CNN’s panel reacted to President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” speech in which he announced sweeping global tariffs on U.S. allies and foes alike, with Phil Mattingly commenting that the numbers where higher than expected.
Anchor Kasie Hunt cut away front he speech noting, “President Trump announcing sweeping tariffs on countries across the globe. He’s just wrapping up right there.”
“We are closely watching what has been happening with the markets. They, of course, are closed. They were closed right before he began speaking here. We’re now looking at the futures, the Dow down nearly 1 percent, the S&P 500 down nearly 2 percent, and the Nasdaq more than 2.5 percent down. And again, these are the futures. Let’s bring in Jeff Zeleny, who’s been at the White House reporting on this. Jeff, there’s been a lot of anticipation from the business community. What did we hear today from the president? What does it mean?” Kasie said, bringing in Zeleny.
“Kasie, the top lines of this are the president declared a national economic emergency. And that allows him to really launch what many see as a escalating trade war by announcing a baseline 10 percent of tariffs of any country around the world that the U.S. does business with, however, significantly higher tariffs on countries that he described as bad actors, if you will,” Zelenly reported, adding:
Of course, that is the trade imbalance he is talking about there. Now, this is a historic move. There is no doubt about that. We have to look back to pre-World War II to think about this global trade alliance here. But this is the bottom line, this trade imbalance, China, 34%. The question, does that begin inflation, renewed inflation? Economists fear it might.
“Phil Mattingly, you have covered economics, our economy, for years here in Washington. Is this for American business, worst case scenario? How would you frame it?” asked Hunt.
“No, but I think perspective is important here. It is not as bad as it could have been had he done a 20 percent universal tariff on everybody. It is significantly more than I think a lot of people thought he was going to do based on their experience in the first term,” Mattingly replied, adding:
And they would key on words on him saying we’re going to be lenient or maybe we’re not going to go far. And his advisers would say 15 different things on various days. To be very clear, we have not seen anything like this in six or seven decades, perhaps longer. This is a moment where the restructuring of the global trade order is underway. We’ll see what happens.
Dana Bash then added, “And it is banking on something that is very unknown, which is the idea that the manufacturing that he hopes will come back, actually will– across the United States. This is a very different time than the last time manufacturing was booming in the United States of America. I mean, everybody in America wants Americans to have jobs and to have jobs that they enjoy and that they find respected and respectful, and we just don’t know the answer to that. And one other thing I will say is that one of the big problems up until now has been the uncertainty. He’s doing the tariff? He’s not doing the Tariff? What’s the tariff going to be? Now, at least, we have certainty.”
Watch the clip above via CNN.
