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This article is an on-site version of our FirstFT newsletter. Subscribers can sign up to our Asia, Europe/Africa or Americas edition to get the newsletter delivered every weekday morning. Explore all of our newsletters hereGood morning and welcome to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter: China seeks to reassure the public about the economyWhy Trump can’t build iPhones in the US An op-ed on the Indus Waters Treaty and Indian securityWe start in Beijing, where China’s top economic officials yesterday used a press conference to reassure the public about the state of the economy amid a trade war with the US. Here’s more on what they said.Projecting confidence: Zhao Chenxin, vice chair of the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s state planner, said the country could do without American farm and energy imports. US agricultural imports were “primarily for feed grains, which were highly substitutable”, Zhao said, and noted there would be limited impact on China’s energy supplies if companies stopped importing American oil, natural gas and coal.With US-China bilateral tariffs at more than 100 per cent, trade between the two economic superpowers has begun to fall, causing Chinese factories to begin furloughing workers. But Zhao maintained that Beijing was “fully confident” of hitting the country’s 5 per cent growth target for the year, even as he admitted “external shocks were increasing”.Trade war impact: The loss of the Chinese market would be a substantial hit for US farmers, who shipped roughly $33bn of agricultural goods to the country in 2023. The US also sent about $15bn of oil, gas and coal to China. There is rising desire in the Trump administration for talks with Beijing, but China has shown little appetite for negotiations and repeatedly blasted Washington’s claims of ongoing discussions as false. Beijing last week indicated that the US should cancel its tariffs as a starting point for trade talks. Read the full story.China stockpiles oil: Chinese oil traders are setting aside concerns over the long-term economic damage of a US trade war as they seek to profit from one of the short-term consequences: lower crude prices.Chinese clean tech exports surge: China has rapidly scaled up sales of solar panels, batteries and other green energy technologies to emerging markets well ahead of the US tariff fight, the latest data shows.Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:Japan-Philippines relations: Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba begins a visit to Manila, where he will meet his Philippine counterpart Ferdinand Marcos Jr.Canadian election results: The first polls close in the coming hours. The vote, which has been overshadowed by Trump’s attacks on the country’s sovereignty, has pitted Prime Minister Mark Carney against Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre.Earnings season: HSBC, China Construction Bank and the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China report earnings.Thinking about your next trip? Join the FT and Nikkei Inc. as we explore why Japan is topping global travel lists and how you can make the most of your next visit. Register for free.Five more top stories1. Shares in a swath of companies surged in Tokyo yesterday after a $42bn plan to take car parts maker Toyota Industries private triggered hopes of a wider overhaul of Japan’s corporate landscape. Investors are placing bets on subsidiaries and affiliates that they think might also come under pressure to change their ownership relationship.2. Pirelli’s board has voted to strip Chinese conglomerate Sinochem, its single largest shareholder, of control over the Italian tyre company amid clashes over its governance. The Italian and Chinese board members have been at odds for some time, and the tensions were further heightened by Trump’s trade war with China and its implications for Pirelli’s American expansion. Here are more details.3. European and Ukrainian officials fear Trump is on the brink of walking away from peace negotiations with Kyiv and Moscow, potentially using minor progress in talks as an “excuse” to say his job is done, according to people briefed on the discussions. Officials are convinced Trump is ready to seize any kind of breakthrough this week, which marks his first 100 days in office — even if it falls short of a long-term solution.4. A mystery power outage hit Spain and Portugal yesterday, paralysing transport networks and disrupting mobile communications. The Spanish government declared a state of emergency as large areas faced a night without electricity. Here’s more on the havoc caused by the massive outage.5. The acting chief executive of Saudi Arabia’s Neom has in recent weeks launched a “comprehensive review” of the scope and priority of projects within Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s flagship scheme, two people familiar with the matter said. Aiman al-Mudaifer was appointed last year to lead the $500bn mega project following increasing scrutiny of the futuristic plan.Visual story© TechInsightsThe Trump administration wants Apple to manufacture its iPhones in the US instead of China, where most of them are currently made. But our latest visual story shows how the components that power it make this highly impractical.We’re also reading . . . Indus Waters Treaty: India’s decision to undermine the water-sharing agreement with Pakistan will imperil rather than promote New Delhi’s pursuit of lasting security, writes Sunil Amrith.Battery battle: A new front has opened in the battle between Chinese and South Korean companies that have dominated cell production for electric vehicles.Gen Z in the workplace: Data shows younger workers — more than baby boomers — crave the connection and routine of in-person work.Chart of the dayThe number of US students looking to study at UK universities has risen sharply since Trump launched his attack on some of America’s top higher education institutions, data shows.Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.Take a break from the newsAre you ready to roti? Recipes for the buttery Malaysian flatbread are hard to find, but a master roti maker is publishing his recipe for the first time with a step-by-step guide in his new cookbook. Sugen Gopal demonstrates how to flip roti in his book Roti King More

