In a recent post on Truth Social, President Trump stated that an 80% tariff on Chinese goods "seems right", suggesting a potential reduction from the current 145% rate. He indicated that the final decision would be made by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during upcoming trade talks in Switzerland. Trump also urged China to open its markets to U.S. products, emphasizing that "closed markets don't work anymore."
[Full Article Here](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/09/trump-china-tariffs-trade-talks.html)
What do we actually think the result of this is going to be? Even if tariffs remain at 80%, that would still be insanely high and essentially kill a bunch of US manufacturing particularly most tech stuff.
I'm sure China's position was that tariffs need to be zero before any serious discussions were to begin. I honestly don't know why they're bothering to negotiate with this buffoon.
If it's the same as the UK deal (which essentially reversed the tariffs on the UK economy as it protected all key industries involved), then we'll basically see tariffs be essentially rolled back to what they were a few months ago with some extra steps thrown in.
[Edit] I just checked what the average tariff was before this year, and it was about 20%. So 80% would still mark a 4x increase.
