← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
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- [00:00]
Clay Travis
Welcome in Wednesday Edition. Clay Travis, Buck Sexton show this one could be Buck becomes a dad today. He is here with us on potential birthday. We'll see. Could be tomorrow. Do you have a, obviously the, the labor process plays in here, but do you have a, a preference? April 9, April 10 does carry. Is there any sort of cosmological connection here in any way? I have no idea. I'm not plugged in.
- [00:32]
Buck Sexton
I barely remember my own birthday. So I'm not the guy to ask about birthday stuff. But yeah, I anything in April sounds nice.
- [00:41]
Clay Travis
So this is a big day all around. We are continuing the trade wars since we now are CNBC and Fox Business all rolled into one. Stock market flat as we begin the show today, basically unmoved by and large across the financial landscape. The s and P500 up a tiny amount as I speak to you, the Dow down a tiny amount. Not much movement going on there. There is, however, a lot of movement going on in what essentially is boiling down to the United States versus China. I would expect, Buck, and I'm curious if you co sign on this, that countries like Japan and South Korea and Australia and England and even much of Europe are going to get resolved the new trade deals relatively quickly in the grand scheme of things, that is over the next few weeks. And I think those will be beneficial to the United States. I don't think they'll be transformative. The real battle here as we stare down what's coming is the United States versus China and how does this situation resolve itself and how long does it take to resolve itself? As we elevated our overall tariffs on China to over 100%, China has responded by increasing the tariffs on the United States, I believe roughly to 80%. Now, given the fact that China has much more of an export based economy, particularly in relationship to the United States, than the United States does in relationship to China, the pain in general should be felt on China more than it's felt on the United States. That's the negotiating leverage that Trump is that Trump is banking on. If there are brilliant people out there who want to disagree with that, you're welcome to call in 800-282-2882. But China is to a large extent an export focused economy and they have built a huge trade surplus against the United States. Now there are certainly complicating factors. I believe China has something like $5 trillion in United States bonds, which is it's probably trump card on some level, pardon the pun, from them. What would happen if they start to liquidate a substantial amount of their, of their treasury, some suggesting that's already potentially occurring and that might be what's impacting the bond, the bond market in general. Again, these are high level discussions of exactly what is going to be done. But so far China and the United States staring at each other, not blinking. Would you co sign on most of that analysis? Do you think I'm missing anything from your perspective? Buck?
- [03:38]
Buck Sexton
No, I think that this is ultimately actually about a China trade war. I mean that's really what the which if you think about it in that context, that also makes a lot of sense when you look back to the first Trump term. And this I think would have been the phase that he entered in 2020 had things gone differently. I think this was always in his mind. The first phase was just waking people up to what China was doing, which is truly the greatest theft over decades not just of wealth, but of intellectual property, which obviously is wealth in the modern economy and all kinds of bad faith efforts and undermining a lot of US Hegemony wherever they can. So Trump has said enough is enough. As it pertains to China. I do think we'll get deals with the other countries in place. And you know, Apollo Global Management's CEO for those who don't know, Apollo Global Management is it's a big time finance outfit. I think they're private equity guys. So you know, they buy huge companies, they, they turn them around, they sell them, stuff like that. But here is the CEO of that company who is I think saying something again, this is somebody who manages billions and billions of dollars and has to be right or else he loses his job and he's coming out and saying we need a reset. This is cut to.
- [05:03]
Kevin O'Leary
Us is the second freest trading market in the world financially after Japan and is the freest trading market in the world considering non tariff barriers. Why is that written in stone? Why shouldn't we be the 10th or the 20th? The policies that have been in place since the end of World War II are not fit for today.
- [05:24]
Clay Travis
I think that's well said. And Buck, I've got a couple of more here that I thought were well said that I sent in to our producer Greg because I thought some of you out there, I understand this is complicated and probably a lot of you don't sit around on a regular basis thinking about say tariffs like you might think about taxes or economic growth or, or any other number of issues that have been well discussed and debated for decades in the United States. Here's Victor Davis Hansen asking a question I Thought, Buck, that we have asked, if tariffs are so awful, how come so many countries have tariffs in the first place? Why do these exist? I thought this was well said by him. This is cut 3.
- [06:05]
Victor Davis Hanson
China has prohibitive tariffs. So does Vietnam. So does Mexico, so does Europe. So do a lot of countries, so does India. But if tariffs are so destructive of their economies, why is China booming? How did India become an economic powerhouse when it has these exorbitant tariffs on American imports? How did Vietnam, of all places, become such a different country even though it has these prohibitive tariffs? Why isn't Germany before its energy problems, why wasn't it a wreck? It's. It's got tariffs on almost everything that we send them. How is the EU even functioning with these tariffs? I thought tariffs destroyed an economy, but they seem to like them and they're angry that they're no longer asymmetrical. Apparently our people who are tariffing us think tariffs improve their economy.
- [07:01]
Clay Travis
I thought that's well said.
- [07:02]
Buck Sexton
Well, this is what we've been saying, and we never get it. I never hear an answer to this. Yeah, people just say, tariffs are a tax. Tariffs are borne by the consumers. Tariffs are bad. Tariffs led the Great Depression. They shout all this stuff, and I say, why does every other country have tariffs? Yeah, we're the only ones. And when it comes to being outliers, you know, we're also the country that's supposed to pay the rest of the world's bills. We're also the country that's supposed to be the rest of the world's policemen and the world's giant, world's biggest refugee camp with a wide open border. Right. There are a number of areas in which the United States is expected to bear a burden that other countries are not. Well, are we bearing the burden of being the only free trade country in the world? I totally agree. When Elon says we should get to zero tariffs across the board. Yes, that is the goal. That would be fantastic. It would be so much better. It's a bit like saying, you know, wouldn't it be nice if we could get rid of nuclear weapons? Sure. When everybody else that we're worried about gets rid of their nuclear weapons. We can get rid of nuclear weapons too. Right. Why would they keep them but we get rid of them? That's what we've been doing, essentially on an economic front with tariffs. And I still have not heard any. The answers you might hear about this, Clay, are something like, oh, the French want to protect their wine and their cheese or something, you know, that's very dismissive of it, but. Well, no, no, it's. This is on American automobiles. This is on a lot. Yeah, this is on. And you know, we're talking about the EU now and people are saying, all right, well, Canada, I saw this. I'm saying Canada's dairy tariffs don't actually go into effect if you hit until you hit a certain level. Why have them at all? If free trade is so good, why have them at all? Right, well, at some level it must be because you're protecting your own industry because you recognize that wealth generation comes from the exchange, the creation and exchange of goods and services. It's not just we keep printing money to buy stuff from everybody else. There's a lot of that going on here.
