Japan, US agree to keep current 50% tariff on steel, aluminium, NHK reports
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The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
White House officials rush to defend Trump after shaky economic week
Donald Trump administration officials fanned out on Sunday's US political shows to defend the president's policies after a bruising week of poor economic, trade and employment numbers that culminated with the firing of labor statistics chief Erika McEntarfer. US trade representative Jamieson Greer said Trump has 'real concerns' about the jobs numbers that extend beyond Friday's report that showed the national economy added 73,000 jobs in July, far below expectations. Job growth numbers were revised down by 285,000 for the two previous months as well. On CBS News's Face the Nation, Greer defended Trump's decision to fire McEntarfer, a respected statistician, saying: 'You want to be able to have somewhat reliable numbers. There are always revisions, but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways.' He added: 'The president is the president. He can choose who works in the executive branch.' But William Beach, who served as Trump's commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in his first presidency, warned that McEntarfer's dismissal would undermine confidence in the quality of US economic data. The BLS gave no reason for the revised data but noted that 'monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors'. 'This is damaging,' Beach said on Sunday on CNN's State of the Union. 'I don't know that there's any grounds at all for this firing. 'And it really hurts the statistical system. It undermines credibility in BLS.' McEntarfer on Friday published a statement on social media reacting to her dismissal, calling it the 'honor my life' to have served as BLS commissioner. She said the BLS employs 'many dedicated civil servants tasked with measuring a vast and dynamic economy'. 'It is vital and important work, and I thank them for their service to this nation,' McEntarfer's statement on the Bluesky platform said. Uproar over McEntarfer's firing has come as a series of new tariff rates are due to come into effect this month. While the president has predicted a golden age for the US economy, many economists warn that higher import tariffs could ultimately weaken American economic activity. On CBS, Greer said that Trump's tariff rates are 'pretty much set' and unlikely to be re-negotiated before they come into effect. The first six months of Trump's second terms have been characterized by a seesawing of tariff rate announcements that earned the president the moniker on Wall Street of Taco – 'Trump always chickens out'. But last week he issued an executive order outlining tariff modifications for dozens of countries after he had twice delayed implementation. Yet Greer also said many of the tariff rates announced 'are set rates pursuant to deals'. 'Some of these deals are announced, some are not, others depend on the level of the trade deficit or surplus we may have with the country,' he said. On NBC's Meet the Press, the national economic council (NEC) director, Kevin Hassett, said modified US tariff rates were now 'more or less locked in, although there will have to be some dancing around the edges about exactly what we mean when we do this or that'. Asked if tariff rates could change again, he said, 'I would rule it out because these are the final deals.' On Fox News Sunday, Hassett said he also supported McEntarfer's dismissal. 'I think what we need is a fresh set of eyes at the BLS, somebody who can clean this thing up,' he remarked. But former treasury secretary Larry Summers told ABC's This Week that McEntarfer's firing was 'way beyond anything that Richard Nixon ever did', alluding to the late former president who resigned in 1974 over the Watergate scandal. Summers said Trump's claim that the poor job numbers were 'phony' and designed to make him look bad 'is a preposterous charge'. 'These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals,' Summers said. 'There's no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number. The numbers are in line with what we're seeing from all kinds of private sector sources.' Summers placed McEntarfer's firing, Trump's pressure on Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, to lower interest rates, and the strong-arm tactics that the administration has aimed at universities, law firms and media institutions in the same bucket. 'This is the stuff of democracies giving way to authoritarianism,' Summers said. 'Firing statisticians goes with threatening the heads of newspapers. 'It goes with launching assaults on universities. It goes with launching assaults on law firms that defend clients that the elected boss finds uncongenial. This is really scary stuff.'
