President Trump has signed an order reducing tariffs on goods, including beef, tomatoes, coffee, and bananas, to lower costs on some everyday goods as consumers grapple with price struggles.

The push to reduce food prices comes after electoral wins for Democrats across a number of key state and local races where candidates stressed affordability concerns. Trump has also in recent weeks floated the possibility of a tariff "dividend" for many Americans in the form of a $2,000 check. Trump said he was eyeing the rebate checks "probably in the middle of next year, a little bit later than that," though officials have said Congress would need to approve them.

Rebate checks could detract from Trump administration pledges to use much of revenue from tariffs toward reducing US deficits. The Congressional Budget Office revised its estimate of tariffs' impact on that front, saying it would shrink deficits by $3 trillion by 2035 instead of the $4 trillion it had projected in August.

Trump recently acknowledged that US consumers are "paying something" for his tariffs, the bulk of which face a looming verdict from the Supreme Court.

In a closely watched case, a majority of the justices — both the court's three liberal-leaning justices, as well as three more conservative ones — offered skeptical questions regarding the president's authority to impose his most sweeping duties. If the Supreme Court does not side with Trump, it's widely expected that the administration will seek out alternative methods to carry out the US trade agenda.

Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet

The US and Switzerland have agreed to a deal to lower tariffs on Swiss imports to 15%, from a 39% level that had shocked the country over the summer. Switzerland will invest $200 billion in the US, the White House said.

Brazil said it hopes to reach a preliminary trade deal with the US this month, as relations between the two sides improve.

The US and China reached a trade truce that will see China suspend additional export controls on rare earth metals and end investigations into US chip companies. As part of the deal, the US will pause some of Trump’s "reciprocal tariffs" on China for another year. (Read more: What are rare earth minerals, and why are they important?)

Trump said that "at some point," he would reduce the tariff rate on Indian goods, and that the US was getting "close" to a trade deal with New Delhi.

As the dust settles on Nvidia's (NVDA) solid earnings beat and guidance raise, my colleague Laura Bratton notes that China remains a sore spot for the AI chipmaker.

The US effectively banned Nvidia from selling its H20 chips to China in April, only lifted in August when President Trump agreed to grant export licenses for a share of those revenues. By then, Beijing had forbidden its own tech firms from buying the chips.

Laura reports:

Nvidia's China business faltered in the AI chipmaker’s third quarter as a trade war with the US rolled on.

Nvidia recorded just $50 million in sales of its H20 chips — less powerful versions of its Hopper GPUs designed for the China market to comply with tightening US export controls — during the three months through Oct. 26.

“Sizable purchase orders never materialized in the quarter due to geopolitical issues and the increasingly competitive market in China,” said Nvidia CFO Colette Kress during a call with analysts following the release of the company’s quarterly earnings results.

Overall, Nvidia’s revenue from China was $2.8 billion, or 5% of its overall sales for the quarter — far lower than the $8.4 billion projected by Wall Street analysts, according to Bloomberg data. Meanwhile, the AI giant saw $39.2 billion in revenue from the US and $13.8 billion from Taiwan.

In Nvidia’s previous fiscal year, the company’s China business accounted for 13% of its overall revenue.

“While we were disappointed in the current state that prevents us from shipping more competitive data center compute products to China, we are committed to continued engagement with the US and China governments, and will continue to advocate for America's ability to compete around the world,” Kress said.

Read more here.

Reuters reports:

President Donald Trump's tariff increases on imports from ​foreign countries will reduce U.S. deficits ‌by $3 trillion if they are maintained through 2035, the non-‌partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated on Thursday, instead of the $4 trillion the agency projected in August.

The CBO based its latest estimate on tariffs imposed by Trump between January ⁠6 and November 15.‌ It said that primary deficits would be reduced by $2.5 trillion over 11 ‍years, with government borrowing costs falling by around $500 billion as a result. The August estimate was $3.3 trillion ​and $700 billion, respectively.

The revision was mainly based ‌on new data, with the remainder stemming from the Trump administration's recent changes to its tariff policies.

Read more here.

Reuters reports:

The United States and Switzerland are working towards implementing ​a reduction in U.S. tariffs ‌on Switzerland to 15% from 39% in the ‌coming days, the Swiss government said after it sealed an initial deal last week.

