Latest news with #BenWerschkul
Yahoo
08-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's ongoing trade deals lack clarity: 3 unanswered questions
Confusion continues to swirl around President Trump's new trade deals as key details remain unclear, despite reciprocal tariffs already taking effect. Yahoo Finance Washington Correspondent Ben Werschkul breaks down how the lack of legal texts and mixed signals from the White House are complicating these agreements. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination. Been a lot of deals this week, a lot of headlines which I know has been the cadence for a while now. What do we actually know about some of these headline deals that we see in sort of the details if we do have any details on on the deals. That that's exactly precisely the issue there, Josh, we don't have a lot of details on that and that's what I've been interested in today is that this kind of parallel tracks we've been seeing on the trade front this week. We on the one hand, as you mentioned, we have these reciprocal tariffs that are now in in place built around 10 to 20% duties on countries that have a deal. On the other side on the parallel track, we have these deals that are under increasing confusion, basically what's in them. We just we don't have legally binding text on any of the on any of them. We don't even have joint statements on a lot of them. And what we've seen is a lot of issues arise on on what what's there. The first the main one is whether these rates that we're seeing that went in place this week are all inclusive. In other words, does a 15% deal with Europe mean 15% on semiconductors? Does it mean 15% on pharmaceuticals and autos? Even the White House uh fact sheet on the deal says yes, but a variety of actions and words from the Trump administration this week have raised questions. We even saw the Japanese trade negotiator make a quick trip to Washington this week basically to get reassurance on that front. He came out saying that he's he's confident it's going to be resolved. This is a sort of temporary issue especially on autos. That's a giant issue for him. After all this negotiation to get it down from 25 to 15%, at the moment, the tariffs are still at 25% on autos. The other aspect of this is these investment deals that we're seeing in there. Trump describes them as a blank check for him basically for him to to decide what to do with a pot of money. These other countries described these very differently, more like a financing fund. This is all important because and another third aspect of these deals is Trump constantly saying he reserves the right to change any terms he wants if he feels unhappy. He basically he can raise the rates if he wants to. He says he has the right to do that if this isn't working out to his liking. So the bottom line for folks is that even though we have all these deals and we've had all these high profile announcements, these are very fragile agreements as we are still waiting on legally binding texts, which by all indications is still being worked out on on all these fronts. Um I think a very particular telling quote from came from Japan this week. This is one of the countries that's in the middle of this. Um their their prime minister has been under a lot of raised, had a lot of questions domestically on this and according to Washington Post report was meeting with lawmakers to try to mollify them and he reportedly talked about how dealing with Trump is particularly challenging and added that quote, in negotiations like this, implementation is far more difficult than reaching an agreement. In other words, we're going to be talking about how these work out for a long time to come. Ben, you just hit on what I feel like is of course the the question of the moment. I know it's hard to answer, right? But is there any sense of of timeline? I mean at some point, we have to get details, right? For these tariffs to stay in place and be doing what they're supposed to be doing. We would there would have to be clear details at some point in the process. Yeah, there is there is progress on some as an example, the UK had their first deal and we do have a little more detail there. We don't have the full the full text yet, but we have more there. Indonesia is as another example where we have a joint statement, which is a key step in this. Others are are further along. So I think they will continue to progress slowly, but the key thing is that we kind of front loaded this with the tariffs going into place and now we're kind of filling in all the back details there. So it could it could be a lot more changes in the head as as they sort of work out these there's a lot of big important issues um going forward.
