President Donald Trump participates in a spherical desk occasion on the Hill Nation Youth Occasion Middle to debate final week’s flash flooding on July 11, 2025 in Kerrville, Texas.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Photos
Nobody likes working over the weekend.
Until you’re the chief of the free world firing off social media posts — that’s, in spite of everything, what counts as work for a lot of politicians these days —saying obstacles to the free motion of products.
It is anybody’s guess why U.S. President Donald Trump posted tariff letters to the European Union and Mexico — a steep 30% on items imported from each — on Saturday. The first batch of letters was launched Monday, and the second Wednesday. Going by that cadence, the newest letters ought to have been despatched Friday.
Nope.
Listed here are two fully speculative conjectures:
Maybe Trump needed to avoid wasting off his most devastating salvos — the EU and Mexico had been, in 2024, the top-two largest commerce companions of the U.S. — for when the markets had been closed, therefore avoiding any instant backlash from merchants.
However that appears unlikely, provided that Trump advised NBC Information on Thursday that he thinks “the tariffs have been very well-received” as a result of “the inventory market hit a brand new excessive” then. And, as JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon identified on the identical day, there’s “complacency within the markets” as a result of traders are a “little desensitized” to tariff information.
Maybe Trump simply needed to harass his counterparts, particularly these on the continent. Engaged on a weekend is perhaps exasperating to an American, however it’s principally sacrilegious for Europeans.
The mixture of unexpectedly excessive tariffs — feedback final week from Trump and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared a positive deal was within the books — and violating the appropriate to disconnect would make sure you rile up Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Fee, and her ilk.
Maybe there is no level in attempting to make sense of the bulletins’ timing, not to mention the tariffs. The one factor that is sure is that, for a lot of, there was no dancing on a Saturday night time.
What you might want to know right this moment
The U.S. imposes 30% tariffs on the EU and Mexico. Trump on Saturday revealed these tariffs in letters posted on Fact Social. The EU suspended its retaliatory tariffs, which had been scheduled to take impact Monday, in hopes of reaching a deal.
U.S. inventory futures slip Sunday night stateside. Final week, all three main U.S. indexes fell on a weekly foundation as traders braced themselves for extra tariff bulletins — which certainly came to visit the weekend. The Stoxx Europe 600 fell 1.01% Friday.
Trump can ‘definitely’ fireplace Powell. These feedback had been made by Nationwide Financial Council Director Kevin Hassett on Sunday stateside, who mentioned that “if there’s trigger,” Trump can take away Jerome Powell from his place as Federal Reserve chair.
‘You are dropping,’ Jamie Dimon tells Europe. On Thursday, JPMorgan’s CEO mentioned at Eire’s Division of International Affairs that “Europe has gone from 90% U.S. GDP to 65% over 10 or 15 years. That is not good.”
[PRO] Earnings season kicks off. Buyers will need to regulate second-quarter monetary statements from massive banks, reminiscent of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, this week. However extra vital is their outlook on the second half of the 12 months.
And at last…
European Union and Chinese language flags are displayed facet by facet within the assembly room the place Chinese language International Minister Wang Yi met with European Council President Antonio Costa in Brussels, Belgium on July 2, 2025.
Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu by way of Getty Photos
U.S. tariffs take heart stage however China and the EU are quietly clashing
In latest weeks, European Union restrictions on Chinese language firms collaborating in public tenders for medical units had been shortly met with China imposing import curbs on such merchandise. Individually, long-threatened Chinese language duties on brandy from the EU got here into power earlier this month, and each Beijing and Brussels have ramped up criticism of every one other.
Altogether, EU-China commerce relations are actually “fairly poor,” in response to Marc Julienne, director of the Middle of Asian Research on the French Institute of Worldwide Relations.
— Sophie Kiderlin
