Evelyn Reynolds

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    Trump’s Tariff Fight With China Poses New Threat to US Farmers

    After China unveiled steep retaliatory tariffs on American exports on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a sharp and somewhat surprising response: “So what?”The question underscored the Trump administration’s argument that America has the upper hand in a trade war with China given how reliant its economy is on exports to the United States.The United States buys far more goods from China than China buys from the United States. But Beijing’s decision to retaliate against President Trump’s punishing tariffs by raising levies on American imports to 84 percent could sting more than Mr. Bessent let on.“American companies that have been selling to China, and have been enormously successful doing that, are not going to be able to do that because of Chinese retaliation,” Sean Stein, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said in the hours before Mr. Trump ratcheted up his tariffs again.“Tariffs on the Chinese side and the U.S. side cover everything,” Mr. Stein added, meaning everything from aviation to medical imaging to agriculture would be affected and “trade is going to slow,” he said.The United States exported $143.5 billion of goods to China last year and imported $438.9 billion from that country, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative.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 Tariffs Could Impact Apparel Companies That Make Clothing in the U.S.

    On the open 15th floor of a loft building in Midtown Manhattan, about a dozen skilled workers make their way through piles of pants, stitching each piece together with focus and precision. Some of the items are designed by Outlier, a fashion brand that produces its smaller runs and experimental products with the garment district’s ecosystem of contract manufacturers.It’s the kind of work that should get a boost from the stiff tariffs newly imposed on products entering the United States from nearly every other country. But the storeroom where Outlier keeps its fabric tells a more complicated story.The rolls of cloth and boxes of recycled goose down come from Italy and Switzerland, Thailand and New Zealand, countries with specialized industries developed over generations that are unlikely to be recreated in America. Take the linen, made from flax grown in a coastal region stretching from northern France to the Netherlands.“It would take a decade to get a crop growing,” said Tyler Clemens, Outlier’s co-founder. A linen shipment was headed for the cutting room; Mr. Clemens had just gotten the bill from the Department of Homeland Security with a charge labeled “IEEPA-RECIPROCAL,” after the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, one of the laws used to justify President Trump’s tariff measures.A fabric order for Outlier arriving at a factory in Manhattan. The fabric was made in Japan and dyed in Portugal before being shipped to the United States, where it incurred a tariff.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesOutlier’s material comes from abroad, as do some of its finished products. Karsten Moran 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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    Bond Market Sell-Off Prompts Bank of England to Make Unusual Move

    The Bank of England ditched its plan to sell some of its holdings of long-term bonds next week, after U.S. Treasuries led a rout in the global government bond market.Stock markets have taken a hit since President Trump announced steep tariffs on dozens of countries, but the turmoil also swept into the bond market this week. Yields on U.S. Treasuries, which move in the opposite direction to prices, jumped higher as investors sold the assets traditionally considered a haven in turbulent times.Mr. Trump on Wednesday paused some of his tariffs, saying the markets were getting “yippy.” The U.S. government bond market is enormous and can influence moves in other assets around the world.Yields on British government bonds, known as gilts, have jumped higher in recent days, particularly long-dated debt. The yield on the 30-year gilt soared to 5.58 percent on Wednesday, the highest since 1998.Even as the yield came down somewhat on Thursday, the Bank of England said it would sell 750 million pounds, or $970 million, from its holdings of short-term bonds instead of longer-maturing ones “in light of recent market volatility.”Since late 2022, the Bank of England has been selling bonds that it bought to bolster the economy during the 2008 financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic. The plan got off to a rough start: It was delayed when the central bank stepped back in to buy bonds to halt the turmoil triggered when former Prime Minister Liz Truss proposed an aggressive tax-cutting budget that incited market chaos.Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England governor, has previously said that there would be a “high bar” for changes to its plan for gilt sales outside of the regular annual review process.The adjustment to the schedule on Thursday is an unusual move. The bank will sell the same amount of bonds. But by offloading short-term debt the pressure is reduced on long-term bonds — selling of those bonds by other investors has been the most intense and raised interest rates for government borrowing.Long-dated gilt sales will be rescheduled for next quarter, the central bank said. It owns £621 billion in gilts, down from £875 billion at its peak in early 2022. More

