Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at seven am Eastern on Apple CarPlay or Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
University Martin Feldstein the original support of Kenneth Rogoff, Benjamin Friedman and others. And it devolves down to their freshman class, which is legendary worldwide X ten economic ten. Recently, Greg manq the force there and he gave the baton off to Jason Furman in the recent years. Mister Furman has public policy perspective, typically from a Democratic view, but I'd call him on the edge of bipartisan. And he joins us now from Harvard. Going to redo your essay, Jason.
It's a clinic in the New York Times here over the weekend. I'm going to get right down to the single argument here mister Trump has returned to again and again is that other countries are taking advantage of the United States. Is the Trump grievance deserved? Absolutely not.
I mean that essay I had in the New York Times was just what I teach in my class to my introduction, so it felt like it.
I felt like that.
Yeah, And it's the same lesson I got from Marty Feldstein when I took the class decades ago. Trade deficits are not inherently bad. Imports are a wonderful thing. Trade deficits don't happen because of differential tariffs in different countries, and changing tariffs doesn't sell trade deficits. Every step of the reasoning underlying today's announcement is just completely at all with the most basic economics.
Within this, Professor Furman, his professor Hassett is trying to help out the Trump administration. Kevin Hascid with a PhD from a Philadelphia school named Pennsylvania. And there's others best and the Treasury Secretary. From where you sit, Jason Furman, how alone is President Trump?
You know, I don't know exactly what's going on inside the White House, but I know you have the cent a year ago basically saying tariffs are a bad thing, a loaded gun pointed at the head of the US economy. I know Kevin has historically been a free trader. I hope they're trying to pull things in a less bad direction. But you know, when your opening gambit is twenty percent across the board tariffs, you can move in a less bad direction and still have things be pretty.
Bad, Jason, as I understand it, as I understand the administration's perspective, they simply cite the fact that the US pays a weighted average tariff of two to three times the rate that we charge most of the rest of the world, and they want that to be leveled up. Is that kind of their argument, and if so, that seems fair level playing field? Is that a sound economic argument?
First of all, those other countries are often hurting themselves with their teriffs. You look at these Latin American countries that have had high tariffs. That wasn't a smart strategy to take advantage of the United States. That was a dumb strategy to stunt their economic growth. But let's do some of the numbers. Let's say you do want reciprocation. We have tariffs against most rich countries of around one or two percent. Most rich countries have tariffs against US
of about one or two percent. So we don't need any new tariffs against rich countries. Who don't need any new tariffs against counta in Mexico. Then when it comes to China and India, if we want to even them up, we would need to raise ours by two or three percentage points, not anything like the ten twenty that we're hearing about in today's announcement.
All right, so that's the math. What are some of the potential unintended consequences here? People will say two that I can think of one as slower growth. Number two is higher inflation. Are those valid?
Absolutely?
I think every Wall Street forecaster has downgraded their forecast for growth and upgraded their forecast for inflation. The FED did the same thing, although the FED wasn't one hundred percent explicit about what drove their changes. It's hard to imagine there was anything else that was going on there. But to that list of two, I'd add a longer term one, which is geopolitics. The United States is a big important country. It is not infinitely big. It is
not infinitely important. China is also a really, really big player in the world. The only way we can confront China is by doing it together with allies, and if we alienate our allies. There's a lot more countries that trade more with China than with the United States. We're just going to push that further and help realign global geopolitics away from the US alliance and towards a Chinese entent.
And your morning community this morning across Canada, across Mexico, in America, Jason Furman with US of Harvard University, we said good morning on Android auto Applecar played the new Digital Experience, and of course to all of you on YouTube, subscribe to Bloomberg Podcast, and I'll get out the Firman New York Times essay here in a bit, Jason, I want to go to the driver of this, and I want to start with Lightheiser, who grew up in the crucible of northeastern Ohio, where as a kid he saw
American steel industrial might disappear. And then we've got Navarro of LA of Irvine with his own take here to move us away from free trade. The heart of this is the Matthew teach, which is a j curve in economics. There's going to be short term pain, but out there, I sound like a Linda Ronstadt song out there somewhere, Jason Furman, there's going to be a better American trade policy. What do they get wrong about the midterm and long term benefit of what is clearly perceived to be short
term pain. Right.
