Morning Joe 4/4/25

Summary

Morning Joe Podcast Summary
Episode: April 4, 2025
Hosts: Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Willie Geist
Release Date: April 4, 2025

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Introduction

In the April 4, 2025 episode of Morning Joe, hosts Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist delve into the significant economic upheaval triggered by President Donald Trump's recent implementation of extensive tariffs. The episode features insightful discussions with economic analysts, political commentators, and experts, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted impacts of these tariffs on the U.S. economy, political landscape, and international relations.

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Economic Impact of Tariffs

Market Reaction:

Joe Scarborough opens the discussion by highlighting the unexpected severity of the market downturn following Trump's tariff announcement. Contrary to market predictions that had seemingly priced in some level of economic turbulence, the actual decline surpassed expectations. Scarborough remarks, “[...] the market's going down by 5%. Going down all across the globe” (01:35).

Willie Geist corroborates this by noting the historic nature of the stock market's decline, comparing it to the volatility experienced during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. He adds, “a savage day yesterday, about 5%. The market's going down by 5%” (01:35).

Expert Analysis:

Jonathan Lemire provides an overview of the immediate economic repercussions, stating, “stocks losing more than $3 trillion in market value” (03:41). He emphasizes the global condemnation from international leaders and business communities, underscoring the widespread disapproval of Trump's tariff strategy.

Steve Ratner, Morning Joe’s economic analyst, elaborates on Trump's long-standing support for tariffs, tracing back to the 1980s. Ratner explains, “This is something he has now believed for 40 odd years in a public forum, probably longer” (06:19). He critiques the administration's implementation, highlighting that the sudden escalation was not merely a negotiating tactic but a decisive move that contradicts earlier business community expectations.

Economic Projections:

Ali Vitale discusses the potential long-term economic fallout, expressing skepticism about the administration’s optimistic projections. He states, “if our trading partners dramatically reduce the tariffs they charge on US goods and services, and the consequence of that is the US government dramatically cuts the tariffs that were announced yesterday. That would be a great outcome that would be good for America” (11:57).

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Political Implications

Republican Reactions:

The episode explores the growing tension within the Republican Party as tariffs begin to show their detrimental effects on various sectors. Joe Scarborough points out the pressure mounting on Republicans from constituents experiencing rising costs, asking, “what are you hearing on the Hill from four Republicans? And are they showing any signs that they're going to start speaking out against tariffs?” (17:00).

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa emerges as a key figure attempting to mitigate the impact through bipartisan efforts. Grassley is working on a bill that would require the President to notify Congress before implementing new tariffs and grant Congress the authority to cancel them if necessary (18:07).

However, Trump loyalists like Ron Johnson, Ted Cruz, and Jerry Moran express reservations about the tariffs but remain patient, observing emerging economic trends before taking a definitive stance (18:40).

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Foreign Policy Consequences

Strained Alliances:

The infusion of tariffs has significantly strained U.S. relationships with key allies. David Rhode notes, “the Chinese Finance Ministry just moments ago announced that they will match President Trump's plan [...]” (38:39), indicating a tit-for-tat escalation that jeopardizes international trade relations.

Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist discuss how these tariffs undermine decades of established trade relations and global economic leadership. Scarborough emphasizes, “Can you get those jobs back? Because people like Dick Gephardt lost that fight back in the 1980s. Can it be unwound?” (26:02), questioning the feasibility of reversing established global trade norms.

China Retaliation:

The retaliatory response from China is swift and severe. David Rhode highlights that China is imposing 34% tariffs on U.S. goods and restricting exports of critical materials like rare earth elements, essential for technologies ranging from electric cars to smart bombs (38:39). This retaliation not only aggravates the U.S. trade deficit but also hampers technological advancements and national security.

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Expert Opinions

Economic Critique:

Steve Ratner criticizes Trump's approach to tariffs, arguing that they are economically detrimental and lack strategic coherence. He states, “These are not a negotiating tactic” (08:19), emphasizing that the administration's beliefs about the positive impact of tariffs are unfounded according to mainstream economists.

David Ignatius offers a nuanced perspective, distinguishing between potential short-term gains from negotiating lower tariffs and the long-term economic damage if tariffs lead to ongoing trade barriers. He warns, “Tariffs are a tax on consumers” (20:32), highlighting the immediate financial burden on American households.

Historical Context:

Ali Vitale provides historical context, tracing Trump's tariff advocacy back to the 1980s and comparing it to past economic policies. He notes, “You have 40, 45 years of history, of globalism. Can that be unwound? Most economists say it cannot” (26:02), reinforcing the long-term challenges posed by current tariff strategies.

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Market Reactions and Predictions

Sector-Specific Impacts:

Steve Ratner outlines the varied impacts on different industries:

• Retail Giants: Companies like Nike suffer a 14% drop due to high tariffs on goods manufactured in Southeast Asia (31:35).
• Aerospace and Technology: Boeing and Apple face significant challenges as tariffs make their products less competitive internationally (31:35).
• E-Commerce: Amazon, reliant on overseas shipments, could see increased costs affecting their bottom line (31:35).
• Wholesale Retailers: Walmart and Costco manage to navigate the tariffs better due to their substantial buying power, allowing them to absorb costs without significant price hikes (31:35).

Recession Forecasts:

Economic analysts, including those from JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, have raised the probability of a recession to 60%, citing the substantial loss in market value and ongoing economic instability as primary indicators (28:43). These projections highlight the severe repercussions of the tariff implementation on the U.S. economy.

