Trump Starting to FLIP **AS** Tariff Numbers EXPOSED as Fake

Economic research is now suggesting that

Donald Trump's tariffs are going to hurt

the bottom 80% of Americans the most.

Once again, are going to help the

wealthy Americans, but not actually

American trade, American manufacturing,

American industrialization. And it's

possible, at least according to CNBC,

that the numbers are totally made up.

Let's talk. Well, in contradiction with

Carolyn Levit, Peter Navaro, and Mr.

Lutnik. Donald Trump is now suggesting

he's open to

negotiation on these tariffs if

countries offer him something

phenomenal. Countries offer something

phenomenal. He also said, quote, "Every

country is calling us. We put ourselves

in the driver's seat. Now other

countries will do anything for us." And

allies of the president saying, "They

weren't looking to make deals. They were

not looking to make negotiations." Now,

the president kind of changing that and

saying as long as there's something good

on the table, he's not specifying what

that is, that he would be open to

potentially lowering these tariffs at

some point in the future. He also said

that further tariffs will be coming.

They hinted at this yesterday, but he

says that tariffs on semiconductors will

be starting very soon and that they're

also looking at pharmaceuticals. He also

said the market reaction today is what

is expected. He said it is going to be a

booming economy, but he called this a

transition period. The problem with this

is you've got folks on CNBC suggesting

Donald Trump made up the numbers in

terms of the other tariffs that are

being supposedly levied upon us. Now, we

have questioned this in the data as

well, and we're not going to rehash

everything that I've already said

because I don't want to sound redundant

to you. We got the other videos you're

welcome to watch on those. Instead, I

want you to listen to this clip from

CNBC and we'll add commentary to it.

Let's go. Uh they're sparking some fears

and questions about a global recession.

Also, the White House said the new

tariffs are pegged to amounts that other

countries impose on the US. According to

their formula, it's the size of a

country's goods trade imbalance with the

US divided by how much we import from

that nation. There's some some of the

the math, the calcul is that calculus?

No. Uh CNBC's Steve Leeman is here with

us to break it all down. Also with us,

Erica York, vice president of federal

tax policy at the Tax Foundation. It's

great to have you both here. So let's

just back up Steve for a second. The

formula as mentioned this is laser

focused on goods. It doesn't matter if

we want if they want to serve if we want

to service a surplus with the other

country. This is about the trade deficit

in goods and whatever happened earlier

this week is not a barometer it seems

for this announcement. Yeah. I don't

want to start off in a costic way but

but you asked is that calculus to a lot

of trade experts Kelly it's gibberish.

That's really the problem. When when

this thing came out, my initial reaction

was to, you know, be a reporter, and I

called up these trade experts, including

one we're going to talk to in a second,

and I said, "Have you ever heard of

this?" And they said, "No. Do you know

anybody who's ever used this formula to

determine the trade um uh burden or onus

or whatever of and everybody said no."

What's interesting is here's the White

House comment. I don't know if you guys

have it. No, not the formula. Here's the

comment where if you look at what they

say, I don't know if I have it in front

of me, but it says that um we used

something that's been used in a lot of

other times and places, but they just

made it up, Kelly. Nobody's ever heard

of it. There it is. I want to emphasize,

said a White House official, that these

tariffs are customized to each country,

and the numbers have been calculated by

the Council of Economic Advisors using

very, very wellestablished methodologies

from the National Trade Economic

Literature, but nobody's ever heard of

it, Kelly. So, I think they made up that

statement and they made up that formula.

This is problematic for Trump's ability

to negotiate because if other countries

look at what Donald Trump is doing as

basically saying BS and then trying to

negotiate on top of a pile of BS,

countries might call us bluff. Now,

one-on-one, Donald Trump and the United

States have a lot of power. But if we

overplay our hand against everyone, we

could end up in a situation where other

countries say, "You know what?

