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David McAfee
April 19, 2025
A veteran Donald Trump reporter says the president is willing to risk financial crisis in order to enact his biggest agenda items.
FOX Biz senior correspondent Charles Gasparino, who reports on Trump often and earned the ire of MAGA when he recently reported that conservatives were wrong to suggest Trump outsmarted the world with tariffs, took to social media to issue a breaking alert.
"BREAKING: The unanswered question about the Trump trade-tariff plan is why--why did he do it first? Why didn't he wait until the economy is running at 3 per GDP; or DOGE began chipping away at the deficit? Why did he do something so unsettling so fast, risking a financial crisis, if he doesnt thread the needle just right?" he asked. "The MSM spin, the rationale from the Wall Street elite is that Trump doesn't know what he's doing, and is being both pressured and suckered by ideologues in the White House who think they can recreate a manufacturing economy circa 1960. I'm telling you that common theme is false."
He continued, noting that he has "covered Trump for decades."
"He's tough and smart. He has an acute understanding of the state of the economy. What is true: Trump is an ardent believer that the trade system is imbalanced, and he's got pretty good numbers to prove it. And it begins with China, which was given a free pass to dump goods on the world at low prices, manipulate its currency in the process, join trade organizations to enforce its mercantilism at the expense of the Industrial Midwest, which became deindustrialized, and now is in a deep state of decay, mired in near poverty and an opioid epidemic," Gasparino added. "The reality," he said, is that "most of the jobs that replaced factories, quite simply, sucked. They depressed standards of living in these towns."
The correspondent then spilled what his sources have been saying.
"Working at an Amazon warehouse isn't like working for a steel mill or a car assembly line with benefits etc. Trump knows this and that's why, based on what I'm hearing, he will likely press on even if it risks a financial crisis of some magnitude, which is a very real possibility," he reported. "Already PE panic selling is taking place. Bonds are wobbly, stocks are going sidesways and down. A recession is pretty much being baked in as business recoil from the uncertainty. Adding to that uncertainty: [Many] top investors believe Treasury Secty Bessent wants to induce a recession to get interest rates down."
In his conclusion, the reporter further chimed in, "Yes I keep thinking this could get ugly or maybe I've just seen too many financial crisis in my career."
Agence France-Presse
April 20, 2025
Boeing has suffered for several years from production quality problems and labor issues. (AFP)
Commercial plane prices, already lifted in recent years due to pandemic supply chain shocks, are poised to climb further as Boeing and Airbus are buffeted by trade tariffs.
"Compared with 2018, prices for commercial jets have risen by around 30 percent," an aviation expert told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The American and European aerospace giants have grappled with higher expenses for primary materials such as titanium, components and energy, as well as overall labor cost pressures.
To resolve a labor strike, Boeing late last year agreed to a new contract with its Seattle-based machinist union that lifted wages by 38 percent over four years.
Just months earlier, Spirit AeroSystems, a major supplier to both Boeing and Airbus, reached an agreement with similar wage increases.
Richard Aboulafia, managing director at consultancy AeroDynamic Advisory, said items that have inflated "at a particularly high rate" include castings, forgings and "anything titanium... especially since all that Russian capacity has been cut off from the US and, to a lesser extent, from Europe."
Aboulafia estimates prices for materials and equipment have risen 40 percent since 2021. That's before Trump's 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum, which are used in planes.
"It's kind of ironic, raw materials were not a problem, but Donald Trump is determined to make them a problem," Aboulafia said.
Inflation in aviation has been accelerating, and "that's only going to get worse with these tariffs that are being imposed," agreed John Persinos, editor-in-chief at Aircraft Value News. "These tariffs are disastrous."
What's more, the newer generation of planes, such as the Boeing 737 MAX and 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A321neo, can command premium prices thanks to their lower fuel consumption.
- Listed prices a 'fiction' -
The impact of tariffs is not reflected in the companies' stale official pricing literature.
Boeing has not updated its figures since 2023, while Airbus' catalogue is untouched since 2018.
"Catalogue prices were a complete work of fiction," Aboulafia said. "You got 50 percent off for showing up dressed nicely."
Airbus decided to abandon the use of catalogue prices "a long time ago" because they "were not closely correlated to the final price, which was based on each specific contract in terms of plane configuration and detail," the company said.
