President Donald Trump has decided at the urging of automakers to delay for a month a portion of the 25 percent tariffs he imposed on Canada and Mexico, the White House said Wednesday.
The reprieve will apply to all auto manufacturers operating in North America under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement signed by the three nations during Trump’s first administration, the White House said.
“We spoke with the Big Three auto dealers,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “We are going to give a one-month exemption on any autos coming through [the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement].”
The White House made it clear that its decision, which sent the stock market surging a day after a sharp sell-off sparked by the imposition of the tariffs, did not mean an end to the president’s abrupt decision to launch what amounts to a trade war with the country’s two largest trading partners in part to pressure them to do more to halt illicit shipments of fentanyl.
Stupid, or pump and dumping the market?
OlFroth
Gotta wonder if the automakers are paying him kickbacks.
Baud
Una vez más, por qué no los dos?
bbleh
¿Por qué no los dos?
Ok, best guess, HE is stupid and easily manipulated, any pumping-and-dumping was somebody else’s idea, but for sure the easiest way to sell it to him would have been to cut him in on it. He’d have been open to the idea anyway, because he thinks market declines make him look bad (which isn’t entirely wrong).
@OlFroth: I kinda wondered that too, like it’s another opportunity to wet his beak, but that would have required a whole ‘nother level of coordination, which for me takes it into the realm of conspiracy theory.
Betty Cracker
Pump and dump is my guess. These guys aren’t particularly bright, and they’re in over their heads. But you don’t have to be a rocket surgeon to buy and sell at the right moments if you know when the tariffs will be imposed and withdrawn.
Jay
Haz our Media learned anything,
Nope.
“US Customs and Border Protection data show that 80% of those arrested for fentanyl trafficking at US ports of entry were US citizens”
Eric S.
My company has a long term contract to buy equipment from another biz. The contract has a 5-7% factor built in for increased prices. The tariffs on Canada looks to cause increases far above that margin. Our vendor is looking to renegotiate. My company is not inclined to do so. It’s putting a union that represents employees at both companies in the middle and their trying to thread that needle.
Suzanne
I don’t know what to do with my 401K. I have stepped up my contributions in the last year or so.
bbleh
@Jay: and IIRC the LARGE majority of fentanyl transported illegally into the US does NOT enter in someone’s custody but rather comes through routine shipments, including via mail.
Fentanyl is VERY potent, so the volumes aren’t high. It ain’t like weed, or even blow.
NotMax
Emptying the shelves in Canada.
Geminid .
@Betty Cracker: If these goons are profiting off of inside information, I bet some of them will brag about it. That might not bring legal action, but it will be out there.
JoyceH
I think this was to keep the stock market from tanking – if you read the headlines it kind of looks like all the tariffs have been frozen, not just the auto related. But the truth will show up on supermarket shelves in a day or so.
ewrunning
Moving this up from David’s post comment thread below so it doesn’t get lost. The Hill is reporting that Senate Rethugs told President Musk at their meeting today that Congress needs to pass a recission package to make all of his mindless destruction of the Federal government legal. Senators Stinkball and Aquabuddha mentioned by name. Apparently Dunning-Kruger boy had to be educated about the whole recission process. Whole tone of the account of the meeting is nauseating, including Senators who’ve been complaining privately turning obsequious face to face, all afraid of Elno’s billions funding primaries against them. A recission package could get real interesting real fast as gop’ers start fighting over whose constituents get shafted.
Steve LaBonne
“Stupid, or pump and dumping the market?” Yes.
A Ghost to Most
@OlFroth: we know one automaker is, for sure.
Scout211
And yet . .
The rope-a-dope can be seen from a mile away. Or rather, a country away.
Princess
Well, sort of a cave. It only affects onr specific part of the tariffs — though an important one.
Baud
@Princess:
There’s always tomorrow.
Suzanne
@bbleh: I don’t know why the GOP acts like fentanyl just appears from nowhere in this country. They act like it’s the Kool-Aid Man crashing through a wall, and not a thing that Americans create demand for.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@OlFroth: No. your word choice is so yesteryear!
Every business ( that wishes to survive ) must pay this president (whiggish?) “tips” as the Supreme Court legitimized in all of that court’s corrupted, tawdry, glory. Soon those “tips”* will be tax free. Gee whiz, yippee?
* once we called such “ tips “ bribes or kickbacks, but that was before this Court gutted the honest services doctrine.
