4/14/25: Wall St Panic Amid Tariff Flip Flop, China Bans Rare Earth From US, CEOs Say Recession Is Here, Consumer Sentiment Plunges

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar Episode: Wall St Panic Amid Tariff Flip Flop, China Bans Rare Earth From US, CEOs Say Recession Is Here, Consumer Sentiment Plunges
Release Date: April 14, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti delve into a series of tumultuous economic developments affecting the United States. From unexpected shifts in tariff policies and China’s ban on rare earth mineral exports to Wall Street CEOs forecasting a recession and plummeting consumer sentiment, the episode unpacks the cascading effects these events have on the American economy and everyday citizens.

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Tariff Flip Flop: Administrative Uncertainty Shakes Markets

The episode opens with a critical examination of the Trump administration's erratic approach to tariffs. Initially announcing reciprocal tariffs with no exemptions, the administration's sudden reversal—declaring that "nobody is getting off the hook for the unfair trade imbalances" [07:47]—left markets in disarray.

Key Points:

• Initial Announcement: The White House introduced reciprocal tariffs aimed at addressing trade imbalances, particularly with China. Initially, there were exemptions for major tech companies like Apple and Nvidia, sparking confusion and market optimism.

• Reversal of Policy: The administration quickly backtracked, stating that "there was no tariff exemption announced on Friday" [09:03], contradicting earlier communications. This left smaller businesses and importers in a precarious position as exemptions were effectively nullified.

• Market Reaction: The NASDAQ and other tech-focused indices experienced volatility due to the inconsistent tariff policies. Krystal emphasizes the detrimental impact on small businesses, stating, "the 300 million people in the United States... are all going to suffer as a result of this." [10:36]

Notable Quote:

Krystal Ball [10:36]: "None of this is going to lead to making our chips here... we're just gonna wind up on the jungle floor."

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China Bans Rare Earth Mineral Exports: Strangling American Industries

A significant escalation in the trade conflict is China's decision to ban certain rare earth mineral exports to the United States, targeting dumplings.exe metals like dysprosium oxide crucial for the automotive, semiconductor, and aerospace sectors.

Key Points:

• Export Restrictions: China has suspended exports of six rare earth minerals, "which are produced in China and refined in China" [26:53], severely limiting American access to these essential materials.

• Impact on Manufacturing: With American companies holding minimal inventories, the sudden ban threatens to halt production lines across various industries, potentially leading to widespread economic disruption.

• Government Preparedness: Krystal criticizes the lack of strategic planning, noting, "We could have... created a strategic reserve of these elements. Yes, you get a bottom-up approach," [30:21], highlighting the government’s failure to anticipate and mitigate such challenges.

Notable Quote:

Krystal Ball [30:21]: "We are dramatically reliant on China... with no government, dollar-for-dollar policy, industrial policy... entire supply chains are causing us to suffer."

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CEOs Predict Recession: Wall Street's Grim Forecast

Prominent figures on Wall Street, including Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates and Larry Fink of BlackRock, express dire economic predictions, signaling the onset of a recession.

Key Points:

• Ray Dalio’s Outlook: Dalio asserts, "We are probably starting, if not, we're in a recession" [46:45], attributing the downturn to high inflation, tariffs, and systemic economic issues.

• Larry Fink’s Concerns: Fink warns of profound changes beyond a typical recession, mentioning, "we are having profound changes in our domestic oil... and profound changes in the world order" [48:15], drawing parallels to the economic turmoil of the 1930s.

• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The hosts discuss how declarations from influential CEOs can influence market sentiment and behavior, potentially triggering the very recession these leaders are forecasting.

Notable Quote:

Ray Dalio [47:10]: "This is something that we've created. It's adding up... we are in a recession."

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Consumer Sentiment Plunges: Pessimism Fuels Economic Contraction

The University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index reveals a sharp decline in American optimism regarding the economy, reaching its second-lowest level on record.

Key Points:

• Index Decline: The index fell to 50 from 57 [63:20], driven by fears of rising prices and unemployment.

• Behavioral Impact: Reduced consumer sentiment leads to decreased spending, which in a "70% consumer-based society," exacerbates economic contraction and reinforces negative economic cycles.

• Sectoral Effects: Industries reliant on consumer spending, such as e-commerce, retail, and advertising, are experiencing significant downturns. Krystal notes, "companies are gonna spend less... Your little store... having to freeze everything," [57:32].

Notable Quote:

Krystal Ball [63:20]: "Consumer sentiment is now at its second-lowest point in history... People are concerned about their ability to buy things."

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Iran Negotiations: A Beacon of Optimism Amidst Turmoil

Amidst the economic chaos, there is a glimmer of hope with successful negotiations involving Iran, led by presidential envoy Steve Witkoff. However, this positive development has sparked outrage within the pro-Israel lobby, adding another layer of complexity to the geopolitical landscape.

Key Points:

• Diplomatic Progress: Successful talks with Iran signal potential easing of regional tensions and could positively impact global markets.

• Political Backlash: The pro-Israel lobby's strong opposition to these negotiations underscores the deep-seated divisions within American foreign policy circles.

Notable Quote:

Krystal Ball [04:30]: "The Iran negotiations appear to have gone well... the pro-Israel lobby is absolutely freaking out over these developments."

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Bukele's Visit and Political Violence: Regional Implications

President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador's visit to Washington coincides with unsettling domestic events, including an attempted assassination of Governor Josh Shapiro, highlighting the rise of political violence in the U.S.

Key Points:

• Assassination Attempt: An arsonist attempted to attack Governor Shapiro and his family, resulting in public fear and calls for increased security measures.

• Political Tensions: This incident reflects heightened political polarization and the erosion of civil discourse, posing threats to democratic institutions.

Notable Quote:

Krystal Ball [04:30]: "The images coming out of that are horrible... it’s political violence... it looks like it was a lot closer than anybody initially thought."

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Conclusion: Systemic Failures and the Road Ahead

Krystal and Saagar conclude the episode by critiquing the systemic failures in U.S. economic and foreign policy. They argue that inconsistent tariff policies, over-reliance on China, and lack of strategic planning have set the stage for economic downturns and geopolitical vulnerabilities. The hosts call for comprehensive industrial and economic policies to rebuild domestic manufacturing capacity and reduce dependency on adversarial nations.

Key Insights:

• Policy Inconsistency: The erratic nature of tariff implementations undermines business confidence and market stability.

• Economic Interdependence: Over-reliance on Chinese manufacturing and raw materials leaves the U.S. vulnerable to supply chain disruptions and geopolitical maneuvers.

• Strategic Rebuilding: Emphasis on investing in domestic industries, creating strategic reserves, and fostering diplomatic relationships with allied countries as essential steps to mitigate future crises.

Notable Quote:

Krystal Ball [43:33]: "We have to invest in our own manufacturing capacity... it's so comically stupid that it could never have worked in this way."

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Notable Quotes Summary

• Krystal Ball [07:47]: "So you're saying that the big tariffs on things like smartphones and laptops... those tariffs are temporarily off, but they're going to be coming right back on in another form in a month or so?"

• Saagar Enjeti [10:36]: "The monkey. You know, they always say, if you're a monkey, grab the next vine before you let go. Yeah, Trump just let go. That's a good. I like that."

• Ray Dalio [47:10]: "This is not a pandemic, this is not a financial crisis. This is something that we've created."

• Larry Fink [48:15]: "We are having profound changes in our domestic oil... and profound changes in the world order."

• Krystal Ball [63:20]: "Consumer sentiment is now at its second-lowest point in history... People are concerned about their ability to buy things."

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This episode of Breaking Points paints a dire picture of the current economic landscape, emphasizing the interconnectedness of policy decisions, international relations, and consumer behavior. The hosts urge listeners to recognize the systemic issues at play and advocate for strategic reforms to safeguard the nation's economic future.

Transcript

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[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.

[Cindy Crawford]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail] Good morning everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show of everybody today. There it is, people. Live for the Pound Bro show. Crystal will be in for what is it? She's filling it for you on Wednesday.

[Crystal Ball]

Ladies day on Wednesday. What do they call it?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Who knows? That's for the other people. Yeah, that's for them to decide. That's for the audience to decide. I did not even coin Bro show.

