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    Trump Prepares to Take On the US Trade Deficit, a Familiar Nemesis

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    The trade deficit has long drawn the president’s ire. Now, he’s preparing to take it on again.To President Trump, one economic number represents everything that is wrong with the global economy: America’s trade deficit.That deficit is the total value of what the United States imports from other nations, minus its exports to other countries. The fact that America runs a trade deficit reflects how the nation’s appetite for foreign goods now far outpaces what U.S. factories and farms send abroad.Official data set for release on Wednesday morning is expected to show that the U.S. trade deficit widened to nearly $1.2 trillion in 2024. For Mr. Trump, the fact that the United States imports more goods than it exports is a sign of economic weakness and evidence that the world is taking advantage of America. While the country’s trade deficit has been widening for years, that gap could end up being a key reason Mr. Trump decides to impose tariffs on Europe, China, Canada, Mexico and other governments.Mr. Trump rolled out a dramatic series of trade actions against Canada, Mexico and China in recent days, signing executive orders to put tariffs on all three nations in what he said was an effort to stem the flow of drugs and migrants to the United States.But he also cited the trade deficit as he talked about tariffs writ large, making clear that the gap between what America sells and what it buys remains top of mind for Mr. Trump.

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    America’s Trade Deficits and Surpluses With Other Countries
    Note: Data is adjusted for inflation and shows 2023 trade in goods, the latest available full year of data.Source: Census BureauBy 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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    Trump’s Canada and Mexico Tariffs Could Hurt Carmakers

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    General Motors and a few other companies make as much as 40 percent of their North American cars and trucks in Canada and Mexico, leaving them vulnerable to tariffs.Almost all automakers are going to feel a pinch from the new tariffs imposed by President Trump on Saturday on goods imported from Canada, Mexico and China.Auto manufacturers ship tens of billions of dollars worth of finished automobiles, engines, transmissions and other components each week across the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico. Billions of dollars more are imported from parts manufacturers in China.The tariffs, which will take effect at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, are widely expected to raise the prices that American consumers pay for new automobiles. And the tariffs come at a time when new cars and trucks are already selling for near record prices.General Motors, the largest U.S. automaker, will probably be most affected.G.M. produces many more vehicles in Mexico than any other manufacturer — over 842,000 in 2024, according to MarkLines, an auto-industry data provider. And some of those vehicles are the most important in the company’s lineup.All of the Chevrolet Equinox and Blazer sport-utility vehicles G.M. sells in the United States come from Mexico. The Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck, a top-selling model, and the similar GMC Sierra pickup generate huge profits for the company. Of the more than one million of those trucks built last year, nearly half were produced in Canadian and Mexican plants, data from MarkLines shows.All told, G.M. plants in Canada and Mexico produced nearly 40 percent of all vehicles the company made last year in North America, the region where it gets most of its revenue and almost all of its profits.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 Tariffs Would Reverse Decades of Integration Between U.S. and Mexico

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    Ties between the United States and Mexico have deepened over 30 years of free trade, creating both benefits and irritants.When Dennis Nixon started working at a regional bank in Laredo, Texas, in 1975, there was just a trickle of trade across the border with Mexico. Now, nearly a billion dollars of commerce and more than 15,000 trucks roll over the line every day just a quarter mile from his office, binding the economies of the United States and Mexico together.Laredo is America’s busiest port, and a conduit for car parts, gasoline, avocados and computers. “You cannot pick it apart anymore,” Mr. Nixon said of the U.S. and Mexican economies. Thirty years of economic integration under a free trade deal has created “interdependencies and relationships that you don’t always understand and measure, until something goes wrong,” he said.Now that something is looming: 25 percent tariffs on Mexican products, which President Trump plans to impose on Saturday as he looks to pressure the Mexican government to do more to curb illegal immigration. Mr. Trump is also expected to hit Canada with 25 percent levies and impose a 10 percent tax on Chinese imports.A longtime proponent of tariffs and a critic of free trade deals, Mr. Trump seems unafraid to upend America’s closest economic relationships. He is focusing on strengthening the border against illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl, two areas that he spoke about often during his 2024 campaign.But the president has other beefs with Mexico, including the economic competition it poses for U.S. workers. The president and his supporters believe that imports of cars and steel from Mexico are weakening U.S. manufacturers. And they say the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the trade deal Mr. Trump signed in 2020 to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, needs to be updated — or perhaps, in some minds, scrapped.Many businesses say ties between the countries run deeper than most Americans realize, and policies like tariffs that seek to sever them would be painful. Of all the world’s major economic partners, the United States and Mexico are among the most integrated — linked by business, trade, tourism, familial ties, remittances and culture. It’s a closeness that at times generates discontent and efforts to distance the relationship, but also brings many benefits.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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    Stellantis Will Restart Illinois Factory That U.A.W. Pushed to Revive

