Economy Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. WASHINGTON—In the final run-up to President Trump’s “Liberation Day" tariff announcement, aides were left with a difficult task. They were struggling to square the president’s seemingly contradictory goals for sweeping new duties.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. MUMBAI : Indian equities outperformed their Asian peers on Thursday, the day US President Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs that threaten to destabilize the world trade order. However, Siddhartha Bhaiya, managing director and chief investment officer of Aequitas Investment Consultancy, thinks a one-day reaction barely scratches the surface of the move’s impact.

Shares in Australia and Japan fell at the open. US equity-index futures were steady as trading kicked off in Asia after the S&P 500 declined 4.9% on Thursday and the Nasdaq 100 slumped 5.5%, the biggest drop since 2020 for each. The slump wiped out around $2.5 trillion from the US stock market. Oil sold off and the greenback extended its drop on Friday as yields on the 10-year US Treasury hovered around the 4% mark. Markets are closed in China and Hong Kong.

Canada Prime Minister Mark Carmey said that the country will impose a 25 per cent tariff on all US vehicle imports that do not comply with the free trade agreement. The Canadian PM further said that the revenue generated from these tariffs would be directed toward supporting the country's auto workers and the industry. Sharing a post on X on Thursday (local time), Carney said, «In response to President Trump's tariffs on our auto sector, Canada will impose a 25% tariff on all US vehicle imports that do not comply with our free trade agreement. All revenues from these tariffs will be used to support our Canadian auto workers and their industry.» «For US vehicles that comply with The Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), Canada will also impose a 25% tariff on the content which is not from either Canada or Mexico. The revenue from those tariffs will also go directly to supporting Canada's auto workers and their industry,» the post added.

Trump's expansive new tariffs reverse a decades-long global trend of lower trade barriers and are likely, economists say, to raise prices for Americans by thousands of dollars each year while sharply slowing the U.S. economy. The White House is gambling that other countries will also suffer enough pain that they will open up their economies to more American exports, leading to negotiations that would reduce the tariffs imposed Wednesday. Or, the White House hopes, companies will reverse their moves toward global supply chains and bring more production to the United States to avoid higher import taxes. How will Americans react? But a key question for the Trump administration will be how Americans react to the tariffs. If prices rise noticeably and jobs are lost, voters could turn against the duties and make it harder to keep them in place for the time needed to encourage companies to return to the U.S. The Yale Budget Lab estimates the Trump administration's tariffs would cost the average household $3,800 in higher prices this year. That includes the 10% universal tariff plus much higher tariffs on about 60 countries announced Wednesday, as well as previous import taxes on steel, aluminum and cars. Inflation could top 4% this year, from 2.8% currently, while the economy may barely grow, according to estimates by Nationwide Financial.

dollar index weakened to a six-month low of 101.5. The local unit opened weaker at 85.77, but gained during the day to end stronger, traders said. “The safe haven status of the dollar seems to be diminishing due to concerns about how trade policy may impact growth in the US,” a trader in a private bank said. The weakness helped strengthen the rupee, he said.

The S&P 500 was down 4.2% in afternoon trading, more than other major stock markets, and at its bottom in the morning was on track for its worst day since Covid struck in 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,394 points, or 3.3%, as of 2:09 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 5.3% lower.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Mumbai: Poonam Gupta, the newly appointed deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has less than a week to prepare for the three-day monetary policy committee meeting beginning Monday. But, while it maybe be her first stint at the RBI, Gupta’s academic papers and articles point to a person who has strong views on inflation targeting framework and exchange rate stability.

World Trade Organization (WTO) said Thursday.

Canada and Mexico might have got off (relatively) easy on Donald Trump’s Liberation Day, but for the rest of the world the tariff blow was far worse than expected — and market reaction suggests the biggest loser could be the United States.

A resolution that challenges United States President Donald Trump’s national security justification for tariffs against Canada, passed in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday evening with bipartisan support.