[Crystal Ball]

It was an audience around you.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Maybe it Was you? Actually, I don't know. But anyway. Yeah, that's right. We believe in women's choice here on the show. So that's what you're gonna see this week. Let's go ahead and see. What the hell do we even have? All right, come up on me. This is the toughest part of the job here, actually saying what we have to do today. We're gonna start off with tariffs. There aren't really any clues at the bottom there, Ryan. The amount of high and eye coordination that this all requires is unbelievable. Okay, so we're gonna be starting off with tariffs. We're gonna talk about some major flip flops from the administration. Nobody knows what the hell is going on. From industry to Wall street, people are dizzying in their reactions. The dollar is sinking to new lows. We're gonna talk about China. This specifically is very interesting. Some major new initiatives from the Chinese to ban rare earth mineral exports to the United States, trying to choke off critical American industries. We're gonna. And how many CEOs on Wall street and others responsible, unfortunately for many of our fates in terms of. Employers now already believe we're in a recession. Next, the Consumer Sentiment Index from the University of Michigan, one of the most watched studies there in terms of indicators how Americans are feeling about the economy. Mortgage rates and others just came out. Response is absolutely devastating for the Trump administration. A rare spot of good news here. The Iran negotiations appear to have gone well with the presidential envoy, Steve Witkoff. Some interesting stuff from behind the scene. The pro Israel lobby is absolutely freaking out over these developments, so we'll break some of that down for you. Then there is Bukele. The president of El Salvador is currently in Washington today. There's been some developments there with the Trump administration appearing at least not to comply with the Supreme Court order or at the very least complying in their own way. I'll let Ryan break a lot of that down for you. And then finally, some really devastating and terrible news. It appears an arsonist tried to assassinate Governor Josh Shapiro and his family in the governor's mansion. Some of the images that have come out are absolutely harrowing. We do know that a suspect has been arrested. We have some video there from the governor, Josh Shapiro, breaking down the incident. We don't have the full details yet, but Ryan, it is obviously, you know, political violence. Awful, but more so it's just, you know, it's hor. The images coming out of that are horrible. And it does look like it was a lot closer than anybody initially thought. From the Initial results, yeah.

[Crystal Ball]

The police are saying that the man intended to beat Shapiro with the hammer if he had gotten to him. The family got out, he didn't catch him. But close call, very close call. Way too close, Way too close.

[Ryan Seacrest]

The images of it are genuinely crazy. So some questions about the governor's security detail, about who the suspect is and more. We're going to try and break some of that down for you with the latest developments that we have here. Thank you to all of our premium subscribers, BreakingPoints.com, people who are supporting the show, some expansion efforts and other things that you're going to see here behind the scenes. We will have some big announcements this week, tomorrow when Crystal is back here at the desk. So we will bring that to you then so you could stay tuned. Actually, if you want to become a premium subscriber today, today you'll be the very first to hear about it. BreakingPoints.com There you go. All right, let's go ahead and start off with these tariffs. This is just the most insane thing that we have seen yet, honestly, from the Trump administration since the announcement of these reciprocal tariffs. So markets absolutely exploded with optimism over the weekend from this announcement from the White House. Let's put it up there on the screen. Apple, Nvidia score relief from US Tariffs with exemptions. Now, you might be asking how exactly that makes sense when the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, had said that, that we as a country actually wanna build the iPhone and how we want a nation of people screwing, what was it screwing, tiny little screws to assemble them. But clearly what happened is that there was an immense pressure campaign from the White House on the White House, from the consumer electronics industry, 90% of which comes from China, both smartphone and laptops that were basically telling the White House, they're like, if you do this, it will make it genuinely impossible to be able to afford these electronics. Now, at that time, it was already completely out of step with the White House's discussion, saying consistently, there will be no exemptions. Exemptions are impossible. Don't even think about it. And actually the net result of that tariff or exemption would have meant that children's toys and textiles and small business commerce goods, which are cheaper, actually would go way up. So it would have devastated small businesses while protecting Apple and Nvidia's bottom line. And so initially that was a pretty insane announcement. Markets were set to shoot up dramatically, the NASDAQ and other tech focused industries. But then the Trump administration, in only a way, the Trump administration can literally the next day Reversed course. Put this up there on the screen, please. This is from Trump who now says this was on Sunday. Nobody is getting off the hook for the unfair trade imbalances that other countries have used against us, especially China. Quote, there was no tariff exemption announced on Friday. Now this is news to all of us, Ryan, because the release from the White House, it's not A joke from WhiteHouse.gov was titled Exemptions. Yeah. And it's so funny because what happened is the exemptions were announced. People rightfully, I think smaller importers, non electronic importers were furious about it. And then the White House came out and said actually there were no exemptions. And Howard Lutnick gave an interview on the Sunday shows where he completely reversed course from just 24 hour earliers about the so called non exemptions. Here's what he had to say.

[Crystal Ball]

So you're saying that the big tariffs on things like smartphones and laptops, iPhones, all those iPhones built in China, that those tariffs are temporarily off, but they're going to be coming right back on in another form in a month or so or what are you saying?

[Craig Melvin]

Correct. That's right. That's right. Semiconductors and pharmaceuticals will have a tariff model in order to encourage them to reassure. To be built in America, we need our medicines and we need semiconductors and our electronics to be built in America. We can't be the Holden and rely upon foreign countries for fundamental things that we need. We can't be relying on China for fundamental things that we need. Our medicines and our semiconductors need to be built in America. Donald Trump is on it. He's calling that out. So you should understand these are included in the semiconductor tariffs that are coming and the pharmaceuticals are coming. Those two areas are coming in the next month or two. So this is not like a permanent sort of exemption. He's just clarifying that these are not available to be negotiated away by countries. These are things that are national security that we need to be made in America.

[Crystal Ball]

The President's meeting.

[Cindy Crawford]

How can consumers and businesses make decisions.

[Ryan Seacrest]

When it seems as though the President's.

[Cindy Crawford]

Trade policies are shifting at a moment's notice?

[Larry Fink]

So this is unfolding exactly like we.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Thought it would in a dominant scenario. Got it. Makes a lot of sense, Ryan. We had exemptions then we don't have exemptions. And actually while there is a temporary exemption, that exemption will be gone in a month.

[Crystal Ball]

The exemption that doesn't exist, the exemption.

[Ryan Seacrest]

That was never announced, will be lifted in a month. That's where we're at. Got that I mean, people, it's not funny, because what does it mean for industry, Ryan? What would any business watching this do right now?

[Crystal Ball]

Just hold your cash bingo and probably get it out of dollars, actually. So it's not just rush to cash. That's what's so sad about all of this, is that the 300 million people in the United States across the board, whether you voted for Trump, voted for Kamala Harris, didn't vote at all, are all going to suffer as a result of this. And everything Lutnick is saying there is true. We should be making our chips here. We should be making our medicines here. Yes, that's absolutely right. None of this is going to lead to that. And we're going to talk about a little bit about how it's actually going to get us further away from that. And we're going to find out what it means to deliberately break our own supply chains without having any backup plan. The monkey. You know, they always say, if you're a monkey, grab the next vine before you let go. Yeah, Trump just let go. That's a good. I like that. He thought that the falling to the jungle floor would be the leverage. Instead, we're just gonna wind up on the jungle floor.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah. And my friend Ryan Peterson, who we had on the show, you guys might remember him, the port expert, and he tweeted this. As a result, he said, quote, tariffs on semiconductors and electronics will be introduced in about a month, quote, those products were exempted from tariffs just yesterday. The whole system seems designed to create paralysis. So it is now clear if you're a CE and if you greenlit a major investment decision, you should short that person's stock. That person should be fired. As a shareholder, I would vote to fire any CEO who greenlit a major investment in the United States over the next 90 days. While all of this tariff stuff is happening, especially if you're a NASDAQ investor for any of these major technology companies that manufacture anything. Same with Apple. If you're Apple, you know what you're gonna do for the next 90 days? We're not importing shit. We're literally just gonna sit on our iPhones.

[Crystal Ball]

They're gonna hustle as much in as they can.

[Ryan Seacrest]

We're gonna. As much as we. But no, There is a 20% tariff. It could go to 104. Nobody knows, right? No. Right now, we'll just let that sit here. Everybody else, good luck.

[Crystal Ball]

You see the cargo planes? They had, like, four cargo planes smuggling in iPhones. And I saw you tweeting about this as well, that the Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had a paid his company paid a million dollars to go to a Trump super PAC dinner. It's unclear if he talked with Trump or whatever. But you know, if I pay a million dollars to get into a party, I'm a, I'm gonna talk to that.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Oh, we're talking. Yeah, we're talking.

[Crystal Ball]

We're gonna do a couple minutes.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah.

[Crystal Ball]

And then boom, all of a sudden the chips, the chips like Nvidia makes the chips that like make the world run. And we'll make deep seq run a little faster. Oh yeah, we're gonna carve those out. That's cool. So we're talking about a multi trillion dollar restructuring of the economy that the most important chip maker can get a carve out for after paying a million.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Dollars, which is nothing for them.

[Crystal Ball]

Right, right.

[Ryan Seacrest]

This is a multi trillion dollar.

[Crystal Ball]

Are you joking?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right? The market cap of Nvidia is larger than the entire stock exchange in the United Kingdom.

[Crystal Ball]

They lost like billions in the last couple weeks.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Exactly.

