Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about countries calling Trump's bluff.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent certainly appeared to slip up during an interview on CNN.

Back on April 2nd, Trump imposed his widespread tariff policy. Then he paused the tariffs and

established a new deadline 90 days later. That deadline is up on Wednesday. The Trump administration

said there would be 90 deals in 90 days. There hasn't been. Not even close. Now, according to the Treasury

Secretary, Trump is once again extending his taco dinner. Bessence said, quote,

President Trump's going to send letters to some of our trading partners, saying that if you don't

move things along, then on

August 1, you will boomerang back to your April 2nd tariff level.

Trump, pushing back the deadline, isn't a surprise. It's not even newsworthy. But what is,

is something that has so far been treated like a throwaway line from the interview.

But it may actually be the most important part.

Bessence said, quote, many of these countries never even contacted us.

And yes, yes, that means that Trump's team was lying when they said the countries were calling and sucking up to Trump and begging for a deal.

But Trump's team repeating falsehoods isn't actually news either.

What is news is the decision-making process in the other countries that led to them not contacting the administration.

Trump was operating under the belief that tariffs were the ultimate leverage.

Them not contacting the administration means it isn't the ultimate leverage.

It means they're calling Trump's bluff, or it means that they don't actually care,

because it's not their country paying for it. It's you paying for it. Either way, apparently

many of these countries decided to tell Trump he doesn't have the cards., there's been a leak from inside the administration.

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