomes on the table, and the economic consequences are going to be severe for as long as the insanity continues, but if we assume that the US democracy is resilient enough that the Dems take back control of Congress come the midterms, in response to a crashing economy, then Trump's power will be much more constrained, MAGA will be voted out of office in four years and they won't have any way to conduct a paper coup any more than Trump was able to last time, and the Dems will go about putting things back in order.

Wouldn't that be lovely? Sadly, our reputation is no longer in our control. We the people, or at least a slim majority of the voters, chose this madness. We are at fault, not just those now in office. It could be possibly forgiven once, but to see what he was capable of and then vote him in AGAIN, no longer allows us to simply say Oops. As a nation, our judgement is in question. How can our previous allies ever trust that this child-nation can be trusted to vote for leadership in a way that provides continuity of trust in our written word, our contracts with other countries. They would be a fool to ever believe that we all can have each other's back, and should do all they can to become independent from us in every way possible. America First will soon be America Only.

Trust will take decades to restore, but most countries will gladly accept a normalization of trade, and things will return to some semblance of normalcy fairly quickly.

How many decades do most of us have? 3-4 for us. Even if tariffs disappear today, there will be countries looking for ways to work around us long term, to develop alternate supply lines and buyers, allying themselves without the US in the mix other than in the periphery. How does one plan an investment strategy around that?

The damage has been done and I do not see a pathway to full recovery. We are going from a global economy to a centralized economy. While there are likely to be multi-country alliances forming cooperative economies, they will be reluctant to include us. How long will that take to settle in and how do we plan for the aftermath, understanding that there will be aftershocks to the seismic shock that has been imposed.

There will be no return to normalcy. The question is can the US survive economically on it's own while trying to get others to rejoin us as allies without too high a premium that we have to pay because of the risk of dealing with us. Any short term return to "normalcy" will likely be transitory, while new world order plans are developed and place in action.

We all need to consider what that new normal will be and how to survive the transition.

IP