[Crystal Ball]

So like a million. Sure, yeah.

[Ryan Seacrest]

A million is absolutely nothing.

[Crystal Ball]

Here's two.

[Ryan Seacrest]

This gets to the issue which again, you know, look, Nvidia, they're going to be fine.

[Crystal Ball]

Oh, and it's a million dollar dinner. He may have given a lot more than a million.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, Absolute problem. We did. So Nvidia, they're going to be fine. Apple, they're gonna be fine. These people have hundreds of billions of dollars in cash market cap, all this other stuff. But all of these other smaller importers, let's say that you're a company. I mean, you know, if you ever read about the history of the iPhone, the people that made the glass for this phone that's in front of me, the laptop that's in front of me, over 90% of these products are manufactured in China. Entirely in China. There are a lot of actually small businesses and others. Let's say you make iPhone cases on Etsy or something like that. Right. All of these input costs and surrounding e ecosystem and things, those people actually their inputs under these exemptions would have skyrocketed and actually will continue to be subject to the tariff regime. And they're the very ones who will be the most devastated. And also because the way our economy works with just in time delivery and no government incentive to do anything about it means that you are inflicting an incredible amount of suffering to any D to C brand. Somebody running E commerce, even just general like a bike shop is always the classic example. A lot of those metals we don't even have them, period. Or if we do, let's say Australia has them, they don't refine them, they have to send them to China and China has to refine it and they have to send it over here for the ability for fabrication purposes, et cetera. All of these are exactly the type of businesses which are about to see a massive increase. Now I can be conceptually supportive of tariffs, just as you said. Pharmaceuticals, great example. Why did China dominate in pharmaceuticals? Why did Chinese and the Europeans dominate? Well, the Europeans have the legacy kind of design framework, very much like we have with Intel. But then China of course saw it as a national strategic industry to have all of these plants which create and can, what is it, compound pharmaceuticals. To be able to make all this stuff. They don't do it because it's profitable per se. It helps to make a little bit of a profit. But they do it because they know that it's vital to their own strategic autonomy. We as fools of course just allow this to be outsourced. Now the MAGA folks would say, yeah, of course, Sagar, that's why we immediately need to bring it over here. I would say, yeah, great. Well then you need to offer, let's say a dollar for dollar tax credit. For every dollar that you're going to lose in business, you're going to get X amount of tax credit for your capex, which is the amount that you're about to invest here in the US everybody. It's a win win situation. Instead, what we're saying is we're going to increase your cost by 140%. And by the way, maybe and maybe not in the next 90 days. So what do you do as that person with that possible cash outlaw? If you're lucky enough to even have cash on your books, which many businesses do not because they run on such a tight margin, you are going to hoard that as much as possible. In fact, you're probably going to fire some people to free up a little bit of cash flow for, let's say you take a 60% haircut or whatever, not only are you going to fire people, you need even more cash on your balance sheet to make sure you can prepare for the future. So there's a contractual effect across the entire economy. Yeah.

[Crystal Ball]

And currently, if you are a business like let's say Apple, that makes your entire product in China, puts it in the box, puts a little cellophane on.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It, puts it in a ship, it's designed in Cupertino.

[Crystal Ball]

Yes, you write designed in cupertino you put it on a ship and you come over here, you're exempt from these 150% tariffs or whatever. If you're a company that is in Columbus, Ohio and has been trying to bring back like serious jobs to Ohio and you bring, you get some, like you were saying, you get some inputs from China, but then you assemble the rest of the pieces in Columbus and you're working with, with a distributor in Toledo and you are paying the tariffs.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yes, that's right.

[Crystal Ball]

But if you take everything that you do, fire every one of your workers, find some plant on TikTok and ask him to make your thing completely in there and then figure out a way to get it in, or you're Apple and you can just pay, you bribe your way in, then you're gonna do better. So it incentivizes offshoring, it incentivizes doing all of your work in China and it also is going to bankrupt as we speak. Tons of small and medium sized companies which will then get bought up by the bigger ones and we'll have more corporate concentration.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Oh, that would never happen except, oh, it happened 15 years ago. Right, I forgot about that. Let's go and put the futures up there on the screen. Futures are actually slightly up today because.

[Crystal Ball]

Nvidia and Apple are like half of the NASDAQ.

[Ryan Seacrest]

I think 7% of the S&P 500 is Nvidia. And so, so anything Apple stock are increasing in their futures just over the next month. But people are optimistic even about that month long exemption in tariffs. But the irony is, is that if the White House had kept a permanent exemption or at least the idea of a permanent exemption, the NASDAQ would be up way higher, up 6, 7% right now. Because people thought that, oh, we're gonna be having some deals. Let's go and put a four up on the screen. This guy did such a good job of just summarizing. This is just since Wednesday. So this is five days. This is five days in the United States of America we have had universal reciprocal tariffs. A removal back down to 10%. 50% Chinese tariffs, 90% Chinese tariffs, 104% Chinese tariffs. 125% Chinese tariffs. 145% Chinese tariffs. Electronics. Exempted electronics. Now back on. As he says, if you were a CFO of Fortune 500, would you improve any new investment in a country this unstable? Answer honestly, no. As I said, I would personally as a shareholder vote to fire any CEO who made a major outlay of cash investment or import decision under these conditions. And I can tell you, for the people who run this business, Crystal and I, we're like, yeah, there's gonna be. We're going ultra conservative, probably even more conservative than we ever were before. And we're just gonna sit here and wait to see what the macroeconomic conditions.

[Crystal Ball]

Do on that point. I saw Cernovich talking about this and the connection is he did a good job. The podcast, the podcast universe, you know, which was pretty heavily pro Trump this this time around, as the media loves to remind us. You know, one of the big legs of their, of their economic business model is E commerce. And that's not just podcasters, that's, you know, tiktokers. That's the entire kind of creator economy is organized around not, you know, advertising. The advertising is about selling stuff online. So if you just get your money from ad revenue, you're taking a hit because companies are gonna spend less. They're gonna have less to spend on advertisements if they have less that they're able to sell to the public. And then there's the direct sales. Your little store. You think those counterpoints and breaking point socks are expensive now?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Actually, no. All of ours are made in the usa, so. All of ours are made in the usa. Union labor.

[Crystal Ball]

I guess we're gonna find out.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah. Well, I mean, the way that you would say it is that even though it is made in the USA and even though it is made in the USA with union laborers at the input cost of cotton or whatever certainly comes from China, I've actually learned this in the suit industry, actually. By the way, this is a PSA for anybody who's out there. I have some friends who are getting married. I did not realize that the vast majority of wedding dresses are made in China. And I don't even believe it's possible to buy a made in America branded wedding dress right now. And so if you're getting married, you should order that wedding dress sometime soon and just hope and pray that you're not.

[Crystal Ball]

And if you have American made products like cars or socks, let's say you even sourced the cotton, which unlikely here and everything is done in here because demand is getting theoretically, in a world where things are stable, that's not the world we're in. But let's pretend that's the. Let's pretend there's some stability. Demand is getting funneled into those American products. So if you own a used Ford, like the price of it's going to go up, you're going to be able to get more for that. Yeah, that's Right. But wait a minute, why is that?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Well, did you already see that there's a story going around of a guy who drove off the lot with a brand new crv. And the dealer called him the next day and he's like, hey man, I will pay you a lot more than you paid for this brand. I mean that never happens. What you're supposed to lose 20% of your value the moment that it goes pump off. By the way, CRV owners, undefeated here. Thank you. Shout out to the CRV Bros. Count myself and your ranks.

[Crystal Ball]

And since there's so much more demand, I mean that's. So the idea is then that price increase is then supposed to incentivize more domestic production. Like that's the whole theory behind it. But for the very medium term there's not going to be that production. So you're just going to pay $55 for those socks instead of 35.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It's rough out there. Ryan. Let's put a five guys. Can we up on the screen? This is from Charles Gasparino. Forgive the block of tax, but actually is important. And so he quotes a prominent investor and Wall street tech analyst who's been there for basically 20 years. And his word, it's one of those things on Wall street, these analysts who've been around for a long time, everybody really does take a listen to him. He goes, let's be clear. On Friday night the White House excluded big tech in the chip sector from these Chinese tariffs, Right. Which would have made the tech stocks rally. As I said initially this is a huge victory. But now according to the White House and Howard Lutnick this morning, the semiconductor sectoral tariffs will be coming over the next month or two, including smartphone and computers. So the mass confusion created by this constant news flow is quote dizzying for the industry and investors, creating a massive uncertainty and chaos for companies trying to plan their supply chain inventory in demand. As we are in Masters week and it's Sunday, this would be like changing the whole locations for pro golfers in Augusta while the final round is going on in real time, this is how investors feel right now. What are the rules of the game? What do earnings look like? What will the new tariffs look like? Can they be negotiated? How can companies give guidance in this environment? We are in a much better spot than Friday and last week heading into Sunday night. But there is still quote, mass uncertainty, chaos and confusion around the next steps with all focus on the China tariff negotiations being front and center and any progress on a game this high stakes poker between Beijing and D.C. being crucial to the markets and the economy this week. So with the chaos at the moment.

