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    Peter Navarro: The Architect of Trump’s Tariffs

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    On a clear day last July in Miami, Peter Navarro emerged from four months in federal prison, where he’d been imprisoned for contempt of Congress. Mr. Navarro had refused to testify in an investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, an action he described as a defense of the Constitution.Just hours after his release from prison, Mr. Navarro flew to Milwaukee to speak at the Republican National Convention in support of Donald J. Trump’s re-election.“They convicted me, they jailed me. Guess what? They did not break me,” he said that night, punctuating each word as the crowd roared. It was an exercise in loyalty to Mr. Trump that seems to have paid off.For much of Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Navarro, a trade adviser, had been sidelined, mocked and minimized by other officials who saw his protectionist views on trade as factually wrong and dangerous for the country.But in the second Trump administration, Mr. Navarro, 75, an economist and trade skeptic, has been newly empowered. He returned to government more confident in his revanchist vision for the American economy, more dismissive of his critics, and with more than a dozen trade-related executive orders already drafted, many of which the president has since signed. Mr. Trump also came back to Washington more determined to finally realize the trade views he has held for decades, that an unfair trading system was ripping America off and needed to be radically changed.Why Peter Navarro switched sidesAna Swanson explains how China’s entry into the World Trade Organization turned Navarro, a Southern California professor, into President Trump’s biggest trade warrior.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 Shifted on Tariffs After Bond Holders Got Jittery. He Held Millions Himself.

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    As of August, the president’s investment portfolio showed significantly more in bonds than in stocks. It is unclear if his personal holdings had any bearing on his decisions regarding tariffs.When President Trump paused a punishing round of global tariffs last week, he attributed his change of heart to one main thing.“I was watching the bond market,” he said. “The bond market is very tricky.”Mr. Trump should know — he had a big personal stake in it.A New York Times analysis of Mr. Trump’s financial holdings shows that he had roughly $125 million to about $443 million invested in bonds as of last year, a range that far eclipsed his investment portfolio’s exposure to the stock market.Mr. Trump does own a huge stake in his publicly traded social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, but he has said he has no plans to sell those shares, currently worth roughly $2 billion. The company’s stock, which he listed separately from his liquid stock and bond holdings on his latest financial disclosure, had already plunged about 40 percent this year before the new round of tariffs.Mr. Trump appeared unfazed when the tariffs sent the stock market into a tailspin, wiping out trillions of dollars in value in a matter of days.His nonchalance faded on April 9 after fears over the impact of Mr. Trump’s tariffs had spread to the government bond market, posing a potential existential threat to the global economy and signaling a weakening faith in U.S.-backed assets as a safe haven. Mr. Trump, whose own bond investments were also at risk, paused the most punitive of the import taxes for 90 days for all countries except China.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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    Meloni and Trump Oval Office Meeting Cements Special Rapport

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    In Washington, President Trump inundated Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy with praise. She said he had accepted an invitation to go to Rome.For international leaders, visiting the White House these days is an unpredictable undertaking that comes with a risk of being embarrassed, or worse, berated, by President Trump. For Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, Thursday’s meeting in the Oval Office was largely a smooth affair, with Mr. Trump covering her in hyperbolic praise and making clear he is fond of her.But beyond the friendly anti-immigration banter, and shared optimism that the European Union and the United States would reach a trade deal, neither leader indicated that they had made substantial progress on negotiations over tariffs and other issues.“We’re in no rush,” Mr. Trump said.Ms. Meloni was the first European leader to visit the White House since Mr. Trump imposed and then partly paused sweeping tariffs against the European Union. And the meeting dispelled any remaining doubts on the special relationship between the two leaders. But what the rapport could yield for Italy and for Europe remained unclear.“She was treated like a first-rank ally,” said Lorenzo Castellani, a political scientist at Luiss Guido Carli university in Rome, adding that it was unusual for Italy, which is not a military or economic powerhouse.“She became a de facto mediator,” he added, “but in concrete terms, she did not bring anything home.”The European countries’ trade policy is conducted collectively through the European Union, and Ms. Meloni made it clear that she could not look for a deal on behalf of the bloc. So perhaps her biggest achievement was having Mr. Trump accept her invitation to pay an official visit in the “near future” to Rome, where she hoped he would meet with European officials. If that happens, it could help cement her position as a conduit between Europe and the United States. For now, though, as she said, Mr. Trump had offered no guarantee that he would meet with European officials.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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    IMF Warns Trump Tariffs Will Weaken Economy and Increase Inflation

