Trump, Donald J

More stories

  • 138 Shares109 Views

    in Economy

    As Trump Returns to G7, Rift With Allies Is Even Deeper

    by

    In 2018, the president called for the group to embrace Russia and stormed out of the summit. Now he is seeking to shrink America’s military role abroad and embarking on a more expansive trade war.When President Trump last attended a Group of 7 meeting in Canada, he was in many ways the odd man out.At that meeting, in 2018, Mr. Trump called for the alliance of Western countries to embrace Russia, antagonized allies and ultimately stormed out of the summit over a trade battle he began by imposing metals tariffs on Canada.As he returns on Sunday for the Group of 7 meeting in Alberta, those fissures have only deepened. Since retaking office, the president has sought to shrink America’s military role abroad and made threats to annex the summit’s host after embarking on a much more expansive trade war.Mr. Trump is now facing a self-imposed deadline of early July to reach trade deals. His trade adviser even promised in April that the tariffs would lead to “90 deals in 90 days.” Despite reaching framework agreements with Britain and China, the administration has shown scant progress on deals with other major trading partners.The future of the president’s favored negotiating tool is uncertain as a legal battle over his tariffs plays out in the courts. But a failure to reach accords could lead the Trump administration to once again ratchet up tariffs and send markets roiling.“I think we’ll have a few new trade deals,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House on Sunday as he left for the summit.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

  • 113 Shares179 Views

    in Economy

    ‘Golden Share’ in U.S. Steel Gives Trump Extraordinary Control

    by

    Administration officials secured a deal that will give the president unusual influence over a private company, and could serve as a model for other deals.To save its takeover of U.S. Steel, Japan’s Nippon Steel agreed to an unusual arrangement, granting the White House a “golden share” that gives the government an extraordinary amount of influence over a U.S. company.New details of the agreement show that the structure would give President Trump and his successors a permanent stake in U.S. Steel, significant sway over its board and veto power over a wide array of company actions, an arrangement that could change the nature of foreign investment in the United States.The terms of the arrangement were hammered out in meetings that went late into the night on Wednesday and Thursday, according to two people familiar with the details.Representatives from Nippon Steel — which had been trying to acquire the struggling U.S. Steel since December 2023, but had been blocked by the Biden administration over national security concerns — came around to Mr. Trump’s desire to take a stake that would give the U.S. government significant control over the company’s actions.Nippon had argued that this influence should expire — perhaps after three or four years, the duration of the Trump administration. But in the meetings, which were held at the Commerce Department, Trump officials led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick insisted that the golden share should last in perpetuity, the two people said.Under the terms of the national security pact, which the companies said they signed Friday, the U.S. government would retain a single share of preferred stock, called class G — as in gold. And U.S. Steel’s charter will list nearly a dozen activities the company cannot undertake without the approval of the American president or someone he designates in his stead.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

  • 113 Shares149 Views

    in Economy

    Where’s the Inflation From Tariffs? Just Wait, Economists Say.

    by

    Are predictions for a jump in consumer prices too early, or just wrong?Tariffs raise consumer prices. It’s a view held by most economists since long before President Trump entered the White House.Prices rose when Mr. Trump imposed levies on China in his first term, though that did not translate to noticeably higher inflation overall. Forecasters have been bracing for months for it to happen again on a much larger scale, given that his tariffs this time are substantially larger and more widespread.But data released this week showed that inflationary pressures remained more muted than expected at this stage, raising an uncomfortable question for economists: Are their predictions wrong?Economists are undeterred — for now. It’s not that tariffs aren’t affecting prices, they say. It’s that this isn’t happening in a significant enough way just yet to show up in broad measures of inflation like the Consumer Price Index. They argue that the impact will be much more significant this summer.“Inflation is very likely going to increase,” said Marc Giannoni, chief U.S. economist at Barclays, who formerly worked at the Federal Reserve’s regional banks in Dallas and New York. “It is a question of time, not so much of if.”Mr. Trump’s tariffs have already rippled through the economy in several ways.Businesses rushed to stock up on products before levies were imposed, and now imports of foreign goods are down sharply. Uncertainty has skyrocketed, stoked by the administration’s frequent pivots on its trade policy. On Thursday, it announced that steel tariffs would soon apply to appliances made with the metal, including dishwashers, washing machines and refrigerators. More

