Trump, Donald J

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    Trump Says Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s ‘Termination Cannot Come Fast Enough’

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    President Trump lashed out on Thursday at Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, saying, “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”Mr. Trump’s ire followed remarks by Mr. Powell on Wednesday, when he warned in a speech that the president’s tariffs could create a “challenging scenario” for the central bank by putting its two main goals — stable inflation and a healthy labor market — in tension.Mr. Powell reiterated that the Fed could afford to be patient with its interest rate decisions until it had more clarity about Mr. Trump’s policies. The Fed chair’s emphasis on the need to ensure that a temporary rise in inflation from tariffs did not become a more persistent problem suggested that the bar for further rate cuts was high.The president has been pushing for Mr. Powell to cut rate since returning to the White House. On Thursday, he referred to expectations that the European Central Bank would lower borrowing costs, saying the Fed should do the same.“The ECB is expected to cut interest rates for the 7th time, and yet, ‘Too Late’ Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always TOO LATE AND WRONG, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete ‘mess!’,” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Oil prices are down, groceries (even eggs!) are down, and the USA is getting RICH ON TARIFFS. Too Late should have lowered Interest Rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now. Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”The Fed seeks to operate independent of political influence, something that Mr. Powell on Wednesday said was a “matter of law.” He also said the Fed’s independence was “very widely understood and supported in Washington and in Congress where it really matters.”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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    Unions Form Pro Bono Legal Network for Federal Workers Targeted by Trump

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    The nation’s largest federation of unions has put together a pro bono legal network that aims to help federal employees whose jobs have been lost or threatened under the Trump administration.More than 1,000 lawyers in 42 states have completed training in order to offer their services, organizers said. The new pro bono group — Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network, which was formally introduced on Wednesday — was formed by the A.F.L.-C.I.O. along with several other unions and civil rights groups, including We The Action, a network that connects lawyers with nonprofits, Democracy Forward, which has been leading legal action against the Trump administration, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.Unions that represent federal workers — such as the American Federation of Government Employees, which is also involved in the legal network — have been at the forefront of efforts to push back against President Trump’s efforts to significantly downsize the civil service. But lawsuits challenging mass firings and other moves by Elon Musk’s cost-cutting initiative, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, have had mixed success. And litigation takes time.With dismissals expected to accelerate in the coming months, the unions decided to add a new dimension to their legal efforts. The new group aims to provide guidance and legal support to individual workers — regardless of whether they are union members — to challenge their employment status through the agencies that they work for, as well as various administrative boards.“We knew there would be a lot of quick and valiant legal work in the federal courts, but we knew there was a chance you’d have to go to the employee agencies to protect the workers’ rights,” Deborah Greenfield, the network’s executive director, said in an interview. One challenge for the network and their potential clients is that some of these bodies, like the National Labor Relations Board, are themselves in a state of limbo as courts weigh whether Mr. Trump has the power to fire appointed board members.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 Mixed Emotions Toward Japan

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    The president at turns praises and criticizes Japan, a U.S. ally that decades ago stirred his anger over the unequal balance of trade and his penchant for tariffs.This month in the White House’s Rose Garden, as he held up a placard showing the global wave of tariffs he wanted to impose, President Trump paused to fondly recall a fallen friend.“The prime minister of Japan, Shinzo, was — Shinzo Abe — he was a fantastic man,” Mr. Trump said during the tariff announcement on April 2. “He was, unfortunately, taken from us, assassination.”The words of praise for Mr. Abe, who was gunned down three years ago during a campaign speech, did not stop Mr. Trump from slapping a 24 percent tariff on products imported from Japan. But they were unusual, nonetheless, coming from a president who has had few nice things to say these days about other allies, particularly Canada and Europe.Now, Japan will be one of the first countries allowed to bargain for a possible reprieve from Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs, many of which he has put on hold for 90 days. On Thursday, a negotiator handpicked by Japan’s current prime minister is scheduled to begin talks in Washington with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others.Japan’s place at the front of the line reflects the different approach that Mr. Trump has taken toward the nation. While the president still accuses it of unfair trade policies and an unequal security relationship, he also praises it in the same breath as a close ally, an ancient culture and a savvy negotiator.“I love Japan,” Mr. Trump told reporters last month. “But we have an interesting deal with Japan where we have to protect them but they don’t have to protect us,” referring to the security treaty that bases 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan.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 10% Tariff May Be Less Onerous but Still Raises Prices and Threatens Trade

