The White House is quietly preparing a backup plan for President Trump's tariffs, as the US Supreme Court is set to decide whether he had the authority to issue them in the first place.

Bloomberg reports that the Commerce Department and the Office of the US Trade Representative have considered alternate plans in the event the court rules against the administration. The replacement plans, which may face their own legal challenges, are a sign the White House is getting ready behind the scenes for SCOTUS to rule against the tariffs, even as the president remains optimistic publicly.

The president invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to levy blanket tariffs on goods from other countries. But Congress is the branch of the US government with oversight of taxation and spending — not the president.

It's not clear when SCOTUS will make its ruling. But Counselor to the Treasury Secretary Joe Lavorgna told Yahoo Finance's Jennifer Schonberger earlier this month that undoing the tariffs would cause "unnecessary economic pain and hardship," damaging financial markets and confidence.

Meanwhile, Trump further expanded tariff breaks on Brazilian goods, part of moves to lower costs on some everyday goods as consumers grapple with price struggles. The move came a week after he signed a similar order more broadly reducing tariffs on goods including beef, tomatoes, coffee, and bananas.

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.

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.

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

The European Union said no deal to lower tariffs on steel and other products was expected during Monday discussions with the US. “Today it’s not about negotiations, it’s about the stock-taking exercise,” EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic told reporters.

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.

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?)

Contrary to earlier reports, the European Union said that no discussions to lower tariffs on steel and other products will take place with US officials on Monday.

“Today it’s not about negotiations, it’s about the stock-taking exercise,” EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic told reporters before the bloc’s trade ministers met with senior US officials.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer are in Brussels for the first time since the EU and US reached a trade agreement in July.

Earlier reports had indicated that the EU was preparing to urge the US to implement more of the July trade deal, such as reducing US tariffs on EU steel and removing them from EU goods, such as wine and spirits.

EU ministers plan to discuss pressing issues such as Chinese rare earth and chip export restrictions. Under the trade deal agreed between the US and EU in July, the US decided to set 15% tariffs on most EU goods. But while insisting the process is on course, there are some key items on which it wants to see progress.

Bloomberg News reports:

The deal set a 15% US tariff on many EU goods, while the EU pledged to erase tariffs on US industrial products as well as some agriculture and food items. The two sides also vowed to keep working to lower other tariffs, including a 50% levy on EU steel and aluminum, which the bloc has now matched with its own 50% tariff on steel imports above a certain quota.

Lutnick and Greer will discuss the pact over lunch with EU trade ministers.

“This is also about the political assessment of the EU-US bilateral relations,” Sefcovic said.

EU officials are expected to press Lutnick and Greer over Washington’s decision to expand its 50% steel and aluminum tariff to more than 400 EU products, which prompted concerns the trade deal is being hollowed out.

The US has expressed its own concerns that the EU is not implementing the deal fast enough, given the European Parliament has not even formally ratified the pact. Washington is also pushing to dilute the bloc’s digital and environmental regulations.

Read more here.

Bloomberg News reports:

Russia’s flagship Urals crude is being offered to India’s refiners at the cheapest price in at least two years after US sanctions on top producers Rosneft PJSC and Lukoil PJSC upended a lucrative trade.

The price of Urals for Indian refiners has slipped to a discount of as much as $7 a barrel to Dated Brent on a delivered basis, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive information. The offer is for cargoes loading in December and arriving in January, they added.

Most Indian refiners have skipped placing orders for Russian crude that would arrive after sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil took effect last week, all but ending a trade that flourished after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, as India took advantage of a steady flow of cheaper oil.

Read more here.

At the G-20 summit in South Africa, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the world can make progress on issues without the US, which is boycotting the gathering at President Donald Trump's direction.

Bloomberg reports:

The summit “brought together nations representing three-quarters of the world’s population, two-thirds of global GDP and three-quarters of the world’s trade, and that’s without the United States formally attending,” Carney told a press conference in Johannesburg on Sunday. “It’s a reminder that the center of gravity in the global economy is shifting.”

Carney took office earlier this year after running a campaign that pushed back against Trump’s imposition of tariffs on its northern neighbor and suggestions it could become part of US territory. Carney has focused on reducing the Canadian economy’s reliance on the US.

At the press conference, he detailed his attempts to strengthen ties with nations ranging from South Africa to India and China.

Carney emphasized that he won’t have his agenda dictated by Trump.

“I’ll speak to him again when it matters,” he said. “I don’t have a burning issue to speak with the president about right now. When America wants to come back and have the discussions on the trade side, we will have those discussions.”

Read more here.

As the US Supreme Court rules against President Trump's tariffs, the White House is quietly working on a backup plans, Bloomberg reports, which would aim to quickly replace the tariffs.

