Donald Trump announces a 125% tariff on China, triggering a NASDAQ surge of 10% while the Shanghai index crashes. Accusing Beijing of IP theft and currency manipulation, he contrasts this with reduced tariffs for allies like the EU and Japan, whom host Trish Regan criticizes as "DEI, ESG kings." Citing Kevin O'Leary's call for 400% levies, the segment explores theories that Trump aims to isolate China economically or stoke chaos to consolidate power. Ultimately, the discussion suggests this aggressive trade war seeks to weaken Xi Jinping's position by leveraging U.S. dominance in global consumables and GDP. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, Qwen/Qwen3-ForcedAligner-0.6B, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Markets Ignite on China News00:13:22
Huge.
Unbelievable.
I'm watching the markets right now, which are on fire.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're looking at a NASDAQ that's up about 10%, S&P trading up nearly 8%, Dow Jones Industrial Average up nearly 7%, and all on this little bit of news.
You see, Donald Trump just came out moments ago, and he had a little bit of something to offer China.
You know, China who's been coming back saying, well, you know, we don't like your tariffs, so we're going to put on 34% for you.
And then we came back at 104%, and then China came back at 84%.
Well, guess what?
China is officially losing the number one economy in the world, which would be the good old US of A, because now Donald Trump's putting a 125% tariff, a 125% tariff on China while he's willing to put a 90-day hold on the rest of the world.
So the rest of the world gets some reprieve.
Let's take a look at his note.
Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the world's markets, I am hereby raising the tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%.
Percent, effective immediately.
At some point, hopefully in the future, he sends out on true social China will realize that the days of ripping off the good old Us Of A and other countries is no longer sustainable, nor is it acceptable.
Conversely, and based on the fact that more than 75 countries have called representatives in the United States, including the Departments OF Commerce, Secretary OF Treasury and the USTR, to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to trade, trade barriers tariffs, currency manipulation and the Non-monetary tariffs, and the countries that have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape or form against the U.s.
I have authorized a 90 day pause and a substantially lowered reciprocal tariff during this period of 10, effective immediately.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Okay, this is huge.
You guys, this is huge and you were trying to still figure out like, what this means for Europe because, don't forget Europe Europe UH, was trying to retaliate.
Right, they were one of the ones coming forward with the retaliation was the 20 that the EU was putting on, and then the EU came out and they were like oh, all hunky dory with none other than China.
It's like guys, like what did we spend like a billion dollars defending you from Russia, and the minute push comes to shove, you're out the door and hanging out with China.
I was like, good luck, you can take all their cheap crap.
Fine, we are the number one economy in the world.
And when you are the number one economy in the world and you are the world's largest consumer, guess what?
When you say, hey, you know what, we ought to make a deal.
Well, China, you ought to make a deal.
He was generous.
He left the door open there.
But the Europeans, I'm kind of troubled by them.
They're like the DEI, ESG, kings and queens and whatever else they are over there.
And the moment they had an opportunity to do the right thing and stand with the United States of America and say, we'll work through this together, instead they go running into China's arms, sending out statements about how they're going to work with China and work on green energy.
Good luck.
Good luck, guys.
I wish you all the best.
China, green energy, those things don't really go hand in hand.
Meanwhile, I mean, there was talk of even more than 125%.
So guess what?
We put 125%.
This is coming in addition to the original 67%.
And then you had 104%.
Now we have 125%.
Oh, my friend Kevin O'Leary, good Irish name.
We'll forgive the fact that he's from Canada.
He was on CNN last night saying, hey, he wouldn't stop because, you know, these are bad guys.
They do bad things and they don't play by the rules.
So tariff them and tariff them to the tune of 400%.
104% tariffs in China are not enough.
I'm advocating 400%.
I do business in China.
They don't play by the rules.
They've been in the WTO for decades.
They have never abided by any of the rules they agreed to when they came in for decades.
They cheat, they steal, they steal IP.
I can't litigate in their courts.
