Look at that face. That's what skin looks like. Anyway, this morning, Donald Trump accused China of violating their recently negotiated trade agreement, which we have. I guess they have a real deal, even though Scott Bessent has said [00:00:15] that it's basically gone nowhere. I guess there's something if they're already violating it. So what is Trump actually accusing China of doing and are they actually doing it? Let's see if we can sort it out, starting with us. Trade Representative Jamison Grier explaining the allegations [00:00:31] on CNBC earlier today. When the United States imposed reciprocal tariffs on the world. Right. This wasn't China specific. There were other countries that had higher tariff rates than China assigned to them. China was the only country to retaliate. Remember that. And so the president was forced to retaliate to maintain [00:00:48] the effectiveness of the tariff. Now, when the Chinese. Yeah, let me get to that. When the Chinese retaliated, it wasn't just with the tariff they put in place countermeasures where they put certain U.S. Companies on blacklists, they restricted the flow of rare earth magnets to us and other countries in the world. [00:01:04] And so when they agreed in Geneva to remove their tariff and their countermeasures, they removed the tariff like we did. But some of the countermeasures they've slowed on. If you read the news, you can you can see that Europe, Japan, the United States, elsewhere, we haven't seen the flow of some of those critical minerals [00:01:20] as they were supposed to be doing. Okay, so that's sort of an explanation. Heavy dose of propaganda too. I mean, our tariffs are reciprocal. Even if we're not reciprocating for tariffs against us. We're ours are reciprocal. They're retaliating with tariffs and then we're forced to retaliate. [00:01:39] We are always good and moral. We deserve a big hug. I think as a country they're bad people though. They're villains. So anyway, look, some of that is true. I guess they did ice out certain industries. We've also done that exact same thing. That's kind of how trade works, even insane times. [00:01:55] We're not in those, but we can still sort of remembering them. China, by the way, says as an example of that, that we've paused sales of Of semiconductors and chip technologies to China. You know, the flow of things like that guy was saying, it's not minerals, it's semiconductors. But those are important too. [00:02:12] And so in that area earlier this week, chip software makers including Synopsis and Cadence Design Systems, said they had received letters from the US Commerce Department telling them to stop selling to China or to reciprocally not sell. [00:02:28] Our hand was on my arm. You're twisting it so we're bad. But if they do it, it's much worse. And so that's, representative explaining it. Let's let's go to the president. He's a genius, obviously, and a very, very honest and direct man. He says two weeks ago, China was in grave economic danger. [00:02:46] The very high capital T tariffs I set made it virtually impossible for China to trade into the United States marketplace, which is by far number one in the capital W world. We went, in effect, cold turkey with China, and it was devastating for them. Many factories closed and there was, to put it mildly, civil unrest. [00:03:04] I saw what was happening and didn't like it for them, not for us. There was nothing bad here. He's not spooked. He's not a chicken. Shut up about tacos. He's not scared at all. They're falling apart. Their economy, military, society, everything. I made a fast deal with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to [00:03:23] be a very bad situation, and I didn't want to see that happen because of this deal. Everything quickly stabilized, and China got back to business as usual. Everybody was happy. That is the good news. You all knew about that. How everything had gotten back to normal and you didn't have to feel like sick [00:03:39] to your stomach all the time. About every bit of news coming out and your retirement account wasn't totally effed. Do you remember that? How everything was good. Anyway, he says, the bad news is that China, perhaps not surprising to some, has totally violated its agreement with us. Or us, I don't know. So much for being Mr. Nice Guy. [00:03:58] We have to come up with a new nickname for him now. I'm just so used to calling him Mr. Nice Guy. Anyway, I didn't even think they had a deal. Scott percent this morning said negotiations have gone nowhere with them. But I guess we had a deal. [00:04:13] I know that he lowered the tariffs from 145% down to like 35% a while back. I guess that's the deal. And they sort of did the same. I don't know. Michael, what do you think? Well, I mean, I think that this is how he's playing us and playing these other countries because it is a mission without a real plan. [00:04:32] It is coming in and doing this. We're going to penalize everybody. We're going to be with everybody. And that's not just on countries with tariffs. That's with people who did me wrong in