Police arrested Mike Johnson’s chief of staff last night for driving under the influence.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/speaker-mike-johnson-chief-staff-arrested-dui-charge-trump-speech-rcna194986
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: The cartels are a disaster that we have inflicted on Mexico because of our insatiable demand for drugs and our massive exports of guns. Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States of America.
VFX Lurker
I hemmed and hawed last November about what to do, myself. Then I remembered that I was prepared for unknown stock market panics with my existing portfolio. Either I was ready, or I was not. So, I changed nothing.
Since January 2017, all of my IRAs have been in Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth — a self-rebalancing fund-of-funds with low costs and a fixed 40% bond allocation. This way, I didn’t need to do anything to “stick to the plan” — the fund would do it for me.
I’m lucky enough to have a similar option in my 401(k) — Vanguard Target Retirement funds, which gradually add more bonds over time. Right now, most of my 401(k) uses the “2030” fund, which is also 40% bonds.
If you don’t want to look for the next four years, see how much of your 401(k) can be automated. Use a self-rebalancing retirement fund, or see if the 401(k) offers any way to automate rebalancing.
If the best option requires manual rebalancing…see if you can write down your plan and your reasons for your allocation. Save this document. Re-read it once a year when you rebalance your portfolio. Try to stick to your plan.
Good luck.
And F all of these clowns breaking our country.
A Ghost to Most
@Suzanne: First, don’t panic.
Geminid .
@HopefullyNotcassandra: Maybe that guy can turn a lemon into lemonade and make an ad for Uber.
Quaker in a Basement
I vote stupid.
Big Mook just likes to make everybody jump at the snap of his fingers.
MagdaInBlack
I posted on the previous thread but I really should have put it here:
The collision repair MSO I work for is based in Winnipeg, MB and had shops in both the U.S. and Canada. I would just love to be a mouse in that Winnipeg corp office right now
The corp clowns I know from corp here in Chicago lean pretty heavy MAGA.
(MSO = multi-shop operator)
Suzanne
@VFX Lurker: I actually have three separate ones, but I have generally selected the target-date option based on my age, and IIRC, they automatically adjust me into the next plan every five years. I could probably do slightly better if I was smarter about this stuff, but I am not, so I have historically elected to go with the don’t-mess-with-it approach.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@JoyceH: Remember, if you know what is coming, you can bet against the U.S. stock market and make tons when the market crashes. It is illegal but legality seems to be no deterrent.
Before FDR’s reforms the U.S. economy was boom and bust with bank failures every bust culminating in the bust of the Great Depression.
Gvg
We need to catch Senators and White House staffers profiting off the stock market knowledge and New York needs to charge them right when something is making people mad and panicky about the stock market. Preferably both ordinary citizens and rich non government people like Wall Street and CEO’s. Maybe a bank closure and the news Trump got a bribe, even if the supreme court says not to call it that.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Geminid .: Good notion. Mike Johnson is standing by his chief of staff
So, there are no lemons?
The man reversed into a Capitol vehicle last night.
Suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: We seem to like shaming drug addicts when they’re minorities and women. When it’s white dudes, we treat it like a tragedy.
Gloria DryGarden
Deal
I’d like to deal
With the art of a car,
the parts of which Travel far,
from Canada and Mexico.
If possible, can I please Pocket
that extra 25 percent!
Can I charge you later for
that aid I gave you freely,
when you first began to fight for your freedom?
If you don’t dress like me,
can I change the terms of the deal,
And use it as an angry excuse
to stiff you,
Like I stiffed all the others?
azlib
But you can only do this so any times before wiser people are on to the scam. My guess is Trump will not reimpose the tariffs. The worrisome part to me is the uncertainty this creates and how it will affect future investment decisions.
Jay
@bbleh:
When they detect a shipment at the border, they go to the delivery address and arrest the importer. 98% are ‘Merkins.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: OT, but your instructions from last night worked this morning! Thank you so much!
TBone
@HopefullyNotcassandra: 🎯 anyone in the Putin/Musk/Dotard/Vance et al. oligarch burner phone/Signal/Telegram pipeline knows what’s coming just in time to make a killing.
🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vtnGgCmU7IQ
Jay
Maybe the FSM can save us from mediocre White Men.
It’s taken the CEO of Jack Daniels 3 months to figure out that pulling US booze off the shelf is worse than a 25% countervailing tariff.
ewrunning
@Suzanne: * Unless they’re the son of a Democratic president.
Scout211
@WaterGirl: YAY! I’m glad that worked. 😊
VFX Lurker
Glad to read this. It sounds like you’re in a good place with automation.
