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China says it will raise tariffs on U.S. imports from 34% to 84% this week in response to President Donald Trump's reciprocal tariff announcement.
Chinese officials have vowed to fight "to the end" amid a trade war with the U.S. The new tariff level is set to take effect on April 10, according to a Wednesday statement from China.
"If the U.S. insists on further escalating its economic and trade restrictions, China has the firm will and abundant means to take necessary countermeasures and fight to the end," the Ministry of Commerce wrote in a statement on Tuesday.
Trump raised tariffs on China to 104% at midnight on Wednesday after China responded to the initial tariff announcement with a hike of its own.
1: Why does The Fed need to refinance $9 Trillion in bonds this year, as opposed to prior years in which it did not?
2: What is the mechanism by which The Fed will be able to "refinance" treasury securities, specifically?
1) My wording prolly threw you off. When the t-bills come due, they need to be paid.
2) They issue more debt, and/or print more money.
Trump has been trying to get the bond prices down with his market tactics, and they've been going in the opposite direction, in part because China isn't buying them now as partial retribution for the tariff war we're having. So one thing Trump is doing is to put a "pause" on all tariffs with countries that said they'd come to the table. The stock market has responded positively, which also means that the bond market usually does the opposite. Yeah, no one has a complete lock on what Bessent and Lutnick and DJT are going to do next, which is one of the tools they have in their toolbox.
Recent FB post from an in-real-life business acquaintance of mine, who has been going super-hard on the Trump-induced hysteria lately:
Apparently, asking them to "tell me the name of a US citizen who has been pulled off the street and sent to a foreign prison camp?" is not a productive way of engaging in conversation.
I didn't even mention the "... and you're probably White" thing.
It's honestly not been easy to answer some of Joe's questions about the market. First, because I'm not an expert. Second, I think it's because of what Bill Ackman is discussing.
"tell me citizen who has been pulled off the street and sent to a foreign prison camp?"
This was the first thing that I thought. They have not deported anybody who had record of citizenship. They are not reckless and stupid. Every one of them knows they could get in big trouble if they did that.
Hyperbolic silliness is silly. But then again, everything on the internet is true. They probably heard some manufactured truth somewhere.
I actually got in an spat with someone the other day who honestly thought green card holders were American citizens, who can enjoy every single right citizens have -- including the fear of being deported if they do crimes. I was like close, but no cigar.
"We the people of the United States of America" was the terminology. They could have said, "We the People of North, Central, and South America," if that was their intention.
DOGE just uncovered three findings so outrageous, even Elon Musk said he "had to read it several times" to believe it.
First, they found that 24,500 people listed as over 115 years old somehow claimed $59 million in unemployment benefits.
Next, 28,000 toddlers between the ages of 1 and 5 were paid out a staggering $254 million in unemployment benefits.
And the wildest part? 9,700 people with birthdates more than 15 years in the future managed to claim $69 million.
"In one case, someone with a birthday in 2154 claimed $41k," the DOGE account reported.
Musk reacted on X, saying, "Your tax dollars were going to pay fraudulent unemployment claims for fake people born in the future! This is so crazy that I had to read it several times before it sank in."
"The oldest living American is 114 years old, so it is safe to say that anyone 115 or older is collecting 'unemployment' due to being dead." He added that there were no sanity checks at all--nothing to catch claims from people who were impossibly young or impossibly old from cashing in on unemployment benefits that should have never been approved in the first place.
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