Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries
1510 comments
·April 9, 2025magicloop
milesvp
> Instead of being seen as a safe haven, U.S. debt itself started to look shaky
There's also a more basic answer to why US debt got more expensive. There is no such thing as a "trade deficit". You cannot import something without exporting something else. That something else, in almost 100% of the situations, is dollars. What do you do with dollars, if there's nothing you want to buy? You buy debt. So, every trade deficit ultimately tends to export debt. We have long known that government debt is proportional to trade deficits.
The problem with tariffs, in this context, is that they are being used as a signal that we don't want to sell people dollars anymore, explicitly saying "no more trade deficits". In doing so we are choking off the supply of dollars used to buy debt (rather abruptly), so that US debt is chasing fewer dollars and has to give a bigger yield as a result.
What's worse, is that because we are signalling that the tariffs are meant to be permanent, and we're seeing reciprocal tariffs as a result. When that happens, it means that using dollars in the future will purchase fewer US goods, so the time discount of money has gone up too. Further driving up yields to make bonds attractive enough to sell.
creer
US debt was mostly being bought because "safe". The US being seen as politically and economically stable and the center of the world. Right now that argument is much harder to make.
And meanwhile there is always a lot of US debt that needs to be rolled over (i.e. re-issued to a willing buyer.)
Except for the data point of today's 10-Year Treasury Auction which had a normal, usual result.
null
casey2
Why do people keep repeating this nonsense? 2008? Every "recession" for the last 50 years? Nobody was under the impression that the US was economically stable. Go press max on the 10 year bond yields and tell me what you see. The "crash" puts it to where it was not even a year ago. For 10-year bonds.
insane_dreamer
> We have long known that government debt is proportional to trade deficits.
And so far we've been cool with that because it:
- continues to make the USD the dominant global reserve currency, strengthening our economic and political clout
- allows us to borrow cheaply to finance our military and whatever else we're spending $ on
lawlessone
isn't this also kinda opposed to having the dollar as the dominant world currency?
Lots of countries settle trades between each other using dollars.
Making it harder to get those dollars will leave them seeking to use something else to trade.
ashoeafoot
Leaving the euro! Authoritarian currency is as good as their word.
matheusmoreira
BRICs were making plans to introduce their own reserve currency as an alternative to the USD. Trump once threatened 100% tariffs if they did.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/aggressive-tariffs-f...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-threatens-100-...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-02/south-afr...
These developments are going to be interesting.
magicreadu
Having dollar being the worlds currency is not necessarily a good thing. Yes, you can borrow at low interests rate for a while. But guess what? Those are still debts. And eventually rates rise due to inflation. Now you have hollowed out your industrial base and you are stuck with tons of debts.
Even if dollar gets weaker, better to have less debts and more industrialization
intended
You are exporting services. Vast amounts of highly profitable services.
ashoeafoot
They really did and then they didn't
ajross
This is all correct, but it's a first principles explanation that doesn't explain why US bonds, and in particular the 10-year note, spiked today. Yes, eventually excessive tariffs would have that result. They literally hadn't even taken effect yet. So this doesn't explain the bond motion today.
Someone was dumping, we don't know who or why. But the answer to that question is a lot (a lot) more important than people realize, and certainly more so than the immediate market motion or tariff policy.
Honestly if the answer was "The PRC was unloading bonds to send a message" that's sort of the best option, as they have limited wiggle room to continue to do so without wrecking their own financial situation.
If it's "The market as a whole lost confidence in US debt", then we're fucked no matter what Trump does next.
ladyanita22
It's heavily rumored it was Japan.
https://x.com/Nihonpolitics/status/1910096159835594786?t=RWB...
sdenton4
"someone"... Or lots of people looking at US stupidity and deciding that their long term bonds were suddenly looking like a bad investment.
disgruntledphd2
The FT reported that lots of hedge funds were unwinding a bunch of trades as they needed liquidity.
bilbo0s
Hmm.
The problem is that China holds only 2.6% of US Debt as of February 2025. Can they leverage that small a percentage to make a market move like that? Especially assuming they didn't dedicate all of their holdings to that action?
gehwartzen
I think it’s largely irrelevant now. The cats out of the bag and any country holding large amounts of t-notes and facing hostility from the US will dump them to get Trump to back off.
JumpCrisscross
> we are choking off the supply of dollars used to buy debt (rather abruptly), so that US debt is chasing fewer dollars and has to give a bigger yield as a result
Well, also, the holders of our debt now need liquidity. So they sell this famously-liquid asset we've been selling them for decades.
skybrian
It's usually not "dollars." It could be any investment or service that could be bought using dollars. And calling foreign investment an "export" is just confusing.
PaulDavisThe1st
> You cannot import something without exporting something else.
This is incorrect when your national currency happens to be the global reserve currency. All it requires is for the other country to be willing to accept dollars in payment.
[ EDIT: even that's wrong. All it requires is someone being willing to accept dollars, either in payment or as part of a currency exchange. ]
Retric
Exporting dollars is exporting something. Combine a constantly depreciating dollar with constant rates of trade and you could end up in a steady state.
However, we define trade deficits to exclude financial transactions for various reasons.
hayst4ck
Incompetence is way more dangerous than people realize.
These tariffs are China's Four Pests campaign. Mao, a very trump like figure, decided to protect Chinese crops by destroying sparrows that were picking at them. Killing sparrows killed a predator of insects which did more damage to crops. This coupled with reality denying policies and ignoring experts led to one of the most devastating famines the world has ever experienced.
Hand waiving away this policy that denies reality and hurts America as a rational plan that went wrong is absolutely dangerous. Killing sparrows was "rational" in the same way these tariffs are. Authoritarians believe in power over reason. They do not like submitting to the authority of those who have studied problems because it is an attack on their own supremacy, so they fail to predict second order effects, which were likely obvious.
The damage this administration is doing to trust will be felt for generations. An agreement with America will have no value. No world leader will care what we say, they will only look at what we do. They will see power we have not as potentially being used for their own defense, but as a potential attack on their own sovereignty and they will wish to see us weakened so that they can spend less resources trying to determine our intentions.
woooooo
If we're going full Mao, we'd be remiss if we didn't note that their plan for industry during the cultural revolution was "the proletariat will own small smelting operations next to their house". It checks out ideologically, workers controlling the means of production.. it just didn't work in reality.
Reminds me a lot of the thought process around having more manufacturing in the US by slapping tariffs around.
ajross
There is absolutely a Cultural Revolution feel to the communication by and around the president. See e.g. Bill Ackman's fully-prostrated worshipful response on Twitter this morning. The guy is a successful billionaire! And he needs to sound like a literal cult member in public lest he lose influence.
hayst4ck
Yes, project 2025[1] is our own cultural revolution/great leap forward.
