#trade-tariffs-us

#trade-tariffs-us

Forecasters now predict that the coming El Niño—a warming of the Pacific Ocean that deeply affects global weather patterns—is likely to be as severe as the one in 2023-2024, which triggered severe flooding and prolonged heatwaves around the world.

Low- and middle-income families and small businesses accounted for well over half of the U.S. population, yet they paid a disproportionate share of their incomes to the government due to IEEPA tariffs.

The Iranian choke hold on the Strait of Hormuz evidently had a lot to do with it. By cutting off roughly one-fifth of the world's oil supply over the past five weeks, Iran's blockade of that narrow waterway caused an energy crisis and fears of a global recession that the White House could not abide for long.

For the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, the EU's trade pact with India was the mother of all deals. Seen from the other end of the telescope, it looked like the mouse of all deals, with just 4bn (3.5bn) in tariff reductions a rounding error in a 180bn trading relationship. But that misses the point: this is about economic heavyweights resetting the terms of their cooperation because of Donald Trump's use of tariffs as a tool of economic and political compulsion.