Evelyn Reynolds

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    Tariff receipts topped $16 billion in April, a record that helped cut the budget deficit

    Customs duties totaled $16.3 billion for the month, some 86% above the $8.75 billion collected during March and more than double the $7.1 billion a year ago.
    The fiscal year-to-date deficit fell to $1.05 trillion, which is still 13% higher than a year ago.

    Shipping containers are seen at the port of Oakland, as trade tensions continued over U.S. tariffs with China, in Oakland, California, on May 12, 2025.
    Carlos Barria | Reuters

    Receipts from U.S. tariffs hit a record level in April as revenue from President Donald Trump’s trade war started kicking in.
    Customs duties totaled $16.3 billion for the month, some 86% above the $8.75 billion collected during March and more than double the $7.1 billion a year ago, the Treasury Department reported Monday.

    That brought the year-to-date total for the duties up to $63.3 billion and more than 18% ahead of the same period in 2024. Trump instituted 10% across-the-board tariffs on U.S. imports starting April 2, which came on top of other select duties he had leveled previously.
    While the U.S. is still running a massive budget deficit, the influx in tariffs helped shave some of the imbalance for April, a month in which the Treasury generally runs a surplus because of the income tax filing deadline hitting mid-month.
    The surplus totaled $258.4 billion for the month, up 23% from the same period a year ago. That cut the fiscal year-to-date total to $1.05 trillion, which is still 13% higher than a year ago.
    Also on an annual basis, receipts rose 10% in April from 2024, while outlays declined 4%. Year to date, receipts are up 5%, while expenditures have risen 9%.
    High interest rates are still posing a budgetary burden. Net interest on the $36.2 trillion national debt totaled $89 billion in April, higher than every other category except Social Security. For the fiscal year, net interest has run to $579 billion, also second highest of any outlay.

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    Trump’s China Deal Frees Up Shipping. Will Goods Pour Into the U.S.?

    The temporary lowering of tariffs may compel some U.S. businesses to order goods that they had held off buying after President Trump raised them to 145 percent.For weeks, Jay Foreman, a toy company executive, froze all shipments from China, leaving Care Bears and Tonka trucks piled up at Chinese factories, to avoid paying President Trump’s crippling 145 percent tariff.But as soon as his phone lit up at 4 a.m. on Monday alerting him that Mr. Trump was lowering tariffs on Chinese imports for 90 days, Mr. Foreman, the chief executive of Basic Fun, which is based in Florida, jumped out of bed and called his suppliers, instructing them to start shipping merchandise immediately.“We’re starting to move everything,” Mr. Foreman said. “We have to call trucking companies in China to schedule pickups at the factories. And we have to book space on these container ships now.”If other executives follow Mr. Foreman’s lead, a torrent of goods could soon pour into the United States. While logistics experts say global shipping lines and American ports appear capable of handling high volumes over the next three months, they caution that whiplash tariff policies are piling stress onto the companies that transport goods around the world.“This keeps supply chain partners in limbo about what’s next, and leads to ongoing disruption,” said Rico Luman, senior economist for transport, logistics and automotive at ING Research.After talks this weekend in Geneva, the Trump administration lowered tariffs on many Chinese imports to 30 percent from 145 percent. China cut its tariffs on American goods to 10 percent from 125 percent. If a deal is not reach in 90 days, the tariffs could go back up, though Mr. Trump said on Monday that they would not rise to 145 percent. Some importers may hold off on ordering from China, hoping for even lower tariffs later.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 Administration Considers Large Chip Sale to Emirati A.I. Firm G42

    The firm, which the U.S. government scrutinized for its ties to China, is angling for hundreds of thousands of advanced artificial intelligence chips in a deal that could be finalized this week.The Trump administration is considering a deal that could send hundreds of thousands of U.S.-designed artificial intelligence chips to G42, an Emirati A.I. firm that the U.S. government has scrutinized in the past for its ties to China, three people familiar with the discussions said.The negotiations, which are ongoing, highlight a major shift in U.S. tech policy ahead of President Trump’s visit to the Persian Gulf states this week. The talks have also created tension inside the Trump administration between tech- and business-minded leaders who want to close a deal before Mr. Trump’s trip and national security officials who worry that the technology could be misused by the Emiratis.The Trump administration has embraced cutting direct deals for A.I. chips with officials from the Middle East, as it looks to strengthen U.S. ties in the region, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations are ongoing. The approach marks a break from the Biden administration, which had rejected similar A.I. chip sales over fears that they could give autocratic governments with strong ties to China an edge over the United States in developing the most cutting-edge A.I. models in coming years.In the talks with G42 and officials from the United Arab Emirates, David Sacks, the White House A.I. czar, has been working on an agreement that would give the Emirati firm access to chips with limited oversight. Some of the chips would go to a partnership that G42 has with the U.S. firm OpenAI, while others would be sent directly to G42, one of the people said, adding that a deal is not yet final.The Trump administration is also expected to announce a deal this week with officials in Saudi Arabia, two people with knowledge of the agreement said. The deal would give the Saudi government and its new A.I. company, Humain, access to tens of thousands of semiconductors and technology support from Nvidia and its A.I. chip rival, Advanced Micro Devices.The United States began requiring a license for the purchase of A.I. chips during the Biden administration because of their value in helping governments develop military and surveillance technologies.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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    Bessent sees tariff agreement as progress in ‘strategic’ decoupling with China