The authors said: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."[2]
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/03/heritage-...
georgemcbay
The obeying in advance and reflexive glazing is scary in a Twilight Zone or slow-start-of-a-zombie-movie sort of way, but the fact that Trump is playing very fast and loose with due process, talking seriously about "deporting" American citizens and is actively applying economic death penalties to people on his bad side (like the EO stripping security clearance not only from Chris Krebs, but everyone who happens to work at his current employer) is scary in a "is the US as we know it actually going to survive this?" kind of way.
And I'm just pulling a few things off the top of Many Very Worrying Things here for brevity.
sinuhe69
And don’t forget the Jan 6 types. They are the Red Guards of Trump and he used them on Jan 6 as an experiment. Pray we don’t have to witness a new culture revolution in our time!
spacemadness
People are so desperate for this to be rational. Which itself is entirely irrational given the information at hand.
steveBK123
Smart Trumpers are the worst of the bunch. Continuously inventing PHD 5D chess rationalizations for his actions that he immediately invalidates with his next erratic action. Better to just be along for the vibes than to pretend its a strategic, well thought out, well executed plan.
BeFlatXIII
"very stable genius," indeed
null
sneak
It could be a very straightforward dump and pump scam, as well. We know this admin isn’t above petty monetary graft.
It seems to be the simplest possible explanation, too. Then again, never attribute to malice…
bauolo
[flagged]
makeitdouble
I genuinely think it's rational.
Not clever, or justified, or well though out, or based on any solid evidence. But there's probably a rationale behind it.
Now, ideally, we shouldn't have to care what the rationale was if there was any way of just getting back to "normal", but the same way Mao wasn't a flash in the pan, I assume we're looking at a few decades of it for the US as well.
casey2
Or this is like the long history of American tariffs which gave it world class industry. We are in the midst of a 4th industrial revolution and all this insane manufacturing tech being developed just gets shipped over to china because nobody in the US wants to touch it for fear of failing.
For every four pests Mao had 100 successful projects that nobody talks about. Harm reduction is not an optimal strategy for any game.
hayst4ck
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
The Great Chinese Famine was a famine that occurred between 1959 and 1961 in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It is widely regarded as the deadliest famine and one of the greatest man-made disasters in human history, with an estimated death toll due to starvation that ranges in the tens of millions (15 to 55 million).
That's 3% to 10% of China's population starved to death at the time.
lazide
Name a couple of those ‘100 successful projects’ eh?
boringg
Correction. Mao is Mao like. And you could call Trump a Mao like person, not the other way around.
j4dmebbe
[dead]
magicreadu
Both you and OP are not looking at this from the right angle. The goal here is to decouple US from China. In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on. Once US knows who the allies are, they will negotiate to have those allies put up massive tariffs on China as well to prevent transshipping.
US wants nothing to do with China. As the biggest consumer economy in the world, the have that right.
And China has shown that agreement with them has no value. Remember that China promised trump in term 1 to massively import US goods and reduce fentanyl, in part to slow trumps tariff down. They did neither of those things. Trump hasn’t forgotten that.
MVissers
Decoupling from China will lead to China annex Taiwan sooner. China will have the USA and the world by the balls then, so not sure we want that to happen quicker.
And I don't think anyone is calling themselves allies of the USA right now. The whole world is looking to decouple from the USA. Europe is completely over the USA, they can't rely on them for leadership, protection or for trade.
From a tech perspective, expect Europe to decouple from the USA from an economic and cultural perspective in the next decade. Smartest thing Europe can do is to create alternatives to US services, build its own defense industry and stop looking at the USA for any leadership.
wonderwonder
"The goal here is to decouple US from China. In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on. Once US knows who the allies are, they will negotiate to have those allies put up massive tariffs on China as well to prevent transshipping." You literally made this up. There has been no announcement about this from the admin. Its all just speculation.
feyman_r
>>> US wants nothing to do with China. As the biggest consumer economy in the world, the have that right.
Yes, they have the right, but it doesn’t mean this is the right way. Consumers don’t suddenly stop consuming, and factories in the world don’t immediately start producing. This is like a slow flywheel; had we been almost spinning and ready to jump, it would make sense. This is not that.
Also, China is a super power which controls more than factories today. I agree they need to be checked, but sudden changes are not the way. I wish we did it by building trust with allies and then pushing China. Right now, even our allies are wary of us.
timeon
Isn't this bit naive? Because in order to decouple, one would expect that there would be policies to actually prepare for production inside US and then apply tariffs. Not other way around.
tail_exchange
> In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on
Why on earth would you be on the side of a country like this? Why we should be an ally of the US right now, if Trump can't even uphold agreements he signed himself 5 years ago? What guarantees do we have that, as soon as we decouple from China, the US won't treat us as a vassal because we gave up our only alternative? The only rational choice is to either be neutral or ally with China.
rat87
If the goal was to decouple from China then tarrifs would only be on China and we would encourage trade to move from China to other countries. The administrations actions have the opposite effect. It says the US is untrustworthy even to it's allies and maybe siding with China is not so bad. Note I don't like or trust the Chinese government and don't think other governments should try to get closer to them but Trump's actions make such moves much more likely
threeseed
> In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on
Tariffs were raised on Australia, UK, New Zealand and Canada.
It's asinine to say that you can trust these countries with your most secret intelligence (Five Eyes) but not enough to say treat them as allies.
defrost
> Remember that China promised trump in term 1 to massively import US goods and reduce fentanyl
China stopped selling unlicensed fentanyl to the USofA, it later stopped supplying fentanyl to both Mexico and Canada.
The problem was that criminals in the USofA and Mexico purchased precursor chemicals in bulk and made their own fentanyl. Restricting precursors led to pre-precursors being purchased in bulk for drug labs to make their own precursors in order to make fentanyl.
The fentanyl problem continued under Trump and rapidly grew in size during his first term.
In 2021, Mr. Biden issued an executive order imposing sanctions on individuals and companies engaged in the illicit opioid trade. His Treasury Department put sanctions on more than 300 individuals and entities, freezing entire networks of fentanyl suppliers and traffickers out of the international financial system.
In 2023 and 2024 he identified China as a major illicit drug-producing country for its role in the synthetic opioid trade — a blow to the reputation of China’s chemical industry.
Simultaneously, the Biden administration pushed U.S. law enforcement agencies to conduct aggressive investigations and build indictments against dozens of Chinese citizens and companies that were trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States.
[..] Biden secured a personal commitment from President Xi Jinping to restart counternarcotics cooperation in November 2023
[..] And we made progress. International fentanyl supply chains showed signs of disruption, forcing traffickers to change sources and tactics.
Together with other diplomatic initiatives and an expansive public health campaign, the number of lethal fentanyl overdoses in the United States has dropped.
In the 12 months ending September 2024, overdose deaths were down an estimated 24 percent from the year prior.
What has Trump done now he's back in office? Destroyed any cooperation with China on counternarcotics cooperation.
