President Trump has a big deadline this week. He announced tariffs in April, suspended them, and plans to reimpose them tomorrow. In the meantime, he has been trying to bend trade partners to his will with sweeteners, threats and the occasional ultimatum.
After months of chaos and hype, he notched much-needed victories this week when he announced trade deals with the European Union and South Korea. But the saga isn’t over yet. Today, I’ll walk through where Trump’s trade agenda has succeeded, where it hasn’t and what we still don’t know.
The wins
Trump has already delivered on some of his central trade promises.
Raising tariffs: The president loves tariffs and has made them a totem of his second term. He has earned a reputation for bluffing, but overall duties have increased. America spent generations building — and benefiting from — a global free-trade consensus. Now, Trump has coaxed major players, including the European Union, South Korea and Japan, to accept 15 percent tariffs, the highest in decades. This piece by Ana Swanson, who covers trade, explains the shift.
Boosting businesses: Trump has pushed several nations to buy more from American companies as part of their trade deals. The European Union and South Korea agreed to purchase hundreds of billions in U.S. fossil fuels before the end of Trump’s term. Deals with half a dozen countries include orders for hundreds of Boeing jets. (This week, Boeing reported its strongest revenue in six years.)
The losses
Trump’s tariff war has also meant some pain.
Shuffling trade alliances: Nations have started seeking trade partners that are more reliable than the United States, writes Jeanna Smialek, who covers Europe. The E.U. is pulling closer to Britain, Canada, India and South Africa. Canada is courting Southeast Asia. Brazil and Mexico are building a rapport. They’re redrawing the global trade map — minus the U.S.
Roiling industries: Carmakers including Volkswagen and General Motors said import duties erased billions from their profits in the first half of the year. American farmers may have to splurge on fertilizers imported from Russia. Trump’s E.U. tariffs may cost pharmaceutical companies billions, making drugs more expensive for Americans. Sydney Ember, who covers the U.S. economy, wrote about a Maine coffee company that raised prices after tariffs eroded its profits.
The TBDs
As my colleague Ben Casselman explained, economic growth has wobbled this year as tariff uncertainty upended business plans and scrambled consumer spending. With nations racing to negotiate new trade deals, there’s still so much up in the air.
Finalizing deals: Trump wants to win concessions, but trade talks aren’t finished yet. Canada and Mexico remain empty-handed; as does China, which got a later deadline. Trump said yesterday that he would hit India with tariffs partly because it imports oil from Russia. He also punished Brazil with a tariff for prosecuting its former leader, his ally. (Here’s a map tracking tariffs for every country.) And any new pact will likely be just a blueprint, since Trump’s trade deals don’t get into the nitty-gritty details that usually make up formal trade agreements.
Lowering prices: Trump hopes that tariffs will boost the economy with lower prices and more jobs. But it’s unclear whether that will work, Ana explains in a new story. Tariffs have a cost — borne by the businesses exporting goods or the consumers buying them. Although some businesses choose to absorb costs for a while, research shows that Americans eventually bear the brunt. Last month, inflation inched up as tariffs started to bite.
More on the economy
Trump ended a rule that exempted imports worth under $800 from tariffs. Small imports have ballooned in recent years because of online shopping.
The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady, despite Trump’s demand to cut them.
Two Fed governors voted against the decision. That’s very unusual, as this chart shows:
HELLO, PALESTINE?
Canada’s prime minister said yesterday that his country would recognize Palestine as a state this fall. The move echoed similar ones by Britain and France over the past week. These are the first close allies of Israel and the United States to take such a step. So while this recognition is symbolic, it’s a sign of a shift in global sentiment.
Timeline: The Palestine Liberation Organization officially declared a Palestinian state in 1988, but the U.S. has consistently blocked the U.N. from granting it full member status. In 2012 Palestine got “nonmember observer state status,” which allowed it to join various U.N. bodies and the International Criminal Court. Today, most nations recognize Palestine.
Two states: Canada, Britain and France, like the United States, have long supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But they had resisted recognition while the two sides continued to disagree on some basics, such as security, borders and the status of Jerusalem.
What changed? Leaders are outraged by the mass starvation gripping Gaza. Instead of seeing recognition as a carrot to encourage Palestinians to participate in a peace deal, the three nations will try to use it as a stick to pressure Israel to end the war.
