The tariff uncertainty refuses to die down, and President Donald Trump has signaled an escalation by recently raising tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from 25% to 50%. The European Union has already threatened countermeasures against Trump’s steel tariffs. The U.S.-China trade truce also faces challenges with Trump accusing the world’s second-largest economy of violating the agreement that the two sides reached in Geneva last month.
Trump has flip-flopped on tariffs multiple times, lowering the baseline tariff on all imports to 10% and agreeing to pause most tariffs on China for 90 days. U.S. stocks have been quite volatile this year, crashing on Trump’s tariff rhetoric and bouncing back on reprieves (or Trump “chickening out”, as some prefer to phrase it).