[Crystal Ball]

One amendment to that. It's like changing the hole after you swing.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah.

[Crystal Ball]

Like, your ball is like. If you change the hole right before you take your shot, like, all right, give me a different club and I'll take it. Different shot. You swing, you hit the ball, and then they're like, oh, no, by the way, you're actually supposed to be going to the 14th tee.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, it's.

[Crystal Ball]

You were playing at the 17 tee.

[Ryan Seacrest]

I don't know enough about golf, by the way. I don't know anything about golf.

[Crystal Ball]

Unfortunately, I didn't watch it because I don't have time on weekends to do anything.

[Ryan Seacrest]

I don't really get it.

[Crystal Ball]

McElroy.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah. Would he won a comeback or something? This is what I mean, this is the extent of the.

[Crystal Ball]

He hadn't. Won't won in 11 years, and he locked up.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Really?

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Oh, good for him.

[Crystal Ball]

So he's now won all the.

[Ryan Seacrest]

The.

[Crystal Ball]

He's got the Grand Slam, the career Grand Slam.

[Ryan Seacrest]

All right. What is a career Grand Slam?

[Crystal Ball]

In golf, it means you win all the Masters. So what is it? Pga? US Open, Masters? I don't know. What's the fourth one?

[Ryan Seacrest]

I don't know.

[Crystal Ball]

That's what I'm asking you guys.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Tell us what the fourth one is.

[Crystal Ball]

All the big ones.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Okay. All right. Got it? Yeah. So this shows you the extent of my golf knowledge. There was some guy who I met. What's his name? Bryson DeChambeau. I had no idea who this guy was.

[Crystal Ball]

He was the guy, like, neck and neck with.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, I saw him once. We were at this event, and he was there, and all these people were taking pictures. I was like, who is this guy? Someone's like, oh, he's one of the biggest golfers in the world. I was like, oh, cool.

[Crystal Ball]

He almost won the Masters.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Shows you the extent of my golf knowledge. Sorry, Bryson, no offense. I promise it's truly not you.

[Crystal Ball]

He has bigger problems today.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Okay. All right. There we go.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Does this podcast make you happy? Of course it does. That's why you're here. But it only comes out once a week. For happiness, every night. You need Adam and Eve. Yes. I'm talking about sex toys. It's cool. It's cool. You have earbuds in, right? Adam and Eve, America's most trusted source for adult products, has been making people very happy for over 50 years with thousands of toys for both men and women. Just go to AdamAndEve.com now. And enter code IHEART for 50% off. Almost any one item, plus free discreet shipping. That's AdamAndEve.com, code IHEART for 50% OFF.

[Savannah Guthrie]

Every morning brings a fresh, new energy.

[Crystal Ball]

This is today.

[Savannah Guthrie]

And no matter what the day holds, we come to the Today show for all of it.

[Craig Melvin]

When things are tough, we talk about it. When there's something to figure out, we dig into it. And when there's joy, we celebrate it.

[Savannah Guthrie]

Because today is where it's all happening. We get the best start to every morning because we started together.

[Crystal Ball]

Watch the Today show with Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin, weekdays at 7am on NBC.

[Cindy Crawford]

Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty. Well, I don't know about you, but like, I never liked being told, oh, wow, you look so good for your age. Like, why even bother saying that? Why don't you just say you look great at any age, every age. That's what Meaningful Beauty is all about. We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now. Meaningful Beauty, beautiful skin at every age. Learn [e-mail].

[Ryan Seacrest]

All right, let's go and transition to these China tariffs because this is the biggest part of the story. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Quote, the rift is here. This is from Bill Ackman, who has, I guess, been kind of a Cassandra around these tariffs in terms of being in in the MAGA orbit. He says the rift is healing. China, quote, asks for relief from the tariffs, creating an opening for a 90 day China tariff pause and negotiations. Remember previously that Bill was one of the first big MAGA people to call for a 90 day pause and that did eventually become the eventual policy. Nobody knows necessarily if he was responsible for that, but I'm paying attention just because previously what he had called for was something that Trump was willing to listen. But, but the thing is, is that as these China tariffs start to set in and remember, they are the policy, this is the policy of the United States government. These are being hit right now with these tariffs. It is somewhat funny. There's been some news about how Doge fired the entire team to collect the tariffs. So the amount of revenue actually coming in right now is zero. Although my wife is a trade expert and I asked her and she said that actually tariffs are liable to it's kind of like taxes. Even if you don't pay on April.

[Crystal Ball]

23, you still owe later, you still owe it.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah.

[Crystal Ball]

So they're coming.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, they're not Gonna Forget you have 270 days or something.

[Crystal Ball]

They're trying to find those guys phone number, get them back in, right?

[Ryan Seacrest]

They're gonna get them back in eventually. Yeah. So if you're an exporter, don't cheat because you will be right if you're.

[Crystal Ball]

Those fired Doge, you were fired by Doge and you worked on tariffs. You're getting offered many millions of dollars to work for the private sector to show them how to get out of these things.

[Ryan Seacrest]

That's fair. I'm starting a boutique consulting firm, going to work for Nvidia tomorrow if I'm one of those folks. But as we said, the tariffs are now in place. This is the policy. We have 145% tariffs. The Chinese are roughly around 83% on their tariffs. They say they won't higher. There has been some quote, exemption. Again, nobody knows what's going on, but arguably it's the Chinese tariffs do not matter as much as where those targeted tariffs are. And so this was the single biggest news to me. Let's put it up there on the screen. And obviously we've been covering it from last week and we knew it was coming. But China has now, quote, halted critical exports as the trade war intensified. They have suspended exports of certain rare earth minerals and magnets that are crucial for the world's car, semiconductor and aerospace industries. Now, this is a very important story because it really does reveal the entire game. Quote, 90% of the six rare earth minerals which they have now ordered export licenses restrictions on are produced in China and refined in China. The metals and the special magnets made with them can now only be shipped out of China with a special export license for which US companies no longer qualify. Quote But China has barely started even setting up that system for issuing those licenses, meaning that the concentration there is a complete freeze. If factories in Detroit and elsewhere run out of these rare earth magnets, that would prevent them from assembling cars and products with electric motors that require them. Companies vary widely in their size of emergency stockpiles, so the timing of production disruption is very hard to predict. But the main flag was actually a quote that was buried deep within, which just shows you the rot at the center of the US economy. Quote Many American companies keep little or no inventory because they do not want to tie up cash in stockpiles of copper, costly materials. One of the metals, for example, subject to the new controls, dysprosium oxide, trades for $204 per kilogram in Shanghai, but much, much more than that outside of China. Meaning that first of all, you would be competing for almost 10% of whatever of the minerals or the refined minerals and magnets and other inputs that you need for your car. But second, that you are in a situation where when you create and produce over 90% of something and you yourself have nothing on the balance sheet, again, we are looking at just a freeze of economic activity. I would rather shut my entire production line down at that point and just wait and see what the hell is going to happen. The exact opposite of what you want in intended policy. So remember, they have a lot of cards here. You know the infamous line like, you have no cards. That's true for Ukraine. Not true whenever it comes to China. And you said it so well. Was it with a monkey? If you're gonna grab onto something, you wanna grab. Make sure that you have something else. If you're gonna let go, you wanna let go.

[Crystal Ball]

One vine.

[Ryan Seacrest]

We have a planning here for. We have no tax incentive. We have no strategic stockpile. We have a strategic stockpile of oil. But we've been talking about this now for a decade, you and I. How many discussions have we had about onshoring? We went through the whole Covid thing. Our trade deficit actually increased with China. We did not bring very much manufacturing back here. A little bit with the CHIPS act and a few things, but not even close to where we're supposed to be.

[Crystal Ball]

The number was going in the right direction.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It was going up. If you go down by 90 and you go up by 5, it's like, okay, you're still down 85%. But my point is just with these rare earth minerals, there has been no plan from the government around a stockpile. It's not like we can look to the EPA or some other agency, the Energy Department, and have confidence. And they're like, we have gone to Australia and we've ensured that US Companies will have preferential export agreements here with our allies. No, instead we're actually hitting Australia with 10% tariff at the same time. Well, why would they give you anything? They don't want to give us anything.