Historical Comparison:

Ali Vitale draws parallels to the 1909 tariff rates, the last instance tariffs were at comparable levels. He warns that these rates exceed even the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariffs of the 1930s, which exacerbated the Great Depression (29:06). This historical perspective underscores the unprecedented nature of the current economic strategy.

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Foreign Policy and Security Implications

Allied Relations:

David Rhode emphasizes the broader implications beyond economics, noting that strained trade relations are likely to spill over into security alliances. He states, “we are considering not defending [allies] if they aren't paying enough money” (39:27), hinting at potential realignment within NATO and other alliances.

China's Strategic Position:

With the U.S. imposing broad tariffs, countries are increasingly turning to China for trade, weakening U.S. influence in global markets. This shift could diminish the effectiveness of U.S. economic and security policies, as China positions itself as a more reliable and less punitive trade partner.

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Conclusion

The April 4, 2025 episode of Morning Joe paints a concerning picture of the current economic and political landscape shaped by President Trump's aggressive tariff policies. With immediate market downturns, rising recession probabilities, strained international relations, and internal political tensions, the tariffs have cascading effects that threaten to destabilize the U.S. economy and its standing on the global stage. Experts unanimously agree that the long-term impacts are predominantly negative, challenging the administration’s optimistic outlook and calling for urgent reassessment of trade strategies to mitigate further economic hardship.

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Notable Quotes

• Joe Scarborough: “the market's going down by 5%. Going down all across the globe” (01:35)
• Jonathan Lemire: “stocks losing more than $3 trillion in market value” (03:41)
• Steve Ratner: “These are not a negotiating tactic” (08:19)
• Ali Vitale: “Tariffs are a tax on consumers” (20:32)
• David Rhode: “a global trade war is beginning” (38:39)

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This summary encapsulates the critical discussions and analyses from the April 4, 2025 episode of Morning Joe, providing listeners with a detailed overview of the economic and political ramifications of the recent tariff policies.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

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[Joe Scarborough]

Generally speaking, this was far worse than had been anticipated, certainly by the market, which thought. And many investors I've spoken to thought it already baked in. I know especially given the action we saw the last couple of days, the expectations. And then you had a lot of things going around the last few days.

[Willie Geist]

Whether it was 10% or 20% across.

[Joe Scarborough]

The board or what it might be. But calling these reciprocal is not that we don't.

[Steve Ratner]

We're done using that, using the debt.

[David Ignatius]

Because that just I don't call it a lie. It's dissembling.

[Joe Scarborough]

All right. Having fun at CNBC yesterday, Willie? It was about as volatile a day on Wall street as they've seen since the beginning of the panic, the COVID panic. This is tariff. Shock waves circle the globe. The New York Times showing what all the markets were doing around the world. Wall Street Journal stocks suffer steepest slide since 2020. Also cover there. And also something that caught my attention. George Clooney on the front of the art section on Broadway for Good night. Good luck. That looks fascinating, but probably not what many people want to talk about right now. You know, Willie, a savage day yesterday, about 5%. The market's going down by 5%. Going down all across the globe. I will say I as I did after the president's announcement a couple of days ago, I took a look at futures and saw that there was going to be precipitous drop yesterday. I did the same thing after hours yesterday. And it looks like, you know, some of the stocks are in the green, most of them pretty leveled off. So we'll see if the president absorbs a second big day. We don't know if that's going to happen or not a big loss. But if he does not, and if there are people that go in and start trying buy today, then it will seem like these massive numbers that president put forward with tariffs may, as they were saying, may start to being baked in. But baked in or not, regardless, yesterday was a historic day. A lot of people and a lot of places lost a lot of money in their retirement accounts.

[Jonathan Lemire]

Well, President Trump predicted it would be a historic day, and it was, but not for the reasons he said it would be. The future. Down again this morning, Joe, the dow down about 400 as we sit here right now, another full percentage point point. We'll see if that holds as the markets open in a couple of hours. But yeah, I mean, it was striking to see not just how hard the markets were rattled across the world, but also the condemnation across the world from leaders, from allies, from financially business people, people who on many other issues and in fact on most economic issues side with Donald Trump saying this is wrongheaded, it's a mistake, and the evidence was in the markets yesterday. We're going to break down all of this with Steve Ratner and our panel of analysts. We also have the co host of our four, Jonathan Lemire. He's of course, a contributing writer at the Atlantic covering the White House and national politics columnist and associate editor for the Washington Post, David Ignatius, the host of Way Too Early, Ali Vitale, as I mentioned, former treasury official Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner and NBC News national security editor David Rhode.

[Joe Scarborough]

Joe yeah, let's just put a fine point on this once again, Jonathan Lemire. And you've done this, you've covered the president through several elections. You certainly have studied in what he said about tariffs. I think it's so important to underline to Americans after yesterday, this, this massive day of economic loss on Wall street that this isn't something that he dreamed up over the last month or so. You know, a lot of times in the first term, people would accuse a president of just going randomly wherever he wanted to go on economic policy or on military policy. Donald Trump at his core, has believed in tariffs since 1987. We're going to show you a Dick get part ad, a famous dick get part ad from the 1988 presidential campaign where he talks about the importance of tariffs and how that was center of mind in the 1988 campaign for a lot of people. You go back that far. Donald Trump has been talking consistently about tariffs. So he had this planned. He promised during the campaign he was going to do it. He even said tariffs are like his favorite word in the English language. So. And also he and Elon Musk both said Americans were going to have to face some hardship getting from globalism to where they believed they needed to be with protectionism. So again, this isn't something he just dreamed up. This is actually a calculated plan to follow through on something that he has believed in for about 50 years now.

