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What just happened with Trump’s tariffs?
He paused some tariffs — and then escalated a trade war with China.
Patrick Reis was the senior politics and ideas editor at Vox. He previously worked at Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, Politico, National Journal, and Seattle’s Real Change News. As a reporter and editor, he has worked on coverage of campaign politics, economic policy, the federal death penalty, climate change, financial regulation, and homelessness.
Welcome to The Logoff: Today I’m breaking down President Donald Trump’s wild afternoon of trade moves.
What is going on with tariffs? Last week, Trump announced two sets of tariffs: a minimum 10 percent tax on imports from all countries, and then a separate set of higher tariff rates that varied by country. Today, Trump said he was pausing those new country-by-country tariffs for 90 days, but he’s keeping the baseline 10 percent tariff rate in place.
Trump also says he’s raising tariffs on Chinese imports to 125 percent as retaliation in an escalating trade war.
Why did Trump change course? The White House is claiming the delay was a result of nations worldwide offering to negotiate new trade deals. We’ll see if those negotiations are really happening and what comes of them.
What we do know is that financial markets crashed after Trump’s tariff announcement, sparking alarm around the world and even among some of Trump’s supporters. Trump acknowledged those anxieties in remarks on trade this afternoon, and stocks skyrocketed after Trump announced the 90-day delay.
So what did we learn? Since Trump announced the tariffs, the big question has been whether they were a massive change in economic policy or a bluff aimed at getting other countries to negotiate new deals. Today’s answer is that they were a bit of both.
We’re by no means back where we started: A 10 percent global tariff minimum and an economic war with China — one of our largest trading partners — will raise prices on imports and cost jobs that depend on international trade. And even with the pullback, the threat of tariffs have created new economic uncertainty at home and strained our relationships abroad.
On the other hand, had Trump left the country-by-country tariffs in place, we were staring at a full-blown, self-inflicted economic crisis. Now the president says we get some relief — at least for the next 90 days.
And with that, it’s time to log off…
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