HI Market View Commentary 04-28-2025
So what a jumble of crap is the world we live in right now!!! LOL
Are we in a recession?= Not yet
Have Tariffs kicked in yet?= Some yes = China
Is the American Worker still employed? = If he wants to be = Plenty of jobs right now and low unemployment
Are trade deals happening?= Yes we believe so even though not a single one has been announced
Are the models for portfolios shot to hell?= YES with certainty !!! 60/40 lost over 30% AGAIN
Are we concerned with Ukraine/Russia?= Not really but it is the key to 500 Billion in Rare Earth Metals
Are we concerned with Greenland?= ONLY if the Davis Strait becomes a lifeline
Things I’ve heard:
Retail traders are holding in and will be rewarded for not selling for the first time in history
For the first time in history ALMOST, Smart money has significantly more sell orders than dumb money and IF the market returns 2.3% then we just made a one month 10% Loss round trip – CNBC April 28, 2025 show in the morning
IF the market gains 2.3% then first time in history the market will lose 10% then gain it back in 30 days
Investing Decisions moving forward:
- Leaving Shares of NVDA – Leaps
- Leaving Energy / Oil
- Keeping Mag 7 / Technology stock in play
- Technology should be sold for a gain end of the year
How did you know?= Why didn’t you sell or protect everything
YOU will have to let some of your stock run higher
Questions via email
Yes the tariffs are not against average tariffs rate, they involve the trade balance deficits, they are made to hur and bring people to the table
Will tariffs pay the US consumer taxes? NOT a change
IF you enjoyed the last week in the market with roughly a 4% increase we still have a 16.3% increase to get back to the highs
Earnings
AAPL 05/01 AMC
BIDU 05/15 est
DIS 05/07 BMO
F 05/05 AMC
META 04/30 AMC
MU 06/25 est
NVDA 05/28 est
TGT 05/21 BMO
UAA 05/15 BMO
V 04/29 AMC
WMT 05/15 BMO
XYZ 05/01 AMC
https://www.briefing.com/the-big-picture
The Big Picture
Last Updated: 25-Apr-25 14:45 ET | Archive
Staking a claim on the key labor market indicator
Column Summary:
*The unemployment rate is a lagging indicator and less useful for predicting future economic trends.
*Initial jobless claims are the key leading indicator for the labor market.
*The four-week moving average for initial jobless claims remains well below recession-like levels.
For obvious reasons, there will be a lot of attention on the U.S. economy in the coming months. It will be judged through the lens of economic data, particularly the hard data.
Last week we discussed why that wait will be hard for the market. It boils down to the time it will take to get a feel for developing trends. One month of data does not a trend make, nor does two months. At a minimum, it will take three months of economic data to gain a better foothold on how the economy is operating in a minefield of tariff bombs.
There is one important piece of hard data, though, that remains very much on the economy’s side: initial jobless claims.
A Lagging Indicator
The unemployment rate, typically published on the first Friday of every month, tends to get top billing as the key labor market indicator. That is understandable since the unemployment rate is an indicator that resonates in the popular press, pervades the national psyche, and stands as a make-or-break point in many political campaigns.
It is accorded more cachet than it deserves, much like the Dow Jones Industrial Average is whenever one wonders how “the market” did. The Dow Jones Industrial Average doesn’t represent “the market.” It is a price-weighted average of just 30 stocks. The market cap-weighted S&P 500 is a far better proxy for “the market,” but since the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been around so long, it is often the first thing that comes to mind when one asks, “How did the market do today?”
We digress.
The unemployment rate, currently at 4.2%, doesn’t deserve the cachet it naturally receives as a key labor market indicator because it is a lagging indicator, standing out as a measure of changes in the economy that have already occurred.
Employers like to retain their employees. It can be an expensive and unproductive process hiring and training new employees, so they will hold onto employees when business activity starts to weaken, hopeful that the downturn in business will be short-lived.
It might take six or more months of declining sales for an employer to conclude the downturn isn’t something that is short-lived, which is when they make the difficult decision to let employees go. Those employees are then unemployed; however, they are counted as newly unemployed after business conditions have already changed.