[Steve Ratner]

Yeah. Trump has declared it, as you noted, that tariff is the most beautiful word in the English language. He later amended it. He's like, well, maybe God, maybe love, but I do like tariff. And he is someone who. So he has changed his views on so many issues so many times over the decades, including switching political parties. But there are a few things that have crystallized. They all kind of date from the 1980s. Some of them are cultural references, including the importance of Time magazine. And then others are economic. And then mostly tariffs. This is something he has now believed for 40 odd years in a public forum, probably longer. Privately, he believes in tariffs. Now, economists largely disagree. They say what he think tariffs will produce won't occur, not at this moment for the nation and global economy. But this is not something that he dreamed up over a weekend at Mar A Lago. This is something that he has wanted to do. Now, the implementation that was fuzzier, that has been something that has gone back. The White House aides, the economic council, outside advisors, administration officials have spent the last couple of weeks trying to figure out exactly how to do this to hit that April 2nd Liberation Day target. And certainly I was talking to a couple administration officials yesterday who said, one of them said to me, all we've been talking about now for weeks is tariffs. And it's finally here. But in the last 48 to 72 hours before the announcement, they decided to go big, really big. And Joe and Willie, that's the last point to make here, is that there's been a thought, especially in the business community, that his talk of tariffs, a negotiating tactic, a bluff. He said it repeatedly on the campaign trail. A lot of his crowds really cheered for it. They wanted this to happen. They wanted the tariffs to happen. Business leaders less so, thinking he might just be negotiating. But Joe, that's what I kept hearing over and over yesterday. This is not a negotiating tactic.

[Joe Scarborough]

These are real.

[Steve Ratner]

Eventually it will lead to deals, it will lead to sides sitting at a table and coming up with something else. But these are not going anywhere, not anytime soon.

[Joe Scarborough]

Well, and again, you're right. The MAGA base cheered for this. Steve Bannon will be the first to tell you, they cheered for this. They wanted this. You go back to 2016, Willie. His closing argument was that two minute ad that Steve Bannon put together. It was just an absolute indictment on globalism and what it had done to working class Americans. What a lot of politicians warned back in the 90s and early 2000, what some of these trade deals would do to working class Americans. So their attitude, a lot of their, their attitudes are how can it get any worse? And we will see very soon. But just again, just, we've been talking about going back to the late 80s. It's just to put a time capsule on this to explain how long Donald Trump has believed that tariffs needed to be implemented. It goes back to the time when Japan was on the rise economically and they were buying Times. They were buying 30 Rock, they were buying pebble beach and they were buying all these American landmarks. People were up in arms, they were very angry. And that's really when Donald Trump started locking in on the need for tariffs and pushing back against these countries.

[Jonathan Lemire]

Yeah, you can find interviews and we've played some of them over the last couple of weeks on NBC in the 80s when he's talking about the power of tariffs and how our government should use them more effectively. And then just go back to the presidential debates in 16 and 24. And he has asked, won't these tariffs raise prices on everyday Americans? He says absolutely not. We're about to find out. As I mentioned, stock futures in the red again this morning after President Trump's sweeping tariffs sparked that massive sell off yesterday. Stocks losing more than $3,000,000,000 Doll,000,000,000,000, trillion in market value. In response, analysts with JP Morgan raised their risk of a recession this year now to 60%. Despite the economic turmoil, President Trump appeared unfazed yesterday, telling reporters it's all part of the plan. And the tariffs give his administration leverage over other countries.

[Donald Trump]

I think it's going very well. It was an operation like when a patient gets operated on and it's a big thing. I said this would ex the way it is. We have six or seven trillion dollars coming into our country and we've never seen anything like it. The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom. And the Rest of the world wants to see, is there any way they can make a deal? Every country's called us. That's the beauty of what we do. We put ourselves in the driver's seat. If we would have asked some of these countries, almost most of these countries, to do us a favor, they would have said do anything for us. But we have tariffs, they've been set, and it's going to make our country very rich.

[Steve Ratner]

What are you open to deals with.

[Ali Vitale]

These countries if they're calling you?

[Donald Trump]

Well, it depends if somebody said that we're going to give you something that's so phenomenal, as long as they're giving us something that's good. For instance, with TikTok as an example, we have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say, we'll approve a deal, but will you do something under tariff? The tariffs give us great power to negotiate, always have. I've used them very well.

[Jonathan Lemire]

So, Steve Ratner, the president, still suggesting that these are just negotiating tools. As $3 trillion of wealth are erased yesterday and prices are sure to go up in the coming weeks and months, what do you make of the case he's attempting to make here?

[Ali Vitale]

Well, first of all, his case is not always that clear. There are two ways to think about what he might be trying to accomplish. One would be to lower tariffs so that we can export more to these other countries and have what he would call fairer trade, a more level playing field, whatever. The other would be that he thinks he's somehow going to restore manufacturing back to where it was in the 1970s, 50s, whatever, and build lots of factories, and we're going to keep these tariffs high in order to keep other stuff out and build manufacturing capacity here. They're both a fantasy, but for different reasons. On the first one, when you look at the, when you look at some of the tariffs he's put in against other countries, especially Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, they are not in a position to buy much from us. It is normal, and I can get into the economics of it, but I'll spare them for the moment. It's normal of them to run a trade deficit with a country like ours and we get in return cheaper, better goods that Americans have been enjoying now for many years. And so it's really not clear what the endgame is here that's going to make any sense. It doesn't feel. Remember in Trump 1.0, he put a bunch of tariffs on and then he quickly started negotiating and a bunch of them came off and he announced deals with Canada and Mexico and so forth. He feels much more dug in on this this time. And I would also make the point, he said in that clip that things are going exactly as he thought they would. Is he really saying that he expected the stock market would roll over and drop by 4% and $3 trillion of wealth would be wiped out? Was that his idea of it going exactly as he expected to? The market had no idea this was coming. It was a terrible, it's a terrible shock. I don't know anyone who thinks it's a good idea. And as you said in that JP Morgan reference, the recession odds have now gone up into the 50, 60% range.

