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      US stock markets expected to recover after Trump drops tariffs on mobiles

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      US stock markets were expected to stage a recovery on Monday after Donald Trump excluded imports of smartphones and laptops from his tariff regime late on Friday night.Shares in Apple and chip maker Nvidia were on course to soar after tariffs on their products imported into the US were lifted for 90 days.The temporary reprieve was widely seen as a climbdown after pressure from Republican leaders concerned that the soaring cost of smartphones would spark a voter backlash. US retailers import about 80% of all smartphones, many of them from China, which Trump has slapped with tariffs totalling 145%.US Customs and Border Protection said items like laptops, hard drives, smartphones, flat-panel monitors and some chips would qualify for the exemption. Vital machines made outside the US that are used to make semiconductors were also excluded.It means these products will avoid the China tariff and the 10% baseline tariffs applied on other countries caught by the new regime.Speaking on Air Force One on Saturday evening, Trump said he would be more specific about the latest exemption rules on Monday. “We’ve been making a lot of money,” he said. “It’s been the other way around. Other countries, in particular China was making a lot of money.”It is not clear how long the exemption will last or whether separate tariffs will be negotiated on the specific products.China has responded with a tariff on all US exports of 125%. Beijing said at the weekend that the reprieve for smartphones was a “small step” toward easing the trade fight between the world’s two biggest economies.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHowever, the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said the reprieve was likely to be lifted in 90 days and reiterated Trump’s longstanding plan to apply a different, specific levy to the sector.Speaking on NBC, he said: “All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they’re going to have a special focus-type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored. We can’t be relying on China for fundamental things that we need.”Lutnick dismissed interpretations of Trump’s reprieve that argued it reflected the president’s realisation that his China tariffs were unlikely to shift more manufacturing of smartphones, computers and other gadgets to the US in the near future.On Sunday Trump warned that no country would be getting “off the hook” on his punishing tariffs, again singling out China for criticism. “NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’ for the unfair Trade Balances,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst!”Apple has spent decades building up a finely tuned supply chain in east Asia, including inside China. The firm has pledged to move some facilities back to the US over the next four years, which will cost it $500bn, including constructing a giant factory in Texas for artificial intelligence servers but was expecting to retain much of its international network as it expands its sales.Trump’s move at the start of April to impose tariffs on imports to the US battered the stocks of tech’s magnificent seven – Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla, Google parent Alphabet and Facebook parent Meta Platforms.At one point, they lost $2.1tn, or 14% of their value, from 2 April. Shares have recovered since last Wednesday after Trump paused the tariffs except on China, allowing tech firms to use India and other conduits to import smartphones. More

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      In the face of Trump’s mayhem, Europe is the direction to which the UK must turn – and Keir Starmer knows it | Tom Baldwin

