<!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–> <!–> [–> China The average tariff rate in 2024 was 11.4% and would increase to 62.9% under Trump’s tariffs.<!–> –> Vietnam The average tariff rate in 2024 was 3.8% and would increase to 48.4% under Trump’s […] More
Ford Motor said on Thursday that it was lowering prices on most of its vehicles to the same levels it charges employees in a bid to boost sales as President Trump’s tariffs on imported cars took effect.The tariffs began on Thursday on vehicles imported from Mexico, Canada, Japan, Germany and other countries. The duties — 25 percent of the value of the vehicle in most cases — are expected to increase prices of new cars and trucks and dampen demand.About half the vehicles sold in the United States each year are produced in other countries. Mexico is the top source of those cars and Canada is among the largest. For three decades, the United States, Canada and Mexico have had a free-trade zone, and automakers have moved parts and vehicles freely among the three countries.Ford’s new program, which the company is calling “From America, for America,” could help reduce a large inventory of unsold cars. In February, Ford had more cars in inventory as measured by how many days it would take to sell them all than all but three other brands — Jaguar, Mini and Dodge — according to Cox Automotive, a research firm.Ford’s new discounts apply to all new 2024 and 2025 vehicles, except for specialty versions of the Bronco sport-utility vehicle; the Mustang sports car; Super Duty versions of F-Series pickups; and a few other models.“Consumers will pay what we pay,” Rob Kaffl, Ford’s director of U.S. sales and dealer relations, said in a statement.The automaker also said it was extending another incentive program in which buyers of new electric models get a home charger for free, along with the cost of installation. That offer is now valid until June 30.Ford had more than 568,000 vehicles in inventory at the end of March, up about 8 percent from a year ago. More
Through Covid, political chaos, and economic disarray, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh kept one industry central to their hopes of prosperity afloat: the manufacturing of ready-made garments, with the United States as their main market.Then came President Trump’s tariffs.The two countries are reeling after Sri Lanka was hit with 44 percent tariffs and Bangladesh subjected to 37 percent levies. Officials in both countries scrambled to contain panic among business leaders, who worried that they may no longer be able to compete with bigger manufacturing powers, and that their orders could shift to places with lower tariffs and greater industrial muscle.“We will have to write our obituary notice,” said Tuli Cooray, a consultant at the Joint Apparel Association Forum of Sri Lanka, an industry association. “Forty-four percent is no joke.”The Trump administration’s tariffs have hit countries at the heart of the global apparel industry especially hard. An analysis by William Blair, an equity research firm, showed that the countries that produce 85 percent of U.S. apparel imports faced an average tariff of 32 percent.Targeting the manufacturers not only upends the economies of these nations, but also adds to the burden of U.S. companies, analysts warned. William Blair said merchandise costs could go up by about 30 percent and American consumers may ultimately feel the pinch.Bangladesh sends more than $7bn of clothing to the U.S. every year. The country’s garment manufacturing industry makes up 80 percent of its total exports and employs more than four million people, mostly women. Bangladesh has one of the highest female work force participation rates in the region, which has helped lift a large section of the population out of poverty.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
Germany had hoped that a new government would revive its stagnant economy, but President Trump’s sweeping new tariffs are stoking worries that the country will fall short of its 0.3 percent growth expectations this year.Calling the tariffs “an attack on the rules of global trade which created prosperity around the world,” Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, stressed on Thursday that his country was counting on cooperation among the European Union members to defend their interests.Mr. Scholz, whose government lost an election in February but is still operating in a caretaker capacity, is limited in his ability to act as the country awaits the formation of a new government, expected in the coming weeks. The timing couldn’t be worse for Germany, Europe’s largest economy, to respond to the tariffs without clear leadership.Germany could be the hardest hit of all 27 members of the bloc, given the large amount of trade that Germany does with the United States. Last year, Germany exported goods worth 161.4 billion euros, or $178.4 billion, to the United States, according to the country’s federal statistics office.Last month, Germany’s Parliament agreed to loosen the country’s restrictions on debt in an effort to juice the economy, which contracted for the past two years. The move allowed lawmakers to create a new infrastructure fund worth €500 billion (almost $550 billion), which restored some optimism to markets and businesses.But economists at Morgan Stanley warned that the impact of the tariffs could threaten prospective growth sparked by the package and the possibility of increased spending on defense.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