The president’s turnover of the economic order has unleashed changes that could prove lasting, because other countries will adjust.President Trump has made clear his intent to smash the reigning global economic order. And in 100 days, he has made remarkable progress in accomplishing that goal.Mr. Trump has provoked a trade war, scrapped treaties and suggested that Washington might not defend Europe. He is also dismantling the governmental infrastructure that has provided the know-how and experience.The changes have been deep. But the world is still churning. Midterm elections in two years could erode the Republican majority in Congress. And Mr. Trump’s reign is constitutionally mandated to end in four years. Could the next president come in and undo what the Trump administration has done?As Cardinal Michael Czerny, a close aide to Pope Francis, said of the Catholic Church: “There is nothing that we have done over 2,000 years that couldn’t be rolled back.”The same could be said of global geopolitics. Yet even at this early stage, historians and political scientists agree that on some crucial counts, the changes wrought by Mr. Trump may be hard to reverse.Like the erosion of trust in the United States, a resource that took generations to build.“The MAGA base and JD Vance will still be around long after Trump’s gone,” said Ian Goldin, professor of globalization and development at the University of Oxford. No matter who occupies the White House next, the conditions that propelled the “Make America Great Again” movement — widening inequality and economic insecurity — remain. For the rest of the world, there is still a worry, he said, that there could be “another Trump in the future.”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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The economic impact of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration will soon become apparent to everyday Americans and lead to a recession this summer, according to Apollo Global Management.
Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo, laid out a timeline in a presentation for clients that showed when the impact of tariffs announced by President Donald Trump could hit the U.S. economy. Based on the transport time required for goods from China, U.S. consumers could start to notice trade-related shortages in their local stores next month, according to the presentation.

“The consequence will be empty shelves in US stores in a few weeks and Covid-like shortages for consumers and for firms using Chinese products as intermediate goods,” Slok wrote in a note to clients Friday.

Tariff to recession timeline:

April 2: Tariffs announced, containership departures from China to U.S. slowing
Early-to-mid May: Containerships to U.S. ports come to a stop
Mid-to-late May: Trucking demand comes to a halt, leading to empty shelves and lower sales for companies
Late May to early June: Layoffs in trucking and retail industries
Summer 2025: recession

Source: Apollo Global Management
To support the idea that the U.S. economy is on the verge of recession, the presentation also included data that shows new orders for business, earnings outlooks and capital spending plans have all fallen sharply in recent weeks.
The Trump administration has paused some of the tariffs announced on April 2, but has hiked duties even higher on China. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent acknowledged Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the current tariff standoff with Beijing is “unsustainable.” Levies on goods from China are now subject to a 145% rate.
China is not the only source of consumer goods, but it does have a large role in the U.S. economy. The U.S. imported $438.9 billion of goods from China in 2024, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, putting it right behind Mexico and above Canada on the list of trading partners by that metric.

