Do you apply your shaving foam with a badger hair brush? Are your corsets of the traditional whalebone construction? Might your cross-country ski gloves be made of leather or, dare I say it, composition leather? Does the nuclear reactor in your underground shelter run on uranium ores or concentrates?
If so, and you live in the US, I have some bad news. All of these raw materials are on president Donald Trump’s 200-page list of Chinese goods subject to new tariffs. So, too, are bovine semen; vegetable hair (no, me neither); beaver heads, tails and paws; and, in a demonstration of the pig (bristles and hair) ignorance of the Trump administration, “antiques of an age exceeding one hundred years”.
But while having to pay a bit more to import your 130-year-old antique beaver-head curios might seem a minor financial inconvenience, it is nothing compared with the potential impact on your equity portfolio.