archiveCustoms (Tariff)

The stock market is now higher than before President Trump’s broad and steep tariffs sent share prices into a tailspin. The 10-year government bond yield is now largely in line with where it started the year. On Tuesday, a widely watched measure of inflation nudged lower.Judging from a snapshot of today’s financial markets, it would be easy to conclude that very little had happened over the last four and a half months.As the administration has dialed down its trade offensive, delaying the worst of the tariffs announced on April 2...

In fact, even without the damage inflicted recently by Mr. Trump’s policies, it’s possible that the dollar would be declining anyway, if only because it had reached historically elevated levels. Consider this performance:In 2024, the dollar rose more than 7 percent, measured by the Dollar Index, and 9 percent, using the Nominal Broad U.S. Dollar Index.Taking inflation into account by using the Fed’s Real Broad Trade-Weighted Index, the dollar rose almost 23 percent over the 20 years through March.Late last year, using this broad, inflation-adjusted index, the dollar was stronger...

A haunting childhood moment defined how John Kakuk would think about investing his own money when the time came. During the 2008 financial crisis, his mother asked him if he would be willing to contribute the meager savings in his piggy bank to his family’s grocery fund should his father, a lawyer, lose his job.“She was very anxious,” Mr. Kakuk, then 12, remembered.His family averted disaster. “As far as I know, we didn’t miss a mortgage payment, we didn’t get a car repossessed, nothing like that,” recalled Mr. Kakuk, 28,...

This time, maybe the stock market is the economy.Financial markets around the world have plummeted in the days since President Trump announced sweeping tariffs, setting off a global trade war. The S&P 500 declined more than 10 percent in two days last week, and it swung wildly on Monday amid news of further tariffs and rumors of delays. Stock indexes in Asia and Europe have fallen sharply as well.Experts often caution that the stock market can be a misleading measure of the broader economy. Share prices can move for a...

Sizing up what President Trump’s new tariffs mean for India was a puzzle from the start for even the country’s top trade economists. Its politicians, too, were stunned.Starting next week, nearly all Indian goods arriving in the United States will be taxed an extra 27 percent.The figure was bafflingly high, in part because the government’s ministers had been flocking to Washington since Mr. Trump won re-election. From the Rose Garden, Mr. Trump addressed India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, in absentia while delivering the disappointing news, calling him “a great friend...

The mood has darkened in the U.S. stock market, and no wonder. Pessimism about the Trump tariffs has set off painful declines.But the picture has been less dire for people with investments outside the U.S. stock market. Holding plenty of bonds and including stakes in international stock markets were keys to stability and, maybe, even modestly positive returns in the first three months of the year. While there is no guarantee that this approach will work as well in the future, it has held its own over many years and...