While many on Wall Street are now saying that a recession for the U.S. is likely in 2025, Slok’s predictions are toward the more pessimistic side. Bessent has said the administration expects a “detox period” for the economy due to the trade negotiations but not necessarily a recession.
There is also some evidence of a “pull-forward” in orders from before the tariffs were announced, which could keep goods on the shelves for longer than the Apollo timelines sets out.
“Don’t expect empty shelves yet — [year to date] stock is still up, and demand is slowing,” Bernstein analyst Aneesha Sherman said in a note to clients Monday.
— CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting.

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Since Howard Lutnick was tapped to serve as President Trump’s commerce secretary, executives from some of the world’s largest companies have been trying to win him over.Leaders of Nvidia, Facebook, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Alphabet have visited his newly purchased $25 million property in Washington — a 16,250-square-foot mansion that Mr. Lutnick, a billionaire, recently quipped would be “big enough for my ego” — to persuade him to adopt a business-friendly agenda.As Mr. Trump ratcheted up tariffs to levels not seen in a century, Ford Motor, General Motors and other companies that have built their businesses around international trade reached out to Mr. Lutnick in the hope that he could persuade the president to take a less aggressive approach. Some chief executives have put in calls to the commerce secretary at midnight.Mr. Lutnick, 63, heads a department that both promotes and regulates industry, and he has been put in charge of overseeing trade. As a result, he has found himself in a position of incredible influence, as the go-between for a president imposing sweeping tariffs and the industries being crushed by them.A former bond trader who amassed billions on Wall Street, Mr. Lutnick has become one of the loudest salesmen for tariffs in an administration generally unified on their benefits. He has publicly echoed the president’s message that big tariffs are needed to revive American industry, and that if companies don’t like them, they should build factories in the United States.But in internal conversations in the administration, he has often been a voice for moderation. He argued in favor of Mr. Trump’s pausing his global tariffs for 90 days after they sent convulsions through the stock and bond markets. And he has made the case to the president to grant relief to certain favored industries, helping them to win exemptions from billions of dollars of levies.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

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer, an FT contributing editor, is chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts and former chief economist at the Bank of EnglandPanican: noun. A person or party that panics, overreacting to events in a weak and stupid way. Derogatory.This neologism is barely a month old. There is an irony, a bigly one, that within a week of invention, its author (the US president) had himself become a card-carrying member of the Panican party. It took only 24 hours of bond market mayhem for “liberation day” to give way to “comeuppance quarter”, with a 90-day tariff pause. Nonetheless, the question raised by the US president remains as relevant now as then. Has the reaction of financial markets, politicians and the media to his tariff announcements been excessive? Have the 24/7 catastrophisers in financial markets and the media, and a political class routinely declaring the world’s end, panicked? The impact of tariffs, and in particular the fear of an unknown escalation in them, is in an important sense very much real. If an arms race took hold, a day of liberation could well presage a decade or more of hibernation in world trade and growth. The arc of trade history has, with alarming regularity, bent towards darkness.Tariff shocks emanating from the US have occurred on a routinely half-century cycle for the past 250 years: 1789, 1828, 1890, 1930, 1971. Each left a lasting macroeconomic scar — in the penultimate case (the Smoot-Hawley tariffs) deepening the Great Depression, in the final case (the “Nixon shock”) triggering the Great Inflation. Both are remembered as great for the wrong reasons.Half a century on, with world trade now both larger and significantly more interwoven, the scars from a 2025 tariff shock could be expected to be deeper still. The bloodstained economic forecasts of the past month attest to that, with a US recession now a coin-toss. So, too, in financial markets, with more than $6tn lost from global stock markets and implied volatilities having risen threefold.On the other side of this argument, however, no one is today in any doubt that the cat’s cradle of global supply chains cannot be unravelled without years of re-engineering at catastrophic cost. The very inter-connectivity of world trade, and the costs of disconnection, are the best possible bulwark against tariff escalation. The excess sensitivity of financial markets apply a double-lock. By telescoping and amplifying these costs, they serve as a real-time disciplining device on politicians claiming they can weather the short-term pain. This makes capitulation speedier than in the past. The Smoot-Hawley tariffs lasted four years, Nixon’s tariff’s four months. The worst of Trump’s tariffs lasted barely a week.The tariffs could be re-escalated. But once bitten, twice shy. The past month leaves a US president as psychologically scarred and gossamer thin-skinned as the businesses and financial markets he has held in thrall. The irresistible force of self-importance helped cause the US tariff spike, but the immovable object of self-preservation will be its undoing. For all the rhetoric of a new world order, then, the forces of global mean-reversion may in fact be stronger than ever. A new financial order was widely expected after the global financial crisis. Twenty years on we have seen some redirection of flows but no great unravelling. World trade may well follow a similar path, if anything fortified by recent events, perhaps even with China as its unlikely new champion.Meanwhile, despite external expressions of dismay, the past month has been a political godsend for many world leaders. Trade war and talk of a new world order are breathing life into flagging and unpopular regimes (Xi Jinping in China, Emmanuel Macron in France, Vladimir Putin in Russia), providing oven-ready alternatives for new ones (Friedrich Merz in Germany, Mark Carney in Canada, Keir Starmer in the UK). Yet tellingly, and with the exception of China, the escalation solemnly declared by many leaders has so far been largely semantic rather than substantive. We’ve had a month of reciprocal rhetoric rather than tariffs. If the forces of mean-reversion and self-preservation remain strong, long may (and will) that continue.  An epoch of de-globalisation is possible. Trump tariffs may yet mark a new trade chapter. More likely, however, the arc of history will bend back towards the light, with recent events as chapter footers not headers. What we have witnessed is a panic rather than a heart attack for the world economy — indeed, a self-stabilising one. In an over-anxious, rudderless era, the rise of the panicans may save us from ourselves. More