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    The United Automobile Workers union has been pressing the automaker, which owns Chrysler and Jeep, to revive the plant in Belvidere, Ill.Stellantis, the company that owns Chrysler and Jeep, said on Wednesday it planned to reopen a factory in Illinois and increase production elsewhere in the United States, a move that is likely to resolve several simmering disputes with the United Automobile Workers union.The reopening is also likely to help the company in its relations with the Trump administration, and is among the first big changes made by an interim management team that has been running the company since its chief executive, Carlos Tavares, resigned in December.“These actions are part of our commitment to invest in our U.S. operations to grow our auto production and manufacturing here,” Antonio Filosa, the company’s chief operating officer in North America, said in a statement.The announcement follows a recent meeting between Stellantis’s chairman, John Elkann, and President Trump, the company said. Mr. Elkann told the president that Stellantis, whose headquarters are in Amsterdam, aimed to strengthen its U.S. manufacturing base and was committed to safeguarding American jobs and to the broader U.S. economy.Stellantis, which also owns Fiat, Dodge, Ram and Peugeot, idled the Illinois plant, in Belvidere, in early 2023. Later that year, it agreed in a new contract with the U.A.W. to reopen it. In August 2024, the company said it was delaying the reopening after its sales and profit tumbled.The U.A.W. responded by filing grievances with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that Stellantis was not abiding by the 2023 contract.Stellantis said on Wednesday that it planned to make a medium-size pickup truck in Belvedere, and that it would rehire some 1,500 union workers.The company also said it would move forward with plans to produce a new Dodge Durango sport-utility vehicle at a plant in Detroit. The U.A.W. had feared Stellantis was preparing to move production of the vehicle to Mexico, and the union had filed grievances on that issue as well.“This victory is a testament to the power of workers standing together and holding a billion-dollar corporation accountable,” the U.A.W. president, Shawn Fain, said in a statement on Wednesday. “We’ve shown that we will do what it takes to protect the good union jobs that are the lifeblood of places like Belvidere, Detroit, Kokomo and beyond.”The White House press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In its statement, Stellantis also said it would make investments in its plants in Toledo, Ohio, where it makes the Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator models. Additional investments will also come to an engine plant in Kokomo, Ind., the company said. More

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    Trump Is Said to Push for Early Reopening of North American Trade Deal

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    The president wants to begin renegotiating a U.S. trade deal with Canada and Mexico earlier than a scheduled 2026 review, people familiar with his thinking said.The Trump administration intends to push to renegotiate the U.S. trade deal with Canada and Mexico ahead of a required 2026 review of it, seeking to shore up U.S. auto jobs and counter Chinese firms that are making inroads into the Mexican auto sector, people familiar with the deliberations said.The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Mr. Trump signed in 2020, required the three countries to hold a “joint review” of the deal after six years, on July 1, 2026. But Mr. Trump intends to begin those negotiations sooner, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that had not been made public.Trump officials particularly want to tighten the pact’s rules governing the auto sector, to try to discourage auto factories from leaving the United States, they said. They are also seeking to block Chinese companies making cars and auto parts from being able to export to the United States through factories in Mexico.Mr. Trump has also threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on products from Canada and Mexico, saying those countries are allowing drugs and migrants to flow across American borders. Speaking from the Oval Office on Monday night after his inauguration, he said he planned to move forward with the tariffs on Feb. 1.Members of the Trump team believe that Mexico has been violating the terms of a separate agreement to limit metal exports to the United States, and they are eager to show the Mexican government that they mean to take action against such trade violations, one person familiar with the conversations said.The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Mr. Trump was pushing for an early renegotiation of his North American trade deal. The three countries are required to meet to discuss the terms of the trade deal six years after the agreement went into force, but trade experts have expected the Trump team to speed up work on the issue.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 Pitches External Revenue Service to Collect Tariffs: What to Know

