Tariffs stay: UK suspends some tariffs to ease enterprise pressure as commerce deal ‘days away’

In a comment piece for Independent Voices, business journalist Chris Blackhurst writes:

In Donald Trump, America has a president who combines business with politics. So far, we’ve witnessed Trump and golf, Trump and social media, Trump and cyber, Trump and real estate, Trump and artefacts. This is an elected leader who shamelessly plugs the Trump family business interests while seeking to serve his country. Now comes Trump and tariffs.

In theory, since he became president, monetising the Trump name is off limits. It’s for his children to oversee, while an external ethics lawyer is meant to monitor his companies’ dealings and investments. The reality, however, is a blurring of private financial gain and public service.

Even so, the suggestion that his circle was able to make a killing while countries (including his own) were reeling from his tariffs onslaught represents a new low. A reversal was coming, he provided a nudge – and that, plus the rare use of those key initials, pointed to a profitable course of action.

Trump, of course, will deny that he did such a thing. Any share-buying was pure coincidence, as indeed it would be, in relation to the apparent combining of commerce and duty in the above. But normally, the merest whiff of insider trading on the back of performing a public role would be enough to finish a person’s career. Trump is different.

Read the full piece here:

Toymakers are bracing for rising prices and falling sales as a result of Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Nearly 80 percent of all toys sold in the US are made in China — meaning what were once cheap toys could soon become luxuries, CNN reports.

Major toymakers like Mattel and Hasbro are also seeing their stocks sink, CNBC reports, as Trump’s trade war with Xi Jinping shows no signs of slowing.

Saturday Night Live has skewered Donald Trump over his tariffs policy and continued trade war with China, following on from last week’s “Liberation Day” cold open.

James Austin Johnson returned to Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza as the president in an Easter-themed sketch that began with Jesus, played by Mikey Day, casting the moneylenders out of the temple on his arrival in Jerusalem.

The Biblical tableau froze as SNL’s Trump appeared. “Remind you of anyone?” he said to laughter. “I also got rid of money last week, but instead of one temple, I did a whole country. Maybe even the globe. The money’s gone.”

“Hi, it’s me your favourite president, Donald Jesus Trump, comparing myself to the son of God once again,” Johnson continued.

Oliver O’Connell has more details here:

When the first two rounds of 10 per cent tariffs hit, Zou Guoqing, a Chinese exporter, groaned but didn’t find the barriers insurmountable. He gave up some of his profits and offered his client, a snow-bike factory in Nebraska, price cuts ranging from 5 to 10 per cent.

It seemed to work: The factory agreed to a new order of moulds and parts.

But when Donald Trump announced an additional 34 per cent universal tariff on Chinese goods on 2 April, Mr Zou, who has been exporting to the United States for more than a decade, was incredulous.

“There’s not a thread of feasibility,” said Mr Zou, who does business in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo. “It looks like I would have no choice but give up trading with the US.”

Then came 50 per cent more from Mr Trump, followed by another increase that pushed the universal tariff on Chinese goods to 145 per cent, and Mr Zou said he now could only hope that Mr Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping can communicate.

“We are pausing the shipments,” he said, “until the leaders talk.”

“Savage” cuts to UK foreign aid will leave 55.5 million of the world’s poorest people without access to basic resources, The Independent can reveal.

Analysis by Save the Children, shared exclusively with this publication, lays bare the true impact of repeated cuts to the budget, the latest of which will see spending fall to just 0.3 per cent of gross national income (GNI) – the lowest level in 25 years.

Women and girls will suffer the most as the government is likely forced to scale back programmes across global education, family planning, water and food aid.

Our data correspondent Alicja Hagopian and Whitehall editor Kate Devlin have the exclusive report here:

Donald Trump is acting like a 19th century European autocrat, a historian has suggested.

“We have a democratic leader who seems to have the authority to act as whimsically as a 19th century European autocrat,” Tim Naftali, a historian and senior research scholar at Columbia University, told the Associated Press. “He sneezes and everyone catches a cold.”

Professor Natfali added: “What the president ends up having is what he wants, which is everyone’s attention all of the time.”

Stock investors were warily watching moves across asset classes, in particular the dollar and Treasuries. An index that measures the US dollar against a basket of currencies on Friday fell below 100 for the first time in nearly two years, while the yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury bond was on pace for its biggest weekly jump in decades.

In many prior risk-off events, the dollar and Treasuries have acted as safe havens, but that has not been the case over the last week as stocks have tumbled, said Walter Todd, chief investment officer at Greenwood Capital in South Carolina.

“We are the reserve currency and the risk free asset of the world, and our markets are not acting as such,” Mr Todd said.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury on Friday topped 4.5 per cent, which investors have cited as a level that could cause turbulence for stocks. Higher yields translate into higher borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, while potentially making bonds more competitive investments against stocks.

“Until Treasuries stabilise and start to behave normally, risk assets will struggle,” Barclays analysts said in a note on Friday.

More than half of British adults now believe Donald Trump is not “a friend of Britain’s”, according to new polling suggesting that figure has soared 12 per cent since January.

Polling by Opinion, commissioned by The Observer, found that 34 per cent of UK voters now believe the US is more of a threat than an ally – up from just 16 per cent who held that view in November. Just 35 per cent of respondents said they currently have confidence in Washington as an ally.

That number fell even lower when talking about Mr Trump specifically, with only 16 per cent of British voters polled saying they believed he was trustworthy, against 64 per cent who did not.

Donald Trump is waiting for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to call him personally, while Chinese officials are wary of putting Xi on a call that is unpredictable and potentially embarrassing, The New York Times reports.

Mr Trump has said he would like to speak with Mr Xi, but he has stopped short of requesting a phone call, believing that it is Beijing’s turn to ask for a call, the outlet reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Sir Keir Starmer’s government has announced it will temporary suspend the UK global tariff on 89 products in order to ease pressure on businesses in the face of Donald Trump’s global levies.

The UK global tariff – which applies to goods entering the UK that do not qualify for preferential treatment under free trade agreements – will be suspended until 2027 on a wide range of products including pasta, fruit juices, agave syrup, plant bulbs, plywood and plastics.

Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “From food to furniture, this will reduce the cost of everyday items for businesses, with savings hopefully passed onto consumers.

“As we face a new era of global trade, this government is going further faster to make Britain the best country to do business, delivering on our Plan for Change. These suspensions are just another example of that.”