[Crystal Ball]

And we also, we print the world's currency. If we wanted to go into a trade war with China, knowing that they control all of these refined rare earths that we need, knowing that in 2019, they threatened to do this, knowing that they did this to Japan when they were in a trade war with Japan. For 15 years, the Pentagon has been talking about how this is an issue for our defense industrial base and that we should do something about it. We could have if we chose, created a strategic reserve of these elements. Yes, you get a bottom up. We do it with, like you said, we do it with oil. We decided not to. And then we went in and started this trade war without the cards. Cards made in China. And here we are. Before the show I was mentioned. We talked about this on the show on Wednesday because China, I think it was on Tuesday that China announced that they were going to slap these export licenses on these products. And so it was clear. It was only in the trade press at the time, but it was clear, like, oh, export licenses. I don't think you're going to be able to get an export license if you.

[Ryan Seacrest]

I think I broke it down on Tuesday show people can go roll the tape within the financial time. It's there. But like they're not.

[Crystal Ball]

But then the mainstream, mainstream press is picking it up like a week later and the US Being like, oh, wait a minute, we didn't see this one coming. Now you need a dysprosium guy if you're going to like, keep your lines running.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, I hope we have a good dysprosium.

[Crystal Ball]

Do you have a dysprosium guy?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah. Do you have a dyspr? I don't, I confess. You know, hope one of the cameras in this studio doesn't break, by the way, but I wonder where they're all made from.

[Crystal Ball]

Yes, go down to a. What camera shot?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Can we put let's see a 9, please, up on the screen because this does a really good job, this Financial Times tear sheet of showing where all of the, like the major concentrations of goods from China. It's still, it's even more shocking sometimes, even when, when you look at it, 80% of smartphones, 66% of laptops. And that is only the finished product. I'm not even talking about the input products. Some 69% of lithium ion batteries. You have three quarters of all children's toys. You have 50% of headphones, you've got 56% of sports footwear, you've got 53% of rubber footwear. Ceramic sinks. I mean you can go down the line for video game consoles. 86% electric fans, 88% Christmas festivity goods. 87%. I guess we won't be saying Merry Christmas in December. Stainless steel.

[Crystal Ball]

China won the war on Christmas.

[Ryan Seacrest]

86% plastic kitchenware. 80%. Now, do you need to live, do you need a fulfilled life and have plastic kitchenware? I don't even use plastic kitchenware. I can tell you that because I'm concerned About. About some of the inputs and all that, but. Yeah. Is it that easy to buy? No, it's not. You know why people use it? Cause it's convenient and cause it's cheap. Can we blame them? No, not in the current economy that we're in. If we want all as a country to be buying like lodge cast iron steel pans and stuff, like, I'm all for it, but you need a real cultural revolution. I think in terms of convenience and the way that our entire society and daily life and all of that that is structured right now, it's like weirdos and crunchy granola moms who are into that stuff, but the rest of the world is. Or the rest of the country is trying to eat and they're trying to make sure that they can work two jobs and not be bankrupt rather than have to rely on a lot of these other health concerns or whatever. And that's kind of my point around the entire thing. We are so dramatically reliant on China and I would love to be able to change that. I don't think it's made our lives materially much richer. However, with no government, dollar for dollar policy, industrial policy, I mean just general, like theory about preparation, how can the public not conclude that this is not just a chaotic process with a net effect that will just make everybody much worse off in the immediate term? That's effectively what has happened here.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah. And the structure of the deal that we had cut with China was effectively, like you said, designed in Cupertino. So Cupertino's gonna do a lot of. They're gonna have the nice cushy laptop jobs.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yes.

[Crystal Ball]

And China's going to make those laptops for those laptop jobs. And the Cupertino people are going to make most of the money out of that. Like, this is a, you know, intel.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Is the same thing.

[Crystal Ball]

All the major amount of wealth is going to flow to these vice presidents, these middle managers, like a service economy, and then to the Apple Store employees who are, you know, an Apple Store employee makes more than. If you opened a factory and were paying somebody to screw in, like the screws into the iPhone, you're actually paying more for that person there. So that's the deal now. And you're seeing this on TikTok all over the place. China's like, you know what, how about we rip that deal up like it wasn't that great a deal for us. Like this whole thing where we do the work and we take like a tiny margin on top and you take everything else you have the military, and you have the intellectual property. So we were comfortable with this arrangement for now because it was helping us develop our manufacturing capacity. But now, you know what? We can just go ahead and make the stuff. We have smart executives here. We'll just keep that. We'll steal your IP and we'll just sell the stuff. How do you like that? And we're like, oh, you can do that?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, well, that's kind of the issue, isn't it?

[Crystal Ball]

We got some of those TikToks right about.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, let's play one of these TikToks. There's a. Hilarious. There's a guy who has apparently been.

[Crystal Ball]

On these dudes on TikTok.

[Ryan Seacrest]

And not just him, there's many others who are just blowing up on TikTok right now. I hate that I even have to say those words, but, you know, let's talk about this before we can. You know, at the very same time that the TikTok is obviously putting its finger on the algorithm of trying to undermine Trump's tariffs, he's trying to save TikTok. Right. So a little ironic there. Some of us have warned about that, but, oh, he got. Won the youth vote or whatever. So. So that was worth completely reversing his position on it. So these are the types of videos that are going mega viral all across the country right now. Let's take a listen. Hello from China.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Let me show you the United States.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Products in my home. Nothing.

[Homes.com Ad]

Do you have something from China in your home?

[Ryan Seacrest]

You gotta give it to the guy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He's right.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah. I mean, what does he have? Nothing. Yeah, he doesn't even. He doesn't need anything. Right. He's living a fine enough life there in Shenzhen.

[Crystal Ball]

Max said he was talking about the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia, and he's digging up our history.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Is he really?

[Crystal Ball]

Wow. Yeah.

[Ryan Seacrest]

I mean, all right, we can trade insults or whatever.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Crystal Ball]

I mean, if you want to do propaganda about China. That's right.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Fine.

[Crystal Ball]

The U.S. what does Trump say? We're not. We're not innocent either.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Look, I mean, when you go over there and you talk to. I've. I've met many Chinese people who are just like, wholehearted CCC believers. And they're always like. They're like, you're gonna lecture me? They're like, what about Chicago? What about. I'm like, yeah, you know, he's got a good point. Yeah, it's one of those. Listen, I do encourage people to visit China, if you're able to, and to talk to Chinese people, especially around this, because a lot of them don't care nearly as much actually as some of the people over here. And part of the reason why is it's pretty clear, as you could see where he just said he's like, we don't have any products from you that's made in my home. Now, that may not technically be true, you know, designed in Cupertino, etc. We can hit them back with like, oh, we never designed that. It's like. Yeah, but they've also got. It's not like we have a monopoly on smartphones. They've got Huawei phones. They're pretty good actually.

[Crystal Ball]

And at least we don't like sweep people off the streets just for writing op eds.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Oh, right.

[Crystal Ball]

Oh, wait, no, nevermind.

[Ryan Seacrest]

All right, we do that a little different, but we'll get to that. No, no, okay. It's not different per se in this case, but on a mass scale level, Perhaps you're right 10 years ago.

[Crystal Ball]

We do allow people to criticize our country, just not Israel.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, that's right. There you go. Okay, so that's an important caveat in the point finally around all of this is just to show people how they have a tremendous amount of leverage on the refined rare earth minerals. They have incredible state capacity and this is one thing I do not want people to miss. Let's put this last part up on the screen. 8:10, please. I mentioned this on our Friday show, but I really want to underscore JD.com, which is one of those massive e commerce giants. It's one of the biggest companies in the Global FI Hunt says they are going to purchase 200 billion won, equivalent to $27 billion of goods from Chinese exporters, quote, to help manufacturers shift to the domestic market. The Chinese company also said Friday it would provide training, subsidies and other support for export oriented manufacturers to sell their products in China. That is what a functioning state looks like. So you're in the middle of a trade war. You are your greatest importer and reliable, quote, trading partner cuts you off. So what do you do? You mobilize the full capacity of the state and you order your equivalent of like Amazon or whatever, Wayfair, et cetera, one of those types of companies, actually frankly bigger in terms of market cap. And you say, hey, we've allowed you guys to operate now for some years. You're gonna pump $27 billion into the economy. And now you multiply that, that times 100 and you have a state which is able to mobilize the full force of so called private government, which is intact or private industry, not really private, it's government controlled, the full government already. If you read again, all you have to do is go read what they say they're going to do. They have full control over their currency. They're gonna manipulate their currency. They have full control over their interest rates. They're gonna drop interest rates, make borrowing costs much easier on the overall domestic. They're going to pump billions of dollars into their domestic economy to make sure that their manufacturers do not miss a beat and can continue to supply the Chinese market. They're currently on a global campaign trying to strike deals with US Allies, exporters who feel very snubbed. President Xi Jinping will be in Vietnam today. Remember, Vietnam is the number eight trading partner of the United States of America. And Vietnam actually was a major success story in overall US efforts to try to cultivate a manufacturing base outside, outside of China. There have been accusations, there's been a trans shipping hub, et cetera. But you know, 60 some percent of the Vietnamese people, even after what we did to them, are actually very approving of the United States of America. And we're ready to do business. It's called the Communist Party in the same way the Chinese are. But that's what they're doing over there. And meanwhile they strike deals with the Europeans about BYD cars. Right? So they have a full strategy. They know exactly what they're doing over here. Here we've got Howard Lutnick and Trump changing their mind every 24 hours. Who would you rather do business with today? This is not caping for China. I just respect them. You have to respect competence. What we see here is a complete incompetence with devastating results for real people. These are people's lives. Screw even the retirement accounts and all that stuff. People are just gonna start getting laid off like in the next month. It's. And that's step one. And there's no private capacity, there's no CCP to pay for your healthcare or make sure you get an apartment. You're on your own in this country.

