President's decisions have president's decision.
There was a president's decision. They had to wait until today. And again I know, as I said in the past, no one creates a leverage for himself like President Trump.
This is a forty seven Morning Update Special edition with Ben Ferguson.
Good Thursday morning. Nice to have you with us on the forty seven Morning Update. It's Ben Ferguson with you as always, and we've got one big story for you. It's all tariffs, and the big news coming out of the White House that they raised the tariffs on China to one and twenty five percent and they issued a ninety day pause on some other tariffs with other countries that had come to the table. Now, I am going to play for you exactly what the White House said
on this. You're gonna hear from the White House Press Secretary and Secretary Scott Bescent as well. Before I do that, though, let me explain to you exactly what the White House is saying. The message is simple. For many countries who are ready to take a seat at the negotiating table and recognize that they will no longer be able to mistreat America. The White House said, We're going to work with you. Please come join us and be granted a
temporary reprieve. However, the White House said, for those like China who want to retaliate after years of ripping America off, we will not bend and we will not break. Now, let's remind you of what the goal was from this White House. Put America first and training partnerships that are willing to work with America first. Why the White House said number one, jobs, jobs, and jobs. President Trump's goal
is to supercharge the on shoring of American manufacturing. We also know that the March jobs report shows that the present's economic agenda is already having unintended effect. The economy added two hundred and twenty eight thousand jobs in March, far exceeding the economists prediction of just one hundred and forty thousand jobs added. Why Because the President has been moving with aggressive onshoring and it appears to be afoot as the sectors where you would first expect to see
a response are growing rapidly. Construction employment expanded by thirteen thousand jobs. For example, Transportation and warehousing employment expanded by twenty two thousand, nine hundred jobs, which brings the White House to the third big point, lower prices and bigger paychecks. President Trump's drill Baby drill agenda is already unleashing American energy and leading to lower gas prices. President Trump is calling on Congress to extend and expand his working class
tax cuts for Americans, which they are doing. And then that brings us to the negotiating table on tariffs. With all of the other things happening, there's no better time and no one better to negotiate than President Trump. And he's made it clear he is not flinching. He understands that America has been mistreated and has had unfair trade, and now he is answering the call by Americans to
put American workers in manufacturing first. So that brings us to the big point where there was a massive rally on Wall Street. Why because the President said, those that are willing to work with us, they are going to go first and get great trade deals with America, and those that went after us and retaliated aka China, will get ready for a one hundred and twenty five percent tariff. So I'm going to play for you in its entirety exactly what the White House said, so that you can't
be lied to by the press. Many and the press did not want to cover this, and that's exactly why I'm letting you hear from the Secretary Scott Descent and Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. Take a listen.
Latest statement regarding his America First trade plan. As you all know, the President just put out a statement announcing an additional tariff on China. The tariff on China will now go up to one hundred and twenty five percent because China imprudently decided to retaliate against the United States. And as I said at the podium yesterday, when you punch at the United States of America, President Trump is
going to punch back harder. In that same vein, we have had more than seventy five 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. We have been overwhelmed with the amount of requests for countries around the world. I'll let the Secretary speak to that. We will continue with the tailor
made negotiations that I spoke about yesterday. In the meantime, there will be a ninety day pause on the reciprocal tariffs, as these negotiations are ongoing and the tariff level will be brought down to a universal ten percent tariff. The 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 goal. So I'll kick it over to our great Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett.
Good, thank you, and we saw the successful negotiating strategy that President Trump implemented a week ago. Today, it has brought more than seventy five countries forward to negotiate. It took great courage, great courage for him to stay the course until this moment. And what we have ended up with here, as I told everyone a week ago there in this very spot, do not retaliate and you will be rewarded. So every country in the world who wants to come and negotiate, we are willing to hear you.
We're going to go down to a ten percent baseline tariff they have for them, and China will be raised to one five due to their insistence on escalat.
Secretary, thank you for doing this.
Let me ask me three quick things and taking clarity because.
The market through open and the win.
