South African Auto Firms Bracing for Tariffs Face Pay-Talks Test
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, the country's largest labor group, is demanding employers including BMW South Africa Pty Ltd. and the local units of Toyota Motor Corp. and Ford Motor Co. give workers 10% raises ahead of talks that will agree wages for the next three years.
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29 minutes ago
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WATCH: Dem senator agrees with GOP that Trump's making progress on trade war
Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman admitted that his party had gotten it wrong about President Donald Trump's tariffs, saying that, so far, the U.S. trade war is "going well." Asked by Fox News Digital whether he thought the Trump administration was winning the trade war, Fetterman responded, "Absolutely." "I'm a huge fan of Bill Maher, and I mean, I think he's really one of the oracles for my party, and he acknowledged it, it's like, hey, he thought that the tariffs were going to tank the economy, and then he acknowledged that it didn't," said Fetterman. "So, for me," he went on, "it seems like the E.U. thing has been going well, and I guess we'll see how it happens with China." This comes as Trump is increasing the tariff on Canada from 25% to 35% beginning on Friday, after the U.S. neighbor to the north failed to help curb the imports of fentanyl and other illicit drugs. The White House noted that Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to increase the tariff in an effort to hold Canada accountable for its role in the flow of illicit drugs into the U.S. Additionally, Trump signed another executive order on Thursday to modify the reciprocal tariff rates for some countries to further address the United States' trade deficits. The action reflects Trump's efforts to protect the U.S. from foreign threats to national security and the economy by securing "fair, balanced and reciprocal trade relationships," the White House said. Read On The Fox News App Trump Aims To Reshape Global Economy With Historic New Tariffs Earlier this year, Trump announced an additional 10% tariff on all countries as well as higher tariffs for countries the U.S. has large trade deficits with. The tariffs became effective on April 9. Since then, Trump and his team have since made several trade deals with several countries. The U.S. struck a deal with the European Union in which the EU agreed to purchase $750 billion in U.S. energy and make new investments of $600 billion by 2028. The EU also agreed to accept a 15% tariff rate. The U.S. also made a deal with Japan, which agreed to invest $550 billion in the U.S. to rebuild and expand core American industries. Japan also agreed to further its own market to U.S. exports, and like the EU, Japan agreed to a baseline 15% tariff rate. However, many Democrats are digging in their heels against Trump's tariffs strategy, saying the negative effects are still on the horizon. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., forecast that, despite the increased revenue, "within a few weeks or months, you'll start seeing significant increases in most things you buy. And also, you will see disruption in terms of a lot of our industries, because they're not able to access product or supply." Trump Imposes Sweeping Tariffs On Dozens Of Countries After Landing Massive Trade Deals "When you have across-the-board tariffs, it does operate like a national sales tax, and I think people are going to be more and more hurt," predicted Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. "This is the president who said he was going to come in and reduce prices. Prices are going to rise, and they're going to rise more over time," said Van Hollen. Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren said that "Donald Trump may beat his chest and say, 'Man, I made him take a 15% tariff or 25% tariff,' but also understand that every one of those trading partners is now looking hard all around the rest of the world to find other customers, because Donald Trump is signaling loud and clear that the United States under Donald Trump is not a reliable trading partner. And that's not good for any of us." Warren also claimed that Trump's tariffs are the reason the Federal Reserve has not lowered U.S. interest rates. "Jerome Powell said last month that he would have lowered interest rates back in February if it hadn't been for the chaos that Donald Trump was creating over trade. And the consequence has been that American families have, for six months now, been paying more on credit cards, more on car loans, more home mortgages, all because Donald Trump has created chaos," she said. Us-china Trade Deal On The Horizon, Says Treasury Secretary Meanwhile, Republicans whom Fox News Digital spoke with urged the president to double down on his tariff strategy. "I think it's exactly the right approach. It's what I have been urging the president to do, and I think the successes he's winning are big wins for America," said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. In response to Democrats still predicting economic fallout because of the tariffs, Cruz sarcastically remarked, "I'm shocked, shocked that Democrats are rooting for the economy to do badly under President Trump." "It'd be nice if some Democrats would put their partisan hatred for Trump aside and actually start working together for American workers and American jobs. Unfortunately, I don't see a whole lot of Democrats interested in doing that right now," said Cruz. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., while agreeing that the tariffs have been successful, voiced that he hopes the goal is to ultimately achieve reciprocal zero percent tariffs between the U.S. and its trade partners. Democratic Senator Addresses Whether Kamala Harris Has Reached The End Of Her Political Career "Clearly, the president got a good deal from one perspective. The Europeans just caved, they did. Fifteen percent tariffs on them, zero on us, commitment to invest in our country. But the part of the deal I like the most, the E.U. and the president agreed that a whole bunch of goods would be tariff-free. That is, no American tariffs and no E.U. tariffs. It's called reciprocity, and ideal reciprocity is zero on both sides," he explained. "That's what I would like us to achieve in all the trade deals," Kennedy explained. "Let the free enterprise system work. May the best product at the best price win. That, to me, would be the perfect situation."Original article source: WATCH: Dem senator agrees with GOP that Trump's making progress on trade war
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump fires Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner after weak jobs report
The president fired the commissioner on Friday after a weaker-than-expected July jobs report showed hiring slowed with only 73,000 new jobs created, and revisions revealed hiring in May and June was much less than initially reported.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump didn't chicken out. So what's Canada's next move?