Tariffs alone will not push China’s government to help reduce drug overdose deaths in the United States. In fact, with Beijing already imposing retaliatory tariffs and proclaiming that it’s “ready to fight till the end,” Mr. Trump’s blunt-force tactics might drive China to cooperate less on fentanyl, not more.
With the stakes as high as they are, American communities cannot afford a miscalculation.sfblah
My opinion on this is that the damage has already been done. Successive administrations have already loaded up debt massively and participated in a Ponzi scheme with the Fed to pretend asset valuations in the US make sense. Sooner or later the chickens will come home to roost, and valuation multiples in the US will come to resemble those that have existed throughout history, and those which exist in all other parts of the world currently.
When this happens, there will be a big recession, and that is exactly the moment companies will start deploying AI in earnest to save money. This will create a downward spiral.
Yes, the Trump administration is incompetent. But, if you insist on blaming an administration, I would propose Obama and Biden as more reasonable culprits. It was Obama who presided over the massive Fed intervention into markets that enabled unbridled government spending increases. It was Biden who presided over the most problematic parts of the Covid response. Trump is just an idiot. Obama and Biden are actually bad guys.
autoexec
> that is exactly the moment companies will start deploying AI in earnest to save money.
Companies are already deploying AI everywhere they possibly can as quickly as they possibly can. They aren't waiting for anything. AI just isn't up to the task of replacing most workers just yet. It's still unclear if it ever will be, but they're shoving AI into everything they can to see how it holds up, to see what it breaks, and to give it more data to work with so that it can hopefully be improved.
reubenswartz
The Fed intervention was under Bush. The vast majority of the "COVID response" was under Trump. If you look at deficit spending by administration, you will also see that you have things backwards.
paulryanrogers
Trump 1 increased the debt more than Biden, and Trump 1 wasn't even mitigating a train wreck of COVID inaction left over from his predecessor.
drumdance
Budget deficits are not the same as trade deficits. Trump barely even mentions the debt and clearly does not care about it one bit.
thfuran
That doesn't pass muster. If they had much interest in balancing the books, they wouldn't be ripping huge holes in revenue collection.
alabastervlog
These "here's the actual reason they're doing this!" things rarely hold up under any amount of scrutiny.
Then again, they're tempting because the things they're doing are also really bad ways to accomplish Trump's stated goals.
teamonkey
Humans struggle to find meaning where there is none to find.
miltonlost
The "actual reason" always seems to be virtuous in the end. Like "omg Trump had such good intentions!!! He just made a lil implementation booboo". It's always giving mountains of good faith to people who have lied for decades and lie today. Nothing about the clear market manipulation or greed of the party.
dan_quixote
Agreed - that's a huge indicator that they don't care about fixing the deficit. But they also don't want to be seen making it vastly worse.
marcosdumay
I don't think the GP argued they want to balance the books.
In fact, if they wanted to balance the books, they wouldn't care about the interest rate. The only reason to bet your economy into reducing the interest is if you want to go deeply negative on the books.
overfeed
> If they had much interest in balancing the books, they wouldn't be ripping huge holes in revenue collection
That can be explained by the fact that the cabal also doesn't like paying taxes.
toomuchtodo
And that they’d use tariffs as a regressive tax to replace income tax increases.
overfeed
2 step challenge to die downvoters:
1. Find instances where Trump or the billionaires backing him and/or in his cabinet are open to increasing tax as a solution to the deficit
2. Explain why the the administration and it's members are deadset against an effective IRS & Biden's effort to increase staffing at the IRS.
motorest
> That doesn't pass muster. If they had much interest in balancing the books, they wouldn't be ripping huge holes in revenue collection.
It's not about balancing the books. It's about not making a problem far worse.
You remember the global financial crisis of 2008? The reason most of the bailed out countries requested bailouts was their bonds spiraling out of control when they had to refinance their debt. That was the primary reason they reached out to the likes of IMF and had to undergo austerity programs.
The Trump administration put the US on that path with their global tarrifs and provoking their main trading partners, specially China.
satellite2
While I agree on the direction I don't think the specific argument completely holds.
The countries in this situation in 2008 where European countries that forfeited their central banks. Having relatively recently switched to the Euro made this situation relatively novel and those governments not used to not have access to this last resort tool. There was also a lack of legislation at the European level to give the central bank authority to intervene. And culturally some countries where much more scared by their recent history by the inflation risk. Which led to push backs and delays in the face or urgency. It's now probably roughly sorted at the EU level.
The USA don't have and never had this issue. The position of the FED is very clear: it will never let the US govt default. So the only risk for US bond holders is inflation (and price if they want to exit early).
throwaway48476
If they wanted to balance the books they'd print money and distribute it to US citizens.
bluGill
They care about inflation too though. Trump is old enough to remember the high inflation 1970s well so he won't make that mistake. Kids today probably won't remember it other than an item from "ancient history" and might make the mistake, but Trump won't.
magicloop
That's fair but I suggest that they are actually deficit hawks for the long term. In the short term, they've got financing troubles hence they care about the yield.
anigbrowl
What if (and I realize this is an extremely pessimistic take) their plan is to just default on the debt and rely on military blackmail? Sure, there's a Constitutional prohibition on questioning the validity of USA debt, but the administration shrugs at the Constitution on a weekly basis. The endless whining about how 'unfairly' other nations are treating the US, 'ripping us off', 'laughing at us' etc is a precursor for aggressive action, and I think it's quite likely that at some point they'll come out and say 'we don't have to pay debts to countries that have been scamming us the whole time.' About one quarter of the population will support MAGA no matter what, and if things get bad enough the administration can just announce they've been 'forced' to take over Greenland and Canada.
A flashing negative warning sign of this would be issue of new kinds of Treasury securities with new complex rules.
Hikikomori
Didn't they just announce a 1 trillion budget for defense?
watwut
Deficit hawks would not lower taxes for richest segment, which were sure money in exchange of maybe money. Nor would they slash IDS
No, they are nor deficit hawks. They don't care about deficit, except when trying to blame it on someone else.
cogman10
Gotta be honest, I think it's more likely that Trump just has a strange fixation on tariffs. I don't really think there was a whole lot of planning around them other than "I want them".
How he's deployed them and spoken/written about them makes me think he thinks it's a good way to strong arm countries and he wanted to strong arm everyone.
seanhunter
Everyone’s a deficit hawk in the long term. It’s easy to talk tough on reducing dept at some non-specific time in the distant future probably after you leave office.
csomar
If your rate is 0% fixed (just a hypothetical), you can roll-over your bonds indefinitely for free. This means, in practical terms, your debt is 0.
gsanderson
Donald is weak. He was always going to fold. Once China and the EU called his bluff and retaliated, he was done. Lasted less than 24 hours.
matt-p
Sir, the tariff on china has just increased to 125%.
