Category Archives: US economy

Target sales fall sharply in first quarter as customers worry about tariffs

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Retailer warns sales will slip for all of 2025 as customers pull back spending amid fears over tariffs and economy

Sales at Target fell more than expected in the first quarter, and the retailer warned they will slip for all of 2025 year as its customers, worried over the impact of tariffs and the economy, pull back on spending.

Target also said that customer boycotts have also done some damage during the latest quarter. The company scaled back many diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in January after they came under attack by conservative activists and the White House. Target’s retreat created another backlash, with more customers angered by the retailer’s reduction of LGBTQ+-themed merchandise for Pride month in June of 2023.

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Cooking the books? Fears Trump could target statisticians if data disappoints

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Proposed rule change could pave way for president to fire economists whose figures prove politically inconvenient

Summarizing his befuddlement with numbers, Mark Twain observed that there were “lies, damned lies and statistics”.

The acerbic phrase later become so deeply embedded in popular consciousness that it once formed the title to an episode of The West Wing, NBC’s portrayal of a fictitious US president played by Martin Sheen.

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US credit rating downgrade could add to pressure on government debt

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Loss of Moody’s triple-A rating comes amid concerns about fiscal trajectory and widening budget deficit

US government debt may come under more pressure this week after the credit rating agency Moody’s stripped the US of its top-notch triple-A credit rating.

Moody’s dealt a blow to Washington last Friday, when it downgraded the US and warned about rising levels of government debt and a widening budget deficit. Moody’s cut its credit rating on the US by one notch to Aa1 from Aaa, becoming the last of the big three agencies to downgrade the US.

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Trump claims ‘total reset’ in US-China trade relations after tariff talks in Geneva

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US president praises ‘very good’ discussions as top US and Chinese officials meet over trade war triggered by Trump’s tariff blitz

Donald Trump has hailed a “total reset” in US-China trade relations after the first day of talks between top American and Chinese officials in Geneva aimed at defusing a trade war sparked by his tariff rollout.

The US president praised the “very good” discussions and deemed them “a total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner”.

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Trump floats cutting Chinese tariffs from 145% to 80% before weekend talks

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Meeting aimed at de-escalating trade war after Chinese exports beat expectations despite slump in trade

Donald Trump has floated cutting tariffs on China from 145% to 80% before a weekend meeting as he looks to de-escalate the trade war.

Top US officials are expected to meet a high-level Chinese delegation this weekend in Switzerland in the first significant talks between the two nations since Trump provoked a trade war with stiff tariffs on imports.

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Trump proposes cutting $163bn in non-defense funds and boosting military

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Education, health, climate and more on chopping block and 13% rise – to over $1tn to Pentagon – in ‘skinny budget’

Donald Trump is proposing huge cuts to social programmes like health and education while planning substantial spending increases on defence and the Department of Homeland Security, in a White House budget blueprint that starkly illustrates his preoccupation with projecting military strength and deterring migration.

Cuts of $163bn on discretionary non-defence spending would also see financial outlays slashed for environmental and renewable energy schemes, as well as for the FBI, an agency Trump has claimed was weaponised against him during Joe Biden’s presidency. Spending reductions are also being projected for the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

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Americans, including Republicans, losing faith in Trump, new polls reveal

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Trump scores poorly on economy and immigration as some fear he is ‘exceeding powers’ and focussed on wrong issues

Americans, including some Republicans, are losing faith in Donald Trump across a range of key issues, according to polling released this week. One survey found a majority describing the president’s second stint in the White House so far as “scary”.

Along with poor ratings on the economy and Trump’s immigration policy, a survey released on Saturday found that only 24% of Americans believe Trump has focussed on the right priorities as president.

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Boeing hopes to find new buyers for up to 50 planes returned by China

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Airplane manufacturer says it is lobbying Donald Trump over ‘unfortunate’ decision to impose tariffs

Boeing will try to divert as many as 50 planes ordered by Chinese airlines to customers elsewhere after steep tariffs prompted by Donald Trump’s trade war.

The US manufacturer said it was confident it could find other buyers for the planes, but said it was lobbying Trump personally to resolve an “unfortunate situation”.

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US stock markets fall again as Trump calls Fed chair ‘a major loser’

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President amps up attacks against Jerome Powell, pushing him to lower interest rates to offset impact of tariffs

US stock markets fell again on Monday as Donald Trump continued attacks against the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, who the US president called “a major loser” for not lowering interest rates.

“There can be a slowing of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW,” Trump wrote on social media.

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US begins inquiry into pharmaceutical and chip imports in bid to impose tariffs

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Notices show Trump administration setting stage for levies on both sectors on national security grounds

The Trump administration is kicking off investigations into imports of pharmaceuticals and semiconductors as part of a bid to impose tariffs on both sectors on national security grounds, notices posted to the Federal Register on Monday showed.

The filings scheduled to be published on Wednesday set a 21-day deadline from that date for the submission of public comment on the issue and indicate the administration intends to pursue the levies under authority granted by the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Such inquiries need to be completed within 270 days after being announced.

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Sky-high US-China tariffs are a mutual trade embargo that will hurt both sides

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Effects could tip one into recession and undermine other’s fragile economy but prospects for rapprochement are not hopeless

Sky-high tariffs that now hang heavily over US-China trade mean, effectively, that they have declared a trade embargo on each other, normally an act of war. The economic consequences for both will hurt.

The US’s $150bn (£113bn) or so of exports to China will fall away quickly, while China’s $440bn worth of exports to the US may drop by up to 75% over the next 18 months, unless some sort of negotiation happens. No one will be spared the effects.

