Trump to Cut Tariffs to Lower Food Prices

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00:00Under surveillance this morning, making America affordable.

00:04Affordability, they call it, was a con job by the Democrats.

00:08We did a great job on groceries and affordability.

00:11The only problem is the fake news. You people don't want to report it.

00:14My administration and our partners in Congress will continue our work to lower the cost of living,

00:21restore public safety, grow our economy and make America affordable again.

00:25So here's the latest this morning. President Donald Trump pivoting to affordability

00:29after boasting about his administration's economic accomplishments.

00:33The White House now making a push for a tariff deal,

00:36announcing new deals with countries in Latin America and potentially elsewhere.

00:41Bloomberg's Mika Solner joins us now for more.

00:43Mika, welcome to the program. Welcome back, I should say.

00:45Can you describe the agreements that have been struck over the last day or so?

00:50Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the White House is really looking to push new,

00:55tariff deals in order to collect some of the revenue that they think is going to

00:59basically explode from their deals from all around the world.

01:03And with that, they are pitching the idea of sending $2,000 dividend checks to Americans.

01:10That's very much in line with the idea to distract from cost of living,

01:14give people hope, while Democrats continue to hammer the message of, quote-unquote,

01:19affordability to people.

01:21Mika, we're talking about coffee and food stuff coming from places like Brazil,

01:24Colombia, Vietnam. Have we heard from the administration about how much they're willing

01:28to do to bring tariffs down on some of those goods?

01:32You know, the White House has been very guarded on this issue, and I think that they're still

01:36hammering out the details. But I do know that one thing that they're really trying to do

01:40is ensure that looking at the long-term effects of tariffs, rather than potentially the short-term

01:46economic pain that Americans might feel when it comes to the uptick of cost of living. But

01:51I know that they're looking for solutions long-term and saying that this is overall going to be

01:55better for the country. So that's the message we're hearing right now, with details still

01:58hammering out.

01:59Look for the details into the weekend. Mika, thank you. Mika Solner,

02:02down in Washington, D.C.

02:03Let's build on the conversation. Sarah Bianchi of Evercool writing this.

02:06A White House pivot back to the issue of affordability won't be perfectly disciplined

02:10or linear, and some things will run counter as tariffs remain a favourite policy tool.

02:15Sarah joins us now for more. Sarah, Lisa and I were talking about the messaging of all of this.

02:20How do you massage the message of all of this, that you talk about affordability,

02:23and the first thing you consider is to bring down tariffs, which you also simultaneously don't

02:26believe push up costs?

02:29So, well, it's complicated. Look, this is complicated. President Biden had some of the same challenges.

02:34It's just really hard to reduce costs in a lot of ways. But obviously, this administration has a tool

02:39that he didn't have, which is to bring down some of their own tariffs. I do think the deals with

02:46some of the Latin American countries give you a signal of somewhere where they're going. They did

02:51put, not to get too wonky, but Annex 3, a list of food goods that were supposed to be eligible

02:57to be tariff-free for countries that had a final trade arrangement with the administration.

03:03Obviously, they're just kind of lowering the standards of who gets that deal and really trying

03:09to put some relief in the food space. Again, an area where a lot of Americans notice when things

03:17aren't as cheap as they want.

03:19Sarah, a lot of the rhetoric seems to push back against a number of the policy prescriptions that

03:24we heard from President Trump earlier this year. And I just wonder, it sounds like you're

03:27skeptical that this truly is a wholesale pivot point. Nonetheless, how much are you looking for

03:33different types of policies, whether it's reducing some of the tariffs or potentially a $2,000 check

03:38at the beginning of next year? How much are you expecting these types of policy prescriptions

03:42in the face of midterm elections?

03:45Oh, I think it's very serious. I think he's very serious about a rebate check. I think, you know,

03:51we saw at first Secretary Besant push back pretty hard on the concept on Sunday. And since then,

03:56he's kind of softened his tone a little bit, I think it's very much a space where they will look,

04:02they're going to have to, you know, size it, get it through the Congress and reconciliation,

04:07a lot of steps to happen. And then, you know, try to figure out, are they really going to spend

04:12all, particularly in the wake of what might be an unhelpful court case on tariffs. But I think on

04:19the tariff rates themselves, I think they're going to find places for relief, like we're seeing in

04:26food. I don't expect them to say, oh, forget it, you know, sorry about the steel tariffs,

04:32we didn't mean to do that, or something like that. I think they're going to look for a relief

04:37valve in particularly sensitive areas.

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