For more
Gaza’s looming famine is a familiar challenge for a U.S. president. Crises in the Balkans, Rwanda, Darfur and Syria, to name a few, haunted presidents’ consciences — sometimes moving them to act, but often leading to excuses, Michael Crowley writes.
A sack of flour costs $300 in Gaza. Read the latest on the food crisis.
THE LATEST NEWS
Trump Administration
Brown University struck a $50 million deal with the government to restore research funding. The school promised to comply with President Trump’s position on transgender athletes.
Senate Democrats have slowed the confirmation process for presidential appointments to a trickle, creating a bottleneck by insisting that every vote be recorded.
While running for president, Trump promised oil executives a windfall. Six months into his presidency, they’re getting one.
Senate Democrats invoked an obscure law to try to force the release of the Epstein files.
More on Politics
Texas Republicans unveiled a new gerrymandered map for the state’s House districts. They’re proposing to carve up five Democratic seats so that Republicans would be likely to win them in 2026.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris will not run for California governor next year.
A Senate committee advanced legislation that would bar members of Congress, the president and the vice president from trading stocks.
House Democrats sued ICE for barring them from entering detention centers.
Brazil
The U.S. imposed sanctions on the Brazilian Supreme Court justice presiding over the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president. Bolsonaro is accused of orchestrating a coup attempt; Trump has called the case a “witch hunt.”
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, spoke with The Times about his outrage over what he says is Trump’s meddling in his country’s politics. Click the video below to watch.
Public Health
Measles cases in Canada have far surpassed those in the United States.
The Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine and gene therapy official resigned after a public campaign against him led by the right-wing influencer Laura Loomer.
Other Big Stories
Russian missiles and drones struck Kyiv, killing at least seven people.
An instrument issue may have misled the pilots of a Black Hawk helicopter about their altitude before it collided with a passenger jet near Washington in January.
The gunman who killed four people in a Manhattan office building bought his assault rifle from his boss at a Las Vegas casino.
Why did the big undersea earthquake yesterday produce a relatively small tsunami? “There’s big,” said one expert. “And then there’s really, really big.”
OPINIONS
Israel bears the greatest responsibility for starvation in Gaza. It needs to let Palestinians eat, the Editorial Board writes.
Here’s a column by Michelle Cottle on redistricting.
MORNING READS
Summer streets: New Yorkers are looking cool despite the heat. Our photographer captured their style.
Always late? It may be a part of your personality, scientists say.
Ultrarich Pac-Man: Palm Beach billionaires keep demolishing perfectly good beachfront mansions.
Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about the spread of hand, foot and mouth disease.
Taboo breaker: Rose Leiman Goldemberg wrote the screenplay for “The Burning Bed,” which starred Farrah Fawcett as a wife exonerated for killing her husband. The TV movie helped start a national conversation around domestic abuse. Goldemberg has died at 97.
SPORTS
Trending: People online were searching for the former N.B.A. star Gilbert Arenas after he and five others were arrested in Los Angeles, accused of illegally hosting high-stakes poker games at his home. He denies the charge.
N.C.A.A.: Troy Taylor, Stanford’s former head football coach, filed a defamation lawsuit against ESPN and one of its reporters over an investigative story that alleged Taylor “bullied and belittled female athletic staffers.”
Swimming: Ryan Lochte’s record in the 200-meter individual medley fell after 14 years. Léon Marchand of France beat Lochte’s time by 1.31 seconds.
MORE THAN A BEEFCAKE
Jason Momoa knows what he looks like. But he prefers to think of himself as a “sensitive alpha male” — not a hunky bruiser. No matter how you spin it, he’s a bona fide action star, having played a warlord in “Game of Thrones,” a sword master in “Dune” and an amphibious superhero in “Aquaman.”
Momoa recently returned to Hawaii for a different kind of project, the Apple TV+ series “Chief of War.” Alexis Soloski, a Times culture reporter, went to the beach with him in Honolulu to learn why he pushed so hard to make a serious-minded period drama about his home.
More on culture
A procession fit for the prince of darkness: Birmingham sent off Ozzy Osbourne with a brass band and a regal hearse.
Here are some of the most anticipated books coming in August, including new novels by R.F. Kuang and Louis Sachar.
Late night hosts are still joking about Trump and Epstein.
THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …
Make your own pesto with five ingredients.
Perfect your plank.
Prepare for a natural disaster with these items that survivors said were crucial for them.
Read this profile of Liam Neeson, who is on a mission to make you laugh.
GAMES
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were cognate and cotangent.
And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands.
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.
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