  • 150 Shares99 Views

    in Economy

    U.S. Court Agrees to Keep Trump Tariffs Intact as Appeal Gets Underway

    by

    The appeals court’s decision delivered an important but interim victory for the Trump administration.A federal appeals court agreed on Tuesday to allow President Trump to maintain many of his tariffs on China and other U.S. trading partners, extending a pause granted shortly after another panel of judges ruled in late May that the import taxes were illegal.The decision, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, delivered an important but interim victory for the Trump administration, which had warned that any interruption to its steep duties could undercut the president in talks around the world.But the government still must convince the judges that the president appropriately used a set of emergency powers when he put in place the centerpiece of his economic agenda earlier this year. The Trump administration has already signaled it is willing to fight that battle as far as the Supreme Court.The ruling came shortly after negotiators from the United States and China agreed to a framework intended to extend a trade truce between the two superpowers. The Trump administration had warned that those talks and others would have been jeopardized if the appeals court had not granted a fuller stay while arguments proceeded.At the heart of the legal wrangling is Mr. Trump’s novel interpretation of a 1970s law that he used to wage a global trade war on an expansive scale. No president before him had ever used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to impose tariffs, and the word itself is not even mentioned in the statute.But the law has formed the foundation of Mr. Trump’s campaign to reorient the global economic order. He has invoked its powers to sidestep Congress and impose huge taxes on most global imports, with the goal of raising revenue, bolstering domestic manufacturing and brokering more favorable trade deals with other countries.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 Shares129 Views

    in Economy

    Trump Aides Urge Court to Spare Tariffs as They Dismiss Worries in Public

    by

    The dueling narratives come as the administration is asking an appeals court to preserve a set of tariffs recently deemed to be illegal.Shortly after a federal trade court declared many of President Trump’s tariffs to be illegal, Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, took to television to brush aside the setback.“It cost us a week, maybe,” Mr. Lutnick said this month on Fox News, noting that other countries remained eager to strike new deals despite tariffs being in legal jeopardy.“Everybody came right back to the table,” he added.With the fate of the president’s tariffs hanging in the balance, the Trump administration has tried to project dueling narratives. Top aides have insisted publicly that their negotiations remain unharmed, even as some of those same officials have pleaded with the court to spare Mr. Trump from reputational damage on the global stage.The administration will face two crucial tests on Monday. The government is scheduled to submit a new legal brief to a federal appeals court outlining why the tariffs should not go away, while Mr. Lutnick and other close Trump advisers meet with their Chinese counterparts in London to hammer out new trade terms.The court could factor in “any sort of public statements the administration makes” as it decides whether to preserve existing tariffs as the case plays out, said Ted Murphy, a co-leader of the trade practice at the law firm Sidley Austin.While Mr. Murphy said it remained to be seen how judges would view the government’s recent bullishness, he said that a decision that invalidated the president’s tariffs could “weaken the U.S. position” abroad.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 Shares119 Views

