President Trump announced a 25% tariff on car imports that is set to go into effect on April 3. Wendy Schiller, Brown University professor of political science, joins Morning Brief to discuss the latest round of tariffs and the economic uncertainty under the Trump administration.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.
But Wendy, that uncertainty has already been sort of priced in at this point as a feature and not a bug of this administration. So I wonder to what extent you think we are primed to avoid a recession given that that uncertainty seems to be sticking around.
Madison, this is the question mark. The uncertainty sort of has been resolved at least in the early months of Trump administration because he backtracks, because he says, "Oh well, it was going to be severe, but now I won't be as severe because I got a deal." But he seemed pretty serious about this and holding holding the line for a little while, and adding auto parts just makes this just a much bigger chain reaction across the US economy than just cars. So, there may be some backtracking on auto parts. We'll see, you know, whether there are layoffs coming. You know, United Auto Workers seemed happy with the announcement. Sean Fain making sort of a an announcement saying, "I'm happy with this," but, you know, given that the Trump administration is not sort of consistent, the question is, you know, does he stick with policies that do actually real damage over longer periods of time now? And in that case, the markets might build this in more than we've seen, uh, and that creates sort of a spin-off effect.
