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Beijing and Washington have both hailed the progress made at the end of a weekend of closed-door discussions in Switzerland aimed at de-escalating trade tensions sparked by US President Donald Trump’s aggressive worldwide tariff rollout in March and China’s retaliation.

Following the talks on Sunday at the Geneva villa of the Swiss ambassador to the United Nations, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters: “I’m happy to report that we’ve made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks.”

“The talks were productive,” he added.

Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who also took part in the two days of closed-door talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, said that the differences between the sides were “not so large as maybe thought”.

He also lauded what he called “important progress” in the trade talks with the US.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, he said the atmosphere of the talks with Bessent and Greer had been candid, in-depth, and substantive, echoing similar language from the US delegation.

Both countries said they would put out a joint statement on the talks on Monday.

After the first day of negotiations, Trump had posted on his social network Truth Social that the discussions had been “very good”, describing them as “a total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner”.

Beijing had yet to comment Sunday, but on Saturday, Chinese state news agency Xinhua described the talks as “an important step in promoting the resolution of the issue”.

The Chinese delegation was expected to speak to the media on Sunday evening.

The meetings marked the first time that senior officials from the world’s two largest economies have met face-to-face to tackle the topic of trade since Trump slapped steep new levies on China last month, sparking a robust retaliation from Beijing.

“The talks reflect that the current state of the trade relations with these extremely high tariffs is ultimately in the interests of neither the United States nor China,” Citigroup global chief economist Nathan Sheets told news agency AFP. He called the tariffs a “lose-lose proposition”.

The tariffs imposed by Trump on the Asian manufacturing giant since the start of the year currently total 145 percent, with cumulative US duties on some Chinese goods reaching a staggering 245 percent.

Keeping expectations low

In retaliation, China put 125-percent tariffs on US goods.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump signalled he might lower the tariffs, suggesting on social media that an “80% Tariff on China seems right!”

However, his press secretary Karoline Leavitt later clarified that the US would not lower tariffs unilaterally, as China would also need to make concessions.

Going into the meeting, both sides played down expectations of a major change in trade relations.

Bessent underlined a focus on “de-escalation” and not a “big trade deal”, while Beijing insisted that the US had to ease tariffs first.

The fact that the talks are even happening “is good news for business, and for the financial markets”, said Gary Hufbauer, a senior non-resident fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

But Hufbauer cautioned that he was “very sceptical that there will be any return to something like normal US-China trade relations”. Even a tariff rate of 70 to 80 percent would still potentially halve bilateral trade, he said.

Among some of the more moderate Trump officials, such as Bessent and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, “there’s a realisation that China is better equipped to deal with this trade war than the US”, said Hufbauer.

The Geneva meeting comes after Trump unveiled a trade agreement with the United Kingdom on Thursday, the first deal with any country since he unleashed his blitz of global tariffs, but which maintains a 10-percent baseline levy on most British goods.

Following the US-UK trade announcement, analysts have voiced pessimism about the likelihood that negotiations will lead to any significant changes in the US-China trade relationship.

In his Truth Social post, Trump claimed the talks had made “GREAT PROGRESS!!”

“We want to see, for the good of both China and the U.S., an opening up of China to American business,” he said.

GENEVA — U.S. negotiators said Sunday that “substantial progress” was made and “perhaps the differences weren’t so large” after two days of negotiations with a high-ranking Chinese delegation on ways to ease a trade war sparked by President Trump’s steep tariffs. But China was more muted in its assessment.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who led the U.S. delegation during talks in Geneva, said there was “a great deal of productivity.”

“I’m happy to report that we’ve made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks,” Bessent said.

He echoed the positive sentiment of Trump, who suggested Saturday night on social media that “GREAT PROGRESS” was being made toward what he suggested could be a “total reset” on tariffs that have put the global economy on edge.

The Chinese delegation did not offer an immediate assessment of what occurred, but Beijing struck a more measured tone about the negotiations’ overall direction. China, in an editorial in its state-run news agency, said it would “firmly reject any proposal that compromises core principles or undermines the broader cause of global equity.”

The discussions were held at a stately villa that serves as the residence of the Swiss ambassador to the United Nations, and little information was available on-site or back in Washington as they unfolded. Bessent offered few details on exactly what was discussed, but said he and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer spoke to Trump on Saturday night.

U.S. officials planned a briefing with more details on Monday morning.

“It’s important to understand how quickly we were able to come to agreement, which reflects that perhaps the differences were not so large as far as maybe thought,” said Greer, who did not say what agreement he was referring to. Speaking to reporters near the villa, Greer and Bessent gave statements but did not take questions.

Greer also stressed that a top Trump priority is closing the U.S. trade deficit with China, which came to a record $263 billion last year.

“We’re confident that the deal we struck with our Chinese partners will help us to resolve, work towards resolving that national emergency,” Greer said.

The discussions could help stabilize world markets roiled by the U.S.-China standoff that has ships in port with goods from China unwilling to unload until they get final word on tariffs.

Trump last month raised U.S. tariffs on China to a combined 145%, and China retaliated by hitting American imports with a 125% levy. Tariffs — import taxes — that high essentially amount to the countries’ boycotting each other’s products, disrupting trade that last year topped $660 billion.

The editorial on the Chinese news agency Xinhua said, “Talks should never be a pretext for continued coercion or extortion, and China will firmly reject any proposal that compromises core principles or undermines the broader cause of global equity.”

Still, top members of the Trump administration were following the president’s lead in insisting that a reset of U.S.-China trade relations could be in the offing.

“Secretary Bessent has made clear that one of his objectives is to de-escalate,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who wasn’t in Geneva, said on “Fox News Sunday.” He added that the U.S. and China have both imposed tariffs that are “too high to do business, but that’s why they are talking right now.”

“We are the consumer of the world. Everybody wants to sell their goods here,” Lutnick said. “So they need to do business with [the U.S.], and we’re using the power of our economy to open their economy to our exporters.”

Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, told Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that “what’s going to happen in all likelihood is that relationships are going to be rebooted. It looks like the Chinese are very, very eager to play ball and to renormalize things.

“We’re essentially starting over, starting from scratch with the Chinese,” Hassett said, adding, “And they seem to think that they really want to rebuild a relationship that’s great for both of us.”

The talks mark the first time the sides have met face-to-face to discuss the issues. And though prospects for a breakthrough are slight, even a small drop in tariffs, particularly if taken simultaneously, would help restore some confidence.

“Negotiations to begin de-escalating the growing US–China trade war are badly needed and it’s a positive sign that both sides were able to gracefully move beyond their bickering over who had to call first,” Jake Werner, director of the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said in an email.

The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on countries worldwide, but its fight with China has been the most intense. Trump’s import taxes on goods from China include a 20% charge that he says is meant to pressure Beijing into doing more to stop the flow of the synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States.

The remaining 125% involve a dispute that dates back to Trump’s first term and comes atop tariffs he levied on China back then, which means the total tariffs on some Chinese goods can exceed 145%.

Keaten, Bodeen and Weissert write for the Associated Press and reported from Geneva; Taipei, Taiwan; and Washington, respectively,

GENEVA — Talks between U.S. and Chinese delegations over tariffs that have threatened to upend the global economy ended after a day of prolonged negotiations and will resume Sunday, an official told the Associated Press.

There was no immediate indication whether progress was made Saturday during the meeting that lasted more than 10 hours between U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and a delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng.

The official who spoke to the AP requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, which could help stabilize world markets roiled by the U.S.-China standoff in the wake of President Trump’s tariffs. The talks have been shrouded in secrecy, and neither side made comments to reporters on the way out.

Several convoys of black vehicles left the residence of the Swiss ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, which hosted the talks aimed at de-escalating trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies. Diplomats from both sides also confirmed that the talks took place.

Saturday’s talks were held in the sumptuous 18th century Villa Saladin overlooking Lake Geneva. The former estate was bequeathed to the Swiss state in 1973, according to the Geneva government.

Prospects for a major breakthrough appear dim. But there is hope that the two countries will scale back the massive import taxes — tariffs — they have imposed on each other’s goods, a move that would relieve world financial markets and companies on both sides of the Pacific hat depend on U.S.-China trade.

Trump raised U.S. tariffs on China to a combined 145% last month, and China retaliated by hitting U.S. imports with a 125% levy. Tariffs that high essentially amount to the countries boycotting each other’s products, disrupting trade that last year topped $660 billion.

Even before the talks began, Trump suggested Friday that the U.S. could lower its tariffs on China, saying in a social media post that “80% Tariff seems right! Up to Scott.″

Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, noted it will be the first time He and Bessent have talked. She doubts the Geneva meeting will produce any substantive results.

“The best scenario is for the two sides to agree to de-escalate on the … tariffs at the same time,” she said, adding that even a small reduction would send a positive signal. “It cannot just be words.”

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has aggressively used tariffs as his favorite economic weapon. He has imposed a 10% tax on imports from almost every country in the world.

But the fight with China has been the most intense. His tariffs on China include a 20% charge, which he says is meant to pressure Beijing into doing more to stop the flow of the synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States. The remaining 125% involves a dispute that dates back to Trump’s first term and comes atop tariffs he levied on China back then, which means the total tariffs on some Chinese goods can exceed 145%.

