America's tariff policy was thrown into further confusion over the weekend when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that the tariff exemptions that were unveiled on Friday were only temporary and that tariffs on electronics imported from China would be back in the near future.
Panelists on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Monday hammered the Trump administration for adding yet more uncertainty to American trading policy that has already sent stock markets plunging in recent weeks.
Panelist Katty Kay, for one, seemed completely uncertain of what trade policies were actually in play.
"Are the tariffs on are they off?" she asked. "Are certain products exempt, are they not exempt? What happens in 90 days time? What happens in 30 days time in some cases? And the administration isn't clarifying that confusion when it sends people out over the course of the weekend. You would think that on Sunday shows they would make an effort to have a united front and explain exactly what's going to happen."
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Pablo Torres was even more blunt when discussing the uncertainty caused by the tariffs.
"They don't have a plan, just to say that very bluntly," he said. "We are trying to interpret, almost talmudically, what's actually going on here. What is the intent behind this? and they don't know."
Guest John Heilemann said that the chaos from Trump's tariffs would be hitting the real economy hard in the coming weeks.
"What you've seen since the tariff jihad on the part of the Trump administration began is the market reflecting something, one thing, really clearly, which is that the market thinks that consumers are going to get hammered in this trade war," he said. "The market is looking at the consumer-driven part of the economy and saying, we are headed towards a recession."
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