There has been a flurry of news coming out of the White House this week, between President Trump’s newest executive orders, his efforts to try and cut the federal budget, approaching tariff deadlines, and more.
On this week’s episode of Capitol Gains, anchor Seana Smith, Washington Correspondent Ben Werschkul, and Senior Columnist Rick Newman cut through the noise and make sense of the latest news coming out of the Trump Administration that impacts your bottom line.
The biggest story this week is Trump’s tariffs. While Trump’s initial plan was to sign executive actions on tariffs against Canada and Mexico on his first day in office, he delayed this to February 1. With this deadline swiftly approaching, there’s still lots of speculation swirling on the tariff front. Will Trump follow through with his plans to tax the aforementioned countries? What will the percentage be? While we wait for these plans to take shape, the Cap Gains team shared their insight.
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Newman believes Trump will avoid any major tariffs right off the bat. “Trump campaigned on a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports and he hasn’t talked about a 60% Chinese tariff since he’s been in office,” Newman says. “Now he’s talking about a 10% tariff, but that is not in place yet. So I think Trump is afraid to do major tariffs.”
Werschkul feels differently. “I wouldn’t underestimate Trump’s real interest in doing tariffs,” Werschkul says. “He talks about paying for his whole agenda with them, so he’s very invested in making them happen.”
Capital Economics Group Chief Economist Neil Shearing also joins the show to discuss the latest on Trump’s tariff front and how the world is perceiving the President’s threats on taxed imports.
Watch more episodes of Capitol Gains here.
Capitol Gains is Yahoo Finance’s unique look at how US government policy will impact your bottom line long after the Presidential election polls have closed.
This post was written by Lauren Pokedoff