I don't know why he held off on the other countries, but choose to go to "war" with China.
gsanderson
I assume because of Peter Navarro (and of course Ron Vara).
qingcharles
They said they were going to war with China over the Panama Canal too, yesterday. Using the "most lethal fighting force", apparently.
blitzar
14d chess of course.
baq
The tariffs that he kept on would be nothing to sneeze at in more… civilized times. The market overreacted, as was priced in the vix at 50+. We are not out of the woods yet.
matt-p
125% tariff rate on your biggest importer isn't something I'd say is "nothing to sneeze at" personally. Particularly when the expert economist used to justify it is made up.
kalleboo
He didn't even know that the EU had put in tariffs until a journalist asked him at the press conference after he announced the pause.
matwood
The EU actually executed some strategy. First they said they would love 0/0 tariffs, which sounds fair to pretty much anyone. And when that didn't fly they put on selective reciprocal 25% tariffs. What Trump did looks even more like a clown show.
bitshiftfaced
They floated 0/0 tariffs before the reciprocal tariffs (and again after), and their tariffs this morning was in retaliation for the steel and aluminum tariffs, not for the reciprocal tariffs.
shawn-butler
[flagged]
jpmattia
James Carville in the 90s: “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”
magicloop
I agree. The bond markets are the ultimate heavy hitter. They have government level impact. See also: The French Revolution.
notahacker
Or Liz Truss, the shortest serving Prime Minister in British history less than 3 years ago...
rcarr
The name's Bond, Market Bond.
digianarchist
The T-Bill auction today went off without issue and that was before this announcement.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/treasury-bond-auction-today...
sethammons
so the uncertainty in the market drove investors to T-Bills, driving up their price and lowering their yield, effectively making servicing the national debt marginally cheaper. By 0.03%, which I imagine stacks up with trillions of dollars compounding.
JumpCrisscross
> T-Bill auction today went off without issue and that was before this announcement
We're nowhere near the primary auctions failing. That would literally require a full financial crisis.
magicloop
That's a great data point. Thanks!
UncleMeat
This makes some sense... but they didn't pause the tariffs. There's still a 10% tariff on everybody (including on top of Mexico and Canada, who were previously exempted from the tariffs announced last week) and the tariff on China continues to rise to preposterous proportions.
greatpatton
exactly and I think it's shocking that everyone is just repeating lies without putting them in context.
matt-p
Would it have been too inflationary/recessionary to impose these crazy tarrifs on 'rest of world' AND increase china to 125% at the same time so he simply had to sacrifice one to do the other?
keepamovin
Sounds like a sage take (where do I study economics?), but why do people doubt the meaning is as straightforward as the messaging: during campaigning trump said he would rectify the unfair tariffs, and in the lead-up and since election he has talked lovingly about tariffs, with the goal being (as almost everything trump) domestic fortification through jobs, industry, and generating revenue from those who have abused the US largesse to enrich themselves - and now balk at a just correction.
I think there is a backdrop/larger picture (probably nuanced and multifaceted levers against all other parties negotiating), but the main I think is to shake up the global economic landscape to make it easier to improve it. Reset.
I see a lot of complex takes on here that require quite a lot of sophisticated theories...and while I enjoy the complexity and the perspectives (and - wish I had studied economics to really grok them), I think it's really just as simple as they say. And what they say they're doing makes sense.
Maybe the truth is no one really knows what will happen, and so it's a bold move but we'll see. But I believe they're doing what they think is right for America to strengthen the country, just as they say - not some 3 degree removed chess strategy, just simple.
layer8
The 10% apparently also apply to Canada and Mexico now, which they didn’t before:
> In a strange turn of events, the president seems to have added another 10 percent tariff to Canada and Mexico. Asked earlier if the 10 percent tariff extended to those countries, Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, said that it did. And a White House official clarified for me just now that that was the case. Previously, Canada and Mexico had been exempted from this round of “reciprocal” tariffs, though they still faced a 25 percent tariff that the president imposed last month on many of their goods.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04/08/business/trump-tarif...
matt-p
Also china has 125% tarriff but the reason that they couldn't originally give 10% to Vietnam was trans-shipment of Chinese goods.
If it wasn't happening before, it certainly will be now.
What's actually wrong with them.
delecti
> What's actually wrong with them.
Market manipulation. 1. Sell. 2. Threaten tariffs. 3. Buy. 4. Walk back tariffs threats. 5. Repeat.
With the secret step 0: Pay enough of an Indulgence to get in the loop of when those are going to happen, and to stay in their good graces so the DoJ doesn't hit you for insider trading.
dataviz1000
"Gutsy Traders Make $1.5 Billion Triple-Leveraged Bet on Nasdaq 100" [0]
This was Monday morning when it was trading ~$40. It is at $53 now. What is 20% increase on $1.5 Billion? $300,000,000.
[0] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/gutsy-traders-make-1...
natebc
I wonder how many executive branch staffers and their kin and kind bought the dip?
It's a pretty gross thing to think about.
arrrg
That doesn’t make sense to me.
Money is not an end. It’s a (one) tool to get there. To the ends you want. To some sort of change in the world you want to achieve.
On that front this is incoherent. I vote incompetence.
alpha_squared
I'm coming to the conclusion that the tariffs are a distraction. The 10% across the board appears more like a tax hike without calling it one while the focus on China is just the same old trade war from the first term with louder chest-beating.
barbazoo
I believe at this point it's a simple game of leverage. Look how much damage I can inflict. Now let's negotiate.
Spivak
But a distraction from what? There doesn't seem to be any kind of obvious other thing they're trying to do with the cover. They're not exactly being secretive with ICE arrests, the mass layoffs from the federal government, or their weird campaign against DEI that the administration seems to have all but forgotten about.
munificent
Trump thinks of himself as a powerful, insightful deal-maker. He pathologically needs to feel like he is doing something and his comfort zone for what kinds of things to do is "stuff that feels like business deals".
He knows very little about government and policy, but tariffs and dollars and percentages feels familiar to him. He's got a lever, and he can't resist yanking on it to show that he's in charge.
Whether yanking on the lever actually benefits the country or him is entirely besides the point. He's a narcissist and narcissists can't let go.
magicreadu
The reason they have reduced all tariffs back down to 10% even for the countries that were obviously transshipping (Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia) is that they need time to negotiate with those countries, to make sure these countries now put similarly high tariffs (100%+) on China, so that transshipping is reduced to nothing
matt-p
Wouldn't it be smarter to do that before increasing the tarriff to 125%? That doesn't make sense to me either..
anigbrowl
That's like saying China's strategy is to get Ecuador and El Salvador to inflict high tariffs on the USA.
CobrastanJorji
Idiots, all. This feels like the sort of mistake I'd make. As in, me, myself, without a team of people planning and reviewing who could comfortably doublecheck when they thought I was getting something a little wrong in my orders. Which suggests to me that this is being done by one or two guys who do not have such a team. Which is insane.
