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    A Tidal Wave of Change Is Headed for the U.S. Economy

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    When the Covid pandemic hit, factories in China shut down and global shipping traffic slowed. Within a matter of a few weeks, products began disappearing from U.S. store shelves and American firms that depend on foreign materials were going out of business.A similar trend is beginning to play out, but this time the catalyst is President Trump’s decision to raise tariffs on Chinese imports to a minimum of 145 percent, an amount so steep that much of the trade between the United States and China has ground to a halt. Fewer massive container ships have been plying the ocean between Chinese and American ports, and in the coming weeks, far fewer Chinese goods will arrive on American shores.While high tariffs on Chinese products have been in place since early April, the availability of Chinese products and the price that consumers pay for them has not changed that much. But some companies are now starting to raise their prices. And experts say that the effects will become more and more obvious in the coming weeks, as a tidal wave of change stemming from canceled orders in Chinese factories works its way around the world to the United States.The number of massive container ships carrying metal boxes of toys, furniture and other products departing China for the United States has plummeted by about a third this month.The reason consumers haven’t felt many of the effects yet is because it takes 20 to 40 days for a container ship to travel across the Pacific Ocean. It then takes another one to 10 days for Chinese goods to make their way by train or truck to various cities around the country, economists at Apollo Global Management wrote in a recent report. That means that the higher tariffs on China that went into effect at the beginning of April are just starting to result in a drop in the number of ships arriving at American ports, a trend that should intensify.By late May or early June, consumers could start to see some empty shelves, and layoffs could occur for retailers and logistics industries. The major effects on the U.S. economy of shutting down trade with China will start to become apparent in the summer of 2025, when the United States might slip into a recession, said Torsten Slok, an economist at Apollo.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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      Mexico to Give U.S. More Water From Their Shared Rivers

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      A joint agreement appeared to avert a threat by President Trump of tariffs and sanctions in a long-running dispute over water rights in the border region.Mexico has agreed to send water to the United States and temporarily channel more water to the country from their shared rivers, a concession that appeared to defuse a diplomatic crisis sparked by yearslong shortages that left Mexico behind on its treaty-bound contribution of water from the borderlands.Earlier this month, President Trump threatened additional tariffs and other sanctions against Mexico over the water debt, amounting to about 420 billion gallons. In a social media post, Mr. Trump accused Mexico of “stealing” water from Texas farmers by not meeting its obligations under a 1944 treaty that mediates the distribution of water from three rivers the two countries share: the Rio Grande, the Colorado and the Tijuana. In an agreement announced jointly by Mexico and the United States on Monday, Mexico will immediately transfer some of its water reserves and will give the country a larger share of the flow of water from the Rio Grande through October.The concession from Mexico averted the threat of more punishing tariffs and diplomatic enmity with the United States amid the rollout of Mr. Trump’s new trade policies. But fulfilling the agreement is expected to significantly strain Mexico’s farmlands and could revive civil unrest triggered by previous water payments to the United States. Much of the Mexican borderlands are enduring extreme drought conditions, according to Mexico’s meteorological agency and water commission, and Mexico’s water reserves are at historic lows.Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has taken a conciliatory approach in negotiations with the Trump administration. Hours after Mr. Trump’s threat of tariffs over the water dispute earlier this month, Ms. Sheinbaum acknowledged that her country had fallen short of its treaty commitments, citing the extreme drought and saying that Mexico had been complying “to the extent of water availability.”In a statement on Monday, the State Department lauded Ms. Sheinbaum “for her personal involvement” in negotiating the agreement, and spoke of “water scarcity affecting communities on both sides of the border.” A statement from the Mexican foreign ministry on the agreement noted that the United States had agreed not to seek a renegotiation of the 1944 water treaty.Longstanding tensions over water have simmered between Mexico and the United States. In 2020, those tensions exploded into violence in Mexico, as farmers rioted and seized control of a dam in the border region in an effort to shut off water deliveries to the United States.Rising temperatures and drought have made the water from rivers Mexico and the United States share all the more valuable.According to data provided by the International Boundary and Water Commission, which mediates water disputes between the two countries, Mexico has fallen well short of its treaty commitments on water delivery in the last five years. Between October 2020 and October 2024, Mexico provided just over 400,000 acre-feet of water, far less than the roughly 1.4 million acre-feet called for under treaty stipulations. The debt has only grown since.Emiliano Rodríguez Mega More