BreakingNews.ie
4 hours ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Trump, Carney to speak in coming days, Canadian official says
US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will likely talk "over the next number of days" after the U.S. imposed a 35 per cent tariff on goods not covered by the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, a Canadian official said on Sunday. Dominic LeBlanc, the federal cabinet minister in charge of U.S.-Canada trade, also told CBS News' "Face the Nation" that he was "encouraged" by recent discussions and believed a deal to bring down tariffs remained an option. Advertisement "We're encouraged by the conversations with Secretary Lutnick and Ambassador Greer, but we're not yet where we need to go to get the deal that's in the best interest of the two economies," LeBlanc said, referring to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. The trade minister said he expected Carney and Trump to speak "over the next number of days." "We think there is an option of striking a deal that will bring down some of these tariffs provide greater certainty to investment," LeBlanc said. Washington linked Friday's tariff announcement in part to what it said was Canada's failure to stop fentanyl smuggling. It was the latest blow in a months-long tariff war which Trump initiated shortly after returning to power this year. Carney says Canada accounts for just 1 per cent of U.S. fentanyl imports and has been working intensively to further reduce the volumes.
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Zillow CEO reveals what he thinks caused America's 'housing crisis'
Americans everywhere are struggling to purchase homes, with sales reaching a 30 year low in 2024. Despite the tribulations of the housing market itself, the number one real estate site in the country - Zillow - is thriving. CEO Jeremy Wacksman sat down with The New York Times to discuss what may be causing the dip in the housing market and what keeps Zillow afloat amidst it all. The Seattle resident was appointed as CEO a year ago, but has been with the company since 2009. Wacksman added that the major issue with homebuying in the United States is that there is an availability problem. 'We have an affordability crisis, which is driven by an availability crisis. It is a supply-side problem,' he said. While many complain about increasing mortgage rates, he said that it's only a small factor. 'The real problem for a home buyer is home prices are up 30, 50, 70, 100 percent, depending on the market, from pre-pandemic levels. Incomes are not up that much.' According to the US Social Security Office , the average yearly income in 2023 was $66,621, only increasing 4 percent from the year prior. Wacksman noted that if the housing industry had continued to build new properties to keep up with buyer demand, it may not have become the 'crisis' it is today. 'We have been chronically under-building since, really, the global financial crisis,' he said. 'Less supply and a lot of demand is going to keep home prices elevated.' According to Zillow , the average home value is almost $370,000 with just 1.3 million homes in the for-sale inventory. Despite the dip in purchasing and sky-high prices, Zillow is seeing hundreds of millions of unique visitors every month. The company has seen a jump in revenue and its stock is up more than 60 percent. The top site for real-estate listings in the country attracts what the internet has dubbed 'Zillow Surfers.' Those with little to no intention of purchasing a home browse on the website everyday. Wacksman welcomes such browsers. ''Zillow Surfing' is pretty pervasive, regardless of if it's a buyer's market or a seller's market,' he said. 'You spend all this time window shopping and escaping and dreaming. You are getting a little smarter about what you might want, and then something happens and you pull the trigger. 'As a marketer, I don't think you could have a stronger brand endorsement than all of the usage you get from people escaping on your platform.' The way Zillow makes money is by selling ads to real estate companies who want to reach those endlessly scrolling Zillow-surfers. The company requires agents to post listings within 24 hours of being on the market . If not, it's never allowed on the site at all. Real estate companies like Compass have grown wary of Zillow, and even filed a lawsuit claiming they maintain a monopoly, calling it a 'Zillow ban.' But Wacksman said that the lawsuit itself speaks to the larger issues of seller transparency within the United States housing market. 'The heart of the issue is the U.S. real estate market currently exists with a unique amount of transparency,' he said. 'So you and I, as a buyer and seller, can see all available listings, and that empowers us to shop on our own. There are a few companies that are looking to put the internet back in a box and hide inventory and force you to pay them. 'The lawsuit is about challenging that consumer benefit and that transparency.' Now, Zillow is trying to shift toward a 'super app' structure that allows buyers to be connected with any resources that they may need. That includes mortgage providers and rental properties as well as any other related services.