During Trump’s first term, the U.S. alleged that China uses unfair tactics to give itself an edge in advanced technologies such as quantum computing and driverless cars. These include forcing U.S. and other foreign companies to hand over trade secrets in exchange for access to the Chinese market, using government money to subsidize domestic tech firms, and outright theft of sensitive technologies.

Those issues were never fully resolved. After nearly two years of negotiation, the United States and China reached a so-called Phase One agreement in January 2020. The U.S. agreed then not to go ahead with even higher tariffs on China, and Beijing agreed to buy more American products. The tough issues — such as China’s subsidies — were left for future negotiations.

But China didn’t come through with the promised purchases, partly because COVID-19 disrupted global commerce just after the Phase One truce was announced.

The fight over China’s tech policy now resumes.

Trump is also agitated by America’s trade deficit with China, which amounted to $263 billion last year.

Tariffs on Switzerland

In Switzerland on Friday, Bessent and Greer also met with Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter.

Trump last month suspended plans to impose hefty 31% tariffs on Swiss goods — more than the 20% levies he placed on exports from the European Union. For now, he has reduced those taxes to 10% but could raise them again.

The government in Bern is taking a cautious approach. But it has warned of the impact on crucial Swiss industries such as watches, coffee capsules, cheese and chocolate.

“An increase in trade tensions is not in Switzerland’s interests. Countermeasures against U.S. tariff increases would entail costs for the Swiss economy, in particular by making imports from the USA more expensive,” the government said this month, adding that the executive branch “is therefore not planning to impose any countermeasures at the present time.”

The government said Saturday that Swiss exports to the United States were subject to an additional 10% tariff, and another 21% beginning Wednesday.

The United States is Switzerland’s second-biggest trading partner after the EU — the 27-member-country bloc that nearly surrounds the wealthy Alpine country of more than 9 million people. U.S.-Swiss trade in goods and services has quadrupled over the last two decades, the government said.

The Swiss government said it abolished all industrial tariffs at the start of 2024, meaning that 99% of all goods from the United States can be imported into Switzerland duty-free.

Wiseman, Tang and Keaten write for the Associated Press. Wiseman and Tang reported from Washington and Keaten from Geneva.

Three Democratic U.S. representatives for California visited the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Friday to voice their concerns after President Trump told reporters that the slowdown of activity at the ports was “a good thing.”

Trump has argued that tariffs are needed to boost manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and that the slowdown in port activity “means we lose less money.”

But steep duties on imports from key trade partners have resulted in fewer cargo containers moving through the two ports, which are the busiest in the nation.

U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) tours the Port of LA post-tariffs as normally bustling berths sit empty behind him on May 9, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. “Unfortunately, Trump engaged in a trade war without understanding the repercussions of his actions,” Gomez said. “This is going to cost them a lot.”

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

With a 145% tariff on China, a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico, and 10% tariffs on dozens of other countries, the flow of goods into the U.S. is expected to slow drastically.

The drop off in activity means fewer jobs for longshoremen and truckers, and down the line, higher prices for consumers, the representatives said.

“Unfortunately, Trump engaged in a trade war without understanding the repercussions of his actions,” U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) told The Times. “This is going to cost them a lot.”

Gomez, who toured the port of Los Angeles via boat Friday, where towering cranes loaded cargo onto waiting ships, said in an interview that port workers and small business owners would be hit hardest by the tariffs.

The scene was less bustling than usual, port officials said. Seventeen ships have already canceled their planned trips to the Port of Los Angeles in May, port officials said, an occurrence known as a “blank sailing” that means less cargo being processed.

Cargo containers are stacked near the shore as normally bustling berths sit empty as Trump’s tariff’s are plunging volume as much as 35% as ships from China cancel their trips to the Port of Los Angeles on May 9, 2025 in Los Angeles.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka predicted in late April that activity at the ports would plunge by 35% over the next 14 days. The 17 confirmed blank sailings in May alone are equivalent to 225,000 fewer 20-foot equivalent units of cargo, or TEUs.

Roughly four TEUs represent one job at the port, according to Rep. Nanette Barragan (D-San Pedro). The ripple effects of the tariffs could result in significant job loss, she said, which could harm the communities of Long Beach and San Pedro, which she represents.

“It was really concerning to hear the president, when he was asked about the slowdown, say it was a good thing,” Barragan said. “It’s insulting to people at the ports and American families who are going to start to see prices going up.”

The Port of Los Angeles, which covers 7,500 acres on San Pedro Bay, processed more than 10 million TEUs in 2024. A 2023 report found that the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach contributed $21.8 billion in direct revenue to local service providers, generating $2.7 billion in state and local taxes and creating 165,462 jobs, directly and indirectly.

A decline of just 1% in cargo to the ports would wipe away 2,769 jobs and endanger as many as 4,000 others, the study found.

Normally bustling berths sit empty as Trump’s tariff’s are plunging volume as much as 35% as ships from China cancel their trips to the Port of Los Angeles on May 9, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

A spike of activity at the ports preceded the drop-off as importers front-loaded goods before the tariffs took effect. While large corporations such as Amazon and Walmart had this option, smaller businesses likely did not, Gomez said.

“The mom and pop stores, the medium size and small folks, they don’t have warehouses where they can just store stuff,” Gomez said. “I don’t want them to go through unnecessary pain.”

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) also visited the twin ports on Friday.

“The reality is that no communities are going to be impacted by these tariffs more than Long Beach, San Pedro and south Los Angeles,” Garcia said. “The dockworkers and warehouse workers, they are the fabric of the harbor.”

It’s been a chaotic week in Hollywood.

Less than a week ago, President Trump called for 100% tariffs on movies made outside the U.S., a move meant to bring productions home that most people in the industry believe would have devastating consequences for the entertainment business.

Then industry trade publication Deadline published the “Make Hollywood Great” proposal from actor Jon Voight, one of Trump’s so-called Hollywood ambassadors, that he recently presented to the president.

It has all led to confusion and disagreement from those in the industry about how to make the most of the current spotlight on a crucial issue — maintaining production and jobs in the U.S. — but in a way that will actually benefit the entertainment business.

“Any financial help we can give to filmmakers is going to keep filmmakers at home,” said George Huang, professor of screenwriting at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. “Ideally, legislators will try to be creative and try to support what I think is one of our most highly sought-after industries here in the United States.”

On Friday, the Motion Picture Assn. trade group convened a meeting with movie studio chiefs to discuss how to respond to the Trump administration’s plan and how to advocate for measures they think would actually help boost domestic filming.

As other Hollywood unions and organization put out statements about the federal issues, the MPA was conspicuously silent publicly.

Representatives from the MPA and the studios declined to comment Friday.

The MPA — the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying organization for the major studios — has historically faced a difficult task getting its members to agree to anything, and that has only increased since the group expanded to include streaming services Netflix and Amazon, according to people familiar with the organization. The companies all have different priorities and, in some cases, completely different business models.

Some studio executives are hoping Voight’s list of ideas to rebuild Hollywood becomes a rough blueprint for a more realistic alternative to tariffs.

Studio chiefs say it’s often too expensive to make movies and TV shows in the U.S., even with the generous incentives offered by various states. Movies are a low-margin business, and shooting abroad can offset production costs by as much as 30%.

On Wednesday, studio executives from Sony, HBO and Amazon discussed the issue at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills. They highlighted the limits of incentives — even if the U.S. offered tax credits, sometimes projects have to be shot overseas because of the story.

“We’re going overseas because we have a show set in London,” said “The Diplomat” creator Debora Cahn. “We want castles and palaces, and we don’t have enough of them here.”

What’s clear is that most of Hollywood — as well as current and former civic leaders — do not favor the use of tariffs to bring production back to the U.S.

“It’s going to kill us,” former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told The Times. “That’s not going to help us. It’s going to hurt us.”

Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles), too, was skeptical of Trump’s tariff announcement.

“This is the absolute worst way to go about supporting an industry so critical to not just L.A. and the state but the country,” she said. “Filmed entertainment is one of the best products we are able to produce.”

It’s why Voight’s plan is being looked at with interest.

The centerpiece is a “new federal American Production incentive,” which would allow a 20% tax credit — or an added 10% on top of a state’s film incentive.

Projects that qualify would have to meet a minimum threshold American “cultural test,” similar to what Britain requires for film incentives. The incentive would apply to traditional broadcasters and streaming services, including Netflix, Disney+, Hulu and digital platforms, including YouTube and Facebook.

The plan also calls for Section 181 of the federal tax code to be renewed for another five years. It recommends raising the caps on film production to $20 million (or $40 million if the project was shot in a rural area). The proposal recognizes film budgets have increased since 2004.

The group also suggested extending Section 181 to cover movie theater owners for facility improvements and equipment updates to their movie houses.

“Families going to the movies is one of the great American past times that must be preserved,” the draft plan noted.

The plan did raise the specter of tariffs, saying that if a U.S.-based production “could have been produced in the U.S.” but moved to a foreign country to take advantage of a tax incentive, then “a tariff will be placed on that production equal to 120% of the value of the foreign incentive received.”

