It’s not quite man bites dog. But it is an unusual story these days when a major company signs a major office lease expansion in Boston’s Financial District. BisNow and the BBJ have more on Klaviyo’s lease of 256K sf at 125 Summer St. …But here’s more proof that Newton’s Third Law applies to CRE too. From Bisnow: “Fidelity Puts 800K SF Boston Headquarters Up For Sublease.” B&T has more on Fidelity’s move from 245 Summer to its refurbished CommonWealth Pier.

Forget the 20-20 solution. He took the full-retreat option on tariffs. Well, almost full retreat. He’s still going after China. … The WSJ and NYT have more on the big tariffs flip-flop. …  From CNBC, the Orwellian spin attempt: “White House insists Trump’s tariff reversal was his strategy all along.” … Riiiiiight. …

This is going to wound Trump. He looks weak and fickle. …. I can’t think of a bigger setback for him since 2016. Well, OK, there was the 2020 pandemic and election loss. But this was a totally self-inflicted wound, a complete misjudgment of how world markets would react to his tariffs. … Democrats must be loving this. Finally, a victory! … And practically every other nation in the world is getting a good guffaw out of this. … Btw: Is he blaming anyone yet? Jerome Powell is my go-to guess.

Update — 3:55 p.m. – Fox News hasn’t found its tariffs-reversal footing yet. As every other news organization in the world covers the biggest story in the world, Fox is covering some forgettable coal-energy hearing on Capitol Hill. … Wait … It just hit 4 p.m., top of the hour, and, yes, Fox is covering Trump’s signing of new executive orders related to Pentagon procurement and ocean cargo vessels.

Update II — 4.10.25 – I should have known. He’s blaming Biden and Obama.

Update III — 4.11.25 – From the WSJ’s Peggy Noonan: “Trump’s Climbdown for the Ages.” Here’s the subhead on her column: “The president has started scaring members of his base, and there’s life in the establishment yet.” …

Even though President Trump on Monday rejected the EU’s offer of a “zero-zero” tariffs deal, my hunch is that a zero-zero agreement, or a variation of one, with individual countries is probably going to be how the president wriggles out of the giant tariff mess he’s created. … Two GOP lawmakers are urging him to take the EU deal – and similar offers.  Meanwhile, conservative economic gurus Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore write at the WSJ that a “smart and urgent exit strategy” is indeed accepting offers from individual countries for zero tariffs. Of course, Elon Musk is also making the same argument. … 

The Trump administration’s chief tariffs cheerleader, Peter Navarro, is urging Trump to hold firm on tariffs. And maybe Trump will. At the least, he’ll have to hold firm for a while because he’ll look weak if he’s seen as caving too soon on tariffs. He also probably has some favorite tariffs he wants to keep for favored pals and industries. But when you think about it, the zero-zero solution, or something resembling it, makes sense. It would allow him to declare victory on tariffs – and it actually would be a victory, albeit one achieved at a terrible cost, if it leads to lower trade barriers in general. Even if he cuts deals with just a handful of prominent trade partners, it would help calm markets. It’s the logical thing for Trump to do. But this president is anything but logical. 

Update – From the NYT: “Trump Officials Signal Openness to Tariff Talks.” … But they’re also saying talks won’t prevent new tariffs from taking effect.

Update II – 4.9.25 — Obviously, China is in its own Trump tariffs doghouse and reaching a final deal with Beijing will be tricky. Until an agreement is reached, it’s a full-on trade war with China.

Update II – 4.10.25 – So much for my zero-zero predictions. Trump has once again delayed/backed down on tariffs, or at least most of them. I should have known. …

The NYT has a good piece on how the Trump administration’s funding assaults on higher-ed and medical research will probably impact Boston more than any other city in the country. The article gets a little carried away with lines like: “Boston is confronting a once-implausible question: Will its core identity survive?” … Ah, well, the answer is: yes. But it will be a diminished core, as the article makes clear. Here’s just one example of that diminishment, via the Globe: “‘This looks bad.’ A Harvard infectious disease researcher is targeted in Trump’s review.” …

And it’s not just Boston that’s going to suffer. The U.S. is going to lose a lot of its scientific edge and talent as a result of these very foolish, ignorant cuts. Think not? From NPR: “Other countries boost recruitment of American scientists amid cuts to scientific funding.” … As they say, follow the money. … Some are fighting the research cuts. But this SCOTUS ruling doesn’t bode well for such efforts.