The aerospace companies will often negotiate additional services such as plane support or training at a discounted level when aircraft are delivered, said the expert who requested anonymity.
Such deals make the official listed price less meaningful, they added.
Contracts for new planes typically include adjustment clauses for inflation, while pricing can also be tweaked if deliveries are delayed.
Since the contracts are usually denominated in dollars, there can also be allowances for swings in exchange rates.
Boeing told AFP that it evaluates price based on production costs and other market factors, but does not discuss the details publicly since they pertain to competition.
Both Boeing and Airbus currently have a substantial backlog of plane orders that will keep them occupied through the end of the decade. But that strong demand has not in itself boosted pricing much.
"It's a very competitive situation," said the expert. "The two companies fight for every transaction and that impacts pricing."
Most airlines opt to do business with both Airbus and Boeing.
"Before Covid, Boeing and Airbus competed for a market where prices were really lower, maybe even too low," said Manfred Hader of consultancy Roland Berger.
But airlines have been able to afford more expensive planes in the post-lockdown period, where there has been strong travel demand, boosting ticket prices and airline profitability, Hader said.
In February, Japanese carrier ANA ordered 77 planes from Boeing, Airbus and Brazilian firm Embraer, providing updated catalogue prices that show an increase from earlier levels.
The order priced Boeing's 787 Dreamliner at around $386 million and the 737 MAX at $159 million, compared with $292 million and $121.6 million in 2023, according to AFP calculations.
It priced the Airbus A321neo at around $148 million compared with the $129.5 million in the 2018 catalogue
Tariffs Kerfuffle: Man is More Than What He
Eats
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
“Man is what he eats,” (“Der Mensch ist was er isst“) is a well-known pun in German on ist (to be) and isst (to eat) from the 19th century German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach. More than a pun in German, it is an excellent short summary of Feuerbach’s material criticism of Christianity. Today’s front-page radar on President Trump’s on-and-off global tariff impositions is decidedly materialistic. Over 70 leaders from around the world are vying to come to Washington to see how they can get their country’s tariffs lowered. Materialism reigns; the world is playing Trump’s transactional game.
But what about Trump’s disrespect for human rights, the rule of law and separation of powers as well as his gutting foreign assistance? Beyond the kerfuffle about tariffs and trade balances, will any of the state leaders negotiating with Washington speak truth to power and admonish Trump’s autocratic rejection of liberal values? (Negotiating with China’s Xi Jinping is a similar experience. How many leaders mention human rights when negotiating business deals in Beijing?)
As an example: What could Switzerland do when negotiating with Trump? The Swiss are always defending the importance of the rule of law and consider Geneva the world’s center of human rights. But they have said very little when their Sister Republic welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, Netanyahu who is under an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court.
Furthermore, what about the Swiss defending multilateralism in general and International Geneva in particular with the U.S.? The World Trade Organization (WTO) is based in Geneva. Will the Swiss remind Trump of the U.S.’s legal WTO commitments? In the face of Trump’s proposed tariff violations of WTO rules, the Swiss, Singapore and 34 other countries issued a declaration that reaffirmed “our collective commitment to the principles of the WTO and to maintaining open trade is more crucial than ever” and deplored “the rise of protectionism” without specifically mentioning the United States. When negotiating tariffs, will the Swiss argue for a U.S. commitment to WTO tariff rules and push the U.S. to deblock the deadlock over appointments to the WTO’s Appellate Body?
Second, the rules of humanitarian law are being egregiously violated, and not just by Israel. The Swiss Federal Council established a task force to develop a strategy to counter the announced 31% Trump tariff imposition. Why not establish a task force to defend IHL in the face of flagrant violations since Switzerland is the depositary state of the Geneva Conventions, the foundation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL)? Common Article 1 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions says that States Parties to the Conventions undertake to “respect and ensure respect” for the Conventions. Shouldn’t the Swiss and other countries lobbying for lower tariffs also lobby for ensuring respect for IHL?
