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    Trump’s Tariff Goal Is to Eliminate Trade Deficits. Economists Have Doubts.

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    Behind Trump’s new tariffs is a goal that is as ambitious as it is unrealistic: eliminating the bilateral trade deficit with every U.S. trading partner.Behind President Trump’s decision to hit some of America’s largest trading partners with stiff tariffs is his fixation on the trade deficit that the United States runs with other nations. But many economists say that is a poor metric for judging the quality of a trade relationship.The steep tariffs, which went into effect on nearly 60 trading partners on Wednesday, were calculated based on bilateral trade deficits, or the gap between what the United States sells to each country and what it buys.Mr. Trump has long viewed that gap as evidence that America is being “ripped off” by other countries. He argues that other countries’ unfair behavior has made trade so skewed and that the United States needs to be able to manufacture more of what it consumes. But economists argue this is a flawed way to approach the issue, given that bilateral trade deficits crop up for many reasons beyond unfair practices.“It’s totally silly,” Dani Rodrik, an economist who studies globalization at Harvard University, said of Mr. Trump’s focus on bilateral deficits. “There’s no other way to say it, it makes no sense.”Some economists do agree with the Trump administration that America’s overall trade deficit with the rest of the world reflects a problem for the U.S. economy, because the United States is so dependent on manufacturing elsewhere, including in China. But others don’t see it as an issue. And nearly all economists say that focusing on imbalances from country to country can be highly misleading.Last year, for example, the United States ran bilateral trade surpluses with 116 countries globally. It ran bilateral trade deficits with 114 countries, according to World Bank data.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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    E.U. Officials Set to Vote Today on First Retaliatory Tariffs

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    The European Union plans to vote on Wednesday afternoon on its first retaliation measures in response to President Trump’s tariffs, moving closer to placing increased duties on a range of manufactured goods and farm products that would take effect in phases starting next week.The list up for consideration is a slightly trimmed down version of one that was announced in mid-March in response to Mr. Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs. E.U. officials have spent recent weeks consulting with policymakers and industries from across the 27-nation bloc in an effort to minimize how much the countermeasures would harm Europeans.The final list is expected to exclude bourbon, for instance, after Mr. Trump threatened to place a 200 percent tariff on all European alcohol in response to its inclusion. That would have been a crushing blow for wine producers in France, Italy and Spain.“We are not in a business of going, let’s say, cent for cent, or tit for tat, or dollar for dollar,” Maros Sefcovic, the bloc’s trade commissioner, said this week.Since last month, the United States has introduced tariffs of 25 percent on steel, aluminum and cars, and broad 20 percent on everything else coming from Europe — and those broad-based tariffs took effect on Wednesday. European Union officials have said they would prefer to negotiate to get rid of those higher levies, and have even offered to cut tariffs to zero on cars and other industrial products if the United States does the same.But with serious negotiations slow to materialize, Europe is striking back in a staggered way. The retaliatory tariffs up for a vote on Wednesday would be a first step, in response only to steel and aluminum 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

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    Trump Maintains 104% China Tariffs as U.S. Officials Signal Openness to Talks

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    President Trump’s next round of punishing tariffs on some of America’s largest trading partners was set to go into effect just after midnight on Wednesday, including stiff new levies that will increase import taxes on Chinese goods by at least 104 percent.Mr. Trump acknowledged on Tuesday that his tariffs had been “somewhat explosive.” But throughout the day he continued to defend his approach, saying that it was encouraging countries with what he calls “unfair” trade practices to offer concessions.“We have a lot of countries coming in to make deals,” he said during remarks at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. At a dinner with Congressional Republicans in Washington later that evening, he said other countries wanted to make a deal with the United States but he was happy just collecting the revenue from tariffs, which he claimed would reach $2 billion a day.“I know what the hell I’m doing,” he said, adding that he would be announcing “a major tariff on pharmaceuticals” very shortly.The president and top administration officials signaled on Tuesday that the White House was ready to negotiate deals, saying that 70 governments had approached the United States to try to roll the levies back. Mr. Trump said officials would begin talks with Japan, South Korea and other nations.The president, whose punitive and successive tariffs on China have triggered a potentially economically damaging trade war, also said he was open to talking to Beijing about a deal.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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    Stock Market Chaos Over Tariffs Could Take Toll on Economy