I mean, the thing that a lot of people don't understand is when you put a tariff on imports, you're effectively putting a tariff on exports too. And that could happen because other countries retaliate with their own tariffs. It could happen because your tariffs lead to an exchange rate appreciation,
which make it harder for you to export. What do we export in I'd state so well, A lot of that is really terrific manufacturing that's made here in America sold around the world, and we're going to have less of all of that. I don't see this as a pro manufacturing plan. You we're going to raise the cost of inputs to me, Yeah.
Does Jason Furman have a strong dollar week dollar outcome out of this? Let's go Robert Mundel right now, Jason Furman with the dollar.
I'm with a strong dollar. But you know, we're going to see what the announcement is today and how it compares the expectations. Also depends a lot on the FED. I think the FED is going to be and should be, reluctant to cut rates when inflation if it goes above three percent. Sure they can say their models say it's transitory, but they're going to be pretty nervous and they should be to act on that belief, especially with inflation expectations so elevated more opeds.
There are people I know, Jason sending your OpEd to their children saying you shut up and read it. Jason Furman, thank you so much for Harvard this morning.
This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at seven am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
It's giving us day after day. Is Henrietta Trees and the politics of the moment. Henrietta. The marketing idea here is liberation Day. Will Republicans be liberated today?
It's amazing. I'm actually about to send an email out with a quote from Senator Hoven which is effectively saying, let's hope we'll see there is an expectation or understanding that free trade doesn't work. It's a novel position for the Republican conference, and you know, we have one hundred and fifty years worth of data on tariffs to suggest they pretty clearly do not. As Jason Farman points out, that countries with high tariffs shoot themselves in the foot
with high tariffs. So that is the course that the president is determined to take. What we'll hear about later today.
Are you surprised that, Henriette, we haven't seen any really strategic or coordinated kind of pushback along the lines of Professor Furman from members of Congress just simply laying out the simple economics here of how tarrifs worked.
I'm shocked. I feel like it should be so easy to message around. You know, the easiest example is you've had twenty five percent tariffs on aluminum. What is your beer can made out of aluminum? You know, it should be a really easy messaging point. All your back to school items, your backpacks, umbrellas, rain boots, baseball gloves, all of it. Tireff died at twenty percent already, if not already in the Section three oh one tariffs that are on at twenty five percent, So I think the messaging
should be much easier. I do think that what Trump has done President Trump has done is he's split the Democratic Party that necessarily wasn't pro free trade a couple of years ago, and he's moved the Republicans into a more progressive place or populous place where they maybe are no longer free trade pro free trade either. And you've kind of bifurcated all of DC, not along party lines,
but along sort of allegiances. And then you know, maybe stale or outdated views from either parties left and right camps.
So what is the next How do you expect the Democrats, if at all, and or the Republicans, if at all, to respond to what we may hear, what we're going to hear at four o'clock today, Will there be will tomorrow will be a day of lots of sound bites coming out of both parties.
I expect so. And in fact, we'll have a vote that they'll be able to talk about later today. The negative for President Trump on the AIPA tariff's worth regards to Canada is that there is some congressional oversight here. So the Senators have put a joint resolution on the floor condemning the President's decision to label Canada our closest ally as an international economic emergency that needs to be retaliated against with tariffs. So they're going to put that
bill on the floor today. And I understand at least four Senators and I know as many as at least ten want to vote with the Democrats on this, and that would include Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. We've seen, you know, bourbon from Kentucky and tariff see talking point, and a couple of others who are going to side with Democrats to pass this resolution later on.
The benefit for President Trump is that the House will not take up this legislation impasset or that's his expectation, and so it won't do anything, but it will give Democrats at least an opportunity to get members on the record.
