U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday stated on Truth Social that “if China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th.”
President Trump via Truth Social:
Yesterday, China issued Retaliatory Tariffs of 34%, on top of their already record setting Tariffs, Non-Monetary Tariffs, Illegal Subsidization of companies, and massive long term Currency Manipulation, despite my warning that any country that Retaliates against the U.S. by issuing additional Tariffs, above and beyond their already existing long term Tariff abuse of our Nation, will be immediately met with new and substantially higher Tariffs, over and above those initially set. Therefore, if China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th. Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated! Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
MacDailyNews Take: The United States of America is the far and away No.1 economy on this planet, with nominal GDP of $30.34 trillion. China is a distant number two with $19.53 trillion, followed by Germany ($4.92T), Japan ($4.39T), and India ($4.27T).
If countries want unfettered access to sell their goods and services into the world’s preeminent economy, they should, at the very least, provide unfettered American access into their far lesser economies. (In pure business terms, they should actually pay for the privilege of selling in America’s rich environment).
Any country that wants to try to forgo America by keeping or increasing their import tariffs, have at it. They’ll be begging for access sooner than later.
Anyone who thinks Americans can’t make or get whatever they want/need without importing it from any other country, failed history 101.
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Canada was an open and free market for US goods and services. It was right up until Trump imposed tariffs on that country, violating the free trade agreement he himself had signed with Canada, originally created by Ronald Reagan.
When the United States is dishonest and capricious, it loses the trust of its partners around the world. The global economy will reshape itself around the United States — around the damaged node. And who would invest in the US economy, if it can all be upended with a single tweet from one man?
The whole world — every single market — will go on buying Chinese made mobile phones. The only question is will they be buying the ones with an Apple logo on them?
a megalomaniacal wannabe king is burning down American democracy and the American economy.
it’s amazing that the suckers he conned still support him.
but it’s not the first time a cult leader has persuaded his followers to drink kool-aid that kills them.
but here we are.
what a tragedy.
Let’s be honest here. In Canada, we don’t even have free trade between provinces!
Our Liberal government is the most destructive force we need to remove first.
Lol, canada has 100+% on “other” imports from the US. Canada has proven it isn’t and never was our friend. And canada is about to need the worlds largest supply of KY
President Donald J. Trump, 10:56am · Apr 7, 2025:
Drink the kool-aid!
Quick, everyone, drink the kool-aid!
Bill Ackman (Trump supporter):
By placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby launching a global economic war against the whole world at once, we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital.
The president has an opportunity to call a 90-day time out, negotiate and resolve unfair asymmetric tariff deals, and induce trillions of dollars of new investment in our country.
If, on the other hand, on April 9th we launch economic nuclear war on every country in the world, business investment will grind to a halt, consumers will close their wallets and pocket books, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate.
What CEO and what board of directors will be comfortable making large, long-term, economic commitments in our country in the middle of an economic nuclear war?
I don’t know of one who will do so.
When markets crash, new investment stops, consumers stop spending money, and businesses have no choice but to curtail investment and fire workers.
And it is not just the big companies that will suffer. Small and medium size businesses and entrepreneurs will experience much greater pain. Almost no business can pass through an overnight massive increase in costs to their customers. And that’s true even if they have no debt, and, unfortunately, there is a massive amount of leverage in the system.
Business is a confidence game. The president is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe. The consequences for our country and the millions of our citizens who have supported the president — in particular low-income consumers who are already under a huge amount of economic stress — are going to be severely negative. This is not what we voted for.
The President has an opportunity on Monday to call a time out and have the time to execute on fixing an unfair tariff system.
Alternatively, we are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down.
May cooler heads prevail.
Bill Ackman is a PANICAN.
Ball-less. A pussy. Spineless and weak.
President Trump will be added to Mt. Rushmore when all is said and done.
If he is added, what a waste of good granite.
No. Move outta the way lotus petal. It’s time to fight for American workers.
This has nothing to do with the interests of the American people. It’s shilling for transnational corporate interests. Millions of jobs were lost and thousands of factories closed in the US over the last 40 years, not one squeak in the corporate mass media about it. To hell with the globalists and the mountains of crap they’ve been selling us for two generations.
iPhones will cost $3000 now? Fine, I don’t need to buy one for the rest of the decade if ever again. AAPL shares dropping by 20-40%? It sucks because I have a lot of them but they’ll recover in a more sane economic system that doesn’t rape the American worker with stagnant wages and cheap garbage from Chinese slave factories.
