Ever since becoming the 47th president of the United States of America Donald Trump is turning everything completely upside down. The Deep State and the elites absolutely hate him. From Day 1 (January 20th 2025) President Trump has been completely open to the Media than any other president in 236 years of the American presidency. (George Washington was the first US President in 1789).
The Press was first surprised when President Trump invited the Media to sit INSIDE the White House as he was signing Executive Orders. The Media was allowed to ask him questions as he went about his desk work. And this has become a frequent affair because the way the American government works is that the President makes a decision and then to implement his decisions the President must sign the relevant Executive Order. It is just an administrative process – every president or prime minister probably does the same. (But in some countries the leader just “minutes” his remarks on some application and his female ‘aide’ with a high school education will collect money selling the ‘minutes’).
So now it has become a new tradition in the White House. The Media is invited into the White House a few times a week – to talk and ask questions to the President as he goes about signing the Executive Orders. And reporters being reporters some of them are quite insistent and even rude when they question the president. Yet the President takes all their questions. Donald Trump will not charge Ratu Naga or have her arrested for something she said or wrote. That is only for the Third World Stupids.
And now Donald Trump has smashed another mould. This week the President of the United States invited the world’s media to live telecast an entire Cabinet Meeting – almost three hours. Here is a shorter one-hour version by Fox News.
The people can see the President speaking in a completely different manner than his usual loud and aggressive campaign style. He is completely professional, cool and collected and fully informed about each and every ‘Department’ (Ministry) as they make their reports. Note that Trump conducts the meeting by going clockwise around the table. Each Secretary (Minister) has to say something about what they have been doing over the past week, what has been achieved and any future directions. Few or no details are discussed (except Secretary of Health Robert Kennedy Jr – who went on quite a bit) but more importantly they are discussing policy “direction” – on a weekly basis. And being broadcast live by the world’s media.
This is really quite unprecedented. Because the President has just exposed his administration to extremely detailed scrutiny by the American public, especially the Media. The Deep State Media is already calling him Stalin, Putin, Kim Jong Un, Kremlinesque, North Korean style etc for putting on a “publicity stunt”.
Stunt or no stunt for the first time in 236 years the Press witnessed an entire Cabinet meeting. Say what you want but no president has done this before.
What is really worrying the Deep State is that future presidents will be expected to maintain such extremely high levels of transparency. A precedent and maybe a new norm is being established.
In his report Scott Bessent the US Secretary of the Treasury and the main architect of the new Tariff Policy points out that the 90 day postponement of the tariffs on the 70 countries (what about the rest) will give them time to ponder (and also go through administrative approvals – parliament etc) before they revert. Especially after China’s ‘retaliation’ with over 120% tariff. After 90 days the new tariffs will apply on those 70 countries – unless they lower their tariffs to match the United States.
China has the largest trade surplus with the US. The Chinese figures say the US has a US$1.2 TRILLION trade deficit of which the trade deficit with China is US$300 million. The American figures show a much higher deficit with China.
China and the US have now imposed tariffs exceeding 120% on each others exports. This will effectively kill off ALL trade between China and the US. I think the Americans were prepared for the ‘retaliation’ by China. So far there have been no major price increases in the US. Petrol prices, interest rates and prices of medicines have gone down. Egg prices in the US have crashed, from over US6.00 per dozen in March 2025 to US$3.00 per dozen today.
Anyway who will blink first? The US or China? Neither. I am quite sure that both the US and China will come to terms soon over these tariffs. Both the US and China are addicted to each other.
The other 70 countries are more dependent on the US than the US is on those 70 countries. If Bangladesh cannot export table-cloth to the US the Americans will buy it from somewhere else. The Banglas cannot sell those checkered red and white ‘American’ table cloth everywhere else. Do you have one of these in your house? In the US this is their national table cloth – since before the time of Dennis the Menace.
If the US can impose 120% tariffs on a giant like China surely they can impose the same on the much smaller 70 countries. It is most likely that the 70 countries will come to terms with the US.
There will be a more acceptable and reasonable tariff which I hope will become the standard around the world. If the US and those 70 countries can resolve the tariff (at a certain percentage) then it will impose more pressure on China to match them.
China can play smart and wait 90 days to see what happens. But looking at Donald Trump’s ‘The Art of the Deal’ it might serve China better to “make a deal” before the 90 days are up. They may get a better “discount”.
Pure Copy Paste From:
By Syed Akbar Ali at April 12, 2025
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