The back burner: Market stumbles as Trump's war of words with North Korea heats up

A wise man once said that to win a war, strike where the enemy isn't.

Perhaps that was Sun Tzu in "The Art of War," or maybe it was Jamie Lannister in a recent episode of "Game of Thrones."

Either way, the truth remains.

Perhaps that is why President Trump always seems keen to continue to stir the pot with tweets and blustery statements. Maybe he figures if the cable news networks are willing to devote their energy to picking apart his foreign policy or failed attempts at replacing Obamacare, they won't pay attention to his steady initiatives aimed at deregulating business.

And the promise of the latter alone has been enough to propel the stock market over the last few months to record highs.

And let's not forget where Trump comes from -- the Wall Street of the 1980s, where "business is war" was the mantra of the era.

And all war is deception.

So, with his latest comments -- threatening North Korea with "fire and fury" if it continues to seek nuclear missile capabilities -- the market stumbled for the first time in a while.

Fine. Maybe the president for a moment diverged from his own path, forgot his strategy, overstated his position.

Maybe not. While the U.S. and European markets faltered, foreign currency and gold soared. Business journals have said smart investors flocked to those "safe havens" in previous world crises, such as the lead up to WWII. So, why wouldn't they today?

Maybe Trump simply felt the need to shore up the more diverse portions of his portfolio this week and so he sought to mix it up with Kim Jong Un.

Or, perhaps the media is right and he lacks the understanding of the concept parents work so diligently to teach their kids, that our words have consequences.

Time will tell, but regardless of his perceived lack of tact at world diplomacy, Trump knows how to turn a buck.

The question is, at what price?

A nuclear war, or even the threat thereof, comes at more than just the cost of doing business.

Published in Editorials on August 10, 2017 10:35 PM