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    Trump Has Added 145% Tariff to China, White House Clarifies

    The White House on Thursday clarified that China faced a minimum tariff rate of 145 percent on all imports to the United States.A day earlier, President Trump had said that he was increasing tariffs on China to 125 percent after Beijing retaliated against his previous levies. On Thursday, the White House explained that the 125 percent is on top of a 20 percent tariff the president had previously put on goods coming from China for its role in supplying fentanyl to the United States.That is a drastic increase on a country that supplies much of what Americans buy. China is the second largest source of imports for the United States and the primary global manufacturer of cellphones, toys, computers and other products.The 145 percent figure is also just a floor, not a ceiling. That amount is on top of other pre-existing levies that Mr. Trump already put in place including:25 percent tariffs on steel, aluminum, cars and car partsTariffs of up to 25 percent on certain Chinese goods that Mr. Trump imposed during his first termTariffs of varying ranges on certain products in response to violating U.S. trade rulesThe rapid changes in tariffs have caused significant confusion for importers, many of whom depend on Chinese products, including major retailers as well as small businesses. For an importer bringing in a container of products, the difference between a 125 percent tariff and a 145 percent tariff can amount to thousands of dollars.The Trump administration has exempted goods that were already in transit from the new tariffs, meaning importers have not yet started to incur them. In the case of goods shipped by air, this will happen in the next few days, while goods moving by ship will take several weeks to arrive. More

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

    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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    Inflation rate eases to 2.4% in March, lower than expected; core at 4-year low

    The consumer price index fell a seasonally adjusted 0.1% in March, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.4%, down from 2.8% in February.
    Excluding food and energy, so-called core inflation ran at a 2.8% annual rate, having increased 0.1% for the month. That was the lowest rate for core inflation since March 2021.

    Consumer price inflation eased more than expected in March as President Donald Trump prepared to launch tariffs against U.S. trading partners, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday.
    The consumer price index, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the U.S. economy, fell a seasonally adjusted 0.1% in March, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.4%, down from 2.8% in February.

    Excluding food and energy, so-called core inflation ran at a 2.8% annual rate, having increased 0.1% for the month. That was the lowest rate for core inflation since March 2021.
    Wall Street had been looking for headline inflation of 2.6% and core at 3%, according to the Dow Jones consensus.

    Slumping energy prices helped keep inflation tame, as a 6.3% drop in gasoline prices helped drive a 2.4% broader decline in the energy index. Food prices climbed 0.4% on the month. Egg prices rose another 5.9% and were up 60.4% from a year ago.
    Moreover, shelter prices, among the most stubborn components of inflation, increased just 0.2% in March and were up 4% on a 12-month basis, the smallest gain since November 2021. Used vehicle prices were off 0.7% while new vehicle costs increased just 0.1%, ahead of tariffs that are expected to hit the auto industry hard.

    Airline fares declined 5.3% in March and motor vehicle insurance dropped 0.8% and prescription drugs fell 2%.

    Stock market futures indicated a sharply lower open on Wall Street following the release, while Treasury yields also were negative.
    The report comes a day after Trump’s stunning reversal of parts of his tariff plans as he announced a delay in some of the most aggressive of the duties put in place against dozens of nations. Instead, Trump let stand a 10% blanket levy on all imports announced last week and set a 90-day window during which the White House will negotiate the higher tariffs.
    While Trump campaigned on bringing down inflation, progress had been slow to start 2025.
    The president nevertheless has called on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. Central bank officials have expressed a reluctance to move with so much policy uncertainty in the air, and market pricing indicates the Fed will wait until June before lowering rates again.
    The nature of the tariffs has led most economists to expect a significant bump in inflation, though that’s less clear now that Trump has opened the negotiation window.
    “Today’s softer than expected CPI release feels backward looking given the large changes to trade policy seen in recent days,” said Kay Haigh, global co-head of fixed income and liquidity solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. “Going forward the Fed is likely to face a difficult trade-off as tariff driven price increases start to feed through to the inflation data and activity remains soft.”
    Futures market pricing after the CPI report indicated little change in market expectations for interest rates, with traders pricing in three or four cuts by the end of the year.
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    European Union to put countermeasures to U.S. tariffs on hold for 90 days

    The European Union will pause its first tranche of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods for 90 days, the European Commission announced Thursday.
    EC President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc had taken note of U.S. President Donald Trump’s own 90-day suspension of the highest rate of his sweeping global tariffs on Wednesday.
    “We want to give negotiations a chance… if negotiations are not satisfactory, our countermeasures will kick in,” von der Leyen said.