The unemployment rate, though, isn’t devoid of value. It can be used as a confirmation signal.
When it comes to labor market data and its implications for the economy, initial jobless claims are the key labor market indicator because they are a leading indicator.
Briefing.com Analyst Insight
The value of initial jobless claims as a leading indicator is wrapped up in the understanding that they are timely. They capture on a weekly basis the number of people filing for unemployment benefits for the first time. Accordingly, a notable jump in initial jobless claims can be construed as a sign of a weakening labor market, which has important knock-on effects for the economy.
When people get laid off from their job, they won’t spend as much since their regular income stream, excluding unemployment benefits, has essentially been cut off. In turn, employed individuals are apt to spend less and save more out of fear that they could also lose their job.
That is a momentous consideration because consumer spending accounts for close to 70% of GDP. Spending won’t grind to a complete halt, but there is a domino effect of reduced spending that includes reduced business investment, reduced construction, and more job losses that weigh further on the economy.
Initial jobless claims, therefore, have a lot of cachet as an economic driver and market mover. Things will change, but just remember it will be the degree of change in initial jobless claims, not the unemployment rate, that matters most as a read on the labor market and economic prospects.
The encouraging news today is that initial jobless claims are nowhere close to levels seen during recessions. For the week ending April 19, the four-week moving average was just 220,250. That is way below the average levels seen during the last six recessions.
| Recession Period | Initial Claims Average | Unemployment Rate Average |
| Jan. 1980 – July 1980 | 512,000 | 7.0 |
| July 1981 – Nov. 1982 | 554,000 | 9.0 |
| July 1990 – March 1991 | 434,000 | 6.1 |
| March 2001 – Nov. 2001 | 416,000 | 4.8 |
| Dec. 2007 – Jan. 2009 | 376,000 | 5.9 |
| Feb. 2020 – April 2020 | 2,405,167 | 7.5 |
Source: NBER; FactSet
That is where we want to leave things with this week’s column. It is a dose of good news amid the tumult of tariff talk, and who doesn’t like good news?
—Patrick J. O’Hare, Briefing.com
Where will our markets end this week?
Higher
DJIA – Bearish
SPX – Bullish
COMP – Bullish
Where Will the SPX end April 2025?
04-28-2025 -3.0%
04-21-2025 -4.0%
04-14-2025 -4.0%
04-07-2025 -4.0%
03-31-2025 -4.0%
Earnings:
Mon: NUE, RMBS, WM,
Tues: BP, GLW, GM, HLT, HON, JBLU, FSLR, SBUX, MO, PYPL, V
Wed: GOLD, CAT, HUM, IP, WDC, WING, YUM, YUMC, EBAY, QCOM, META, MSFT
Thur: EL, GWW, HSY, H, MA, MCD, ABNB, AMGN, BZH, JNPR, TWLO, LLY, AMZN, AAPL, XYZ, ROKU
Fri: CVX, DD, XOM, FLR, WEN
Econ Reports:
Mon:
Tue Consumer Confidence,
Wed: MBA, ADP Employment, GDP, GDP Deflator, Employment Cost Index, PCE prices, PCE Core, Personal Income, Personal Spending , Chicago PMI, Pending Home Sales,
Thur: Initial Claims, Continuing Claims, Construction Spending, ISM Manufacturing Index,
Fri: Average Workweek, Non-Farm Payroll, Private Payroll, Unemployment Rate, Hourly Earnings, Factory Orders
How am I looking to trade?
Protection IS Out Of The Monay (OTM) in place last week for earnings coming up, full collar trades on some positions
www.myhurleyinvestment.com = Blogsite
info@hurleyinvestments.com = Email
Questions???
Where are we going = Currently a slightly bullish trend, for the next two months stagnant to bullish and then bullish the end of the year based on trade agreements being signed
Treasury Secretary Bessent says it’s up to China to de-escalate trade tensions
Published Mon, Apr 28 20258:09 AM EDTUpdated An Hour Ago
Jeff Cox@jeff.cox.7528@JeffCoxCNBCcom
Key Points
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a CNBC interview Monday put the responsibility for reaching a trade agreement on China.
