On April 2nd (“Liberation Day”), Donald Trump announced tariffs against the entire world including the Heard and McDonald Islands, remote Australian territories typically occupied only by penguins.
Very soon thereafter, it became evident that his actions were tanking the economy so he suspended his tariffs for 90 days to allow countries a chance to make concessions to the United States to avoid the tariffs. Famously, he proclaimed that he would make 90 trade deals with 90 countries over the course of 90 days.
Veteran trade analysts were skeptical, to say the least, as trade deals are typically negotiated over the course of years as constituencies within the nations involved seek to shape the nascent trade deal on a highly detailed point by point basis.
Well, we’re done with the 90 days and Trump has two trade deals to boast of – with the United Kingdom and with Vietnam. Nothing else has been accomplished and it’s time today (7/9) for him to make good on his threat to re-establish the tariffs (sparing perhaps only the penguins).
Fortunately, he’s decided to delay the tariffs once again to August 1st and has sent a curiously punctuated letter to the affected countries encouraging them to make a deal before then – “If you wish to open your heretofore closed Trading Markets to the United States, and eliminate your Tariff, and Non Tariff, Policies and Trade Barriers, we will, perhaps, consider an adjustment to this letter.”
The markets fell only a little bit on this news perhaps anticipating that, once again, Trump will fail and, once again, he will decline to shoot the economy in the head. We can be glad for this (I, for one, was initially afraid he wouldn’t back down) but inflicting this sort of ongoing uncertainty to the entire American economy and getting nothing for it is certainly no way to run things.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/07/07/trump-trade-deals-tariffs
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/09/trump-tariffs-taco-deadline-delay