Hi, everybody. Happy Monday. It's 4 o'clock in New York in the staring contest between the Chinese government and Donald J. Trump with the world's economy hanging in the balance.

Donald Trump appears to have blinked first.

Newsbreaking today that the U.S. and China are reducing tariffs for 90 days.

After talks in Switzerland over the weekend, the Trump administration is now lowering tariffs on Chinese goods to 30 percent from the rate Trump had set, which was 145 percent. The Chinese government is lowering tariffs on American products to 10%.

Now, that 30% number on goods from China is still higher than what it was before Trump came to town,

but it is a significant drawdown from the current rate.

News of the reprieve in the trade war started by Trump

sent markets soaring. The Dow Jones today closing up more than a thousand points. Trump called the

cut in tariffs a quote, great reset. This press secretary went further, calling it, quote, an extraordinary

first step in the right direction. But let's be clear about what

happened here. Donald Trump started a trade war and Donald Trump blinked in the war he started.

New York Times writes it like this, quote, in a research note, Mark Williams, chief Asia

economist for capital economics, said the agreement was, quote, another substantial retreat from

the Trump administration's aggressive stance because it does not include any commitments by China

on its currency or trade imbalances. In other words, Trump got no assurances that China would work

to fix the reason Trump imposed the tariffs in the first place.

That is ostensibly the country's trade deficit with China.

Now, Charles Gasparino, he's a reporter over at Fox News, tweeted this in part, quote, breaking.

Trump raised tariffs on the world, the markets, particularly the bond market, which we need to finance our debt, they rebelled.

Trump then was forced to back off. End of story. Film at 11 of the president spinning this as a major victory.

What we have seen is a little lesson on how markets exert their power. How, when you have

to depend on them, as we still do, you can't go to trade war with the world without bad stuff happening,

...