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      Keir Starmer was back at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday to watch Arsenal’s 3-0 win over Real Madrid, a result that far exceeded expectations of his team’s chances in Europe. And, over the next few days, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to snatch a short Easter break in the warmth and sunshine of that same continent.Football and family holidays offer him some much needed relief from the grim reality of a faltering economy, towering public debt and terrifying global insecurity, which are all being made worse on a daily – sometimes hourly – basis by Britain’s closest ally of the previous 80 years.But that mayhem being caused by Donald Trump’s extended stag party in the White House means that Europe is much more than an occasional distraction for the prime minister. Slowly, if not always surely, it is once again becoming the direction towards which Britain must turn.This is not exactly where Starmer thought he would to be. For all his talk of an EU “reset”, the plan had been to “make Brexit work” within self-imposed “red lines” ruling out joining the single market or a customs union, blocking freedom of movement and appearing to allow only some minor mitigation of the damage done by Boris Johnson’s deal.In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s inauguration, new horizons on the other side of the Atlantic briefly seemed rather more exciting. There was genuine interest in, if not admiration for, this insurgent disruptor of the US’s stuffy political establishment. There was also a prospect that Britain might gain advantage over the EU from a repurposed special relationship being gilded by inviting Trump to hang out with the royals.And, even now, securing some sort of US trade deal that might save thousands of British jobs, or the promise of the minimal military cooperation needed to maintain European security, are still prizes worth having. It’s silly to blame Starmer for trying to win them, or to expect him to strike poses against Trump for the sake of cheap headlines and not much else.What’s changed, however, is a recognition around the cabinet table that the US president is much more of a problem than part of any solution. Gone are the days when a government source would brief it had more in common with Maga Republicans than US Democrats, or Rachel Reeves could tell Britain to learn from Trump’s optimism and “positivity”. Nowadays ministers say it has become almost futile to anticipate his next move because “he’s only ever reliable in his unpredictability”. Whatever happens next, this is a US administration that can’t be regarded as a stable ally either on the economy or security.Those who think Starmer, in his repeated calls for “cool and calm heads”, is still being excessively polite have perhaps been too busy complaining to have noticed a subtle shift in his language. For instance, when the Times last week ran the headline: “Why Keir Starmer hopes Trump’s tariffs could be good news for the UK”, the rebuttal came from the prime minister himself, with an article in the same newspaper the next day, which began by stating: “Nobody is pretending that tariffs are good news.”View image in fullscreenOne well-placed Downing Street adviser now describes how Trump “wants to destroy the multilateral institutions” that Starmer believes are essential “to span divides and bring the world together”. Another mentions polling evidence that apparently shows even if a big US trade deal can be done, British voters would still prefer closer links to the EU because they don’t trust Trump to deliver.Certainly, efforts to reset those relations have been pursued with more vigour over recent weeks. These began with Starmer’s “coalition of the willing” to replace the military support for Ukraine that Trump appears so intent on taking away, and will continue ahead of the EU-UK summit on 19 May. More focus on shared interests and values and less on “red lines” should mean a security and defence pact is agreed. Also within reach is a so-called veterinary deal to make agricultural trade easier, while legislation is already going through parliament that would enable UK ministers to align with EU regulations in other areas to the benefit of small exporters.There may yet be a workable youth mobility scheme for those aged 18-30, which some EU members, notably Germany, regard as a test of whether this government is really different to the last one. Although the proposal was hastily ruled out during last year’s general election, the Treasury is increasingly sympathetic to it because, by some estimates, it could do more for growth than planning reform and housebuilding combined. At the same time, new cooperation on North Sea windfarms and negotiations to align the UK and EU carbon trading scheme could increase investment, improve energy security and generate billions of pounds in additional revenue.But there are still limits to this revived EU-UK relationship and it will never go far enough or fast enough to satisfy the many Labour supporters convinced that Brexit was a catastrophic mistake. Those close to Starmer emphasise he’s less interested in “relitigating old arguments from the previous decade” than in finding new ways to pursue the national interest now that “the era of globalisation is over”. Downing Street believes that part of the appeal of both Trump and our homegrown strain of rightwing populism lies in how institutions like the EU became too detached from the people they were meant to serve. In short, they’re determined not to be seen defending the status quo.The UK wants any security pact to include data-sharing on illegal immigration, which the EU, for its own arcane reasons, may be unwilling to accept. The government will insist that any defence deal must also allow British industry to bid for contracts from a massive new European rearmament fund. That agreement, in turn, could yet be held up by rows with a French government demanding concessions over fish quotas. The hope is that our political leaders prove big enough to hurdle such obstacles. But economic nationalism is not confined to the White House and making meaningful progress in Europe has never been easy.Though Arsenal’s Champions League victory will have been the high point of Starmer’s week, he may reflect that his team haven’t yet reached the semi-final stage of the competition. In politics, as in football, there is much to play for in Europe, and a long way to go.

      Tom Baldwin is the author of Keir Starmer: The Biography More

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      China raises tariffs on US goods to 125% as Xi urges EU to resist Trump ‘bullying’