John Cole had this sound advice on Bluesky:
For what it’s worth, William J. Bernstein wrote a 14-page pamphlet that never got read by its target audience: “If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly” (2014). It says the same thing John did, but without the swearing.
Sister Golden Bear
Yes to both. Especially since his large adult sons are already suspected of insider trading.
Plus, I’m sure the chaos demon in Trump loves, loves, loves the idea of having a club he can use monthly to threaten Canada and Mexico. ‘Course bullies and narcissists are invariably shocked to learn the other people — including the ones that they’re targeting — have agency (e.g. Trudeau being unwilling to lift Canada’s retaliatory tariffs if Trump leaves any tariffs on Canada).
Geminid .
@Jay: A patriotic American distiller should be willing to sacrifice profit for a higher goal, just like a patriotic American oil producer should be.
They might not understand what that goal is, but fu*k’em if they can’t take a joke.
Gin & Tonic
Boy, if an options trader had advance knowledge of these whipsawing policies, they could make a fortune. Glad we have strong legal safeguards in place.
Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom
In the Guardian newspaper, CEO Lawson Whiting of a firm that makes bourbon is moaning and groaning about Canada pulling all American alcohol from the shelves. Way to embarrass yourself Dude. Various Canadian premiers made it very clear this would be their go to move if the tariffs were enacted. As a Canadian I’m not feeling very charitable
In addition, Doug Ford of Ontario has torn up the $100 million contract with Starlink he was about to sign. Even for Elmo, that’s going to leave a mark. Not so much the money , but the refusal to extend the tech empire he’s trying to build.
David Collier-Brown
@Jay: The US seems to have smuggled more fentanyl into Canada last year than they imported from Canada
TBone
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/doge-is-ending-lease-for-philadelphia-sec-office-amid-nationwide-cuts/ar-AA1AfGoN
Jay
@David Collier-Brown:
Yup, drugs and guns flow North. The US is the largest illegal drug and weapons dealer in the world.
Suzanne
@VFX Lurker: I actually checked all of my accounts this morning. Want to remember this for next year.
David Collier-Brown
@OlFroth: Dr Evil suggested that Mr Trump should say “You have 30 days to move back to Detroit. Then the tariffs go back on”
mrmoshpotato
I hope all of the racist, sexist, stupid children are enjoying the chaos.
Jay
Imagine being this proud of this much fucking stupid.
Jay
Hegseth Offers to Buy All American Liquor Boycotted by Canada
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Steve LaBonne: thank you, Porfirio Diaz!
Jay
They went from “we will lower egg prices on Day 1” to “build your own chicken coop” without blinking an eye.
cain
My brother works for a supply companies in the automotive industry. He’s been dealing with maga people who are just confused on what’s going on. The news tells them one thing but the actions of the company tells completely different story.
It’s going to be grim and they all know who is at fault for what’s about to come.
NotMax
The ol’ gob is super smacked.
Supply of vodka in the abode was running perilously low so ducked out to the nearest supermarket.
Ambling down the liquor aisle idly looking at prices, there sat small jars of maraschino cherries for $27.99 each. Stopped me in my tracks to confirm it.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: if he’d laid off the booze, he might have thought to call his accountant for help w the math.
love your alternate headlines farther down the page.
NotMax, just give up those cherries for Lent..
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Jay, the Republican party down here have been lying sacks of shit for generations.
eclare
@NotMax:
What?
I know goods are more expensive in HI, but wow! Off to check Amazon’s price, out of curiosity.
Eta> 10 ounce jar of stemmed maraschino cherries for $9.99. There are much more expensive gourmet brands, but looks like there are affordable options.
TBone
@TBone: The S.E C. explained
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Securities_and_Exchange_Commission
Doc Sardonic
@Jay: Sumbitch has a worse drinking problem than we thought….
Yutsano
Well that’s no fun…
NotMax
@Gloria DryGarden
No Black Forest cake for me!
:)
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@NotMax: just Googled them and the expensive ones are labeled “the original” and are imported from Italy. Safeway brand is under $5. I’m sure the Italian ones taste better but not that much better!
Gloria DryGarden
@mrmoshpotato: lies, tearing the fabric of reality yet again. Lies laced with belligerence, with vengeance, lies to cover your ass, lies like a river in Egypt (denial), lip service to luck the boots of the ones you serve. I have lists of things to say about lies.
Lies piss me off, obviously. Just saying.
Jay
@Doc Sardonic:
Yup. Back in younger, kinder, gentler days, it was common practice to take American visitors out and get them wasted on 8% beer.
