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Donald Trump made two big public announcements on the day he launched a battery of new tariffs and upended the global trading order: one about a new ballroom at the White House and another about sports.“We’re making a lot of deals,” the president said on Thursday afternoon, turning his attention briefly to trade while flanked by an array of football and golf stars. “We just made a couple of others a little while ago — I don’t know if you’d be interested right now. I won’t even bother to tell you.”The comments seemed designed to taunt US trading partners such as Canada, Taiwan and India, which lobbied frantically for days to avoid more Trump tariffs — but were still bereft as the clock raced towards the US president’s August 1 deadline to strike new deals. Officials could not say which new trade deals Trump was referring to, and none of them has since been announced.It was another example of the mixed signals from Washington, reflecting much internal debate up until the last moment among the president’s own advisers. Since April 2, when Trump unveiled his “liberation day” trade war, his approach had been a case study in volatility. He imposed so-called reciprocal tariffs, sending global markets into a tailspin, and then paused them. He escalated a trade war with China so quickly that economists warned of global recession, then agreed a truce, prompting critics to declare a Taco doctrine: “Trump always chickens out”. He imposed levies on Mexico and Canada, but then exempted most products. He vowed to strike 90 trade deals within 90 days, but secured a fraction of that number.Even late on Thursday, just hours before the White House published executive orders slapping new tariffs on dozens of countries, officials said Trump was undecided about which trading partners to punish and which to spare.As the deadline neared, he gathered his top advisers for crucial meetings: Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and US trade representative Jamieson Greer spent hours in the Oval Office, hashing out final plans.Foreign negotiators and journalists were left to constantly refresh their Truth Social feeds, waiting for any news from within the West Wing. The sudden blitz of announcements just after 7.30pm in Washington caught many of the US’s largest partners and most important allies flat-footed. Big exporters to the US, including India, Taiwan, and Canada — a US ally and its biggest source of foreign oil — were left disappointed. Direct contact with the president, it turned out, was important.European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen sealed the EU’s deal with a trip to see Trump at his golf course in Scotland; an act of symbolic supplication that drew criticism in the bloc, where Germany and France also chafed at the agreement’s generous terms for the US.While some world leaders — notably Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum — managed to reach Trump personally and avert an economic disaster for their country, he ignored the entreaties of others.Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, who shot to power in Ottawa by promising he would contain Trump, had dispatched a team to Washington for last-ditch talks to seal a deal. When it failed, he tried to get the president on the phone. His calls went unanswered and unreturned.Carney’s failure came after he said Canada would recognise Palestinian statehood, a move Trump said on Thursday would make it “very hard” to do a deal with Ottawa. Later, Lutnick said Carney’s move was “tone deaf” given his hopes to win over the president.The treatment of close allies went down badly with Trump’s critics. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate’s committee overseeing trade, accused him of spreading “chaos” and “dragging down the economy”. “All Trump has delivered are vastly higher taxes on essential products that Americans buy from other countries,” he said.Although the executive order announcing the new tariff regime on Thursday talked of the US effort to close trading deficits and raise income, political considerations were also paramount.Brazil discovered just that when Trump suddenly hit the country with an extra 40 per cent levy because of its treatment of rightwing ex-president Jair Bolsonaro this week, a former ally of the US leader. Other countries stumbled at the last hurdle for reasons beyond their control.Taiwan, the world’s most important semiconductor exporter, had come close to clinching a deal almost a month ago, people familiar with the talks said. But the White House sat on Taipei’s offer, worried that it could affect the more consequential negotiations with China and a possible Trump summit with President Xi Jinping. Uncertainty around potential US tariffs on chips also slowed talks.By Thursday night, the US president had placed a 20 per cent tariff on Taiwan. Its president took to Facebook to say he would try to negotiate his country out of it. India was also blindsided. It hired Jason Miller, a central Trump campaign adviser last year, to try to get the president’s ear. But New Delhi struggled to convince him that it was doing