President Trump announced that he would pause tariffs on most countries for 90 days but would immediately hike tariffs on China to 125%. Rebecca Walser, CEO, Walser Wealth Management, joined TheStreet to discuss why China was singled out and how this could impact the stock market.
Related: Stock Market Today: Stocks surge as Trump retreats on tariffs with 90-day pause
Full Video Transcript Below:
REBECCA WALSER: The fact that Trump has paused all tariffs for 90 days, except for China, is really showing that he’s singling out China specifically. And it’s very interesting because they are our largest trading partner. Obviously they bring us most of our goods. We’re an import nation. We’re a service based economy, importing everything mostly from Asia. However, China is a very unique case because they were admitted to the World Trade Organization in 2001 and they garnered most favored nation status. So a lot of the trade policies that apply to America, don’t apply to China because they have this most favored nation status and being the second largest economy in the world, and in some cases, they outsize U.S. economy. They’re the first largest economy in the world in some cases. That means that they probably don’t deserve most favored nation status. And, you know, not having all of the rules that apply to all industrialized nations apply to China. So the fact that Trump has carved out China, he is signaling that he is directly head to head dealing with this Chinese problem.
For the whipsaw effect that Trump has just announced this 90 day pause. You can see the market is taking off like a tear. And that is because they have pulled back substantially thinking we have this tariff policy coming. This is going to impact prices. And it’s a time where the consumer is not super strong. And we’ve had inflation these last couple of years. So the tariff policy really did spook the markets. Trump has decided to pause that for 90 days and really singularly focus in on China. So I think that the market’s initial reaction is going to be very, very positive. And I think that it’s going to be a TBD, a to be determined until we see directly how the direct focusing on just the singular country of China does impact the broader markets.
The Trump administration just got into office on January the 20th. So we are still in the spring in a very, very fresh time into this new administration. We need more stability. Trump pausing the tariff policy for 90 days is him literally trying to calm things down and get a little bit more stability and then focus solely on China. But the biggest point for investors to know is don’t sell out in fear. You could be right to sell. I’m not saying that that’s not the right advice. I don’t know everyone’s individual perspective, but you just don’t want to make that decision in the middle of a fear type of environment, because that’s when you’re really making the wrong decision.
