It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Cooston's Radio.
Thank you very much, Dan, as we move into our second hour tonight. A big event today in Washington. I don't know how many of you watched it. It lasted about an hour. President Trump held forth in the Rose Garden and announced tariffs. Stock market didn't like it. Stock market took a well, it looks like the stock market will open tomorrow and down quite a bit. So before we get to our guest, let me just play one bite from the President today in the Rose Garden, just
to give you a sense of the event. Cut number nine, Rob. This is the President this afternoon in the Rose Garden.
My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day waiting for a long time. April second, twenty twenty five will forever be remembered as today American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again.
We're going to make it wealthy, good, and wealthy. All right. That's President Trump this afternoon talking about tariffs substantial across the board, tariffs with us as Larry Edelman from the Boston Globe, Larry welcome to Night's side. He certainly didn't disappoint if you were looking for a wide swath of tariffs. What do you make of all of this?
Well, the President went tough on tariffs, she sure did, if they were more extreme than most people expected. And it's gonna come at a you know, maybe a short term price for American consumers and businesses. You know, we'll see long term whether it does what the President says the tariffs will do, and that is, you know, increase US manufacturing and jobs, you know, help pay down the national debt and also fund his uh big beautiful tax cuts.
Yeah. Well, I guess, I guess I don't see how he's able to do that, but we'll we can. We'll get to that in a second. Yeah, he's sort of acting as well. He's a protectionist at this point, not a free trade guy, and he's sort of antithetical to what the Republican Party has been since I'm gonna say at least the days of Dwight Eisenhower.
Oh certainly.
Yeah. And and also he had a lot of union guys there. There was a fellow from the UAW who spoke briefly. He did, he did talk about this on the campaign trail, so's it's not as if he's doing something different than what he promised on the campaign trail. But he's also a guy that watches the stock market. I mean, I assume and what do you think he's gonna What do you think he thought when he walked back into the White House and realized that the futures
for tomorrow are down? I think of the Dow over a thousand points at this point. I mean, that has sort of an impact on That's.
A good point, you know. I think Dan that he said this before, because as you know, stock's pretty much been falling for six weeks now, and you know the reason has been anticipation of this tariff plan. And we can only assume that when the market opens up again tomorrow that you know, you'll see more losses because this is worse one Ana said, you know, it's worse than
his worst case scenario. But the presidents may clear that he is willing to endure the short term pain of you know, falling stock prices, potentially higher inflation and even a recession. He thinks it's worth it for the long term. And one has to you know, if you're taking him at his word. You know, he's going for you know, no pain, no gain type of approach to this.
The problem is that presidents, even when they're second term presidents. Matter of fact, especially when the second term presidents, they have a runway of about eighteen months and if a year from now or fifteen months from by next summer, this stuff hasn't These tariffs have not worked the way he wants it to work. He probably can kiss the Senate in the House goodbye for his last two years in the White House. I mean, this is a this is an interesting period of time to to try this strategy.
I guess he feels what does he have to lose, despite the fact that he's trolling Democrats. I don't think he's seriously serious what he says. He's going to run for a third.
Term, right right, you know, the political calculations there, I don't I don't quite understand clearly. As we saw last night, there's you know, in the elections in Florida in terms of the margins that the Republican candidates won by, which were much lower than how Trump fared, you know in November, and in the state Supreme Court election in Wisconsin where the dem won despite you know, Elon Musk putting a lot of money into that race. You know, there's the
backlash he's already already starting. Now what happens, you know, as we get closer to the mid terms. I can't predict. He clearly is confident that this is the right move and that he's going to stick with it. Whether he does or not, who knows. You know, I haven't heard very tough to predict.
