Long-threatened tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump have plunged the country into trade wars. “The message to me is that in trade, allies and adversaries don’t matter,” former IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld said. “We’re at war with everyone.”
The federal lawsuit filed in Oakland, California on Thursday challenges his order to end collective bargaining in agencies with national security missions.
The unions say Trump’s March 27 order applies the national security exemption too broadly and seeks to punish them for speaking out against his agenda.
“AFGE is not going to be intimidated by a bully who is throwing a temper tantrum because our union is beating them in the court of law and in the court of public opinion,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
The National Treasury Employees Union is challenging the same order in Washington, D.C. federal court, and the Justice Department has a pending suit in the Western District of Texas on behalf of eight federal agencies that want to end their collective bargaining agreements.
Trump suggested that the stock market turmoil caused by worldwide tariffs makes it the “PERFECT time” for Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to cut interest rates.
“He is always ‘late, but he could now change his image, and quickly,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
Presidents of both political parties have respected the Federal Reserve’s status as an independent agency, but Trump continues to pressure Powell. Trump nominated Powell in 2017 to serve as chair.
“CUT INTEREST RATES, JEROME, AND STOP PLAYING POLITICS!” he wrote.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform Friday that Vietnamese President To Lam “wants to cut their Tariffs down to ZERO if they are able to make an agreement with the U.S.”
The sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs Trump said he’s imposing on countries around the world includes a 46% tariff on Vietnam, which is a major trading partner with America.
Since the two nations restored diplomatic relations in 1995, bilateral trade has grown to a record high of $138 billion in goods trading in 2022.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announces the arrest of gang members involved in four homicides, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Pam Bondi announced federal charges Friday against three men arrested last month in the 2015 killing of a man who was stabbed about 100 times and shot. The cases were reopened in 2020 after going cold.
Bondi joined law enforcement officials in Fort Lauderdale to promote the Justice Department’s efforts to go after the MS-13 gang, which the Trump administration has labeled a “foreign terrorist organization” to justify deportations.
“More arrests are coming,” Bondi said. “If you are a gang member living in this country, I’d self-deport right now.”
The announcement comes a week after Bondi lauded the arrest of the alleged East Coast leader of the MS-13 gang.
Madagascar’s export-dependent economy now faces one of the Trump administration’s highest tariffs, at 47%. This threatens the Indian Ocean nation’s vital vanilla industry, which exports 70% of its produce to the U.S.
The country’s textile sector, which exports 40% of its total production to US markets, is also bracing for challenging times.
Madagascan ministers are feverishly trying to limit the harm, meeting with U.S. ambassador Claire Pierangelo this week as they try to mobilize “all diplomatic and commercial levers to guarantee fair access” for the nation’s products.
The state’s Attorney General Josh Kaul had sued in a last-minute effort to stop Elon Musk from handing out $1 million checks to voters before the state’s Supreme Court election, which was ultimately won by Democratic-backed candidate Susan Crawford.
Columbia County Circuit Judge Andrew Voigt’s order dismissed Kaul’s lawsuit as “woefully deficient” and said “it is this Court’s opinion that Wisconsin’s system of justice was abused by this case.”
The judge dismissed the case at Kaul’s request after the state Supreme Court rejected it without comment. Musk then gave out checks to two Wisconsin voters, declaring them spokespeople for his political group after Kaul accused him of violating state law by inducing voters with money.
Kaul’s statement Friday says he’s proud of his “rapid action” to “help protect the integrity of the recent election.”
The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities is requesting a meeting with the State Department, alarmed that the Trump administration’s widening crackdown will persuade sought-after foreign students to stay away from the United States.
College officials say the new, harsher tactics and vague justifications being used to push some students out of the country will have much broader consequences.
America’s universities have long been seen as a top destination for the world’s brightest minds — and they’ve brought important tuition revenue and research breakthroughs to U.S. colleges. But international students also have other options, said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA, an association of international educators.
▶ Read more on the tactics being used to expel foreign students
Staff members at the NEH have begun receiving notices that they have been placed on administrative leave, The Associated Press has learned. Just how many employees receiving the notices has yet to be determined, according to two officials with knowledge of the NEH’s operations. The officials were not authorized to discuss the notices and asked not to be identified.