They take product, technology, they steal it, they manufacture it, and sell it back here.
Never has an administration.
Do you understand 400% tariffs?
What would that look like?
I want Qi on an airplane.
To Washington to level the playing field.
This is not about tariffs anymore.
Nobody has taken on China yet, not the Europeans, no administration for decades.
As someone who actually does business there, I've had enough.
I speak for millions of Americans who have IP that have been stolen by the Chinese.
I have nothing against the Chinese people.
They brought great literacy, art, and tech to the world.
The government cheats.
And steals, and finally, an administration.
You may not like Trump, you may not like his style or his rhetoric.
Finally, an administration that puts up and says, Enough, 400% tariffs tomorrow morning.
He'll tell you why.
Qi can only stay the supreme leader if people are employed.
If we wipe out any business there, because we are still 39% of all consumables on earth and 25% of the world's GDP.
America is the number one economy on earth with all the cards.
We will not have that forever.
It's time to squeeze Chinese heads into the wall now.
Well, hold on.
I hear you, but hold on.
If we're talking about people, the average consumer, not necessarily the head honchos of businesses all across the globe, can they withstand the pressure of that sort of tax on the goods or services?
It's short lived.
But yeah, but what's your timeline compared to?
You don't know the average American's timeline, what they can actually survive.
There's people right now who.
Cancer voters.
100% tomorrow morning, cheese on an airplane to Washington to cut a deal.
Hey, Xi, you might want to check the flight schedules.
Okay, listen.
This is really quite something.
And again, I just get back to the method to the madness maybe have been an opportunity to explore who really actually would work with us and who wouldn't.
China came out with a statement earlier today.
I'm going to read it to you.
U.S. flagpole guy, thank you so much.
We appreciate the generosity.
I'm going to get to your comment in a second.
They said we have. wills and means to fight to the end.
They warned us that the U.S. will quote reap what it sows.
Okay, so they said this and shortly thereafter, after we get this big warning from China, oh, you know, you're going to reap what you sow.
We got the wills and the means to play this out into the end.
And then you get Europe coming through and backing them.
I'm going to get to that because I'm just blown away that the people that are supposed to be our allies here are like, oh, we're standing with China.
Unbelievable.
China who manipulates. its currency.
And I know people are like, oh, you know, we deflate ours.
Nothing, nothing compared to what China does.
They steal our intellectual property.
They make companies turn over parts of their IP.
They have to have a certain number of employees that are from China.
You have to invest a certain amount.
They have all kinds of rules and regulation.
And no, forget about it.
You know what?
You can't actually sue them in court.
And the WTO is nowhere on it.
So guess what?
China's toast.
They either cooperate like the developing nation they are.
And I'd go so far as to say, you know, they're even kind of getting out of that developing stage.
Yet we're giving them concessions as though they're still coming up through the ranks.
They're the number two economy.
You know, China, you can actually join the big leagues.
You got to play by the rules.
And if you're not willing to play by the rules, then we don't really need you because guess what?
We still have a lot of power.
Check that Shanghai index out.
It's been cratering, cratering the past five days.
And listen, with news now that there's 125.
25% tariff on all Chinese goods and no tariffs on anyone else.
What you're doing is you're isolating China.
You're strangling China.
We don't need the silly crap from China.
Excuse my French, but I got a little too much of it.
I was just cleaning my closet this weekend and I'm like, this, this, this, this, get rid of it all.
We don't need to be buying this stuff.
Granted, there are strategic reasons, right?
Why, you know, and this is, you've heard me say this if you follow me on Twitter.
You know, I don't want to do my dry cleaning, so I run a trade deficit with my dry cleaner.
You can have strategical approaches to all of this.
I don't think you should conflate all the trade deficits with, of course, the trade deficits with this sort of sense that somehow they're immediately taking advantage.
Because sometimes we're trying to take advantage of whatever they're offering as well.
So tariffs and trade deficits are two different things.
But I will say this, you know, China is bad.
They have done all kinds of stuff.