Both the Commerce Department and the Office of the US Trade Representative have studied Plan B options if the court rules against the administration, according to US officials familiar with the planning. Those include Section 301 and Section 122 of the Trade Act, which grant the president unilateral ability to impose duties.

The replacements come with risks — they tend to be either slower or more limited than the wide-ranging powers Trump has asserted so far and could face their own legal challenges. The administration is holding out hope that it will win the case outright. Trump has repeatedly urged the justices to uphold his country-based tariffs, which he imposed by citing an economic emergency.

Still, the preparations are the latest signal the administration is bracing for a potential unfavorable outcome, after the court appeared skeptical of Trump’s global tariffs during this month’s oral arguments. They also show Trump’s commitment to imposing tariffs, including through untested means. One administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that tariffs will remain a core part of Trump’s economic agenda regardless of the court’s decision.

“We’re waiting for a decision. We hope it’s going to be good, but if it’s not, we’ll do — we always find ways, you know, we find ways,” Trump said Wednesday.

The White House declined to comment on the specifics of its preparations but acknowledged it’s seeking “new ways” to maintain Trump’s trade policy.

It's not clear when the court will rule.

Read more here.

When President Trump imposed 40% tariffs on Brazil, in addition to a 10% \\"reciprocal\\" tariff, back in July, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suspected that the US president had a weak hand and would eventually have to retreat.

It appears he was right. Trump has now removed the 40% tariffs he imposed on Brazil's agricultural products — his hand forced after US consumers complained of rising prices on everyday food products like beef, bananas, and coffee.

Bloomberg News reports:

“Everybody panicked and got nervous, but I don’t usually make decisions when I have a fever,” Lula said at an event in Sao Paulo after the exemptions were unveiled. “Today I’m happy.”

In an executive order, Trump exempted dozens of Brazilian food products, including coffee and beef, from the 40% increased tariffs he imposed in an ill-fated attempt to help former President Jair Bolsonaro dodge a coup attempt trial.

Together with prior exemptions, the move will leave many of the nation’s major exports free from heightened US duties, a victory for an agricultural powerhouse that ranks as the world’s largest beef and coffee producer and counts the US as its No. 2 trade partner.

It’s an even bigger win for Lula, the 80-year-old leftist who staked his once-struggling presidency on the fight with Trump, and may have just provided a model for how similarly-situated nations should approach the combative American leader.

Trump is notoriously unpredictable and doesn’t like to lose, and broader trade talks are ongoing. But for now, at least, Lula appears to have triumphed without making any major concessions, a feat few others have managed.

To the Brazilian and his team, it’s vindication of a strategy that mixed outright defiance with patience and a dash of charm, a cocktail that allowed Lula to outlast a counterpart who’d underestimated the domestic cost of a trade war with a nation that produces so many goods Americans love to consume.

Read more here.

Reliance, India's largest private oil refiner, has announced that it will cease using Russian crude at one of its largest refineries, in an effort to comply with US and EU sanctions.

The FT reports:

India had become the biggest buyer of cheap seaborne Russian crude since the full-blown war in Ukraine started in 2022. US President Donald Trump this year criticised India for supporting Moscow and imposed an extra tariff on New Delhi as trade tensions soared.

Despite the pressure from Washington, Indian companies had continued to import oil from Russia until Trump escalated sanctions against Russian producers Rosneft and Lukoil in October. The sanctions took effect on Friday.

Reliance is stopping Russian oil imports ahead of expanded EU restrictions on crude from Russia. Beginning on January 21 2026, EU companies will be banned from buying and importing petroleum products made from Russian crude from third countries.

Read more here.

As noted below, the Congressional Budget Office cut its estimate of tariff revenue by $1 trillion on Thursday.

When the CBO ran the numbers in August and predicted President Trump's tariffs would lower the deficit by $4 trillion, the president's policy had increased the effective tariff rate by 18 percentage points, CBO director Phillip Swagel stated. However, when they reran the numbers this week, finding that tariff revenue would reduce the deficit by $3 trillion, the increase was down to a 14 percentage point bump.

Yahoo Finance's Ben Werschkul reports on why the numbers were revised lower:

The change is partly a reflection of how Trump's up-and-down tariff moves this year have more recently trended downward. The CBO cited the recent lowering of duties on goods from China, the European Union, and Japan, as well as the recent loosening of tariffs on auto parts, lumber, and certain agricultural products.

But the revisions also reflected a deeper understanding of how Trump's tariffs are rippling across the US economy — and collecting less revenue than was initially assumed.

At the same time, Trump is ramping up his promises for what tariff revenue can deliver. The president has continued to promise that tariff money can deliver $2,000 checks to Americans and also \\"pay down debt.\\" It's a claim that few observers gave credence to, even before these CBO revisions.