Yahoo
08-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Trump's additional 25% India tariff is surprising
President Trump announced he will impose an additional 25% tariff on India. Yahoo Finance Washington Correspondent Ben Werschkul joins Market Domination with Josh Lipton to break down the details. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination. And today we're learning President Trump implemented an additional 25% tariff on India and that's days after he already imposed a 25% levy on that major trading partner. Ben, catch us up on the very latest. For sure, it's been a bit of a double whammy this week for India on on the trade front. What we have as you mentioned is a 25% reciprocal tariff. That's due to go into effect in a few hours time at midnight tonight. And then what he announced today was an additional 25% tariff. That's the timeline on that is about three weeks from now and that is over the um the country's purchase of consumption of Russian oil. Um the the that that those will stack together. So this will be a 50% tariff if both of those go into place. There is a lot of questions this hour about whether those those additional 25% tariffs to get us up to 50 will indeed go into place because this is clearly a way, a kind of indirect way to pressure Russia to end the war in Ukraine or at least agree to a ceasefire for right now. So, the indirectly from from from India, but also directly today from Trump's envoy Steve Whitkoff who was in Moscow and met with with Vladimir Putin earlier today, President Trump posted a few hours ago that there was great progress made at that meeting, but he did appear to acknowledge that a deadline he'd set for this Friday for a ceasefire is going to slip. So, this is going to be an issue going forward. Um and how India gets gets kind of wrapped into it for certain is is up is up in the air. Um also on the Indian side we've seen another flurry of really negative responses from Indian officials to this latest move. The word from the India's external affairs ministry was unjustified, unfair, and unreasonable. And then a headline that really caught my eye that I think gives gets the larger picture here is that that we have reports that Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India is set to travel to China later this month. You think that would be routine, but it's actually not. That's reportedly be would if that goes forward, it would be the first time in seven years that Modi has been to China. So, that'll be a big big step kind of away from the US towards China. Are we surprised, Ben, that the the friction here between the US and China? I mean, maybe not only because listen, we were hearing these Trump officials. I think of recent interviews, Besson, for example, was giving to reporters and and was clearly expressing his frustration, but I'm just I'm just wondering whether you're surprised all by by where we find ourselves here. Yeah, in the larger frame, I am very surprised. There was there we were there was a sense very early on in Trump's administration that India would be kind of one of the easier ones to work out. That there was a friendship between Trump and Modi that went back to his first term. That is clearly changed and the word Besson is used is frustrated and you hear that up from a lot of Trump teams. I think that comes down to a couple things. One is that India has stood up to Trump's trade demands in a lot of respects. They're not they're not willing to lower a lot of their their high tariffs that that are in place. It's also this long-term connection with Russia that they have. This goes back decades. Um they get a lot of energy resources from Russia. They also have tied deep political connections there that I think the Trump administration may have underestimated how close they are on that. And so, that's going to be a much longer fight than than we might have expected a few months ago when this when India was kind of seen as as perhaps first out the gate.
Yahoo
08-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What we know (and don't know) about Trump's tariffs
President Trump's reciprocal tariffs are now in effect, with imports from dozens of US trading partners now facing higher levies. Yahoo Finance Washington Correspondent Ben Werschkul and Wolfe Research head of US policy and politics Tobin Marcus discuss what we do and don't know about the tariffs and what they could mean for US companies. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Catalysts. Give us sort of a a roadmap of where we are right now where we stand and what's still to be determined. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of lot in both of those columns. Quickly, on what we do know is we do we do have this is a real significant piece of Trump's trade agenda that's now in place. We have headline tariff rates of 10 to 50% on nearly every country in the globe. And as you mentioned at the top, the overall effective tariff rate in the high teens. These are 1930s levels of tariffs overall. When you when you when you go across every good. So this is this has been the kind of the centerpiece of Trump's trade agenda. And I think it's worth noting this morning that this is kind of along the similar lines of what Trump attempted to do in April, but had to pull back from. And what we've seen is it's gone forward overnight. And we're seeing we're seeing it's only one of one of the a very variety of market stories this morning. In terms of what we don't know, that's a longer list. Um I'll focus on one and then let Tobin add