He's

never going to do a third term. He's never going to really do tariffs. And here we are in this place where he's talking openly about both. It's

Monday, March 31st. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand

Becky by in three, two, one. Cue it, please.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to

Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan. And check this out, Andrew Ross-Organ. Welcome back, Andrew. Back

from vacation. Thank you. Nice to see you. I just wanted to be here for Tariff Week. I wanted to make sure that I was here in time for the big news, in time for the market to go the other direction. T-Day.

I'd been calling it D-Day because I couldn't remember Liberation Day, but T-Day is more appropriate for tariffs.

Does it feel like it's the beginning of the night, or does it feel like it's the

beginning of the day? Oh, I was just in Japan, everybody. I don't know what it feels like. I got back 24 hours ago, so I'm still a little bit off. You

were sleeping theoretically during our day over there, weren't you? It's 12 hours. I miss the show, if that's what you're asking. You've got your DVR. I do.

And I've got friends on Twitter. You do? Who like to tell me what's going on. You have friends? I know a surprise. You've got some sun. I don't know if it made me make up. I don't know. You look relaxed.

Thank you. I don't know if I'm relaxed. Your friends

include me. I don't know if I'm ever relaxed. This will your vacation glow away. We're going to jump right in to all the news. They include me.

Your friends include a lot of them include me. I know you've blocked them. So they actually they talk to me. They don't talk to you. They only blocked 6,000 people. Were they upset about anything last week? They weren't really that upset, were they? Well, let's just let's start on a great note. OK. All right. I can't believe you missed some of that stuff. You missed the signal through the noise. It's a lot going

on. Yeah.

Right now, as we get ready for that final day of the first quarter, we're going to be taking a look at where things stand for the quarter to date. You are looking at the Dow off by two and a quarter percent. S&P is down by just over five percent the NASDAQ down by about 10.25%. If you are looking at what we've been dealing with from the all-time highs, at least, the Dow is off by about 7.75%. The S&P down by 9.25%. The NASDAQ off by 14.25%. If you're looking at the NASDAQ 100, it's closer to about 11 percent down. And take a look at the magnificent seven stocks in the first quarter. An article from The Information getting some attention over the weekend. It said that some large companies are finding DeepSeq's AI models can be 95 percent cheaper to use than open AIs. And lower AI costs could pressure Microsoft and other firms to reduce prices. All right, let's take a look at Treasury yields this morning, because as you see this sell-off in equities, you are looking at Treasuries catching a bid. We're looking at lower yields with the 10-year now at 419 and the two-year at 384. Gold prices, by the way, also getting a bid this morning. They are at another record level. And you'll see right now the latest trade for gold prices is, drumroll please. It's

like 3,050,

wasn't it?

Those are the Asian markets. We'll take a look at it. I know it's sitting at another record level again this morning, 3,146. Wow.

Meantime, let's tell you about some of the stocks that stumbled because this really tumbled in Asia overnight. Japan's Nikkei, where I just came from, falling 4 percent, entering correction territory. South Korea's KOSPI index closing 3 percent lower. The market's regulator there ending a ban on short selling that had been in place since November of 2023, if you can believe that, over regulatory concerns. Hong Kong's Hang Seng, now down by more than 1% on the anxiety

and nerves around tariffs. I think it was the PCE, I guess, on Friday. But what maybe is a little surprising is that we were still not in correction territory on the S&P. We got there for one day. Then we had a good week, I think, for as far as the tradable bounce. percent from a high. Tradable bounce. Given where the SB has indicated today, that'd be back in correction territory. But, you know, we hit it once and we didn't keep going to down 15 or down 20. We kind of rebounded. Now we're doing it again. But it feels even more painful. New call on the economy from Goldman Sachs. Firm's chief economist, Jan Hatsias, raising Goldman's tariff assumption, its inflation expectations, also lowering its first quarter GDP estimate and increasing the number of rate cuts it expects in 2025. You could see traders, know, with all the bad stuff, he said, but with an extra rate cut, you know, you don't know that maybe the market goes up on that. Hatsia said higher tariffs are likely to boost consumer prices. So the firm lifted its year-end PCE inflation forecast by half a percentage point to three and a half percent year over year. When you're trying to get to two, you're not going to see rate cuts. Right. Yeah. But he said maybe another one because of the growth concerns, I guess. All

