Economics newsletter
China hits back against Trump’s tariffs
Donald Trump has sown the wind – and now America must reap the whirlwind. Beijing has today announced plans to slap an additional 34 per cent tax on all US imported goods from next Thursday. China had already applied tariffs – ranging from 10 to 15 per cent – to a range of American agricultural
Will the markets make Trump see sense on tariffs?
This week Donald Trump declared ‘Liberation Day,’ unveiling a barrage of tariffs that had been trailed as correcting unfair trade practices overseas. In a theatrical Rose Garden ceremony, the US president presented a table, detailing a slew of new “reciprocal” tariffs targeting nations right across the globe. A sharp market reaction might lead to a change
Trump can’t ignore the stock market carnage forever
As it turned out, the only thing Liberation Day was actually liberating anyone from was their money. In the wake of President Trump’s imposition of a massive round of tariffs on America’s trading partners the stock market has been in freefall. For the moment Trump is ignoring that. But he won’t be able to forever
How Trump’s tariffs will hurt China
China has been hit hard by President Trump’s tariff list, which he unveiled yesterday in the White House rose garden. As part of his ‘Liberation Day’, Trump imposed new 34 per cent tariffs on China. This seems to be in addition to the 20 per cent tariffs levied on the country by the US since
Trump’s tariffs could help China
Donald Trump is, at least, a man of his word. Before he won the US election, Trump said that China had ‘really taken advantage of our country’ and vowed to slap punitive tariffs on imports from the People’s Republic. As we have repeatedly seen, Trump carries through on his threats. ‘Liberation Day’ saw China hit
Trump doesn’t understand how trade deficits work
After Donald Trump’s Liberation Day, the US now imposes far and away the highest tariffs of any developed country in the world. In the process of doing so Trump has completely rejected the cornerstone of the World Trade Organisation: the ‘most favoured nation’ principle whereby tariffs have to be the same on all countries you
Japan has been stunned by the Trump tariffs
Virtually the whole world is waking up to the reality, not threat now, of President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, but in few places will the sense of shock and resultant anxiety be greater than Japan, where a whopping 24 per cent has been slapped on exports to the US. The Japanese, who have grown used
This could be the largest US tax rise in half a century
Across the world, markets are plunging as they respond to the global tariffs Donald Trump unleashed from the White House rose garden last night – with the president’s top economist describing the falls as ‘short-term bumps’. The pound passed $1.30 for the first time in six months while stocks in Tokyo fell 4 per cent.
Trump’s tariffs are just bizarre
They would restore manufacturing, force trade barriers to be taken down, and allow new industries to be created. There have been various different explanations for why President Trump’s new tariff regime made sense. And yet when they were finally revealed yesterday one point was clear. There was no logic. The tariffs were just weird. The
Can Trump defend his tariff calculations?
When President Trump held up an easel in the White House Rose Garden illustrating each country’s ‘tariffs charged to the USA’ and the new ‘U.S.A. discounted reciprocal tariffs’, there appeared to be some small print underneath the first column, barely readable. Then printed copies started to circulate the garden. Underneath the column showing each country’s