Economy

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the More

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still More

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the More

President Trump’s triple-digit tariffs on Chinese products disrupted global trade — but haven’t appeared to result in major concessions from Beijing.President Trump’s decision to impose, and then walk back, triple-digit tariffs on Chinese products over the past month demonstrated the power and global reach of U.S. trade policy. But it was also another illustration of the limitations of Mr. Trump’s aggressive approach.The tariffs on Chinese goods, which the United States ratcheted up to a minimum of 145 percent in early April, brought much trade between the countries to a standstill. They caused companies to reroute business globally, importing less from China and more from other countries like Vietnam and Mexico. They forced Chinese factories to shutter, and brought some American importers to the verge of bankruptcy.The tariffs ultimately proved too painful to American businesses for Mr. Trump to sustain. Within weeks, Trump officials were saying that the tariffs the president had chosen to impose on one of America’s largest trading partners were unsustainable, and that they were angling to reduce them.Trade talks between the world’s largest economies in Geneva this weekend concluded with an agreement to reduce stiff levies on each other’s products by more than many analysts had anticipated. Chinese imports will face a minimum tax of 30 percent, down from 145 percent. China will lower its import duty on American goods to 10 percent from 125 percent. The two countries also agreed to hold talks to stabilize the relationship.It remains to be seen what agreements can be reached in future negotiations. But the talks this weekend, and the tariff chaos of the past month, did not appear to generate any other immediate concessions from the Chinese other than a commitment to keep talking. That has called into question whether the trade disruptions of the past month — which led many American businesses to cancel orders for Chinese imports, freeze expansion plans and warn of higher prices — were worth it.“The Geneva agreement represents an almost complete U.S. retreat that vindicates Xi’s decision to forcefully retaliate,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, referring to Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader.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

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.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO More

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

The first meeting to break the US-China trade deadlock was held almost three weeks ago in the basement of the IMF headquarters, arranged under cover of secrecy.US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, who was attending the IMF spring meetings in Washington, met China’s finance minister Lan Fo’an to discuss the near complete breakdown in trade between the world’s two biggest economies, according to people familiar with the matter.The previously unreported encounter was the first high-level meeting between US and Chinese officials since Donald Trump’s inauguration and the launch of his tariff war. The Treasury declined to comment on the secret meeting. The talks culminated this weekend in Geneva with Bessent and He Lifeng, China’s vice-premier, agreeing a ceasefire that would slash respective tariffs by 115 percentage points for 90 days. Despite both sides warning they were willing to dig in for a long haul, the truce proved easier and faster to agree than expected. One overriding question has significant implications for the negotiations to come: did Beijing or Washington flinch first?Trump on Monday claimed victory, saying he had engineered a “total reset” with China. Meanwhile, Hu Xijin, former editor of national Communist party tabloid the Global Times, said on social media that the deal was “a great victory for China”. “The US has chickened out,” said one popular Chinese social media post of the deal.Economists agreed that the US might have overplayed its hand by raising the tariffs too quickly and too high. “The US blinked first,” said Alicia García-Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at French investment bank Natixis. “It thought it could raise tariffs almost infinitely without being hurt, but that hasn’t been proven right.”US trade representative Jamieson Greer, left, and Treasury secretary Scott Bessent in Geneva on Monday More

US stocks notched one of their biggest jumps in recent years, as the de-escalation of tariff tensions between the US and China sparked a strong rally for risky assets.The S&P 500 closed 3.3 per cent higher on Monday. That was its biggest jump since April 9, but also ranked as its third-biggest one-day gain of the past five years.Consumer cyclicals, energy stocks and financials among the best performers in Wall Street’s benchmark index after the world’s two largest economies agreed to drastically scale back tariffs for 90 days.The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed 4.3 per cent higher, ranking as its fourth-biggest single-session jump in the past five years. Shares in Meta, Apple and Nvidia leapt 7.9 per cent, 6.3 per cent and 5.4 per cent, respectively.Monday’s gains extended a recent surge for US stocks, which have rebounded in recent weeks from a sharp sell-off in the days after Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcements on April 2. The latest move left the S&P 500 close to erasing all of its year-to-date losses, and came as the dollar rallied against other major currencies.The tariff reduction “really is a big and positive surprise” and “represents a far larger backtracking from Trump than we had expected,” said David Seif, chief economist for developed markets at Nomura.He cautioned, however, that “things can swing back very quickly in the other direction, and we would not preclude tariff rates rising back up on July 8 for the rest of the world and August 10 for China” when the two relevant 90-day pauses expire.Read more here More