“This is not meant as a penalty, but a necessary step to ‘level the playing field,’ while not creating a never-ending cycle of chasing the highest incentive,” according to the draft.

After publication, Voight’s manager, Steven Paul, one of the authors, said the document was “crafted solely for the purpose of discussion.”

A group of Hollywood unions and industry trade groups — including the Motion Picture Assn. and guilds representing screenwriters, directors and actors, as well as the Producers United coalition — recently backed the idea of a domestic production incentive.

“We are really advocating right now to make sure that, yes, we bring back American jobs, but we do it in a way that is actually going to provide the lifeblood into this system that will actually sustain it,” said Jonathan Wang, a producer on the Oscar-winning film “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and a member of Producers United. “So we are asking that we are in the room when these decisions are being made, and that we can provide our voice.”

For Producers United, a federal tax incentive would make the U.S. more competitive with other countries, though the group does not support the “cultural test” suggested in Voight’s plan, which they worry could essentially become a form of censorship.

“It’s important that we work hard to not get put into a position where we finally are tempted with the carrot of an incentive and then faced with censorship,” said Cathy Schulman, a producer on the best picture Oscar winner “Crash” and the Amazon Anne Hathaway drama “The Idea of You,” who is part of the Producers United group. “It’s really important that the two conversations go hand-in-hand that we need this financial support for uncensored art.”

Times staff writers Wendy Lee, Meg James, Ryan Faughnder and Seema Mehta contributed to this report.

President Trump’s tariffs are upending crop trading, delaying tractor purchases and constraining imports of chemical supplies into the United States.

That’s the main message from big agricultural businesses as they report their quarterly earnings, giving an early glimpse into the far-reaching impacts of the U.S. president’s trade war.

The disruptions in global trade threaten to extend a years-long slump in the U.S. farm industry, which had already been struggling with ample supplies, depressed crop prices and rising competition from Brazil. Lack of clarity on how the Trump administration will address much-needed incentives for crop-based fuels in the next few years has added to concerns.

Crop traders and processors have been among the hardest-hit. Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. and Bunge Global SA saw their combined operating profits slump by about $750 million in the first quarter, with both companies citing an impact from trade and biofuel policy uncertainty.

Importers put off purchases of U.S. grain and oilseeds as Trump threatened tariffs as well as levies on any Chinese vessels docking at American ports, reducing trade flows, according to crop merchant the Andersons.

“Global trade uncertainties disrupted typical grain flows and caused many of our commercial customers to focus on just-in-time purchasing,” William Krueger, the Andersons’ chief executive, said Wednesday in a call with investors.

Tractor makers CNH Industrial NV and AGCO Corp. also reported lower first-quarter sales, and warned of the possibility of reduced demand for farmers, potentially giving them less to spend on machines to plant, harvest and treat their fields. Both companies have raised prices to ease the impact of tariffs on costs.

“Geopolitical uncertainties and trade frictions have dampened U.S. farmer sentiment recently,” AGCO CEO Eric Hansotia said during a conference call with analysts. “As a result, demand for machinery was lower in the quarter than we had expected.”

Duties also threaten to curb imports of some fertilizer and pesticide supplies. Shipments of phosphate — a key crop nourishing ingredient — into the U.S. have trailed last year’s levels because vessels have been diverted to other countries to avoid the nation’s 10% tariff, Mosaic Co. said in its earnings statement.

“The phosphate market remains tight, and while tariffs could disrupt trade flows, they cannot create more phosphate supply,” CEO Bruce Bodine said on a conference call with investors.

Farmers are expected to pay more for pesticides as the U.S. relies on tariff-hit countries such as China and India for some of its supplies. Nutrien Ltd. said its branded products could potentially cost as much as 7.5% more, with even higher adjustments expected for generic ingredients.

“Long story short is, we’re going to see price increases,” Jeff Tarsi, Nutrien’s president of global retail, said on a Thursday call. “Our plan is to pass those price increases through to our customers.”

Brazil is emerging as a winner from the trade tensions. Minerva SA said tariff turmoil drove increased Chinese demand and higher export prices for South American beef in the first quarter, helping lift profits for the Brazilian supplier. Meanwhile, China has effectively shut its market for U.S. meat exporters, including Smithfield Foods.

China, the world’s largest commodity importer, has already shifted to Brazil for a meaningful part of its soybean needs since Trump first raised tariffs on goods from the Asian nation in 2018.

“Any harmful impacts to the U.S. grower profitability stemming from tariffs and trade flow shifts” are likely to benefit Brazilian growers, Jenny Wang, executive vice president of commercial at Mosaic, said in the call with analysts.

Freitas writes for Bloomberg.

Getty Images

This isn’t a trade deal

Car tariffs cut to 10%

No tariffs on steel and aluminium

Pharmaceuticals still the big unknown

No change on digital services tax

No drop to food standards

THE Prime Minister dashed to Jaguar Land Rover in Solihull yesterday to show car makers they were winners in the UK-US deal.

But most businesses still believe they are in a worse situation than before President Donald Trump’s tariff blitz.

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Bosses privately complained last night that despite being the first nation to strike a deal, the UK is still stuck with a 10 per cent baseline tariff.

Institute of Directors adviser Emma Rowland said while the deal “shields some of our key export sectors from the worst excesses of US protectionism . . . it falls short of the full free trade agreement ministers have been seeking for years”.

The FTSE 100 yesterday dipped by 27.72 points — 0.32 per cent — to 8,531.61.

The terms of the historic deal mean British car makers will have their tariffs knocked back from 27.5 per cent to 10 per cent for the first 100,000 of vehicles sent across the Atlantic — close to the exact amount of annual exports.

JLR ships around a quarter of its vehicles to the US every year and was facing millions in extra export costs that threatened the factory’s livelihood.

JLR boss Adrian Mardell said: “The car industry is vital to the UK’s prosperity, sustaining 250,000 jobs. We warmly welcome this deal.”

Luxury car brand Aston Martin saw its shares jump by 14 per cent yesterday.

Other winners include British Steel with 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium imports dropped. Brewers will also benefit.

And Rolls-Royce is a big winner after Mr Trump reduced a tariff to 10 per cent on the aircraft maker’s engines and some parts.

But farmers will be angry over ethanol imports and more machinery, chemicals and beef, although food standards will remain.

NEXT BASKS IN SUN

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FASHION powerhouse Next has boosted its profit forecasts for the second time in two months after spring sunshine sent shoppers flocking to the high street.

The chain said sales had jumped by 11.4 per cent in the 13 weeks to April 26, helped by the “warmer weather” which had caused a surge in demand for spring and summer wardrobes, as modelled by telly’s Rochelle Humes.

After making £55million more in sales than expected over the past three months, Next bumped up its profit forecasts by £14million to £1.08billion.

One insider said the profit upgrade did not reflect any benefit from shoppers switching to Next during Marks & Spencer’s cyber attack because the 13-week period had been before M&S stopped taking online orders.

M&S shares tumbled during the incident – with the retailer shedding more than 12 per cent of its value, or £1.05billion, since the hack at Easter.

The CO-OP and Harrods were also subject to recent cyber attacks which crippled online systems.

Next is likely to benefit from M&S shoppers who are impatient to order new outfits switching loyalty as the cyber attack issues drag on.

CENTRICA PAY FUELS REVOLT

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THE owner of British Gas faced a shareholder revolt yesterday as nearly 40 per cent of investors voted against pay packages for its top brass.

Centrica’s Chris O’Shea was paid £4.3million last year, roughly half the £8.4million he earned the year before.

Mr O’Shea has previously said there was “no point” in trying to justify his multimillion pay package — and he has come under fire as households face rising energy bills.

At Centrica’s annual investor meeting in Manchester, two in five shareholders voted against its remuneration report, which sets the pay for top directors.

Shareholder advisory group ISS had recommended investors vote against Mr O’Shea’s pay packet.

The meeting came alongside British Gas saying profits will be lower because a warm spring had lessened demand for heating.

TESCO boss Ken Murphy has seen his pay dip to £9.23million from £10.2million last year.

In 2024, his pay doubled from £4.4million as share awards vested.

The head of Britain’s biggest retailer received a 3 per cent rise in his base salary to £1.45million.

BRUSSELS — The European Union published on Thursday a list of U.S. imports that it would target with retaliatory duties if no solution is found to end President Trump’s tariff war, which could include aircraft maker Boeing.

At the same time, the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, said that it would begin legal action at the World Trade Organization over the “reciprocal tariffs” that Trump imposed on countries around the world a month ago.

“The EU remains fully committed to finding negotiated outcomes with the U.S.,” commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “At the same time, we continue preparing for all possibilities.”

The commission manages trade deals and disputes on behalf of the 27 EU countries.

In early April, Trump imposed a 20% levy on goods from the EU as part of his tariff onslaught against global trading partners. A week later he paused them for 90 days to give countries a chance to negotiate solutions to U.S. trade concerns.

A blanket 10% tariff still applies to EU imports.

The commission drew up countermeasures to target 20.9 billion euros ($23.6 billion) of U.S. goods, roughly the equivalent of what Trump would be hitting in Europe. But it also paused them for 90 days to give negotiations a chance.