And now, folks a delicate question in case Senator Grassley's watching this, and Senator Grassley's old enough to remember David Ricardo, he was probably on the boat with Churchill and Roosevelt
at the Atlantic Charter, Henrietta. Tre's what we're going to get here is some form of liberation announcement, and in the announcement or as Paul mentioned one day, two days later, we're going to get a battle out for American farmers off of Canadian fertilizer and six other things you understand that I don't get is the check from President Trump to the farmers Republicans. Is it going to somebody eighty seven miles west of Des Moines helping Senator Grassley or is it going to corporate America.
It's going to be a combination of both. It's through a very technical program at USDA. The benefit here is that this is a well trodden road. The USDA Secretary under Trump's first term deployed this exact same strategy three times to whether the trade war with China. But the real beneficiary here is Brazil. As you were talking about before, they have new rose to hoe on soybeans and all
kinds of trade with China. Argentina's in the same boat, and that's what farmers are going to lose permanently on a go forward basis. So you can bail out the farmers now, but you're losing market share and eventually that's going to be something that the United States cannot bail farmers out of.
Henriette, what did you make of yesterday's political action? The two races down in Florida and the Supreme Court race. What did you make of that?
I think the biggest tell is on average, Democrats have been winning special elections by nine or ten points, and they exceeded that by almost double in some of those races last night. And the margin of victory for Republicans in Florida six in Florida's first district was an equal fifteen percentage points. And that's down from a plus thirty and plus forty position place for Republicans during the November election. So just in five or six months, the hemorrhage support.
It's pretty normal for Democrats to be highly engaged in these special elections, but this puts as many as sixty House Republican seats in play for the Democratic Party, according to the lead Jeffries going into the twenty twenty sixth mid terms.
Just because of radio clarity, they're in the quality of our microphones. Sixty six zero District zero.
Yeah. And you know, to put this in perspective, when we had President Trump's first term and the twenty eighteen midterms, Democrats were able to pick up forty one seats, and in Obama's first term in the twenty ten mid terms, Republicans picked up sixty three, so it's it's a very appropriate number to have in mind, somewhere between four in sixty seats.
She amazes me. She's a machine every time. It's amazing. I'm here a trace Fada partners. Thank you, Thank you.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from seven to ten am Eastern. Listen on Apple, Karplay and Android Otto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube right.
Overnew This is like an audible like we did the Wisconsin and the Florida elections. Today on a day of trade, We're gonna go trade free with Nisha Patel with Paramatic hugely popular when she comes on municipal bonds. Okay, David Gerr and Janet Lauren. Janet will be with us later. Girl. Do we have GUR today?
I hope we maybe do. Maybe we're talking to those people.
We're talking to us people. They were in Princeton yesterday. Yes, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and forty eight other Flavor schools are having trouble with the federal government of out their budgets. You can't buy a Harvard UNI bond. They're all sold to alumni. What are they doing when these headlines are there? So college education bonds price down, yield.
Up, not necessarily. You have to remember private schools like Harvard, like Princeton, from a balance sheet perspective, are incredibly strong. So these are some issuers and deals that will go very quickly to some in state issuers. But from a quality perspective, you know, generally speaking, you don't see any kind of spread widening. Now, the one topic you did bring up, impact of maybe any federal aid reduction to any municipal issuers. I think that starts affecting more states,
more local credits. Right, So if you think about states, you look at the Medicaid aid that they're receiving on an annual basis, Each state is going to have to handle this differently, right, depending on the severity of the cuts how that impacts each state. But again my main point here will be this is no different than any state managing their budgets during any sort of an economic you know, let's say slow down. Every state has to reconcile their budgets. You come up with costs, you come
up with remny raising measures. But from a credit perspective, this is what we're all trying to parse through.
So, Nisha, I know, one of the interesting issues and challenges potentially for the mean US with bond market is with the tax legislation and the tax deductibility of interest. Where do we stand there?
Yes, yes, So the administration obviously is a daunting task to come up with, roughly let's say fourtullion dollars a counteract to the tax cut extension which you're looking to do. So the tax exemption of munis has been put on the table. This is something that has come up historically before, during Prison Obama's administration in twenty fourteen during a budget reform.
