The mystery of calm post-Brexit markets remains just as we’re anticipating a trade clash between the US and EU

Economies are prospering everywhere; people are consuming, profits are holding, and investors don’t know where else to put mountains of liquidity: this supports both equity and bond markets despite the uncertainty. The flight from Italy has been creeping for years, our debt is almost at 80%. Aside from the uncertainty surrounding Trump, no one in the EU is worried about Brexit anymore. As a matter of fact, we’re all busy distributing the spoils of what seems a disastrous decision on behalf of England, which Trump is doing nothing to help. On the one hand, Trump can’t do much and, after all, he doesn’t give a shit about the UK. And I certainly don’t see the miraculous prospect of a bilateral FTA between the two countries that May imagined. And even if they did create one, it would be disastrous for England, which has a trade surplus with the US: the US is trying to get out of multilateral agreements to sign bilateral FTAs, and what better occasion to clobber May by sending a message to every trade partner. France dodged a bullet with Macron. The German elections aren’t prompting uncertainties at a moment when Merkel is emerging with increased political strength after a confrontation with Trump. The big question has to do with Italy’s politics and finance. Which government? When? How will the country hold up against the eventual increase in spread dictated by less accommodating ECB policies? The Germans insist more and more on strengthening the Euro (for internal political reasons and to mitigate the US’ criticisms) and the presidency of the ECB. Two thousand years have passed, and Rome remains, for better or worse, at the center of the development or fragmentation of the Western world.