You Can Pretend The Water’s Safe… But the Ocean’s Full of Tariff Sharks and July 9 Is Feeding Time

The stock market seems to have a bad case of Alzheimer’s right now (or maybe everyone’s just huffing hopium) because come Wednesday, July 9th, we’re staring down the barrel of another tariff freight train… and Wall Street’s wandering around like grandpa looking for his car keys in the freezer again. Everyone knows something big is coming… they just can’t quite remember what.

Well, here’s your reminder. Back on April 2, Trump rolled out his “Liberation Day” tariff regime… a blanket 10% tariff on pretty much everything coming into the U.S., with the threat of extra “reciprocal” tariffs like a cherry on top (some as high as 145%). But to avoid sending the global economy back to 1929 too quickly, he gave countries a 90-day grace period to strike trade deals.

And what do you know? That freeze ends July 9. As in, this coming Wednesday. As in, less than one long weekend away. Unless you believe Trump’s going to close deals with 100+ countries between barbecue rounds and waving sparklers around with his grandkids, we’re about to time travel back to early April (you know when the market kept playing “how low can you go?”.

And no, he’s not kicking the can this time. Trump told reporters this week he doesn’t plan to extend the deadline. His team’s already started mailing out “Dear John” letters to foreign governments, letting them know what kind of tariff spanking they’re in for starting August 1. Some will get off with 10% or 20%. But others are looking at 60% or even 70%. (You know things are escalating when the “maximum” tariff floated in April is now the floor for negotiations.)

So far, only three countries have finalized deals: China, the U.K., and Vietnam. Vietnam got a 20% tariff on goods and a 40% hit on anything they transship (read: smuggling Chinese parts through the back door). China got eased restrictions on chip software and ethane exports. But everyone else is still waiting to find out which tax bracket they just got shoved into.

Meanwhile, the market is floating like none of this exists. The S&P’s at record highs. European equities are climbing. It’s like Wall Street woke up, couldn’t remember why it was panicking last month, and just said “f*** it, let’s ride.” (Again… very grandpa forget his keys, but the Price is Right’s on energy.) But behind the curtain, economists are freaking out (and probably buying put options on the stocks you just bought this week). Tariffs like these can spike prices, kneecap small businesses, and drag down GDP. The Fed already cut its 2025 growth forecast to 1.4%, and companies are eating $190 billion more in tariffs on an annualized basis compared to last year… and that’s before the July 9 deadline hits. 

Most of those costs haven’t reached consumers yet. But when they do, it won’t be subtle. Companies will feel the pressure first… margins will tighten, earnings will slip, and suddenly, boardrooms will be talking about one thing: raising prices. That pressure won’t stay behind the scenes for long. It’ll spill over into higher costs for everyday goods, stirring up inflation fears right as the Fed is trying to downplay them. All while Jerome Powell stands at the podium pretending this was totally part of the plan.

And even scarier, no one really knows how many countries are going to land in which bucket. Trade officials have said some deals might be close, others might get extensions, and some nations (in Trump’s own words) just haven’t been “bending the knee.” (So yeah, tariffs incoming.)

The point I want to get through is this… unless a diplomatic miracle happens faster than Joey Chestnut can deep-throat a dozen hot dogs, next week could get ugly. So yeah… maybe it’s not Alzheimer’s. Maybe the market knows exactly what’s coming… it just doesn’t want to think about it until the nurse reminds it again on Wednesday.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.