Fail

Trump’s Trade War With Turkey is Bad News for… Tennessee?

Written by SK Ashby

Turkey's economy was sliding into the gutter even before Trump imposed more tariffs in his diplomatic dispute over an American Christian pastor accused of conspiring against Erdogan's regime, but Trump certainly made things worse.

But Trump didn't just make things worse for Turkey and any American business that may have been purchasing Turkish steel or aluminum, it appears he has also made things worse for retirees in Tennessee.

The Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System (TCRS), the pension fund for public employees, is apparently invested in Turkish securities.

The Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System (TCRS), which manages a retirement plan for public employees statewide, was the largest institutional shareholder in the U.S.-based iShares MSCI Turkey ETF, according to Thomson Reuters data based on public filings as of June 30, with more than with 880,000 shares valued at around $19 million as of Friday’s value.

The Turkey ETF has lost around half its value for the year to date, hit by worries about Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's influence over monetary policy and a worsening diplomatic rift with the United States. [...]

“It is a obviously a frustrating situation and it’s a real shame what’s happening in the country,” Michael Brakebill, TCRS’s chief investment officer, said in an interview on Friday.

There is a 99.9 percent chance that neither Trump or anyone else in the White House knew this about when they doubled their tariffs on Turkish metal.

I didn't know about it, but I'm not a government official responsible for knowing these kinds of things.

Perhaps someone could have informed the White House if they went through a formal process to impose tariffs rather than imposing them because Trump tweeted it. Maybe these decisions should be vetted before they're imposed. Maybe -- I know this is a stretch -- but maybe Congress should hold hearings on Trump's global trade war. Congress may want to even consider stopping it.