The bloc’s top trade official has shuttled between Brussels and Washington trying to find a solution, but with little to show, the commission has made public a list of American imports for possible targeting worth 95 billion euros ($107 billion).

The list is broken down into sectors and broad categories of products rather than brand names. It contains 10.5 billion euros ($11.9 billion) worth of aircraft, 10.3 billion euros ($11.6 billion) in vehicle parts and 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in vehicles.

Around 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in imports of U.S. wine, beer and spirits could also be hit. European wine producers have been deeply concerned that Trump’s tariffs would deal a severe blow to their sector, which relies on the U.S. as its top market.

Interested companies and parties are being given until June 10 to provide feedback, before the commission decides on the next steps. “Boeing is very welcome to make comments on this list,” a commission official said, briefing reporters on the list and the rationale for the EU’s approach.

In parallel, the commission said that it would be taking legal action at world trade’s governing body, and would soon request consultations with the United States to try to resolve the issue, which must take place within two months.

It said that this action would focus on Trump’s “universal” reciprocal tariffs, and duties on cars and car parts. “It is the unequivocal view of the EU that these tariffs blatantly violate fundamental WTO rules,” a statement said.

The commission estimates that 379 billion euros ($428 billion) of EU exports to the U.S. have been hit by new tariffs, including those on pause until mid-July, since Trump took office. It said they are already “raising costs for business, stifling growth, fueling inflation and heightening economic uncertainty.”

Cook writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A trade deal with the United Kingdom announced by the White House on Thursday marked the first of its kind since President Trump launched sweeping global tariffs last month, offering a glimpse into the Trump administration’s negotiating strategy as it seeks to reset terms with trading partners around the world.

The agreement, hailed by Trump and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer as “historic,” kept the U.S. baseline tariff rate on U.K. imports at 10%, while eliminating duties on British aluminum and steel and significantly lowering tariffs on a limited number of U.K. car exports.

In exchange, the White House said that London had agreed to lower barriers on U.S. farmers and ranchers seeking access to the U.K. market for exports like ethanol and beef, and to increase access for U.S. aerospace companies to critical British-made components.

While the White House called the agreement a “milestone” in its trade policy, U.S. officials also described the deal as merely the “end of the beginning” of talks to come over their trade relationship.

Starmer, describing the announcement as the “basis” of a deal, said he intended to continue negotiating with the administration to bring down its 10% baseline rate. “We would like to go further,” he said from a manufacturing plant in the West Midlands.

“But please do not underestimate the significance of the tariff reductions today, because these are measured in thousands of good-paying jobs across the country,” Starmer said.

Asked by a reporter whether Britain was better off in its trade relationship with America than it was a year ago, Starmer replied, “The question you should be asking is, is it better than where we were yesterday?”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 500 points on news of the deal, as Wall Street investors look for signs of progress in trade negotiations over five weeks out since Trump announced tariff increases on global trading partners, “friend and foe alike.”

Of the 10 largest U.S. trading partners, only the United Kingdom has a trade deficit with the United States. But the agreement will mean more to the British economy than it will to U.S. households. While the U.K. ranks eighth overall among U.S. trading partners, the United States is Britain’s largest, followed by the European Union.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in an English car factory, holds a call with President Trump to announce a trade deal.

(Alberto Pezzali / WPA Pool / Getty Images)

Americans buy exponentially more goods from the United States’ three biggest trading partners — in Canada, Mexico and China — than from Britain, and there are few signs that U.S. talks with those three countries are closing in on trade deals.

And with goods from China still facing tariffs of 145%, U.S. importers and retailers are warning that price increases for American consumers will become visible within a matter of days.

From the White House, where he phoned Starmer to announce the deal to the press, Trump described the U.S.-U.K. agreement as “a great deal for both parties.”

“It opens up a tremendous market for us, and it works out very well. Very well,” Trump said. “The deal includes billions of dollars of increased market access for American exports, especially in agriculture, dramatically increasing access for American beef, ethanol, and virtually all of the products produced by our great farmers.”

“It’s very conclusive, and it’s a great deal, and it’s a very big deal, actually,” he added.

Trump underscored the potential for the export of up to $250 million in U.S. agricultural products to a market that had long been restricted to U.S. goods. But Starmer said that the U.K. government had drawn “red lines on standards” with regard to agricultural imports, raising questions over what exact products would be eligible.

Starmer said he hoped that the Trump administration would lower barriers on British pharmaceutical products in future talks, and also said the two governments were already discussing Trump’s proposed tariffs on foreign film production.

“There aren’t any tariffs in place on film at the moment,” Starmer said of the potential film tariffs, “and of course, we’re discussing it with the president’s team.”

United States President Donald Trump is expected to announce the framework of a trade deal between the US and the United Kingdom on Thursday, according to people familiar with the plan.

On Wednesday, Trump said he was preparing to announce “a major trade deal with representatives of a big and highly respected country”. In a post on Truth Social, he promised it would be the “first of many”.

Investors have been waiting for Trump to ease his global trade war amid fears that prolonged uncertainty over tariffs could inflict serious damage to the world’s biggest economies.

An agreement with the UK would mark Trump’s first trade deal since he imposed tariffs on dozens of countries on April 2, a move he called “liberation day”. Separately, Trump has introduced bespoke tariffs on certain US imports, including cars and steel.

Trump has long accused other countries of exploiting the US on trade, casting his tariffs as necessary to bring jobs back to the US. He also wants to use tariffs to finance future tax cuts.

What could be in a US-UK trade agreement?

At the moment, most imports from the UK to the US face a blanket 10 percent tariff. The UK, like other countries, has also been hit with 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminium exports to the US, as well as a 25 percent tariff on cars and car parts.

The broad outline of a proposed deal has been clear for some time – significant reductions in US tariffs on steel and cars, with an expectation that Trump’s 10 percent general tariff will remain in place.

The UK would then be expected to reduce its own 2 percent digital services tax on US tech firms and its 10 percent tariff on car imports, and varying duties on US agricultural goods.

However, Jonathan Haskel, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, told the BBC: “Deals are limited and short-term and partial, just covering a few items. Trade agreements are broad-based and long-term.”

Today’s announcement, he suggested, is more likely to be a deal and may amount to little more than a carve-out – exemptions on certain trade barriers that Trump introduced last month.

On Thursday morning, however, Trump said the agreement was “a full and comprehensive one that will cement the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom for many years to come”.

While both governments will likely present any agreement announced today as a significant win, it is essentially about returning to the status quo – removing the newly imposed tariff barriers.

It remains to be seen how much any agreement will contribute to both countries’ economic output.

What and how much do the US and UK trade?

In 2023, the UK had an overall trade surplus with the US. The UK reported a surplus of 71.4 billion pounds ($95bn) in goods and services. Most of that headroom came from services, however.

On the goods side, the UK exported 15.3 percent of its goods to the US in 2023 – amounting to roughly 60 billion pounds ($80bn).

Machinery and transport equipment accounted for the largest share, at 27 billion pounds ($36bn), ahead of chemicals at 14 billion pounds ($19bn).

On the flipside, the US exported $77.2bn of goods to the UK in 2023. Ten percent of all goods imported by Great Britain came from the US in that year, second only to Germany.

Machinery and transport equipment accounted for the largest share, worth nearly 20 billion pounds ($27bn), followed by fuel – amounting to 18.7 billion pounds ($25bn).

On the services side, the US exported $76bn in services – things like advertising and banking – to the UK in 2023, and imported $170bn in British services. These are unaffected by tariffs.

Could the US deal serve as a blueprint for other US negotiations?

Trump’s top negotiating officials have engaged in a flurry of meetings with trade partners since the president’s “liberation day” tariff announcement on April 2.

Although Trump delayed implementing “reciprocal” tariffs for most countries by 90 days on April 9, he did raise them for China to 145 percent. Beijing, in turn, slapped a 125 percent tariff on US goods.

The reciprocal tariffs, which varied from 10 percent to 39 percent, were designed to hit countries with which Washington has large trade deficits, or that impose heavy tariffs on US goods.

Though Britain was not among the countries hit with these reciprocal tariffs, today’s announcement could set a precedent for other bilateral trade deals.

On Tuesday, Trump said he would review potential trade agreements over the next two weeks to decide which ones to accept. Last week, he said that “we [already] have potential trade deals” with South Korea and Japan.

Following his 90-day reprieve, steep reciprocal tariffs are due to be imposed on US trade partners in early July, leaving country representatives racing to avoid a full-blown trade spat with the world’s number one economy.

What stage of talks has the US reached with other countries?

China

According to data from the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the total goods trade between the US and China stood at an estimated $582.4bn in 2024.

US exports of goods to China totalled $143.5bn while US imports from China totalled $438.9bn. The upshot is that America’s trade deficit with China was $295.4bn last year, 5.8 percent higher ($16.3bn) than in 2023.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet with China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng in Switzerland this weekend for talks, which may be the first step in resolving a trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Meetings will take place in Geneva, and are expected to address reductions on broad tariffs, duties on specific products, export controls and Trump’s decision to end “de minimis” exemptions on low-value imports.

China’s commerce ministry said last week that it was “evaluating” an offer from Washington. The Geneva meeting will be the first between the two since the announcement of Trump’s trade tariffs in April.