Why don't we just let your stocks

continue to tank? After all, that's what

Putin's pulling off, and it's probably

what China's pulling off. This idea that

China is going to get strong armed into

giving up Tik Tok for a cheap price to

try to get out of uh this tariff

negotiation. I don't know if it's going

to happen. I'm hopeful. you and I and

the entire all of Wall Street and the

country, we were braced for something

that might resemble and might be

defensible if arguable as reciprocal

tariffs. These are not reciprocal. These

are essentially nonrescrocal punitive

tariffs including it looks like

according to this Newsweek article on a

chunk of Bridian British ocean territory

Diego Garcia where there's a military US

military base they're also been

tariffed. But listen to this next clip

here where CNBC questions, "Wait a

second, wait a second. Are we actually

going to make the $600 billion that

could help us prevent needing to pay

taxes on anyone making an income of

under $150,000? Is it is that

potentially possible here? Well, let's

listen in directly to CNBC's analyst, a

consulting firm that comes in and gives

us their answer." So, so the tariffs

will create a tax burden on the US

economy and it will be shared by workers

and by business owners. Um, you know,

some companies may be able to pass their

tariff costs on to retail prices. Others

won't. They'll have to eat that cost. It

reduces their revenues, their profits,

which means they might have to cut

hiring. They might have to cut returns

to to shareholders. Um, so in either

way, whether the cost is passed forward

or passed backward, it's American

workers and American business owners who

who bear that burden. Um, we've

estimated that the revenue raised by

these tariffs in 2025, if they're all

left in place, will be about $290

billion. That's a lot lower than what

you might hear elsewhere. That's because

when we put a tax on imports, imports

fall. um if you think imports are going

to stay the same, you're out of step

with the economic literature. We also

know that when tariff payments rise,

other um tax revenues fall. Tariffs,

like I mentioned, pull income out of the

economy before it's actually sent to

workers or to shareholders. So, it

shrinks the bases of the income tax and

the payroll tax, cutting off some of the

direct tariff revenue. That's what gets

us down to to that 290 billion. Um, and

on average that amounts to a tax

increase of more than

$2,100 per US household or a reduction

in after tax income of more than 2%. Uh,

it hits lower inome households and

middle inome households. So, so

workingclass people harder than it does

wealthier people because lower inome

households consume more of their income

than the wealthy do. Um, so this is a

regressive tax increase. Even if it's

used to partially offset something like,

let's say, the tax cuts and jobs acts

extension. About the bottom 80% of

taxpayers are worse off under that trade

because the tariffs are a larger tax

hike on them than the tax cuts will

provide a benefit. Now, so far, this

lady is pretty intelligent, at least in

my opinion. They're estimating that

tariffs will actually generate less than

half of what Trump is aiming at, that

600 billion, although he mentions

trillions now. Mostly because as tariffs

and taxes go up, not only are you going

to see trade go down, but you're going

to see the money that's available in the

economy from wages or business profits

also go down. So that multiplier effect

is just going to compress trade pretty

dang heavily. So this is obviously

really problematic because it means

Donald Trump's goals might not be

achieved and the credibility Donald

Trump has from a position of

negotiation may not actually be as

strong. Now hopefully other countries

fold and we can go to a freer version of

free trade that we had before because

obviously we had free trade asterisk

before with everybody tariffing each

other somewhere around 1 and a half to 2

and a half% on a trade weighted basis.

Some countries a little more, some

countries a little less. Uh and then

obviously on individual goods and

services some tariffs were a little

higher, some were a little lower. But

the weighted average tariffs were very

low. They were on average generally

around two and a half% plus or minus.

Now all of a sudden we're putting a

minimum tariff on 10% on everybody else,

five times what we've ever done before

and substantially more in countries like

China or other areas within Asia where

tariffs are now anywhere between 30 to

54% which is obviously extremely

devastating for trade in those regions.

So all of that put together, we hope

that other countries will fold. That

actually might be a sign of strength.

The problem is the stock market um I

don't know if it really believes it. In

fact, if you look at the end of the day

here, first of all, you can see we fell

at the open, rejected at the 457 line on

the cues. We're sitting at 450 right

now, but we fell in that last hour of

trade in the day, which is a critical

indication that institutions might

actually be getting a lot of sell order

flow from their clients. A little bit of

a red flag. Now, Bitcoin's been pretty

dang stable and Tesla's been relatively

stable all day. So, there is some hope

that maybe we're bottoming. Nvidia's

bottoming around 102 and maybe the worst

is priced in. The problem with the idea

that the worst is priced in is that it's

probably assuming that the worst of the

tariff policy announcements are over and

that we're going to resolve tariff

tariff policy with negotiations from

here. Hopefully, we just need to get it

done before we hit a recession. Why not

advertise these things that you told us

here? I feel like nobody else knows

about this. We'll we'll try a little

advertising and see how it goes.

Congratulations, man. You have done so

much. People love you. People look up to

you. Kevin Pra there, financial analyst

and YouTuber. Meet Kevin. Always great

to get your take.