[Joe Scarborough]

And you know, David Ignatius, this is a bet that he again has been saying was coming, that he was willing to take. And it reminded me yesterday as I was, as I was seeing the stock market go down, but also seeing that this is what Donald Trump has said he was going to do because we were going to have to get to the other side of unwinding globalism. It reminded me about what you said after I very aggressively was opposing the Iran nuclear deal. You said, joe, it's an existential bet. It's an existential gamble. And I think this is the economic side of it. I was reminded by Vin Weber, a Republican House leader who got elected in 1980. He said, this is what everybody now, Vin Webber against these tariffs. He's, he's a Reagan free trader. But he said a lot of this reminds me of what people were saying about us in 1980 when we had Graham Rudman, Art Laffer with his curve, Jack Kemp, supply side politics. Everybody said we are going to blow the system up. And it worked. So Van Weber said, even though I'm against these as a policy matter, he's taking an existential bet, much like Ronald Reagan did on supply side economics and much like Barack Obama did on the Iran nuclear deal. The question is, in this case, it's one thing when you're cutting taxes for Americans, it's another thing when prices are going to be going up at Walmart.

[Willie Geist]

So, Joe, he's making a bet, but he's making a bet with our money. He's making a bet with the retirement accounts of every American. He's making a bet with the business futures of every American company that exports. He's making a bet with farmers who need export markets that now will be closed to them. It's easy to say he's making this great bet. And you know, watching him yesterday, I had the sense that this is a president who is in love with what economists almost universally say is a bad idea, but he's convinced of it. He looks serene as he says, oh, I knew this was coming. So, as you said, he's making a bet. It's not his money. It's the United States of America that's on the craps table here. So, you know, I think we're in for enormously difficult, period, how people adjust over time. It's not just yesterday's stock market fall or today's. The talk, as Steve Radner was just saying, is now about increasing likelihood of a recession, increasing likelihood of inflation returning, because you have these big increases in prices caused by the tariffs, inflation expectations. A lot of what inflation is, is people expecting that it's coming, Inflation expectations, up, up big time. And so you have a possibility of the worst of all possible worlds in which you have both inflation and stagnation of the economy. The dreaded term is stagflation. No president ever wants that. And so I think that's. That must be people, sensible people in the White House have to be thinking, is that where we're heading into? And what are we going to do about it now?

[Joe Scarborough]

Ali, I'm sure the pressure is rising for Republicans on the Hill. I mean, you know, these are the same people who told us Joe Biden lost the election because of the price of eggs. Did any of us that were talking about protecting democracy, the rise of fascism? Oh, far too esoteric. Far too esoteric. Joe, your heads are in the clouds. This is about the price of eggs and a gallon of gasoline. And, you know, they were right. I mean, that's what the election ended up turning on. If you listen to a lot of voters, it was stubborn inflation. Here we're talking about the price of cars, we're talking about the price of homes, the price of what you rent, the price of what you buy, sneakers that you buy at Walmart. The price, you know, just go down the line. I am curious, what are you hearing on the Hill from four Republicans? And. And are they showing any signs that they're going to start speaking out against tariffs?

[Podcast Host]

Well, they've clearly still got those economic political lessons front of mind, because it's on this, not the issues related to democracy or January 6th or Zelensky and foreign policy that are actually starting to make them speak out in a more broad fashion. You've got, for example, one of the veteran Republican members, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. So when David talks about farmers, this makes sense as to why introducing a bipartisan bill to try to claw Back a little bit more control here from the congressional perspective. Part of this bill would say that Trump would have to notify Congress that Congress would have to approve new tariffs within 60 days, but also that Congress could try to cancel the tariffs when they deem it fit. So just trying to claw back a little bit of control here. We'll see what the fate of that bill is. But notable that Grassley is one of the people behind it. But then you've also got Trump loyalists and allies from Ron Johnson to Ted Cruz to Jerry Moran of Kansas, saying that they don't love this idea of tariffs. That's not shocking, though. Trump has long talked about it. But they are also still willing, willing to say that while they see flashing warning signs, they're going to be patient, at least for now.

[David Ignatius]

Watch. Look, I think it is a mistake to assume that we will have high tariffs in perpetuity. I don't think that would be good economic policy. I am not a fan of tariffs. And the announcement yesterday, look, time is going to tell in the next month or two or three what happens if the result of yesterday's announcement is a lot of our trading partners across the globe dramatically reduce the tariffs they charge on US Goods and services, and the consequence of that is the US Government dramatically cuts the tariffs that were announced yesterday. That would be a great outcome that would be good for America. If the result is our trading partners jack up their tariffs and we have high tariffs everywhere, I think that is a bad outcome for America. Tariffs are a tax on consumers, and I'm not a fan of jacking up taxes on American consumers. So my hope is these tariffs are short and they serve as leverage to lower tariffs across the globe. The consequences are yet to be fully known, but I would have thought they would have been less dramatic, less significant and more targeted. And I think we ought to be focused on our economic adversaries and be less, less damaging to our economic allies.