I'm going to simply put it as we put a low risk on this happening to where the tax exemption of municipal bonds is taken away entirely, and in that for that matter, for a majority of the market, we just don't see that happening. Why you look at what the actual revenue would come from that, let's call it twenty five billion a year, two hundred and fifty over the next ten years. How do all the infrastructure projects get funded in our country right, seventy five to eighty
percent is through the municipal bond market. Every state, every local municipality, building schools, fixing bridges, it's all through the MENI market. You would be tripling the cost of financing these types of projects if you were to do that at a time when this administration is backing right infrastructure type projects economic expansion. So this counter acts I think, just from a high level perspective that so, I do think you could see more noise around this, especially in
a market like Munis. You know, we have seen some weakness in Munis that has been more supply driven in market dynamics. But I think this is starting to create a little bit more noise. But we put low risk on this.
Is parametric funded the municipal bonds that allowed for the paving of fifty ninth Street Park Avenue.
It's quite possible.
It was impossible.
See, don't we need more roads to be paved?
No, we can't increase the Bentley And it's like I need an suv to get through the potholes. Yes, all of a sudden, the Bentley was smooth today. Tell me about duration. What's the retail trap? Now? Is it to buy two short munis or should I be looking at what perpetuity or twenty or well, listen, this is.
A great question. We've seen a pretty tremendous underperformance in the municipal bond market. You look at your Broad Bloomberg Treasury INEX Corporate indext Q one anywhere up from two and a half to three percent. Munis are maybe up about seventy five business points. Why, we've seen a lot of issuance in the market. This has been the second largest quarter in issuance since two thousand and seve Just an incredible amount of money and issuance coming to the market.
A lot of this is a function of issuers wanted to get ahead of any volatility that may be coming about later this year, just necessary infrastructure projects. So my short answer to you is the curve is incredibly steeper. You're two to twenty year and the unique curve is about one hundred and thirty basis points. You are getting paid to extend out in terms of duration right now, most municipal bond investors, retail investors are a little scared to add duration. This is when you want to be
looking at that part of the curve. So look at you know, ten plus years, particularly fifteen to twenty years, you're locking in tax equivalent yields of anywhere from seven to eight percent. Think about that, right for high piastics, Yes, large, So this I think we're seeing as a pretty tremendous buying opportunity.
Are funds flowing like that? Are funds coming into the musicipal bond market?
That's a great question. So supply has been very high. On the demand side. We have been seeing outflows out of the municipal bond market and even ets we're seeing outflows now this week. We're starting to see that turn. But we know in this market when things turn and come back in the other direction, they can come in a flood. This is when you want to you know, at least leg in and start locking in these heels. Before you could see heels compressed, were going to count My.
Response when you're on and let me go back to a question I've asked you before, but I think it needs to be revisited. Can our listeners and viewers on YouTube, can they acquire individual bonds or are they locked out by Fidelity, black Rock, Pimco and the rest.
It depends on how you're accessing these bonds or brokerage, you know, platforms that allow you to do this, we would advocate, Look, professional management is probably the better route to go, right for all the reasons that we talked about better positioning credit management. So Tom, I'm still waiting for you to open up your account with us, but.
I'm looking at the TWU wishes it's out somewhere. Yes, help me with how many beeps you pick up by dealing with adults like you versus sitting on the phone trying to get I'll take fifty or I'll take ten of the the mateo education, geo of you know whatever.
Right off the bat, there could be you know, two to three percent savings on just the execution two hundred beeps on that individual whole, not two hundred beeps a two percent of price. So let's say in a ten year bond, roughly twenty thirty basis points at least. But that's just on the execution, right, Because we're buying as professional institutional buyers, we're accessing new issue deals which as an individual on the other side, you simply would not
have access to. You you can only buy it in the secondary market exactly. So there's a markup associated with that credit management? What is that worth in this environment? I would say that is worth a considerable amount.
