Trump’s ‘reciprocal’ tariff pause is about to expire. Cue the confusion

The 90-day deadline President Donald Trump set for countries to make trade deals with the United States or risk substantially higher tariffs is just days away. What will happen after that’s reached at 12:01 a.m. ET on July 9 is anyone’s best guess.

The stakes could not be higher, with the entire global economy on notice.

On April 2, a date Trump dubbed “Liberation Day,” he unveiled new, “reciprocal” tariff rates for key US trading partners, with some levies as high as 50%. Collectively, the rates were the highest the US has charged on foreign goods in over a century. Economists quickly sounded alarms about a recession hitting not just certain countries, but rather the whole world.

As the tariffs went into effect on April 9, they sparked a sell-off on Wall Street and the bond market rebelled, forcing Trump to announce a three-month pause to give countries more time to solidify deals with the US, saying investors “were getting a little bit yippy, a little afraid.”

Since then, almost all goods the US imports have been subject to a minimum 10% tariff. Stocks, meanwhile, have not only recovered all those losses but have set multiple new record highs. And inflation has barely budged. But if tariffs start to rise again and inflation roars back, those gains could quickly get erased all over again.