On Tuesday, Bessent told Fox News that “we [the US and China] have a shared interest that isn’t sustainable. And 145 percent and 125 percent is the equivalent of an embargo. We don’t want to decouple. What we want is fair trade.”

Trump has accused China of manipulating its currency to make its exports cheaper. He has also slammed Beijing for adopting what he says are market-interfering practices, such as direct government support for Chinese companies, as well as tax breaks and preferential financing.

European Union

In 2023, the EU exported 502 billion euros worth of goods to the US and imported 344 billion euros of goods from America, amounting to a goods trade surplus in the EU’s favour of 157 billion euros ($177bn).

After Trump temporarily dropped his 20 percent reciprocal tariffs on the EU in April, the EU paused retaliatory duties on 21 billion euros ($24bn) of US goods until July 14, including on Harley-Davidson motorcycles, chicken and clothing.

Since then, Brussels has said it wants to increase US goods imports by 50 billion euros ($57bn) to address the “problem” in their trade relationship.

Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s top negotiator, recently told The Financial Times that the bloc is making “progress” towards striking a deal.

But Sefcovic suggested that the EU would not accept an indefinite 10 percent tariff on its exports as a fair resolution to trade talks. He added that his “ambition” was still to strike a “balanced and fair” deal with the White House.

He also said he wants his US counterparts to take into account US services which are exported to the EU.

The EU experienced a services trade deficit of 109 billion euros ($123bn) with the US in 2023 in terms of services. Brussels exported 319 billion euros ($361bn) in services to the US that year, while importing 427 billion euros ($483bn).

Taking this into account would bring the US overall trade deficit with the EU to about 50 billion euros ($57bn), he said.

The new $57bn US deficit could be closed quickly, Sefcovic added, with deals to purchase more US gas and agricultural products. Talks are currently continuing.

India

In the first three months of 2025, India exported $27.7bn of goods (mainly pharmaceutical and engineering products) to the US, while importing $10.5bn of goods (mainly aircraft and medical goods), meaning a US trade deficit of $17.2bn.

On Tuesday, Trump revealed that India had agreed to drop all tariffs on US imports “to nothing”. New Delhi has not yet issued an official statement confirming Trump’s remarks.

At a White House event alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump said, “India has one of the highest tariffs in the world. We are not going to put up with that. They have agreed to drop it to … nothing. They wouldn’t have done that for anybody else but me.”

According to Bloomberg, India has reportedly proposed eliminating tariffs on select US imports – including steel, car parts and pharmaceuticals – as part of ongoing bilateral trade talks with Washington.

India currently imposes tariffs on US imports ranging from 5 percent to 30 percent, depending on the product category.

A zero-tariff offer would apply on a reciprocal basis and would be limited to a specific volume of goods.

WASHINGTON — President Trump welcomed Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, with a bit of menace on social media, only to then turn on the charm and hospitality once the two leaders were sitting together in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

“I just want to congratulate you,” Trump told Carney on his election win as they met in front of reporters. “Ran a really great race. I watched the debate. I thought you were excellent.”

As the two countries struggle over a trade war sparked by Trump’s tariff hikes, the U.S. president gave a full display of his unique mix of graciousness and aggression. Shortly before Carney’s arrival, Trump said on social media that the United States didn’t need “ANYTHING” from its northern neighbor, a contrast to his public warmth in the Oval Office.

“I very much want to work with him, but cannot understand one simple TRUTH — Why is America subsidizing Canada by $200 Billion Dollars a year, in addition to giving them FREE Military Protection, and many other things?” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We don’t need their Cars, we don’t need their Energy, we don’t need their Lumber, we don’t need ANYTHING they have, other than their friendship, which hopefully we will always maintain.”

Trump’s claim defies the underlying economic data as the United States depends on oil produced in Canada, in addition to an array of other goods that cross-border trade has helped to make more affordable in ways that benefit growth. The United States also runs a trade deficit in goods with Canada of $63 billion, much lower than the figure cited by Trump.

But once in the Oval Office, Trump showered his counterpart with compliments and radiated warmth, saying that “Canada chose a very talented person, a very good person.”

Carney won the job of prime minister by promising to confront the increased aggression shown by Trump, even as he has preserved the calm demeanor of an economist who has led the central banks of both Canada and the United Kingdom.

Trump has splintered a decades-old alliance by saying he wants to make Canada the 51st U.S. state and levying steep tariffs against an essential partner in the manufacturing of autos and the supply of oil, electricity and other goods. The outrage provoked by Trump enabled Carney’s Liberal Party to score a stunning comeback victory last month as the ongoing trade war and attacks on Canadian sovereignty have outraged voters.

The Republican president has repeatedly threatened that he intends to make Canada the 51st state. He said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday that the border is an “artificial line” that prevents the two territories from forming a “beautiful country.”

Trump’s openly adversarial approach has raised questions for Carney and other world leaders on how to manage relations with the United States. Some world leaders, such as U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer engaged in a charm offensive. Others, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, were met by Trump with anger for not being sufficiently deferential.

Robert Bothwell, a professor of Canadian history and international relations at the University of Toronto, said Carney shouldn’t meet with Trump.

“We’ve seen what he does. We saw what he did with Zelensky,” Bothwell said. “And he would sure as hell try to do the same with Carney. It’s not in Carney’s interest. It’s not in Canada’s interest.”

Trump and Carney will meet in the Oval Office and have lunch. Carney has stressed that he was elected to specifically “stand up” to the U.S. president and that Canada is “in a once-in-a-lifetime crisis.” Carney said he expects “difficult” but “constructive” conversations with his U.S. counterpart.

Trump told reporters on Monday that he wasn’t quite sure why Carney was visiting.

“I’m not sure what he wants to see me about,” Trump said. “But I guess he wants to make a deal.”

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick further stoked doubts about their interest in repairing the relationship with Canada in a Monday interview on Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow” show.

Asked if the U.S. could make a deal with Canada, Lutnick called the country a “socialist regime” that has been “basically feeding off America.” Lutnick said Tuesday’s meeting would be “fascinating.”

Carney, at a Friday news conference ahead of his trip, said the talks would focus on immediate trade pressures and the broader economic and national security relationships. He said his “government would fight to get the best deal for Canada” and “take all the time necessary” to do so, even as Canada pursues a parallel set of talks to deepen relations with other allies and lessen its commitments with the United States.

Trump has maintained that the U.S. doesn’t need anything from Canada. He is actively going after a Canadian auto sector built largely by U.S. companies, saying, “They’re stopping work in Mexico, and they’re stopping work in Canada, and they’re all moving here.” He also said the U.S. doesn’t need Canada’s energy — though nearly one-fourth of the oil that the U.S. consumes daily comes from the province of Alberta.

The president has also disparaged Canada’s military commitments despite a partnership that ranges from the beaches of Normandy in World War II to remote stretches of Afghanistan.

Trump has said that Canada spends “less money on military than practically any nation in the world.”

“They pay NATO less than any nation,” he said. “They think we are subsidizing. They think we are going to protect them, and, really, we are. But the truth is, they don’t carry their full share, and it’s unfair to the United States and our taxpayers.”

Bothwell noted that Carney might be under little pressure to reach a quick deal as Trump has at times reversed, delayed or defanged his tariffs, such that over time Trump might be in a weaker position if talks are prolonged.

“It may not matter as much in the summer as it does today because every time he’s made one of these announcements, next week it’s, ‘Oh, I had my fingers crossed. I didn’t mean it,’” he said of Trump.

Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University, said Carney needed the quickly scheduled meeting with Trump to address the trade war started by the United States. Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, and tariffs on other products outside the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, in some cases ostensibly to address relatively low volumes of fentanyl intercepted at the border between the two countries.

“Carney wants to show that he’s doing everything he can, including taking political risks to protect Canadian jobs in areas such as the auto industry,” Béland said. ”If he had postponed his first meeting with President Trump for months and months, opposition parties and commentators could have accused him of being overly shy and doing a disservice to Canada because of that.”

Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly $2.7 billion worth of goods and services cross the border each day. About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports are from Canada.

Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security. Canada is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world, and 77% of Canada’s exports go to the United States.

Gillies and Boak write for the Associated Press.

Both sides celebrate the landmark agreement, which was several years in the making.

India and the United Kingdom have agreed to a trade deal that comes after three years of negotiations and that they say will boost their economies amid the fallout from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The British government said on Tuesday that the deal “is expected to increase bilateral trade by 25.5 billion pounds [$34bn], UK GDP by 4.8 billion pounds [$6.4bn] and wages by 2.2 billion pounds [$2.9bn] each year in the long run”.

“Indian tariffs will be slashed, locking in reductions on 90 percent of tariff lines, with 85 percent of these becoming fully tariff-free within a decade.”

The British alcohol and car industries are some of the main beneficiaries, with tariffs on whisky and gin getting halved to 75 percent before reducing to 40 percent by year 10 of the deal. Automotive tariffs will go from over 100 percent to 10 percent under a quota.

Tariffs will also be reduced on British exports including cosmetics, medical devices, aerospace parts, lamb, salmon, chocolate, and biscuits.

