Trump tariffs updates: China hit with 145% duties as Wall Street slides

Thank you for joining us for day 81 of Donald Trump’s second term.

For more coverage of the aftershocks from the US tariffs, read our story on how the stock market reacted to Trump’s latest policy pivot here.

This live page will soon be closed. Here are today’s top headlines:

• The White House clarified that it was actually imposing tariffs totalling 145 percent on China, combining the previously announced 125-percent rate with a 20-percent import tax levied for fentanyl smuggling.
• Trump confirmed that his so-called reciprocal tariffs would return after a 90-day pause if deals were not reached to reduce the trade deficits between the US and other countries.
• The State Department said a US-Iran meeting on Saturday in Oman will show if Tehran is “serious” about returning to nuclear talks.
• A federal judge blocked Trump’s move to end humanitarian parole for hundreds of thousands of Haitians, Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans currently living in the US.
• Separately, another judge ruled that a mandate requiring undocumented people to register with the US government can stand.
• The US stock market closed in a slump, erasing some gains in yesterday’s rally, as the reality of a US-China trade war sets in.

A new analysis by the Center for Automotive Research has found that Trump’s 25-percent auto tariffs imposed in early April will increase costs by about $108bn for carmakers in the US in 2025.

The study, released on Thursday by the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based organisation, found Detroit carmakers Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis, maker of Jeeps and Ram trucks, specifically will see increased costs of $42bn. The study found the Detroit Three could see tariffs of nearly $5,000 for the parts they import on average for each car produced in the US, and about $8,600 on average for each car they import.

Trump’s 25-percent automotive import tariffs took effect April 3, causing shock waves across the industry since supplies come from all over the world. Vehicles made in Mexico and Canada face the levy, but carmakers compliant with the terms of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement can deduct the value of US content.

The tariffs have pushed carmakers to make production changes, with GM increasing truck output at an Indiana plant and Stellantis temporarily shutting down production at a plant in Mexico and one in Canada. These moves affected five US facilities that are connected to them.

Brazilian Foreign Trade Secretary Tatiana Prazere said she has received clear guidance on how to approach looming US tariffs: “Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate.”

“We have an open dialogue with US authorities,” Prazeres said at an online event hosted by the Brazil-China Business Council.

Brazil got off relatively light on reciprocal tariffs, facing only the 10-percent baseline introduced by Trump. However, 25-percent US sanctions on steel have hit the South American country particularly hard.

Prazeres also said the country had increased exports to China during past trade wars.

“In the past, during the first version of the trade war, we saw an increase in Brazil’s soy bean exports to China. But that’s not the scenario we hope for, because the risks are very significant,” she said.

Markets closed in the red, giving back much of the gains from Wednesday’s massive rally, which came in response to the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs that was enacted by the United States.

The Dow closed down more than a thousand points. The NASDAQ led the losses, down more than 4.5 percent on the day and more than 18 percent from recent record highs.

The value of the dollar was also down on Thursday. Bond markets were more stable than they were on Wednesday, but the price of US Treasuries is still higher, raising concerns that foreign investors may be pulling investments from the United States in response to these trade wars and market uncertainty.

Some economic reports came out that looked positive. The jobless rate and prices in the United States remained steady for another month.

But those reports don’t fully account for the recent increase in tariffs. They only happened in the last week, so they were not fully implemented as these reports were given, and so did not calm investors that the way forward would be any smoother.

Just yesterday, Trump encouraged his followers on Truth Social to look at the slumping stock market through a positive lens: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!”

Today, The Associated Press is reporting that Congress member Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia bought some of the tanking stocks last week, including from retailer Amazon, the tech company Dell, clothing store Lululemon and RH, the firm that owns the furniture company Restoration Hardware.

The news agency noted Greene’s purchases in a financial holdings document, as part of the disclosures required in Congress.

Critics credit Trump’s global tariffs with causing market instability and, in turn, sending share prices down.

Some have questioned whether lawmakers should be involved in stock trading, given their position of power over the global economy.

But in a statement, Greene dismissed any suggestion she had a conflict of interest.

“I have signed a fiduciary agreement to allow my financial advisor to control my investments. All of my investments are reported with full transparency,” she wrote.

A federal judge is allowing the Trump administration to enforce a mandate requiring undocumented immigrants in the US to register with the government.

At Trump’s urging, the Department of Homeland Security had announced on February 25 that it planned to enforce existing laws requiring registration with the government.

