Evelyn Reynolds

President Trump has called the word tariff “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.” He imposed hefty tariffs during his first term and promised expansive new ones as he pursued his second. On his first day back in the White House in January, he issued an executive order directing his cabinet picks to prepare even more tariffs.In the first 50 days of his second term, those sweeping actions have upended diplomatic ties, shaken markets and confounded entire industries. But so has President Trump’s whipsawing commitment to his tariffs, which he has paused, reversed or withdrawn — at times almost as soon as they took effect.Here’s a timeline of President Trump’s widening — and constantly shifting — tariffs, which as of Thursday included a threat to impose 200 percent levies on alcohol from the European Union.Jan. 20 🇨🇦 🇲🇽Hours after he was sworn in, Mr. Trump announced that he would implement additional 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico starting on Feb. 1, accusing both countries of not doing enough to stop the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States. Read more ›Jan. 26 🇨🇴Surprising even some of his own staff members, Mr. Trump announced on social media that he would immediately impose 25 percent tariffs on all goods from Colombia — and would raise them to 50 percent in one week — after its government turned back planes carrying deported immigrants. Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, briefly threatened tariffs of his own. But he quickly backed down, and soon so did Mr. Trump. That evening, the White House released a statement saying the government of Colombia had “agreed to all of President Trump’s terms” and the “tariffs and sanctions will be held in reserve.” Read more ›Feb. 1 🇨🇦 🇲🇽 🇨🇳Mr. Trump signed an executive order imposing 25 percent tariffs on nearly all goods from Canada and Mexico, and a 10 percent tariff on China. The president said the tariffs were levied in response to his concerns about fentanyl smuggling and illegal immigration. Canada and Mexico said they would retaliate with tariffs of their own. China threatened “countermeasures.” Read more ›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

The comments come after Bessent said Friday that the U.S. would undergo a transition period as the federal government tries to cut spending, including laying off public sector workers.
Bessent on Thursday reiterated his view that current levels of government spending are “unsustainable.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that his previous comments about a “detox period” for the U.S. economy did not mean that a recession was necessary.
“Not at all. Doesn’t have to be, because it will depend on how quickly the baton gets handed off. Our goal is to have a smooth transition,” Bessent said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.”

The comments come after Bessent said Friday that the U.S. would undergo a transition period as the federal government tries to cut spending, including laying off public sector workers. Bessent on Thursday reiterated his view that current levels of government spending are “unsustainable.”
“We have excess employment in the government, and those people can be moved to the private sector,” Bessent said.
The Treasury head’s comments last week came as several recent economic indicators have pointed to weakening growth. Job growth was slower than expected in February, and surveys of consumers and small business have shown a decline in confidence.
The stock market has also struggled in recent weeks, with the S&P 500 down 6% in March.

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SPX in March

The federal spending cuts are not the only policy changes that President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing. The White House has also increased tariffs on major U.S. trading partners, and a deal to extend existing tax cuts is expected to be a key part of political negotiations later this year.
“There’s two parts to this: It’s accelerating the economy, growing the revenue base — and controlling expenses. In the U.S., we do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem,” Bessent said Thursday. More

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday the administration is more focused on the long-term health of the economy and markets and not short-term gyrations.
While Bessent said the administration is attentive to market moves, he predicted that both the real economy and markets would prosper over time.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday the Trump administration is more focused on the long-term health of the economy and markets and not short-term gyrations.
“We’re focused on the real economy. Can we create an environment where there are long-term gains in the market and long-term gains for the American people?” Bessent said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “I’m not concerned about a little bit of volatility over three weeks.”

The comments come with markets in a state of turmoil largely centered on President Donald Trump’s near-daily moves on tariffs against major U.S. trading partners such as Canada, Mexico and China. Major averages have moved toward correction territory, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost more than 7% over the past month.
While Bessent said the administration is attentive to market moves, he predicted that both the real economy and markets would prosper over time.
“The reason stocks are a safe and great investment is because you’re looking over the long term. If you start looking at micro horizons, stocks become very risky. So we are focused over the medium-, long-term,” he said in the interview with CNBC’s Sara Eisen. “I can tell you that if we put proper policies in place, it’s going to lay the groundwork for a both real income gains and job gains and continued asset gains.”
Stocks again were volatile in morning trade, with the averages around even as Bessent spoke.
Earlier in the morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that wholesale inflation was flat in February, well below Wall Street expectations for a 0.3% increase. That followed a report Wednesday indicating that the consumer price rate had nudged lower as well, providing some welcome news amid concerns that the Trump tariffs would aggravate inflation.
“Maybe the inflation is getting under control and the market is going to have some confidence in that,” Bessent said.