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that the trade agreement reached over the weekend represents progress in “strategic” decoupling from China.
    The details of the U.S.-China pact are still sketchy, but U.S. officials have said so-called reciprocal tariffs will be suspended though broad-based 10% duties will remain in effect.

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that the trade agreement reached over the weekend represents another stage in the U.S. shaking its reliance on Chinese products.
    Though the U.S. “decoupling” itself from its need for cheap imports from the China has been discussed for years, the process has been a slow one and unlikely to ever mean a complete break.

    However, Bessent said there are now specific elements of decoupling in place that are vital to U.S. interests. The U.S. imported nearly $440 billion in goods from China in 2024, running a $295.4 billion trade deficit.
    “We do not want a generalized decoupling from China,” he said during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “But what we do want is a decoupling for strategic necessities, which we were unable to obtain during Covid and we realized that efficient supply chains were not resilient supply chains.”
    When the pandemic struck in 2020, demand in the U.S. shifted from one reliant more on services to a greater focus on goods. That meant greater difficulty in obtaining material for multiple products including big-ticket appliances and automobiles. The technology industry, with its reliance on semiconductors, was also hit. What followed was an inflation surge in the U.S. not seen in more than 40 years.
    The details of the U.S.-China pact are still sketchy, but U.S. officials have said so-called reciprocal tariffs will be suspended though broad-based 10% duties will remain in effect.
    “We are going to create our own steel. [Tariffs] protect our steel industry. They work on critical medicines, on semiconductors,” Bessent said. “We are doing that, and the reciprocal tariffs have nothing to do with the specific industry tariffs.”

    The agreement between the two sides is essentially a 90-day pause that will see reciprocal duties halted though the 10% tariff as well as a 20% charge related to fentanyl remain in place.
    Bessent expressed encouragement on the fentanyl issue in which Chinese officials “are now serious about assisting the U.S. in stopping the flow of precursor drugs.” Bessent did not indicate a specific date when the next round of talks will be held but indicated it should be in the next several weeks.

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    For Trump, It’s a New Era of Deal-Making With Tech’s Most-Coveted Commodity

    As the president heads to the Middle East, America’s dominance over A.I. chips has become a powerful source of leverage for the president.As President Trump tours the Middle East this week, governments that are flush with oil wealth will be focused on a different treasure, found in America’s Silicon Valley.Artificial intelligence chips, which are made by U.S. companies like Nvidia and AMD, are highly coveted by governments across the Middle East. Leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates want to pour billions of dollars into the construction of data centers to put their countries at the forefront of a new technology heralded for its power to disrupt businesses and create trillions of dollars in economic value.The Gulf States have plenty of energy and cash to build data centers, which house the supercomputers that run A.I. systems. But they need U.S. government approval to buy the American-designed chips to power them. The Biden administration had been wary of allowing such purchases. But the Trump administration appears more interested in using A.I. chips to secure strategic bonds in a region where Mr. Trump has deep financial and business ties.The technology is expected to be the focus of much deal making during the president’s trip. Officials from the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia are likely to try to strike agreements with the Trump administration to obtain steady access to A.I. chips in the years to come. And the Trump administration is expected to showcase deals and negotiations across the region by American tech companies, including AMD, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google and OpenAI, according to half a dozen people familiar with the plans.Tech executives including Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Lisa Su of AMD and Ruth Porat of Alphabet are scheduled to travel to the Middle East, with some rubbing shoulders with Saudi ministers and White House officials at an investment forum that will focus partly on partnerships in A.I. and data centers.The United States began regulating A.I. chips systematically during the Biden administration, because of their value in helping governments develop military and surveillance technologies. While many Trump officials are also concerned about the national security implications of selling A.I. chips abroad, some are more willing than their predecessors to deploy the chips as a broader source of leverage globally, potentially playing into trade talks and other negotiations.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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    Why America’s ‘Beautiful Beef’ Is a Trade War Sore Point for Europe

