“Liberation Day”

Volkswagen, Europe’s largest industrial group, has said it will make a “massive” investment in the US. The group, which includes Porsche, revealed it has been in direct talks with Donald Trump’s administration as it faces damaging tariffs.

Oliver Blume, who heads the group, said the talks were “constructive” and “fair”, in an interview that suggests the company, whose market capital is £44bn, is not willing to leave tariff negotiations to Brussels alone.

Speaking to Süddeutsche Zeitung, Blume said he had been to Washington himself and had a direct line to the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, but had agreed to keep details of the talks confidential.

Detroit has become one of the hardest hit cities in the fallout of America’s deteriorating relationship with Canada.

The Michigan metropolis on Canada’s border has seen traffic from neighboring Windsor drop and suffering businesses slash jobs.

Business leaders and elected officials are concerned that the White House’s policies are forcing the sister cities in to an unwanted ‘break up.’

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump said he will double the tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to 50 per cent next Wednesday.

Trump initially announced the boosted duties on steel during a rally at U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works–Irvin Plant near Pittsburgh Friday evening. He told a cheering crowd of steelworkers that the increased levies will “further secure the steel industry in the United States.”

… Canada is the largest steel supplier to the United States, accounting for nearly 25 per cent of all imports in 2023. About a quarter of all steel used in America is imported.

TRUMP PROTECTS AMERICAN STEEL

"We are going to be imposing a 25% increase. We're going to bring it from 25% to 50%—the tariffs on steel into the United States of America—which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States." –President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/ASaAjXxLDE

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 30, 2025

WASHINGTON—President Trump is expected to soften the impact of his automotive tariffs, preventing duties on foreign-made cars from stacking on top of other tariffs he has imposed and easing some levies on foreign parts used to manufacture cars in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter.

The decision will mean that automakers paying Trump’s automotive tariffs won’t also be charged for other duties, such as those on steel and aluminum, according to people familiar with the policy. The move would be retroactive, the people said, meaning that automakers could be reimbursed for such tariffs already paid. The 25% tariff on finished foreign-made cars went into effect early this month.

Behind all the drama of President Donald Trump’s tariffs lies the hope that they serve some clear purpose for American and global trade. But Trump’s signature inscrutability makes it hard to discern what that purpose is—or whether one even exists.

Either way, his actions threaten to unravel the global trading system that has been in place for the past 80 years. That unraveling would bring economic and financial pain—but also potential upside, given that the current system is ultimately unsustainable.

Despite the great deal of sound and fury that it has generated, it is perhaps too early to assess the lasting impact of President Donald Trump’s latest fireworks on tariffs.

Some things, however, are certain.

Contrary to assertions by talking heads on the small screen, we are not heading for a global trade war.

True, the US is the world’s biggest economy and ranks second as a trading power. But its share of world trade hovers around 12 percent, or under 10 percent of its GDP. The remaining 88 percent of world trade by 192 nations won’t be immediately affected.

It’s easy to dismiss Donald Trump’s haphazard tariff barrage as silly and self-defeating, especially after so many days of global market turmoil. But critics among liberal Democrats and Republican free traders still need to address the overriding goal behind the seeming madness. The key strategic objective of Trump’s approach is simple: restoring American industrial power. Opponents of the US president ignore this at their peril.

Trump is organizing a global embargo of China. To get the elites to comply, he did the equivalent of saying, "Nice stock market you got there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it." That's what Americans will remember: Unlike in 2008, Trump put us ahead of Wall Street. pic.twitter.com/aUkIkooghL

— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) April 10, 2025