I haven't heard much criticism from his own party. I think there was some criticism from Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins today to senators who obviously, you know, are in many ways not aligned with him. But it seems as if his party is he's running this party, but it's it's it's it's almost as if he's realigning the American
political spectrum in many ways. I mean, if this does work, and I'm not sure will I'm not enough of an economist to predict that he may be able to solidify states like a Pennsylvania, you know, Union states like Michigan and maybe even well maybe not Wisconsin, because the people who are likely who are going to be hurt here the most, I think are people the agricultural sector, which were tremendous supporters of him in all of those those those plain Midwestern and Plane states. I mean, it's.
Yeah, we've correctly identified the shift in the Republican Party, Dan. You know that it's gone from the party of big business uh in Wall Street and free trade to a populist party. You know that is playing toward working class people. And you know, there's no denying that while free trade made this country a lot richer over the last thirty years, not everybody got to go along for the ride, especially in those communities that were dependent on manufacturing, you know,
either closed textiles or automobiles. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. So he's trying, you know, he's been you know, maybe you know it's luck, but he's been, you know, push this
realignment with the working class. Now, if if these tariffs, as many economists say, increase inflation and we have another round of much higher prices, this could backfire with working class people, you know, because proportionately they pay more here incomebody's yeah exactly, So you know it's it's an incredibly risky bet, not only for him but for the economy.
So you know, this is why I think there's so much attention being paid today to this because it's just really so much on the line, you know, over the next months, you know, and through the mid terms and beyond.
The other thing, Larry, which is interesting is that in the last month he's been we've watched gas prices come down and eke prices have come down. And I don't know that it's that it's anything that he has done, but he's benefiting from that at this point. And you just wonder if if if this is going to to to change to change the economic course and not for the better. So I mean not just uh, it's a little baffling. It's just a little baffling right now to me.
I'm sure it's like you know, to to you know, he just will not accept the kind of economic imperative that this is going to raise prices. You know, this doesn't you know, there's no that's so much money is involved that there's no way that the manufacturers overseas can eat all of the cares, right, They're going to pass them on, and the wholesalers and the people who make products here with foreign parts are going to pass them on, and food is going to be more expensive. Uh, in
the supermarket. It's it's it's inevitable. And you know, Trump has done a really good job in bringing the Republican Party to heal right, and he's brought law firms, you know, to the table force them to do stuff, and universities like Columbia. But I don't know if that that same arm twisting works with the economy.
You know.
It's like he can talk about it as much as he wants not being inflationary. Uh, but let's see what happens in six months.
Yeah, it's good. It's going to be interesting, that is for sure. And he will be able to look back on it as a transformational president maybe and then say that that he did something which which was very ambitious, or he can look back on it at some point and say, boy, that was the crazy thing I do.
He'll blame, he'll blame, He'll blame Peter Navarro and his other.
I'd love to know who do you think, Larry? My last question, And I really appreciate you taking the time, because I'm sure you're writing on this tomorrow. Who do you think he is relying upon? Here? He doesn't seem to me to meet a guy that's going to sit down and listen to a balanced argument over you know about you know, get to get to history of you know, smooth Holly and all of that sort of stuff, and circumstances of the late twenties early thirties are identical or different.
Who do you think he's listening to? Do you think it is Peter Navarro? His guy?
I think Peter Navarro is this guy, because if you listen to Peter Navarro and then you listen to Trump, you hear very many of the same things. But one thing I will mention that this took me by surprise too.
I heard Maggie Haveman on a podcast, the New York Times reporter who's covered Trump for years and years, and she said that he has been fixated on tariffs for decades, that this is, you know, not a new thing for him, that he's always looked at tariffs as something that he thought were needed, you know, and that America is getting ripped off in free trade, and he used.
Him and he did use them somewhat in his first term.
Correct, Right, Yes he did, and you know in a way, you know, they were but it was different. That was China for the most part, right, And you know, I think there's a pretty widespread agreement that, you know, something has to be done to keep China in check because they are clearly, you know, our toughest economic rival, and there are industries that we just can't afford to give up to them. But this is more than a hundred countries.
This is our closest allies along with China and other countries. So it's it's a much different it's a much different thing this time around than it was in the first term.
