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    Trump and DOGE Create Anxiety but Opportunity for Federal Contractors

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    By cutting federal employees, the Trump administration may increase its reliance on firms that take in billions through government contracts.A contracting firm called Leidos took in more than $16 billion in revenue last year, most of it through contracts with federal agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs.So when the Trump administration’s budget cutters took aim at the V.A. last month, it seemed like bad news not just for the department’s employees but also for Leidos and dozens of other private-sector firms.“No more paying consultants to do things like make Power Point slides and write meeting minutes!” the department’s secretary, Doug Collins, wrote on X. Overall, the department said, it was canceling more than 850 contracts worth nearly $2 billion.But shortly after Mr. Collins’s announcement, the outlook for some of the V.A.’s contractors seemed to brighten. The department put the cancellations on pause, saying it needed to review the contracts to avoid “eliminating any benefits or services” to veterans or V.A. beneficiaries. It later narrowed the list of canceled contracts by a few hundred.And experts on government contracting said cuts to the agency, which announced last week that it was seeking to trim 80,000 of its roughly 480,000 employees, could even lead to increased spending on federal contracts.These experts noted that cutting employees without reining in a government function — like providing health care and benefits to veterans, work in which Leidos plays a key role — typically means the job will fall more heavily on contractors.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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    A Timeline of Trump’s Tariff Fight With Canada, Mexico, China and the E.U.

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    President Trump has called the word tariff “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.” He imposed hefty tariffs during his first term and promised expansive new ones as he pursued his second. On his first day back in the White House in January, he issued an executive order directing his cabinet picks to prepare even more tariffs.In the first 50 days of his second term, those sweeping actions have upended diplomatic ties, shaken markets and confounded entire industries. But so has President Trump’s whipsawing commitment to his tariffs, which he has paused, reversed or withdrawn — at times almost as soon as they took effect.Here’s a timeline of President Trump’s widening — and constantly shifting — tariffs, which as of Thursday included a threat to impose 200 percent levies on alcohol from the European Union.Jan. 20 🇨🇦 🇲🇽Hours after he was sworn in, Mr. Trump announced that he would implement additional 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico starting on Feb. 1, accusing both countries of not doing enough to stop the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States. Read more ›Jan. 26 🇨🇴Surprising even some of his own staff members, Mr. Trump announced on social media that he would immediately impose 25 percent tariffs on all goods from Colombia — and would raise them to 50 percent in one week — after its government turned back planes carrying deported immigrants. Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, briefly threatened tariffs of his own. But he quickly backed down, and soon so did Mr. Trump. That evening, the White House released a statement saying the government of Colombia had “agreed to all of President Trump’s terms” and the “tariffs and sanctions will be held in reserve.” Read more ›Feb. 1 🇨🇦 🇲🇽 🇨🇳Mr. Trump signed an executive order imposing 25 percent tariffs on nearly all goods from Canada and Mexico, and a 10 percent tariff on China. The president said the tariffs were levied in response to his concerns about fentanyl smuggling and illegal immigration. Canada and Mexico said they would retaliate with tariffs of their own. China threatened “countermeasures.” Read more ›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 Unpredictable Tariffs Cloud Europe’s Economic Outlook