enough to open its markets to US exporters.Each time Lutnick presented Trump with a new Indian proposal, the president sent him back to negotiate harder, people familiar with the matter said. As the clock wound down, Trump lashed out at India’s “dead” economy and warned it of further penalties for relations with Russia.One senior US official suggested Trump was just using America’s power. He “understood the leverage of the US market”, and was using it to “shift the global trading system to be one that is more beneficial for American workers and their families”.At the centre of Trump’s talks were men with wildly different personalities and backgrounds. Lutnick, the gregarious Wall Street financier, was tasked with pitching deals to the president. Accompanying him has been the White House’s trade representative Greer, a veteran trade lawyer who shuns the limelight, and a protégé of Trump’s former trade tsar Bob Lighthizer.Greer approached the talks as a seasoned trade negotiator, while Lutnick brought some of Trump’s transactional dealmaking energy to meetings, people familiar with different negotiations have said.US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent was put in charge of talks with China, the world’s second-largest economy and Washington’s most delicate economic relationship.Bessent, who has emerged as a voice of assurance to global investors sometimes alarmed at Trump’s approach, was less involved in front-line negotiations, but was in the room for big trade decisions, a US official said.In the final weeks before Trump’s August 1 deadline, negotiators vied to find a formula that would win over this combination of advisers — but always knowing the president could trash any deal for his own reasons later.After they emerged from two days of talks with Bessent and Greer in Sweden last week, Chinese negotiators said they had agreed to extend the truce in their trade war. Then Bessent spoke, saying that was Trump’s call. The president has not yet decided if the truce will stretch beyond August 12.The deals that Trump has approved have varied in style and substance, but fall into two broad types, according to one US official. Countries either had to lower most of what the US said were non-tariff barriers, such as car safety rules or standards on medicines, or they had to “buy down” the tariffs with pledges to make big inward investments in the US.Even then, it could depend on Trump’s mood. He intervened personally in several deals, at one point joining a call between the Indian trade minister and Lutnick, according to two people familiar with the talks. He has also almost always personally closed deals, insisting on calls with other world leaders.Japan’s negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, visited Washington almost every second week for meetings with Bessent, Greer and Lutnick in recent months. But it was only after Akazawa secured a 70-minute meeting with Trump in the Oval Office that the critical US ally was able to strike a deal.While Trump has so far reversed course and backed away from some threats, many foreign capitals are now locked into higher tariff rates through their agreements with Washington. Others, such as Canada, are now redoubling efforts to reduce the extra tariffs announced on Thursday, negotiating from a weaker position. Myron Brilliant, a senior counsellor at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, said Trump was playing “Russian roulette” with the global economy but that his resolve seemed firm.“Bet on him to stay the course on tariffs unless the market crashes,” he said.Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings. More
Dr. Adriana Kugler, member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, speaks to The Economic Club of New York in New York City, U.S., June 5, 2025.
Kylie Cooper | Reuters
Federal Reserve Governor Adriana Kugler announced Friday she is stepping down from her role at the central bank, creating an important vacancy at a time when President Donald Trump is pushing for lower interest rates.
In a letter addressed to Trump, Kugler, 55, did not state a reason for her decision to leave, only noting that she will be returning to Georgetown University as a professor in the fall.
“It has been an honor of a lifetime to serve on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,” Kugler wrote. “I am especially honored to have served during a critical time in achieving our dual mandate of bringing down prices and keeping a strong and resilient labor market.”
Kugler’s term was set to expire at the end of January 2026. A Biden nominee, she joined the Board of Governors in September 2023, filling the unexpired term of Lael Brainard, who left to serve as a Biden economic advisor. As a governor, Kugler was a permanent voter on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee.
Her resignation now paves the way for Trump to put his own nominee in for the board. Two of his prior appointments, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, voted against the decision at Wednesday’s meeting to hold the Fed’s key rate steady, instead indicating they wanted to lower. Kugler was absent for the vote.
