Letters from an American - April 12, 2025

Episode Date: April 13, 2025

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April 12th, 2025. It was just 20 days ago on March 24th that editor in chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, reported that the most senior members of the Trump administration discussed a military strike on the Houthis in Yemen on an unsecure commercial messaging app, and that they included him on the chat. Their signal chat, which Goldberg published later in response to the administration's insistence that there was nothing classified in the chat, showed that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth

had posted precise details of the munitions and planes involved in the strikes. It showed that neither President Donald Trump nor the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Biden appointee, was on the chat and that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller apparently made the decision to strike based on his interpretation of what President Donald Trump wanted. In violation of the Presidential Records Act, the app was set to delete the messages. There was apparently no larger strategy or diplomatic plan other than to strike, and participants greeted the news of the collapse of an apartment building into which a Houthi leader had allegedly walked

with emojis of fists, fire, and a U.S. flag. This extraordinary lapse in national security protections would normally have defined an administration and caused a number of resignations, but the White House called the case closed on March 31st. And there was more. On April 2nd, Dasha Burns of Politico reported that the team working with National Security Advisor Mike Walz regularly used the Unsecure Signal app to communicate about issues involving Ukraine, China, Gaza, the Middle East, the US, and Europe. The officials to whom Burns spoke

said they had personal knowledge of at least 20 such chats. That story has been almost completely driven out of the news by President Donald Trump's tariff machinations since April 2nd. On that day, after teasing the idea of what he called Liberation Day, Trump announced that at 1201 a.m. on Wednesday, April 9th, he would be imposing a 10% tariff on all imports to the United States, with significantly higher rates on countries he claims engage in unfair trade practices. By the next day, it had been established that his team, led by trade advisor Peter Navarro, arrived at the tariff rates with a nonsensical formula

that simply took the US trade deficit with a country, divided it by the value of that country's exports to the US, and cut the resulting number in half. For the next week the stock market plummeted, jumping only with rumors that Trump would back off on the tariffs, while economists and financial analysts revised the chances of inflation and recession upward and economic growth downward. News coming out of the White House was contradictory. One advisor would say that Trump would not negotiate over tariffs and they were here to stay,

while another would say he intended to negotiate and they were just starting points. Meanwhile, as predicted, other countries began to put tariffs on goods from the United States, or pause exports, and global markets fell. Americans, from business leaders to small business owners to consumers and wage workers called out the stupidity of Trump's trade war. Others noted that the tariffs appeared to be intended as a shakedown as countries or businesses who offered Trump the right price could get exemptions. As trillions of dollars in stock values evaporated, Trump insisted the tariffs were here to stay. I know what the hell I'm doing,

Trump told Republicans on Tuesday, April 8th. He boasted that global leaders were kissing my a**. On Wednesday, April 9th, at 9.33 a.m., he posted, Be cool! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before. At 9.37, he posted, This is a great time to buy. DJT.

But, as Tyler Pager, Maggie Haberman, Anna Swanson, and Jonathan Swan of the New York Times reported, Trump's team, led by Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, was worried about setting off a financial panic that could not be stopped. Driving their concern was a broad sell-off of U.S. government bonds, which in the past investors had seen as a safe haven during times of market turmoil, and the rise in popularity of the government bonds of other countries. Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers noted that global financial markets were backing away from U.S. assets. Fund manager at

Penn Mutual Asset Management, George Cipollone, told Bernard Condon and Stan Cho of the Associated Press, The fear is the U.S. is losing its standing as the safe haven. Our bond market is the biggest and most stable in the world, but when you add instability, bad things can happen. On April 8th, US trade representative Jameson Greer defended Trump's tariffs to the Senate Finance Committee. He was offering similar testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee the next day at 1 18 p.m. when a social media post from Trump pulled the rug out from under him. Trump paused most of the highest tariffs for 90 days and instituted an across-the-board tariff of 10% in their place. But, perhaps unwilling to look weak, he announced that he was

raising tariffs on goods from China to 125% effective immediately, based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the world's markets. With Trump's tariff pause, stocks jumped upward in one of the biggest single-day gains since World War II. Hedge Fund manager Spencer Hakimian posted a graph showing that NASDAQ call volume, bets that stock values would rise, spiked minutes before Trump's announcement. He commented, not a good look at all. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,