- Bessent added that “many countries” have put forth “very good proposals” on trade, and a deal with India could be announced soon.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday put the responsibility for reaching a trade agreement on China.
“I believe that it’s up to China to de-escalate, because they sell five times more to us than we sell to them, and so these 120%, 145% tariffs are unsustainable,” Bessent said during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
The comments come with markets on edge over the direction of tariffs following President Donald Trump’s April 2 announcement of broad-based global duties. A week later, Trump said he would keep in place 10% across-the-board tariffs but table for 90 days more aggressive levies against individual trading partners.
Since then, the U.S. has made progress in negotiations, Bessent said, singling out India for a potential deal in coming days among 15 to 18 “important trading relationships” that are subject of negotiations.
“We’ve had many countries come forward and present some very good proposals, and we’re evaluating those,” he said.
“I would guess that India would be one of the first trade deals we would sign. So watch this space,” Bessent added.
In addition to his assessment of the situation with China and other Asian countries, Bessent charged that European nations are likely “in a panic” over the strength of the euro against the U.S. dollar since the trade tensions began. The euro has risen nearly 10% this year against the greenback after the currencies had reached near parity in early January.
“You’re going to see the [European Central Bank] start cutting rates to try to get the Euro back down,” Bessent said. “Europeans don’t want a strong euro. We have a strong-dollar policy.”
Administration officials have sent mixed signals recently regarding the state of negotiations.
Trump last week said he was talking with Chinese officials about trade as they visited Washington. However, other reports indicated that negotiations were not taking place as the officials instead were in town for the World Bank and International Monetary Foundation meetings.
Bessent insisted that the White House will not be conducting negotiations in the press.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21576/china-trade-war
China Just ‘Folded’ in the Trade War
| by Gordon G. Chang April 27, 2025 at 5:00 am |
- Xi Jinping’s regime simply cannot admit it is not able to stand up to Washington.
- [O]n April 24 about a dozen Chinese officials, including a “high-ranking official from the Chinese Ministry of Finance,” were seen entering the U.S. Treasury’s main building in Washington at 7:00 in the morning as Chinese security officials attempted to prevent photographers from recording the entry.
- “In fact, the tariff waivers underscore that not only does Beijing need access to the American market far more than Americans need the China market but also that the United States makes vital products that simply aren’t Made in China, and won’t be for years at best.” — Alan Tonelson, trade expert at RealityChek, to Gatestone, April 25, 2025.
- When Trump has to raise the temperature, Beijing has just shown him which U.S. products China believes it cannot do without.
- Beijing has ordered its airlines not to take delivery of Boeing aircraft, and the plane maker has now flown back, from China to the U.S., three 737 Max aircraft that were about to be delivered. Due to the long order backlogs at both Boeing and Airbus, this punishment imposes, as a practical matter, almost no cost on Boeing. Yet if Trump were to order Boeing not to deliver parts or provide services to Chinese airlines, China would soon have to ground a large number of its airliners.
China, according to Reuters and Financial Times reporting on April 25, is not uniformly imposing its new 125% across-the-board tariff on American goods. In short, certain imports from the U.S. are in fact coming in tariff-free. Beijing’s new policy has not been announced and is not official.
“Companies in sectors including aviation and industrial chemicals said that some of their products had already been granted a reprieve, while local media reported that some semiconductors had been spared tariffs,” the Financial Times noted.
American Chamber of Commerce in China President Michael Hart told Reuters that some pharmaceutical company members of his organization had said they were now able to import products tariff-free.
China is also exempting aircraft engines, nacelles, landing gear, and parts.
“A Ministry of Commerce taskforce is collecting lists of items that could be exempted from tariffs and is asking companies to submit their own requests, according to a person with knowledge of that outreach,” Reuters stated. The wire service also noted this: “A list of 131 categories of products said to be under consideration for tariff exemptions was circulating on Chinese social media platforms and among some businesses and trade groups on Friday.”
Hart does not think the tariff exemptions were the result of a “specific policy.” As he told the FT, “I think right now it’s more of a one-off.”
Hart is undoubtedly correct about the unofficial nature of the tariff collections: China’s Customs officials and the Ministry of Commerce personnel have not been responding to requests for comments. “China has not yet communicated publicly on any exemptions,” Reuters stated.
