In Hilarious Move, Trump Reverses Key Policy
Last Updated on: 10th April 2025, 05:55 pm
Donald Trump has been talking about the US putting tariffs on allies for decades, since at least the 1980s. He’s been obsessed with this topic in recent years, but it’s been a top political target for him for about half of his life. He jacked up tariffs on some countries and products in his first term, but he was largely held at bay by a variety of economic advisors. This time around, he kept his “tariff whisperer” Peter Navarro (and Navarro’s top expert source backing up his claims — himself, under the alias Ron Vara) close by his side. That should have been enough of a warning, but many people believed the tariff talk was a bunch of bluffing.
About a month ago, though, Trump tried to step forward with some big, sweeping tariffs. The markets and corporations freaked out, so he mostly postponed them. This past week, however, he finally made the big move. He slapped huge tariffs on countries around the world, and even on uninhabited islands in order to make sure no animals shipped goods here tariff-free. Boom — he did what he’d been proposing for approximately 40 years. The stock market, predictably, crashed.
In fact, the stock market had its worst start to a presidential term in modern history. It was the worst week for stocks, including the worst day for stocks, since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
“‘You want to see a market crash? If we lost this election, I think the market would go down the tubes,’ Trump said at a Pennsylvania rally in late October,” CNN writes, reminding us ironically of some of Trump’s campaign talk.
“Weeks earlier, Trump confidently predicted that if he lost, ‘the result will be a Kamala economic crash, a 1929-style depression.’
“Trump won the election, but he may have been right about a crash occurring after the election.
“Trump and his tariffs have taken a bull stock market and are on the precipice of turning it into a bear faster than any president has overseen in modern history.”
Brilliant.
Apparently, though, the stock market crash (and, maybe even more so, threats to the bond market) got to be too much for Trump. I’m sure numerous business leaders — and just normal rich people — in his circles tried talking to him in order to get the tariffs reversed as well. Did they finally break through the orange crust on his forehead and insert some common sense into his brain? Maybe, as the current president of the United States mostly reversed (or “paused”) his tariff decision. On most countries, tariffs were off again. There’s a 90-day pause on the tariffs imposed on all but one country. After that, well, we’ll have to see what happens. In the meantime, there’s “just” the 10% “universal tariff” on goods coming into the US from most of the world.
By the way, demonstrating the brilliance, foresight, and due diligence of Donald Trump and his administration, this is what Trump had to say about the new announcement pausing most tariffs:
“We didn’t have access to lawyers or – it was just wrote up. We wrote it up from our hearts, right? It was written from the heart, and I think it was well written too, but it was written from the heart.” He also said that they may exempt some Us companies from tariffs, and such decisions would be made “instinctively.” Ah, yes, always the best and fairest way to conduct US economic policy. By his side in writing up that announcement mentioned above were Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Lutnick is, of course, the member of the Cabinet who was recently saying on Fox News that it would be silly for anyone to not buy a $30,000 home robot from Tesla.
Tariffs remain on China, however. “In fact, Trump said they will be increased to 125% from 104% after China announced additional retaliatory tariffs against the United States earlier Wednesday,” CNN writes. Note that many other countries had imposed retaliatory tariffs on the US this week. That doesn’t matter, though, since it doesn’t fit into Trump’s anti-China narrative.
“Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately,” Trump said in his social media post. “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” he wrote.
Maybe one day we will have a president who knows and follows basic capitalization rules. For now, though, we’ve got Donald Trump, and he’s maintaining his economic war on China while pausing his economic war on the rest of the world, but most notably on American citizens.
What does all of this mean for cleantech, in particular? Well, there’s a lot to figure out in that regard. For sure, solar panels, electric vehicles, electric vehicle batteries, and stationary energy storage products not coming from China will not have jacked up prices that crush sales. The issue is that a large portion of these products are produced — at least in part — in China. But the situation is much more tenable and easier to manage than it would have been if Trump had held his ground on his extremely destructive tariff policies. We’ll have to wait to see what happens in 90 days.
Also, though, it seems this week’s activities could lead to lower European Union tariffs on China-produced EVs. “China appears to be approaching other countries in an apparent attempt to shore up trading agreements away from the US,” The Guardian reports. “China’s commerce minister, Wang Wentao, has said in talks with his Malaysian counterpart that they are willing to work with Asean trading partners to strengthen coordination.
“He also spoke to the EU trade and security commissioner on Tuesday, saying China was willing to deepen trade, investment and industrial cooperation, and that China and the EU would immediately restart negotiations on electric vehicles.” (Emphasis added.)
So, all of this could be good news for Europeans who want to buy certain electric vehicles produced in China but don’t want to spend the extra money required by the big tariffs that were recently slapped on such EVs. I imagine these negotiations will take a few months, though, and that’s presuming they go well and lead to reduced tariffs on Chinese EVs. We’ll be sure to keep you posted. Overall, though, this looks like another case of aggressive, unfriendly, isolationist actions from the United States under Donald Trump pushing the world together more in unison against, or at least not in alignment with, the USA.
Related reading:
- Trump Has a Screw Loose About Tariffs
- Trump’s tariff pause focuses trade war on China, markets bounce
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent denies bond market panic pushed Trump into backing down on tariffs
- Inside Trump’s tariff retreat: How fears of a bond market catastrophe convinced Trump to hit the pause button
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