Trump’s reversal on global tariffs

Hours after the president’s tariffs took effect on nearly 60 countries Wednesday, he said he'd pause them for 90 days, The New York Times reports.

But Trump didn't extend the pause to China, instead raising tariffs again on all Chinese imports, to 125 percent. He made that decision after China raised its tariffs on American goods to 84 percent on Wednesday afternoon.

As a result, nearly every U.S. trading partner now faces a 10 percent blanket tariff, on top of 25 percent tariffs that Trump has imposed on cars, steel and aluminum.

The stock market reversed days of losses, and Wednesday was the best day for the S&P 500 since the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, the Times says.

Trump said he pulled back on the tariffs because people were “yippy” and “afraid” amid the stock market declines.

He said he had been monitoring the bond market and that people were “getting a little queasy” as bond prices had fallen and interest rates had increased.

Global investors ordinarily move to the perceived safety of U.S. debt in times of market tumult, The Washington Post notes. But people around the world were selling U.S. Treasury bonds.

Mohammed El Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz and former boss of the biggest bond manager Pimco, says there had been an "erosion" of bonds being seen as a safe haven, BBC News reports.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the 90-day freeze on Trump's "reciprocal tariffs" was the plan all along to bring countries to the negotiating table, Reuters reports.

“Economists are puzzled to see Trump trying to overhaul the existing economic order and doing it so soon after inheriting the strongest economy in the world,” says The Associated Press.

“There is a deep irony in Trump claiming unfair treatment of the American economy at a time when it was growing robustly while every other major economy had stalled or was losing growth momentum,” says Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University.

The Trump administration accuses other countries of erecting unfair trade barriers to keep out U.S. exports and using underhanded tactics to promote their own, AP says.

And it’s true that some countries charge higher taxes on imports than the United States. Some countries manipulate their currencies lower to ensure that their goods are price-competitive in international markets. And some governments subsidize their industries to give them an edge.

But the United States nevertheless is the second-largest exporter in the world, after China, AP says.