Folks, you might say we've seen this coming.
Trump spoke at the White House this afternoon where he said he would be open to delaying his tariffs on Chinese goods that are currently scheduled to increase from 10 to 25 percent on March 2nd.
From Bloomberg:
“If we’re close to a deal where we think we can make a real deal and it’s going to get done, I could see myself letting that slide for a little while,” Trump said to reporters during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “But generally speaking I’m not inclined” to delay raising tariffs, he added.
As you can see, Trump did not explicitly say he would delay the higher tariffs, but this is the very first time he has indicated that he might.
The thing is -- they don't have to actually be close to a deal to say they're 'close to a deal.' Members of the Trump regime regularly assert that they're close to accomplishing things that they're nowhere close to accomplishing, like building Trump's fantasy border wall. You may recall that Trump said he reached a deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping following the G20 meeting in November of 2018 that supposedly included an agreement to immediately resume purchases of American soybeans, but that never happened. There was no deal.
At the end of this month, Trump will have a choice between delaying his tariffs or signing off on the trade apocalypse.
Sleep tight.