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    Trump’s Trade Agenda Could Benefit Friends and Punish Rivals

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    Donald Trump has a record of pardoning favored companies from tariffs. Companies are once again lining up to try to influence him.The sweeping tariffs that President-elect Donald J. Trump imposed in his first term on foreign metals, machinery, clothing and other products were intended to have maximum impact around the world. They sought to shutter foreign factories, rework international supply chains and force companies to make big investments in the United States.But for many businesses, the most important consequences of the tariffs, enacted in 2018 and 2019, unfolded just a few blocks from the White House.In the face of pushback from companies reliant on foreign products, the Trump administration set up a process that allowed them to apply for special exemptions. The stakes were high: An exemption could relieve a company of tariffs as high as 25 percent, potentially giving it a big advantage over competitors.That ignited a swift and often successful lobbying effort, especially from Washington’s high-priced K Street law firms, which ended up applying for hundreds of thousands of tariff exemptions. The Office of the United States Trade Representative, which handled exclusions for the China tariffs, fielded more than 50,000 requests, while the Commerce Department received nearly 500,000 exclusion requests for the tariffs on steel and aluminum.As Mr. Trump dangles new and potentially more expensive tariffs, many companies are already angling to obtain relief. Lawyers and lobbyists in Washington say they are receiving an influx of requests from companies that want to hire their services, even before the full extent of the president-elect’s tariff plans becomes clear.In his first term, Mr. Trump imposed tariffs of as much as 25 percent on more than $300 billion in Chinese goods, and 10 percent to 25 percent on steel and aluminum from a variety of countries, including Canada, Mexico and 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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    Why Trump Allies Say Immigration Hurts American Workers

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    JD Vance and others on the “new right” say limiting immigration will raise wages and give jobs to sidelined Americans. Many studies suggest otherwise.As President-elect Donald J. Trump’s second administration takes shape, his plans for a signature campaign promise are becoming clear: mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, including new detention centers, workplace raids and possibly the mobilization of the military to aid in expulsions.Most economists are skeptical that this project will improve opportunities for working-class Americans. Mr. Trump and his allies don’t typically argue for purging undocumented immigrants on economic grounds; the case is more often about crimes committed by migrants, or simply a need to enforce the law.But there is an intellectual movement behind immigration restriction that seeks to reshape the relationship between employers and their sources of labor. According to this rising conservative faction, most closely identified with Vice President-elect JD Vance, cutting off the supply of vulnerable foreigners will force employers to seek out U.S.-born workers.“We cannot have an entire American business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers,” Mr. Vance said in an interview with The New York Times in October, adding, “It’s one of the biggest reasons why we have millions of people who’ve dropped out of the labor force.”Mr. Vance is correct that the share of men in their prime working years who are in the labor force — that is, either working or looking for work — has declined in recent decades, sliding during recessions and never totally recovering. (Women in that age group, 25 to 54 years old, are working at the highest levels on record.)It seems like a simple equation: When fewer workers are available, employers have to try harder to compete for them. Certainly that dynamic played a role in the swift wage growth early in the pandemic, when people willing to do in-person jobs — waiters or nurses, for example — were in especially short supply.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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    Is Trump More Flexible on China Than His Hawkish Cabinet Picks Suggest?

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    President-elect Donald J. Trump is assembling a team of aides bent on confrontation with China. But he also has advisers who do business there, including Elon Musk.They are the new class of cold warriors, guns pointed at China.President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen cabinet secretaries and a national security adviser who stress the need to confront China across the entire security and economic spectrum: military posture, trade, technology, espionage, human rights and Taiwan.Those choices could open a new era of conflict with a nuclear-armed nation that has the world’s largest standing army and second-largest economy, and where many top officials see the United States as a superpower in decline.Mr. Trump’s hawkish advisers so far include Marco Rubio, a Florida senator named as secretary of state; Michael Waltz, a Florida congressman tapped for national security adviser; and Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News television personality designated to be defense secretary. Cabinet secretaries must be confirmed by the Senate, although Mr. Trump has floated the idea of getting around that by using recess appointments.Those men are more explicitly hostile to China than their counterparts in the Biden administration, though President Biden has taken an aggressive tack with China and continued some of the policies from Mr. Trump’s first term. A consensus has solidified among Democrats and Republicans in Washington that China must be constrained because it is the nation most capable of upending American global dominance.Yet there are signs that Mr. Trump might consider a more moderate approach on trade, perhaps to avoid upsetting a roaring stock market nurtured by Mr. Biden.Mr. Trump with President Xi Jinping of China in Beijing in November 2017. Mr. Trump hosted Mr. Xi at Mar-a-Lago earlier that year, but their budding relationship eventually fell apart over a trade war that Mr. Trump started.Doug Mills/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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    How Trump’s Tax Cuts and Tariffs Could Turn Into Law

