Whiskey & Donuts

Trade Talk: Stock Drops and Cheaper Eggs, oy vey

• Tre Scott & John Mack • Season 1 • Episode 24

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When Tré asks: Can America win a tariff war with China? the conversation quickly turns into a verbal sparring match between him and John. Tré sees tariffs as self-inflicted pain, while John views them as necessary leverage. But both seem to agree: we're fencing with blindfolds on.

We unpack the 54% cumulative tariff rate, argue over whether prices have really changed, and ask why "we're getting screwed" sounds more like a vibe than a verifiable fact. From farmers and gas prices to day traders and long-term investors, we break down who’s winning, who’s whining, and whether "fair trade" even exists. 

No easy answers. No safe takes. Just bourbon, banter, and bets you'll want to fact-check next year. (Recorded April 8, 2025)

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Tré:

so do you think uh, this is just you personally can the US win a tariff war with China?

John:

I don't know. Me and you have been beating this drum for a long time and we view it different. We view the whole thing. It's so different. The way me and you look at this. It's like we're not. We don't. We're just not viewing the same world. I don't think we're ever going to get into a war. I don't think that. I think that most of these tariffs aren't. It's nothing's going to change. I think it's just a renegotiation and you guys just don't like the way the president negotiates.

John:

And that's, you don't have to like it. I mean, you're not the president of the United States. So you know, when you're good enough to get that job, then go get that job and you guys do what you want to do. But until then, do like we did and just fucking go with the program for the next four years and if it works out, it works out. If it doesn't, somebody else will get elected.

Tré:

So I had to look up the uh where we stand. So I don't know what things were before. So where we are currently. Um, on February 1st the president announced a 10% tariff on all Chinese imports. Then a month later, march 4th, he increased that by an additional 10%, raising it to 20%. A month later, an additional 34% was applied, giving us a cumulative tariff rate of 54%. And that was just five days ago. And then yesterday he announced or he threatened rather, an additional 50% if China did not withdraw their retaliatory tariffs. So if China, what do you? What? What would you like China to do?

John:

Fair, make it fair. Obviously it's not fair. So there's there's a skew in how much we pay to have their goods. They pay to have their good shift here and we have our good ship there. It's a, it's not. It's not tit for tat.

John:

And and I don't even know if it needs to be tit for tat, I don't know if that's what the president's going for. I think he's just looking to not get screwed as bad as we've been getting screwed for the last, however long we've been in business with China. So you know, I don't know what he's trying to do. I do know that what he's doing as much as you guys don't want to admit that it might be working it's getting people to the table to sit down and renegotiate trade deals with the United States, and you guys don't have to like the way that he's doing it. You don't have to like the things that he's saying, and you guys can. You know your Trump derangement syndrome can continue and you guys can hate everything he does, but at the end of the day, if it works, you can't say he shouldn't have done that and you can't say, oh well, you know he's relations with this country or relations with that country, or or he shouldn't do that to our allies.

John:

Listen, all of those countries that you're defending. I know that you get pissed off because every once in a while I'll throw you some Putin shit and you're like I can't believe you're defending that fucking guy. I can't believe that you're defending all of these countries screwing the United States for as long as they've been screwing the United States. And when somebody tries to get in there and say hey, let's make it fair, you're like nope, they shouldn't be doing that. You should just let these other countries continue to screw us, because it's good relations and we need good relations with these people, because we need to defend them.

Tré:

I still haven't figured out. I've been listening to this for months now. I haven't heard any of you guys explain how we're being quote unquote screwed. I hear that word used over and over, but I just haven't understood what it means other than, well, they're charging more than we're charging. I'm like, yeah, but we don't fucking care, we can buy whatever we want, we can pay whatever we need to pay to get whatever we want.

John:

But, more importantly, there are good customers in there.

Tré:

We want to make sure that our customers are able to continue going to work every day and you're going to finish my statement, though, before you jump in. No, go ahead. We want our customers to be able to continue to go to work every day and buy our stuff. That's the point. Go ahead.

John:

No, no, you go. I'm just going to listen to you.

Tré:

I was wanting to get that point completed before you jumped in there. That was all.

John:

I'm just saying we're $36 trillion in debt, so we can't keep doing the same shit that we're doing. It's obviously, it's not working. You can't just keep paying people money, right? You can't just keep giving people money, can you? Can you just keep printing dollars and handing people money?

Tré:

Gotta have some value for sure.

John:

We should just keep doing what we're doing.

Tré:

So I guess we could go just one other piece here. There was one senator from North Carolina saying that it seems like there's been a general lack of accountability regarding tariffs negatively impacting the economy right now, and others, like Ron Johnson out of Wisconsin and these are both Republican senators are talking about the immediate negative impacts on Americans and we're wondering whether or not, especially in the agriculture sector, is that something or is that not something that we should care about?

John:

Are things getting more expensive or are they the same price? Because I mean, shit's costing me the same amount of money. I understand that you guys believe that that's Donald Trump's fault, but you know, if a gallon of milk cost me eight bucks today and three years ago or two years ago or a year ago, it cost me eight dollars. It's still eight bucks, man, and it still sucks. And if another country's not getting as much of our tax paying dollars, then I guess that's the price I need to pay. But we're already paying $8 for a gallon of milk. But you guys want to blame Donald Trump for that because he didn't fix it by adding tariffs to other. I can't even I don't got the brain power to fucking deal with it all, Because you guys are talking about just nonsense. Nothing's getting fixed, Nothing's changing, but yet you're bitching because the guy's not fixing it. Well, neither did your guy.

Tré:

Hold on Really quickly, go ahead. I jumped in.

John:

Go ahead.

