CNN's John Berman suggested "ominous music" should accompany the latest reporting on President Donald Trump's economy.
The Treasury Department could tap nearly $1 trillion in general accounts to fund an increased pace of government bond purchases, according to two senior agency officials, in a move that CNN global economic analyst Rana Foroohar called "a really big deal" with troubling implications.
The U.S. carries too much debt, she said, and international buyers increasingly don't want more of it, wary of what they see as the president's mishandling of the economy and unpredictable flip-flopping on who counts as an ally versus an adversary.
Using Treasury funds to prop up the bond market and hold down borrowing costs, Foroohar warned, is the kind of move "troubled emerging market countries used to do," not a message that reassures global investors, and she said it's already making the dollar look like a weaker bet, which is bad news both for the U.S. broadly and for anyone holding dollars.
"I feel like we need ominous music to play when we talk about the bond market," Berman said. "Tremors in the bond market requires, like, dark, bleak music."
Foroohar blamed that bond market anxiety on the president's escalating trade war with Canada. The U.S. has imposed a 50 percent tariff on roughly $20 billion in Canadian goods, from dairy to alcohol to paper products, and Canada plans dollar-for-dollar retaliation on U.S. goods starting Sept. 8.
The analyst agreed with a Wall Street Journal editorial calling the fight "the dumbest trade war revisited," calling a trade war with America's closest northern ally "idiocy."
While Canada is more economically exposed overall given the size of the U.S. market, Foroohar noted Americans will feel real pain too, since Canadian lumber and energy imports are sensitive, already-strained categories tied to fuel, housing and building costs.
Foroohar argued the economics and politics are now inseparable, especially heading into the midterms, with voters in both red and blue states expressing confusion and frustration over tariff policy.
She also pointed to the political dynamics in Canada, where Prime Minister Mark Carney has positioned himself as unwilling to capitulate to Trump, particularly over U.S. pressure on Canadian French-language content protections — a sovereignty issue Foroohar said would provoke any nation.
"Things like trying to prevent the Canadians from pushing French-language streaming content and cultural products, that's a sovereign issue," Foroohar said. "I mean, any nation would feel a little miffed if you say that they can't, you know, produce products in their own, you know, content in their own language. It's a dual-language country. That's something that is going to get anybody's back up, and Carney is certainly not going to take it lying down."
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