On Friday, the Swiss government and the United States reached ⁠a preliminary agreement ‌to cut the tariffs to 15% more than three months after U.‍S. President Donald Trump hit Switzerland with the highest import duties in Europe.

Swiss Economy Minister Guy Parmelin told ​Tuesday's edition of the Aargauer Zeitung ‌newspaper that the government expected it would take 10 to 12 working days for the lower tariffs to enter the system, but declined to give a precise date.

Read more here.

A report on the US trade deficit, which was delayed by the government shutdown, was released today, showing that the trade deficit narrowed more than expected as imports declined.

The report, originally scheduled for release on Oct. 7, implied that trade could still weigh on economic growth in the third quarter.

Reuters reports:

The trade gap contracted 23.8% to $59.6 billion, ‌the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau said on Wednesday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the trade deficit would ease to $61.0 billion.

Imports decreased 5.1% to $340.4 ⁠billion, while exports ‌edged up 0.1% to $280.8 billion.

... Trade sliced off a record ⁠4.68 percentage points from gross domestic ​product in the first quarter before adding ​all that back to GDP in the April-June quarter. Estimates for third-quarter GDP growth are well ‍above a 3.0%⁠ annualized rate.

The third-quarter GDP report was due in late October but delayed by the government shutdown. The economy ⁠grew at a 3.8% pace in the second quarter, with a ‌smaller trade deficit being the key driver.

Read more here.

Bloomberg News reports:

Former US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said President Donald Trump’s tariffs are likely to outlive his administration, sustained by political fears that removing protectionist barriers will alienate workers who fear losing their jobs to off-shoring and AI.

Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, Raimondo argued that the political cost of unwinding tariffs is too high for any future administration, regardless of party.

“Tariffs, once they’re put on, are hard to take off,” Raimondo said Wednesday. “No one wants to be the American president accused of letting down the American worker. Tariffs protect the American worker. And I think AI makes it more so of a political reality.”

Former President Joe Biden maintained duties from the first Trump term to avoid the perception of abandoning domestic labor despite her urging to reduce some levies, she said on a panel alongside Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President John Waldron.

Read more here.

President Trump met with operators, suppliers, and owners of McDonald's (MCD) fast food franchises and told them that his administration is making progress in combating inflation.

Yahoo Finance's Washington correspondent Ben Werschkul delves into Trump's affordability push and how the president is trying to counteract the growing unease among Americans due to rising prices.

The venue on Monday evening, which is expected to be the first of at least a few stops in the weeks ahead, was a summit for the fast food giant McDonald’s (MCD).

Before an audience of franchisees and suppliers, the president attempted to reverse some recent losses he and his party have suffered around the issue of affordability.

\\"We're looking at affordability,” he promised at the event at the Westin in downtown Washington as he argued that persistent inflation is “almost at the sweet spot.”

He added of his party: “Affordable should be our word, not theirs.”

The president’s push comes as the cost of living has come to the political fore. Voter anger over rising prices pushed outsized Democratic wins in recent elections, and polls show that many Americans place much of the blame on the president.

One average of approval ratings on inflation from RealClearPolitics shows Trump with a cellar-dwelling 35.6% approval rating for his handling of the issue.

The erosion of his poll number is “leading Trump to start taking on affordability himself as a policy priority,” Eurasia Group founder Ian Bremmer pointed out in a recent note to clients.

He added a warning that it’s likely to be a persistent issue, saying “these pressures are likely to expand going forward, both as midterm elections near and as retailers come under pressure to raise prices after selling through their pre-positioned stockpiles of goods to avoid tariff increases.”

Read more here.

China's exports of rare-earth materials edged lower in October compared to the previous month, as Beijing and Washington attempt to finalize the details of supply arrangements under the trade truce agreed upon between President Trump and China's leader, Xi Jinping.

Bloomberg News reports:

Outbound shipments of the materials used in electric vehicles, weapons and high-tech manufacturing dropped to 6,173 tons, the lowest level since June, according to customs data released on Tuesday. This category is typically dominated by rare-earth magnets, the industrial components that played a pivotal role for China in facing down America’s trade offensive.

The US and China are still fleshing out details of a trade truce clinched by Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump in Seoul in late October. The two sides have given their negotiators until end-November to agree on supply terms for US-bound rare earths, according to people familiar with the matter.

Beijing slapped export controls on a clutch of rare earths on April 4 that triggered months of supply disruptions — particularly for magnets — and left global industries at risk of production disruptions. Under the trade truce, Beijing agreed a one-year pause on even tighter rare-earth restrictions, while pledging to offer “general licenses” for materials already under export controls, the White House has said.

