Stock markets

Subterms

    Latest story

    200 Shares23 Views

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

    by

    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

    More stories

    • 213 Shares38 Views

      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on the tariff war pause: the Trump trade shambles is not over | Editorial

      by

      It was Donald Trump who blinked first. Never forget that. China is unlikely to overlook its importance. A week after launching an all-out global trade war, the US president paused significant parts of it for 90 days. Having insisted that he would stick with the random tariffs he imposed on most trading nations, Mr Trump suddenly decreed that he would reduce most of them to 10%. It was a major humiliation.Yet 10% is still a significant tariff to bear for nations exporting to the US. This is also only a pause until July, not a withdrawal, so the uncertainty remains. And huge tariffs still remain on China (now hiked to 145%), Canada and Mexico (both 25%), as well as on all US imports of steel, aluminium and cars (also 25%). Mr Trump is now substituting a US-world conflict with a US-China one. The two largest economies in the world – which between them have generated around half of global economic growth in the 21st century – are, in effect, no longer doing business with each other.Even so, this was a necessary step back from the cliff edge. It was enough to trigger a temporary bounceback on stock markets around the globe, though prices slipped back on Thursday and remain much lower than at the start of April. In the week since Mr Trump’s absurd “liberation day”, more than $6tn dollars of value was wiped from stocks on the S&P 500 index. It is a shameful outcome.Mr Trump claims he made the move because more than 75 nations had been willing to negotiate or “kiss my ass”. This is nonsense. He has got nothing out of the tariff war. He has not won. No one has negotiated. Mr Trump is making his usual efforts to claim yet another triumph. The plain truth is that he backed down because he was forced to.That Mr Trump can retreat is good news, as far as it goes. Overall, however, the past week has been an indictment of the president, his policies, his instincts and his behaviour. The pause should on no account be seen as proof that rational business can be done with him. For one thing, this week’s mayhem may easily kick off again as July nears. The White House has merely given itself more time to make some very big calls.Two things appear pivotal in the decision announced on Wednesday. The first was the overheating of the US bond market, subverting the established assumption that dollar bonds will always be a safe asset, and drawing the Federal Reserve to the threshold of intervention. A similar crisis doomed Liz Truss’s economic strategy in the UK in 2022, but the destructive potential of a US bond crisis is far greater. Mr Trump’s tariffs were threatening all-out recession.The second factor was some limited elite domestic pushback. Anxious senators appeared on Fox News (which the president watches) and pressed the case for dialling down. The head of JPMorgan Chase warned about recession. So did a handful of world leaders and some Trump cabinet members in telephone calls.These realities were a brake on Mr Trump this time. It is possible the trauma has left its mark and there will now be no repeat. But there is no case for confidence, let alone for accepting that this outcome had been schemed all along. Even Mr Trump admitted that Americans were “getting yippy”. They had every right to be. So did the markets, along with the rest of the world. Trust disappeared long ago, replaced now by uncertainty. There is no way that this is over. More

    • 125 Shares37 Views

      in US Politics

      Who will win bigly from Trump tariffs? | Brief letters

      by

      After Donald Trump raised a range of tariffs, the US stock market tanked (Report, 4 April). If Trump rescinded these, within weeks the stock market would bounce back. Wouldn’t it be interesting to know in advance when that was going to happen? Somebody could make a great deal of money.John KinderRomsey, Hampshire In the past, we referred to the ABC of the cost of living crisis: Austerity, Brexit, Covid. Now, it seems, we have to add D for Donald and E for Elon. I don’t want to think about what F might stand for.Ruth EversleyPaulton, Somerset Re your article (‘She treats everyone with a deep growl’: can you train an angry cat to be more sociable?, 30 March), sometimes it just requires patience: in his 20th year my adopted feral cat Twix finally gave up being antisocial and climbed on to my lap for a cuddle, and there he remains at every opportunity, living his best life.Rosemary JacksonLondon Re your report (Birmingham declares major incident over bin strike as piles of waste grow, 31 March), we can now acknowledge that, like medical staff, binmen are essential frontline workers, without whom public health collapses? The solution to the impasse? Attlee got it right. Stuff their mouths with gold.Jenny MittonSutton Coldfield, West Midlands I hadn’t noticed seat heights on Mastermind (Letters, 1 April) but I comment every week to my wife about the amount of manspreading, to the extent that when we board a bus or train, we often say quietly to each other: “A few potential Mastermind contestants here.”Ray JenkinCardiff More