into the others. But I think that the sectoral tariff piece of this is really significant to watch as a key unknown because essentially, I think we're we're actually we've actually had less clarity over the last 24 hours on that front. Trump made some news last night saying he's thinking about 100% tariffs on semiconductors. That would be a major change if that did go through, but there's reasons to be skeptical there. For one, he talked about a carve-out even for companies who have a commitment to building the United States could could could dodge this, as well as the fact that deals with the European Union and South Korea, um seem to exclude exclude them and give them a 15% rate on semiconductors. So that that's a big kind of uncertainty that that is is set to set to um be resolved in the coming days as well as autos and and pharmaceutical tariff, both of which have a lot of loose ends there. So that's one of the big unknowns. There's a whole long list as well. There is a whole long list. Tobin, is that that is that a problem that there's a whole long list? As we know, you know, we've been talking about for days how markets don't seem to care. Um so how big of a deal is it that there are so still so many unanswered questions? Well, it certainly doesn't seem to be a problem for markets, which I think a lot of investors have gotten pretty well habituated to looking through this. Anecdotally, the sense that we get from a lot of more fundamentally oriented institutional investors that we speak to is, tired of losing money, guessing wrong, what's going to happen on tariffs? We're going to try and look through this as best we can. You know, I think that means that we're going to start seeing markets react to this when it's reflected in company earnings rather than trying to kind of look around corners and react to the headlines and the modeling of what the impact is going to eventually look like. But we do think that that impact is still coming. It's starting to materialize. We saw that in Q2 earnings for a lot of companies. We're starting to see it in inflation data, um but our economics team at Wolf Research uh has found that only about 30% of the total tariffs have been absorbed anywhere that we can see, only about 10% absorbed by foreign supplier pricing. So we think as we get into the steady state, as companies sort of know what they're executing against, know what they need to absorb, we're going to see them passing through prices more. We're going to also start to see that continue showing up in margins. Um so you know, we think it's a headwind, not something that's going to break the back of the market on its own, but we do think that there's a lot of impact here that's that's in the early stages of showing up. And how about these sectoral tariffs, right? Especially on semiconductors, from what the president seems to have indicated yesterday, seems like there's going to be an awful lot of companies that get exemptions. Uh yeah, so it remains to be seen how uh broadly and liberally the president is going to define uh companies that have committed to investing in the US. Uh it sounds like probably fairly broad. I think a lot of the big companies that people care most about will be able to get themselves exemptions. Uh Apple and Nvidia have been very, very savvy and public about doing this. Um but there are a lot of um a lot of companies in that space that have at least some amount of investment in the US and those that don't, of course, are going to make a show of, you know, trotting out everything they're already doing, everything they can see they're planning to do and try and get those exemptions in the near term. That being said, the universe of products that's hit by these semi tariffs is potentially very, very large and that the direct imports into the US of chips are fairly small, in the 50 billion dollar a year range, um in terms of what's been carved out from the reciprocal tariffs for that reason. But then there's this larger concentric circle of consumer electronics that contain chips, which is about $450 billion. I think, you know, that's a fairly diverse ecosystem. It's not just a few big companies. I don't think that everyone is going to be able to get themselves exemptions. So in aggregate, I think we're going to see a pretty significant impact here. Um you know, that may show up in consumer pricing even if it's not showing up in uh the earnings of the sort of biggest, highest profile companies in the space that investors are focused on. Related Videos 3 tariff updates coming next week: What to know Why Trump's additional 25% India tariff is surprising Countries push for last-minute deals before Trump's tariff deadline How Wall Street & DC are reacting to Trump's BLS firing Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
08-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
3 tariff updates coming next week: What to know