Besson out just saying this yesterday, Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary.
Secretary said, These guys are the worst.
Like, we actually have to do something about them.
It's now or never, folks, and it's now.
Thank you.
Tariffs.
It's been about a week since the president announced his plan.
The reciprocal tariffs went into effect last night, and I know and I've been reading.
I'm going to fast forward this a little bit to where he starts talking about what China does.
Here we go.
With the Japanese delegation.
But in terms of escalation, unfortunately, the biggest offender.
In the global trading system is China, and they're the only country who's escalated.
And I can tell the rest of the world that I'm not sure whether it's the prime minister or the economic minister in Spain made some comments this morning oh, well, maybe we should align ourselves more with China.
That would be cutting your own throat because I can tell you that these Chinese exports that the U.S. tariff wall is going to keep out, that China.
For all of you who can remember that Disney movie of the brooms carrying the buckets of water, that is the Chinese business model.
It never stops.
They just keep producing and producing and dumping and dumping, and it's going somewhere.
And I think and I think we need to actually speak up and do something soon.
So the amazing thing is here, did you hear him reference Spain and how Spain's like, well, maybe we want to be on China's side?
And I'm like, wow, you Europeans, you never cease to amaze me.
You really never cease to amaze me.
There's talk of 400% increase in China tariffs.
That would really cut off trade.
But I'll tell you, the 125% is going to do the exact same thing.
And I'll just say this.
You know what?
They can't actually survive without us.
There are 500 billion reasons why.
All right.
Let's take a look at what the trade picture really looks like.
Here we are looking at these are actually 2023 numbers.
So they've not been updated.
But basically, $500 billion in trade.
Okay, that's what they're exporting to us.
So we buy $500 billion worth of stuff.
Who else comes close?
Well, the EU.
But look at that.
No singular country.
We are one country.
The EU is not a country.
And by the way, you know that EU breakup is coming sooner rather than later.
Just saying.
Okay.
I don't think that the South or the North appreciates paying for some of the liabilities of the South.
We've seen all of that play out.
Remember the Greek debt crisis?
I mean, they're hanging on by a thread.
They're hanging on by a thread there in Europe.
And so altogether, they represent almost as much as us.
We're in the midst of negotiations.
Besant has said that.
My sources tell me these negotiations are going well.
In Japan, in South Korea, that'll all come through.
I also hear that we're very focused on Southeast Asia.
So guess what?
We surround China.
And if the Europeans are stupid enough, and believe me, they are stupid.
These people are the ones that, you know, kind of came up with all the ESG and the DEI nonsense, and they think it's great to just work four days a week.
If they're stupid enough to keep, you know, importing everybody from the Middle East and everybody from Africa that cannot assimilate into their country that become major liabilities for them, then guess what?
You know what?
You guys go for it.
You want to live on China.
You want to have your love fest.
You go do that.
You see how that works out for you.
Panama Canal and EU Fragility00:06:37
It won't.
Meanwhile, we're doing smart things back here at home, like taking back our Panama.
Well, not our.
I'm going to be careful about that.
I only say that because I'm like a Monroe Doctrine kind of girl.
And, you know, we live in America and you got Panama there in our hemisphere that I think, you know, given that we built this thing, we ought to still have a fair amount of say over.
The Chinese have infiltrated it.
You go down to Panama, everybody speaks Chinese.
I used to go to a Chinese restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
And it was really kind of weird because you'd walk in and everybody was really and truly Chinese.
And yet they all spoke Spanish.
Yours truly is fluent in Spanish, so I always got a kick out of that.
And it was because they were from Panama, because the Chinese have completely infiltrated all of Panama for the Panama Canal.
We're getting it back.
To be very clear, China did not build this canal.
China does not operate this canal.
And China will not weaponize this canal.
Together with Panama in the lead, we will keep the canal secure and available for all nations through the deterrent power of the strongest, most effective, and most lethal fighting force in the world.
We will do this in partnership with Panama.
Together, we will take back the Panama Canal from China's influence.
