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April 4, 2025 01:09-01:40 - CSPAN

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Washington Journal Courtenay Brown

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mimi geerges

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unidentified		To keep all colleagues updated on progress.
		C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. to across the country.
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We are continuing on our conversation about tariffs with Courtney Brown.
		She's senior economics reporter for Axios.
		Courtney, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Thank you for having me this morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So about the tariffs that were announced yesterday, was there anything surprising to you?
unidentified		I think we had all been bracing for a 20% top-line number, and we got half of that, 10%.
		So I think the initial announcement, maybe you exhaled a little bit.
		You're like, whoo.
		And then you look at the details and you look at the reciprocal tariffs and you see how high they are.
		And then you realize, oh, this really is President Trump doing the maximalist approach here.
		I'll take China, for instance.
		With the tariffs that he already imposed and the reciprocal rate, tariffs on China are upwards of 50%.
		Tariffs on Chinese imports are upwards of 50%.
		I spoke to a former trade official who's now at a think tank, and he calculated what happens if you incorporate all of the tariffs that have been put on China since President Trump's first term.
		The average tariff rate on Chinese imports is upwards of 70%.
		So these are huge tariffs, especially if you put them in the context of previous announcements that President Trump has made.
		They're massive.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So how do Trump's, how do tariffs actually work?
		In other words, if there's a good coming into the United States, who pays?
		Who do they pay?
		Where does that money go?
unidentified		How does that work?
		So the biggest thing that surprised me about this process is that it's self-reported.
		So the company importing the good has to self-report that they owe XYZ tariff and that they're going to pay XYZ tariff.
		And President Trump likes to say that tariffs are paid for by foreign countries.
		That's not true.
		It's the importer.
		What happens from there on out is obviously different on a case-by-case basis.
		But because these tariffs that we're seeing today are so large, there are a lot of economists that expect a large share of them, if not all, to be passed through to the U.S. consumer.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And if we were to look very closely at the chart here, and I'm getting this off of X.
		So the one side, it says tariffs charged to the USA, including currency regulation and trade barriers.
		Do you have an understanding of how that number was calculated and what's the data that went into that?
unidentified		I never thought math would be such a hot topic.
		And the hot topic on X on social media among economists this morning is how the White House is calculating these rates.
		It is, as you say, a calculation that the White House says they've kind of added up the tariffs that are charged on U.S. goods and then somehow calculated all of the other like non-tariff barriers, currency manipulation and things of the like.
		But this is heavily based on trade deficits and the value of exports.
		And I think it is as simple as that.
		The White House sees trade deficits as a bad thing.
		And if there is a trade deficit with the country, the White House sees that as a problem that needs to be solved.
		That's a little bit tricky, right?
		Because a trade deficit is not necessarily a country's fault.
		The fact that we send them less than they send us, that's not their fault.
		I mean, we play a role in that too.
		So it's a little bit interesting to see.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But are we sending less to them because of trade barriers?
		Because it's unfair?
		How does that work?
unidentified		I think that is definitely a factor here that the White House is trying to address.
unidentified		The White House sees a number of nations that are punishing, if you will, U.S. exporters by putting certain things in place that may not be a tariff, but are other mechanisms that make it more difficult for their markets to be opened to U.S. exporters.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you'd like to join our conversation with Courtney Brown of Axios, you can do so.
		We're talking about tariffs.
		The numbers are Republicans 202, 748, 8001, Democrats 202, 748, 8000, and Independents 202, 748, 8,002.
		You wrote an article, Courtney, for Axios with the headline, Trump's Day of Clarity, but without the clarity.
		And it says, trade policy uncertainty index.
		And you could see here visually it goes way up just recently.
		Can you explain what that means and how you got this graph?
unidentified		I love this chart.
		It's a little terrifying.
		It's not the kind of chart you usually want to see given the sharp point upwards at the end there.
		But basically, we talk about uncertainty all the time.
		It's kind of an amorphous idea.
		There are a group of economists at the Federal Reserve and elsewhere actually that have tried to quantify what uncertainty means.
		And what those economists did was kind of look at the number of news articles that mentioned trade uncertainty over time, going back to the 1960s or 80s, I believe.
