Thursday morning’s Fox Business panelists, feeling apprehensive about President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs regime, admitted they’re holding out on “hope” that the blitz was a “negotiation bluff.”
The president declared “Liberation Day” on Wednesday, announcing a long list of what he described as “reciprocal tariffs” on countries around the world – on top of 10% on imported goods and 25% on foreign automobiles. The markets were startled by the newly announced regime and U.S. stock futures plummeted in after-hours trading.
On Mornings With Maria early Thursday, conservative host Maria Bartiromo and her guests sweated out the confirmed plans.
Strategic Wealth Partners CEO Mark Tepper kicked off the analysis by noting that the tariffs were “bigger” than he’d expected.
“I obviously expected the reciprocal tariffs, but I was not expecting the 10% baseline or universal tariff. My back of the envelope says $500 billion in tariff revenue,” he began.
He continued: “It seems like they’re more semi permanent or permanent than temporary. I was thinking it would be temporary and get other countries to drop the tariff rate and then will drop ours as well. It seems semi permanent or permanent.”
Bartiromo interjected, adding that the “staggered implementation dates” would allow a week of negotiation before the tariffs come into effect: “I like the idea that the tariffs are staggered. The implementation dates are staggered and the baseline goes into effect obviously today, but the
“I think everyone understands the national security reason to take an economic hit in order to decouple from China. The question is why are we needlessly ticking off Canada?” asked Washington Examiner journalist Tiana Lowe Doescher.
“My understanding with conversations with the White House, I hope we’re correct that this is about negotiation — that’s why there’s a staggered date,” Doescher said. “It did not instill confidence in me because the basis of their justification for the national emergency legally is manufacturing capacity. Even though real manufacturing output, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is up to 51% since NAFTA was passed.”
She continued: “But also the biggest issue in my estimation is how they estimated that reciprocal amount. It’s not based on what trade.gov, which is the Trump administration’s official website. They say Vietnam has an average effective tariff of 15%, but on the tariff sheet, it says 90[%]. Taiwan 6%, tariffs sheet 32%. Switzerland only has 1.7% average tariff rate on our exports, and yet Trump claims they tariff 61%.”
She added: “It’s because they use the crude algorithm of doing the trade deficit of a given country divided by the number of imports from the country – that’s not what a nontariff barrier should mean. It should mean environmental bans, carbon
Bartiromo then admitted that people were “unclear” as to how Trump arrived at the tariff figures but doubled down on her belief that the regime was a bluff to force negotiations.
“That’s the thing, people are unclear as far as how he arrived at some of these tariffs which also opens the door, in my view, to some negotiation,” she said. “But the national security is clear.”
Watch above via Fox Business.