India’s Trade Ministry said 99 percent of Indian exports would face no import duty under the deal.

“This brings us closer to our goal of becoming a global economic powerhouse. It protects our core interests while opening doors to India’s greater participation in global value chains,” Trade Minister Piyush Goyal said.

The deal introduces a “Double Contribution Convention” that exempts Indian workers in the UK from national insurance payments for up to three years, and vice versa.

Advanced negotiations on a separate bilateral investment treaty and further discussions on labour and environmental standards are ongoing as well.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his British counterpart Keir Starmer spoke on the phone on Tuesday to mark the agreement, and Modi invited Starmer to visit the country.

“These landmark agreements will further deepen our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, and catalyse trade, investment, growth, job creation, and innovation in both our economies,” Modi said in a post on X.

“Strengthening our alliances and reducing trade barriers with economies around the world is part of our Plan for Change to deliver a stronger and more secure economy here at home,” said Starmer, hailing what the government says is the UK’s largest trade agreement since leaving the European Union in 2020.

The two leaders are expected to meet in the coming months to sign and finalise the deal.

India also sought to receive an exemption from the UK’s forthcoming carbon tax – a climate policy tool set to be implemented from 2027 – but officials did not elaborate on the details in their statements on Tuesday.

The deal comes as countries around the world are pondering new strategies and negotiating trade deals to make up for the costs of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration in the United States.

Since Sunday night, Hollywood has been trying to make heads or tails of President Trump’s bombshell proposal to levy 100% tariffs on films made outside of the U.S.

Ostensibly, the Trump tariff plan is part of an effort to bring Hollywood productions back home, after decades of runaway production.

Remarkably few movies are made entirely in the U.S. — let alone Los Angeles — because studios have been lured abroad to countries including Canada, Britain, Australia, Hungary and Bulgaria by generous government incentives. Special effects are often outsourced overseas.

This has contributed to what leaders in California now call a crisis for the state’s production economy. The Los Angeles area also faces stiff competition from other states, including Georgia and New York.

So Trump has clearly identified a real problem, though the solution he offered is questionable, to say the least. Filmmakers say they want to shoot in the States but need help to make it financially feasible. Tariffs won’t help with that. In fact, they’ll make it worse.

“It’s great that the president is starting to pay attention,” said Jeffrey Greenstein, who has produced movies shot in multiple countries. “So let’s have a real conversation about it and figure out the best way to start bringing movies back.”

The chaotic and vague way Trump’s plan was announced sent studio executives scrambling to figure out what it all meant. The notion seemed ill-thought-out and knee-jerk, many producers said.

How do you even put a tariff on movies, which are distributed digitally? Why tariffs, rather than a robust national tax credit program, which many in the industry have advocated for?

“Nobody knows and I don’t suspect we will for awhile,” said one executive who was not authorized to comment. “Is [the tariff] on domestically funded foreign productions? Is it on foreign funded ones? Is the tariff on film revenues or film costs on those projects or both, etc., etc., etc. What constitutes a feature? Who knows.”

Who knows, indeed.

Before Sunday’s announcement, actor Jon Voight, one of Trump’s “special ambassadors” to Hollywood, traveled to Florida with his manager Steven Paul for a meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago to present a plan for the film industry. Ideas addressed included federal tax incentives, job training and “tariffs in certain limited circumstances,” according to a statement from Paul’s production company.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has now called on Trump to create a $7.5-billion federal film tax credit program. The governor’s office reached out to the White House Monday evening to encourage Trump to work with California to create a federal credit modeled after the state’s program.

Some executives and producers said the tariff idea would hasten Hollywood’s demise rather than save it, because of the increased costs for studios that are already under financial pressure. Reciprocal tariffs from other territories could follow. China is already getting more restrictive for American movies thanks to Trump trade policies.

Already, there are signs that the administration might be walking the proposal back, leaving entertainment business analysts to doubt that the idea will actually go into effect.

Nonetheless, the turmoil could cast a pall over the Cannes Film Festival this month, where a lot of indie movie deals happen.

“It still creates a headache for the film business and particularly indie film if there is yet more uncertainty in an already fragile marketplace, particularly among the banks and investors,” said Stuart Ford, head of Los Angeles-based film and TV company AGC Studios.

Just what Hollywood needs — more uncertainty.

Read my colleagues Meg James and Samantha Masunaga for more on the tariff situation.

IFC’s new look at 25 years old

Indie movie stalwart IFC Films has seen dramatic changes in the specialty film market since it launched 25 years ago.

The challenges are real, as streaming changes moviegoer habits and the box office continues to creep back from the pandemic doldrums. Meanwhile, newer entrants — including A24, Neon and Angel Studios — have reshaped the business by establishing themselves as fresh brands that mean something to their target audiences.

The types of movies that draw independent film fans to theaters have also shifted radically, especially compared to the early 2000s when IFC released “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” by far its biggest hit. Even 2014, the year the company put out Richard Linklater’s best picture Oscar nominee “Boyhood,” seems a lifetime away.

The market now is younger and hungrier for horror movies, thrillers and edgy genre mashups. At the same time, the major Hollywood studios have, with few exceptions, turned their attention to broad-based tentpole movies, which gives companies like IFC an opportunity to make a bigger mark.

“The audience for what I would call specialty now is very different than it was a few years ago,” said IFC Entertainment Group head Scott Shooman. “It’s not just older-skewing dramas anymore.”

With all that in mind, New York-based IFC on Tuesday unveiled a brand refresh, changing its name to Independent Film Co. As part of the rebranding effort, the company unveiled a new logo and a “customized audio logo” created by Adam “Adrock” Horovitz of the Beastie Boys.

Independent Film Company’s new logo.

The change is part of a broader rejiggering of film assets within parent company AMC Networks. Independent Film Co. will exist under the newly named IFC Entertainment Group, an umbrella that also includes the IFC Center movie theater, fellow distribution arm RLJE and the horror streaming service Shudder, which turns a decade old this year.

“As the consumer becomes more familiar with brands and who’s purveying the movies, it becomes important for us to refresh the brand,” Shooman said. “It’s gonna take the movies to fill it out, but that’s something that we look forward to doing.”

As the independent space has evolved, so has IFC’s strategy.

The company is aiming to release fewer films while taking bigger swings with more commercial-leaning movies and heftier budgets. Currently, the group releases about 50 movies a year, which according to Shooman is getting closer to the ideal number. About 30 of those releases are through the Shudder arm, a handful of which also go into theaters.

For the rest, 12 are from Independent Film Co. and eight are under the RLJE banner, and all of those are released theatrically. As the company refines its strategy, it’s moving further away from the foreign films and documentaries that helped define the brand years ago, though it will still do one or two of those a year, Shooman said.

“We’re gonna be sniper oriented on those and really make sure that they are the needle-moving films in that space,” he said.

IFC is coming off a strong couple of years, fielding commercial successes including Colin and Cameron Cairnes’ “Late Night With the Devil” and Chris Nash’s “In a Violent Nature,” along with prestigious titles such as “The Taste of Things” and the Academy Award-nominated stop-motion animated feature “Memoir of a Snail.”

Upcoming releases include Eli Craig’s “Clown in a Cornfield”; Sean Byrne’s thriller “Dangerous Animals,” which debuts at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight; and Jay Duplass’ “The Baltimorons.”

Essential to the larger IFC strategy is Shudder, which over the last 10 years has established itself as a destination for horror fans with its mix of new titles and handpicked library selections.

Shudder was, for example, the home of Coralie Fargeat’s first feature, “Revenge,” before she went on to make “The Substance.” It was also behind the 2022 experimental and divisive microbudget film “Skinamarink” from Kyle Edward Ball. Last year, it released “Oddity,” its second time working with Irish director Damian McCarthy.

“As we’re able to grow as a company, we’ve become synonymous with taste, with quality and with author-driven impactful horror,” said Emily Gotto, Shudder’s head of acquisitions and production.

Shudder prides itself on the way it curates its platform with a human touch, not by algorithm.

Some of Shudder’s best gets have been older, little-seen titles with which the company can make a splash. The best example perhaps was when the company secured the rights to the 1981 body horror classic “Possession,” which hadn’t been widely available through streaming or video on-demand.

That coup was a prime example of how the company can make “subscriber events” out of releasing older titles, said Shudder’s programming and acquisitions head Sam Zimmerman, who is in charge of curating the streamer’s offering.

Zimmerman said the company succeeds when “we follow our taste and our passion and release and make movies that take someone a foot further than they thought they were going to go that day.”

“Having that instinct confirmed is both surprising but exciting to me,” he said, “because I think that’s what people want out of horror.”

Finally …

Listen: The blues great Buddy Guy is in the news because of “Sinners,” so why not?

California hit a new tourism record in 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday, but the high isn’t expected to last thanks to President Trump’s tariffs.

Tourism spending last year hit $157.3 billion, up 3% from 2023, and created 24,000 jobs, according to a 2024 economic impact report from Visit California, the state’s nonprofit marketing agency.

California is still the No. 1 state for tourism and has the fourth largest economy in the world, but next year it expects a 1% decline in visitation and a 9.2% downturn in international tourism, “in direct response to federal economic policy and an impending ‘Trump Slump,’” according to a statement from the governor’s office.