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Last week, President Donald Trump paused tariffs on some Canadian and Mexican imports, granting a reprieve for a month.
Should the duties go through, they could raise material costs for the average new home by as much as $10,000, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
The trade group said that softwood lumber is mainly sourced from Canada, while gypsum primarily comes from Mexico. Steel and aluminum, along with completed home appliances, come from China, the NAHB said.

A home is constructed at a housing development on June 21, 2023 in Lemont, Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s tariffs could increase material costs for the average new home by as much as $10,000, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
The trade group said it has received anecdotal reports from members that Trump’s plan for levies would raise material prices by between $7,500 and $10,000 for the average new single-family home. While the association is planning a formal survey in the future, this figure offers an early glimpse of what businesses and consumers can expect if Trump’s controversial taxes on Canadian and Mexican imports go forward as planned.

“For years, NAHB has been leading the fight against tariffs because of their detrimental effect on housing affordability,” the association wrote in a blog post published last week. “In effect, the tariffs act as a tax on American builders, home buyers and consumers.”
Trump last week delayed 25% tariffs for some Canadian and Mexican imports by a month after implementing them just days earlier, a stunning reversal amid financial market turmoil. His additional hike to levies on China, which lifted duties on that nation’s goods to 20%, went forward.
The NAHB said softwood lumber is mainly sourced from Canada, while gypsum, a component of drywall, comes primarily from Mexico. Other materials like steel and aluminum — in addition to completed home appliances — are imported to the U.S. from China, the group said.
An implementation of the 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico as previously laid out by Trump would raise total costs for imported construction materials by more than $3 billion, according to the NAHB.

Homebuilders react

Homebuilders have had to respond to analysts and investors wondering what these taxes could mean for their bottom lines. The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB) has tumbled more than 22% from highs seen in late November as uncertainty rattled investors.

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The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF over the last 6 months

For D.R. Horton, around 20% of lumber is estimated to come from Canada. The Texas-based firm, like others, has made strides in recent years to shift supply chains away from China coming out of the Covid pandemic. But it still has to contend with the possibility of new taxes on components coming from Mexico, said Jessica Hansen, head of investor relations.
Tallying a total impact is difficult given the potential for Trump’s policy to change and a lack of clarity about how much of certain products are imported, Hansen said at a Barclays conference last month.
There’s “really no way to proxy what that could ultimately cost, but we’ll navigate it like we do anything,” Hansen said. “If we’ve got a cost category that’s inflating and we’re in a gross margin compressing environment, we’re going to renegotiate anything and everything that we can.”
There can also be a knock-on effect for builders that don’t rely as much on imports, like K.B. Home, whose Chief Operating Officer Robert McGibney said earlier this year sources a “majority” of products domestically. Tariffs can drive up prices for those American-made materials, he said, as competitors increase demand by localizing their supply chains.
Just last week, as international focus narrowed in on U.S. tariff policy, Taylor Morrison Home held its first-ever investor day. As part of the presentation, the homebuilder brought in Ali Wolf, chief economist at housing data provider Zonda, to explain the state of the market following years defined by high interest rates and little inventory.
Wolf said Zonda expects Trump’s tariffs to raise costs on materials for homebuilders between 6% and 14%. She also said builders in border states could also take a hit if Trump’s promise for mass deportations shrinks the workforce.
As Wolf evaluates where the market is heading in 2025, she said Trump is top of mind. The positive impact for homebuilders stemming from the administration’s posture for deregulation, she said, needs to be weighed against the concerns tied to immigration and trade policies.
“The first thing we’re paying attention to is the new administration: pro-growth, less regulation. We’re here for it. We love it,” Wolf said. “We want to see removing a lot of the red tape in particular that takes it particularly long to get new homes built.”
“With that being said, when you look at some of the policies — tariffs, immigration, interest rates — all of these disproportionately negatively impact our industry.” More

Chickens stand next to stacks of eggs in a henhouse at Sunrise Farms on February 18, 2025 in Petaluma, California. 
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Egg prices have fallen sharply so far in March on some progress in ending a shortage, giving consumers some much-needed relief with the supermarket staple.
The cost of white large shell eggs declined to $6.85 per dozen, on average, last week, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That represents a decline of $1.20 per dozen, and a 15% pull back the USDA’s prior update on Feb. 28.

