Disappeared in 40 days: how Trump's “liberation day” tariff attack dissolved | Trump -Zölle

DOn April 2, Onald Trump welcomed a new chapter in the US economic history, which was referred to by his administration as a “liberation day” when he announced plans for an extraordinary flood of US tariffs for the world. The chapter lasted 40 days.

The page has already been turned over. The effects of these six chaotic weeks, from higher prices to slowing down growth, are still developing – and the US President already threatens further adjustments. The story continues.

In his first term in office, Trump had been released by his aggressive instincts over the trade, and was persuaded in the first few months of his second period to return to several collective bargaining threats. But at the beginning of April he was determined to plow up.

“April 2, 2025 will be remembered forever when the American industry was born, the day on which America's fate was reclaimed, and on the day we made America wealthy again,” said Trump at an event in the rose garden of the White House in front of an audience of his best officials and supporters.

The measures were blunt and serious: a ceiling tariff of 10% for all imported goods and higher individual interest rates of up to 50% on dozens of markets – which economically allied and rivals equally treated – as the USA for trade.

“Be cool '

First came the questions. How exactly did the Trump administration come up with such a series of specific duties to force goods from so many countries and areas? And why was a group of sterile, unglated islands near the Antarctic?

Then the panic came. The global stock markets recharge their batteries, whereby Wall Street had its steepest falls since the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic five years ago, since the president repeatedly insisted that he was serious this time.

Trump's officials were sent to keep the line. “Today's announcement is the most important measure on global trade policy that has taken place in our lifetime,” said Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff for politics. “We just have to wait and see” what happens, the finance minister Scott Bessent said to Bloomberg. One thing is certain that the Minister of Commerce Howard Lutnick told CNN: “The president will not withdraw.”

The 10% of the base tariffs came into force on the fifth day of the new chapter. The higher individual rates followed on the seventh day. Beijing swore to return. Business leaders, including some who supported Trump's run for the White House, asked him to rethink.

A sale in treasury bonds, which was usually regarded as a safe haven in times of economic volatility. “Be cool! Everything will work well,” wrote Trump about the social of truth and added a few minutes later: “This is a great time to buy !!! DJT”

This advice seemed to be foresight four hours later. Seven days after the new chapter, Trump, with his individual tariffs, terminated a break of 90 days for every 13 hours. The universal obligation for all US imports from almost all countries to 10% reduced and the markets rose higher.

Almost all countries, that is, except China. Beijing's promise to repel the President who blamed his “lack of respect” when he announced a new US tariff of 125% (actually after the involvement of other tasks) for Chinese goods. It returned to benefits in kind.

Get yippy

The same officials who had been sent to defend Trump's original plan were sent out again to explain his last climb.

“You have observed the largest economic championship strategy of an American president in history,” Miller claimed on X.

“Many of them in the media clearly missed the art of the deal,” scolded the press spokesman Karoline Leavitt Reporter and referred to the bestseller of the 1987 President, in which the real estate tycoon presented itself as a completed dealmaker.

While his adjutants claimed that more than 75 countries were in contact after his first tariff announcement, the president himself tried to present the reversal as part of a carefully orchestrated negotiation strategy. When asked what it had triggered, Trump reporters said that people had become “a little Yippy” about his plan.

But some of the largest companies in the United States still felt pretty Yippy. Apple is dependent on factories in China, for example, to expand the iPhone, which is responsible for almost half of its business.

Late on the 10th day, away from the loud press Gaggles and all-caps social media posts, US customs and border protection have published a list of products that would be freed from the Chinese tariffs-inlook smartphones, computers and semiconductor chips.

While the government had declined a large part of Trump's initial plan, the concern was concerned about what remained. Trump claimed that high tariffs were the way forward, but the fears of widespread bottlenecks and dramatic price increases were great. Surveys made it clear that consumers were increasingly concerned.

On the 28th day, at the end of a cabinet meeting, the president tried to suppress the risks of his attack on China. “Well, maybe the children have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know,” he said. “And maybe the two dolls cost a few dollars more than normally.”

Game of guilt

In the morning, the gloomy economic figures for the first quarter had underlined how – when the last chapter ended – the mere threat of Trump's economic attack seemed to grow growth. The US gross domestic product (GDP) shrank for the first time in three years and became abruptly negative after robust growth when imports rose by 41% while the companies displaced after the tariffs.

Trump raced to blame his predecessor. “I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the bidding economy,” he told NBCS with the press.

Many economists said that the growth decline in the first quarter, when the companies took a new chapter on Trump's new chapter, asked disturbing questions about the second when the president finally started at his event “Liberation Day”.

Apart from dolls, the administration stated that it could be ready to adapt tariffs to China, the goods such as baby seats and cribs, which the United States import almost exclusively from the country. Such exceptions were “considered”, Bessent told the congress, who may have used a price walk for young families.

But when the weeks after the promise of his trade strategy all over the world, to delete themselves to die in order to die with the United States, Trump was more difficult to explain why nobody had come about.

On day 34 he complained when the questions assembled that the media were fixed. “You continue to write about offers, offers,” he said, adding that he wanted to ask journalists. “Some shops” would be signed, said the president, but the tariffs were a “much greater” focus.

The first deal was done on day 36. Trump called back Reporter to reveal a “maximum deal” that we will make larger with Great Britain. In reality there was still work to do: Both he and Keir Starrer, the British prime minister, did not yet collect certain details.

The next morning Trump's focus had returned to China. Besser prepared for the talks with the country's officials in Geneva and hoped that the two largest economies in the world could reduce their breathtaking tariffs. “80% tariff in China seems to be right!

“That will crush us”

Trump also observed the liberal MSNBC network, in which the business commentator Stephanie Ruhle argued that his strategy did not work for tariffs. “You see every day, more managing directors – be it Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon or Ken Griffin, about large global stages – and say that this will crush economically,” she said. “And then they have congressmen, senators, from every state to this white house: our small companies die here.

“I don't say that Donald Trump has changed what he thinks in his heart. But he has withdrawn into a corner and he has to get out of this crazy tariff train and he knows.”

Trump struck back. “Only a few people know Stephanie Ruhle, but I do it and she doesn't have what it needs,” he wrote about the social truth and accused her of lies. “We will make a fortune with tariffs, only clever people understand that, and Stephanie never became known as a” high IQ “person.”

If only clever people understood that the United States made a fortune of tariffs, they might have been surprised what happened next.

Apart from the television studios, some of the older people in the White House, including the head of the staff Susie Wiles, reported reportedly to warn the president of risks that are not unlike that laid out by Ruhle. “The main argument was that this started to hurt Trump's supporters – Trump's people,” said a person about internal talks of the Washington Post. “There was a key window.”

On the 40th day, Bessent confirmed after the discussions in Geneva that US and Chinese officials would drastically reduce the tariffs that they had increased aggressively just a few weeks earlier. With the US tariffs for Chinese goods at 30%, Trump was a “overall reset” in the relationships between Washington and Beijing.

The reversal limited, although it is far from the latest measure on the history of history to “Liberation Day”.

April 2, 2025, will not be remembered yet because the American industry has been reborn. A large part of what was announced this afternoon has already died.

The page was turned. On Friday, Trump claimed that around 150 countries would soon receive letters that would “essentially” tell them about new US rates for their exports. Many learned from similar interest rates last month, only to change in a few days.

A new chapter without a pomp or ceremony is now in progress. What this has – or how long it takes – is a guess.