    • 200 Shares101 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: Tariffs send US markets tumbling to worst day since Covid crash

      by

      Global financial markets were roiled by Donald Trump’s latest tariff announcement – with trillions of dollars knocked off the value of the world’s biggest companies and heightened fears of a US recession.In the US, the main indices saw their worst one-day falls in five years as the president claimed that “the markets are going to boom” in response to his sweeping tariffs.The scale of the sell-off highlights just how alarmed investors are by the tariffs, and the fears they could lead to a recession.Here are the key stories at a glance:Trump insists ‘it’s going very well’ as markets crashDespite the worst markets crash in nearly five years, Trump denied the turmoil presented a problem, telling reporters: “I think it’s going very well … We’ve never seen anything like it. The markets are going to boom. The stock is going to boom. The country is going to boom.”As world leaders reacted to the US president’s “liberation day” tariff policies demolishing the international trading order, about $2.5tn (£1.9tn) was wiped off Wall Street and share prices in other financial centres across the globe.Read the full storyUS markets see worst day since 2020Zooming in on US stock market, all three major US funds closed down in their worst day since June 2020, during the Covid pandemic. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 6%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow dropped 4.8% and 3.9%, respectively. Apple and Nvidia, two of the US’s largest companies by market value, had lost a combined $470bn in value by midday.Read the full storyRepublican Senate rebels decry tariffs as ‘bad policy’The first signs of an internal US political backlash against Donald Trump’s declaration of a global trade war are starting to emerge amid tanking stock markets worldwide, including on Wall Street, and widespread international criticism of the move.Read the full storyPete Hegseth faces Signal investigationThe Pentagon watchdog is launching an investigation into US defence secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive information about military operations in Yemen.The probe follows a bipartisan request from the Senate armed services committee after allegations emerged that highly precise – and most likely classified – intelligence about impending US airstrikes in Yemen, including strike timing and aircraft models, had been shared in a Signal group chat that included a journalist.Read the full storyTrump fires staffers after Laura Loomer urges him toDonald Trump fired six national security council staffers after an unusual meeting in the Oval Office where the far-right activist Laura Loomer presented opposition research against a number of staffers that she said showed they were disloyal to the US president, according to two people familiar with the matter.Read the full storyDr Oz confirmed for Medicare and Medicaid role amid cuts plansFormer heart surgeon and TV pitchman Dr Mehmet Oz was confirmed to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Oz became the agency’s administrator in a party-line 53-45 vote.The 64-year-old will manage health insurance programs for roughly half the country, with oversight of Medicare, Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage. He steps into the new role as Congress is debating cuts to the Medicaid program, which provides coverage to millions of poor and disabled Americans.Read the full storyEnglish judge orders Trump to pay more than $800,000 in legal costsDonald Trump has been ordered by a judge in England to pay more than £620,000 ($820,000) in legal costs after unsuccessfully suing a company over denied allegations he took part in “perverted” sex acts.The US president brought a data protection claim against Orbis Business Intelligence, a consultancy founded by a former MI6 officer, Christopher Steele, in 2022.Steele authored a report that included allegations – all denied by Trump – that he had been “compromised” by the Russian Security Service. Mrs Justice Steyn threw out the claim in February last year and told Trump to pay an initial £290,000 in costs. Trump decided not to pay and was now ordered to pay £626,058.98.Read the full storySenators try to claw back power over tariffs Senior senators introduced new bipartisan legislation on Thursday seeking to claw back some of Congress’s power over tariffs after Donald Trump unveiled sweeping new import taxes that rattled the global economy.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Canada will retaliate against Trump’s “unjustified, unwarranted” tariffs with a 25% tax on US vehicles, said prime minister Mark Carney. The taxes will target vehicles that are not compliant with the continental free trade deal.

      The method used to calculate the most important numbers in international trade, politics and economics has left some of the world’s leading experts shocked. Here’s how they were calculated.

