President Trump will shake up global trade again this week, add new pressures to a slowing U.S. economy and pay new attention Tuesday to voters in Wisconsin and Florida, who may send early feedback about Republican governance.
The president has said that reciprocal tariffs on imported goods and higher levies on autos and car parts built outside the United States will take effect on Wednesday. Trump touts his policies as tools to return trade fairness and a boom in domestic manufacturing to America, but economists argue he risks inflating prices while slashing consumer and business spending because of uncertainty, including in financial markets.
Trump has publicly rebuffed retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Europe, weighed outreach on trade from Mexico and Japan, and levied tariffs on Chinese goods, hoping to jump-start deal-making. He is still working out major details of the new tariffs he’s slated for this week.
Most experts eyeing the overall situation insist a recession is not inevitable. But the direction of the economy depends largely on how Trump and his team proceed in the weeks ahead.
▪ The Hill: Trump faces a crucial week on the economy.
▪ The Wall Street Journal: Back on the table: an across-the-board tariff hike of up to 20 percent. Also under review: a slate of new industry-specific tariffs that could hit critical minerals and products that contain them.
The president told NBC News during a Saturday interview that he “couldn’t care less” if foreign automakers raise their prices abroad in reaction to U.S. tariffs because U.S.-made auto sales would benefit.
“The world has been ripping off the United States for the last 40 years and more,” Trump added. “And all we're doing is being fair, and frankly, I'm being very generous.”
Trump told NBC there’s still room for negotiations with the U.S. if countries that “have things of great value … are willing to give us something.”
The president touted a “Boomtown USA” vision aboard Air Force One on Sunday en route from Florida to the White House.
"People [who] manufacture automobiles in the United States are going to make money the likes of which they've never seen before,” he told reporters. “But beyond that, we have the computer companies, the chip companies, the pharmaceutical companies. We have lumber, we have everything, steel. They're all going to do really well as long as they do their product in the United States.”
WHAT DO POLLS SHOW?: A quarter of Americans say Trump’s economic policies are making them financially better off. Nearly twice as many say he's making their finances worse, according to a new CBS News survey conducted last week. Seventy-five percent of Republicans said before he took office that Trump's policies would make them better off. Now, less than 50 percent say that's what is happening so far. Trump's report card on handling inflation remains negative, and his rating since last month on broadly handling the economy showed majority disapproval.
CNBC: European markets fell this morning as traders await the full implementation of Trump’s pending tariffs.
TUESDAY’S POLITICAL TESTS: A race to determine control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court has profound stakes for voting, abortion and labor rights in the state. It’s also shaping up to be a litmus test of Elon Musk’s political sway, making it one of the most consequential elections of Trump’s second term (The Hill and The Guardian).
The winner between liberal Judge Susan Crawford and conservative Judge Brad Schimel for a seat on a swing-state court with a 4-3 liberal majority will determine which party has control to rule on the future of the state’s 1849 abortion ban, rights to collective bargaining and the makeup of the state’s six congressional districts.
“The Democratic-aligned candidate may be a little better positioned there than the Republican-aligned candidate,” wrote J. Miles Coleman with the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Musk through super PACS has spent more than $20 million on the Wisconsin Supreme Court contest beginning shortly after Tesla sued the state over a law that blocks the company from opening car dealerships there. The president’s government efficiency adviser took the stage at a Green Bay, Wis., rally to hand out facsimiles of two $1 million checks to attendees, an effort that was challenged in court but upheld by a state court judge.
Musk was booed by some. “The reason for the checks, is it’s really just to get attention,” he said, noting he attracts more mainstream news coverage for Schimel’s candidacy with his financial giveaways.
Two Florida House seats in Republican-dominated Florida had been expected to remain in GOP control, but the president and his party are concerned that the seat in the 6th Congressional District formerly held by White House national security adviser Mike Waltz could be touch-and-go Tuesday for GOP nominee Randy Fine.
Trump, nervous about razor-thin margins in the House ahead of an ambitious budget agenda he aims to enact by August, called into two tele-town halls for Fine in an effort to drive turnout among Republican voters.
▪ The Hill: Republicans look to avert humiliation in Florida special election.
▪ The New York Times, looking ahead at the election calendar, by Nate Cohn.