Gloria DryGarden
@NotMax: buy some dried cherries and soak them in brandy, or in water, for that matter. There, I fixed your recipe.
For the above quoted price of cherries, you could buy dinner, or nearly a tank of gas. Sheesh. Shocking.
Old School
@NotMax:
Did you buy them all? Or did you leave a jar or two for the next guy?
NotMax
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
This particular market has always been significantly overpriced for pretty much anything other than booze.
When I make my monthly rounds in town this weekend will try to remember to check prices there and report back.
VFX Lurker
Good.
Gloria DryGarden
@Old School: not a good investment..
different-church-lady
@cain:
Biden, of course.
different-church-lady
@Gloria DryGarden: Pump and dump!
trollhattan
@Old School:
Twenty-two each if you get the unpitted kind.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: It depends on how long it is until you need to tap into it and how risk averse you are. If it’s more than 10 years I’d let it ride. In fact, the market going down can be a good buying opportunity. If it’s less than 10 years until you need it, I’d go for safety and principle preservation. Safer stocks or even a good money market would work.
narya
I’m in Pennsylvania and mom is watching the WI/MN basketball game. THREE commercials against the Dem in the WI SC race in the first 15 minutes of the game.
Tim C.
@Steve LaBonne: Beat me to it.
frosty
@Suzanne: If I were in your shoes I’d do what you did. Step up the contributions; you’ll be buying low and you’ve got a long time for it to recover.
I’m not sure what to do with my own shorter-term perspective. I’ve emailed our financial advisors about what to do if a) depression or b) T-bills become worthless. No response yet, but we have a meeting in two weeks.
This was the focus of my email: “Tomorrow will probably look like today which looks a lot like yesterday… until it doesn’t.”
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Wry laugh here, with a large side order of disgust and anger.
YY_Sima Qian
Auto related exports only accounts for 1/3 of Canadian exports to the US, the other 2/3 is still subject to the new tariffs. In fact, it is still not clear whether the new temporary exemptions apply to auto parts, or just assembled autos. I assume the automakers, but not the Big Three auto “dealers”, are burning the WH phones trying to get clarification.
Utterly shambolic policymaking, even on its own terms.
Suzanne
@frosty: I have at least 20 years to go! So I am inclined toward leaving it alone…. but then I second-guess myself.
RevRick
Trump’s SOTU got a less than overwhelming favorable reception, according to a CNN poll. As is typical of such speeches, the audience was 14% more GOP voters than their percentage of the population. In addition, 70% were over age 55. Overall, this audience has given a 60% favorable rating, compared to the +48/-52 he gets from the general populace. If there was ever a Trump demographic, this audience was it. Anyway, 44% rated the speech very favorably, but that’s less than Biden’s 51%, or even Trump’s own 57% in 2017. And it’s far below the 60+% Obama and Bush got in their inaugural SOTUs.
In other words, even his own supporters are less than enthusiastic.
YY_Sima Qian
The split screen would have been interesting:
mrmoshpotato
@Gloria DryGarden: And more recently – being traitorous, Russian trash.
YY_Sima Qian
There now appears to be growing awareness of the kind of world people around Trump are trying to create:
I think Sopel missed the Indian & Israeli/Gulf States sphere of influence.
Of course, reality will intrude:
& it is not just Asia that has plenty of middle powers that won’t consent, so do Europe, LATAM & South Asia, & of course MENA.
frosty
Ooh, ooh, let me guess! Biden, right??
Cheryl from Maryland
One month? I’d be making plans to find new sources NOW. It’s like a bad boyfriend or girlfriend, neither can be trusted, so dump them.
frosty
@NotMax: If they’re Luxardo cherries (the original, from Italy) they’re worth it. You’re getting hosed though, they’re “only” $22.99 on the East Coast. Forget the Red Dye #2 cherries at the grocery store, there’s no comparison.
Bonus, when you run out of the cherries, you still have the cherry syrup you can mix into your drink.
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Yes, they do taste that much better!
Jay
At some point in time, the MOU in the US will pull out their dusty copy of the USMCA, (who am I kidding, it will be an unpaid Intern), and will discover the tariff clauses, and learn that the US actions under DJTdiot nullify his own USMCA.
The US lifting tariffs does not result in going back to normal,
It results in there being no trade agreements between the US, Canada and Mexico at all.
eclare
Beautiful photo, WaterGirl.