The NEH did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment.
The NEH, which each year provides hundreds of millions of dollars for educational and cultural projects, has also been sending notices to grant recipients informing them that their funding has been cancelled. The cutbacks follow other Trump administration moves against cultural organizations, including the Kennedy Center, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Smithsonian Institution.
Bill Lawrence works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Trump’s escalating trade war is roiling the markets.
The S&P 500 dropped 2.7% early Friday, coming off its worst day since COVID wrecked the global economy in 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,000 points, and the Nasdaq composite tumbled 3%.
Not even a better-than-expected report on the U.S. job market was enough to stop the slide.
European stocks saw some of the day’s biggest losses, and the price of crude oil tumbled to its lowest level since 2021 on worries about how a trade war could cause a recession.
“CHINA PLAYED IT WRONG, THEY PANICKED – THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO!” he wrote in a social media post Friday morning.
The letter asserts that Harvard University has “fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment” and must take immediate action to keep receiving almost $9 billion in federal grants and contracts.
Officials at three federal agencies outlined in the letter to Harvard’s president Thursday demands including a mask ban on campus, clarified restrictions on protests and firmer enforcement of discipline policies, among others. A Harvard spokesperson said the university received the letter.
It’s similar to a demand letter that recently prompted changes at Columbia University under threat of billions of dollars in cuts.
Although experts have harshly criticized the president’s economic policies, he’s finding support on TikTok.
He shared a video on Friday morning that said “Trump is crashing the stock market” and “he’s doing it on purpose” as part of “secret game he’s playing, and it could make you rich.”
Trump is at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida, for the weekend. In another all-caps post, Trump said he would stay the course despite fears about a potential recession.
“TO THE MANY INVESTORS COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES AND INVESTING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE. THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH, RICHER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!” he wrote.
Major U.S. indexes plunged sharply before Friday’s opening bell, then doubled their losses after China matched Trump’s tariffs.
A screen displays financial news as traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Futures for the S&P 500 fell 3.6% before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 3.4%, falling below the 40,000 mark. Nasdaq futures tumbled 4%.
That follows Thursday’s wipeout, Wall Street’s worst day in five years.
Markets in Europe were having an even rougher time — by midday Friday, Germany’s DAX had lost 5%, the CAC 40 in Paris slipped 4.2% and Britain’s FTSE 100 gave up 3.8%.
Oil prices fell as much as 8%.
▶ Read more on market reactions to Trump’s global trade war
A top trade analyst says the Trump tariffs calculations are “not standard economics” and in many cases impose rates far higher than what targeted countries apply to U.S. goods.
Julia Spies, chief of trade and market intelligence at the International Trade Center, said how exactly the U.S. Trade Representative’s office and other U.S. officials came up with the tariffs remains uncertain.
She told a U.N. briefing in Geneva by video that the figures presented by Trump roughly match the U.S. trade balance — or imbalance — with a specific country, divided by imports from that country, “and that, divided by two, gives us the reciprocal tariff” imposed by the U.S.
The U.S. calculation also somehow included other regulations and policies — such as each country’s sanitary measures and technical barriers, and alleged currency manipulations, and “all of that led to this – what they call ‘tariffs’.”
The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers called on the U.S. to “correct its wrong actions.” It said the tariffs “will further raise car prices, and impose additional burdens on consumers in various countries including Americans and have a negative impact on global economic recovery.”
China is one of the major exporters of car parts, many used in car repairs. For example, about 6 in every 10 auto replacement parts used in U.S. auto shop repairs are imported from Mexico, Canada and China. The new taxes are also estimated to make cars imported into the U.S. thousands of dollars more expensive.
Asian traders are reacting to Trump’s tariffs, with the scope of Friday’s selloff limited because markets in Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Indonesia are closed for holidays.
In European trading, Germany’s DAX lost 2% to 21,289.53 as manufacturers prepared for steeper duties on their exports. The CAC 40 in Paris slipped 1.6% to 7,478.17 while Britain’s FTSE 100 gave up 1.7% to 8,331.44.
In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 lost 2.8% to 33,780.58, while South Korea’s Kospi sank 0.9% to 2,465.42. The two U.S. allies said they were focused on negotiating lower tariffs with Trump’s administration. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dropped 2.4%, closing at 7,667.80.
