00:00 Speaker A
President Trump’s fast moving tariff policy continuing to puzzle investors. Here with the latest Yahoo Finances Washington correspondent, Ben Werschkull. The latest, I believe, that we heard from the president was this morning when he talked about firing back at China, um, in terms of potentially increasing the tariffs even more on that country.
00:19 Ben Werschkull
For sure. Yeah, Julie. So this, this came in a post from Trump at 11:14 a.m., um, after this spike that you and Jared already talked about in the 10:00 a.m. hour that also sort of emanated from the White House. And, and the White House pushing back on that, but his, his threat at 11 a.m. was against China. And what he announced is that he will do in addition to what are 54% duties on China set to go into effect this week, he would do an additional 50% in response to China’s retaliation. That would put duties at sort of, at such a level as to essentially sort of make trade impossible. We’ll see if he’s following through with that in the coming days, but it would, it would, it would set levels at an incredible rate. Um, he’s, he’s given China until tomorrow to, to back off their duties, in which point he says he’ll go forward. Um, a lot of other, a lot of other kind of fronts here on trade today at, uh, here in Washington. The Israeli prime minister is in with the president this afternoon. They arrived early this afternoon and they’re talking. It’s unclear what sort of comments we’re going to get from there, but, but Netanyahu said he was coming to Washington specifically to talk about a few issues, but trade being one of them. Israel, um, which considers one of, of America’s closest partners, is on this list of reciprocal tariffs, so it’s set to get new duties this week as well. Um, and so Netanyahu was there to talk about that and a few other issues. Um, a lot, a lot of other fronts here, um, it’s as well on Capitol Hill and I know you want to talk about, Julie.
02:45 Speaker A
Yeah, let’s do talk about that. And by the way, we’re waiting to see if there are any headlines coming out of the discussion between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Reporters will be asking them questions, so we’ll be monitoring that. But in the meantime, Congress has been trying to mount an effort to at least delay or forestall these tariffs in some way. There’s a bill that’s been gaining some Republican support and the White House now has a response to that.
03:30 Ben Werschkull
Yeah. So this, the bill here is called the Trade Review Act. And this is a bill that would give Congress, basically take Congress back some of its authority on tariffs, basically allow Congress to review a tariff and then if they don’t respond in 60 days, the tariff disappears. So, so Congress could essentially veto tariffs. It has shown significant support. There’s seven Republican senators who have expressed their support for it. That’s not enough to get to the 60 vote threshold and with Trump announcing this afternoon, he’s looking at a veto that would be, that would require 67. So it’s got an uphill climb, first in the Senate, then in the House where Speaker Johnson this afternoon talked about how he is very unlikely to ever bring this to the floor. But it is, it is a sort of show of how these, especially these plain state Republicans, these are folks from like Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, who are behind this bill. This is the area that they’re feeling the pinch most directly and they’re, and they’re willing to push back to the president on it too. So it’s, it’s, it’s one of the things that’s going to be considered this week. Trump’s trade representative is also going to be on the Hill this week, so he’s expected to get an earful as well.
05:02 Speaker A
Yeah. And this coming of course after a weekend of mass protests on the streets. So obviously these folks are hearing from their constituents, Ben. Thank you so much. Yes. Thank you so much.
05:16 Ben Werschkull
Yeah, a lot of calls for certain.