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    Policymakers are grappling with “exceptionally high” uncertainty, Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, said on Wednesday, just hours after the European Commission announced tariffs on U.S. imports in response to levies imposed by the Trump administration. Later, Canada announced a new round of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports.The unpredictability of trade policy and geopolitics, which is likely to mean more large economic shocks, will make it harder for central bankers to keep inflation at their 2 percent target, Ms. Lagarde said.There was a somewhat bewildered mood among some of the E.C.B. officials, economists and analysts at an annual gathering held in Frankfurt, where Ms. Lagarde delivered her speech. Participants reflected on the rapidly shifting economic environment stemming from the escalating trade tensions and a substantial increase in military spending planned by European countries, particularly Germany.Under different circumstances, this year’s conference could have seemed like more of a celebration: Inflation in the eurozone slowed to 2.4 percent in February, near the central bank’s target, and policymakers have been able to cut interest rates six times since the middle of last year.Instead, President Trump’s imposition of sweeping tariffs, and his shifting policies on military aid to Ukraine, are unnerving European leaders. In response, European officials are proposing to borrow more to fund defense and infrastructure investments, significantly altering the region’s fiscal situation. The conference began with one speaker emphasizing the importance of preparing for war in order to avoid war.“Established certainties about the international order have been upended,” Ms. Lagarde said. “Some alliances have become strained while others have drawn closer. We have seen political decisions that would have been unthinkable only a few months ago.”When introducing a panel, François Villeroy de Galhau, the governor of the French central bank, said, “We are aware this environment can change tweet by tweet from one day to the next.” He invited panelists to begin their presentations but noted they could be referring to something that may be reversed by the same afternoon.“We live in a world not only of uncertainty, but still more unpredictability and still more, these last days, irrationality,” he said. More

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    Trump Promised Americans Booming Wealth. Now He’s Changing His Tune.

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    As a presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump promised an economic “boom like no other.”But eight weeks into his presidency, Mr. Trump is refusing to rule out a recession — a striking change in tone and message for a man who rode widespread economic dissatisfaction to the White House by promising to “make America affordable again.”His comments come as the stock market is tumbling — the S&P 500 fell 2.7 percent Monday after falling 3.1 percent last week — and business leaders are spooked about the uncertainty over his tariffs. Even some Republicans, who fear retribution if they cross Mr. Trump, have started to raise concerns about his levies.The moment captures a fundamental challenge for Mr. Trump, a showman who makes absolute and sweeping promises that inevitably run into the reality of governing.The economy Mr. Trump inherited was by many standards in solid shape, with low unemployment, moderate growth and an inflation rate that, while still higher than what the Federal Reserve wants, had declined substantially. But the uncertainty that his policies have injected into the outlook is a jarring contrast with the picture Mr. Trump painted on the campaign trail.“We will begin a new era of soaring incomes,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in October. “Skyrocketing wealth. Millions and millions of new jobs and a booming middle class. We are going to boom like we’ve never boomed before.”That vow to create an economic boom has come into conflict, at least for now, with the president’s favorite economic tool: tariffs. He promised those too during the campaign and, as economists warned, they are the primary driver of the country’s cloudy economic outlook. Forecasts from both JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs say a recession over the next year has become more likely because of Mr. Trump’s tariffs.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 Pulls Back Plans to Double Canadian Metal Tariffs After Ontario Relents

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    President Trump escalated his fight with Canada on Tuesday, threatening to double tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and pressing to turn one of America’s closest traditional allies into the 51st state. After several tense hours, both sides backed down, at least for now.It was the latest in a week of chaotic trade moves, in which the president startled investors and businesses that depend on trade and clashed with some of the country’s closest trading partners.In a post on his social media platform Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump wrote that Canadian steel and aluminum would face a 50 percent tariff, double what he plans to charge on metals from other countries beginning Wednesday. He said the levies were in response to an additional charge that Ontario had placed on electricity coming into the United States, which was in turn a response to tariffs Mr. Trump imposed on Canada last week.By Tuesday afternoon, leaders had begun to relent. The premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said he would suspend the electricity surcharge, and Mr. Trump said at the White House he would “probably” reduce the tariff on Canadian metals.Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said Tuesday afternoon that Mr. Trump’s threats had succeeded in getting Canada to back down. “President Trump has once again used the leverage of the American economy, which is the best and biggest in the world, to deliver a win for the American people,” he said.As a result, he said that Canada would face the same 25 percent tariff on metals as all of America’s trading partners will when they go into effect at midnight. More

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    Trump Tariffs and Trade Wars Leave Investors, Once Optimistic, Feeling Apprehensive