Local LA tour groups and knickknack shops, usually booming at this time of year from spring break travel, have said the uncertainty of tariffs and the trade war’s effect on the stock market have turned people away from local travel.

But it’s not just local — Canadians have canceled plans to travel to California for events such as Coachella because of Trump’s aggressive 25% tariff on Canadian goods, worrying officials in desert towns that rely on snowbirds for income. Newsom announced a marketing plan to invite Canadians back to California after February figures showed a 12% drop compared with the same month in 2024.

In the Los Angeles area alone, the tourism and hospitality industry employs about 510,000 workers and supports more than 1,000 local businesses, according to the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board.

Last month, Tourism Economics, a Philadelphia-based travel data company, predicted that international travel to the U.S. could decrease 5% this year, with a 15% decline in travel from Canada.

In San Diego, home to Comic Con, some of California’s most beautiful beaches and the “Smithsonian of the West” in Balboa Park, tourism employs 1 in 8 residents and brought $14.8 billion in earnings in 2024. With 32.5 million visitors last year, it’s one of the country’s top travel destinations.

“Uncertainty is the new norm,” said Kerri Kapich, chief operating officer at the San Diego Tourism Authority.

Constant change makes it hard to plan ahead, she said. As travel slows or stays even from last year it will affect the local economy. Fewer hotel stays, fewer restaurant checks and less money spent in the community overall could mean fewer jobs too.

The uncertainty around international trade policy will affect the state budget, with unclear revenue and rising disaster recovery costs clouding the upcoming revision expected next week from Sacramento. Newsom sued the Trump administration in response, arguing that the president doesn’t have authority to levy international tariffs without congressional approval.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent kicked off Michael Milken’s annual financial bash in Beverly Hills by doubling down on President Trump’s economic policy of trade reform, tax cuts and deregulation — promising the “America First” agenda would be “the blueprint for a more abundant world.”

The former hedge fund manager, in a brief speech Monday that opened the Milken Institute Global Conference, said that all three elements of the policy must be taken together in order to be understood.

“They are interlocking parts of an engine designed to drive long-term investment in the American economy,” he said, in remarks at the Beverly Hilton.

“Tariffs are engineered to encourage companies like yours to invest directly in the United States. Hire your workers here, build your factories here, make your products here. You’ll be glad you did, not only because we have the most productive work force in the world, but because we will soon have the most favorable tax and regulatory environment as well,” he said.

Bessent telegraphed his speech with an opinion piece published Sunday in the Wall Street Journal that made the same points.

In a conversation with Institute chairman and founder Milken that followed, he said one key goal was regulatory reform that would “make everyone look more like Texas” while reducing the government’s borrowing so the deficit decreases by about 1% per year and falls to its long-term average of 3.1% of gross national product.

Bessent’s appearance was not without drama. The New York Post reported that Trump envoy Richard Grenell organized a soiree at the nearby five-star Peninsula Beverly Hills on Sunday afternoon featuring Bessent that directly competed with a conference reception hosted by hedge fund mogul Ken Griffin.

The billionaire founder and chief executive of Citadel, Griffin has been highly critical of the tariffs and will help close out the conference with a conversation late Wednesday afternoon with Milken.

This is the 28th annual global conference hosted by the Santa Monica think tank, which seeks to employ capitalist models in solving the world’s economic, social, technology and health problems. It will feature more than 200 sessions, 1,000 speakers and some 4,000 participants paying thousands for tickets.

“While there’s no shortage of those challenges, and in many cases, we actually have the resources and technology to address these issues, what’s often missing is finding a common will to do so,” said Milken Chief Executive Richard Ditizio, who introduced Bessent. “How else to explain that in a world that has created some $500 trillion in wealth, one in 11 people on the planet live on under $2 a day, or that tuberculosis, a totally preventable and curable disease, killed 1.3 million people last year?”

This year’s conference, whose theme is “Toward a Flourishing Future,” is being held amid the great uncertainty caused by Trump’s tariffs, which have roiled capital markets worldwide, though U.S. stock markets have recently staged a comeback as Trump has paused some of the levies. Several L.A.-based toy makers, importers and retailers have been caught in the crossfire of Trump’s trade war, which has also caused a falloff in shipments to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Coming four months after the devastating Los Angeles fires, the event will feature a Wednesday afternoon panel with Mayor Karen Bass, “Rising Strong: Los Angeles’ Path to Recovery.” Panel members include Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and Snap Inc. co-founder and Chief Executive Evan Spiegel.

In separate sessions, Lakers superstar and businessman Magic Johnson will talk about L.A.’s future, and California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom will have a conversation about disaster recovery with celebrity chef José Andrés.

Bessent is not the only Trump administration official attending the conference. Others include Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who is leading a controversial effort to dismantle the Education department.

Elon Musk, who recently said he was stepping back from his DOGE government cost-cutting efforts, was a late add to the speaker lineup. He also attended last year.

Among the Wall Street notables on stage will be Citigroup Chief Executive Jane Fraser; Henry Kravis and George Roberts, co-founders of private equity pioneer KKR; David Rubenstein, co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group; and hedge fund mogul Bill Ackman, a leading Trump backer who has called for a trade deal with China.

Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang will have a conversation with Milken, presumably about the artificial intelligence boom. The Santa Clara company makes chips critical for AI computing. Bessent said in his remarks that it is critical the country lead in AI and quantum computing or “everything else doesn’t matter.”

Bloomberg News contributed to this article.

US president claims that Hollywood is undergoing a ‘very fast death’ despite raking in $30bn in revenues in 2024.

United States President Donald Trump has announced plans to impose a 100 percent tariff on foreign films, claiming that Hollywood is undergoing a “very fast death” due to overseas competition.

In a social media post on Sunday, Trump said he had directed the US Department of Commerce and the US Trade Representative to immediately begin the process of imposing the tariff on “any and all” films produced in “foreign lands”.

“Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

“This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!”

Asked by reporters about the tariff later on Sunday, Trump claimed that the US was making “very few movies now.”

“Other nations, a lot of them, have stolen our movie industry,” he said. “If they are not willing to make a movie inside the United States, we should have a tariff on movies that come in.”

Trump did not elaborate on how such a tariff would work in practical terms, including whether it would be applied to Hollywood features that involve shooting and production across multiple countries.

Trump’s announcement follows his appointment in January of actors Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight as “special ambassadors” tasked with bringing back business that Hollywood has lost to other countries.

At the time, Trump said the actors would be “my eyes and ears” as he set about instituting a “Golden Age of Hollywood”.

Hollywood has faced tough business conditions in recent years amid the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2023 actors’ and writers’ strike.

Hollywood studios grossed about $30bn worldwide last year, down about 7 percent from 2023, according to Gower Street Analytics.

While last year’s performance was an improvement on revenues in 2020, 2021 and 2022, it was still about 20 below the pre-pandemic average, according to Gower Street Analytics.

Looking to boost the production of Hollywood movies in the U.S., President Trump on Sunday announced a new 100% tariff applied on films produced overseas.

For more than two decades, major studios have shifted movie production to cheaper countries, including Canada, U.K., Bulgaria, New Zealand, Australia and other countries that offer generous tax benefits to build their local economies, luring films away from Hollywood.

The migration of high paying jobs has become a critical issue for Los Angeles, which has seen a dramatic loss in film production and jobs in recent years.

The industry hasn’t fully recovered from shutdowns due to the COVID pandemic, labor strikes and a retrenchment by legacy entertainment companies, many of which overspent to build streaming services to compete with Netflix.

“I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands,” Trump said late Sunday in a post on his Truth Social platform. “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”

Details of the plans, as well as whether the tariffs would be imposed on U.S. based companies that shoot overseas, were not immediately available.

Movie executives on Sunday expressed bewilderment, wondering how a tariff would be imposed on a film, which, like a car, has components made in different countries while post-production often occurs in the U.S.

The Motion Picture Assn. wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Trump lamented how the “Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death.”

The president said countries that have offered “all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States.”

“Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated,” Trump wrote. “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.”

The call for U.S. production comes after Trump tapped a trio of actors — Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson — to be his “special ambassadors” to Hollywood. In January, Trump unveiled the initiative, calling Hollywood “a great but very troubled place.”

The president at the time said he and his ambassadors would help Hollywood spring “back — bigger, better, and stronger than ever before!”

But the envoys have kept a low profile since their appointment and many in Hollywood say they have not heard from them.

Late last month, Bloomberg News reported that Voight and his manager, Steven Paul, were preparing to present Trump with some ideas aimed at bolstering U.S. production, including offering some national incentives to help win back offshore business.

“It’s important that we compete with what’s going on around the world so there needs to be some sort of federal tax incentives,” Paul said in an interview with Bloomberg.

Guacamole has been spared from tariffs for now. But salsa may not be so lucky.

While President Trump put threatened tariffs on Mexican avocados on pause, the U.S. government plans to put a nearly 21% duty on fresh Mexican tomatoes starting July 14. A duty — like a tariff — is a tax on imports, and this one would affect the 4 billion pounds of tomatoes the U.S. imports from Mexico each year.

