Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer laid out what she called a “consistent national strategy” for bringing manufacturing back to the United States in a lengthy speech today in the nation’s capital, just hours after Trump’s tariffs on the U.S.’ largest trading partners went into effect.
After highlighting her work in Michigan to boost manufacturing, the second-term Democrat told attendees, “Here’s my pitch: let’s keep going. Let’s make more ships, planes, and semiconductor chips in America. Let’s cut red tape and unleash the extraordinary potential of American industry.”
As Trump’s sweeping new tariffs on China and other countries went into effect, there are new questions about what it means for consumers with prices set to rise for most imported items. NBC’s Christine Romans joins “TODAY” with analysis.
European Union officials have approved imposing a fresh set of retaliatory duties on U.S. imports.
The duties, which would come into effect April 15, would range from 10% to 25% on more than $24 billion worth of U.S. goods, including tobacco, motorcycles, poultry, steel and aluminum.
American whiskey was removed from the targeted list of U.S. products after Trump threatened tariffs of 200% on alcoholic products from the E.U.
Trump’s sweeping new tariffs on nearly 90 countries, including almost all major U.S. trading partners, went into effect today with a 104% tariff on all Chinese products. Despite rattled markets, fears of a recession and backlash from his own allies and fellow Republicans, Trump is insisting he has things under control. “I know what the hell I’m doing,” he said. NBC’s Peter Alexander reports for “TODAY.”
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said today he sees the U.S. economy likely headed to recession as Trump’s tariffs roil financial markets.
With the trade war between the U.S. and China intensifying, stocks and bonds sold off aggressively again in morning trade. Stock market futures slumped and bond yields spiked amid concerns over financial and economic stability brought on by the tit-for-tat exchange between the two nations.
“I think probably that’s a likely outcome, because markets, I mean, when you see a 2,000-point decline [in the Dow Jones Industrial Average], it sort of feeds on itself, doesn’t it,” Dimon said on Fox Business’ “Mornings With Maria” show. “It makes you feel like you’re losing money in your 401(k), you’re losing money in your pension. You’ve got to cut back.”
Recession fears have been rising on Wall Street as the Trump tariffs spur uncertainty about how far the trade war will escalate.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox Business that sharp moves in the bond market do not concern him.
“I believe that there is nothing systemic about this,” Bessent said.
The U.S. 10-year bond yield fell in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement. But in the days since, the yield has soared to nearly 4.5% and has become the talk of Wall Street. Such dramatic moves in U.S. government bonds are unusual since they are seen as a “safe haven” investment.
The sharp move higher over recent days means that everything from credit card rates to mortgage rates have also risen, raising costs for consumers. Bessent had said after the election that a priority of his was lowering U.S. bond rates so that interest rates would fall for consumers quickly.
While offering some criticism of Trump’s new tariffs, some countries have rushed to negotiate a deal, with Israeli officials having already met Trump’s staff, and more officials from Japan and South Korea on the way.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will be in Washington later this month, and the U.K. also signaled it was open to negotiate. Singapore, which was hit with the baseline 10% tariff, said as well that it will try to engage the U.S.
Meanwhile, Vietnam, which was slapped a 46% levy, said it will buy more American products, including defense equipment, as it seeks a 45-day grace period for more negotiations. Australia, with which the U.S. runs a trade surplus, was still subject to the baseline 10% levy but has not announced any retaliation.
Taiwan has not proposed increasing tariffs as a starting point for negotiations, saying it would instead seek to boost its U.S. imports and expand its U.S. investments, and India and Thailand have also offered concessions in the form of import increases.
“Bring us your best offers and he will listen,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a post on X yesterday. “Deals will only be made if they benefit American workers and address our nations crippling trade deficits,” she said.
A former Biden administration official in charge of U.S. policy toward China has warned that Trump’s simultaneous trade offensive against dozens of countries might be giving China an edge on the world stage.