Barbara
@YY_Sima Qian: Donald Trump’s brain is stalled in 1976. I wrote a comment this morning, but it just really gets to me. Russia’s GDP is approximately the size of Italy’s. It’s a bit smaller than Canada’s and half or even less than the economy of GB or France or Germany (the largest European economy by far). That’s all without even trying to do a per population comparison. But even more than the size of its economy, Russia has nothing we want or need. With the exception of maybe liquid natural gas that the US doesn’t need but Europe could use, there is nothing anyone actually needs to buy from Russia — and not much you would actually want to buy, with the possible exception of beautiful traditional enamel boxes and diamonds.
The idea that Russia would be able to dictate policy to any of those countries reflects an ignorant and distorted view of what Russia is and what it’s like for an ordinary person to live there. Why? Russia is a big fat nothing living off the fumes of having been a military power with enough petroleum resources to keep it from having to negotiate a more diverse future. Showing fealty to Putin by any American politician is disgusting.
Jay
@Barbara:
Even the Matryoshka dolls aren’t made in ruZZia.
mrmoshpotato
@YY_Sima Qian:
US influence? LOL! Mr. Sopel apparently hasn’t noticed how long Dump has been the Kremlin’s bitch.
Did this guy become ex-BBC back in the early 80’s?
YY_Sima Qian
@mrmoshpotato: Sopel is speculating on how Trump & his gang sees the world. I am sure Trump does not see himself as Putin’s b*tch, the Trump gang clearly sees the world in ethno-nationalist multipolar terms.
YY_Sima Qian
@Barbara: Yeah, this is a farcical tragicomedy of a national suicide, except for the many people that will lose their livelihoods &/or lives.
Gloria DryGarden
@Barbara: thank you for putting this in perspective.
catclub
@Suzanne:
I would guess that most target date funds or other funds found in a 401k have a heavy US centric bias.
I am looking at increasing my allocation to global ex-US indexes. European defense firms are an idea.
catclub
I am amazed China has not invaded Taiwan, already.
Trump keeps telling them he does not back allies.
Martin
@Suzanne: Japan looks like a relatively safe market, all things considered.
YY_Sima Qian
@catclub: Amphibious invasion on such a scale is extremely risky, even if the US abandons Taiwan. The negative economic shock will be huge, given the amount of cross-Strait trade & integration of supply chains, doubly so if there are tough Western sanctions. & Beijing can’t be sure the US won’t directly intervene. These are all strong deterrents preventing Xi from just YOLOing on an invasion. Xi the CPC regime are by nature conservative & risk averse anyway, w/ strong preference for order, stability & predictability.
None of these factors will prevent an invasion if Beijing believes that Taiwan will declare de jure independence, will host US military bases, or will develop nukes., but it will take a lot for Beijing make such a risky move
Unlike Trump or Putin, Xi does live in reality.
VFX Lurker
For what it’s worth, the Vanguard LifeStrategy and Target Retirement funds have about 40% ex-US, in both stocks and bonds.
However, I do not know if other target retirement funds follow that allocation.
Jesse
Didn’t think of the pumpin’ dump aspect to this. Totally in form for Trump.
But don’t forget that the non-auto aspects of the tariffs are still in effect. That includes the energy tariffs. And AFAIK Canada is keeping up their end of the tariffs — 100% — until some kind of actual decision is made about the situation. IIRC Canada threatened to turn off the lights in three states bordering Canada (NY, MN, and one other I forget).
Jay
@Jesse:
Michigan and Minnesota.
So far, it’s not “lights off”,
Just 25% tax plus DJTdiot’s 10% tariff plus utility mark ups.
Corporations have to make a profit you know.
And that’s just Ontario.
Jesse
@Jay: thanks. I find it hard to stay up-to-date in this information environment. So many things are tentative, incomplete, subject to hourly updates…
NotMax
@Jay
Also too Vermont and Maine.
Noskilz
I think he just pulls things out of his ass and afterwards his flunkies desperately try to talk him out of the more egregiously suicidal things.
I don’t think there is a grand strategy beyond constant demands for attention and to show he can hurt his percieved enemies.
He claims he will put some of it on hold for a month? OK. What about next month? The month after that?
He’s so erratic, impulsive, ignorant, and dishonest what confidence can anyone have in any statement he makes? He makes it very clear he feels he can do as he pleases when he pleases and that no deals are binding on him, so it seems foolish to take much comfort in what is likely to be temporary relief – assuming he follows through on the promised reprieve at all.
brantl
@YY_Sima Qian: what are LATAM AND. MENA ?
brantl
@frosty: No, they don’t.
YY_Sima Qian
@brantl: LATAM is Latin America, MENA is Middle East & North Africa.