The President's Daily Brief
PDB Afternoon Bulletin | May 9th, 2025: Trump Floats Major Chinese Tariff Cut & Ukraine Busts Hungarian Spy Network
09 May 2025
In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: First, President Donald Trump suggests he is willing to drastically cut U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, just as his economic team heads to Switzerland for their first direct trade talks with officials from the communist regime. Later in the show—Ukraine is accusing Hungary of espionage after allegedly dismantling a Hungarian military spy network gathering sensitive intelligence regarding Kyiv’s defenses near their shared border. 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 Birch Gold: Text PDB to 989898 and get your free info kit on gold. TriTails Premium Beef: Visit https://TryBeef.com/PDB for 2 free Flat Iron steaks with your first box over $250. Plus, for a limited time enjoy 5% off on almost everything site-wide excluding subscriptions and B-stock. Jacked Up Fitness: Go to https://GetJackedUp.com and use code BAKER at checkout to save 10% off your entire purchase Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
It's Friday, the 9th 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, President Trump suggests that he's willing to drastically cut U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods just as his economic team heads to Switzerland for their first direct trade talks with officials from the communist regime.
Later in the show, Ukraine is accusing Hungary of espionage after allegedly dismantling a Hungarian military spy network gathering sensitive intelligence regarding Kyiv's defenses near their shared border. We'll have those details. But first, today's afternoon spotlight.
We'll begin with a major update on the U.S.-China trade war as President Trump signals that he's willing to make a big tariff concession to the Chinese Communist Party. Taking to Truth Social on Friday morning, the president said he'll consider slashing his current 145% tariff on Chinese imports by nearly half. And for those of you working on your math, that would be somewhere near 80%.
Well, okay, not exactly 80%, but in that region. It was the first time that Trump suggested a specific alternative to his massive tariff and comes just ahead of direct trade talks with Chinese officials this weekend, according to a report from the Associated Press.
As we've been tracking here on the PDB, Beijing and Washington agreed earlier this week to take the first step towards finding a resolution to the crippling tariff war. which began of course last month when Trump hit the Chinese Communist Party with a 145% duty on their exports, prompting Beijing to retaliate with a 125% tax on U.S. goods. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and Senior U.S.
Trade Representative Jameson Greer will meet in Geneva, Switzerland, with China's economic czar on Saturday to break the ice on the subject of mutual de-escalation. In what appears to be an attempt to soften up the Chinese delegation ahead of the negotiations, Trump said, quote, China should open up its market to USA, would be so good for them, and then he used three exclamation marks.
so it would be really good for them. Closed markets don't work anymore, end quote. He then added, 80% tariff on China seems right, up to Scott B., of course referring to his treasury secretary. Now, whether the CCP takes Trump's remarks and the exclamation marks as an olive branch or maintains their stance that all unilateral U.S.
tariffs must be dropped before substantive talks can move forward, well, that's anyone's guess. While an 80% rate would still be an extremely high import duty, it would bring some measure of welcome relief to Chinese manufacturers, which, of course, have so far borne the brunt of the economic standoff.
The trade talks in Geneva are scheduled to run through May 12, though neither the US nor China has specified what the agenda will look like.
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