The Morning Risk Report: Trump Slaps Tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China in Opening Salvo of Trade War By Richard Vanderford
Good morning. The White House on Saturday announced a wave of tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China , marking the first major levies of President Trump's second term and laying the groundwork for a continental trade war.
Major hit: Effective Tuesday, the U.S. will impose a 25% levy on imports from Canada and Mexico, a 10% tariff on energy products from Canada, and an additional 10% tariff on China.
Closing the 'loophole': The U.S. also will suspend what is known as the "de minimis" loophole for Canada, which allows shipments valued under $800 to enter the country duty-free, because of concerns that those packages weren't being properly inspected under the exemption.
Untested theory: The tariffs will be imposed under emergency economic authority never before used for tariffs "because of the major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs killing our Citizens, including fentanyl, " Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
Counterstrike: Canada and Mexico want to make sure Americans feel the pain too. They are betting they can inflict enough reciprocal suffering that Trump, who campaigned on lowering prices after a period of elevated inflation, will back down.
Looking to negotiate: Beijing is readying an opening bid to try to head off greater tariff increases and technology restrictions from the Trump administration-a sign that China is eager to get trade talks going. Compliance
Moscow has $2 billion stuck at JPMorgan. The U.S. isn't sure what to do with it.
A few months after invading Ukraine, Russia sent a series of huge payments to Turkey. In short order, it transferred more than $5 billion with the promise of more to come.
To the outside world, the money was to pay for Turkey's first nuclear-power plant. Over in New York, the transfers caught the attention of Justice Department investigators tasked with policing Wall Street. The investigators found that Russia and Turkey used the nuclear project in 2022 to dance around U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia's central bank, according to people familiar with the matter.
Trump fires consumer financial watchdog who drew ire of banks.
President Trump fired the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau nearly two weeks after his inauguration following calls by bankers for his ouster.
Rohit Chopra confirmed his departure in a letter posted to X on Saturday morning. He received a letter from the president removing him from the position late on Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Elon Musk's social-media company X added more major brands to its lawsuit claiming an ad-industry coalition illegally boycotted the site .
First Mark Zuckerberg moved Meta's trust and safety workers to Texas. Now, he is exploring moving his social-media giant's legal residence to the Lone Star state.
The estate of Joseph Shuster, the co-creator of "Superman," is suing to stop the man of steel from taking flight in several major international territories just months before the newest, highly anticipated "Superman" movie is released.
The Federal Communications Commission requested that Paramount Global hand over its footage and transcripts from an October CBS News "60 Minutes" interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris as part of its review of the company's planned merger with Skydance Media. Risk
Skies darken over Europe's economy.
The global elites who swarm Davos every January don't agree with Trump on much, but on one issue, their minds melded: Europe is in deep trouble , Greg Ip writes in an essay. It faces "an existential threat," European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said. BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink called Europe's much-vaunted single market "a beautiful myth."
Almost everything has gone wrong for Europe in the past few years. It has struggled with Covid, a spike in the cost of energy and the rise of far-right parties who despise the European project. China threatens its markets, Russia threatens its territory, and Trump threatens both.
Eurozone Inflation Inches Higher Amid Rising Trade Uncertainty
DeepSeek arrived. America freaked. What happens now?
It sparked a financial panic, spooked Americans from Wall Street to Silicon Valley and seized the attention of the entire world. It wiped out a trillion dollars of market value in a single day. It called into question basic assumptions about the artificial-intelligence boom. And it meant that the U.S. and China's battle for tech supremacy and control of the future has truly begun.
This was the week of DeepSeek .
Steep pendulum swings in trade are a sign of how quickly global supply chains have shifted in the past three years as retailers and manufacturers adjust on the fly to rapidly changing developments in the U.S. and around the world.
Arab states hate Trump's plan to relocate Palestinians.
Power demand from data centers is soaring as artificial intelligence grows more advanced . WSJ CEO Brief
Don't miss the launch of the WSJ CEO Brief, a daily newsletter published by WSJ Leadership Institute President Alan Murray, designed for business leaders and executives looking for industry news and insights-straight to your inbox. Click here to subscribe.
What Else Matters Venezuela's government will take back tens of thousands of migrants, President Trump said Saturday, removing a major obstacle to his plans for mass deportations. But some migrant groups are evading U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement .
The U.S. conducted an airstrike against Islamic State militants in Somalia, the first such military operation since President Trump returned to the White House.
More than two years after the public debut of ChatGPT, software companies still haven't found a compelling way of charging for AI tools , chief information officers say
Some were promising figure skaters. Others were teachers or old friends on a hunting trip. They all perished in an instant, part of the worst U.S. air disaster in years. About Us
Follow us on X at @WSJRisk . Follow Risk & Compliance editor David Smagalla @DSmagalla_DJ and reporters Mengqi Sun @_MengqiSun and Richard Vanderford @VanderfordRich .
You can reach us by replying to any newsletter, or email David at [david.smagalla@wsj.com].
This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 03, 2025 07:12 ET (12:12 GMT)
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