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      Europe Warily Watches U.S.-China Trade War

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      Europe was not directly targeted in the wave of U.S. tariffs that took effect on Tuesday, but the effects are being felt here.Keyu Jin, a professor at the London School of Economics, said that tit-for-tat tariffs would not necessarily lead to less global trade, but a “fragmentation and regionalism” that forges new blocs aiming to be “nonaligned” in the intensifying trade war between the United States, its neighbors and China.She was speaking on a panel Tuesday in Barcelona at one of the world’s biggest tech trade shows, which runs this week. The annual event, known as Mobile World Congress, attracts more than 100,000 people for product pitches, fund-raising appeals and debates about the future of technology.The fresh U.S. tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico — the three largest U.S. trading partners and crucial cogs in many supply chains — were a common topic of conversation around the sprawling expo center. European companies are heavily represented at the event, and some executives tried to frame the rising trade tensions as an opportunity for Europe, whose sizable population and economy has often been held back by slow growth and a lack of competitiveness.The recent mobilization of European leaders to step up military support of Ukraine was cited as an example of deeper European integration that in the past has tended to fizzle out. But the suspension of U.S. aid and the urgency of Ukraine’s plight — Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain recently described it as “a crossroads in history” — could spur greater continental cooperation, executives said.Investors have piled into stocks of European defense companies that stand to benefit from stepped-up military spending. And European markets, in general, have outperformed U.S. stocks in recent weeks, even after slipping on Tuesday after the U.S. tariffs went into effect and some targeted countries retaliated.Some of the tech execs in Barcelona say this is not a coincidence: Companies with Europe-focused operations and supply chains may be seen by global investors as a sort of geopolitical hedge against the tariffs and trade tensions arising from the United States. Take, for example, the stock market index tracking European telecoms, long seen as a somewhat sleepy backwater, which is up about 12 percent this year alone.But this thesis will be tested soon, when President Trump plans to widen the scope of tariffs to cover all U.S. imports of steel, aluminum, copper and cars, as well as “reciprocal” tariffs against countries to address what he calls “unfair” relationships and to compel companies to move manufacturing to the United States. More

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      Trump’s Tariffs Hit Stock Markets

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      Global leaders are retaliating and investors have sold off stocks in Asia and Europe.Nowhere to hide as a new wave of U.S. tariffs sinks global stock markets.Franck Robichon/EPA, via ShutterstockNot just tough talk President Trump wasn’t bluffing, after all.Global markets plunged on Tuesday after U.S. tariffs went into effect on roughly $1.5 trillion worth of imports from Canada, Mexico and China, with another, and even broader, wave set to kick in as soon as next week.China and Canada have already responded, with Beijing targeting the American heartland with sweeping levies on imported food and halting log and soybean shipments from select U.S. companies. Mexico is expected to retaliate, too.The escalation has global business leaders increasingly worried about what will come next, as economists warn that consumers and companies will soon see higher prices. Warren Buffett offered a reminder of what the global economy is facing. “Tariffs,” the billionaire investor said this week, “are an act of war, to some degree.”Here’s the latest:Stocks in much of Asia and Europe fell on Tuesday, after the S&P 500 yesterday suffered its worst one-day decline this year. U.S. stock futures were down slightly on Tuesday.Hit especially hard on Tuesday were the shares of European automakers, including Volkswagen, BMW, and Daimler Truck. Levies could slam the sector, which is highly dependent on a complex cross-border supply chain.The CBOE volatility index, Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge popularly known as the VIX, jumped, posting its biggest one-day spike this year, according to Deutsche Bank.The sell-off also extended to cryptocurrencies (more on that below), and, in a new twist, the dollar.If global investors weren’t spooked before, they seem to be now. “The market finally took the Trump administration at its word, and the realization that the tariff talk wasn’t just a negotiating tactic is starting to sink in,” Chris Zaccarelli, an investment strategist for Northlight Asset Management, said in a research note yesterday evening.How long will the trade battle last? Analysts see reason for cautious optimism — at least on China. “We view Beijing’s responses as still strategic and restrained,” Xiangrong Yu, Citigroup’s chief China economist, said in a research note on Tuesday. He said a trade deal was still “plausible.”The Shanghai composite index closed slightly higher on Tuesday.Market watchers warn of deep repercussions should the trade war drag on. Trump seems to be digging in, telling reporters yesterday that there is “no room left for Mexico or for Canada.” A protracted fight could dent global growth and accelerate inflation, all of which could “hamstring the Fed,” Mark Haefele, the chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, told Bloomberg Television on Tuesday.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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      in US Politics