other places. That's for people who, you know, went after me or my administration personally. [00:04:49] So this is all retribution. This is going after and making a blanket sort of, agenda item out of out of tariffs. But then this stuff happens, and he thinks it's all about, oh, I was trying to help this other country. They've never been happier in China. [00:05:05] Right. I mean, we know that's not the case. And we know that. That while Donald Trump thinks he's driving the train on tariffs and the world economy and the global economy, they're looking elsewhere. They're not engaging with America. And that's what has American businesses, small, small American business owners, [00:05:23] small and otherwise really upset with these tariffs because the up and down nature. And you'll get to what what happened in the stock market. But the up and down nature of this is very, very difficult on people trying to run a business. Yeah, yeah. It was to be honest with you guys, I don't know if you guys saw the clip where this [00:05:44] lady reporter in the white House press pool said that the guys on Wall Street, that some of her sources on Wall Street refer to Trump as taco, meaning Trump always chickens out in reference to the tariffs. And he got really pissed. Said that was a nasty question. [00:06:01] Was like, oh, I've never heard that before. Trump doesn't always chicken out. And he came up with all of this crap and I'm like almost 100% sure he did this because of that? Yeah, because that lady said to him that people were laughing at him on Wall Street and saying that he always chickens out. [00:06:17] Yeah, it's nasty of you to even bring it up. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And he and he said to her, don't ever say that. Like he was so affected and he, he definitely hadn't heard about it before. This was him in real time learning about it. He wasn't already stewing in it. And of course it was a female reporter too. [00:06:33] - Oh, which so which. - Makes it even nastier. Nasty. Nasty. Nastier. I'm not sure which reporter. He didn't say low IQ, so she might have been a white lady reporter. I'm not sure. Right. But anyway. Yeah, like, he's just so emotional. The way he responds to things and he's freaking out because now they're laughing [00:06:51] at him on Wall Street, and I just. I want to reassure Trump. Yes, it sucks that they're laughing at you now about the taco thing, but I want to make clear, lots of people have been laughing at you for a really long time. If you're not used to it by now, you're never going to be used to it, buddy. You got to. You got to grow up. You've only got a few years left. So anyway, he's lashing out. He's trying to. [00:07:09] I guess he's trying to look strong, implying that he's trying to help them. So, like I'm trying to understand as a regular person, I'm not a business expert or whatever. So he put these massive tariffs like 145%. Trade was basically gone. We're not going to buy from them. [00:07:24] They're not going to buy from us, which hurts their industries, hurts our industries. And and he does this because he has never and will never understand what a trade deficit actually represents. He thinks that rather than it being sort of a one way to look at trade between two parties, he thinks if it's negative, that's robbery, [00:07:44] which that doesn't always make sense. Like, you know, me and my local bakery have a negative trade deficit. They never buy anything from me. But I'm not getting ripped off. I'm getting heavier, but I'm not getting ripped off. And so he just doesn't understand that. So in his mind, if he grinds trade in both directions to a halt, it's zero and zero. [00:08:05] No negative trade deficit. That's a good thing. Not at all. That's not a good thing at all. And he now implies that things are better than they were when it was 145, but I'm less concerned with that and more concerned with, well, what about compared to six months ago? [00:08:21] Because the tariffs are still way, way higher. And so sure, the trade may not be nonexistent, but prices are going to be higher for consumers for a wide array of different products that we buy. And our companies are going to sell less to them. [00:08:36] And we both have added non-tariff barriers to trade as well. And so everybody on both sides is still worse off than they were. And I guess the only thing he seems to care about, the only thing riding on all this that he cares about, is his perception of national strength and some sort of abstract, ill informed way. [00:08:54] And so I don't see how this is to the benefit of the American people. And very briefly, when he posted this, the stock market dipped. Now that's happened a lot. I don't know why everyone freaks out because it went back up again. It's gone down. It's gone back up. [00:09:10] Things are generally still worse than they were at the beginning of this year, but things vacillate or whatever. And so to that end, he, he wants to focus on good news. And so I think we have a short clip from the press briefing that he did with Elon Musk