Under the Trump administration’s standards, that includes providing addresses, fingerprints and biographical information. Refusal to do so can met with criminal punishments.

The order also requires non-citizens to carry proof of their registration at all times. The Trump order relies on long-dormant legislation dating back to World War II, including the Alien Registration Act of 1940. Those laws have been rarely enforced.

The Trump administration’s requirement is set to go into effect on Friday.

Trump has acknowledged the toll his deportation campaign could have on farmers who rely on undocumented labourers.

Speaking earlier today at a cabinet meeting, Trump floated a possible plan that would allow farmers to petition for certain labourers to work legally in the country. The Trump administration has so far not articulated any plans to protect farming or other industries that rely on undocumented workers.

In the vague comments, Trump suggested that, upon a farmer’s “strong recommendation”, certain labourers would be allowed to “stay in for a while and work with the farmers and then come back and go through a process — a legal process”.

“We have to take care of our farmers and hotels and various places where they need the people,” Trump added.

Here are the latest updates:

• The US State Department says upcoming US-Iran talks in Oman will be “a good first step to find out if the Iranians are serious” about possible nuclear talks.
• The US, meanwhile, imposes more sanctions on entities allegedly involved in helping Tehran ship oil.
• A US judge blocks the Trump administration’s efforts to end temporary legal status for more than 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
• The US government offers scant evidence to justify its efforts to deport Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil before an expected ruling on the case on Friday.

The EU has said it will hold off on retaliatory tariffs on the US following Trump’s pause of 20-percent tariffs on the bloc.

But in an interview with the Financial Times, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said the bloc is ready deploy its most powerful trade measures, including imposing levies on US digital companies, if negotiations with Trump fail.

The EU would seek a “completely balanced” agreement with Washington during Trump’s 90-day pause in applying additional tariffs, the report said.

US District Judge Indira Talwani issued the pause after finding the US Department of Homeland Security’s decision to cut short a two-year “parole” granted to the migrants under former President Joe Biden was based on an “incorrect reading of the law”.

The Biden administration had offered the temporary status to create more legal pathways to the US, while cracking down on undocumented border crossings.

Trump’s effort to abruptly end the parole programme was set to end the legal status of about 532,000 people.

The government’s justification for seeking to deport Khalil provides only “nebulous, vague” allegations, according to Jenin Younes, a civil rights attorney.

While the filing says Khalil took part in “antisemitic protests” and “disruptive activities”, it provides no further details on the claims or any specific reference to alleged anti-Jewish statements.

“I’ve been a lawyer for 14 years, & a criminal defense lawyer for 9 of those years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Younes wrote on X.

Younes noted the filing shows the government’s case is predicated on punishing constitutionally protected free speech. The government has argued those protections extend only to US citizens, not permanent residents, like Khalil.

A judge is set to make a decision on whether Khalil is deportable or if the case should be dismissed on Friday.

After the immigration judge in Mahmoud Khalil's case ordered the government to provide evidence to justify deporting him, this is what they filed. I've been a lawyer for 14 years, & a criminal defense lawyer for 9 of those years, and I've never seen anything like this. Totally… pic.twitter.com/g9hwODQwmX

— Jenin Younes (@JeninYounesEsq) April 10, 2025

The US government has responded to a judge’s order to provide its justification for attempting to deport Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil for his involvement in pro-Palestine protests. But the allegations are scant.

In a filing signed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the government again cited a State Department policy that allows for the deportation of an individual when there is “reasonable ground to believe that the alien’s presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.

The basis for the determination can be based on the “alien’s past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise lawful”, according to the law cited in the filing.

In the filing, Rubio said only that Khalil’s involvement in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States” meets that standard. There is, to date, no evidence that Khalil took part in any anti-Jewish activities throughout his involvement in the protests.

In a statement, Khalil’s lawyers said the government filing shows they have “no case whatsoever” against Khalil. “There is not a single shred of proof that Mahmoud’s presence in America poses any threat,” they said.

The trade war between the US and China has dramatically ratcheted up in recent days, with Trump imposing 104 percent reciprocal tariffs, then increasing those to 125 percent.

All told, the White House says China is facing 145-percent tariffs on goods exported to the US. In turn, Beijing has responded with 84-percent tariffs on the US.

The tensions are not only roiling the markets, but have also enraged Chinese social media users. Nationalistic posts supporting the government’s countermeasures have gone viral.

