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      Stocks Notch Gains After More Tariff Whiplash

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      After exempting Chinese imports of smartphones, chips and other electronics, President Trump said on Sunday the carve outs were only temporary.Markets in Asia moved higher on Monday after a weekend that brought more shifts in strategy from President Trump about tariffs.Stocks in Japan rose a little over 1 percent while benchmarks went up 2 percent in Hong Kong and less than 1 percent in mainland China. S&P 500 stock futures, which let investors bet on how the index might perform when it opens in New York, were about 0.50 percent higher.The modest rally followed another chaotic week on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 starting with losses but ending with its best weekly performance since November 2022. The gains were driven by Mr. Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that he would pause for 90 days the “reciprocal” tariffs he had imposed on dozens of countries just a week earlier.On Friday night, after Mr. Trump had repeatedly said he would spare no industry, U.S. customs officials exempted a host of technology products imported from China. That means smartphones, semiconductors, computers and other equipment would not face most of the 145 percent tariffs Mr. Trump has imposed on China.The carve outs were viewed as a win for Apple and other American tech giants because tech products and components are a key part of American imports from China. A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce on Sunday called it a “small step” in “correcting” the tariffs Mr. Trump has put on China.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Stock Ownership Is What Really Divides Americans

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      In a pamphlet published in 1711, Jonathan Swift lamented the “folly” of those who “mistake the echo of a London coffeehouse for the voice of the kingdom.” Those informal salons were, he wrote, frequented by people whose wealth depended on their shares in the Bank of England or the East India Company or “some other stock.” If the responses to the Trump administration’s tariff policies have shown us anything, it is that, like most of the ills against which Swift railed, this unfortunate tendency to conflate stockholders with the nation remains very much with us.The greatest division in American life is not between so-called red and blue states, or between urban and rural citizens, but instead between those who own stock and those who do not. For those who do, economic security can be measured in portfolio statements; the rest — roughly 40 percent of Americans — must make do with such antiquated metrics as the cost of housing or even the price of eggs.This division is not merely economic; it is also ideological. Though many Americans own at least some stock, 10 percent of Americans own 93 percent of it. Yet the elite stock-owning class has convinced itself that what is good for the S&P 500 is good for America. Worse, many Americans who own stock through retirement plans or pension plans have been convinced to believe this, too, even though their interests tend not to align neatly with those of multimillionaires.The result is a kind of ideological capture in which any policy that does not serve the immediate interests of shareholders is dismissed as reckless, radical or economically illiterate. The common good, insofar as it is considered at all, must first be translated into the language of market returns. Can anything be good if it does not make the line go up? The question (we are told) answers itself.Like awed visitors to the oracle at Delphi, we consult the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 with solemn credulity, and their half-random fluctuations are taken as portents of divine favor, or else as intimations of the coming wrath of heaven’s gracious ones. All presidents — including Donald Trump — genuflect before this altar, and most of us implicitly regard any policy that displeases the great god Wall Street as a kind of sacrilege. We treat the stock market as the final arbiter of our collective well-being.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Lot About Trump Doesn’t Add Up

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

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      Trump’s Tariff Reversal Calms Some G.O.P. Nerves, but Questions Linger

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      President Trump’s whipsawing tariff policy has prompted bipartisan alarm on Capitol Hill, where Democrats are outraged and Republicans are caught between their deep opposition to tariffs and fear of criticizing Mr. Trump.The president’s abrupt announcement on Wednesday that he would halt most of his reciprocal tariffs for 90 days just a week after announcing them allayed the immediate concerns of some G.O.P. lawmakers, many of whom rushed to praise Mr. Trump for what they characterized as deal-making mastery.But behind those statements was a deep well of nervousness among Republican lawmakers who are hearing angst from their constituents and donors about the impact of Mr. Trump’s trade moves on the financial markets and the economy. Some of them have begun signing onto measures that would end the tariffs altogether or claw back Congress’s power to block the president from imposing such levies in the future.“I’m just trying to figure out whose throat I get to choke if it’s wrong, and who I put up on a platform and thank them for the novel approach that was successful if they’re right,” Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, said of the sweeping tariffs on Tuesday during a hearing with Jamieson Greer, the Trump administration’s top trade official.On Wednesday, after Mr. Trump pulled back most of the tariffs but retained a 10 percent tariff rate for most countries and announced additional penalties on China, Mr. Tillis still sounded anxious. He said the move was likely to “reduce some of the escalation,” but added that there was still considerable work to be done to prevent another market meltdown.“We’ve got to get a deal before we get rid of uncertainty,” he told reporters soon after Mr. Trump announced the change in a social media post.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Stocks Jump in Asia After Trump’s Tariff Reprieve

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      Markets in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan soar after the U.S. president pauses punishing tariffs. Gains in mainland China were modest as trade hostilities heat up between Washington and Beijing.Following President Trump’s decision to pause punishing tariffs on dozens of countries, markets in Asia reacted predictably: Stocks soared in the countries that were spared.In early trading on Thursday, benchmark indexes rose more than 9 percent in Taiwan, 8 percent in Japan and 5 percent in South Korea. All three Asian economies were among the U.S. trading partners given a 90-day reprieve from Mr. Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs.While the U.S. allies won’t immediately face the 24 percent to 32 percent tariffs the Trump Administration had previously threatened, they will still be subject to a lower rate of 10 percent. That comes on top of 25 percent tariffs that Mr. Trump has imposed on goods including cars — a particular sore point for big auto exporters Japan and South Korea.In the United States, the reversal by Mr. Trump on Wednesday sparked the biggest one-day rally of the S&P 500 since October 2008, when stocks soared as investors anticipated central bank rate cuts in the wake of the global financial crisis.Huge Gains and Losses in One WeekModest gains or losses are the most common outcomes on S&P 500 trading days. But since last Thursday the index has had two steep drops and one of its biggest gains since 2000. More

