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    Trump Defends Tariff Strategy Amid Global Trade War and Market Chaos

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    As new U.S. tariffs upended financial markets and sent foreign governments scrambling to respond, President Trump on Wednesday morning remained ebullient, posting at one point on Truth Social: “BE COOL!”“Everything is going to work out well,” he maintained amid the unfurling chaos. “The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!”For Mr. Trump, the reassurances offered a stark, split-screen contrast with the pandemonium stemming from his costly and widening global trade war. In the hours since he imposed his latest round of tariffs, foreign powers including China have retaliated against the United States — and economists broadly have expressed renewed alarm about the prospects for severe blowback. But Mr. Trump has continued to downplay the risks to American consumers and businesses, insisting it is all part of his plan.In a post on Truth Social, he argued it was actually a “GREAT time to move your COMPANY into the United States of America,” adding: “DON’T WAIT, DO IT NOW!”When financial markets began to whipsaw — and a sell-off in the U.S. bond market deepened — the president chose to portray the uncertainty and chaos as an opportunity. “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” he posted on the site later Wednesday morning.The president also tried to refocus attention on his plan to extend a set of soon-expiring tax cuts on individuals and businesses, which remains snarled in the House and Senate because of disagreements within Republican ranks.“Republicans, it is more important now, than ever, that we pass THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,” Mr. Trump said in another of his posts. “The USA will Soar like never before!!!”For days, Mr. Trump and his top aides had foreshadowed the chaos and confusion now playing out across the global financial system. The president repeatedly had described the U.S. economy in medical terms, saying the nation was “sick” and needed a painful yet necessary corrective to boost American manufacturing and generate new revenue.Economists have told a different story, warning that the president’s steep new taxes on foreign exports could curtail growth and result in price increases for American consumers, ultimately raising the odds of a U.S. recession. Even some Republicans have grown increasingly alarmed with Mr. Trump’s trade strategy, with a handful signing on to new legislation that would limit his tariff authorities.But Mr. Trump has remained steadfast in his approach, as administration officials estimated this week that more than 70 countries had reached out to Washington in the hopes of striking a trade deal.“I know what the hell I’m doing,” the president told Republicans on Tuesday. More

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    Walmart Says Trump’s Tariffs Have Added Uncertainty to Its Outlook

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    The timing was a bit awkward.Walmart’s investor event — which happens every two years and aims to showcase the company’s strengths and strategy for growth — also happened to fall on the same day that U.S.-imposed tariffs went into effect worldwide and a trade war heated up.As the largest retailer in the United States, Walmart relies on suppliers from around the world. And for the Wall Street analysts who attended the event in Dallas on Wednesday, tariffs were top of mind.Doug McMillon, Walmart’s chief executive, acknowledged the uncertainty. In response to one of several questions from analysts about tariffs, he said: “There’s so many variables playing out in terms of what costs are going to be, where people source from. We’re going have to manage this as we always do, daily.”Or by the minute.As the event got underway on Wednesday, the United States had imposed worldwide tariffs, including a levy of 104 percent on Chinese goods, and China quickly retaliated with 84 percent tariffs on U.S. goods. Mr. McMillon, speaking just after Beijing’s additional tariffs went into effect, said the situation was “very fluid.” In fact, not long after Mr. McMillon’s question-and-answer session with analysts, President Trump said he was pausing his worldwide reciprocal tariffs for 90 days and raising the rate on China to 125 percent.During the session, Mr. McMillon emphasized that Walmart was well placed to cope with uncertainty, having navigated “the period after 9/11, the global financial crisis, a pandemic and more recently high inflation.” Walmart’s customer base includes a large number of lower-income shoppers, who have less capacity to absorb the higher prices that the tariffs could bring.John David Rainey, Walmart’s chief financial officer, emphasized that two-thirds of what Walmart sells in the United States is made, grown or assembled domestically; the figure includes groceries, which generally have lower margins. The other third of what Walmart sells comes from all over the world, especially from China and Mexico, he said.Mr. Rainey said the tariffs had made it harder for Walmart to predict its first-quarter operating income growth. “We’re one week into this new tariff environment, and we’re still working through what this means for us,” he said. “For the current quarter, the uncertainty and decline in consumer sentiment has led to a little more sales volatility week to week and, frankly, day to day.”Walmart reiterated expectations for first-quarter sales growth of about 3 to 4 percent and said its annual sales growth guidance remained unchanged, with customers still expected to migrate toward e-commerce and delivery, key parts of Walmart’s strategy. Walmart will report its first-quarter results on May 15. More

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    Trump Maintains 104% China Tariffs as U.S. Officials Signal Openness to Talks