Read more here.

China has resumed its purchase of US soybeans, a sign that a temporary pause has ended and may show Beijing's commitment to the trade truce agreed in October.

Fresh data from the US Department of Agriculture released Friday had cast some doubts over whether China would actually buy millions of American soybeans. However, State-owned agriculture trader Cofco Group booked nearly 20 cargoes of the American oilseed on Monday for delivery in December and January, according to people familiar.

Bloomberg News reports:

The shipments were from Pacific northwest ports and Gulf coast terminals in the US, they said.

The purchases have reignited market optimism around the soybean trade between the two agricultural powerhouses, which was worth more than $12 billion last year and will underpin any trade agreement.

Chicago soybeans rallied as much as 3.2% on Monday after the news, reported earlier by brokerage AgResource Co, though prices pared gains during Asian hours on Tuesday.

Cofco did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Beijing’s latest purchases still leave plenty to be done in the coming months, however, at a time when stockpiles are plentiful. Washington has said Beijing pledged to buy 12 million tons of US soybeans by end of this year, followed by 25 million tons annually over the next three years.

Read more here.

New Zealand officials said Sunday the country welcomes the announcement from President Donald Trump that the US will roll back some of its \\"Liberation Day\\" tariffs on agricultural products, including beef and kiwi fruit. The products represent around 25% of New Zealand's ‍exports to the US, Reuters reported, and are worth roughly NZ$2.21 billion ($1.25 billion) annually.

“​The U.S. remains an important trade partner for ‌New Zealand and the decision to lift these tariffs is a step in the right direction and will be welcomed by exporters who have faced months of uncertainty and higher costs,” New Zealand's trade minister, Todd McClay, said in a ⁠statement released late on Sunday.

He said ​it was only a partial rollback and ​the broader reciprocal tariff framework continues to create cost and uncertainty for the country's exporters. McClay said ‍he would continue ⁠to make the case that New Zealand's trading relationship with the U.S. is balanced and that the ⁠additional reciprocal tariffs on other New Zealand exports should also be removed.

Read more here.

According to a study by risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, some of the bigger emerging economies, such as China, Brazil, and India, should be able to cope with tariffs without any real issues.

The study examined the resilience levels of 20 of the largest emerging markets, using debt levels and export revenue to assess their capacity to manage trade volatility.

Reuters reports:

\\"Most manufacturing hubs globally are in a better position in their current baseline than you would think or give them credit for to weather this tariff storm specifically coming out of the U.S., even if it comes to full capacity,\\" ⁠said Reema Bhattacharya, head of ‌Asia research who co-authored the report.

Mexico and Vietnam are among the most exposed to U.S. trade dependence, the paper showed,‍ but progressive economic policies, improving infrastructure and political stability meant they were among the more resilient economies.

Brazil and South Africa, it said, are effectively building links with other trade partners that could shield them in coming years.​

\\"Almost every emerging market or global market understands that we need to do business with the U.‌S. and China, but we can't over-rely on either. So we need a third market,\\" Bhattacharya said, adding that trade between members of the BRICS group of developing nations was rising.

The Maplecroft paper did not examine BRICS member Russia.

Read more here.

Fresh data from the US Agriculture Department has cast doubts over whether China will, in fact, purchase millions of bushels of US soybeans like the Trump administration said last month after a high-stakes meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

AP reports:

The USDA report released after the government reopened showed only two Chinese purchases of American soybeans since the summit in South Korea that totaled 332,000 metric tons. That's well short of the 12 million metric tons that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said China agreed to purchase by January and nowhere near the 25 million metric tons she said they would buy in each of the next three years.

American farmers were hopeful that their biggest customer would resume buying their crops. But CoBank's Tanner Ehmke, who is its lead economist for grains and oilseed, said there isn't much incentive for China to buy from America right now because they have plenty of soybeans on hand that they have bought from Brazil and other South American countries this year, and the remaining tariffs ensure that U.S. soybeans remain more expensive than Brazilian beans.

“We are still not even close to what has been advertised from the U.S. in terms of what the agreement would have been,” Ehmke said.

Beijing has yet to confirm any detailed soybean purchase agreement but only that the two sides have reached “consensus” on expanding trade in farm products. Ehmke said that even if China did promise to buy American soybeans it may have only agreed to buy them if the price was attractive.

