Smoke & Mirrors

It’s been a day heavy with signals—some literal, some less so. From the oval office to St. Peter’s Square, smoke is in the air. First the US-UK trade unveiled a “framework” for a trade agreement. Headlines hailed it as a breakthrough, and the markets bit. But behind the mirror, the details are still smoldering. At a news conference later, Keir Starmer admitted, that the UK remains worse off than it was before President Trump’s global tariffs.

But, yes, there’s some progress: sectoral tariffs on autos will drop from 27.5% to 10% for up to 100,000 UK vehicles annually, essentially the current export level. Steel and aluminum tariffs? Poof. Gone.

In return, the UK opens the door to more US beef, ethanol, and loosely defined “economic security” commitments. But the headline figure – that 10% reciprocal tariff — remains unresolved. Today’s announcement merely sets the table for future negotiations, nothing more, nothing less.

This wasn’t exactly a deal. Rather, it was a deal about having a deal.

Meanwhile, in Rome, the white smoke that billowed out of the Sistine Chapel signaled something much more definitive: the first American pope. A rare moment of clarity for a world tethered by uncertainty. All 135 cardinals made a deal—not a framework, not a placeholder, not a TBD, let’s sleep on it. Just consensus.

The crowds roared, the press bored. This is diplomacy in the age of optics. Momentum masquerading as finality, smoke mistaken for substance.

In the markets, we know better. There can be smoke without mirrors but only if there’s fire underneath it or a reflection from a galaxy far, far away. Otherwise, it’s just fog—and frankly, we’re tired of squinting. Eventually though, the smoke must clear. And when it does, that’s when the real opportunity begins.