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      China has raised its tariffs on US products to 125% in the latest salvo of the trade dispute with Washington, just hours after Xi Jinping said there were “no winners in a tariff war”.Xi made the comments during a meeting with the Spanish prime minister in which he invited the EU to work with China to resist “bullying”, part of an apparent campaign to shore up other trading partners.The Chinese commerce ministry announced on Friday that it was raising the 84% tariffs on all US imports to 125%, again saying that China was ready to “fight to the end”. The statement also suggested it may be Beijing’s last move in the tit-for-tat tariff raises as “at the current tariff level, there is no market acceptance for US goods exported to China”.“If the US continues to impose tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US, China will ignore it,” it said, flagging that there were other countermeasures to come.Some markets continued to tumble on Friday, as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, described the US president’s 90-day tariff pause – which sets most tariffs at 10% until July – as “fragile”.Asian indices followed Wall Street lower on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei down nearly 5% and Hong Kong stocks heading towards the biggest weekly decline since 2008. Oil prices were also expected to drop for a second consecutive week.Chinese officials have been canvassing other trading partners about how to deal with the US tariffs, after the country was excluded from Trump’s 90-day pause of the steepest global tariffs. Instead the US president made consecutive increases to duties on Chinese imports, which are now 145%.On Friday, Xi welcomed Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, after also talking to counterparts in Saudi Arabia and South Africa. According to the official Chinese summary of the talks, Xi said “there will be no winners in a tariff war, and going against the world will isolate oneself”, in an apparent reference to the US.“China and the EU should fulfil their international responsibilities, jointly maintain the trend of economic globalisation and the international trade environment, and jointly resist unilateral bullying, not only to safeguard their own legitimate rights and interests, but also to safeguard international fairness and justice, and to safeguard international rules and order,” the summary said Xi told Sánchez.Spain said Sánchez told Xi his country favoured a more balanced relationship between the EU and China based on negotiations to resolve differences and cooperation in areas of common interest.Xi plans to travel to south-east Asia, including Vietnam and Cambodia, next week.Macron wrote on X early on Friday that Trump’s partial tariff suspension, pausing new rates on various countries that would have risen as high as 50%, “sends out a signal and leaves the door open for talks. But this pause is a fragile one.”He added: “This 90-day pause means 90 days of uncertainty for all our businesses, on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.”Battered financial markets were given a brief reprieve on Wednesday when Trump decided to pause duties on dozens of countries. However, his escalating trade dispute with China, the world’s second-largest economy, has continued to fuel fears of recession and further retaliation.The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, tried to assuage the fears of sceptics by telling a cabinet meeting on Thursday that more than 75 countries wanted to start trade negotiations, and Trump had expressed hope of a deal with China.But the uncertainty in the meantime extended some of the most volatile trading since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.The US’s S&P 500 index ended 3.5% lower on Thursday and was now down about 15% from its all-time peak in February. Some analysts believe stocks have further to fall owing to the uncertainty surrounding the US tariff policy.Bessent shrugged off the renewed market sell-off on Thursday and predicted that striking deals with other countries would bring more certainty.The US and Vietnam agreed to begin formal trade talks after Bessent spoke to the Vietnamese deputy prime minister, Ho Duc Phoc, the White House said.The south-east Asian manufacturing hub is prepared to crack down on Chinese goods being shipped to the US via its territory in the hope of avoiding tariffs, Reuters reported on Friday.Taiwan’s president said his government would also be among the first batch of trading partners to enter negotiations. Taiwan, listed for a 32% tariff, has offered zero tariffs as a basis for talks.Japan’s prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, meanwhile, has set up a taskforce led by his close aide that hopes to visit Washington next week, according to local media.View image in fullscreenWhile Trump suddenly paused his “reciprocal” tariffs on other countries hours after they came into effect this week, he did not include China, instead increasing duties on Chinese imports as punishment for Beijing’s initial move to retaliate.Trump had imposed tariffs on Chinese goods of 145% since taking office, a White House official said.Meanwhile, Trump told reporters at the White House he thought the US could make a deal with China, but he reiterated his argument that Beijing had “really taken advantage” of the US for a long time.“I’m sure that we’ll be able to get along very well,” the US president said, referring to Xi. “In a true sense, he’s been a friend of mine for a long period of time, and I think that we’ll end up working out something that’s very good for both countries.”Xi and Trump are not known to have spoken since before Trump’s inauguration. Beijing has said it has no intention of backing down to what it terms as Trump’s “bullying” with the tariffs.“We will never sit idly by and watch while the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese people are infringed, nor will we sit idly by as international economic and trade rules and the multilateral trading system are undermined,” the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, said on Thursday.As well as retaliatory tariffs, Beijing has also restricted imports of Hollywood films, and put 18 US companies on trade restriction lists.The commerce ministry said China’s door was open to dialogue but this must be based on mutual respect.The US tariff pause also does not apply to duties paid by Canada and Mexico, whose goods are still subject to 25% fentanyl-related tariffs unless they comply with the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement’s rules of origin.With trade hostilities persisting among the top three US trade partners, Goldman Sachs estimates the probability of a recession at 45%.Even with the rollback, the overall average import duty rate imposed by the US is the highest in more than a century, according to Yale University researchers.It also did little to soothe business leaders’ worries about the fallout from Trump’s trade dispute and its chaotic implementation: soaring costs, falling orders and snarled supply chains.One reprieve came, however, when the EU said it would pause its first counter-tariffs. More

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      Trump’s tariffs come into full effect after he signs executive orders boosting coal production – US politics live

