Trump’s 2025 Tariffs: A Global Trade War Begins!

Trump tried to warn us he told us time and time again about his tariff plans and now he’s come out of the gates swinging it’s exactly what he promised and yet the markets are in shock and here we all are nursing a sore p&l huge new taxes on America’s imports from China Canada Mexico and Europe threaten to upend the US economy and start a global trade War so today we find out how Trump’s tariffs are changing the world why and what his end game might look like plus what it all means for crypto my name is Guy stay tuned on the campaign Trail last year Donald Trump told the world that tariffs would play a major role in his second Administration according to Trump the US had been taken advantage of by its trading partners and tariffs were going to bring them to justice tariffs would mean foreign exporters paying the US a tax for the priv pre of accessing its Market this tax would be huge and this would make the US quote rich as hell foreign countries would pay the us so much money that the government could even scrap federal income tax which currently accounts for the majority of its Revenue moreover tariffs would make American Goods cheaper than their foreign competitors prompting Americans to buy more americanmade products this would mean more growth more jobs higher profits higher Shar sh prices and just a whole lot of winning for the American economy at the same time tariffs would also encourage foreign exporters to relocate their production to the US to avoid paying tariffs they would invest in new US infrastructure creating new jobs for American workers but that’s not all tariffs would also be the secret weapon of US foreign policy naturally America’s trading partners would rather not be subject to huge import taxes the threat alone would have them lining up outside of the White House to offer president Trump whatever he wants in exchange for tariff relief so then what’s not to like well as always the naysayers had an absolute Field Day nitpicking this one economists journalists tax experts American businesses foreign governments and haters of all Stripes pointed out that tariffs are taxes paid to the government by American importers and consumers of foreign Goods not the foreign exporters they pointed to America’s previous brush with Trump tariffs back in 2018 to 2019 back then us companies dependent on Chinese Imports had to pay more for raw materials machinery and consumer products this disrupted Supply chains and increased production costs leading to job cuts and reduced business investment in other words Trump’s tariffs damaged the economy meanwhile retaliatory tariffs from America’s trading partners hit us agriculture hard leading the Trump Administration to hand out 61 billion dollar worth of subsidies to Farmers between 2018 and 2020 revenue generated by Trump’s tariffs was largely redirected to fund the bailouts for us Agriculture and this poured cold water on the theory that tariffs would be a net positive for federal revenue if there was a silver lining it was that inflation didn’t rise as much as anticipated the US dollar was strong helping to offset some of the price increases on Foreign imports meanwhile the Federal Reserve responded to tariff related uncertainty by cutting interest rates which also helped stabilize inflation however it’s not clear that Trump’s new tariffs could avoid spiking inflation again not least because they are far more extensive this time around then again the scale of Trump’s new tariffs LED some to believe that they weren’t serious proposals after all Americans Lifestyles depend on Goods imported from all over the world and to tax them at say 25% would severely disrupt the US economy any benefits to specific us Industries protected by tariffs would be dwarfed by the broader economic slowdown they would cause surely Trump’s tough talk was just intended to scare America’s trading partners into new trade negotiations right right well after much will he or won’t he president Trump Came Out Swinging like his life depended on it just days after returning to the Oval Office on the 1st of February he signed an executive order introducing new taxes on imports from China Canada and Mexico that would come into effect on the 4th of February all imports from China would be subject to a 10% tariff which Trump described as his quote opening Salvo a funny choice of words that almost sounds intended to provoke a trade War surely not as it happened China got off lightly though the president saved his worse for us allies Canada and Mexico hitting imports from both countries with a huge tax of 25% an exception was made for energy imported from Canada which would be subject to a lower tax of 10% the White House also released a fact sheet laying out the reasoning behind the new tariffs interestingly key words normally associated with tariffs like industry and jobs were not mentioned at all in this document instead the tariffs are Trump’s response to quote the extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs including deadly fenel entering the United States now naturally Canada Mexico and China were not happy about this China vowed to take corresponding counter measures including 10 to 15% tariffs on specific American Goods export controls on critical minerals blacklisting of individual us companies and an antitrust probe into Google meanwhile Canada and Mexico also protested albeit while seeking to negotiate their way out of the tariffs Mexico’s president Claudia Shin bam said quote if the US wanted to address the fenol crisis they could combat the sale of Narcotics on the streets of their major cities which they do not do Shin bam urged president Trump to take seriously the crisis of gun trafficking from the US into Mexico that sustains the flow of Narcotics in the other direction up to 750,000 us-made Firearms illegally enter Mexico from the United States each year with some American Gun makers appearing to Market