Huatai Securities estimated that Beijing is not collecting tariffs on items that accounted for $45 billion of imports to China last year.
The exemptions suggest a trend. “Recent reports on China secretly waiving tariffs on U.S. imports including certain semiconductors, industrial chemicals, and medical devices add up to a clear Chinese cave-in in its trade conflict with Trump,” trade expert Alan Tonelson told Gatestone.
The move is significant, but why is Beijing making such important trade concessions without admitting it is making concessions?
Xi Jinping’s regime simply cannot admit that it is not able to stand up to Washington.
Xi has configured the Chinese political system so that only the most hostile policies are considered acceptable. Worse, he has staked the Communist Party’s legitimacy on his claim that China has already surpassed America. Therefore, it is hard for him to do anything suggesting that he is dependent on trade with America or is reacting to American pressure.
Xi, consequently, has severely restricted Chinese flexibility, a constraint evident in Beijing’s counterproductive posturing. President Donald Trump last week stated that his administration and China had been engaged in tariff talks. In response to the conciliatory comments, the Chinese regime issued a series of statements denying the existence of any such discussions.
Beijing’s denials, however, are not credible, given the constant dialogue and continuous interactions between American and Chinese officials over various other matters.
In fact, on April 24, about a dozen Chinese officials, including a “high-ranking official from the Chinese Ministry of Finance,” were seen entering the U.S. Treasury’s main building in Washington at 7:00 in the morning as Chinese security officials attempted to prevent photographers from recording the entry.
Unfortunately for Xi, he must make concessions. His economy is far smaller than America’s, and he is the one running large trade surpluses — China’s merchandise surplus last year against the U.S. was $295.4 billion, up 5.8% over 2023.
Worse, China’s economy is probably contracting, something evident from price indicators. The country is in a deflationary spiral: In March, the Consumer Price Index was down for the second-straight month and the Producer Price Index was down for the 30th consecutive month.
Meanwhile, China is in the middle of a slow-moving debt crisis, and Xi, having rejected consumption as the fundamental basis of the Chinese economy, must as a result export more to rescue the increasingly grim situation at home.
China’s Commerce Ministry on the April 24 indicated Beijing would not talk about trade until Trump removes “unilateral tariff measures.” Because of Xi’s need to maintain the façade of intransigence, Trump will undoubtedly have to turn up the heat again.
When Trump has to raise the temperature, Beijing has just shown him which U.S. products China believes it cannot do without.
“In fact, the tariff waivers underscore that not only does Beijing need access to the American market far more than Americans need the China market but also that the United States makes vital products that simply aren’t Made in China, and won’t be for years at best,” Tonelson, who comments on the intersection of trade and geopolitics at RealityChek, pointed out.
Take aircraft parts. Beijing has ordered its airlines not to take delivery of Boeing aircraft, and the plane maker has now flown back, from China to the U.S., three 737-Max aircraft that were about to be delivered. Due to the long order backlogs at both Boeing and Airbus, this punishment imposes, as a practical matter, almost no cost on Boeing. Yet if Trump were to order Boeing not to deliver parts or provide services to Chinese airlines, China would soon have to ground a large number of its airliners.
China, in reality, is in no position to fight a prolonged trade war with a determined Trump. That is one of the Chinese vulnerabilities that became evident when Beijing began making concessions in the dark.
China is making significant trade concessions without saying it is making concessions. Xi is, to borrow the term of the day, “folding.”
Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board. Follow him on X @GordonGChang.
Kevin O’Leary explains what leverage US has getting China to back down on tariffs
“Shark Tank” co-star Kevin O’Leary said on Fox Business Thursday that the United States holds massive economic leverage over China and now is the time to use it.
The White House said Wednesday that tariffs on China will only be reduced through negotiations, despite President Donald Trump signaling a potential easing. During an appearance on “The Evening Edit,” O’Leary said that the U.S. should exploit its dominant consumer market to pressure China into complying with fair trade practices, enforcing intellectual property rules, and ending one-sided advantages that have persisted for years.
