After Davos, Bond Markets Wield a New Big Stick: John Authers

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Amid this week’s frantic transatlantic diplomacy, politicians felt possibly the most intense pressure from the bond market. This is nothing new. President Donald Trump delayed his Liberation Day tariffs because it was “yippy.” James Carville, Bill Clinton’s political Svengali, famously said he wanted to be reincarnated to embody it because “you can intimidate everybody.”

Many now agree with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s assertion at Davos that the postwar international rules-based order has suffered a “rupture,” not a transition. But the power of the trade in debt securities appears eternal.

By setting governments’ borrowing ...