President Donald Trump announced he would suspend tariffs for all countries for 90 days, except for China, whose tariff was raised to 125 percent, “effective immediately,” on Wednesday, April 9. Video by Link Lauren via Storyful
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00:00So in the effort of transparency, we're here to talk about the president's latest statement regarding his America first trade plan.
00:06As you all know, the president just put out a statement announcing an additional tariff on China.
00:11The tariff on China will now go up to one hundred and twenty five percent because China imprudently decided to retaliate against the United States.
00:18And as I said at the podium yesterday, when you punch in the United States of America, President Trump is going to punch back harder.
00:23In that same vein, we have had more than 75 countries from around the world reach out to President Trump and his team here at the White House to negotiate better trade deals for the American worker.
00:36We have been overwhelmed with the amount of requests from countries around the world.
00:39I'll let the secretary speak to that. We will continue with the tailor made negotiations that I spoke about yesterday.
00:44In the meantime, there will be a 90 day pause on the reciprocal tariffs as these negotiations are ongoing and the tariff level will be brought down to a universal 10 percent tariff.
00:53The secretary here has been a huge part of the president's trade team, of course, and will continue to lead these negotiations moving forward to look out for the American worker, which is always President Trump's bull.
01:04So I'll kick it over to our great Treasury secretary, Scott Bessage.
01:08Thank you. And we saw the successful negotiating strategies that President Trump implemented a week ago today.
01:17It has brought more than 75 countries forward to negotiate. It took great courage, great courage.
01:23For him to stay the course until this moment. And what we have ended up with peers, as I told everyone a week ago there in this very spot, do not retaliate and you will be rewarded.
01:38So every country in the world who wants to come and negotiate, we are willing to hear you.
01:46We're going to go down to a 10 percent baseline tariff before them and China will be raised to 125 due to their assistance on an escalation.
01:58Mr. Secretary, Mr. Secretary, Mr. Secretary.
02:01Treasury Secretary, thank you for doing this. Let me ask you three quick things, if I could, just for the sake of clarity and because the markets are open and they're wondering.
02:08First of all, Mexico and China, are they part of this 10 percent universal?
02:13Well, China.
02:14Mexico and Canada. Mexico and Canada. Are they part of the 10 percent?
02:17Yeah.
02:18OK. Second, given then that you have the rest of the world essentially calling and it's not China, is this now just all about China?
02:25Well, it's about actors. And what we will see is some of the very early countries, Amar, China's neighbors, that we're going to see.
02:37I've seen Vietnam today. Japan's at the front of the queue, South Korea, India.
02:41China. So we will see. As I repeatedly said, and President Trump has been saying it for years, China is the most imbalanced economy in the history of the modern world.
02:53And they are the biggest source of the U.S. trade problems.
02:57And indeed, they are a problem for the rest of the world, because what we've seen is that as the U.S. announced the chair of Walls last week, many of those goods have already started flooding into Europe.
03:11So as you see it now, this trade war is China versus the rest of the world.
03:16Well, I'm not calling it a trade war, but I'm saying that China has escalated.
03:21And President Trump responded very courageously to that.
03:26And we are going to work on a solution with our trading partner.
03:31Mr. Secretary, Mr. Secretary, where are you going?
03:33Excuse me, Raquel. If I could just add to what the secretary said.
03:37Many of you in the media clearly missed the art of the deal.
03:41You clearly have failed to see what President Trump is doing here.
03:44You tried to say that the rest of the world would be moved closer to China, when in fact we've seen the opposite effect.
03:50The 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.
04:00And 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.
04:07And as the president has shown great courage, as the secretary has said, in choosing to retaliate against China, even higher.
04:13Mr. Secretary, Mr. Secretary, Mr. Secretary, Mr. Secretary, can you explain more of the decision making on what feels like a rover?
04:19Mr. Secretary, Mr. Secretary, you are in the United States of America?