On Tuesday night, the US announced tariffs on 50 billion US dollars' worth of Chinese goods. The announcement captured the world's attention, and attracted international headlines after it was issued. Ronce Almond, one of the partners of The Wicks Group, a private equity firm based in New York City, shares his insights about the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump and the potential impact on the whole world.

Almond points out that President Trump's unpredictability is closely linked to his cabinet which is made up of "a den of foxes." According to Almond,  a 21st century philosopher once said that the world can be divided into foxes and hedgehogs, foxes know many things, some of them contradictory, hedgehogs know one big thing.

More specifically, although foxes know a wide variety of things, they fail to have a deeper understanding of any of these things. In contrast, though a hedgehog's extent of knowledge may be quite limited, they are experts in one area. Foxes are changeable because they are more likely to be influenced by others, while a hedgehog's actions tend to stay consistent, as they trust in themselves. 

"I think with regards to trade negotiations, you see a den of foxes, his cabinet, his administration, chasing a hedgehog, Donald Trump looking for a deal," Almond told CGTN. In his opinion, none of the members of President Trump's cabinet are experts in the economy.

Instead, they are more like debaters rather than accomplished economists. As a result, they can't form a consistent view towards the trade policy with China.

"As you know we have the treasury secretary saying one thing one day and you have the trade representatives contradicting him, and we have heard about screaming matches in Beijing this month so there are a lot of contradictions and fluidity in this negotiation and it's quite frankly confusing," Almond told CGTN.

Almond asserts that the announcement will rapidly jeopardize the US' international image, because the so-called moratorium truce only lasted almost a week. Also, China must have been surprised to receive the announcement from the president and the White House that they are going to go forward with tariffs after the parties had already come in and agreed not to issue these new tariffs.

"So I am not sure the negotiations will be too fruitful if Donald Trump and the White House cannot be relied upon, there's reputational damage in this zig-zagging of their negotiation composure," Almond said.