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      UK Cuts Tariffs on Dozens of Products as Global Trade Tensions Rise

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      British officials also announced more financing for exporters as the country sought to protect firms hurt by tariffs.The British government ramped up actions to help protect businesses and households from some of the economic tumult created by President Trump’s decision to raise tariffs and upend the norms of global trade.The government said on Sunday it would suspend tariffs on 89 products for about two years to help businesses and consumers save money. The products include those for construction, such as plywood and plastics, and everyday household items, such as pasta and fruit juices.Officials will also increase financing support for exporters by 20 billion pounds ($26 billion), through partial loan guarantees, and give small businesses access to loans of up to £2 million.As Mr. Trump raises tariffs on most imports, including those from Britain, to a 10 percent base line and even higher for certain goods like cars and steel, the British government has sought to calm anxieties at home. Officials have said they want to move quickly to support companies as they try to sustain fragile economic momentum.“This week, we witnessed the uncertainty of a changing world,” Rachel Reeves, the chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote in The Observer, a Sunday newspaper. In response, the government “must rise to meet the moment,” she wrote.The announcements on Sunday followed other interventions by the government in recent days to bolster protections for firms affected by tariffs. On April 6, the government eased rules on electric vehicle sales after Mr. Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on cars imported into the United States. British officials also relaxed regulations to speed up timelines for clinical trials to support the life sciences sector with Mr. Trump also expected to impose levies on the pharmaceutical industry.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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      Stocks Notch Gains After More Tariff Whiplash

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      After exempting Chinese imports of smartphones, chips and other electronics, President Trump said on Sunday the carve outs were only temporary.Markets in Asia moved higher on Monday after a weekend that brought more shifts in strategy from President Trump about tariffs.Stocks in Japan rose a little over 1 percent while benchmarks went up 2 percent in Hong Kong and less than 1 percent in mainland China. S&P 500 stock futures, which let investors bet on how the index might perform when it opens in New York, were about 0.50 percent higher.The modest rally followed another chaotic week on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 starting with losses but ending with its best weekly performance since November 2022. The gains were driven by Mr. Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that he would pause for 90 days the “reciprocal” tariffs he had imposed on dozens of countries just a week earlier.On Friday night, after Mr. Trump had repeatedly said he would spare no industry, U.S. customs officials exempted a host of technology products imported from China. That means smartphones, semiconductors, computers and other equipment would not face most of the 145 percent tariffs Mr. Trump has imposed on China.The carve outs were viewed as a win for Apple and other American tech giants because tech products and components are a key part of American imports from China. A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce on Sunday called it a “small step” in “correcting” the tariffs Mr. Trump has put on 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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      A Lot About Trump Doesn’t Add Up

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      You have to give it to Donald Trump. The man is a marvel at multitasking.In one sensational swoop, President Trump was able to set the global economy reeling, shatter our alliances, shred our standing in the world, tank consumer confidence, scupper the Kennedy Center and tart up the Oval Office, turning it into Caesars Palace on the Potomac.And yet he still managed to find time to brag about winning his Jupiter golf club’s championship and sign an executive order relaxing restrictions on water pressure from shower heads — “I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair,” the president cooed. He also ordered an investigation of an election security official he had fired four years ago for having the temerity to acknowledge that the 2020 election was not stolen.“We’re living in a bizarro world where heroes are being targeted and scoundrels are in a position to target them,” David Axelrod told me.Trump is also consumed with terms of surrender for top law firms and Ivy League universities in his quest to get even with those he feels went after him unfairly or embraced wokeness too avidly.My Netflix algorithm searches for “revenge,” “lives ruined” and “mayhem.” But I don’t want that in my government.Trump is engaging the full power of the presidency to settle scores. The White House was not meant for petty tyrants on revenge tours. In the biggest job in the world, Trump seems like a very small man.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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      New Pact Would Require Ships to Cut Emissions or Pay a Fee

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      A draft global agreement sets a fee for cargo ships, which carry the vast majority of world trade, to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions.Amid the turmoil over global trade, countries around the world reached a remarkable, though modest, agreement Friday to reduce the climate pollution that comes from shipping those goods worldwide — with what is essentially a tax, no less.A draft accord reached in London under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, would require every ship that ferries goods across the oceans to lower their greenhouse gas emissions or pay a fee.The targets fall short of what many had hoped. Still, it’s the first time a global industry would face a price on its climate pollution no matter where in the world it operates. The proceeds would be used mainly to help the industry move to cleaner fuels. It would come into effect in 2028, pending approval by country representatives, which is widely expected.The agreement marks a rare bit of international cooperation that’s all the more remarkable because it was reached even after the United States pulled out of the talks earlier in the week. No other countries followed suit.“The U.S. is just one country and that one country cannot derail this entire process,” said Faig Abbasov, shipping director for Transport and Environment, a European advocacy group that has pushed for measures to clean up the maritime industry. “This will be first binding decision that will force shipping companies to decarbonize and switch to alternative fuels.”The agreement applies to all ships, no matter whose flag they fly, including ships registered in the United States, although the vast majority of ships are flagged in other countries. It remained unclear whether or how Washington might respond to the fee agreement.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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      As Trump Upends Global Trade, Europe Sees an Opportunity

