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Unknown Political Commentator
1 Pathetic, Weak and humiliating Donald Trump was just broken before the entire world and his disastrous trade war with China. As Donald Trump pulled back most of the tariffs imposed on China after Donald Trump said that those tariffs were going to bring so much manufacturing back to the United States and it was going to make the United States so rich that we wouldn't even need income taxes in the United States anymore because those tariffs would replace it, Donald Trump effectively surrendered as he was broken before the world. If you want to see how China is viewing this, look at how its state regime media is talking about it today. They are posting cartoon images like this of an Uncle Sam character getting uppercut in the face by a character representing tariffs. More on that in a little bit. What I want you to focus on as well. When you take a look at the Joint Statement on US China Economic and Trade meeting in Geneva released by the United States and China, I want you to notice what's missing about that. Do you notice that it doesn't use the word deal? Joint Statement on Deal why? Because it was not a deal. It was a retreat by Donald Trump after what he imposed on China. China has referred to this as a consensus that was reached and the consensus basically is for the United States to pull back what it did and what it said. It was going to be so great. If you take a look at the details of what took place, it effectively the US Will temporarily lower its overall tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%, while China will cut its levies on American imports from 125% to 10%, according to the joint Statement. Why? Because China recognized that tariffs are a tax on its own importers that are then passed through to consumers. So China's effectively taxing its own consumers at a rate of 10% while the United States is still taxing its consumers at 30%. But the United States pulled back from 145% to 30% after a few days ago, Donald Trump saying, I don't know, maybe we'll do 80%. And then Donald Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, who some call Nutlik, said, I don't know, maybe it'll be 50%. Well, now it is 30% right there. And again, this is after Donald Trump said that this is what's going to make us all rich. The more tariffs, the better. Trump said. Right. And he said the fact that ships aren't coming into our ports, which we were warning about in the United States. Right. We had Governor Gavin Newsom show up and say the ships aren't coming to Oakland, the ships aren't coming to Long beach, which is in Los Angeles. We also know the ships were coming to Seattle. But Trump said that was a great thing. So I guess that's not a great thing after all right there. And the markets seem to think that Trump's tariff war against the world is not a great thing because the markets are reacting very positively to Donald Trump's retreat right now. You want to see how it's being reported in financial papers, Barons. The financial magazine says the following Trump blinked big time on China trade taking the worst case off the table. The Trump administration has blinked big time. And if you're saying, well, what did Donald Trump get in return? Absolutely nothing. If you take Donald Trump's own words, he says that China said maybe it's going to try to maybe stop sending more fentanyl. I take them at their word, he said. I take them at their word that this may stop some of the fentanyl coming into the United States. You take them at their word that that's what you extracted from this. Take a look at how Bloomberg is characterizing this. Xi Jinping's defiance pays off as Trump meets most Chinese trade demands. After two days of talks in Switzerland, the US And China announced de escalation. The deal met nearly all of Beijing's core demands, including the suspension, mention of the elevated reciprocal tariff, the establishment of a point person for talks and agreements on fentanyl and tariffs. The reduction in tariffs is seen as a positive development in China, with the potential to boost its economy and make it easier to hit a growth target of about 5% this year. Although some caution remains. And it goes and talks about here in this article how China basically got everything it wants. And so I ask you, what was the whole point of what Donald Trump's been doing if he was just going to withdraw it anyway after telling us all how great it was going to be and America gets what, nothing in return? There's no actual deal here, so stop calling it a deal. It's a consensus for the United States to retreat and for future discussions to happen in the future. That's what happened. And it showed the world how unstable the United States is and frankly, made. And this is a horrible thing to say as an American, but I don't know, but I have to be objective in my reporting. It made China look like the adult in the room and the mature one in the room, while Trump looked like a little petulant baby and shows the US Market as being not stable. That's not a good thing right now. And it also shows you can take Donald Trump, what we do this before, but it certainly is reflective again of you can't take Donald Trump seriously on anything. He says he'll impose something for 30 days, the pressure rises and then he retreats. That's his pattern over and over again. And the rest of the world has taken notice. He's a paper tiger is the nicest thing you could possibly say about him. Charles Gasparino, a business reporter for Fox, says the following. Trump raised