Trump Orders Stricter Enforcement of Clean Energy Tax Rules
Trump directed the US Treasury Department to more strictly define when a project has started construction, including restricting the use of efforts to lock in tax credits unless a substantial portion has been built, according to an executive order issued Monday.
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Bloomberg
22 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Comex Copper Surges to Record After Trump Calls for 50% Tariff
Copper futures on the Comex surged as much as 17% after US President Donald Trump said he planned to implement a 50% tariff on imports of the metal. Futures rose to $5.8955 a pound as of 1:07 p.m. in New York, a record.
CNN
23 minutes ago
- CNN
3 times Trump's tariffs worked
Source: CNN President Donald Trump's tariffs are designed to boost US manufacturing, restore the balance of trade and fill America's coffers with tax dollars. The White House's record on those three goals has been a decidedly mixed bag. But Trump has a fourth way that he likes to use tariffs. Trump has repeatedly threatened tariffs as a kind of anvil dangling over the heads of countries, companies or industries. The subjects of Trump's tariff threats have, at times, immediately come to the negotiating table. Sometimes, threats just work. The most recent example was over the weekend, when Canada backed off its digital services tax that was set to go into effect Monday. Trump had railed against the tax on online companies, including US corporations that do business in Canada. On Friday, he threatened to end trade talks with America's northern neighbor. Trump also said he would set a new tariff for Canada by the end of this week. On Sunday, Canada backed down, saying it would drop the tax to help bring the countries back to the table. 'To support those negotiations, the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, announced today that Canada would rescind the Digital Services Tax (DST) in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the United States,' the Canadian government said in a statement. On Monday, United States and Canada restarted trade discussions. 'It's part of a bigger negotiation,' said Prime Minister Mark Carney in a press conference Monday. 'It's something that we expected, in the broader sense, that would be part of a final deal. We're making progress toward a final deal.' Trump's first tariff action of his second term came against Colombia after President Gustavo Petro in late January blocked US military flights carrying undocumented migrants from landing as part of Trump's mass deportation effort. In turn, Trump threatened 25% tariffs on Colombian exports that would grow to 50% if the country didn't accept deportees from the United States. Colombia quickly walked back its refusal and reached an agreement to accept deported migrants. 'You can't go out there and publicly defy us in that way,' a Trump administration official told CNN in January. 'We're going to make sure the world knows they can't get away with being nonserious and deceptive.' Trump ultimately dropped the tariff threat. Citing a lack of progress in trade negotiations, Trump in late May said he was calling off talks with the European Union and would instead just impose a 50% tariff on all goods from there. 'Our discussions with them are going nowhere!' Trump wrote on Truth Social on May 23. Later that day in the Oval Office, Trump said he was no longer looking for a deal with the EU. But three days later, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke with Trump and said the EU would fast-track a deal with the United States. Trump then delayed the 50% tariff deadline until July 9. Although a deal hasn't yet come through, Trump's threat got Europe to get serious, in the White House's view, on trade, when it had been slow-walking negotiations, trying to get a consensus from its dozens of members. The Trump administration attributes a large number of corporate investments in the United State to its tariffs and tariff threats, although it's often hard to draw a clear line from Trump's trade policy to a particular company announcing it will build an American factory. Those decisions often take years of planning and are costly processes. For example, shortly after Trump doubled down on steel and aluminum tariffs and included finished products like dishwashers and washing machines in the 50% tariff, GE Appliances said it would move production from China to Kentucky. The company said it had planned the move before Trump announced the derivative product tariffs – but Trump's trade war accelerated its plans. In some other cases, Trump's threats have largely gone nowhere. Furious with Apple CEO Tim Cook for announcing the company would export iPhones to the United States from India – rather than building an iPhone factory in the United States – Trump announced a 25% tariff on all Apple products imported to the United States. He threatened the same against Samsung. But Trump never followed through with his threat, and Apple and Samsung haven't budged on their insistence that complex smartphone manufacturing just isn't practical or possible in the United States. Skilled manufacturing labor for that kind of complex work isn't readily available in the United States – and those who do have those capabilities charge much more to work here than their peers charge in other countries. Complying with Trump's demands could add thousands of dollars to the cost of a single smartphone – more than Trump's threatened tariff. Trump similarly threatened Hollywood in May with a 100% tariff on movies made outside the United States. That left many media executives scratching their heads, trying to figure out what the threat entailed – a threat that ultimately never materialized. The administration later acknowledged Trump's statement about the tariff was merely a proposal, and it was eager to hear from the industry about how to bring lost production back to Hollywood. Nevertheless, Trump's threats against the movie industry raised awareness about the bipartisan issue, and California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom subsequently posted support for a partnership with the Trump administration to incentivize movie and television makers to film in the state again. Trump's threats don't always work, and sometimes his tariffs have kicked off a trade war, raising prices in a tit-for-tat tariff escalation. But a handful of times, including this weekend, his tariff threats have gotten America's trading partners to agree to major concessions. CNN's Luciana Lopez and Michael Rios contributed to this report. See Full Web Article
