Tag Archives: United States Economy

As President Trump’s efforts to restructure the global trade system with expansive tariffs begin to take shape, one question continues to dog officials at the Federal Reserve: How will these policies impact the central bank’s plans to lower interest rates? One influential Fed governor made clear on Monday that he did not expect Mr. Trump’s policies to derail the Fed’s …

It is an axiom heard countless times in business school lecture halls and on corporate earnings calls: Uncertainty is bad for business. The U.S. economy is about to test that proposition like never before. The first weeks of the second Trump administration have been a dizzying whirlwind of economic policy moves: A spending freeze was declared, then rescinded. Federal programs, …

President Trump on Thursday ordered his advisers to determine new tariff rates on America’s trading partners, a move that he said would “correct longstanding imbalances in international trade.” As part of his plan, Mr. Trump has taken aim at the value-added tax, a system used widely in Europe and elsewhere to tax the consumption of goods and services. The president …

President Trump is pursuing a far more aggressive trade policy than he embraced in his first term, allowing his unfettered instincts about how to put America at the forefront to guide him with little pretense of investigations or extended deliberations. Since taking office, Mr. Trump has threatened punishing tariffs on goods from every global trading partner. That includes proposals to …

President Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday ordering his advisers to calculate new tariff levels for other countries globally, an ambitious task that will shatter the rules of the global trading system and likely set off furious negotiations in the coming months. The president directed his advisers to come up with new tariff levels that take into account a range …

President Trump promised voters that, if elected, he would enact policies that would bring prices down on “Day 1” in office. But three weeks into his term, Mr. Trump and White House officials have become more measured in how they discuss their efforts to tame inflation. They have begun downplaying the likelihood that consumer costs like groceries will decline anytime …

America has seen this movie before: President Trump, who imposed stiff tariffs on Monday on imported steel and aluminum, did so once before, in 2018. So domestic industries have a pretty good idea of how the story ends. Manufacturers of trucks, appliances and construction equipment scramble to find U.S. sources of metal inputs, keeping steel and aluminum producers busier than …

The Labor Department’s latest monthly report on hiring and unemployment will include revisions for previous months. The revised figures should provide a more accurate picture of the U.S. job market, but they could also sow confusion. The monthly job figures are based on two surveys, one of employers and one of households. Those surveys are generally reliable, but they aren’t …

A Labor Department report on Friday is expected to show another solid month of job growth to start 2025, despite routine but larger-than-usual annual revisions. The median estimate among economists surveyed by Bloomberg pegs growth at 175,000 jobs in January, which would be in line with the average over the preceding quarter — although the numbers from month to month …

The Labor Department’s latest monthly report on hiring and unemployment will include revisions for previous months that should give a more accurate picture of the U.S. job market — but that could also sow confusion. When the data is released on Friday, one major measure of employment will be revised up. Another will be revised down. Some historical numbers will …