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    Trump’s Tariff Threat for Drug imports Poses Big Political Risks

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    Levies on Americans’ daily prescriptions and other medicines could raise costs, spur rationing and lead to shortages of critical drugs.President Trump’s decision to move a step closer to imposing tariffs on imported medicines poses considerable political risk, because Americans could face higher prices and more shortages of critical drugs.The Trump administration filed a federal notice on Monday saying that it had begun an investigation into whether imports of medicines and pharmaceutical ingredients threaten America’s national security, an effort to lay the groundwork for possible tariffs on foreign-made drugs.Mr. Trump has repeatedly said he planned to impose such levies, to shift overseas production of medicines back to the United States. Experts said that tariffs were unlikely to achieve that goal: Moving manufacturing would be hugely expensive and would take years.It was not clear how long the investigation would last or when the planned tariffs might go into effect. Mr. Trump started the inquiry under a legal authority known as Section 232 that he has used for other industries like cars and lumber.Mr. Trump said in remarks to reporters on Monday that pharmaceutical tariffs would come in the “not too distant future.”“We don’t make our own drugs anymore,” Mr. Trump said. “The drug companies are in Ireland, and they’re in lots of other places, China.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Tariff Pause Is Less Than Meets the Eye

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      Presidents who make big changes in government policy usually lay their plans with care. They game out what might happen next. They sweat the little things. Richard Nixon did not just decide one morning to fly to China. Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts were the better part of a decade in the making. The details of Barack Obama’s expansion of health insurance emerged from countless public debates.President Trump prefers to shoot before aiming. Declaring that he intends to reboot America’s relations with the rest of the world, he has imposed tariffs on imports with abandon, demonstrating a disregard for the details or the collateral damage. His careless conduct of the public’s business has roiled stock and bond markets, threatened to cause a recession and damaged America’s global standing. The president’s decision-making has been so erratic that at one point this week, the administration’s top trade official was interrupted in the middle of testimony before Congress because the president had just changed the policy the official was defending.The original version of Mr. Trump’s plan, which he paused on Wednesday, imposed tariffs on foreign nations at rates that bore no apparent connection to America’s national interests. The highest tariff rate, 50 percent, applied to Lesotho, a tiny and impoverished nation in southern Africa.The latest version isn’t much better. Mr. Trump is imposing a 10 percent tariff on imports from most nations, along with higher rates on imports from America’s three largest trading partners: Canada, Mexico and China. The average tax on imports will rise to the highest level in more than a century, raising the prices on many consumer goods. The 145 percent maximum rate on Chinese imports is intended to isolate that nation economically, but the simultaneous tariffs on everyone else will undermine that goal. And while the stated purpose of all the tariffs is to expand American manufacturing, putting them in place immediately doesn’t give companies time to build factories. It will cause pain without any benefit.We want to emphasize that Mr. Trump has a point about the pain caused by free trade. The decades in which the United States threw open its doors to imports from other countries left many Americans without jobs and decimated the nation’s industrial heartland. Washington’s naïveté about China’s rise, accomplished partly through its own trade barriers and theft of intellectual property, is particularly regrettable.A revival of American manufacturing is a worthy goal. It would not heal past wounds, but it could provide a basis for future generations of Americans to build lives and to rebuild communities that are more prosperous and more secure.The price of cheap goods from ChinaDecrease in manufacturing employment caused by increased trade with China, 2000-19. More

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      Chinese Auto Giants Dongfeng and Changan Are in Talks to Merge

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      The state-owned automakers, longtime joint venture partners of Ford and Nissan, might combine operations as Beijing consolidates its sprawling car sector.Two of China’s biggest state-owned automakers are in advanced discussions to merge, in a deal that would create a formidable manufacturer of cars and military vehicles but could also create problems for their American and Japanese partners.Dongfeng Motor and Changan Automobile have conducted detailed talks on how to combine their operations and told their foreign partners of their intentions, said two people with detailed knowledge of the discussions who were not authorized to comment.Although little known outside China, each company produces slightly more cars for its own brands and through joint ventures than global automakers like Mercedes-Benz or BMW. Dongfeng and Changan together make about 5 million cars a year — more than Ford Motor and almost as many as General Motors or Stellantis, the giant that owns Fiat, Chrysler and Peugeot.A merger of Dongfeng and Changan would represent a significant consolidation of China’s auto market, the world’s largest, and another sign of the country’s rapid embrace of electric vehicles. Both companies have considerably more factory capacity for producing gasoline-powered cars than they need.Beijing’s hope is that a combined company will be able to close excess factories for gasoline cars and become more successful in electric cars.China’s national government owns controlling stakes in Dongfeng and Changan. Dongfeng is a leading supplier of military vehicles to the People’s Liberation Army and Changan is a subsidiary of a Chinese military contractor, which could draw unwanted attention from the Trump administration to a new, larger military supplier and its joint venture partners.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Auto Tariffs: How Major Car Brands Would Be Affected

