We’ve gone from 200 deals “100%” to threats of returning to reciprocal tariffs if countries don’t deal. 
Renewed Reciprocal Threat
Tariff rates will soon return to a “reciprocal” level if countries don’t reach trade agreements during the 90-day pause, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday.
“President Trump has put them on notice that if you do not negotiate in good faith, you will ratchet back up to your April 2 level,” Bessent said on CNN’s “State of the Union with Jake Tapper.”
Good Proposals Coming In
The Hill quotes Bessent Countries bringing ‘good proposals’ with ‘a few exceptions’
“I can tell you that, with a few exceptions, the countries are coming with very good proposals for us,” Bessent told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “They want to lower their tariffs; they want to lower their nontariff barriers.”
If they are good proposals, with few exceptions, then take them and name them.
No one believes these lies.
Regional Tariffs?
Axios reports U.S. may impose regional tariffs as trade deadlines loom, Bessent says
The U.S. may impose some tariffs by region rather than on individual countries, as time runs out to negotiate a laundry list of trade deals globally, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday.
Bessent, in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, said the U.S. was focused primarily on making deals with a short list of key partners.
“My other sense is that we will do a lot of regional deals — this is the rate for Central America, this is the rate for this part of Africa — but what we are focused on for right now is the 18 important trading relationships,” Bessent said.
So Bessent proposes taking a bunch of countries and lumping them together as if that solves anything.
What it will do is cause anger from countries with less of a trade deficit with the US than the rest of the group.
Yahoo!Finance noted “Trump said the U.S. can’t negotiate with all the countries that were hit with tariffs, so some trading partners will find out in a letter in two or three weeks what rate they will face.”
This is what constitutes agreeing to a good deal.
Recap
- Pete Navarro said there would be 90 deals in 90 days. We are roughly half way.
- On April 25, Trump Trump told Time Magazine “I’ve made 200 deals.” When questioned, Trump answered “100%”.
- Bessent says that with “a few exceptions, the countries are coming with very good proposals for us.”
- Despite having 200 deals, Bessent is going to utilize “a lot of regional deals.”
On April 25, I noted Trump Tells Time Magazine He Has Made 200 Deals Already, Refused to Name Any
Time (in bold): Your trade adviser, Peter Navarro, says 90 deals in 90 days is possible. We’re now 13 days into the point from when you lifted the reciprocal, the discounted reciprocal tariffs. There’s zero deals so far. Why is that?
Trump (regular font): No, there’s many deals.
When are they going to be announced?
You have to understand, I’m dealing with all the companies, very friendly countries. We’re meeting with China. We’re doing fine with everybody. But ultimately, I’ve made all the deals.
Not one has been announced yet. When are you going to announce them?
I’ve made 200 deals.
You’ve made 200 deals?
100%.
I’m just curious, why don’t you announce these deals that you’ve solidified?
I would say, over the next three to four weeks, and we’re finished, by the way.
You’re finished?
We’ll be finished.
Oh, you will be finished in three to four weeks.
I’ll be finished. Now, some countries may come back and ask for an adjustment, and I’ll consider that, but I’ll basically be, with great knowledge, setting—ready? We’re a department store, a giant department store, the biggest department store in history.
Also see 90 Trade Deals in 90 Days, a Midpoint Update, Where Are We?
How Deals Are Made in Trumperland
Alice: It take two parties to make a deal.
King Deal: Nonsense. A deal is what I say it it. I once made 200 fair deals in an hour.
Deals Announced by Letter
When Trump sends out those letters in a few weeks, everyone automatically signs. That’s how you get 200 deals done in an hour.
Trump’s tariffs might have done some good if selectively applied, but a blanket application is likely to drag the global environment into a premature recession for all concerned.
Tock-tock. The clock is running.
It’s been 4 weeks since Trump said he would sign and announce 200 finished trade deals in 3-4 weeks. Where are they?
And now he says that reciprocal tariff rates will be coming back for all countries that are refusing to negotiate. If they are refusing to negotiate, how did we reach a trade deal with them in the first place?
Trump now says we don’t need to sign any deals. He will just set the tariff rate for each country. Which is a repeat of what he did on April 2, and then backed away from. I wonder how many times he will repeat this strategy?
Since it is becoming increasingly clear that he has no significant deals to sign, I await Trump’s next round of tariffs.
The larger the tariffs, the better. And let them run long enough to see their impact.
What a show!
he’s a schizo and everyone with have a brain, on planet, knows it.
Trump is an aging narcissist.
One of the prognoses for aging narcissists is to cope by going psychotic.
He is also megalomaniacal; another personality disorder featuring delusion.
Nothing he says means anything.
He’s just pretending to rule the universe by edict: The Fiat Tangerine
Beginning with Obama, the US gutted the WTO by not reappointing appellate body judges citing China’s skirting of trade rules. So by extension, many nations have been crafting regional deals to replace trade rule criteria from the WTO.
If you want to lie –
Make it big.
Say repeatedly.
From different sources.
