CNBC’s Megan Cassella was talking about tariffs and indicated that the messaging from the White House is that there won’t be negotiations on tariffs. The line from the top is that ‘countries had 70 years to negotiate’.

This is a White House official cited by CNBC:

“This is not a negotiation. This is a national emergency. Any country that thinks that they can simply make an announcement promising to lower some tariffs is ignoring the big central problem of their massive non-tariff barriers…”

I think she is basing this on comments that have been on CNN and elsewhere but it’s a troubling development if true. It argues that these tariffs aren’t going away, even if other countries drop their tariffs. She specifically mentioned Israel, which dropped all US tariffs to zero earlier this week and still got a 17% rate.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.