Larry Edelman of the Boston Globe, thanks so much. It gets us going here, and I just it's going to be fascinating, and we're all going to become a more economists. I guess in the internet we'll bite, will have to in the next few weeks, that's for sure.
That's right. Just don't watch your just don't watch your stock market accounts. That might be a little bit repressing.
No, I know, I know, well, you know they always say, don't. I hope people aren't going to be selling in panic here, because that's the biggest mistake anyone can make.
You Gotta hold on exactly.
When the storm hits. Don't jump overboard in the middle of the ocean. As simple as that. Larry, thanks so much, as always appreciated. Will you been there? Are you? Are you riding tonight for tomorrow?
Yeah, I'll be online tomorrow morning. Yep.
All right, Well we will look forward to seeing what you have to say then. But thanks for for sharing your thoughts with us tonight. Okay, thanks Larry. Larry Edelman of the Boston Globe business and finance columnist. We're going to take a break. We're we're talking about this story of the day, and it is the Trump tariffs. Uh, and I'd love to get a wide variety of viewpoints on it. Feel free to join the conversation. Six thirty six one seven. Larry's the only guest I had scheduled.
There's no need to fill it up with a thousand experts. Larry is is great. Uh, and he was able to give us a few minutes. Now I want to hear from you. Feel free join the conversation. Coming right back on Nightside.
It's Night Side with Boston's news radio.
So the President today, in a ceremony in the Rose Garden, laid out his view. Okay, so let's let's hit some of these sound bites and in the meantime we will get as many of you lined up as possible. Let's go to cut number ten, please. He's he's talking here about factories. Cut ten.
Rob jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country, and you see it happening already. We will supercharge our domestic industrial base. We will probably open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers, and ultimately more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers. This will be, indeed the golden age of American It's coming back.
We're going to come back very strongly. You've heard him talk about the golden age for America. Well, it's on the line now, that's for sure. So let's try to get a couple of the bites here that he tries to explain it a little bit. It's not easy to understand, but this is cut number twelve, rob cut number twelve.
But those days are over. Let me offer just a few examples of the vicious attacks workers have faced for so many years. The United States charges of the countries only a two point four tariff on motorcycles. Meanwhile, Thailand and others are dodging much higher prices like sixty percent. India charges seventy percent, Vietnam charges seventy five percent, and others are even higher than that. Likewise, until today, the United States has for decades charged a two point five tariff.
Think of that two point five percent on foreign made automobiles.
And he went on, this is cut number thirteen. He's talking here about cars, and again numbers are tough on the radio, but essentially what he's saying is that cars made in other countries are imported into this country relatively freely. And so now we have cars from places like South Korea and Japan and in other countries Germany, who are competing with American built automobiles. Uh. And that obviously cuts down the portion of the economy that are that are
made in America, and that cost American jobs. And now he's trying, well, he's trying to basically now turn the tables on them and what he calls reciprocal tariffs. Okay, obviously, you can build a car in Korea or Japan less expensively than you can build a car in America. But but in addition, when we try to send a car overseas, they charge us more, and so he wants reciprocal tariffs. He'd like to have reciprocal tariffs at zero. That's his goal. Let me go to cut thirteen rob.
Eighty one percent of the cars in South Carea made in South Korea. Ninety four percent of the cars in Japan are made in Japan. Toyota sells one million foreign made automobiles into the United States, and General Motor sells almost none. Ford sells very little. None of our companies are allowed to go into other countries. And I say that friend and foe, and in many cases the friend is worse than the foe in terms of trade. But such horrendous imbalances have devastated our industrial base and put
our national security at risk. I don't blame these other countries at all for this calamity. I blame former presidents and past leaders who weren't doing their job. They let it happen, and they let it happen to an extent that nobody can even believe. That's why, effective at midnight, we will impose the twenty five percent tariff for all far and made automobiles.
Most of those chairs came from UAW workers who were sitting in the audience in the Rose Garden, and then one final sound bu before we start to get the phone calls. He talks about farmers, and again I assume that these statistics that he has announced are accurate. Let's he's talking about what Canada does to our dairy products that are produced on United States farms cut fourteen rob.