Sgt_Apone
Seems they reversed course on that. Or, they don’t know what they’re doing.
> It's been a confusing day.
> As Verity said, it turns out Canada and Mexico are not getting a new 10 per cent tariff after all.
> The White House reversed its earlier announcement in a new statement just now. Here's the bottom line: No new developments for Canada and Mexico today.
> That means there are still worldwide 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum, on some auto parts in North America, and on some goods traded within North America outside the rules of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade (CUSMA).
> The bottom line here: Trump is starting an economic war on China, and U.S. allies are all taking some friendly fire. But a large swath of Canadian trade is spared.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/livestory/trump-pauses-most-gl...
ilamont
> Or, they don’t know what they’re doing.
Occam's Razor.
magicreadu
They know what they are doing. The goal is decoupling from China. They raised tariffs on everyone to see which countries stood with US and which stood with China. Once each country has made their allegiance clear, they delay the deadline to give more time for negotiation. They likely want every ally to raise their tariffs on China to be very very high, to avoid any more transshipping from China.
matt-p
But the EU announced retaliatory tarrifs, just they weren't yet in effect. Why did they get off scot free?
Vilian
They are gambling that the rest of the world aren't going to coordinate against USA, let's see
beloch
The U.S. ambassador to Canada has since informed the government that this is not the case, and the tariff's currently in place will remain unchanged for now[1].
However, with this administration, who really knows?
Perhaps Trump is staying quiet to avoid aiding Carney in the election. Perhaps he'll announce harsher tariff's on Canada tomorrow. Canada did retaliate and hasn't been hit with retaliation for retaliating, which gives the lie to Trump's statements that countries should refrain from retaliating if they don't want to be treated even worse.
There is not one whit of consistency or logic on display here.
[1]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canada-will...
sva_
Like when an LLM does a tiny coding error that isn't too noticeable though.
neogodless
"Oh! Well this is not a mundane detail, Michael!"
parliament32
This seems to have been clarified to not be the case, as of 30m ago -- no change to Canada/Mexico:
>There’s no change to Canada and Mexico tariffs, indicating that their levies aren’t going down to the 10% baseline. Recall that Trump initially threatened a 25% surtax on each of them. That morphed over time to affect non-USMCA compliant goods -- and it’s not crystal-clear exactly what proportion of Canadian and Mexican shipments that then affects. Canadian energy products also got a smaller rate.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/live-blog/2025-04-08/trump-ta...
null
Animats
Possibly because lawsuits challenging the power of the President to impose tariffs under the Emergency Economic Powers Act are underway.[1] GOP support for Congress taking back control of tariffs is building.[2] At some point, Congress or the courts will take his toys away.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/trump-tariffs-hit-lawsuit-group-his...
[2] https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5236142-congress-tariff-...
antognini
I've seen relatively little discussion about these lawsuits, but I do think there is a pretty good chance that SCOTUS will rule these tariffs unconstitutional. (It's certainly more likely than Congress rescinding the powers they've ceded to the presidency.)
Constitutionally, the power to set tariffs resides with the Legislative branch, not the Executive branch. Congress has delegated some authority to set tariffs under certain conditions (namely, emergencies and matters related to national security). But the Court is clear that one branch cannot delegate all of its powers to another. The Court is pretty deferential to the Executive branch, especially in matters of national security. But no matter how much you squint, it's hard to see how setting broad based tariffs on all goods from every foreign countries qualifies under the Emergency Economic Powers Act.
magicloop
It is a sound analysis but I think there are other non-legal factors at play.
If the president tries to do X, then the lawyers block X, then in political game theory the president "wins" in the eyes of the electorate because the president can argue "my plan was perfect, the execution failed due to the opposition, so I am not accountable to what has now happened".
The left might want to see a disaster play out to capitalize in the mid-term elections, laying the accountability directly on the president. The right might not have freedom of action because they fear a well-funded challenger for their seat.
In am interested in other people's opinions and ideas in this area. I agree it is too little discussed and analyzed. Please share your insights!
kumarvvr
It can be more sinister.
If judiciary blocks X, then trump will say "these are the real bad guys, they are as worse as the dems, lets remove them". And BAM ! You have a dictator.
The sad part is that one of the most powerful nation in the world is filled with idiots who will lap up the above argument.
I would say that all this current situation is because of corporate greed, leading to a skewed distribution of wealth, leading to the evolution of a class of voters who are desperate, gullible and mis-informed.
delecti
The people on the left who want to see a disaster play out are mostly accelerationists. I think most on the left would worry more about the harm that economic disaster would be inflicted on people.
And more pragmatically, I think that Trump is so committed to causing disasters that he's likely to succeed at enough of his attempts that there should be pushback to as much of it as possible.
ilamont
> I do think there is a pretty good chance that SCOTUS will rule these tariffs unconstitutional.
Unlikely. SCOTUS is cowed, as shown by the latest batch of rulings (https://www.npr.org/2025/04/08/nx-s1-5351799/scotus-probatio...). They want to avoid his ire, and interference.
Possibly, they are saving dry powder for a bigger fight.
stogot
They have each independently, on different cases, voted against the administration. Except one I think, but it’s also only been three months. And John Robert’s just rebuked trump. It seems they have enough backbone to not care about his ire, and have their own independent minds. Thankfully more than congress does.
matthewdgreen
The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 shadow docket decision, just enabled the Trump administration to deport people under the Alien Enemies Act -- a law that requires a declared war or an "invasion or predatory incursion...by a foreign nation or government." So I wouldn't get too excited about the idea that they're going to make a big stand on tariffs.
AnimalMuppet
The Supreme Court, on its shadow docket, did not decide any such thing. It stated very clearly that it was not rendering an opinion on that subject. What it did decide was that due process applies, even to illegal aliens, even under the Alien Enemies Act.
paulddraper
I think that is true, strictly speaking.
But how do you justify all of the other trade deals made by other presidents?
Were those also unconstitutional? Or just Trump's because they went up not down.
AnimalMuppet
Were they negotiated by the president, and then ratified by the Senate? Then no problem.
Are there any examples pre-Trump that were not ratified by Congress?
antognini
The past tariffs (including from Trump's first term) were targeted at specific industries like steel or aluminum so you could make a case that it was necessary for national security. Other trade deals that set a broad set of tariffs (like NAFTA) were ratified by the Senate.
hello_computer
Seems kinda crazy that so much power was ever vested in the president.
