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Is Trump More Flexible on China Than His Hawkish Cabinet Picks Suggest?

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President-elect Donald J. Trump is assembling a team of aides bent on confrontation with China. But he also has advisers who do business there, including Elon Musk.They are the new class of cold warriors, guns pointed at China.President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen cabinet secretaries and a national security adviser who stress the need to confront China across the entire security and economic spectrum: military posture, trade, technology, espionage, human rights and Taiwan.Those choices could open a new era of conflict with a nuclear-armed nation that has the world’s largest standing army and second-largest economy, and where many top officials see the United States as a superpower in decline.Mr. Trump’s hawkish advisers so far include Marco Rubio, a Florida senator named as secretary of state; Michael Waltz, a Florida congressman tapped for national security adviser; and Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News television personality designated to be defense secretary. Cabinet secretaries must be confirmed by the Senate, although Mr. Trump has floated the idea of getting around that by using recess appointments.Those men are more explicitly hostile to China than their counterparts in the Biden administration, though President Biden has taken an aggressive tack with China and continued some of the policies from Mr. Trump’s first term. A consensus has solidified among Democrats and Republicans in Washington that China must be constrained because it is the nation most capable of upending American global dominance.Yet there are signs that Mr. Trump might consider a more moderate approach on trade, perhaps to avoid upsetting a roaring stock market nurtured by Mr. Biden.Mr. Trump with President Xi Jinping of China in Beijing in November 2017. Mr. Trump hosted Mr. Xi at Mar-a-Lago earlier that year, but their budding relationship eventually fell apart over a trade war that Mr. Trump started.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWe 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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    How Trump’s Tax Cuts and Tariffs Could Turn Into Law

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    Republicans are juggling complex political and tactical questions as they plan their congressional agenda next year.Republicans are starting to sketch out how to translate President-elect Donald J. Trump’s economic agenda into law, putting plans in place to bypass Democrats and approve multiple bills reshaping the nation’s tax and spending policies along party lines.With total control of Washington, Republicans have the rare — and often fleeting — opportunity to leave a lasting mark on federal policy. Some in the party are hoping to tee up big legislation for early next year and capitalize on Mr. Trump’s first 100 days.Much of the early planning revolves around the sweeping tax cuts the party passed and Mr. Trump signed into law in 2017, many of which will expire at the end of next year. Key Republicans are holding meetings about how to maneuver a bill extending the tax cuts through the Senate, while others are consulting economists for ideas to offset their roughly $4 trillion cost.Several questions loom over the Republican effort. They range from how fast the party should move next year to deeper political disagreements over which tax and spending policies to change. The overall cost of the legislation is a central preoccupation at a time of rising deficits. And whatever Republicans put together will most likely become a magnet for other issues the party has prioritized, including immigration.Here’s what to expect.A Difficult ProcessMost legislation needs a supermajority of 60 votes to pass the Senate. But for bills focused on taxes and spending, lawmakers can turn to a process called budget reconciliation that requires only a regular majority of 51 votes in the Senate.Reconciliation is a powerful but cumbersome tool. Its rules prevent lawmakers from passing policy changes unrelated to the budget, and lawmakers are only allowed to use reconciliation a limited number of times per year. Republicans could also raise the debt limit through the process.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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    How Trump’s Plans for Mass Deportations, Tariffs and Fed Could Affect the Economy

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    Predicting how White House policy is going to affect the American economy is always fraught with uncertainty. Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House has taken the doubt up a notch.Mr. Trump has proposed or hinted at a range of policies — including drastically higher tariffs, mass deportations, deregulation and a fraught relationship with the Federal Reserve as it sets interest rates — that could shape the economy in complex ways.“There are two multiplicative sources of uncertainty: One, of course, is what they’re going to do,” said Michael Feroli, the chief U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan. “The other is: Even if you know what they’re going to do, what is it going to mean for the economy?”What forecasters do know is that America’s economy is solid heading into 2025, with low unemployment, solid wage gains, gradually declining Federal Reserve interest rates, and inflation that has been slowly returning to a normal pace after years of rapid price increases. Factory construction took off under the Biden administration, and those facilities will be slowly opening their doors in the coming years.But what comes next for growth and for inflation is unclear — especially because when it comes to huge issues like whether or not to assert more control over the Federal Reserve, Mr. Trump is getting different advice from different people in his orbit. Here are some of the crucial wild cards.Tariffs: Likely Inflationary. How Much Is Unclear.If economists agree about one thing regarding Mr. Trump’s policies, it is that his tariff proposals could boost prices for consumers and lift inflation. But the range of estimates over how much is wide.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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    Why Trump’s Victory Is Fueling a Market Frenzy

