Scott Shellady: US markets analyst unpacks why Trump may have paused tariffs

A US markets analyst suspects Donald Trump is trying to buy time by lowering tariffs on most countries to a blanket 10 percent for 90 days.

But the US President's hiked them for China - to 125 percent.

Scott Shellady says 75 countries are reportedly seeking an audience with the President. 

"The 90 day pause is so he can get through the backlog of countries that said they want to do a deal."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bryan Bridge nine, after four news talks, he'd be so investors,
you'd be forgiven for complaining about whiplash. After this morning's
huge U tune from Donald Trump, markets around the world
made huge jumps this after Trump announced a ninety day
freeze for all announced tariffs except for China.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit
out of line.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
They were getting yippie, you know, they were getting a
little bit yippy, a little bit afraid. Scott Shelley is
a US market analyst with me now.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hi, Scott, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Looking forward to it. As you can imagine, pretty busy
day today.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Tell me what you think forced Trump's hand.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Well, I think I think the Treasury Secretary is kind
of taken the lead role on this. Scott Paston. I
don't know if you know Scott Paston, but he used
to work with George Soross and Stanley Drugon Miller with
the Quantum fun guys. He's very, very smart. He's a
fantastic markets guy. And when he saw that tenyor yields
fike this morning, like a lot of us, you know,

(01:06):
it was only a couple three days ago that that
tenyor yield here was around three eighty five and then
spiked close to well. I think the HIE today was
four fifty one. And when he saw that, I think
then when he'd have yields spiking at the same time
a lot of volatility and equities, and a lot of
folatility to the downside of equities, he run the risk
of breaking something. So I think that there was a

(01:26):
little bit of pressure there. A couple of days ago,
Best in scott Best and our tergery. Second, they flew
down to mar Lago from Washington and rode back in
Air Force one with Trump. I think he had his
ear for that one, and so I think there were
some there were some genuine moves on Trump's behalf that
I think we're planned. I think it's fair to say

(01:47):
that when he put the ten percent to a Ofstan,
but he had much higher rates on some other countries,
to have them stand in line to try to do
a deal with them while he was still tariffing them
is not fair. So I think that that ninety day
pauses because of the amount of deals that he's going
to have to be cutting in the next ninety days

(02:08):
from you know, the reports are seventy five countries want
to want to cut a deal with them in some way,
so it's going to be hard to get to all
those people in a short period of time, so they
wouldn't be hurt with tariff. So I think the ninety
day pauses so that he can get through the backlog
of countries at least they say that they want to
do a deal. And I also think that he was

(02:32):
pretty masterful and putting China in a corner, So all
those things kind of played into it. You don't see
a lot of Peter and Navarro, you don't see a
lot of Howard lutt next in the Commerce secretary. It's
all Scott sat And I think he's doing a pretty
good job with the president. And over the last forty
eight hours his stock is fined for sure.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Obviously the yields go up when the price goes down.
Normally when there's chaos in the markets, people flood to
the treasuries, right.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
To the bonds.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
There's there's talk that because China owns about a third
of US government bonds, that they weren't buying and that
that might have had some effect in terms of forcing
Trump's hand.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Do you see that buy that.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
There was a lot of rumors going around. I mean,
you know, hedge fund caught the wrong way, unwinding of
the carry trade, China trying to punish Trump, whether they're
selling end or not buying it could have been a
number of things. But I also think that the yield
came in so quickly because there were so many people
rushing to save havens that that's how the yield got

(03:38):
to three eighty five in the first place. So we
only kind of went back to where we were trading
any between you say, four fifteen and four thirty five,
although the high obviously it was four fifty. But I
think that bomb market is bigger than the stock market.
It's it's so it's gonna be hard to manipulate it
at all. I mean maybe maybe maybe in the short
rum a little bit, but again, it's bigger than the

(04:00):
stock market, So the bond market's gonna be the bond market,
regardless of what people want to abscribe to it. I
just don't think that there was anything the farious going
on there. I just think it was a culmination.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Of things Trump posted on truth social This is a
great time to buy. Is that borderline inside of trading?

Speaker 3 (04:22):
You know what they've been saying that for days though.
That's all you know that taking a look at it
in the snapshot of time of today, you might be
able to come up with something like that. No, they've
been saying that for days. I mean, there's a lot
of folks that have been on the tape since last
Thursday saying this is an amazing, once for a lifetime opportunity.

(04:44):
So you could you know, it just so happens that
it was it was today that the market rally, and
it looks like he might have known something. But again,
they've been saying that every day.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
What do you think happens from here?

Speaker 1 (04:54):
I mean, ninety days to cut deals with seventy five
countries sounds quite ambitious. So does he just keep extending
this stay?

Speaker 3 (05:04):
I think it depends on how those deals go. But
I think that, you know, as the news of these
settlements come out, you'll get more and more comfortable with
the market. I mean, we're not I don't think we're
gonna have to go back to what we just went
through in ninety days time. If that's where you're getting at.
And at the same time, it's going to be interesting
to see how China handles the position that they put
themselves into, so you know, he's Trump generally has some

(05:27):
decent support. I think there was a risk there it
went on. As long as people were worried it was
going to go on, he was going to start to
lose his own coalition, his own Republican support. That might
have been happening. There was talks of some of some
cracks in that coalition over the last few days in
the weekend, but I think I think the way things

(05:48):
sit today that you know, if it was all planned
and this is what he wanted, he did a pretty
good job. And I think and I think that it's
also got to be given a little bit of credit
to Scott Best and are actually a lot of credit
to Scott Betland. I think he was also a big
part of this. And I think that tenure yield, combined
with the stock market, combined with the seventy five countries,
combined with a lot of the other things that I've

(06:10):
been playing into everything over the last four or five days,
this was a pretty good outcome.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
All right, Scott will leave it there, Thanks very much
for that analysis. That's US market analyst Scott Shelby with US.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
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Speaker 1 (06:24):
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