Earlier this week, financial analyst Dan Ives called the 47th US president's tariff policy Armageddon for the tech sector, as the tech investment landscape has become the most challenging in more than 20 years of his experience in the market. To put it in the simplest possible language: since Trump came out with a list of countries and tariffs, the market has been feverish as never before. And it is the American companies that depend on the production of parts abroad that are having the hardest time digesting this. And these are all tech giants. And all the billionaires who, hoping to save their businesses, chipped in a billion at the last minute to Trump's inaugural fund.

This can be explained most clearly with iPhones. Microchips for the world's most popular smartphones are made in Taiwan. Screens are made in South Korea. A number of components are supplied by China, and 80% of the models sold in America are assembled there (the remaining 20% are assembled in India). First, it is much cheaper than having the same production in the United States. Secondly, this is a scheme that has been established over the years; in the United States, the production cycle would have to start from scratch. Apple cannot afford this. Not counting all the costs of factories and completely different wages for workers than in the above countries, the reorganization itself would take years. So, we should prepare for the fact that the next iPhone model will rise in price by at least one and a half times. Or twice as much, because the overexcited investment market is forced to react to Donald Trump's new statements every day. The American president simultaneously starts and does not start a trade war with the whole world, ensures that the Americans are now in the driver's seat (although it is not known what kind of vehicle), and absolutely all states (except for China and Russia, against which, by the way, no one has imposed any new duties) come to him to ask for different terms of trade. The host of one of Ukraine's national TV channels refused to repeat verbatim on air what the American president said to the cameras, addressing the National Republican Committee of the United States Congress, with satisfaction. "They are kissing me on the back," the Ukrainian broadcast said, while Donald Trump said in clear English: "They are kissing my ass”. No president of any democratic country (not even the United States of America) has ever allowed himself to do that in my 20 years of experience in international journalism. The only people who should feel comfortable right now (besides the aforementioned Russians) are hypothetical major players in the stock market who (just imagine!) by coincidence got the announcements of the speeches of the man driving the American truck at least a few hours before these speeches would once again bring down the stock. And then they will rise just as rapidly.

This could have affected us in Ukraine (at least those who don't care about the rise in the price of iPhones) a little less (like most other global stock market turmoil, because we are not in this market, to put it quite simply), because we have never traded with the United States at a level that could seriously hit our economy due to the announced 10% tariffs for Ukraine. But at a time when American military aid has been suddenly cut off twice already (despite the strategic implications of such behavior for the United States itself), Donald Trump's tariff war could hurt our European partners, who will have even fewer resources to help us. The oxygen mask on an airplane is primarily worn by the passenger. Therefore, with the full understanding that Ukraine is even worse off, it may still be denied both military and economic assistance if taxpayers in Western Europe themselves face the threat of a sharp decline in living standards. In addition, the Ukrainian government is facing an urgent need to sign a minerals agreement with the new US administration. Even before the election, in September last year, when President Zelenskyy visited Trump Tower in New York, he brought a presentation to its owner about the tremendous prospects for rare earth metals in Ukraine. It is unlikely that any of his advisors seriously expected Trump to understand one thing from the document: there is something valuable in Ukrainian soil that can be taken away. Former Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Lana Zerkal  compared the dialogue between Ukraine and the United States on the provisions of this agreement to an old joke about Chapaev and Petya flying an airplane. Chapaev asks: "Petya, what about the instruments?" The answer: "Thirty!". Chapaev is surprised: "What thirty?!" Petya: "And what about the appliances?" Everyone seems to be speaking English, but they understand the same words in completely different ways.

We (along with the rest of the world) do not understand this new American English very well. It seems that we were shown it from 2017 to 2021, but for some reason, everyone thought that this would not happen again. Moreover, the changes compared to Trump's first term are striking. This time, he knows exactly what he wants. And he knows that he can (for the sake of what he needs) destroy the very foundations of the United States bureaucratic system. His new administration, recruited from the most reliable, has so far done a brilliant job with this. So brilliantly that half of Americans no longer understand the new American English. Kafka is increasingly mentioned at trials (Orwell, get ready): for example, a refugee from El Salvador who married an American woman, got a green card, had a child with her, and lived his life working in construction, was caught one evening while taking his child home, arrested, and within days, without any trial or investigation, taken to El Salvador. To the worst prison in the world. A Maryland judge responded to the family's lawsuit by ordering the Trump administration to return the man, but the Supreme Court (where most of the justices are Republican) blocked the ruling for several days. The White House spokeswoman insists on camera that the man is a gangster and human trafficker, but refuses to answer questions about which court proved it. So much for the world's first democracy, who said "human rights"?

It would be unfair to the American people not to notice that this is causing large-scale protests across the country. Last Saturday, hundreds of American cities held massive Hands Off protests, and they were supported outside the United States as well (although in European cities it looks about as strange as the Russian protests against Putin that are taking place there). It was attended by about half a million people who demanded three things: an end to the cuts in federal funding for social security and health insurance that Trump has hated since his first term; an end to the rampant corruption of the new administration and the destruction of government institutions by billionaires like Musk; and an end to the persecution of migrants and trans people. It's hard to say what it did. The next cleanup is scheduled for April 19. It is possible that all this will make outraged citizens come to the polls more actively in the fall of 2026, and then the Democrats will have a chance to win back one or both houses of Congress... it remains to be seen what of the "system of checks and balances" familiar to all who followed Trump's first term, i.e., the bureaucratic structure designed to ensure that no one person has authoritarian power, will survive by then.

Of course, Trump is not canceling (or rather suspending) the tariffs because he really likes the stock market crash. It's not for nothing that his IT companion Elon Musk has been bashing the president's trade adviser, Peter Navarro, on his not-yet-destroyed social network X, and asking for zero tariffs with Europe. According to NBC, the Ministers of Finance and Commerce in Trump's government, Scott Bessette and Howard Luthnick, spent some time behind closed doors trying to persuade him to slow down his... vehicle. It is not known which arguments were most effective, but commenting on his decision to let the planet (except for China) breathe without new tariffs for another 90 days, Trump said that he did it "at the call of his heart." He has already explained how his heart is reached before.

But this knowledge will not make our lives easier. First, there is the aforementioned minerals agreement. And secondly, the American ambassador, Bridget Brink, who was appointed to this position by Biden, seems to be unable to withstand the conditions of the new leadership of the State Department and is resigning. A week ago, many Ukrainians were outraged by the tone of the embassy's social media response to the Russian criminal strike on a playground in Kryvyi Rih (the strike was neither called Russian nor criminal). Whether it was a directive from the State Department or self-censorship, Brink was not enough for long. Her dismissal would mean that Ms. Ambassador no longer sees the opportunity to do good in this place (and no point in further frustrating it). The next U.S. ambassador, whoever it may be, is unlikely to be more popular with the Ukrainian public. We've been taught democratic American English for too long to be forced to learn scheming and corrupt English. It's not that many Ukrainians don't know it... but I would like us to evolve in a completely different direction.

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