By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
I think the president has two primary objectives. So the first is about leveling the playing field, and I heard him talk about this multiple times during Trump 1.0, which is that it’s not fair that other countries maintain higher tariffs, higher non-tariff barriers than the United States does. And so these tariffs that he’s announcing today are an effort to really level the playing field, and they also give trading partners an opportunity to lower their barriers to meet the US, and that the US would also lower theirs on a reciprocal basis. Um, but the other objective is to really address this long-standing and persistent trade deficit, this trillion dollar trade deficit that is eating away at US GDP growth. And I think the president’s view is that if he puts tariffs in place, that will help overall balance the trading relationship. But of course, we don’t know what the final measure is going to be. Uh, the White House has floated anything from 10 to 20%, and even as high as 25% from former Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, yesterday. So we’ll have to wait and see what ultimately the president decides to do.
02:07 Speaker B
Kellyanne, as somebody who was inside of these negotiations, I mean, what what is this process, right? This is why is it taken why does it take place in such a sort of open and public fashion, which seems to be much more disruptive for markets, for business decision-making, as someone who’s been inside it, like why not just make the decision and do it? You know, what what insight can you give us into that?
03:27 Speaker A
Yeah, and I’ve gotten this question a lot from various clients as well. And what I would say is I would have been more surprised if the president had arrived at a final decision last week. And that is because the president takes all of these decisions all the way up to the line and to the last minute when it comes to tariffs. And this will be the single largest tariff announcement in modern history. So it is not surprising to me that he is holding his powder until the very last moment. And part of the president’s negotiating strategy is this intentional ambiguity. It is to leave trading partners guessing, to leave everyone uncertain as to what he’s going to do, and when he does make that big announcement, it really will kick off this massive negotiation where other countries will have the opportunity to come to the table and see if they can negotiate down reciprocally. Now, I know that that negotiating strategy is effective when dealing with other trading partners, but it does give a lot of anxiety to businesses and to the markets who are trying to figure out what’s going on. And what I would say there is that businesses in the markets aren’t really the audience for this right now. I think some of those assurances and discussions and briefings will come after today’s announcement, but right now his messaging is to the American people, and it’s to trading partners.