When President Trump unveiled major new tariffs on Wednesday, one big economy that he did not target was Russia.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Wednesday that Moscow was spared because sanctions imposed on the country after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 mean that U.S.-Russian trade had effectively stopped. North Korea, Cuba and Belarus, which are also subject to tough sanctions, were also excluded from the new levies.Trade data paints a more complicated picture. The value of U.S. trade with Russia has fallen to its lowest level in decades following the invasion. But last year, Russia still exported about $3 billion worth of goods to the United States, according to U.S. trade figures, mostly fertilizer and platinum.That figure is significantly higher than the value of U.S. imports from some smaller countries that Mr. Trump targeted, such as Laos and Fiji, prompting questions about whether the White House’s decision to spare Russia was a strategic choice.Mr. Trump recently threatened to impose tariffs on buyers of Russian oil, a trade that is the lifeline of the country’s war machine, if President Vladimir V. Putin did not cooperate with U.S. efforts to broker a cease-fire in Ukraine. Such tariffs would significantly complicate the country’s foreign trade.Mr. Trump may be holding back new economic restrictions on Russia as leverage in the peace talks, said Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin and a former official at the Russian central bank.“I think it’s a political decision,” Ms. Prokopenko said. “Trump does not want to escalate while his talks with Putin are ongoing.”The idea that Mr. Trump is using tariffs as a geopolitical bargaining tool appears to be supported by his treatment of Iran, another target of his deal-making ambitions. He put Iran in the lowest tier of the new tariffs, 10 percent, which is lower than the rate imposed on Israel, a staunch U.S. ally.The composition of Russia’s exports could have also played a role. Russia is the third largest foreign supplier of fertilizer to the United States, and the total amount of its fertilizer exports has increased over the past year.Mr. Trump has been weighing how to protect American farmers, a key constituency, from the effects of his trade wars. Keeping the cost of fertilizer low could be part of that strategy. More
Here is how some of the United States’ key trading partners responded on Thursday to President Trump’s stiff new tariffs:China: The Commerce Ministry in Beijing vowed countermeasures against the sweeping new tariffs, which it described as “unilateral bullying.” The Trump administration hit Beijing with a new 34 percent duty that will be added to the levies that the president had already imposed since January. Mr. Trump also scrapped a loophole that has allowed many e-commerce companies, such as Shein and Temu, to send low-cost goods to the United States from China without having to pay taxes.European Union: The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the bloc would be united in its response, but did not specify what measures it would take. “If you take on one of us, you take on all of us,” she said. Mr. Trump imposed a 20 percent tariff on European Union goods.Britain: Prime Minister Keir Starmer did not suggest that Britain would immediately retaliate, and said that negotiations toward a trade deal with the United States would continue. The Trump administration has imposed a 10 percent tariff on Britain, lower than the 20 percent tariff it levied on the European Union.France: Prime Minister François Bayrou of France, an E.U. member, said that the tariffs were “a catastrophe for the economic world” and would also cause pain for the United States. France’s government spokeswoman, Sophie Primas, provided some detail about how the European Union could respond to the new tariffs. “We are also going to attack services,” which make up the bulk of the American economy, she said in an interview with French radio. That could include online services provided by Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, she added.Germany: Finance Minister Jörg Kukies said he remained hopeful that Europe would be able to reach a deal with Washington, but added: “We do need a strong reaction.” He told the BBC, “It would be naïve to think that if we just sit there and let this happen, things will get better.” The tariffs on E.U. goods, especially on automotive parts, threaten Germany’s attempts to revive its stagnant economy, the largest in Europe.India: The Commerce Ministry said it was “carefully examining the implications of the various measures” announced by the United States, after Mr. Trump imposed 27 percent tariffs against it. Mr. Trump has long been irritated by the large U.S. trade deficit with India, despite his close relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Japan: Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba called the tariffs “extremely regrettable,” but refrained from talk of retaliation. He said that his government was trying to impress upon the Trump administration that Japan is helping the United States to re-industrialize as its largest overseas investor. More
