Trump's Trounces Critics With Tariff Triumph

Tariffs—tax or tactic? Trump just slapped tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China, sending the business press into a frenzy. But guess what? It took mere hours for Mexico to cave, agreeing to deploy 10,000 troops to curb fentanyl and illegal immigration. Meanwhile, Canada’s holding out… for now. With lopsided trade barriers still in place, will more countries fall in line? www.watchdogonwallstreet.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
What a weekend, man, It's been extraordinary to watch what's
going on fun with tariffs. First and foremost, I don't
like tariffs. Tariffs are attacks. We've talked about this for
some time. I love free trade. Free trade is great,
but free trade needs to be fair. For years we

(00:38):
talked about these nonsensical trade agreements. Remember the TPP agreement
that no one could You couldn't even get a copy
of it. You got to go look at it in
a room and you couldn't even bring pencils or paper
in there. I'm like, what, it's a trade agreement. It
should be on one page. We'll send you our stuff,
you don't put tariffs on it. You send us your
stuff and we won't put tariffs on it. That's the

(01:00):
way it's supposed to be. But it's not that way now.
Donald Trump for a long long time has been threatening
the use of tariffs. People. This is a little bit
of art of the deal. Okay, you kind of have
to see the forest for the trees here. It's a
bit of a negotiation. Well anyway, okay, this weekend, boom,

(01:25):
drop the tariff bomb twenty five percent, Cannon twenty five percent,
Mexico ten percent, China ten percent on Canadian oil. And
oh my god, the business press, all of the wizards
is smart out there. There was pearl clutching time once again.
Oh my god, he doesn't know what he's doing this.

(01:46):
It's terrible. It's gonna put American people out of work.
It's gonna be awful, all sorts of things. I'm laughing
this morning. I'm having my morning coffee and I'm watching
this stuff, and I said, eh, but what is the
over under? Over under on the first nation to actually cave.

(02:10):
Didn't take long, didn't take long at all. Here is Trump.
I just spoke with President Claudia Shinbaum in Mexico. Is
a very friendly conversation wherein she agreed to immediately supply
ten thousand Mexican soldiers on the border separating Mexico in
the United States. These soldiers will be specifically designated to

(02:30):
stop the flow of fentanyl and illegal immigrants into our country.
We further agreed to immediately pause the anticipated tariffs for
one month period, during which we will have negotiations headed
by Secretary of State Mark Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen,
and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnik, and high level representatives

(02:53):
of Mexico. I look forward to participating in those negotiations
with President Shinbaum as we attempt to achieve it deal
between our two countries. Again this past weekend, again you
had Chuck Schumer up at a podium posing with an
avocado and a corona. Oh, the humanity American people are

(03:17):
not going to be able to get there, Guadramomi in
their avocado toast and their Coronas I've I've ripped in
to this for the longest period time, it's again to me,
it's it's a national shame. One hundred thousand people a

(03:41):
year plus, year after year after year dying of drug
overdoses here in the United States, over one hundred thousand now.
And I was a kid, young pop had Nancy Reagan
with her Just Say No campaign that she was ridiculed for.

(04:05):
They talk about the ohs, the crack cocaine epidemic, and
cocaine flooding the streets of America, New jack City, the
height the height of the cocaine epidemic here in this country,
around ten thousand people died a year, were over one

(04:27):
hundred thousand a year. Now, what do you think would happen?
What do you think would happen if it was Al
Qaeda shipping fentanyl into the country across the border? What
would we do? All right? This is again you're not

(04:48):
even talking about the the human total. You're also talking
about the cost to overall society, and we just brush
it under the rug for some time. You know, Trump
was the first one to designate the drug car tells
as terrorist organizations. Great, I would I would be cruise missiling.

(05:15):
We shoot cruise missiles at people in the middle of nowhere,
in Africa and the Middle East, all over the world,
going after these bad guys. Okay, what are they doing?
They're not you know, we're not over there. They're not
killing Americans over there. The ones that are killing Americans
are it's south of the border, and we haven't done
a damn thing. For crying out loud, it's high time

(05:39):
we do something anyway. Anyway, all the major business publications again,
The Wall Street Journal getting its underwear in a bunch Canada.
Canada is again as the time of this podcast here
on Monday afternoon, Canada hasn't caved yet, but we will.

(06:06):
They're gonna cave uh again. I want to just go
through some of the tariffs that are on items that
we send to Canada. Milk two hundred and seventy percent,
cheese two hundred and forty five percent, butter two hundred
ninety eight percent, chicken two hundred thirty eight percent, sausage
sixty nine point nine percent, barley fifty seven point eight

(06:29):
U bovine meat twenty six point five cars, twenty five
h fac forty five vacuums, thirty five cable boxes, thirty
five TVs forty five steel, twenty five aluminium, forty five,
copper forty eight. That's those are tariffs on items that
we send into Canada. Trump went on a rant last

(06:53):
night talking about you know, they don't allow American banks
uh in to Canada. This was a funny one is
that the Province of Ontario canceled their contract with Starlink. Yeah,
you know what, they want to do their own as well.

(07:13):
That's not going to go up for a few years
and guess who's putting the satellites into orbit. Yeah, musk
is as well. Again, we don't. The reality isn't Canada knowsis.
We don't need anything from them. Everything we can do
here on our own. People. What about all the oil

(07:37):
We make it easier for them to ship it to
us rather than have to send it to their the
West coast and then ship it out over to China.
It's it's more efficient for them. But no, we could,
you know, just use our own quite frankly, you know,
at some point in time, some point in time they

(08:00):
if the playing field needs to be leveled when it
comes to rules and regulations. Some of the things that
Trump talked about as well. They talked about going after
the UK, talked about going after the European Union. Good.
I don't have any problem with that. Again, I want

(08:20):
free trade too, but it needs to be fair. For
crying out loud, the UK should have been all over
after their after brexit and striking a free trade agreement
with the United States. But it should have been It
should have been done lickety split. That should have been done,
and it still hasn't been done. I don't know what

(08:42):
the rules of negotiation with the European Union. I don't
know if European states can strike deals by themselves now.
I'm they're quasi sovereign nations. Now, if Trump could go
to Italy or Poland and strike a deal directly with
those countries outside of the Europeanion, I don't think the
countries are even allowed to do that anymore. Think about that,

(09:05):
how ridiculous that is. But again, I seems to me
like it's working. All of these publications, all these wizards
are smart that we're jumping up and down say how
terrible everything it was, and what he's doing again, He
just made your success today within hours. I wonder if

(09:27):
they're going to come out and acknowledge that tomorrow. Probably not.
Probably not. Watchdog on Wall Street dot com