Use different languages.
People will believe you.
The problem is – the lie is exposed. Visible.
How many times can “the boy cry wolf?” It is best to ignore the boy.
“No one believes these lies”
And yet zero GOP speak up to say anything other than sucking up to Trump. Remember when GOP members had moral fiber?
nope. i do not. the gop stopped being the party of fiscal sanity in nixon years.
and than there is Utah How a collapsing Great Salt Lake could take Utah’s economy — and maybe your employer — down with it
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2025/05/14/how-collapsing-great-salt-lake/
Holy crap. Thanks for sharing that.
Business is not a child’s game. If someone gets angry, that’s their problem. They’ve taken it personally and already lost.
Mish, that is one funny & fitting image!
“No one believes these lies”…
No problem: King Chaos & his court jesters will make more.
You can’t fix stupid…the only fix: impeachment (3rd times a charm).
When the 30 year hits 5.00%, I recommend you panic and abandon ship. Women and children first!
Rising stock prices “won’t fix this”: U.S. banks are sitting on $500B worth of unrealized losses
https://investorsobserver.com/news/rising-stock-prices-wont-fix-this-u-s-banks-are-sitting-on-500b-worth-of-unrealized-losses/
and yet, none of them went to prison in the wake of 2008-2009.
Really? How is this?
Japan Bond Market On Verge Of Collapse After Worst Auction Since 1987
I’m sure a regression analysis of the same idiots who believed Raygun was a fiscal hawk would correlate positively with Trump. Most likely inter generational too. Pass down the moron genes. Anthropology 101
Tip and Rosty (who?) laughing it up with Ronnie at the bar right now.
exactly. just this semester my prof was diving into Rosti bio. i was pleasantly surprised at how honest the prof was. a middle aged man from detroit. many of the “students” knew, too. never stop learning is the greatest lesson in game of life. i’ve been attending university since 1978
So Trump wants businesses to eat the tariffs so his idiotic policy masks inflation probably because he knew full well he wasn’t going to have any trade deals done and knows he can’t keep his big fat mouth shut for longer than 5 seconds on anything.
No business in America or the world can create any kind of forecast model with this clown in office. He has 1341 days left then he’s gone forever, business will just have to wait as best as it can.
“Fool!” cried the hunchback. “You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is ‘Never get involved in a land war in Asia,’ but only slightly less well known is this: ‘Never debate Walmart and tariffs when death is on the line.”
All I wanted was a reciprocal tariff
And she wouldn’t give it to me
-Suicidal Tendencies
Wasn’t it von Clausewitz who stated:
The first rule of continental warfare is don’t go to war against Russia.
The second is …
The third is …
the greatest investors in history all knew when to stop. bernard baruch got wealthy by selling to early. jim rogers explains it best. btw he is a mench. i’ve met him numerous times. gracious and the greatest investment advice i’ve ever received.
Stan Druckenmiller got in early on NVDA and sold early. Making money is better than losing it. But then there’s that alpha thing for hedge funds when in reality its riding the coat tails of the Fed and US Gov since the 80s and beta is where its at. Jesse Livermore never sold early.
you nail it correctly. my 3 fav investment books. pop delusions and madness of crowds, reminescnec of stock operator, and trend following by covel.
As long as the leverage does not lead to the dreaded margin call. Like LTCM, where everyone on the street knew their positions and leverage and squeezed hard. What Wall Street banks bought in the bailout massaged by the Fed turned a very nice profit.
i had a russian oligarch as client in 98. he called me and told me they were gonna default the friday night before announcement was public, and screw their 100k employees at oil company. he was also in politboro. a nice guy actually. the best business phone call i ever received. he thought it might be a 1917 type revolution in russia. but they took it. like amerikans take it. and most middlebrows and lumpenproles take it.
Walmart’s business model has always been to squeeze suppliers. I think you may have forgotten to kiss Mish’s rear end today.
Lol. You think any business doesn’t squeeze their suppliers? What world do you live in? Name me one business that says, “oh no, charge me more for those supplies, please!”
And Mish will get praise when he earns it like a true meritocracy. You, however, come here to kiss Trumps filthy butt every time you comment. Sad.
It is like kiting checks, a bigger fake has to paper over the last one. Then a day comes when it is put up, or shut up. But guess who pays the dinner check. Some coherence would have been nice, but that doesn’t meet the guy’s deeper payoff: grasping attention.
Jeez it’s almost like you are describing an obvious Ponzi Scheme
Trump threatens a car in every garage and two chickens in every pot.
Or was it two cars in every garage and a chicken in a pot?
Yet again…
I think it was 2 chickens in every car and a garage in every pot
Maybe this time it will only be the ‘pot’ …..
The accurate quote: I don’t think a beautiful baby girl that’s 11 years old needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls … they don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.
Donny 3 dolls & 5 pencils.
30 dolls to 3 = 90% decrease.
250 pencils to 5 = 98% decrease.
So to Make America Great Again, you’ll have a quality of life 94% lower.
