Letters from an American - April 4, 2025

Episode Date: April 6, 2025

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April 4th, 2025. The stock market route continued today. As expected, China announced retaliatory tariffs in response to those President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday. Chinese leaders say they will impose a 34% tariff on all US goods imported into China next Thursday. Apparently, Trump did not think China would respond to his tariffs and tried to sound as if he was still in control of the situation. Trump is spending a long weekend in Florida where he is attending the live golf tournament at his Doral club. But at 8.25 this morning, he reposted on his social media channel a video in which the narrator claimed that Trump is crashing the markets on purpose. The video claimed that legendary investor Warren Buffett just said Trump is making the best economic moves he's seen in over 50 years. It went on to

explain how the secret game he's playing could make you rich. Buffett's conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway quickly denied Buffett had said any such thing as the video claimed. All such reports are false, it said. In March, Buffett called tariffs an act of war, to some degree. Then, about an hour before the U.S. markets opened, Trump posted on his social media channel, China played it wrong. They panicked. The one thing they cannot afford to do. About 20 minutes later, he posted, to the many investors coming into the United States

and investing massive amounts of money, my policies will never change. This is a great time to get rich, richer than ever before. When the markets opened, they plummeted again. During trading today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2,231 points or 55% on top of the 1,679 points it fell yesterday. The S&P 500 fell 5.97%

following the 4.84% it lost yesterday. The NASDAQ composite dropped a further 5.8% after yesterday's drop of nearly 6%. Oil prices also fell sharply despite the fact that Trump had exempted the US energy industry from tariffs as traders anticipate lower economic growth and thus less demand for gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. 25 minutes before the market closed, Trump posted, only the weak will fail. Aftermarket trading continued downward. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said today

that Trump's tariffs are highly likely to increase inflation and risk throwing people out of work. Economists at JPMorgan now place the odds of global recession at 60 percent unless the tariffs are ended. Natalie Allison, Jeff Stein, Kat Sikruski, and Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post reported how Trump came to impose the tariffs. After aides from a number of different government agencies came up with options for Trump to review, he decided instead on a different option,

one that is drawn ridicule because it is crude and has nothing to do with tariffs at all. He reached the amount of tariff levies by dividing the trade deficit of each nation, not including services, by the value of its imports and then dividing the final number by two. The reporters note that Trump didn't land on a plan until less than three hours before he announced it and made his choice with little input from business or foreign leaders. Neither Republican lawmakers nor the president's team knew what Trump would do. He's at the peak of just not giving a f**k anymore, a White House official told the reporters. Bad news stories doesn't give a f**k. He's

going to do what he's going to do. He's going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail. While right-wing media and Republican lawmakers have worked hard to spin the economic crisis sparked by Trump's tariffs, Financial Times chief data reporter John Byrne Murdoch used charts on social media to show that Americans are not happy. Consumers give Trump's economic plan the worst ratings of any administration's economic policy since records began. He has had the same impact on economic uncertainty as the global coronavirus pandemic did. Almost 60% of Americans expect the economy to deteriorate over the next

year and they are very worried about job losses. Bern Murdoch noted that despite the attempt of right-wing media to hide the crisis, more than half of Americans have heard unfavorable business news coverage of the government's policies. While MAGA continues to approve of Trump, he's rapidly losing support among the rest of the coalition that put him into

office. The administration apparently doesn't care much more about the law than it does about the reactions to the tariffs that are crashing the economy. Today, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Lashinis ordered the government to bring back to the United States no later than 1159 p.m. on April 7th,

a legal resident it mistakenly sent to a notorious prison for terrorists in El Salvador. On Monday, administration lawyers told the court that the government had swept up Kilmar Abrego Garcia because of an administrative error, but that it could not bring him back because he was outside the reach of American laws. Priscilla Alvarez and Emily R. Condon of CNN note that in a hearing about the case,

Sheenie said that Abrego Garcia, who was in the US legally and was not charged with any crimes, was arrested last month without legal basis and was deported without justification of legal basis. This was an illegal act, Sheenie said. Congress said you can't do it and you did it anyway. Trump's deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller responded to the judge's order by calling she niece a Marxist judge who thinks she's president of El Salvador.

The White House responded to the judge's order by saying we suggest the judge contact President Bukele of El Salvador because we are unaware of the judge having President Bukele of El Salvador because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador. Legal analyst Steve Lattic responded that while a US federal court cannot order the Salvadoran government to release Abrego Garcia, the US government should be able to secure his release. If it can, and in this

case it should be able to, the court can order it to do so. If that were not the case, the administration could simply get rid of anyone it wanted to by sending them to a prison outside the jurisdiction of the United States and then claiming it had no way to get them back. Tonight, as the economy is in turmoil, Trump is speaking at a $1 million per person candlelight fundraising dinner at the Trump Organization's Mar-a-Lago property for the super PAC MAGA Inc. that supports Trump. By law, MAGA Inc. can't coordinate with Trump's campaign organization, so the invitations for the dinner say that Trump is simply a guest

speaker and is not asking for donations. The terrible storms in the middle of the country continue. Authorities have issued flash flood emergencies in parts of Missouri, Texas, and Arkansas, and heavy rains are also expected in Kentucky. Finally, four soldiers who died when their military vehicles sank in a deep swamp in Lithuania during a training exercise came home to Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware today. to Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware today. Their recovery took about 200 US, Polish, Estonian, and Lithuanian personnel a week and required drones, search dogs, Navy divers, and ground-penetrating radar, as well as 70 tons of sand and gravel. We consider US soldiers in Lithuania as our own, the Lithuanian

Defense Ministry said after thousands of people joined Lithuanian President Gitanas Naushidas and other dignitaries in a dignified departure ceremony of the soldiers from Lithuania. The farewell ceremony once again demonstrated our society's solidarity, respect, and gratitude to the Americans. 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.