PDB Afternoon Bulletin | April 9th, 2025: Trump Slams The Breaks On Tariff War—Except Against China & Bombshell Report Shows Biden's COVID Coverup
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It's Wednesday, the 9th of April. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed.

First up, Trump pumps the brakes on his global trade war, announcing a 90-day pause on most of his reciprocal tariffs. Not so fast, China. The White House is not granting China a reprieve. Quite the opposite. The U.S. is hiking their tariff to an eye-watering 125%.

Later in the show, we're learning that the Biden administration concealed a congressionally mandated report revealing that several U.S. military service members contracted COVID-19 in Wuhan, China in October of 2019, contradicting the Biden administration's public claims about when the virus started circulating.

But first, today's afternoon spotlight. The markets are breathing a sigh of relief today as President Trump announced a 90-day pause on his reciprocal tariffs, opting instead to only implement his 10% baseline tariff on all global imports. The notable exception here is, of course, China.

Trump had already imposed a 104% trade tax on Chinese imports, which took effect at midnight, but said Wednesday that he would further raise the tariff on China to 125%, effective immediately. The president cited the, quote, lack of respect that China has shown to the world's markets and their refusal to negotiate new trade deals. As a reminder, Trump initially announced a 34% reciprocal tariff on China last week,

on top of an existing 20% tariff. But after Chinese leaders responded by announcing a 34% tariff of their own on American goods over the weekend, Trump added an additional 50% levy against China,

Are you with me so far? Then, China continued to dig in their heels, announcing Wednesday that they'll raise the 34% tariff on American-made goods to 84% effective on Thursday. That reprisal appears to have triggered President Trump's decision to single out China from his 90-day reciprocal tariff pause and raise their rate to 125%. Okay. Prior to Trump's latest tariff announcement,

China's finance ministry issued a statement condemning the president's adversarial approach to foreign trade, saying, quote, the U.S.'s practice of escalating tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake, which seriously infringes on China's legitimate rights and interests and seriously damages the rules-based multilateral trading system, end quote. Well, that's cute.

the statement implies that the Chinese regime has been following the rules. As we discussed on Monday's show, it's more than a bit ironic to see leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, act as if they have any respect for international rules and norms. Regardless, it doesn't appear that China plans to come to the negotiating table anytime soon. In a separate statement, China's Ministry of Commerce said, "...if the U.S. insists on further escalating its economic and trade restrictions,"

China, as the firm will and abundant means to take necessary countermeasures and fight to the end, end quote. Well, in that context, I'm not really sure what the end might look like.

Officials said they'll only move toward de-escalation if the U.S. changes its approach and adopts what they called a "attitude of equality, respect, and mutual benefit." But the Trump administration also appears resolute, arguing the tariffs are far more damaging for China than for the U.S.

Responding in an interview on Wednesday morning, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson pointed out that China exports five times the number of products to the U.S. than the U.S. exports to China and that their fragile economy is wholly dependent on maintaining a global trade surplus. He also said that Trump's actions were a necessary correction to current trade imbalances, calling China the "worst offender in the international trading system."

Besson continued, quote, "...it's unfortunate that the Chinese don't want to come and negotiate. They have the most imbalanced economy in the history of the modern world, and I can tell you that this escalation is a loser for them." The Treasury Secretary added, "...they are the surplus country. They can raise their tariffs, but so what?" End quote.

As we recently discussed, Besson has a point. China's economy has been powered by selling cheap goods for decades, but President Trump's massive tariff throws a major wrench into their system. As expenses mount, Chinese manufacturers will have to either slash their profit margins considerably or hike prices for consumers, which could prompt American buyers to look elsewhere.

With China already facing considerable economic headwinds fueled by a debt bubble, high rates of unemployment, and persistently low consumption, the CCP is taking a large risk here by spurning trade negotiations with the U.S. President Trump said Wednesday, "...at some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S. and other countries is no longer sustainable or acceptable."

Coming up next, we'll look at an eye-opening military report that the Biden administration allegedly concealed from the public regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. I'll be right back.

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A military report suppressed by the Biden administration reveals that seven American service members may have contracted COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in October 2019, months before the pandemic was officially acknowledged. The report, quietly uploaded to the Defense Department website just last month,

was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. It confirms that U.S. military athletes who traveled to China for the 2019 World Military Games in Wuhan came down with COVID-like symptoms upon returning stateside.

The then-Biden administration had denied that any such cases existed, publicly insisting there was no evidence of infections among American personnel in Wuhan. That statement was made despite being legally obligated under the National Defense Authorization Act to release the report in a timely and searchable format by mid-2022, which the administration did not do.

Though the Pentagon transmitted the two-page document to Congress in December of 2022, it remained hidden from the public until late March of this year, when the Trump administration uploaded it to the Defense Department website dedicated to "quality of life issues for military families." There, their report was again buried, basically, between unrelated documents about spousal licensing, without any public announcement or health advisory.

The recent findings stand in sharp contrast to public statements from Biden-era officials. Then-Pentagon spokesman John Kirby asserted in June of 2021 that the military had "no knowledge" of infections among U.S. participants in the Wuhan Games. The newly unearthed report, well, calls that claim into serious question.

Equally notable, the report also undercuts claims from the Pentagon during Trump's first term that no troops were tested because the event occurred before the official pandemic timeline began.

According to the document, the seven afflicted service members reportedly recovered within six days Still, while it stopped short of confirming a definitive diagnosis, the report notes that the symptoms they experienced closely resembled those of COVID-19, though it also states that other respiratory illnesses couldn't be ruled out

Perhaps most conspicuous is what the report doesn't say. There's no indication of when the Pentagon first became aware that troops may have fallen ill after the Wuhan Games. That critical timeline remains murky, even after the documents release. The Games were held just miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where scientists, some funded by American taxpayer dollars under Dr. Anthony Fauci's oversight, remember him?

conducted gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses. Federal agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and Department of Energy, now assess with varying degrees of confidence that the pandemic most likely originated from the Wuhan lab, not a wet market in 2019, as initially and still pushed by Chinese authorities.

Dr. Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University professor and one of the most vocal academic advocates of the lab leak theory, called the concealment of the report a scandal. Ebright stated, "...it is an outrage that the Biden White House and the 118th Congress withheld this information."

Meanwhile, Chinese authorities have long floated the claim that American troops introduced COVID to Wuhan during the games. American officials previously dismissed that claim outright. While the precise origin of the virus remains unresolved, believe it or not, this long-buried Pentagon report adds weight to the growing consensus that COVID-19 was already spreading silently in Wuhan long before the global alarm bells sounded.

The report now raises questions about how much the Biden administration knew and when. But, you know, it's Washington, D.C. So, don't hold your breath for any significant revelations nor consequences.

And that, my friends, is the PDB Afternoon Bulletin for Wednesday, the 9th of April. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdbatthefirsttv.com. And as you've no doubt seen on all the billboards around town, if you want to listen to the show ad-free, well, you can do that. Just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief by visiting pdbpremium.com. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed, stay safe.

Stay cool.