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    Investors have been comforted by a clear election result and are anticipating tax cuts and deregulation from a second Trump administration.Donald J. Trump’s election victory reverberated through financial markets. And one week later, bets on the economy’s path and on corporate winners or losers — known as the “Trump trade” on Wall Street — are in full swing.Stock prices for perceived winners have snapped higher: Bank valuations have soared, as investors anticipate more lenient regulations. The same is true for many large companies seeking to consolidate through mergers and acquisitions, which have frequently been blocked or discouraged under President Biden.The share price of Tesla, run by Mr. Trump’s adviser and campaign benefactor Elon Musk, has surged by more than 40 percent since the election last week. Cryptocurrencies, which Mr. Trump has pledged to lend more support, popped as well, with Bitcoin hitting record highs.Based on the president-elect’s promises of drastic immigration enforcement, which might increase demand for detention services, the shares of private prison operators also rose sharply.Presumed losers slumped in price, including smaller green energy firms benefiting from Biden-era tax credits. A range of retailers and manufacturers reliant on imported goods have also suffered, because they may be negatively exposed to tariffs that Mr. Trump has floated.The stock market overall, though, has ripped to new highs, surpassing the records it set earlier in the year.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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    Europe Braces for Trump: ‘Worst Economic Nightmare Has Come True’

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    The United States is the biggest trading partner for the European Union and Britain, whose economies could be at risk from the president-elect’s policies.The outlook for Europe’s economy has been disappointing.Last week — after Donald J. Trump’s presidential election — it got worse.Deep uncertainty about the Trump administration’s policies on trade, technology, Ukraine, climate change and more is expected to chill investment and hamstring growth. The launch of a possible tariff war by the United States, the biggest trading partner and closest ally of the European Union and Britain, would hammer major industries like automobiles, pharmaceuticals and machinery.And the need to raise military spending because of doubts about America’s guarantees in Europe would further strain national budgets and increase deficits.In addition, the president-elect’s more confrontational attitude toward China could pressure Europe to pick sides or face retribution.“Europe’s worst economic nightmare has come true,” said Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at the Dutch bank ING. The developments, he warned, could push the eurozone into “a full-blown recession” next year.With political turmoil in Germany and France, Europe’s two largest economies, this latest blow could hardly come at a worse time.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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    With Trump Tariffs Looming, Businesses Try to ‘Run From a Moving Target’

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    Rick Muskat woke up the morning after the election with an urgent task. He got his agent in China on the phone at 4:30 a.m. Beijing time and pressed him to ask their factory how many more pairs of men’s dress shoes they could make before Chinese New Year, at the end of January.“I told them if they could make an additional 30,000 pairs, we would take that,” Mr. Muskat, the co-owner of a shoe company called Deer Stags, said on Thursday.The impetus was not a sudden jump in demand for shoes but the looming threat of steep tariffs on Chinese products. By stockpiling now, Mr. Muskat reckoned, his company could avoid at least some of the levies that President-elect Donald J. Trump has promised to impose when he takes office in January.“We’re going to take whatever they can make,” Mr. Muskat said.The election of Mr. Trump is already cascading through global supply chains, where companies are grappling with his promises to remake international trade by raising the tariffs the United States puts on foreign products. Mr. Trump has floated a variety of plans — including a 10 to 20 percent tax on most foreign products, and a 60 percent tariff on goods from China — that would raise the surcharge American importers pay to a level not seen in generations.Much remains unclear about his proposals, including which countries other than China would face tariffs, what products might be excluded and when they would take effect. But given Mr. Trump’s history of imposing taxes and the challenges those pose to global businesses that depend on moving products across borders, many executives are not waiting to see what he does.Some, like Mr. Muskat, are preparing to stock up their U.S. warehouses before tariffs might go into effect. Others have been accelerating plans to move out of China, reaching out to lobbyists and lawyers in Washington and calling board meetings to discuss what the tariff threats could mean for their businesses.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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    Trump’s Tax Proposals Face a Fiscal Reckoning