[Crystal Ball]

Yes. And the move that is available to them that they're wisely taking isn't available to us on the flip side. In other words, we have to try to increase supply. We have to try to build manufacturing capacity overnight. They have to just find demand somehow. It is much easier. Think about it. It's much easier to increase demand. And that's a great example of how they did it. $27 billion. We're going to you made a bunch of crap that you were going to sell to the United States, but now you can't sell it. We're going to buy a bunch of that stuff and they're going to get creative and they're going to find other places with currency manipulation and with state subsidies, they will move it into, to Africa, South Asia, Europe, like you just mentioned, South America. A lot of these countries are going to get some real good deals on some Chinese stuff and maybe that produces long lasting relationships. And let's say in East Africa, it could end up with a little bit of economic stimulus because then the products come in and then the products get resold on the secondary market. And that creates jobs for people. And it creates, and it creates a chain then between those countries and China. That's so much easier to think through and to do, especially if you're planning it from the top than it is to create supply overnight. Especially when the inputs to make that supply are controlled by China. It's so comically stupid that it could never have worked in this way. The only thing the US could have done and could still do is invest in its own manufacturing capacity.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yes.

[Crystal Ball]

Invest in education and building up a trade workforce. Subsidize the construction of manufacturing facilities and then use American diplomatic power to create markets for those companies. And then down the road, if they're deeply struggling, you can do targeted tariffs on the particular industry. That could work. That's, that's, that's not. Didn't take a genius to come up with that. But this never was going to work.

[Ryan Seacrest]

No.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Does this podcast make you happy? Of course it does. That's why you're here. But it only comes out once a week. For happiness. Every night. You need Adam and Eve. Yes. I'm talking about sex toys. It's cool. It's cool. You have earbuds in, right? Adam and Eve, America's most trusted source for adult products, has been making people very happy for over 50 years. Years. With thousands of toys for both men and women. Just go to AdamAndEve.com now and enter code IHEART for 50% off. Almost any one item, plus free discreet shipping. That's AdamAndEve.com code IHEART for 50% OFF.

[Savannah Guthrie]

Every morning brings a fresh new energy.

[Crystal Ball]

This is today.

[Savannah Guthrie]

And no matter what the day holds, we come to the Today show for all of it.

[Craig Melvin]

When things are tough, we talk about it. When there's something to figure out, we dig into it. And when there's joy, we celebrate it.

[Savannah Guthrie]

Because today is where it's all happening. We get the best start to every morning because we start it together.

[Crystal Ball]

Watch the Today show with Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin. Weekdays at 7:00am on NBC.

[Cindy Crawford]

Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of meaningful beauty. When Dr. Sabah and I decided to do a skincare line together, he said to me, we are gonna give women meaningful beauty. And I said, that's exactly right. We want to give women meaningful beauty. Which means each and every product is meaningful. It has a reason to exist, it's efficacious, you're going to get results and then you just go out and live your life. Meaningful beauty Confidence is beautiful. Learn more@meaningful beauty.com.

[Ryan Seacrest]

So let's go to recession, shall we? And some major titans of Wall street are now saying recess. Now I want to be clear. I don't like these people. Ray Dalio, Larry Fink, all these other folks. You still have to listen because Wall street is an expectations game, right? It's a fugazi. It's all fake. And so whenever somebody who is a global market player says we're in a recession, it could actually become a self fulfilling prophecy. So even if we don't like these people, we don't like what they represent and we think they're responsible for a lot of background bad that's happened in the country. It doesn't matter. Because when you control hundreds of billions of dollars literally at your disposal, not to mention basically an arm of overall uf soft power of market activity, of deals, if you say that there's gonna be a contraction, a recession on cnbc, it will cause all your peers, also titans of industry, to do the same thing. So that's why we have to pay attention when these people speak. Let's take a Listen. Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock. Here's what he had to say.

[Ray Dalio]

The United States Post World War II was a global stabilizer. We are the global destabilizer right now. Very. You know, that's a very hard thing to say because I pride ourselves of being, you know, bringing the leadership, bringing the conversations. Right. Yes, I do believe we're probably starting, if not, we're in a recession.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yes.

[Ray Dalio]

I think the market, market is still anticipating, underestimating how high inflation can get. As you factor in all the tariffs, right. You factor in all these other issues, it's going to be quite additive. I mean I read in a report that if you just take the tariffs in the cost of home building, the average new home could be up as much as 26%. We already have a housing affordability problem.

[Ryan Seacrest]

None of this sounds any good to me. I mean and it's all self inflicted by the way. None of it needed to.

[Ray Dalio]

This is not a pandemic, this is not a financial crisis. This is something that we've created.

[Ryan Seacrest]

So you can see from his comments there specifically about recession and about contraction increase of goods that this is quote, if we are not in a recession, if you factor in all the tariffs, it's going to be quite additives. I do believe we are probably starting. So you could say from him we also have Ray Dalio, the quote legendary investor. I'll tell you more about Dalio in a little bit but you got to hand it to him, he actually wrote a decent enough book and as always as worth listening to. Here's what he had to say.

[Larry Fink]

I think that right now we are at a decision making point and very close to a recession. And I'm worried about something worse than a recession if this isn't handled well. A recession is, is two negative quarters of GDP and whether it goes slightly there, we always have those things. We have something that's much more profound. We have a breaking down of the monetary order. We are going to change the monetary order because we cannot spend the amounts of money. So we have that problem. And when we talk about the dollar and we talk about tariffs, we have that we are having profound changes in our domestic oil how ruling is existing and we're having profound changes in the world order. Such times are very much like the 1930s. I've studied history and this repeats over and over again. So if you take tariffs, if you take debt, if you take the rising power, challenging existing power, if you take those factors and look at the factors that those changes in the orders, the system systems are very, very disruptive. How that's handled could produce something that is much worse than a recession.

[Crystal Ball]

Much worse than a recession. Yeah, that's not what you want to.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hear for no reason and specifically what he's talking about is the dollar market. So like literally right as you and I are speaking, Ryan, there's been a huge decline in the dollar. Globally people are fleeing the dollar and the currency is now basically the reason why it matters is that not only do we have an import shock in terms of tariffs, but now those imports priced in foreign currencies will be more expensive. So there's been an overall slight increase in the currency exchange rate that is being added on top of the tariffs. At the same time we have the bond market problem that is happening right now. Increasing the amount of costs for Borrowing from the United States of America and debt servicing. So bond market yield increases, dollar decreases, the overall imports. Here you have a contractual environment. This is genuinely akin to like the 1970s and some sort of stagflation level crisis. The only thing that we are missing is high unemployment. And luckily we are not there yet. But we have all of the ingredients to create high unemployment if we do not back away and change this policy. Look, let's also say this, Trump has the off ramp. Any time that he wants, he can be like, look, we're gonna do bilateral negotiations and it's gonna take a year, Right? But this current idea is 90 days. The current 90 day hypothesis, I looked it up. The average bilateral negotiation between the United States and another country takes one to five years. One to five years for a bilateral trading. So the idea that you're gonna do 70 different negotiations over a 90 day period, preposterous. We can't even do one with the UK with our greatest allies. It'd been years and we still don't even have a freaking bilateral.

[Crystal Ball]

Must make anything.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah. And yeah, you're right, they don't even do anything. All they do is send a scotch. That's the hardest thing. It's not even difficult. We'll figure out I'm joking, my good friends over there.