- [08:51]
Clay Travis
Also where the companies are based matters. I mean, I would bet that the reason the Chinese dairy industry is, I mean, sorry, the Canadian dairy industry is protected is because they don't want America to be sourcing every element of the dairy, the dairy there. Right. And so where the companies are based is foundationally very important. Really. This is going to boil down to the extent that it has not already into us versus China. And I've heard some people out there say that their criticism is actually that we should just go full bore after China and not focus on other countries as much. This is, let's get, try to get Mr. Wonderful on. I think we had him on recently, meaning in the last year or so if I'm not mistaken. But this was on cnn. I thought this was really well said. He said we should put a 400% tariff on China because they're cheaters on the global marketplace.
- [09:48]
Kevin O'Leary
Listen, to cut 404% tariffs in China are not enough. I'm advocating 400%. I do business in China. They don't play by the rules. They've been in the WTO for decades. They have never abided by any of the rules they agreed to when they came in for decades. They cheat, they steal. They steal ip. I can't litigate in their courts. Never has an administrator.
- [10:10]
Julie Kelly
400% tariffs.
- [10:11]
Kevin O'Leary
I want like she on an airplane to Washington to level the playing field. This is not about tariffs anymore. It's time to squeeze Chinese heads into the wall now.
- [10:25]
Clay Travis
Man, that is aggressive, Buck. But I do think he's saying what a lot of American businessmen believe but aren't willing to say because they work with China. I was actually a little bit surprised because I can't imagine that the business he does with China is going to be helped by those comments. But this is what you have to do. Sometimes you have to speak out against your own interests because you recognize the larger interest is important.
- [10:50]
Buck Sexton
Well, I wonder how much business he's really doing in China currently. That's point one on that. And point two, Mr. Wonderful. Kevin O'Leary likes to get soundbites that make their way across the Internet ecosystem and other shows like this one. I mean, a 400% tariff, you know, at some point if we push too hard on China, I know you could say it's a negotiation tactic, but we don't want to seem completely insane. Right. Because they. What we want is for them to improve their behavior. We don't actually just want to extend a single finger in their direction and say that's the way it's going to be going forward. Right. We would like to see China. In fact, China's entrance into the WTO was premised on them changing their behavior. Right.
- [11:31]
Clay Travis
This is the whole. This is. Well said. Continue on.
- [11:35]
Buck Sexton
I was going to say it's not that we want to be in a trade war. This is what China has decided to do. China has. And you look at the Belt and Road initiative, it's like a mix of communism, authoritarianism, mercantilism. China has been rapacious when it comes to trade globally and has not become any more liberal as it has become a whole lot more wealthy. China was a desperately poor country really up until the 1980s. And people forget that the biggest famine in the history of the world occurred in China right around 1960 in world history. OK? Tens of millions of people starved to death in that country. I think people. Now we all think of China as a billion people and a huge economy and robotics and AI clay. China has done this in the last 40 years.
- [12:24]
Clay Travis
What I think is important about what you said is because I've heard this argument for sports for a long time. Well, if we go take our basketball to China, if we take the Olympics to China, they're going to start to play by our rules. We will see them democratize. We will see them join more the Western world. Actually, that hasn't happened at all. In fact, they've tried to impact the Western world with Chinese values. And I think you can see this in a big way. We talked about this before, but I think it's very important. You know how there's no bad Asian guys in movies anymore. Every bad. Think about this, like every James Bond movie, every Mission Impossible, the bad guys are always people with kind of a Russian ish accent. And if you go back and you study it do you remember when they remade the, the great movie Red Dawn?
- [13:16]
Buck Sexton
Yeah, of course.
- [13:17]
Clay Travis
They remade the entire movie because initially China invaded us and then in order to get the movie released in the time, they had to go back in. This is crazy. But they did this. They digitally altered the entire Chinese army to make it North Korea that invaded the United States because Warner Brothers, I believe, who was distributing the film or Paramount, was too afraid of angering China by having China be the bad guys in a movie. And one of the threats they just made, Buck, is we're not going to let American movies come into China anymore.
- [13:51]
Buck Sexton
It's Clay, the theft of intellectual property that's been going on for decades. It's worse than what the KGB was able to do during the height of the Cold War because at least we have cyber attacks going on all the time based in China stealing our most sensitive technology. Most we have, our universities are penetrated by Chinese agents all over the place. Everybody knows this. The FBI knows this. But there's all this sensitivity around actually treating a particular nationality as a wellspring of adversaries, which unfortunately is the case with China currently. And some people have just decided in our government that enough is enough, that this is not the way it is supposed to or it should continue on. So this is the where the friction is, right? This is not going to be easy or perfect. It's only been a few days. I think people need to strap in. It's. This is not going to get easier anytime soon. I don't see Trump backing off the China part of it. I do hope that as the deals with Japan and South Korea and the EU get ironed out and there's a normalization there, everyone realizes, ok, now we really have to focus on the big challenge and, and there'll be a clarity of about what that really is. But once again, Trump, even if he's a little sometimes rough on the execution in the early stages of something, on the big issues, on the big think, he tends to nail it. All right, look, for every gun owner in this audience today, I got to tell you, you should make yourself a member of the United States Concealed Carry Association. This is all about protecting your rights to defend yourself legally if you end up in court often, it's not just about what you did, it's how it's interpreted. That's why Clay and I are both members of uscca and we're happy to welcome them as our newest sponsor on this program. Go download United States Concealed Carry Association's free guide. You can do that before you become a member. It provides tangible information, practical information. Their concealed carry and family defense guide walks you through what to do before, during and after a self defense incident. Mental prep, legal insights, step by step training. This guide lays the foundation in fact, legal defense is provided to those members needing it after rightfully defending themselves and their family. Following uscca's instructive tips. I remember when I did my concealed carry class guys down here in Florida, the guy told me that of two of his students who had had to use their weapons to defend themselves in recent years, both initially faced charges. Both initially faced charges. I mean that's, this is what can happen. And then the charges eventually were dismissed. But you've got to go with the security and safety of knowing your rights and having someone who will have your back if you lawfully defend yourself when it comes to your legal expenses. Go to go online to uscca.combuck to get your free guide today. That's uscca.com buck you can also find this information on clay and buck.com right under the sponsors tab.