This article is an on-site version of our Trade Secrets newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every Monday. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newslettersWelcome to Trade Secrets. Something struck me over the weekend when I saw Donald Trump at Pope Francis’s funeral in Vatican City: he had contrived to visit one of the very few states on earth he hasn’t hit with tariffs. Thinking about it, Italy should totally do a deal with the Vatican to route its exports to the US through it to circumvent the American president’s duties on the EU. The Lateran Treaty, but for rules of origin. I can’t imagine any objections. In this newsletter, I’m looking at this week’s federal elections in Canada and Australia and pondering the electoral returns to be made from defying Trump’s bullying, which seem to be gratifyingly high. Charted Waters, which looks at the data behind world trade, is on stock prices.Get in touch. Email me at [email protected] Anglosphere strikes back It’s a neat experiment to have elections in two of the US’s Five Eyes allies around the end of Trump’s first 100 days in office. (The UK on Thursday has some local elections and a “by-election” to replace an MP forced to resign for hitting a constituent, itself perhaps something of a metaphor for the Trump administration, but no one’s really taking that as a referendum on Sir Keir Starmer’s trade negotiation strategy — on which, more below.)There’s always a risk of projecting an outside obsession on to a national debate, and Australia’s election next week is focused more on cost of living issues than on its dealings with Trump. Still, the tariffs are certainly a big subject — and in Canada they’re clearly a huge issue. The elections will very probably show that it’s a bad idea to position yourself as someone who can coax a good deal out of Trump to negotiate the tariffs away.I guess it wasn’t evident to all just how crazy Trump was going to be on trade. Mindful of my watchword, the evidence for which continues to accumulate on a daily basis, that includes me. So boasting of your ability to get great deals out of Trump, as did Canada’s Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre in early January, might have been a morally reprehensible idea. But before inauguration day on January 20, it wasn’t obviously a self-destructive one.Canada has now gone through a learning curve incredibly quickly, providing an excellent step-by-step demonstration to the rest of the world. The Liberal former prime minister Justin Trudeau tried co-operation and charm as soon as president-elect Trump made his tariff threats in November. It was worth a go, but the effect didn’t last: the threats came back. Then Trudeau tried standing up to Trump with a promise of immediate retaliation and rallied the nation with a terrific speech. That did seem to work.It helps that Trump has managed to hammer the US stock market (and most likely its economy) more than Canada’s. Mark Carney taking over as prime minister from Trudeau and amping up the rhetoric to 11 has delivered one of the fastest polling swings in a democracy anyone seems able to remember. Poilievre’s Trump card, as it were, has turned into a massive disadvantage.Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.It’s a less obvious picture in Australia, which is in any case economically far more dependent on China as an export market than the US. It’s Canberra’s security relationship with Washington that matters. That situation doesn’t look great. But unlike with Russia and Ukraine, Trump hasn’t actually switched sides in Asia, nor is he (yet) trying to annex Australia.Still, it does look to be a clear tactical error for the opposition Liberal party leader Peter Dutton to have boasted earlier this month that the Liberal-led government in 2018 used the US-Australia security relationship to negotiate its way out of Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs the first time round, and to suggest doing the same again. The Liberal prime minister at that time, Malcolm Turnbull, has warned very loudly and publicly that the world has changed and Trump is not to be trusted. If the Labor government gets re-elected, the lesson for other countries — if it isn’t already obvious — is that you gain from taking a firm line on talking trade with Trump.This lesson might even just be dawning on the UK, where Starmer’s government has established a bizarre habit not just of boasting of its ability to get along with Trump, but of claiming inspiration from his administration and specifically Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency vandals. Britain also reckoned it was relatively safe given it didn’t run a big surplus with the US, only to find that, after the “liberation day” tariffs on April 2 and the “pause” retreat on April 9, it had ended up with the same 10 per cent baseline tariff as almost