Check out this incredible interview with Time.
Complete Transcript
Please read the Full Transcript of Donald Trump’s ‘100 Days’ Interview With TIME, snips below.
Your trade adviser, Peter Navarro, says 90 deals in 90 days is possible. We’re now 13 days into the point from when you lifted the reciprocal, the discounted reciprocal tariffs. There’s zero deals so far. Why is that?
No, there’s many deals.
When are they going to be announced?
You have to understand, I’m dealing with all the companies, very friendly countries. We’re meeting with China. We’re doing fine with everybody. But ultimately, I’ve made all the deals.
Not one has been announced yet. When are you going to announce them?
I’ve made 200 deals.
You’ve made 200 deals?
100%.
Can you share with whom?
Because the deal is a deal that I choose. View it differently: We are a department store, and we set the price. I meet with the companies, and then I set a fair price, what I consider to be a fair price, and they can pay it, or they don’t have to pay it. They don’t have to do business with the United States, but I set a tariff on countries. Some have been horrible to us. Some have been okay. Nobody’s been great. Nobody’s been great. Everybody took advantage of us. What I’m doing is I will, at a certain point in the not too distant future, I will set a fair price of tariffs for different countries. These are countries—some of them have made hundreds of billions of dollars, and some of them have made just a lot of money. Very few of them have made nothing because the United States was being ripped off by every, almost every country in the world, in the entire world. So I will set a price, and when I set the price, and I will set it fairly according to the statistics, and according to everything else. For instance, do they have the VAT system in play? Do they charge us tariffs? How much are they charging us? How much have they been charging us? Many, many different factors, right. How are we being treated by that country? And then I will set a tariff. Are we paying for their military? You know, as an example, we have Korea. We pay billions of dollars for the military. Japan, billions for those and others. But that, I’m going to keep us a separate item, the paying of the military. Germany, we have 50,000 soldiers—
I’m just curious, why don’t you announce these deals that you’ve solidified?
I would say, over the next three to four weeks, and we’re finished, by the way.
You’re finished?
We’ll be finished.
Oh, you will be finished in three to four weeks.
I’ll be finished. Now, some countries may come back and ask for an adjustment, and I’ll consider that, but I’ll basically be, with great knowledge, setting—ready? We’re a department store, a giant department store, the biggest department store in history. [Emphasis Added]
Will you call President Xi if he doesn’t call you?
No.
You won’t?
Nope.
Has he called you yet?
Yep.
When did he call you?
He’s called. And I don’t think that’s a sign of weakness on his behalf.
This period of uncertainty will be over in three to four weeks?
I don’t think there’s any uncertainty there. The only thing—they have an option. They don’t have to shop here. They can go someplace else, but there aren’t too many places they can go. You understand what I mean though? [Emphasis Added]
Translation
What Trump is calling a “deal” is either a Trump “demand” or some tiny agreement on some small aspect to discuss in the broader context that won’t happen.
If US importers and consumers (not China!) refuse to pay the “department store” prices, then shelves will be empty.
China Calls Trump’s Bluff, Trump Backs Down, Now What?
On April 23, I commented China Calls Trump’s Bluff, Trump Backs Down, Now What?
The backdown lasted a day as evidenced by today’s lies.
The CEOs of Walmart, Target, Home Depot and Lowe’s, all of whom delivered a blunt message about interruptions in the supply chain and its effects on consumers, were invited to the White House as part of an ongoing internal campaign to make the case to Trump about the real-world impact of his policies, administration officials said.
Trump’s tariffs have placed significant pressure on the retail sector. The business leaders warned that store shelves across America could “soon be empty,” two people familiar with the meeting said, as they presented a dire economic picture that could come into sharper view within weeks.
Interview Hoot Continues
Mr. President, there was a period of time on April 9 when the bond market was under extreme stress and there was a risk of a financial crisis far beyond what the plummeting stock market suggested.
I wasn’t worried.
What did your advisers tell you, though? You were in the Oval Office with Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick. What did they tell you to convince you to lift the reciprocal tariffs for the 90-day pause?
They didn’t tell me. I did that.
What made you decide?
It wasn’t for that reason.
It wasn’t for the bond market?
No, it wasn’t for that reason. I’m doing that until we come up with the numbers that I want to come up with.
You said the bond market was getting the yips.
The bond market was getting the yips, but I wasn’t.
Discussion With China Fact Check
[The NYT comments] “China and the U.S. have not held consultations or negotiations on the issue of tariffs,” Guo Jiakun, the spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said in a news conference on Friday. “The United States should not confuse the public.”