What's the pick up on new issues? We've got to go here, but what's the basis point pick up? I'm buying a new issue for something out there.
So right now in the ten to fifteen year part of the curve, you could easily pick up anywhere from twenty to forty basis points depending on just because right now you're seeing a lot of issuance. Things are getting a little sloppy, as I like to call it.
Are you taking this is.
When you want a professional manager to be accessing the new issue market. So parametric is a way to do it.
Tom I A ladder, dimunitionible portfolio is what I have, light duration half for thirty years.
That's how you play it.
Yeah, yeah, clip and coupon the high steing Jersey triple tax.
Yes, I have a ladder, a laddered tuition polio.
All right, we need to talk about that after this we do.
This is great. We got a huge response when we're having me she is with parametric, we don't take enough advantage of a discussion of the simple rond score.
This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at seven am Eastern on Apple Corplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business Up. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Peter Sheer goes to the heart of the matter on this event at four pm this afternoon of the President of the United States, and he takes it right back to the Codahammarabi and of course on the Hebrew law as well in Exodus. And that is his concept of grievance and retribution. And I for an eye Peter Shaer with this brilliant note from Academy Securities. How I for an eye is America this morning?
It feels very much so. And I think that's part of the problem. Right, It's where did this first I start? Right, it's you know, we're now complaining about Tara stup. We're put on us. But I think it's a wrong attitude, and I think we're pushing people away. And although we're really focused today on tariffs, I think we have to take one step back and say everything else is going on geopolitically, is also pushing our friends and allies away
from us. How we're handling NATO, how we're having Russia, Ukraine, the language in and around Greenland, the language in and around Canada. I think there's this real concern that's going away, and you're starting to see it occur geopolitically, where all of a sudden, Japan, China, and South Korea are talking, Canada and Mexico are talking directly. I think we've overstated, you know, quote unquote our hands or what our cards
we hold. And I think, no matter what happens today two three weeks later, our stock markets are gonna be lower as we realize that we are kind of destroying the American brand.
Are you surprised that there hasn't been any more pushback against this president in this administration from Congress broadly defined is to some of these bigger issues, you.
Know, I think it's so early in his administration. He won with a pretty clear mandate, so I think everyone was going to let it play out. And I think this time around, the one thing he did, clearly from his perspective, is he filled up his posts much quicker than last time.
YEP.
But he picked people who are really on board with him, particularly on tariffs. Almost every single person in his cabinet believes tariff's work, and so I'm not we're not seeing pushback. Maybe some of the voting last night, maybe that would be the first wave that people should raise their hands and say, hey, maybe we need to change this a little bit.
The advantage you have in folks, Academy securities has a huge military tenor of excellence of admirals and generals on their board as well. The heart of the matter is he's tearing asunder the Atlantic Charter off of Newfoundland nineteen forty one. I mean, and George Bood Senior, who was hauled out of the Pacific Ocean, you know, on a down airplane onto a suburb at midway. We're going on
beyond that. Do your people in Academy's security say we're staggering into a new era or is this a moment than where we'd pull back.
I think everyone's torn, and you know, like everyone else, I'm sure there's varying degrees, but I would say, you know, one thing that comes up in conversations right all of a sudden, this talk about Greenland, the polar ice cap Well, Canada has I believe it's twenty summut ice breakers, rush ass forty something. The US is about five. So if we are that worried, why don't we have icebreakers? Why aren't we more prepared for this? Greenland seems like a weird way to do it. I think there's a lot
of questions about the messaging. We used to have three, you know, bases in Greenland. Why not just talk to Greenland and try and re established two if we think it's that important. So I think it's the messaging and how we're going about it, maybe necessarily than the what that is causing a lot of consternation.
Paul jump in here because I'm just going to talk submarines in the data story a turn off the show, Save me, Paul, Peter.
So, given all those that level of uncertainty, just whether it's economic uncertainty, political uncertainty, military uncertainty that seems to have been engendered over the past several months, what do you tell your clients about investing these days?