We're also standing up for our great farmers and ranchers who are brutalized by nations all over the world.
It's brutalized.
Canada, by the way, imposes a two hundred and fifty to three hundred percent tariff on many of our dairy products. They do the first, the first can of milk, They do the first little carton of milk at at very low price. But after that it gets bad and then it gets up to two hundred and seventy five three hundred percent. So when they're figuring what's Canada charging, they say, oh,
about two percent, three percent. But take a look at what happens down the road when you look a little bit, it's not a pretty picture, and we don't like it, and it's not fair. It's not fair to our farmers, it's not fair to our country.
So that's his rationale talking about, amongst other things, automobiles and dairy products. The concern is that when the tariffs, when we get into a trade war, everything's going to become more expensive. And I've noticed in stores, and I hope you have as well, in grocery stores, that there are a lot of products that are made here in the US, and prices that went up during COVID have never come back, that have never come down. There's a couple of cookie manufacturers that I used to really enjoy.
I won't buy them anymore. I won't buy them anymore. I could see during COVID when there were supply line concerns and all of that, and there were trouble. I get it, We're going to pay a little bit more, but not now. Not now. The funny thing about it, as I mentioned Larry Edelman of the Boston Globe, who we had on earlier this hour, that there was a period of time where gas prices were coming down. I paid two seventy three for gas this weekend. Gas prices
were coming down. There were egg prices have apparently come down. Well, let's see what happens. If Donald Trump can pull this off, he will be remembered as a transformational president, which is probably the most important thing a president can achieve to transform something. Obama did it with healthcare. Ronald Reagan did it with taking down the Berlin Wall and defeating the Soviet Empire. This is where Donald Trump has put his chips on the table. Let's see what people have to think.
Let me start it off with Joe in Revere. Hey, Joe, your first this hour and night side. This is not an easy topic, but I'd love to know what you think about it. Go ahead, Joe. How are you tonight?
Hey, Yeah, thank you for taking my call, sir, very much. I'm great. But I also saw service. I believe in mister Trump. I believe in what he's doing. We've been getting, you know, beat up for years with these tariffs. I think his intentions in the long run, and you tell me I could be wrong, but they take theirs off, we take ours off.
That is that is yeah, that is correct.
He beat up for a long time.
Yeah. So basically, you've got a situation where where some of these other countries have gotten a good deal. I think we all can agree that a lot of other we've treated other countries well. Donald Trump is coming in and Donald Trump is saying, hey, you know, we want to we want to level the playing field. How tough is your business?
Right now?
I missed what you said, you know, Oh yeah, no, I understand that. My question to you is, since you're in the car business, has there been a spike in activity in the last few days. I've read a couple of ours that said people are trying to buy new cars. If they were planning on buying cars later this spring, they want to get in before the terraffs raised the prices. Is that likely? What is likely going to happen in your.
Opinion, certain dealerships. Yeah, depending on the make and model. So I did a little research, like bosses and like everything's going up a thirty two thousand dollars Equinox is now going to be thirty eight this and that, and then I went out and looked at a bunch of stickers today. But I went on and did some research today. Dan the Colorado final production. Now they said final production
don't matter, it's where it was built. I said, no, wait a minute, now, this says final production rowan Oak, Roanoak, Indiana, which I didn't know there was when I know there's Roanoke, Virginia. Anyway, if the final production, if the final production on the sticker is in USA, it will not get hit with a tariff.
Correct, That's correct.
That's the latest I have for you for information.
Yeah.
So what, Joe, what.
Sort of cars? What sort of cars do you sell?
I sell chevyes, Dan, So you shall you sell American cars? Yep? Okay, you know parts on every vehicle from everywhere.
Right, But I don't think they can turn around and say, well, ninety four percent of this car is built in America and six percent of it is built in Mexico or whatever. H do you think that's gonna be then, so, therefore the tariff on this car will be six percent of the I can't imagine that.
