If they did the studies and were ready by April, again, they could have threatened this during negotiations without actually implementing it. By your logic, the work was done beforehand. If they were ready in April, they’re ready anytime after that as well.
No Trump put in place two separate 10% “fentanyl” tariffs without a response from China. They never retaliated against those, even during the reciprocal tariff war, which was why we were at 145% and they only went to 125%.
Is it more of a threat that the tariffs were enacted and can be unpaused OR that we will threaten to enact them? I think the former is the more powerful negotiation chip.
Fair enough, but I would say the opposite. Trump tried o play the tough guy, he made the tariffs sky high and said nothing would change unless China called him, and then the stock market went to crap and billionaires complained. 2 weeks into the experiment, Trump backed out.
So you can think China is more scared now than they were before. From where I’m standing, it looks like the US is more scared.
All that said, I hope for success with any future trade negotiations with China, if and when those happen. They’ve been taking advantage of our market way too long.