 |
|
|
|||||
President Donald Trump and his advisers promised a lightning round of global trade negotiations with dozens of countries back in April. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro predicted 90 deals in 90 days. Administration officials declared that other countries were desperate to make concessions to avoid the massive import taxestariffsthat Trump was threatening to plaster on their products starting July 9. But the 90 days have come and gone. And the tally of trade deals stands at twoone with the United Kingdom and one with Vietnam. Trump has also announced the framework for a deal with China, the details of which remain fuzzy. Trump has now extended the deadline for negotiations to Aug. 1 and tinkered with his threatened tariffs, leaving the global trading system pretty much where it stood three months agoin a state of limbo as businesses delay decisions on investments, contracts and hiring because they dont know what the rules will be. Its a rerun, basically, said William Reinsch, a former U.S. trade official whos now an adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. Trump and his team dont have the deals they want. So theyre piling on the threats.” The pattern has repeated itself enough times to earn Trump the label TACOan acronym coined by The Financial Times Robert Armstrong that stands for Trump Always Chickens Out. “This is classic Trump: Threaten, threaten more, but then extend the deadline, Reinsch said. July 30 arrives, does he do it again if he still doesnt have the deals? (Trump said Tuesday that there will be no more extensions.) The deal drought represents a collision with reality. Negotiating simultaneously with every country on earth was always an impossible task, as Trump himself belatedly admitted last month in an interview with the Fox News Channel. (Theres 200 countries, the president said. You cant talk to all of them.) And many trading partnerssuch as Japan and the European Unionwere always likely to balk at Trumps demands, at least without getting something in return. Its really, really hard to negotiate trade agreements, which usually takes several months even when it involves just one country or a small regional group, said Chad Bown, an economic adviser in the Obama White House and now senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. What the administration is doing is negotiating a bunch of these at the same time. The drama began April 2”Liberation Day,” Trump called itwhen the tariff-loving president announced a so-called baseline 10% import tax on everybody and what he called reciprocal levies of up to 50% on countries with which the United States runs trade deficits. The 10% baseline tariffs appear to be here to stay. Trump needs them to raise money to patch the hole his massive tax-cut bill is blasting into the federal budget deficit. By themselves, the baseline tariffs represent a massive shift in American trade policy: Tariffs averaged around 2.5% when Trump returned to the White House and were even lower before he started raising them in his first term. But the reciprocal tariffs are an even bigger deal. In announcing them, Trump effectively blew up the rules governing world trade. For decades, the United States and most other countries abided by tariff rates set through a series of complex negotiations known as the Uruguay round. Countries could set their own tariffsbut under the most favored nation approach, they couldnt charge one country more than they charged another. Now Trump is setting the tariff rates himself, creating tailor-made trade plans for each and every country on this planet, in the words of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. But investors have recoiled at the audacious plan, fearing that it will disrupt trade and damage the world economy. Trumps Liberation Day tariffs, for instance, set off a four-day rout in global financial markets. Trump blinked. Less than 13 hours after the reciprocal tariffs took effect April 9, he abruptly suspended them for 90 days, giving countries time to negotiate with his trade team. Despite the Trump administrations expressions of confidence, the talks turned into a slog. Countries have their own politics, their own domestic politics, Reinsch said. Trump structured this ideally so that all the concessions are made by the other guys and the only U.S. concession is: We dont impose the tariffs. But countries like South Korea and Japan needed to come back with something, he said. Their thinking: We have to get some concessions out of the United States to make it look like this is a win-win agreement and not a we-fold-and-surrender agreement. Japan, for example, wanted relief from another Trump tariff50% levies on steel and aluminum. Countries may also be hesitant to reach a deal with the United States while the Trump administration conducts investigations that might result in new tariffs on a range of products, including pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Trump on Monday sent letters to Japan, South Korea and 12 other countries, saying hed hit them with tariffs Aug. 1 if they couldnt reach an agreement. The levies were close to what hed announced on April 2; Japans, for example, would be 25%, compared to the 24% unveiled April 2. Trump did sign an agreement last month with the United Kingdom that, among other provisions, reduced U.S. tariffs on British automotive and aerospace products while opening the U.K. market for American beef and ethanol. But the pact kept the baseline tariff on British products mostly in place, underlining Trumps commitment to the 10% tax despite the United States running a trade surplusnot a deficitwith the U.K. for 19 straight years, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. On July 2. Trump announced a deal with Vietnam. The Vietnamese agreed to let U.S. products into the country duty free whle accepting a 20% tax on their exports to the United States, Trump said, though details of the agreement have not been released. The lopsided deal with Vietnam suggests that Trump can successfully use the tariff threat to bully concessions out of smaller economies. They just cant really negotiate in the same way that the (European Union) or Korea or Japan (or) Canada can negotiate with the United States, said Dan McCarthy, principal in McCarthy Consulting and a former official with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in the Biden administration. A lot of (smaller) countries just want to get out of this and are willing to cut their losses. But wrangling a deal with bigger trading partners is likely to remain tougher. The U.S. is gambling that these countries will ultimately be intimidated and fold, Reinsch said. And the countries are gambling that the longer this stretches out, and the longer it goes without Trump producing any more deals, the more desperate he gets; and he lowers his standards. “Its kind of a giant game of chicken. Paul Wiseman, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
