Business
Markets Remain Uneasy as Trump Prepares Sweeping ‘Reciprocal’ Tariffs
President Trump has settled on a final plan for sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs, which are expected to take effect on Wednesday after he announces the details at an afternoon Rose Garden ceremony.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, confirmed the timeline in a briefing with reporters on Tuesday, adding that Mr. Trump had been huddling with his trade team to hash out the finer points of an approach meant to end “decades of unfair trade practices.”
When pressed on whether the administration was worried the tariffs could prove to be the wrong approach, Ms. Leavitt struck a confident note: “They’re not going to be wrong,” she said. “It is going to work.”
The administration has been weighing several different tariff strategies in recent weeks. One option examined by the White House is a 20 percent flat tariff on all imports, which advisers have said could help raise more than $6 trillion in revenue for the U.S. government.
But advisers have also discussed the idea of assigning different tariff levels to countries depending on the trade barriers those countries impose against American products. They have also said that some nations might avoid tariffs entirely by striking trade deals with the United States.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, Mr. Trump said the United States would be “very nice, relatively speaking,” in imposing tariffs on a vast number of countries — including U.S. allies — that he believes are unfairly inhibiting the flow of American exports.
“That word reciprocal is very important,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “What they do to us, we do to them.”
By Tuesday, Ms. Leavitt said the president had made a decision and was with his trade team now “perfecting it.” When asked if companies could do anything to avoid the tariffs, Ms. Leavitt said the president was “always up to take a phone call” from companies but was “very much focused on fixing the wrongs of the past.”
She also said that many foreign governments had called the president and his team about the tariffs, but that Mr. Trump was focused on the interests of the United States.
“The president has a brilliant team of advisers who have been studying these issues for decades, and we are focused on restoring the golden age of America and making America a manufacturing superpower,” she said.
The prospect of tariffs has left markets uneasy. Stocks edged down at the start of trading, with the S&P 500 opening about 0.4 percent lower before rebounding after a choppy day yesterday that ended with the index registering its worst month and quarter since 2022.
Investors are still seeking clarity on the scope of Mr. Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, and the economic uncertainty surrounding a global trade war has fueled stock market volatility in recent weeks.
It has similarly troubled the manufacturing industry, which showed signs of contraction in March, according to new data released Tuesday from the Institute for Supply Management, which is closely tracked by the White House. The report found declines in employment and new orders, as firms raised alarms about the nature of Mr. Trump’s tariffs and the prospect for costly global retaliation.
The president is set to receive reports from his advisers on nearly two dozen trade-related topics on Tuesday, advising him on how he might proceed on addressing a range of issues.
The reports, which are due from the Commerce and Treasury departments as well as the United States Trade Representative, will look at the causes of persistent trade deficits, unfair trade practices by other countries, gaps in existing trade agreements and recommendations for achieving reciprocity in trade relationships, among other issues.
The trade representative, for example, was responsible for identifying countries with which the United States should negotiate new trade agreements, and whether China has upheld its commitments under a 2020 trade deal that Mr. Trump signed in his first term.
In several cases, Mr. Trump has acted before even seeing the details of the reports. Although he asked for reviews into whether foreign metals posed a risk to national security, Mr. Trump has already imposed 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. He also hit Canada, Mexico and China with tariffs intended to stem the flow of fentanyl and migrants into the United States, which is another area that his administration was studying.
How Mr. Trump plans to proceed on Wednesday remains an open question — one that has left America’s trading partners struggling to determine a response.
While the European Union has already announced that it will respond to steel and aluminum tariffs with countermeasures, officials are still contemplating how to respond to the measures that Mr. Trump has yet to unveil.
Although the European response so far has concentrated on imposing higher tariffs on a wide variety of goods — whiskey, motorcycles and women’s clothing are among the products that could be affected — officials are also open to placing trade barriers on services, using a new trade weapon that was developed only in 2021.
That tool could be used to hit big tech firms, said two diplomats familiar with the matter but who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. That means that instead of affecting physical goods, it could have an impact on companies like Google, Meta, or even American banks.
The goal would be to give the European Union more leverage, since Europe buys more services from the United States than it exports — making its market, and access to European consumers, a potentially powerful tool. But no decisions have been made.
“Europe holds a lot of cards,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said during a speech on Tuesday. “From trade to technology to the size of our market.”
Officials are emphasizing that their goal is still to negotiate, though they will respond firmly if needed.
“All instruments are on the table,” Ms. von der Leyen said.
Danielle Kaye contributed reporting.
Business
Devin Nunes Departs Trump Media After 4 Years as C.E.O.
President Trump’s social media company, which has consistently lost money and struggled with a flagging share price, announced Tuesday that it was replacing Devin Nunes as its chief executive officer.
The announcement offered no reason for the sudden departure of Mr. Nunes, a former Republican congressman from California. Mr. Trump had tapped him to run the company, Trump Media & Technology, in late 2021.