Watch our report below:

Agriculture Minister Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumani has told reporters he wants the US to reconsider the 21 percent tariffs briefly imposed on the West African country this week.

While the tariff was among those “paused” by the Trump administration for 90 days, Kouassi said the government was still ready to respond.

“When you tax our product that we export to your country, we will increase the price of cocoa and that will have a repercussion on the price to the consumer,” Kouassi said, without specifying what measure would be used. “It’s the end consumer who will be harmed.”

Ivory Coast exports between 200,000 and 300,000 metric tonnes of cocoa to the US each year, according to data from the Coffee and Cocoa Council (CCC). Kouassi added that the country is seeking stronger ties with the EU in light of the tariffs.

Six Democratic Congress members have penned a letter to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, calling on him to request that all legislators disclose their trading activity since Trump first revealed his tariff plans on April 2.

“The public has the right to know whether anyone in the Congress profited from the considerable market instability and economic chaos caused by President Trump and his administration over the past week,” the lawmakers wrote.

Stock markets have been fluctuating over Trump’s announcement of imposing and pausing new tariffs on other countries.

With the markets spiraling downward yesterday, the US president urged people to buy stocks. Hours later, he announced suspending recently imposed country-specific tariffs for 90 days for the entire world except China, spurring a spike in stock prices.

Some transparency advocates and lawmakers have been unsuccessfully pushing for years to ban Congress members – who are privy to classified information unavailable to the rest of the public – from trading stocks.

Members of Congress shouldn’t be trading stocks.

Period. Full stop.

The Speaker must take action to ensure all member trades during Trump’s tariff chaos over the last week are disclosed IMMEDIATELY.

And put our legislation to ban stock-trading on the House Floor for a vote! pic.twitter.com/0k46NQoPNq

— Rep. Joe Neguse (@RepJoeNeguse) April 10, 2025

The US Treasury Department has sanctioned one individual and four companies it alleges have helped Iran evade sanctions on its oil industry.

In a statement, the department said Jugwinder Singh Brar, an Indian citizen, oversees companies that operate as part of Iran’s “shadow fleet”. It said Brar’s vessels “engage in high-risk ship-to-ship (STS) transfers of Iranian petroleum in waters off Iraq, Iran, the UAE, and the Gulf of Oman”.

The fuel is then blended with products from other countries and sold internationally, with falsified documents concealing links to Iran, the department said.

The latest sanctions come just three days before the US and Iran are set to hold direct talks in Oman on Tehran’s nuclear programme. Trump has imposed a “maximum pressure” sanctions policy on Iran since taking office.

The State Department’s Bruce again blames Hamas for Israel’s decision to block humanitarian aid to Gaza, claiming that the Palestinian group “abandoned the ceasefire”.

Israel had resumed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip last month after refusing to negotiate over the second stage of the US-brokered truce deal.

Meanwhile, the US has been pushing for the depopulation of the Gaza Strip, a plan that rights groups say would amount to ethnic cleansing.

But Bruce suggested that the US is continuing to work towards stopping the fighting.

“So, because you might not see something in the news … it doesn’t mean that work isn’t continuing to regain that ceasefire, so that aid can continue,” she told reporters. “We also stand by Israel.”

Follow our Gaza live coverage here.

The cabinet meeting was very indicative of the desire of the Trump administration to show a united front as it continues on a course that outsiders see as a very rocky one.

The Trump administration has said these are waves that are necessary, and his cabinet members have aligned behind him, expressing complete confidence in the outcome of what he is doing.

However, once again, we have no real clarity about what is the end plan of all these tariff introductions. Trump continues to say that he wants to create a favorable negotiating environment.

But at what point does he stop ratcheting up from the 145-percent tariffs imposed on China? There has to be some kind of endgame to this.

The cabinet members don’t appear to be asking those questions, publicly at least. That cabinet, as evidenced by the adoration and words of respect for the president, is not a forum for any introspection or pointed questions or dissent of any form.

US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink is stepping down from her role, according to a State Department spokesperson.

Brink has been in the role for three years, bridging the diverging approaches to Russia’s invasion by the Biden administration and the Trump administration.

The reason for her departure was not immediately clear, although she is one of the highest-ranking career diplomats to step down since Trump took office.

The departure comes as Trump has sought to broker a deal between Russia and Ukraine, taking a harder line with Kyiv than the Biden administration, while being criticised for taking a more conciliatory approach with Moscow.