No Divorce From China

Plus: Homeless encampments in California, taxing university endowments, and more...

Disentangling would cost too much: "Neither side wants to decouple," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday, a reversal from the Trump administration's line that we needed to lessen supply-chain dependence on China for national security reasons. Earlier this week, the U.S. and China agreed to a deal that would bring American tariffs on Chinese goods down to 30 percent, from 145 percent, while China will bring its tariffs on American goods down from 125 percent to 10 percent. This is a temporary pause for 90 days while further deals are negotiated.

"Finally we have a President that will stand up to China's unfair trade practices," Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said when the original tariffs were announced a month ago. But also: "We concluded that we have shared interests, and we both have an interest in balanced trade," said Bessent this week. Which is it?

The part that's not said: The Trump administration very nearly drove the economy into the ground, and they got scared and have now backed off.

"Both sides are trying to portray it as the other was more desperate," Nicholas Borst, director of China research at an investment advisory firm, told Politico. "What we saw, though, was just sort of the initial innings of economic pain."

But is this trade relationship any better than the one we had in March, or February, or January? It's not clear that this is much of a win, and even a 30 percent tariff still leaves lots of companies in the lurch.

Has China made any concessions in a way that's superior to the pre-April 2 status quo?

— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) May 12, 2025

Some people, including a former Trump administration official speaking to Politico, speculate that China's threatened rare earth cut-off was more damaging to automakers and the defense industry than anyone's letting on, and that China actually can log this one as a W; "China's export restrictions to the United States worked. It created enough pain to compel the U.S. government to plead with the Chinese government to reverse course," the official told Politico.

California's homelessness crackdown: On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom called on hundreds of towns and cities in his state to ban tent encampments on public land. He appears to be favoring a much more punitive, sweeping approach now. "The governor has created a template for a local ordinance that municipalities can adopt to outlaw encampments and clear existing ones," reports The New York Times. Since Newsom controls which housing-related funds get distributed, he has some influence over what localities do and has the ability to reward them, in essence, for adopting his preferred ordinances and enforcement tactics.

"Nearly 40 percent of the state's Democrat-dominated electorate said they were so weary of squalid settlements overtaking parks and blocking sidewalks that they supported the arrest of homeless campers if they refused shelter, according to a poll last month by Politico and the Jack Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of California, Berkeley," reports The New York Times. "At the same time, a companion survey in the Democrat-led state showed that nearly half of California's policy leaders and elected officials opposed addressing encampments with law enforcement." That's a fascinating gap in the priorities of normal people vs. the folks who are supposed to represent them, and an interesting bit of magical thinking on the part of elected officials: How are you supposed to put an end to public-land tent encampments without deploying cops? Just ask nicely?

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Scenes from New York: Trying to get my hands on a Pope Leo cookie. God bless Queens! They don't have these in Brooklyn.

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QUICK HITS

• Joe Biden's aides discussed whether he would need frequent wheelchair use if he had been reelected, reports Axios.
• "Republican lawmakers proposed to significantly increase taxes on the richest US universities, broadening a fight between the Trump administration and elite higher education," reports Bloomberg. "Private colleges and universities with at least 500 students and endowments exceeding $2 million per student would pay a rate of 21% on net investment income under a bill released Monday as part of the House's plan to extend the 2017 tax cuts. That's up from the current tax of 1.4%." Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Yale would all qualify, per these new criteria.
• The Trump administration plans "to accept a $400 million luxury jet from the Qatari royal family," which President Donald Trump will use as Air Force One for the duration of his term while Boeing "finishes building a new generation of presidential aircraft," per The New York Times. Only a "stupid person" would refuse a "free very expensive airplane," the president said in response to criticism.
• "Wall Street's three major indexes rose sharply on Monday with the S&P 500 marking its highest level since early March as a U.S.-China agreement to temporarily slash tariffs brought some hopes for the easing of a global trade war," reports Reuters.
• People are mad that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went swimming in Rock Creek, which has dangerously high bacteria levels, over the weekend. (Also that he went swimming in pants.) Honestly, it's kind of darkly funny that people are so angry about RFK Jr.'s actions but not angry that…D.C. residents can't swim in this lovely creek because of how nasty it is. (Or that his grandchild is called "Bobcat.")

Mother's Day hike in Dumbarton Oaks Park with Amaryllis, Bobby, Kick, and Jackson, and a swim with my grandchildren, Bobcat and Cassius in Rock Creek. pic.twitter.com/TXowaSMTFY

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 11, 2025