The announcement was made in a news release by the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who is a company board member and oversees a trust that controls his father’s 115-million-share stake in Trump Media. President Trump is not an officer or director of the company.
Mr. Nunes said in a statement on Truth Social, which is Trump Media’s flagship product, that it was an “appropriate time” for a new leader with experience in media and mergers to “steer Trump Media through its current transition phase.”
Trump Media has incurred hundreds of millions in losses, and its shares have performed poorly since the company went public by completing a merger with a cash-rich special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in March 2024. The stock, which ended its first day of trading around $58 a share, closed Tuesday at $9.82.
Shares of Trump Media trade under the symbol DJT, which are President Trump’s initials. Truth Social has emerged as the main social media platform for Mr. Trump to communicate his policy decisions and opinions to the world.
Last year, Trump Media took in $3.7 million in revenue and recorded a $712 million net loss.
In December, Trump Media announced a plan to merge with TAE Technologies, a fusion power company. The all-stock deal, which was valued at $6 billion at the time, would create one of the first publicly traded nuclear fusion companies.
Trump Media said in February that it was considering spinning off its Truth Social platform in a merger with another cash-rich SPAC, Texas Ventures Acquisition III Corp.
Mr. Nunes is being replaced on an interim basis by Kevin McGurn, who has been an adviser to Trump Media since the end of 2024. Mr. McGurn, a former executive at Hulu, the streaming service, was listed in a recent regulatory filing as the chief executive of Texas Ventures.
The Trump Media release announcing the management change provided no update on the merger with TAE Technologies or the proposed SPAC deal for Truth Social.
Business
Netflix plans to buy historic Radford Studio Center
Streaming entertainment giant Netflix is in negotiations to buy the historic Radford Studio Center lot in Studio City.
Netflix plans to purchase the Los Angeles studio that has been home to generations of landmark television shows, including “Gunsmoke” and “Seinfeld,” according to two people with knowledge of the pending deal who were not authorized to speak about it publicly.
The studio’s previous operator, Hackman Capital Partners, defaulted on a $1.1-billion mortgage in January. Investment bank Goldman Sachs took over the property and is in talks with Netflix to sell it for between $330 million and $400 million.
Representatives for Hackman and Netflix declined to comment on the planned sale.
Culver City-based Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management teamed up to buy the Radford Avenue property from ViacomCBS in 2021 with a winning bid of $1.85 billion, after a competitive battle for the 55-acre studio beloved by the television industry.
At the time, the staggering price tag underscored the value — and scarcity — of TV soundstages in Los Angeles as content producers scrambled for space to shoot TV shows and movies to stock their streaming services. It was one of the largest-ever real estate transactions for a TV studio complex in Los Angeles.
Since then, production has substantially declined in Southern California. L.A. continues to battle the loss of production to other states and countries, as well as the lingering effects on the industry of the pandemic and the 2023 dual writers’ and actors’ strikes. Cutbacks in spending at the major studios after a surge in streaming-fueled TV production have further damped film activity in the region.
Founded by silent film comedy legend Mack Sennett in 1928, the lot became known as “Hit City” in the decades after World War II as popular TV shows such as “Leave It to Beaver,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Will & Grace” were made there. The storied lot gave the Studio City neighborhood its name,
Netflix, which has a market cap of about $455 billion — more than double that of Walt Disney Co. — has maintained its dominance in the global streaming business with more than 325 million subscribers.
The Los Gatos-based company has production offices worldwide, including facilities in Albuquerque, Brooklyn, London, Madrid and Toronto.
Netflix had secured an $82.7-billion deal to buy Warner Bros. studios and streaming services in December, but withdrew from the bidding war in late February after Paramount Skydance offered $31 a share. As part of the switch, Netflix was paid a $2.8-billion termination fee.
Business
Kevin Warsh, Trump’s Pick to Lead Fed, Faces Senate at Tricky Moment
Kevin M. Warsh, President Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, has spent years refining his pitch for why he should get one of the most powerful economic jobs in the world.
At his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, he will have to convince Senate lawmakers that he is ready to step into the role, which has become politically explosive amid Mr. Trump’s relentless attacks on the institution and its current chair, Jerome H. Powell.
Mr. Warsh, who is scheduled to testify before the Banking Committee at 10 a.m., plans to commit to being “strictly independent” on decisions related to interest rates, according to his prepared remarks. He also plans to tell lawmakers that he is unbothered by Mr. Trump’s incessant calls for substantially lower borrowing costs. And he will use his opening statement to underscore his focus on disrupting the “status quo” at an institution he said just last year was in need of “regime change.”
“In a time that will rank among the most consequential in our nation’s history, I believe a reform-oriented Federal Reserve can make a real difference to the American people,” he plans to tell lawmakers, adding: “The stakes could scarcely be higher.”