      JD Vance said that Elon Musk would remain a “friend and an adviser” to the vice-president and Donald Trump after he leaves his current role with the so-called “department of government efficiency”.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 2 April 2025. More

    • 150 Shares50 Views

      in US Politics

      Global markets in turmoil as Trump tariffs wipe $2.5tn off Wall Street

      by

      Global financial markets have been plunged into turmoil as Donald Trump’s escalating trade war knocked trillions of dollars off the value of the world’s biggest companies and heightened fears of a US recession.As world leaders reacted to the US president’s “liberation day” tariff policies demolishing the international trading order, about $2.5tn (£1.9tn) was wiped off Wall Street and share prices in other financial centres across the globe.Experts said Trump’s sweeping border taxes of between 10% and 50% on the US’s traditional allies and enemies alike had dramatically added to the risk of a steep global downturn and a recession in the world’s biggest economy.World leaders from Brussels to Beijing rounded on Trump. China condemned “unilateral bullying” practices and the EU said it was drawing up countermeasures.While Trump timed his Wednesday evening Rose Garden address to avoid live tickers of crashing stock markets, that fate arrived when Asian exchanges opened hours later.Drawing comparisons with the market crashes at the height of the coronavirus pandemic and the 2008 financial collapse, the sell-off swept the globe, sending exchanges plunging in Asia and Europe. The UK’s FTSE 100 index of blue-chip companies closed the day down 133 points, or 1.5%, to 8,474 after suffering its worst day since August.All three main US stock markets were down at the end of trading in their worst day since June 2020, during the Covid pandemic. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 5.97%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow dropped 4.8% and 3.9%, respectively. Apple and Nvidia, two of the US’s largest companies by market value, lost a combined $470bn in value by midday.Libby Cantrill, the head of US public policy at Pimco, one of the world’s largest bond fund managers, said investors were growing increasingly concerned as Trump appeared to be unwilling to soften his stance in the face of market turmoil, although hope remained that he would ultimately strike deals with US trading partners.“There is likely a limit to how much pain he and his administration are willing to endure in order to rebalance the economy, but when that is or what that looks like remains to be seen,” she said.“For now, we should assume that his pain tolerance is pretty high and that tariffs stick around for a while.”The US dollar hit a six-month low, falling 2.2% on Thursday morning, amid a growing loss of confidence in a currency previously considered the safest in the world for most of the past century.Warning clients to beware a “dollar confidence crisis”, George Saravelos, the head of foreign exchange research at Deutsche Bank, said: “The safe-haven properties of the dollar are being eroded.”The heaviest falls in share prices on Thursday were reserved for US companies with complex international supply chains stretching into the countries that Trump is targeting with billions of dollars in fresh border taxes.Apple, which makes most of its iPhones, tablets and other devices for the US market in China, was down 9.5% at close of trading, and there were steep declines for other large multinationals including Microsoft, Nvidia, Dell and HP.Commodities fell sharply, including a 7% plunge in oil prices, reflecting growing concerns over the global economic outlook.Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump said: “I think it’s going very well. It was an operation like when a patient gets operated on and it’s a big thing. I said this would be exactly the way it is … We’ve never seen anything like it. The markets are going to boom. The stock is going to boom. The country is going to boom.”Trump later said: “Every country is calling us. That’s the beauty of what we do. If we would have asked these countries to do us a favour they would have said no. Now they will do anything for us.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOver the last nearly 24 hours, Trump has faced widespread backlash from US lawmakers and global leaders over his tariffs plan, with the senior Republican senator Mitch McConnell calling it “bad policy” while Canada – a traditional American ally – called the tariffs “unjustified” and “unwanted”.Tariffs will fall heavily on some of the world’s poorest countries, with nations in south-east Asia, including Myanmar, among the most affected.Cambodia, where about one in five of the population live below the poverty line, was the worst-hit country in the region with a tariff rate of 49%. Vietnam faces 46% tariffs and Myanmar, reeling from a devastating earthquake and years of civil war after a 2021 military coup, was hit with 44%.Analysts warned that garment and sports shoe makers, which rely heavily on production in south-east Asia, face rising costs, which will push up prices for consumers around the globe. The share prices of Nike, Adidas and Puma all fell steeply.Analysts said Trump’s measures would raise the average tariff, or border tax, charged by the US to the highest level since 1933, in a development that threatened to sink the US into recession while increasing living costs for consumers.Trump’s plans involve imposing a 10% tariff on all US trading partners from just after midnight on 5 April, before additional higher tariffs of up to 50% are imposed on countries including China, Vietnam and the EU.The non-partisan Tax Foundation thinktank said it estimated the plan would represent a “$1.8tn tax hike” for US consumers, which would cause imports to fall by more than a quarter, or $900bn, in 2025.While the measures will hit the US hard, researchers at the consultancy Oxford Economics said they could sink global economic growth to the lowest annual rate since the 2008 financial crisis, barring the height of the Covid pandemic.Countries scrambled to assess the fallout and whether to retaliate. The UK, which was hit with the lowest level of 10% tariffs, suggested it may retaliate even as it tries to strike a deal with Washington.It published a 417-page list of US products on which it could impose tariffs, including meat, fish and dairy products, whiskey and rum, clothing, motorcycles and musical instruments.The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, told MPs that ministers were still pursuing an economic deal with the US as the priority but “we do reserve the right to take any action we deem necessary if a deal is not secured”.The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Trump’s decision to impose tariffs of 20% on EU goods was “brutal and unfounded”, while Germany’s outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, called it “fundamentally wrong”.Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the “protectionist” tariffs ran “contrary to the interests of millions of citizens on this side of the Atlantic and in the US”.The EU is thought to be preparing retaliatory tariffs on US consumer and industrial goods – likely to include emblematic products such as orange juice, blue jeans and Harley-Davidson motorbikes – to be announced in mid-April, in response to steel and aluminium tariffs previously announced by Trump. More