    Hendrik Dierendonck, a second-generation butcher who has become, as he describes it, “world famous in Belgium” for his curated local beef, thinks Europe’s way of raising cattle results in varied and delicious cuts that European consumers prize.“They want hormone-free, grass-fed,” Mr. Dierendonck explained recently as he cut steaks at a bloody chopping block in his Michelin-starred restaurant, which backs onto the butchery his father started in the 1970s. “They want to know where it came from.”Strict European Union food regulations, including a ban on hormones, govern Mr. Dierendonck’s work. And those rules could turn into a trade-war sticking point. The Trump administration argues that American meat, produced without similar regulations, is better — and wants Europe to buy more of it, and other American farm products.“They hate our beef because our beef is beautiful,” Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said in a televised interview last month. “And theirs is weak.”Questions of beauty and strength aside, the administration is right about one thing: European policymakers are not keen on allowing more hormone-raised American steaks and burgers into the European Union.Sides of beef at one of the Dierendonck meat production plants in Veurne, Belgium.Jim Huylebroek for The New York TimesWe 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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    Republican Agenda Hits Familiar Obstacle: State and Local Taxes

    A small group of Republicans is threatening to torpedo President Trump’s agenda over the state and local tax deduction, long a headache for both parties.It was perhaps inevitable that the Republican effort to pass a vast fiscal package this year would, at some point, get caught up in the thicket of the state and local tax deduction.After all, the deduction, often called SALT, has long had the potential to cause a political standoff. Many G.O.P. lawmakers abhor it and, in 2017, imposed a $10,000 limit on the amount of state and local taxes Americans can write off on their federal returns. But to pass a tax bill this year, the party will need the support of a motivated clutch of Republicans who have made lifting that cap the animating promise of their political careers.Those lawmakers, who represent high-tax states like New York and New Jersey where the deduction is cherished, say they are willing to tank the package over the issue. Representative Nick LaLota, Republican of New York, can already visualize voting against the bill.“There’s a green ‘yes’ button and there’s a red ‘no’ button to press. Come time, if there’s not enough SALT in this bill, I’m pressing the red ‘no’ button,” he said. “It is a hill I am willing to stake my entire congressional career on.”Attempts by House Republican leaders to reach a deal with members like Mr. LaLota yielded little progress this week, leaving the issue unresolved as G.O.P. lawmakers prepare to release the first draft of their tax bill next week. Along with Medicaid, the health care program for the poor that Republicans have targeted for cuts, the state and local tax deduction could determine the fate of the entire G.O.P. legislative agenda.That’s because any change to the current $10,000 limit would be incredibly expensive, threatening to swamp the overall Republican budget for tax cuts. Even a relatively modest change, like doubling the cap for married couples, would cost $230 billion over a decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. More generous alterations along the lines of what New York Republicans have demanded could surpass $1 trillion.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 Suggests Openness to Slashing China Tariffs Ahead of Trade Talks

    The president said reducing tariffs to 80 percent from the current 145 percent “sounds right,” as U.S. and Chinese negotiators prepare to meet in Switzerland.President Trump on Friday suggested that he was open to sharply reducing the tariffs that the United States has imposed on China, as American and Chinese negotiators prepare to meet in Switzerland this weekend for high-stakes trade talks.Trade tensions between the U.S. and China have roiled international markets and the global economy. The negotiations on Saturday and Sunday are intended to de-escalate the situation and set the stage for a broader trade pact between the two economic superpowers.In a post on social media, Mr. Trump said that an 80 percent tariff on China “seems right,” adding that it would be “up to Scott B,” an apparent reference to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. An 80 percent tariff would be a big drop from the 145 percent tariffs that Mr. Trump applied to Chinese imports in recent months, but would still be restrictive to trade between the two countries.While the Trump administration has been racing to strike trade deals with other countries, it has remained in a standoff with China. Earlier this week, the two sides had agreed to hold meetings in Geneva that will include Mr. Bessent; Jamieson Greer, the U.S. Trade Representative; and He Lifeng, China’s vice premier for economic policy.Mr. Bessent has argued that the tariffs and trade restrictions that the United States and China have levied are “unsustainable” and has urged Beijing to begin talks to address what the Trump administration views as unfair trade practices.Despite Mr. Trump’s affinity for imposing tariffs, in a separate post on Truth Social on Friday he made the case for open markets and called on China to expand access for American businesses.“CHINA SHOULD OPEN UP ITS MARKET TO USA — WOULD BE SO GOOD FOR THEM!!! CLOSED MARKETS DON’T WORK ANYMORE!!!” Mr. Trump wrote. More