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      Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news over the next few hours.We start with news that president Donald Trump’s new tariffs have gone into full effect today.When Trump announced the latest round of tariffs on 2 April, he declared that the US would now tax nearly all of America’s trading partners at a minimum of 10% – and impose steeper rates for countries that he says run trade surpluses with the US.The 10% baseline had already gone into effect on Saturday. Trump’s higher import tax rates on dozens of countries and territories took hold at midnight, Washington DC time, AP reported.The steeper levies run as high as 50% – with that biggest rate landing on small economies that trade little with the US, including the African kingdom of Lesotho.Some other rates include a tax of 47% on imports from Madagascar, 46% on Vietnam, 32% on Taiwan, 25% on South Korea, 24% on Japan and 20% on the European Union. Some of these new tariffs build on previous trade measures.Trump last week announced a tariff of 34% on China, for example, which would come on top of 20% levies he imposed on the country earlier this year. He has since threatened to add an another 50% levy on Chinese goods in response to Beijing’s recently promised retaliation. That would bring the combined total to 104% against China.China said it will take “resolute measures” to defend its trading rights, but gave no details on how it will respond.In other news:

      Donald Trump signed four executive orders boosting coal production yesterday. The orders direct government agencies to “end all discriminatory policies against the coal industry,” including by ending the leasing moratorium on coal on federal land, accelerating all permitted funding for coal projects, protecting coal power plants scheduled to be shuttered, and investigating state or local governments that “discriminate against coal”.

      During his executive order ceremony, Trump tried to assuage fears of a recession, saying that tariffs are bringing in $2bn a day. The White House has also said that nearly 70 countries have reached out looking to begin negotiations to lower or postpone their tariffs.

      A federal judge ruled that the White House’s decision to block the Associated Press from its press pool is unconstitutional. The ruling comes nearly two months after the White House first barred an AP reporter from the Oval Office over the outlet’s decision to continue using the term “Gulf of Mexico” after Donald Trump issued an executive order renaming the body of water the “Gulf of America.”

      The US will take back the Panama canal from Chinese influence, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said during a rare visit to the nation still unsettled by Trump’s threats to take back the canal. Just hours after his visit, the Chinese embassy in Panama issued a statement calling Hegseth’s comments part of “a sensationalistic campaign” to “sabotage Chinese-Panamanian cooperation”.

      A New York judge will hear arguments tomorrow about the legality of Donald Trump’s deportations of Venezuelan immigrants, one day after the supreme court issued a ruling saying immigrant rights advocates had filed their case in the wrong state. After the supreme court issued its ruling yesterday, the American Civil Liberties Union re-filed its case in Manhattan.

      Hours after the Internal Revenue Service formalized an agreement to share tax information of undocumented immigrants with Homeland Security, the acting head of the Irs has decided to step down. The acting Irs commissioner, Melanie Krause, is the third person to lead the tax agency since Donald Trump took office in January. More

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      Volatility grips global stock markets as Trump insists on tariff ‘medicine’

