Out MSNBC host Rachel Maddow ripped into Donald Trump’s erratic behavior yesterday regarding tariffs. The tariffs, which were meant to go into effect yesterday, caused economic chaos and were then partly delayed for 90 days.
And Maddow explained why she thinks Trump reversed course on tariffs: He was about to “blow up” the U.S. economy in a way that no president has ever done before. “Say goodbye to the U.S. economy,” she said.
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She also made clear that all of this is happening in both red and blue states and said the number of people showing up is “through the roof.”
Trump has been enamored with tariffs, which are taxes on imported goods, for years. A global baseline of 10% tariffs on almost all imported goods went into effect earlier this month, and yesterday, Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs were supposed to go into effect.
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Reciprocal tariffs are usually a response to tariffs other countries impose on U.S. goods, a way of discouraging other countries from imposing tariffs, but here they were simply an arbitrary list of tariff rates for different countries that had nothing to do with the actual tariffs those countries impose on U.S. goods. Trump just called them “reciprocal” to imply that other countries had started this particular trade war, which was not true.
The stock market plunged yesterday, Maddow noted, explaining that it’s not even that surprising that the stock market crashed since most of its biggest crashes in history have occurred during his presidencies.
“He doesn’t much care about tanking the stock market all the time,” she said. “It’s like a day that ends in ‘y’ for him; he’s famous for doing it.”
But today was different because it wasn’t just the stock market that took a nosedive. The bond market showed signs that investors no longer trust the U.S. to be a stable economy anymore.
She showed a graph that showed rising yields on 10-year Treasury bonds, a sign that investors were unloading them and having trouble finding buyers. U.S. Treasury bonds’ yields usually drop during bad economic times; people want to buy them because they are looking for a safe place to put their money. U.S. Treasury bonds, for as long as the U.S. has been an economic superpower, have been considered one of the safest financial assets in the world because they are backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. federal government, Maddow explained.
“But we’re in a new environment now,” she noted. “It turns out something different happens when the reason things are crazy is that the U.S. government itself is crazy.”
“Instead of fleeing to the U.S. government for safety, now people flee away from the U.S. government to find safety.”
“That indicates an inversion of America’s role in the world as the dominant economy,” she added. “The stability of the U.S. bond market is what we depend on essentially for the spine of our economy. Everything from mortgage rates in the housing market to the integrity of our multi-trillion dollar national debt.”
“So yes, the stock market stuff under Trump has been scary. But if the bond market blows up? Say goodbye to the U.S. economy.”
She cited an NBC News story that said that “deep concern, bordering on panic” among economic officials – including out Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – about the rising yields on U.S. Treasury bonds caused Trump to reverse course. And, sure enough, late yesterday afternoon Trump announced a 90-day delay on his so-called reciprocal tariffs, except for those on China.
Bessent denied yesterday that Trump reversed course on tariffs because of the bond market.
“This was driven by the president’s strategy,” he claimed. “He and I had a long talk on Sunday, and this was his strategy all along.”
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