Mr. Warsh, 56, faces significant hurdles to winning confirmation. He has broad support among Republicans, who control the Senate and can confirm him along party lines. Yet his candidacy has stalled because of an ongoing investigation by the Justice Department into Mr. Powell and his handling of the Fed’s headquarters renovations.
Mr. Powell’s term as chair ends May 15, but Mr. Warsh looks increasingly unlikely to be in place by then. That’s because Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina — a Republican on the Banking Committee who has expressed support for Mr. Warsh — has vowed to block any attempt to confirm a new Fed chair until the legal threats into Mr. Powell are resolved. For Mr. Tillis, the investigation is a blatant attempt to coerce Mr. Powell into lowering rates, undermining the Fed’s independence and confirming the politicization of the Justice Department.
“I’m not going to condone bad decision-making and bad behavior,” Mr. Tillis told reporters on Monday in reference to the Justice Department’s lack of evidence of any wrongdoing.
The department has vowed to continue its investigation, despite numerous legal setbacks.
“I think ultimately, he will be confirmed,” Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, another Republican on the committee, told reporters on Monday. “I just don’t know what decade.”
Mr. Warsh’s ascent would mark a homecoming for the Wall Street financier, who served as a Fed governor from 2006-11.
Since leaving the Fed, he has amassed assets worth well in excess of $100 million, according to financial disclosures submitted before his hearing. Those have drawn scrutiny because Mr. Warsh repeatedly invoked “pre-existing confidentiality agreements” to avoid disclosing the details behind several of his investments. He has said he would divest a substantial amount of his assets before taking the job.
The global financial crisis dominated Mr. Warsh’s first tenure at the Fed, thrusting him into the middle of discussions about how the central bank should respond to the threat of bank failures, turmoil in financial markets and a painful recession that followed. Mr. Warsh, then the youngest-ever member of the Board of Governors, was initially supportive of the Fed’s efforts to shore up financial markets by buying enormous quantities of government bonds and expanding its balance sheet to ease strains in financial markets and support growth by keeping market-based rates low.
But he soon soured on subsequent efforts to buy more bonds and resigned in protest. That experience has stuck with Mr. Warsh, who has made a smaller balance sheet a pillar of his plans if he takes over as chair.
Mr. Warsh would also be likely to usher in changes to how the Fed communicates its policy views, having expressed misgivings about its strategy of providing so-called forward guidance, or hints about how interest rates may change in the future to guide expectations. He has also suggested that policymakers across the Fed system should speak far less. Mr. Powell held a news conference after each rate decision, or eight a year, and delivered speeches with regularity. Mr. Trump’s pick to join the Fed last year, Stephen I. Miran, often speaks multiple times a week.
“Once policymakers reveal their economic forecast, they can become prisoners of their own words,” Mr. Warsh said in a speech last year. “Fed leaders would be well served to skip opportunities to share their latest musings. The swivel-chair problem, rhetorically waxing and waning with the latest data release, is common and counterproductive.”
What is far less clear is how much Mr. Warsh would heed the president’s demands for lower interest rates. Mr. Trump said he would not pick someone for chair who did not support lower borrowing costs.
Mr. Warsh sought in his opening statement to downplay the costs of a president’s voicing his opinions about rates, saying central bankers must be “strong enough to listen to a diversity of views from all corners, humble enough to be open-minded to new ideas and new economic developments, wise enough to translate imperfect data into meaningful insight and dedicated enough to make judgments faithfully and wisely.”
Earlier this year, many officials at the Fed saw a path to gradually lower rates as the impact of Mr. Trump’s tariffs faded and inflation restarted its slide back toward 2 percent after almost of year of stalling out. The war in Iran — and the energy shock it has unleashed — has upended those forecasts, however, prompting officials to turn wary about lowering rates.
Mr. Warsh will face questions on Tuesday about the economic impact of the war and how it has changed his thinking around the Fed’s ability to lower rates. While at the Fed, he was known as an inflation hawk who often argued against providing policy relief for fear that it could stoke price pressures. He also said the Fed should aspire to engage in rule-based policymaking that stems from formulas that prescribe how officials should set rates based on levels of inflation and employment.
While campaigning to be chair, Mr. Warsh embraced the need for rate cuts, arguing that there was a path for lower borrowing costs because of his plans to shrink the balance sheet, which would lift longer-term rates that then could be offset by lowering short-term ones. He also argued that higher productivity from the boom in artificial intelligence could unleash higher growth without stoking inflation, which could give the Fed more space to lower rates than otherwise would be the case.
In his opening statement, Mr. Warsh made clear, however, that a failure to bring down inflation, which has been stuck above the Fed’s 2 percent target for roughly five years, would strictly be the Fed’s fault, suggesting that he would shoulder the blame if he did not bring it back down during his tenure.
“Inflation is a choice, and the Fed must take responsibility for it,” he will tell lawmakers.
Megan Mineiro contributed reporting.
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