“Millions of people working in factories making stuff that aren’t going to a market. The largest market on earth is the U.S. Xi does not have to face an election. Trump does midterms, less than two years away,” O’Leary told host Elizabeth MacDonald. “So this is going to get resolved relatively quickly. He has to face every day a Chinese worker sitting there that’s making something and has got to sell it to somebody. The market’s not big enough if the U.S. is not buying this stuff.”
While acknowledging his admiration for the Chinese people and his desire to sell in China, O’Leary took direct aim at what he said were the Chinese government’s tactics.
“I love the Chinese people. I want to do business there. But the government, there is a negotiation going on here. It’s a dance. We’re starting the dance. I don’t care how the sausage is made. I’m one of those guys that are saying, ‘Let’s solve everything, not just tariffs to China,’” O’Leary said. “China’s a different story than the rest of the world. I get what’s going on in Europe and in U.K. and in Switzerland and India. I got it. I don’t care about that. I want to solve the big kahuna problem, not just tariffs to China.”
O’Leary also listed core issues the U.S. must bring to the negotiating table, including forced IP transfers, unequal market access, and regulatory double standards.
“It’s time to level the playing field. I’ve been saying the same thing for weeks now. IP theft, access to their markets, delist their companies and don’t comply to the rules I have to comply to because of millions of dollars,” O’Leary said. “They don’t have to. Why do they get to do that? Why don’t we just get it on the table? I don’t care what they say. I know they’re talking because they don’t have a choice.”
With the EU also beginning to push back against China’s market saturation, O’Leary said that the U.S. remains the only economy large enough to force real concessions.
“We have to squeeze heads while we’re the largest economy on earth. That’s 39% of everything consumed and 26.1% of the world’s GDP. Squeeze while you can. Otherwise, you’ll never get this opportunity again. Squeeze now. And I don’t care about the volatility. I want this administration to solve this problem after 20 years,” O’Leary said. “None of them have solved it. Let’s get this done. And as far as the Trump derangement syndrome, I get it. Half the people don’t like it. I don’t even care about that anymore. It’s not about Trump. It’s about settling a huge problem with an economy that cheats and steals IP and wants to win by not paying for it.”
The U.S.–China trade war escalated rapidly after Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement that prompted retaliation from Beijing. Within days, Trump raised tariffs on Chinese imports from 104% to 125%, later increasing them to at least 145% to pressure China back to the negotiating table.
By mid-April, tariffs on some Chinese goods reached as high as 245% in response to China’s countermeasures. Trump also imposed 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum, automobiles and other imports, saying that rates would not return to zero due to past trade imbalances.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Fox Business)
Former Rep. George Santos sentenced to 87 months in New York federal fraud case
Published Fri, Apr 25 20259:56 AM EDT
Updated Fri, Apr 25 20253:38 PM EDT
Kevin Breuninger@KevinWilliamB
Key Points
- Former U.S. Rep. George Santos was sentenced in his federal fraud case.
- The New York Republican admitted to engaging in a campaign finance scheme, wrongly receiving unemployment benefits during the Covid-19 pandemic, and lying on House financial forms.
- Santos agreed to restitution and forfeiture totaling nearly $580,000 as part of his guilty plea.
George Santos, who was expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives, arrives for the sentencing in his criminal corruption charges at Central Islip Federal Courthouse in Central Islip, New York, on April 25, 2025.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
Former Rep. George Santos, whose web of lies about his life led to his expulsion from Congress, was sentenced Friday to more than seven years in prison in his federal fraud case.
The New York Republican must also pay restitution of $373,750, a judge ruled in U.S. District Court in Long Island.
Santos admitted last August to engaging in a multipronged campaign finance scheme, stealing unemployment benefits during the Covid-19 pandemic and lying on House financial disclosure forms.
As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Santos pleaded guilty to a single count each of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He also agreed to restitution and forfeiture totaling nearly $580,000.
Santos has asked Judge Joanna Seybert to sentence him to only the mandatory minimum of two years in prison. He argues that he accepted responsibility for his actions and cooperated with prosecutors.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York asked Seybert to sentence Santos to 87 months behind bars.
