April 9: Trump's higher "reciprocal tariffs" begin just after midnight. Hours later, the president says he is issuing a 90-day pause on those duties, except for China. Trump raises tariffs on Chinese goods from 104% to 145%, the highest rate so far this year.

Lutnick is “an amplifying influence” on Trump, another person close to the Commerce Secretary told me. He and the President both love the idea of using tariffs to erase America’s trade deficits and as a form of redress for what they view as decades of, as Trump puts it, getting “ripped off.”

President Trump and his administration have been studying new sectoral tariffs that could cover a broad part of the American economy.