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President Donald Trump has enacted reciprocal tariffs on all nations. He called it the “Fair and Reciprocal Plan” and claimed it “will seek to correct longstanding imbalances in international trade and ensure fairness across the board.”

President Donald J. Trump had previously implemented a 25% import tax, or tariff, on all steel and aluminum entering the United States. Trump said, “This is a big deal, the beginning of making America rich again. Our nation requires steel and aluminum to be made in America, not in foreign lands. Ultimately it will be cheaper. It’s time for our great industries to come back to America…this is the first of many.”

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces “Fair and Reciprocal Plan” on Trade – White House Press Release

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Excerpt:

THE “FAIR AND RECIPROCAL PLAN”: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum ordering the development of a comprehensive plan for restoring fairness in U.S. trade relationships and countering non-reciprocal trading arrangements.

  • The “Fair and Reciprocal Plan” will seek to correct longstanding imbalances in international trade and ensure fairness across the board.
  • Gone are the days of America being taken advantage of: this plan will put the American worker first, improve our competitiveness in every area of industry, reduce our trade deficit, and bolster our economic and national security.

AMERICA WILL NO LONGER TOLERATE UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES: The United States is one of the most open economies in the world, yet our trading partners keep their markets closed to our exports. This lack of reciprocity is unfair and contributes to our large and persistent annual trade deficit.

  • There are endless examples where our trading partners do not give the United States reciprocal treatment.

    • The U.S. tariff on ethanol is a mere 2.5%. Yet Brazil charges the U.S. ethanol exports a tariff of 18%. As a result, in 2024, the U.S. imported over $200 million in ethanol from Brazil while the U.S. exported only $52 million in ethanol to Brazil.

    • The U.S. average applied Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariff on agricultural goods is 5%. But India’s average applied MFN tariff is 39%. India also charges a 100% tariff on U.S. motorcycles, while we only charge a 2.4% tariff on Indian motorcycles.

    • The European Union can export all the shellfish it wants to America. But the EU bans shellfish exports from 48 of our states, despite committing in 2020 to expedite approvals for shellfish exports. As a result, in 2023, the U.S. imported $274 million in shellfish from the EU but exported only $38 million.

    • The EU also imposes a 10% tariff on imported cars. Yet the U.S. only imposes a 2.5% tariff.

    • A 2019 report found that across 132 countries and more than 600,000 product lines, United States exporters face higher tariffs more than two-thirds of the time.

 

Trump announces 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports– www.bbc.com
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Excerpt:

President Donald Trump has ordered a 25% import tax on all steel and aluminium entering the US in a major expansion of existing trade barriers.

The tariffs, which will increase the costs of importing the metals into the US, come despite warnings of retaliation from some political leaders in Canada – America’s biggest supplier of the metals – as well as other countries.

US businesses dependent on the imports have also raised concerns, but Trump has said his plans will boost domestic production.

He warned there would be no exceptions, saying he was “simplifying” the rules, which are set to come into effect on 4 March.

“This is a big deal, the beginning of making America rich again,” Trump said.

“Our nation requires steel and aluminium to be made in America, not in foreign lands,” he added.

Despite a judge’s order to extend the deadline at least until next week, President Trump’s “Fork in the Road” deferred resignation has already seen 40,000 government employees take the offer. U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. extended the deadline to allow unions a chance to sue.

White House says 40,000 federal workers accepted deferred resignation– www.washingtonexaminer.com
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On Thursday, U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. ruled against President Donald Trump’s “Fork in the Road” deferred resignation offer deadline, extending it from Thursday to at least Monday to allow labor unions to challenge its legality. Before he could extend the deadline, however, tens of thousands of employees had accepted the offer.

According to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, 40,000 federal workers accepted the deal — eight months of pay and benefits until September. The total represents about 2% of the federal workforce.

The White House’s reported goal was between 5% and 10% of the federal workforce.

Certain specifics of the plan haven’t been disclosed, such as whether workers who accept the offer can go into the private sector while still receiving paychecks from the federal government or how pensions and other benefits are affected. Labor unions cast doubt that Trump would stay true to the agreement.

The offer was emailed to all federal employees by the Office of Personnel Management on Jan. 28. The memo, titled “Fork in the Road,” demanded that employees begin to adhere to a much stricter code or resign.