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    Republicans are juggling complex political and tactical questions as they plan their congressional agenda next year.Republicans are starting to sketch out how to translate President-elect Donald J. Trump’s economic agenda into law, putting plans in place to bypass Democrats and approve multiple bills reshaping the nation’s tax and spending policies along party lines.With total control of Washington, Republicans have the rare — and often fleeting — opportunity to leave a lasting mark on federal policy. Some in the party are hoping to tee up big legislation for early next year and capitalize on Mr. Trump’s first 100 days.Much of the early planning revolves around the sweeping tax cuts the party passed and Mr. Trump signed into law in 2017, many of which will expire at the end of next year. Key Republicans are holding meetings about how to maneuver a bill extending the tax cuts through the Senate, while others are consulting economists for ideas to offset their roughly $4 trillion cost.Several questions loom over the Republican effort. They range from how fast the party should move next year to deeper political disagreements over which tax and spending policies to change. The overall cost of the legislation is a central preoccupation at a time of rising deficits. And whatever Republicans put together will most likely become a magnet for other issues the party has prioritized, including immigration.Here’s what to expect.A Difficult ProcessMost legislation needs a supermajority of 60 votes to pass the Senate. But for bills focused on taxes and spending, lawmakers can turn to a process called budget reconciliation that requires only a regular majority of 51 votes in the Senate.Reconciliation is a powerful but cumbersome tool. Its rules prevent lawmakers from passing policy changes unrelated to the budget, and lawmakers are only allowed to use reconciliation a limited number of times per year. Republicans could also raise the debt limit through the process.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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    Walmart Sees ‘Momentum’ Ahead of Holiday Shopping Season

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    The company, a bellwether for the retail industry, said its U.S. sales rose 5 percent in the third quarter, as cost-conscious consumers of all incomes sought bargains.Walmart has told its workers that it plans to “win” the holiday season. Ahead of the peak shopping period, the nation’s largest retailer appears well positioned, citing “broad-based strength” across its product range.Walmart said Tuesday that U.S. sales increased 5 percent in the third quarter, to $114.9 billion, easily surpassing analysts’ estimates. Its U.S. e-commerce business jumped 22 percent, aided by pickup and delivery options and its expanding online advertising and marketplace business.Operating profit for the quarter rose 9.1 percent at the retailer’s U.S. unit. Walmart raised its full-year forecast for sales and profit, higher than the estimates it had already increased last quarter.Doug McMillon, Walmart’s chief executive, said the company had “momentum.”“In the U.S., in-store volumes grew, pickup from store grew faster, and delivery from store grew even faster than that,” he said in a statement Tuesday.Walmart, which brings in millions of customers each week, is a bellwether of U.S. consumer trends. The period between Thanksgiving and New Year can make or break a retailer’s year, and companies are unsure about how freely shoppers will spend in the weeks ahead.Stung by inflation, consumers have shown that they are looking for low prices and convenience, such as free or fast shipping. The squeeze has been acute on lower-income shoppers, a core customer base for Walmart, and more higher-income customers have been trading down to Walmart in recent years. Walmart said those more affluent shoppers continued to buoy sales in its latest quarter.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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    How Trump’s Plans for Mass Deportations, Tariffs and Fed Could Affect the Economy