More generally, Trump and Company have no respect for the international rule of law which is a bedrock of Swiss foreign policy. “The work of international bodies such as the Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court and the various U.N. investigation and fact-finding mechanisms is of great importance,” Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis stressed at the U.N. Security Council in November 2023. “It is crucial that all states, as well as the Security Council, cooperate fully with these bodies” he stated. “Switzerland will work towards further strengthening rule of law during its tenure in the Security Council,” he added.
Will any of this be brought up when the Swiss discuss tariffs with American representatives? Swiss companies, like the pharmaceutical giant Novartis, have promised to invest more in the U.S. – $23 billion over five years – in order to lower the tariff proposed. Are the only discussions between Switzerland and the U.S. about money and how much more Switzerland will invest in the United States?
During the writing of the Declaration of Independence, legend has it that Thomas Jefferson changed the unalienable rights in the Preamble from “Life, Liberty and Property” to “Life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” because of his familiarity with the Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui. If man is more than what he eats and the pursuit of happiness is an unalienable right, there must be more to negotiate with the United States than just property and tariffs.
To return to Feuerbach: There was also more than basic materialism in Feuerbach’s message. In arguing for man’s responsibility for himself instead of some otherworldly being, Feuerbach set the stage for radical political action. As he wrote, “It is a question today…not whether we are Christians or heathens, theists or atheists, but whether we are or can become men, healthy in soul and body, free, active and full of vitality.” (Feuerbach’s attacks on religion laid the framework for revolutionary political actions and strongly influenced Karl Marx. See Marx’s 1845 “Theses on Feuerbach”)
Recently, at a rally in Los Angeles on the Fight Oligarchy tour, Senator Bernie Sanders also stated that there were issues with Trump beyond economic materialism; “When we talk about oligarchy, it is not just economics,” he told 36,000 enthusiastic listeners. He went on to describe the corrupt Trump administration and how the system now bends towards greed and violations of the rule of law; “We are fighting a president who undermines our Constitution every day and threatens our freedom of speech and assembly,” Sanders shouted to the cheering crowd.
The kerfuffle over tariffs is necessary; an international trade war will have dire global consequences. But it is not sufficient. Caving in to Trump’s outlandish economic demands will not change the downward spiral of his assault on liberal values. The leaders speaking to Trump to lower his tariffs – especially the Swiss with their traditional role in human rights, humanitarian law and multilateralism – cannot, should not forget values other than economic materialism. Instead of caving in to Trump’s transactional paradigm, they must speak truth to power about non-material values and norms.
Trump’s Tariff Policy is Costing the US Bigly
Alley near federal building, Detroit. PhotoL Jeffrey St. Clair.
Donald Trump lives in a world of make believe. In Donald Trump land global warming isn’t happening, tens of millions of dead people get Social Security checks, and he won the 2020 election. Believing, or at least saying, this nonsense might make Trump happy, but the rest of us have to live in the real world, where global warming is very real, Social Security is incredible efficient and largely fraud free, and Trump lost the 2020 election by a wide margin.
In Trump’s make-believe world countries are ripping us off by selling more to us than they are buying from us. As has been endlessly pointed out, this is like saying a store rips us off because they sell us things without buying anything from us. Trump’s complaint literally makes no sense.
There are issues in trade, some countries still have substantial non-tariff barriers, as do we. Some countries subsidize their exports, as is the case with our agricultural exports. And demanding countries pay for our intellectual products (government-granted patent and copyright monopolies) is a massive transfer from other countries to us for literally nothing. But these are the sort of things that you deal with piecemeal, you don’t declare a trade war with the entire world as Donald Trump has done.
At this point I would like to throw out a number as to how much Trump’s trade war will cost us, but it’s not even possible to give a crude estimate at this point because the battle lines keep shifting. On “Liberation Day” Trump was putting large tariffs on the goods we get from all our major trading partners. A week later, he reconsidered and lowered his tariffs to 10 percent for most countries (still a high tariff these days) with the exception of China, which gets a 154 percent tariff.
Trump’s tariff on China would cost us close to $700 billion a year ($5,000 per household) before adjusting for changes in demand. We could use this number as a starting point, except that two days later Trump decided to exempt imports of smartphones, computers, and a number of other big items from his new taxes. Before anyone tries to estimate the cost of Trump’s tariffs with the adjustment for the big items now not subject to the tariff, they should note that it now looks like Trump will be suspending his tariff on imported autos.
