Newsletter 
Summary: After trillions were lost in the stock market over the past week, President Trump eases up on the tariffs. He announced that he is pausing tariffs for 90 days, with the hopes of negotiating deals with over 75 countries that have already called. However, tariffs on China remain, and have increased to 125%.
President Trump announced this afternoon that he is pausing tariffs on all countries, except for China. At the same time, Trump announced that the US is raising reciprocal tariffs on China to 125%, after just raising them to 104% yesterday.
Obviously, this news was good for the market, as the indexes popped, and are currently up over 10% on the day. The Mirror notes that this is the largest single-day jump since October 2008 – during the Great Recession.
Trump and Secretary Bessett noted that they have received calls from over 75 countries, looking to hammer out a trade deal. Which is the real reason for this sudden about-face. The Trump Administration wants to get these deals in place, before putting these tariffs on other countries. However, this doesn’t mean tariffs have been lifted. As Trump also announced on Truth Social, that there will be a blanket 10% tariff for all countries, effective immediately.
This was always the plan
This was most likely always the plan for the Trump Administration. Put out these tariffs, essentially scaring countries into playing ball, so they can negotiate a trade deal with the US. The end-game wasn’t really to bring manufacturing back to the US, but moreso to fix the massive trade deficit. Despite the fact that there’s very little made in the US right now.
Many thought that Trump would give an exception to Apple, like he did during his first term. But it’s quite clear that isn’t going to happen. Since he just raised tariffs on China to 125%. That’s going to drastically increase the cost of the iPhone 17. Especially if this tit-for-tat keeps up between President Xi Jinping and President Trump.