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    Trump Promised Americans Booming Wealth. Now He’s Changing His Tune.

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    As a presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump promised an economic “boom like no other.”But eight weeks into his presidency, Mr. Trump is refusing to rule out a recession — a striking change in tone and message for a man who rode widespread economic dissatisfaction to the White House by promising to “make America affordable again.”His comments come as the stock market is tumbling — the S&P 500 fell 2.7 percent Monday after falling 3.1 percent last week — and business leaders are spooked about the uncertainty over his tariffs. Even some Republicans, who fear retribution if they cross Mr. Trump, have started to raise concerns about his levies.The moment captures a fundamental challenge for Mr. Trump, a showman who makes absolute and sweeping promises that inevitably run into the reality of governing.The economy Mr. Trump inherited was by many standards in solid shape, with low unemployment, moderate growth and an inflation rate that, while still higher than what the Federal Reserve wants, had declined substantially. But the uncertainty that his policies have injected into the outlook is a jarring contrast with the picture Mr. Trump painted on the campaign trail.“We will begin a new era of soaring incomes,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in October. “Skyrocketing wealth. Millions and millions of new jobs and a booming middle class. We are going to boom like we’ve never boomed before.”That vow to create an economic boom has come into conflict, at least for now, with the president’s favorite economic tool: tariffs. He promised those too during the campaign and, as economists warned, they are the primary driver of the country’s cloudy economic outlook. Forecasts from both JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs say a recession over the next year has become more likely because of Mr. Trump’s tariffs.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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    What Products Could Europe Levy in Retaliation to Trump’s Tariffs?

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    The European Union is putting tariffs on a range of products from the United States in retaliation to President Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs, and items that come from Republican-held states rank high on the hit list.The European Union plans to institute the tariffs in two phases: The first wave will take hold on April 1, and will impact goods that already had tariffs applied during Mr. Trump’s first term, such as bourbon, boats and motorcycles. For certain products like whiskey and Harley-Davidson motorcycles, those tariffs would be as much as a crushing 50 percent.The second wave is still being figured out, though the list of products that could be affected is already public — and is 99 pages long. In that phase, the E.U. is planning to add levies to goods worth about 18 billion euros, or 19.6 billion dollars, and is aiming for them to go into effect on April 13.The proposed goods include:Poultry, beef and porkSoybeansWine and sparkling wineBeerPants, shirts and other clothingHandbagsRefrigeratorsWashing machinesMowersExactly what those tariffs will look like remains to be seen. For now, Europe is consulting consumers, companies and policymakers across the 27-nation bloc as it finalizes the list. Many of the potential targets are largely produced in Republican-held areas, such as crops from the Louisiana district that elected Mike Johnson, the House speaker, and livestock from Nebraska and Kansas.The goal? Officials want to hit America where it hurts in order to force the United States to the negotiating table, while doing as little damage as possible to Europeans. More

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    Trump’s Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum Take Effect

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    President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum went into effect on Wednesday, escalating America’s trade spats with global competitors, including close allies already reeling from his on-and-off approach to trade penalties.Mr. Trump’s tariffs of 25 percent on the metals hit imports that enter the United States from any country in the world. The move, which many domestic steel and aluminum makers support, is expected to raise costs for American manufacturers of cars, tin cans, solar panels and other products, potentially slowing the wider U.S. economy.The action on metals was just the latest attempt by Mr. Trump to leverage the power of tariffs and the American market against foreign governments. Last week, he issued steep tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China, blaming those countries for the entry of drugs and migrants into the United States, before quickly paring some of them back. The president is threatening to impose a raft of other tariffs, including on foreign cars and against countries that he says discriminate against the United States.His approach has been met with a market slump and has sent many U.S. allies into a defensive mode as they try to decipher what the president actually wants. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump threatened to double the tariffs on Canadian metal after Ontario had responded to Mr. Trump’s previous tariffs by putting a surcharge on electricity exported to the United States. Within hours, Ontario had suspended its surcharge, and Mr. Trump walked back his threats.The metal tariffs, and other levies to come, are likely to again worsen trade disputes. Foreign governments, including in Canada, have vowed to retaliate by issuing levies that will most likely hurt U.S. exporters. On Wednesday, Europe swiftly announced tariffs on up to $28 billion worth of goods in response. The metal tariffs mainly affect U.S. allies: Canada is by far the largest supplier of both steel and aluminum to the United States. Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and Vietnam are also top suppliers of steel, while the United Arab Emirates, Russia and China are top suppliers of American aluminum.The tariffs restore and expand similar measures that Mr. Trump put in place in 2018, which ushered in several long-running trade wars. Mr. Trump argued that the tariffs were needed to protect national security and provide a reliable source of metal for the military in wartime.Biggest Steel ImportersAnnual steel imports by the top 12 places of origin More