..

Via the Herald, I didn’t know Sean O’Brien, head of the national Teamsters union and long-time boss of Boston’s Teamsters Local 25, had started his own podcast called ‘Better Bad Ideas.’ You might be thinking: ‘Big deal. Everyone seems to have a podcast these days.’ True. But hip social-media outreach isn’t something you associate with Teamster bosses. Prisons, yes. Podcast studios, no. … OK, cheap shot. But it is unusual to see a Teamster leader in such a setting. And O’Brien seems comfortable behind the mic interviewing an eclectic mix of guests, including UFC chief Dana White, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, etc. It’s probably only a matter of time before he lands the ultimate guest. After all, they’re pals, sort of. …

The Hub Blog mind drifts not only to Joe Rogan, but also to The Sam Rothstein Show: Aces High. … The latter seems more appropriate in this case.

.

I don’t know if Bill Maher coined the phrase ‘Trump Devotion Syndrome.’ But he sure has brought it to my attention. … The opposite of the left-wing’s Trump Derangement Syndrome, Trump Devotion Syndrome exclusively applies to right-ring Trump sycophants, with Maher providing hilarious examples of their undying devotion to the Glorious Leader. …  I’m really enjoying Bill Maher these days, btw. He’s bashing the far left and right with equal abandon. I love it.

If you have to read just one article about the Karen Read trial, make it Beth Teitell’s piece this morning in the Globe. It captures the complete zaniness surrounding the case. The KR drama long ago zoomed past the issue of Karen Read’s guilt or innocence. It’s entered its very own cult and conspiracy-theory territory, a mental zone for the obsessed, starring one of the greatest cast of Boston characters ever assembled in and out of a courtroom. … Fyi: With the start of the second KR trial, I was thinking of declaring Hub Blog a Karen Read Free Zone. But that was before reading Beth’s piece. … I promise: I won’t get sucked into the case. Even though she’s obviously guilty. I mean, just look at her. Can’t you see? She’s guilty!

This is just cruel. A 47 percent tariff against Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world. But a sharp Hub Blog reader senses opportunity:

“There is now a 47 percent tariff on Madagascar, which has a per capita income of <$2/day and produces 80 % of the world’s vanilla. We can make millions! Let’s start growing the tropical vanilla orchid in New England and selling them Ford Broncos in Antananarivo! It’s so simple! $$$$$$$. I’m a financial genius!”

Btw: Here’s the pathetic U.S. response to the onerous tariffs against Madagascar. …What are Malagasy officials expected to agree to? Import more American products that they can’t afford because 80 percent of the people in Madagascar live in poverty?

.

In the lead up to Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff action earlier this week, I cited Ronald Reagan’s tax-cuts of 1981 as the last time a sitting president, with a stroke of a pen, changed the economic course of the nation. The Globe’s Larry Edelman does that historical analogy one better, going back a decade earlier to the famous ‘Nixon Shock’ of 1971, when President Nixon severed the ties between the dollar and gold, ordered a nationwide wage-and-price freeze, and imposed a 10 percent surcharge tariff on imports. The ‘Nixon Shock’ was also a huge economic gamble – and, as Larry notes, it didn’t quite work out as planned. Read Larry’s piece. It’s great. …

Re the ‘Nixon Shock,’ I did find this interview with Jeffrey Garten, author of “Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy.” And here’s a YouTube video of Nixon’s famous off-the-gold-standard speech in ’71.

Update – Uh ho. A Hub Blog reader sent me this “friendly reminder” of what may yet still come: “Bannon: Trump May Return The U.S. To A Gold Standard, Get Rid Of The Federal Reserve.”

Update II — From the NYT: “Paul Krugman on the ‘Biggest Trade Shock in History’”

The resemblance between Laura Loomer and Melisandre of Asshai is eerie in more ways than one.