Animats
How to handle emergency authority in a democracy has been a hard problem back to the Roman Empire. Read up on Roman dictators.[1]
MrMember
Roman dictators have always fascinated me. It worked (for a while at least) because both sides agreed it was necessary and temporary. The people who appointed the dictator knew extreme measures were needed to navigate them through some crisis. The dictator knew if they tried to hold on to power longer than was necessary they would simply be removed or killed, their supreme power only extended through the crisis in which they were needed.
tshaddox
I mean, it may not be a completely solved problem, but you don't have to be too clever to think that perhaps rules similar to the War Powers Act ought to also apply to the President's authority to apply tariffs.
eftychis
Laziness and fear of the closet monster beget tyrants.
enaaem
The best way to sabotage Trump is doing exactly what he wants (and make sure he takes all the credit).
stevage
It's interesting to see it as an answer to the question, how long does it take to turn a well regulated democracy with a powerless head of state into an autocracy.
rurp
We've all been learning just how much of the US system runs on assumption of there being some baseline level of competence and good faith. It hasn't been a pretty lesson.
I'm honestly not sure there is another way since laws can't cover all possible future edge cases with effective enforcement mechanisms. The simpler fix is to not elect blatantly corrupt and incompetent leaders, but voters failed that task and now the country is paying the price.
piva00
I'm starting to subscribe to the idea this was blatant market manipulation.
Trump is only out to make money, the guy never had any other thought in life since money gives him status, fame, and power.
It's a grift, as any other of his grifts, but now he can manipulate the whole stock market with his power.
There's nothing else that I can rationally come up with to explain this absurdity.
hn_acc1
There's your problem - the word "rationally". NOTHING about MAGA / Trump is rational - it's all based on feelings.
usefulcat
> Trump is only out to make money
Nope. Not even close. He's all about power, and the appearance of strength. It's no coincidence that he looks up to Putin.
Money is almost always a means to an end, and this is no exception.
compumike
Is it just the historical legacy of international trade that tariffs apply only to physical goods, but not to something like software-as-a-service subscriptions, digital media, or intellectual property?
As the latter categories are more representative of US exports, it would surely be an interesting escalation if other countries were to start including them in their “retaliatory” tariffs.
davidguetta
I still wonder why this was not done instantly by EU.
US has an imbalance on goods that was used to calculate the tariff amount, but it has the opposite imbalance on service from what I've read
nisa
It would be a just a hefty fee for most EU companies and not much more. From what I've seen Azure is pretty popular in most bigger companies and smaller shops and websites use often AWS or Google cloud. Microsoft Windows and Office is also everywhere - it would be a tax on European business with little effects on the USA because moving away from big clouds won't happen because there is no realistic alternative.
Last I've looked "Lidl Cloud" from Schwartz-IT that is often mentioned as alternative is basically managed Kubernetes for more than double the price of Azure/AWS before rebates. They have that idiotic meaningless TÜV button on their websites and unfortunately it's not technical excellence but rather a trap for boomer CEOs...
Europe missed that boat unfortunately and I don't see that changing soon. Hetzner/OVH and so on only provide bare metal or virtual machines for little money but there is no European cloud with serious IaC and managed services that are stable and battle tested as far as I know.
Changing taxation rules is the interesting topic but unfortunately EU countries are competing on that and that would destroy the business model of countries like Luxembourg or Ireland - I'm all for changing it and it would be better in the long-term but it's probably impossible to pull off at the moment.
codedokode
It seems to me that replacing foreign computer services is actually easy compared to physical goods: no need to build factories, no need to buy expensive machinery etc, just wrap some open source solution and sell it. For example, China has domestic computer services, from messengers to AI models. And by observation, once you ban foreign services, local competitors start appearing like mushrooms after rain.
davidguetta
Yeah sure but then you do promote EU alternatives out of necessity.
On the long term this can really make EU more sovereign, less dependent and it's not a crazy thing.
I have never understood the argument of "yeah tariff would hurt us because we are dependent on foreign tech". Yeah that's precisely a problem at a country level. Promoting local alternative is best than winner takes all.
There's also a price in not looking tough when you're getting bullied sometimes.
Epa095
Both OVH and scaleway provide managed k8s (and both have terraform providers). But yes, definitely much less sophisticated than the hyperscalers. But if you use k8s, maybe s3 and Kafka, and some databases, it's definitely possible to do the switch.
nearbuy
How would it work?
Say an American multinational like Microsoft provides some SaaS. They have a division in Europe where their developers help make their products. They have offices, customer support, servers, etc. in Europe. Do they pay a partial tariff based on what fraction of the development of their software happened in the US? What if they sell the rights to the European version of their software to their European division?
guizmo
It would need to be a tax on money transfer to the American counterpart. Cash repatriation or payment for IP rights comes to mind.
Of course, the multinational could also use the funds to invest in Europe, build warehouse or commercial real estate or acquire European startups. I think they already do this to some extent to avoid US tax.
Using these to fund free credits to European cloud providers could be a good way to build up a local alternative. I think we underestimate the importance of free credits in the reliance on the 3 US hyperscalers, especially for startups.
foepys
Easy: because next to 100% of EU government computers run Windows and MS Office.
zxspectrum1982
Not true. The European Union runs RHEL, OpenShift and some SUSE.
alickz
Seems like a vulnerability
davidguetta
It's Ubuntu time !
null
amelius
What I don't understand is why other countries didn't make the threat to make any tariffs hold for a year or longer. That would scare Trump away from doing these stupid experiments.
stubish
Why would other countries inflict that sort of self harm? It would be a bluff, and everyone knows it. If it wasn't a bluff, you would be out next election.
rsynnott
The whole point of imposing retaliatory tariffs is that it puts pressure on the aggressor to give up, on the basis that you will then immediately drop the retaliatory tariffs. The point is to produce a quick end. Retaliatory tariffs with a _minimum_ duration would be counterproductive.
I suppose you could have a kind of tariff equivalent of the doomsday machine from Dr Strangelove, in principle; a set of automatic measures to come into force if the adversary does [whatever]. However, Trump strikes me as a bit of a General Ripper, so it might not be a _great_ idea.
kansface
The EU effectively backdoors tariffs against US software vendors via fines and the occasional if ineffective subsidy for local competitors in the local language.
piva00
No, fines are for breaking the law, if they don't break the law there's no way for the EU to collect the money. It's like speed traps, people can be mad at them because they broke the law and were caught, it doesn't alleviate the fact they could have just followed the rules.
davidguetta
=> subsidy for local competitors in the local language
I'd like to know if you know what's you're talking about. In france the local subsidies are really low and the inversely the big rebates like "Tax Credit For Research & Dev" are for everybody, US companies like EU ones.
tow21
Much harder to enforce against services.
Physical goods you can hold until tariffs are paid.
Services are paid for by invoices between two corporate entities whose legal domicile may have nothing to do with the real country of origin of the services.
Lots of European SaaS providers invoice US customers from their US subsidiary - impossible to distinguish the transaction in order to put a tariff on it.
delusional
The EU is discussing it, but are currently debating if that would be seen as an escalation of the conflict.
