Author: News Room

China has struck back at President Trump.In a rapid fire series of policy announcements from Beijing on Friday evening, including 34 percent across-the-board tariffs, three government agencies showed that China has no intention of backing down in the trade war that Mr. Trump began this week with his own steep tariffs on imports from around the world.China’s Finance Ministry said it will match Mr. Trump’s plan for 34 percent tariffs on goods from China with its own 34 percent tariff on imports from the United States.Separately, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it was adding 11 American companies to its list…

When Daniel Cox was growing up in Rochester, N.Y., he spent every Saturday night at Pizza Hut with his father and two brothers. The server got to know the family so well that when she saw their blue Dodge Caravan roll up, she would put their order in: two cheese pan pizzas and two pitchers of Pepsi.Mr. Cox’s parents were divorced, and the Pizza Hut ritual was centering for the family. “It was a time when we were all together and everyone was enjoying the experience,” he recalled. “Who doesn’t like pizza?”Now a father himself, Mr. Cox rarely goes out…

In the weeks leading up to his expansive global tariffs, President Trump and his top aides tried to prime the public for economic pain. They warned that while there would be fallout from their aggressive trade strategy, it would prove short-lived and benefit the economy in the long run.Investors, businesses and others made clear on Thursday that the U.S. economy was not ready to accept that approach. Global markets tumbled, economists warned of a possible recession and consumers braced for price increases on cars, food, clothing and more.The early tumult underscored the high stakes of Mr. Trump’s agenda, which the…

Eight members of the OPEC Plus oil cartel, led by Saudi Arabia, said Thursday that they would accelerate their previously planned schedule to gradually add about 2.2 million barrels a day to the oil market.The producers, including Russia, will add a combined 411,000 barrels a day in May, equivalent to three monthly increases, they said in a news release. They had already agreed in March to begin producing more oil this month.Oil prices fell sharply on Thursday, weighed down by both the fear that increasing trade frictions would torpedo global growth and the prospect of increased supplies of oil. Brent…

On Thursday morning, Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, woke up to the worst day for his company’s stock in five years.Apple shares fell more than 9 percent in response to President Trump’s plan to put steep tariffs on products made abroad. The declines at the world’s most valuable company led a sharp sell-off in tech stocks as the Nasdaq composite index, which is loaded with technology companies, sank nearly 6 percent.Collectively, the largest tech companies, which have been at the forefront of the U.S. economy over the past decade, lost nearly $1 trillion in the day of trading. The declines…

Share prices fell sharply for a second day on Friday in Asia, and futures market trading indicated that American share prices might soon tumble further as well, as worries spread about the economic effect of President Trump’s broad tariffs.The Nikkei 225 Index in Japan was down 3.8 percent. That followed a 2.8 percent drop on Thursday after Mr. Trump announced a far-reaching revision of American tariffs that included an extra 24 percent on goods from Japan.In South Korea, the Kospi Index fell 1.7 percent on Friday after dipping 0.8 percent the prior day. President Trump this week put a 26…

Volkswagen, the German automaker, has told its car dealers that it plans to add an import fee later this month to the price of imported cars sold in the United States.The company’s move is one of the first and clearest examples of automakers using price increases to deal with the 25 percent tariffs President Trump imposed on car and auto parts imports. The tariffs on vehicles went into effect on Thursday and the levies on parts will become effective on May 3.In an April 1 memo to dealers, Volkswagen said that the exact fees would be determined by the middle…

President Trump’s imposition of tariffs on a scale unseen in nearly a century is more than a shot across the bow at U.S. trading partners. If kept in place, the import taxes will also launch an economic project of defiant nostalgia: an attempt to reclaim America’s place as a dominant manufacturing power.In the postwar heyday of American manufacturing, which endured into the 1970s, nearly 20 million people once made their living from manufacturing. The United States was a leading producer of motor vehicles, aircraft and steel, and manufacturing accounted for more than a quarter of total employment.By the end of…

The New Civil Liberties Alliance — a nonprofit group that describes itself as battling “violations by the administrative state” — sued the federal government on Thursday over the means by which it imposed steep new levies on Chinese imports earlier this year.The new filing, which the group said was the first such lawsuit to challenge the Trump administration over its tariffs, set the stage for what may become a closely watched legal battle. It comes on the heels of President Trump’s separate announcement on Wednesday of broader, more extensive tariffs targeting many U.S. trading partners around the world.At issue are…

European Union regulators are preparing major penalties against Elon Musk’s social media platform X for breaking a landmark law to combat illicit content and disinformation, said four people with knowledge of the plans, a move that is likely to ratchet up tensions with the United States by targeting one of President Trump’s closest advisers.The penalties are set to include a fine and demands for product changes, said the people, who declined to be identified discussing an ongoing investigation. These are expected to be announced this summer and will be the first issued under a new E.U. law intended to force…