Trump alleged without proof that Kugler resigned over a disagreement with Powell on interest rates. Trump added that he was “very happy” about having a Fed vacancy to fill.
Kugler of late has expressed generally hawkish views, with support for holding rates steady until the impact Trump’s tariffs are having on inflation becomes clearer.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell wished Kugler well, saying “She brought impressive experience and academic insights to her work on the Board.”
Trump has said he would litmus test any potential nominees and would only support those in favor of lower interest rates.
In addition to Kugler’s departure, Powell’s term ends in May, though he could choose to stay on as governor into 2028.
Regardless, Kugler leaving would allow Trump to get someone who shares his views on rates and who might be targeted to fill Powell’s seat. The president and some of his advisors have toyed with the idea of a “shadow chair” who essentially could act as a gadfly on the board until Powell leaves. More
July’s nonfarm payroll report showed growth slowing more than expected, and the unemployment rate rose.
Health care and social assistance were largely responsible for the growth seen last month.
More than half of the sectors analyzed recorded job losses, however.
Jose Luis Pelaez Inc | Digitalvision | Getty Images
Health care remained a resilient sector for jobs in July even as the broader labor market showed further signs of slowing, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday shows.
Health care and social assistance saw 73,300 jobs added last month, far and away the most growth of any group in the period. When including private education with the health-care group, as some economists do, that growth would have increased to 79,000 for the month.
Nonfarm payrolls in July grew by 73,000, meaning that health care accounted for virtually all of those gains when factoring in the job declines from other spaces. Put differently, last month’s jobs report would’ve been negative overall if the health-care group were to be excluded.
“When you have health care and social assistance essentially doing the lifting on private payrolls growth [and] federal government and government both shedding jobs here where the local government had sort of previously helped on the June participation, you have to say that … there’s a substantial part of it that is essentially frozen,” Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, told CNBC. “It’s almost a no-hire, no-fire job market.”
June and May also saw steep downward revisions, with the former being revised to an increase of 14,000 from 147,000 and the latter dropping to a mere 19,000 from 144,000. Those changes indicate that jobs growth has been quietly dwindling for months. Still, there are some areas that are growing.
The BLS said that social assistance’s trend upward demonstrated “continued job growth in individual and family services,” which rose by approximately 21,000. Job growth in ambulatory health care services and hospitals were similarly strong, climbing by 34,000 and 16,000.
Health care and social assistance’s total figure was 57,600 more than retail trade, which had the second highest number of additions. That group saw 15,700 jobs added during the month.
Closely behind retail trade was financial activities, a category that had 15,000 gains.
In contrast, more than half of the groups posted declines in the monthly period. Of the seven out of 13 sectors that pulled back, professional and business services led the way, falling by 14,000 in payrolls.
The government sector, which had initially bolstered gains in June, shed 10,000 jobs in July.
Other notable categories like manufacturing and wholesale trade took a dive alongside government and professional and business services. Manufacturing lost 11,000 positions, while wholesale trade dipped by 7,800.
“This report absolutely raises a red flag,” Hamrick said. “We have another jobs report to come before the mid-September [Federal Reserve] meeting, but I think we’ll now be scouring the landscape – the data landscape and the anecdotal landscape – to see whether this slowing economy story is one that is more consistent.” More
Nonfarm payroll growth was slower than expected in July and the unemployment rate ticked higher, raising potential trouble signs for the U.S. labor market.
Job growth totaled 73,000 for the month, above the June total of 14,000 but below even the meager Dow Jones estimate for a gain of 100,000. June and May totals were revised sharply lower, down by a combined 258,000 from previously announced levels.
At the same time, the unemployment rate rose to 4.2%, in line with the forecast.
The June total came down from the previously stated 147,000, while the May count fell to just 19,000, revised down by 125,000.
Stock market futures fell further after the news while Treasury yields also were sharply lower.
“This is a gamechanger jobs report,” said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. “The labor market is deteriorating quickly.”
