Un-Liberation Day? Trump allows 90-day reprieve

President Trump announced on social media that he has authorized a 90-day pause of the “reciprocal” tariffs” that went into effect just today. The reprieve will apply to a group of unspecified countries that did not retaliate against the US. China on the other had will be slapped with a 125%, which presumably is in response to retaliatory measures taken by Beijing. While the delay will be welcome, many questions still remain. Will the tariffs go back on if bilateral negotiations are unsuccessful? How do countries with currently low tariffs provide any concessions? Will the EU continue its retaliatory stance ? Regardless of the answer to these and other questions, the takeaway from today was that the administration has had enough with the financial carnage and wanted to back down before the economic carnage is felt. So while certainty is still far off, we can at least take comfort that the administration has signaled the upper bound of trade brinksmanship.