
Major developments in Trump's trade war
Here is a timeline of the major developments:
February 1 - Trump imposes 25% tariffs on Mexican and most Canadian imports and 10% on goods from China, demanding they curb the flow of fentanyl and illegal immigrants into the U.S.
February 3 - Trump agrees to a 30-day pause in his tariff threat on Mexico and Canada in return for concessions on border and crime enforcement. The U.S. has not reached such a deal with China.
February 10 - Trump raises tariffs on steel and aluminum to a flat 25% "without exceptions or exemptions".
March 3 - Trump says 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada will take effect from March 4 and doubles fentanyl-related tariffs on all Chinese imports to 20%.
March 6 - Trump exempts goods from Canada and Mexico under a North American trade pact for a month.
March 26 - Trump unveils a 25% tariff on imported cars and light trucks.
April 2 - Trump announces global tariffs with a baseline of 10% across all imports and significantly higher duties on some of the United States' biggest trading partners.
April 9 - Trump pauses for 90 days most of his country-specific tariffs that kicked in less than 24 hours earlier after an upheaval in financial markets erased trillions of dollars from bourses around the world.
The 10% blanket duty on almost all U.S. imports stays in place.
Trump says he will raise the tariff on Chinese imports to 125% from the 104% level that took effect a day earlier. This pushes the extra duties on Chinese goods to 145%, including the previously imposed tariffs.
May 9 - Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announce a limited bilateral trade agreement that leaves in place 10% tariffs on British exports and lowers U.S. duties on British car exports.
May 12 - The U.S. and China agree to temporarily slash reciprocal tariffs. Under the 90-day truce, the U.S. will cut the extra tariffs it imposed on Chinese imports to 30% from 145%, while China's duties on U.S. imports will be slashed to 10% from 125%.
May 13 - The U.S. cuts the low-value "de minimis" tariff on China shipments, reducing duties for items valued at up to $800 to 54% from 120%.
May 23 - Trump says he is recommending a straight 50% tariff on goods from the European Union starting on June 1. He backpedals on this threat two days later.
He also warns Apple that it would face a 25% tariff if phones it sold in the U.S. were manufactured outside of the country.
May 29 - A federal appeals court temporarily reinstates the most sweeping of Trump's tariffs, pausing an earlier lower court's ruling to consider the government's appeal.
June 3 - Trump signs an executive proclamation activating a hike in the steel and aluminum tariffs to 50% from 25%.
June 12 - Trump warns he may soon hike auto tariffs.
July 3 - Trump says the U.S. will place a 20% tariff on many Vietnamese exports, with trans-shipments from third countries through Vietnam facing a 40% levy.
July 6 - Trump says on Truth Social that countries aligning themselves with the "Anti-American policies" of BRICS will be charged an additional 10% tariff.
July 7 - Trump says on Truth Social that the additional higher duties announced in earlier months will kick in with a delay on August 1. In letters sent to 14 countries, including Japan, South Korea, and Serbia, he says that it will include tariffs between 25% and 40%.
July 10 - Trump says the U.S. will impose a 35% tariff on imports from Canada in August and plans to impose blanket tariffs of 15% or 20% on most other trading partners.
July 12 - Trump threatens to impose a 30% tariff on imports from Mexico and the EU from August 1.
July 15 - Trump says the U.S. will impose a 19% tariff on goods from Indonesia under a new agreement.
July 22 - Trump strikes a trade deal with Japan that lowers tariffs on auto imports to 15% and spares Tokyo from punishing new levies on other goods.
July 27 - The U.S. reaches a trade agreement with the European Union, imposing a 15% import tariff on most EU goods.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Times of Oman
8 hours ago
- Times of Oman
"Nuclear submarines are in Russian region," says Trump
Washington DC: US President Donald Trump has said that nuclear submarines have been deployed in Russia. "They are in the region, yeah -- where they have to be," Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One in Allentown, Pennsylvania on Sunday. When asked if there was anything Russia could do to avoid sanctions at this point, Trump said, "Yeah, get a deal where people stop getting killed." He further said that he was looking for fairness and not leverage when he was imposing tariffs. "I'm not looking for leverage -- I'm looking for fairness. We want to see reciprocal wherever we can, and all I can say is this: our country will be taking in hundreds of billions of dollars." Trump said on Friday that he was ordering two US Navy nuclear submarines to "appropriate regions," in response to remarks by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's Former President and current deputy chairman of its Security Council. In what he called an effort to be "prepared," Trump said in a Truth Social post that he had "ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that." Trump later on Friday said the repositioned nuclear submarines were moved "closer to Russia," CNN reported. He said Thursday he intended to place new sanctions on Moscow, and called Russia's attacks on Ukraine "disgusting." In an earlier social media message, Trump said the Ukraine war "should have never happened," as per CNN. "This is Biden's War, not 'TRUMP's.' I'm just here to see if I can stop it!" Trump wrote. The president did not specify what type of submarines were being moved or where to, and the Pentagon usually reveals little about any of its subs' movements, CNN reported.