		I can't quite remember.
		And when that line is going up, it's basically an indication that there are more news stories talking about trade policy uncertainty.
		And they see that as a reflection of the uncertainty that's being felt throughout the economy.
		So obviously it is higher than at any point on the timeline that they're looking at, including COVID.
		So more uncertainty now, according to this measure, than at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And the announcement was after the markets closed yesterday.
		As of right now, the markets have not opened yet.
		Do we know any reaction as far as business owners, the markets, anything like that, reaction to the tariff announcement?
unidentified		Something that was interesting yesterday was there was an earnings call underway, Restoration Hardware, which sells furniture and consumer goods.
		There was an earnings call underway as the announcement as Trump was making the announcement.
		And the CEO dropped a few curse words on the earnings call as you heard the tariffs coming out, which I thought was indicative of maybe how retailer CEOs, maybe they're not using such colorful language, but indicative of how they're feeling.
		Obviously, the markets are in early trading, selling off right now.
		The dollar is weaker, which is not usually what you might expect with an announcement of this kind.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why would that be?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why would the dollar become weaker?
unidentified		I think there are concerns about, and there have been concerns about growth and what this announcement might do as far as interest rates.
		Obviously, this for other nations, obviously, our currency weakening means another currency is strengthening, right?
		So, I think other countries don't necessarily want to see their currency strengthening right now.
		It makes the hit of the tariff even harder, if you will.
		So, it's a little bit of a confusing move that, by the way, has been underway for several weeks, I believe.
		So, yeah, definitely a surprise in the financial markets this morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to callers, and we'll start with Lewis in Stonyford, California.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, good morning, Lewis.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		I'd just like to say first of all that I appreciate you taking my call and listening to my opinion.
		But speaking on tariffs, I just see tariffs right now as being very like the fog of war, so to speak.
		A lot of people, you know, have their ideas or opinions about how tariffs are going to affect the consumer, the American consumer, and the world abroad, and so forth.
		And all I see is a lot of opinion.
		And basically, the majority are for, you know, because, again, they are suffering from the fog of war.
		They predict, oh, it's just doom and gloom.
		But let's say in retrospect to Trump's first presidential term back in 2017 and 2016, the point here that I'm trying to say is that I'm wanting to say that maybe like, you know, we need to just possibly, you know, let things go as they are going to go.
		I mean, he was elected.
		I mean, that is the hard fact.
		And, you know, he's only going to last in there four years.
		And, you know, and let's just put our hope in this presidency and see what he can do for us.
		And let's just, you know, him being more of the economical aspect person that's leading the country right now, I mean, he is, you know, more geared into knowing what he's planning on doing.
		So I'm trying to say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, what you're trying to say is let's give it some time and see if it works.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is that right, Lewis?
unidentified		Basically, because we have to break a few eggs to make anomaly, right?
		So, I mean, it's going to look a little crazy and stuff like this, but I mean, he really is putting us on an equal footing in the rest of the world.
		And it's like he said, we're not over here trying to be exorbitant and be this hard taskmaster and just rule everybody who's going to pay this exorbitant amount of tariffs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Lewis.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's get a response.
unidentified		This is exactly the message that the White House is trying to send right now.
		In fact, President Trump himself has acknowledged an adjustment period, potential pain, and trying to send this message that the other side will be better for the country in the long term.
		Your caller is right.
		We don't know what's going to happen.
		There is a lot of doom and gloom.
		Is a lot of fear, and I think that's natural.
		We are in uncharted territory.
		We do not know how the global economy will respond if, in fact, these tariffs do go forward.
		And, you know, to your caller's point, economists have been really wrong lately, really wrong.
		They have predicted recessions that haven't come to pass.
		They have really had a doomy outlook, a doom and gloomy outlook, and the U.S. economy has proved them wrong every time.
		I think what's different here is that we are just coming off of a huge inflation shock.
		And companies have gotten much more used to passing that cost along to the consumer than they did in Trump's first term.
		In Trump's first term, the Fed was trying to generate inflation.
		We didn't have enough inflation at this point.