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      Inside Trump’s Reversal on Tariffs: From ‘Be Cool!’ to ‘Getting Yippy’

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      Economic turmoil, particularly a rapid rise in government bond yields, caused President Trump to reverse course on the steep levies.For the past week, President Trump has been urging calm in the face of the financial chaos that he created and resisting calls for him to rethink his approach.“I know what the hell I’m doing,” he told Republicans on Tuesday as the massive tariffs he had imposed sent global markets into a tailspin. “BE COOL!” he said in a social media post on Wednesday morning. “Everything is going to work out well.”At 9:37 a.m. Wednesday, the president was still bullish on his policy, posting on Truth Social: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!”But in the end, it was the markets that got him to reverse course.The economic turmoil, particularly a rapid rise in government bond yields, caused Mr. Trump to blink on Wednesday afternoon and pause his “reciprocal” tariffs for most countries for the next 90 days, according to four people with direct knowledge of the president’s decision.Asked to explain the decision, Mr. Trump told reporters: “Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.”Behind the scenes, senior members of Mr. Trump’s team had feared a financial panic that could spiral out of control and potentially devastate the economy. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others on the president’s team, including Vice President JD Vance, had been pushing for a more structured approach to the trade conflict that would focus on isolating China as the worst actor while still sending a broader message that Mr. Trump was serious about cracking down on trade imbalances.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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      Bond Sell Off Raises Questions About U.S. Safe Haven Status

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      A sharp sell-off in U.S. government bond markets has sparked fears about the growing fallout from President Trump’s sweeping tariffs and retaliation by China, the European Union and others, raising questions about what is typically seen as the safest corner for investors to take cover during times of turmoil.Yields on 10-year Treasuries — the benchmark for a wide variety of debt — shot 0.2 percentage points higher on Wednesday, to 4.45 percent, a big move in that market. Just a few days ago, it had traded below 4 percent. Yields on the 30-year bond rose significantly as well, at one point on Wednesday topping 5 percent. Borrowing costs globally have also shot higher.The sell-off comes as investors have fled riskier assets globally in what some fear has parallels to what became known as the “dash for cash” episode during the pandemic, when the Treasury market broke down. The recent moves have upended a longstanding relationship in which the U.S. government bond market serves as a safe harbor during times of stress.Volatility has surged as stock markets have plummeted amid fears that the U.S. economy is hurtling toward stagflation, in which economic growth contracts while inflation surges. The S&P 500 is now on the verge of entering a bear market, meaning it has dropped 20 percent from its recent high.“The global safe-haven status is in question,” said Priya Misra, a portfolio manager at JPMorgan Asset Management. “Disorderly moves have happened this week because there is no safe place to hide.”Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury secretary, sought to tamp down concerns on Wednesday, brushing off the sell-off as nothing more than investors who bought assets with borrowed money having to cover their losses.“I believe that there is nothing systemic about this — I think that it is an uncomfortable but normal deleveraging that’s going on in the bond market,” he said in an interview with Fox Business.But the moves have been significant enough to raise broader concerns about how foreign investors now perceive the United States, after Mr. Trump decided to slap onerous tariffs on nearly all of its trading partners. Some countries have sought to strike deals with the administration to lower their tariff rates. But China retaliated on Wednesday, announcing an 84 percent levy on U.S. goods after Mr. Trump raised the tariff rate on Chinese goods to 104 percent.In a social media post on Wednesday, the former U.S. Treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers said the broader sell-off suggested a “generalized aversion to US assets in global financial markets” and warned about the possibility of a “serious financial crisis wholly induced by US government tariff policy.”“We are being treated by global financial markets like a problematic emerging market,” he wrote. More

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      Delta Warns Trump’s Trade War Could Lead to a Recession

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      Delta Air Lines on Wednesday became one of the largest American companies to warn that President Trump’s escalating trade war was weighing on its business and the global economy.In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, Delta’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, said a recession was possible as companies pulled back spending.“Everyone’s being prepared for uncertainty,” he said, “if that continues, and we don’t get resolution soon, we will probably end up in a recession.”Airlines are highly sensitive to changes in the economy because air travel is among the first things that individuals and businesses can cut back on when they are worried about their paychecks or profits.Mr. Bastian expressed shock at the speed at which the trade tensions had taken the wind out of the economy.“We’re in uncharted, unprecedented uncertainty, when you look at what’s happened and the pivot so quickly to this self-inflicted situation,” he said.Mr. Bastian’s comments are at odds with those of the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, who said on Wednesday that chief executives had told him the economy was solid.In its first-quarter earnings release, Delta said it no longer expected its business to grow in the second half of the year and added that a lack of the clarity about the economy prevented it from telling investors how much money it expects to make this year.Mr. Bastian said summer bookings were in line with last year. Some customs data show a sharp decline in foreigners entering the United States. Mr. Bastian said around 80 percent of Delta’s international bookings are made in the United States. “U.S. consumers are looking to go somewhere, particularly to try to get a reprieve from all the craziness we’re going through,” he said.Delta’s shares have fallen around 40 percent this year. More