The reality TV show approach to economic policy makes analysis difficult for economists and others trying to assess the impact of Trump’s tariffs, but it makes life even more difficult for those running businesses. If there was any logic at all to Trump’s claim on “Liberation Day,” that companies would start producing more goods in the United States, then it was important that the tariffs be clearly laid out. If not set completely in stone, Trump needs to create an expectation that they would be in place for a substantial period of time.
No one in their right mind would spend billions of dollars building an auto factory or semiconductor facility based on a tariff that could be cut in half, or even eliminated altogether, next week. Yet, we have seen Trump repeatedly shift course and announce that more changes are likely in the near future, depending in large part on who kisses his ass, to use Trump’s terminology.
This approach to running the economy will not just mean higher costs due to the taxes Trump is imposing, as well as the retaliation by our trading partners, it will also lead to substantial costs in the form of delayed investment. We will see companies sitting back and waiting to see how things pan out before committing themselves to costly investments. In the short-run, this will weaken the economy and possibly lead to a recession, adding to the effect of layoffs of government employees and cutting back federal funding in many areas, as well as the collapse of international tourism.
We will also see long-term costs. Investment is the key factor boosting productivity and ultimately living standards. Weaker investment, along with the loss of scientific progress from trashing the university system, will mean less progress in raising living standards in the United States.
We could do much better if we had a serious approach to trade. Instead of treating China as an enemy, we can treat it as a trading partner from whom we have much to gain.
For example, we could get high quality electric cars for $16,000, one-third the priceof an average new vehicle in the United States. These cars can be charged for half the cost of a tank of gas and done in roughly the same amount of time. And these cars are improving rapidly, which does not seem to be the case for our gas-powered vehicles.
There is a similar story for solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and other areas related to a green transition. Donald Trump may view it as a good thing that we are trashing the planet for our children and grandchildren, but most people in the country don’t see it that way. If we can both save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as technology now allows, that looks like a winning policy.
As a way to protect employment in these sectors we can negotiate voluntary export restraints, like Reagan did with Japanese autos in the 1980s. We can restrict the Chinese to 10 to 20 percent of our market and make transferring the technology to U.S. producers a condition of access.
We can also look to cooperate in other areas, most importantly healthcare. China has made rapid progress here also, and in some areas may even be ahead of the United States. And its success in developing cutting edge AI has been widely publicized.
There is considerable truth to the argument that we can gain a great deal from trade. We had a policy of selective protectionism in past decades that totally screwed millions of workers without a college degree. But we won’t correct these wrongs with a regime of ill-considered tariffs. The tariff games may make Donald Trump rich from bribes, but it will make the rest of us poorer.
This first appeared on Dan Baker’s Beat the Press blog.
Tom Boggioni
April 20, 2025
Republican insiders throughout the country are giving Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt that the economic pain Americans are experiencing due to his trade war will be short-lived and won't cripple them at the ballot box in the 2026 midterm election.
But they have their limits.
According to a report from Politico's Liz Crampton, GOP lawmakers and campaign consultants are standing firm behind the president and his on-again, off-again tariff proposals for the moment but are acknowledging things could go south quickly if lower prices and jobs don't return.
As Crampton wrote, "Some Republicans are putting an expiration date on how long they’ll tolerate the economic fallout from Donald Trump’s trade war," adding, "Interviews with nearly three dozen Republican leaders and operatives in seven battlegrounds — from party chairs to strategists to state lawmakers — reveal a growing acknowledgment that economic shocks could hamper the party’s prospects in the midterms."
According to North Carolina GOP consultant, Jonathan Felts, “If the economy just completely tanks, then it’s Political Science 101 that the incumbent is in trouble.”
Felts admitted there is a willingness to endure a modicum of "short term" economic pain, however, “when early voting starts, if you’re going to McDonald’s and there’s no dollar menu left, that’s a problem.”
Jesse Willard, chair of the Decatur County Republican Party in Georgia, stated that support for Trump is steady now, but there are limits.
“If it takes six months, a year you may see a little bit of people grumbling a little. But if it takes more than a couple years, you’re going to see people not being OK with that," Willard admitted.
You can read more here.
