Tom Barr: Reaching out to Chinese consumers after Trump’s tariffs unveils a ‘golden age’ for the economy and “recession consumers”

“Ford reached out to us,” Barr said. They’re looking into it. They want to know what their options are so they’re not saying they won’t do anything. Without the tariffs, those phone calls wouldn’t have taken place.

Tom Barr is a third-generation mold maker who makes injection molded goods for the automotive industry. He’d been losing business to competitors in China but said since Trump’s triple-digit tariffs took effect, he has had four phone calls from potential customers, exploring the possibility of bringing their orders home.

Source: Trump promised a ‘golden age’ for the economy. Then he unveiled tariffs

Import Taxes: The Last Three Months of the Trump Presidency and the Post-Newtonian Recovery of the US Consumer Confidence Index

“It’s just a tax on consumers at the end of the day,” Carpenter said. “We’re definitely losing business. We are not losing it to a competitor. We’re losing out on the chance for a sale.

Carpenter runs a furniture and lighting store in Boston and imports most of his lighting fixtures from China. He said the tariffs are worse for businesses than the housing crisis was.

Trump has imposed 10% taxes on nearly everything the United States imports, along with tariffs of 145% on many goods from China. The president has also called for additional tariffs — only to suspend them — leaving many businesses and consumers uncertain about what import taxes will look like in the future.

The stock market has taken toll on confidence. The S&P 500 index has lost more than 8% since Inauguration Day, while the tech-rich Nasdaq has lost more than 10%. The market’s poor start to a new presidency has been going on since the 1970s.

While the job market has so far held up well, with an unemployment rate of just 4.2% in March, the Conference Board’s survey found expectations about the job market are the worst since 2009, when the economy was hemorrhaging hundreds of thousands of jobs every month.

“At the end of the day, recession is about a loss of faith,” Zandi said. “Consumers lose faith that they’re going to be able to hold onto their job and they cut back on spending and we go into recession.”

The Conference Board’s index of consumer confidence fell for a fifth month in a row in June and the concern has shifted from inflation to tariffs. Many of those surveyed say they’re worried that Trump’s import taxes will raise prices and possibly drag the economy into a recession. The forward-looking elements of the confidence index are already well below the level that typically signals a looming recession.

Economic growth appears to be slowing. The stock market has dropped sharply. Consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level since the beginning of COVID-19.

The US economy is expected to grow at a slower rate in the first quarter of this year than it did in the last three months of the year.

The Biden administration’s final weeks and the first rumblings of the new trade war are covered in the GDP report.

Businesses and consumers rushed to stock up before tariffs took effect as the growth was dragged down by a surge of imports. Imports are a net negative for GDP.

“Consumers continued to drive the train, but with less gusto than they have been up to now.” said Mark Zandi, of Moody’s Analytics.

Automakers are being bullied by the President: An update on GM after the Trump-Trump emailed GM to ask for a little more

A transportation editor with more than ten years of experience, hecovers electric vehicles, public transportation, and aviation. His work is in the New York Daily News.

For a better snapshot of how bizarre this is, just look at GM. The nation’s largest automobile company was expecting a strong profits this year until the tariffs were introduced by Trump. The New York Times reports that GM pulled guidance this week because it was afraid of being blamed for profits not being predicted. The conference call to discuss first-quarter results has been postponed for a couple of days so that the company can assess the impact of the latest White House news.

The auto industry is unsure about what will happen. Chief Financial Officer, Doug Ostermann, told analysts that most of them are not in a position to make a decision on the future of the company at this time.

Automakers have been desperately lobbying the administration for relief from the tariffs, arguing that two years isn’t enough time to completely reorganize their complex manufacturing processes. And given the mercurial nature of Trump’s approach to tariffs, it’s not clear whether any of these massive investments are worth making. They could wake up tomorrow under an entirely different edict.

This stuff is disliked by car companies. These are companies who like to plan a long time ahead, weighing investments in factories and new models based on sales predictions. The foundation of all this is market certainty.

A US car with all US parts manufactured in the US is a fictional tale not possible today and many factories/production hubs could take 4–5 years to build in the US due to the US tariffs.

The situation is close to a crisis, with all major auto stock prices falling in a matter of days. New models have been put on hold as customers are panicked. It’s like being trapped in purgatory, and there’s no immediate sign that anyone is getting out.