THE NEWS

The EU has retaliated against Trump’s 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum just hours after  they took effect at midnight New York time, escalating a trade war that has rattled financial markets and threatened the global economy. The European Commission said its measures would affect up to €26bn of American goods, matching the US tariffs on European exports, and would take effect in April, leaving some time to negotiate with Washington. 

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the EU regretted Trump’s decision and that tariffs were “bad for business, and even worse for consumers” adding that “tariffs are disrupting supply chains. They bring uncertainty for the economy. Jobs are at stake. Prices will go up.” They will go up… for Europe, pushing the economy further into stagflation.

We deeply regret the US tariffs imposed on Europe.

Tariffs are taxes.

They are bad for business, and even worse for consumers.

Today Europe takes strong but proportionate countermeasures.

We remain ready to engage in dialogue ↓ pic.twitter.com/5m1bGZjnsx

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) March 12, 2025

Brussels hit back after the US tariffs came into force on Wednesday, as Trump pressed ahead with his trade agenda despite growing concern over the risk of a domestic recession. 

As part of its retaliation, Brussels reinstated measures introduced during Trump’s first term on €4.5bn of US exports from April 1. These include levies of up to 50% on products such as bourbon whiskey, jeans and Harley-Davidson motorcycles. That’s right: when you barely imports goods from the US, these are the “essential” products you are forced to crack down on.

The EU has also drawn up levies on a further €18bn of US goods, which could include cosmetics, clothes, wood, soybeans, chicken, beef and other agricultural produce the FT reported. The measures, which could be expanded to include another €3.5bn of goods, require approval by EU countries and would come into force on April 13. 

A senior EU official said soybeans were on the list of targets because they are grown in Louisiana, home state of House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson. 

“We’re happy to buy our soybeans from Brazil or Argentina,” they added. “We want to ensure there is pressure within the American system to lift their tariffs,” a second official said. 

But in a stark example of just how much Trump has broken the world’s resolve, the UK broke with the European Union and its decision to retaliate immediately, and reaffirmed its commitment to US trade talks even as British exports were also swept up in President Donald Trump’s global steel and aluminum tariffs.

UK leftist Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “disappointed” by the US decision to impose 25% levies on foreign metal products without exemptions on Wednesday morning, telling the House of Commons that his government would keep “all options” on the table in terms of a response. Yet despite the jawboning, Junior Treasury minister James Murray told Times Radio the UK wouldn’t retaliate immediately while reserving the right to do so in due course. 

Despite the US being the UK steel industry’s second-biggest export market, the UK said it was “focused on a pragmatic approach” as it seeks to negotiate a broader economic deal with the White House.

The US move is a blow to the British premier, whose visit to the White House last month appeared to put the UK on a good footing, with officials holding out hope that the talks for a “new economic deal” touted by Trump and Starmer would spare the country from the initial salvo of tariffs.

They did not. 

Britain had been making the case for an exemption by pointing out that its trade in goods with the US is broadly balanced, and that UK steel and aluminum is a small fraction of that imported by the US.

Nobody cared.

Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds held a call with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Sunday, in which the tariffs were discussed. Starmer also urged Trump not to target British manufacturers in a call with the president on Monday.

“We are focused on a pragmatic approach and are rapidly negotiating a wider economic agreement with the US to eliminate additional tariffs and to benefit UK businesses and our economy,” Reynolds said on Wednesday in a statement.

The British response, or lack thereof, has set up a split with the continent, call it Brexit #2 if you will, as the European Commission launched what it called “swift and proportionate countermeasures.” While that underscores the extra flexibility afforded to the UK by its formal exit from the bloc since the last Trump-led trade war, it complicates Starmer’s efforts to rebuild economic and security ties with European allies.

Going back to Europe, last month Trump announced that he would impose the duties on metals, ripping up agreements struck between his predecessor Joe Biden and US trading partners to allow certain quantities of steel and aluminum to enter the country duty free. US administration officials have framed the move as a response to “foreign players” that they say are responsible for “surging exports” of metals to America that are undermining domestic producers. 