And we will do this along with other capable, like-minded allies and partners.
This is what peace through strength looks like.
This is amazing.
Just amazing.
If you're just joining us right now, Donald Trump has said he's announcing a 90-day moratorium as we get all these trade deals together with the people that are willing to negotiate with us.
For those that just wanted to slap on reciprocal tariffs, he's got no use for them and he's hitting China with 125% effective immediately.
In other words, the Chinese economy is toast.
You heard what Kevin O'Leary was saying later.
earlier in the show.
This is an economy that is really kind of fragile right now.
And Xi's political position is fragile as a result of where that economy is.
So if you don't have enough incoming so that people can keep making all the cheap trinkets that they're exporting all over the world, then what happens?
You're going to suffer.
And that's why when you look at Shanghai markets, they've been down, they've been getting crushed, all while our markets, as we speak, are soaring.
But I think that, you know, you got to think this one through if you're China.
And granted, they're, you know, so conceited and they have a certain view of themselves and they don't want to look like, oh, you know, we're giving in to Trump.
We can't give in to Trump.
Well, you can do that all day long, but, you know, you're going to have to just keep flooding the market with your currency.
You're going to keep printing and printing and printing.
That's going to depress the value of your currency.
Your people are going to be unhappy because they got no economy because the U.S. of A is really and truly taking over.
And frankly, China isn't going to be able to look to Europe to really replace us.
That's a lot of money that they got to replace.
A lot.
And if we're not going to do business with them, they're going to do business with Europe?
Meanwhile, one source is telling me that his view on this is that, in fact, the EU is being treated a bit like China.
So this just coming in right now, I mean, I would just say, who needs enemies when you got friends like they seem to show us we have in Brussels?
it intended to do, right?
Like, you know, they made the point that, well, we're not going to play this game and we're going to fight until the end.
And we have the will and we have the means to do that.
And that the U.S. should just reap what it sows that the EU then said they were going to increase tariffs on us.
So the EU listens to this.
They say, well, we're up in our tariffs and we're going to pledge our support to China.
and work with them on green energy deals.
I mean, you cannot make it up.
I'll tell you, Besant was right, you know, when he heard from Spain, Spain of all places, and Spain was like, oh, yeah, yeah, you know, we'll work with the Chinese and we'll pick up where the U.S. is leaving off.
Well, again, I just, I think that these people are absolutely delusional, absolutely delusional.
You really want, here we go.
The European side is looking forward to holding a new EU-China leaders meeting an appropriate time to review the past, look into the future, and jointly celebrate the 50th anniversary of EU-China diplomatic relations.
This is according to the woman who's in charge there in Brussels, von der Leyen.
She went on to say the European side is willing to promote high-level dialogue with China in various fields and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation such as our economy, trade.
Green economy and wait for it, climate change.
So the EU is like, we're going to get to work with China on climate change.
And we don't care about the US.
We're going to tariff the US because China's our friend now, despite the fact that we are the only reason, frankly, you're one, not speaking German all, every single one of you, and two, the reason why you had some kind of defense mechanism against Russia.
So when push comes to shove, you're shutting us out of the picture?
I don't think so.
I think that Donald Trump is not going to forget that.
I think Donald Trump knows.
I know exactly who my friends are.
I know exactly who my foes are, and I'm going to think about that because I just don't need people like this.
When you're head over heels falling for China, we're going to wish you well.
So Donald Trump sent something out just moments before all this went down.
Buying the Forced Sell-Off00:02:23
It's funny because, you know, he actually also said the day before the bottom in the market back in April 2020, hey, it's a great time to buy, go buy.
Interestingly, he said that again.
just a couple hours before this deal was announced.
So I guess we all need to go to True Social and follow it.
But what did I tell you last night?
Right?
What have we been saying?
How do you invest amid all this volatility?
And I said, you know, it's easy to get worked up about everything.
It just is.
And look, you know, you see my Twitter feed and it's like a stream of consciousness because I'm going, wait a second.
