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    Lesotho Has Few Options to Counter 50% U.S. Tariffs

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    In Lesotho, the small southern African nation that is among the countries hardest hit by President Trump’s new tariffs, business owners were meeting on Wednesday to strategize their response.For a country with an economy worth just $2.1 billion, few options are on the table.Mr. Trump imposed a 50 percent tariff on Lesotho, owing to the trade deficit between the country of 2.3 million people and the United States. Only Saint Pierre, a sparsely populated French archipelago off the coast of Canada, was hit the same tariff increase.On Wednesday, Lesotho’s private sector was looking to the government for answers. The government, facing the prospect of huge job losses, was preparing to make its case to the White House.“There’s a lot of panic,” said Thabo Qhesi, a business analyst who attended the business owners’ meeting, held in Lesotho’s capital, Maseru. The most anxious people in the room, he said in a telephone interview, were those connected to Lesotho’s textile and apparel industries, which export about 70 percent of their products to the United States.“They have no option but to close down or relocate to the countries where it would be more profitable to them,” Mr. Qhesi said.Most of Lesotho’s garment factories are owned by Chinese and Taiwanese companies that set up shop to take advantage of preferential terms allowed under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a trade agreement with 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

  • 150 Shares199 Views

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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

  • 138 Shares199 Views

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    Why Did Trump Impose Tariffs, and What’s Next? Everything to Know.

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    President Trump announced what could be one of the most drastic economic policy changes in decades on Wednesday, when he substituted America’s longstanding system of taxing imports with a new tariff system of his own devising.The president said the tariffs would reverse decades of what he called unfair treatment by the rest of the world and result in factories and jobs moving back to the United States.“The markets are going to boom” and “the country is going to boom,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday, as global financial markets suffered their biggest rout in years. He added that other countries “have taken advantage of us for many, many years.”Economists’ estimates have been far more grim, with most predicting that the president’s sweeping tariffs and likely retaliation will slow U.S. economic growth, push up costs for consumers and make life difficult for businesses that depend on international supply chains.The president’s measure is both consequential and complicated. Here’s what you need to know.What did the president just do?Mr. Trump announced two big tariff plans that apply to most of the world. One component is a “base line” tariff of 10 percent that will apply broadly to nearly all U.S. imports, except for products coming from Canada and Mexico.The second measure is what the president is calling a “reciprocal” tariff. That levy will apply to 57 countries that Mr. Trump says have high tariffs and other unfair economic practices that have hurt American exporters. He said this is a reciprocal tariff because it will match the way other countries treat 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

  • 163 Shares169 Views

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    After Trump Tariffs, Volkswagen to Add ‘Import Fees’ to Cars Sold in U.S.

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    Volkswagen, the German automaker, has told its car dealers that it plans to add an import fee later this month to the price of imported cars sold in the United States.The company’s move is one of the first and clearest examples of automakers using price increases to deal with the 25 percent tariffs President Trump imposed on car and auto parts imports. The tariffs on vehicles went into effect on Thursday and the levies on parts will become effective on May 3.In an April 1 memo to dealers, Volkswagen said that the exact fees would be determined by the middle of April. The New York Times reviewed a copy of the memo. The automaker also told dealers it planned to cut back on sales incentives and had halted rail shipments of cars to the United States from its plants in Mexico, although shipments by sea continue.Volkswagen plans to hold cars that are subject to the tariffs in port for “the near term.” It also told dealers that the price of the Volkswagen Atlas sport utility vehicle, which is made in Chattanooga, Tenn., could be affected by the tariffs because it includes important imported components. The extent of the impact most likely will not be known until May, the memo said.The automaker, including its Audi and Porsche brands, imports almost all the cars it sells in the United States. Besides the Atlas, Volkswagen also assembles the ID.4 electric sport-utility vehicle in Tennessee.In a statement, Volkswagen confirmed it had sent the memo to dealers because it wanted to be “very transparent about navigating through this time of uncertainty.”“We have our dealers’ and customers’ best interest at heart, and once we have quantified the impact on the business we will share our strategy with our dealers,” the company said.Other automakers are also making adjustments to respond to the tariffs. Stellantis, which owns Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler, said on Thursday that it is temporarily halting production at a plant in Mexico and another in Canada in response to the auto tariffs.The company said that a factory in Windsor, Ontario, that makes the Chrysler Pacifica minivan and the Dodge Charger muscle car will shut down for two weeks. And a plant in Toluca, Mexico, that makes the Jeep Compass and Wagoneer S will be idled starting on April 7 for the rest of the month.Stellantis said that the production stoppages in Canada and Mexico would force it to lay off about 900 workers in Indiana and Michigan. More

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    Trump’s Tariffs Hit Garment Makers in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka Hard