tariffs on the world. The markets, particularly the bond market, which needs to finance our debt, rebelled. Trump was then forced to back off. End of story. Film at 11 of President trying to spin this as a victory. Okay, sorry, I couldn't help myself. But what we have seen is a little lesson in how markets exert their power, how, when you have to depend on them, as we still do. And remember, it's really the budget deficit that's causing the trade deficit, and we need the budget deficit to maintain our standard of living. You can't go to a trade war with the world without bad stuff happening. Now, I'll show you right here. This is, by Donald Trump's own admission, kind of sheepishly being asked at a press conference earlier, what did you get out of this? Like, so what are, what's the United States getting? Because there was more trade, better trade before January 20th. So we're in a slightly worse position now than January 20th. That's supposed to be the victory in terms of the bilateral relationship. As a country, we're in a far worse situation as we've had a first quarter GDP contraction. Many small businesses and medium sized businesses suffering. American people are suffering. Donald Trump says yeah, maybe they'll stop the fentanyl. Play this clip.
Donald Trump
But so that's a very important subject to me because I've everybody in this room has lost friends or people that have family members that have died of fentanyl. So there's a big incentive for China to stop. And I take them at their word. They're going to work on that, I think very hard.
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Unknown Political Commentator
As Congressmember Eric Swalwell said, just like I told you this would happen, Trump caves on China. Thank you. You went to the town halls and town squares. We did this. And he's also referring to a post he made on April 27 where he says Trump will cave on tariffs if we push this with everything we got. We can make this coward cave. It's coming and he was responding there on April 27, 2025, to Trump saying that these tariffs against China were working so well that we were going to eliminate the income tax, that we wouldn't need the income tax anymore. Here, play this clip.
Donald Trump
And we're going to make a lot of money and we're going to cut taxes for the people of this country. It'll take a little while before we do that, but we're going to be cutting taxes and it's possible we'll do a complete tax cut because I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax. Now we have a lot of debt that's been left to us, you know, unfortunately, over many years. We'll take care of that. But the tariffs, when if people only understood the tariffs, we're going to be giving people of this country a tremendous tax cut and we're going to start with people making less than $200,000 a year.
Unknown Political Commentator
So here's what we posted on the Midas Touch Network. US China agreed to a 90 day pause on new tariffs after shipping to US ports plummeted. US tariffs on Chinese imports will be cut from 145% to 30%. Chinese tariffs on US imports will be cut from 125% to 10%. If tariffs are supposed to result in massive job growth and make us rich, then why are lowering them? Then we showed the cycle of Trump and MAGA people. Trump goes I'm adding tariffs. MAGA people, this will create jobs. Trump, I'm removing tariffs. Art of the deal says his MAGA cult Trump, I'm adding the tariffs again. Trump people, this will create jobs. I'm removing the tariffs. Trump people, art of the deal. As Justin Wolfers, economist at University of Michigan says, there are two ways to frame this news. U.S. trade policy and our macroeconomic prospects are much better today. And they were yesterday. And two, U.S. trade policy and our macroeconomic prospects are much worse today than on Inauguration Day. Both are still true. This is how they're talking about this in China Daily, the main Chinese state regime media. I just want you to see how they're framing this there. As a major power in the world, the US should act in such in a responsible way. However, the frequent backsliding and wanton changes in trade rules of the government have damaged the country's credibility of itself. The US has become an unreliable and fixed player in global economic governance with its strategic credibility and international status being continuously eroded by its shortsighted behavior. The US Is trying to curb China's economic development through High tariffs. But the reality is quite the opposite. The global supply chain has formed an intricate network and China has cultivated irreplaceable advantages in basic manufacturing support industries and labor. The high tariff policy of the US Will not be able to hit China, which in turn will seriously damage its own economic interests. China will not succumb to any form of economic coercion and will resolutely defend its legitimate rights and interests and national security through corresponding countermeasures in accordance with relevant laws and regulations and the basic principles of international law. It goes on to say, so you see what the position of China is right there. And then while I'm on the topic, I do want to show you this as well, because you can go through deal by deal here with Donald Trump and we can call this out. I think Justin Wolfers, economist at University of Michigan, does a very good job right here doing that. Here he talks about how, really, when you talk about the quote, unquote deal between the United States and the United Kingdom, it's just a phony thing. Here, play this clip.