[Crystal Ball]

Calm down, calm down, calm down.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, we love you. Go ahead.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, no, let's put up Charlie Gasparino the next element here too, which is, and he's saying that what Sager is saying is reflected in all of the conversations that Gasparino is having with investors and CEOs, that all of these factors are coming together to produce a recession. And my quibble with Sager's point is. So you're saying that Trump, Trump could end this. Yes, he could. And there would be a nice, nice spike and we'll start to pick up the pieces again. There's already, and it's hard to maybe even explain this to people, there's already significant damage done. Businesses are, I'm sure there are. If you run one of these businesses, let us know. Like, businesses are going under. Companies that run in this just in time, cash flow fashion, which is basically any company under like our Apple, those are struggling. And then the other question is, okay, Trump will. Trump could make a decision here. How does China respond? Is Chairman Xi merciful? Because maybe Chairman Xi is like, you know what, we've got our boot on their neck right now and we're actually liking the soybean deal that we're getting from Brazil.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Brazil And Argentina.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, I saw Mike rounds complaints in a political article this morning because they're getting absolutely wrecked. Something like 28% of commodities exported out of South Dakota go to China. Over a billion, more than a billion dollars. This is just one little state. So does China have to automatically immediately be like, all right, it's cool, you guys had a bit of a temper tantrum. All's well, we're back. All the deals that we had before are back on. And that's on the fantasy kind of, that Trump just immediately buckles on everything. Because Trump just keeps coming back with, oh, whoa, guys, I'm not done with this. We've been getting ripped off for decades and I'm gonna do this. Trump seems deeply committed to this bit all the way down the. To me, you'd have to have Congress step in and be like, no president doesn't have the authority anymore to just move tariffs around.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, I'm sure that.

[Crystal Ball]

And that needs two thirds.

[Ryan Seacrest]

That needs two thirds because Trump is.

[Crystal Ball]

Going to veto that.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right.

[Crystal Ball]

Do you have any idea where the Dow would have to be for that to happen?

[Ryan Seacrest]

There's a place, there's a spot.

[Crystal Ball]

I'm thinking 70 and 7% unemployment.

[Ryan Seacrest]

What do you think? 70%, 70% drop?

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, maybe a 70.

[Ryan Seacrest]

I think 3, 4 drop in the 3, 4 drop. Because even 50, oh, 2009, we came back, it would have to be, Yeah, I think 70%.

[Crystal Ball]

Or you lose 800,000 jobs in a month.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right.

[Crystal Ball]

And. And you lose, you know, 5,000 mass.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Unemployment, 13% interest rate. Yeah, maybe.

[Crystal Ball]

And then Congress is like, okay, you know what? Actually, we're taking these toys away from you. You can't play with these matches.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, I mean, that is one fantasy. I, I keep seeing people saying, oh my gosh, we do not want that.

[Crystal Ball]

Fantasy to come true because it means that we will have marched through valley.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Of people have this fantasy that Congress is gonna do something about it. No, they're not. Okay. Congress is currently. The Republican Congress is currently trying to cut $1 trillion from the overall government spending, meanwhile also increasing the amount spent on the Pentagon, just so everybody understands that's the stated goal. I'm not kidding. Trump said, let's cut a trillion. He said, yeah, all right. And Republicans are the currently, by the way, the only way to do that actually would be to reduce overall manufacturing tax credits, just so you all know. So also, our borrowing, really genius borrowing.

[Crystal Ball]

Costs, like you said, are going through.

[Ryan Seacrest]

The roof because interest rates are going up, debt soaring.

[Crystal Ball]

30, 30 year mortgage rates are at their highest.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Levels, which is, I think they're at like 70%. Yeah, it's, it's a disaster.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Ryan Seacrest]

So, yeah, things are not good. And finally, B3, let's put this up there on the screen. This is very important and this kind of gets to your point. Point, Ryan. Quote, Trump tariffs on China will soon bring irreversible damage to many businesses. And the reason why is that anybody who's ever run a business. Can you really take a 90 day freeze to your books? No. I mean the vast majority of people cannot survive that. Yeah. If you're Apple, sure. If you're meta. Yeah. And you have this business that spits off all this cash. That's not what most people do, especially smaller businesses, E commerce businesses and more. You know, if you look at here, quote, canceled freight orders and abandoned freight from China are quickly becoming the norm. According to supply chain executives, furniture producers in China have seen a quote, complete halt in orders from US Importers. We are seeing the same across toys, apparel, footwear, sports equipment. We have had same across Southeast Asia. Now we may have some restart because of the 90 day pause. Almost everything is on hold as it relates to China's business. Basically it will stop all trade between the United States and China. These are all people, I'm quoting, who are supply chain and logistics experts. I also, we had Ryan Peterson on the show who I previously mentioned. And Ryan is just constantly flagging about how difficult it is for all of these people to do business under these current economic conditions. And look, there are some who are able to take advantage with some decent enough cash that are on the books. But there are not enough people who are able to survive any of this and are just simply having to freeze everything. And we are seeing already the stories come out across the board. E commerce businesses, smaller people who produce things with limited amount of cash, can't afford lots of inventory. They didn't do anything wrong. And if you're gonna kill their business overnight, I think the government should give you something for it. Kind of like Covid. And look, you could disagree with lockdowns and all of that. And you're right, if we didn't do lockdowns and I guess we wouldn't have had to do bailouts or any of that. But can we all agree that if we did lock you down, then the government of course owes you some remuneration. If they're gonna explicitly tell you that, then of course you can't just kill somebody overnight whenever you were doing business and not just, and just take it. But apparently that is the current state of where things are.

[Crystal Ball]

That's what a strategic approach to a trade war would look like to say.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Okay, which is what the Chinese are doing, right?

[Crystal Ball]

Exactly. Like this is gonna be hard for 180 days. And this is how we as a government are gonna help our people weather this. Because this is important for all of us and we're in this together. Yeah, we're not getting that. Yeah, they are. We're not.

[Ryan Seacrest]

They are. That's right. Yeah. Actually, I'm really curious to see, let's say this last year. We need to compare the material life of the American after one year and the average Chinese and not just some guy in Shenzhen, like an actual, like a normal middle class Chinese person. And I would love to see how that actually. I mean, look, it's possible they're bluffing, right? It's technically possible, yes. They have high amounts of state capacity. They still have a billion people. They have, you know, they were addicted to 6 to 8% economic growth. They had the zero Covid nonsense which really exposed like the fragility of the overall Chinese system. For all the BYD talk and all of that, you still have a lot of people who are very concerned sociologically about mass unemployment.

[Crystal Ball]

There's worries that the AI bubble.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right. I mean, but just generally, I would still rather be them than I would rather be us right now, at least in terms of how things are working out.

[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Savannah Guthrie]

Every morning brings a fresh new energy.

[Crystal Ball]

This is Today with Sophie.

[Savannah Guthrie]

And no matter what the day, we come to the Today show for all of it.

[Craig Melvin]

When things are tough, we talk about it. When there's something to figure out, we dig into it. And when there's joy, we celebrate it.

[Savannah Guthrie]

Because today is where it's all happening. We get the best start to every morning because we start it together.

[Crystal Ball]

Watch the Today show with Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin. Weekdays at 7am on NBC hi, I'm.

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[Ryan Seacrest]

Okay, let's go to consumer sentiment and this is kind of what we were teasing. And this really does demonstrate some of the issues where these are always self fulfilling prophecies. So if people have less consumer sentiment and want to spend money, then they will spend less money, which will lead to an overall economic contraction. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Quote from anxious to petrified consumer sentiment plunges further. The University of Michigan's closely watched index has now hit its second lowest reading on record. Dragged down by fears of higher prices and unemployment. Americans turned much more pessimistic about the economy. In April, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index nosedived to 50 from 57 just last month. Sentiment has been falling steadily through 2025 and expectations for inflation have now hit the highest level in 44 years. According to the survey, sentiment is now at its lowest, second lowest in history, only slightly lower in June 2022 when inflation was soaring thanks to gnarled supply chains and pandemic buying. Back in 2022, the index actually did touch 50 which was the lowest reading on record going back to 1952. So that's basically where we're back at in terms of inflation expectations. The survey basically what they do is it actually took place over the turf time. So it's important to note that, that a lot of this is in real time data. People are accepting this and what you're watching in the data data is that people are very concerned about their ability to buy things and specifically about the expectation for inflation hitting some 44 year high, which means they are going to keep cash, hoard cash if you've got it, not spend it, not do any normal economic activity, not make any major plans. And in a 70% consumer based society that is the worst possible thing you could do. In China, you can get away with a lower consumer sentiment. You're not just hooked on it. You got manufacturing right this, you got a lot more fundamentals in america with cheap TVs and all this other Walmart and all these other countries, all these other companies, good luck. You know, talking about what Easter's coming up, are people gonna be buying presents, are people gonna be traveling? Are people, you know, these are all decisions that people make already. Delta Airlines came out and said we have seen a mass cancellation of bookings across the board. We are watching economic activity go down. We have to revise earnings. Walmart actually is expecting, hilariously enough, increase business on the theory that they always do well during recessions. So keep that in mind. The companies or what is it, Walmart, McDonald's always do well. Dollar Tree, Dollar General, the recession proof industries, not recession proof. The people who thrive are happy. They're actually thinking, oh actually we're going to see more low price customers. All of the data out there for forecasts on the books shows that consumer good retailers, they're getting crushed at the stock market market level. I mean Nike was down some 20% or something like that as a result of a lot of these tariffs. At one point, even with Vietnam, things have changed a little bit for them. But you can just see that the danger lurks for all of them in this consumption based society that we're in.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, this is the whole thing. And so that's all well said on the economic model. My colleague Maaz Hussein over at Dropsite, I've seen him often make this point that and he observes a lot of different cultures around the world world. And one thing that he talks about with the United States is that we are, as much as we love to hate on ourselves, one of the most successful pluralistic societies. Yes, we have our divisions. People don't like each other, but not compared to other countries. We have a multicultural society that gets along relatively well and definitely relative to other countries. The glue that stitches all that together is our consumer society. We all love stuff and we love the shows that are organized around us buying stuff. We love events that are built around stuff. Black Friday and also you go to parties in the US there's little cheap stuff everywhere, consumer driven things. Everybody's buying stuff for these events. The culture is tied together by the consumer society and it, it is effectively done so to you don't have to love the consumer side, but it's laudable that you can have a multicultural pluralistic society that isn't breaking out into sectarian violence in a routine way. Pull that away. Good luck. So just no matter how bad you think things are, they can always get a lot worse. And so you rip the rug out from underneath that. We might Be at each other's throats.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah. What's the quote? It's like it's always darkest just before.