Oh my gosh.
You got the bond market imploding.
You get this, that, and the other.
And I try and caution people by saying, I am going to just tell you, I still invest in all of it.
Right, what?
What is the moral of the story here?
That even when the chips are down and I realize a lot of people think it's going get a lot worse and we can't call the bottom here you just can't call the bottom but you can say things are starting to look attractive, very attractive.
So when you look at that pe ratio right coming way way, way down, we've now effectively recovered what we lost since liberation day.
But in seeing that massive and very forced sell off and the Vix trading at 45 and higher that's what i'm saying as a rational person you've got to ignore the noise and take advantage of the opportunity, provided you can, right.
I mean you have to have sort of the bandwidth to be able to do that, the liquidity to be able to do that.
You don't want to use the kids, college savings or your vacation money even you know this is or maybe you want to use your vacation money I don't know, I call it your vagus money like money that you really don't need.
That's when you actually want to start going in.
And so this is the note we've been putting out over and over again.
At 76research.com, that's my financial research company, we actually put out a note last night saying he will do this, he will put a 90-day hold on things so that, because you know it's a lot, think of all those deals you get to negotiate Besson's pretty busy and we're well sourced and we understand this stuff and we've been doing it long enough.
So we put out a note saying, look in light of it, what we expect to happen, which is this 90 day sort of pause on on the ones that want to do deals, then you might want to be looking at having broad exposure, including to some specific names.
The 90-Day Deal Pause00:04:00
Right, because we have a lot of companies in our portfolio that have done really well.
I encourage you guys go look at these 76portfolios.com.
I mean granted, of course you can get the 76 report with code word dollar, but if you're, if you're looking to actually shore things up and get some investments in a time like this, I do encourage you to look at those names, 10 to 15 stocks in each one of those portfolios, because now it's kind of important right, we're going to still have volatility, i'm going to stress that so there's still going to be opportunity.
This is not, like you know, we're out of the the woods yet, because now you still got to get down and get nitty gritty and we're going to be living through all these headlines, but the basic premise here it holds, and that is that China has been doing all kinds of stuff for way too long and this has got to stop.
The Europeans, they could join us, but they got their head up there, you know what right, with their green energy, climate change nonsense and DEI and ESG, and they can't see the forest for the trees and they don't seem to understand that.
Guess what?
China does not care about any of it.
China really doesn't care.
So that's who you want to do business with.
Give me a break.
Here's Trump talking just yesterday on why this is important right now.
We've been ripped, ripped off and abused by countries for many years with the tariff situation.
They've used tariffs against us.
We didn't use tariffs against them in any way.
I mean, we just didn't use them of any monumental proportion.
And so we are doing it now.
We're doing it now because it's like now or never.
All right.
So the European Union, they may not benefit from this 90 day.
We'll see how this all shakes out.
I was just looking at European markets that are traded here and they seem to be holding on okay.
But again, one of my sources telling me that he did not believe, did not believe that actually this would include a pause for.
Europe because Europe was coming through with these additional tariffs.
We'll see what that sort of shakes out to be.
But the reality, ladies and gentlemen, is that we know it's almost like this, there's this like test.
It's like, who are my friends?
Who are my allies?
Or not even that, like who really wants to be in business with us?
Because we've done all kinds of things for Europe and there was an opportunity for them to, you know, kind of work with us.
And yet they chose not to the very, very, you know, specifically today.
making a choice here to not play ball.
And I just don't think that ends well for them.
I don't think it ends well for China.
I think we'll be okay.
We'll be okay.
But Donald Trump, you know, speaking on a lot of things in an event last night, calling on the House GOP to get the tax cuts done, saying that, you know what, immigration and deportations are very much front of center still on his mind.
But as for the deals, he said, look, you know, we have people coming forward.
And they're saying, please allow some kind of deal forward to happen and I think that he responded to that.
But if the Europeans, they would rather be in bed with China, then let them go sleep with China.
