Trump Tariffs and the Sell-Off, Target Warns, China Pain for Tesla 3/4/25

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Carl Quintanilla (0:47)

Market Moving Insight and Analysis join Jim Cramer, David Faber and me, Carl Quintanilla on the opening bell hour of CNBC Squawk on the Street. Good Tuesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer, David Faber at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Futures do lose some earlier gains as tariffs are now officially in effect. China retaliates, bonds rally as now some retailers like Target and Best Buy tell us when we can expect prices to rise. Our roadmap begins with the president's tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China, but Beijing and Ottawa are retaliating.

David Faber (1:21)

Also ahead, we'll keep following what's been tough with Tesla's rough year, at least for the stock. There's a sharp drop now in the EVs it makes in China in terms of sales in that market, and that's weighing on the stock this morning. Also talk a bit about Target, which is warning about the impact of tariffs on profits. That news is overshadowing quarterly results. Those results did beat estimates.

Carl Quintanilla (1:44)

Let's begin with the markets on track for a lower open and the president's tariffs now, in effect following yesterday's sell-off. Jim, we do have the response from China and to some degree Canada. Scheinbaum in Mexico says we'll learn more from her on Sunday.

David Faber (1:57)

Right.

Jim Cramer (1:58)

Look, I think, well, just to say, there's just vast confusion. No one knows. I mean, the automakers don't know what this is going to mean. Package goods companies don't know what it's going to mean when it comes from another country. There's no clarity whatsoever. Anyone who thinks there's clarity is just completely wrong. I like Howard Lutnick. I've known him for years. I mean, he's got some instances about autos.

But it isn't like they've said, OK, look, here's the schedule. Here's the tariff. Like, when you were in Europe and they did Brexit, you got the schedule. You got the tariff. You said, OK, I owe this. They don't even give us anything. We don't know what we owe and what we don't owe. We don't know where it's paid. We don't know if it isn't paid. Do we owe them? Who owes it? Does the buyer owe it? I mean, the lack of any thought about this, David, is stunning.

David Faber (2:41)

It is.

Jim Cramer (2:42)

There's a huge amount of money involved.

David Faber (2:43)

Potentially, yeah. It's also, it goes beyond that, I think, and obviously, we've talked about uncertainty. I mean, we talk about it always, every day for decades, you talk about it. But it is higher now. And the conversations that I'm having, it's not just, all right, trying to understand and figure this out. As you say, it's very much opaque. But it's also, well, will it be in effect in 10 days? Will it be in effect in 30 days? Will it be reversed? Will it be increased? I think that raises the level of uncertainty, which is reflected in a premium coming out of stocks to a certain extent, or a higher risk premium, if you want to call it that. And then you even extend it beyond that to things like mergers and acquisitions. You know, I'll have conversations with people as well, Jim, and I'll talk about, well, they'll say, well, that company might make sense to buy that company. I'll say, yeah, but that's a foreign company. You think that deal will be allowed? I don't know. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But again, it adds to this overall sense.

Jim Cramer (3:37)

Well, shouldn't you at a certain point just say, okay, look, if it's done in the 50 states, you should get a premium and everything else, you get a discount because they can't figure it out. I mean, I can tell you, I mean, if you take a look, this is a good one. I don't know if you guys drink Outlaw beer. Okay, Outlaw's made next to Coors. They decided that enough is enough. Beer companies keep raising price and raising price and raising price. So they have a case for $12.99. Let's keep that in mind, $12.99.