China Tariffs Extended 90 Days
One green day, zero policy clarity
90 days. Yes, again.
Trump’s Monday executive order pushes the tariff deadline to mid-November. The 145% rate on Chinese goods remains on hold, the 30% stays. Nixon tried 10%. Smoot-Hawley peaked at 60%. This is 145%, enacted under “emergency powers” that keep getting paused each quarter. Stockholm talks delivered the usual: an extension presented as progress. Q4 planning gets one answer: more questions.
Pausable pain is still pain.
Real leverage isn’t measured in Truth Social posts. Beijing controls about 80% of rare-earth processing and the graphite anode chain end to end, and can absorb domestic stress for quarters while U.S. retail faces stockouts. Washington waves TikTok bans. Supply chains care about gallium export licenses and who gets the last ASML tool before the next restriction.
Soybean futures popped roughly 2% Monday morning after the weekend call to “quadruple” orders. Physical grain doesn’t move on tweets. It needs barges, rail slots, buyers that show up. Chicago took profits by noon.
The extension sets up predictable behavior. Importers load warehouses through October to buffer a possible November spike. If rates don’t jump, excess gets discounted. If they do, shortages land with a lag. CPI will miss the timing. PPI will print it in real time.
The Fed gets pinned between the rate cuts demanded and the inflation path those tariffs set in motion.
Energy is the base layer. Diesel cracks are widening into harvest. Watch soybean basis if Brent tests 120 dollars per barrel. LNG spreads in January decide whether European factories run. Add roughly 15% to ocean freight when bunker fuel jumps, then explain to voters why a washing machine costs 200 dollars more.
The pattern migrated from diplomacy to trade. April’s “reciprocal tariff” framework. May’s Geneva “breakthrough”. July’s Stockholm “progress”. August’s “emergency” extension. A quarterly cycle that buys time while policy drifts. Russia used similar pacing in Ukraine talks, stretching the calendar to exhaust the other side.
Beijing learned. Calendar control beats headline control.
Importer reality: Quotes expire in hours. Containers miss cutoffs. Banks want collateral, not narratives. Try sourcing spring inventory when tariffs could be 10% or 145% on two weeks’ notice.
The quarterly scramble continues.