The weak jobs report, including the dramatic revisions, could provide incentive for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates when it next meets in September. Following the report, futures traders raised the odds of a cut at the meeting to 63%, up from 40% on Thursday.
“Today’s report adds weight to signs of a slow but persistent cooling trend. While the labor market is not in crisis, hiring momentum continues to soften, and pressures are beginning to build,” said Ger Doyle, North America regional president at Manpower Group.
There were few signs of strength in the July jobs count, with gains coming primarily from health care, a sector that has continued to show strength in the post-Covid recovery. The group added 55,000 jobs, easily leading the way. Social assistance also contributed 18,000 jobs.
However, federal government employment continued to decline, down 12,000 or the month and 84,000 since its January peak, before Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency began paring down the jobs rolls.
On wages, average hourly earnings increased 0.3%, meeting the estimate, though the yearly gain of 3.9% was slightly higher than expected.
The household survey, which is used to compile the unemployment rate, was even worse than the establishment survey of total payrolls gains. That showed a decline of 260,000 workers, with the participation rate edging down to 62.2%, the lowest since November 2022.
A more encompassing unemployment indicator that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time positions for economic reasons rose to 7.9%, its highest since March.
The report comes with questions rising about firms’ willingness to hire in the face of ongoing trade negotiations and escalating tariffs.
President Donald Trump has demanded the Fed lower interest rates aggressively. However, the central bank on Wednesday again voted to hold its key borrowing level in place, where it has been since December, despite blistering criticism from the president.
Trump released another angry post Friday morning on Truth Social, appearing to call on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee to overrule Chair Jerome Powell.
“Jerome “Too Late” Powell, a stubborn MORON, must substantially lower interest rates, NOW. IF HE CONTINUES TO REFUSE, THE BOARD SHOULD ASSUME CONTROL, AND DO WHAT EVERYONE KNOWS HAS TO BE DONE!” Trump posted. Following the jobs report, Trump posted again, calling Powell “a disaster.”
Though there are concerns about where the labor market is headed, top-line economic numbers are still holding up.
Gross domestic product increased at a 3% annualized pace in the second quarter, considerably better than expected. However, that largely reflected the unwinding of a huge import buildup ahead of Trump’s April 2 “liberation day” tariff announcement. Underlying demand numbers in the Commerce Department report were mostly weak, while consumer spending increased from the first quarter was still tepid. More
Swiss businesses and negotiators have been stunned by news overnight that the country faces a 39% U.S. import tariff from Aug. 7, one of the highest rates in the world.
The duty would be a devastating blow to the export-reliant economy and threaten thousands of jobs, industry groups said.
However, analysts stressed that there remained time to negotiate “last minute tweaks and changes” before the new deadline, while the head of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce told CNBC it was not “the end.”
A worker adjusts a window display at a Rolex store on Thursday, July 24, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Switzerland is officially on holiday Friday for the country’s national day. But many market watchers have been hauled back to their desks by news overnight that they have been hit with a 39% tariff rate by the White House.
That came as a shock to the Alpine nation. Indications in the Swiss press had been that the country was close to negotiating an outline deal similar to those struck by the European Union, the U.K. and Japan, which set baseline tariffs between 10% and 15%. Instead, it has received one of the highest rates of any country.
That is hugely significant, with the U.S. accounting for around a sixth of Switzerland’s total exports. Businesses breathed a sign of relief in April when the country swerved initial plans for a 31% tariff, being handed an interim 10% duty along with most of the world.
As of late Thursday, new tariff rates on a dozens of countries that have not yet agreed a framework trade arrangement with the U.S. are set to come into force from Aug. 7. Given the precedent set by U.S. President Donald Trump for last-minute deadline changes and down-to-the-wire deals, that does leave room for the situation to change.
Another potential reprieve came as the Swiss Federal Department of Economic Affairs told Reuters on Friday it understands the 39% tariff will not include the pharmaceutical sector, which is separately facing volatility from Trump’s latest comments on drug pricing. CNBC has contacted the White House for comment.