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    Through Covid, political chaos, and economic disarray, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh kept one industry central to their hopes of prosperity afloat: the manufacturing of ready-made garments, with the United States as their main market.Then came President Trump’s tariffs.The two countries are reeling after Sri Lanka was hit with 44 percent tariffs and Bangladesh subjected to 37 percent levies. Officials in both countries scrambled to contain panic among business leaders, who worried that they may no longer be able to compete with bigger manufacturing powers, and that their orders could shift to places with lower tariffs and greater industrial muscle.“We will have to write our obituary notice,” said Tuli Cooray, a consultant at the Joint Apparel Association Forum of Sri Lanka, an industry association. “Forty-four percent is no joke.”The Trump administration’s tariffs have hit countries at the heart of the global apparel industry especially hard. An analysis by William Blair, an equity research firm, showed that the countries that produce 85 percent of U.S. apparel imports faced an average tariff of 32 percent.Targeting the manufacturers not only upends the economies of these nations, but also adds to the burden of U.S. companies, analysts warned. William Blair said merchandise costs could go up by about 30 percent and American consumers may ultimately feel the pinch.Bangladesh sends more than $7bn of clothing to the U.S. every year. The country’s garment manufacturing industry makes up 80 percent of its total exports and employs more than four million people, mostly women. Bangladesh has one of the highest female work force participation rates in the region, which has helped lift a large section of the population out of poverty.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

  • 125 Shares139 Views

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    Trump Tariffs Aim to Revive U.S. Manufacturing. Is That Possible?

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    President Trump’s imposition of tariffs on a scale unseen in nearly a century is more than a shot across the bow at U.S. trading partners. If kept in place, the import taxes will also launch an economic project of defiant nostalgia: an attempt to reclaim America’s place as a dominant manufacturing power.In the postwar heyday of American manufacturing, which endured into the 1970s, nearly 20 million people once made their living from manufacturing. The United States was a leading producer of motor vehicles, aircraft and steel, and manufacturing accounted for more than a quarter of total employment.By the end of last year, after a fundamental reordering of the world economy, manufacturing employed about 8 percent of the nation’s workers.Now, the country is wealthier than ever. Yet the economy looks, and feels, quite different — dominated by service work of all types, both lucrative and low-wage. Industrial hubs in the American interior have often withered, leaving many strongholds of Mr. Trump’s base on the economic fringes.Protectionist industrial policies, of varying methods and attitudes, have been on the rise for a decade — from the time Mr. Trump began his first campaign for president in 2015 through the presidency of Joseph R. Biden Jr. and now with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office again.But the president’s announcement, at a flag-draped Rose Garden ceremony on Wednesday, represented a tectonic shift in U.S. economic policy, the fullest repudiation of an embrace of global free trade that began on a bipartisan basis in the 1980s.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 Says His Tariffs Will Address Unfair Global Trade. Is He Right?

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    President Trump has accused America’s trading partners of undermining the United States for decades, saying they have engaged in unfair trade practices to steal the country’s wealth and enrich their own economies.He has set his sights on not only adversaries like China, but also traditional allies like Canada and Europe. And he has complained about a number of factors, including high tariffs that other countries charge American products, and persistent trade deficits the United States has with foreign countries. Mr. Trump has promised to correct this situation on Wednesday, when he announces expansive tariffs on foreign products that he says will level the playing field.In some cases, there’s truth to the president’s claim that the United States offers its trading partners more favorable terms than it often gets in return. As a proponent of free markets, the United States has long been more open to trade than many countries globally.That has encouraged the United States to rely on imports of many critical goods, like semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, instead of manufacturing them itself. And some countries do have tough trade barriers to U.S. exports, or economic policies that distort global markets — particularly China, which has flooded the world with manufactured goods.Still, trade experts say that Mr. Trump’s claims include a heavy dose of exaggeration, as well as hypocrisy.For example, Mr. Trump has singled out high tariff rates that countries charge on certain U.S. exports including Europe’s tax on cars and India’s levy on motorcycles. But the United States also has high tariff rates that it charges on certain imports, such as a 25 percent fee on light trucks. And Mr. Trump has lumped in friendly allies like Canada, which have some limits to U.S. exports outside a few sectors, with nations like China, which have extensive trade barriers.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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    As Trump Stokes Uncertainty, the Fed Asks Businesses Where It Hurts

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    The central bank’s outreach to companies has taken on new significance as the outlook for growth and inflation gets cloudier.Chris Bergen, who runs a commercial greenhouse business in northern Minnesota, finds himself “walking a tightrope” roughly two months into President Trump’s second term. Acute uncertainty about how the administration’s trade and immigration policies will unfold and affect the economy has made him much more cautious about any expansion plans.As one of the country’s biggest producers of bedding plants, perennials and other flowers, Bergen’s Greenhouses is exposed on many fronts.Every June, it trucks in more than six million pounds of peat moss from Manitoba. Suppliers have stopped quoting prices until they have more clarity on tariffs. The plastic flower pots that Mr. Bergen imports from China could also wind up costing more if tariffs remain in place, squeezing already “razor-thin margins,” he said. He is also worried about needing to find workers if Mr. Trump, as part of an immigration crackdown, ends a program that provides temporary visas to many of the company’s agricultural workers.“We’re not putting our foot on the brake, but we are taking our foot off the gas,” said Mr. Bergen, whose family has run the business for over a century.That caution is one of the biggest concerns for the Federal Reserve, which is facing an increasingly challenging economic moment with little precedent. The central bank is trying to get a better read on the economy as it debates when — or if — it can again lower interest rates with inflation still too high for its liking. Businesses are warning of both higher prices and slower growth, effects that have yet to show up entirely in the economic data. The 12 regional presidents at the central bank have always kept close tabs on businesses in their districts in order to understand how economic conditions are evolving. That local outreach has taken on new significance as the range of possible outcomes has widened drastically.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