of the pressure you're seeing in futures today, a lot of it tied back, of course, to what President Trump has been saying about tariffs. He now says that every country will face tariffs under his administration. Those new tariffs are expected to go into effect on Wednesday this week. The president making some comments on Air Force One last night as he returned to Washington from Florida. The

tariffs will be far more generous than those countries were to us. They ripped us off like no country's ever been ripped off in history. And we're going to be much nicer than they were to us,

but it's substantial money for the country. You're

expecting to hit something like 10 to 15 countries. Is that right? No. So how many countries will be in that initial trunch? You'd

start with

all countries. Those

comments capping a weekend of news about tariffs. The president telling NBC's Kristen Welker that he couldn't care less if foreign car prices go up, since that would make it more likely that Americans would buy American-made cars. Trump also denied, having told U.S. auto CEOs not to raise prices. That was the subject of a Wall Street Journal report last week. Also, reports saying that the president is still considering escalating tariff measures and that there's debate in the White House over whether to impose individual tariff rates on countries or an across-the rate. One theme permeating a lot of the reporting on tariffs, that perhaps what President Trump is expected to announce on Wednesday is still in flux, even at this moment. But if you looked at the Wall Street Journal last week, remember on Monday last week, every day you can look at something different. But on Monday of last week, the markets were up because the journal was reporting at that point that it looked like it was going to be much narrower. And maybe we'd be looking at sectors that were facing things and other countries that could get reprieves in some of these issues. It does sound like it's still in flux, but the reporting is coming from people who are leaking their side of what they are trying to convince

the president to do. He was supposedly going to be more lenient. And then this is in the journal. Now we're back to, no, no, no. We're going to be much tougher than just what they were saying on Thursday or Friday.

If you are trying to raise money so that every offer tax cuts in other areas, these are going to have to be broader and they're going to have to be permanent tariffs, not things that go away.

You're going to need the permanent tariffs if you actually believe that these companies are going to actually stay, come here and actually really build manufacturing plans. I still think that there is this crazy sort of behavioral science experiment going on, which is if people think that there's a chance that the tariffs come off at any point in the next three years or even five years, you will play chicken effectively with the system. And so that to me is the whole game. You actually have to say, this is what it is. And we're not moving. The question is, even if he says that, could, if you believe that there would be a permanent shift in terms of politics in two years, in terms of the midterms, or later on, that would somehow reverse this, changes the whole thing. Yeah.

Look, it's complicated for companies because they make billions of dollars in capex decisions uh based on policy when policy shifts pretty rapidly that's going to be something that takes time to catch up but it does sound like president trump will be the one who makes this decision is leaning towards um going bigger on this plan and there's been

a change it used to be these are just negotiating tools probably won't go on now it's you got to eat vegetables. So pick your vegetable that you don't really like and pick your dessert. I said, I had, I had Brussels sprouts and

I had cheesecake. Can I ask, can I ask a question to both of you about this? Because I, on my vacation, I'm thinking a lot about this. And I was thinking about the idea that we had so many people who came in here, including people who are now on his cabinet yeah who said no no no Andrew stop worrying this is just a negotiating tool might be well but so the question though is now you're saying eat your vegetables how is what they're saying no I understand that but how is the American public supposed to think about that I asked just because I thought about that by the way I thought about this you may think it's unrelated but in the same context, over the weekend, he's now saying, maybe I'll do a third term. Remember, so many people came here and said, never, never, never. All of these Democrats and liberals are overthinking it. They're worried. They don't understand. He's never going to do a third term. He's never going to really do tariffs. And here we are in this place where he's talking openly about both.