It’s fine that you want us to be a colony of China with a declining standard of living for the average American. Remember, they were going to make our cheap stuff and we were going to make all of the high-margin, high-tech stuff. That didn’t exactly happen. Now, we’re on the ropes, but that’s fine in your world.
Your comment can be compared to: “In order to save the village we must burn the village.”
Honestly, a lower quality of life is already baked in no matter what happens. The fundamental problem for the US is demographics. 80m socialist on social programs by 2030 and only 100m or so left to work.
No country can survive with 2/5 of the population doing nothing expecting the other 2/5 to do all the work and cater to all their needs. Inflation will make social security worthless in due time. Medicare will be impossible to service.
All you have to do is keep an eye on this chart to see it happen in slow but real-time.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART/
Maybe robots and AI will help but I’m doubtful. You reap what you sow and this was sown 50+ years ago, we’re at the end game.
Got exit strategy?
David Stockman, whose stuff I rarely read, came out with a column a couple of days ago, the gist of which was, why do we even need trading partners. Maybe that’s the end game. We just self contain everything. Your points are good ones. Maybe, to save ourselves, we have to shrink our world. Weird times.
This entire Tariff Effort has been THE MISTAKE of this President’s early Tenure. He is looking, sounding, and acting foolishly, with OBVIOUS CHILD-LIKE LIES (that Mish is calling out). It reminds me of a Child that does wrong and then lies to cover it up but Children are easy to read.
TRUMP, our CHILD PRES., is EASY TO READ. It is OBVIOUS that he and his team of Tariff experts have gone NO WHERE and the Chinese are likely laughing now at his and at US as a Country.
I worked with Five Chinese/Taiwanese Partners in a high-tech Company. I know INTIMATELY how they act and how they NEGOTIATE as we were in Contract negotiations with clients that did Millions a Month with us. My partners would say ONE THING TO ME, the WHITE EXEC, and then totally another message to the Client’s Negotiators – – quite often the Client’s Presidents or EXEC VPs were in our Board room and it blew my mind how the Chinese acted and it was SHREWD! IT WAS SNEAKY. IT WAS EFFECTIVE!
America is making big mistakes trying to pull a fast one on China. They WILL GIVE, but NOT MUCH!
I grew up with a mother that could be mean, spiteful, argumentative, and darn right nasty at times. My dad left, my sister left, I learned from the best to out do her. What I ultimately learned was that kind of thinking accomplished nothing. Seems like when people post with that slant in there conversation, I can hear my mother spewing rhetoric.
chairman mao zeDON is really quite weak. the opposite of a strong man. he folds like the cheap suit he wears. his cult makes me LOL. his red brigade and manson family types.
As long as he can “adjust the ‘reality,’” it fits the whole M.O. Give the message so brazenly and startlingly that people are busy just trying to sort the last 5 things said. meanwhile, actual businesses are trying to do real business things, like set budgets and prices. Resort luxury golf course and (failed) casino experience apparently doesn’t confer those lessons. He has floated on a quasi-religious “brand” aura for decades.
All politicians lie unfortunately, but the Trump administration likes to shoot from the hip a lot, so it becomes far more obvious and inconsistent. My 2 cents is that just like Trump folded before he will fold again, we have seen the pain tolerance of this administration is just not very high. So expect further pauses or “proposals” that offer little substance in reality but allow some measure to save face.
We are one of the only non-mercantilistic countries left, and we (not you — we the people who care about the future of the country) have decided that we need to follow a mercantilistic path to ensure our long-term survival. You just want to proudly tout your vapid libertarianism which, in mercantile world, means cheering for the other side.
We are one of the only non-mercantilistic countries left, and we (not you — we the people who care about the future of the country) have decided that we need to follow a mercantilistic path to ensure our long-term survival.
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i guess you are not from USA! so much BS about things you have no idea!
you are just uneducated mor11on!
for example :
USA spends more on MIC(=military ) than 10 next countries combined, and that being at least ocean away from any potential enemy!
alx
And being more mercantilistic will allow us to reduce that spending. Our trading bloc will be North and South America, Greenland, and, maybe , Europe. Oh, you have some TDS spittle in your chin.
being more mercantilistic will allow us to reduce that spending. Our trading bloc will be North and South America, Greenland, and, maybe , Europe
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mor11on! there are less than 100.000 people in Greenland!
EACH AND EVERY PERSON IN S./C America HATES northern gringos!
i guess you never ever travelled outside your local county, same for most USA people !
yeah, may be Europe.!! keep on dreaming!
alx
Oh, you have some TDS spittle in your chin.
=
wrong! it was your boyfriend, after your morning passive way of sex and you are staring at yourself in your mirror!
no other way around!
see you, pal
The only thing worse would be business as usual. Especially for the media. There is money to be made with this President.
Sadly, it will be business as usual + higher tariffs = higher deficits.
No way out when you vote Republican or Democrat.
Can I get my vote back?
If we were to not vote could we accumulate votes then use them all at once if we ever get a worthwhile candidate?