Tag Archives: International Trade and World Market

The Job Market Has Been Resilient. The Trade War Could Be Its Undoing.

The Job Market Has Been Resilient. The Trade War Could Be Its Undoing.

For three years, the U.S. economy has been buffeted by rapid inflation, high interest rates and political instability at home and abroad. Yet it has proved surprisingly resilient, supported by the sturdy pillars of robust consumer spending, a rising stock market, and healthy balance sheets for households and businesses alike. But one by one, those pillars have begun to crack …

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How Trump’s Tariffs Could Hobble a U.S. Battery Boom

How Trump’s Tariffs Could Hobble a U.S. Battery Boom

The sweeping tariffs that President Trump announced on Wednesday could hobble the use of giant batteries that energy companies are increasingly installing to help them tap more wind and solar power and make the broader electric grid more reliable. Over the past five years, grid batteries have become one of the biggest growth industries in the U.S. energy sector. In …

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Ford Offers Discounts on Cars and Trucks as Auto Tariffs Kick In

Ford Offers Discounts on Cars and Trucks as Auto Tariffs Kick In

Ford Motor said on Thursday that it was lowering prices on most of its vehicles to the same levels it charges employees in a bid to boost sales as President Trump’s tariffs on imported cars took effect. The tariffs began on Thursday on vehicles imported from Mexico, Canada, Japan, Germany and other countries. The duties — 25 percent of the …

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Russia’s Escape From Trump’s Tariffs Raises Questions

Russia’s Escape From Trump’s Tariffs Raises Questions

When President Trump unveiled major new tariffs on Wednesday, one big economy that he did not target was Russia. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Wednesday that Moscow was spared because sanctions imposed on the country after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 mean that U.S.-Russian trade had effectively stopped. North Korea, Cuba and Belarus, which are …

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Trump’s Tariffs Pose a New Threat for Germany’s Stagnant Economy

Trump’s Tariffs Pose a New Threat for Germany’s Stagnant Economy

Germany had hoped that a new government would revive its stagnant economy, but President Trump’s sweeping new tariffs are stoking worries that Europe’s biggest economy will fall short of its 0.3 percent growth expectations this year. Jörg Kukies, Germany’s finance minister, met with the U.S. Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and U.S. trade representatives in Washington last week, and said on …

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Not Even a Royal Invite Spared the U.K. From Trump’s Tariffs

Not Even a Royal Invite Spared the U.K. From Trump’s Tariffs

After all that — the chummy Oval Office meeting, the extraordinary royal invitation, the paeans to the “special relationship” — Britain and its solicitous prime minister, Keir Starmer, still got swept into President Trump’s tariffs, along with the European Union and other major American trading partners. Mr. Trump imposed his basic tariff of 10 percent on Britain, while hitting the …

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Trump Tariffs Aim to Revive U.S. Manufacturing. Is That Possible?

Trump Tariffs Aim to Revive U.S. Manufacturing. Is That Possible?

President Trump’s imposition of tariffs on a scale unseen in nearly a century is more than a shot across the bow at U.S. trading partners. If kept in place, the import taxes will also launch an economic project of defiant nostalgia: an attempt to reclaim America’s place as a dominant manufacturing power. In the postwar heyday of American manufacturing, which …

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Japan Lacks a ‘Viable Option’ for Retaliating to Trump’s Tariffs

Japan Lacks a ‘Viable Option’ for Retaliating to Trump’s Tariffs

After being smacked with double-digit percentage tariffs by a key ally, Japan finds itself with few retaliatory options. Since President Trump began threatening broad tariffs in January, Japan has pursued a conciliatory strategy, with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba pledging in February to boost U.S. investment to $1 trillion. Up until the day before Mr. Trump’s tariff announcements on Wednesday, prominent …

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China Will Face at Least 54 Percent Tariffs With Trump’s New Order

China Will Face at Least 54 Percent Tariffs With Trump’s New Order

With the new tariffs announced on Wednesday in Washington, President Trump has now imposed additional tariffs on Chinese goods of 54 percent — an extremely heavy burden that will cause companies to look elsewhere for suppliers. Mr. Trump added a 34 percent tariff on imports from China, to take effect on April 9, on top of two earlier rounds of …

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How Are Trump’s Tariff Rates Calculated?

How Are Trump’s Tariff Rates Calculated?

As he unfurled his list of tariffs targeting most of America’s trading partners, President Trump repeatedly stressed that each nation’s rate was reciprocal — reflecting the barriers they had long erected to U.S. goods. He said little about the methodology behind those calculations, but a possible answer emerged later on Wednesday. Each country’s new tariff rate appeared to be derived …

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