Tag: Trump trade war

Dow Jones Plunges As Trump Announces New Tariffs

Trump announced new tariffs on goods from China on Thursday afternoon and sent the stock market tumbling.

At 1:25 p.m. Eastern time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) stood at 27,121. At 1:26 p.m., Trump announced on Twitter “the U.S. will start, on September 1st, putting a small additional Tariff of 10% on the remaining 300 Billion Dollars of goods and products coming from China into our Country.”

By 1:50 p.m., the Dow plunged more than 350 points to 26,735.

By 2:25 p.m., an hour after Trump’s announcement, the Dow dropped even more, to 26,680, or 441 points lower.

View the complete August 1 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

How Trump’s latest China tariffs could squeeze US consumers

WASHINGTON (AP) — The latest tariffs President Donald Trump plans to impose on Chinese goods would cost U.S. households an average of $200 a year, some economists estimate, and would start to bite consumers and retailers just as the holiday shopping season begins.

That cost would come on top of the roughly $830 cost imposed per household from Trump’s existing tariffs, according to a New York Federal Reserve analysis.

Trump plans to tax $300 billion of Chinese imports at 10% starting in September with the goal of accelerating trade talks with Beijing to favor the United States. The new tariffs would be in addition to 25% tariffs Trump has imposed on $250 billion in Chinese products. Those are mostly industrial goods. By contrast, the new tariffs would target products used by American consumers, like shoes, clothing and cellphones.

By Friday, Trump’s new planned tariffs had triggered worries, especially among retailers, about the consequences. Retail stores, many of which have been struggling, would have to make the painful choice of either absorbing the higher costs from the new tariffs or imposing them on price-conscious customers.

View the complete August 2 article by Josh Boak, Anne D’Innocenzio and Joe McDonald on the Associated Press website here.

China Reacts to Trade Tariffs and Hong Kong Protests by Blaming U.S.

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — President Trump, frustrated by increasingly fruitless negotiations with China, said Thursday that the United States would impose a 10 percent tariff on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese imports next month, a significant escalation in a trade war that has dragged on for more than a year.

The new tariff would come on top of the 25 percent levy that Mr. Trump has already imposed on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, resulting in the United States taxing nearly everything China sends to the United States, from iPhones to New Balance sneakers to children’s books.

Mr. Trump had agreed in June not to impose more tariffs after meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and agreeing to restart trade talks. But Mr. Trump said he was moving ahead with the levies as of Sept. 1 as punishment for China’s failure to live up to its commitments, including buying more American agricultural products and stemming the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

View the complete August 1 article by Alan Rappeport on The New York Times website here.

Trump says he will impose new tariffs on $300 billion of imports from China starting next month, ending brief cease-fire in trade war

Washington Post logoPresident Trump moved Thursday to impose import tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods starting Sept. 1, effectively taxing every product that Americans buy from China and prompting American businesses to warn of a rising economic toll at home.

The president said the tariffs — on products such as cellphones, televisions, toilet seats and pillows — would initially be set at 10 percent but could rise to 25 percent or higher.

“Until such time as there is a deal, we’ll be taxing them,” he told reporters before leaving the White House for a political rally in Ohio.

View the complete August 1 article by David J. Lynch, Heather Long and Damian Paletta on The Washington Post website here.

American farmer: Trump trade war ‘took away all our markets’

AlterNet logoDefenders of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China have insisted that American farmers will be better off in the longrun, and the White House recently announced it would be giving farmers an additional $16 billion in aid to help them cope with the trade war’s effects. But in a report for Yahoo Finance this week, journalist Adriana Belmonte stresses that American farmers have a problem that farm aid isn’t going to cure: they’re lost their markets.

China, Belmonte notes, purchased a lot of American farm products in the past, from wheat to soybeans. In 2016 and 2017, for example, China imported 61 million bushels of wheat from the United States. But thanks to the trade war, Belmonte reports, China is importing from other countries instead, including wheat from Russia and soybeans from Brazil.

Bob Kuylen, a North Dakota wheat farmer, told Yahoo Finance, “This trade thing is what’s brought on by the president, and it’s really frustrating because he took away all of our markets. We live in an area where we’re kind of in the middle of nowhere. It costs us a lot of money: over $1 a bushel to get our grain to markets.”

View the complete August 1 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Trump Federal Tax Dollars to Farmers for Tariff Relief

From the July 31 Star Tribune News Briefs:

More than half of the Trump administration’s trade-war aid for farmers went to just one-tenth of the recipients in the program, an analysis found.  Eighty-two farming operations received more than $500,000 each in payments through April under the Department of Agriculture’s Market Facilitation Program, according to the Environmental Working Group, which analyzed records covering $8.4 billion in payments. One farm, DeLine Farm Partnership of Charleston, MO, has so far received $2.8 million in trade aid payments.

Truce in US-China trade war as 2 rivals seek breakthrough

OSAKA, Japan — President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping agreed to a cease-fire Saturday in their nations’ yearlong trade war, averting for now an escalation feared by financial markets, businesses and farmers.

Trump said U.S. tariffs will remain in place against Chinese imports while negotiations continue. Additional trade penalties he has threatened against billions worth of other Chinese goods will not take effect for the “time being,” he said, and the economic powers will restart stalled talks that have already gone 11 rounds.

“We’re going to work with China where we left off,” Trump said after a lengthy meeting with Xi while the leaders attended the Group of 20 summit in Osaka.

View the complete June 29 article by Jonathan LeMire and Zeke Miller from the Associated Press on The Star Tribune website here.

Best Buy says expanded tariffs would cost consumers

Company official says that added costs will be passed on immediately to the customer.

WASHINGTON – Best Buy Inc. warned Monday that a Trump administration threat to tax all Chinese-made consumer electronics up to 25% “could be immediately passed on to U.S. consumers.”

Jason Bonfig, Best Buy’s chief merchandising officer, said in testimony to the U.S. trade representative (USTR) that companies are running out of inventory purchased at pre-tariff prices and can no longer absorb cost increases to Chinese-made consumer electronics critical to their businesses.

Bonfig was among speakers on the first of six days of pleas by more than 300 American companies and business organizations from a variety of sectors. The presenters are part of a last-ditch push by America’s business community to stop a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.

View the complete June 17 article by Jim Spencer on The Star Tribune website here.

Trump: ‘Foolish’ for GOP to try to stop tariffs on Mexico

President Trump on Tuesday insisted he will follow through with new tariffs on Mexico if it does not do more to curb illegal migration and said it would be “foolish” for congressional Republicans to try and stop him.

“We are going to see if we can do something, but I think it’s more likely that the tariffs go on,” Trump said during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Addressing deliberations by Republicans on a measure that could limit his tariff power, Trump said, “I don’t think they will do that. I think if they do, it’s foolish.”

View the complete June 4 article by Jordan Fabian on The Hill website here.

GOP divided over how to stop Trump’s trade wars

Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill desperately want to convince President Trump to back off his plan to impose tariffs on Mexican imports but disagree over the best strategy moving forward.

Some, such as Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) leadership team, want to persuade the president to change course through private dialogue.

Others, including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley(Iowa) and Sens. Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Rob Portman (Ohio), are talking about passing legislation to curtail Trump’s tariff authority.

View the complete June 3 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.