Justin Wolfers
Let me characterize the whole deal for you. It's 10%. I want you to write that in big font on a big piece of paper, 10%. And there's a little asterisk next to it. The 10% matters because it basically said Trump walked in and he said, I am imposing a 10% tariff on Americans who buy goods from Britain no matter what. And then he said there's an asterisk up here which says, now let's start making a deal. And the making a deal was a promise to have further chats about further conversations, which actually gets very close to nothing done. It was basically collusion between the British Prime Minister and the American president to go out and each lie to their respective populations to pretend each had gotten something done with the other. The reality is this deal does nothing except actually cement in place higher tariffs to be clear taxes on Americans who buy goods from the United Kingdom per end with a carve out for Rolls Royces.
Unknown Political Commentator
And here Professor Wolfers talks about how the economics of the special tariff carve out for British made luxury vehicles really reveals Donald Trump's true intentions here, which is to basically help luxury brands that he likes, I guess, while manipulating the markets. Here, play this clip right here.
Justin Wolfers
And what's amazing is the President actually said, well, we've got to give them a break on the Rolls Royces because they're a beautifully made handcrafted car. The whole point of the tariffs is to bring production to America. I get British craftsmanship. But if the President doesn't think we're capable of learning how to stretch leather over a car seat, we have tariffs on bananas. No American worker is ever going to learn how to grow bananas. We have tariffs on vanilla. We can't grow vanilla. We have tariffs on diamonds. We can't mine diamonds. But we did decide that the one thing we definitely can't do is Rolls Royces. So we should have a special carve out.
Unknown Political Commentator
Well, there you have it, folks. Let me know what you think. Hit subscribe let's get to 5 million subscribers and thank you for watching. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas plus substack for ad. Free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, and more. Sign up for free now@midasplus.com SA.
Episode: Trump Gets Broken in Front of Entire World with Retreat
Release Date: May 14, 2025
Hosts: Ben, Brett, and Jordy Meiselas
Summary by: MeidasTouch Network
In this episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, the Meiselas brothers dive deep into President Donald Trump's recent retreat from his aggressive tariff policies against China. Combining sharp political analysis with their signature brotherly banter, the trio unpacks the implications of Trump's actions on international trade, U.S. economic stability, and America's global standing.
The focal point of the episode centers on Trump's decision to reduce tariffs on Chinese goods—a move perceived by many as a significant backtrack from his initial hardline stance. The political commentator elaborates on the sequence of events:
[00:59] Political Commentator: "Pathetic, Weak and humiliating Donald Trump was just broken before the entire world and his disastrous trade war with China."
Initially, Trump had imposed tariffs with grand promises of revitalizing American manufacturing and eliminating the need for income taxes by generating substantial revenue through these levies. However, the economic fallout and international pressure forced him to scale back.
Key Points Discussed:
Tariff Adjustments: The U.S. reduced tariffs on Chinese imports from 145% to 30%, while China similarly decreased its tariffs on American goods from 125% to 10%.
[00:59] Political Commentator: "The US will temporarily lower its overall tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%, while China will cut its levies on American imports from 125% to 10%."
Market Reactions: Financial markets responded positively to Trump's retreat, signaling investor confidence in the stabilization of U.S.-China trade relations.
