Subject: The two-pronged goal of the tariff actions
1. Get the 10-year bond down.
2. Isolate...China.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/0...

The breadth, speed and severity of President Trump’s actions, which he finalized only shortly before the Rose Garden announcement, sparked immediate panic across markets and among allies.

That they did. Hopefully no one here panicked and sold everything.

So what is the goal? Based on the administration’s public remarks, it is to eliminate large trade imbalances within a U.S.-led bloc that excludes China, other nonmarket economies and any country determined to continue running large surpluses at the expense of its partners. In remarks on Monday, Stephen Miran, the head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, emphasized that the administration also sees security commitments as indelibly tied to economic ones.
If those are the contours, Mr. Trump should say so, outline the kinds of concessions he expects from allies seeking to rebalance trade and detail the common policies toward China that all members of the bloc must adopt.

As I've said, Trump is putting the economy on a war footing. If the Chinese want to invade Taiwan in the next couple of years we shouldn't make things easy for them.