“It’s really not at all clear what it is we should do”
– Fed Chair Jay Powell explaining at a news conference this week why the Federal Reserve Board decided to keep interest rates steady (instead of cutting them)
We are 30 days into the 90 day-hold that was announced by Trump for the (ridiculous) reciprocal tariffs on April 9. Now he ‘might’ lower the rate from 145% to 80%.
And what were the tariffs before all of this insanity?
Average US tariffs on Chinese exports now stand at 124.1 percent. These tariffs are more than 40 times higher than before the US-China tariff war began in 2018 and are already 6 times higher than the average US tariff on China of 20.8 percent when the second Trump administration began on January 20, 2025.
[Source: Peterson Institute for International Economics]