“The fact that the administration came out against nearly 70 countries at once makes me worried that it may have actually improved China’s position,” Rick Waters, deputy assistant secretary of state for China and Taiwan in the last administration, told NBC News.
Shipping containers at a port in Nanjing in eastern China’s Jiangsu province yesterday.AFP – Getty Images
“If you go after your friends harder than your enemies, you lose the leverage of being able to bring those friends to your side and improve your position with the primary competitor,” Waters told NBC News.
China, he said, was “hunkering down for a long period,” hoping it can outlast the U.S.. He added that Beijing has other means to hurt the U.S. in return, including halting cooperation on fentanyl.
“I think we’re just in a bad marriage here that’s leading towards some sort of economic divorce,” he said.
Even though China relies far more on its exports to the U.S. than vice versa, the U.S.’ doubling down on its tariffs on China isn’t going to force Beijing’s hand, he said. “The Chinese are proud. They have a history of humiliation at the hands of foreign powers.”
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who endorsed Trump, urged the president to hit pause on U.S. tariffs as the markets reel over the escalating trade war.
“If the president doesn’t pause the effect of the tariffs soon, many small businesses will go bankrupt,” Ackman said in a post on X. “Medium-sized businesses will be next. A 90-day pause will enable @realDOnaldTrump to accomplish his objectives without destroying small businesses in the short term. May cooler heads prevail.”
Ackman previously said that the U.S. was heading toward an “economic nuclear winter” because of tariffs.
While many countries have not signaled they will retaliate over U.S. tariffs, some have already announced countermeasures.
The biggest one is China, which today announced its levies on U.S. goods will be at 84% as it seeks to match Trump’s tariffs.
The European Union, which faces 25% tariffs, is set to approve its first retaliatory tariff today. This week, the 27-nation bloc proposed extra duties of up to 25% on a range of U.S. imports and was still assessing how to respond to U.S. duties on cars and others products.
Trump also imposed a 25% tariff rate on Canada, which retaliated by saying it will follow a “dollar-by-dollar” approach and imposed its own 25% tariff on U.S. imports.
Global drugmakers’ stocks dropped across the board today after Trump reiterated plans for a “major” tariff on pharmaceutical imports, threatening an interwoven supply chain across the world, and as his country-specific reciprocal tariffs took effect, leading to more pain in global markets.
Pharmaceutical imports were initially exempt from Trump’s first set of reciprocal tariffs last week but his administration has since indicated that levies on the sector, which in the past has been excluded from such actions, are coming.
The president has said the tariffs will incentivize drug companies to move operations to the U.S. However, analysts and companies have raised concerns about the difficulty in setting up manufacturing in the United States.
Shares of major U.S. drugmakers such as Gilead Sciences, Pfizer, Merck and Eli Lilly fell between 2% and 4% in premarket trading.
China is showing no signs of backing down after Trump imposed a sweeping 104% tariff on Chinese goods, including clothes, shoes, toys and tech products. Duties on other countries also went into effect, with a punishing 49% tariff on Cambodia and 46% for Vietnam, both are key manufacturing hubs for American companies like Nike, Lululemon and Apple. NBC’s Janis Mackey Frayer reports for “TODAY.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said China’s latest retaliation against U.S. tariffs “is a loser for them.”
China has announced it would raise tariffs on some U.S. goods from 34% to 84% in retaliation for U.S. tariff hikes on its products.
“They’re the surplus country. Their exports to the U.S. are five times our exports to China,” Bessent claimed in the FOX Business interview. “So they can raise their tariffs, but so what?”
Trump’s sweeping tariff plans sent stocks tumbling and economists warning of a broader economic slowdown, many of Trump’s supporters say they support the move as part of a broader vision for the U.S. economy, even if prices rise.
But a slice of 2024 Trump voters are deeply concerned, illustrating the real potential political peril for the president and his party.
Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, announced she will meet Trump in Washington on April 17 to discuss tariffs.
Her visit comes as world leaders work to court the Trump administration in an effort to reduce tariffs on products imported to the U.S. from their countries.
