Trump is entertaining; maybe I wouldn’t find it so funny if I weren’t in my twilight years. Hope my children, our children, can be as tough as we were to survive when the going was tough for us non-white people.
Why did TACO Man change his mind? Could it have been that the Dow Futures were going to go down at least 250 points today when the market opened? Trump does pay attention to the stock market, as that is how he gauges his success.
With his previously announced 90-day pause on tariffs set to end on 9 July, the president was asked if the new rates would come into effect this week or on 1 August, as some officials had suggested.
“No, there are going to be tariffs, the tariffs, the tariffs are going to be, the tariffs,” the president began uncertainly. “I think we’ll have most countries done by July 9, yeah. Either a letter or a deal.”
Related: EU leaders race to secure a deal as deadline looms in Trump trade talks
Sensing the confusion, his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, jumped in to add: “But they go into effect on August 1. Tariffs go into effect August 1, but the president is setting the rates and the deals right now.”
In April, Trump announced a 10% base tariff rate on most countries and additional duties ranging up to 50%, although he later delayed the effective date for all but 10% duties until 9 July.