Well, one, I actually think there's a high degree of certainty, and the certainty is not good right. The certainty is one other countries are now playing US very differently. If you go back to g G made a trip to Marrow Lago very early in Trump one point zero. Every time Trump mentioned tariffs, China had some sort of trade delegation. This time China's sitting there and saying, oh, yes, sir, may I have another, Yes, sir, may have another. They're moving along. I think we have bitten off way more
than we can choose. So again, at thirty trillion dollar GDP or the largest economy, why we've chosen to fight with the eighty trillion rest of the world is a little bit unclear. And one thing that I think about a lot. I think this is really representive what's going to happen going down the road. Is three months ago, if you told me Germany was going to spend hundreds of billion dollars on military equipments, US defense stocks would have skyrocketed. They are not because Germany doesn't want to
buy American equipment. And I think this ending of the American brand is my biggest concern, and.
Bring it over to the market. Let's bring it over to the world of Peter sheheer from this geopolitical moment again, Coverage this afternoon, really coverage all day folks and into tomorrow Douglas, Heroin and Dartmouth, where this tomorrow owns the high ground on this debate. Bring it over to the markets then, So is there a sheer opportunity here?
I think you maybe sit through. It feels like the market wants to rally no matter almost what has said. Then I think you want to fade this. I think we're going to be down another ten twenty percent in the s and P five hundred in the coming weeks and months. Has the reality of what we've done right everything?
So you're talking negative thirty five percent drawdown?
Yeah, negative twenty five to thirty five percent. I think this is going to be a severe problem. I keep thinking back to Japan nineteen eighty nine, ninety ninety. Was anyone sitting there at the Nike wondering, oh, yeah, we're gonna be down sixty percent in a year and not recover for thirty years. No, And I feel like some of what's going on puts us in that sort of position.
The world is moving away from us. We don't have the cards that we think we have, and on top of that, the supply chains aren't ready even if we are successful. And I don't think we're going to be successful in getting companies. It's a two to seven year project to build manufacturing facilities here to get the robots in place. I think we've misplayed very badly here.
So we've seen a movement just in a stock market. Rest of world dramatically outperforming the US S and P five hundred year to date in the first quarter. Is that a short term trade? Is that something more? Are you telling clients you think about Europe, think about Japan.
I continue to like China, probably better than the other places. I think China's gonna be the big beneficiary. I think right now every market come down a little bit. But the one thing again, I think we really missed how many intangibles the US benefited from its position as this kind of benevolent superpower. One. We really benefit from capital flows. Capital flooded into the US. Everyone wanted to be in the US from an investment standpoint. That is now turning.
People don't want planing equipment here necessarily. They're trying to figure this out. So I think capital outflows continue.
I gotta bring this was this like, can't we do it? Like eight hour show today? Rich?
Rich?
Can you find out talk to management see if we can extend this out. I Peter, this is fascinating, And to me, the heart of the matter is, I'm going to assume Academy Securities has somewhere there's a token Democrat in the step. But this is the president's Republican party versus George Bush Senior's Republican Party. You're talking like there's a permanence to Trump trade policy.
I think we You know, if you're in a relationship and you say that one thing that you know you should not have said, because you can't.
Go back to doing it, listen.
And I'm not very good at relationships, but it does strike me that we've gone past that moment where we've done enough that people don't trust us, that we're trying to retrade everything again. U smca, Oh wow, Yeah, maybe we should exempt autos. And you've seen mistake after mistake made.
Right.
Why are we now having to bail out farmers for their input costs? Well, their input costs are largely fertilizer podash, things coming from Canada that we just slapped tariffs on. So tarifs are supposed to be a revenue generator, but now we're having to spend the money. I think this has been done very poorly, very haphazardly. I think if Bessentt was truly in charge, this would have been played out over six months, it would have been organized, it
would have been timely. I think it's been very random, and I think we have actually broken relationships that I don't think are repaired easily.
You got a gold call, Lisa wants to know you. You're talking gold four thousand.
No, no gold call. I do think crypto is actually going to fall down a little bit. I think Crypto's going to bear the brunt of a lot of this. I think people are going to be disappointed.
