Tariffs provide necessary leverage to force other countries to negotiate better trade terms for the United States.

“You don't get anywhere by just asking nicely. And I think that what President Trump did over the last eight days is a establish the leverage and b get all these countries to now want to negotiate a new trade deal with the United States.”

Tariffs act as a damaging inflation shock that reduces demand, increases unemployment, and negatively impacts the global economy.

“This is an inflation shock cuz you're adding to prices. CEO of Amazon got it right. The Secretary of the Treasury got it wrong. Increases in tariffs of this magnitude, the overwhelming part of them will be passed on to consumers. So, you've got an inflation shock.”

Tariffs are a potentially inflationary policy that could be detrimental to the growth of AI infrastructure in the United States.

“It's going to be hard to win in AI if we put um tariffs on semiconductors. But for a lot of what I do for now, tariffs are not super relevant. But, you know, for for the market, for the economy, they are relevant.”

President Trump's utilization of tariffs is driven solely by a desire for transactional leverage over other nations rather than a coherent economic strategy.

“The through line it in my reporting about Trump is simply leverage. It's how can he get leverage over somebody else? It's not about and the relationship is always going to be transactional.”

Tariffs remain a dominant theme causing uncertainty and cost inflation for manufacturers.

“Tariffs continue to underpin the steep level of cost inflation. Headline index from the report. Seasonally adjusted purchaser index recorded 52.5 in October signal a third successive month that the PMI has posted above the critical 50 no change mark. Fine. supported by gains in output and new orders”