[Donald Trump]

What about the impact on Kansan, specifically.

[Ali Vitale]

In the ag industry?

[David Ignatius]

So I've said this from the beginning, that we often experience retaliatory tariffs that come against our commodities, and it's very damaging.

[Steve Ratner]

So some real unhappiness there on Wall street, interestingly, from some Republicans and David Rhodes, certainly foreign capitals. We just heard the senator there talk about our economic allies and economic adversaries. There could be real national security implications here, too.

[Joe Scarborough]

Yeah.

[David Rhode]

I think there are two people who are very happy with how this rollout has gone. That would be President Xi in Beijing and President Putin in Moscow. The loss of $3 trillion in value and the instability that people feel here. But more importantly, as Steve mentioned earlier, three countries that are targeted are countries that the US has been trying to coax into an alliance against China. That would be Vietnam, Cambodia, and Bangladesh. They're not cheating us. I mean this again, and it was said earlier, these are not reciprocal tariffs. There's not anything. The Canadians aren't Canadians. There are countries that have certain exports that are just, they can produce countries grow bananas. They grow coffee. We can't, therefore, we have a trade deficit in coffee with Colombia. Canada has a kind of heavy crude that, you know, is refined very well in US Refineries. That's just an asset they have. So this there's a sense when you're trying to work with allies that you're alienating them, you're bullying them. You're making false claims that they're somehow cheating the United States. That drives them to a more reliable partner. And we can put Russia aside. That partner is China.

[Jonathan Lemire]

So everyone stay with us. Steve Ratner is going to head over to the Southwest Wall for a closer look with his charts at the potential economic impact of these tariffs and who actually pays for them in the end. Plus, a Fox News commentator pushes back on the White House's deportation strategy to send migrants to a prison in El Salvador. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds.

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[David Ignatius]

They work out every day trying to turn out a good product at a decent price. Then the Korean government slaps on nine separate taxes and Tariffs. And when that government's done, a $10,000 Chrysler Kei car costs $48,000 in Korea. It's not their fault. We can't sell our cars in a market like that. And I am tired of hearing American workers blame for it. I've been criticized for my trade policy, for saying it's time to open up markets to push down trade barriers like those Korean taxes and tariffs. The Gephard amendment calls for six months of negotiation. If that doesn't work and I'm president, we have to walk away from that table. The Koreans will know two things. They'll know that we'll still honor our treaties to defend them, because that's the kind of country we are. But they'll also be left asking themselves, how many Americans are going to pay $48,000 for one of their Hyundais?

[Ali Vitale]

It's your fight, too. Vote, volunteer, contribute Dick Gebhart.

[Joe Scarborough]

That takes you back a long way. 1988. And in 1988, Dick Cabhart and a lot of Democrats were fighting for tariffs. They were fighting for what they would call fair trade. Lost that fight. A lot of populist Republicans that came in with me, including myself, were arguing the same thing in the mid-90s, arguing against NAFTA and GATT, WTO, arguing against MFN for China, and argued that without protections, a lot of Americans in middle America would lose their jobs. They did lose their jobs. And here we are 30, 40 years later, and the question is, can you get those jobs back? Because people like Dick Gephardt lost that fight back in the 1980s. Can it be unwound? You have 40, 45 years of history, of globalism. Can that be unwound? Steve Rattner, I know your answer already. It cannot. Most economists say it cannot. Most of Wall street says it cannot. And yesterday suggested that they. They basically let their money talk on what they believed regarding tariffs.

[Ali Vitale]

Yeah, Joe, look, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. We can spend a lot of time, kind of like who lost Vietnam. We can spend a lot of time debating what happened in the 90s and the early 2000s and how we ended up with a much, much larger trade deficit and many fewer manufacturing jobs. But what's done is done. And now we are where we are. And the question is, where do we go from here? And the market's answer very clearly is we don't go in this direction, that this is not going to be productive. It is simply going to hurt our economy. So let's take a look at a couple of Those numbers. Let's start with the stock market. Yesterday we talked about the almost 5% drop. This is actually $5 trillion of wealth lost since the inauguration. The stock market had already been starting to go down as people got more and more nervous about what Trump was or wasn't going to do. So a huge drop. But here's what's actually quite interesting. The stock market drop here was actually larger than the stock market drop in every other major index, every other major country. In Japan it was down 2.8%. In Europe it was down 2.6%. In the UK just 1.6 and in China just 0.6%. So why is that? Trump thinks he's hurting all these people. He thinks everything is, you know, a negotiation where somebody wins and somebody loses and he thought he was the winner and we turned out to be the loser. And the answer is because based on a set of projections from the budget lab up in New Haven, we are the loser. The impact of this, the long run impact on GDP of this is actually going to be projected anyway to be worst on the US for of any other major country that we trade with, except for Canada. Canada has a special problem. They export a lot of oil to us. We are net export, we are net oil exporters. But we do bring in some Canadian oil for complicated reasons. Las Ferries you. But essentially they believe that we will have the worst economic impact actually could be positive. In the UK Trump's tariffs on the UK are only 10% among the lowest. The EU a tenth of a percent. Mexico tenth and so on. And China only negative 0.2. Because these countries have other things they can do. Their consumers are not going to be paying the cost of these tariffs tariffs because they're on the other side of it and therefore they are actually going to have slightly better economies than they would have had. So the irony is we're the worst. And yes, in terms of that JP Morgan projection, I think we are definitely in the 50% recession odds for this year. This economy is going to soften materially.