      China and Canada retaliate after Trump trade tariffs come into effect

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      China and Canada unveiled retaliatory measures against the US after Donald Trump imposed his sweeping tariffs plan at midnight US time, despite warnings it could spark an escalating trade war.US tariffs have come into force of 25% against goods from Canada and Mexico, the US’s two biggest trading partners, and 20% tariffs against China – doubling the levy on China from last month.The duties will affect more than $918bn-worth (£722bn) of US imports from Canada and Mexico.China on Tuesday said it would impose fresh tariffs on a range of agricultural imports from the US next week. Its finance ministry said additional 15% tariffs would be imposed on chicken, wheat, corn and cotton, with further 10% tariffs on sorghum, soya beans, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruits, vegetables and dairy products.The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said Ottawa would respond with immediate 25% tariffs on C$30bn-worth ($20.7bn) of US imports. He said previously that Canada would target US beer, wine, bourbon, home appliances and Florida orange juice.Tariffs will be placed on another C$125bn ($86.2bn) of US goods if Trump’s tariffs were still in place in 21 days.“Tariffs will disrupt an incredibly successful trading relationship,” Trudeau said, adding that they would violate the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement signed by Trump during his first term.Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, was expected to announce her response on Tuesday morning, the country’s economy ministry said.Asian markets were down – after sharp falls in US markets on Monday – as Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.6%, Taiwan’s benchmark TWII index was off 0.5% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.$%.The Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso fell to their lowest levels in a month on Tuesday.In Europe, the FTSE 100 dropped by 57 points, or 0.65%, at the start of trading to 8,813 points, a day after rising more than 8,900 points for the first time. France’s CAC 40 fell 0.9% and Spain’s Ibex was down 0.8%.Trump and his allies claim that higher tariffs on US imports from across the world will help make America great again by enabling it to obtain political and economic concessions from allies and rivals on the global stage.Businesses, inside the US and worldwide, have warned of widespread disruption if the Trump administration pushes ahead with this strategy.Since winning November’s presidential election, the president has focused on China, Canada and Mexico, threatening the three markets with steep duties on their exports unless they reduced the “unacceptable” levels of illegal drugs crossing into the US.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhile he slapped a 10% tariff on China last month, Trump has repeatedly delayed the imposition of tariffs on Canada and Mexico. The president has pledged to bring down prices in the US, but economists have warned that consumers in the country could be aversely affected by his trade plans.A 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico and a 10% levy on China would amount to “the largest tax increase in at least a generation”, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a thinktank, which estimated such a move would cost the typical US household more than $1,200 each year.Trump has vowed to go further, threatening to introduce “reciprocal” tariffs on countries that have their own duties on goods made in the US. He has said these will come into effect as soon as next month.China’s finance ministry said in a statement: “The US’s unilateral tariff increase damages the multilateral trading system, increases the burden on US companies and consumers, and undermines the foundation of economic and trade cooperation between China and the US.”The ministry said products shipped from the US to China that departed before 10 March and arrived before 12 April would not be subject to the tariffs.Trump has said the tariffs on China are because the government has failed to stop illicit fentanyl entering the US, which Beijing says is a “pretext” to threaten China.“China opposes this move and will do what is necessary to firmly safeguard its legitimate interests,” a foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, said.Chris Weston, an analyst at the brokerage Pepperstone, said: “Market anxiety levels have been dialled up, and we see traders having to react aggressively and dynamically to the deluge of headlines and social posts confirming that tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada are to be implemented in full and as threatened.” More

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      In Speech to Congress, Trump Is Expected to Boast About DOGE Cuts and Ukraine

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      President Trump is expected to boast about his assault on the federal bureaucracy and his efforts to upend global relationships during an address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, even as his administration faces lawsuits over his domestic agenda and Europe rebukes him over his treatment of Ukraine.Addressing his largest television audience since his return to power, Mr. Trump is expected to speak about the speed with which he has pushed through reductions in border crossings, cuts to government through the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, and a slew of executive orders. He is also expected to emphasize the need to pass his legislative agenda, which includes some $4 trillion in tax cuts.“He’s going to talk about the great things he’s done: The border’s secure, the waste he’s finding with DOGE,” said Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who speaks frequently with Mr. Trump. “He’s going to keep laying out his vision, where he wants the country to go.”For Mr. Trump, it will be a remarkable return to a chamber — and a prime-time, nationwide audience — he last addressed five years ago, before voters ousted him from office and replaced him with Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Trump’s return has set in motion a rapid-fire series of actions designed to overturn decades of policy and diplomacy.During his first term, the president delivered an annual speech to Congress that included a mix of exaggerations and grievance-filled attacks on his enemies. He is poised to do the same again on Tuesday night, using one of the largest platforms that any modern president gets during his time in the Oval Office.Mr. Trump hinted on Monday that he might use the speech to extend his public feud with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine after the Oval Office blowup between the two leaders last week. Asked by a reporter whether a deal to share rare-earth minerals was still possible after the shouting, Mr. Trump said that “I’ll let you know,” adding: “We’re making a speech, you probably heard.”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 Shares55 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump says ‘no room left’ for deal that avoids tariffs on Mexico and Canada

