WSJ

In Matter of Days, Outlook Shifts From Solid Growth to Recession Risk

• The duties unveiled by Trump on April 2 will raise the average effective U.S. tariff rate from 2.5% in 2024 to around 22.5%, according to the left-of-center Yale Budget Lab.
• Trump said on social media last week that his policies never change, suggesting negotiations were off the table. But on Friday, Trump claimed Vietnam had offered to eliminate its tariffs in return for a deal. Markets interpreted that as a willingness to negotiate, sending up the shares of Nike which sources from Vietnam.

China Wanted to Negotiate With Trump. Now It’s Arming for Another Trade War.

Nations Strategize Before Week of Rising Trump Tariffs

Americans Are Sitting on a Cash Pile as Stocks Reel

CNBC

How Trump’s tariffs rollout turned into stock market mayhem

• The plan: Slap 10% tariffs on every U.S. trading partner starting Saturday, with individualized rates for 60 other countries that would begin in a week. Virtually overnight, the effective U.S. tariff rate was set to spring from 2.5% to well past 20%.
• China retaliated with 34% tariffs on all goods, European Union leaders also are considering countermeasures, and the suddenly antagonistic relationship with Canada and Mexico will have to be smoothed over during United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement talks in coming months.
• Investors responded by selling everything except bonds.

China to impose 34% retaliatory tariff on all goods imported from the U.S.

• The ministry criticized Washington’s decision to impose 34% of additional reciprocal levies on China — bringing total U.S. tariffs against the country to 54% — as “inconsistent with international trade rules.”

Automakers seek ‘opportunity in the chaos’ of Trump’s tariffs

• Ford and Stellantis are offering employee-pricing programs, while Hyundai Motor said it would not raise prices for at least two months to ease consumer concerns.

Trump’s 25% auto tariffs are in effect. What investors need to know

• The 25% tariffs are on any vehicle not assembled in the U.S., which S&P Global Mobility reports accounted for 46% of the roughly 16 million vehicles sold domestically last year.
• some auto parts such as engines and transmissions, but those are set to take effect no later than May 3.
• Excluding potential tariffs on parts, U.S. electric vehicle leader Tesla as well as EV startups Rivian Automotive and Lucid Group are far better positioned. All of their vehicles sold in the U.S. have final assembly in the country.

How did the U.S. arrive at its tariff figures?

• Many, including journalist and author James Surowiecki, said the U.S. appeared to have divided the trade deficit by imports from a given country to arrive at tariff rates for individual countries.

Trump tariff fallout: Navarro downplays sell-off, while Musk slams his qualifications; tech and finance chiefs reportedly head to Mar-a-Lago

China says ‘market has spoken’ after Trump tariffs spark global stocks rout

Yahoo Finance

Trump tariffs live updates: 10% tariff begins, Musk calls for US-Europe ‘zero-tariff situation’

• Elon Musk, appearing at an event on Saturday, said that “Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation.”

The many ways Trump world is explaining the market’s tariff tantrum

• Trump’s message is that tariffs are best understood as the force that will instead steady America’s economic ship. That’s why markets eventually “are going to boom,”
• Bessent repeatedly focused on DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence company, to make the case, as he put it on Fox, that “a lot of what we have seen has been just an idiosyncratic tech sell-off.”

Stock rout and dealmaking freeze raise stakes for start of Wall Street’s earnings season

• Amid the turmoil of this past week, StubHub and Klarna (KLAR.PVT) decided to postpone their IPO roadshows, while another fintech company called Chime (CHIM.PVT) delayed its plans to go public, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• Executives at JPMorgan, Goldman, and Bank of America, as a result, are already considering revising down revenue for their M&A advisory businesses, according to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg

Wall Street Gets Rude Shock as Bessent Plays Second Fiddle on Tariffs

• The tariffs were largely shaped by a small group within Trump’s inner circle, with critical decisions about the duties’ structure going down to the wire before the president’s announcement.

Tariffs Stoke Fears That Hung Debt Will Return

• Wall Street lenders typically sell credit they’ve committed for an acquisition before it closes, but face the prospect of being left with so-called “hung” debt if they can’t move underwritten loans off their balance sheets by that time.
• New issuance of junk debt, too, has ground to a halt in the US. The past six trading sessions saw just one new high-yield bond and no leveraged loan launches.

AP

Tariffs will make sneakers, jeans and almost everything Americans wear cost more, trade groups warn

• About 97% of the clothes and shoes purchased in the U.S. are imported, predominantly from Asia, the American Apparel & Footwear Association said, citing its most recent data. Walmart, Gap Inc., Lululemon and Nike are a few of the companies that have a majority of their clothing made in Asian countries.