Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: The United States hit its record debt level at the end of 1945, after a world war and the Great Depression. That record, in which the debt was briefly larger than the size of the entire economy, is almost certain to be broken in the next several years. Estimates from the Congressional Budget Office published in January showed that the country was on track to overtake it in 2032 — and that was before the…

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The Washington Post reports: President Donald Trump is trying to force down drug prices to specific levels. He has directed tariff rates on virtually every country. He declared that the Federal Reserve “must” lower interest rates. He takes a personal interest in the fate of individual companies like TikTok. He appears frequently with CEOs to tout investment deals, including many that were hatched before his presidency. And in his just-concluded Middle East trip, Trump pitched business leaders on doing business…

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The Guardian reports: Summarizing his befuddlement with numbers, Mark Twain observed that there were “lies, damned lies and statistics”. The acerbic phrase later become so deeply embedded in popular consciousness that it once formed the title to an episode of The West Wing, NBC’s portrayal of a fictitious US president played by Martin Sheen. Now professional economists and number-crunchers fear the aphorism could become a White House theme in real life. Buffeted by global markets and public opinion – both…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: The owner of a San Francisco card-game company cashed in his money-market funds. The founder of a tent maker is looking for investors. A watch and jewelry company in Colorado is holding off on signing a new office lease. And a New Hampshire consumer-product company has laid off more than half its staff. Around the country, small businesses that import goods made in China are taking actions—big and small—to try to outlast the current 145%…

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CNBC reports: The U.K. and U.S. agreed to a landmark trade deal on Thursday — yet the agreement appears to be far from free of tariffs. The deal is the first made by the United States since President Donald Trump unveiled his so-called reciprocal tariffs on countries around the world last month. The United Kingdom’s position as one of a handful of countries where the U.S. boasts a trade surplus in goods — meaning the U.S. exports more to the…

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CNBC reports: China’s exports surged in April on the back of a jump in shipments to Southeast Asian countries, offsetting a sharp drop in outbound goods to the U.S. as prohibitive tariffs kicked in. Exports jumped 8.1% last month in U.S. dollar terms from a year earlier, according to data released by customs authority on Friday, sharply beating Reuters’ poll estimates of a 1.9% rise. Imports slumped by just 0.2% in April from a year earlier, compared with economists’ expectations…

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Juliette Kayyem writes: The economy, and the supply chains that allow it to function, can adjust fairly quickly to certain shocks, including weather disasters and even a pandemic. Early in the COVID shutdowns, toilet paper was in short supply as Americans spent more time at home and less at workplaces and schools. The problem eased as manufacturers ramped up production, transportation systems adapted, and consumer anxiety decreased. But Trump’s trade war is different because it is unpredictable and indefinite. Even…

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The New York Times reports: Small-ticket items shipped to the United States from China will no longer be exempt from tariffs starting on Friday, when a decision by President Trump to shutter a shipping loophole he calls a “scam” takes effect. The move is expected to send ripples through the economy as American consumers, who have gotten used to buying cheap shoes, Hawaiian shirts, holiday decorations and other products made in China, suddenly find those products much pricier. The fallout…

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Rolling Stone reports: Donald Trump’s trade wars with China and other nations are widely expected to cause sharp economic pain, but some experts have warned consumers not to hoard supplies and goods before prices skyrocket, arguing that mass stockpiling could backfire spectacularly. Well, many Americans aren’t listening to that advice, according to survey data this year, instead preparing for the possibility of store shelves being bare amid a Trump-inflicted recession. Funnily enough, this includes a number of government officials and…

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  The New York Times reports: The Senate on Wednesday rejected an effort to undo President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on most U.S. trading partners, even as a small group of Republicans joined Democrats in delivering a rebuke to a trade policy that many lawmakers fear is causing economic harm. The vote deadlocked at 49 to 49, meaning it failed despite three Republicans joining Democrats in favor of a measure that sought to terminate the national emergency declaration Mr. Trump used…

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  David Dayen writes: I don’t care how well-stocked a company is; if they rely on finished goods or component parts from China, there will come a point pretty soon when they won’t have enough. West Coast ports are just about to feel the effects of this, because it takes around 30 days for container ships to make the journey from Asia to the U.S. Next week, ships entering the Port of Los Angeles will drop 35 percent compared to last year…

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CNBC reports: The clock is ticking on trade deals that the U.S. will need to strike with many nations, most notably China, to avoid what Trump’s Treasury Secretary has described as an “unsustainable” tariffs war. But in the U.S. farming sector, the damage has already been done and the economic crisis already begun. U.S. agriculture exporters say the global backlash to President Trump’s tariffs is punishing them, especially a decline in Chinese buying of U.S. farm products, leading to cancelled…

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The Washington Post reports: Senior administration officials are scrambling to stem economic damage from China’s restrictions on rare-earth exports, as President Donald Trump’s trade war risks cutting key industries and defense contractors off from supplies of metals crucial to production, according to three people familiar with internal deliberations. While companies search for alternative suppliers and urge the White House to cut a deal that will keep the materials flowing to U.S. manufacturers, the Trump administration is finding there are no…

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CNN reports: President Donald Trump’s unpredictable tariff policy and countermeasures by America’s trading partners will likely deal a heavy blow to economies worldwide, with US prosperity hit particularly hard, the International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday. Global economic growth will slow to 2.8% this year, from 3.3% last year and significantly below the historical average, the IMF forecast in its World Economic Outlook report. The slowdown expected in the United States is even steeper, with its economy likely to grow only…

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