‘Trump Was Forced to Back Off’: Fox Business Reporter Drops Blunt Analysis of Trump Trade Cave

While many on the right are taking bows after the U.S. agreed to a truce on trade talks with China, a prominent Fox Business reporter threw cold water on the idea that President Donald Trump has anything to celebrate.

In a series of posts to X early Monday, Fox Business Senior Correspondent Charles Gasparino delivered a blunt analysis of the drastic temporary tariff reduction by the U.S. and China and the 90-day pause before any further escalation.

“Both sides blinked,” Gasparino wrote. He quickly followed up by adding, “I didn’t say we won.”

In a subsequent post, Gasparino went further.

“Trump raised tariffs on the world, the markets, particularly the bond market — which we need to finance our debt–rebelled,” Gasparino wrote. “Trump then was forced to back off. End of story. Film at 11 of the president spinning this as a major victory. Ok sorry, I couldn’t help myself. But what we have seen is a little lesson on how markets exert their power, how when you have to depend on them as we still do (and remember it’s really the budget deficit thats causing the trade deficit and we need the budget deficit to maintain our standard of living) you can’t go to trade war with the world without bad stuff happening.”

Several weeks ago, Gasparino argued that Trump didn’t have great leverage in the talks with China and argued the consequence of a prolonged trade war would be dire.

“We have a weak negotiating hand here,” Gasparino said on April 24. “I know the president keeps saying we don’t. We’re almost in a recession. We have markets that are on edge. We need people to buy our debt, and China supplies us with a lot of cheap goods. We could see inflation ratchet up dramatically if we don’t get a deal with them. And Xi [Jinping] knows this.”

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