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      Patients Cut Off From Cheaper Obesity Drugs as FDA Halts Sales of Copycats

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      Hundreds of thousands of Americans stand to soon lose their access to cheaper weight-loss drugs, with a federal crackdown on copycat versions threatening to disrupt treatment and raise costs.The Food and Drug Administration has ordered producers and sellers of the less expensive products to wind down operations in the coming weeks now that it has declared there are no longer shortages of the blockbuster drugs Wegovy and Zepbound.Produced through a process of mixing drug ingredients known as compounding, the copycat medications had spawned a booming multi-billion-dollar industry. Patients turned to compounding because their health insurance would not pay for the brand-name drugs and they could buy the compounded versions for less than $200 a month in some cases.Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk now offer the brand-name drugs for $500 a month in most cases to patients who pay with their own money instead of going through insurance. Until recently, patients sometimes had to pay over $1,300 a month.The F.D.A. ordered compounding for versions of Eli Lilly’s Zepbound to end last month. Small compounders have until April 22 to stop making and selling versions of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy; large compounders have until May 22.It is not clear how the F.D.A. will enforce these deadlines. The Health and Human Services Department, which oversees the F.D.A., declined to answer questions for this article.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 Threat for Drug imports Poses Big Political Risks

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

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      Aviation Chaos Can Quickly Spiral, Despite Contingency Plans

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      Airlines, airports and air traffic controllers prepare for chaos. But that doesn’t make responding to it any less complicated.The global aviation system is deeply interconnected and responding to a disruption — especially one as severe as a power outage at a global airport hub — is a delicate balancing act. For airlines, moving even a small number of flights can have cascading effects.“They’re thinking not just in terms of a single day, but recovery,” said Dr. Michael McCormick, a professor of air traffic management at Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University, who managed the federal airspace over New York during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “They have to look at where passengers with bags, aircraft and aircrews need to be tomorrow, the next day, and the next day.”When crises occur, airline network operation centers go into overdrive. The centers are the nerve centers of carriers — typically large, quiet, secure rooms with power backups and protections against severe weather and disasters.At large airlines, operations centers are staffed around the clock with teams that monitor the weather, manage planes, communicate with air traffic control, schedule crews and much more.Small disruptions can be handled surgically — a sick pilot can be replaced or a broken plane swapped out for another. But bigger disruptions like the one at London’s Heathrow Airport can require scrapping and reworking intricate plans while taking into account a wide range of limitations.Planes differ in how many people they can carry and how far they can fly, so a small plane used for shorter domestic flights cannot easily be swapped in for a larger one used on longer flights. They also must be fueled adequately and their weight balanced appropriately, needs that must be adjusted if planes are rerouted.Regulations require that pilots and flight attendants are not overworked and are allowed to rest after certain number of hours on the clock. If a flight takes too long to depart, a crew can time out. When schedulers do reassign crews, they also have to take into account where those pilots and flight attendants are needed next, or they could risk more disruptions later.Airlines, of course, do not operate in isolation. As they change plans, they need to work with airport and air traffic control officials who may have limited resources to accommodate the changes. Airports are limited not just in how many flights they can receive, but also, in some cases, what types of planes they can safely accept. In the United States, for example, many air traffic control towers have long suffered from controller shortages. More

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

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

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      The Fed Is Stuck Fighting the Last War