Tré:

I was going to say just, I wanted to get just a quick query in there For your money. Has the president done anything wrong?

John:

For my money.

Tré:

I mean in your opinion, in your general, just in your heart of hearts. It's just you and me talking yeah, we got an audience now, but has he done anything wrong?

John:

No, okay, okay.

Tré:

What's changed?

John:

No, okay, okay, what's changed? No, no, I pay less for eggs.

Tré:

I pay less for gas.

John:

My gas has dropped 30 cents and I'm in California, you know what I mean. If I see gas dropping 30 cents, am I going to be mad? 30 cents a gallon, like that's a lot. It's not like two or three cents. It's 30 cents in three months. That's 10 cents a month since he took office, so am I supposed to be mad about that?

Tré:

Sounds like a big win.

John:

Right If eggs are cheaper for the average person, because that's what people were bitching about, are we, are we supposed to complain because they're cheaper, or do we just find something else to bitch about and quit complaining about the eggs?

Tré:

Well, I mean a person that it's focused right. Well, is it, though, the person who's either retired or close to retirement who realize that, oh my gosh, my portfolio dropped by a couple hundred thousand dollars in the last couple last week and a half, or last week, but I say, you know, $4 on eggs Are they really seeing those things as being equivalent, like, oh, I'm happy to pay $4 for eggs, but you know, it doesn't bother me that I lost, you know?

John:

a quarter a quarter of my net worth. So you play the stock market a little bit, right, yeah? How long does it take for the stock market to correct itself over time?

Tré:

Now I will say this, john, when you asked about, you mentioned earlier how I don't have a crystal ball. You are 100%. That would be 100% correct to state about the market. No one has a crystal ball, except he did tell us look to state about the market. Okay, no one has a crystal ball. Except he did tell us, look, shit's about to happen. Sell everything if you want to the other day, but how long does it take? You know those, what we hear and the one of the clips that you sent me was Kevin O'Leary talking, and I do like Kevin a lot. He's Canadian, but I like him right. Uh, he's one of my favorite canadians, actually he's not a stupid man said that look about every 18 months and I think you may have had another one reference as well about the 18 month thing. And so, yes, approximately every 18 months. You know on average. It's like you know a little little thing here or there. Okay, so you get. You get that drawdown.

John:

Okay, so now I'm not trying to interrupt, you Go ahead. But so let's say he's right, because I mean he's a billionaire, he might know something about the stock market. So let's say it does every 18 months it corrects itself. The people that you're talking about, that are long-term investors, because that's their retirement plan. Do long-term investors, because that's their retirement plan? Do you think that they're worried today about three years from now.

Tré:

I think people who so, those people who are long-term and who are just, you know they've got a good portfolio, they feel good about it. They're not even talking on social media. They might talk to their friends like oh well, I woke up this morning, I checked my balance it was a lot lower, but they just kind of keep on moving. You don't ever hear from those people. They're fine.

John:

Because the stock market over the last 50 years has only gone. What direction? Well, it only goes up. I believe in America. Oh, believe me. So right now, what we're talking about is the day-to-day day traders that may or may not have lost a million dollars. Those guys know what they're doing.

John:

Me and you talked about this before when you said, hey, you invested in this. Doesn't it piss you off that you woke up and it was all gone? No, I mean yes, it makes me mad that my money is gone. I'm not rich enough to be not mad about my money being gone. But also, that's not my profession. I'm not a day trader. I shouldn't be dabbling in things I don't know enough about.

John:

Those guys lose sleep because they know at hey, 1 o'clock in the morning, there might be some shit happening because a market's opening up and they wake up and they play that game. I don't play that game, so I didn't wake up at 1 o'clock in the morning. When I woke up at six o'clock in the morning, all my money was gone. I guess I should have woke up at one, right, because that's the game that you're playing when you're talking about day traders and people losing millions of dollars in a day because that stock dropped and they didn't sell. Or somebody else beat them to the cell, or somebody else beat them to the butt, whatever that might be. That's the game that those guys play. That's their profession, that's their job. They know the risk.

Tré:

I will say this I am glad I got out of Bitcoin when I did Right, hey man. So let's recap. Let's recap the episode real quick, shall we? On the one side, we've got the fencing policy that clearly confuses gender and sex. A female athlete disqualified for saying no thanks. This trade war, shall we call it with China? I think it's designed to punish China, but I feel it's punishing us, and your position is that you disagree with me on that.

John:

No, no, I don't disagree with you on that. That's not what I. My disagreement is we're just going to have to wait to see where it goes. Okay, and then?

Tré:

we disagree Because I don't?

John:

I think that you're right. I think it's designed to punish certain countries for treating us the way that they treated us.

Tré:

I would agree with that a major disagreement that we'll put into the book so that people can fact check us or can sort of check the bet later regarding how many jobs, just sort of on an aggregate, are actually coming back versus how many jobs come back that are done by non-humans. So we will have that. We'll have to get into what the wording is of the quote unquote bet on that one.

John:

But I think we should yeah, we'll have to go off air, negotiate that, that bet and then bring it back as another bottle of whiskey.

Tré:

Sounds good man, so I I think that America is always winning. I think we're taking some jabs right now, but it feels like I don't know. We could almost like sort of say that it's like fencing with a blindfold on In a way. We try to figure out what's going on with our economy, especially the stock market, right, but that's it for today. I think Everyone out there thanks again for listening. We appreciate your time. Pour yourself some bourbon and send this episode to your favorite group chat member. And remember it's not about left versus right or about smart versus stupid, it's about me versus John 100% or John versus Trey.

John:

It depends on whose side you're on.

Tré:

Exactly Everyone. We'll see y'all next time here at Whiskey and Donuts. Thanks for coming.