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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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 …
Read More »Trump’s Tariffs Hit Garment Makers in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka Hard
Through Covid, political chaos, and economic disarray, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh kept one industry central to their hopes of prosperity afloat: the manufacturing of ready-made garments, with the United States as their main market. Then came President Trump’s tariffs. The two countries are reeling after Sri Lanka was hit with 44 percent tariffs and Bangladesh subjected to 37 percent levies. …
Read More »Fact-Checking Trump’s Claim About Egg Prices
President Trump, as he announced sweeping tariffs, batted away “very tired predictions” from critics of his economic agenda by citing a large decline in the price of eggs. “The price of eggs dropped now 59 percent, and they’re going down more and the availability is fantastic,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday. The wholesale price of eggs has indeed fallen by …
Read More »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 …
Read More »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 …
Read More »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 …
Read More »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 …
Read More »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 …
Read More »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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