[Jonathan Lemire]

Yeah, Goldman Sachs bumped up their probability of a recession as well. Had been a long shot about a week ago, not so much much. Now let's move to your second chart, Steve, putting this into some historical perspective. Yes, Democrats in the past have advocated for tariffs, targeted tariffs. Joe Biden had them in place as recently as a few months ago. But we've never seen anything quite like this.

[Ali Vitale]

No, we haven't, Willie. And so since we're talking in history, well, I'll just start there a little Bit. And you can see back in 1980, tariffs have been coming down for a long time, since World War II. But you can see in 1980 we have, you know, a meaningful tariff rate. But then this is what Joe was talking about. All the trade agreements brought our tariff rate down, down, down to just around 2%. This circle is Trump. Biden. You can see Trump did some tariffs in his first term. Tariff rate went up a little bit. This is for all of his talk in the first term. This is all that happened. Biden brought them down partway. And now we have this and this going across here. This is 1909. The last time we had tariffs at this level was in 1909. Now, many of us studied in school about the recession and about how we put tariffs on. Some say that it caused the recession. It didn't, but it exacerbated the recession. The famous Smoot Hawley tariffs. That tariff rate here was actually a little under 20%. So these are not only the highest tariff rates we've had in more than a century, but higher than we had when we had what every historian would tell you were the worst tariffs we've ever put in place until now. So let's turn to some of the individual impacts, because obviously the market goes down, but all the other stocks do different things. And so we had a fairly disparate impact. And there are good reasons. And I'm not going to go through all these, but I'll give you a couple of examples. Nike down 14%. All of. I shouldn't say all. Probably virtually all of their clothing and their shoes and their sneakers and so forth are made in Southeast Asia, which have some of the highest tax tariff rates. As we'll talk about in a minute, Boeing is a huge exporter of planes to other countries. Those countries can now buy Airbuses. Could be really bad for Boeing's business. Apple makes virtually every iPhone that they sell in China. 54% tariff coming into effect there. Amazon, you would be surprised at how many packages you order from Amazon that are actually shipped directly to you from somewhere overseas where they're made. And a high tariff will now be paid. J.P. morgan, the banks could be facing pressure for another reason, and so on and so forth. I'll just mention quickly down here, Walmart and Costco. Why did they do comparatively well? Because they have such buying power that they are likely to be able to hold down their price increases and take market share from other retailers.

[Jonathan Lemire]

All right, let's move to your last chart, Steve. And it's time for a little Math, because the Trump administration has been selling some of the numbers he put up as tariffs that these other countries, including allies, have placed on us when really it's just kind of a trade deficit that they used funky math to come up with. So help our viewers understand the numbers that the administration is presenting.

[Ali Vitale]

Well, I'm going to do my best to help, but their math would not get them through math class either. The economics wouldn't get through economics class, the math isn't going to get through math class. But let's talk about what they did. So first of all, just to put some stark numbers next to it, you can see these are our top trading partners, European. And what the tariff rates are going to be. European, 20%. China is actually now 50, 54% because he added 20% earlier in the year. So that gets up to 54. Japan, 24. South Korea 25. Taiwan 32. You'll notice Mexico and Canada are not on here because he did separate deals with them also. And they will pay some tariffs. But he does have that trade agreement he negotiated with them before. But one of the points I want to make is that some of the highest tariff rates the way he did this, and I'll explain that in just one second, some of the highest tariff rates are under some of the poorest, most struggling countries in the world. And so Bangladesh is now going to pay a 37% tariff rate on stuff they sell to us, South Africa, 30% and so on. So this is going to cut our purchases from these countries dramatically. It is going to hurt these countries economies dramatically. It is not just bad economics, it's bad foreign policy and it's inhumane. So you ask how do they calculate it? I'm sure everybody has seen this formula before. I'm joking and I'm not going to go through it all. But we got a lot of Greek letters here. We've got epsilon, we've got phi, we've got all this stuff. But basically, Willie, it comes down to what you just said. The way they think about this, they think that if there is a trade deficit, then by definition the other country is manipulating trade and therefore they have to. They calculate the tariff based on the size of the trade deficit relative to how much they send us. So the bigger the trade deficit relative to what they send us, the higher the tariffs. It makes no sense. It doesn't. You're not going to find an economics professor on the planet who's going to tell you this is the right way to look at it. But it's emblematic. Of the whole mess they've created.

[Joe Scarborough]

Well, and that thing to your right makes no sense to me. In fact, it scares me greatly. Please, let's not talk about it again. Math formulas. Steve Ratner, thank you so much for being with us. We always appreciate it. And you can hear Steve talk about the impact of Donald Trump's tariffs in the latest episode on New York Times podcast. The opinions are. Of course, you can watch these segments on YouTube. I mean, we're finding out these, these Ratner's segments on YouTube just, I mean, really, sometimes a million views. Like, this guy, he's sort of, you know, it's like what Justin Bieber was doing at the beginning of his career. This kid, this, this kid Ratner has a future. So anyway, you can pick it up on YouTube. But Willie, go ahead.

[Jonathan Lemire]

Yeah, I was just gonna say that's how Justin Bieber started. I'm just throwing that out there on YouTube. Strumming a guitar, singing song songs. Look at them now.

[Joe Scarborough]

Yeah, and then. Right, yeah, Bieber had his guitar and Ratner has these math charts that make me sweat.

[Jonathan Lemire]

That's right.

