May 12, 2025 - Politics & Policy
Trump's reset
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When President Trump announced his sweeping new tariffs last month — "Liberation Day," as he called it — he appeared ready to blow up the global trade system and effectively divorce the U.S. economy from many major partners.
- His deal with China, announced early this morning, makes clear that's not happening, Axios Macro co-authors Courtenay Brown and Neil Irwin write.
📈 The latest: Stocks soared today on the news of a temporary tariff stand-down, with the S&P 500 up nearly 3.3%.
- "We do want trade," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said yesterday — exactly the message markets had hoped to hear.`
🚦Yes, but: There's still a 30% tariff on Chinese products — and huge tariffs on especially cheap goods.
- It seems manageable, though, to executives who spent the past month trying to adapt to triple-digit taxes that had effectively stopped trade between the two nations, raising fears of shortages, layoffs and higher prices.