By a lot ten am and that's the.
Other reason to me, crypto has become much more part of the US dock market, whether it's MSTR being in the Nasdaq one hundred, the Bitcoin ETFs, it's in people's equity portfolios. I think this whole thing kind of comes down together. And to me, I want to see Crypto come down significantly from here, maybe to fifty sixty thousand, and I want to see the NASDAK come down. I also keep looking at TQQQ, which is a weird triple leverage GTF, but it represents about sixty billion dollars keeps
getting inflows. I need to see capitulation on that to be bullish.
Peer's here. Come back when you get more negative. Pierce share here, Academy Securities.
This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at seven am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg terminals.
Get right to it. I know it is newspaper Day with Lisa Mateo and she'd like twelve, are you torpedo bat free this morning?
Yes I am, but well you're swinging some home runs.
Okay, So here we go.
We have a lot of stories about the price of so many things going higher, right we've been talking about. Now we add to this. This is this interesting story about medical care affordability. This was study from West Health and Gallup and found it eleven percent of Americans said they could not pay for medication medical treatments within the past three months. So this is of lately things paying
like a doctor's visit, prescription drugs, things like that. More than a third said that if they were to need medical care, they wouldn't be able to afford it. And it's also an interesting thing because it showed that this widing disparity among black and Hispanic adults also those making the least amount of money to the reason why they're saying is higher premiums, things like the added cost of going to the doctor, recent rollbacks and Medicaid coverage on
top of it. So with this really interesting look at here's yet another thing that people are having trouble affording.
It's kind of important too.
Yeah, most definitely. No, definitely medical care, definitely. I want to equipmentical go to weight loss drugs. We talk a lot about it, right the f Yeah, the FTA because Tom loves it. They're about here's the overall factor. The FDA is about to take away Telehealth Company's license to sell these knockoff weight loss drugs.
Right.
They gave them the green light when the drugs run short supply, So now it's time the supply is back, so they have to take away this license. So now things are changing. It's causing this workplace battle, like who's going to pay for the GLP ones like ozembic now that they're a little.
Bit more expensive expensive, right, did I write nine hundred dollars something?
So?
But yeah, because you can get them before from MI these knockoffs for about two hundred, and now you have to pay like five hundred. So there's there's a big difference in price. So who's going to pay for it? Will the company pay for the employees weight loss drugs? Or will they not? I mean some stopped and they said we're not doing it. Others said, you know what, we're going to keep this because it's going to help us a train and attract talent and and attract talent too.
So I want to look back there. Do we know what percentage of people are using these things these days?
A lot?
It definitely does seem like a lot, and a lot of people are staying on it. I don't like people who've gone on it. I've known some people who have gotten off of it and kind of maintain but then they have to kind of jump back on again. Yep, when they start to fall back. But it's this idea of who is going to pay for it? Well, the company kind of pony over the money for it in insurance. And the last thing we've been talking about, President Trump's
tariff announcement right later today, here's an interesting take. The Wall Street Journal is saying that Brazil could be this big winner in the trade war. So they're saying they have these certain advantages. For example, Brazilian suppliers everything from cotton to chicken, they're looking to hire demand from China, so that's the main point. So they're saying that that
trade relationship has expanded. Chinese buyers stockpiling Brazilian soybeans. So at the same time, Brazil has opportunities to boost exports to the US and other countries because it's the biggest producer, for example, of footwear outside of Asia, so they're hoping they can send more shoes to the US in place of Chinese products. So they're putting what.
You're talking about is the complexity of these discussions with Jason Furman in five minutes versus the simplicity the theory of simplicity that we're getting picked by tick here.
Ye, yes, really from every Yeah, and the devil's in the details.
We'll see how this.
Will there be details today though I don't know, I don't know. I have no idea, Lisa, do you have an angle here? If you talk to the White House on the.
Last time yet not yet. It's on my agenda, Lisa.
Mateo, the newspapers this morning. Thank you, there's so much.
This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live each weekday seven to ten am Easter and on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg terminal.