Trump has also expanded the metals tariffs to apply to a wide range of products containing steel and aluminum, including tennis rackets, exercise bikes, furniture and air conditioning units. China, the world’s largest steelmaker and exporter, warned it would “take all necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests” but did not immediately announce retaliatory tariffs. 

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the tariffs were “entirely unjustified”, adding: “This is not a friendly act”. The country was exempt from similar tariffs implemented during Trump’s first term, and the country’s steel producers supply the US defence and manufacturing sectors. 

The full list of steel and aluminium products subject to the levies represented $151bn of imported goods in 2024, according to an analysis by Simon Evenett and Johannes Fritz of the St Gallen Endowment for Prosperity Through Trade.

Speaking to the FT, Ted Murphy, a partner at law firm Sidley Austin, said Trump’s sweeping new metals tariffs represented a “big change” from his approach when he introduced similar levies in 2018 and allowed exclusions for some products.

“The product exclusions were vetted through a US government process to confirm the products weren’t available in the US,” said Murphy. “So taking that away will mean a lot of folks will have to pay the tariff because they can’t source these products domestically.”

Trump on Tuesday announced he would double the tariffs applied to steel and aluminium imports from Canada to 50% marking an escalation in his trade war with one of the US’s top three trading partners, before reversing course later in the day after Ontario, which had on Monday announced a 25% surcharge on power exported to the US, capitulated and said it would suspend the charge in a bid to de-escalate the tit-for-tat tariffs.

Authored by Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

There is tremendous value in the world of crypto! Given some of our recent opinions (linked below), you probably did not expect to hear those words from us. Digital tokenization of assets, made possible by the crypto-blockchain construct, can boost efficiency in the capital markets, thus greasing the wheels that drive the economy.  

• Meme Coins Do Not Create Wealth: They Destroy It

• Why Bitcoin Will Not Replace The Dollar

• MicroStrategy And Its Convertible Debt Scheme

• Bitcoin Is ‘A Hyped Up Fraud’ Says Jamie Dimon

Our views on cryptocurrencies and meme coins haven’t changed, but digital asset tokenization is different and could drastically redesign financial markets for the benefit of the capital markets and the economy.

What Is Tokenization?

Asset tokenization is the act of digitizing the ownership of an asset. At a very high level, it is not that different from the way your bank manages your checking account. Your bank doesn’t have a vault stuffed with your cash in it. Instead, it has a computer with a series of 1s and 0s representing your cash balance. Banks essentially digitize our money.

Digital asset tokens represent real-world assets, just as the banks’ 1s and 0s represent your cash. The range of assets that can be tokenized is limitless. Before we get into the details of tokenizing assets, it’s worth sharing some unique examples of how tokenizing assets benefits the sellers and buyers of the tokens. Consider these possibilities:

Movie Property Rights

A movie producer may issue tokens to fund the production of a movie. Not only would this finance the movie creation, but it might allow the producer more artistic freedom by avoiding the large studio companies that often dictate budgets and many aspects of the movie.

In exchange for their funding, the token owners might receive a percentage of future revenue from the film and the rights or partial rights to the film. Furthermore, they might also receive free premiere tickets as a bonus.  

Drug Development

A scientist or pharmaceutical company may source capital to research a new cancer drug via tokens. In exchange for funding, token owners could receive the rights and future revenue from the drug. Not only would this provide a new source of funding for the pharmaceutical industry, but it’s also a new way for individuals to donate to a cause they care about and possibly benefit financially.

Art

A painting might be tokenized to share ownership of one painting or a collection of art. Token holders, for their part, could receive revenue if the art is leased to museums. Further, art enthusiast token holders can own a fraction of a prized piece of art. While revenue may or may not benefit the token holder, some ascribe much non-financial value to owning such works of art. 

Future Earnings of an Athlete

A 16-year-old high school athlete with exceptional baseball skills but little money could tokenize his future baseball income. Token holders who can scout athletes at a young age can provide some income for the kid today and share in his revenue if he makes it to the big leagues.

