EU says it ‘favours a negotiated solution’ but is prepared for potential trade war with retaliatory duties
Donald Trump threatened to impose 17% tariffs on food and farm produce exports from Europe during talks in Washington this week, it has emerged.
Such tariffs would hit everything from Belgian chocolate to Kerrygold butter from Ireland and olive oil from Italy, Spain and France, all big sellers in the US.
Continue reading...Letters to be sent to countries without a deal in place before end of 90-day pause on 9 July
Donald Trump has said the US will start sending letters to trading partners setting out tariff rates that countries will have to pay from the beginning of next month.
The US president told the media that about “10 or 12” letters would be sent out on Friday, with further letters sent out over the “next few days”.
Continue reading...Stefan Scherer, boss of AMG Lithium, says Europe must become more self-sufficient in critical raw materials and new technologies
The EU may as well “apply to be a province of China” such is its inability to wean itself off that country’s supply of critical raw materials used in everything from electric vehicles to smartphones and wind turbines, a leading German industrialist has said.
As chief executive of AMG Lithium, the EU’s first factory to make the lithium hydroxide used in many car batteries, Stefan Scherer sits at the centre of what has been dubbed a new gold rush.
Continue reading...European pharmaceutical body says it would be ‘negative for both sides’ if Brussels hits back on threatened US levies
The European pharmaceutical industry has urged Brussels not to retaliate if Donald Trump brings in threatened tariffs on imported drugs, amid fears he could impose the levies as early as next week.
The US president said last week that the sector-specific tariffs were coming “very soon”. There is concern in Brussels that he could impose them imminently to give himself further leverage ahead of his self-imposed 9 July deadline for trade deals with the EU and about 60 countries.
Continue reading...‘We want to see reform implemented with Labour values of fairness,’ the PM says
In his final answer Starmer explained how he thought government and business should work together.
A true partnership is not two people or two bodies trying to do the same thing. It’s two people or bodies realising they bring different things to the table.
Government shouldn’t try to run businesses. It’s done that in the past and it doesn’t work particularly well.
Continue reading...Daniel Ervér cites ‘fast-moving situation’ as US administration has changed rules on several occasions
Clothing prices are beginning to rise in the US as Donald Trump’s tariffs on imported goods start to have an effect, according to the boss of H&M, one of the world’s biggest fashion retailers.
Daniel Ervér, the chief executive of the Swedish retailer, said: “In the US, we are starting to see some competitors increasing prices. Different competitors are acting in different ways. Some more aggressively and some more cautiously.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: Sources say US wants information on when importing of raw materials from abroad at Port Talbot site will stop
Donald Trump is threatening to keep 25% tariffs on some or all of its steel imports from the UK unless it gives specific guarantees over the Indian-owned steelmaking plant at Port Talbot in south Wales, sources have told the Guardian.
An agreement to reduce tariffs on UK car exports to the US and scrap them for the aerospace sector was signed off by the US president and Keir Starmer on Monday, on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada.
Continue reading...Shares in parent company Tata Motors fall as JLR says it will reallocate vehicles to ‘accessible markets’
The British luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover has warned of a hit to profits from Donald Trump’s tariffs, after the company temporarily paused deliveries to the US.
The carmaker, which is owned by India’s Tata Motors, halted shipments to America in April after the US president imposed a 25% duty on all foreign-made vehicles, before resuming them last month. The country accounts for more than a quarter of JLR’s sales.
Continue reading...ThyssenKrupp executive warns of ‘collateral damage’ to supply chains and urges protective action on energy pricing
Europe’s steel industry faces being wiped out in the face of Donald Trump’s prohibitive 50% tariffs, high energy costs and a mountain of cheaper Chinese steel, one of Germany’s biggest industrial groups has warned.
Ilse Henne, a board member at the steel, engineering and chemicals group ThyssenKrupp, said the industry faced an existential crisis after the US president’s decision last week to double tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from 25% to 50%.
Continue reading...President, who had Thursday call with China’s Xi Jinping amid tariff dispute, says ‘meeting should go very well’
Senior US administration officials will meet with a Chinese delegation on Monday in London for the next round of trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing, Donald Trump said on Friday.
The meeting comes after a phone call between Trump and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, on Thursday, which the US president described as a “very positive” conversation as the two countries attempt to break an impasse over tariffs and global supplies of rare earth minerals.
Continue reading...US president says he accepted invitation in first phone conversation between leaders since January
Donald Trump said he had accepted an invitation to meet Xi Jinping in China after a phone conversation on trade was held between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies.