Okay, that I I I don't really have much else to say to them other than you know, if you guys were smart, you would have broken yourself up a long time ago because this is not going to work.
And guess you know who's going to be mad if they actually do all kinds of deals with China.
It's going to be like textile manufacturers in Portugal, like all the.
You know they've already been hurt by the EU if they actually have new trade deals, but they're going to have to deal with some internal pushback from some of those countries.
I kid you not.
You're not going to be able to replace the U.S.'s business, EU, with China's business, nor should you want to, nor should you want to, for goodness sakes.
Media Chaos vs Investor Logic00:04:01
All right.
The financial media is totally panicking, right?
They have been panicking.
They've been like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, the sky is falling.
Now, why is that?
Why does the media do that?
And look, you know, I'm going to be perfectly honest.
When I get nitty gritty into the details of things and I start talking about the bond markets, and I don't do that a lot necessarily in this show, but sometimes on my Twitter feed I do, it's because you are actually trying to send a message of sorts.
Things were starting to get a little bit broken.
The problem with the financial media and the mainstream media, which is obviously terrible, just turn into the view any given day of the week, all of the media wants him to lose, right?
They want him to, so they're like cheering this on.
The whole like, you know, I'm looking at, I'm like, this is getting really weird.
Like when Elizabeth Warren is defending Wall Street, when all the people that were about Occupy Wall Street are now suddenly defending Wall Street, like we're living in some kind of upside down world.
But the important thing as an investor is to just keep your sanity about you, right?
So you get worried, you say, okay.
well, this doesn't really look good.
The 10-year yield is creeping higher.
That could mean recession.
And I'm still not counting recession out.
I mean, look, we were heading potentially towards a recession anyway because these things are cyclical.
And you look at things like Las Vegas bookings that happened even in the month of March, and they were already showing this decline, this year-over-year decline.
So there are a lot of reasons to believe that people were already kind of scaling back.
Did this push it along?
Possibly.
But the hysteria sort of, you know, breeds more hysteria.
And so when these people are so hysterical and you look at the Wall Street Journal and you look at the New York Times and you look at the Financial Times and every publication out there and you go to CNBC where Jim Cramer is telling you you're going to have a 1987 moment.
I believe he said that in the market went up that day.
I was like, yeah, you know what?
I buy in that 1987 moment.
That's what I do.
Because even if it's starting to get broken and you can't catch a falling knife, It could go down lower.
I know Don is super bearish, but you know what?
I'm an investor that has to put money to work.
Where else am I going to put it?
I'm not going to put it in China, for goodness sakes.
I'm not going to put it in Europe, for goodness sakes.
So, where do you put it?
You try to take opportunities as they come, unless, of course, you work at the view.
Well, first of all, in order to kiss his ass, you have to get Mike Johnson out of the way.
That's number one.
Number two, what is his exact plan?
Is what I want to know.
I was home, I had a cold yesterday, so I was home watching everything.
And I'm thinking, he's trying to destroy the country.
Now, why is he doing that?
Just as a person in the audience, like watching this.
So there's a couple of theories.
Yes.
First of all, if he tanks the entire, what do you call it?
Economy.
Not the stock market.
Why not?
All his billionaire friends can swoop in and buy everything low.
That's not an original idea.
That's Hakeem Jeffries said that.
And the other thing, and in fact, today on Truth Social, he wrote, Trump wrote, a great time to buy.
Hmm.
The other theory is from James Carville, which I think is interesting, that he wants to stoke such instability and chaos to consolidate power for himself so that people start to really go nuts, which we're starting to.
No, we're not.
Well, people are starting to get mad.
Well, that's good.
You want them to get mad.
But how mad will people get?
And how broke will people get?
And how many jobs will be lost?
And then he can say, well, there's too much chaos, and now we're going to have martial law in this country, and he becomes a dictator.
I mean, I don't know.
That may be out.
Out of the bounds.
Nothing is possible.
But it's possible.
So, as it just says, somebody watching the news, that's what I see.