EU retaliates after Trump expands 25% steel tariffs and takes trade war global: Live

Tariffs are taxes imposed on imported goods.

The businesses that import these products must pay the tax to the government.

Usually, tariffs are calculated as a percentage of the item’s value.

Within the context of Trump’s tariffs, a 25% tariff on British steel would add $2.50 to a $10 product.

Companies may pass on some or all of these costs to consumers.

The US has traditionally imposed lower tariffs compared to other nations. However, Trump’s new tariffs—along with his pledge to introduce further “reciprocal” charges on foreign goods—could significantly raise prices for consumers in the US and worldwide.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was flat but fragile. Australia’s benchmark closed 9.6% below February’s record high.

Markets in Hong Kong and China were broadly steady, South Korea and Taiwan bounced and Japan’s Nikkei held its ground after slumping to a near six-month low a day earlier.

On Wall Street the S&P 500 had flirted with notching a 10% fall from February’s record closing high, and finished a volatile session about 0.8% lower.

President Donald Trump threatened then backed down from a doubling of steel and aluminium tariffs on Canada to 50%, after Ontario suspended plans for a surcharge on exported electricity.

The dollar has sunk, Treasuries have rallied and lately stocks have suffered their heaviest selling in months as traders worry tariffs and policy uncertainty will hurt U.S. growth.

“Where we stand now is with a heightened concern about the U.S. economy, not having yet taken our model forecast down, but having put in a roughly 40% recession risk into the outlook for the year,” J.P. Morgan chief global economist Bruce Kasman told reporters in Singapore.

“If the U.S. goes into recession, then we enter into a more complicated story, because then you have to recognise that U.S. spillovers to the rest of the world tend to be very large through financial channels.”

France’s European Affairs Minister, Benjamin Haddad, has said the European Union could go further in its response to U.S. tariffs, though a trade war was in no-one’s interest.

“We have the means to go further, if we want,” Haddad told TF1 TV.

“For example, if it came to a situation where we had to go further, digital services or intellectual property could be included,” he added.

For context, the European Commission said it will impose counter tariffs on 26 billion euros ($28.33 billion) worth of U.S. goods from next month. The commission said it will end the current suspension of tariffs on U.S. products on April 1 and will also put forward a new package of countermeasures on U.S. goods by mid-April.

Lutnick agreed to meet with Ford and the U.S. Trade Representative in Washington D.C. on Thursday to discuss a renewed United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the free trade agreement between the North American countries.

In response to the agreement, Ford agreed to suspend the increased tax on electricity.

Ariana Baio has the story:

Dave Portnoy has revealed he was offered a job in the Trump administration’s Department of Commerce, but turned it down as it meant he would have to stop running his sports, gambling and pop-culture media company.

“I got a call, I dunno, a couple of months ago… and it was like ‘Hey would you have any interest, Dave, in joining the dept of commerce… and they were like ‘but a caveat of joining the government is somebody would have to run Barstool.’”

He did not provide further details of the job he had been offered.

Nasser Karimi and Jon Gambrell write:

China, Iran and Russia conducted joint naval drills Tuesday in the Middle East, offering a show of force in a region still uneasy over Tehran‘s rapidly expanding nuclear program and as Yemen‘s Houthi rebels threaten new attacks on ships.

The joint drills, called the Maritime Security Belt 2025, took place in the Gulf of Oman near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all crude oil traded worldwide passes. The area around the strait in the past has seen Iran seize commercial ships and launch suspected attacks in the time since President Donald Trump first unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

The drill marked the fifth year the three countries took part in the drills.

Stock markets are plunging, consumers and businesses have started to sour on the economy, and economists are marking down their estimates for growth this year, with some even seeing rising odds of a recession.

It’s a sharp shift from just a month ago, when stock indices were at record highs and consumer sentiment was rapidly improving. Many business executives were optimistic that President Donald Trump would cut taxes and pursue deregulation, which they expected would bolster growth.

Instead, Trump has aggressively implemented tariffs — and tariff threats — against the United States‘ largest trading partners. On Tuesday, Trump boosted import taxes on steel and aluminum from Canada to 50%, from 25%, in response to Ontario’s imposition of duties on electricity it sends to the United States.

Christopher Rugaber has the story:

Steffie Banatvala writes:

The Inatsisartut parliament consists of 31 MPs to be chosen from six political parties – two of which are in the governing coalition, Inuit Ataqatigiit and the Simiut parties. The leader of the party that wins the most seats in parliament in the March 11 vote becomes prime minister – currently Mute Egede of the left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit party. The results are expected to be announced between 1am and 3am GMT on Wednesday.

A January poll suggested the Inuit Ataqatigiit could gain 31 percent, 9 percent ahead of the Siumut party.

During Trump’s first 31 days in office, the study found that Fox News spent four hours and eight minutes covering the anti-trans executive orders, compared to two hours and nine minutes by CNN and the two hours and 33 minutes MSNBC devoted to the issue.

Justin Baragona has the story:

But a federal judge says the U.S. DOGE Service is wielding so much “unprecedented” authority with “unusual secrecy” that the agency must comply with public records requests.

DOGE “wields the requisite substantial independent authority” to be subject to requests under the Freedom of Information Act, according to a late-night filing from District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., referring to federal law that allows members of the public to seek federal records.