for some reason. Take a look. [00:09:25] I think what I'll do, if you don't mind, numbers have just come out, which are rather extraordinary. And I thought I'd play a tape of one of the people who I've respected over the years from, you know, Joe Kiernan and Rick Santelli. This just came out, and we'll just play that for a second. [00:09:43] Personal income is up 8/10 of 8/10 of a percent. That is almost triple the expectations. I will tell you the income the income numbers really for the first four months of the year. They're stellar. They're really stellar. [00:09:59] I've been watching these numbers a long time. I don't think I've ever seen the trade deficit cut in half in one month. Not bad. Right? Not bad. Come on. Guy. [00:10:15] He played more than a minute long clip during a press briefing of one guy on the news who likes what's happening. Notice all the charts were like big dip, slight raise, which doesn't sound great. You're telling people that they're better off in terms of their income, [00:10:31] which is a risky political strategy when they don't feel better off and when prices are higher. And. And again, the the only reason he showed it was at the end. We've cut the trade deficit in half. There's no trade. There's no trade. This isn't good. Like if you're an American business that used to sell things abroad [00:10:47] and you can't now, how much better do you feel that the trade deficit is a little bit more neutral? Of course not. And personal income up. You know, the Biden jobs numbers are coming home finally, right. I'm not saying that, but but you can you can cherry pick which is what presidents [00:11:03] of every party and every stripe have done. But this is bizarre cherry picking because it is one person's take on it, right? I mean, these are some hard numbers. And there are some numbers that are curious within these numbers, [00:11:20] but the cherry picking and playing it and then also going after NBC all day long and then coming on and say, oh, here's one person at NBC who I like because they're saying something I like. It's it's no way to run a country. - What do you make of it? - Yeah. It just feels like he's at a loss right now because he thought this tariff regime [00:11:40] was going to, quote unquote, bring China to its knees. And, you know, they come begging back to the negotiation table. And it's been the opposite because China and yeah, it has its drawbacks. The regime is pretty repressive. It's pretty authoritarian. [00:11:56] However, one of the positives of the way they operate is they can make decisions unilaterally, and they're not going to have a business community trashing them in the Chinese press. They're not going to have. A great point. Yeah. [00:12:12] All these different, you know, entities going against what they want to do when America is so clearly attacking them. And then you add to the fact they get the gift that they get to tell to their people. Like these people are trying to bury us. [00:12:28] They're trying to bury the great Chinese people. This is what we're going to do to make sure that we're fine in the long run. Like he doesn't realize who he's fooling with. Man, these people are playing chess and Donald Trump is clearly playing like pinnacle or something. [00:12:44] Yeah, it's ignorance sucks, man. It ruins everything when you don't understand the trade deficit, when you don't understand how tariffs work, either don't understand who pays for them, or willfully deceive people about who pays for them. Like, yeah, how can you be surprised when the economic returns aren't good? [00:13:01] And and by the way, pinnacle, a slightly complicated game. I just want to I just want to put that in there so it's not you know, it's not a whole lot more complicated than or less complicated than chess. I can't I can't speak to pinnacle. I interrupted you, but I. Put it in the terms of board games, [00:13:18] and I can come up with some comparisons. But but anyway. And also I suspect like he liked the reference that Santelli made, I think it was Santelli to the trade deficit. But also Santelli was like was he on the stock exchange floor? Like all that stuff was going on behind him. [00:13:34] - And I think that's their set. - That's their set. Okay. Because it seemed to me like is he just playing it because this is like a guy on Wall Street who's not actively laughing at him as a chicken right now? No, these are people. I mean, Joe Kernen and Joe Kernen and and Rick Santelli are people that have that. [00:13:50] He's gone to Maria Bartiromo on Fox. There there are people that he goes to because they'll give the numbers that he wants to hear. And now of course, they'll keep doing it because they get played in the Oval Office and name checked. So that's an important thing to these people. Yeah. [00:14:05] And we'll see if it's important to a lot of Americans. I would say to our audience, if you're lucky enough to have a retirement account, give it a check, because he's really excited today. We'll see if regular people are. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.