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    President Trump’s next round of punishing tariffs on some of America’s largest trading partners was set to go into effect just after midnight on Wednesday, including stiff new levies that will increase import taxes on Chinese goods by at least 104 percent.Mr. Trump acknowledged on Tuesday that his tariffs had been “somewhat explosive.” But throughout the day he continued to defend his approach, saying that it was encouraging countries with what he calls “unfair” trade practices to offer concessions.“We have a lot of countries coming in to make deals,” he said during remarks at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. At a dinner with Congressional Republicans in Washington later that evening, he said other countries wanted to make a deal with the United States but he was happy just collecting the revenue from tariffs, which he claimed would reach $2 billion a day.“I know what the hell I’m doing,” he said, adding that he would be announcing “a major tariff on pharmaceuticals” very shortly.The president and top administration officials signaled on Tuesday that the White House was ready to negotiate deals, saying that 70 governments had approached the United States to try to roll the levies back. Mr. Trump said officials would begin talks with Japan, South Korea and other nations.The president, whose punitive and successive tariffs on China have triggered a potentially economically damaging trade war, also said he was open to talking to Beijing about a deal.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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    Stock Market Chaos Over Tariffs Could Take Toll on Economy

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    A big hit to portfolios would be felt acutely by higher-income Americans, whose spending has recently been the biggest driver of the economy.This time, maybe the stock market is the economy.Financial markets around the world have plummeted in the days since President Trump announced sweeping tariffs, setting off a global trade war. The S&P 500 declined more than 10 percent in two days last week, and it swung wildly on Monday amid news of further tariffs and rumors of delays. Stock indexes in Asia and Europe have fallen sharply as well.Experts often caution that the stock market can be a misleading measure of the broader economy. Share prices can move for a host of reasons — technological developments, shifts in consumer preferences, changes in tax or interest rate policy.Sometimes, though, the markets carry an economic message — and in recent days, they have been speaking unusually clearly. Investors overwhelmingly believe that Mr. Trump’s tariffs, and retaliation from U.S. trading partners, will lead to higher prices, slower growth and possibly a global recession.Plunging stock prices may not just reflect fears of a recession. They may also help cause one, as consumers pull back spending in response to their portfolios’ evaporating value.A few days of turmoil might not matter much, said Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, a forecasting firm, “but if the drop in the stock market persists for a few weeks, a couple months, the economic costs begin to quickly mount.”The direct effects of tariffs will fall hardest on low- and moderate-income consumers, who tend to spend more of their money on food, clothing and other goods subject to duties, and who have less savings to insulate them from higher prices. But market declines will be felt most acutely by higher earners, who own a disproportionate share of stocks and other investments.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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    Global Leaders Rush to Woo Trump, Hoping to Sway Him on Tariffs

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    Dozens of foreign governments were trying to appeal to the president to have steep tariffs rolled back, but the president and his advisers have indicated negotiations could be difficult.President Trump’s plan to impose sweeping tariffs on most of America’s trading partners has governments across the globe racing to schedule phone calls, send delegations to Washington and offer up proposals to lower their import taxes in order to escape the levies.On Monday, European officials offered to drop tariffs to zero on cars and industrial goods imported from the United States, in return for the same treatment. Israel’s prime minister was expected to personally petition Mr. Trump on Monday in meetings at the White House. Vietnam’s top leader, in a phone call last week, offered to get rid of tariffs on American goods, while Indonesia prepared to send a high-level delegation to Washington, D.C., to “directly negotiate with the U.S. government.”Even Lesotho, the tiny landlocked country in Southern Africa, was assembling a delegation to send to Washington to protest the tariffs on its exports to the United States, which include denim for Calvin Klein and Levi’s.Mr. Trump and his advisers have given mixed signals on whether the United States is willing to negotiate. On Sunday, Mr. Trump said that the tariffs would remain in place until U.S. trade deficits disappeared, meaning the United States is no longer buying more from these countries than it sells to them. But the administration still appeared to be welcoming offers from foreign nations, which are desperate to try to forestall more levies that go into effect on Wednesday.On Monday, as markets recoiled for a third day and Mr. Trump threatened even more punishing tariffs on China, the president said that “negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately.”“Countries from all over the World are talking to us,” the president wrote on Truth Social on Monday morning. “Tough but fair parameters are being set. Spoke to the Japanese Prime Minister this morning. He is sending a top team to negotiate!”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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    What Is a Bear Market? Are We in One?