[Crystal Ball]

If we can't have like the Sunday NFL. Yeah, that's Thursday night.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Well, that's what I was saying about Easter. I mean, Easter candy, right? Let's say you even see a 10% drop in overall.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's a lot.

[Ryan Seacrest]

I mean, you know, that's a lot of inventory. Now you got to discount it. Now you gotta house it. You got all these problems. What do you do? You know, people are gonna try and drop the price on a 60, 70%. People usually go home for Easter Sunday or so they're not buying gas. If they decide not to, they decide to cancel their travel. Or sometimes you give gifts to your nieces and nephews. This year you're gonna give a little bit. These are all these decisions compound. You know, for example, I was talking to my barber and I was like, hey, I'm just curious, have you seen anything? He goes, yeah, I have noticed that people who used to come in every three weeks are now going five, you know, and that sounds like. It doesn't sound down the crazy to you individually. Compound that over your entire customer base and you're seeing a churn of a pretty serious hit to your bottom line. And you multiply that across the entire economy.

[Crystal Ball]

And the NFL, for instance, like, the whole reason that it's able to be the league that it is is because of the advertising revenue that comes in. And if people are not buying the stuff that's advertised on those commercials, then you're not going to pay. Hey, you're not gonna pay the advertising rates anymore. And then the thing starts to collapse, starts to go backwards.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Actually, we can serve as a good indicator as well because of our YouTube backend. I remember, I will never forget what the YouTube backend over at Rising looked like back in March and in April of 2020.

[Crystal Ball]

Oh, it evaporated. Right.

[Ryan Seacrest]

God, it was like this. Gone over probably like 90% of the revenue. So, yeah, I can. Unfortunately, we can tell you real quick.

[Crystal Ball]

Have you noticed that anything.

[Ryan Seacrest]

I'm taking a look now. No, actually, things seem fine.

[Crystal Ball]

Hanging tight. Okay.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Things seem fine.

[Crystal Ball]

You guys are still buying stuff.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Actually, you know what? This is a good time to say this. So you know our premium show that we send out to people.

[Crystal Ball]

Oh, this is a good premium.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, this is. I've always noticed this. Our premium show, which we send out, it's an unlisted link and also available on local Spotify, et cetera. One of the places people watch it is sometimes an unlisted YouTube video that is available. Our premium subscribers have been telling us that even though we earn again, we earn no money from this. We are not turning. Monetization on YouTube reserves the right to monetize that if they want to. And it's always a recession indicator to me when they start doing that. Because I remember right back in 2022 when we launched the show immediately when the gas prices skyrocketed and we saw the pullback, that's when they started doing it a lot. They stopped. Now recently, just in the last two weeks, people have been complaining ad nauseam, saying oh my God, yes they should because they're paying. Yeah, of course they should. I'm not mad at them, I'm telling you is that that is a major sign to me that they're trying to fill as much inventory as possible to blast it and satisfy some of their advertising. And again, we make not $1 from that. We don't want them to do it. So I guess that's a shout out if you do want to watch it totally ad free. Spotify is still there and Locals is still there as well. But unfortunately if you watch this on unlisted YouTube, there is nothing that we can do and it's infuriating. But that is a signal to me that YouTube is basically throwing everything they've got, all inventory that they've got, they're throwing as many ads into that as possible. And when they do that, it means that they're probably making less in terms of their cpm. So they gotta fill it up with more ad blocks than normal. So just a little bit of insight behind the scenes. Let's go to the last part here. Just C3 please. This is just about the bond market. This is the same thing that we have been looking at. But you can really see that those yields continue to increase, increase to levels which they really do not want them to. They're very worried about you going to a yield of some 5% with a 0.5% increase of percent, which is not supposed to happen really if you look at the overall long term trends. And that right now with the current stated goal of bringing that yield down and being unable to do so, there's a worry about some runaway basically selling of US Bonds which would make it so that the yield increases, borrowing costs and mortgage rates and interest rates and all that continue to go very high and it would very much cripple the administration. So that's another feedback loop where mortgage rates continue to Go up. I actually think they're, I think they went down after they were up at some 7% or whatever. Again, everybody down to 5, 9 or something, right. So, but people are still watching, right, for the Federal Reserve. And if the Federal Reserve and Jerome Powell and them decide not to do any sort of emergency rate cut, we really are stuck in this for a long time. And there's a lot of things that's.

[Crystal Ball]

High, you don't want that. And there is some question about how organized this is and we're still trying to sort this out. But there was reporting that Japan was dumping, that Japan was dumping bonds. And Japan is obviously one of the biggest holders of bonds now. China, huge holder of bonds as well, Canada. So we are out there antagonizing all of these, these countries while they literally hold our cards. And if they take our cards and they just start selling a few of them, that drives down the price of our bonds and then drives up the yield. That's just mathematically like there's no other. That's how it's going to work if there's a sell off and it's never worked that way before, for the most part, you have a crash in the stock market that means people are selling stocks and moving to the safety of treasury bonds. That is the orthodox understanding of the global economy that's broken right now. And it's probably a combination of people leaving the kind of structure of the American dollar economy and our adversaries like Japan, who should be our friends, but we've turned them into adversaries deliberately bringing pain to us so that we will back off of this because it costs them too. They don't want to do this because if you are a holder of American Treasuries right now and you're selling into a down market.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, exactly.

[Crystal Ball]

You're losing millions and billions of dollars, but you're costing us a lot more. So you're prioritizing geopolitics over your bottom line in the interest of your bottom line doing better down the road. And it is what like Trump was asked when he caved, why did you do this? And he said, said his exact quote was, the bond market is a very tricky thing, isn't it?

[Ryan Seacrest]

James Carville famously, they're getting yippee, getting yippy.

[Crystal Ball]

James Carville famously in 1993 said if he was ever reincarnated, he wanted to come back as the bond market because it was the most powerful thing in the world.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Did he say that?

[Crystal Ball]

I didn't know that because it's what.

[Ryan Seacrest]

What'S the context for that?

[Crystal Ball]

So Clinton came in with a grand economic vision.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, I know.

[Crystal Ball]

And Larry Summers in his and his buddies told him, if you do this, the bond market is going to panic, interest rates are going to go up and you'll have a recession. They're like, so you're telling us we ran on this whole thing that we want to do and we can't because of the bond market? They're like, yes, that's what we're telling you.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Huh.

[Crystal Ball]

And so Karvo is like, when I get reincarnated, I want to come back.

[Ryan Seacrest]

To the bond market. I need to. I need to go back.

[Crystal Ball]

And yeah, the bond market just slapped Trump back into line.

[Ryan Seacrest]

So do you have any good books on the history of the Clinton administration? I only read my life, which is complete propaganda. Yeah. By the way, it's just laughable.

[Crystal Ball]

Clinton's book. Let me think on that. I'm not sure.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, I don't know any decent ones. I still can't believe I even wasted my time reading that book.

[Crystal Ball]

It's like 700 pages.

[Ryan Seacrest]

No, it's two lifetimes. Yeah, I know. It's two volumes. It's so big. Anyway, all right. Long, long, long time ago.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Does this podcast make you happy? Of course it does. That's why you're here. But it only comes out once a week for happiness. Every night. You need Adam and Eve. Yes. I'm talking about sex toys. It's cool. It's cool. You have earbuds in, right? Adam and Eve, America's most trusted source for adult products has been making people very happy for over 50 years. Years with thousands of toys for both men and women. Just go to AdamAndEve.com now and enter code IHEART for 50% off. Almost any one item plus free discreet shipping. That's AdamAndEve.com code IHEART for 50% off.

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