    • 188 Shares101 Views

      in US Politics

      US stock markets see worst day since Covid pandemic after investors shaken by Trump tariffs

      by

      US stock markets tumbled on Thursday as investors parsed the sweeping change in global trading following Donald Trump’s announcement of a barrage of tariffs on the country’s trading partners.All three major US stock markets closed down in their worst day since June 2020, during the Covid pandemic. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 6%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow dropped 4.8% and 3.9%, respectively. Apple and Nvidia, two of the US’s largest companies by market value, had lost a combined $470bn in value by midday.Meanwhile, the US dollar hit a six-month low, going down at least 2.2% on Thursday morning compared with other major currencies and oil prices sank on fears of a global slowdown.Though the US stock market has been used to tumultuous mornings over the last few weeks, US stock futures – an indication of the market’s likely direction – had plummeted after the announcement. Hours later, Japan’s Nikkei index slumped to an eight-month low and was followed by falls in stock markets in London and across Europe.The White House drafted up a list of countries, including some of its largest trade partners and ones uninhabited by humans, that will be receiving reciprocal tariffs. Many economies will see new tariffs above 20%, including the EU, China, Japan and Taiwan.The 10% baseline tariff will go into effect on 5 April, while the reciprocal tariffs will begin on 9 April, according to the White House.“The markets are going to boom,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he left for Florida for the weekend. “I think it’s going very well.”Economists have for months warned that high tariffs are a major risk to the US economy, pushing prices up for consumers on everything from cars to wine along with destabilizing the US’s role in the global economy.But that didn’t stop Trump from taking a celebratory tone at the event he dubbed “liberation day”. Trump tried to paint the tariffs as the start of “the golden age of America”.“We are going to start being smart and we’re going to start being very wealthy again,” Trump said.On Thursday Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, defended the move. “The president is not going to back off what he announced yesterday. He is not going to back off,” he told CNN.Multiple major American business groups have spoken out against the tariffs, including the Business Roundtable, a consortium of leaders of major US companies including JP Morgan, Apple and IBM, which called on the White House to “swiftly reach agreements” and remove the tariffs.“Universal tariffs ranging from 10-50% run the risk of causing major harm to American manufacturers, workers, families and exporters,” the Business Roundtable said in a statement. “Damage to the US economy will increase the longer the tariffs are in place and may be exacerbated by retaliatory measures.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a statement, the National Retail Federation, a lobbying group for the retail industry, said that the new tariffs negatively affect the business environment for retailers.“More tariffs equal more anxiety and uncertainty for American businesses and consumers. While leaders in Washington may not care about higher prices, hardworking American families do,” the group said.Contrary to what Trump has said about the jobs the tariffs will create, the National Association of Manufacturers said that tariffs actually “threaten investment, jobs, supply chains and, in turn, America’s ability to outcompete other nations and lead as the preeminent manufacturing superpower”.The tariffs also appear unpopular among voters. A poll released on Wednesday ahead of Trump’s announcement found that just 28% of Americans believe tariffs help the economy, while 58% believe the impacts will be damaging.But in his speech yesterday, Trump appeared ready to be defiant against any criticism.“In the coming days, there will be complaints from the globalists and the outsources and special interests and the fake news,” he said. “This will be an entirely different country in a short period of time. It’ll be something the whole world will be talking about.” More