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‘The sky won’t fall’: China plays down Trump tariff risks as stock markets rally

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Chinese customs official says trade has diversified away from US in recent years and plays up its ‘vast domestic market’

China has played down the risk of damage to its exports from Donald Trump’s tariffs, with an official saying the “the sky won’t fall”, as stock markets rose on Monday amid signs of a retreat on electronics restrictions.

The world’s second-largest economy has diversified its trade away from the US in recent years, according to Lyu Daliang, a customs administration spokesperson, in comments reported by state-owned agency Xinhua.

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Hedge fund billionaire says US may face ‘worse than a recession’ from Trump tariffs

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Ray Dalio’s comments come after rocky week across stock markets after policies including 145% tariff raise on China

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio said that he is worried the US will experience “something worse than a recession” as a result of Donald Trump’s trade policies.

Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, the 75-year-old hedge fund manager said: “I think that right now we are at a decision-making point and very close to a recession. And I’m worried about something worse than a recession if this isn’t handled well.”

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Did Trump’s tariffs kill economic populism?

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Lasting damage has been done not only to Trump’s political credibility but to globalisation as a system

At the beginning of this helter-skelter week, Downing Street was declaring globalisation not only dead but a failure. Now, only five trading days later, the autopsy is still under way but the victim may instead be economic populism, strangled by Wall Street, the citadel of globalisation. Donald Trump’s so-called liberation day may in fact have been the anti-globalist’s entombment day.

In an effort to deny even a tactical retreat, Trump’s aides insist the White House goal all along was not to weaken globalism, or even to protect the US economy with tariffs, but instead to get into a negotiation to lower tariffs around the world and to punish China. As cover stories go, it is hardly credible, partly because the tariffs were repeatedly lauded by Trump as a macroeconomic revenue-raising measure, or a means to bolster US manufacturing.

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Trump’s economic adviser dampens Starmer’s hopes of tariffs relief

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It would take an ‘extraordinary deal’ for any country to improve on 10% rate, says Kevin Hassett

A senior economic adviser to Donald Trump has said it would take “an extraordinary deal” for any country, including the UK, to improve on the 10% tariff rate the US has imposed almost worldwide, pouring cold water on Downing Street’s hopes for a breakthrough.

Trump succumbed to pressure from plunging financial markets on Wednesday and temporarily reduced “retaliatory” tariffs on all countries’ goods to 10%, except those from China, which face a rate of 145%.

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Trump’s about-face on tariffs reveals chaos at the core of his presidency

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Time will tell how much damage has been inflicted on the credibility of Trump’s economic policy and administration

Donald Trump’s climbdown on Wednesday from the most draconian aspects of his tariff regime has uncovered a damning picture of chaos at the heart of his presidency without necessarily alleviating their most painful effects.

The president’s landmark “liberation day” unveiling of tariffs in the White House Rose Garden on 2 April was supposed to be symbolic gateway to his promised “golden age of American greatness”; instead, it triggered a cascade of global market crashes that prompted warnings of a recession, or even a 1930s-style depression, while Trump brushed it all off as temporary “disruption”.

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US workers feel effects of Trump cuts: ‘I am seeing my work dry up’

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President’s effort to rapidly shrink federal government is already reaching private sector as recession fears loom

Americans are grappling with climbing costs, falling sales and dwindling work as Donald Trump moves to overhaul the federal government and economy.

As the US president pushes forward with an array of controversial policies, from sweeping cuts to blanket tariffs, the Guardian asked US workers how they have been affected. Some requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.

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Rightwing group backed by Koch and Leo sues to stop Trump tariffs

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New Civil Liberties Alliance says president’s invocation of emergency powers to impose tariffs is unlawful

A libertarian group backed by Leonard Leo and Charles Koch has mounted a legal challenge against Donald Trump’s tariff regime, in a sign of spreading rightwing opposition to a policy that has sent international markets plummeting.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a suit against Trump’s imposition of import tariffs on exports from China, arguing that doing so under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – which the president has invoked to justify the duties on nearly all countries – is unlawful.

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Senior Trump officials give conflicting lines on tariffs after markets turmoil

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Commerce secretary insists on CBS that tariffs will ‘stay in place’ as treasury secretary tells NBC negotiation is possible

Senior officials within Donald Trump’s administration gave conflicting messages on Sunday about the US president’s global tariffs that have caused a meltdown in stock markets, prompted warnings of a world recession and provoked rare expressions of dissent from within his Republican party.

Cabinet members fanned out across Sunday’s political talk shows armed with talking points on Trump’s 10% across-the-board tariff on almost all US imports, with higher rates targeted at about 60 countries. If the intention was to calm nerves with a clear statement of intent, then it backfired as top officials gave starkly contrasting signals.

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Senior Trump officials give conflicting lines on tariffs after markets turmoil

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Commerce secretary insists on CBS that tariffs will ‘stay in place’ as treasury secretary tells NBC negotiation is possible

Senior officials within Donald Trump’s administration gave conflicting messages on Sunday about the US president’s global tariffs that have caused a meltdown in stock markets, prompted warnings of a world recession and provoked rare expressions of dissent from within his Republican party.

Cabinet members fanned out across Sunday’s political talk shows armed with talking points on Trump’s 10% across-the-board tariff on almost all US imports, with higher rates targeted at about 60 countries. If the intention was to calm nerves with a clear statement of intent, then it backfired as top officials gave starkly contrasting signals.

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