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      Mired in a battle to contain surging prices, the central bank also needs to be nimble enough for the economic downturns to come, our columnist says.The battle against inflation during the Biden years is almost behind us. But we’re in danger of learning the wrong lessons from it.The Federal Reserve, holding its last meeting of the year this coming week, has been fighting runaway consumer prices for nearly three years. So far, at least, it has managed an unusual feat: The rate of inflation has dropped sharply from its peak and there has been no recession.Yet the Fed is stuck in a difficult place. With prices still rising faster than the central bank’s 2 percent target, the incoming Trump administration will be hypersensitive about inflation, which was a decisive factor in the November elections. At the same time, the new administration’s policies on tariffs and immigration could set off another inflation surge. So the Fed must remain acutely vigilant on the inflation front.But it will have to keep experimenting, to be ready for the curve balls coming from future recessions. Some economists believe the Fed would gain flexibility if it reconsidered its 2 percent inflation target, though they say the central bank can’t take that step now because it is under too much pressure to preserve its own institutional independence.Still, a single-minded focus on inflation could leave the Fed without the right tools for coping with economic downturns ahead.The Fed’s predicament reminds me of a general who is endlessly fighting the last war — conscientiously dissecting the tactics of recent battles and failing to prepare properly for the next ones.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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      Former Waupun Prison Warden and 8 Employees Charged in Inmate Deaths

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      Inmates had complained about a monthslong lockdown that cut them off from family members and timely medical care.The former warden of a Wisconsin prison and eight other prison employees were charged on Wednesday in connection with multiple inmate deaths over the last year, the local sheriff said.The prison, Waupun Correctional Institution, about 70 miles northwest of Milwaukee, was the subject of a 2023 report by The New York Times and Wisconsin Watch that found that inmates had been confined to their cells for months and denied access to medical care.The prison’s former warden, Randall Hepp, had left his job earlier this week. He was charged with misconduct in public office, a felony. Mr. Hepp’s arrest was first reported by The Associated Press. His attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.The other prison employees, most of whom worked as correctional officers and registered nurses, were charged with abuse of an inmate. Two of the correctional officers and a sergeant were also charged with misconduct.In announcing the arrests during a Wednesday news conference, Dale J. Schmidt, the sheriff for Dodge County, Wis., said Mr. Hepp and the other employees had failed to adequately care for inmates in their custody. Sheriff Schmidt described in detail four deaths, including one involving a prisoner who had not eaten in days and was “drinking sewage water” and “played in the toilet.” The medical examiner said the cause of death was malnutrition and probable dehydration, and ruled it a homicide.Randall Hepp, former warden of Waupun Correctional Institution.Dodge County (Wis.) Sheriff’s OfficeDo you, or does anyone you know, work for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections?

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      Why the Solar Eclipse Will Not Leave People Without Power

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      Grid managers say they are well prepared to handle a sharp drop in the energy produced by solar panels as the eclipse darkens the sky in North America on April 8.When the sky darkens during next month’s solar eclipse, electricity production in some parts of the country will drop so sharply that it could theoretically leave tens of millions of homes in the dark. In practice, hardly anyone will notice a sudden loss of energy.Electric utilities say they expect to see significant decreases in solar power production during the eclipse but have already lined up alternate sources of electricity, including large battery installations and natural gas power plants. Homeowners who rely on rooftop solar panels should also experience no loss of electricity because home batteries or the electric grid will kick in automatically as needed.At 12:10 p.m. on April 8, the solar eclipse will begin over southwestern Texas, the regional electrical system perhaps most affected by the event, and last three hours.“I don’t think anything is as predictable as an eclipse,” said Pedro Pizarro, president and chief of executive of Edison International, a California power company, and the chairman of the Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade organization. “You can prepare.”This year’s solar eclipse will darken the sky as it passes over a swath of Mexico, the United States and Canada. That leaves solar energy systems — one of the nation’s fastest growing sources of electricity — vulnerable.Although solar power produces only when the sun shines, forecasters can generally predict pretty well how much electricity panels will produce on any given day depending on the weather. That helps utility and grid managers make sure they have other sources of energy available to meet consumer needs.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