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…
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…
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…
The Wall Street Journal reports: The Trump rout is taking on historic dimensions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed almost 1,000 points on Monday and is headed for its worst April performance since 1932, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The S&P 500’s performance since Inauguration Day is now the worst for any president up to this point in data going back to 1928, according to Bespoke Investment Group. Worries about trade restrictions and the prospect of President Trump firing…
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…
Timothy W. Ryback writes: The Hitler tariffs, announced on Friday, February 10, 1933, stunned observers. “The dimension of the tariff increases have in fact exceeded all expectations,” the Vossische Zeitung wrote disapprovingly, proclaiming the moment a “fork in the road” for the German economy. It appeared that Europe’s largest and most industrialized nation would suddenly be returning “to the furrow and the plow.” The New York Times saw this for what it was: “a trade war” against its European neighbors….
Reuters reports: General Motors’ Buick was on a roll. Sales for the once-stodgy brand were up 39% in the first quarter with a refreshed lineup of compact SUVs including the Envision, Encore GX, and the Envista, its top-selling SUV for under $30,000. Then President Trump’s tariffs hit. Buick’s three most popular models are made outside the U.S. The Envista and Encore GX are both built in South Korea, while the Envision SUV is made in China. That means all three…
CNBC reports: President Donald Trump is registering the worst economic approval numbers of his presidential career amid broad discontent over his handling of tariffs, inflation and government spending, according to the latest CNBC All-America Economic Survey. The survey found that the boost in economic optimism that accompanied Trump’s reelection has disappeared, with more Americans now believing the economy will get worse than at any time since 2023 and with a sharp turn toward pessimism about the stock market. The survey…
David Wallace-Wells writes: China’s share of global manufacturing has grown so much that by 2030, it is expected to reach seven times what it was in 2000; America’s will have fallen by half. And while Trump’s supporters describe the trade war as an effort to reverse that pattern, they’ve done so little beyond erratic tariffs — with no major pledges of government investment and no real commitment to policy stability — it all looks more like policy by culture-war meme….
In a lead editorial, The Economist says: The dollar is meant to be a source of safety. Lately, however, it has been a cause of fear. Since its peak in mid-January the greenback has fallen by over 9% against a basket of major currencies. Two-fifths of that fall has happened since April 1st, even as the yield on ten-year Treasuries has crept up by 0.2 percentage points. That mix of rising yields and a falling currency is a warning sign:…
The New York Times reports: When President Trump paused a punishing round of global tariffs last week, he attributed his change of heart to one main thing. “I was watching the bond market,” he said. “The bond market is very tricky.” Mr. Trump should know — he had a big personal stake in it. A New York Times analysis of Mr. Trump’s financial holdings shows that he had roughly $125 million to about $443 million invested in bonds as of…
Politico reports: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has repeatedly cautioned White House officials that any attempt to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell would risk destabilizing financial markets, according to two people close to the White House granted anonymity to share details of private discussions. Bessent’s private message reinforces what President Donald Trump already knows but comes as the president’s anger with the Fed chair is growing because Powell hasn’t shown signs that he will cut interest rates soon. It also…
Politico reports: The White House says it has the upper hand in its trade war with China. Its actions suggest otherwise. Top administration officials spent the weekend trying to defend a carve-out of consumer electronics from the astronomical 145 percent tariffs it levied on China last week. The carve-out was neither an exemption nor a policy rollback, the White House argued, because those electronics are still subject to a separate 20 percent tariff on China and some electronic components could…
Bloomberg reports: The US economy is set to lose billions of dollars in revenue in 2025 from a pullback in foreign tourism and boycotts of American products, adding to a growing list of headwinds keeping recession risk elevated. Arrivals of non-citizens to the US by plane dropped almost 10 per cent in March from a year earlier, according to data published Monday by the International Trade Administration. Goldman Sachs estimates in a worst-case scenario, the hit this year from reduced…
Wired reports: Dallas-based small business owner Allen Walton says he just sold out of one of his products, a surveillance camera used by law enforcement and private detectives. That would normally be great news for Walton’s electronics company, SpyGuy, which specializes in gadgets like GPS trackers and hidden camera detectors. But thanks to the Trump administration’s ever-shifting tariff policies, Walton says he doesn’t know if he should replenish his stock. His products are mostly manufactured in southern China, and the…
The New York Times reports: There are not many certainties in the world of money, but this traditionally has been one of them: When life turns scary, people take refuge in American government bonds. Investors buy U.S. Treasuries on the assumption that, come what may — financial panic, war, natural disaster — the federal government will endure and stand by its debts, making its bonds the closest thing to a covenant with the heavens. Yet turmoil in bond markets last…