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    A big hit to portfolios would be felt acutely by higher-income Americans, whose spending has recently been the biggest driver of the economy.This time, maybe the stock market is the economy.Financial markets around the world have plummeted in the days since President Trump announced sweeping tariffs, setting off a global trade war. The S&P 500 declined more than 10 percent in two days last week, and it swung wildly on Monday amid news of further tariffs and rumors of delays. Stock indexes in Asia and Europe have fallen sharply as well.Experts often caution that the stock market can be a misleading measure of the broader economy. Share prices can move for a host of reasons — technological developments, shifts in consumer preferences, changes in tax or interest rate policy.Sometimes, though, the markets carry an economic message — and in recent days, they have been speaking unusually clearly. Investors overwhelmingly believe that Mr. Trump’s tariffs, and retaliation from U.S. trading partners, will lead to higher prices, slower growth and possibly a global recession.Plunging stock prices may not just reflect fears of a recession. They may also help cause one, as consumers pull back spending in response to their portfolios’ evaporating value.A few days of turmoil might not matter much, said Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, a forecasting firm, “but if the drop in the stock market persists for a few weeks, a couple months, the economic costs begin to quickly mount.”The direct effects of tariffs will fall hardest on low- and moderate-income consumers, who tend to spend more of their money on food, clothing and other goods subject to duties, and who have less savings to insulate them from higher prices. But market declines will be felt most acutely by higher earners, who own a disproportionate share of stocks and other investments.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 China, Canada and Other Nations are Responding to Trump’s Tariffs

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    <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>The other was Canada, which last month placed tariffs on a variety of U.S. goods. The European Union, while signalling that it would prefer to negotiate, is said to be working to finalize a list of U.S. goods that it would target.–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>Other economies — even large ones […] More

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    Global Leaders Rush to Woo Trump, Hoping to Sway Him on Tariffs

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    Dozens of foreign governments were trying to appeal to the president to have steep tariffs rolled back, but the president and his advisers have indicated negotiations could be difficult.President Trump’s plan to impose sweeping tariffs on most of America’s trading partners has governments across the globe racing to schedule phone calls, send delegations to Washington and offer up proposals to lower their import taxes in order to escape the levies.On Monday, European officials offered to drop tariffs to zero on cars and industrial goods imported from the United States, in return for the same treatment. Israel’s prime minister was expected to personally petition Mr. Trump on Monday in meetings at the White House. Vietnam’s top leader, in a phone call last week, offered to get rid of tariffs on American goods, while Indonesia prepared to send a high-level delegation to Washington, D.C., to “directly negotiate with the U.S. government.”Even Lesotho, the tiny landlocked country in Southern Africa, was assembling a delegation to send to Washington to protest the tariffs on its exports to the United States, which include denim for Calvin Klein and Levi’s.Mr. Trump and his advisers have given mixed signals on whether the United States is willing to negotiate. On Sunday, Mr. Trump said that the tariffs would remain in place until U.S. trade deficits disappeared, meaning the United States is no longer buying more from these countries than it sells to them. But the administration still appeared to be welcoming offers from foreign nations, which are desperate to try to forestall more levies that go into effect on Wednesday.On Monday, as markets recoiled for a third day and Mr. Trump threatened even more punishing tariffs on China, the president said that “negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately.”“Countries from all over the World are talking to us,” the president wrote on Truth Social on Monday morning. “Tough but fair parameters are being set. Spoke to the Japanese Prime Minister this morning. He is sending a top team to negotiate!”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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    After Navarro Defends Tariffs, Bessent Says Trump Is Ready to Negotiate