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      Extreme volatility plagued global stock markets on Monday, with Wall Street swinging in and out of the red as Donald Trump defied stark warnings that his global trade assault will wreak widespread economic damage, comparing new US tariffs to medicine.A renewed sell-off began in Asia, before hitting European equities and reaching the US. It was briefly reversed amid hopes of a reprieve, only for Trump to threaten China with more steep tariffs, intensifying pressure on the market.On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 dropped by as much as 4.1% – entering bear market territory after falling more than 20% from its most recent peak, in February – before launching an extraordinary reversal to turn positive.While markets were fleetingly boosted after Kevin Hassett, director of the White House national economic council, signaled that Trump was open to considering a 90-day pause on tariffs for all countries but China, the relief did not last long.After hours of turbulent trading, the S&P closed down 0.2%. The Dow Jones industrial average finished down 0.9%.“We’re not looking at that,” Trump told reporters, when asked about the prospect of a pause. Pressed on whether the tariffs set the stage for negotiations with countries, or were permanent, he replied: “Well, it can both be true. There can be permanent tariffs, and there can also be negotiations.”The FTSE 100 closed down 4.38% in London at 7,702.08 – the lowest close in more than a year – after the Nikkei 225 slumped 7.8% in Tokyo. Other major European also ended the day sharply lower, including Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC which both fell more than 4%.Trump, who has previously used market rallies as a barometer of his success, tried to brush off the sell-off this weekend. “I don’t want anything to go down,” the US president said on Sunday. “But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”He stood firm on Monday. “The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid!”As China prepares to retaliate, Trump threatened to further increase US tariffs on the country – an additional rate of 50% – if it hits back. All talks with Beijing over potential meetings have been “terminated”, he said.Major share indices have fallen dramatically since he unveiled his controversial plan to overhaul the US economy last week. The Trump administration imposed a blanket 10% tariff on imported goods this weekend, and is set to follow with higher tariffs on products from specific nations from Wednesday.While senior figures in corporate America have been reluctant to criticize Trump since his inauguration in January, a handful have started to sound the alarm in recent days.Larry Fink, CEO of the investment giant BlackRock, expressed concern on Monday over the threat of a downturn. “The economy is weakening as we speak,” he said at the Economic Club of New York, according to Bloomberg. “Most CEOs I talk to would say we are probably in a recession right now.”The JPMorgan Chase boss, Jamie Dimon, one of the most influential executives on Wall Street, warned that Trump’s tariff plan was “likely” to exacerbate inflation. “Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth,” he wrote in his annual letter to shareholders.Dimon added: “The quicker this issue is resolved, the better because some of the negative effects increase cumulatively over time and would be hard to reverse.”The billionaire fund manager Bill Ackman, who backed Trump’s campaign for the presidency, has also demanded the administration reconsider its plan. “We are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.Even Elon Musk, a close ally of Trump, currently leading the so-called “department of government efficiency” inside the government, appeared to break with the administration on the issue. Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, “ain’t built shit”, Musk wrote on X, which he owns, this weekend.Navarro, for his part, insisted in a television interview on Monday morning that the stock market would find a bottom. Less than hour later, when New York opened for trading, the search continued.The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite started the day down 4.3%, before switching in and out of the red. It ended the day broadly flat, up by 0.1%. The VIX “fear index” of volatility rose as high as 60 for the first time since August.Oil prices also came under pressure, with Brent and WTI benchmarks stooping to their lowest levels in four years, as growing economic tensions between Washington and Beijing stoked fears that a global downturn would challenge demand.Sir Richard Branson, co-founder of Virgin Group, argued the “predictable and preventable” market chaos would have “catastrophic” implications for people in the US and around the world, and claimed companies were already going bankrupt as a result of the weaker dollar and higher costs.“This is the moment to own up to a colossal mistake and change course,” Branson wrote on X. “Otherwise, America will face ruin for years to come.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: tariffs inflict more pain amid warning of rising prices

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      Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs are roiling global financial markets, with stocks tumbling across the board from New York to London.Wall Street suffered its worst week since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis five years ago as investors worldwide balked at the US president’s risky bid to overhaul the global economy with the vast tariffs.Experts are all but unanimous that the impact on global growth of Wednesday’s extraordinary Rose Garden press conference will be negative – but just how bad remains highly uncertain.Here are the key stories at a glance:Dow drops more than 2,200 pointsDonald Trump doubled down on his plan on Friday, insisting he would not back down even as the chairman of the Federal Reserve warned it would likely raise prices and slow down economic growth.A stock-market rout continued apace, with the benchmark S&P 500 falling 322 points, or 6%, and the Dow Jones industrial average retreating 2,231.07 points, or 5.2%, in New York. The Dow’s two-day slump has wiped out $6.4tn in value, according to Dow Jones market data.Read the full storyChina hits back hard at ‘bullying’ TrumpChina has hit back hard against the US president’s “bullying” tariffs, raising fears that the escalating trade war could trigger a global recession and prompting fresh turmoil in financial markets.Beijing retaliated on Friday with punitive 34% additional tariffs on all goods imported from the US, mirroring the US decision and exacerbating a sell-off on global stock markets.Read the full storyFed chair defies Trump and warns of higher pricesDonald Trump’s global tariffs assault is set to raise prices and slow down economic growth, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell has warned, defying the US president’s demands for an immediate interest rate cut.Read the full storyDemocrats decry firing of national security chiefTop congressional Democrats are protesting against the firing of Gen Tim Haugh as director of the National Security Agency (NSA), with one lawmaker saying the decision “makes all of us less safe”.US defense department spokesperson Sean Parnell on Friday confirmed Haugh’s departure without elaborating on why.Read the full storySupreme court allows DEI cuts to teacher training grantsThe US supreme court is letting the Trump administration temporarily freeze $65m in teacher-training grants that would promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in a 5-4 decision.The ruling came down on Friday afternoon, with five of the court’s conservatives – justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh – in the majority. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson all dissented.Read the full storyTikTok sale deadline movedDonald Trump said he would sign an executive order to extend the TikTok ban deadline. This is the second time the president will have delayed the ban or sale of the social media app, and will punt the deadline to 75 days from now.China put a possible deal on hold this week after Trump announced his sweeping tariffs, according to Reuters.Read the full storyUS ‘testing’ if Russia is serious about peace in Ukraine The US will know within weeks whether Russia is serious about pursuing peace with Ukraine, the secretary of state has said, warning that Donald Trump was not “going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations” with Moscow.“We’re testing to see if the Russians are interested in peace,” Marco Rubio told journalists in Brussels after talks with Nato allies. “Their actions – not their words, their actions – will determine whether they’re serious or not, and we intend to find that out sooner rather than later.”Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Chevron has been ordered to pay more than $744m in damages for destroying parts of south-east Louisiana’s coastal wetlands over the years. The ruling, which came in the form of a civil jury verdict on Friday, marks the conclusion of the first trial among 42 lawsuits filed about 12 years earlier.