Hotel Rooms

An investor or company could buy a hotel and fund its purchase with room tokens. The holder of the tokens may receive future revenue whenever the room is rented. Moreover, tokens may give the investor a discount for that room or other rooms owned by the hotel owner.

Here are a few more ideas to highlight just how distinctive and vast the potential to raise and invest capital is:

• Shipwreck treasure exploration

• Podcast rights

• Carbon offset values

• Vineyards

• Poker player winnings

• A patent or copyright

• Food truck

• Arcade/vending machines

• A sports team

We get into the tokenization weeds a bit in the following sections. However, whether you stop reading here or at the end, what we hope you take away from this article is that the tokenization process opens many new doors for those looking for capital funding. Equally, it significantly increases the number of unique and diversified investment opportunities for investors.

More simply, it makes capital markets more effective!

How It Works

The following is a step-by-step summary of the tokenization process:

• Identify the asset: Select a tangible or non-tangible asset to tokenize.

• Verify ownership and legal compliance: Confirm the asset’s rightful owner and legal and regulatory compliance with the asset’s sale.

• Define the structure: Choose the token’s properties, such as its value, divisibility, and the number of tokens to be issued.

• Create a smart contract: Develop a blockchain-based smart contract to govern the token’s issuance, rules, and transferability rights.

• Mint the tokens: Make the smart contract live on the blockchain and generate the digital tokens.

• Sell the tokens: Market and sell the tokens. Numerous ways exist to accomplish this, including an initial coin offering (ICO), security token offering (STO), private sale, or direct issuance to specific investors or stakeholders. All investor accreditation and qualification rules apply to tokens.

• Manage and trade: Enable the token holders to trade and possibly redeem tokens while maintaining complete transparency of all trading activity on the blockchain.

Token Platforms And Exchanges

The platform and exchanges take the digital token from an idea to a funding mechanism and tradable asset.

The token platform is like the factory for our product. The platform includes the lawyers, technical analysts, and back offices responsible for creating the digital security. Thus, it is where the tokens are created, hosted, and managed. This comprises regulatory compliance, initiation of smart contracts, and token creation. Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, and Solana are a few of the larger platforms. The token issuer is mainly responsible for managing platform-related tasks.

Token exchanges, like the stock exchanges, are where the tokens are traded after they are created on the platform. Some examples include Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken. Traders, investors, and broker/dealers are the primary users of the exchanges.

Some companies like tZERO offer both platform and exchange services. Furthermore, they are an SEC-registered special-purpose broker-dealer for digital tokens.

The importance of blockchain is that it provides much more transparency than the current financial system. A token’s ownership and its entire transaction history are available for anyone to see. Furthermore, the platforms and exchanges ensure that the tokens are tied to an asset and verified by external data sources to ensure the value and veracity of the assets backing the tokens. Lastly, any payments to the investors or the issuer can occur instantly. This avoids the multiple-day settlement process and weeks and months of legal paperwork that many asset transactions currently incur.

Summary

Here are the key benefits of digital tokenization:

• Better liquidity

• More transparency

• Around-the-clock market access

• Cost-effectiveness

• Fractionalization

• It makes capital markets more inclusive for funders and investors

• Enlarge the pool of investable assets

As judged by the benefits, digital tokenization is a significant upgrade from the current financial system. However, despite the promising outlook, the adaptation process is slow. For the token market to compete against traditional capital markets, more explicit regulations and a greater understanding and trust of the blockchain among retail and institutional investors and the government are required. It will be incumbent on the government, financial industry, and investor alliances to form guidelines, regulations, and governance to help create a solid and trustworthy foundation.

The economic benefits of tokenization are massive. Financial markets for liquid and illiquid assets will be more efficient, cheaper to fund and transact in, and less exclusive. If tokenization takes off as we think it can, the benefits could be substantial for the capital markets, but much more importantly, the economy and the nation’s populace.