God.
I hope not.
No, no, no, no, I hope not.
Dan.
What I'm looking at is final assembly point. That's what I'm trying to get across to my managers.
And my glasses.
Was finished in our country.
You know.
I agree not hit the tariff.
I agree with you. I agree with you on that.
S Joe.
Thank you very much. Do me a favorite, keep in touch as the as we go through the next few weeks what happens, and no I know, but also let me know if you'd like where you're selling cars, and maybe we'll let some people know in your neck of the woods and we'll get you some some business going, because I think that's important. I want people on night side to be able to know other people on night side and if if you would like, let me know
where where where people can find you. Okay, I'm serious when I say that.
Yes, Jed, thank you, sir, You're welcome.
Thanks Joe. Okay, we're going to take very quick break here. We're talking tariffs again. I'm more interested in your own experience and what you can bring to the table. None of us are going to be able to complete an economic college degree in the next three hours, but we can all learn from each other. And that was a really good call from Joe, who's the cars salesman. We'll be back. The only line open right now is six one, seven, nine,
three thirty. Let's keep it roll until midnight. Back on night side.
Right after this, it's night Side when Dan on Boston's news radio.
Back to the phones we go. Let's go next to Matt in Franklin, Massachusetts. Matt, you were next on nights side to get my mouse working here, and we'll bring up and say hello to you. Matt. Welcome.
Hey. I I yeah, I like to say that I voted for Trump three times, and uh, I'm a little bit in disbelief that I already want to pull the plug in his third term with this whole thing.
I'll tell you they're not gonna be able to pull the plug. What do you think is going through his head? I mean, you voted for you talked in the campaign.
I think he's flying. He's his own worst enemy. He's flying so high that just like he's not I mean, whoever he is listening to must be like a cartoon character, but like he's gonna he's basically he's gonna like raise prices, basically engineering the charage and everybody, lay off every body, and then most of that's I didn't get hit to the fall with the states lousing funding and all these all the research rands, and then he doesn't want to
spend federal money to get us out of it. So I honestly have no idea what he's trying to do. But do I think companies are going to invest in America? When at seventy eight going on seventy nine year old man who eats McDonald's every single day wants to put tariffs for the next three years on it, because the next president can come in any time between now in three years and say, oh, the tariffs are up the book books. And then also Trump could turn around two
weeks later and say, oh, never mind. So I just ridiculous. I mean, and then he wants to like bring us back to the Golden Age. It's like, oh, that was great for the robber barons, but the people that the people that worked with the mines were getting to had to live off the mining. We're getting masked at the same time, and that's why they had unions. And then he wants to get rid of the unions and bring the mines back. So oh, yeah, we're gonna go back to the Golden age.
Yeah. Well, so you voted for him three times, and if you could take those votes back, would you take all of them back? At this point?
Ah, I mean, I don't think. I mean, I no, probably because because I didn't think Bond would do a good job, and I don't really think he did. And uh, Kamala was a joke. But at the same time, I'd rather take a joke versus someone like who wants to basically engineer recession to like lower interest rates and then somehow thinks that you can automatically snap out of a recession.
I'd probably take Camela right now because I mean, like, I mean, I'm I'm not a big fan of the transgenders and some of the other things out there, But at the same time, I'd rather have like a stable economy than like somebody's up at like two in the morning hanging out with Elon and doing whatever.
Yeah, well again he's her when you're right, he ran on the economy. Uh, and now he did say he did talk about tariffs, did talk about big beautiful tariffs, and maybe you didn't hear that, but.
But yeah, I mean, like selectively terriffing people is one like tiffing countries for like policies. It's one thing. Yeah, you want a broad brush across the board, Like it's kind of like great, does broad wealth for society? But I mean, like, isn't didn't the the auto didn't wasn't one of the reasons why Nissan Anciota started building here.
It wasn't I do like a trade agreement or tariffs because they were like destroying the auto industry and people basically couldn't afford to buy cars that decided to move their plants here.