The memo said that the “reformed federal workforce” would be built around four pillars: return to the office, performance culture, a more streamlined and flexible workforce, and enhanced standards of conduct.

Billions of dollars in value were lost in the tech market, which also includes the Chinese tech market, after a Chinese-owned tech company released a powerful AI reasoning model called DeepSeek that is far cheaper and a little more powerful than current AI models like ChatGPT. The world’s richest 500 people lost over $100 billion after the market responded to the stunning news.

Marc Andreesen, who created Netscape Navigator, called the release “AI’s Sputnik moment,” referring to the shock in America when, in 1959, the Soviet Union successfully launched a space satellite called Sputnik at a fraction of the cost of then-current U.S. programs. Donald Trump said of the “Sputnik moment,” that it “should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser focused on competing to win.”

DeepSeek AI Triggers A Collective Loss of $94 Billion In Wealth Of Tech Billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg And Jeff – Times Now
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DeepSeek AI has taken the tech industry by storm with its cost and resource-effective advanced-language model. DeepSeek engineers claim that their open-source language learning model utilises fewer and cheaper chips to perform the same tasks as any other AI model out there at a ‘shoestring cost’ of $5.6 million. This has led many investors to rethink why a significant capital investment is required to build the strongest models when a competent AI model has been developed at a fraction of development costs.
DeepSeek AI is reportedly outperforming ChatGPT in areas such as mathematics and coding, positioning itself as a new competent AI model. The Chinese AI startup quickly emerged as the no.1 free app on the iOS app store, emerging as a free alternative against ChatGPT. DeepSeek performs all the functions of an open-source AI language learning model by utilising just 2000 chips, DeepSeek engineers reported. Whereas ChatGPT required 10,000 Nvidia GPUs to process its training data.
DeepSeek AI was founded in 2023, by Liang Wenfeng. Headquartered in Hangzhou, China, this new AI model is set to revolutionise the tech industry as it has successfully developed artificial general intelligence at a comparatively low cost…
As per a report by Bloomberg, billionaires tied to artificial intelligence suffered losses. Huang’s wealth decreased by $20.1 billion, a 20% decline, while Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison’s $22.6 billion loss was greater in absolute figures, yet only accounted for 12% of his total fortune, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Michael Dell of Dell Inc. saw a $13 billion decrease in his wealth, while Binance Holdings Ltd. co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao lost $12.1 billion.

The EU is nervous that Elon Musk’s social media app, x, will give Europeans freedom of expression outlets that that consider too dangerous for the little people to have. The European Commission is looking to craft a narrative that will allow it to target an American, Elon Musk, for future potential arrest, and his American app to be banned in Europe.

EU considers legal action against Musk over election interference – The Telegraph
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Brussels is considering punishing Elon Musk over his alleged interference in the German elections.

The European Commission is under mounting pressure to use its legal powers over social media platforms to rein in the tech billionaire ahead of next month’s ballot.

There are fears across the European Union that Mr Musk is trying to embolden the far-Right and peddling pro-Kremlin propaganda.

One of the chief concerns is that the richest man in the world has tweaked the algorithm of his social network X to deliberately push his posts to the top of users’ timelines.

In recent weeks, Mr Musk has declared Alternative for Germany (AfD) the “last vestige of hope” for Germany, as well as inviting Alice Weidel, the hard-Right party’s candidate for chancellor, for a one-on-one interview hosted on his platform ahead of the Feb 23 ballot.

Biden blocks U.S. Steel takeover by Japan’s Nippon Steel, citing national security– www.cnbc.com
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Excerpt:

President Joe Biden on Friday officially blocked the takeover of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel, making good on his promise to keep an industrial name that is more than a century old under domestic ownership.

Biden said the proposed $14.9 billion acquisition by Nippon would place one of the largest steel producers in the U.S. under foreign control, creating a risk for the nation’s critical supply chains.

“Today’s action reflects my unflinching commitment to utilize all authorities available to me as President to defend U.S. national security, including by ensuring that American companies continue to play a central role in sectors that are critical for our national security,” Biden said in a statement.

U.S. Steel’s stock dropped by nearly 8% in premarket trading Friday following the president’s announcement.