In a court filing last week, prosecutors told the judge that Santos’ recent series of defiant social media posts shows that “he remains unrepentant for his crimes.”
Nvidia stock falls as China’s Huawei reportedly readies AI chip after Trump’s export ban
Nvidia (NVDA) stock fell as much as 2% in early trading Monday following a report that Chinese tech giant Huawei is readying a new advanced AI chip in the wake of President Trump’s export ban on Nvidia chips to China.
As of 10:49:30 AM EDT. Market Open.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing unnamed sources, that Huawei has approached some Chinese tech companies about testing a new AI chip called the Ascend 910D, which it hopes will be more powerful than Nvidia’s H100 AI chips. The 910D chips are successors to Huawei’s 910B and 910C chips and are still in an early stage of development.
The Wall Street Journal also said Huawei is set to ship more than 800,000 Ascend 910B and 910C chips to customers, including state-owned telecommunications carriers and AI developers such as TikTok parent ByteDance.
Read more about Nvidias stock moves and today’s market action.
Nvidia stock spiraled after the chipmaker disclosed in a regulatory filing this month that the US government had effectively banned exports of its H20 chips made specifically for the Chinese market to comply with ever-tightening US trade rules. The company said it would record a $5.5 billion loss from the policy change, with JPMorgan analysts estimating the ban would shave up to $16 billion from Nvidia’s revenue this year.
China accounted for $17 billion, or 13%, of Nvidia’s revenue in its fiscal year 2025, Bernstein noted earlier this month. DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria estimates that share could be higher, telling Yahoo Finance in an email that as much as 40% of Nvidia’s revenue comes from China due to chip smuggling.
CEO Jensen Huang talks during the keynote address of Nvidia GTC Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Nic Coury) · ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nvidia stock dropped last week after Reuters reported that Huawei’s 910C chips are set to begin shipping as soon as May and are reportedly competitive with Nvidia’s H100 chips. Those Nvidia chips were banned from sale to China in 2022 and are two iterations behind Nvidia’s latest Blackwell chips.
Nvidia stock is down more than 17% in 2025, as the leading AI chip stock has suffered from investor scrutiny over AI spending from Big Tech giants and Trump’s trade war.
Earlier this month, the US government said it is probing Nvidia over the use of its AI chips in China.
Meanwhile, CEO Jensen Huang visited China and met with trade officials. The company is simultaneously looking to expand its domestic manufacturing footprint, pledging $500 billion to the US AI supply chain buildout.
StockStory aims to help individual investors beat the market.
Laura Bratton is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Bluesky @laurabratton.bsky.social. Email her at laura.bratton@yahooinc.com.
Former Rep. George Santos sentenced to 87 months in New York federal fraud case
Published Fri, Apr 25 20259:56 AM EDTUpdated Fri, Apr 25 20253:38 PM EDT
Kevin Breuninger@KevinWilliamB
ShareShare Article via FacebookShare Article via TwitterShare Article via LinkedInShare Article via Email
Key Points
- Former U.S. Rep. George Santos was sentenced in his federal fraud case.
- The New York Republican admitted to engaging in a campaign finance scheme, wrongly receiving unemployment benefits during the Covid-19 pandemic, and lying on House financial forms.
- Santos agreed to restitution and forfeiture totaling nearly $580,000 as part of his guilty plea.
Former Rep. George Santos, whose web of lies about his life led to his expulsion from Congress, was sentenced Friday to more than seven years in prison in his federal fraud case.
The New York Republican must also pay restitution of $373,750, a judge ruled in U.S. District Court in Long Island.
Santos admitted last August to engaging in a multipronged campaign finance scheme, stealing unemployment benefits during the Covid-19 pandemic and lying on House financial disclosure forms.
As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Santos pleaded guilty to a single count each of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He also agreed to restitution and forfeiture totaling nearly $580,000.
Santos has asked Judge Joanna Seybert to sentence him to only the mandatory minimum of two years in prison. He argues that he accepted responsibility for his actions and cooperated with prosecutors.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York asked Seybert to sentence Santos to 87 months behind bars.
In a court filing last week, prosecutors told the judge that Santos’ recent series of defiant social media posts shows that “he remains unrepentant for his crimes.”