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      The US will press ahead with steep tariffs on Canada and Mexico from Tuesday, Donald Trump has said, setting the stage for a trade war with his country’s two largest economic partners.Hours before his administration was due to hit America’s closest neighbors with sweeping import duties, the US president claimed there was “no room left” for a deal to avoid their imposition. The announcement led to a sharp sell-off on Wall Street.All Mexican exports to the US are set to face a levy of 25% under the plans. Most Canadian exports will face a 25% tariff, with energy products facing a 10% duty.Trump also indicated that an additional 10% levy on China – on top of the 10% introduced last month – will also be introduced. Tariffs are a “very powerful weapon”, he told reporters at a news conference.The action is set to prompt swift retaliation. “We’re ready,” said the Canadian foreign minister, Mélanie Joly.Wall Street fell sharply after Trump’s remarks, with the S&P 500 down 1.7%, the Dow Jones industrial average down 1.5%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropping over 2.6%.The tariffs will affect $900bn in annual imports from Canada and Mexico. The Ford CEO, Jim Farley, has warned they threaten to “blow a hole” in US industry.Trump has reluctantly conceded in recent weeks that higher tariffs could lead to higher prices in the US, but suggested the impact would be worth the cost. He has brushed off calls to tread carefully, escalating threats to go further.“Tariffs are easy, they’re fast, they’re efficient, and they bring fairness,” Trump said. He described the levies as a “a powerful weapon” that other presidents had not used because “they were dishonest, stupid or paid off in some other form”.Trump even took a swipe at Republican hero and staunch free-trader president, Ronald Reagan. “I’m a huge fan of Ronald Reagan but he was very bad on trade,” said Trump.Tariffs are “an act of war, to some degree”, the billionaire investor Warren Buffett warned recently. “Over time, they are a tax on goods,” he told CBS News. “I mean, the Tooth Fairy doesn’t pay ’em!”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn Monday, Trump also pledged to impose tariffs on overseas agricultural goods within weeks. He claimed his administration would introduce tariffs on farm products from 2 April.A string of such deadlines – including vows to hit Canada and Mexico with tariffs in January, and then February – have been delayed, however, as economists and business leaders urge caution.“To the Great Farmers of the United States: Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social network, on Monday. “Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!” More

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      On Mexico’s Once-Packed Border, Few Migrants Remain

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      On the eve of President Trump’s deadline to impose tariffs on Mexico, one thing is hard to miss on the Mexican side of the border: The migrants are gone.In what were once some of the busiest sections along the border — Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana, Matamoros — shelters that used to overflow now hold just a few families. The parks, hotels and vacant buildings that once teemed with people from all over the world stand empty.And on the border itself, where migrants once slept in camps within feet of the 30-foot wall, only dust-caked clothes and shoes, rolled-up toothpaste tubes and water bottles remain.“All that is over,” said the Rev. William Morton, a missionary at a Ciudad Juárez cathedral that serves migrants free meals. “Nobody can cross.”Last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, announced that Customs and Border Protection had apprehended only 200 people at the southern border the Saturday before — the lowest single-day number in over 15 years.Mr. Trump has credited his crackdown on illegal immigration for the plunging numbers, even as he has also announced he will send thousands more combat forces to the border to stop what he calls an invasion.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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      in US Politics

      US tariffs on Canada and Mexico coming Tuesday but may not be 25%, commerce chief says

