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The chief executive of Carvana, which sells used cars online, said President Trump’s tariffs could help his company by increasing demand for its vehicles.Automakers are worried that President Trump’s tariffs on imported cars and auto parts will soon increase their costs and start eating into profits.But at least one business in the auto industry thinks the tariffs could give it a lift. That company is Carvana, an online retailer of used cars that has gained fame for storing vehicles in distinctive “vending machine” towers.The Trump tariffs, which include levies of 25 percent on vehicles made in Mexico, Canada, Germany and many other nations, are widely expected to raise the prices new cars and trucks, forcing more car shoppers to opt for a used vehicle. An agreement to lower tariffs on Chinese imports that the administration announced on Monday will not change the tariffs on cars and auto parts.“To the extent that car prices go up, Carvana is probably positioned to be relatively advantaged as consumers look for high-quality cars at a lower price,” the company’s founder and chief executive, Ernie Garcia, said in an interview last week. “We think that will cause them to shift into used vehicles and into the savings that are available via online buying.”Mr. Trump has said he imposed tariffs in hopes of forcing manufacturers to make more goods and create more factory jobs in the United States, although he has also claimed that tariffs would help achieve other goals like reducing unauthorized immigration and drug smuggling.Automakers are bracing for the impact.In the past several days, General Motors said the tariffs would increase its costs by $2.8 billion to $3.5 billion this year, even accounting for measures the company is taking to adapt. Ford Motor, which makes more vehicles domestically than G.M., estimated the tariffs would cost it $1.5 billion on a net basis. Toyota Motor, which imports many vehicles from its home country of Japan, said the tariffs would cost it $1.3 billion in March and April alone.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
President Trump’s triple-digit tariffs on Chinese products disrupted global trade — but haven’t appeared to result in major concessions from Beijing.President Trump’s decision to impose, and then walk back, triple-digit tariffs on Chinese products over the past month demonstrated the power and global reach of U.S. trade policy. But it was also another illustration of the limitations of Mr. Trump’s aggressive approach.The tariffs on Chinese goods, which the United States ratcheted up to a minimum of 145 percent in early April, brought much trade between the countries to a standstill. They caused companies to reroute business globally, importing less from China and more from other countries like Vietnam and Mexico. They forced Chinese factories to shutter, and brought some American importers to the verge of bankruptcy.The tariffs ultimately proved too painful to American businesses for Mr. Trump to sustain. Within weeks, Trump officials were saying that the tariffs the president had chosen to impose on one of America’s largest trading partners were unsustainable, and that they were angling to reduce them.Trade talks between the world’s largest economies in Geneva this weekend concluded with an agreement to reduce stiff levies on each other’s products by more than many analysts had anticipated. Chinese imports will face a minimum tax of 30 percent, down from 145 percent. China will lower its import duty on American goods to 10 percent from 125 percent. The two countries also agreed to hold talks to stabilize the relationship.It remains to be seen what agreements can be reached in future negotiations. But the talks this weekend, and the tariff chaos of the past month, did not appear to generate any other immediate concessions from the Chinese other than a commitment to keep talking. That has called into question whether the trade disruptions of the past month — which led many American businesses to cancel orders for Chinese imports, freeze expansion plans and warn of higher prices — were worth it.“The Geneva agreement represents an almost complete U.S. retreat that vindicates Xi’s decision to forcefully retaliate,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, referring to Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader.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
The temporary lowering of tariffs may compel some U.S. businesses to order goods that they had held off buying after President Trump raised them to 145 percent.For weeks, Jay Foreman, a toy company executive, froze all shipments from China, leaving Care Bears and Tonka trucks piled up at Chinese factories, to avoid paying President Trump’s crippling 145 percent tariff.But as soon as his phone lit up at 4 a.m. on Monday alerting him that Mr. Trump was lowering tariffs on Chinese imports for 90 days, Mr. Foreman, the chief executive of Basic Fun, which is based in Florida, jumped out of bed and called his suppliers, instructing them to start shipping merchandise immediately.“We’re starting to move everything,” Mr. Foreman said. “We have to call trucking companies in China to schedule pickups at the factories. And we have to book space on these container ships now.”If other executives follow Mr. Foreman’s lead, a torrent of goods could soon pour into the United States. While logistics experts say global shipping lines and American ports appear capable of handling high volumes over the next three months, they caution that whiplash tariff policies are piling stress onto the companies that transport goods around the world.“This keeps supply chain partners in limbo about what’s next, and leads to ongoing disruption,” said Rico Luman, senior economist for transport, logistics and automotive at ING Research.After talks this weekend in Geneva, the Trump administration lowered tariffs on many Chinese imports to 30 percent from 145 percent. China cut its tariffs on American goods to 10 percent from 125 percent. If a deal is not reach in 90 days, the tariffs could go back up, though Mr. Trump said on Monday that they would not rise to 145 percent. Some importers may hold off on ordering from China, hoping for even lower tariffs later.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
