Hold On, Trump Lowered Tariffs on China to 30%?

What was the point of the tariffs at all?

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I could have sworn I heard him say he was only going down to 80. But then I also could have sworn I saw that Chinese representatives negotiating the deal walked out like midway through, so it’s completely possible China forced after playing hardball.

Trump likely caved because of his increasingly low economic polling and the fears of empty ports.

This is how it works now, Trump makes a threat then tries to keep it as long as he can before real consequences come in, then he acts like he succeeded in something because explicit consequences haven’t had the chance to arise.

Most of the problems we’ve experienced from tariffs have been the fallout of him making the threat. You can’t just promise over and over to do mass tariffs and somehow think it will all be okay if you back out at the last minute. Most businesses needed be planned out years in advance, people need to plan out investment in inventory, decide if loans are smart and investors need to make sure your business is a safe investment.

This gets harder when you don’t know what the future will look like.

When the market is increasingly unstable.