“Demand for shell eggs continues to fade into the new month as no significant outbreaks of HPAI [highly pathogenic avian influenza] have been detected in nearly two weeks,” the USDA wrote in its March 7 weekly update. “This respite has provided an opportunity for production to make progress in reducing recent shell egg shortages.”
Egg prices have become a key pressure point for consumers that are tired of sticky inflation and worried about more potential price increases due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on a wide array of imports. While it is still unknown the full ramifications of the duties on Canada, China and Mexico, stocks have so far pulled back in 2025 on concern the moves could further raise prices of goods and tip a sagging economy into a recession.
To be sure, the price of eggs have still skyrocketed more than 170% from a year ago, USDA data shows. The rise has spurred an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into allegations of anticompetitive practices from some of the largest egg producers in the country. Firms including Cal-Maine Foods have touted a crushing avian flu outbreak, which has forced the culling of millions of egg-laying hens, as the major catalyst for the rise in egg prices.
“The primary reason for the drop is actions taken by the administration’s Department of Justice to investigate the companies for possible antitrust violations,” said Joe Maxwell, president of Farm Action Fund, told CNBC. “The dominant firms have so much control over the market that they can increase prices and lower prices almost at will.”
“There has been a softening of demand for eggs by consumers, but we do not see this as a significant factor, considering this has been an ongoing trend,” Maxwell added.
Egg prices were a key factor in the February consumer price index report, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics noting prices advanced 10.4% last month and 58.8% year-over-year. The marked-up price tag for eggs has even pushed consumers to begin shifting their breakfast habits. More

Ongoing U.S. tariffs could push Europe’s largest economy into a recession, German central bank President Joachim Nagel warned.
“Now we are in a world with tariffs, so we could expect maybe a recession for this year, if the tariffs are really coming,” he said during a BBC podcast interview.
The tariffs-led uncertainty come at a time when the EU nations could be set to loosen their budgetary strings and accommodate additional defense expenses, with Germany also planning a potential reform of key fiscal policies.

The German parliament building, the Reichstag, which has been the seat of the Bundestag since 1999.
Fhm | Moment | Getty Images

U.S. tariffs could push Europe’s largest economy into a recession, German central bank President Joachim Nagel warned Thursday, as Berlin faces a debate over the potential overhaul of its fiscal policies.
“Now we are in a world with tariffs, so we could expect maybe a recession for this year, if the tariffs are really coming,” Nagel, who leads the Bundesbank and serves as a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, said during a BBC podcast interview.

Global tariffs are set to exacerbate the existing symptoms of what Nagel described as Germany’s “stagnating economy,” which has contracted for two consecutive years amid the combined aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis triggered by Western sanctions on Russia for its three-year invasion of Ukraine.
Mere months after inflation and interest rates began descending in the euro zone last year, returning U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff-heavy strategy, aimed at reducing his country’s perceived deficits with trade partners, is rattling markets – and fracturing Europe’s traditionally strong relationship with its transatlantic ally.
On Wednesday, the European Union retaliated against Trump’s 25% duties on steel and aluminum imports that came into effect that day with a spate of counter-tariffs set to affect 26 billion euros ($28.26 billion) worth of U.S. goods, starting in April.
“This is not a good policy,” Nagel said, bemoaning the “tectonic changes” now facing the world at large. “I hope that there is understanding within the Trump administration that the price that has to be paid is the highest on the side of the Americans.”
As the world’s third-largest exporter, according to 2023 data, and numbering the U.S. as the foremost importer of its goods, Germany is especially vulnerable to tariffs, which could erode its automative and machinery sectors.

Cripplingly, exports of good and services accounted for 43.4% of Germany’s gross domestic product in 2023, according to World Bank data, although federal statistics office data indicate its typically high foreign trade surplus most recently slimmed to 16 billion euros in January, compared with 20.7 billion euros in December.
The tariffs-led uncertainty come at a time when the EU nations could be set to loosen their budgetary strings and accommodate additional defense expenses, under the bloc’s ‘ReArm’ plan revealed last week amid uncertainty over the U.S.’ ongoing commitment to assist Ukraine.
Fitch Ratings on Thursday warned that the initiative, which could mobilize close to 800 billion euros of defense expenditures, risks lowering the headroom of the EU’s current AAA rating because of the additional debt likely to be undertaken, without leading to an outright downgrade.

Foot on ‘debt brake’ pedal

Germany set the tone last week as the Conservatives’ Friedrich Merz, who is expected to emerge as chancellor in the country’s upcoming ruling coalition, announced plans to overhaul the national so-called “debt brake” to allow for higher defense spend – in a move that sparked a rally in German bund yields and broader stocks.
The initiative, which combines the fiscal change proposals with a 500 billion euro fund for infrastructure, has been met with resistance from the Green Party – which Merz’s conservatives and probable future coalition partner, the Social Democrats, must sway in a bid to clinch a two-thirds majority needed to change the constitutionally-enshrined debt brake.
Ahead of a parliament session debating the potential reform, senior Green official Britta Hasselmann flagged “serious gaps and errors in the conception” of the debt plans toward items like climate change prevention, according to comments reported by Reuters. The Thursday session will only lead to a draft law, while the March 18 reading will likely be decisive for the legislation.

