
World economies reel from Trump's punch
Trump announced late on Thursday that dozens of economies, including the European Union, will face new tariff rates of between 10 and 41 per cent.
However, implementation will be on August 7 rather than on Friday as previously announced, the White House said. This gives governments a window to rush to strike bilateral deals with Washington setting more favourable conditions.
As Trump presses ahead with plans to reorder the global economy with the highest tariff rates since the early 1930s, Switzerland, "stunned" by 39 per cent tariffs, sought more talks, as did India, hit with a 25% rate.
New tariffs also include a 35 per cent duty on many goods from Canada, 50 per cent for Brazil, 20 per cent for Taiwan. Taiwan said its rate was "temporary" and it expected to reach a lower figure.
The tariffs are a demonstration of raw economic power that Trump sees putting US exporters in a stronger position while encouraging domestic manufacturing by keeping out foreign imports.
But the muscular approach has raised fears of inflation and other economic fallout in the world's biggest economy.
Stock markets in Hong Kong, London and New York slumped as they digested the turmoil.
Trump's actions come as debate rages over how best to steer the US economy, with the Federal Reserve this week deciding to maintain interest rates unchanged, despite massive political pressure from the White House to cut.
Data on Friday showed US job growth missing expectations for July, while unemployment ticked up to 4.2 per cent from 4.1 per cent.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 dropped 1.7 per cent, while the Nasdaq slumped 2.3 per cent.
Trump raised duties on around 70 economies, from a current 10 per cent level imposed in April when he unleashed "reciprocal" tariffs citing unfair trade practices.
The new, steeper levels listed in an executive order vary by trading partner. Any goods "transshipped" through other jurisdictions to avoid US duties would be hit with an additional 40 per cent tariff, the order said.
Carney said his government was "disappointed" with the latest rates hike but noted that with exclusions the US average tariff on Canadian goods remains one of the lowest among US trading partners.
Notably excluded from Friday's drama was China, which is in the midst of negotiations with the United States.
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Observer
4 hours ago
- Observer
The America we knew is rapidly slipping away
Of all the terrible things Donald Trump has said and done as president, the most dangerous one just happened on Friday. Trump, in effect, ordered our trusted and independent government office of economic statistics to become as big a liar as he is. He fired Erika McEntarfer, the Senate-confirmed head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for bringing him economic news he did not like, and in the hours immediately following, the second most dangerous thing happened: The senior Trump officials most responsible for running our economy — people who in their private businesses never would have contemplated firing a subordinate who brought them financial data they did not like — all went along for the ride. Rather than saying to Trump: 'Mr President, if you don't reconsider this decision — if you fire the top labour bureau statistician because she brought you bad economic news — how will anyone in the future trust that office when it issues good news' — they immediately covered for him. As The Wall Street Journal pointed out, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer had actually gone on Bloomberg TV early on Friday and declared that even though the jobs report that had just been released was revised downward for May and June, 'we've seen positive job growth.' But as soon as she got the news hours later that Trump had fired the very BLS director who reports to her, she wrote on X: 'I agree wholeheartedly with @POTUS that our jobs numbers must be fair, accurate, and never manipulated for political purposes.' As the Journal asked: 'So were the jobs data that were 'positive' in the morning rigged by the afternoon?' Of course not. Going forward, how many government bureaucrats are going to dare to pass along bad news when they know that their bosses — people like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, the Labor Secretary Chavez-DeRemer and the US trade representative Jamieson Greer — will not only fail to defend them but will actually offer them up as a sacrifice to Trump to keep their jobs? Shame on each and every one of them — particularly on Bessent, a former hedge fund manager, who knows better and did not step in. What a coward. As Bessent's predecessor, Janet Yellen, the former Treasury secretary and also the former chair of the Federal Reserve — and a person with actual integrity — told my Times colleague Ben Casselman of the BLS firing: 'This is the kind of thing you would only expect to see in a banana republic.' It is important to know how foreigners are looking at this. Bill Blain, a London-based bond trader who publishes a newsletter popular among market experts called Blain's Morning Porridge, wrote on Monday: 'Friday, Aug. 1 might go down in history as the day the US Treasury market died. There was an art to reading US data. It relied on trust. Now that is broken — if you can't trust the data, what can you trust?' In May, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, fired two top intelligence officials who oversaw an assessment that contradicted Trump's assertions that the gang Tren de Aragua was operating under the direction of the Venezuelan regime. Their assessment undermined the dubious legal rationale Trump invoked — the rarely used 1798 Alien Enemies Act — to allow the suspected gang members to be thrown out of the country without due process. And now this trend towards self-blinding is spreading to further corners of the government. One of America's premier cyberwarriors, Jen Easterly, who was the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency during the Biden administration, had her appointment to a senior teaching position at the US Military Academy at West Point revoked last week by Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll after Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist, posted that Easterly was a Biden-era mole. Read that sentence again very slowly. The Army secretary, acting on the guidance of a loony Trump acolyte, revoked the teaching appointment of — anyone will tell you — one of America's most skilled nonpartisan cyberwarriors, herself a graduate of West Point. And when you are done reading