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    President Trump has promised to generate a “massive” amount of revenue with tariffs on foreign products, an amount so big that the president said he would create a new agency — the External Revenue Service — to handle collecting the money.“Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” Mr. Trump said on Monday in his inaugural address, where he reiterated a promise to create the agency. “It will be massive amounts of money pouring into our Treasury coming from foreign sources.”Much about the new agency remains unclear, including how it would differ from the government’s current operations. Trade experts said that, despite the name “external,” the bulk of tariff revenue would continue to be collected from U.S. businesses that import products.Here’s what you need to know about what Mr. Trump has proposed.The U.S. has an established system for collecting tariffs.Tariff revenue is currently collected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which monitors the goods and the people that come into the United States through hundreds of airports and land crossings.This has been the case nearly since the country’s inception. Congress established the Customs Service in 1789 as part of the Treasury Department, and for roughly a century tariffs were the primary source of government revenue, counted in stately customs houses that still stand in most major cities throughout the United States, said John Foote, a customs lawyer at Kelley, Drye and Warren.With the creation of the income tax in 1913, tariffs became a minor source of government revenue, and after the Sept. 11 attacks, the customs bureau was moved from the Treasury Department to the Department of Homeland Security.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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    Cleveland-Cliffs Signals a Possible New Bid for U.S. Steel

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    The company’s renewed interest comes after the Biden administration blocked Nippon Steel from acquiring the onetime American powerhouse.A possible new takeover bid for U.S. Steel emerged on Monday, teeing up more turmoil over the once-dominant company’s future after President Biden’s decision to block its acquisition by a Japanese company.Lourenco Goncalves, the chief executive of an American competitor, Cleveland-Cliffs, said his company had “an All-American solution to save the United States Steel Corporation,” stressing that acquiring U.S. Steel was a matter of “when,” not “if.” But he offered no details of the bidding plans.The renewed expression of interest from Cleveland-Cliffs comes less than two weeks after Mr. Biden blocked a $14 billion takeover of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, arguing that the sale posed a threat to national security. Cleveland-Cliffs tried to buy U.S. Steel in 2023, an offer that was rejected in favor of Nippon’s higher bid.CNBC reported on Monday morning that Cleveland-Cliffs would seek to take over U.S. Steel and sell off its subsidiary, Big River Steel, to Nucor, another American producer. But Mr. Goncalves, at a news conference later in the day, would not confirm any partnership with Nucor on a bid.U.S. Steel and Nucor did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Investors seemed pleased by the potential bid, sending shares of U.S. Steel up as much as 10 percent on Monday when CNBC reported the potential offer. Shares of U.S. Steel finished about 6 percent higher on Monday but are down 23 percent over the past year, including Monday’s spike.But the fate of Nippon’s proposed takeover remains in limbo. U.S. Steel and Nippon sued the United States government last week in the hopes of reviving their merger, accusing Mr. Biden and other senior administration officials of corrupting the review process for political gain and blocking the deal under false pretenses.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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    Chinese Companies Have Sidestepped Trump’s Tariffs. They Could Do It Again.

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    The companies have found plenty of new channels to the U.S. market — demonstrating the potential limits of the tariffs Donald Trump has promised to impose.After President Donald J. Trump slapped tariffs on Chinese bicycles in 2018, Arnold Kamler, then the chief executive of the bike maker Kent International, saw a curious trend play out in the bicycle industry.Chinese bicycle factories moved their final manufacturing and assembly operations out of China, setting up new facilities in Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and India. Using parts mostly from China, those companies made bicycles that they could export directly to the United States — without paying the 25 percent tariff had the bike been shipped straight from China.“The net effect of what’s going on with these tariffs is that Chinese factories in China are setting up Chinese factories in other countries,” said Mr. Kamler, whose company imports some bicycles from China and makes others at a South Carolina factory.Pushing those factories into other countries resulted in additional costs for companies and consumers, without increasing the amount of manufacturing in the United States, Mr. Kamler said. He said he had been forced to raise his prices several times as a result of the tariffs.“There’s no real gain here,” said Mr. Kamler, whose bikes are sold at Walmart and other retailers. “It’s very inflationary.”Arnold Kamler said he had to raise prices at Kent International several times as a result of President Donald J. Trump’s 2018 tariffs.Kate Thornton for 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