Business expert explains 'real reason' why Donald Trump paused almost all 'Liberation Day' tariffs
There are rollercoaster rides less wild than the stock market in the aftermath of Donald Trump's flip-flopping on tariffs.
First he announced a long list of tariffs on almost every country in the world as he declared it was 'Liberation Day'.
Stock markets around the world reacted in what appeared to be sheer terror, with them seeing plummeting values and trillions in dollars wiped out in the following days.
Then yesterday, Trump (9 April) announced he would be 'pausing' the tariffs for 90 days for countries on his list, apart from China which has seen their tariffs be cranked up even higher.
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Just a few hours before making the U-turn on tariffs, Trump announced on social media that it was 'A GREAT TIME TO BUY' and the stock market did recover after he'd reversed his position.
Democrats have accused the Trump administration of 'market manipulation' so they could lower stock prices, buy the dip and then reverse their chaos to increase prices again after they'd bought on the cheap.
The White House has denied this and insisted that threatening tariffs and then backing away from them 'was his strategy all along', but these claims have been met with plenty of criticism.
In an attempt to explain the situation, Fox News's business correspondent Charlie Gasparino said that the U-turn on tariffs was not part of some intricate plan to bring loads of countries to the negotiating table but instead had stemmed from fear over the way the bond market was reacting.
He said: "The reason why is because of the bond market and what happened last night. Scott Bessent knows this better than anybody when you have yields on 10-year [bonds] rising to five percent, stuff starts shutting down and you have the lending market screwed up."
Ok, so what are bonds?
Bonds are essentially you using your investment money as a loan to whichever thing you're buying bonds off, with them paying out in instalments and then you getting your initial investment back as well when they 'mature'.
The money you can make from bonds are called 'yields', and the higher these are the larger the cost of the debt for the place issuing the bonds.
Governments issue bonds when they need money, which they always do, so they get your money upfront and pay you interest on their debt to you before paying you back.
US Treasury bonds are seen as a 'safe' investment compared to the volatility of stocks, because when is the American government not going to pay its debts?
It turns out that triggering a trade war over tariffs and the economic chaos that resulted led to a sell-off of US government bonds, and if loads of people start selling their bonds it makes people think that maybe they can't be all that safe an investment.
Gasparino said that Trump's decision to back off from higher tariffs on every country except China was intertwined with the bond markets and how they were reacting to the chaos he had caused.
"I want to tell you right now that Donald Trump outsmarted the world," the Fox business expert said.
"Trust me. I'm an American, I support my president. But that's not really what happened here, from what I understand.
"Make no mistake about it, you cannot divorce this decision right here from what happened last night.
"It's the bond market and the sort of lending markets that's the plumbing of the economy. And those markets were imploding last night, and that's why we have a 90-day freeze. Let's see if those markets improve."
Topics: Donald Trump, Money, US News
Joe Harker