After Trump slapped damaging tariffs to countries in Asia, Chinese President Xi Jinping, meanwhile, called on his officials to focus on building strong relations with those very countries.
Xi “emphasized the need to focus on building a community of shared future with neighboring countries, striving to open up a new chapter in neighborhood diplomacy,” wrote the Communist Party-run newspaper People’s Daily today, describing Xi’s speech at a conference meeting on neighboring countries in Beijing.
At a time when “regional dynamics are increasingly intertwined with global changes,” the meeting also called on deepening supply chain with China’s neighbors, improving connectivity and “to consolidate strategic mutual trust,” the newspaper reported.
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers is warning the U.S. is heading for a “serious financial crisis” as a result of Trump’s tariffs if the events of the last 24 hours continue to play out.
“Long-term interest rates are gapping up, even as the stock market moves sharply downwards,” he wrote Wednesday morning on X. “This highly unusual pattern suggests a generalized aversion to U.S. assets in global financial markets.”
“We are being treated by global financial markets like a problematic emerging market” — a crisis scenario, he said, given the state of the U.S.’s debt and deficit and its dependence on foreign buyers of bonds.
“The only way to mitigate these risks is for the President @realDonaldTrump to back off his current path,” Summers said. “This is the first U.S. bout of U.S. financial instability caused by the U.S. government.”
As Trump keeps piling tariffs on top of Chinese goods, Beijing is imposing the exact same increases, in a growing standoff between the world’s two biggest economies.
Last week, Trump announced an additional 34% tariff on Chinese imports, citing the U.S. trade deficit with China. Beijing responded two days later with its own 34% tariff on U.S. goods.
On Monday, Trump said he would impose an additional 50% tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing withdrew its 34% tariff. Instead, China has announced the same extra 50% tariff on U.S. goods.
Both new U.S. tariffs took effect today, bringing the combined U.S. levy on Chinese goods to at least 104%. The Chinese tariffs take effect tomorrow for a combined 84% levy on U.S. goods.
Walmart on Wednesday pulled its outlook for operating income in the first quarter, citing uncertainty about the potential impact of sweeping tariffs on China, Vietnam and other key sources of goods across the globe.
In a news release, the discounter said it wants to “maintain flexibility to invest in price as tariffs are implemented.” It did not provide a new range for first-quarter operating income. It had projected an increase of 0.5% to 2.0% to adjusted operating income in the fiscal first quarter.
Walmart made the move the same day that President Donald Trump’s sharp tariffs took effect on significant manufacturing hubs that produce some of the goods that it carries. The duties began at 12:01 a.m. ET, including an expected 104% tariff on imports from China and a 46% levy on imports from Vietnam.
Yet the long-term fate of the tariffs remains unclear, as Trump sends mixed signals about his willingness to strike deals with some countries to lower the duties. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said some 70 countries have reached out to the White House for talks about the levies.
China said today that it is hiking its retaliatory duties on imports from the U.S. from 34% to 84%.
In a statement on its website, China’s customs agency blasted the U.S.’s decision to impose duties on Chinese imports that now total at least 104%.
“The U.S.’s practice of escalating tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake, which seriously infringes on China’s legitimate rights and interests, seriously damages the rules-based multilateral trading system, and seriously impacts the stability of the global economic order. It is a typical example of unilateralism, protectionism, and economic bullying,” it wrote.
Foodstuffs like soybeans, energy products including crude oil and high-end electronics are some of the largest U.S. products imported by China. The White House has already signaled it will provide support to U.S. farmers affected by the trade war.
European stocks are suffering yet another downbeat trading session with U.S. stocks also set to pick up where they left off when trading opens in just under three hours.
The Stoxx 600, an index of Europe’s biggest companies, was last down 3.3% taking its losses over the past week to around 15%. Major indexes in the U.K., Germany, France and Italy had all fallen by around 3% following on from a gloomy session in Asia, where Japan’s Nikkei index dropped by 4%.
