donald trump tariffs impact: Not just globally, U.S also hit hard by Trump's tariffs: Microsoft backs out of $1 billion Ohio plant citing rising costs - The Economic Times

OK, listen, I am always 1000% down for laughing at the stupid, self defeating damage being caused by Trump... But this ain't it.

Microsoft has been backing off of new data centre buildouts for a while now, long before Trump started getting serious about this tariff bullshit. They were doing this quietly, mostly allowing letters of intent to expire and doing other stuff that makes it very clear that they have lost all confidence in this mythical AI revolution that they were piling money into. Of course, admitting that the tech rapture isn't coming will be disastrous for their stock price, so they're trying to avoid actually saying what they're doing.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, research by TD Cowen picked up what was happening, and it was recently verified by reporting from Bloomberg. So Microsoft have lost the ability to make these pullbacks quietly, and they're desperate for any kind of cover. The tariffs are exactly what they need; instead of admitting that they set billions of dollars on fire trying to make magic beans real, they can blame the government.

Trump's idiotic tariffs are doing massive damage to the global economy, but this particular wound is very much self-inflicted on Microsoft's part.