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    Tariffs Add to Automaker Concerns About Higher Steel Costs

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    President Trump’s imposition of tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports could make it more expensive to produce cars in the United States, dealing another blow to automakers already facing the potential of rising steel prices because of other policies from his administration.Top of mind for auto executives was the bid by the Japanese steel maker Nippon Steel to buy U.S. Steel. Many of them had hoped that Mr. Trump would be open to negotiating a deal to allow the acquisition to go ahead. Instead, the president confirmed last month that he opposed the proposed deal.Many auto industry executives believe that the merger could have increased competition and supply in the American steel industry, ultimately lowering steel prices.In the United States, U.S. Steel and Cleveland-Cliffs are the only major American producers of the high-finish steel favored by automakers. Cleveland-Cliffs has long sought to acquire its rival, but such a merger has raised concerns in the auto industry that it could create a monopoly, giving the combined company the power to raise prices.By contrast, industry groups expected the proposed Nippon Steel deal to preserve competition in the market. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing major U.S., Japanese, and European automakers, expressed support for Nippon Steel’s acquisition, saying that a Cleveland-Cliffs-led deal would result in “anti-competitive pricing of materials.”Even after former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. rejected the deal in January, Nippon Steel continued efforts to revive it. Cleveland-Cliffs has recently indicated that it remains interested in bidding for the financially troubled U.S. Steel. Last month, Mr. Trump reiterated that U.S. Steel must remain American-owned, and said he would block Nippon Steel from taking a controlling stake in the company.For automakers struggling with challenges such as rising competition from Chinese rivals, costly technological transitions, and signs of a slowdown in U.S. consumer spending, the new steel tariffs are expected to further squeeze profits. The 25 percent levies, which went into effect on Wednesday, are expected to cause steel prices in the United States to rise about 16 percent compared to prices in 2024, according to the research firm Wolfe Research. More

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    Trump Pulls Back Plans to Double Canadian Metal Tariffs After Ontario Relents

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    President Trump escalated his fight with Canada on Tuesday, threatening to double tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and pressing to turn one of America’s closest traditional allies into the 51st state. After several tense hours, both sides backed down, at least for now.It was the latest in a week of chaotic trade moves, in which the president startled investors and businesses that depend on trade and clashed with some of the country’s closest trading partners.In a post on his social media platform Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump wrote that Canadian steel and aluminum would face a 50 percent tariff, double what he plans to charge on metals from other countries beginning Wednesday. He said the levies were in response to an additional charge that Ontario had placed on electricity coming into the United States, which was in turn a response to tariffs Mr. Trump imposed on Canada last week.By Tuesday afternoon, leaders had begun to relent. The premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said he would suspend the electricity surcharge, and Mr. Trump said at the White House he would “probably” reduce the tariff on Canadian metals.Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said Tuesday afternoon that Mr. Trump’s threats had succeeded in getting Canada to back down. “President Trump has once again used the leverage of the American economy, which is the best and biggest in the world, to deliver a win for the American people,” he said.As a result, he said that Canada would face the same 25 percent tariff on metals as all of America’s trading partners will when they go into effect at midnight. More

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    Trump Tariffs and Trade Wars Leave Investors, Once Optimistic, Feeling Apprehensive