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    On Tuesday, President Trump sent markets into another tailspin by announcing additional tariffs on Canada, suggesting a falling stock market is no longer the bulwark investors had hoped.President Trump made a lot of promises on the campaign trail last year. Investors and business leaders enthusiastically cheered some, like lower taxes and relaxed regulation, and expressed wariness about others, like tariffs and reduced immigration.But when Mr. Trump won the election, there was little sign of that ambivalence: Stock prices soared, as did measures of business optimism.Investors at the time offered a simple explanation: They believed Mr. Trump, backed by a Republican-controlled Congress, would follow through on the parts of his agenda that they liked and scale back the more disruptive policies like tariffs if financial markets started to get spooked.It is increasingly clear they were wrong.In his first weeks in office, Mr. Trump has made tariffs the central focus of his economic policy, promising, and at times imposing, steep penalties on allies as well as adversaries. He has threatened to curb subsidies that businesses had come to rely on. And he has empowered Elon Musk’s efforts to slash the federal bureaucracy, potentially putting tens of thousands of federal workers out of jobs and cutting off billions of dollars in government grants and contracts.Most surprising, at least to the optimists on Wall Street: Mr. Trump has so far been undeterred by signs of cracks in the economy or by plunging stock prices.“The idea that the administration is going to be held back by a self-imposed market constraint should be discounted,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the accounting firm RSM.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 Said ‘No Exceptions’ to His Tariffs. Will That Last?

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    As he prepares to introduce new tariffs on foreign metals this week, President Trump has vowed not to grant the types of exclusions and exemptions that were common during his first trade war.But he has already undercut that tough position on other tariffs. After lobbying from automakers, farmers and other industries, Mr. Trump quickly walked back the sweeping tariffs he had imposed on Tuesday on all imports from Canada and Mexico. By Thursday, he had suspended those tariffs indefinitely for all products that comply with the North American free trade deal, U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or U.S.M.C.A. — about half of all imports from Mexico and nearly 40 percent of those from Canada.That has given industries and foreign governments an opening to lobby the administration ahead of the metals tariffs, which go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, as well as other levies planned for April 2.Foreign officials have been pressing for exemptions for their steel and aluminum. In meetings in Washington on Monday, Japan’s trade minister was also expected to seek an exemption from tariffs on automobiles, which Mr. Trump has said are coming in April.Matt Blunt, president of the American Automotive Policy Council, a trade group representing U.S. automakers, said in a statement that Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis purchase the vast majority of their steel and aluminum in the United States or North America and were worried about the impact of the levies.The companies were reviewing and awaiting details of the proposed tariffs, but were “concerned” that levying them on Canada and Mexico would “add significant costs for our suppliers,” Mr. Blunt said.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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    Who Likes Tariffs? Some U.S. Industries Are Eager for Them.

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    Concern about the cost of materials has tempered business enthusiasm about taxing imports. But steel and aluminum makers say they welcome the help.The United States buys more steel from Canada than from any other country, and those imports will become much more expensive under tariffs President Trump intends to impose this week.That’s good news to Stephen Capone, president of Capone Iron Corporation of Rowley, Mass., which makes steel stairs, handrails, gratings and other products and has around 100 employees. For too long, he said, Canadian competitors have been flooding the New England market with cheap steel products, preventing his and other local companies from winning business.“No matter how low we bid, they can underbid us on any job,” Mr. Capone said, “They’re decimating our market.”Many companies oppose Mr. Trump’s tariffs, fearing that they will push up costs and provoke retaliation against their products by other countries. Ford Motor’s chief executive, Jim Farley, said last month that tariffs could “blow a hole” in the U.S. auto industry, and retailers have warned that they will lead to higher prices for consumers.But there are deep pockets of support for his trade policies in the business world, particularly among executives who say their industries have been harmed by unfair trade.In particular, the leaders of American steel and aluminum companies have long contended that foreign rivals undercut them because those rivals benefit from subsidies and other government support. And they say that tariffs, when imposed without loopholes, have been effective at spurring more investment in 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