- [16:49]
Unknown
Clay Travis and Buck Sexton mic drops. That never sounded so good. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.
- [17:00]
Buck Sexton
All right, welcome back into Clay and Buck. We got some big breaking news. Julie Kelly about to join us here in a moment. But first, our market maestro here on Clay and Buck. Clay Travis, watching this stock ticker closely. What just happened?
- [17:12]
Clay Travis
Clay Trump has announced a 90 day pause on all countries for the tariffs other than China. He has increased the tariff on China to 125%. This is kind of the advice that you and I were giving if he wanted to focus on China, which is the real culprit here. How is the stock market responding? Buck, I hope you guys bought the dip. The Dow now is up 2400 points. Buck, that is six and a half percent that it is surging. The NASDAQ up nearly 9%. This has all happened in the last couple of minutes. Um, the s and P500 is up 7%, nearly 400 points. So much of the sell off associated with the tariff battle has now vanished just about overnight. We tried to tell you. We said buy the dips sometimes. Don't even look at stock prices. Don't panic, unfortunately. I know a lot of people sold at the bottom and now they're going to be buying back in as the stock market is surging. But I hope you held on. But that is the absolute latest right now. Lots of fluctuation. But again, just to kind of put it in context, The S&P 500 is now basically trading the same place that it was in August and it could easily be basically where it was in September. So anyway, stocks go up and down. Trump negotiating. Now, what we said I think is accurate, which is this is now just China versus the United States. And to a large extent, the other countries are now aligned in favor of free trade. And now we'll see what happens with China. All right, Buck, we have got Julie Kelly queued up to talk about many things, but wanted to give that update to everybody out there.
- [19:19]
Buck Sexton
Yes, Julie Kelly, you all know her from her declassified sub stack, which you should go subscribe to and her great book and her great work. Julie, thanks for being with us.
- [19:32]
Art Laffer
Thank you. And Buck, congratulations to you and Carrie. You're going to have an exciting evening and probably day tomorrow.
- [19:41]
Buck Sexton
Thank you. I don't know, I don't know if you heard our friend Jesse's. Jesse Kelly said it's going to be a tough 24 hours for me physically. I need to hydrate. I need to make sure I get a lot of rest. And everyone's freaking out about this, but it was pretty funny. I am here for Carrie for anything that she needs. And we are, we could not be more excited about it. So thank you very much, Julie and All right, all right, now I got to get you on what is going on here. A few things that come to mind and involve Julie Kelly and her work. Judge Boseberg, this guy after the Supreme Court comes in and says, hold on a second, you can't just venue shop. He had a hearing scheduled. And where is this guy now? He, it feels like he's become the, the Adam Schiff of resistance judges, which is not a compliment.
- [20:30]
Art Laffer
You know, Clay and Buck, it's amazing to see the same judges who for four years insisted a mostly nonviolent protest at a government building on a Wednesday afternoon represented an attempt to overthrow democracy and over overturn the results of the 2020 election. Keep in mind that Jeb Bosberg routinely in J6 cases, called January 6th an insurrection. That's what he called it. Even for people who were in his courtroom on low level misdemeanors like parading in the Capitol. But yet here he is actually trying to overturn the results of the 2024 election, sabotage Donald Trump's agenda and by extension the 72 million or so Americans who voted for him, the Supreme Court is not stopping him. So even though they just vacated his two temporary restraining orders banning deportation flights of these illegal Venezuelans covered under the president's Alien Enemies act proclamation from March 15, even though the Supreme Court vacated those temporary restraining orders said that Washington was the improper venue, that these illegals should seek habeas petitions where they are in custody, which is Texas. That's not stopping him. You are exactly right, Buck. So yesterday he had a hearing scheduled in his courtroom on a preliminary injunction. This is the next natural step after a temporary restraining order. This is what the aclu, who is representing these illegal Venezuelans want. And this would put a longer ban on these flights. Even after the Supreme Court ruling, Jeb Bosberg said an April 16 deadline for the ACLU to come back to him, explain why they're going to continue to pursue this preliminary injunction and why they believe that Washington, D.C. jeb. Jeb Bosberg's courtroom is still the appropriate place to seek that relief, even though the Supreme Court said very clearly it doesn't belong in Washington, D.C. furthermore, we could talk a little bit about this, too. He is going forward with his contempt investigation against the Trump administration and officials who he believes defied a separate court order, a verbal order to return planes on March 15. And we are expecting that opinion from Jeb Boss for really any hour, any day, but sometime this week.
- [22:49]
Clay Travis
Are you even stunned, Julie? Because I got to admit, I am. And this is me. You know, being a lawyer, I knew that Trump Resistance 2.0 would eventually emerge somewhere. I, crazy me, thought it might come from the Democrat party or maybe the legacy media. It feels like, by and large, the Democrat party is so impotent that they can't even put counter arguments out. Uh, meanwhile, legacy media is collapsing as we speak. I mean, the business models are, are shriveling up and dying now. We just got all these federal district court judges behaving, frankly, in an unprecedented manner, getting slapped down. We had trio of them slapped down by the Supreme Court. But I, I gotta admit, I didn't foresee them being as aggressive as they have been. I knew they would be aligned in many ways against Trump, but I didn't think we would see it historically without precedent attack coming from the federal district court level against Trump and his administration. Did you?