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    On Tuesday, President Trump sent markets into another tailspin by announcing additional tariffs on Canada, suggesting a falling stock market is no longer the bulwark investors had hoped.President Trump made a lot of promises on the campaign trail last year. Investors and business leaders enthusiastically cheered some, like lower taxes and relaxed regulation, and expressed wariness about others, like tariffs and reduced immigration.But when Mr. Trump won the election, there was little sign of that ambivalence: Stock prices soared, as did measures of business optimism.Investors at the time offered a simple explanation: They believed Mr. Trump, backed by a Republican-controlled Congress, would follow through on the parts of his agenda that they liked and scale back the more disruptive policies like tariffs if financial markets started to get spooked.It is increasingly clear they were wrong.In his first weeks in office, Mr. Trump has made tariffs the central focus of his economic policy, promising, and at times imposing, steep penalties on allies as well as adversaries. He has threatened to curb subsidies that businesses had come to rely on. And he has empowered Elon Musk’s efforts to slash the federal bureaucracy, potentially putting tens of thousands of federal workers out of jobs and cutting off billions of dollars in government grants and contracts.Most surprising, at least to the optimists on Wall Street: Mr. Trump has so far been undeterred by signs of cracks in the economy or by plunging stock prices.“The idea that the administration is going to be held back by a self-imposed market constraint should be discounted,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the accounting firm RSM.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 Said ‘No Exceptions’ to His Tariffs. Will That Last?

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    As he prepares to introduce new tariffs on foreign metals this week, President Trump has vowed not to grant the types of exclusions and exemptions that were common during his first trade war.But he has already undercut that tough position on other tariffs. After lobbying from automakers, farmers and other industries, Mr. Trump quickly walked back the sweeping tariffs he had imposed on Tuesday on all imports from Canada and Mexico. By Thursday, he had suspended those tariffs indefinitely for all products that comply with the North American free trade deal, U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or U.S.M.C.A. — about half of all imports from Mexico and nearly 40 percent of those from Canada.That has given industries and foreign governments an opening to lobby the administration ahead of the metals tariffs, which go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, as well as other levies planned for April 2.Foreign officials have been pressing for exemptions for their steel and aluminum. In meetings in Washington on Monday, Japan’s trade minister was also expected to seek an exemption from tariffs on automobiles, which Mr. Trump has said are coming in April.Matt Blunt, president of the American Automotive Policy Council, a trade group representing U.S. automakers, said in a statement that Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis purchase the vast majority of their steel and aluminum in the United States or North America and were worried about the impact of the levies.The companies were reviewing and awaiting details of the proposed tariffs, but were “concerned” that levying them on Canada and Mexico would “add significant costs for our suppliers,” Mr. Blunt said.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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    Who Likes Tariffs? Some U.S. Industries Are Eager for Them.

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    Concern about the cost of materials has tempered business enthusiasm about taxing imports. But steel and aluminum makers say they welcome the help.The United States buys more steel from Canada than from any other country, and those imports will become much more expensive under tariffs President Trump intends to impose this week.That’s good news to Stephen Capone, president of Capone Iron Corporation of Rowley, Mass., which makes steel stairs, handrails, gratings and other products and has around 100 employees. For too long, he said, Canadian competitors have been flooding the New England market with cheap steel products, preventing his and other local companies from winning business.“No matter how low we bid, they can underbid us on any job,” Mr. Capone said, “They’re decimating our market.”Many companies oppose Mr. Trump’s tariffs, fearing that they will push up costs and provoke retaliation against their products by other countries. Ford Motor’s chief executive, Jim Farley, said last month that tariffs could “blow a hole” in the U.S. auto industry, and retailers have warned that they will lead to higher prices for consumers.But there are deep pockets of support for his trade policies in the business world, particularly among executives who say their industries have been harmed by unfair trade.In particular, the leaders of American steel and aluminum companies have long contended that foreign rivals undercut them because those rivals benefit from subsidies and other government support. And they say that tariffs, when imposed without loopholes, have been effective at spurring more investment in the United States.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