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    Trump Signs Executive Order Walking Back Some Auto Tariffs

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    Most levies on imported cars and car parts will remain in place, but automakers have secured some relaxation of the trade policy.President Trump signed a pair of executive orders on Tuesday that walked back some tariffs for carmakers, removing levies that Ford, General Motors and others have complained would backfire on U.S. manufacturing by raising the cost of production and squeezing their profits.The changes will modify Mr. Trump’s tariffs so carmakers that pay a 25 percent tariff on auto imports are not subject to other levies, for example on steel and aluminum, or on certain imports from Canada and Mexico, according to the orders. However, the rules do not appear to protect automakers from tariffs on steel and aluminum that their suppliers pay and pass on.Carmakers will also be able to qualify for tariff relief for a proportion of the cost of their imported components, though those benefits will be phased out over the next two years.At a in Michigan on Tuesday night, Mr. Trump said that he was showing “a little flexibility” to the automakers but that he wanted them to make their components in the United States.“We gave them a little time before we slaughter them if they don’t do this,” he said.The decision to reduce the scope of the tariffs is the latest sign that the Trump administration’s decision to impose stiff levies on nearly all trading partners has created challenges and economic uncertainty for American companies. But even with the concessions announced Tuesday, administration policies will add thousands of dollars to car prices and endanger the financial health of automakers and their suppliers, analysts said.Mr. Trump signed the executive orders aboard Air Force One as he flew to Michigan, home to America’s largest automakers, for a speech marking his 100 days in office.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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    White House-Amazon Spat Culminates in Trump Calling Bezos ‘Very Nice’

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    The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, attacked the retail giant over a report that suggested Amazon would highlight tariff-related price increases. Amazon said it was “not going to happen.”President Trump’s 100th day in office started with what seemed to be a fresh and fast-escalating spat between the White House and Amazon.Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, came out swinging in her press briefing on Tuesday morning, accusing Amazon of being “hostile and political” after a report — disputed by the company — from Punchbowl News saying that the online retail giant would start displaying the exact cost of tariff-related price increases alongside all its products.Displaying the import fees would have made clear to American consumers that they were shouldering the costs of Mr. Trump’s tariff policies rather than China, as he and his top officials have often claimed would be the case.After the report was published, Mr. Trump spoke about it over the phone with Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, according to three people familiar with the exchange. Amazon spokesmen hurriedly issued denials that the policy was going into effect, and by Tuesday afternoon Mr. Trump was back to praising Mr. Bezos.“Jeff Bezos is very nice,” Mr. Trump said to reporters as he embarked on a trip to Michigan for a rally commemorating the first 100 days of his second term. “He solved the problem very quickly. He did the right thing. Good guy.”This arc between Mr. Trump and Mr. Bezos that played out over just a few hours seemed telling. The Amazon mogul is among the billionaires who have gone to ever new lengths to get in good with this White House. Mr. Trump, in turn, has managed to woo such billionaires by promising he’d be better for business. And yet, at the first sign that Mr. Bezos might be prioritizing his businesses interests in a way that would harm Mr. Trump’s political fortunes, the White House didn’t hesitate to lash out publicly.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 May Unintentionally Cut Carbon Emissions

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    President Trump has expressed little interest in fighting climate change. One of his key cabinet officials has even sought to evaluate whether humanity benefits from a warming climate, in a bid to undermine environmental rules.Yet even as he works to accelerate oil and gas production, Mr. Trump’s economic approach may inadvertently reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as consumption slows in response to a global trade war.Any reprieve for the planet, however, would be brief. Over the longer term, tanking the economy with tit-for-tat tariffs is likely to impede progress, because of how much clean energy deployment depends on overseas supply chains and because voters are less likely to support climate policy when they’re financially stressed.Carbon emissions, largely a byproduct of going places and making things, have always been tethered to economic growth. Forecasters increasingly anticipate that Mr. Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs could tip the economy into recession as companies and consumers cut spending in the face of higher prices for imported goods.“If we’re talking about a traditional recession, people fly less, they buy less stuff, there’s less investment in capital goods,” said Alex Heil, a senior economist at the Conference Board, who focuses on energy and climate. “And just a slowdown in economic activity is likely to slow down carbon emissions.”That is what happened in the last two recessions. Global carbon emissions dipped slightly, before resuming their upward march. (Emissions in the United States continued to decline after 2008 as cheap natural gas displaced coal, and it’s possible that a similar peak is nearing for the rest of the world.)Carbon Emissions Slow When the Economy Takes a Hit

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    Global annual carbon emissions
    Source: Global Carbon BudgetBy 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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    New Data Provide a Pre-Tariff Snapshot of a Stable but Slowing Labor Market