[Joe Scarborough]

I mean, make me very nervous. I don't like to even look at him. Don't look at him. So anyway, David Ignatius, talk to us, if you will, because you were. This is, this is, this is your, your gig. You work this side of the margin, talking to foreign leaders every day, talking to foreign diplomats every day, talking to foreign thought leaders every day and talk about, I would suspect there has to be like a one, two punch first, the battle over Ukraine, diplomatically, the battle against the eu, the back and forth. And of course, it's important to note that he seems to have, have fairly positive relations with Keir Starmer, fairly positive relations with Macron right now on a personal level, and some other leaders, but still a huge disconnect against, you know, the EU and other allies across the Pacific. I'm wondering what the 1, 2 impact of this is where. First of all, it's a sort of a divide militarily and diplomatically. And now you have this divide economically.

[Willie Geist]

So, Joe, our allies and trading partners in many respects are the same. China is an exception, huge trading partner. But generally we have been seen as the leaders of the system that provides security in terms of our overwhelmingly powerful military and the nuclear umbrella we provide for our friends, that keeps the world safe. And we've also been seen as the guarantor, manager, in effect, of the global economic and financial system. The Federal Reserve is the dominant voice in every financial capital around the world. The Fed makes an announcement, the whole world immediately responds. So the world is used to our leadership and has prospered, as have we as a country. We forget just how, how prosperous the United States has been in these decades of declining tariffs. So I think the world fears that as the United States under Trump deliberately moves to break the system in which the United States was leader, there's anxiety about what will come next. And yes, there is the beginnings of exploration of other possibilities. Closer alliance among the European countries and standing separately from the United States on both security and economic policies. New deals with China. China is going to emerge, as in many countries view, a factor for stability when the United States is moving things up and down. So this is going to be a period in which American leadership is doubted for the summer. Simple reason that Donald Trump is walking away from that role, thinks that role has been bad for the country. And we're going to feel significant aftershocks of that. I just note one final thing. In that little clip you showed, Dick Gephardt is talking about tariffs and he's saying, you know, South Korean trade policy is unfair. But he stresses we will never walk away from the defense of South Korea. No country, responsible country would ever do that. Well, that's what Donald Trump is moving toward. Not just the economic side, but the security side. That double whammy, I think, has got the world shook up.

[Steve Ratner]

Yeah. To underscore David Ignatius point, that struck me as well. And certainly that's what other capitals are wondering about. David Ignatius mentioned China. David Rhode, we've got some breaking news. The Chinese Finance Ministry just moments ago announced that they will match President Trump's plan for three 34% tariffs on goods from China with its own 34% tariffs on imports to the United States. Additionally, they're adding 11 companies to a list of unreliable entities, basically barring them from doing any business in China, and are putting on strict limits on exports on certain rare earth elements that are used from everything as notes here, from electric cars to smart bombs. So we've had the Treasury Secretary last 36 hours repeatedly. War in other countries. Don't retaliate. Don't retaliate. Just sit back and watch. Beijing wasn't listening.

[David Rhode]

They're not in. The futures as a result on Wall street are dropping right now. So potentially, I want to be realistic here, A global trade war is beginning. And again, the problem here, and if there's all countries to question fair trade, it's China, and that then we should be confronting China directly. Instead, these tariffs apply to every country in the world, every single one. And that's the problem here, is that it's so broad. We're not, you know, helping our allies, hurting our enemies, and countries are going to fight back. I mean, politics is local. President Xi in China can't simply roll over for his own domestic political reasons. The Prime Minister of Canada, the election that's happening there. So the way this is being done, this sort of bullying, random, and in many ways false claims, forces country to turn against us. And then just to back up what David Ignatius said, one of the extraordinary proposals that was brought up in terms of NATO was that again, this bedrock of the Western alliance against Russia, if a country isn't paying enough money, in Donald Trump's view, towards its own defense, the United States was considering not defending them. And this gets back to that Gephardt ad and why this is so destructive in terms of, of foreign policy. You know, Gaphard said he would defend Korea. We've said for 50 years we will defend NATO's allies. That has brought stability, prosperity. This is all just completely unprecedented.

[Joe Scarborough]

You know, and Willie, I've been hearing for several years now when, even when there was pushback on much smaller matters in the Biden administration from leaders in Europe and across the Middle east, they in fact are saying the same thing. They say, you Americans, you think you're the only game in town. You think you're the only country that we can deal with, that you can tell us to go to hell and we have no options, and we'll just sit there politely with our hands folded in our lap, and they always come back, say, no, we have China. If you don't do a deal with us, we can get a better deal from China. And that's exactly what David is saying right now. If, you know, we, we are not. This is not a monopoly. It is not a unipolar world. It is at least a bipolar world and really a tripolar world, if you look at the power of E. Of the EU and their economic might as well. So, you know, we can't just tell other countries to go pound sand because those other countries won't pound sand. They'll pick up the phone and they'll call Beijing.

[Jonathan Lemire]

That's exactly right. And it was captured best a couple of days ago when the treasury speaker, Secretary Bessant, said out loud to our allies, to all these countries getting ready to have these tariffs slapped upon them, do not retaliate, sit back, take it in. That was his quote. Well, they're not sitting back and taking it in clearly now. With these new tariffs from China and European nations looking for workarounds around the United States. NBC News National Security editor David Rhode and the Washington Post David Ignatius, thank you both. Coming up here, Vice President J.D. van blames what he calls radical left judges for blocking some of the administration's deportation plans. But one Fox News legal analyst is calling it due process. Morning Joe's coming right back.