a Democrat of New York, reposted Hecimian's post and added, any member of Congress who purchased stocks in the last 48 hours should probably disclose that now. I've been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor. Disclosure deadline is May 15th. We're about to learn a few things. It's time to ban insider trading in Congress." David Smith of The Guardian noted that the juxtaposition of Trump golfing, dining with donors, and meeting with race car drivers, even as economic chaos tanked people's retirement accounts,

prompted accusations that he has lost touch with reality. A widely circulated video that appears to be Trump bragging to NASCAR drivers visiting the White House that investor Charles Schwab made $2.5 billion on Wednesday, and that another investor made $900 million, has fed anger at Trump's economic chaos. On Friday, the University of Michigan released its well-respected Consumer Sentiment Index, showing that consumer sentiment about the economy and personal finances fell for the fourth straight month, dropping 11% from March. Consumers from all political affiliations fear recession, inflation, and unemployment.

This level of consumer sentiment is the second lowest since the index began in 1952. Chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, Samuel Toomes, told the Wall Street Journal's Harriet Torry, consumers have spiraled from anxious to petrified. James Knightley, the chief international economist at the multinational banking and financial services company, ING, noted that consumers appear to blame Trump for their concerns. While in January, 44% of respondents told researchers that the government was doing a poor job of managing inflation and unemployment.

Now, 67% say so. The change happened so quickly that White House officials could not tell reporters what the actual tariff rates were for different countries. When more information was available, Kevin Schall of the Washington Post noted that Trump's new tariff levies had actually increased tariffs rather than lowered them because he had dropped rates only on goods from countries that don't export much to the US. He had raised them significantly, not just to 125%, but to 145% on China, a major trading partner. On Friday, China imposed 125% tariffs on goods from the US. A spokesperson for the Chinese Finance Ministry said that Trump's tariff machinations will become a joke

in the history of the world economy. At 9.20 a.m., President Trump posted, "'We are doing really well on our tariff policy. "'Very exciting for America and the world. "'It is moving along quickly. DJT. The new tariffs had badly threatened Apple Inc. and at 10 36 p.m. the US Customs and Border Protection posted a notice that various electronics, including smartphone and computer monitors, are exempt from the

tariffs. When economist Justin Wolfers commented, I just want to tip my hat to the crack team of White House economists who were able to discover in just a few short days that the U.S. is dependent on China for smartphones, computers, and semiconductors. Dr. Sumya Rangarajan noted that a basic medicine we use 10,000 times per day in the hospital, heparin, is also dependent on China and people will die without it.

As Sabrina Mali of the Washington Post explained, about 12 million people hospitalized in the US need heparin every year and it is only one of many medications that will be affected by Trump's tariffs on goods from China. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo posted that a good way to see the current tariffs as of literally today is no tariffs on high value-add manufactured goods marketed to middle and upper middle classes, massive tariffs for cheap consumer items that benefit those lower on the economic ladder. While the damage from the tariffs both to the domestic and global economy, as well as

the USA standing in the world, is not yet clear, all the chaos has been about the prospect, oh wait a minute, while the damage from the tariffs both to the domestic and global economy, as well as the USA standing in the world, is not yet clear, all the chaos has been about the prospect of Trump's high tariff rates, not their actual effect. Trump appears to be trying to downplay that story

in favor of demonstrating his power. As the tariff saga played out on Wednesday, Trump signed a memorandum for the heads of executive departments and agencies informing them that they no longer need to let the public know when they get rid of regulations that they determine are obviously unlawful. Kate Riga of Talking Points Memo notes that unlawful appears to mean anything Trump doesn't like. In a breathtaking violation of the Constitution, on Wednesday Trump also went after two individuals, Christopher Krebs and Miles Taylor.

Trump appointed Krebs to head the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, where in 2020 Krebs assured the American people that the presidential election had not been stolen. Trump now claims Krebs thus censored the speech of Trump loyalists. As a Department of Homeland Security staffer, Taylor wrote an op-ed under the pseudonym Anonymous saying that members of the first Trump administration

were pushing back against the president's policies. Taylor later wrote a book about his time in the White House that Trump claims was designed to sow chaos and distrust in government, and thus could properly be characterized as treasonous and possibly violating the Espionage Act. A grand jury believed Trump himself violated the Espionage Act by retaining classified documents. Trump stripped security clearances from Krebs and Taylor and also from their employers. He ordered government officials to investigate the two men,

and to recommend appropriate remedial or preventative actions to be taken to protect America's interests. Employees at CISA told Kevin Collier of NBC News they were disheartened by the attack on Krebs, and noted that staffing cuts at CISA had already severely degraded our capacity to defend critical infrastructure. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. Thanks for watching!