As if the ever-changing trade mandates from U.S. President Donald Trump weren’t hard enough for companies, here comes a new complication: the federal appeals court.
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that Trump’s imposition of “reciprocal” tariffs on countries, as well as those on China, Canada and Mexico ostensibly in relation to fentanyl trafficking, was an overreach of his authority.
That said, those tariffs will be allowed to persist until October 14 so that the Trump administration has time to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Meanwhile core inflation in the U.S. ticked up in July. The personal consumption expenditures price index, released a week ago, showed a 2.9% rise in prices on the year. While in line with expectations, the reading is the highest since February.
Just as worryingly for President Trump after July’s dismal unemployment report made Trump fire the U.S. commissioner of labor statistics, investors will keep a close eye on August’s report, not just for the data but also the president’s reaction.
All this is putting pressure on the American president and his counterpart in his biggest economic rival sees this as an opportunity for mending fences. China and India could be partners instead of rivals, Xi Jinping says. The Chinese president made that remark at a security conference last week, according to Xinhua. The sentiment was echoed by his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, Reuters reported.
Back at home in the United States, President Donald Trump is embroiled in yet another domestic war of attrition. His effort to sack Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook is about more than firing someone: It’s a maneuver that, if successful, would mark a seismic shift for an institution that for ages has been considered above politics.
Should Trump get a majority of members on the board of governors to vote the way he wants — and the evidence right now, to be sure, is scant that he can ever achieve such a goal — it would give him access to key levers that control the economy as well as the nation’s financial infrastructure.