- [23:48]
Art Laffer
I mean, Clay, I sort of agree with you. I did not. As bad as these judges in Washington D.C. are. And of course, I've been covering them for years, both the district and appellate court, and seeing how viciously and vengefully and remorselessly they treated January six defendants and the president and his associates as well, I really did not expect that. This level of defiance, this level of sabotage, that is the word that what these judges are doing uniformly in Washington, D.C. so I guess I would agree with you. I'm a little surprised at the extent to which they are going, which of course they did for years against Donald Trump in the same D.C. courthouse, whether it was special special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and Special counsel Jack Smith, all these proceedings were handled in this D.C. federal courthouse. But to see them line up like little lemmings, especially behind Jeb Bosberg, who's the chief judge, and deny all of these lawsuits, side with the plaintiffs in all of these lawsuits, who really have no vested interest in what the Trump policies are, but going to any extent that they possibly can these judges to side with people who are trying to take down the president's agenda and again, emphasize the will of the American people who put Donald Trump in the White House to do, do exactly the disruption that he is doing. So. Yeah. And of course, defying the Supreme Court is a whole other level, which we see Jeff Bosberg doing. But these Democrat judges, as you know, just like Democrat rank and file voters, do not consider the Supreme Court legitimate. They are not at all. Excuse me, I have a little cold. They are not at all chagrin by being smacked down by the highest court.
- [25:42]
Buck Sexton
We're speaking of Julie Kelly declassified as a substack. And Julie, we need to get her some Crockett coffee or some, some tea with honey in it, perhaps even better. Julie, sorry that you got, you got a call. Appreciate you, you know, pushing through and, and telling everybody across the country what they need to know about Judge. By the way, I've learned how to pronounce his name. Bosberg, I guess. B O A S. I was just reading it off the or, you know, I'd been reading it. I hadn't really heard it. I want to bring your attention to something else, too.
- [26:12]
Clay Travis
The.
- [26:13]
Buck Sexton
I'm sure you saw this. The acting IRS commissioner is resigning from the IRS because the Trump administration has said you need to share data from your government, data about essentially illegals that the IRS has information on for enforcement purposes. I think a lot of people are seeing, Julie, that for the entity that can lock you up because you don't give enough of your money as an American to them and they get to determine after the fact what that amount is to then say, hold on a second, what do you mean you're going to use our information for federal immigration law purposes? Just goes to show that there is this whole mentality even within the government that illegal aliens are a special protected class.
- [27:05]
Art Laffer
That's exactly right. It's pretty stunning to see. And this is the acting director who I think she took over in February. And all of these deep staters, everyone in the administrative state who will go out of their way to protect, they believe that these government agencies belong to them. They don't believe that these government agencies belong to the people or certainly should be supervised by the president and his team. So that's why you see this defiance not just by the judges, but of course, the heads of these departments and agencies. But of course we are entitled to this information. I love how transparency and accountability was such a big cause during Trump's first presidency, that went away during the second. And now all of a sudden, we can't have transparency and accountability as he's trying to clean up and reform all of these corrupt agencies. So I really commend the Trump administration for their focus, especially on legal immigration, because as you guys know, that was one of the top issues that propelled him into office and they are not backing down at all. But we as American, as American citizens, taxpayers are entitled to know, and we saw this, too, with the voting rolls and illegals who are on Social Security. This is a huge scandal with real time implications on our country, on our national security, on our economy, and certainly on our elections. So good riddance to the acting IRS director. I'm sure there's a lot of other qualified people who understand the cause who will replace that individual. And we'll just keep pushing forward until a judge steps in and stops all of it, which I'm sure is only a matter of time.
- [28:53]
Clay Travis
Julie, we appreciate you keep the fight going and we will talk to you again. Have a good weekend. Enjoy the Masters.
- [29:01]
Art Laffer
Oh, I definitely will. Thanks, guys.
- [29:03]
Clay Travis
That's Julie Kelly, American Patriots. She's been fantastic with us. You know, spring's here and so is the iconic Masters tournament. They have the par three challenge today, which is super cool. I know we're on in Augusta. We got a monster audience there. I bet it's chaotic down in Augusta right now as we get ready for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Action that for many people heralds the return of spring. And summer is on the horizon. And so is Major League Baseball and the NBA playoffs and the NHL playoffs. Whatever sport you love. And you guys know I love sports, prize picks is there for you. You get 50 bucks. Look, you go right now to prizepix.com code clay, you get $50 instantly when you play. $5. Whatever your sport is, whether you're looking forward to watching the Masters this weekend, maybe you want to watch Luca returning down to Dallas. Maybe you're still recovering from an incredible Final Four. Maybe you're a big baseball fan like I am watching the Braves and Phillies last night. Hey, maybe you're a big hockey fan. Whatever your sport is, Prize Picks has got a game for you. Prizepix.com Code Clay. You just pick more or less for any athlete in any sport and you can turn your knowledge of sports into an ability to make yourself a little bit of money and also have some fun in the process. You can play in California, you can play in Texas, you can play in Florida, you can play in Georgia. Over 10 million players right now. Prizepix.com Code Clay check it out. Pricepix.com Code Clay news and politics, but.
- [30:37]
Unknown
Also a little comic relief. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.
- [30:46]
Buck Sexton
There's a op ed in the Wall Street Journal. A win win exit strategy for Trump on tariffs written by Art Laugher and Stephen Moore. Dr. Art Laugher joins us now. Renowned economist. Guy came up with that whole Laffer curve thing. Brilliant man. He is with us. Thanks for being here, Art. Appreciate you.
- [31:10]
Unknown
My pleasure. My pleasure. It's really fun being with you guys, by the way. Love it.