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    No tax on tips? Lower corporate taxes? No tax on Social Security benefits?The slew of tax cuts President-elect Donald J. Trump proposed in loosely defined slogans over the course of his victorious campaign will now face a fiscal reckoning in Washington. While Republicans are poised to control both chambers of Congress, opening a path for Mr. Trump’s plans, the party is now grappling with how far they can take another round of tax cuts.Mr. Trump’s ambitions for a second term will ultimately have to compete with the signature accomplishment from his first: the giant tax package that Republicans passed and Mr. Trump signed into law in 2017. Large swaths of that tax cut expire at the end of next year, setting up an expensive debate that could overshadow Mr. Trump’s other goals.“Nobody wants to acknowledge at all the sheer enormity of the challenge,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist. “There’s a reckoning coming.”Unlike in 2016, when Mr. Trump’s victory surprised many in Washington, Republicans have spent months preparing for their return to power. They have been discussing using a fast-track budget process that skirts the supermajority requirement for legislation in the Senate, a tactic that would allow for a party-line passage of more tax cuts if Republicans ultimately keep control of the House.But lawmakers and advisers to Mr. Trump are undecided about how much money they can commit to lowering the nation’s taxes again. The cost of just preserving the status quo is steep. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that continuing all of the expiring provisions would cost roughly $4 trillion over a decade, and Mr. Trump’s campaign proposals could add trillions more to the debt.In interviews before the election, some Republicans said the party would have to show some fiscal discipline.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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    U.S. Farmers Brace for New Trump Trade Wars Amid Tariff Threats

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    Despite their concerns, some farm operators still support the former president and prefer his overall economic plan.To former President Donald J. Trump, “tariff” is the most beautiful word in the dictionary.But to farmers in rural America, the blanket import duties that Mr. Trump wants to enact if elected are a nightmare that they would rather not live through again.As president, Mr. Trump imposed tariffs in 2018 and 2019 on $300 billion of Chinese imports, a punishment he wielded in order to get China to negotiate a trade deal with the United States. His action triggered a trade war between Washington and Beijing, with China slapping retaliatory tariffs on American products. It also shifted more of its soybean purchases to Brazil and Argentina, hurting U.S. soybean farmers who had long relied on the Chinese market.When Mr. Trump finally announced a limited trade deal in 2019, American farmers were frazzled and subsisting on subsidies that the Trump administration had handed out to keep them afloat.Now it could happen all over again.“The prospect of additional tariffs doesn’t sound good,” said Leslie Bowman, a corn and soybean farmer from Chambersburg, Pa. “The idea of tariffs is to protect U.S. industries, but for the agricultural industry, it’s going to hurt.”The support of farmers in swing states such as Pennsylvania could be pivotal in determining the outcome of Tuesday’s election. Mr. Trump remains popular in rural America, and voters such as Mr. Bowman say they are weighing a variety of factors as they consider whom to vote for.Mr. Trump has said that if he wins the election he will put tariffs as high as 50 percent on imports from around the world. Tariffs on Chinese imports could be even higher, and some foreign products would face levies upward of 200 percent. Economists have warned that such tariffs could reignite inflation, slow economic growth and harm the industries that Mr. Trump says he wants to help.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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    Can Democrats Win Back Voters From Trump on Trade Policy?

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    The Biden administration has pursued a big shift in trade policy, but it’s not clear whether that will be enough to win votes.Since Donald J. Trump won over many working-class voters in 2016 with his vows to impose tariffs and rework “disastrous” trade deals, Democrats have been scrambling to win back supporters by taking a more protectionist trade approach.Over the last four years, the Biden administration spent more time emphasizing the harm trade policy has caused to American communities than the benefits. It hit the brakes on negotiating trade deals with other countries and chose to maintain and even increase Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products. And it pumped billions of dollars into new American factories to make semiconductors and solar panels.It’s a significant shift from the decades that both mainstream Democrats and Republicans spent working to promote trade and lower international barriers.For Vice President Kamala Harris, next week’s election will be a moment of truth for whether the strategy worked.Mr. Trump has helped bring trade to the forefront in presidential elections with his vitriolic criticisms of past policy and his proposals for high tariffs. It is an issue that resonates strongly with voters in Northern swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where manufacturing employment fell steeply in recent decades as factories moved abroad.Biden officials have been trying to persuade more trade-skeptical voters that their policies to encourage manufacturing in the United States are working, pointing to a recent surge in U.S. factory construction.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