"There are already many others who are capable of being pilots. I am a man who creates airplanes! I'm a designer!

“Listen to me, Japanese boy: airplanes are neither instruments of war nor a means of commercial profit. Airplanes are a wonderful dream. The designer is the one who gives form to the dream.

“The wind rises ... we must try to live.”

“Good taste is important in planning. The good taste anticipates the epochs, after which the technology comes to follow.”

“That of wishing to soar in the sky is the dream of humanity, but it is also a cursed dream. Airplanes carry the weight of destiny to become instruments of massacre and destruction.”

“With this last flight I'm retiring. The life span of a creative life is a decade. It is the same for both artists and designers. Your decade will live it giving strength to your strength.”

From The Wind Rises from Hayao Miyazaki. 

 The film tells the story of Jiro Horikoshi, short-sighted since childhood and therefore unable to pilot aircrafts, his great passion. This obstacle becomes the push towards another goal: the design of airplanes, inspired by the work of the famous Italian aeronautical engineer, Gianni Caproni. This is what interests the master film maker, Miyazaki, painting the portrait of a dreamer: of a man who has been able to realize that dream by working hard, driven by the strength of his passions. And the Japanese author knows that a strong inner flame can lead to something negative-- it's the price to pay to get something so pure.

All attack the US president, Donald Trump and his short-sighted policy on tariffs. From an economic point of view, it is indefensible. But to look at the situation in Europe and China, some sectors are also more protectionist than the US. If the overall system of duties is analyzed, not just the list of import taxes, but the obstacles and obligations faced by foreign importers and investors, the scenario is not so clear. On these issues, China plays the role of the teacher with policies aimed at appropriating the know-how of partners or financing real operations of conquering foreign companies, in addition to the very low levels of protection of intellectual rights and foreign patents. Trump is not the only one to be short-sighted in trying to be intellectually honest. In a tweet, Trump wrote "When a country loses many billions in trade with almost everyone it does business with, commercial wars are right and easy to win".

The problem is that in commercial wars, all lose, even the United States, which would be converted to a large part of its processing industry. Today, US companies buy raw materials from abroad that, with tariffs, would become more expensive and, once transformed, would have more difficulty selling the finished products at prices more expensive to the rest of the world. Despite the size of the GDP, the largest in the world, the US has less influence on international trade, 9% on exports and 14% on imports.

Now we can believe that Trump is short-sighted, but the markets have shown to be less. Or rather on some occasions they see us very well and have left behind much controversy, to look hard. In the last week, US stocks gained more than 3%, returning to levels at the end of February. The European price lists have consolidated the gains of the previous sessions with the Milan Stock Exchange which was highlighted by recording a weekly increase of almost 4%. Like in The Wind Rises, if protagonist Jiro Horikoshinon could not be a short-sighted pilot, he will mean he will be a great designer.

The dream can continue; the important thing is passion and hard work. On this issue, from the US macro data, good news has arrived without accelerating the fears for a rate hike. In particular are the figures on wages that, although remaining above the average of the last two years (2.5%), was downsized compared to the previous month. Unemployment remains at historic lows. The data has fueled the hypothesis that the Fed will continue with a gradual rise in rates without necessarily having to accelerate. In this context, there was a moderate increase in interest rates with the ten-year period, which was 2.9% and 2 years at 2.26%. Trump himself has already begun to make concessions, exempting duties on aluminum and steel from Canada, Mexico and Australia. Exchange rates were not affected: the Euro and dollar close the weekly balance sheet despite the strong volatility driven by the ECB announcements and macro US data. The European Central Bank has revised upward GDP growth estimates and cut those on inflation, better than that it could not go to avoid a sudden increase in rates also in the euro area.

From protagonist Jiro Horikoshinon, we learn to accept our limits, to modify our desires without ever forfeiting our dreams. Our dream, as the price lists showed, is that the toll on tariffs will soon stop and that it will not slow down the global growth of these years. Inevitably, however, slight changes in portfolio choices escalate duties to continue to fly.