President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday the agreement of a new 15 percent reciprocal tariffs trade deal with Japan, which was roundly mocked by observers for being worse than the deal the U.S. had with Japan before Trump took office. But this deal does something else he may not have intended, hedge fund manager Spencer Hakimian posted to X: privilege Japanese cars over American ones.
It's a massive reversal from Trump's repeated commitments to adopt "America first" trade policies and encourage domestic production of goods, services, and resources — and it all comes down to simple math.
"Toyota is up +8% on the news of a 15% tariff. Why?" he wrote. "It's simple. Ford, GM, Tesla, and all the other American manufacturers are going to be paying 50% more for their steel, 50% more for their copper, 25% more for their Canadian production, 25% more for their Mexican production, and 55% on their Chinese production. Toyota only has to pay 15% more and they're done with all the shenanigans. Ford has to pay much more than that. A lot more in fact."
In other words, Hakimian said, "We've given a Japanese car company an advantage over American car companies. All in hope of bringing auto jobs back to America. 0D Chess."
Trump's tariff plans have gone back and forth for months, as the president has laid out new threats, followed by new deadlines, followed by new threats, for a variety of countries for seemingly no reason — with the constant backoffs and extensions leading his critics to adopt the phrase "TACO," short for "Trump Always Chickens Out."
All of this comes as a right-wing legal advocacy group is filing its second lawsuit to try to block Trump's ability to declare tariffs unilaterally.