		They're in a very different situation now.
		And I think the risk is that there are higher prices and there is weakening demand.
		And that's a nasty combination.
		That is the stagflationary scenario that no policymaker wants to deal with.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So when will we know if this has worked, if it's achieved the objectives that the president has laid out?
unidentified		Many, many years.
		So one thing the caller mentioned is that the president is in office for four years.
		And I think I spoke to a small manufacturer based in South Florida.
		His company makes the labels you might see on a FedEx uniform, the corporate labels, the patches.
		And one thing that he said to me that I thought was fascinating was: you cannot run a business on basically four years or eight years of very different trade policy than the next four to eight years.
		For instance, he said, what if he picks up all of his manufacturing facilities that he has in Mexico and elsewhere and brings them all on shore?
		Doesn't take a week.
		It takes a long time to do that kind of stuff.
		And then the next president comes in and rips up everything that Trump does.
		His words, I would get crushed.
		He would get crushed if free trade opens back up.
		And I think that's a really, really frightening possibility for business owners right now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Jim in Winter Park, Florida, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Jim.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Ms. Brown, I'm confused sometimes when it comes to when we hear, you just said it, free trade.
		And we look at this chart, and if that chart is untrue, I want you to tell us that it's untrue.
		But if it's true, why would we be paying tariffs to China, to Vietnam, to stop at 50%?
		That kills our sales going into their countries.
		And then we have to pay for them to bring stuff over here, which is being made by people that are, you know, Uyghurs in China.
		They're being used like slave labor.
		They're used like people in Vietnam are being used like slave labor.
		And then we end up paying cheaper prices for stuff that here in the country we wouldn't buy because everybody would say, well, it's being processed by slave people.
		We have to come to an agreement that we are either going to be a country that tries to get solvent because the reason why we've gotten to where we are, $36 trillion in debt, is because we spend so much money around the world trying to help everybody.
		And I saw Mike Johnson yesterday or the day before yesterday talk about the fact that we have we started doing tariffs after the Second World War to help reconstruction in Europe.
		And it's 70 years, over 70 years since we started that.
		And I have been to Europe.
		Europe is a beautiful country.
		Europe doesn't need reconstruction anymore.
		So why do we pay tariffs where we can't sell our products into Europe, but Europe can sell their products into our country at a lower rate of tariffs?
		It doesn't make any sense.
		If you're going to have free trade, it should be reciprocal.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		We got that point.
		Let's get a response.
unidentified		It's so interesting because I was watching the press conference yesterday, the Rose Garden event.
		And what we watched was really the culmination of decades and decades of the way that Trump has felt about trade.
		Even before he was a politician, a president, he had these gripes about how you would never see American cars in Europe.
		And why is that?
		There are so many European cars here.
		Why don't we see American cars in Europe?
		And I think this is really, you know, with the help of the advisors around him, Peter Navarro and Ambassador Greer and Howard Luttnick, the Commerce Secretary.
		I think this is really the idea they have to make things a level playing field.
		I think the big question is what is the trade-off?
		And I think the trade-off might be economic pain until we get to whatever the administration considers the other side.
		There's one other point I want to make, which is just kind of the word on Wall Street and the word among economists this morning, which is just we have a few days until these go into effect.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I was going to ask you, when do they go into effect?
unidentified		Right.
		So the baseline 10% goes into effect on April 5th.
		The reciprocal rates here go into effect on April 9th.
		And in the world of Wall Street, that is an eternity away.
		And I think there is some hopium, some optimism that there will be some negotiations between now and then.
		And do these tariffs, in fact, actually move forward?
		I think there was such disbelief last night at how high some of these reciprocal rates were.
		One economist just flat out did not believe that these were actually going to go into effect.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		There's a belief that this is just a negotiating tactic, that this is almost like a threat to get concessions from these countries.
unidentified		I want to be clear, though, because senior White House officials told reporters, including myself, yesterday, that this is not a negotiation.
		There is kind of this good cop, bad cop dynamic among President Trump's advisors because you hear that kind of rhetoric, but then you hear the Treasury Secretary being a little bit more lenient on this front, saying maybe there will be negotiations.