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    The blanket tariffs, once considered extreme, still threaten to harm world trade and make everything more expensive for businesses and consumers.President Trump’s global 10 percent tariff is likely to make consumer goods more expensive.When Donald J. Trump championed the idea of a 10 percent blanket tariff during the campaign, many people, whether for or against, were taken aback by how radical the idea was.Alarms sounded about higher inflation, lost jobs, slower growth or recession. The prospect seemed so outlandish that most economists and Wall Street analysts who gamed out the possibilities tended to treat a 10 percent tariff simply as a bargaining tool.Now, after a rapid-fire series of announcements from the White House that promised, imposed, reversed, delayed, decreased and increased tariffs, the 10 percent solution is looking like the most temperate choice rather than the most revolutionary, especially now that a red-hot trade war between China and the United States is blazing.Yet 10 percent tariffs have not lost their sting.At that level, universal tariffs still hit more than 10 times as many imports as the ones targeted during Mr. Trump’s first term, and are significantly higher and broader than anything the United States has tried in more than 90 years.The tariff rate is “quite extreme,” said Carsten Brzeski, chief eurozone economist at ING, a Dutch bank. “It still brings us back to levels last seen during the 1930s.”In addition to measures targeting China, Mr. Trump powered up a long list of punishing taxes — including a flat 10 percent tariff on most imports — on April 9. 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 Dilemma: A Trade War That Threatens Every Other Negotiation With China

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    President Trump is staking everything on winning by imposing tariffs on China. But the fight threatens to choke off negotiations about other issues like Taiwan, fentanyl, TikTok and more.President Trump came into office sounding as if he were eager to deal with President Xi Jinping of China on the range of issues dividing the world’s two biggest superpowers.He and his aides signaled that they wanted to resolve trade disputes and lower the temperature on Taiwan, curb fentanyl production and get to a deal on TikTok. Perhaps, over time, they could manage a revived nuclear arms race and competition over artificial intelligence.Today it is hard to imagine any of that happening, at least for a year.Mr. Trump’s decision to stake everything on winning a trade war with China threatens to choke off those negotiations before they even begin. And if they do start up, Mr. Trump may be entering them alone, because he has alienated the allies who in recent years had come to a common approach to countering Chinese power.In conversations over the past 10 days, several administration officials, insisting that they could not speak on the record, described a White House deeply divided on how to handle Beijing. The trade war erupted before the many factions inside the administration even had time to stake out their positions, much less decide which issues mattered most.The result was strategic incoherence. Some officials have gone on television to declare that Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Beijing were intended to coerce the world’s second-largest economy into a deal. Others insisted that Mr. Trump was trying to create a self-sufficient American economy, no longer dependent on its chief geopolitical competitor, even if that meant decoupling from the $640 billion in two-way trade in goods and services.Shipping containers in the port of Tianjin, China, last month. Beijing has matched every one of Mr. Trump’s tariff hikes, trying to send the message that it can endure the pain longer than the United States can. 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 Moves to Put New Tariffs on Computer Chips and Drugs

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    The Trump administration took steps on Monday that appear likely to result in new tariffs on semiconductors and pharmaceutical products, adding to the levies President Trump has put on imports globally.Federal notices put online Monday afternoon said the administration had initiated national security investigations into imports of chips and pharmaceuticals. Mr. Trump has suggested that those investigations could result in tariffs.The investigations will also cover the machinery used to make semiconductors, products that contain chips and pharmaceutical ingredients.In a statement confirming the move, Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said the president “has long been clear about the importance of reshoring manufacturing that is critical to our country’s national and economic security.”The new semiconductor and pharmaceutical tariffs would be issued under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the president to impose tariffs to protect U.S. national security.Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump hinted that he would soon impose new tariffs on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, as he looked to shore up more domestic production.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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    Bessent Takes Tricky Center Stage as Trade Wars Roil U.S. Economy

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    The Treasury secretary received counsel and criticism from some of his predecessors over President Trump’s policies.The traditional gathering of former Treasury secretaries to welcome a newly minted one into the fold is usually a lighthearted and pleasant affair. But when the group convened this month, on President Trump’s “Liberation Day,” the tone was strikingly serious.The dinner, organized by former Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, took place at a moment of tumult for the U.S. economy. The president had upended global trade with punishing tariffs on both allies and adversaries, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was at the center of it, defending a policy that many in the room viewed as economic malpractice.“The mood was somber,” said W. Michael Blumenthal, 99, who led the Treasury Department in the Carter administration and was in attendance.Mr. Bessent was pressed over the strategy behind the tariffs and the impact that they would have on the economy, according to Mr. Blumenthal and other people familiar with the dinner. At times, Mr. Bessent elevated his voice when his predecessors confronted him about Mr. Trump’s approach.“He didn’t just smile,” Mr. Blumenthal recalled. “There he is — he has to defend it.”The guest list included Robert E. Rubin, Henry M. Paulson, Lawrence H. Summers, Timothy F. Geithner and Jack Lew. Former Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen was traveling in Australia and did not attend, a spokesman said.The Treasury Department declined to comment on the dinner, and Mr. Bessent declined to comment for this article.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