- [31:14]
Buck Sexton
So you're an upbeat, you're a brilliant guy and an upbeat guy and we need that today given what we're, what we're seeing, what we're seeing out there. You're not a catastrophist, you're not a doom and gloom guy. Let's just start with this. When people are telling you I am concerned about what's happening right now in the markets, what do you say to them? What's your overall feeling? I want to get into the win win strategy from your piece. But first off, an opportunity to tell everybody, don't panic.
- [31:42]
Unknown
Well, I'm panicking when they tell me that. I screaming and hollering, I'm down the floor crying. I said it's the end of the world. It's it. No, no, I, you know, Donald Trump is an extraordinarily compet. In my view, he was the single best first term president. Now I'm just talking about economics now, just economics. The single best first term president in U.S. history. If you look at the Tax Cuts and Jobs act, it was wonderful. If you look at Operation Warp Speed, unbelievable energy independence, the rollback of the Chevron decision, you know, all of these things there. I mean, it was just unbelievable what he did in his first term. And he is in his Second term now. And you know, he's competent, he's got all the skills, he's very knowledgeable in the subject. And I believe, now this is me, I believe that he is using the threats of tariffs and the actual imposition of tariffs to get these other countries to come and negotiate free trade deals with us. They are far more protectionists than we are. We are as a, as a country, US probably the lowest tariff, the lowest protectionist country, a major country in the world. There may be something like Sark or Jersey or Guernsey or something like Monaco or something like that. But of the big countries, we by far the least protectionist. And how do you get these other countries to come to the table and negotiate getting rid of their tariffs and you know, you've got to threaten them with access to the US Market. And so that's what he's doing. I believe now you're going to talk to Trump and you got to talk to him because he knows far better what he's doing than I do. And I'm no source of special knowledge, but knowing him and knowing all the trade stuff I do, I cannot believe that he would do anything that would really hurt America in the long run by having a trade war.
- [33:28]
Clay Travis
Okay, so let's dive into this. Dr. Laffer, Art Laffer, we appreciate you coming on. Every time we come on and talk economics with you, the audience loves it. Cuz you're way smarter about this stuff than we are. Big picture here, it seems to me, and I read your Wall Street Journal editorial, it's Posted linked@clayandbuck.com, encourage people to go check that out. It seems to me that Trump is talking about two different things in many ways as it pertains to a trade war. One, and I think Buck and I are in agreement with you. To the extent that we can eliminate as many tariffs as possible on free trading countries, that's a great thing because it allows even competition, it allows even movement of goods with less cost. But China is cheating on the global stage. And to a large extent, aren't there kind of two different goals? Because if we eliminated all tariffs with China, wouldn't that in some way reward them even more for their cheating? Do you see this as, you know, let's say the European Union, Australia, Great Britain, China, I mean, sorry, Japan, South Korea, those are kind of fair trade partners in general. And then you've got China, that's in an entirely different universe. Are we really talking about two different policy perspectives? How would you analyze that when it comes to trade Relationships.
- [34:49]
Unknown
I would say that the two of you are wrong and China is right in the same category with all the others. Cheating. I don't know what the heck cheating means. If they gave us all their products free of charge, so we got high quality products at low cost, would you hate them then and want to bomb them? I mean when you look at it from a customer standpoint, when you go to a store, do you sell them? Please sell me above retail. I want you to charge me the most you possibly can for this product. No, no, we'd like to give it to you. No, I mean China is potentially our best trading partner in the world long term. And I really think that we need to get China into the free trade group. And if you really think about it for a moment, do you like your customers and your clients and your clientele? Of course you do. You know, the one way of guaranteeing hostilities will occur is not trading with the country. When you're traveling with one, you're a customer, they're a customer and it leads to friendships, it leads to great prosperity and it leads to eliminating war art.
- [35:49]
Buck Sexton
Can you tell us why do all these, so many of these other countries have and have had longstanding tariffs and why does China have so many and such aggressive tariffs?
- [36:01]
Unknown
Well, let me tell you why is because these little countries, I say little Germany, these types of just teeny tiny little countries do, you know, they talk to our trade officials and so you know, we've got to put this on for political reason, blah blah, blah blah blah. And the US says go ahead, please, it's okay, do it. You know, it doesn't really affect us very much. And over the years this has built up to being a really travesty. They now have way more protection, every single one of them. It's not just one one off with one tariff, it's accumulated. And now they have all these. For example, I mean can you imagine there are 250% tariffs in Canada against Wisconsin dairy products. What? I mean how did that come about? I'm sure it came about with some deal with some president and some prime minister of Canada. You know, we've got to do this. I'll lose the election if I don't do it. And they get this one off exemption and all of this has built up and now Trump is trying to get rid of it and quite correctly. So I mean we need to get rid of their tariffs, their quotas, their non tariff barriers. They're hurting us and they're hurting them.
- [37:03]
Buck Sexton
But so why can't China Figure out that its tariffs are hurting it.
- [37:07]
Unknown
I think it will. I mean if you remember, I mean I was the first American to go to China in 1970. In October of 1970 I went with George Shultz and John Ehrlich when we did the pre Kissinger trap. And then they had 100% tariffs. They had no trade with the outside world. They were called the hermit kingdom. And you know, they opened up their trade. They saw how the trade, by lowering their trade barriers, by entering into trade, it created the greatest economic growth miracle in modern history. The Chinese growth from 1970 to, let's say five years ago was just a phenomenal period for China. More people were removed from poverty than in the entire history of humanity, 190,000 years. So it's really, I think China will understand this and I think China will in due course enter into a free trade agreement with the US as well. And it will be wonderful when that happens.
- [37:59]
Clay Travis
Okay, so, so let's go into this China relationship in particular because you say you see it as, as similar to the EU and the other countries that I laid out. What is an ideal relationship from your perspective look like with China when it comes to trade? Because it is going to be the case that if we had, for instance, zero tariffs at all, China is going to be exporting, I think 400 billion is the number that I saw. Something like that. The, the trade imbalance is seismic. We're going to be buying more goods, then China is going to be buying American goods. Is that trade imbalance in any way an issue from your perspective? And how would you rectify it? What is. In other words, let's pretend that you aren't laugher. We're given a magic wand and you got to solve it. What would your answer be now?
