From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

Tariffs or no tariffs, that is the question. And it's not a good one for financial markets or businesses that are trying to figure out what Donald Trump is really up to in his implementation of his signature

tariff policy. That's our subject for today. And could that uncertainty tip the United States,

along with some other things, into an economic recession? Welcome to Potomac Watch, our daily

podcast for the Wall Street Journal opinion pages.

I'm Paul as you go, and I'm here with my two colleagues, Kyle Peterson and Alicia Finley.

Welcome to you both. Nice to have you here with me in the studio. So this week, Trump imposed a 25%

tariff on all goods from Mexico and Canada on Tuesday. Then Wednesday,

he said, well, not on autos imported from those countries for another month. And then a day later,

Thursday, he has now apparently given a reprieve, at least as we discussed this here now, for another month

from all goods from Mexico and Canada that abide by the U.S.MCA trade agreement that Trump

signed in his first term. The similar exemption for another month might happen on Canadian goods later today.

Let's listen to Howard Lutnik, the Commerce Secretary, who signaled this earlier Thursday.

The president is going to decide this today, but he's talking about it.

But I think it's likely that it will cover all U.S.MCA compliant goods and services.

So that which is part of President Trump's deal with Canada and Mexico are likely to get an exemption from these tariffs now.

This comes from that Canada has done an enormous amount. They've offered us an

enormous amount of work on fentanyl, and so is Mexico. Matter of fact, the president and I are

speaking to our Mexican counterparties later today this morning. So we think this is likely, the likely outcome will be sort of in the

middle. So U.S. MCA compliant goods and services will be excluded and everything else.

So if you think about it this way, if you lived under Donald Trump's U.S., Mexico, and Canada agreement, you will get a reprieve from the tariffs now.

And if you chose to go outside of that, you did so at your own risk.

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