CNN
23 minutes ago
- CNN
Wall Street is calling Trump's bluff
Source: CNN President Donald Trump is threatening to revive his trade war. Wall Street isn't too concerned. Global markets were relatively calm Tuesday after Trump on Monday ratcheted up his tariff campaign — but extended the deadline to August 1 and said he was open to negotiations. That provided a sense of optimism for investors. Stocks across Asia — including in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong and Bombay — opened higher on Tuesday. US stocks opened mostly higher: The Dow fell 57 points, or 0.13%. The S&P 500 rose 0.05% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.3%. Market movements were relatively muted, signaling investors think Trump's new tariffs are more negotiating tactics than firm policy. It's a noticeable change from early April, when Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs sent stocks plummeting. Three months after Trump initially announced massive 'reciprocal' tariffs and then instigated a 90-day pause, Wall Street is looking through the tariff rhetoric. 'This latest round of tariff news feels more like an aftershock, one the market was prepared for, rather than the seismic event that shook markets on 'Liberation Day' over three months ago,' Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG Australia, said in a note. Trump late Monday told reporters at the White House that the August 1 deadline is 'firm, but not 100% firm.' The tariff letters are 'more or less' final offers, Trump said. 'I would say final, but if they call with a different offer and I like it, we'll do it.' 'If they call up and they say 'we'd like to do something a different way,' we're going to be open to that,' the president said. 'Yesterday's letters and tariff tweets, I would categorize it as same threat, different goalpost,' Kurt Reiman, head of fixed income at UBS Global Wealth Management, said. Investors in recent weeks have embraced the 'TACO trade,' betting that 'Trump always chickens out' on his major tariff threats — especially if there is an adverse reaction in markets. 'This opens the door for another round of 'TACO Tuesday,' Trump-style,' Sycamore said. US stocks fell on Monday after Trump announced a slew of new tariffs, but losses were relatively contained: The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq finished the day lower by less than 1%. Wall Street has wrestled with Trump's on-and-off tariffs for months. While the president is considering reigniting his trade war, investors say markets are taking it with a grain of salt. 'Markets have broadly shrugged off the tariff news overnight,' Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC, said. 'Essentially, the door remains open for individual economies to whittle down proposed tariffs through negotiations.' 'Investors are taking the glass-half-full view at the moment, enjoying the reprieve from the deadline extension, rather than focus on the reiteration of the potential tariff levels should negotiations fall through,' he added. The new tariff announcements are a 'speed bump' as opposed to something that would 'derail' the momentum in stocks, according to Mohit Kumar, chief strategist and economist for Europe at Jefferies. 'Singling out certain countries for higher tariffs is a way of putting pressure on these and other countries to agree to a deal sooner rather than later,' Kumar said. Trump so far has only announced frameworks for trade deals with the United Kingdom, China and Vietnam. Peter Navarro, White House senior counsel for trade, had said in April the administration would pursue '90 deals in 90 days.' Trump on Monday sent letters to 14 countries outlining proposed tariff rates. Investors are still keeping their eyes peeled for announcements about potential deals or tariff letters for dozens of trading partners including India, Taiwan and the European Union. The S&P 500 has notched four record highs since June 27 as investors have begun to look past tariff anxieties. Wall Street heavyweights are expecting a push to higher levels. Bank of America on Tuesday raised its year-end forecast for the S&P 500 to 6,300 from 5,600. Goldman Sachs on Monday raised its year-end forecast for the S&P 500 to 6,600 from 6,100, citing expectations of sooner-than-anticipated Federal Reserve rate cuts, 'fundamental strength' of large US stocks and 'investors' willingness to look through likely near-term earnings weakness.' Analysts at Barclays said in a June note that markets were beginning to 'turn the page' on tariffs to focus more on how artificial intelligence is impacting corporate earnings and how economic data continues to hold up. David Wagner, portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors, said he thinks tariffs are at the lower end of the list of things markets are concerned about. 'I think the market has moved on from it,' he said. 'If there was some market volatility, Trump's probably going to give in.' Investors are now viewing tariff uncertainty within the broader context of Trump's agenda, Michael Reynolds, vice president for investment strategy at Glenmede, said. Trump last week succeeded in passing his budget bill, which provided more clarity for Wall Street. Wall Street is betting Trump won't push for tariff rates that would destabilize the global economy, enabling stocks to grind higher. Some analysts warn of complacency. 'This modest reaction is perhaps a function of the market pricing in the ability to negotiate down tariffs, or perhaps a continuation of the TACO trade,' said Michael Wan, senior currency analyst at MUFG, in a note. 'We are not so sure on our end, and it does seem to us like overall risk assets seem too sanguine to these tariff rates which are essentially quite similar to Liberation Day.' Sarah Bianchi, senior managing director at Evercore ISI, said in a note that Trump is 'feeling good about recent victories' and with stocks near record highs, he is more likely to lean into imposing his tariff agenda. Inflation data for June will be released next week, providing more insight into the economic impact of tariffs. In the meantime, investors will be on the watch for announcements about potential trade deals or tariffs. 'With the proverbial can likely to be kicked further down the road, leaving negotiators a bit more room to maneuver … markets are pricing little signs of concern,' analysts at Barclays said in a note. 'However, it remains prudent to consider all possible scenarios, given the narrative around tariffs remains quite fluid and Trump maintains a 'do whatever we want' position.' See Full Web Article
