The Trump administration's tariff strategy has succeeded — trading partners are accepting one-sided tariffs and making massive investment commitments, with no retaliation or trade war.
Brad Gerstner argues the EU and Japan deals (15% tariffs paid to the US, 0% tariffs on US goods, hundreds of billions in committed investment) prove predictions of trade-war disaster were wrong, and the president deserves credit. ✦ AI generated
Brad Gerstner · BG2 Pod · 2025-07-31 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 52:06
“How would you describe that? And why do you think the markets are getting very comfortable with where they're landing?”
15% on all goods coming from Europe, 0% on US goods going to Europe... Everybody said this was going to lead to retaliation to trade wars was going to be disastrous for the US and all we've seen so far is deals deals deals deals.
verbatim transcript · starts at 52:06
52:06paper. People ought to take a look at that. But to me, um, when I look at the president's, uh, the deals he's landing, the deal he just got announced yesterday with the European Union, 15% on all goods coming from Europe, 0% on US goods going to Europe. So, an opening up of Europe markets, paying us 15% and on top of that getting commitments like $750 billion, almost a trillion dollars of
52:34energy purchases from the US. Or look at Japan, which they announced last week. Another huge market. Again, similar. They're going to pay tariffs to the United States. No tariffs imposed on the United States. And they're going to invest $550 billion into the US in a way the president gets to direct. So, I would I would I just think we need to give the president credit where credit
53:00is due. Everybody said this was going to lead to retaliation, to trade wars, was going to be disastrous for the US. And all we've seen so far is deals, deals, deals, deals. And I have to say, if this was the CEO of one of our companies, right? Let's say we had a board meeting at the start of the year and he outlined these plans and we said, "Hey, we're
53:21really nervous about this. You know, this is a high-risk, highreward strategy. it's either going to backfire and we're going to fire you or it's going to work really well and we give you a bonus. If we're measuring them halfway through the year, I would say that he's in line for a bonus based upon the trillions of dollars that are going to be coming into the United States and
53:42the fact that we now have a 300 to a $350 billion recurring, you know, stream of revenues into Treasury in the form of these tariffs which are being paid. and and and I think Bessant said last week in the month of June we had our first surplus in the United States monthly surplus since 2015 >> right because of the tariff revenues that are coming in. So I will say this I
- ·EU and Japan accepted one-sided tariff deals
- ·No retaliation, no trade war materialized
- ·Deals replace predicted disaster, Gerstner says
- ·President deserves credit for the outcome
- ·US imposes tariffs on EU goods
- ·EU imposes none on US goods
- ·Deal also includes major investment pledges
- ·Critics warned of disaster and retaliation
- ·Instead: deals, deals, deals, deals
- ·Hundreds of billions in investment committed