Author: News Room

China responded to President Trump’s tariffs on Friday, raising its own tariffs on American goods to 125 percent, from 84 percent.The announcement by China’s State Council came after Trump administration officials clarified on Thursday that China was now facing a minimum tariff rate of 145 percent on all exports to United States.China said its new tariffs will take effect on Saturday.This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Tesla has stopped accepting new orders in China for two car models that it imports from a factory in the United States, after the Chinese government imposed steep tariffs on American imports.On Friday, Tesla’s website in China removed the “order” button from the Model S sedan and Model X sport utility vehicle. Customers still have the option of purchasing one of those models, produced at its Fremont, Calif., factory, if the company has existing inventory.Tesla did not explain why customers could no longer order those models, but the change came a day after China raised its import tariffs on U.S.…

If the on-again, off-again tariff announcements by President Trump have struck you as unusual, that’s for good reason. Nothing like this has ever happened before.That’s the estimation of Douglas Irwin, a Dartmouth economic historian whose 2017 book, “Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy,” is the leading work on the subject. I called him for perspective. He told me that what we were experiencing was way outside the historical norm. One man alone has risked the first global trade war since the 1930s by raising tariffs to levels unseen for more than a century. The president’s actions, he…

As the United States and China barreled headfirst into full-fledged trade war this week, one of Beijing’s most fashionable shopping districts was still bustling. People browsed a high-end perfumery, lounged outside coffee shops and waited in a wraparound line for a trendy bakery.That is just the type of scene the Chinese government wants to see as it steels for what could be a total breakdown of trade with the United States. As President Trump maintains tariffs of at least 125 percent on its goods, China has vowed not to back down. Besides hitting back with its own tariffs — 84…

A haunting childhood moment defined how John Kakuk would think about investing his own money when the time came. During the 2008 financial crisis, his mother asked him if he would be willing to contribute the meager savings in his piggy bank to his family’s grocery fund should his father, a lawyer, lose his job.“She was very anxious,” Mr. Kakuk, then 12, remembered.His family averted disaster. “As far as I know, we didn’t miss a mortgage payment, we didn’t get a car repossessed, nothing like that,” recalled Mr. Kakuk, 28, who runs Bridger Digital, a marketing firm. But the rattling…

A day after President Trump capitulated on his global reciprocal tariffs, he and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick insisted that one country after another was coming to them to make deals to avoid further economic pain.But the devil is in the details, and Mr. Trump and Mr. Lutnick offered very few. Instead, they said that things would work out, without saying much more.“Everybody wants to come and make a deal, and we’re working with a lot of different countries, and it’s all going to work out very well,” Mr. Trump said during a cabinet meeting. “I think it’s going to work…

It may surprise some to learn that New York is the most forgetful city when it comes to ride shares. So says Uber, which has released its ninth annual Lost & Found Index — a hilarious, surprising and occasionally gross list of stuff riders left behind in cars last year. (Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., were close behind New York in obliviousness.)In reporting the data, the San Francisco ride-share behemoth also noted that it was doing so just as the planet Mercury was coming out of retrograde, a time astrologers claim has an effect on forgetting.On April 5…

The Chinese internet giant ByteDance has made some of the world’s most popular apps: TikTok and, in China, Douyin and Toutiao.In the United States, TikTok claims 170 million users. But in China, about 700 million use the domestic version, Douyin, and 300 million scroll the headlines on Toutiao, a news app. Every video that ByteDance’s users watch or post gives the company another data point about how people use the internet. For years, ByteDance has applied that wealth of information to make its apps more appealing, improving its ability to recommend content to keep users hooked.ByteDance is also using the…

The head of the United Automobile Workers union voiced partial support on Thursday for the Trump administration’s tariffs, saying targeted duties on other countries could help bring some manufacturing jobs back to the United States.But the union’s president, Shawn Fain, described President Trump’s across-the-board global tariffs as “reckless.” In an address to U.A.W. members that was streamed on YouTube and other social media, he also strongly criticized the administration for firing federal workers and slashing key government agencies, and accused it of violating the civil rights of students and others.“We support use of some tariffs on automotive manufacturing and similar…

After China unveiled steep retaliatory tariffs on American exports on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a sharp and somewhat surprising response: “So what?”The question underscored the Trump administration’s argument that America has the upper hand in a trade war with China given how reliant its economy is on exports to the United States.The United States buys far more goods from China than China buys from the United States. But Beijing’s decision to retaliate against President Trump’s punishing tariffs by raising levies on American imports to 84 percent could sting more than Mr. Bessent let on.“American companies that have been…