On Thursday morning, February 27, President Donald Trump announced, on his Truth Social platform, that new tariffs will go into effect on Tuesday, March 4 — including 25 percent tariffs on all goods imported into the United States from Canada and Mexico. Trump paused the Canada and Mexico tariffs for 30 days, but in his Truth Social post, he wrote that the tariffs will go ahead because “drugs are still pouring into our Country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels.”
Trump also announced an additional 10 percent tariff on goods from Mainland China. And he is also considering aggressive tariffs on products from the European Union (EU).
Many economists, both left and right, are warning that the new tariffs will hit U.S. consumers and businesses hard — making everything from fruits and vegetables to electronics to building materials more expensive.
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Financial journalist/author and New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, who co-hosts “Squawk Box” on CNBC, discussed the tariffs and the overall state of the U.S. economy during a February 27 appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Trump’s tariffs, according to Sorkin, are creating “uncertainty” on Wall Street — although the journalist isn’t certain that Trump will follow through on March 4.
Sorkin told “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and their colleague Jonathan Lemire, “The uncertainty itself about whether tariffs go into effect or not is deleterious for the economy. I mean, we’ve talked about it before. So many of these companies are basically standing still, saying: We can’t make any investments because we don’t know what the tariffs are going to be. So, there’s an argument to be made, from a business perspective, that you would just want to know one way or the other. If next week is the day, make that the day. Tell us what it is, and we’ll try to go from there.”
Sorkin continued, “That might actually be a better path than extending over and over again. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m not totally convinced that they will go into place next week. I would imagine that there’s going to be a lot of moving around over the next couple of days.”
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Scarborough, a Never Trump conservative and former GOP congressman, noted although the “numbers look strong from a distance” for the U.S. economy, “we remain on a razor’s edge.” And Sorkin didn’t disagree.
The “Squawk Box” co-host argued, “There is going to be uncertainty for a very long time, and that, unto itself, is paralyzing business… That’s where the sort of direct impact has been. And then, in terms of just weakness, you look at the ten-year note — our bonds in America, they have come down…. People are worried that the economy is in a precarious (state).”
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Watch the full video below or at this link.
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