    • 163 Shares81 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump prepares to unveil reciprocal tariffs as markets brace amid trade war fears

      by

      As Donald Trump prepared to unveil a swathe of reciprocal tariffs, global markets braced and some Republican senators voiced their opposition to a strategy that critics warn risks a global trade war, provoking retaliation by major trading partners such as China, Canada and the European Union.The US president said on Monday he would be “very kind” to trading partners when he unveils further tariffs this week, potentially as early as Tuesday night.The Republican billionaire insists that reciprocal action is needed because the world’s biggest economy has been “ripped off by every country in the world”, promising “Liberation Day” for the US.He could also unveil more sector-specific levies.Asked for details, he told reporters on Monday: “You’re going to see in two days, which is maybe tomorrow night or probably Wednesday.”But he added: “We’re going to be very nice, relatively speaking, we’re going to be very kind.”Some Republican senators spoke out against Trump’s tariffs on Canada and are considering signing on their support for a resolution blocking them, CNN reported. Senator Susan Collins warned that tariffs on Canada would be particularly harmful to Maine and that she intended to vote for a resolution aimed at blocking tariffs against Canadian goods.Republican Senator Thom Tillis also said he was considering backing the resolution, adding: “We need to fight battles with our foes first and then try to figure out any inequalities with our friends second.”Already, China, South Korea and Japan agreed on Sunday to strengthen free trade between themselves, ahead of Trump’s expected tariff announcement.But Trump said on Monday he was not worried that his action would push allies toward Beijing, adding that a deal on TikTok could also be tied to China tariffs.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the goal on Wednesday would be to announce “country-based tariffs”, although Trump remained committed to imposing separate sector-specific charges.The uncertainty has jolted markets, with key European and Asian indexes closing lower, although the Dow and broad-based S&P 500 eked out gains.Market nervousness intensified after Trump said on Sunday his tariffs would include “all countries”.The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that advisers have considered imposing global tariffs of up to 20%, to hit almost all US trading partners. Trump has remained vague, saying his tariffs would be “far more generous” than ones already levied against US products.Trump’s fixation on tariffs is fanning US recession fears. Goldman Sachs analysts raised their 12-month recession probability from 20% to 35%.This reflects a “lower growth forecast, falling confidence and statements from White House officials indicating willingness to tolerate economic pain”. Goldman Sachs also lifted its forecast for underlying inflation at the end of 2025.China and Canada have imposed counter-tariffs on US goods, while the EU unveiled its own measures to start mid-April. Other countermeasures could come after Wednesday.For now, the IMF chief, Kristalina Georgieva, said at a Reuters event on Monday that US tariffs were causing anxiety, although their global economic impact should not be dramatic.Ryan Sweet of Oxford Economics said to “expect the unexpected”, anticipating that Trump would “take aim at some of the largest offenders”.Besides reciprocal country tariffs, Trump could unveil additional sector-specific levies on the likes of pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. He earlier announced car tariffs to take effect on Thursday.Economists have expected the upcoming salvo could target the 15% of partners that have persistent trade imbalances with the US, a group that the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has dubbed a “Dirty 15”.The US has some of its biggest goods deficits with China, the EU, Mexico, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Canada and India.US trade partners are rushing to minimise their exposure, with reports suggesting India may lower some duties.The European Central Bank president, Christine Lagarde, said on Monday that Europe should move towards economic independence, telling France Inter radio that Europe faces an “existential moment”.Separately, the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, spoke with Trump on “productive negotiations” towards a UK-US trade deal, while the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said the EU would respond firmly to Trump but was open to compromise.It was “entirely possible” for fresh tariffs to be swiftly reduced or put on hold, said Greta Peisch, a partner at law firm Wiley Rein.In February, Washington paused steep levies on Mexican and Canadian imports for a month as the North American neighbours pursued negotiations.With Agence France-Presse More