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[Jonathan Lemire]

Time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines. Hungary is moving to withdraw from the International Criminal Court. It comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a trip to that country for an official state visit, the first time the Israeli leader traveled to Europe since the ICC issued an arrest warrant for him for alleged war crimes. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban flatly rejected the court's request to take Netanyahu into custody. Dr. Mehmet Oz will now oversee health insurance for millions of Americans. The Senate confirmed his nomination to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in a party line vote. Oz, who ran that unsuccessful campaign for U.S. u.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, says he will focus on the president's agenda to, quote, make America healthy again. And Bruce Springsteen is set to reveal 83 previously unreleased songs. The so called Lost albums will include seven full length records. The music was written between 1983 and 2018 and will debut on June 27th. Can't wait for that. Still ahead, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia will join the conversation after some Republicans voted in favor of his resolution to repeal Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada. Morning Joe's coming right back. A little bit of a dreary day in New York City, 652 in the morning, some serious rain across across middle parts of the country, flooding and all kinds of stuff. We'll talk about that a little bit later. Let's talk though, Jonathan Lemire about basketball this weekend. And let's start tonight with a couple of great games in the women's Final Four. Down in Tampa, you got the defending national champion South Carolina, Dawn Staley's team playing against Texas, an SEC matchup. And then in the nightcap, you've got UConn the only two seed of all eight teams between men's and women's. All the rest are number one seeds in the tournament. Playing the overall number one seed in the tournament, UCLA. But UConn as a two seed is a seven and a half point favorite as Gino. This is unbelievable. Has UConn in their 16th Final Four in the last 17 years?

[Steve Ratner]

Yeah, that's pretty good. This is the chalkiest Final Four we've ever seen, both sides yet. I think that number, the only number two seed, Yukon feels like the team to beat. They have closed so strong, you know, I know you see like number one overall seed, but Paige Becker's the rest. Gino has done it again. My money's on them tonight. You know, give us a, give us another UConn South Carolina legendary showdown this evening in the women's side, you know, and then we have the start of four great days of college hoops with the men's starting tipping off tomorrow.

[Jonathan Lemire]

Yeah. And Allie, I know you're a Paige Beckers fan. She's a superstar in our house. She's been on fire lately. At 31 in the last game in the regional final, 40 the game before that, she'll be the number one pick in the WNBA draft. She's great and a fun team, top to bottom. Throw in Az Fudd, the freshman superstar, Sarah Strong. They're looking good.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Yet another reason why everyone watches women's sports. You've got these amazing players, Paige Beckers, and I'm with Lemire. I would actually love to see the same matchup of UConn and USC once again together. South Carolina, I'm interested in how it turns out.

[Jonathan Lemire]

All right, we'll be watching that. And then as we look ahead to tomorrow, Joe, one of your alma maters, Florida, the Gators, they have become a very sexy pick to win the whole thing. They are playing so well down the stretch. Won the SEC tournament. They had to come back and win in the regional final. But looked tough in those closing few minutes. Minutes again, another SEC matchup. Florida, Auburn in the first game. And then Houston, Duke. I think Duke is probably still the favorite, but Houston an underrated team as well. Be really fun night in San Antonio tomorrow.

[Joe Scarborough]

Yeah, Duke the favorite. There are a few people saying look for Houston to be able to out muscle Duke. I don't think that's going to happen. Duke has too many good players. Houston's had an inability to really match up up well with teams that have more than one or two to great players. Duke has five. And on the other side, the SEC side, you know, Florida, you know, starting about three weeks back, two or three weeks back, really started to see Jonathan Lemaire like sort of the quiet team to be watching and for others to be fearful of. Auburn could certainly win that. But right now, now it's hard not to think we aren't going to get a Duke Florida matchup in the finals. That would be a great one.

[Steve Ratner]

Yeah, that's exactly where I am too. Florida was my pick at the start of the tournament to win the whole thing. I admit though, if that's what we get Monday night, Florida, Duke, hard not to choose. The Blue Devils, they have, they have just blown people out. Cooper flag going to be number one player in the draft. They've got a couple other NBA ready prospects. They're just so big, a lot bigger than the other teams, Willie, but this is it. So it's four number one seeds. So let's hope that the games tomorrow night live up to the billion.

[Joe Scarborough]

Yeah. And of course Willie, the Times Square basketball is exciting, but Times Square, of course you would think that the banner would be going across saying, you know, talking about stocks crash, market down, all this stuff. Some reasons. Godspeed, Mr. Bregman. Bregman, I don't know, I guess Bregman had another good game yesterday. The Red Sox, you know, they keep winning a two game winning streak. Right now it's getting scary. And they open up at Fenway today. Willie, I know you got to be excited.

[Jonathan Lemire]

You know what, as John knows, I say this all the time. I am excited actually. When the Red Sox and Yankees are both good and competitive, makes the season more fun. It makes August, September, October, October fund. So I'm up for it. Let's do it. The Yankees, sure, they gave up seven runs last night, but they scored nine. Just keep. They keep bashing home runs out of Yankee Stadium, so we'll see if it holds.

[Joe Scarborough]

Yeah. And by the way, let me say. Wait, there's. What you just said, Willie. What you just said, Willie. About. About. You know, it's good when both the Yankees and the Red Sox are good. I want you to know Jonathan Lemire there doesn't subscribe to that belief at all.

[Jonathan Lemire]

No one else in the world subscribes to that belief. They hate the Yankees and the Red Sox, but there are teams. All right, the last thing you want.

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