Trump's greatest victory is not a trade agreement – his distortion of reality

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The chasing of the trade war in 2025 feels a bit as if you are repeatedly slapped into your stomach.

We suddenly have a 90-day relaxation in a crisis produced: the United States has reduced its 145% tariffs in most Chinese imports to 30%, and China has reduced its 125% tariffs to 10%.

In the distorted reality of Trump 2.0, this somewhat easier blow in the intestine is a relief.

(For the “Arrested Development” fans out there: Remember when Gob Buster keeps striking as a motivation tactic and says: “If you do this without being beaten, you will have more fun?” This is more or less how companies feel.)

The markets climbed into the China News on Monday and made all losses that had stacked on April 2 after the President's tariff rollout.

But let us be clear: the Wall Street does not cheer because 30% tariffs are so Great News – they cheer because it looks like President Donald Trump didn't have the stomach for his own radical economic policy.

Among other circumstances, the markets of over 30% tariffs for the third largest trading partner in America have panicked with 10% universal tariffs and 25% sector-specific tariffs. But after weeks of tariff turbulence, Trump has already pushed the financial markets to the edge, which leads to a real expectation of economic pain.

When investors popped champagne on Monday because they do not believe that we are out of the forest, but because the chances of a recession of probably more have become a coin flip.

Despite the latest relaxation, consumer prices are expected to increase by almost 2% due to the existing tariffs – according to an analysis of the Yale budget laboratory. The loss of work is expected to reach an additional 456,000 by the end of the year and the unemployment rate will increase by an additional point of 0.4 percent by the end of 2025, the report says.

Economic growth in the United States is still slowing down, said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist of the nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, in a note on Monday. She added that “some damping effects have already been given on the activity, and dog-related efforts to reduce government size will also weigh up and activity during this year.”

The greater withdrawal of the Trump government in Chinese tariffs underlines the main complaint of the companies, namely that Trump's goals and priorities seem to shift for hours.

“What are the chances that we will have 90 days of peace ahead of us?” The economist Justin Wolfers told my colleague Matt Egan on Monday. “Today we have good news, but what was really good news is if someone just took away the button.”

It is not surprising that the White House has advertised the breakthrough in China over the weekend as a further Trump victory after a “Landmark trade agreement” with the United Kingdom last week (which, as I wrote back then, was actually not a business to work on a deal that ultimately only affects a sliver by the American Global Trade Pastes).

Yes, a tax of 30% is certainly more manageable than 145%. This waste of 115 percentage points could be the difference between a total melting of the supply chain and a mere slowing down the trade between the two largest economies in the world.

But the agreement with China is only a “profit” if you are crooked by a Maga lens. Trump set fire to the house and then on fire Get a single bucket of water. Maybe it's a beginning. But part of the damage is not reversed and he still plays with games.