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    Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned in a speech that protectionism erodes productivity.The world economy is expected to grow slower this year and experience higher inflation than previously anticipated, according to new forecasts to be released by the International Monetary Fund that will show the global fallout of the U.S. trade war.The growth projections, to be released early next week, will offer the clearest indication to date of the damage that President Trump’s economic policies are having on global output. Since taking office in January, Mr. Trump has imposed a wide range of tariffs on most of America’s trading partners, while ratcheting levies even higher on imports from China, Canada and Mexico.“Our new growth projections will include notable markdowns, but not recession,” Kristalina Georgieva, the I.M.F. managing director, said on Thursday in a speech ahead of the spring meetings of the I.M.F. and the World Bank. “We will also see markups to the inflation forecasts for some countries.”Ms. Georgieva’s comments added to a growing chorus of top economic officials, including the heads of the Federal Reserve and the World Bank, who have sounded alarms this week about the potential harm that Mr. Trump’s policies could cause.The European Central Bank on Thursday lowered interest rates, saying that “the outlook for growth has deteriorated owing to rising trade tensions.” Central bankers, finance ministers and other policymakers will gather in Washington next week as they continue to grapple with how to respond.Ms. Georgieva was careful in her criticism of the Trump administration’s policies, which have created widespread uncertainty for businesses and are disrupting international supply chains. But she made clear her concerns about the costs of protectionism.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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    Powell Warns Trump Tariffs Could Trigger Higher Inflation and Slower Growth

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    Jerome H. Powell warned that President Trump’s tariffs could lead to a “challenging scenario” for the central bank.Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, stressed that the tariffs announced so far go well beyond what the Fed had expected even in its worst-case scenario.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesAs President Trump’s trade policy has started to take shape, officials at the Federal Reserve have been more vocal about how such sweeping tariffs will affect the economy.Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the central bank, recently warned that levies of the scope and scale Mr. Trump was pursuing would most likely lead to even higher inflation and slower growth than initially expected — the makings of what’s known as a stagflationary shock.Mr. Powell expanded on those remarks on Wednesday, stressing that the tariffs announced so far go well beyond what the Fed had expected even in its worst-case scenario. In a speech at the Economic Club of Chicago, he laid out in greater detail how the Fed would deal with a situation in which its goals for a healthy labor market as well as low and stable inflation clashed with each other.“We may find ourselves in the challenging scenario in which our dual-mandate goals are in tension,” Mr. Powell said. “If that were to occur, we would consider how far the economy is from each goal, and the potentially different time horizons over which those respective gaps would be anticipated to close.”In a moderated discussion after his speech, Mr. Powell said the Fed would have to make “what will no doubt be a very difficult judgment” about which of its goals to prioritize.Mr. Powell’s comment accelerated a sell-off in stocks, with the S&P 500 ending the day down more than 2 percent. U.S. government bonds rallied, while the dollar continued to weaken against a basket of major currencies.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 Has Mixed Emotions Toward Japan

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    The president at turns praises and criticizes Japan, a U.S. ally that decades ago stirred his anger over the unequal balance of trade and his penchant for tariffs.This month in the White House’s Rose Garden, as he held up a placard showing the global wave of tariffs he wanted to impose, President Trump paused to fondly recall a fallen friend.“The prime minister of Japan, Shinzo, was — Shinzo Abe — he was a fantastic man,” Mr. Trump said during the tariff announcement on April 2. “He was, unfortunately, taken from us, assassination.”The words of praise for Mr. Abe, who was gunned down three years ago during a campaign speech, did not stop Mr. Trump from slapping a 24 percent tariff on products imported from Japan. But they were unusual, nonetheless, coming from a president who has had few nice things to say these days about other allies, particularly Canada and Europe.Now, Japan will be one of the first countries allowed to bargain for a possible reprieve from Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs, many of which he has put on hold for 90 days. On Thursday, a negotiator handpicked by Japan’s current prime minister is scheduled to begin talks in Washington with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others.Japan’s place at the front of the line reflects the different approach that Mr. Trump has taken toward the nation. While the president still accuses it of unfair trade policies and an unequal security relationship, he also praises it in the same breath as a close ally, an ancient culture and a savvy negotiator.“I love Japan,” Mr. Trump told reporters last month. “But we have an interesting deal with Japan where we have to protect them but they don’t have to protect us,” referring to the security treaty that bases 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan.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 10% Tariff May Be Less Onerous but Still Raises Prices and Threatens Trade

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    The blanket tariffs, once considered extreme, still threaten to harm world trade and make everything more expensive for businesses and consumers.President Trump’s global 10 percent tariff is likely to make consumer goods more expensive.When Donald J. Trump championed the idea of a 10 percent blanket tariff during the campaign, many people, whether for or against, were taken aback by how radical the idea was.Alarms sounded about higher inflation, lost jobs, slower growth or recession. The prospect seemed so outlandish that most economists and Wall Street analysts who gamed out the possibilities tended to treat a 10 percent tariff simply as a bargaining tool.Now, after a rapid-fire series of announcements from the White House that promised, imposed, reversed, delayed, decreased and increased tariffs, the 10 percent solution is looking like the most temperate choice rather than the most revolutionary, especially now that a red-hot trade war between China and the United States is blazing.Yet 10 percent tariffs have not lost their sting.At that level, universal tariffs still hit more than 10 times as many imports as the ones targeted during Mr. Trump’s first term, and are significantly higher and broader than anything the United States has tried in more than 90 years.The tariff rate is “quite extreme,” said Carsten Brzeski, chief eurozone economist at ING, a Dutch bank. “It still brings us back to levels last seen during the 1930s.”In addition to measures targeting China, Mr. Trump powered up a long list of punishing taxes — including a flat 10 percent tariff on most imports — on April 9. 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