U.S. stocks are also moving lower in pre-market trade, which is generally a good indicator of how investors will behave at the open. While the major U.S. indexes were last on course for opening losses of 1% or less, those figures were volatile.
Investors will have one eye on the European vote Wednesday on whether to impose retaliatory tariffs as well as updates out of the White House on further tariffs and negotiations.
Trump’s unprecedented tariffs on global imports into the United States take effect Wednesday, reshuffling a global economic order that has largely stood for generations.
The mere announcement of the duties last week sent shock waves through global markets and caused trillions of dollars in paper losses. Now, consumers and investors alike will begin to gauge the actual impact on the U.S. economy as the cost of the import taxes starts to flow through supply chains and into businesses and household budgets.
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said “with broad economic uncertainty around global trade, growth has largely stalled.”
Bastian was announcing Delta’s latest quarterly earnings in an announcement to shareholders. “Given the lack of economic clarity, it is premature at this time to provide an updated full-year outlook,” he added.
Delta, which is the most profitable airline in the U.S., also said it would be “reducing planned capacity growth in the second half of the year” amid developing global economic worries.
Reporting from Munich, Germany
With European Union lawmakers set to vote Wednesday on tariffs to counter the Trump administration’s steel and aluminum duties, the bloc is united in favor of negotiating while remaining ready to strike back, German finance minister Jörg Kukies today told German radio station Deutschlandfunk.
“What’s happening right now with tariffs and counter-tariffs is damaging to both sides, and we hope to initiate an improvement through negotiations and, if necessary, countermeasures,” he said.
After Wednesday’s vote, the EU will continue to discuss potential measures to counter the U.S. tariffs on European cars and the blanket 20% tariff that came into force earlier today. Meanwhile, Europe’s trade chiefs are yearning for the days of the first Trump administration.
“Unfortunately,” Kukies said, “the pace is faster than in the first Trump administration, where they talked first and then acted. Now it’s the other way around.”
Trump mocked the leaders of countries trying to negotiate a resolution to the sweeping global import tariffs his administration has imposed.
“I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my ass,” Trump said in a long, digressive speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee’s President’s Dinner in Washington.
“They are dying to make a deal. ‘Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, sir,’” he said late yesterday.
In the hours before fresh tariffs on China went into effect, with imports from the country now carrying a cumulative duty of 104%, the president also touched on what he sees as the country’s attitude to the escalating trade war between Washington and Beijing.
“They want to make a deal. They just don’t know how to get it started because they’re proud people. China will now pay a big number to our treasury,” Trump added.
China hasn’t announced any additional countermeasures after Trump’s new 50% tariffs on Chinese goods went into effect overnight, but did stress that it “opposes and will never accept such hegemonic behavior.”
Beijing’s 34% tarrifs on U.S. imports go into effect tomorrow.
The U.S., whose levies on China now total 104%, is “abusing tariffs on China and exerting extreme pressure,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular news briefing. The U.S. should “adopt an attitude of equality, respect and reciprocity,” he said, if it wants to “solve the problem through dialogue and negotiation.”
Trump had earlier ruled out any negotations with China if it didn’t back off the 34% reciprocal tarrifs imposed after Trump’s first round was announced. Yesterday, China said it “will fight to the end if the U.S. insists on its own way.”
Officials in Tokyo decried Trump’s 24% tarrifs on Japan that went into effect today, with the government’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi calling them “extremely regrettable.”
The tarrifs, he told reporters, “will have a significant impact on the economic relationship between Japan and the United States.”
Hayashi’s comments came as Jamieson Greer, who was appointed as the U.S. trade representative to negotiate with Japan yesterday called for more market access into the country.
The U.S.’s imposition of a 25% levy on auto imports, and reciprocal 24% tariffs on Japanese goods goods, will likely be a big blow to the country’s economy, which is heavily reliant on exports. According to Reuters, analysts predict the higher duties could knock up to 0.8% off economic growth.