The U.S. dollar rose to 146.46 Japanese yen from 146.06. The yen is often used as a refuge in uncertain times, while Trump’s policies are meant in part to weaken the dollar to make goods made in the U.S. more price competitive overseas.
Workers labor on the production line of towels at a textile manufacturer in Huai’an city in east China’s Jiangsu province, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (Chinatopix Via AP)
Chinese industry groups on Friday sharply criticized the U.S. tariffs as well as the closing of the de minimis loophole which had allowed low value goods to be imported tax-free.
“America’s action crudely destroyed the normal order of trade between the U.S. and China, severely impacted cooperation between global industries, and greatly harmed the rights of consumers, including American citizens,” said a statement from the China Light Industry Association.
The tax exemption for packages valued at $800 or less helped China-founded e-commerce companies like Shein and Temu to thrive while cutting into the U.S. retail market.
The China National Textile and Apparel Council expressed support Friday for “the Chinese government’s forceful measures.”
Trump’s announced tariff on Vietnam “is not in line with the reality of mutually beneficial economic and trade cooperation between the two countries,” foreign ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said.
Vietnam’s tariffs are among the highest of any country, more than competitors like Thailand and Malaysia. At stake are electronics, textiles, footwear, seafood and other exports to the U.S. that totaled nearly $120 billion last year, nearly a third of the country’s total.
Deputy Prime Minister and former finance minister Ho Duc Phoc is scheduled to visit the U.S. and Cuba from April 6-14.
She said Vietnam has actively engaged with the U.S. to address concerns, promote ties and work towards fair, mutually beneficial trade in the spirit of the comprehensive strategic partnership the two countries inked in 2023, evolving beyond what President Joe Biden called the “bitter past” of the Vietnam War.
Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te said he will offer the “greatest support” to industries impacted by the new tariffs. Lai acknowledged that Taiwan had a trade surplus with the U.S., but that much of it came from Taiwanese industries trying to fulfill the U.S. demand for Taiwan’s information technology products.
“We feel that this is unreasonable and are also worried about the subsequent impact these measures may have on the global economy,” Lai said in a statement on his Facebook page Thursday night.
Lai said he instructed Premier Cho Jung-tai to work closely with industries that are impacted and to communicate with the public about their plans to stabilize the economy.
The president does not have anything on his public schedule during the day. At 7:30 p.m., he will attend a MAGA Inc. candlelit dinner at Mar-a-Lago, according to the White House.
President Donald Trump, center, arrives on Air Force One at Miami International Airport, Thursday, April 3, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Trump offered a rosy assessment after the stock market dropped sharply Thursday over his tariffs, saying, “I think it’s going very well.”
“The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom,” he said when asked about the market as he left the White House to fly to one of his Florida golf clubs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 1,600 points on Thursday as U.S. stocks led a worldwide selloff.
Trump talked about trillions of dollars in investment that is “coming into our country” from companies that want to make their products in the U.S. to avoid tariffs.
“The rest of the world wants to see is there any way they can make a deal,” he said.
Later, speaking with the reporters on aboard Air Force One, Trump said that he’d be open to using tariffs to negotiate with other countries and that it would depend on whether they had something “phenomenal” to offer in return.
▶ Read more about Trump’s response to the market crash
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China announced Friday that it will impose a 34% tariff on imports of all U.S. products beginning April 10, part of a flurry of retaliatory measures following Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs.
The new tariff matches the rate of the U.S. “reciprocal” tariff of 34% on Chinese exports that Trump ordered this week.
The Commerce Ministry in Beijing also said in a notice that it will impose more export controls on rare earths, which are materials used in high-tech products such as computer chips and electric vehicle batteries.
Additionally, the Chinese government said it has added 27 firms to lists of companies subject to trade sanctions or export controls.
16 are subject to a ban on the export of “dual-use” goods. High Point Aerotechnologies, a defense tech company, and Universal Logistics Holding, a publicly traded transportation and logistics company, were among those listed.
Beijing also announced it filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization over the tariffs issue.
▶ Read more about China’s retaliatory measures to Trump’s tariffs
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.
▶ Read more about the impact of Trump’s tariffs
