Trump stated to the whole world:
"Leaders of many countries are calling me. They are kissing my ass and begging me to make a deal" (i.e., to cancel the tariffs).
Now let's see who is kissing whom and where in reality.
The country that the U.S. owes the most to — Japan — about $1.1 trillion. In other words, Japan is the largest holder of U.S. foreign debt bonds.
The New York Post reports that Trump's decision to suspend tariffs was made after Japan began selling U.S. government bonds en masse.
What happened?
Someone sold a large batch of U.S. Treasury bonds overnight. Panic ensued in the market as interest rates began to rise sharply. The higher the interest rate, the higher the cost of U.S. government debt.
At first, Americans thought that China was behind this sale. However, it soon became clear that Japan was selling the bonds.
While the Japanese were taking this step, Trump announced that he would immediately suspend tariffs as soon as morning arrived in the United States. As a result, the Japanese also stopped selling bonds.
Now the question is: who actually kissed whom and where?
