Trump Waffles on Tariffs After Seeing Price of Waffles
Trump just announced a 90-day pause on the tariffs he said two days ago we needed to have patience with
Pres. Donald Trump today announced a 90-day pause on some of the tariffs he announced last week, setting off a global trade war when he insisted he wouldn’t back down and definitely wouldn’t back down a week later.
Only China was exempt from Trump’s pause, and he hiked existing tariffs on Chinese products to 125%, less than a day after China upped the tariffs on American-made goods to 84%.
When Trump last week announced ostensibly-but-not-really reciprocal tariffs on something like 90 countries, inhabited or not, he seemed to think making countries drop their own barriers would be easy as pie. Then he saw the price of pie1.
In addition to China’s response, the European Union today announced it would slap tariffs on $20 billion worth of imports from the U.S. In the scope of the new trade war, $20 billion might seem like chicken feed, but have you seen what chicken feed goes for now?
The combination of European and Chinese responses, plus global freakouts in both stocks and bond markets, left Trump in a pickle that cost a lot more than pickles used to.
Although markets soared after Trump ate his overpriced crow this afternoon, it’s not yet clear exactly what the hell Trump is doing. His “announcement” — a social-media post — said the following:
“I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately.”
So, both a pause and a lowered tariff are in effect immediately? That makes about as much sense as a soup sandwich slapped with no tariffs but also 10% tariffs2.
While we wait for the White House to figure out what Trump meant to mean, a few reminders of points TFN has covered in recent days:
Trump has said the tariffs are permanent, so that tariff revenue will replace income taxes.
Trump has said the tariffs are temporary, until other countries play fair and until he figures out what he means by that.
Trump has said the tariffs are permanent, to ensure manufacturing stays here.
Trump’s team has said he would not negotiate.
Trump’s team has said he would negotiate.
Trump has said the trillions lost in the stock market were worth it to remedy the almost-$1 trillion trade deficit.
Trump has said the point of tariffs is to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., even though some of the tariffs punish other countries for having mineral or natural resources we literally don’t have and many of the jobs that went away have now been automated away so the only Americans who’ll get those jobs back are named WALL·E, R2-D2, and Optimus Prime.
Trump’s tariff policies have whipped back and forth depending on whether his pro-tariff team is kissing his ass or the anti-tariff team, Lord help them, is working the other side.
But what you probably won’t hear from most corporate media, is one massive lobby in particular that’s been pushing against these tariffs. And that’s Big Oil. How come?
Because tariffs mean several things:
Global recession means layoffs which mean less commuting and a recession means less shopping which means less shipping.
But also, if every country starts manufacturing only at home, cargo ships need a lot less oil because they’re moving a lot less stuff.
All of which equals a big drop in demand, which is why oil prices have plummeted.
Plus, steel prices soared and guess who needs to buy steel to drill new wells, especially fracking wells?
In fact, Trump’s promise of $50/barrel oil has always been totally absurd because it makes his other promise — drill, baby, drill — utterly unprofitable for Big Oil. Drilling new wells will cost Big Oil money if they can’t sell, baby, sell that new oil for more than $50 per barrel.
So, as TFN explained on Saturday, Big Oil has been quietly pushing against these tariffs — which these oil-slick geniuses didn’t see coming! — since last month. And guess what happened to the price of oil with Trump’s announcement today?
That’s money transferred directly from your pocket to Big Oil’s offshore pockets.
Regardless of Wall Street’s euphoria over today’s surrender by Trump, the underlying reality looks even worse now than it did this morning. Because, as TFN wrote yesterday, it’s Trump’s stupidity — his inability to formulate, let alone articulate, a coherent economic strategy — that makes it impossible for big businesses, and definitely small businesses, to make the kind of business plans that drive investments and hiring.
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.
The judges also would have accepted some sort of “piece of cake” joke.
Update: Financial press seem to think the 10% tariffs are staying and the higher-than-that bespoke punishment tariffs are being paused. So my apologies if that was on me not being sure what the fuck Trump meant.
Thanks, Jonathan. Are we sick and tired of all this "winning" yet?
Trump's tariffs didn't outlast the lettuce!