The carrot and stick approach

Investors finally seem to be getting the message: Don’t underestimate President Trump’s tariffs threat. The S&P 500 fell on Monday to its lowest level since his inauguration on jitters that a new round of the Trump trade war would kick in next week.

The slump comes even as Trump offered a carrot to corporate America on Monday, insisting that as part of his efforts to help end the Russia-Ukraine war, his administration is already working on deals to gain access to those nations’ valuable natural resources.

Trump said that tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports “are going forward on time, on schedule,” and would be imposed March 4 (should the countries fail to win themselves another reprieve). “We’ve been taken advantage of,” he reiterated on Monday.

Then tariffs on imported aluminum and steel are set to begin a week later, with reciprocal levies starting in early April.

An accord on getting a cut of Ukraine’s minerals seems close, but hardly certain. One sticking point: The White House appears unwilling to meet demands by Kyiv and its European allies for American security guarantees.

But Kyiv may have won a major concession. The latest deal terms, reviewed by The Times, no longer contained a demand that Ukraine pay as much as $500 billion into a U.S.-controlled fund derived from the future sale of Ukraine’s natural resources, including oil, natural gas and minerals.