two Mexican drug cartels without facing any consequences Canada meanwhile was exasperated to be given the same treatment as Mexico the day after his inauguration President Trump asserted quote the fentol coming through Canada is massive the fentol coming through Mexico is massive however this is at odds with US Government data Federal statistics show US border authorities seized 21,889 of fenyl in the 2024 fiscal year of that amount £43 or about 0.2% were seized at the Canadian border compared with 21,1 £ 148 at the Mexican border about 96.6% meanwhile the US drug enforcement administration’s 2024 National Drug threat assessment report mentioned Mexico 86 times compared to zero mentions of Canada migration is a similar story at the same event after his inauguration President Trump said quote they’ve allowed both of them Canada very much so they’ve allowed millions and millions of people to come into our country country that shouldn’t be here they could have stopped them and they didn’t however Canada accounts for a very small percentage of US border patrol encounters with migrants at places other than legal ports of entry in the 2024 fiscal year US border patrol recorded 1.6 million such Encounters of which just 23721 or about 1.5% were at the northern border the Canadian government was especially peeved because the previous month it had announced a $1.3 billion investment in border security this included the procurement of Blackhawk helicopters drones and mobile surveillance towers as well as the addition of personnel and new canine teams to patrol the US border but despite their protests Canada and Mexico are in no position to fight a trade war against the us or at least not to the extent that China is faced with a blanket 25% tariff both Canada and Mexico folded very quickly agreeing to further strengthen their border security measures Canada introduced a raft of new measures including the appointment of a new fental are and designating organized crime cartels operating in Canada as terrorist organizations meanwhile Mexico agreed to deploy 10,000 National Guard troops to patrol the US border these measures appeared to have succeeded on the third of February when President Claudia Shin bam of Mexico and Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau announced via Twitter that Trump had agreed to suspend the tariffs for 30 days this was certainly a good start but it’s not the same thing as being let off the hook so officials from Canada and other nervous foreign governments descended on Washington DC with their own charm offensives aiming for a more permanent kind of Mercy Canada’s Public Safety Minister new fentin noar and top officials from the border agency and Royal Canadian Mounted Police came armed with sta Statics to convince anyone who would listen that Canada is not a major source of fenel or undocumented migrants entering the US Canadian Public Safety Minister David mcguinty told reporters on the streets of Washington quote the evidence is irrefutable the progress is being made in my view any test that was put on Canada in terms of showing progress and meeting standards for the Border I believe those have been met however the message fell on deaf ears in Washington where president Trump reiterated his desire to Annex Canada as the 51st state and mocked prime minister Trudeau as Governor Trudeau on the 27th of February Trump told reporters at the White House that quote they’re only apprehending 1% but they should be apprehending much more because a lot comes through Canada asked whether or not he saw any progress from Canada’s efforts Trump said quote I don’t see it at all no not on drugs so as of early March the mood among America’s Trading Partners has soured and it’s no longer clear what the purpose or the end goal of Trump’s tariffs are after winning concessions on the very issue that the tariffs were nominally supposed to address Trump has now decided to go ahead with them anyway we have now seen us allies earnestly trying to appease the president only to be humiliated others are throwing each other under the bus in their rush to suck up to the new Administration for example during a joint press conference with President Trump at the White House UK prime minister Kia starma refused to object to Trump’s plan to Annex his Commonwealth Ally Canada starma instead took the opportunity to start gushing about how special the ukus relationship is only to be cut off mids sentence by President Trump saying quote that’s enough asked by reporters whether starma had impressed him enough for the UK to escape the Tariff threat Trump said quote he tried meanwhile markets have been rattled by the unpredictability of Trump’s tariffs with the exception of Industries specifically protected by tariffs few businesses seem optimistic about a new global trade War if there were some kind of road map end goal or targets to be accomplished by the tariffs then Business Leaders would at least be able to plan for how to navigate the new trade environment however it increasingly looks like the president is making it up as he goes along this was the impression given at the first meeting of Trump’s cabinet on the 26th of February when he announced that the tariffs on Mexico and Canada were to be delayed until the 2nd of April this appeared to take the whole room by surprise Trump explained quote I have to tell you that you know on April 2nd I was going to do it on April 1st but I’m a little bit suspicious I made it April 2nd the tariffs go on not all of them but a lot of them prior to that meeting there had been no mention of an April Fool’s Day based postponement this gave New Hope to Mexico and Canada as Trump appeared to be giving them another month to persuade him to call off the tariffs entirely however these hopes were dashed the following day when Trump posted on social media quote drugs are still pouring into our country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels until it stops or is