		But you heard Trump himself say yesterday, the kings, the queens, the prime ministers that are calling up to get these, that are going to call up and get these rates lower, well, they should have been low.
		Your rates should have been lower.
		You should have not had these trade barriers that the White House is saying that these countries have.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So he did say that there would be no exceptions for industries or products, but there will be flexibilities.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What does that mean?
unidentified		What does that mean?
		I don't know.
		No one knows.
		What is the flexibility?
		Does that mean that there will be carve-outs?
		Does that mean that maybe if a company pledges to, I mean, I'm making this up.
		If a company pledges to build a plant here, maybe they're not subject to such high tariffs.
		We don't know.
		These are the types of questions that traders are asking, economists are asking, business owners are asking right now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to Robert in Vernon Rockville, Connecticut, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just have one question, and I'd like the lady, maybe she could answer it, about boycotts.
		Couldn't the American people boycott certain products that would drive the price down?
		That's my question.
		I'll take it offline.
		Possibly.
		I mean, I know there is a boycott, kind of a grassroots boycott of American products underway in Canada.
		There was an event last week on Friday.
		There were a bunch of mayors and local officials in Washington from around the U.S., from Canada, from Mexico.
		And I had this thought, you know, there must have been some awkwardness because there is a widespread boycott of U.S. liquor in Canada and parts of Canada right now.
		And there were mayors from places that are being hit hard by that.
		I mean, it is amazing how hard of a hit a boycott of that kind can have.
		We've had the CEOs of publicly traded firms that own a lot of these liquor brands come out and say that this is painful for their business.
		This is one of the non-tariff responses that I'm wondering if you see more of across the country.
		Whether it happens here, that's anyone's guess.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Jersey Girl posted this on X.
		She says, it shows such amazing savvy that we put tariffs on islands with no inhabitants, but somehow, for some reason, omitted Russia.
		What do you make of that omission?
unidentified		Yep.
		Some of our reporters were writing and thinking about this last night.
		I don't know what to make of it.
		I don't understand, and this goes to the larger question of their methodology here, of the reciprocal rates.
		I don't understand why certain countries got hit so hard, why certain countries did not.
		I know it's based on trade imbalances, but I think that there might be other geopolitical questions that were considered here that we don't know about.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is Bruce in LaGrange, Illinois, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning to you.
		Have a wonderful day.
		I was just wondering, and I understand this young lady is a senior economics reporter for Axios, and I just wondered what qualifications and education she had.
		And also, along the line of Russia not being affected by the tariffs, I just wondered if the treatment that China has gotten in the past, which has seemed to be preferential, if it had anything to do with the money that flowed from China into the Biden family.
		And I'd just like to know the answer to that, because I think that probably there's a connection between all the money that Hunter reaped in China and the way we treat China trade-wise.
		So if you could please answer that, I'd appreciate it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Bruce.
unidentified		First one's definitely the easiest question I'll take all day.
		So I am the senior economics reporter at Axios.
		I've been at Axios almost since the company started.
		Our founders are Mike Allen Ngin Van High.
		They started Politico.
		Axios is their next venture, and we've been very successful.
		And it's a wonderful newsroom to work in.
		Before I was at Axios, I was at CNBC.
		I worked on the show that is on right now, Squawk Box, as a producer.
		I went to Columbia University.
		I went to New York University.
		I've been writing and thinking and talking about the topics that we're discussing today for, gosh, years.
		And, you know, I think the question, you didn't ask this, but the question about what qualifies me to talk about tariffs, especially in this moment, is, you know, I know as much as everyone else as far as, you know, what the administration is thinking, what the administration is considering when imposing these tariffs.
		But after that, Harvard-level economists don't know what the fallout is going to be.
		It is unprecedented.
		But as far as the economic topics themselves, I would consider myself pretty qualified to talk about that.
		But the fallout is really anyone's guess.
		And I think that's what's so terrifying for companies.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, about China, that China was getting preferential treatment from the Biden administration.
unidentified		I think that the Biden administration, as far as tariffs are concerned, they were not as tough as Trump.
		But remember, they kept all of Trump's tariffs on.
		Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, I traveled with her to China, I think one of her last China trips before Trump became president.
		She was very concerned about the China shock and preventing something like that from happening again.
		And the China shock is obviously when we started to do free trade with China and they opened up their markets and the U.S. manufacturing sector got pummeled, absolutely pummeled.
		And they wanted to do what they could, whether or not they were successful.
		They wanted to do what they could to prevent that from happening again.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Judy in Highland Park, Illinois, Democrat, you're next.
unidentified		Ty, Miss Brown.
		I wanted to ask you about one specific issue, and that is the Canadian export of potash.
		They are the number one in the world, and they export to 75 different countries, and here they are, our neighbor.
		The problem is that without potash, you don't have fertilizer.
		And if you don't have fertilizer, then all of the small farmers or any farmer really won't have the kind of material they need to grow our food.
		And I'm a big supporter of small farmers.
		And I wanted to know what you think about that kind of tariff on such an essential product and what the impact will be for these small farmers.
		Will they have to go bankrupt?
		And then we have something called doom economics.
		And I would like you to maybe explain that because I've heard about it recently and I had thought about it.
		I thought all these farmers are going to go bankrupt and then these large corporate farms will buy them up.
		Thank you so much.
		So there is an across the board rate of 25% on imports from Canada and Mexico that was put into place because of the administration's concerns about fentanyl coming over the border and immigration.
		Potash, however, got a lower rate, if I'm not mistaken.
		I think it's 10%.
		But your question about agriculture or the agricultural sector and farmers is a good one.
		I think the administration is aware of the potential effects of how these actions might affect farmers.
		You can look back to President Trump's first term.
		There was a lot of support for farmers.
		I know there was a lot of pain that they felt from the drop-off in soybean purchases from China and other nations.
		So I think that if there is in fact a hard hit to farmers, and I think many economists think there will be, I wonder if we can look and see if there will be some sort of aid for the farm sector again.
		There was a really interesting briefing put out by the lobbying group that represents a lot of the footwear industry in the U.S.
		And they basically went back to the 19th century and looked at every single high tariff event.
		And one of the commonalities through those events was the agriculture sector taking a hit every single time.
		Now, what happened then doesn't necessarily mean it will happen now, but I mean, history is hard to ignore.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Courtney, finally, what are you going to be watching?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is there a particular metric or indicator that you're going to be looking at specifically?
unidentified		You know, before it was tariff week, it was jobs week.
		And, you know, they set the jobs report well ahead in advance.
		So we get a jobs report tomorrow.
		And, you know, policy in Trump 2.0 is moving so quickly.
		You can't fault the administration for not doing these things that they said they will on the trade front because they are and they're moving very fast.
		So the data we get on Friday as far as payrolls are concerned, it's going to be a little bit dated.
		It obviously won't take into consideration any business fallout from these tariffs that have yet to be implemented.
		But I think we need to keep a close watch on the so-called hard data, things like the jobs report, things like the consumer price index, and then another inflation gauge that the Fed watches most closely.
		We've seen a lot of scary things in the soft data, the surveys of manufacturers saying that demand is plummeting and prices are soaring.
		We need to see if those anecdotes are feeding through to a more national aggregate indicator.
		And so I think while these hard data indicators are a little dated, they're important to see how the pain that we're talking about in these anecdotes is or is not filtering through.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Courtney Brown, Senior Economics Reporter for Axios.
		Her articles are at axios.com.
		Thanks so much for coming in today.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
		Coming up live Friday on the C-SPAN networks, live at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, the National Action Network will host a discussion on efforts to undo diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI programs.
		Also on C-SPAN, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to speak at a conference for business journalists.
		That's live at 1125 a.m. Eastern on the heels of President Trump's announcement of those sweeping international tariffs.
		On C-SPAN 2 at 7 a.m. Eastern, Secretary of State Marco Rubio takes questions from reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels during meetings with NATO foreign ministers.
		And the U.S. Senate returns to consider a revised version of the 2025 House Republicans budget resolution.
		These events all stream live on the free C-SPAN Now video app and online at our website, c-span.org.
jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is always an unfinished creation.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is worth dying for.

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