Yair Reiner sells kitchenware: Splash Guard for Foam Cooking, called Frywall.

But when President Trump imposed a 145% tariff on Chinese goods, Reiner knew his Brooklyn business was Encountering trouble.

"When the tariff rate is 145%, it feels like someone putting their boots on my neck and I really can't find any oxygen," he said. "I don't know what my next step will be."

Reiner became the splash guard in China. So when Trump Reduce these tariffs to 30% Last week, Reiner, CEO of Gowanus Kitchen Lab, said he felt relieved, but only a few.

"The boots are still there," he said. "The stress level has been relieved, but of course I'm not breathing well and it's hard to figure out what my next step will be."

Before Trump's trade war, Reiner said he was paying about 3% or 4% tariffs to bring his splash guards into the country - so 30% are not low for him.

But here is a sign of how much Trump’s tariff shift is: They give 30% some relief.

This is part of the tariff model

Trump's chaotic tariff policy has played this way repeatedly: He first proposed a high number, just to collapse it or provide exemptions.

For example, on April 2, Trump Announce tariffs In almost every country - some of them are too tall. A week later, Trump Pulling many tariffs backset a 10% commodity rate from most countries.

But the end result is still the widespread tariffs that did not exist before Trump took office.

Marcus Noland, director of research at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, puts the whip from a historical perspective.

"With the so-called 'liberation day' tariffs, he brought us to a disastrous level," Noland said. "Now with these cuts, he brought us back to roughly what was in 1940."

Currently, the average effective tariff rate in the United States is close to 18%, the highest level since 1934. Yale University Budget Laboratory. This represents a spike in the past few decades, when numbers were at low digits.

Noland believes Trump's tariff fluctuations have successfully reconquered the tariffs of investors.

"The market seems to think that things have returned to normal, but that's not the case," Noland said. "Tariffs are now much higher than when Trump took office."

Trump has been doing this throughout his career

In the business world, this trend of reconnecting numbers in negotiations is called the anchoring effect.

"In many negotiations, you're open to anchor the party at the end of the range, or open lows, depending on whether you buy or sell or sell."

“Then, when you make a more reasonable offer, which is still very good for you, there is a psychological relief.”

Shell studied Trump's business career and said his tariff shift seemed like a classic Trump move. But he said Trump's intentions were not clear.

"It's not clear whether the president did it on purpose or whether he threw the fishing rod there, the fishing line, and then he saw if that would cause trouble and if it caused enough trouble, he pulled it back again."

But uncertainty leads to my own problems

All these changes will cause problems, namely uncertainty, said Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics at the liberal Cato Institute.

"If you don't know at all what the 10-day tariff rate will be from now, then you can't invest in a new factory in the U.S., or you have a long-term contract with an overseas supplier," Lincicome said.

Trump says they will create long-term gains in the form of more U.S. manufacturing to justify his tariffs.

Brooklyn-based Splash Guard maker Reiner doesn't necessarily disagree with this goal.

“I can see that,” he said. “The obstacle is that I think the long-term gains depend on the long-term plan and I can’t do that.”

Trump said China's 30% tariffs will only last for 90 days. Before that, the United States and China could reach a long-term agreement…but this means tariff rates may change again.