Media Perspectives: Various financial publications criticized Trump's approach. For instance, Bloomberg highlighted China's strategic advantage and portrayed Trump as unsuccessful in his negotiations.
[08:20] Political Commentator: "Bloomberg is characterizing this as Xi Jinping's defiance paying off as Trump meets most Chinese trade demands."
The episode features insights from renowned economist Justin Wolfers, who provides a critical examination of the trade negotiations:
[13:39] Justin Wolfers: "It's basically collusion between the British Prime Minister and the American president to pretend each had gotten something done with the other."
Wolfers underscores the superficial nature of the agreements, emphasizing that the reductions in tariffs did not yield tangible benefits for the American economy. Instead, they merely adjusted existing barriers without fostering genuine economic growth or job creation as initially promised by Trump.
Additional Insights:
Economic Shortcomings: The Meiselas brothers discuss the paradox of Trump's tariffs—meant to bolster American industries but instead causing disruptions in global supply chains and economic instability.
Political Repercussions: The retreat has damaged the U.S.'s credibility on the global stage, portraying the administration as inconsistent and unreliable in its economic policies.
The podcast doesn't shy away from discussing the broader human impact of these trade policies. The political commentator highlights the struggles faced by American workers and businesses:
[09:42] Political Commentator: "We're in a slightly worse position now than January 20th. That's supposed to be the victory in terms of the bilateral relationship. As a country, we're in a far worse situation as we've had a first quarter GDP contraction. Many small businesses and medium-sized businesses suffering. American people are suffering."
This segment underscores the real-world consequences of economic policies, emphasizing that the intended benefits of tariffs—job growth and national prosperity—were not realized. Instead, businesses faced reduced competitiveness, and consumers bore the brunt of higher costs.
Congressmember Eric Swalwell's perspective is featured, showing the political fallout from Trump's actions:
[09:42] Political Commentator: "As Congressmember Eric Swalwell said, just like I told you this would happen, Trump caves on China."
Swalwell criticized Trump's inconsistent trade strategies, arguing that his actions undermined the effectiveness of the administration's economic policies. The podcast suggests that without a coherent and consistent approach, future negotiations and trade deals may continue to falter, leaving the U.S. vulnerable in the global market.
The MeidasTouch brothers wrap up the episode by reflecting on the lessons learned from Trump's tariff policies. They emphasize the importance of strategic consistency in trade negotiations and the need for policies that genuinely support American economic interests without destabilizing international relationships.
[15:53] Political Commentator: "The high tariff policy of the US will not be able to hit China, which in turn will seriously damage its own economic interests. China will not succumb to any form of economic coercion."
The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to stay informed and engaged in political discourse, reinforcing the podcast's commitment to supporting democracy through informed discussions.
Political Commentator [00:59]: "Pathetic, Weak and humiliating Donald Trump was just broken before the entire world and his disastrous trade war with China."
Donald Trump [08:01]: "I take them at their word that they're going to work on that, I think very hard."
Donald Trump [10:19]: "We're going to be giving people of this country a tremendous tax cut and we're going to start with people making less than $200,000 a year."
Justin Wolfers [13:39]: "It's basically collusion between the British Prime Minister and the American president to pretend each had gotten something done with the other."
Justin Wolfers [14:57]: "The whole point of the tariffs is to bring production to America...but we decided that the one thing we definitely can't do is Rolls Royces."
Economic Implications: Trump's tariff policies, while initially promising, led to economic instability without delivering the anticipated benefits.
Global Perception: The U.S.'s retreat on tariffs damaged its credibility, portraying it as unreliable in global economic governance.
Policy Consistency: The episode underscores the necessity for consistent and strategic economic policies to foster genuine growth and maintain international trust.
Human Impact: Beyond statistics, these policies have tangible effects on American businesses and consumers, highlighting the need for inclusive economic strategies.
This episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast offers a comprehensive analysis of Trump's tariff policies, blending expert opinions with critical commentary to provide listeners with a clear understanding of the complexities and repercussions of international trade maneuvers.