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      President Trump has big ambitions for the global trading system and is using tariffs to try to rip it down and rebuild it. But the European Union is taking action after action to make sure the continent is at the center of whatever world comes next.As one of the globe’s biggest and most open economies, the E.U. has a lot on the line as the rules of trade undergo a once-in-a-generation upheaval. Its companies benefit from sending their cars, pharmaceuticals and machinery overseas. Its consumers benefit from American search engines and foreign fuels.Those high stakes aren’t lost on Europe.Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive arm, has spent the past several weeks on calls and in meetings with global leaders. She and her colleagues are wheeling and dealing to deepen existing trade agreements and strike new ones. They are discussing how they can reduce barriers between individual European countries.And they are talking tough on China, trying to make sure that it does not dump cheap metals and chemicals onto the European market as it loses access to American customers because of high Trump tariffs.It’s an explicit strategy, meant to leave the economic superpower stronger and less dependent on an increasingly fickle America. As Ms. von der Leyen and her colleagues regularly point out, the U.S. consumer market is big — but not the be-all-end-all.“The U.S. makes up 13 percent of global goods trade,” Maros Sefcovic, the E.U.’s trade commissioner, said in a recent speech. The goal “is to protect the remaining 87 percent and make sure that the global trade system prevails for the rest of us.”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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      Autoworkers Union Chief Gives Trump’s Tariffs a Mixed Review

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      In an address to the U.A.W., Shawn Fain said a targeted approach could help bring jobs back to the United States, but he criticized universal duties.The head of the United Automobile Workers union voiced partial support on Thursday for the Trump administration’s tariffs, saying targeted duties on other countries could help bring some manufacturing jobs back to the United States.But the union’s president, Shawn Fain, described President Trump’s across-the-board global tariffs as “reckless.” In an address to U.A.W. members that was streamed on YouTube and other social media, he also strongly criticized the administration for firing federal workers and slashing key government agencies, and accused it of violating the civil rights of students and others.“We support use of some tariffs on automotive manufacturing and similar industries. We do not support tariffs for political games about immigration or fentanyl,” Mr. Fain said. “We do not support reckless tariffs on all countries at crazy rates.”The address appeared aimed at distancing the union leader from Mr. Trump. In previous weeks, Mr. Fain praised the White House’s tariff plans and faced some criticism for moving closer to an administration that often shows hostility to organized labor. He campaigned frequently and enthusiastically last year for former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, often rousing crowds by referring to Mr. Trump as a “scab.”“We are not aligning everything we do with the Trump administration,” Mr. Fain said on Thursday. “We are negotiating with the Trump administration.”Mr. Fain used the address to repeat familiar claims that free trade agreements — in particular, the North American Free Trade Agreement — allowed corporations to move U.S. factories and jobs to low-wage countries. He said some 90,000 factories in the United States closed in the last 30 years, hollowing out once thriving manufacturing cities like Flint, Mich., and Gary, Ind.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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      Challenge to Trump’s Tariffs Funded by Groups Linked to Charles Koch and Leonard Leo

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      Among those opposed to President Trump’s tariffs on imports from China: a legal group funded by some of the biggest names in conservative politics.Last week, a Florida business owner challenged the Trump administration’s moves in court, arguing that her company, Simplified, which makes notebooks and planners, was harmed by the dramatic trade war with China that has only deteriorated further since the lawsuit was filed.Her lawyers are from the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a libertarian-leaning nonprofit that counts among its financial backers Donors Trust, a group with ties to the billionaire Leonard A. Leo, who is a co-chairman of the Federalist Society.The Federalist Society is an influential legal group that advised Mr. Trump through the confirmation of justices he appointed to form the current conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, though some in Mr. Trump’s circle came to believe that its leaders were out of step with the president’s political movement.Another donor to New Civil Liberties Alliance is Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist and Republican megadonor.In what appeared to be the first tariff-related lawsuit against the Trump administration, the founder of Simplified, Emily Ley, argued that President Trump overstepped his authority in February when he first imposed new import taxes on Chinese goods. Since then, China has retaliated with its own tariffs, and Mr. Trump has escalated the fight with more levies. All Chinese imports face a minimum tariff rate of 145 percent as of Thursday, a dramatic increase.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