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Wall Street is celebrating, but the bills are getting heavier

An interesting phenomenon has emerged over the past two months. U.S. tariff revenue jumped from 34.2 billion in October to 30.2 billion in December, a nearly 12% decline. The White House's initial "trillion-dollar revenue dream" is now estimated by JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs to be less than 300 billion. Between huge expectations and reality, a gap has opened up.

Why didn't tariffs spark inflation? Because importers have long figured out the tricks—if there's an exemption, they take it; if they can bypass, they bypass. The actual tariff rate implemented is only about 12%, far below the surface number. The result is a CPI of 2.7%, milder than expected. Financial research shows that this round of tariffs has contributed less than 1 percentage point to PCE inflation, and the main shock wave has already passed.

This is the core contradiction: U.S. national debt has piled up to 38.5 trillion, and the fiscal cliff is approaching step by step, while the failure of tariff revenue directly undermines certain economic commitments. The bond market is starting to send warning signals—U.S. Treasury yields are rising, and risk premiums are climbing.

But look at Wall Street, which is instead celebrating— the S&P 500 is approaching a record high. A distorted logic has taken hold: as long as inflation doesn't pick up, even bad news can be spun as good news. Market liquidity remains abundant, and risk assets continue to be in demand.

The question is, as the debt snowball grows bigger and bigger, can this celebration really go on? In the crypto market, we must pay even more attention to this broader background—when the traditional financial system begins to experience internal chaos, capital flows often change in unexpected ways.