International Trade and World Market

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares130 Views

      in Elections

      Trump’s Tariffs Turn Porsche’s Headwinds Into a ‘Violent Storm’

      by

      The storied sports car maker, which was facing challenges from China and slumping demand for electric cars, now has to grapple with tariffs from the Trump administration.This year was already shaping up to be a tough one for Porsche. Chinese customers were losing interest in the luxury sports car, its bet on electric vehicles was failing with drivers long enamored by the rumble of its combustion engines and its stock price hovered near record lows.Then President Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on all cars imported to the United States starting in April. Last week, he doubled down on that, threatening a 50 percent tariff for all products from the European Union, sending Porsche’s shares tumbling further and E.U. leaders and auto executives scrambling to make a deal.All of Europe’s leading carmakers have been hit by the tariff turbulence, at a time when they are already facing increasing competition from Chinese automakers. But unlike BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen, Porsche manufactures its vehicles exclusively in Germany, leaving it more vulnerable to the combined threat of advancements from China’s rivals and tariff increases in the United States.“It is literally a perfect storm,” said Harald Hendrikse, a managing director covering the European auto sector at Citi Research. “You have a triple threat, which is China, an E.V. strategy that was wrong — despite being lauded at the time — and then Trump’s tariffs, which nobody had guessed would be as severe as they are.”That has led Porsche to scale back its forecast for the year, by about 2 billion euros, or $2.2 billion. Its profit margin range is also expected to drop between 6.5 percent and 8.5 percent, from 10 percent to 12 percent.“Our market in China has literally collapsed,” Porsche’s chief executive, Oliver Blume, told shareholders at the company’s annual conference on May 21. “U.S. import tariffs are weighing on our 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

    • 175 Shares156 Views

      in Elections

      Europe Secured a Tariff Delay From Trump, but Can It Now Make a Deal?

      by

      Officials from the European Union and the United States will start a new negotiating push on Monday, after President Trump delayed until July 9 the 50 percent tariffs he imposed on the bloc.When President Trump this weekend delayed 50 percent tariffs on the European Union by more than a month, officials on both sides of the Atlantic billed the move as an opportunity to kickstart discussions and reach a trade deal.“Talks will begin rapidly,” Mr. Trump said on Truth Social on Sunday night, after speaking by phone with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.And Paula Pinho, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, said at a news conference on Monday that the discussion between the two leaders offered “a new impetus for the negotiations.”But the path toward de-escalation remains fraught. The United States and the European Union still have different priorities, ones that could remain an obstacle to a rapid agreement. And it is not clear that either the demands or offers on the table have changed.The goal is for the two sides to reach some solution before July 9, when the 50 percent levies are now set to take effect — delayed from the June 1 date Mr. Trump had set when he first announced them last week.Discussions are poised to resume immediately. Maros Sefcovic, the E.U.’s trade commissioner, was set to have a phone call Monday afternoon with Howard Lutnick, the U.S. commerce secretary.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

    • 88 Shares84 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Delays E.U. Tariffs Until July 9

      by

      President Trump said he would give the European Union more time to negotiate a trade deal before 50 percent tariffs take effect.President Trump said on Sunday that he would delay imposing 50 percent tariffs on all imports from the European Union until July 9 to allow more time for trade negotiations.In a post on Truth Social, Mr. Trump said that he had spoken to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, about his recent threat to enact the tariffs on June 1 if a trade deal could not be reached in the next week.Mr. Trump has expressed frustration over negotiations with the E.U., saying that the union has been slow to offer trade concessions during a 90-day window to reach a deal that satisfies the administration. But his threat to hit the union with a steep tariff raised the chances of an economically destabilizing trade war with one of the world’s largest economies.On Sunday, Mr. Trump appeared to relent, at least for now.“The Commission President said that talks will begin rapidly,” Mr. Trump wrote, referring to Ms. von der Leyen. The European Commission is the executive arm of the European Union.Ms. von der Leyen, in a separate social media post on Sunday, said that she had a “good call” with Mr. Trump and had conveyed to him that the E.U. needed extra time to reach a trade deal. She said that talks would advance “swiftly and decisively.”“The E.U. and the U.S. share the world’s most consequential and close trade relationship,” she wrote.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

