President Donald Trump said there was a “good chance” of a deal with Mexico over migration as he flew back from Europe on Friday, just days ahead of tariffs taking effect on Mexican products.
MEXICO TALKS
As U.S. and Mexican officials talked in Washington, Trump tweeted from Air Force One that Mexico would buy U.S. farm products “at very high levels.” That appeared to be a new development in talks that have to date centered on Trump's demands that Mexico curb the flow of Central American migrants to the U.S. border.
Trump has said 5% tariffs on all Mexican goods would begin Monday in the absence of a deal, and rise over time to 25%.
Also Friday, White House economist Kevin Hassett and Mark Short, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, both made positive comments on the U.S.-Mexico talks, taking place at the State Department.
Short told reporters the tariffs could be halted if discussions went well.
U.S. stocks
DJIA, +1.02% jumped Friday as a disappointing jobs report fueled hopes of an interest-rate cut by the Federal Reserve.
If we are able to make the deal with Mexico, & there is a good chance that we will, they will begin purchasing Farm & Agricultural products at very high levels, starting immediately. If we are unable to make the deal, Mexico will begin paying Tariffs at the 5% level on Monday!
— Donald J. Trump (
@realDonaldTrump)
June 7, 2019
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Sound familiar, sounds a lot like Déjà vu to me
The Donald's Go To Plan for Trade Reform and Border Protection
Or just another "Weapon of Mass Destruction" ? $$$$$$$$$$$$
Or Mass Income from these Taxes, maybe it all depends on what side of the "Wall" you're on, 'Great or Not so Grea't atm ? as
No, Trump’s tariffs aren’t really going to wreck the economy
Reports of Mexico and China trade wars causing Americans financial pain are greatly exaggerated
The panic over the last few days about
possible Mexican tariffs is even more ridiculous than the panic we had last month about the China tariffs — and that was bad enough.
Trump’s new tariff threat will send prices soaring for U.S. households, according to the doomsayers. They’ll
cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. They’ll crash the stock market. They’ll crash the economy.
Really? No doubt this is why the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA, +1.02% plunged 350 points in a panic last Friday. And the Dow’s performance since then, through Wednesday? Up around 600 points.
The Standard & Poor’s 500
SPX, +1.05% is now higher than it was last Thursday, just before Trump shook his little fist at the Mexicans. And it’s not just popular stocks such as Apple
AAPL, +0.04% , Netflix
NFLX, +1.05% and
TSLA, -0.17% . U.S. industrial stocks — as represented by the S&P 1500 Industrials index — are up 3%.
The stocks of automobile-components companies are up almost 5%. Small-company stocks, often a useful barometer for the Main Street economy, are up about 1.5%, whether measured by the broad Russell 2000
RUT, +0.72% or the narrower, higher-quality S&P 600 index
SML, +0.71% .
Sure, a few days’ worth of stock-market action doesn’t mean much for the long term. And the stock market isn’t America. But, then again, apparently it was an Infallible Omen of Doom when the stock market fell last Friday. You see how that works?
Whether or not these tariffs
are a sensible policy is another matter. But anyone claiming they will cost households a small fortune and wipe out vast numbers of jobs is relying on some heroic assumptions — or, as noneconomists call them, guesses.
U.S. imports from Mexico came to $372 billion last year, according to the federal government. So slapping a 5% tariff on them amounts to a federal tax hike of … er … $19 billion. Total federal taxes last year: $3.3 trillion. So we’re talking about a 0.6% tax hike.
But the Mexican peso
USDMXN, -0.3301% has already reacted. It has weakened by 2.7% against the U.S. dollar
DXY, -0.50% in a few days — wiping out more than half of that cost increase.
Meanwhile, anyone hoping to buy a home, or refinance a home loan, also just got a nice cost saving. The trade tensions have sent long-term interest rates tumbling. Average 30-year mortgage rates have declined to 3.89% from 4.01% in just a few days, according to
Mortgage News Daily. The interest savings from that move alone on an average new-home loan comes to about $300 a year. According to Bankrate, 30-year mortgage rates are now about their lowest since the summer of 2017.
Oh, and then there’s the matter of that $19 billion in tariff revenues. To hear some people, you’d think it just vanishes. Maybe it gets trucked to a Great Secret Money Bonfire — possibly in Area 51 — where it gets torched. (Along with the money raised from the China tariffs, money spent by companies on stock buybacks, and so on.)
www.marketwatch.com