Yes it would be a strong response, but unlike the US we are not interested in appearing like the strongest idiots, the EU would rather we all get along and trade. We'd rather work on real issues instead of this self damaging garbage.
throwawaymaths
Yes, that makes sense for Europe but it doesn't help China, because China already prevents a considerable amount of US media consumption and much of what is consumed is bootlegged anyways.
benob
This is exactly what EU is discussing
marcosdumay
The Brazilian Congress finished approving a law yesterday granting the president powers to retaliate by voiding intellectual property.
snickerbockers
>software-as-a-service subscriptions
when people in other countries use that at a non-trivial scale, aren't the servers on the other end of the connection still located in their region?
ianferrel
I think partly the historical legacy, but also the ease of enforcement and the fact that lower tariffs and services have trended together.
Collecting taxes on goods flowing through a limited number of physical locations is much much easier than trying to audit the client list of a huge number of foreign service providers.
Agreed that other countries are considering this.
Nemo_bis
You don't need to hit a huge number of service providers because the USA market is highly concentrated.
That's why you read things like «The Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI), a nuclear option that has yet to be deployed, would empower the EU executive to hit U.S. service industries such as tech and banking». https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-trade-bazooka-anti-coerci...
You can just pick the top 10 biggest financial and tech firms and be done with it.
yibg
With the whiplash of tariffs, upping tariffs, pausing tariffs, I don't know how companies can do any planning.
A lot of earnings are coming out next couple of weeks. Take Apple for example, how would they forecast Q2 numbers? They have 125% tariffs on all imports from China. Maybe it'll go up more as China increases their own. Or maybe it gets paused. I feel for the FP&A team there.
colechristensen
>I don't know how companies can do any planning.
They can't. They're saying it out loud updating their guidance.
In polite terms, on earnings calls you're going to hear "we don't know what the fuck to predict".
Follow Bloomberg and you'll hear bank CEOs saying the same thing about the markets, they have no idea what to predict or how to price anything. Right now the line is that America looks like an emerging market with unpredictable wild swings based on policy changes. That is going to drive everyone away from the US, industries, customers, and trade partners.
Tepix
No, apple only has 125% tariffs on imports from China to the US. They can send them elsewhere (or parts) and send India-made devices to the US instead for example.
kumarvvr
Its possible they will learn to live with the ebb and tide and ride along. What else can you do?
Apple is perhaps already hiring a fleet of planes and ships to transport iPhones from all over the world to the US.
karim79
Is anyone sure this is not stock manipulation? Honest question.
misantroop
This is pure manipulation. It was engineered to just that from the start. Since it's America, no investigation will be done to look into who profited here - possibly billions off regular people who had margin calls. 3rd world country.
lotsofpulp
> possibly billions off regular people who had margin calls.
Regular people have no business gambling with levered bets on publicly traded equities. Those losses are their own fault, and they should sell gambling treatment.
stouset
> billions off regular people who had margin calls
Thanks, Robinhood!
2OEH8eoCRo0
I like the ironic name. Robinhood is where the poor go to send their money to the rich.
mort96
The president told his Truth Social followers that it's a great time to buy stock just a few hours before this announcement: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1143082727259...
It's probably many things, but one part of it is for sure stock manipulation.
etcet
This is wild.
8:37AM "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT"
12:18PM "I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"
nom
Assuming this was planned so insiders can buy the dip (and let's be honest, he's not clever enough for this, but any crypto bro is), his announcement serves the insiders perfectly as plausible deniability.
What's even wilder is this random Twitter account that 'leaked' the 90 days pause two days ago, got picked up by the news as truth, caused the market to recover by trillions of dollars temporarily... and now this...
zeagle
My take is that’s probably for plausible deniability. “The prophet told all true believers, how could there have been insider trading.” The volume on the markets picked up twenty minutes before not hours.
sigwinch
"...I guess they say it was the biggest day in financial history,"
A finance whiz could tell you that it wasn't the biggest day in the market's history, but maybe a cause for extra celebration among a more select few.
y04nn
Indeed, the 90 days delay leaked in the morning before being denied and at the end of the day there was the official announcement. So some people new before the official announcement and shared the information.
__MatrixMan__
No. Honest answer.
syncsynchalt
Hanlon's Razor? /shrug
refurb
Anything world leaders do impacts the market.
Its stock manipulation all the way down, if you’re inclined to see it that way.
arunabha
I am beginning to wonder if there is an actual plan behind these moves beyond creating uncertainty in trading partner's minds.
The stated goal of the administration is to 'reindustrialize' the US by manufacturing more of the goods consumed within the US itself. To get to that goal, tariff barriers are just one part of the story. For tariffs to be effective towards getting to the strategic goal, they need to be coupled with sound industrial policy and a long term execution framework. The three legs of the stool, so to say.
So far, there has been no mention of the other two legs. There is currently no serious bill proposed that aims to apply the required industrial policy and all of these tariffs being imposed under executive orders mean that instability in tariff rates and application is pretty much guaranteed. The very opposite of the stable, long term approach that is needed.
Without the other parts, there is a very high chance that the US will bear the brunt of the short term damage, but with none of the long term benefits.
acdha
There isn’t a serious plan to bring manufacturing back. You can debate whether there is a plan for high-pressure negotiations, insider trading or kickbacks (e.g. Nvidia’s successful deployment of a million dollar dinner at Mar-a-Lago), etc. but you can tell that it’s not a good-faith attempt to invest in American industry because that would start with the two things you mentioned: you’d see the investment in those industries now and a commitment to raising taxes on foreign competition in 2030 or so when people have had time to actually be able to meet demand.
What we’re seeing now makes as much sense as a middle-aged laptop jockey deciding that they want to be in better shape – and then quitting their job to run in the Badwater Ultramarathon the next week.
mizzao
How about facilitating a monster load of insider trading?
saulpw
I'm sorry, but only in April of 2025 you are wondering if there is an actual plan? Were you paying any attention at all from 2016-2020?
dmazin
I mean, Peter Navarro's tariff plan is a plan. It's just an absurdly fringe/incompetent plan.
kumarvvr
It looks like the administration is filled with people more interested in making a buck for themselves, rather than do what is best for the country.
Everyone knows that getting another trump may not be possible for at-least another 10 or so years (I don't mean the dems will win, just that republicans may put forth a saner version of trump just to save the party)
chneu
That's the Hallmark of a fascist leader.
I hate to bring up Hitler but that's how he gained much of his power. He was a "useful idiot". The people that helped him were looking out for themselves. They thought they could use Hitler to grab power/wealth.
PeakKS
Up and down and up again. The entire US economy is being used as a pump & dump scam.
chasing
Yup. The next 3.75 years are going to suck. Thank you, GOP, for completely shirking your responsibility to keep this kind of garbage in check.
jmward01
Why does the market like this? Tariffs are in place and unpredictability is now the norm. Tomorrow something new crazy will come out and then the next day and the next day. Even if US markets like this right now, the long term damage has been done. Betting on the medium-long term seems questionable at best.
ohgr
The market doesn't like this. All the professional investors got out ages ago (check out Berkshire's dumping) and are dumping to bagholders. Large fund holders are hanging on because they still make fees and it keeps their AUM up there and everyone else is dying at the same rate. Foreign investors are pulling bonds out because the currency is at risk. The market is being manipulated daily and there is no involvement from SEC. There is only risk left. Confidence is gone.
