Trade Secretary Howard Lutnick went back the recent mutual duty exemption for selected electronics announced in a April 12 -Bulletin from the customs and border protection of the United States.
On April 13, Lutnick ABC News told me that the mutual duty exemption was temporary until the administration established a sector customs regime for semiconductor products that include phones, graphics processors and computer chips in a “month or two.” Lutnick added:
“President Trump has called pharmaceutical products, semiconductors and cars. He called them sector -duty rates and these are not available for negotiation. They just want to be part of ensuring that we ensure that the most important national security articles are made in this country.”
“We can’t trust China for basic things we need. Our medicine and our semiconductors need to be built in America,” Lutnick continued. The official also said he was convinced that the United States and China would reach a trade agreement through negotiations.
The emphasis on national security and onshoring-critical industries could signal that the trading-star riffs will be a long-term geostrategic policy and not just a short-term negotiating tactic to make us export more attractive as some analysts have suggested.
Volatility S&P index (VIX), a measure of the S&P Stock Index’s volatility, remains elevated in the midst of macroeconomic uncertainty. Source: TradingView
Related: Bitcoin ‘decoupling,’ stocks lose $ 3.5 t in the middle of Trump Tariff War and fed warning of ‘higher inflation’
Trade War Increases Volatility and Send Markets Tumbling
Trump’s trading bariffer crashed the stock and the crypto markets and dried trillion in shareholder value as investors dumped more risky assets for fear of a long trade war between the United States and its trading partners.
In a 10th April X post, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchuna’s Spy US Equity History Volume Chart cited that the S&P 500 stock market index is now more volatile than Bitcoin (BTC).
According to the analyst, the S&P 500 index hit a volatility level of 74 in April compared to Bitcoin’s 71.
Shares and crypto pumped after rumors of the Trump administration that initiated a 90-day mutual customs break. About $ 2 trillion was pumped into shares on rumors of softer trade policies.
Much of this value was then wiped out when Trump claimed rumors of a 90-day break were false and returned when the Trump administration actually issued a mutual customs break in the following days.
Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over – it’s time to dream big again