Hendrik Dierendonck, a second-generation butcher who has become, as he describes it, “world famous in Belgium” for his curated local beef, thinks Europe’s way of raising cattle results in varied and delicious cuts that European consumers prize.“They want hormone-free, grass-fed,” Mr. Dierendonck explained recently as he cut steaks at a bloody chopping block in his Michelin-starred restaurant, which backs onto the butchery his father started in the 1970s. “They want to know where it came from.”Strict European Union food regulations, including a ban on hormones, govern Mr. Dierendonck’s work. And those rules could turn into a trade-war sticking point. The Trump administration argues that American meat, produced without similar regulations, is better — and wants Europe to buy more of it, and other American farm products.“They hate our beef because our beef is beautiful,” Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said in a televised interview last month. “And theirs is weak.”Questions of beauty and strength aside, the administration is right about one thing: European policymakers are not keen on allowing more hormone-raised American steaks and burgers into the European Union.Sides of beef at one of the Dierendonck meat production plants in Veurne, Belgium.Jim Huylebroek 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
Much of the agreement President Trump unveiled Thursday still needs to be negotiated, but the administration said the deal with one of America’s closest allies would be the first of many.President Trump announced on Thursday that the United States intended to sign a trade deal with Britain that would bring the two nations closer and roll back some of the punishing tariffs he issued on that country’s products.Both sides consider a trade pact deeply beneficial, and a deal has been under discussion since Mr. Trump’s first term. But the announcement on Thursday was scant on details, reflecting the haste of the Trump administration’s efforts to negotiate with more than a dozen nations and rework the global trading system in a matter of months.The agreement, which Mr. Trump said would be the first of many, would include Britain’s dropping its tariffs on U.S. beef, ethanol, sports equipment and other products, and buying $10 billion of Boeing airplanes. The United States in return said it would pare back tariffs that Mr. Trump has put on cars and steel, though it will leave a 10 percent levy in place for all British exports.Neither government has said when they expect the agreement to be finalized. A document released by the Trump administration on Thursday evening listed half a dozen general priorities, and said the countries would immediately begin negotiations “to develop and formalize” them.The British government said it was still pushing to bring down the 10 percent tariff on most other goods. American officials said they would push Britain to reconsider a tax on technology companies. Officials from both governments will need to meet in the coming months to hammer out more specific language, leaving open the potential for disagreements.Nevertheless, the leaders of both nations hailed their cooperation in joint announcements on Thursday that invoked the deep relationship between their countries. Speaking from the Oval Office, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain on speakerphone, Mr. Trump called it a “great deal for both countries.” Mr. Starmer noted that it was the 80th anniversary of the Allies’ victory in Europe in World War II.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
A deal would be a positive sign for both governments, which have eyed an agreement since President Trump’s first term.President Trump is expected to announce on Thursday that the United States will strike a “comprehensive” trade agreement with Britain.Mr. Trump teased a new trade agreement in a social media post on Wednesday night, though he did not specify which nation was part of the deal. On Thursday, a senior British official confirmed that a deal with the United States had been reached.And on Thursday morning, Mr. Trump was back on social media to confirm that it was, in fact, a deal with the U.K.“The agreement with the United Kingdom is a full and comprehensive one that will cement the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom for many years to come,” he wrote. “Because of our long time history and allegiance together, it is a great honor to have the United Kingdom as our FIRST announcement. Many other deals, which are in serious stages of negotiation, to follow!”Mr. Trump is expected to announce the deal at 10 a.m. from the Oval Office.The British official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, did not offer details, beyond saying that the deal would be good for both Britain and the United States.The agreement would be the first deal announced since Mr. Trump imposed stiff tariffs on dozens of America’s trading partners. He later paused those temporarily in order to allow other nations to reach agreements 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
As he proposes ever stiffer tariffs, President Trump has normalized his merely big ones.There has been a mantra spreading among weary corporate executives who are becoming resigned to President Trump’s tariffs while still hoping to avoid the worst of their effects: Ten percent is the new zero.The statement refers to the 10 percent tariff that Mr. Trump put in place on most U.S. imports one month ago. Such a significant increase in U.S. tariffs would have been unthinkable a few years ago. But it no longer seems like such a big deal, compared with the truly large tariffs that Mr. Trump has already imposed or threatened elsewhere.Mr. Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement on April 2 that he was planning tariffs of 10 percent to 60 percent on dozens of America’s trading partners set off a rout in the bond markets and a flight from the U.S. dollar as investors panicked at the prospect of an economically devastating trade war. Mr. Trump also ratcheted up tariffs on China to a minimum of 145 percent amid a trade spat with Beijing, bringing much of the trade between the countries to a halt.That turmoil appears to have moderated Mr. Trump’s impulses somewhat. The president quickly paused tariffs on most countries, giving them 90 days to negotiate trade deals instead.Mr. Trump also granted a lucrative exemption from China tariffs for makers of electronics and offered some limited relief for automakers. And he has hinted that he could do more, saying he likes to be “flexible.”Investors have lapped up any signs of good news, even insubstantial ones. Stock markets have now regained nearly all of the losses they sustained after April 2, buoyed by comments from Trump administration officials that they are working to close trade deals with allies and planning to meet with Chinese counterparts to discuss their standoff.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