Bessent says China tariffs are not sustainable as US signals willingness to de-escalate
By David Lawder and Trevor Hunnicutt, Reuters | Updated – April 23, 2025 at 4:05 p.m. | Posted – April 23, 2025 at 3:51 p.m.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Scott Bessent states that high U.S.-China tariffs are unsustainable, signaling potential de-escalation.
- President Donald Trump’s administration is open to tariff reductions, but not unilaterally, impacting market optimism.
- U.S. stocks rose amid hopes for trade talks, though negotiations remain uncertain, affecting global growth.
WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday that high tariffs between the United States and China are not sustainable, as President Donald Trump’s administration signaled openness to de-escalating a trade war between the world’s two largest economies that has raised fears of recession.
U.S. stocks rallied on hopes that the two countries might lower the steep trade barriers they have erected over the past month, though there was no sign that negotiations might start anytime soon.
Bessent said the tariffs — 145% on Chinese products and 125% on U.S. products — would have to come down before trade talks can proceed, but Trump would not make that move unilaterally.
“Neither side believes that these are sustainable levels. As I said yesterday, this is the equivalent of an embargo, and a break between the two countries in trade does not suit anyone’s interest,” Bessent told reporters.
The White House is open to discussing a significant rate cut on Chinese imports in order to advance negotiations with Beijing but will not do so alone, according to a person familiar with the conversations. That person would not say how low the White House might be willing to go, but the Wall Street Journal reported the figure could be as low as 50%.
A White House spokesperson dismissed any reports as “pure speculation” and said news on tariffs would come from Trump himself.
“We are going to have a fair deal with China,” Trump told reporters, but he did not outline any specifics.
The tariff levels outlined in the Journal report would likely still be high enough to deter a significant chunk of trade between the world’s two largest economies. German shipper Hapag-Lloyd said Wednesday that 30% of its U.S.-bound shipments from China have been canceled.
Separate talks between the two countries over tackling the fentanyl epidemic have not yielded results so far, sources say.
The apparent U.S. softening on China tariffs was a welcome sign for markets battered by Trump’s erratic trade policies. The benchmark S&P 500 was up 2.11% in midday trading, but is still more than 12% below its February record close.
“It’s about all of the political and policy uncertainty and what it could mean for the economy in the near term,” said Jim Baird, of Plante Moran Financial Advisors.
Bessent said the third quarter of this year is a “reasonable estimate” for achieving clarity on the ultimate level of Trump’s tariffs.
In addition to the steep tariffs on China, Trump has also imposed a blanket 10% tariff on all other U.S. imports and higher duties on steel, aluminum and autos. He has suspended targeted tariffs on dozens of other countries until July 9 and floated additional industry-specific levies on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. That has roiled financial markets and raised fears of recession.
The European Union, which Trump has threatened with 20% tariffs, would respond with countertariffs if it cannot reach a deal with the United States before the July 9 deadline, economy minister Valdis Dombrovskis said on Wednesday. He said the 27-member trade bloc has offered to buy more liquefied natural gas from the United States and reduce tariffs on certain goods.
Other countries are looking to negotiate as well. Vietnam’s trade minister spoke to U.S. trade representative Jamieson Greer on Wednesday, state media reported.
The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday the tariffs will slow growth and push debt higher across the globe. S&P Global found that U.S. business activity slowed to a 16-month low in April while prices charged for goods and services soared.
The Federal Reserve said it found economic activity in the United States to be steady over the past month, despite “pervasive” uncertainty around trade. The central bank’s survey found a drop in international visitors in some areas, and the outlook in several of the Fed’s 12 regional districts “worsened considerably.”
A Reuters/Ipsos poll found Americans souring on Trump’s economic performance. Just 37% of respondents approve of his handling of the economy, down from 42% when he took office in January.
Contributing: Andy Sullivan
https://www.ksl.com/article/51299778/americans-sour-on-trumps-handling-of-the-economy-poll-finds
Americans sour on Trump’s handling of the economy, poll finds
By Jason Lange, Reuters | Posted – April 23, 2025 at 10:02 p.m.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- A Reuters/Ipsos poll shows 37% approve of President Donald Trump’s economic handling.
