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Apple and other US tech groups hit as Donald Trump targets suppliers

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Apple and other US tech groups hit as Donald Trump targets suppliers

Shares in top US companies including Apple, Amazon and Tesla tumbled in after-hours trading on Wednesday as Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff regime threatened widespread upheaval to global supply chains.

Technology companies were among the hardest hit in initial market reaction, with contracts tracking the Nasdaq down 4 per cent. Apple, which is heavily exposed to additional tariffs on China, saw its shares plummet 7 per cent, with Amazon down about 6 per cent.

The escalation of Trump’s global trade war poses a significant risk to tech supply chains, after top executives spent months courting the president in an effort to soften or gain exemptions from policies that could hit their bottom line.

Tech companies were not the only ones suffering late on Wednesday. Shares in big retailers and consumer brands also sank after Trump’s tariffs announcement, with Walmart dropping 7 per cent. Target fell more than 5 per cent and sports apparel group Nike was off by 7 per cent in after-hours trading.

A 10 per cent universal tariff on all countries will apply from midnight eastern time on April 5, while higher “reciprocal” tariffs, which apply to multiple geographies including the EU, China, the UK, Japan and South Korea, are set to take effect from midnight eastern time on April 9.

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Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives wrote the spree of new tariffs was “worse than the worst case” scenario that markets feared. “Tech stocks will clearly be under major pressure on this announcement [over] worries about demand destruction, supply chains and especially the China and Taiwan piece of the tariffs.”

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An executive at a Big Tech company said that operating under the current administration was like “trying to hit a moving target”. “I’m more worried he’s going to break the US economy” than any one set of tariffs, the person said.

Apple declined to comment on whether there was any prospect of it securing a carve-out from the new tariffs, as it managed to do during Trump’s first term. A White House spokesperson confirmed there were no exemptions for Apple in the president’s executive order.

Tim Cook, Apple chief executive, is walking a geopolitical tightrope, with the company’s supply chains tightly bound to China, where the likes of Foxconn pump out millions of iPhones each year. A $500bn spending plan announced in February was seen as an attempt to placate Trump.

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Apple ships roughly 50mn iPhones to the US each year, with the vast majority made in China. The iPhone remains the company’s flagship product and accounts for more than half of its total revenue, with its Mac, iPad, wearables and fast-growing services business making up the rest.

Trump announced he would be imposing a “reciprocal” 34 per cent tariff on Chinese imports — on top of a 20 per cent tariff he has already imposed — as well as 26 per cent on India and 46 per cent on Vietnam, where Apple also manufactures.

The unilateral move affecting multiple crucial manufacturing countries would not only affect Apple’s close supply chain relationship with China, but also blunt any benefits from its attempts to diversify its manufacturing base elsewhere.

Amazon has similarly engaged in a recent campaign to woo Trump, having faced the president’s ire during his first term. Company founder Jeff Bezos attended Trump’s swearing-in ceremony and has dined with him several times in recent months.

The Seattle-based conglomerate is dependent on Chinese imports to stock its warehouses, and about a quarter of its retail arm’s costs are tied to China, according to Morgan Stanley analysts.

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Nvidia shares, meanwhile, shed more than 5 per cent after-hours, despite the White House clarifying that semiconductors would be exempt from the reciprocal regime for now.

The chip giant relies on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co to manufacture its cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips, whose sales have propelled the company to lofty valuations in the last two years. 

Nvidia, whose chief executive Jensen Huang similarly promised hundreds of billions of dollars in spending in the US over the next four years in an interview with the Financial Times last month, declined to comment.

TSMC shares were down about 6 per cent in after-hours trading. The company recently committed to investing an additional $100bn in US chip manufacturing.

Meta shares were meanwhile down around 5 per cent. It has previously warned that its China advertising revenues could be hit in the event of an escalating trade dispute with the US.

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Trump also confirmed that 25 per cent tariffs will be imposed on all foreign-made cars and parts at midnight, hitting the stocks of all US carmakers.

Shares in Tesla fell 8 per cent in after-hours trading as investors worried about the impact on its global supply chain, as well as the prospect of retaliatory tariffs on the world’s largest electric vehicle maker. 

Last month Tesla warned that the cost of making cars would increase because “certain parts and components are difficult or impossible to source within the US” and American vehicles would become less competitive overseas.

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A White House factsheet said that cars and car parts “already subject to tariffs”, copper and “certain minerals that are not available in the US” would be exempt, without providing more details.

Daniel Newman, chief executive of The Futurum Group, described Trump’s move as a “rip the Band-Aid-off moment” for tech investors who have been jittery for weeks.

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“You’re watching the market react and you’re going: the whole world has basically become completely dependent on us having this very accessible economy,” he said.

For retailers, the share moves came despite years of effort to diversify their supply chains after Trump placed heavy tariffs on imports from China in his first term. Suppliers to the Home Depot, the largest home improvement chain, moved some production to south-east Asia, Mexico and the US, chief executive Ted Decker said last month.

Target has shifted production of apparel out of China and increasingly to Central American countries such as Guatemala and Honduras, chief commercial officer Rick Gomez said last month. Trump hit Guatemala and Honduras with 10 per cent tariff rates on Wednesday.

Target declined to comment.

“These newly announced tariffs — and the expected retaliatory tariffs on American businesses — risk destabilising the US economy, undermining the goals of bolstering domestic manufacturing and growth,” said Michael Hanson, senior executive vice-president at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which counts Target as a member. 

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The new tariffs sparked an immediate push for special relief. The Consumer Brands Association, whose members include food manufacturers PepsiCo, Mondelez and Kraft Heinz, petitioned to exempt certain “critical ingredients” from the levies.

“We encourage President Trump and his trade advisers to fine-tune their approach and exempt key ingredients and inputs in order to protect manufacturing jobs and prevent unnecessary inflation at the grocery store,” the association said.

Additional reporting by Rafe Uddin, Hannah Murphy and Alex Rogers

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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