- [38:47]
Unknown
Would you mind tell me how much, how much it bothers you for foreigners wanting to invest in the US because they think we're the greatest country in the world. Let's imagine we cut taxes, cut regulations, had stable prices, you know, no, regulate all the correct policies. Everyone would want to invest in the United States. How do foreigners generate a dollar cash flow to buy US located assets? There are only two ways they can do that. They've got to sell more goods to us and they've got to buy less goods from us. That's the only way they can generate that dollar cash flow to invest in the United States of America. And that's the most wonderful thing. We built our country from 1640 until 1870 on trade deficits. We imported all of this Capital from Europe, primarily Britain and Holland, and used it with our labor and with our raw materials. And we became the preeminent economic force on planet Earth because of capital investments, which is a US Trade deficit. Trade deficits are great. I mean, let me ask you, which would you rather have capital lined up on our borders trying to get into our country, are trying to get out of our country. You know, if we bring a factory back from Mexico into the United States and bring all those machines and all that production equipment by coming across the Mexican US Border, that's a Mexican export and a Mexican trade surplus. It's a US Import and a US Trade deficit. It's also a US Capital surplus and a Mexican capital deficit. Trade deficits are how we bring our capital back to the US And I think we should have trade deficits in. China thinks that we're the best country in the world and they want to invest all their capital in the US God bless them and.
- [40:29]
Buck Sexton
Okay, Art, so I need, I need some help here. Square in the circle for a second. So if, if, if trade, trade deficits are good and all tariffs are bad and self defeating. What, what? And so trade imbalance is a good thing. We want trade imbalance. Do you like what Trump is doing or are you trying to tell him to not do any of this?
- [40:50]
Unknown
No, no, I like, I'm the biggest fan. I'm his biggest fan. I think he's negotiating and I think he's negotiating to get them to reduce their tariffs against us, which are far larger than our tariffs and trade barriers are against them. And I think he brings them to the table. What is it, 60, 70 countries are coming to negotiate? What are they coming to negotiate? We will cut our tariffs dramatically. Please just allow us access to your market. And I think that's just the wonderful thing for Trump to do. And I think he's going to be very successful at it. It scares the living hell out of me, by the way. I'm a wuss. I'm not a negotiator. I'm not a guy like Trump. Trump knows how to negotiate and he loves doing it and he's really successful at it. But my belief is that Trump deep down is a free trader all the way. And I think he just really wants to get them to come here and lower tariffs on their products by a lot. And he did this in the first term, by the way. The Japanese trade deal was great for lowering tariffs. The USMCA was wonderful for lowering tariffs and barriers. The South Korean deal he did, the one he did with Brazil, the one he did with Colombia, all resulted in better trade relationships with these countries. And that's what I think he's trying to do. Now, he can tell you otherwise, and he may well be not doing this, but I really have full trust in him that he's doing the right thing. And I think he's very comfortable.
- [42:13]
Clay Travis
Let me ask you this. A lot of people listening in the Midwest. J.D. vance obviously wrote his book Hillbilly Elegy, which is a best seller. I'm sure you read it. Buck and I have read it.
- [42:25]
Buck Sexton
What?
- [42:25]
Clay Travis
What is the answer for people who feel like the jobs have been hollowed out in the industrial Midwest, for people listening to us in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, that got used to having those jobs that were going to pay so well to produce American goods? Is that an issue?
- [42:43]
Unknown
I want you to tell the audience where the two of you are located.
- [42:46]
Clay Travis
I'm in Nashville, Tennessee.
- [42:48]
Unknown
Okay, I'm in Nashville, too. Now. Why am I in Nashville? We are the lowest tax state in the nation. And earning income is a lot more fun with lower taxes, lower regulations. We have no death tax. We have no gift tax. We have no unearned cap tax. We have no income tax. We have one of the lowest property taxes in the nation. We have the best spending, we have the best public services. We don't have a manufacturing problem in Tennessee. All these auto companies are coming in here in floods. The problem with manufacturing is Detroit. It's Michigan, it's Ohio, it's Pennsylvania, it's Wisconsin, it's Illinois. These places are pits. They're anti production, anti prosperity places and they're driving all the business out. It's not China. It's the governments of these states that have made it absolutely intolerable. Can you imagine opening up a factory in Detroit, Michigan today, where property taxes are in some places up to 50%, 15% on that. Where the state income tax, the death tax, the union, it's a horrible place. Our problem is with the states that have the manufacturing and they are repelling that manufacturing en masse. And that's the problem. It's not the competition from abroad. And if you don't believe me, just look at Tennessee and how we're doing in Texas and Florida. All of us are doing well, except for those horribly run states.
- [44:12]
Buck Sexton
All right, Dr. Art Laffer, appreciate your perspective today, sir. Thank you very much.
- [44:16]
Unknown
Hey, it's my pleasure. And anytime, by the way. It's fun being with you guys and I love watching you all the time. You guys are spectacular. And I'm really proud you're in Tennessee.
- [44:25]
Clay Travis
Thank you. I need to. We need to get dinner sometime.
- [44:27]
Unknown
I would. Anytime you want. Just give me a call and it's done. And I'll even pay for it if. As long as it's at McDonald's.
- [44:33]
Buck Sexton
All right.
- [44:34]
Clay Travis
I appreciate it, Dr. Laver.
- [44:36]
Buck Sexton
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- [45:22]
Unknown
You don't know what you don't know, right?
- [45:26]
Buck Sexton
But you could.
- [45:27]
Unknown
On the Sunday hang with Clay and Buck podcast.
- [45:30]
Clay Travis
I hope you bought the Dip because if you did, the stock market is soaring S P 500, up 8% right now. Buck. I've never seen anything like it. Nearly 400 points. The Dow is up 2500 points. NASDAQ up 1500 points. As I mentioned earlier, basically stocks are priced where they were in September. I hope a lot of you did not buy into the frenzied, the left wing panic. I hope that you bought the dip and if you did, you have been handsomely rewarded already.
