The President's Daily Brief
PDB Afternoon Bulletin | May 12th, 2025: US-China Agree To Slash Tariffs In Major Trade Breakthrough & White House Secures Release Of American-Israeli Hostage From Hamas Captivity
12 May 2025
In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: We’ll begin today with a surprise breakthrough regarding U.S.-China relations, as the two global economic powers agree to substantially roll back tariffs on each other’s goods for 90-days and remove most economic barriers as part of a deal to defuse the trade war. Later in the show—Hamas unconditionally released American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander from captivity in Gaza on Monday, following direct talks between the Iranian-backed terror group and the Trump administration. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief TriTails Premium Beef: Visit https://TryBeef.com/PDB for 2 free Flat Iron steaks with your first box over $250 Birch Gold: Text PDB to 989898 and get your free info kit on gold DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you text PDB to 64000. Message and data rates apply Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
It's Monday, the 12th of May. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, the U.S. and China reached a breakthrough during trade negotiations this weekend. How about that?
Agreeing to a 90-day tariff pause that will significantly slash rates, marking a major de-escalation in the economic standoff that has global investors celebrating. Markets are up on the news. We'll have those details.
Later in the show, following direct talks between Hamas and the Trump administration, the Iranian-backed terror group unconditionally released American-Israeli hostage Eden Alexander from captivity in Gaza on Monday. But first, today's afternoon spotlight.
We'll begin today with a surprise breakthrough regarding US-China relations, as the two global economic powers agreed to substantially roll back tariffs on each other's goods for 90 days, as well as to remove most economic barriers as part of a deal to defuse the trade war.
As we've been tracking here on the PDP, delegations from the US and China met in Geneva this weekend for marathon trade negotiations, and the talks apparently did not disappoint. Both sides agreed to lower their reciprocal tariffs on the other by 115 percentage points for a period of 90 days, during which discussions will continue on securing a long-term trade deal.
That's according to a report from NBC News. The announcement, which was made in a rare joint statement released by Washington and Beijing, signaled the short-lived but economically devastating trade war may soon be coming to an end. The temporary pause will effectively lower U.S.
tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%, leaving in place only the 10% baseline tariff that Trump has imposed on all countries, along with the 20% duty imposed on China earlier this year related to fentanyl manufacturing. China will in turn slash its 125% retaliatory tariffs on U.S.
goods to just 10% and will remove all non-tariff countermeasures, such as export restrictions on certain rare earth minerals. In their joint statement, both sides said they recognized, quote, the importance of a sustainable, long-term and mutually beneficial economic and trade relationship, end quote. Oh, just get a room.
Many analysts did not expect much to come from this first round of trade talks, which were, as you know, led by Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and Trade Representative Jameson Greer on the U.S. side and top economic star Heilei Feng on the Chinese side. But it appears they overestimated just how much economic punishment China was willing to absorb.
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