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|  |  | Wednesday, July 9, 2025 | |  | .jpg) | | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images | | Good morning, Quartz readers! |
| | HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW | | Metal health crisis? President Trump said he’ll impose a 50% tariff on copper — matching tariffs on steel and aluminum — and hinted at a triple-digit levy on pharma manufacturers. |
| | Letter off easy. The EU has avoided getting a letter from Trump detailing higher tariff rates as the union is reportedly negotiating a deal for a baseline 10% tariff rate. |
| | At a tariff-ic cost. New analysis says Trump’s tariffs could cost U.S. households $2,300 this year, raising consumer prices and pushing the U.S. effective
tariff rate to its highest level since 1934. |
| | Steering off script? A growing chorus of investors is calling for the
Tesla board to rein in CEO Elon Musk as he dips his toe further into politics and drifts from his company responsibilities. |
| | Meta-physical poaching. Mark
Zuckerberg’s company continues to lure away talent for its “superintelligence” lab with big compensation offers. This time: one of Apple’s top AI execs. |
| | Inflation takes five. According to a Fed survey, Americans are feeling slightly more optimistic about inflation, with expectations down 0.2 percentage points from the previous month. |
| | A MESSAGE FROM THE RUNDOWN AI |  | THE RUNDOWN AI IN YOUR INBOX | Get the latest AI news, understand why it matters, and learn how to apply it to your work. Join 1,000,000-plus readers from companies such as Apple, OpenAI, and NASA. | | | DEADLINE DIPLOMACY | President Donald Trump’s trade war is back — and this time, it’s copy-and-pasted. On Truth Social this week, Trump posted 14 nearly identical letters threatening steep tariffs on a surprising (and somewhat random-seeming) list of countries unless they cut trade deals with the U.S. by August 1. The list includes Japan and South Korea, but also Bosnia, Laos, and Tunisia — not exactly the U.S.’ biggest trade partners.
So what’s the play
here? According to the Trump administration, the letters are all about fairness. According to others: This is either an opening salvo, a pressure campaign, or a geopolitical game of darts. One other likely explanation is transshipping. Experts say the countries on the list are popular detours for U.S. companies importing Chinese goods — a way to route around existing tariffs. So while it may look like Trump is threatening Tunisia, the real target could be the container of iPhone cases taking the long way around from
Shenzhen.
Plus, these smaller economies can’t credibly retaliate, so they’re convenient props in a broader “tough-on-trade” show. Float a threat, demand a deal, then push the deadline back a few weeks. (Which Trump already did — the original date to have all his deals completed was July 9.)
Still, it’s hard to ignore the chaos. The letters included typos and reused language, and at least one misidentified a foreign leader
— more diplomatic Mad Libs than international strategy. And that may be the point. Unpredictability keeps everyone guessing. Confusion becomes leverage. Even if the policy is unclear, the branding is on message.
Are the letters about cracking down on bad actors? Reasserting America’s dominance? Distracting from other headlines? Announcing tariff threats buys time, builds leverage, and plays well with an America First base — all without actually doing much of anything. And the vague
invitation to “make a deal” leaves plenty of off-ramps. Bonus points if the confusion leaves other countries wondering if they’re next.
| | REROUTE AT YOUR OWN RISK | Just when you thought the U.S.-China trade war might be cooling off, things are heating up — again. On Tuesday, China issued a sharply worded warning that, if Trump reinstates tariffs on Chinese goods starting August 1, Beijing will go after any country that dares to cut the U.S. a side deal at China’s
expense.
In a commentary published under the pseudonym “Zhong Sheng” (read: the official Communist Party voice), Beijing called U.S. tariff threats “bullying” and made its position clear: If you're thinking about rerouting your supply chain around China, prepare to pay the price. “Dialogue and cooperation are the only correct path,” the commentary said.
Trump has been publicly pressuring trade partners to sign bilateral
deals — part of his “90 deals in 90 days” push, which so far has yielded just two partial agreements, with the U.K. and Vietnam. One of those, the Vietnam deal, may have triggered China’s fury. It lowered U.S. tariffs on Vietnamese goods while adding a stiff 40% levy on items transshipped from China. To Beijing, that looked like a workaround — and a warning shot.
So now China is drawing red lines. Not just around its trade terms but around the very concept of global friendshoring. It
doesn’t want to be blocked out of the global supply chain — especially not by mid-tier countries making deals on the fly. And Beijing is signaling that any attempt to isolate China economically won’t just end in tariffs but could end in retaliation.
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