Transcript
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Jim Cramer (1:04)
My mission is simple to make you money. I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a bull market somewhere and I promise to help you find it. Man Money starts now. Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to Man Money. Welcome to Kramer, America and my friends. I'm just trying to make you less of money. My job is not just entertain, but explain how days like today can happen. So call me 1-800-7-BCB. We meet Jim Cramer. People are getting tired. They're getting exhausted. At this point, they don't really care about President Trump's tariffs, except they know tariffs raise prices and the last thing anybody wants is higher prices. Americans are worn out. All we can think is how the heck did everything get so expensive in this country. It's worrying people to the point where every day we expect things to go up in price. Still, except for their stocks, of course. The President seems to be mandating higher prices in the supermarket and lower prices in the stock market. When people voted for Trump, I'm actually pretty sure that they were hoping to be the other way around. And today we finally got a sense of how bad things could be, courtesy of the Washington Post, and they do not paint a pretty picture. That's one reason why we had another mixed session. Dow lost 12 points today, while the S&P gained.3% in the Nasdaq jumped.87% right ahead of Liberation Day. Now, as someone who's been a huge critic of unrestrained free trade, I am very sympathetic to what President Trump is trying to accomplish with these tariffs. Every other country on earth tries to protect its own domestic industries except America, which has spent decades letting foreign competitors steamroll our guys in exchange for cheaper stuff. President Trump is justifiably furious about this. He wants to do something about it. But solving the problem is going to hurt. We don't know how much our prices will go up for just about everything. But we do know those tariffs will be used as an excuse to raise prices across the board. It's been very hard to get a sense of the overall damage. Today, though, we caught a break. The Washington Post has these two dynamite reporters, Jeff Stein and David lynch, who traced out the worst case scenario in a clued in scoop headline, quote, trump aides draft tariff plans as some experts warn of economic damage, end quote. They explained that the President prepared to propose tariffs of about 20% on most imports. Yep, almost everything. Holy cow. Speaking of someone who's not a fan of free trade, I have to be honest here. A 20% across the board tariff on almost all imports that would be horrendous for the economy. That's a 20% increase on everything we buy from overseas. And we import a huge amount of foreign goods in America and those goods are cheap because that's the deal. There's plenty of competition from these companies, but with the exception of the auto industry and those that contribute to it, mainly steel, it doesn't matter anymore. The truth is the jobs that are meant to be protected by tariffs were automated out of existence a long time ago. You're simply not going to bring back those fancy, gorgeous rolls of gift wrapped paper that my father used to sell because China wiped out all the American plants that he worked for years ago. In fairness, he loved doing business with the Chinese. Always said they were more accommodating the Americans, but China subsidized those companies so they could wipe out our companies. And our government let it happen. Our country has idle paper mills in so many of the small towns that President Trump worried about. It's painful to ask what was in that big empty building because it's invariably someone my father worked for. Now Trump wants to reverse that, but we don't have the capacity to make this stuff anymore. And if you want to buy American to avoid the tariffs, you're going to have to pay through the nose to do it. There are five problems with this whole discussion that we've been hurting the stock market. First, the tariffs aren't protecting us from anything because we barely make anything anymore. The horses left the barn ages ago. Ford and GM will be able to make more money by raising prices. But who does that help besides their shareholders and union members? What's good for General Motors is not necessarily good for America anymore. All people know is that cars will be more expensive. They don't care about who makes them. We're a service economy these days and services are untouched. The factory towns where the president stumped in one, they barely exist anymore. Conceivably some foreign company might make a move a plant there, but it's more than likely that there's full employment in those towns because most working age people moved away a long time ago. They don't have enough people to handle all the new jobs that might be coming. Number two. Second problem. Let's call it history. One of the unfortunate aspects of history is it can be googled. For example, unless you're currently taking American history in high school, you might not remember Smoot Hawley and what a debacle that was. The worst set of tariffs in American history. Proximate caused the Great Depression. But when I mention it, I know you can Google it and it sounds a lot like what President Trump's rolling out tomorrow. If these non reciprocal meetax tariffs that the Washington Post talks about get enacted, the blanket universal tariff is a disaster for the consumer. We know that. Google it. But we've been at Jesse that that's what we need to see. I guess, I don't know. We're also exhausted and unliberated. There's a sense to, let's say sense of relief to simply know how bad it could be ahead of time. That's one of the reasons why I thought the market could rally today. Third problem. We have no idea how anything's going to be collected. Nothing knows. We don't know. It's catch, catch. Can they look? It's got people worried too. Traditionally, Immigration and Customs Enforcement collects tariffs, but right now the agency is fully focused on the immigration side. We got this Phosphora, Mexico, mescal waiting at the border. Let me know what to do with it, please. I wish the White House were more serious about making the tariffs work. Our country's been crushed by foreign imports that are typically made by cheap labor and often subsidized. So they destroy our jobs. But the jobs are gone. We had almost a million seamstresses in this country four decades ago. Now we have almost none. They aren't bringing back those jobs. Sure, some companies thought they'd be buying immunity by building new factories here. But there's nothing on paper that suggests that the President will spare them. Is there really no sanctuary? Fourth, I've got real beef with many of our trading partners, but what on earth did the Canadians do wrong? They weren't part of that fentanyl trade. Everyone knows that. But they're all afraid to say it. Their currency so low. It's a fabulous place to do business. North America's energy independent in part because Canada's crude oil mixed in with our own. Until a few months ago, everybody liked Canada. Let's hope they don't retaliate with lumber or else housing prices will go up as much as auto prices. Ryan Reynolds is a great guy. Finally, five, Most Americans are worried about inflation, not tariffs. That's what got Trump elected. For heaven's sake. As much as I rail against the devil's bargain that gave the country the cheap stuff at the cost of domestic jobs, cheap stuff is what America wanted. I didn't want it. They wanted. I wanted my job. Dad. Have a good job. Sure. Voters also wanted an angry president, but they wanted to direct that anger at retailers and their suppliers who refused to roll back prices while turning on the charm toward those who gave us lower prices because we like them. It's a real shame that the President read the room wrong. People have spent the last five years hating anyone who raised prices on us. And now the White House wants to mandate a 20% price increase on all our stuff, our imports. Here's the bottom line. When the book is written on this moment, I think we'll question what we were liberated from. A liberation day again. I think Trump is totally justified in cracking down on our trading partners. But that doesn't mean it will be good for the economy. Just look up the last president who pushed through a big round of tariffs. His name was Herbert Hoover. Google it. Lori in New Jersey. Laurie. Oh, yeah, Jim, My question is. Hi. My question is American Express. Do I hold and Buy More now? Yes, you do. Because Steve Squeery is incredible. I think it's one of the great franchises of all time. And I've studied it's 150 years. I think these guys. This is one of America's great companies. Michael in Tennessee. Michael. Jim, Happy Liberation Day. Well, let's hope we get liberated. I like being liberated. I've been liberated a bunch of things in my life. Not bad. I like Trump. Maybe. Yeah. Jim. With the potential economic slowdown and the new Tariffs on the horizon. How do you see these factors impacting this company and the overall growth strategy? The company is Amazon. Okay, here's my thinking. I think that the ones who can survive are the strongest and the biggest. And that's what it's coming to. This is Amazon. It's from 242 down to 192. What can I say other than John in my home state of New Jersey? John. Hey Jim, longtime fan of the show here. I was just wondering anytime.