Yahoo Finance Washington Correspondent Ben Werschkul joins Morning Brief with Julie Hyman to discuss the latest updates on President Trump's tariffs and trade talks. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief. While President Trump's sweeping new tariffs are in effect for most of the US's trading partners, there's still a few deadlines that were pushed further out. Here with trade news on the horizon for next week, Yahoo Finance Washington correspondent Ben Wershkol. Hi Ben, what should we be watching? Yeah, good morning, Julia. Trade talks never stop. So we had, we had the news this week, but we've got, we've got a lot on the agenda for next week. Three fronts, I think in particular for folks to watch. The first one, and the big one is China. There's an August 12th deadline there for China, for the end of China's 90-day pause on, on their tariffs. They could see tariffs snap back to triple digit levels if that deadline is passes without any action. The word we've heard from Trump's teams over and over again in recent days is likely, a likely extension. We heard it from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Latenick as recently as yesterday, but we've been hearing this that it's likely for days now. So expect a lot more attention from markets there if we get closer to this August 12th deadline without a lot of clarity on whether Trump is going to add another 90-day extension there. Um, part of this delay is, is based on front number two, which is Russia. Um, we're, we're hearing the Trump administration is talking about a summit between Vladimir Putin, um, Vladimir Zelensky and Trump himself to end the war in Ukraine as soon as next week. The United Arab Emirates has been mentioned as a possible location there. No details there, but this is important for tariffs because Trump is using tariffs as a kind of key leverage point on this, on his efforts to end this war. We've already seen it with the threat of additional 25% tariffs on India. That deadline is a couple weeks out, but he, Trump has talked about how other countries could be in line there, including China. China is, of course, the number one consumer um, of Russian oil at the moment. Um, they've emerged as the leader there in recent years. Turkey is another country to watch there. They, they, they consume a lot of Russian oil, so they could be in line if Trump decides to move forward there. And then the third front is sectoral tariffs. Um, Trump is, Trump has this week talked about new, um, tariffs on semiconductors in the next week or so. Um, I wouldn't necessarily set your calendar there. Trump talks about a lot of things happening in the next couple weeks and then we wait months and months for that. But it does come as a lot of tension, a lot of quick confusion has risen on the sectoral tariff front. He talked about triple digit, um, um, tariffs on semiconductors even after agreeing that they would be 15% on the European Union and South Korea and Japan. Same with pharmaceutical tariffs. He's talked about triple digit levels while making country specific deals there. And we've even seen this week on auto tariffs, he, he agreed to 15% tariffs on autos, but we haven't seen that actually be enacted even as all these other duties have come into place. We had the Japanese trade negotiator in town this week to try to kind of get clarity there, but we have no formal word there yet. So even if we don't have a formal sectoral announcement in the coming weeks, there's going to be a big push for clarity on all these different fronts as well. Related Videos What we know (and don't know) about Trump's tariffs Trump's tariffs now in effect: How world markets are reacting Trump threatens 100% tariff on chips, but there is an exception Why Trump is calling for Intel CEO's resignation Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
08-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Where Trump's tariffs & rare earth minerals stand right now
Yahoo Finance Washington Correspondent Ben Werschkul joins Market Catalysts with Julie Hyman to discuss the latest on global trade talks and President Trump's tariffs. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Catalysts. First is the reciprocal terrorist deadline. That's going to go into effect on Thursday according to Trump's team. This is kind of basically everyone in the world except for China. And then, and then, as you mentioned, next week is the August 12th deadline for China. We did get some guidance there from Trade Representative Jameson Greer, who, who again sort of echoed, wouldn't say specifically that there's going to be an extension of the tariffs in the, um, on the horizon. They're the line we're hearing from the Trump team for days now is that there's still technical details to be worked out and that Trump is going to make the final decision, but there's a widespread expectation there that at least a delay, another 90-day delay on tariffs is in the offing. And then on the one, clearly, one of the biggest issues um front and center right now is rare earth minerals. The way Greer described it as they're halfway there to, to work out a rare earth minerals deal about kind of China loosening their exports of these precious materials, um which are crucial for the world economy. I think the overall takeaway from that detail is how slow these talks are going. Rare earth was of course the top agenda item in London a few months ago when they met last time, and it's clearly a lingering issue. We're seeing it in a lot of things. Wall Street Journal had a good report today about how the military is really struggling to get the rare earth minerals it needs. So this is clearly a top-line issue, and it shows how far the negotiators have to go to get to the other issues from currency, from intellectual property, that are going to take months and months and months to even get to. Related Videos Trump admin. planning Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac IPOs, WSJ reports 3 tariff updates coming next week: What to know DraftKings CEO on Q2, sports-betting tax, prediction markets Trump to sign EO allowing crypto in 401(k)s: What it means for markets Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