Rahul Gandhi on Thursday raised the issue of reciprocal tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump in the House on Thursday and said it will «completely devastate» the Indian economy. Gandhi raised the issue during Zero Hour and said, «Our ally has suddenly decided to impose a 26% tariff, which is going to completely devastate our economy — our auto industry, pharmaceutical industry, and agriculture are all in line.» Trump on Wednesday announced new reciprocal tariffs on several countries, including India, saying that the US has been «looted, pillaged, raped, plundered» by other nations. While the US announcement lists 26% as the tariff levied on India, other documents, including those received by the ministry, show that the rate is actually 27%. Gandhi also claimed that China had taken over 4,000 square kilometres of Indian territory and demanded answers from the government over these issues.

And he belaboured global trade with them on Wednesday. Much of the planet is in shock. This includes penguins and seals who are the sole inhabitants of Heard and McDonald Islands, an Australian external territory near Antarctica, which has been slapped with a 10% tariff. India is mildly disappointed that its constructive and radical offer to Washington — zero-for-zero tariffs on 70% of manufactured goods — didn't give it a reprieve beyond pharma. But GoI has sensibly taken a 'Keep Calm and Carry On' attitude to what it has come to recognise is a period of geopolitical upheaval, as the US, Russia and China, in their separate ways, disorder the global order.

Wall Street opened to an ocean of red as 10 stocks fell for each that rose, reported Daily Mail. By midday, the S&P 500 lost 4.37%, the Nasdaq declined by 5.59%, and the Dow Jones fell by 3.74%, sending all three major indexes on their way to their worst day since the pandemic, Daily Mail reported. For ordinary Americans, this market decline is not just a business news story, it's a personal hit to their retirement funds, such as 401(k)s, that depend on the market, according to the report. The massive decline in stock prices has erased trillions from the US stocks, Daily Mail reported.

The rationale, as given by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, was that US sanctions already prohibit «meaningful trade» with these nations, so further tariffs were not needed, according to Axios. But although this argument may make sense, the US continues to trade more with Russia than with nations such as Mauritius or Brunei, which did find themselves on Trump's tariff list, reported Axios.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The eurozone economy has never been far from recession over the three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices surging. It may finally be tipped over the edge by a fresh blow from another direction, as the Trump administration targets its exports.

The three-day Randox Grand National festival got underway on Thursday and will go on till Saturday, with more than 150,000 racegoers expected to take part in it. This mega event is estimated to boost the economy by nearly £60 million (nearly $79 million) and is expected to attract a TV audience of around 600 million worldwide, BBC reported.

Donald Trump on Thursday said that the US economy would emerge «far stronger» even as markets went down globally after the reciprocal tariffs. Taking to social media platform Truth, Trump said, «The operation is over! The patient lived and is healing. The prognosis is that the patient will be far stronger, bigger, better and more resilient than ever before.» White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also reassured US markets. «To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say, 'Trust in President Trump.' This is a president who is doubling down on his proven economic formula,» she said while speaking with CNN. She said the tariffs, which include 10 percent across the board levies on imports and steeper barriers on several countries including India, meant «the United States is no longer going to be cheated by foreign nations.»

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Mumbai: Indian equities, bonds and currency showed some resilience even as US president Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs sent global markets into a tailspin. Trump fired up global trade tensions by announcing a baseline 10% tariff on all imports starting 5 April, with additional reciprocal tariffs on specific countries from 9 April.

Donald Trump's most recent wave of tariffs is all set to rattle the economy. His trade war has just gotten personal for one of his closest allies. With new tariffs going into effect on "Liberation Day," Amazon founder Jeff Bezos might be among the most affected, and his retail empire could face a heavy financial blow. As economists warn about rising costs and economic downturns, the Amazon founder faces significant challenges.

Ramesh Damani, Member, BSE, says like Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam, Donald Trump will just declare victory in the next couple of weeks and then change all the policies that he has introduced, saying that, oh, my policies have been achieved, everyone has come to the negotiating table, everyone is scared of America. He will declare victory because he will never admit loss. He will declare victory and the rest of the world will move back to the regime we were in. How should the world look at the tariff announcements by the US administration? Old school economists are saying that this is against the classic economic theory. This means inflation comes back, de-globalisation starts, and that is going to lead to serious contraction in the US economy. Ramesh Damani: There is a movie out now called The Emergency, and I remember that as a young student in 1975, the then Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi imposed the emergency.