Thailand Is Languishing at Just the Wrong Moment
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Deliberation is generally a sound attribute, but Thailand is discovering it also has costs. The country's economic woes, magnified by the US trade war, have become too great to ignore.
This isn't an acute crisis that's bound to consume the neighborhood in the manner of the late 1990s financial collapse. It's more of a slow-burning challenge that mixes uber-caution on interest rates at a local level with broader underlying regional trends of tepid price gains and slackening growth. Attention is warranted, nonetheless.
Recession threatens and inflation, already microscopic when Donald Trump returned to the White House, is heading south. Even tourism, usually something the country with famed resorts and splendid temples can fall back on during soft patches, is languishing. The third season of HBO's hit television show The White Lotus — set on the southern island of Koh Samui — garnered millions of viewers but failed to pay big dividends for the kingdom.
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