It is the textbook definition of a fucking shit show.
cmrdporcupine
You're making me feel better about missing the bump today. I got out over a week ago before things went completely bonkers. Was planning on getting back in when I had a sense the volatility had diminished.
Came back from a meeting to find things were halfway back to where I sold and started to feel bummed.
Guess we'll see what tomorrow brings.
ohgr
Never feel bad for what you didn’t make.
colechristensen
The market doesn't know anything, the people who are trading are trading on FOMO and sentiment, because valuation is completely unpredictable when the global economy is being dictated by one man.
rsynnott
> Why does the market like this?
It doesn't; S&P500 is now at like 5400 vs nearly 6200 a couple of months ago. It's just that it is clearly not _as_ bad as it was earlier in the week.
And honestly you'd wonder how much this is being held up by confused retail traders; looking at WSB, say, many of them seem to think that tariffs are back where they were a few weeks ago (they're not; the 10% thing is staying, and of course there's China).
paulddraper
The market is still down 10% from 45 days ago.
It's no longer down 20%.
EasyMark
I think that's why it's called day-trading and not "long term strategic trading"
TrackerFF
Dead cat bounce.
energy123
The markets likes this relative to the alternative of even larger tariffs.
f33d5173
The unpredictability was already priced in. Markets were down substantially from january even on april 2nd. The tariffs are also being priced in, since the markets are still down from april 2nd. Nothing trump has done is good, it just isn't as bad as it could have been.
tim333
Seldom a dull moment with the present government. He's still saying 125% on China so it's not back to normality. Also I guess the penguins still face 10%.
rchaud
Few dull moments in Mobutu's time in Zaire too I hear.
outer_web
Lot of whiplash with these tariff policies. I'm wondering if maybe it'd be a better idea to give* Congress this power instead.
SoyAnto
Congress does have the power (article I, section 8), however it delegated this power to the president for "extraordinary" situations with certain laws.
peeters
"Extraordinary", such as a fictional fentanyl emergency at the northern border (despite the fact that a trivial amount of fentanyl enters the U.S. from Canada, and more enters Canada from the U.S.).
Of course, you have Congress to keep the President in check that these are real emergencies. Which is why the House will definitely be bringing S.J.Res. 37 to the floor, right? Because it's their sworn duty to act as a check on executive power, right?
alabastervlog
There's a reason the saying, "in America we have three coequal branches of government: the Supreme Court rules, the President crimes, and Congress is just for fun" has become popular since some time after his first inauguration.
cma
He first announced tariffs on China over fentanyl something like 2 or 3 days after pardoning the biggest heroin by mail operator in world history (Ross Ulbricht).
sitkack
> The nondelegation doctrine is rooted in certain separation of powers principles.1 In limiting Congress’s power to delegate, the *nondelegation doctrine exists primarily to prevent Congress from ceding its legislative power to other entities* not vested with legislative authority under the Constitution. As interpreted by the Court, the doctrine seeks to ensure that legislative decisions are made through a bicameral legislative process by the elected Members of Congress or governmental officials subject to constitutional accountability.2 Reserving the legislative power for a bicameral Congress was "intended to erect enduring checks on each Branch and to protect the people from the improvident exercise of power by mandating certain prescribed steps."
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S1-5-1/A...
Any democrats with working brain stems and genitals should be taking this to supreme court.
alabastervlog
The list of law firms with the expertise, resources, and will to take on the administration is getting shorter and shorter, because he's targeting the ones that piss him off with EOs aimed to wreck them if they don't pay up and shut up, and that strategy is working.
outer_web
Agreed however this court has shown it can dance between originalism, textualism, and tossing both of those to the wind (Trump v Anderson) when it aligns with policy goals.
Also it probably wouldn't even fly with anyone since so many other emergency powers are generally accepted as necessary (i.e. defense). The immunity decision is full of rhetoric about the legislature being too slow for crises.
Their best bet is to invent a time machine, go back to Obama, have Obama pass emergency tariffs, then lobby to repeal that act.
EasyMark
They need to take it back, regardless. It's proven that Americans can't be expected to elect adults to the Presidency any longer, they no longer use logic or emergency situations, they use it for egotistical narcissistic feelings of being important by playing red light, green light on a trade war between the two most dangerous countries in the world
bluGill
I wrote my congressperson (house and both senators) to take back the power. If enough others do the same they will, but if it is just talk on forums they assume nobody cares.
mring33621
I wrote my Senator, Dick Durbin, prior to the November 2024 election, begging him to do something to shore up the legislature, prior to Trump's possible return to office.
He responded that he's not allowed to discuss campaigning and that I can instead donate to his 'friends' network (PAC?)
I don't think the Dem establishment really opposes Trump at all...
udev4096
Oh boy, HFTs made a fuck ton of money in the last few days. Probably as much as they make in a year even
snarf21
Maybe, just maybe, this is all about a secret wealth transfer.
mfitton
Do you think normal people (think, your average investing American) are trading based on this news? They probably shouldn't be... I would think that by far most of the trading these past few days has been institutions, so, a big transfer from some financial institutions to others?
rsynnott
> Do you think normal people (think, your average investing American) are trading based on this news?
We ~know that they were: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-market-pummeled-401k-acco...
As always, normal people sell low and likely buy high (I'd bet that a lot of the already-fading market euphoria yesterday was retail trading).
delusional
Aren't your 401k's tied up in stocks and bonds? Index funds too will probably have been fleeced too on the volatility.
anonzzzies
Yeah, Trump basically told before he announced the pause. I made a lot of money in the past week doing very little but pay close attention to this flaky dude.
"It’s the T-bills wot dun it."
That’s my read on why the U.S. just paused the global tariff hike to 10%.
From the beginning, I’ve believed the executive branch's real goal was to push down the yield on the 10-year Treasury. Why? Because Uncle Sam has to refinance a mountain of debt this year, and the cost of that depends heavily on Treasury yields — especially the 10-year. That’s the rate that sets the tone for everything from mortgages to corporate borrowing.
So they tried to spook markets. Introduce global tariffs. Stir up uncertainty. And it worked—at first. Yields dipped. Traders moved to Treasuries as a typical flight-to-safety.
But then something flipped.
Instead of being seen as a safe haven, U.S. debt itself started to look shaky. Maybe it was the deficit outlook, maybe the global response to tariffs — but whatever it was, yields started climbing. Fast.
At that point, the strategy backfired. The executive branch had no choice but to walk it back. So they paused the tariffs.
Because when your national budget depends on cheap debt, you can't afford a crisis of confidence in your bonds.