Morning Note

The latest chapter of America’s wild tariff ride unfolded on Wednesday as the president paused the overwhelming majority of his import tax hikes. He said that “yippy” globalists and “queasy” skeptics helped fuel his decision.

“I thought people were jumping a little bit out of line, they were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid,” Trump said of the initial reaction to his “Liberation Day” plan. He now shifts his focus to negotiating trade deals “nobody would have dreamt possible” with the dozens of foreign nations seeking to avoid his wrath when the 90-day pause ends. 

One hostile country is exempt from this new policy: China. Rather than suspend its hike, Trump increased it to 125% due to a “lack of respect” from its leaders. The treasury secretary later said that Beijing’s sharp retaliatory efforts despite Washington’s demand that it make no such move exposed the Chinese as the real “bad actors” in this story.

The stock market skyrocketed after Trump’s announcement, highlighted by a nearly eight-point jump in the Dow.

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