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      The tariffs on cars and auto parts that President Trump announced on Wednesday will have far-reaching effects on automakers in the United States and abroad.But there will be important differences based on the circumstances of each company.TeslaThe company run by Mr. Trump’s confidant, Elon Musk, makes the cars it sells in the United States in factories in California and Texas. As a result, it is perhaps the least exposed to tariffs.But the company does buy parts from other countries — about a quarter of the components by value in its cars come from abroad, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.In addition, Tesla is struggling with falling sales around the world, in part because Mr. Musk’s political activities and statements have turned off moderate and liberal car buyers. Some countries could seek to retaliate against Mr. Trump’s tariffs by targeting Tesla. A few Canadian provinces have already stopped offering incentives for purchases of Tesla’s electric vehicles.General MotorsThe largest U.S. automaker imports many of its best selling and most profitable cars and trucks, especially from Mexico where it has several large factories that churn out models like the Chevrolet Silverado. Roughly 40 percent of G.M.’s sales in the United States last year were vehicles assembled abroad. This could make the company vulnerable to the tariffs.But unlike some other automakers, G.M. has posted strong profits in recent years and is considered by analysts to be on good financial footing. That could help it weather the tariffs better than other companies, especially if the levies are removed or diluted by Mr. Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Tariffs Could Deal a Blow to Boeing and the Aerospace Industry

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      Aerospace companies are big exporters but also very reliant on a global supply chain, making them vulnerable.Boeing is the kind of manufacturer — one that exports billions of dollars of goods — that President Trump says he wants to protect and nurture.But his tariffs could have the opposite effect on the company’s suppliers.Mr. Trump has imposed a few tariffs so far, but he says more are coming in just a few weeks. That threat has unnerved the aerospace industry, of which Boeing is one of the largest companies. Duties on aluminum and steel, two of the most important raw materials used in aircraft, are expected to raise manufacturing costs. But the industry is far more concerned by tariffs that take effect on goods from Canada and Mexico next month, which could disrupt the highly integrated North American supply chain.“These tariffs are particularly fraught for an industry like aerospace that has been duty-free for decades,” said Bruce Hirsch, a trade policy expert at Capitol Counsel, a lobbying firm in Washington, which has aerospace clients. “Parts are coming from everywhere.”Aerospace experts say the industry is an example of U.S. manufacturing prowess. It offers well-paying jobs and has produced one of the largest trade surpluses of any industry for years. Aerospace is expected to export about $125 billion this year, according to IBISWorld, second only to oil and gas.But the industry is operating under a cloud of uncertainty. Many companies have been able to avoid costly cross-border tariffs under a short-term reprieve for products covered by a North American trade agreement that Mr. Trump negotiated in his first term. But that deal expires in April.In a letter to administration officials last week, groups representing airlines, plane repair stations, suppliers and manufacturers asked for an exception to the tariffs, arguing that it was needed to keep the industry competitive on the global market.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump apuesta a que EE. UU. tolerará una recesión a fin de revivir la industria manufacturera

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      El presidente ofrece razones para imponer aranceles, como los ingresos, la influencia sobre los competidores y la creación de empleo. Pero el pasado sugiere una historia más compleja.Las guerras comerciales simultáneas del presidente Donald Trump con Canadá, México, China y la Unión Europea equivalen a una enorme apuesta económica y política: que los estadounidenses soporten meses o años de penuria económica a cambio de la lejana esperanza de reindustrializar el corazón de Estados Unidos.Es enormemente arriesgado. En los últimos días, Trump ha reconocido, a pesar de todas sus seguras predicciones de campaña de que “vamos a tener un auge como nunca antes hemos tenido”, que Estados Unidos puede dirigirse hacia una recesión, impulsada por su programa económico. Pero, en público y en privado, ha estado argumentando que “una ligera perturbación” en la economía y los mercados es un pequeño precio a pagar por traer de vuelta a Estados Unidos los puestos de trabajo en la industria manufacturera.Sus socios políticos más cercanos están redoblando la estrategia. “La política económica del presidente Trump es sencilla”, escribió el vicepresidente JD Vance en las redes sociales el lunes. “Si inviertes y creas empleo en Estados Unidos, serás recompensado. Reduciremos las normativas y los impuestos. Pero si construyes fuera de Estados Unidos, estarás solo”.La última vez que Trump intentó algo así, durante su primer mandato, fue un fracaso. En 2018 impuso aranceles del 25 por ciento al acero y del 10 por ciento al aluminio, sosteniendo que estaba protegiendo la seguridad nacional de Estados Unidos y que, en última instancia, los aranceles crearían más puestos de trabajo en Estados Unidos. Los precios subieron y se produjo un aumento temporal de unos 5000 puestos de trabajo en todo el país. Durante la pandemia, se levantaron algunos de los aranceles, y hoy la industria emplea aproximadamente al mismo número de estadounidenses que entonces.Sin embargo, lo más preocupante fue la serie de estudios posteriores que demostraron que el país perdió decenas de miles de puestos de trabajo —más de 75.000, según un estudio— en las industrias que dependían de las importaciones de acero y aluminio. La producción por hora de los fabricantes de acero estadounidenses también había descendido, mientras que la productividad de la industria manufacturera en general en Estados Unidos aumentó.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Shifts From Lifting Up America’s Neighbors to Hurting Them