    • 113 Shares161 Views

      in Elections

      Senators Visit Canada, Seeking a Reset Amid Trump’s Provocations

      by

      Democrats and one Republican made the trip, seeking to stabilize the U.S.-Canada relationship after President Trump imposed tariffs on Canada and suggested it should become the 51st state.A bipartisan group of senators on Friday arrived in Ottawa seeking to stabilize the United States’ relationship with Canada, determined to mend a once-tight alliance that President Trump has tested in recent months with tariffs and tough talk.Sporting lapel pins of the American and Canadian flags and red and white friendship bracelets, the group — four Democrats and a lone Republican — met with Prime Minister Mark Carney and senior Canadian officials in a bid to defuse the tension that has built up in recent months after economic pressure and political rhetoric from Mr. Trump that many Canadians have viewed as both destabilizing and deeply insulting.“We know how important Canada is to our states and how important the United States and the Canadian relationship is to both countries,” said Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, after a day of meetings with government officials and business leaders.She was part of a delegation that included fellow Democratic Senators Tim Kaine of Virginia, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Peter Welch of Vermont, as well as Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, the sole Republican.“We hope that this meeting will continue very positive discussions toward ensuring that some of the cracks that have appeared in the relationship in recent months are healed, and we move forward together,” Ms. Shaheen said.Those cracks include Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which disrupted regional economies dependent on trade with Canada, as well as rhetoric that many Canadians found demeaning. The president’s repeated remarks suggesting that Canada should become America’s “51st state” and that the United States was being exploited by the relationship were initially dismissed as misunderstood humor or unorthodox negotiation tactics. Now, they are widely viewed in the country as disrespectful and damaging to Canadian sovereignty.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

    • 138 Shares170 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Threatens 50% Tariff on E.U. and 25% Tariff on Apple

      by

      The president threatened both Apple and the European Union with higher tariffs on social media Friday morning, saying that trade talks with the Europeans had stalled.President Trump threatened to revive his global trade wars Friday morning, saying he would apply a steep tariff to European exports starting in just over a week and warning Apple that iPhones manufactured outside of the United States would face a 25 percent tariff.The president wrote on Truth Social Friday morning that discussions with the European Union “are going nowhere” and that he is recommending a 50 percent tariff on European imports as of June 1.“The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on TRADE, has been very difficult to deal with,” Mr. Trump wrote. He claimed the bloc’s trade barriers, taxes, corporate penalties and other policies had contributed to a trade imbalance with the United States that was “totally unacceptable.”In an earlier social media post, the president also targeted Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, who visited Mr. Trump at the White House last week. The president wrote that iPhones sold in the United States should be “manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else.”If they are not, Mr. Trump said the smartphones would face a 25 percent tariff.The posts appeared to rattle financial markets, with stock futures pointed sharply lower in premarket trading. In Europe, carmakers’ shares were the worst hit. Shares in Stellantis and Mercedes-Benz fell about 4.5 percent, and shares in Volkswagen and Porsche were down more than 3 percent. Estimates by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German economic research institute, showed that the tariffs would lead to a 20 percent drop in exports from the European Union to the United States in the short term, as well as a more than 6 percent increase in prices in the United States.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

    • 113 Shares193 Views

      in Elections

      Tariff Uncertainty Threatens to Drag Down Europe’s Economic Growth

      by

      The European Union scaled back its forecast for growth in 2025 by nearly half a percent, as the jump in tariffs and surrounding chaos bite.Europe’s economy will grow more slowly than expected this year, dragged down by trade uncertainty from President Trump’s tariffs, despite increasingly stable prices on consumer goods and energy, European Union economists said on Monday.In its spring economic forecast, the European Commission, the trade bloc’s administrative arm, said it expected the gross domestic product of the 20 countries using the euro to grow just 0.9 percent in 2025, down from the 1.3 percent that had been forecast last fall. Economic growth across the European Union is expected to increase 1.1 percent in the same period, down from a previous expectation of 1.5 percent, the commission said.Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has been hit particularly hard by the increase in tariffs, with the commission expecting that country’s economy to stagnate as exports decline 1.9 percent in 2025. France also had its projected growth rate cut to 0.6 percent from 0.8 percent, and Italy’s fell to 0.7 percent from 1 percent.“Heightened global uncertainty and trade tensions are weighing on E.U. growth,” Valdis Dombrovskis, the European commissioner responsible for the trade bloc’s economy, told reporters in Brussels.The commission added that any de-escalation of the tensions between Europe and the United States set off by Mr. Trump’s imposition of a 10-percent import tax on European good could lead to stronger growth, as could new free trade agreements with other economic partners.On Monday, Britain and the European Union reached a deal aimed at removing some of the barriers to trade that Brexit had introduced.Growth is expected to return in 2026, the commission said, but it also scaled that projection back to 1.4 percent for the euro area, down from a previously projected 1.6 percent.One bright spot is the continued robustness of the European labor market, Mr. Dombrovskis said, citing 1.7 million jobs added last year and an expected two million to be added in the coming year.Increased spending on armaments and the military could help spur more growth across Europe, the commission said. The 500 billion euros the German government plans to invest in its defense infrastructure were not included in the forecast for this year, but they were expected to contribute a full percentage point to growth by 2028, Mr. Dombrovskis said.Germany has been stuck in stagnation for three years running, dragging down growth across all of the European Union.The economists also warned that the threat of further natural disasters, related to changes in the global climate, were a risk to growth. Europe suffered widespread flooding and extreme heat in 2024, and the continent is bracing for more extreme weather this year. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Tariffs Push Honda to Move Production From Canada to U.S.