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    But the effects of the levies, which have created uncertainty for businesses, have not yet been fully felt.The labor market remained sound in March, with job openings declining but layoffs remaining near record lows, while rates of new hiring were slow but steady, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday.The numbers from last month are a snapshot of the state of the U.S. economy and labor market before the start of the global trade volatility brought on by President Trump’s tariff campaign.“It reflects a labor market that ‘could have been,’ given the damage tariffs will do,” argued Guy Berger, the director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute, which studies the labor market. “We have the foundations of a labor market stabilization,” he added, “but trade policy has other ideas.”The prevailing environment before April of subdued hiring and few firings was not an easy one for active job seekers, especially in certain sectors like tech and manufacturing. But the stability of the overall job market was undeniable — so much so that some labor economists started to worry that the conditions bordered on stagnant.Now, the economy is facing a radically different set of challenges.Consumer sentiment has plunged since January, when the import taxes were announced by the White House, as fears of both job loss and higher inflation have surged among households and top business leaders.The effects of the tariffs on shipping have not yet been fully felt. But experts in global freight logistics, such as Craig Fuller, the founder of FreightWaves, expect that to change in the coming days and weeks as companies face tariffs ranging from 10 percent to well over 120 percent on many Chinese goods.Federal job openings declined by 36,000 in March, a result of the Trump administration’s steep cutbacks to the federal civil service. And in the overall labor market, job openings fell by 288,000. Some financial analysts are focused on a broader, monthslong pre-tariff slowdown.“The main story is that job openings are down,” said Neil Dutta, the head of economics at the research firm Renaissance Macro. “We are at the point where opening declines push up unemployment.”The jobs report for April will help fill out some of the economic picture. Economists expect unemployment to have been largely unchanged and for moderate job growth to have continued. But forecasters are bracing for surprises because of the uncertainty surrounding the tariffs.The employment picture and consumer spending remain bright for now — a point that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has emphasized in his public remarks.But many analysts, including Daniel Altman, the chief economist at Instawork, a job search and recruitment site, are in wait-and-see mode.“I think the jobs report will be more revealing,” Mr. Altman said. More

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    Trump’s 100-Day Economic Report Card

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    Market chaos and economic uncertainty has been a feature of the president’s first few months back in office. DealBook breaks down the milestones, and what to expect next.Trump’s tumultuous start When President Trump took office in January for his second term, business leaders anticipated an administration that would lower taxes, loosen regulations and open up deal-making.Instead, Wall Street got chaos. The president has taken a cudgel to global trade with enormous tariffs, threatened the independence of the Fed and made the landscape for M.&A. more uncertain.Under Trump, the S&P 500 has fallen about 8 percent, the worst performance for the first 100 days of a presidency since President Gerald Ford in 1974.Back then, the Watergate scandal prompted political instability and the economy was facing a recession and an oil crisis. The markets this year have been socked by the president’s protectionist trade policy.Here are the themes that have defined Trump’s first 100 days in office. Trump will commemorate the occasion with a rally in Michigan this evening, and the White House is expected to announce relief on auto tariffs.On that note: General Motors on Tuesday pulled its full-year forecast as it reported first-quarter results. “The prior guidance cannot be relied upon” amid tariffs uncertainty, said Paul Jacobson, the company’s C.F.O.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 Administration Looks to Take Steps to Ease Pain From Car Tariffs

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    The planned concessions to give automakers more time to relocate production to the United States would still leave substantial tariffs on imported cars and car parts.The Trump administration said it plans to announce measures as early as Tuesday to ease the impact of tariffs on imported cars and car parts to give automakers more time to relocate production to the United States.Tariffs of 25 percent on imported vehicles and on auto parts will remain in place. But the tariffs will be modified so that they are not “stacked” with other tariffs, for example on steel and aluminum, a White House spokesman said. Automakers will not have to pay tariffs on those metals, widely used in automobiles, on top of the tariffs on cars and parts.In addition, automakers will be reimbursed for some of the cost of tariffs on imported components. The reimbursement will amount to up to 3.75 percent of the value of a new car in the first year, but will be phased out over two years, the spokesman confirmed.A 25 percent tariff on imported cars took effect April 3. On Saturday, the tariffs are set to be extended to include imported parts.“President Trump is building an important partnership with both the domestic automakers and our great American workers,” Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said in a statement. “This deal is a major victory for the president’s trade policy by rewarding companies who manufacture domestically, while providing runway to manufacturers who have expressed their commitment to invest in America and expand their domestic manufacturing.”But even with these changes, there will still be substantial tariffs on imported cars and auto parts, which will raise prices for new and used cars by thousands of dollars and increase the cost of repairs and insurance premiums.The modification to the tariffs was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Lutnick helped automakers secure a major exemption from tariffs in March and has taken on a role advocating relief for some industries hit by the levies.Automakers welcomed the change. “We believe the president’s leadership is helping level the playing field for companies like G.M. and allowing us to invest even more in the U.S. economy,” Mary T. Barra, the chief executive of General Motors, said in a statement on Monday. “We appreciate the productive conversations with the president and his administration and look forward to continuing to work together.” More

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    Why the Economic Disruption From Trump’s Tariff War Will Be Hard to Reverse

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    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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    Howard Lutnick, Trump’s ‘Buoyant’ Trade Warrior, Flexes His Power Over Global Business

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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