In a Wednesday note, Deutsche Bank analysts retained their base case of the reforms ultimately undergoing what is “unlikely to be a smooth passage” in parliament over the course of the next week, signaling that a “compromise proposal would not significantly alter the expected fiscal stimulus of 3-4% of GDP by 2027 at the latest” that the bank previously calculated based on the Conservatives’ original proposal.
The analysts also factored in the possibility of a splintered fiscal package, with the immediate passage of defense and debt brake policies and the later adoption of the infrastructure plans under a new parliament.
“This would potentially change the composition of the infrastructure package and gear it more towards social housing,” they noted. More

The producer price index, considered a leading indicator for pipeline inflation pressures, showed no gain for the month after jumping an upwardly revised 0.6% in January.
Excluding food and energy, core PPI decreased 0.1%, also against an estimate for a 0.3% increase.

Wholesale prices were flat in February providing some more welcome news for inflation amid tariff fears, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday.
The producer price index, considered a leading indicator for pipeline inflation pressures, showed no gain for the month after jumping an upwardly revised 0.6% in January, seasonally adjusted figures showed. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 0.3% increase.

Excluding food and energy, core PPI decreased 0.1%, also against an estimate for a 0.3% increase and the first negative reading since July. Core prices also excluding trade services showed a gain of 0.2%.
Stock market futures pared losses following the report while Treasury yields remained higher.
The report comes a day after the BLS reported that the consumer price index rose 0.2% for February, putting the headline inflation rate at 2.8%, a slight easing from January and some encouraging news at a time when markets are concerned over the impact that President Donald Trump’s tariffs will have on costs.
Whereas CPI measures what consumers pay at the register for goods and services, PPI is a gauge of final demand prices that producers get for their products.
Federal Reserve officials more closely rely on a Commerce Department inflation measure that will be released later this month, though PPI and CPI figures feed into that report.

On a year-over-year basis, headline producer prices increased 3.2%, well ahead of the Fed’s 2% goal though below the 3.7% pace in January. Core PPI was up 3.4% in February, down 0.4 percentage point from January.
Markets are assigning near 100% odds that the Fed again will stay on hold when it’s two-day policy meeting concludes next Wednesday.
Policymakers have said repeatedly that they are taking a cautious approach, particularly when it comes to Trump’s fiscal and trade policy. Current market expectations are for the Fed to cut rates next in June and follow up with the equivalent of two more quarter percentage point reductions before the end of the year.
A 0.2% drop in services prices offset a 0.3% increase in goods. Two-thirds of the increase in goods came due to a 53.6% surge in chicken egg prices, the BLS said. Eggs have soared in part because of avian flu that has hit supplies, though there is some evidence that prices have eased in March as outbreaks have slowed.
On the services side, more than 40% of the decline came from a 1.4% decrease in margins for machinery and vehicle wholesaling. More

Americans use a lot of aluminum.
The metal is both lightweight and an effective conductor of electricity, giving it countless applications in transportation and energy systems alongside culinary work and more.

“It really is the magic metal,” said Charles Johnson, president and CEO of the Aluminum Association.
Aluminum is one of 50 “critical minerals” identified by the U.S. Geological Survey. But most production of aluminum occurs in other countries.
The Trump administration would like to bring some of that production into the U.S. Its main policy tool here will be tariffs, which are taxes on imported goods.
Since 2018, the U.S. has levied a 10% tariff on aluminum imports. During the Biden years, various trading partners were exempted from those fees. As a result, the effective rate for aluminum entering the U.S. was just 3.91% in February 2025, according to S&P Global. In March 2025, President Donald Trump raised existing tariffs on steel and aluminum to 25%.
Canada is by far the largest source of U.S. imports of aluminum.

The full price-level effects of these tariffs are unknown and any analysis is subject to revision as trade negotiations unfold. Still, some experts believe that price increases for consumers potentially could be small.
“When you consider a $40,000 car or something like that, it might increase the price by about $75,” said Scott Paul, president at the Alliance for American Manufacturing, an advocacy and lobbying group.
The administration says that these tariffs are necessary to fight trends in the global economy that disadvantage the U.S, primarily the rising importance of China.
“The subsidies allowed China to come in at an artificially low price. And that has roiled the aluminum industry globally and in particular in the United States,” said Paul.
The Aluminum Association, a U.S. organization comprised of industry decision makers, believes that rebuilding domestic smelting capacity could take large provisions of electricity and potentially have a net negative effect on the domestic labor force. In an interview with CNBC, the group also noted that it could take around eight to 10 years to build new industrial facilities like “smelters” which convert alumina into its final, consumer-friendly form.
“In the meantime we will import,” Johnson said.
Watch the video above to see why President Trump is taxing imports of aluminum. More