'US should stop creating confusion'; Chinese embassy denies any ongoing negotiation on tariffs

0:00 The Chinese government speaking directly to out front t after Trump issued this warning to China today about his tariff I'm not going to drop him unless they give us something that's, you know, substantial. Otherwise they're going to drop Okay. All right. The spokesman for the Chinese em at a long conversation with out front today and said, quote, since the US initiated these unilateral tariffs, if it sincerely wishes to resolve the issues, it must completely abolish all unilateral tariffs on China. All unilateral tariffs. That's not just coming down half way through that, that's al He then went on to say, and I quote again, China and the are not having any consultation or negotiation on tariffs.

0:47 The U.S. should stop creating confusion. Dan Ives and Peter Tuchman are h And, Dan, look, the the embassy spokesman there, you know, very clear there said no consultations or negotiations, are going on ri Now, Trump obviously is very directly said otherwise. So, what is all of this doing? I look it's and it's creating mass confusion in the market because at the end of the day, everyone wants to understand when deals actually get done and when real talks are getting And we've talked about it. Is it time's ticking. You have, what, two and a half weeks in terms of when we're actually going to buy your manager? Yeah, we're getting about two and a half wee till the shortages, till the price increases. And it comes down to like talk. Look talks cheap.

1:33 The market at this point. And Peter talk about markets up because you're anticipating now back skins what you got to get deals done. But time's ticking. You got to get deals done I beli starting this weekend. So Peter that time magazine interview, you know, Trump gave the impression he had talked to XI. I mean, you know, it was very cl he wanted everyone to think he h talked to XI about the tariffs. But the way he said it was time said, Will you call President XI if he doesn't call you Trump? No time. You won't Trump no time as he called you yet. Yep. When did he call you? He's called. And I don't think that's a sign of weakness on his behalf Okay. He's called and then pressed by CNN and on on when you know. Did you talk to him since the ta Did you talk to him two years ag When did you talk to him? Trump said this.

2:18 I don't want to comment on that, but I've spoken to him many time Okay. So that, that, that, that was clearly not talking to about the tariffs right now. So you know, what are the impact of these gam You know it's baffling to me. I've been trying to be the you know, the more of that cup half full person in the room for the last bunch of days with And it's getting to the point where it doesn't really make any I mean, it's even though the market is up four days in a row. Yeah. And that that could be just smart investors knowing that some deal has to be on the and has to be made because the alternative is really dark, right? It's what Dan calls, you know, this as supply chain Armag Right. And so that's not really an alte that we can handle. But it just doesn't make sense. Why I don't understand

3:05 the game that they're playing. It makes absolutely no sense. If they were talking they would say they were talking That would show some kind of pos One of them or both would, I mea what a great thing that would be if the two of them actually, you know, said, we are talking i Why are why are we playing that where, you know, look, it's not going to affect I mean, on the basis there are people's lives who are hugely. Yeah. Right. Maybe not us, but there are millions of people people who voted for Mr. Trump right across the country who literally may have wanted to at the end of this year, who, you know, who are living paycheck to paych who may have had a small 401 K or something, you know, sort of one or which is now at 201 K. Yeah, I don't get that.

3:50 It's disrespectful at best. I think to his point, I think that the big issue here is that who do you believe in terms like, okay, what do you So. So now something comes out two hours la and then there's another message At this point they're giving back to the Dow. That's why stocks are up this we But going into next week you nee Yeah. And of course as you point out I mean you don't want to be in a where you're saying, well nobody trusts China so we can be as untrustworthy as China on our word of what we say is happening. It's not the US. And then you're playing poker with yourself too, right? And that's what he's done so far Okay, I won on the whiteboard. This is something you pointed ou It's something called blank ship Right. All right. Blank shipping. So I'm just going to draw. Container ship. Blank sailing. Sorry. Blank sail Blank sailing

4:36 I'm not going to put a sail on i because it's a big cargo ship. But you got a big cargo ship her because usually it's full of car on the top beginning of the year, these ships leaving Asia, 0% of were shipping ports. They were going to report they were picking up what they h The containers were full hundred Okay. Now 40%. These are the numbers you're pointing today. As many as 40% of these ships. Guess what? That's okay. Bypassing ports of entry is down 40 and ships have to go when they have to go. You can't just sit around and wa So they're going with just just a few containers on them. Just these these half empty court who knows what from And just think about what it's going to look like over the next week, two, three weeks, four weeks. And that's ultimately that's

5:22 why dealers need to get that. Because this is what business le from from e-commerce, you know, across every in this y basically saying like time's tak and guess what's going to happen Shortages, massive price increas And that's where look we just talk about for the US consumer hasn't seen No it's come member goods back t It's like being on a beach. And all of a sudden like you're in the ocean, there's no water. You're like, oh, this is this is You run out and I'm going to run You like, no, it's because as tsunamis come in. So the point is that the reality is that he needs to get deals done. But but because this is this question period, I'm trying to understand you. With China, a deal doesn't just with the snap of a finger in a g I mean that there would be nothi

6:08 to indicate that that's how it's going to happen. But we're in a situation where if you look at the ships and you look at what's happening right, that can be a blip only if you have an immediate sudden change. I just accept I'm working with the guy named Andre who is a who runs a company call We've talked about how AI is coming into the logistics space around trucking in the United St and how complicated that is and how important it is that every little check or I mean, the trucks have to be fu they have to be on time. All of that work. Think about it. When you're only going at 40% inventory, that's going to start So the ship lines are going to b Everybody is going to start losi You don't get your inventory then I don't get mine. They don't get there. If it opens up, back up. Those are all late.

6:54 And then the and then you've been talked abou talking about even like Christma like the boys the ship. But that's what we're dealing wi The retailers and small business And we don't have the stuffed animal company. They're saying they put in their for 80% of their sales, Christma by the end of May. Correct. So t that is the lead time for this t And that's the lead time that's going to start affecting when it starts affecting food and all kinds of other, you know look you saw that with target an and Walmart actually the CEOs of a lot of the retailers went to the white House apparently to talk and say, you know, this is real for us. And how do you price it? Because you don't know what your price is. That's and you've talked about t huge uncertainty. Well, here we are another weeken And again the market hoping righ Because the market's got to be a because the alternative so horri it can't quarter correct. And that was the market felt str

7:39 You know it was there was the advances versus declines were good. The the buy side felt like it was buying with int So there are buyers in the wings And somebody that must be smart thinking that a deal has to be m because the alternative is reall All right. Thank you both.