Read more here.

Bloomberg reports on some emerging friction in the EU-US trade agreement:

European Union officials are concerned a US push to expand the list of EU products subject to higher steel and aluminum tariffs may run afoul of the spirit of the trade agreement they signed this summer.

The EU’s trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, as well as trade ministers from the bloc’s 27 member states, will raise the issue with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick when they meet in Brussels Nov. 24, according to people familiar with the matter. EU ambassadors prepared for the intervention last week.

The trade deal, agreed between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Donald Trump in August, was to remove many of the bloc’s tariffs on American goods while putting a 15% tariff ceiling on most European products going into the US.

The EU still faces a 50% duty on steel and aluminum exports as well as on many other derivative products that contain the metals. Washington revises the list of derivative products that are subject to the higher tariff rate several times a year.

The EU is particularly concerned that the breadth of goods hit by the 50% metals rate — currently surpassing 400 items — as well as potential new, higher levies on different industries will dilute the EU-US trade deal and the agreed 15% tariff ceiling, said the people who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Read more here.

Japan's economic growth slowed to a 1.8% annual contraction in July to September due to President Trump's tariffs, which hit exports and caused private residential investments to plunge.

AP reports:

Data released by the government Monday showed that on a quarter-by-quarter basis, Japan’s gross domestic product, the sum value of its goods and services, slipped 0.4%, the first contraction in six quarters.

The annualized rate shows what the economy would have done if the same rate were to continue for a year.

In the April-June quarter, the Japanese economy grew 0.6% on quarter, while in the January-March period, it grew 0.2%..

Exports fell 4.5% in annual terms in the three months through September.

Read more here.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that President Trump's proposal to send $2,000 \\"dividend\\" payments from tariffs to US citizens would need support from Congress.

“We will see,” Bessent said Sunday on Fox News. “We need legislation for that.”

Trump, who has previously boasted of the billions being raised from tariff revenue, told reporters on Friday that the checks will go out sometime next year to “everybody but the rich.”

The latest comments from Trump and Bessent come as public frustration rises over the increasing prices of everyday food items, such as beef, bananas, and coffee. On Friday, Trump signed an executive order to reduce tariffs on goods including beef, tomatoes, coffee, and bananas.

Bloomberg News reports:

“It’s a lot of money,” he said. “But we’ve taken in a lot of money from tariffs. The tariffs allow us to give a dividend.” He added that “we’re also going to be reducing debt.”

The plan could cost the US government double what it’s projected to take in for 2025, according to one estimate. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a centrist watchdog group, estimated a preliminary $600 billion cost for the proposal, if the dividends were designed along the lines of government stimulus payments during the Covid pandemic.

Read more here.

Vice President Geraldo Alckmin of Brazil said Saturday that despite President Trump's reversal of some of his \\"Liberation Day\\" tariffs, the prices on goods the country exports to the US, including coffee and beef, remain subject to a 40% levy, the Associated Press reports.

In July, Trump imposed a further 40% tariff, citing — among other reasons — the trial of his ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, which he called a “witch hunt.” Proceedings went ahead regardless and in September Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison for attempting a coup.

Alckmin said some products, such as orange juice, would now have a zero tariff as they were not targeted by the additional 40%. But that extra tariff remains in place on products including coffee, beef and tropical fruits, such as mangos and pineapples.

While Brazil’s vice president welcomed Trump’s latest decision, which he called “positive” and a “step in the right direction,” he said there remained a “distortion that needs to be corrected.”

“Everyone got 10% less, but in Brazil’s case, which had 50%, we ended up with 40%, which is very high,” Alckmin told journalists in the capital Brasilia.

Read more here.

Japanese automaker Toyota (TM) announced on Thursday a $10 billion investment in the US over the next five years, just a few weeks after President Trump visited Japan.

The FT reports:

The announcement on Thursday coincided with Toyota’s opening of a battery plant in North Carolina, which it said marked an investment of “nearly $14bn and the creation of up to 5,100 new jobs”.

Toyota’s pledge follows Trump’s trip in late October when he and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi spoke of bringing the security alliance between the two countries into a “new golden age”.

In July, Washington agreed to a deal to impose 15 per cent tariffs on goods imported into America from Japan, the world’s fourth-largest economy.

Read more here.

