This week on the Capitol Gains podcast, we delve into what’s known as “exemption season” for tariffs.
President Trump recently made some changes to tariffs. On Wednesday, he reduced tariffs on auto imports for the Big Three automakers by giving them a one-month break. Then, just a day later, he paused the 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada that had just gone into effect, making an exception for items that follow the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Yahoo Finance’s Washington Correspondent, Ben Werschkul, shared insights about these rapid changes. He noted that the immediate economic impact of the tariffs was clear, prompting CEOs and business leaders to reach out to the White House for help. Their efforts seemed to pay off as Trump reconsidered some of his tariff policies. The big question now is what happens next month when these significant tariffs are scheduled to start.
Rick Newman, a senior columnist at Yahoo Finance, pointed out that this strategy of imposing and then exempting tariffs gives the president a unique way to influence the economy. It allows Trump to make decisions on a case-by-case basis for different companies or industries.
To put things in perspective, Trump has already imposed more tariffs in just six weeks than in all of 2018 and 2019 combined. During his first term, there were about 125,000 requests for tariff exemptions, and the Trump administration approved around 41,000 of those requests, which is roughly one-third.
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Source linkPresident Trump, free-trade agreements, trade partners, tariffs
