Is it 1995 all over again? A 30-year-old video featuring a young Donald Trump lambasting the US government's auto deal with Japan has resurfaced, with the billionaire criticizing Tokyo's unfair trade practices and the administration's abysmal negotiating skills. "In Japan, everything's restricted, restricted, restricted. We're sitting but can't come in, and all of a sudden, this country folds," he said. Trump declared he would adopt "a much harder stand" and "a much more difficult stand." Thirty years later, it is the same old real estate mogul – and Trump tariffs are producing the intended results.
Trump Tariffs on the World Stage
April 2, President Trump announced, will go down as one of the nation’s most important dates and the country’s “declaration of economic independence” for taking a chainsaw to globalization. While financial markets have been in turmoil, and friends and foes have clenched their fists and howled at the moon, the White House is smiling from ear to ear. Why? Trump and senior administration officials are generating the outcomes they desired with these policies, from 10% universal baseline tariffs to higher reciprocal levies.
Within one week, countries worldwide have conducted outreach campaigns to the White House. According to the US Trade Representative’s Office, at least 50 nations have contacted the administration to begin trade talks, though Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed it could be as high as 70. Scores of foreign governments, from Israel to Vietnam, have already pledged to slash their tariff rates. Others are prepared to begin negotiations.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba engaged in a telephone conversation to bolster cooperation that can lead to mutual benefits for both economies. The European Union, meanwhile, has offered the United States a "zero-for-zero" tariff proposal. "We have offered zero-for-zero tariffs for industrial goods as we have successfully done with many other trading partners. Because Europe is always ready for a good deal. So we keep it on the table," EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at an April 7 press conference.
Despite the outrage following the Trump tariffs announced on “Liberation Day,” the Treasury secretary urged the international community to wait. Bessent reiterated the message on the Fox Business Network, telling world leaders that Trump will launch negotiations “at a point.” Although investors enjoyed some relief on reports that the president was considering a 90-day tariff pause, the White House called the CNBC and Reuters reportage “fake news.” Instead, the administration shows no signs of reversing its hawkish stance on trade policy.
So far, China appears to be the only major economy prepared to escalate the trade spat.
Beijing announced it would implement a retaliatory 34% import duty on all US goods entering the world’s second-largest economy. This forced Trump to threaten the Chinese regime with an additional 50% levy if it fails to withdraw its tit-for-tat tariff warning. However, China's Commerce Ministry is not backing down (at the time of this writing), declaring in a statement that it "resolutely opposes" the escalation of Trump tariffs and pledged to impose countermeasures. “The U.S. threat to escalate tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake,” the government said in a statement. “China will never accept it. If the U.S. insists on its own way, China will fight to the end.”
‘Not a Negotiation’ – Or Is It?
The White House has sent mixed messages since last week's Make America Wealthy Again event in the Rose Garden. Senior administration officials stated that the baseline and reciprocal Trump tariffs were not up for negotiation because they are more about non-monetary trade barriers that harm US exports.
Appearing on CNBC's Squawk Box on April 7, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro claimed that Vietnam's offer to abolish levies on US goods was not enough. "Let’s take Vietnam. When they come to us and say ‘we’ll go to zero tariffs,’ that means nothing to us because it’s the nontariff cheating that matters,” Navarro said. He made the same case in a Financial Times op-ed, writing that the tariffs are "not a negotiation."
The comments were in response to President Trump's April 4 Truth Social post stating that To Lam, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, would lower tariffs on US products to 0%. However, US trade officials, according to the 2025 National Trade Estimate Report, are unhappy about the Southeast Asian country’s import bans and restrictions, product registration requirements, technical barriers, government procurement, and a whole host of other issues.
Will this hardline stance inhibit achieving the goals of the Trump tariffs? The president does not believe so, telling reporters during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that two things can be true simultaneously: Tariffs can be permanent, and Trump’s administration can partake in negotiations. They are not mutually exclusive, it seems. “We have many, many countries that are coming to negotiate deals with us, and they’re going to be fair deals, and in certain cases, they’re going to be paying substantial tariffs. They’ll be fair deals,” Trump said.
Same Old Trump
The significance of those resurfaced clips from the president’s interviews in the 1980s and 1990s is that his message has been consistent: Countries are ripping off the United States, Washington has failed to push back, and he is ready to engage in economic warfare to protect the country. This is vastly different from the plethora of re-emerged clips of other politicians, be it Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) or Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who espoused the same foreign trade gripes as Trump and proposed similar measures but are now reaching for the nearest Amlodipine Besylate and Omeprazole.
Is it a case of Swamponomics vs Trumponomics? The Internet never forgets.