that, read Easterly's response on LinkedIn: 'As a lifelong independent, I've served our nation in peacetime and combat under Republican and Democratic administrations. I've led missions at home and abroad to protect all Americans from vicious terrorists .... I've worked my entire career not as a partisan, but as a patriot — not in pursuit of power, but in service to the country I love and in loyalty to the Constitution I swore to protect and defend, against all enemies.' And then she added this advice to the young West Pointers she will not have the honour of teaching: 'Every member of the Long Gray Line knows the Cadet Prayer. It asks that we 'choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.' That line — so simple, yet so powerful — has been my North Star for more than three decades. In boardrooms and war rooms. In quiet moments of doubt and in public acts of leadership. The harder right is never easy. That's the whole point.' That is the woman Trump did not want teaching our next generation of fighters. And that ethic — always choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong — is the ethic that Bessent, Hassett, Chavez-DeRemer and Greer know nothing of — not to mention Trump himself. That is why, dear reader, though I am a congenital optimist, for the first time I believe that if the behaviour that this administration has exhibited in just its first six months continues and is amplified for its full four years, the America you know will be gone. And I don't know how we will get it back. — The New York Times


Times of Oman
4 hours ago
- Times of Oman
Will increase tariff on India "very substantially" over next 24 hours for purchase of Russian oil: Donald Trump
Washington DC: Hours after he mentioned raising tariff on India, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would increase the tariff charged on imports from India from the current rate of 25% 'very substantially' over the next 24 hours due to New Delhi's continued purchases of Russian oil, Reuters reported. 'They're fuelling the war machine, and if they're going to do that, then I'm not going to be happy,' Trump told CNBC in an interview, according to Reuters. According to the report, he added that the main sticking point with India was that its tariffs were too high but did not provide a new tariff rate. Trump had said on Monday that the United States will 'substantially raise' the tariff paid by India for buying 'massive amounts of Russian Oil', stating that much of the oil purchased from Moscow is being sold in the open market 'for big profits'. Trump's announcement, made on his social media platform Truth Social, came days after he announced a 25 per cent reciprocal tariff on India and an unspecified penalty for importing oil from Russia. 'India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian Oil, they are then, for much of the Oil purchased, selling it on the Open Market for big profits. They don't care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine. Because of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!' the US President said in the post. Soon, after the US President's remark, India said that 'the targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable'. A statement by official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs said that the government will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security. The spokesperson said that India has been targeted by the United States and the European Union for importing oil from Russia after the commencement of the Ukraine conflict. 'In fact, India began importing from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict. The United States at that time actively encouraged such imports by India for strengthening global energy markets stability. India's imports are meant to ensure predictable and affordable energy costs to the Indian consumer. They are a necessity compelled by global market situation. However, it is revealing that the very nations criticizing India are themselves indulging in trade with Russia. Unlike our case, such trade is not even a vital national compulsion,' the statement noted. MEA spokesperson said that the European Union in 2024 had a bilateral trade of Euro 67.5 billion in goods with Russia. In addition, it had trade in services estimated at Euro 17.2 billion in 2023. 'This is significantly more than India's total trade with Russia that year or subsequently. European imports of LNG in 2024, in fact, reached a record 16.5mn tonnes, surpassing the last record of 15.21mn tonnes in 2022.' The spokesperson said that Europe-Russia trade includes not just energy, but also fertilizers, mining products, chemicals, iron and steel and machinery and transport equipment. 'Where the United States is concerned, it continues to import from Russia uranium hexafluoride for its nuclear industry, palladium for its EV industry, fertilizers as well as chemicals. In this background, the targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable. Like any major economy, India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security,' the statement said. India has, earlier too, defended its sovereign right to conduct energy policy based on national interest. The government had clarified that India's energy purchases are guided by market dynamics and national interests. 'You are aware of our broad approach to energy sourcing requirements, that we look at what is available in the market and the prevailing global situation. We are not aware of any specifics,' MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said last week, answering queries on Trump's announcement of a penalty for purchasing Russian oil. Answering another query, Jaiswal said India's relations with any country are based on their own merit and shouldn't be viewed through the lens of third countries. 'Our ties with any country stand on their merit and should not be seen from the prism of a third country. As far as India-Russia relations are concerned, we have a steady and time-tested partnership,' he a query on Friday, Trump indicated that if India stops buying Russian, it will be a good step. Trump announced the imposition of 25 per cent tariffs on Indian goods and a penalty for importing Russian oil in the last week of July, even as there were hopes of an interim India-US trade that would have otherwise helped avoid elevated tariffs. There are apprehensions that global crude prices could jump to $200 a barrel if India were to stop buying Russian oil, which will severely harm consumers.


Observer
7 hours ago
- Observer
Crude holds strong amid OPEC+ hike
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