The Senate on Tuesday voted 51 to 45 to confirm Howard Lutnick to be President Trump’s commerce secretary, putting in place one of the administration’s top economic officials who will help oversee an agenda around tariffs and protectionism. Mr. Lutnick, who was the chief executive of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, became a central…
As President Trump’s efforts to restructure the global trade system with expansive tariffs begin to take shape, one question continues to dog officials at the Federal Reserve: How will these policies impact the central bank’s plans to lower interest rates? One influential Fed governor made clear on Monday that he did not expect Mr. Trump’s…
It is an axiom heard countless times in business school lecture halls and on corporate earnings calls: Uncertainty is bad for business. The U.S. economy is about to test that proposition like never before. The first weeks of the second Trump administration have been a dizzying whirlwind of economic policy moves: A spending freeze was…
President Trump on Thursday ordered his advisers to determine new tariff rates on America’s trading partners, a move that he said would “correct longstanding imbalances in international trade.” As part of his plan, Mr. Trump has taken aim at the value-added tax, a system used widely in Europe and elsewhere to tax the consumption of…
President Trump is pursuing a far more aggressive trade policy than he embraced in his first term, allowing his unfettered instincts about how to put America at the forefront to guide him with little pretense of investigations or extended deliberations. Since taking office, Mr. Trump has threatened punishing tariffs on goods from every global trading…
Liquor lobbyists gathered in a ritzy private club on a recent rainy evening in Brussels to swill cocktails with names like “Toasts Not Tariffs” and fret over the potential disaster confronting their industry. Again. Seven years ago, the spirits industry found itself a casualty in a worldwide trade war as President Trump unleashed tariffs on…
Rows of white concrete buildings near the Pearl River in southern China house one of the world’s fastest-growing industries: Gritty workshops are churning out inexpensive clothing that is exported straight to homes and small businesses around the world. No tariffs are paid, and no customs inspections are conducted. The laborers who make these goods earn…
President Trump on Thursday set in motion a plan for new tariffs on other countries globally, an ambitious move that could shatter the rules of global trading and is likely to set off furious negotiations. The president directed his advisers to come up with new tariff levels that take into account a range of trade…
Ford Motor could be forced to lay off employees if the Trump administration ends subsidies and other financial support for electric vehicle manufacturing, the company’s chief executive said on Tuesday. Ford has invested heavily in factories to produce batteries and electric vehicles in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee, Jim Farley, the Ford chief executive, said…
The largest refinery in the Midwest will have an unpalatable choice if President Trump imposes tariffs on Canadian oil: Pay more for the crude that it transforms into gasoline and diesel, or slash production. Both options threaten to increase prices at the pump, albeit modestly if Mr. Trump sticks with the 10 percent rate he…