      Texas on Friday reported another large jump in measles cases and hospitalizations, leaving the US with more than double the number of measles cases so far this year than it saw in all of 2024.

      Los Angeles county has reached a $4bn agreement to settle nearly 7,000 claims of sexual abuse in juvenile facilities since 1959, officials said on Friday. The agreement, which still needs approval from the Los Angeles county board of supervisors, would be the largest of its kind.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 3 April 2025. More

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      The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s tariff ultimatum: tribute for access to America’s empire | Editorial

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      When Donald Trump stood before union auto workers in the Rose Garden he declared “Liberation Day”, promising to stand up for Main Street. Whether that pledge will be fulfilled is moot. He will declare victory either way. What the US president offered was not just an economic programme, but an imperial one.Mr Trump’s logic, if it exists, lies in the 397-page report on “foreign trade barriers” he brandished on Wednesday. Its message is brutally simple: you may sell your goods to Walmart shoppers, but only if you let US cloud services hoover up your data, US media flood your screens and US tech monopolies operate on their terms – not yours. TikTok is the test case for Trump’s platform nationalism: only US firms may mine data, reap profits and rule the digital empire.A one-week ultimatum and a fabricated national emergency lay bare the theatrics driving Mr Trump’s agenda. The US president’s proposed tariffs and economic nationalism are not about correcting trade imbalances; they are about coercing others into accepting American economic dominance – without requiring the US to sacrifice its domestic advantage.The US continues to run goods deficits not because it “borrows” from abroad, but because the rest of the world willingly exchanges real goods for dollars it cannot issue. Mr Trump demands tribute for that privilege: control over digital infrastructure, forced access for hi-tech rentiers and suppression of rival technologies. The realpolitik is that you can sell to American consumers – but only if you buy into American rules, platforms and financial dependencies. Though Mr Trump’s foreign policy is transactional, its domestic effect will probably be transformative – and not in a good way. Tariffs raise prices for everyone, especially the poor, while shielding local producers from competition. Meanwhile, as Mr Trump made clear, the revenues are earmarked not for public investment or industrial policy, but for tax cuts that benefit the wealthy. In this regime, tariffs redistribute upward: the poor pay more, so billionaires pay less.This is not so much anti-globalist as post-globalist. It seeks not withdrawal from the world, but a world that submits to new terms. The US empire still earns – but now demands more and spends less. Foreign aid is slashed and multilateral rules are replaced by bilateral bargains struck at speed. If allies want to trade, they must also license Google Cloud services, buy Boeing jets and resist Chinese influence. Trade, technology and security are bundled into a single, rent-seeking foreign policy.Markets, however, are less convinced – and their continued crashing reflects not just recession fears, but a dawning recognition that this model is not a one-quarter adjustment. It is a paradigm shift. The pain, even Mr Trump concedes, may be real. But for him, pain is purgative. It disciplines labour, justifies austerity and remakes the economy in the image of the deal.China’s retaliatory tariffs raise the prospect of a dangerous trade war. But Beijing is signalling that if it can’t win in the US-led system, it will build its own. For other major economies, including the UK, the task is not to replicate American leverage, but to reduce dependence on it – by deepening regional integration, investing in technological autonomy and limiting exposure to US-controlled chokepoints in finance, tech and defence. Resistance may provoke retaliation, but submission ensures subordination. In the long run, strategic cooperation – not bilateral concession – is the only durable answer to tariff imperialism. More