After all that — the chummy Oval Office meeting, the extraordinary royal invitation, the paeans to the “special relationship” — Britain and its solicitous prime minister, Keir Starmer, still got swept into President Trump’s tariffs, along with the European Union and other major American trading partners.Mr. Trump imposed his basic tariff of 10 percent on Britain, while hitting the European Union with 20 percent. That drew sighs of relief from Mr. Starmer’s aides, who said the difference would protect thousands of British jobs. They claimed vindication for Mr. Starmer’s charm offensive toward the American president; others said it was a dividend of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union in 2016.Yet in another sense, it was a Pyrrhic victory: Britain was subject to the same blanket tariff as dozens of countries, even though the United States runs a trade surplus with Britain, according to U.S. statistics.Britain clearly hopes to strike some kind of trade deal with Mr. Trump down the road, which could spare it the tariffs’ lasting effect. On Thursday, Mr. Starmer told business executives that the British would react with “cool and calm heads.”The question is whether he will stick to his strategy — resisting pressure to impose retaliatory tariffs, for example — or fall into line with other countries, like Canada, in striking back against the United States. Downing Street said it would not impose tit-for-tat measures while trade talks were underway.“His strategy up till now has been perfectly understandable,” said Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London. “If I were him, I would have done the same. Now he needs to avoid confrontation for the sake of it, but there’s no point in appeasement either.”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
Furloughs in the federal government totaled 216,215 for March, part of a total 275,240 reductions overall in the labor force, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
The monthly total was surpassed only by April and May of 2020 in the early days of the pandemic when employers announced combined reductions of more than 1 million.
Employees of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hug each other as they queue outside the Mary E. Switzer Memorial Building, after it was reported that the Trump administration fired staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at the Food and Drug Administration, as it embarked on its plan to cut 10,000 jobs at HHS, in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 1, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
A surge in federal government job cuts contributed to a near record-setting pace for announced layoffs in March, exceeded only by when the country shut down in 2020 for the Covid pandemic, according to a report Thursday from job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Furloughs in the federal government totaled 216,215 for the month, part of a total 275,240 reductions overall in the labor force. Some 280,253 layoffs across 27 agencies in the past two months have been linked to the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and its efforts to pare down the federal workforce.
The monthly total was surpassed only by April and May of 2020 in the early days of the pandemic when employers announced combined reductions of more than 1 million, according to Challenger records going back to 1989. It also was the highest March on record.
“Job cut announcements were dominated last month by Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] plans to eliminate positions in the federal government,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president and workplace expert at the firm. “It would have otherwise been a fairly quiet month for layoffs.”
However, DOGE has continued to cut aggressively across the government.
Various reports have indicated that the Veterans Affairs department could lose 80,000 jobs, the IRS is in line for some 18,000 reductions and Treasury is expected to drop a “substantial” level of workers as well, according to a court filing.
The year to date tally for federal government announced layoffs represents a 672% increase from the same period in 2024, according to Challenger.
To be sure, the outsized layoff plans haven’t made their way into other jobs data.
Weekly unemployment claims have held in a fairly tight range since President Donald Trump took office. Payroll growth has slowed a bit from its pace in 2024 but is still positive, while job openings have receded but only to around their pre-pandemic levels.
However, the Washington, D.C. area has been hit particularly hard by the announced layoffs, which have totaled 278,711 year to date for the city, according to the report.
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