04 11 25 ABC White House Correspondent Karen Travers on the current US tariff levels

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is Colorado's Morning News. They'll be at transition cost
and transition problems, but in the end it's going to
be It's going to be a beautiful thing. President trumpet
yesterday's cabinet meeting as he took a moment to defend
his economic agenda after tariff confusion and changes.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
And we're joined now by White House correspondent from ABC News,
Karen Travers. Karen, the whole situation with the tariffs right now,
I think there's a lot of confusion. One day it's
forty nine percent or one hundred percent five and now
forty nine or one forty five. Rather, how does this happen?

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Yeah, well, I mean, let's just get you up on
where things are today. The latest round with China is
that China says they're going to raise their tariffs on
American goods to one hundred and twenty five percent. That
will take effect tomorrow. China's president, she said today, there
are no winners in the tariff war, any warm that
going against the world will only result in self isolation.

(01:00):
They're essentially saying they're not going to raise them more
beyond this because this is like a threshold that people
companies won't import American goods at a rate higher than this,
Like this is it. This is going to stop trade
between the two countries. The President has in place one
hundred and forty five percent tariff, a staggering number on

(01:21):
Chinese goods, and you know again, that kind of just
gets to a point where companies have to decide, are
you willing to take that cost to bring in products
goods from China given that extra added cost. But some
companies don't have a choice. If you've already made orders,
or if that's where you get your supplies from, it's
very hard to figure out how to shift your supply

(01:42):
chain or where you're getting your materials. The President yesterday
told me at the end of this ninety day period
where he paused the other terriffs that he had put
in place for just thirteen hours, if they haven't been
able to reach trade deals that he likes after ninety days,
he's going to put those of high tariffs back into
effect on countries all over the world. Some of our

(02:03):
close allies, some of our top trading partners, they will
go back into effect. That is not the certainty or
comfort that Wall Street and Company they're looking for, right
now I.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Was going to say, Karen, it was a very good
line of questioning from you. I saw that and saw
the questioning, but many people feel that it was a
very unsatisfying answer with that. And that gets into the
whole thing with the tariffs. What was the actual intent
behind them? And if really it's too exact some sort
of pain or pound of flesh from China, why were
the tariffs on everybody? And I know you're trying to
get answers to that.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, And you know, I think because one, this is
about China, and the White House will say that and
they're you know, trying to isolate China, which they're succeeding,
and if you look at it that way. Two, because
the President firmly believed in tariffs as an economic policy
and that he wants to balance out trade with countries
around the world. They also cited a whole other list

(02:57):
of reasons of one, trying to convince companies to shift
their manufacturing back to the United States to boost manufacturing
in jobs here. They also use these as negotiating tactics.
We've heard the President talk about that I can use terros,
as he says, you know, to get countries to do
things I want them to do, whether that's Canada and
Mexico on migration and fentanyl. They so this is it's

(03:18):
not like a one, one thing fits all for why
he's using tarriffs for certain countries. But the plan he
announced last week was so sleeping and the tariff numbers
were so stiff that it just had that shock to
the system. Then you saw the market rally on the
news of the pause, but then that rally was short
lived yesterday when the realization I think of the uncertainty

(03:40):
that now exists for the next ninety days and the
reality of that the trade war with China is worsening.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
We've heard that the White House has heard interest in
other countries. About seventy five have indicated that they want
to come to the table and meet and negotiate to
find a way to I guess I have both sides
when in this sort of situation with about I guess
eighty seven days here left in this pause, I mean,
is this just delaying something that is going to happen again,

(04:11):
where the terrift are going to get put back in place.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
I mean, it certainly feels like that They'll say they're
optimistic that they can strike these deals. But you know,
trade deals take a long time. They're not things that
are usually done in ninety days. They feel like, you know,
there's obviously a speeded up timeline because everybody knows the
clock is kicking with eighty seven some days to go,
But trade deals tend to take months, years, sometimes depending

(04:36):
on the complexity of it. You also have domestic politics
at play in many of these countries. They've got to
take it back to legislative bodies. It's not just you know,
show up at the White House, make a deal, handshakes,
and leave. So I think that, you know, we could
be In fact, I would say we will almost certainly
be having this conversation again in eighty seven days, and

(04:56):
we'll see how right we were. But I think that
this is likely to an uncertain three month period.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
ABC News White House correspondent Karen Travers, Thank you,