Farmers in India are hoping the relaxation of some of President Donald Trump's tariffs will revive lost demand for its exports, Reuters reports.

On Friday, Trump rolled back tariffs on some 200 food items including beef and coffee, in an effort to ease rising grocery bills for US consumers.

Unlike EU and Vietnamese suppliers facing 15–20% duties,‌ Indian exporters of tea, coffee, spices and cashew nuts were hit harder after Trump doubled tariffs to as high as 50% on imports of certain Indian goods, including a punitive 25% levy from the end of August on India's Russian oil purchases.

Ajay Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), says that between $2.5 billion and $3 ⁠billion of exports will benefit from the tariff ‌exemptions.

\\"This order opens space for premium, speciality and value-added products,\\" he said. \\"Exporters who shift towards higher-value segments will be better protected from ‍price pressures and can tap rising consumer demand.”

Officials involved in trade and farm export policy said the exemptions are also a positive signal for ongoing U.S.–India trade talks and could ease export pressure triggered by this year’s tariff increases.

Exports of Indian goods to the U.​S. fell nearly 12% year on year in September to $5.43 billion after tariffs were raised. Indian ‌farm exports, estimated to account for $5.7 billion of the country's $87 billion of exports to the U.S. in 2024, were among those hit.

Read more here.

Bloomberg News reports:

Canadians have little faith a trade deal with the US will be reached in the next six months, after US President Donald Trump blew up talks over an anti-tariff ad campaign launched by the province of Ontario.

Some 67% of Canadians say it’s unlikely a deal to lower US tariffs will be achieved over the next half-year, according to a poll by Nanos Research Group for Bloomberg News. About 28% say it’s likely and 3% are unsure.

Trump halted all trade talks with Canada in late October over Ontario’s ad, which used excerpts from a radio address by former President Ronald Reagan. Prime Minister Mark Carney said negotiations had been progressing toward a deal on steel, aluminum and energy.

The survey suggests Canadians may be understanding of Carney’s inability so far to reach a deal with the mercurial US president. Still, their patience may wear thin the longer the trade impasse continues and as the economic pain grows.

Read more here.

Just a few weeks after the US and China agreed to a one-year trade truce, which includes the lifting of export restrictions on rare earths by Beijing, the two sides have apparently not yet begun to negotiate the finer details surrounding the deal and come to an understanding on exactly how Beijing will liberalize sales of rare earths.

Bloomberg News reports:

The two sides have given their teams until the end of November to agree on terms for “general licenses” that China pledged to offer for US-bound exports of rare earths and other critical minerals, said the person, who declined to give a reason for the delay.

The White House listed the commitment in its account of the agreement reached between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping two weeks ago. The US characterized the move as the “de facto removal” of various curbs imposed since 2023, and touted it a major win for the global economy and supply chains.

But while Washington has already rolled back tariffs and paused a number of national security measures as part of the agreement, China has yet to comment on the licensing pledge. Beijing has confirmed other aspects of the truce, including a one-year pause on extra rare-earth controls announced only weeks before the talks in South Korea.

“The deal is far from done,” said Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis. “China can use licenses as leverage and decide to grant or withdraw them and exert pressure any time.”

The lack of clarity has left rare-earth exporters in limbo. Several have said they are still awaiting fresh guidance and had yet to see a change in practices on the ground.

Read more here.

Like other industries in the small European nation of Switzerland, watchmakers are celebrating the announcement that the country has reached an agreement with the US to reduce tariffs on Swiss goods, from 39% to 15%, Bloomberg reports:

The reduction can’t come soon enough. Watch exports to the US plunged 56% in September, companies have been cutting costs and putting workers on furlough, and big brands are spending money on small specialist firms to protect key suppliers. In the town of La Chaux-de-Fonds, one of the hubs of Swiss watchmaking, locals say the usual daily hum of activity is almost absent some days, as workshops reduce their hours.

“All of the watch industry in Switzerland right now is heavily affected,” said Christopher Bitterli, chief executive officer of Grovana. “You cannot live without the US market.”

The 39% tariff had compounded an already difficult situation given sluggish demand from China and scorching prices for raw materials such as gold, which hit a record last month and could keep going to $5,000 an ounce, according to J.P. Morgan Private Bank.

And there’s the strong franc, which is up about 14% against the dollar this year, meaning the US currency doesn’t go as far as it used to when buying anything Swiss made.

Read more here.