First of all, Mexico and China, are they part of the tenters a university? Well, China, No, China in Canada.
Mexico and Canada, are they part of the ten percent?
Yes?
Okay.
Second, given then that you have the rest of the world essentially calling it it's not China.
Is this now just all about China? Well, it's about bad actors. And you know what we will see is some of the very early countries are China's neighbors that we're going to see. I'm seeing Vietnam today, Japan is at the front of the queue, South Korea, India. So you know, we will see. And as I've repeatedly said, and President Trump has been saying it four years, China is the most imbalanced economy in the history of the modern world. And they are the biggest source of the
US trade problem. And indeed they are problems for the rest of the world because what we've seen is that as the US announced the tariff wall last week, many of those goods have already started flooding into Europe. Now, this trade war is China, Well, I'm not calling it a trade war but I am saying that China has escalated, and President Trump responded very courageously to that, and we are going to work on a solution with our trading partners.
Just excuse me, excuse me, if excuse me, or Kyle, if I could just add to what the secretary said, Many of you in the media clearly missed the art of the deal. You clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here. You tried to say that the rest of the world would be moved closer to China,
and in fact we've seen the opposite effect. The entire world is calling the United States of America, not China, because they need our markets, they need our consumers, and they we need this president in the Oval Office to talk to them. And that's exactly why more than seventy five countries have called. Because the United States of America is the best place in the world to do business, and as the President has shown great courage, as the
secretary have said, and choosing to retaliate against China even higher. Rolena, go ahead, and.
You judgery, Secretary vesident, can you explain more of the decision making.
On what feels like a reversal.
Parent think just he's went into effect less than fifteen hours ago.
These tarts, why the pause now, let's die no again. President Trump created maximum negotiating leverage for himself and which terrorists went into effect fifteen hours ago. The ones that we have a lower went into effect a week ago or they were announced a week ago. And we have just been overwhelmed, overwhelmed by the response from mostly our allies who want to come and negotiate in good faith. So we are expecting them to come with their best deal.
As I said, we could go to day, don't retaliate, hold and around, let's see what happens. And China they kept escalating and escalating, and now they have one hundred and twenty five percent tariffs that will be effective immediately.
Mister secondary, mister Tebruary Bixmoth for doing this the ninety day pause when there was a pariffs. It's not because of the class I've been seeing across the financial market. It's how life was, you know what we saw, the slack markets, you.
Know a part of his decision.
No, it's because it's going to because of the large number of inbounds. We've had more than seventy five countries contact US, and I imagine after today there will be more. So it is just a processing problem. Each one of each one of these solutions is going to be bespoke. It is going to take some time, and President Trump wants to be personally involved. So that's why we're getting the ninety day pulse is secular education.
Secretary there was that you, Semmary Luck and for thee OBL present talking about this, Mark what that conversation looked like.
Look, it's all the president's decision, and that we were the President had the A level in mind to raise the China tariffs, and then he had the three months no essentially the three month Pauls in mind, and we were just discussing the exact wording. Sorry, of course, the president's president's decision. It was a president's decision. They had to wait until today. And again I know, as I've said in the past, no one creates a leverage for himself like President Trump.
No one creates leverage for himself like President Trump. This is a monumental moment and a great response that was well explained by the Treasury Secretary and the Press secretary there saying President Trump would take proper action for decades demo. They don't understand how to get America first. In our policies. They are constantly allowing other countries to walk all over us. As the Treasury Secretary said there, the President's going to
work forward and move forward. These seventy five plus countries that have all said they want to meet, they're negotiating right now, and the President created the leverage for himself that he needed. As for China, they are now more isolated than they have ever been, especially on the world trade front. This is the opposite of what they were hoping for. So, as Caroline Levitt said, a moment ago, you and the media got it wrong and the President
got it right. You said people are going to run to China, and now they're talking and running to America.
Thank you for listening to the forty seven Morning Update with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast right now and for more in depth news, also ascribe to the Ben Ferguson podcast and we will see you back here tomorrow.