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    Peter Navarro, a senior White House trade adviser, on Monday defended the sweeping tariffs President Trump has imposed on foreign nations and indicated that other countries’ offers to drop their own tariffs on American products would be insufficient to convince the president to retreat.Mr. Navarro, who has been the architect of many of President Trump’s trade plans, said on CNBC that the United States was facing a national emergency based on chronic trade deficits, and the only fix would be foreign countries removing trade barriers that had hindered the flow of American goods.The European Union offered Monday to drop its tariffs on American cars and industrial goods to zero if the United States did the same. But Mr. Navarro criticized the bloc for its value-added taxes and restrictions on American meat exports, as well as systematically higher tariffs.“You steal from the American people every which way is possible,” Mr. Navarro said. “So, don’t just say we’re going to lower our tariffs.”Mr. Navarro also targeted Vietnam, which has appealed to the president in recent days to have its tariffs reduced. He accused Vietnam of dumping products into U.S. markets, engaging in intellectual property theft and killing industries like shrimp, kitchen cabinets and others.“When they come to us and say, we’ll go to zero tariffs, that means nothing to us, because it’s the non-tariff cheating that matters,” Mr. Navarro said.But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who, with Jamieson Greer, the United States trade representative, was put in charge of negotiations with Japan, signaled in an interview later in the day that Mr. Trump is ready to negotiate. “President Trump, as you know, is better than anyone at giving himself maximum leverage,” he said. Mr. Bessent said he had suggested that foreign officials “keep your cool, do not escalate and come to us with your offers.” He added: “And at a point, President Trump will be ready to negotiate.”In the CNBC interview in the morning, Mr. Navarro said that tax cuts were forthcoming, as well as other benefits for Americans, like deregulation, lower energy prices, lower interest rates and the restructuring of manufacturing.“We’re going to get to a place where America makes stuff again, real wages are going to be up, profits are going to be up,” he said, adding, “the market’s going to find a bottom.” Stock markets closed slightly lower Monday, following two days of punishing losses last week.He was also asked about Elon Musk’s very public criticism of tariffs and of Mr. Navarro specifically over the weekend. Responding to a social-media post praising Mr. Navarro, Mr. Musk on Saturday mocked Mr. Navarro’s Ivy League degree as useless, and then said Mr. Navarro had not “built” anything.On Monday, Mr. Navarro said that Mr. Musk was “not a car manufacturer” but “a car assembler,” mentioning that Tesla’s plant in Texas imported batteries, electronics, tires and other parts. “He wants the cheap foreign parts, and we understand that,” he said. More

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    Trump Says No Pause to Tariffs as He Targets China for Retaliation

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    President Trump said on Monday that he does not plan to pause a slate of expansive tariffs set to take effect later this week, as he threatened to subject Chinese imports to a staggering 104 percent tax in a bid to ward off retaliation by Beijing and other powers.Mr. Trump issued his warning on a day when the White House once again found itself on the defensive for its spiraling global trade war. But the president insisted he remained unbowed by the widening range of governments pleading for relief and the markets convulsing anew over the chaos and confusion.“We’re not looking at that,” Mr. Trump said, when asked about a possible pause on his tariffs. “We’re going to have one shot at this and no other president is going to do what I’m doing.”Mr. Trump began the day by drawing new battle lines over his so-called reciprocal tariffs, which he plans to impose on certain countries after midnight on Wednesday. The taxes, which can reach as high as 46 percent for some nations, will snap into effect just days after the president imposed a minimum 10 percent levy on nearly every U.S. trading partner.Mr. Trump specifically targeted China, which announced last week it would match the United States by imposing a retaliatory 34 percent tax on imports from America. In a post on Truth Social, the president demanded that Beijing rescind its retribution or face an additional 50 percent U.S. tariff beginning April 9. He also threatened to halt any further negotiations.The escalation could bring the U.S. tariff on Chinese goods to 104 percent, though for some products, the rate is likely to be much higher because of levies that date back to Mr. Trump’s first term. Taken together, it could prove costly for importers bringing in clothing, cellphones, chemicals and machinery from China. American consumers last year bought $440 billion of goods from China, making it the second-largest source of U.S. imports after Mexico.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