Don’t like the NYT? OK Let’s tune to what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.
Please Consider Treasury Secretary Mollifies the Markets (for Now) with Wishful Thinking
Stocks reversed yesterday’s losses with some Wishful Thinking from Bessent [Bloomberg]
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a closed-door investor summit Tuesday that the tariff standoff with China is unsustainable and that he expects the situation to de-escalate.
Bessent added that negotiations haven’t started but that a deal is possible, according to people who attended his session at an event hosted by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Washington, which wasn’t open to the public or media.
The Treasury Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Let’s Check in on a Deal with Japan
Video on X. “Their (tariffs) theory is a mess and there is no consistency. I hope you never give in to the American extortionists… if you give a mugger money, they’ll come back to mug us again.”
Since nobody can believe a random source, let’s discuss the Bloomberg article Japan to Resist Trump Efforts to Form Trade Bloc Against China
Japan intends to push back against any US effort to bring it into an economic bloc aligned against China because of the importance of Tokyo’s trade ties with Beijing, according to current and former Japanese government officials.
Like many other countries, Japan is trying to get permanent relief from President Donald Trump’s tariffs by addressing US concerns in areas of bilateral trade, including automobiles and agriculture. The officials, who asked not to be identified, said that Japan is pushing to strike a deal before the current 90-day reprieve in tariffs expires, with one person saying the country hopes to finalize an agreement around the Group of Seven summit in June.
At the same time, the officials said Japan doesn’t want to get caught up in any US effort to maximize trade pressure on China by curbing its own economic interaction with Beijing, which is Tokyo’s biggest trading partner and an important source of goods and raw materials.
Although the US hasn’t made any specific requests to Japan regarding China, Tokyo would prioritize its own interests if that occurs, Japanese officials say. One of the officials added that Japan has conveyed to China on multiple occasions that it doesn’t fully align with the US on chip-related exports and semiconductor restrictions.
Rather than dialing back trade, Tokyo is in the process of trying to get China to resume imports of seafood and beef from Japan. That has been evident over the past few weeks, with a series of Japanese delegations making trips to China to manage Tokyo’s relationship with Beijing.
Unlike China it appears some low-level discussions with Japan are underway.
But as with China, it does not matter who is involved in the discussion.
But check out this poke in Trump’s eye.
In a sign of Japan Inc.’s commitment to the China market, Toyota Motor Corp. this week agreed to open a new factory in Shanghai in 2027, with the company reportedly planning to invest around $2 billion in the plant.
Japanese manufacturing was hit hard when China restricted the export of rare earths to Japan in 2010 amid a political dispute.
“It’s going to be really, really bad for Japan if it sees a drop in trade both with the US and China,” said Yu Uchiyama, a professor of political science at the University of Tokyo. “If policymakers say let’s abandon China, business people will of course oppose it.”
Mysterious US Trade Reps Meet With Mysterious China Trade Reps.
Who is Trump negotiating with?
I discuss the answer in Mysterious US Trade Reps Meet With Mysterious China Trade Reps. It’s a Mystery
The unknown meet the unknown discussing the unknown. Let’s discuss Schrödinger’s Cat vs Schrödinger’s Trump.
Talks? What Talks?
- Bessent: The United States and China are not engaged in trade talks because the tariffs both countries have imposed on each other have “to be de-escalated before trade talks.”
- Bessent: The US “does not have a timeline for talks to begin.“
- Bloomberg: “Trump has tried to get Xi on the phone a number of times since he returned to office, but the Chinese leader has, so far, resisted.”
- China: “Any reports on development in talks are groundless.” The US needs to “show sincerity” if it wants to make a deal.
- Trump: “They had a meeting this morning. It doesn’t matter who ‘they’ is. We may reveal ‘later’.”
In retrospect, I left off one important opinion.
The cult says “If Trump says a meeting happened,” then it did. And if Trump says it doesn’t matter who “they” is, then it doesn’t matter who “they” is.
Quantum physics explains the rationale. Click above for discussion.
Alternate Grocery Store Explanation
Trump’s amazing grocery example provides an amazing alternate explanation.
“Because the deal is a deal that I choose. View it differently: We are a department store, and we set the price. I meet with the companies, and then I set a fair price, what I consider to be a fair price, and they can pay it, or they don’t have to pay it.”
And because the deal is whatever Trump says it is, the market has no say (until of course the shelves are empty).