I don't know how he could possibly have a third term. The 22nd Amendment is very

clear. I'll tell you how he'd have to have it. He'd have to be the most popular president in history, which means a lot of things would be going unbelievably well three years from now to get 75 percent to overturn the 22nd Amendment. 75

percent of every voter in every state. It could never happen.

But if it did, be happy, because we'll be doing so well.

Maybe. All I'm saying is, he said relatively explicitly, as did most of the people who are supporting him, don't worry about that. That's not on the table. It's never going to be on the table.

It's not happening. He said it that way. First he started, it sounded like a joke that he was doing it just to tweak the left. Now it sounds like he's no, no. But I think he's still tweaking. But my

point is, he wasn't during the election period when he was talking to the American public. He said, I'm not going to do it. Oh, I think we can go back and find some times where he said he was always going to do it. I think he's always been saying,

but no one took. Maybe you thought he was only kidding. But oh, I, by the way, I never thought he was kidding. No, he's still only kidding. I've always been of the view that. Well, you think he's a dictator. He's going to get rid of the Constitution. I hear that stuff all

the time. No, no, I didn't say that. But I think that there are legitimate things going on in the past week or two where you have to say to yourself, this is not what I think some people signed up for. Wait a second.

The past week or two, you've been saying that since November 8th, Andrew. And actually, since 2016. So I was, no, it's good to have you back. We're going to keep everyone honest. We're going to be looking at everything. I, when I thought about it, what I thought was to have any chance of even people wanting you to run when you're 83 or whatever the hell he's going to be by then, we'd have to have the greatest country in the world for there to be clamoring for him to run for a third term. Kristen Welker

asked some follow-up questions. You can't do it. She asked

him a good follow-up question. It's not going to happen. That's the point. Welker's asking him, and he's not saying, no, no, no, I'm not going to do this. He's saying, you know what? Yeah, maybe Vance will run Vance and he'll give me the

presidency back. What if there was a groundswell? Oh, no. What if there was a groundswell? Did you see that? Third term, third term. I've seen it. By the way, that's not a groundswell. That's something totally different, and the president's

talking about it openly. You'd have to elect Vance. You'd have to elect Vance. Okay. But

Vance can't turn around and say that he's handing the baton to somebody else. No, no, no. I

think it's all just to generate this. I do. I think it's to generate this. Look, he could have... But you said that about the tariffs. No, I didn't. I didn't say anything about it. I don't know what the tariffs are going to be. I don't say anything. I say what other people say. I don't know what's going to happen with the term. But if you really want to spend your time gnashing your teeth and pulling your hair that there's going to be a third term like Vladimir Putin, I just don't really think that's it. He's not popular enough right now, probably, to get the 22nd Amendment overturned,

right? No, his approval ratings are high relative to where he was, but they're still below 50%. But they're still below 50%, so there are still more people who have a negative vote. That's why, if

you want to look at it positively, the country would have to be doing so well for us to be clamoring for him. And that should be something you want. You have to believe

that Congress doesn't feel that they're somehow under his thumb, and that his popularity, right? That's the whole thing. Congress can't

do it alone. Congress couldn't do it alone. You'd need the public to do it. Right.

And there's no law

firm that's going to sue now because they can't. So we're

in a whole, we're just in a different place. We're just in a different place. I

really don't think we're in a different place. I think you just need to calm down. You're going to be bald. Seriously. You were going to, your hair, your hair is going to be on fire every day. You can't. You can't. You got to pace yourself. You definitely got to pace yourself. OK, didn't give out the five thousand. I mean, I think of all the things you've been worried about just in the last couple of months. I got I got a list of them. OK, good. You hold on to the list. Hold on to the list apple's asked me to buy more memory for this list but you know what i did what'd you do i shifted over to the hair on fire for biden and it was empty so i have all this memory and why are you living in the past why are

you living in the past i got so much memory on that you're so much you're still living in the past living in the present.