If, one month ago, you asked me what it would take realistically to push COVID-19 out of the headlines or at least demote the pandemic to a secondary topic, rioting and civil unrest would have come to mind. Well, it looks like we’ve gone from one extreme to the other. What were until just a few days ago mass lockdowns, are now mass riots. Suspending judgment on the justness of mass lockdowns and the current riots and just looking at the dry circumstances here, it makes sense that locking millions of people in their homes for two months would intensify riots once they break out for whatever reason. After finally being allowed out, some people will react with joy while others will react with anger, frustration and violence. That’s how humanity is.

So we’ve gone from lockdowns to riots. It’s like the world has malaria causing alternating fever and hypothermia chills. Nothing is in balance anymore. 

The anger though is not just on the streets of inner city America. It’s festering in the upper echelons of the most powerful governments in the world, and the pawns in the middle are getting hurt. China is now tightening its grip on Hong Kong again with a new National Security Law, causing the Trump Administration, not the most circumspect group of people to say the least, to punish Hong Kong for being punished by China. As punishment for being punished, Trump is “starting the process” (whatever that means) of revoking Hong Kong’s special trade status with the United States. That basically means Hong Kong will now be treated as China and not as a separate entity, which means travel restrictions, visas, and any tariffs Trump forces on Chinese imports will also apply to Hong Kong now.

Even worse for business, Trump went farther and opened up another front line against Hong Kong and Chinese companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange.