Why Trump is so set on rolling out these tariffs.

 

There a number of reasons:

Lower yields would cut the cost of refinancing the government’s massive pile of debt. It would also lower mortgage rates, giving Americans long locked out of the housing market a better chance to buy a home. More broadly, lowering the yield on the 10-year Treasury note is a back-door way to make borrowing cheaper for the government, businesses, and regular people.

The most obvious way to bring down the cost of borrowing is to lower interest rates. But the Fed has made it clear that the central bank is not capitulating to Trump’s demands, leaving the administration to find other methods to cut bond yields. These include increasing the supply of oil and cutting gas prices, cutting government spending by firing massive numbers of federal employees, or, perhaps, utilizing trade policy.