The level of your stupidity is truly epic and impressive. Congratulations.
No doubt the tariff imbalance needed to be fixed with some countries, especially China, but they didn’t actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they simply took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country’s exports to us. So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. Bonkers stuff. And the whole idea of treating allies the same as China, yikes. As one website wrote, ““Imagine you want to buy a toy at a store which costs $50. You pay for the toy and walk away with it. The President looks at that transaction and says ‘wait, you paid the store $50 and the store paid you nothing, therefore the store is stealing from you. To “fix” this, I’m going to tax the store $25. From now on that same toy costs $75.”
Also, if the US had a trade surplus with a country, it didn’t matter, Trump still slapped a 10% tariff on them as well. (Hong Kong, Australia, Netherlands, UAE, Belgium, Brazil, UK, etc.)
Its over. Trump is going to win this one for the Gipper.
Done with the progressive garbage.
Let’s get some Facts straight:
Trump’s Tariffs are a TAX paid for by the American people.
This tax and the slashing of social services are necessary to fund tax cuts.
Which tax cuts? US$ 4.8 Trillion for the Super-Rich.
Paid for by the rest of the US.
In the meanwhile shares tank, and pension fonds are in trouble.
Problem with Trump’s ‘plan’? 80% of trade has nothing to do with the US. And while the US pays higher prices, the rest of the World will pay less, and are willing to make trade deals with each other.
In addition nearly every country has consumer-led boycotts against US products. Trump made the US so reviled that nobody wants to deal with them if they can avoid it. Just ask Tesla. Or Canada.
And the Trump supporters here stick the fingers in their ears and go LALALA – great and intelligent response, as usual …
Exactly. They will just trade with other countries besides ours, and meanwhile we will pay higher prices. It takes decades to build out manufacturing and some things can’t be made here as well as parts needed from multiple countries such as iPhones. It’s incredibly stupid that MacDailyNews thinks we can make it all here; you are not facing reality.
Nowhere has MacDailyNews ever written that we can make everything here.
You seems to forget; “we” are the World’s Reserve Currency. The vast majority of trade runs on the dollar. “80% of trade has nothing to do with the US.” So wrong it’s like a semi hitting a wall. When a country is the World’s Reserve Currency, it literally means/requires their medium of exchange fuels WW commerce. Every transaction? No, but the majority.
Ever thought of why when the dollar is high, certain countries panic? It “pinches” them…resulting in scrambling for dollars to pay off debt. Our inflation is felt World-wide.
“Tariffs primarily taxes”. Yes, they mess with in/out flows. You realize that all the nations we are dealing with are being requested–using your logic–to lower taxes…but some refuse? Why in the WORLD would anyone refuse to pay less taxes UNLESS there was some gain–specific, or overall? Am I saying tariffs are entirely positive? No…but it’s more complex that your simple preso.
The “super rich” comes into the convo to no surprise. They’re the easy villain/scapegoat. I’m not super rich and I have/will and want to benefit from tax cuts. You seem to forget, the problem IS NOT tax receipts…it’s out of control spending. No realistic count of tax receipts from the upper 1%, (or whatever bracket tickles you) is going to cover a soon-to-be $37 TRILLION dollar debt. Interest ALONE is over 1-TRILLION.
Dump the “tax-the-rich” irrationality and take your pick of realistic solutions:
1). austerity (yeah, it will mean cutting of your precious “social services” and much/much more. Americans couldn’t endure this option).
2). inflation (eggs $7? Pffft…try that with bread at 10/loaf, gas @ 12/gall, burger @ similar multiples. Riots would be likely per the term/levels to settle debt).
3). debt reset (everyone get’s f’d…esp those with assets as their value drops profoundly. The advantage = it’s quick…not a slow burn like above options. We’ve done it before)
No, as a Trump supporter, my fingers aren’t stuck in my ears and there’s no LALA sound anywhere close.
“Vietnam, one of the worst hit with a 46% tariff, offered to completely eliminate all duties — an approach swiftly rejected by Peter Navarro, a Trump adviser…”
It’s entirely unclear what Trump is actually looking for, besides appearing powerful.
Simple example which reveals how bizarre and absurd Trump’s tariff calculus is:
America buys $200 million worth of diamonds from Lesotho every year and Lesotho is too poor to afford American goods–so, what’s the issue? How is Lesotho ‘ripping us off?’
Answer–they aren’t.
And BTW, if you downvote comments, please voice your objections. I want to know I’m making a factual error or false reasoning.