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    Predicting how White House policy is going to affect the American economy is always fraught with uncertainty. Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House has taken the doubt up a notch.Mr. Trump has proposed or hinted at a range of policies — including drastically higher tariffs, mass deportations, deregulation and a fraught relationship with the Federal Reserve as it sets interest rates — that could shape the economy in complex ways.“There are two multiplicative sources of uncertainty: One, of course, is what they’re going to do,” said Michael Feroli, the chief U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan. “The other is: Even if you know what they’re going to do, what is it going to mean for the economy?”What forecasters do know is that America’s economy is solid heading into 2025, with low unemployment, solid wage gains, gradually declining Federal Reserve interest rates, and inflation that has been slowly returning to a normal pace after years of rapid price increases. Factory construction took off under the Biden administration, and those facilities will be slowly opening their doors in the coming years.But what comes next for growth and for inflation is unclear — especially because when it comes to huge issues like whether or not to assert more control over the Federal Reserve, Mr. Trump is getting different advice from different people in his orbit. Here are some of the crucial wild cards.Tariffs: Likely Inflationary. How Much Is Unclear.If economists agree about one thing regarding Mr. Trump’s policies, it is that his tariff proposals could boost prices for consumers and lift inflation. But the range of estimates over how much is wide.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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    Fed Chair Jerome Powell Says No Need to ‘Hurry’ to Cut Rates

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    A strong economy is giving Federal Reserve officials room to move “carefully” as they lower interest rates, the central bank chair said.Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, said that a solid economy with low unemployment, robust consumer spending and strengthening business investment gave the central bank room to take its time in cutting interest rates.“The economy is not sending any signals that we need to be in a hurry to lower rates,” Mr. Powell said during a speech in Dallas on Thursday. “The strength we are currently seeing in the economy gives us the ability to approach our decisions carefully.”The Fed is trying to navigate a complicated moment. The economy remains healthy overall, but the job market has slowed over the past year. Inflation has also been cooling steadily. Between the two developments, central bankers have decided that they no longer need to tap the brakes on the economy quite so hard.After lifting interest rates sharply in 2022 and 2023 in a bid to cool the economy and wrestle rapid inflation back under control, they have begun to lower borrowing costs in recent months.But officials still want to make sure that they fully stamp out rapid inflation. Price increases have cooled substantially from their 2022 peak, but they have not completely returned to the central bank’s 2 percent goal. Prices climbed 2.1 percent in the year through September, and are on track to come in a bit above that in October, based on other recent data reports.Mr. Powell made it clear that Fed officials expected to see limited progress on inflation in the next few months.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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    How Trump’s Immigration Plans Could Affect the Economy

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    Expelling noncitizens on a mass scale is likely to raise prices on goods and services and lower employment rates for U.S. workers, many economists say.The wave of migrants who arrived during the Biden administration fueled some of the anger that propelled Donald J. Trump back to power. They also offset a labor shortage, putting a damper on inflation.With the next administration vowing to seal the border and carry out the largest deportation program in American history, those economic forces could reverse — depending on the degree to which Mr. Trump can fulfill those promises.Mr. Trump’s newly appointed “border czar,” Tom Homan, has said that the administration would start with the immigrants who have committed crimes. There are not nearly enough of those to amount to removals on a mass scale, however, and Vice President-elect JD Vance has also said that all 11 million undocumented immigrants should prepare to leave. “If you are in this country illegally in six months, pack your bags, because you’re going home,” Mr. Vance said in September.The numbers could rise by another 2.7 million if the new administration revokes several types of temporary humanitarian protection, as the Trump adviser Stephen Miller previewed last year. On top of that, millions of undocumented residents live with U.S.-born children or green card holders who could end up leaving the country as well.There are logistical, legal, diplomatic and — even though Mr. Trump has said there is “no price tag” he wouldn’t direct the government to pay — fiscal obstacles to expelling millions of people who would rather stay. (According to the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group for immigrants, it would cost $315 billion to arrest, detain, and deport all 13.3 million living in the United States illegally or under a revocable temporary status.)That’s why forecasting a precise impact is impossible at this point. But if Mr. Trump accomplishes anything close to what he has pledged, many economists expect higher prices on goods and services and possibly lower employment rates for American workers.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