Yeah, a little bit of that. And also a lot of those foreign car companies didn't go to Michigan. They went to places like uh and you know, right to work states in the South. Matt, you're a bright eye. How old are you? You sound young?
Mid thirties, Okay, So you're.
Disappointed at this point, like the guy you voted for to say the least, right.
Yeah, And it's like it's going to turn into a sprain wreck in the fall because the school the school's gonna lose eight percent of their fundings, so that means they're gonna pull money from everywhere else to help from the schools. And then you have the hospitals laying off, and then whoever knows that who else is going to be laying off because of the tariffs and I mean the farmers. Okay, Vietnam taxes ninety six percent of the imports because they don't really have an infrastructure that goes
through the country stide and get income taxes. So I'm assuming most of the tariffs are food. So it's like, is it really that big of a deal that they're that we're selling them food? And then they're taxing it on their end that we're not paying for it. It's like, what's what's the big deal here?
Well, obviously he sees it as a big deal. You've raised some great points. I want to see people agree with you, and I just want to hear from Trump people like yourself who are maybe a little skeptical of this. Thanks Matt, appreciate it, Roll talk to you soon. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next up, let me get to Kennon Waltham. Can you were next on Nisiger? Right ahead?
Hi, Dan boy, it's tough to beat Matt. That was a great call.
Great.
Just a couple other points. I thought you played some excellent clips. One, you know, Trump talks about blaming previous leaders, you know, not the other countries as well. He was one of those previous leaders.
Yes, he never seen them.
Yeah, And the other where I don't I mean, I just don't trust him at all. And that and the dairy issue with Canada that.
He talked about.
We have a we have a deficit with Canada overall trade deficit, but we have a significant surplus in the dairy industry and there are very little tariffs maybe uh kind of like five percent or something. I think it's like, you know, the equivalent of Massachusetts state income text that they are just until we get to a certain you know, until they get to a certain quota, and then the two hundred and fifty percent you know, teriffs kick in.
But that's to the tune, you know. I we I think in twenty twenty four our surplus was or our exports was over a billion dollars in the dairy industry.
So yeah, I just you know, I Matt gave a great explanation, and I can't understand why Trump does it, right, I mean, in twenty sixteen he talked about.
Building the wall. It was, it was a great sales pitch, but he never he never really did it, and not much of it anyway.
And yeah, well, of course with that in all in all fairness, Congress was not with him on that his Republicans were with the Democrats weren't. But this is a situation that he has some control over here. I don't know that Congress can do anything to interfere with what he's doing, right, And the question is what long term damage will be done?
You know.
Again, generally conservative economists are opposed. I mean the Milton Friedman's of the world. They think are opposed to tariff's. I know that. You know, Jeff Myron, who we have on from Harvard a lot would be opposed, I believe to tariffs. I don't want to put words in Jeff's mouth. I may have Jeff on tomorrow night as a result to get him to explain his position on it. But this you just watch the stock market tomorrow. I mean, the stock market is, whether you like it or not,
is a pretty good indicator of what people think. And and I got to assume that when he wakes up tomorrow, when he goes to bed tonight whenever it goes to bed, and he sees that the market is off, you know, going to be off over a thousand points, I don't know. I guess he must really believe it. So we'll see.
Yeah, well he's been moving back and forth a little. I mean, the more I get right, he imposed tariffs earlier, like last month, and then took him.
Away, right he was, yeah, well, we'll see.
I don't think I'm step back from this. This is this is a sort of a this was a big step today, It's no no doubt about that. And the market has reacted, as some would say, big time. Ken. I got the news, so I got to let you run. But boy, you're a good call too. I thank you. We've had good quality call so far. Thank you very much.
Thanks Dan, talk to you soon.
Keep calling to those of those of you the line. You're going to be up first. On the other side, I got Jay, I got Bill, I got Pete, and I got Joe and we'll get everybody in. I got one room at one line at six one