"President Trump on Wednesday said he would pause his reciprocal tariffs for most countries for the next 90 days, backing down on his policy..."

"... that had sent markets into a tailspin and threatened to upend global trade. But Mr. Trump said his break did not include China....  Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said the tariff level would be brought down to a universal 10 percent.... The reversal, which immediately prompted the S&P 500 to climb over 7 percent in a matter of minutes.... Treasury Secretary Bessent reiterated that the pause indicated that Trump cared about trade and wanted to make 'bespoke' trade deals with countries that were willing to lower barriers. Bessent also argued that Trump 'goaded' China into showing that they were the 'bad actors.'... ... Bessent tried to spin the pause as part of Trump’s strategy and not a capitulation, saying that the tariffs had worked to get some of China’s closest neighbors to seek deals with the United States. 'Do not retaliate, and you will be rewarded,' he said...."

The NYT reports.

"The fallout from the trade disruption will hurt the United States, which relies on China for all sorts of manufactured goods, but will do more damage to China..."

"... aid Wang Yuesheng, the director of the Institute of International Economics at Peking University. 'The impact on China is mainly that Chinese products have nowhere to go,' Mr. Wang said. That will ravage export-oriented companies making things like furniture, clothing, toys and home appliances along China’s eastern seaboard, which largely exist to serve American consumers. 'These companies will be hit very hard,' Mr. Wang said.... Beijing’s strategy now is to push back at the United States and hope that Mr. Trump succumbs to domestic pressure to reverse course, said Evan Medeiros, a professor of Asian studies at Georgetown University who served as an Asia adviser to President Barack Obama. 'They know that if they give in to pressure they will get more pressure,' he said. 'They will resist it with the belief that China can withstand more pain than they can.'"

I'm reading "For U.S. and China, a Risky Game of Chicken With No Off-Ramp in Sight/Neither side wants to look weak by backing down on tariffs. But if their trade relationship collapses, the global consequences could be profound" (NYT).

The off-ramp is free trade!

Until then, it's a test of who "can withstand more pain." I can see thinking Americans will give up first, but the pain is worse for China. They have all this junk they made for us — furniture, clothing, toys and home appliances — and we'd just be saving money and going without a lot of extra items we might be better off without — all that "fast fashion," all the plastic toys, all the home redecorating madness. We may even learn that life is better without so many cheap consumer goods. Less waste. Less damage to our soul from the slave labor.

They need to break before we learn to live without them. But if they don't, we pocket in the money from the tariffs.

Why aren't progressives on Trump's side here?

I say get rid of nickels too. Let the dime be the smallest coin — not just physically but denominationally.

I saw Trump's Truth Social post: "For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let's rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it's a penny at a time."

Then I read the hand-wringing in the NYT — "Trump Orders Treasury Secretary to Stop Minting Pennies/Can he do that? It’s not clear. But President Trump is right when he says that pennies 'literally cost us more than 2 cents'" — because they can't just say Thanks, Trump, thanks for doing what we've known for 40 years we needed to do but we couldn't do because some people whine about the nostalgic and symbolic value of the Lincoln-stamped copper-plated disc.

The NYT article says: "[T]he elimination of the penny will increase the demand for nickels, which are even more expensive to produce and distribute at 13.78 cents per coin, the organization said. (The dime is the smallest coin whose face value is greater than what it costs to produce.)"

To that I say, get rid of the nickel too! It's always been absurdly oversized, especially compared to the dime. With the penny and the nickel gone, the size and the value of the dime will finally merge. So aesthetically pleasing.

I feel a little sorry for the sector of America that feels that whatever Trump does must be bad. Can't they at least celebrate his action eliminating the penny? 

Last September, the NYT published the column "Abolish the Penny? Inside an intractable problem inside America’s change purses."