RUSH: At the G20, just wrapped up, there was an extension of time, 90 days extension of time negotiated between us and the ChiComs on the tariff situation. And I want to explain to you what this really is all about by going back to me on this program April 4th, 2018. This is audio sound bite number one. And this puts it in perspective.
RUSH: Yeah. Trump is threatening to raise tariffs above the 10% that’s currently there to 25%, and everybody thinks that the ChiComs are running the show and are ruling the roost, and we’ve got a 90 day extension.
Here’s Steve Mnuchin. This is from this morning on CNBC, being asked this question. “In terms of addressing some of the global issues that the president’s taking on, do you think that the president thinks that there is sort of house money to play with now that the stock market’s up so much?”
MNUCHIN: On the China issue, he’s been talking about this way before he ran for president. And this is a major issue for him. And again, I think this was a breakthrough moment for the two presidents reaching this agreement. The president is determined to continue to move forward on our economic path, and I think this was a great breakthrough, and now the two teams have a lot of work to turn this into a real agreement.
RUSH: And I’ll bet you at you ends up being a good deal for the United States. Mnuchin here is right. Trump’s been talking about this since before he ran for president. He’s been talking about this for 20 years, when you get right down to it, that is the disparity that exists and the surplus in trade we have with the ChiComs. Folks, I will guarantee you something. The president in his last negotiating ploy threatened to include Apple products, which are at present exempt. He exempted Apple as a fig leaf to Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. He exempted them from any of the products coming in from China that now have a 10% tariff on ’em.
He was gonna slap a 10% tariff on Apple products, and the president said, “Ten percent, hell, people can afford that. That will be okay.” Let me tell you, a 10% tariff would add about $150 to the price of an iPhone. People would not easily handle that. The number of iPhones, the number of Apple products manufactured in China every year, the ChiComs cannot stand any kind of a deal that would limit the export of those devices to the United States. They wouldn’t want to.
It’s a phenomenal number of people that are employed. You know these factories where iPhones are made have as many, in some cases, as half a million employees. Half a million employees! The factories have their own self-contained apartments and hospitals and playgrounds. It’s a phenomenal setup that could not be replicated here. You gonna find a 500,000 employees for a single factory in the United States to do anything?
So this is — and it’s not spoken of much, and it’s not just Apple products, but being exempt allows there to be a little bit less pressure on the ChiComs, including Apple. And it puts pressure on Apple, by the way, which has its own unique relationship with the ChiComs that is sometimes precarious. So I think Trump is gonna prevail on this.
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