- Concerns rise over trade wars, tariffs and a potential recession under Trump’s policies.
- Three-quarters fear recession; 56% find Trump’s economic actions “too erratic.”
WASHINGTON — Americans elected President Donald Trump in hopes that he would fight inflation and boost the U.S. economy, but as he approaches his 100th day in office, they are giving the Republican poor marks for his handling of both, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows.
Trump has kicked off his term with an aggressive economic agenda, sparking trade wars as he slaps tariffs on major U.S. trading partners, trying to pressure the Federal Reserve to bend to his will and setting off the worst selloff in U.S. financial markets since the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago.
Just 37% of respondents to the six-day poll that concluded on Monday approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, down from 42% in the hours after his Jan. 20 inauguration, when he promised to supercharge the economy and bring about a “golden age of America.” The reading is well below any point in his first term, when it ranged from the mid-40s to mid-50s.
“You have a president who promised a golden age,” said James Pethokoukis, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “But everything that’s supposed to be up is down; everything that’s supposed to be down is up.”
Pethokoukis said the economic warning signs put pressure on Trump to reverse course on tariffs, but even if Trump caved, the economy might not quickly bounce back amid the chaos.
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted just after Trump’s inauguration, some 55% of respondents said either inflation or the broader economy should be Trump’s main focus in his first 100 days in office, which run through April 30. Twenty-three percent picked immigration.
Three months later, three-quarters of the respondents in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll said they worried a recession was coming. Fifty-six percent of respondents, including 1 in 4 Republicans, said Trump’s moves to shake up the economy are “too erratic.”
Market worries
Two-thirds of respondents were concerned about the stock market, where share prices have fallen sharply in recent weeks amid investor worries over Trump’s plans to hike tariffs on imported goods and his intimation he could fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, the nation’s top official tasked with controlling inflation.
The benchmark S&P 500 stock index is about 14% below its previous high reached on Feb. 19. Consumer prices rose 2.5% in the year through February, well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
Fifty-two percent of respondents said they agreed with a statement that “Trump’s actions could make it harder for me to live comfortably when I retire,” outnumbering the 31% who disagreed with the statement.
Trump on Monday warned that the economy could slow if the Federal Reserve doesn’t lower interest rates, saying the nation was on a path where “there can be almost no inflation.” But Powell, like Wall Street economists, has said that Trump’s moves to raise tariffs — including a new 145% tax rate on most Chinese imports — could push inflation higher at least in the short term and possibly for longer.
Banking giant JP Morgan expects a recession this year, largely due to Trump’s tariff policy which has led other countries to put heavy levies on U.S. exports.
‘A big risk for Trump’
A large swath of America still backs Trump, many fervently.
His overall approval rating — at 42% — remains higher than his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden enjoyed for much his term, and has been buoyed by a somewhat larger share of Americans — 45% — who back Trump’s hard-line actions on immigration.
The president’s party also remains firmly behind him, with 81% of self-identified Republicans approving of Trump’s economic stewardship, compared to 5% of Democrats and 28% of people outside the two parties.
Many Americans are sympathetic to his view that the U.S. has gotten a raw deal in global affairs generally, including in trade and in defense. Forty-eight percent of respondents agreed with a statement that “most other countries, including America’s traditional allies, take advantage of the U.S.” Thirty-four percent disagreed.
But even 1 in 3 Republicans said their cost of living was on the wrong track, according to the poll, which surveyed 4,306 U.S. adults nationwide between April 16 and April 21. The poll had a margin of error of about two percentage points.
Three-quarters of respondents, including two-thirds of Republicans, said they were concerned about the reliability of the Social Security system, which has been a focus of a Trump administration push to shrink the federal government that has been led by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
Many dire warning signs on the economy have been from surveys of businesses or from leading economists, while measures of the labor market remain healthier, with the jobless rate in March only ticking slightly higher to 4.2%.
“There’s a big risk for Trump that it’s only going to get worse from here,” said Scott Lincicome, a trade and economics expert at the CATO institute, a libertarian think tank.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
HI Financial Services Mid-Week 06-24-2014