President Trump talks to reporters about his tariff decision during an event with race car drivers and owners at the White House on April 9.
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Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
President Trump abruptly announced on Wednesday that he would pause big hikes on tariffs for most countries for 90 days, except for China.
Most countries will be left with 10% tariffs on their exports to the United States, while China — which had retaliated against Trump’s moves — will now face tariffs of 125%.
The whipsawing of Trump’s tariff policies has weighed heavily on financial markets, and Trump told reporters that those moves — especially in the bond market — had factored into his decision.
“Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line, they were getting — yippy — you know, they’re getting a little bit … afraid,” Trump told reporters at an unrelated event at the White House with race car drivers and team owners.
His decision, announced on social media in the middle of the trading day, caused stock prices to soar.
Earlier, in a hastily arranged gaggle with reporters outside the White House, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted that the market chaos caused by Trump’s hefty tariffs was not the reason for the policy shift.
“This was driven by the president’s strategy. He and I had a long talk on Sunday, and this was his strategy all along,” Bessent told reporters.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to the press outside the West Wing of the White House on Wednesday about President Trump’s decision to pause tariffs on U.S. trading partners, but not for China.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
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Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
“It took great courage — great courage — for him [Trump] to stay the course until this moment,” Bessent said.
Trump defended his about-face on tariffs as a sign of his flexibility. “You have to have flexibility. I could say, ‘Here’s a wall and I’m going to go through that wall. I’m going to go through it no matter what,’ ” Trump said. “Sometimes you have to be able to go under the wall, around the wall or over the wall.”
Bessent said Trump’s steep “reciprocal tariffs” had brought more than 75 countries to seek deals with the United States, and said that the White House would pursue “bespoke” arrangements with each of them in coming weeks.
“It is going to take some time, and President Trump wants to be personally involved. So that’s why we’re getting the 90-day pause,” he said.
Bessent said that a range of issues would be on the table during talks with other countries, including liquefied natural gas (LNG) deals, non-tariff trade barriers, currency policies and subsidies. He said he has a meeting with Vietnamese officials today.
Bessent said China was the “biggest source” of trade issues for the United States and the rest of the world.
“I’m not calling it a trade war, but I’m saying that China has escalated, and President Trump responded very courageously to that, and we are going to work on a solution with our trading partners,” he said.
