White House Renews Tariff Uncertainty and Guidance Will Respond

Stocks are largely unchanged on Tuesday as investors contend with the renewed tariff situation, which has only grown through the course of the day.

As of Monday night, the White House sent 14 tariff letters laying out potential take-it-or-leave-it terms that will go into effect on August 1. Through the course of Tuesday, President Trump commented that his administration is probably two days away from sending such a letter to the European Union, and that he will soon impose 200% tariffs on pharma imports and give pharmaceutical companies 12 months to 18 months to move production to the U.S. Trump also posted on Truth Social that there would be no change or extensions granted to the August 1 date.

To those Trump comments, during an interview, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick revealed that an additional 15 to 20 tariff letters will go out over the next two days, and then a general letter will be sent out to the remaining countries. Lutnick also discussed progress on trade conversations, indicating countries have made offers to open their markets to U.S. goods and services, and the White House is in the "eighth or ninth inning" with some of these conversations. That speaks to the recent comment from White House officials that there will be deals announced in the next couple of days, but we suspect that timeline may be extended, given the flurry of tariff letters being sent.

On the topic of U.S.-China trade, Lutnick shared that the U.S. and China will meet in early August to have a bigger conversation on trade. On this front, we suspect that it will take time to reach a comprehensive deal with China, assuming one can be reached.

Lutnick also indicated that the 232 Commerce Department investigation on copper is done, and Trump can impose tariffs at 50% on copper, and those could go into effect on August 1.

We can sum the above up by saying that in order to regain control of the trade deal narrative, which is a key part of his presidency, Trump is wielding the tariff stick, but doing so as he is prone to do by bringing a fair amount of uncertainty with it.

What we see above underscores our view that, facing renewed uncertainty, companies are likely to skew their guidance conservatively in the coming weeks. As we discussed earlier on Tuesday, we will carefully gauge the market’s reaction to the corporate guidance it receives in the coming days.

We’ll also continue to assess earnings pre-announcements, like the one from Samsung SSNLF on Tuesday morning, and the far more positive one from Portfolio holding SuRo Capital SSSS.

We’ve raised cash in recent weeks, and we’ll continue to do so opportunistically as well as take advantage of stocks that are mis-priced relative to their 2H 2025 or beyond prospects.

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long SSSS.