In a post on Truth Social, the US president said the “very good” call lasted about 90 minutes and the conversation was “almost entirely focused on trade”.
Continue reading...President brings in ban for visitors from 12 countries and restricts travel from a further seven
Donald Trump has ordered an investigation into Joe Biden’s actions as president, alleging top aides masked his predecessor’s “cognitive decline”.
The investigation will build on a Republican-led campaign already under way to discredit the former president and overturn some of his executive actions, including pardons and federal rules issued towards the end of his term in office.
Continue reading...Beijing says it will safeguard its interests after Donald Trump claimed it had ‘totally violated’ agreement
China has accused the US of “seriously violating” the fragile US-China detente that has been in place for less than a month since the two countries agreed to pause the trade war that risked upending the global economy.
China and the US agreed on 12 May to pause for 90 days the skyrocketing “reciprocal” tariffs that both countries had placed on the others goods in a frenzied trade war that started a few weeks earlier. Tariffs had reached 125% on each side, which officials feared amounted to virtual embargo on trade between the world’s two biggest economies.
Continue reading...Time and time again over the past four months, reality has failed to match Trump’s rhetoric
“Tariffs are easy,” Donald Trump claimed in March. For his administration, and the world, they have proven anything but. Now an obscure New York court has blocked his signature trade policy, setting up a battle that looks sure to end up in the supreme court.
The plan was simple. For decades, Trump has made the case for tariffs. Now, in his second term, he would dramatically hike them on the world; raise trillions of dollars for the federal government; cut taxes for Americans; and lure manufacturers to the country’s industrial heartlands, creating millions of jobs.
Continue reading...Don Farrell says US president’s latest tariffs announcement ‘an act of economic self-harm’ and he will continue to advocate for their removal
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Australia’s trade minister, Don Farrell, has described Donald Trump’s trade tariffs as “unjustified and not the act of a friend”, after the US president announced he would double import duties on steel and aluminium to 50%.
Trump told a steelworkers rally in Pittsburgh that raising the tariff would “even further secure the steel industry in the United States. Nobody is going to get around that”.
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Continue reading...President took to social media to denounce Beijing in the latest development in his ongoing tariff war
Donald Trump declared that China has “totally violated its agreement” against the US on trade just two weeks after the countries reached a deal, raising fears that the trade war will continue to rattle the global economy.
“I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday morning. “Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!! The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US.”
Continue reading...CEO of Europe’s largest industrial group says he has been in direct talks with Donald Trump’s administration
Volkswagen, Europe’s largest industrial group, has said it will make a “massive” investment in the US. The group, which includes Porsche, revealed it has been in direct talks with Donald Trump’s administration as it faces damaging tariffs.
Oliver Blume, who heads the group, said the talks were “constructive” and “fair”, in an interview that suggests the company, whose market capital is £44bn, is not willing to leave tariff negotiations to Brussels alone.
Continue reading...The ruling says Trump exceeded authority in imposing sweeping tariffs. Plus, Elon Musk confirms government exit
Good morning.
A federal trade court has ruled Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs regime illegal, a dramatic twist that could block the president’s controversial global trade policy.
What was the ruling? Tariffs typically need to be approved by Congress but Trump has so far bypassed that requirement by claiming that the country’s trade deficits amounted to a national emergency. The court’s ruling said Trump’s tariff orders “exceed any authority granted to the president … to regulate importation by means of tariffs”.
How are markets reacting? Global markets cheered the ruling, with the US dollar rallying along with indexes in France, Germany, Japan, and futures for the US S&P 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq indexes rising.
What’s next? The Trump administration has already filed to appeal. White House officials attacked the court, calling it “unelected”.
Continue reading...Wall Street up in early trading after US president commends bloc for calling to ‘quickly establish meeting dates’
Donald Trump has indicated there has been progress in US trade talks with the EU, helping send share prices rising on Wall Street, after he commended the bloc for calling to “quickly establish meeting dates”.
“I have just been informed that the EU has called to quickly establish meeting dates. This is a positive event, and I hope that they will,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, saying the EU would be “very happy and successful” if it agreed a deal.
Continue reading...European leaders call for ‘lowest possible’ border taxes after levies postponed from 1 June to 9 July
EU leaders have expressed hopes for a quick deal to resolve the trade war with the US after Donald Trump announced he was delaying his threatened 50% tariffs for the bloc until 9 July.
The US president said on Sunday he would pause the border tax due to be imposed on 1 June, which he had announced two days earlier, after what he called a “very nice call” with Ursula von der Leyen.
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