Dr Matt Will: Trump Is His Own Worst Enemy
The tariffs are on, the tariffs are off. The tariffs are about reciprocity, but they’re not. There’s a pause on the tariffs, actually there’s not a pause. The stock market is up, but it just went down. Trump Is His Own Worst Enemy. Despite getting good news about inflation, the news coverage is being sucked up reporting about the trade war. Economist Matt Will joins Tony Katz Today to discuss just how Trump is his own worst enemy.
Tony Katz:
So yes, everything got rocked when President Trump announced that indeed we would be pausing the tariffs, these all-important tariffs, the tariffs that we’re going to set America straight, the tariffs that we’re going to save America. Was finally we would have good trade deals. Finally, we would have reciprocity. Finally other nations would respect us as opposed to taking advantage of us. I am not opposed to good trade deals. I am opposed to bad trade negotiations. And yes, I oppose the tariffs because the tariffs weren’t based on reciprocity. Which one? At least accept it. One was based on trade deficits and that seemed nutty. The whole presentation seemed nutty. And then he puts a pause on because all these countries want to make a deal. But China, well, we still have. The deal with China I was going to share with you yesterday, just as this broke an interview I did with Doctor Matt Will, economist at the University of Indianapolis, discussing what China’s moves may have been, what was it they were thinking, including the idea of dumping bonds. And that brought up the bond market. Again, of course, the idea of China being different than the rest of the world and especially it doesn’t matter that you say a trade deal is going to happen. What matters most is the actual deal. And I was thrilled, if you will, overjoyed. But to be seeing that Ainsley Earhart over there at Fox News, in an interview with Kevin Hassett, who is the head of the economic advisors, basically asked this same question. What about the deals?
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsNational Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett joins @foxandfriends to discuss President Donald Trump’s tariff push despite a call from hedge fund billionaire @BillAckman to pause tariffs in order to resolve ‘unfair asymmetric’ deals. pic.twitter.com/jfdHohZSKl
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 7, 2025
What we want to see, deals we want to see win after win after win. We want to see countries coming into the White House signing deals. When will that happen? That’s the right question because it doesn’t matter that you say a deal is coming. What matters is the deal comes. What’s in the deal? What does it say? What do we really get? That’s the only thing that matters, not the words, but the deeds. Dr. Matt Will joins me right now, economist at the University of Indianapolis…. First, let’s talk about the move. Did you like it or not?
Dr Matt Will:
Tony, I don’t like it. Anymore and the market doesn’t like it anymore because as we dig into this, we see it’s not really a pause, it was a poorly executed pause because we still have 25% tariffs on steel, 25% on aluminum, 25% on auto parts, 25% on imports from Japan and the auto industry, we still have 25 plus percent. On non-USMCA compliant goods. And then we have 10 across the board. It’s not the pause, it’s just not a nuclear bomb. It’s just smaller it’s the, what they call it the Moab, the mother of all bombs. That’s what it is. It’s still bad… I’m still going to use the phrase that Trump is his own worst enemy. There is incredibly good news coming out from inflation, yet the tariff news is overshadowing and is going to destroy it.
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