Observer
8 hours ago
- Observer
China's small workshops are hurting. Tariffs are only one reason
GUANGZHOU, China — It was 96 degrees in the shade with high humidity and not a breath of wind on Tuesday afternoon in a factory district in Guangzhou, the home base of China's garment manufacturing. The sewing workshops that were operating in one neighborhood were sweltering. But roughly half of the hundreds of factories were dark, with their doors closed and none of their usual bustle. Around the area, bright red signs on walls and poles indicated industrial buildings were available for sale or rent. After exchanging escalating tariffs and export restrictions in the spring, China and the Trump administration moved closer last week to another ceasefire to continue to negotiate over their myriad conflicts. But the new status quo has left high barriers between China's exporters and some of their biggest markets in the United States. Guangdong province, in southeastern China, and its capital, Guangzhou, have borne the brunt of President Donald Trump's tariffs. China's coastal export sector has been hit twice. It is paying tariffs of 30% or more on shipments to the United States — extraordinarily high by historical measures — on top of previous tariffs. And exporters to the United States no longer enjoy duty-free treatment for packages worth $800 or less. In Guangzhou, thousands of small factories near the Pearl River used to supply the cheap clothing that e-commerce giants such as Shein and Temu shipped to American homes. Streets in the city's factory districts are less crowded, while managers and workers complain that many orders have evaporated. Some workers are going door to door and to employment fairs, looking for jobs. 'They are from other factories, or their work is not so good, so they come here with nothing to do,' Lai Changxing, a worker at a factory making dress shirts and T-shirts, said while pouring himself a Coca-Cola and trying to cool off during a work break. Hu Ke, a worker at another garment factory, said orders had halved since spring. 'I've been doing this for over a decade,' he said. 'It's definitely not going well this year.' China's exports to the United States from April through June dropped 23.9% from a year earlier, according to the General Administration of Customs in China. Exports of Chinese goods to developing countries have been rising, sometimes for transshipment onward to the United States. But Trump's tariffs appear to have worsened long-term trends that have already been eroding China's light industry export sector, as the country shifts toward higher-value industries including electric cars and solar panels. At the same time, the storefront factories in Guangzhou face rising costs that are difficult to avoid. Workers are demanding that air conditioning be installed near the rows of sewing machines and fabric-cutting tables. Until three years ago, few factory owners bothered with air conditioning, said Li Aoran, the manager of a workshop that makes pajamas, pants, and dresses. But as China has grown more affluent, workers have become less willing to endure extreme heat for long hours toiling under rows of fluorescent lights. 'Now that people's living standards have improved, there are higher expectations for better working conditions,' Li said. He paid $3,000 last year to install three large air conditioners for his clothing workshop. His electricity bill has increased $1,000 a month, adding about 5% to his overall costs, he said. Then his orders plummeted this spring when Trump began limiting access to the American market. So Li, like many factory managers, has slashed his payroll. He had nearly 50 workers at the end of last year, and now employs 20. Much of the labor force in factories like Li's is made up of migrant workers who often travel long distances from their hometowns to Guangzhou for work. Li and other managers hired a lot fewer workers this spring after the Lunar New Year holidays, shrinking their workforces mainly through attrition in a sector where laborers often change jobs every three months. Even as some factories are still hiring, broad changes in expectations about pay are adding to costs. Unskilled workers, who are often younger and doing difficult jobs like ironing finished shirts, are demanding higher wages — at least $1,100 a month, said Yang Daoyong, the manager of a shirt factory. But skilled sewing machine operators, who are typically older and have few other options, are accepting a slight decline in pay, to about $1,400 a month, he said. Decades of rapid housing construction have resulted in low rents, typically a couple of hundred dollars a month, making it possible for workers to survive on these paychecks while also having enough left over to send to their families. Their paychecks, which include considerable overtime, are still a big change from a quarter-century ago, when wages were often around $100 a month. Falling prices for finished garments are the biggest challenge for manufacturers, as a glut of production has driven down prices. Yang said he had lowered the wholesale price for each shirt to $1.40 from $1.67 a year ago. His overall costs keep rising, though, so he tries to sell more shirts at ever-thinner profit margins, he said. 'The domestic market is like a rat race,' Yang added. The fading of China's sweatshop sector mirrors a rapid shift in the country's labor force, which is shrinking and becoming better educated. The number of young people turning 18 each year has dropped to fewer than 16 million, from 25.5 million two decades ago. A further decline is coming: The annual number of births has fallen below 10 million in each of the past three years. At the same time, China has rapidly expanded its university system. Two-thirds of the young men and women who turned 18 last year enrolled in a university or college, up from only a fifth in 2005. Unemployment in China has been a deeper problem among recent college graduates, many of whom have had to take jobs as delivery drivers in big cities. Unemployment is less visible among the dwindling ranks of middle-aged workers who still toil in Guangzhou's sewing workshops. Countries such as Vietnam have been quick to absorb many of the low-wage jobs now fading away in China. All of this has workers and managers alike hoping that trade relations with the United States will stabilize soon. 'I hope the situation will improve and our business will be better,' Li said. This article originally appeared in


Observer
19 hours ago
- Observer
Russian, Chinese navies carry out joint drills
MOSCOW: The Russian and Chinese navies are carrying out artillery and anti-submarine drills in the Sea of Japan as part of scheduled joint exercises, the Russian Pacific Fleet was quoted as saying on Sunday. The drills are taking place two days after US President Donald Trump said he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in 'the appropriate regions' in response to remarks by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. However, they were scheduled well before Trump's action. Interfax news agency quoted the Pacific Fleet as saying Russian and Chinese vessels were moving in a joint detachment including a large Russian anti-submarine ship and two Chinese destroyers. It said diesel-electric submarines from the two countries were also involved, as well as a Chinese submarine rescue ship. The manoeuvres are part of exercises titled 'Maritime Interaction-2025' which are scheduled to end on Tuesday. Interfax said Russian and Chinese sailors would conduct artillery firing, practise anti-submarine and air defence missions, and improve joint search and rescue operations at sea. — Reuters