    • 138 Shares106 Views

      in US Politics

      Is Trump driving the US into a recession? – in charts

      by

      Prospects for the US economy have cooled significantly in a matter of months. After outperforming its international peers last year, warning lights are flashing on a dashboard of economic indicators as analysts warn that Donald Trump’s erratic approach is hitting the world’s largest economy.Fears of a US recession this year are growing, in what is being called a “Trumpcession”, amid a sharp decline in business and consumer confidence as the president threatens punitive import tariffs on US allies and enemies alike.Most economists reckon a recession – defined as two consecutive quarters of shrinking economic output – can be avoided. But it is clear there are storm clouds gathering within the president’s first 100 days back in the White House.GDPUS growth in gross domestic product (GDP) had outpaced international peers in recent years, and since the Covid pandemic in particular – helped by the Biden administration pumping billions of dollars into the economy through the Inflation Reduction Act. The former president did not get much credit, though, as voters felt the squeeze from the period of high inflation triggered by the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine.This week, the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow, which measures GDP economic growth in real time, suggested the US economy would contract at an annual rate of 2% in the first quarter. However, this widely followed indicator can be volatile, and it is heavily influenced by the US trade deficit, which soared in January.Trade balanceThe US goods trade gap surged to $153.3bn in January. This was driven by record import volumes, an increase of $36.2bn to $329.5bn in total, as US businesses rushed to bring shipments into the country to avoid potential tariffs.US gold importsA significant driver of the import rise was inbound shipments of “finished metal shapes”, which include bars of gold. The trend is also attributed to traders rushing to get ahead of potential US tariffs. A widening trade deficit would normally weigh on a country’s GDP, because imports are subtracted from the measurement. But because gold bought to sit in a vault is not consumed or used in production, it is excluded.This means the Atlanta Fed is likely to be overestimating the hit to first-quarter GDP. Still, there are other signs that the US economy is cooling.InflationTrump had promised to “bring prices down, starting on day one” and “cut energy costs in half within 12 months after taking office”.Official figures show the headline annual rate as measured by the consumer price index was 2.8% in February, after an unexpected rise to 3% in January from 2.9% in December. Energy costs are down by 0.2% on an annual basis.The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said on Monday that Trump’s trade wars risked stoking inflation. It increased its US inflation forecast for 2025 to 2.8%, up from a previous estimate of 2.1% made in December.EmploymentThe US jobs market has boomed in recent years, and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% in early 2023, the lowest level since the year of the first moon landing in 1969. The rate has ticked higher in recent months, but remains historically low at 4.1%. This has been spurred by rapid growth in the numbers of jobs being added to the economy.Wage growth has also strengthened, and has remained above inflation since early 2023, helping households to rebuild some of their purchasing power lost during the recent rise in living costs.StocksThe US stock market has powered to record highs in recent years. Tech stocks and the “magnificent seven” – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia and Tesla – have led the charge in particular, buoyed up by investors betting on the growth of artificial intelligence.The Biden administration oversaw a strong stock market performance, helped by the economic recovery from the pandemic. However, Wall Street surged after Trump’s election victory in November, amid investor expectations for tax cuts that could increase company profits. Markets have been rattled in Trump’s first 100 days amid concerns over his erratic approach to the economy and the threat of tariffs hitting growth and stoking inflation.The US dollarThe US dollar had been rising sharply against other leading currencies, reflecting the strength of the economy and investor concerns that Trump’s policies could stoke inflation. Tariffs pushing up the price of imported goods, driving up inflation, could force the US Federal Reserve to hold back from cutting interest rates.With inflation having fallen back, the Fed cut its benchmark rate last year by a whole percentage point – from a range between 5.25% and 5% to between 4.25% and 4.5%. Higher inflation could limit its capacity for further rate cuts.A dramatically slowing economy could force the central bank to take action to lower borrowing costs. This has led to a pullback in the dollar in recent weeks.Washington has long held a “strong dollar” policy in the view that it supports the purchasing power of US consumers, helping to keep inflation low. The dollar is also used as the currency of choice for world trade and underpins the financial system. The US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has said this approach is not changing. But Trump has argued that a weaker dollar would benefit US manufacturing by making exports cheaper for overseas buyers.Prices of inputs for manufactured productsBusiness surveys have shown a marked increase in input costs for US manufacturers, providing an early warning sign for growth and inflation. The price gauge on the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) shows raw material costs rose sharply at the start of this year, in the first signs of supplier difficulties and discussions about who will pay for tariffs. The rise in input costs could dent US manufacturing output, and is likely to be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices for finished goods.Consumer spendingUS consumer spending unexpectedly dropped in January for the first time in almost two years, with a fall of 0.2%, the biggest decrease in nearly four years. Cold temperatures in some parts of the country, as well as wildfires in California, were likely to have hit spending. However, some analysts warn consumer sentiment has taken a knock amid mounting concern over the strength of the economy. More