    In this photo illustration, a double exposure images shows U.S. President Donald Trump against the EU flag.
    Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

    The European Union will pause the adoption of its retaliatory tariffs on a swathe of U.S. goods for 90 days, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, a day after the White House issued a reprieve on most of its own levies.
    On Wednesday, EU members voted in favor of the package, which was designed in response to the U.S. 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum launched last month. The duties were due to be finalized in the coming days, with an initial tranche set to come into effect on April 15. The full list of targeted items has not yet been published, though a draft document seen by CNBC in March listed products spanning clothing, poultry, grains, machinery and more.

    “We took note of the announcement by President Trump. We want to give negotiations a chance,” von der Leyen said on Thursday.
    “If negotiations are not satisfactory, our countermeasures will kick in. Preparatory work on further countermeasures continues. As I have said before, all options remain on the table.”
    As well as Trump’s 25% duties on steel, aluminum and autos, the EU was hit with a 20% U.S. tariff rate on almost all goods as part of the sweeping duties announced last week.
    Trump on Wednesday jolted markets when he revealed the reduction of new tariff rates on imports from most U.S. trade partners to 10% for 90 days to allow for trade negotiations.

    Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries, hits China harder with 125%

    U.S. stock markets soared on the news, while Asia-Pacific and Europe joined the rally on Thursday. The euro was 1.2% higher against the U.S. dollar at midday London time on Thursday, trading at $1.1079.

    In a statement earlier Thursday, von der Leyen said she welcomed the pause of Trump’s full “reciprocal tariff” plan, calling it an “important step towards stabilizing the global economy.”
    “Tariffs are taxes that only hurt businesses and consumers. That’s why I’ve consistently advocated for a zero-for-zero tariff agreement between the European Union and the United States,” she said.
    As well as negotiating with the U.S. and forming countermeasures, the EU says it is also strengthening and diversifying its other trade relationships and reducing friction in its single market in response to Trump’s actions.
    EU relations with the U.S. have soured significantly this year. Trump has repeatedly accused the 27-nation bloc of treating the U.S. “very unfairly” due to the imbalance in their trade in goods.
    Across goods, services and investment, trade between the two economies is roughly equal, leading to questions over whether the EU could resort to targeting U.S. services including technology in its response. More

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    Trump’s Encouragement of Stock Investors Draws Scrutiny

    Was the president manipulating the market with his comments, as his critics say, or reassuring Americans, as the White House maintains?President Trump began his Wednesday with some advice for those rattled by his steep tariffs.“BE COOL,” Mr. Trump told his followers on social media after the markets opened. Just a couple of minutes later he wrote, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”Hours after that, Mr. Trump sent the markets soaring when he paused the levies for 90 days. The S&P 500 climbed several percentage points in a matter of minutes and was on its way to its best day since the recovery of the 2008 financial crisis.Soon after Mr. Trump’s pause, Democrats and government ethics experts asked the perhaps obvious question: Did Mr. Trump give the green light to his followers to cash in on a forthcoming rise in stock prices?“How is this not market manipulation?” Representative Mike Levin, Democrat of California, said on social media, referring to action that is potentially illegal. “If you’re a Trump supporter and you did what he said and you bought, then you did great. On the other hand, if you’re a retiree or a senior or somebody in the middle class over the last few days that didn’t have the tolerance for risk and you decided to sell, you got screwed.”The news of Mr. Trump’s pause came as Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, was testifying on Capitol Hill. Representative Steven Horsford, Democrat of Nevada, pressed him on Mr. Trump’s aim.“It’s not market manipulation,” Mr. Greer said. “We’re trying to reset the global trading system.”“How have you achieved any of that?” Mr. Horsford asked. “So if it’s not market manipulation, what is it? Who’s benefiting? What billionaire just got richer?”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