Liberation Day 2.0, Northlake’s Nightmare & Friendly Wind – Top 3 Takeaways – August 1st, 2025
Takeaway #1: Liberation Day 2.0
Let’s start with what won’t happen today. Anything as significant as the original Liberation Day. What are we in store for? Less than half of the impact of the original Liberation Day. President Trump has made it clear that he will not delay higher tariffs for countries which lack updated trade deals with the United States. What that means is that countries responsible for just under 40% of all U.S. trade now have significantly higher tariff rates in place. By my estimates, with the inclusion of the South Korea trade deal announced Wednesday, trade deals have been worked out with countries representing approximately 46.5% of U.S. trade. On Thursday, there was another major trade development as President Trump announced a temporary 90-day trade deal with Mexico under which existing tariff rates will be left in place, with Mexico agreeing to drop what President Trump called “Non-Tariff Trade Barriers” during that time. So, your avocados from Mexico, and likely your Tequila too, won’t be impacted by Liberation Day 2.0 today. That brings the total amount of U.S. trade that’s unimpacted today to 62.2% For the remaining 38%, or so of the country’s trade that is impacted today...they’ll be paying much higher tariffs today. But the real question to all of this is what does it mean to you? About 1%. As in consumer prices on the stuff we buy that’s about 1% higher than it is today. To date, with Trump’s tariffs about 60% of the increase has been absorbed by companies, about 15% has been absorbed by foreign exporters with around a quarter that’s been passed onto you. If that holds through, the increases that kick in today, with the percentage of deals that are impacted by higher tariffs today, it works out to be a consumer price increase of right around 1% (although that’s uneven based on what it is that you’re buying). But anyway, I went through all of that to first figure out how big of a deal it might be, and secondly to be able to say to you that while paying even 1% more for stuff isn’t something you’re likely to find liberating, it also isn’t something that’s going to be earthshattering either. The original Liberation Day April 2nd was a shock to the system (largely because people weren’t really paying attention to what President Trump had been saying), but with most of the adjustments to higher levels of tariffs already accounted for within the economy, and with a majority of our trade accounted for in one way or another heading into today, this isn’t the shock to the system that we say on the original Liberation Day.
Takeaway #2: 8 days, 21 to 34-miles and hours of frustration
Tonight at 8, what’s been deemed to be a necessary evil is set to take place. The full closure of one of the most traveled roads in Palm Beach County for eight days creating what amounts to either 21 or 34 miles worth of detours and without a doubt added hours of frustration navigating them over the next week. An average of 70,000 daily drivers, or approximately 7% of Palm Beach County’s daily commuters, are impacted by the closure of Northlake Blvd. at Beeline Highway. Current estimates suggest that travel times will be, at best, just over a half hour longer with travel times between 7a-9a and 4p-6p next week adding over an hour easy. If you’re part of the 7% and have to get from point “A” to point “B” none of this will be fun, but avoiding driving during those four hours (meaning, for example, going to work earlier or later and coming home sooner or later) will be the key to about an extra hour of frustration per day as opposed to adding literally at least two hours of frustration to your day.
Takeaway #3: The wind is our friend
As we’re entering the second most active month of hurricane season today, we’re doing so with some historically good news. Not only has the first third of hurricane season been benign thus far, with a hat tip to a steady stream of Saharan dust, but it’s actually been the least active hurricane season through July since 2009 (by way of named storms and total relative strength of the named storms). Additionally, we’re starting the second most active month of hurricane season with the National Hurricane Center not expecting any new activity over the next seven days – in large part due to consistent clouds of Saharan dust. That leaves this year shaping up most similarly to what we saw just three years ago in 2022 when we had 14 named storms. That season August proved to be quiet but once the dust gave way the season took off in a big way with an especially active final three months of hurricane season – highlighted by devastating Hurricane Ian and the rare November Hurricane in Nicole that hit Vero Beach. Let’s hope the wind remains our friend and we don’t have a repeat.