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    President Trump’s global tariffs have sent stock markets worldwide into a tailspin, and the S&P 500 on Monday briefly entered bear market territory for the first time since 2022.Mr. Trump has seemed unmoved by the decline. He signaled on Monday that he had no plans to back off on tariffs, insisting that they would bring in “billions of dollars” in revenue and that other countries had been “abusing” the United States with their trade policies.Here is what to know about a bear market.What is a bear market?A bear market is a Wall Street term for a sustained market downturn, when a stock index closes 20 percent from its last peak.The 20 percent threshold signals investor pessimism about the future of the economy.Are we in a bear market now?The S&P 500, the benchmark U.S. stock index, opened lower on Monday. The index was already down 17.4 percent from its last high, on Feb. 19, and if it closes Monday’s trading with a loss of at least 3.1 percent, that would tip it into a bear market. More

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    JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon Warns of Economic Pain From Trump’s Tariffs

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    President Trump’s wave of tariffs threatens to bring both short-term economic pain, including lower growth, and long-term damage to America’s standing and trade relationships around the world, the chief executive of Wall Street’s biggest bank warned on Monday.“The recent tariffs will likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession,” Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, wrote in his annual letter to shareholders.The warning by Mr. Dimon, one of Wall Street’s most influential leaders, echoes the growing anxiety among corporate chiefs about how the tariffs will play out. Even those who had initially professed support for Mr. Trump’s trade plans are becoming increasingly worried about the consequences.Even before Mr. Trump’s tariff announcement last week, the U.S. economy had been showing signs of strain after years of healthy performance, Mr. Dimon wrote. Inflation was already a worry, he said, pointing to a yawning fiscal deficit and the need for more infrastructure spending. And stock valuations remain well above historical averages, even after the recent market sell-off.The potential consequences of the trade fight could make things worse, the letter said. Those include other countries’ efforts to fight back — as China has done by imposing 34 percent counterlevies — and a possible erosion of confidence among consumers and investors. Mr. Dimon also warned about the weakening of the American dollar’s role as the global reserve currency.“If America, for whatever reason, becomes a less attractive investment destination, the U.S. dollar and the economy could suffer if foreigners sold their U.S. assets,” he wrote.JPMorgan’s own economists have increasingly been saying a recession is more likely this year, though Mr. Dimon did not personally take a position on those odds in his shareholder letter.While he asserted that JPMorgan itself was strong enough to withstand the shocks that the levies posed — its traders have profited from previous whipsaws in the markets — the global economy may not be so fortunate. “It is not particularly good for the capital markets,” Mr. Dimon wrote of the tariff-linked volatility.For now, Mr. Dimon wrote, he is hoping for a speedy resolution to the trade battles. “The quicker this issue is resolved, the better, because some of the negative effects increase cumulatively over time and would be hard to reverse,” he wrote.The longer-term worry, Mr. Dimon said, is that Mr. Trump’s fight could shred decades-old alliances that cemented the United States’ primacy in the global order. The JPMorgan chief wrote that he was worried that America’s trading partners might seek out deals with the likes of China, Iran or Russia in response to the tariffs.“America First is fine,” Mr. Dimon wrote, referring to Mr. Trump’s description of his policies, “as long as it doesn’t end up being America alone.” More

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    Oil Prices Tumble Further as Trump’s Tariffs Weigh on Economic Outlook

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    U.S. oil prices fell sharply, briefly dipping below $60 a barrel on Sunday — their lowest level in almost four years — as the economic fallout from President Trump’s latest round of tariffs reverberated around the world.The price of crude oil is down more than 15 percent since last Wednesday, just before Mr. Trump revealed his plans to impose stiff new tariffs on imports from most countries. That prices have fallen so far so quickly reflects deepening concern that high tariffs could slow economic growth and perhaps even cause recessions in the United States and the countries it trades with.The cost of U.S. benchmark crude continued to fall on Monday, down more than 2 percent. Cheaper oil is generally good for consumers and businesses that use gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. In fact, Mr. Trump and his aides have pushed for lower energy prices to curb inflation.But if prices remain around these levels or fall further, U.S. oil and gas companies are likely to slow drilling, cut spending and lay off workers. That would be especially painful to oil-rich states like Texas and New Mexico.Another big reason that oil prices have weakened is that the OPEC cartel and its allies announced last week that they would accelerate plans to increase production. That will increase supply of oil at a time when many analysts expect demand to weaken.U.S. energy companies are also getting squeezed by higher costs for essential materials like steel tubing, which is subject to a 25 percent tariff Mr. Trump announced in February.Smaller oil companies — a key constituency for Mr. Trump — are likely to be among the first to slow down, as they tend to be more nimble and have fewer financial resources. Natural gas prices have been more resilient, providing some cushion for producers.Last week, the share price of an exchange-traded fund composed of U.S. oil and gas stocks fell by 20 percent in the two days after Mr. Trump’s tariff announcement. More