everyone else. The meretricious idea from Lord Peter Mandelson, UK ambassador to Washington and an (unimpressive) former EU trade commissioner, to prepare a pre-emptive package of concessions on tech and tax issues looks increasingly unwise. The UK has at least rhetorically indicated it will prioritise EU over US trade. But now would be an excellent time to slow-walk Trump and push ahead with Brussels.Slow-walking Trump to his tariff cliff-edgeSpeaking of which, the UK evidently thought it would get an early-bird discount by being quick to come to a deal. This also looks like a bad prediction. The Trump administration’s tactics, as briefed here to the Wall Street Journal, are genuinely hilarious, even leaving aside Trump’s claim to have negotiated more deals (200) than there are countries in the world.Six major trading partners each week simultaneously negotiating tariffs, quotas, rules of origin, regulatory and other non-tariff barriers and economic security with an administration whose capacity to execute trade policy is such that it tries to tariff an island of penguins? If you live-streamed these talks on global pay-per-view you could close the US fiscal deficit on the proceeds, a cringing world watching through its fingers in horrified fascination. It’s a real shame Trump was in tariff-free Vatican City so couldn’t appear in a trade negotiation special of The Apprentice over the weekend, except this time with him getting fired.Oh, but wait. There’s more. Apparently the US’s three biggest trading partners (Canada, China and Mexico) won’t be in these cycles of talks because . . . reasons. And India also isn’t because . . . other reasons. China last week showed open contempt for the process, explicitly briefing that it wasn’t in talks with the US and telling the Americans to knock off claiming it was. Japan, usually more circumspect about public disagreements, has also been pretty clear that it’s not acting under US instructions.And since hardly any of the US’s trading partners have felt the need to retaliate with their own tariffs, they aren’t harming their own economies in the meantime. China has hit back, obviously, but finds itself quite free to adjust that retaliation to prevent self-harm without looking weak.With Trump’s popularity falling by the week, financial markets on the alert for any further sign of chaos and transpacific container trade simply drying up, for which see Charted Waters and the Trade Links section below, trading partners without a lot of direct reliance on exports to the US would be well advised to drag talks out and let the 90-day negotiation deadline loom. Also that would be much funnier for the rest of us to watch, which by this stage is almost the main point.Charted watersA nice illustration of the weapon Trump has handed his trading partners in the tariff talks: the threat of the “reciprocal tariffs” on April 2 pushed stocks down in Europe and the US, while the “pause” on April 9 revived them. But the notion that the US economy is in the hands of dangerous buffoons has continued to weigh relatively more on US equity prices since then, even without more big tariff announcements.Trade linksThe genuine prospect of shortages in American stores is rising as transpacific freight dries up because of the Trump tariffs on China: logistics people note there are currently no international cargo ships in the Port of Seattle.Politico looks at the prospect of the Trump tariffs encouraging the EU to do trade deals elsewhere.Apple wants to move iPhone manufacturing to India, but China’s unlikely to give it up without making it difficult.The FT’s Unhedged newsletter thinks that unless some certainty about tariffs is established, markets will find a new, much lower level that takes account of years of volatility to come.Volkswagen has overtaken Tesla as the number one electric vehicle seller in Europe, which must give some relief to Brussels policymakers who are trying not to just hand the whole European EV market straight from a US manufacturer to Chinese ones.The FT’s Lex column looks at how the tariff wars might be delaying the deployment of robot technology.Trade Secrets is edited by Harvey NriapiaRecommended newsletters for youChris Giles on Central Banks — Vital news and views on what central banks are thinking, inflation, interest rates and money. 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The IMF last week cut its growth outlook for the euro area, also making downgrades for the U.S., U.K. and many Asian countries due to President Donald Trump’s volatile tariff policy.
The negative impact of tariffs will be slightly offset by Germany’s recent infrastructure spending bill, which will boost growth in the euro area over those two years, Alfred Kammer, director of the European department at the IMF said.
He added that the ECB should only cut interest rates once more this year despite growth risks.