      by

      President Trump’s trade war again tests Canada’s new government. Honda is also canceling plans for a major electric vehicle factory in Canada.In the face of U.S. tariffs, Honda said on Monday that it would shift production of one of its popular vehicles from Ontario to a U.S. factory and postpone an $11 billion plan to make electric vehicles and batteries in Canada.The announcement came less than a month after Honda denied a report in the Japanese media that President Trump’s tariffs would force it to pull back in Canada.It also poses a major challenge for Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, who won a stunning victory in last month’s election after portraying himself as the leader best suited for dealing with President Trump and the trade war between the two countries.The United States has imposed a 25 percent tariff on many Canadian autos and auto parts.Honda’s chief executive, Toshiro Mibe, said in a news conference in Japan that the decision to move the manufacturing of the CR-V sport utility vehicle to the United States was part of the company’s plans to “optimize” production to reduce the effects of tariffs.He blamed sluggish growth of the electric vehicle market for the decision to hold off on an $11 billion expansion of the Ontario factory complex, which would have added battery and electric vehicle production.The expansion, which was backed by substantial financial incentives from the governments of Canada and Ontario, was characterized last year by Justin Trudeau, the prime minister at the time, as the largest investment by an automaker in Canadian history. It was projected to employ 1,000 people and was the signature piece of a series of government-backed moves to shift Canada’s auto industry toward electric vehicles.The effect of the CR-V production move was not immediately known. But, like all auto assembly lines in Canada, the majority of the CR-Vs made in Canada are shipped to the United States.Honda Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It currently employs about 4,200 people at its plant in Alliston, Ontario, which also builds Civic sedans as well as engines.Mr. Carney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Honda’s decisions. He is set to swear in his new cabinet Tuesday.The announcement by Honda is the latest in a series of moves by the auto industry to pull back plans for expansion in Canada after the imposition of tariffs by the United States.Stellantis suspended the conversion of a factory in a Toronto suburb to make electric and gasoline powered Jeeps. It has shut down its plant in Windsor, Ontario, which makes minivans and Dodge muscle cars, for a total of three weeks and is also reducing its production schedule during the coming weeks.General Motors’ Canadian subsidiary suspended production of an electric commercial van in Ontario. Ford’s lone Canadian assembly plant, in Oakville, Ontario, has been idle for nearly a year after the company abandoned plans to make electric vehicles there. Instead, the plant will eventually start making gasoline-powered pickup trucks. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Asia Stocks Rise on Hope for Lower Tariffs After U.S.-China Talks

      by

      Investors were optimistic after American officials touted progress in trade negotiations over the weekend, though details had yet to be released.Stocks in Asia gained on Monday after weekend talks signaled that progress had been made in easing trade tensions between the United States and China.Benchmark indexes in Japan and South Korea edged higher in early trading on Monday morning. Stocks in Hong Kong and Shenzhen in China climbed about 1 percent, while futures pointed to similar gains for the S&P 500 when trading begins in New York.Meetings in Geneva between U.S. and Chinese officials concluded on Sunday with Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury secretary, saying that “substantial progress” had been made. China’s vice premier, He Lifeng, called the talks “candid, in-depth and constructive.” Details are expected to be released on Monday, both sides said.The meetings were the first between Washington and Beijing since President Trump ratcheted up tariffs on Chinese imports to 145 percent and China retaliated with its own taxes of 125 percent on U.S. goods. The tariffs are so high as to effectively block much of the trade between the two countries.The escalating trade war has left financial markets uneasy, and the meeting raised investors’ hopes that tariffs could eventually be lowered.Analysts at the financial services firm Wedbush Securities said the talks were a “positive step in the right direction.” They anticipated that an initial agreement, once unveiled during the U.S. day on Monday, would “at a minimum” involve a “much lower level” for tariffs.Economists have warned that the tit-for-tat trade barriers have significantly increased the possibility of an economic downturn. That includes in Asia, where some of the biggest economies, including Japan and South Korea, are heavily reliant on both China and the United States as trade partners.The World Trade Organization has forecast that the continuing division of the global economy into “rival blocs” could cut global gross domestic product by nearly 7 percent over the long run. Earlier this month, Japanese officials slashed their growth forecast for this year by more than half.Last week, China reported that its exports to the United States in April dropped 21 percent from a year earlier. Recession warnings are beginning to emerge in the United States.Heading into the weekend, investors had relatively low expectations for a breakthrough at the talks that would result in a meaningful reduction in tariffs. Many analysts expected the discussions to revolve around determining what each side wanted and how negotiations could move forward.Recently, Mr. Trump has opened the door to lower tariffs. Last week, he suggested that tariffs could come down to 80 percent. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox News that so-called reciprocal tariffs on trade with China may settle near 34 percent. More