Proponents say the import tax will help rebuild the shrinking U.S. tomato industry and ensure the produce eaten in the U.S. is also grown there. Mexico supplies around 70% of the U.S. tomato market, up from 30% two decades ago, according to the Florida Tomato Exchange.

“Unless we even the playing field in terms of fair pricing, you’re not going to have a domestic industry for fresh tomatoes in the very near future,” said Robert Guenther, the trade group’s executive vice president. Florida and California are the top U.S. producers of tomatoes, but most of California’s crop is turned into sauces and other products.

Opponents say the duty will make fresh tomatoes more expensive for U.S. buyers. NatureSweet, a San Antonio-based company that grows tomatoes in Mexico as well as the U.S., said it will be paying millions of dollars each month in duties if the decision isn’t reversed.

“We will look for ways to adapt or streamline our operations, but the truth is, we are always doing that so we run an efficient business already,” said Skip Hulett, NatureSweet’s chief legal officer. “Produce is not a large-margin business. We’re determining what portion of the cost we could absorb, but these added costs will most certainly need to be passed on to the consumer.”

Tim Richards, a professor at the Morrison School of Agribusiness at Arizona State University, expects U.S. retail prices for tomatoes to rise by about 10.5% if the duty goes through.

Mexico’s government said last month it was convinced it could negotiate over the issue. But if the tomato tax takes effect, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has hinted her country may impose duties on chicken and pork legs imported from the U.S.

The tug-of-war over tomatoes has a long history. In 1996, shortly after the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect, the U.S. Department of Commerce investigated allegations that Mexico was exporting tomatoes to the U.S. at artificially low prices, a practice known as dumping.

The U.S. government agreed to suspend the investigation if Mexico met certain rules, including selling its tomatoes at a minimum price. Since then, the agreement has been subject to periodic reviews, but the two sides always reached an agreement that avoided duties.

But last month, the Commerce Department announced its withdrawal from the latest agreement, saying it had been “flooded with comments” from U.S. tomato growers who want better protection from Mexican imports.

Guenther, of the Florida Tomato Exchange, said that even though Mexican exporters are required to charge a minimum price, shipments are only spot-checked, so exporters can get around that. But more generally, Mexico hurts the U.S. industry because it costs 40% to 50% less to grow tomatoes there, Guenther said. Land is cheaper, labor is cheaper, and inputs such as seeds and fertilizer cost less, he said.

Tomatoes are a labor-intensive crop, Guenther said, and the U.S. industry typically relies on immigrant workers through the H-2A visa program. That program required farmers to pay workers an average of $16.98 per hour last year, an amount that has jumped as labor has become harder to find. Richards estimates that workers on Mexican tomato farms earn about one-tenth that rate.

NatureSweet acknowledges that it’s more cost-effective to grow tomatoes in Mexico, but says climate is one of the biggest reasons. The company’s Mexican greenhouses don’t need lighting, heating or cooling systems because of the year-round weather conditions.

“You can relocate some industries, but you can’t relocate climate agriculture,” Hulett said.

Lance Jungmeyer, the president of the Fresh Produce Assn. of the Americas, which represents importers of Mexican tomatoes, said Florida doesn’t produce the vine-ripened tomatoes that U.S. consumers increasingly favor. Florida tomatoes are picked when they’re green and shipped to warehouses to ripen, he said.

“Florida doesn’t grow the kinds of specialty tomatoes that have taken off, but they want to get protection,” Jungmeyer said. “Their market share is dropping for reasons of their own choice.”

Guenther disagrees. “If you put a Florida tomato up against a Mexican tomato, I think it would do very well in [a] taste test,” he said.

Adrian Burciaga, co-owner of Don Artemio, an upscale Mexican restaurant in Fort Worth, said he wouldn’t want to switch to a U.S. producer. He compares it to fine wine; if he wants a good Cabernet Sauvignon, he gets it from Napa, Calif. If he wants a good tomato that reminds him of his childhood, he gets it from Mexico.

“We know the flavors they are going to bring to the salsas and moles. We don’t want to compromise flavors,” Burciaga said.

Burciaga said his restaurant uses 300 to 400 pounds of Roma tomatoes from Mexico every week. He currently pays $19 for a 25-pound crate of tomatoes. He doesn’t relish paying the additional cost, but he feels he has no choice.

Burciaga said the tomato duty — and the threat of Trump implementing the paused 25% tariff on many other products from Mexico — are making it difficult to run his business.

“The uncertainty part concerns us. A small or medium restaurant budgets things out. We know in advance that in six months things will increase, so we’re able to adjust,” he said. “But we don’t know these things in advance. How do you plan and how do you react?”

Durbin writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Maria Verza in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Ken Griffin, one of Republicans’ billionaire donors who’d convinced themselves that President Trump wouldn’t do some things he campaigned to do, finally got it right last week. Griffin inadvertently identified the irony of Trump’s presidency so far: The man who made a brand of his own name (“TRUMP,” all caps) — and a fortune licensing it as a signifier of success on products from hotels to sneakers — has all but wrecked the United States’ brand in 100 days.

“We’re eroding that brand right now,” Griffin lamented at an economic forum. Everything that “USA” has long stood for — financial stability, military strength, cultural prestige and more — undermined. “It can take a very long time,” Griffin warned, “… to remove the tarnish.”

A related sad irony: Trump has rivaled President Franklin Roosevelt, who popularized the “first 100 days” marker, for swift, decisive action out of the gate. But where FDR rescued a crashed economy and envisioned a social safety net that’s endured nearly a century, Trump took what economists considered a “stellar” economy and crashed it, while deputizing minions to tear holes in the safety net and take chainsaws to the federal government and the rule of law.

Lawsuits against the Trump administration proliferate at the rate of two a day, according to trackers, especially over billionaire Elon Musk’s assaults on federal workers and spending laws, and against Trump’s immigration crackdown. The president continues to defy a Supreme Court ruling to “facilitate” the return of a man wrongly deported to El Salvador’s gulag. As J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a federal judge named by President Reagan, wrote for the 4th District Court of Appeals on April 17, “The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process.”

Internationally, Trump is wrecking the legacy of Roosevelt’s last days, the global structure of alliances that has been a force-multiplier for the United States against Russia, China and other adversaries. The dollar and U.S. Treasuries are diminished as safe harbors. The toxicity of the Trump-U.S. brand was dramatically evident in elections on Monday in Canada: Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party came from way behind to win, as voters took out their disgust with Trump’s Canada-bashing on conservative candidates.

Characteristically, Trump conjures his own self-serving reality. At a MAGA rally in Macomb County, Mich., on Tuesday, he exulted, “This is the best … 100-day start of any president in history, and everyone is saying it.”

No, they’re not. A slew of recent polls show that Trump’s job-approval rating has slid to the lowest of any new president in eight decades, with nearly six out of 10 Americans disapproving of his performance in surveys by Pew Research Center and AP/NORC. On a range of issues, including the two that arguably got him elected, immigration and the economy, Trump now gets negative reviews, including in a Fox News poll.

“We’ve just gotten started,” he said in Michigan. “You haven’t even seen anything yet.”

On that he’s probably right: Worse is yet to come.

Americans seem to think so. On Day 100 came a report that consumer confidence plunged in April, a signal of a recession ahead. On Day 101, Wednesday, came news that the economy contracted 0.3% in the first quarter, after a 2.4% annual growth rate in the previous quarter — the last of the Biden presidency. Stocks tumbled, yet again.

That “golden age” that Trump announced in his inaugural address seems to begin and end with the new bling in the Oval Office.

His tariffs have taken such a toll on businesses and consumers that he softened auto-related levies in time for his Michigan visit. But that only exacerbated the chaos surrounding his “beautiful” tariffs, and the economic uncertainty he’s spawned. And it put the lie to his claims that Americans don’t pay tariffs, China does.

And because consumers pay, Trump had to clean up another 100th-day tariff mess, in aisle Amazon. On Tuesday he phoned CEO Jeff Bezos, another of his billionaire donors, to get the e-commerce giant to drop a plan to show tariff costs on customers’ bills. (They’ll still pay more, they just won’t see the proof.)

Yet 100 days is 99 more than candidate Trump said he’d need to Make America Great Again. He campaigned ad nauseum saying he’d solve this, that or another problem on Day 1. At least 53 times he promised to end Russia’s war on Ukraine before he took office. (He’d spoken “in jest,” Trump told Time magazine last week.)

What he did do before he took office? Admit it would be “very hard” to bring down prices as he’d pledged. (Forget bringing them down: He drove them up with tariffs.)

“There will be a little disturbance, but we’re okay with that,” Trump told a joint session of Congress in March. Oddly, he’s been hailing as his economic model the late 19th century period when “it was all tariffs” and America was “most successful.” In fact, that era saw repeated recessions, depressions and financial panics.

Who’s going to tell him he’s wrong? Trump, in the bubble of sycophancy he’s created in the Cabinet, Congress and among his base, proceeds with few checks. “I run the country and the world,” he boasted to the Atlantic last week.

He’s not wrong, given that he does lead what is still the world’s superpower and — impulsive, unpredictable and vengeful as he is — often forces others to bend his way. He hasn’t totally destroyed America’s brand. But he still has more than 1,300 days to go.

@jackiekcalmes