‘Stunned’
Amid the uncertainty, reactions were overwhelmingly negative on Friday.
Switzerland’s federal council said it had “great regret that, despite the progress made in bilateral talks and Switzerland’s very constructive stance from the outset, the US intends to impose unilateral additional tariffs on imports from Switzerland.” It added that it continued to seek a “negotiated solution” and was in contact with U.S. authorities.
Manufacturing association Swissmem said a 39% tariff would hit the tech industry, exports and therefore the whole country “extremely hard,” noting that every second franc brought into the economy was made from foreign trade.
“I am stunned. These tariffs are based on no rational basis and are arbitrary. This decision puts tens of thousands of jobs in the industry at risk,” the group’s director Stefan Brupbacher said.
Beat Wittmann, chairman and partner at Porta Advisors, said the news delivered a “devastating” blow to the Swiss economy and businesses.
“The U.S. leads a zigzagging unilateral war on tariffs and this unpredictability imposes a rising risk premium on financial assets,” he said in emailed comments. “This will lead to a weakening of the Swiss economy, the Swiss Franc and the Swiss equity market, particularly the all-important export sector.”
The Swiss government needs to recognize that the time for “cherry picking, carve outs and special deals” is over, particularly for small, highly-exposed states, Wittmann added.
Key Swiss exports include chemical and pharmaceutical products, watches and jewelry, chocolate, gemstones and electronics.
Adrian Prettejohn, Europe economist at Capital Economics, said in a note that a 39% tariff rate would knock around 0.6% off Switzerland’s GDP, or more with the inclusion of pharmaceuticals — but that he expected it to be negotiated down.
With the Swiss stock market closed for national day, indicators are instead feeding through other avenues such as the performance of London-listed Watches of Switzerland, which fell nearly 9% in morning deals.
In a Friday note to clients, analysts at investment bank Jefferies cited the company, along with Richemont and Swatch Group, as among those that would take the biggest hits from the news, particularly relative to previous expectations. But they added that the Aug. 7 start date allowed for “plenty of last minute tweaks and changes to be agreed.”
Stock chart icon
U.S. dollar vs Swiss franc.
The Swiss franc meanwhile slid around 0.4% against the U.S. dollar on Friday.
That comes after a huge appreciation in the franc against the greenback this year, with gains of around 11% as investors hunted for safe-haven assets. The rally has delivered challenges to the economy, which in May marked a return to deflation for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic — spurring the Swiss National Bank to cut interest rates to zero in June.
‘I do not think it is the end’
Rahul Sahgal, CEO of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” the tariff news was “very disappointing” after many rounds of negotiations with the U.S. Treasury Department.
“I have to say, however, that I hope and I do not think that it is the end,” he said.
“We have still, firstly, those days till the 7th of August, and also, if you read the executive order, it does leave a certain window open, let’s put it that way, saying that if you are in negotiations with the U.S. these additional tariffs may not apply.”
One element of previously-struck deals is a commitment to increase investment in the U.S., which in the case of the EU is set to total $600 billion along with hundreds of billions in additional energy purchases. On this, Sahgal said Switzerland was looking in the range of a $150 billion investment pledge, which was one of the biggest relative to the size of its economy. The country is already the sixth largest overall investor in the U.S., he added.
Sahgal continued that it was hard to say what the sticking point in negotiations had been or how the 39% rate had been calculated, noting that across both goods and services the trade relationship between Switzerland and the U.S. was balanced — but that Trump was only focused on the former.
“Switzerland is a country… of 9 million people, and the U.S. has something like 300 million people. So even if… every Swiss was to drink a bottle of bourbon and eat a steak every single day and buy a Harley Davidson, we would not be able to balance the trade in goods,” he said.
— CNBC’s Carolin Roth, Sophie Kiderlin and Ganesh Rao contributed to this story. More
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