- [46:17]
Buck Sexton
I think it's worth noting that Donald Trump on Truth Social did put out yesterday. Now is a good time to buy. So, you know, he's trying to help. He's trying to help. Yes. I'm sorry, it was. No, it was four hours ago, not last night. Four hours ago. Trump in all caps. This is a great time to buy. And yes, he was telling you the truth.
- [46:48]
Clay Travis
All right, so let's give you the latest news and then we're going to talk about the Art Laffer interview and the larger tariff battle. So tariffs on China are now going to 125%. And what I will tell you is if you go back and listen to the first hour, if you go back and listen to yesterday, we really kind of zeroed in on the issue at play here. Zero tariffs is actually a really good idea for Europe, for Japan, for Australia, for South Korea, for countries that are fairly trading there should be reduced dishonesty for lack of a better way of putting it. Unfair trade from some of these tariffs. And I think bucket on a good example that Canada has 250% tariffs on dairy because they don't want American milk, which is not much different than Canadian milk to come across their border because we can produce milk at a cheaper rate than Canada can. So they are protecting Canadian dairy farmers because they want that industry to continue as opposed to Canadians being able to go to their supermarkets and get milk much cheaper because it's coming from the United States. And look, there are some tariffs that, that might make sense. For instance, let's say France, I think you mentioned this buck. France has high tariffs on wine. They consider the French wine to be superior to other wines and they want French people to be drinking their wine anyway. We can get into the economics basis for tariffs another time. But basically there are many countries with which free trade makes sense. And what Trump is, is, is diagnosing is that China right now is not one of those. And let's listen to what Treasury Secretary Scott Besant just announced and we have that audio right now. Let's go ahead. Here is cut 25 talking about every country out there 90 day pause because they have not retaliated. But China is going to be treated differently. Again, cut 25.
- [49:10]
Scott Besant
We saw the successful negotiating strategy that President Trump implemented a week ago. Today. It has brought more than 75 countries forward to negotiate. It took great courage, great courage for him to stay the course and until this moment and what we have ended up with here, as I told everyone a week ago, they're in, in this very spot, do not retaliate and you will be rewarded. So every country in the world who wants to come and negotiate the we are willing to hear you. We're going to go down to a 10% baseline tariff for them and China will, will be raised to 125 due to their insistence on escalation.
- [49:56]
Clay Travis
Okay, so that is that explanation. Then he was asked is this a tariff war now? Is this a trade war? And so that was the next question that was asked. And here was besant response. Cut 26.
- [50:12]
Buck Sexton
So as you see it now, this trade war is China versus the rest of.
- [50:17]
Scott Besant
Well, I'm not calling it a trade war, but I'm saying that China has escalated and President Trump responded very courageously to that and we are going to work on a solution with our trading partners.
- [50:32]
Clay Travis
Okay. Caroline Levitt, White House spokesperson, then came out and said what we have been telling you for some time. Don't panic. You don't seem in the media to be able to follow. And let's be honest here, Buck, there's also any time that there can be a panic that works against Trump, the media stokes the fears, they drive up the terror. And, and we tried to tamp that down and tell you, hey, if you can't, if you're too emotional, don't look at prices. But a lot of people out there weren't willing to do that. A lot of people sold Caroline Levitt, cut 27.
- [51:07]
Julie Kelly
Many of you in the media clearly missed the art of the deal. You clearly failed to, to see what President Trump is doing here. You tried to say that the rest of the world would be moved closer to China, when in fact, we've seen the opposite effect. The entire world is calling the United States of America, not China, because they need our markets, they need our consumers, and they need this president in the Oval Office to talk to them. And that's exactly why more than 75 countries have called, because the United States of America is the best place in the world to do business. And as the president has shown great courage, as the secretary has said, in choosing to retaliate against China even higher.
- [51:44]
Clay Travis
Okay, so that is the absolute latest from the White House. Now, Buck, let's dive in with Art Laffer, who wrote a great piece in the Wall Street Journal. Art Laffer believes that there should be zero, zero tariffs anywhere in the world. He believes completely in free trade. He's a brilliant economist. And I think sometimes there are going to be people who come on the show and use the forum that we have, which is very widely followed by the White House, as is Fox News, to make arguments to the president. I think that's why he wrote the editorial at the Wall Street Journal. I think that's why he wanted to come on. And I need to go have dinner with him because he's a brilliant guy. But the idea. And again, let me just kind of break this down from you. From my perspective, I'm curious if you will agree if we went to zero tariffs with China, let's pretend that China said, hey, we're laying down our arms, no tariffs. United States said no tariffs, too. We would still have a massive trade imbalance with China. And the massive trade imbalance means that China produces a lot of goods and they have a lot of jobs to produce those goods and the United States by and large buys them, but we don't have the jobs producing the same amount of goods. And one of the challenges Trump is trying to rectify is what's going on in the industrial heartland where the jobs have been lost. Now, Art Laffer said, and I do think this is true, that Illinois, for instance, has made awful economic decisions, and that has led to jobs inside of the United States migrating to states that have made better economic decisions. Where you live, Florida, where I live, Tennessee, that's certainly true, and there is some culpability. But for instance, Ohio has Republican leadership top to bottom now, and it still has lost a lot of jobs. Pennsylvania voted for Donald Trump and, and voted for McCormick, and they have lost jobs. Now, it's true they have Democrat leadership in cities and, and, and many oftentimes in governorships. But what was your take on that? What is your take now with rapidly evolving news cycle, as is often the case with the Trump administration?