    in Economy

    Democrats Hate Trump’s Policy Bill, but Love Some of Its Tax Cuts

    by

    There’s an undercurrent of Democratic support for elements of President Trump’s tax agenda, a dynamic that Republicans are trying to exploit as they make the case for enactment of their sprawling domestic legislation.Democrats have no shortage of criticism for the massive Republican policy bill winding its way through Congress carrying President Trump’s agenda. It would cost too much, they contend, rip health coverage and food assistance away from too many people and strip vital support from clean energy companies.When it comes to some of the tax cuts in the bill, however, Democrats have been less resistant. Some of them concede that they would support many of those provisions if they were not rolled into the larger piece of legislation. In recent weeks, they have taken pains to demonstrate that support.Last month, Senator Jacky Rosen, Democrat of Nevada, successfully moved to have the Senate unanimously approve a version of Mr. Trump’s “no tax on tips” proposal. While the effort was almost entirely symbolic — under the Constitution, the House must originate tax measures — it was still an opportunity for Democrats to go on the record backing a campaign promise of Mr. Trump’s that is broadly popular with the public.“I am not afraid to embrace a good idea, wherever it comes from,” Ms. Rosen said on the Senate floor at the time.The undercurrent of Democratic support for elements of the Republican tax agenda reflects the political potency of some of Mr. Trump’s campaign promises, even those that have been derided by tax policy experts. It also suggests that temporary provisions in the Republican bill, like exempting tips and overtime pay from the income tax, could ultimately become long-term features of the tax code.And it helps to explain why Mr. Trump and Republicans chose to wrap their policy agenda into one huge bill. By pairing the palatable tax cuts — including an extension of tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year — with less savory measures, like Medicaid cuts, Republicans can make the political case that anyone who fails to support the bill is voting for a tax increase.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

    in Economy

    Fired by DOGE, More Federal Workers Are Flooding the Job Market

    by

    The drastic, sudden pullback in federal dollars is collapsing opportunities for many who’ve spent years in public service.After Matt Minich was fired from his job with the Food and Drug Administration in February, he did what many scientists have done for years after leaving public service. He looked for a position with a university.Mr. Minich, 38, was one of thousands swept up in the mass layoffs of probationary workers at the beginning of President Trump’s second administration. The shock of those early moves heralded more upheaval to come as the Department of Government Efficiency, led by the tech billionaire Elon Musk, raced through agency after agency, slashing staff, freezing spending and ripping up government contracts.In March, about 45 minutes after Mr. Minich accepted a job as a scientist in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, the program lost its federal grant funding. Mr. Minich, who had worked on reducing the negative health impacts of tobacco use, observed that he had the special honor of “being DOGE-ed twice.”“I’m doubly not needed by the federal government,” he said in an interview.He is still hunting for work. And like hundreds of thousands of other former civil servants forced into an increasingly crowded job market, he is finding that drastic cuts to grants and contracts in academia, consulting and direct services mean even fewer opportunities are available.Some states that were hiring, another avenue for former federal government employees, have pulled back. So, too, have the private contractors typically seen as a landing place. The situation is expected to worsen as more layoffs are announced, voluntary departures mount and workers who were placed on administrative leave see the clock run out.More than 700 people attended a recent resource fair in Arlington, Va., to receive free consultation, professional headshots and workshops.Maansi Srivastava 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

  • 75 Shares169 Views

    in Economy

    U.S. Trade Deficit Plummets in April

    by

    U.S. trade fell sharply as President Trump’s global tariffs began to weigh on imports.The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services narrowed sharply in April, falling to $61.6 billion compared with$138.3 billion in March as tariffs clamped down on global trade.U.S. goods imports fell significantly in April, dropping by 16.3 percent from March, the data released from the Commerce Department showed, as tariffs on exports from China and other countries weighed on trade. The sharp drop reflected the fact that importers had rushed to bring many goods into the United States at the beginning of the year to get ahead of tariffs ordered by President Trump.Exports rose slightly, up 3 percent from the previous month.Mr. Trump has imposed tariffs on a variety of industries and trading partners since coming into office in January, raising the U.S. tariff rate to levels not seen in a century. The president has temporarily suspended some of the tariffs to allow for trade negotiations, but many are set to snap back into effect in early July unless deals are reached.“The big swing in the trade deficit reflects the global trade war,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “With the tariffs, goods imports collapsed in April, leading to a much smaller trade deficit.” Mr. Zandi added that a smaller trade deficit would likely result in higher gross domestic product in the second quarter, since a trade deficit is subtracted from that figure. But he cautioned that the tariffs would still have negative consequences for American consumers and the economy.“The higher U.S. tariffs have severely disrupted global trade, which will soon show up as higher prices for many of the goods Americans buy, weighing heavily on their purchasing power and spending, and by extension, the broader economy,” he said. More