Higher German infrastructure spending will boost Europe’s economic growth in the coming years — but not enough to outweigh the expected drag from U.S. tariffs, according to Alfred Kammer, director of the European department at the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF last week cut its growth outlook for the euro area, also making downgrades for the U.S., U.K. and many Asian countries due to President Donald Trump’s volatile tariff policy.

The institution cut its euro area growth forecasts for each of the next two years by 0.2 percentage points, to 0.8% in 2025 and 1.2% in 2026.
“It’s the tariffs and the trade tensions which weigh on the outlook rather than the positive effects on the fiscal side,” Kammer told CNBC’s Carolin Roth in an interview at the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings last week.
“What we see is we have a meaningful downgrade for Europe advanced economies… and for the emerging euro area countries double as much over this two-year period.”
The negative impact of tariffs will be slightly offset by Germany’s recent infrastructure spending bill, which will boost growth in the euro area over those two years, Kammer said.
Exemptions passed to Germany’s longstanding debt rules have unlocked higher defense spending and enabled creation of a 500 billion euro ($548 billion) infrastructure and climate fund. The move has been described by economists as a potential “game changer” for the sluggish economy — the largest in the euro zone.

Inflation job nearly done but tariff risks loom — What European Central Bank members said this week

However, optimism has been shaken by U.S. tariffs, which are widely expected to dampen global growth and trade flows.
Several policymakers at the European Central Bank told CNBC last week that while the inflation path appeared positive — with tariffs potentially bringing inflation in the bloc down further — their broader outlook was now significantly more uncertain.
The IMF’s Kammer said that the ECB should only cut interest rates once more this year, by a quarter percentage point, despite growth risks.
The ECB has so far reduced rates seven times in quarter-percentage-point increments, starting in June 2024. Its most recent move lower in April took the deposit facility, its key rate, to 2.25%.
“We have a very clear recommendation for the ECB. What we saw so far is a huge success in the disinflation effort and monetary policy has worked … so we are expecting to sustainably hit the 2% inflation target in the second half of 2025,” Kammer told CNBC.
“Our recommendation is there is room for one more 25-basis-point cut, in the summer, and then the ECB should hold that 2% policy rate unless major shocks hit and there is a need for recalibrating monetary policy,” he added.
Overnight index swap pricing on Monday pointed to market expectations for two more quarter-point cuts this year. More