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      Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said on Sunday that US tariffs on Canada and Mexico will go into effect on Tuesday, but the president would determine whether to stick with the planned 25% level.“That is a fluid situation,” Lutnick told the Fox News program Sunday Morning Futures.“There are going to be tariffs on Tuesday on Mexico and Canada. Exactly what they are, we’re going to leave that for the president and his team to negotiate.”Lutnick’s comments were the first indication from Trump’s administration that it may not impose the full threatened 25% tariffs on all goods from Mexico and non-energy imports from Canada.He said the two countries have “done a reasonable job” securing their borders with the United States, though he maintained the deadly drug fentanyl continues to flow into the country.Trump sowed confusion last week when he mentioned a possible 2 April deadline in connection with tariffs on Canada and Mexico. But he later reaffirmed the Tuesday deadline and said he would add another 10% tariff on Chinese goods that day, effectively doubling 10% duties imposed on 4 February.Lutnick said Trump was expected to raise tariffs on China on Tuesday unless the country ends fentanyl trafficking into the US. More

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      Mexican drug lord pleads not guilty to killing of DEA agent after US extradition

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      After years as one of US authorities’ most wanted men, the Mexican drug cartel boss Rafael Caro Quintero was brought into a New York courtroom on Friday to answer charges that include orchestrating the 1985 killing of a US federal agent.Caro Quintero pleaded not guilty to running a continuing criminal enterprise. Separately, so did Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the leader of another cartel. Carrillo is accused of arranging kidnappings and killings in Mexico but not accused of involvement in the death of the DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.Caro Quintero, Carrillo Fuentes and 27 other Mexican prisoners were sent on Thursday to eight US cities, a move that came as Mexico sought to stave off the Donald Trump administration’s threat of imposing 25% tariffs on all Mexican imports next week.For Camarena’s family, the arraignments marked a long-awaited moment.“For 14,631 days, we held on to hope – hope that this moment would come. Hope that we would live to see accountability. And now, that hope has finally turned into reality,” the family said in a statement thanking Trump and everyone who has worked on the case over the years.The White House, in a statement Friday ahead of the arraignments, called Caro Quintero “one of the most evil cartel bosses in the world”.In exchange for delaying tariffs, Trump had insisted that Mexico crack down on cartels, illegal immigration and fentanyl production.But members of Mexico’s security cabinet on Friday framed the transfer of the 29 prisoners as a national security decision.“It is not a commitment to the United States. It is a commitment to ourselves,” said Mexican attorney general Alejandro Gertz Manero. “The problem of drug trafficking and organized crime has been a true tragedy for our country.”Mexican security secretary Omar García Harfuch said the people sent into US custody were “generators of violence” in Mexico and represented a security threat to both countries.Caro Quintero had long been one of America’s top Mexican targets for extradition.He was one of the founders of a Guadalajara-based cartel and one of the primary suppliers of heroin, cocaine and marijuana to the US in the late 1970s and 1980s.Caro Quintero had Camarena kidnapped, tortured and killed in 1985 because he blamed the agent for a raid on a huge marijuana plantation the year prior, authorities said. Camarena’s killing marked a low point in US-Mexico relations and was dramatized in the popular Netflix series Narcos: Mexico.Caro Quintero had been 28 years into a 40-year sentence in Mexico when an appeals court overturned his verdict in 2013.After his release, he returned to drug trafficking and unleashed bloody turf battles in the northern Mexico border state of Sonora until he was arrested by Mexican forces in 2022, authorities said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCaro Quintero told the Spanish newspaper El País in 2018 that he “never went back to drugs”.“Whoever’s saying it is a liar!” he said, according to the newspaper. “I’m not working any more, let’s be clear about that! I was a drug trafficker 23 years ago, and now I’m not, and I won’t ever be again.”The US, which had added Caro Quintero to the FBI’s 10 most wanted list in 2018 with a $20m reward, sought his extradition immediately after his 2022 arrest. It happened days after the Mexican and US presidents at the time, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Joe Biden respectively, met at the White House.But the request remained in limbo as López Obrador severely curtailed his country’s cooperation with the US to protest undercover American law enforcement operations targeting Mexican political and military officials.Then, in January, a non-profit group representing the Camarena family sent a letter to the new Trump administration urging it to renew the extradition request.Carrillo Fuentes is the brother of the drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as “The Lord of The Skies”, who died in a botched plastic surgery in 1997. Carrillo Fuentes, who was known as “The Viceroy”, continued his brother’s business of smuggling drugs over the border until his arrest in 2014.He was sentenced in 2021 to 28 years in prison for organized crime, money laundering and weapons violations.Among the others extradited are leading members of Mexican organized crime groups recently designated by the Republican administration as “foreign terrorist organizations”.They include cartel leaders, security chiefs from both factions of the Sinaloa cartel, cartel finance operatives and a man wanted in connection with the killing of a North Carolina sheriff’s deputy in 2022. More