Author: News Room

Republicans in Congress cannot use an obscure legislative maneuver to stop California’s ban on the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, the Senate parliamentarian ruled on Friday.The decision dealt a blow to efforts by the Trump administration to quickly kill policies that promote electric vehicles.California had received a federal waiver under the 1970 Clean Air Act from the Biden administration to impose a stricter automobile emissions standard than the one set by the federal government. Under that waiver, it enacted a plan to require all new cars sold in the state by 2035 be free of emissions of greenhouse…

Investors around the globe this week sent President Trump a clear message about his new tariff policy, announced triumphantly as a remaking of the economic order.They don’t like it.The S&P 500 fell 6 percent on Friday, bringing its losses for the week to 9.1 percent. Stocks hadn’t fallen this far this fast since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic — it was the steepest weekly decline since March 2020.As then, the S&P 500 is quickly approaching bear market territory, a drop of 20 percent from the latest high and marks extreme pessimism among investors. By Friday, the index was…

Of all the countries that expected to be immune to President Trump’s tariffs, Switzerland was at the top of the list.The tiny Alpine nation, famous for its political neutrality, fine chocolates and precision watches, had eliminated industrial tariffs recently on all imports, including American goods. It has kept the European Union at arm’s length to avoid entanglement in trans-Atlantic trade fights. Swiss companies generate half a million jobs in the United States.So when Mr. Trump imposed double-digit tariffs on Wednesday, no one was more surprised than the Swiss. Compounding the situation was that no one knew the exact amount: 31…

U.S. employers accelerated hiring in March, a surprising show of strength that analysts warned might be the high-water mark for the labor market as the Trump administration’s economic policies began to play out.Employers added 228,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported on Friday, a figure that was far more than expected and was up from a revised total of 117,000 in February. The unemployment rate rose to 4.2 percent, from 4.1 percent.The data, based on surveys of households and businesses conducted in the second week of March, do not reflect the sweeping tariff announcement that rattled markets this week,…

Sizing up what President Trump’s new tariffs mean for India was a puzzle from the start for even the country’s top trade economists. Its politicians, too, were stunned.Starting next week, nearly all Indian goods arriving in the United States will be taxed an extra 27 percent.The figure was bafflingly high, in part because the government’s ministers had been flocking to Washington since Mr. Trump won re-election. From the Rose Garden, Mr. Trump addressed India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, in absentia while delivering the disappointing news, calling him “a great friend of mine.” But that wasn’t enough.The Trump administration, in a…

The Japanese video game company Nintendo said on Friday that it would delay preorders for its new console, the Switch 2, in the United States because of the tariffs imposed by President Trump.The Switch 2’s price was unveiled as $450 this week. Its release date of June 5 remains unchanged, the company said.U.S. preorders were supposed to begin on Wednesday for the anticipated follow-up to the Switch, which has sold more than 150 million units, making it one of the most popular gaming consoles of all time.Nintendo said that it was delaying preorders “to assess the potential impact of tariffs…

As financial markets recoiled for a second day and China said that it would hit the United States with its own punishing tariffs, President Trump on Friday sounded a defiant note about his approach, promising that “MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE.”Instead, Mr. Trump maintained in a series of posts on Truth Social that his economic strategy is working, as he held up a better-than-expected new jobs report — reflecting hiring before he announced his latest round of tariffs — as a sign the economy remains strong.Global markets told a different story, as major U.S. indexes slipped into the red hours…

President Trump’s tariffs mean that companies across the European Union and around the world are at risk of losing access to the world’s largest consumer market.Naturally, they are looking for the next big thing. Statistically speaking, that would mean China.The E.U. has the second-largest consumer market in the world behind America; China is third. But China and the E.U. have not exactly been cozy in recent years. Europe has regularly blasted China for overproducing and dumping artificially cheap products on the global market, and European leaders have criticized China’s stance toward Russia’s war in Ukraine, among other political and social…

Oil prices continued to fall on Friday, extending a sharp drop that began the day before as fears grew that President Trump’s tariffs could slash global economic growth — and demand for oil.Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded at its lowest level in more than three years, below $65 a barrel, a fall of almost 8 percent.Prices began to slide on Thursday after Mr. Trump unleashed tariffs on America’s trading partners, starting with a base-line duty of 10 percent on countries around the world, and higher duties for others, including a 34 percent tariff on goods from China.On Friday, China…

President Trump’s tariffs mean that companies across the European Union and around the world are at risk of losing access to the world’s largest consumer market.Naturally, they are looking for the next big thing. Statistically speaking, that would mean China.The E.U. has the second-largest consumer market in the world behind America; China is third. But China and the E.U. have not exactly been cozy in recent years. Europe has regularly blasted China for overproducing and dumping artificially cheap products on the global market, and European leaders have criticized China’s stance toward Russia’s war in Ukraine, among other political and social…