Trump rolls out sweeping tariffs. Here’s what to know.

The Trump administration’s announcement of widespread tariffs has thrown the stock market into a tailspin, increasing the odds of a recession.

This economic turmoil could have far-ranging implications, and some Americans’ first question — and the outcome they believe they have most control over — is how to handle their retirement savings and other investments. While recent losses to your 401(k) account may inspire panic, experts caution most people (basically anyone not nearing retirement or recently retired, in which case the advice may vary) from making drastic changes to their investment strategy.

In less than a week, President Donald Trump’s tariffs have already created economic chaos in the US and abroad.

On Wednesday, he announced a minimum 10 percent tariff on almost all imports, with dozens of countries facing far higher rates.

Since President Donald Trump announced a slate of new tariffs on about 90 countries last week, global financial markets have tumbled. False reports about a potential pause in tariffs gave Wall Street a brief moment of false hope on Monday, but the White House has only doubled down, threatening to add more tariffs on China. Economists have also raised the alarm, projecting that Trump’s tariffs have increased the odds of a recession.

This is just the latest update to tariff policies that have already caused a good deal of whiplash since Trump took office in January. He threatened to impose tariffs on Colombia and canceled his plan to do so all in a single day. He rolled out a tariff plan for Canada and Mexico, only to postpone implementing it shortly after some tariffs went into effect. And he’s been threatening both allies and adversaries with broad and aggressive tariffs for reasons ranging from cracking down on fentanyl to closing a TikTok deal.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Today I’m focusing on the economic fallout from Donald Trump’s tariffs, as the consequences of the president’s largely unchecked power are becoming clearer and more alarming.

President Donald Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” last week unleashed a set of sweeping tariffs — what he calls “reciprocal” tariffs, although they’re anything but — on imports from nearly every country in the world. The result has been a tanking stock market, immediate layoffs of US autoworkers, and widespread recession fears.

The pre-history of this disastrous set of policies, which will only make America poorer and alienate it from its closest allies, is as long and weird as you’d expect from Trump. Part of the story seems to involve him losing an auction in 1988 for a piano used in Casablanca to a Japanese collector, thus confirming that Japan was an economic threat. Sure, fine, that seems par for the course with this guy.

President Donald Trump’s decision to impose large tariffs on all foreign imports has triggered a global trade war, stock market collapse — and predictions of an imminent recession.

In the wake of Trump’s tariff announcement last week, JP Morgan raised its odds of a US recession to 60 percent, up from 40 percent. Other banks have similarly adjusted their economic forecasts downward.

As markets tank and the prospect of higher prices becomes more real, the future of President Donald Trump’s winning coalition might be on a precipice, too.

Trump’s tariff policy, unpopular with the American public in general, is even more unpopular among the voters who gave him the boost he needed to win the 2024 election.

It was a big week for the global economy — and for gamers.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs that have sent markets spiraling worldwide. On the same day, Nintendo also announced its much-anticipated handheld gaming console, the Switch 2.

Donald Trump’s tariffs were at once predictable and shocking.

Predictable, in the sense that Trump had been crystal-clear about wanting across-the-board tariffs during the campaign. Shocking, because they have been implemented in a manner that appears extreme and incompetent even by previous Trump standards. As a result, the world is historically unsettled: One metric of global economic uncertainty shows higher levels of concern than at any point in the 21st century, worse than the 2008 financial crisis and even the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

On Thursday, one day after President Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs, what appears to be the first lawsuit challenging those tariffs was filed in a federal court in Florida. That alone isn’t particularly surprising. The tariffs are expected to drive up the costs of goods in the United States, and have already sent the stock market into a nose dive. That means that a lot of aggrieved potential plaintiffs have standing to challenge the tariffs in court.

What is surprising is that the plaintiff in this particular case, known as Emily Ley Paper v. Trump, is represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), a right-wing legal shop that previously backed Trump’s efforts to expand executive power.

President Donald Trump’s new tariff chart, which he unveiled Wednesday at the Rose Garden, had a mixture of surprising and predictable countries on the list. A high tariff on China? Not so surprising. But among the top 10 countries on his chart, eight are in Asia.

Many close US allies like South Korea and Japan were stunned by the steep rate increases applied to their exports.

President Donald Trump’s tariffs are already wreaking economic chaos in the US and abroad.

On Wednesday, he announced a minimum 10 percent tariff on almost all imports, with dozens of countries facing even higher rates.

The Trump administration’s tariffs are, by every reasonable account, an economic catastrophe in the making. So why are they happening?

One explanation is that this is simply democracy at work. President Donald Trump campaigned on doing more or less exactly what he’s just done, and the voting public elected him. So here we are.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on pretty much everything imported into the United States. Among other things, the tariffs include a 10 percent minimum tax of imports outside of North America, a hodgepodge of different tax rates on Canadian and Mexican goods, a 25 percent tax on cars manufactured outside the US, and a chaotic mix of country-specific tariffs ranging from 10 to 50 percent.

Trump’s tariffs are likely to deal a significant self-inflicted blow to the US economy. As of this writing, the S&P 500 — a common index used to track US stock prices — is down about 4 percent. The Budget Lab at Yale predicts that the tariffs will cause enough inflation to effectively reduce the average US household’s annual income by $3,789 in 2024 dollars. A similar analysis by Auckland University of Technology economics professor Niven Winchester predicts a $3,487 blow to US households.

President Donald Trump’s defenders often frame his trade policies as prioritizing economic development over the free market.

In their telling, America has an interest in manufacturing valuable goods domestically, even if producing such wares in the US is not maximally profitable right now. Our nation might not currently make semiconductors as well as Taiwan or electric vehicles as well as China. But if we protect our nascent chip and EV industries, they might eventually become globally competitive. And that could make America wealthier, as the international market for such technologies will be large and opportunities for productivity gains in those industries are significant.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Today I’m focusing on Donald Trump saying he’s imposing tariffs on products from around the world. If real and permanent — two big ifs — the policies represent a shift in economic policy that will have major effects on all Americans.

Donald Trump has said that “tariff” is the “most beautiful word in the dictionary.” And throughout his first months in office, he has given Americans plenty of cause for googling that word’s definition.

The president announced Wednesday — a day he dubbed “Liberation Day” — that he will impose tariffs of at least 10 percent on all foreign-made goods. For products made in China, the tariff rate will be 34 percent; for those made in Vietnam, it will be 46 percent; for the European Union, it will be 20 percent. Trump framed these tariffs as “reciprocal,” meaning that that they match the level of trade restrictions that each foreign nation imposes on US products. But this is not true — Trump’s tariffs greatly exceed those of America’s targeted trade partners.

President Donald Trump’s tariffs have had a chaotic week. First, they were on, then they were great, then they were maybe off, then definitely off (but just for now).

After the Trump administration enacted its 25 percent tariffs on most Mexican and Canadian goods on Tuesday, stocks immediately fell. As of Thursday, the S&P 500 had fallen almost four percent since the beginning of the week.

A Vox reader asks: Can you explain how tariffs work? How will imposing tariffs impact the everyday lives of Americans?

The tariffs President Donald Trump promised on Canada, Mexico, and China are now in force: each country must now pay a 25 percent tariff on all goods exported to the US (with a lower rate for some Canadian energy products), while there’s an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods on top of previous duties.

Is Donald Trump going to risk throwing the global economy into crisis by enacting the gargantuan tariffs he’s proposed?

Or is he just pretending he’s willing to do that to strike a better deal?