Canada has now learned that the derisive acronym TACO — often slapped on U.S. President Donald Trump — is inaccurate and needs to be tweaked to something more like "Trump (Almost) Always Chickens Out." Despite putting decidedly lower tariffs than he'd threatened on dozens of countries around the globe and giving Mexico a 90-day reprieve from his threat to raise its tariff rate, Trump singled out Canada for an increase. While there's no way that Canada can characterize what happened as a win, there's plenty of evidence that it's not a reason for Prime Minister Mark Carney's government to panic and do something that jeopardizes what really matters for the Canadian economy: tariff-free access to the U.S. for the vast majority of exports. The key evidence backing this perspective comes in the economic number-crunching showing the actual impact of Trump's tariffs on the whole of Canada's exports to the U.S, what's called the effective tariff rate. Think of it as an average, weighted by the value of Canadian goods going across the border. Different economists have slightly different estimates, but even with the increase Trump announced Thursday night, there's consensus the effective tariff rate for Canada is down in the single digits, noticeably lower than the rate for any other major trading partner. That's because despite Trump's bluster, he's allowing the vast majority of Canada's exports into the country with zero tariff under the terms of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). WATCH | Canada's talks with Trump administration will continue, says minister of US trade: Experts and business leaders say Canada's trade negotiators and federal government need to be laser focused on maintaining that tariff-free access through CUSMA, especially since the deal is soon up for review. Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, says a bigger issue than Trump's incremental increase of the tariffs is the way Canada is struggling to "find a way forward" in its negotiations with the U.S. 'The conversation that we should be having' "I am hoping this is an opportunity to reassess and to some extent reset where we are and where we need to get to for the longer haul," Hyder told CBC's Katie Simpson in an interview Friday. While Hyder says he has empathy for Carney's government as it tries to navigate the uncharted waters of dealing with Trump 2.0 on trade, he's questioning whether its negotiating strategy has been aimed at the correct target. Canada must assess what it needs to do "to get into the conversation that we should be having, which is first and foremost: how are we going to review and renew the USMCA?" Hyder said, using the U.S. government's preferred acronym for the trade deal. The text of CUSMA calls for a formal review starting in July 2026, but consultations between the three countries are expected to begin this fall. As Trump levies blanket tariffs on nearly every other major trading partner, observers are increasingly pointing to the big tariff exemptions Canada is getting from CUSMA as a major competitive advantage. That creates a rather hefty source of motivation for the Carney government to make solidifying CUSMA the long-term goal of its talks with the Trump administration. The eternal question: Trump's real motivation for the tariffs On the other side of the border, there's a view that a significant driving force behind Trump's tariff tactics with Canada is gaining leverage in those CUSMA renewal talks. Although Department of Justice lawyers have been arguing in court that stopping the flow of fentanyl from Canada — as minimal as it is — justifies the tariffs, trade policy expert Inu Manak of the Council for Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., says she believes there's no way that's really what's motivating Trump. "I do think a lot of this has to do with some sort of renegotiation of parts of the CUSMA deal that the Trump administration is not happy with," Manak told CBC News Network on Friday. Although Trump hit Canada with a tariff increase, Manak isn't criticizing Canada's negotiating tactics. "There's no really good way to go about doing this," she said. "We've seen variation in approaches and no matter what, everyone seems to be getting hit with tariffs." WATCH | Breaking down the winners and loser in Trump's tariff gambit: CUSMA and its tariff-free access must remain the focus for Canada, says John Manley, a former Liberal deputy prime minister, now chair of chair of Jefferies Securities, a global investment banking firm. "The big game is the 93 per cent of Canadian goods that cross the border currently tariff-free under USMCA," Manley told CBC News. "That is what we need to protect." To retaliate or not? Even if the CUSMA renegotiation is what matters most in the long term for Canada, the Carney government also has to think about what its immediate next steps should be. Perhaps the most immediate question along those lines for Ottawa is whether to retaliate or not. Brian Clow, who served as former prime minister Justin Trudeau's deputy chief of staff and led his "war room" on Canada-U.S. trade relations, describes himself as a fan of retaliation, but is not advocating for Carney to fire back at Trump in this instance. "I do think [Carney and his team] need to stop and consider whether to further retaliate right now, given Canada is standing on its own, and the rest of the world is not standing with us," Clow said Friday in an interview with CBC News. WATCH | Should Carney hit back? Here's what a former PMO insider thinks: Carney's government also needs to think about what it can do about the tariffs that are actually having the biggest impact on Canada right now: the sectoral tariffs of 50 per cent on steel and aluminum and 25 per cent on the non-U.S. content of assembled automobiles. "Maybe there's one more step towards the American ask that we can take — that we can live with — that can close this deal," Clow said. The signals from Carney's team suggest the plan is to keep on keeping on. Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, said Friday that he and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Trump's point man on tariffs, agreed to speak by phone next week and arrange for a meeting later in August. "We'll continue to talk to the Americans," LeBlanc told reporters in Washington. "The United States will continue to be our neighbour, continue to be our most important economic and security partner." Both LeBlanc in his scrum and Carney in his statement acknowledged the need for the government to help the steel, aluminum and auto sectors. Getting carve-outs or reductions of those tariffs will no doubt be an objective as the talks with Team Trump progress.