seriously limited the proposed tariffs scheduled to go into effect on March 4th will indeed go into effect as scheduled the same day Trump again took officials ining Washington and Beijing by surprise when he announced another 10% tariff on imports from China also apparently for fentol related reasons this brings the average tariff on us imports from China to 33% according to Bloomberg us officials have also asked Mexico to raise its own tariffs on Chinese Imports so this begs the question of whether the US is strategically threatening allies with tariffs only to coers them into introducing tariffs of their own on Chinese Imports this certainly seems to be the case because treasury secretary Scott bessent had suggested as much in a recent interview meanwhile at the time of making this video China has vowed retaliation for Trump’s second 10% tariff on Chinese Imports but has yet to announce specific measures China’s foreign Ministry accused Trump of using fentanyl as an excuse to start a trade war and reminded Washington that there are no winners in trade Wars the Chinese Ministry of Commerce added quote China will counter with all necessary measures to defend its legitimate rights and interests now this is notably stronger language than was used in China’s response to Trump’s previous 10% tariff suggesting a significant escalation is on the way separately at the 26th of February cabinet meeting Trump revealed that he would soon announce a fresh 25% tariff quote on cars and all other things from the European Union why well it’s more difficult to implicate the European Union in America’s fenor crisis so instead Trump’s justification is simply that the EU was quote formed to screw the United States the EU naturally disagreed with Trump’s characterization but made clear that it will indeed try to screw America with retaliatory tariffs if Trump imposes this 25% tariff the eu’s agriculture commissioner Kristoff Hansen told Politico quote we have an anti-coercion instr and we will have to use it now this instrument is the eu’s OWN trade bazooka designed after the first Trump Administration it provides for broad retaliation in response to trade discrimination including the use of quotas tariffs and restrictions on foreign investment uncertainty has now consumed the markets the global economy and geopolitics nobody can be sure what Trump’s next move will be but at a minimum it looks like a blanket tax of some size on imports from Canada Mexico and the EU will go ahead sooner or later in addition to a 20% increase in taxes on goods from China now larger businesses in the US are preparing for the worst by frontloading their Imports or in other words stockpiling foreign Goods that will soon become more expensive due to tariffs this will buy them some time but eventually they’ll have to confront a significant jump in their import costs and front loading is a luxury only available to companies with Deep Pockets small and medium-sized businesses are less likely to have the capital on hand to stockpile Imports before the tariffs come into effect as such smaller businesses will be hit first by the new import taxes and if they have to compete with front loaders who are still able to sell at prear prices they’re going to get wrecked very quickly this is not to mention the retaliatory measures that the US is now inviting from its trading partners in addition to the response from China and the EU taking aim with its trade bazooka Canada’s patience has also worn thin Trudeau has flatly told the US that Canada is not the source of its problems he has vowed quote an immediate and extremely strong response if Trump’s tariffs are enforced now Canada may be smaller in stature than the EU or China but its economy is highly integrated with that of the US and if necessary it could pull levers that would harm its neighbor though granted this would backfire given how weak Canada’s own economy is already if anyone is guaranteed to lose though its lower and middle inome consumers in the US inflation since the pandemic has already severely eroded their purchasing power if the prices of goods imported from the EU Canada Mexico and China increase by 20% or more a sudden new price shock will bite already struggling us consumers hard now president Trump says that the notion that American importers will pass the cost of tariff onto consumers is a myth and well we can only hope he’s right if it turns out that everyone else is right and he is wrong then well we might not see any major influx of us retail investor money into the crypto market for the foreseeable future after all who in America is going to have money left over to buy shitcoins when a carton of eggs can cost $10 and that’s not even tariff related new import taxes piling onto the cost of living aren’t exactly what the doctor ordered then again if we can rule out a flood of American retail investors coming to pump our bags then this question of who will buy crypto becomes rather more simple inflows into crypto are increasingly going to be led by institutional Capital while retail inflows are likely to stay muted as such it might be wise to pay greater attention to what institutions are buying and I’ll give you a hint it’s probably nothing outside of the top 50 cryptos on coin market cap and sure those cryptos might not give you 100x returns but well they probably won’t rug you either anyway Trump’s tariffs have we got them all wrong are they going to make America rich and Fentanyl free or are they a disaster threatening to drag us all into a losing trade war that squeezes ordinary Americans so hard they can’t even afford meme coins anymore let us know your thoughts in the comments and if you got something out of this video be sure to retaliate against that like button to keep up with all the latest crypto and macro analysis make sure you’re subscribed and have your bell notifications turned on as always thank you for watching and I’ll see you next time this is guy over and out