- [53:58]
Buck Sexton
Well, I think this is what's interesting to me is that the areas where there is some disagreement, I mean, clearly Art was trying the art of the deal himself there by putting full faith in Trump, but not agreeing with some of the principles that Trump has espoused for a very long time, not just in this recent bout of trade negotiations, but at some level, saying the things that Trump is saying is a necessary component of that negotiation process. Because people have to be, people have to believe that you are willing to do the things you say you will do. If, I mean, let's be honest, you're making kind of an economic threat, you know, empty threats. The fastest way to lose all of your power, lose all of your influence is to make empty threats. Right. You know, if you ever shout at somebody, you know, oh, I'm going to get, you know, you're, you'll never work in this town again, and they can laugh at you, then you've lost a lot, a lot of ground. And if you say I'm going to tariff you, but really I'm going to pause the tariffs next week and really I have no interest in, in taking this to the mat if I have to. You have no leverage. So, so Trump, some of what he has been saying, I think has been a combination of the rebalancing that he wants to achieve, but also establishing the necessary leverage in the negotiations. You know, to get people leverage is about pushing, right? You push a lever, pushing people to do the things on the global trade, in these global trade negotiations that he wants them to do. So I think that that is. Is bearing fruit already. And really the country, when we're talking about national security concerns, let's be honest, Clay, you know, if France wants to have a 10% or a 20% or whatever tariff on their Camembert, you know, or on their champagne, which is different than sparkling white wine, as we know, even though Americans may be in the habit of calling their sparkling whites champagne, it's named for the region, as we learned from Rob Lowe in Wayne's World. But if they want to tariff cheese, we can live with that. But if China's going to be providing all of our robotics, electronics, antibiotics go down the list. That's a problem for us. A bigger problem than I went at. If the EU is doing that, I think we would feel a lot better. I'm not saying that that's a desirable scenario either, but your primary adversary. We have to remember China's an authoritarian regime, ok? It's run by the Chinese Communist Party. Mao Zedong is one of the most evil people to have ever run any country in the history of the planet. And he's the founder of modern China. Like, they got problems over there. This is not. This is not the uk. This is not Australia. Right. Not all countries are equal. And so focusing in the pressure on China for this makes sense because that's. They're not only the biggest trade, you know, manipulator and cheat. And by the way, I disagree with Art when he says, like, China is fine. I mean, this is where we get to the national security side of things. I don't know if he's aware of how much IP theft they've engaged in and how much cyber intrusion they have done, both on the national security and economic espionage side, it's substantial. Again, arts and economics guy, I worked in the CIA, which he said at.
- [57:13]
Clay Travis
The start, he said, like, I think Trump's the greatest. Like, he basically said, all I care about is economics, which economics.
- [57:19]
Buck Sexton
So. So he does not know anything about national security analysis in this respect. And China is a national security threat in trade as well because of the way that they steal intellectual. When I say intellectual property, I mean, think about someone like Elon Musk. SpaceX is rockets, the private company, but it's rockets. You know, you can do a lot with that technology, right? And China stealing technology is a huge problem.
- [57:43]
Clay Travis
Am I the only one who's still furious at China because they let Covid happen? I mean, I know it's five years ago and maybe more than five years ago, based on some of the studies that are now coming out about when exactly Covid may have started to circulate in China, but I know much of our fight in the United States was over, hey, some people want to put on masks and they're morons and some people want to shut down schools and they're morons. And the worst stuff we did to.
- [58:10]
Buck Sexton
Ourselves in this country, that's my problem. The worst stuff we, we, the worst Covid stuff was the result of stupid, just stupid decisions made here in America. So, but, and we funded, as we know, we funded that lab as well, which, not all of it, but some of it, which was an awful decision.
- [58:28]
Clay Travis
But my point on it is China paid no penalty. China unleashed Covid on the world, led to awful. I agree with you. Policy decisions being made in the United States, but they didn't come clean about how it got out. They never have told the full story about anything. And so my inclination is not to give China the benefit of the doubt on anything. If anything, I actually am inclined to be more draconian in the way that we treat them going forward because I think we're in a modern day cold war. And if China wins, I think the world loses.
- [59:05]
Buck Sexton
Yes, but this is the point. It's about more than just correct. Who can make the cheapest widgets. It's about more than that with China, with the eu, you know, it's about who, it's about cheese and beef products and cars and things. And Trump can work all that out. With China, it's something else. We are not worried about a first strike from the United Kingdom and them cutting off our critical supplies of electronics and the things that we would need in order to fight a modern war. We are worried about that with China. Okay, so this is why it is in fact different. It is not just we make stuff, they make stuff. We have money, they have money. There are additional factors that complicate the analysis. So we should get to some of these talkbacks, play some of these calls because, yeah, we touched on some of that. And look, I think we should invite Senator Rand Paul on soon because, you know, he just thinks this whole thing is completely nuts and he's a very smart guy and I think we should hear him out on this. Senator Rand Paul is a very, I think, I think I might agree with him more than any senator a greater percent of the time on issues. I think that's probably true. I mean, there's a few, you know, Ted Cruz, there's a few, but he's certainly, I know our man Ron Johnson, just because I love him. He's great up there in Wisconsin holding it down. All right. If you're a member of the uscca, United States Concealed Carry association, you are getting the benefit of legal assistance if you are compelled to defend yourself and your family lawfully. That's just one of dozens of member benefits available to nearly 900,000Americans taking advantage of the great work of this organization. USCCA also just stands with the Second Amendment and believes in your right to defend yourself and your family. Clay and I are both members of the uscca, and this was an easy decision for us. I conceal Kerry Clay is a lawyer. He's got weapons in the house. He knows that he might have to, or his wife might have to defend their kids. I have the same consideration here with Kerry. If you're going to be in a position to defend yourself, you want to have uscci, meaning if you're willing to defend yourself under any circumstance. Because how it plays out in court is not necessarily how it played out in reality, unless you have a strong legal defense to make that case for you, go check out their Concealed Carry and Family Defense Guide right now at uscca. It lays the complete foundation for you. If you own a gun or are thinking about getting your first firearm, you must have this resource. Go online to uscca.com buck get your free guide today. All right, let me say it again slow, because I know it's a lot of letters. This website is us c c a dot com buck. You can also find this information up on the clayandbuck.com site under the Sponsors tab.
- [61:50]
Unknown
You know them as conservative radio hosts. Now just get to know them as guys on the Sunday Hanging podcast with Clay and Buck. Find it in their podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.