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      When the United States signed a free-trade agreement with Canada and Mexico more than 30 years ago, the premise was that partnering with two other thriving economies would also benefit America.This week, President Trump abruptly scrapped that idea. He imposed a sweeping 25 percent tariff on the roughly $1 trillion of imports that Mexico and Canada send into the United States each year as part of that North American trade pact. Those tariffs are expected to significantly raise costs for Canadian and Mexican exports, undermining their economies and likely tipping them into recession.Mr. Trump’s decision to unwind decades of economic integration raises big questions about the future of North America and the industries that have been built around the idea of an economically integrated continent. While some factories in Canada and Mexico might move to the United States to avoid tariffs, the levies will also raise costs for American consumers and manufacturers that have come to depend on materials from their North American neighbors.“This is a day where the United States stopped seeing trade as force for mutual benefit, and began seeing it as a tool of economic warfare,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He added that the levies were “a fundamental attack on the economic well being of our closest neighbors.”Mr. Trump suggested on Wednesday that this arrangement could be long-lived, as he gave automakers who were abiding by the terms of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or U.S.M.C.A., only a one month reprieve to prepare for the tariffs. Trump officials said that the president expected to issue more tariffs on Canada and Mexico next month, when he announces what he is calling “reciprocal” tariff measures.Howard Lutnick at Mr. Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress.Eric Lee/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Apple to Invest $500 Billion in U.S. as Trump Tariffs Loom

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      The company pledged the multibillion-dollar investment over the next four years and said it would create 20,000 jobs. The Texas facility is set to open in 2026.Days after Apple’s chief executive met with President Trump, the company said on Monday that it planned to spend $500 billion and hire 20,000 people in the United States over the next four years and open a factory in Texas to make the machines that power the company’s push into artificial intelligence.“We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our longstanding U.S. investments,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said in a statement. The company made similar, smaller pledges during the Biden administration and President Trump’s first term. It hasn’t fulfilled all its previous promises.Mr. Cook met with Mr. Trump last week. After that meeting, Mr. Trump said that the company would shift production to the United States: “They’re going to build here instead because they don’t want to pay the tariffs,” Mr. Trump said in a speech to a gathering of governors.Most iPhones are manufactured in China by the Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn, which will be involved in Apple’s new Houston facility. Earlier this month, U.S. tariffs of 10 percent on all Chinese products took effect. Levies on imports from Canada, Mexico and other major trading partners could be imposed in the coming weeks.Foxconn has spent millions of dollars over the past two years building up its operations outside of China, including in Texas, and in Mexico, where the company already assembles A.I. servers. The company’s chairman previously said that this expanded footprint would help insulate Foxconn against U.S. tariffs.Last year, Foxconn purchased a tract of land north of Houston, next to one of its warehouses, which it said would be used for its artificial intelligence business.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      With Trump’s Help, Intel Could Hand Control of Chip Plants to TSMC

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      The Silicon Valley giant is trying to cut a deal it hopes would help it pull out of a yearslong slump.Intel, a fallen Silicon Valley icon trying to restore its reputation as America’s most prominent semiconductor company, is working with the Trump administration on a plan to turn over the operation of its chip-making plants to a giant Taiwanese rival.Over the past few months, Frank Yeary, the interim executive chairman of Intel, has spoken with administration officials and leaders of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company about a deal that would separate Intel’s ailing manufacturing business from its semiconductor design and product business, according to four people with knowledge of the plan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.TSMC, which produces an estimated 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, would assume control of Intel’s manufacturing business and take a majority stake in the business alongside a consortium of investors that could include private equity firms and other tech companies, the four people said.The Trump administration has encouraged TSMC to do the deal. Howard Lutnick, President Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, has been involved in the conversations and considers them one of the most consequential challenges of his new job, two of the people familiar with the discussions said.Intel is the only American-owned maker of advanced logic chips and has been at the forefront of U.S. efforts to rev up domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, which are a foundational technology. But Intel has struggled to compete against TSMC. Most of that company’s production is done in Taiwan, which is a strategic risk for the United States because of growing threats from the government of mainland China.Howard Lutnick has been involved in the talks as President Trump’s pick to lead the Commerce Department.Eric Lee/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More