A union representing thousands of city workers in Philadelphia and the city have reached a deal to end a more than weeklong strike that halted residential curbside trash pickup and affected other services, officials said Wednesday.Nearly 10,000 blue-collar employees from District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees had walked off the job July 1, seeking better pay and benefits after failing to agree with the city on a new contract.The tentative agreement was announced on what would have been the ninth day of the strike. That period, which included the Fourth of July holiday weekend, created a backlog of trash. Some drop-off centers were overflowing.Mayor Cherelle Parker announced the end of the strike and the agreement with the union on social media. “The work stoppage involving the District Council 33 and the City of Philadelphia is OVER,” she posted.“We have reached a tentative agreement with District Council 33, which must be ratified by its membership on a new three-year contract that, coupled with the one-year contract extension we agreed to last fall, will increase DC 33 members’ pay by 14 percent over my four years in office.”Parker said, “we’ll have much more to say about this historic deal” at City Hall.District Council 33 is the largest of four major unions representing city workers. Its membership includes 911 dispatchers, trash collectors, water department workers and many others. Police and firefighters weren’t part of the strike.Last week, judges had sided with the city in ordering some critical employees back to work at the city’s 911 centers, water department and airport.“The strike is over! Details forthcoming,” the union posted on Facebook Wednesday morning.Union President Greg Boulware briefly spoke with reporters after the deal was reached. “We did the best we could with the circumstances we had in front of us,” he said.The city had designated about 60 sites as drop-off centers for residential trash, but some were overflowing, while striking workers on hand asked residents not to cross the picket line. Most libraries across the city are were closed, with support workers and security guards off the job. Asssociated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
Some news stories are gobsmackingly obvious in their importance. Others are complete nonstories. So what to make of the departure of Linda Yaccarino after two years as CEO of X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk? On the surface, its a story. But truthfully, her exit is about as newsworthy as the departure of a rank-and-file programmer. Her departing tweet was chipper (she called X a digital town square for all voices), but its difficult to discern whatif anythingwill change in her absence. After two incredible years, Ive decided to step down as CEO of . When @elonmusk and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company. Im immensely grateful to him for entrusting me— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) July 9, 2025 She arrived in mid-2023 as the slick ad chief meant to lure blue-chip brands back to a platform Musk had turned into a carnival of chaos. Two bruising years later, ad dollars remain skittish, the hate-speech headlines louder (she exits in the middle of xAIs Grok deciding it hates Jews and doesn’t care who knows about it), and the companys fate still yoked to Musks midnight posting habit rather than Yaccarinos boardroom polish. Yaccarino was a puppet CEO, and even months into her tenure, Musk seemed to lose interest in tugging at the strings. Her brand safety crusade evaporated each time Musk reposted conspiracies or amplified antisemitic tropes, detonating whatever confidence shed just sold. Her promise of a changed X during a Senate hearing was promptly undercut by the owner bragging about slashing bureaucracy. Advertisers that dared to dip a toe back in bolted again after Musks live-streamed harsh instruction to nervous brandsGo fuck yourselfmade her Cannes talking points look like fan fiction. (X did not respond to Fast Companys request for comment.) The root problem was structural: Yaccarino accepted a job whose remit was satire. She was asked to run the company, but given no control over product, policy, or the owners timeline. Her calendar filled with advertiser therapy sessions while Musk torched their brand guidelines in real time. That dissonance turned a respected NBCUniversal exec into the corporate equivalent of a cardboard cutout: a caricature of boardroom propriety, rolled onstage for investor calls, wheeled off when the real show began. Critics might argue no mortal could tame Musks libertarian bent. Perhaps. But Yaccarino compounded the risk by embracing it. A chief executive who cannot veto a single repost or freeze a buggy rollout was a mascot, not a leader. Her legacy, then, is cautionary: credibility cannot be subcontracted. And brand safety doesn’t mean anything if you don’t follow words with action. Yaccarino departs with her résumé intact enough for the conference circuit. We can probably expect a TED talk on leading through turbulence by Christmas, and wink-wink appearances on podcasts (NDA permitting). In the end, Yaccarinos departure is newsworthy only as a footnote in Musks ongoing demolition of X; she is, ultimately, just another professional reputation left smoldering in his wake.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||