Read more here.

Global coffee prices fell on Friday after President Trump removed 40% tariffs on imports of Brazilian agricultural products, including coffee and cocoa. The latest move from the US president comes after growing concern from the American consumer around rising prices of food products, such as coffee, bananas and beef.

US retail prices have surged by an annual 40% in September, due in part to tariffs and rising food prices.

Reuters reports:

Trump's overnight tariff removal on Brazil follows ⁠a similar order announced last ‌Friday to roll back duties on coffee and scores of other agricultural products from producing countries.

Top coffee grower Brazil supplies ‍the U.S., the world's largest coffee consumer, with about a third of its beans.

At 1017 GMT, arabica coffee futures on the ICE exchange, used as a ​benchmark to price physical coffee around the world, were down 4.6%‌ to $3.5925 per lb, having earlier plunged more than 6% to two-month lows.

Futures prices for robusta coffee beans, typically used in instant coffee rather than in the roast and ground blends where arabica dominates, were down 5% to $4,400 a metric ton, having earlier sunk 8%.

\\"(⁠We) need the market to digest this.​ More downside? Maybe, but I do ​not believe we'll go below $3/lb. If anything I would be a buyer into whatever market dip comes from this news,\\"‍ said a Europe-⁠based trader at a top global coffee trade house

Read more here.

The AP reports:

Japan’s global exports rose 3.7% in October from a year earlier while imports from the world edged up 0.6%, according to government data released Friday.

Exports to the U.S. dipped 3.1%, marking the seventh straight month of year-on-year declines mainly due to higher U.S. tariffs, Finance Ministry data showed.

President Donald Trump announced a trade framework with Japan in July, placing a 15% tax on goods imported from that nation. That’s lower than the 25% rate Trump initially said would kick in starting in August. Previously, tariffs on most goods stood at 2.5%.

It's a heavy burden for an export dependent nation that is a major U.S. ally, but shipments to the rest of Asia are helping to offset those lost sales.

Japan's soybean imports from around the world surged 37.3% from a year earlier, while imporyts of iron and steel products dipped 17.1%.

Read more here.

President Trump's tariff increases on imports from foreign countries will reduce US deficits by $1 trillion less than previously estimated, according to data from the non-‌partisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO said on Thursday that the deficit will be reduced by $3 trillion if these measures are maintained through 2035, 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. The agency said primary deficits would be reduced by $2.5 trillion over 11 years, with government borrowing costs expected to fall $500 billion as a result.

Reuters reports:

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

Some federal courts have ruled that the administration overstepped its authority in imposing the tariffs, as the U.S.⁠ Constitution grants Congress powers over ​trade policy. The U.S. ​Supreme Court is reviewing those decisions.

Read more here.

President Trump may struggle to find many supporters for his $2,000 tariff dividend, which would allow his administration to distribute checks to the American people in an effort to ease the cost-of-living crisis. Trump has previously stated that tariffs will bring in billions of dollars in revenue.

However, economists have suggested that Trump's proposal will, in fact, cost hundreds of billions of dollars more than what tariffs will bring in annually.

Yahoo Finance's Washington Correspondent Ben Werschkul looks at why Trump's dividend talk should be taken seriously.

And GOP lawmakers are treading carefully after Republicans passed the budget-busting One Big Beautiful Bill earlier this year, with many wary of adding another wave of red ink.

But even as the hurdles are high, Trump's record of getting his pet ideas enacted is leading few to dismiss the talk entirely.

After all, it was Trump who signed the first COVID-era stimulus checks into law (and reveled in the fact that they had his name affixed to them). More recently, his 2024 campaign trail ideas, like no taxes on tips and overtime, were seen as fantastical at the time but are now the law of the land.

Another factor suggesting that a real push could be in the offing is Trump and his party's ongoing challenges around affordability issues, with the president often mentioning checks as an effort that he is undertaking in part to improve Americans' views of his economy.

Terry Haines, the founder of Pangaea Policy, even called rebate checks \\"very likely\\" this week in a note to clients. He pointed out that the idea could be included in an upcoming reconciliation bill on Capitol Hill, which can be passed with only Republican votes.

Read more here.

Smaller selections and higher prices await shoppers looking for the perfect wine for their holiday dinners, CNN reports.

Bottled wine prices have risen nearly 20% over the past 25 years and 8% over the past decade, according to the latest government data. Several reasons are to blame, including climate change, inflation and rising production costs.

Tariffs are affecting the bottom line even more for importers of wine. Elenteny Imports, a logistics and distribution company that works with 9,000 retailers and restaurants, said wine sales are down 13% year over year.

Wine volume consumed in the United States declined 3% between 2019 and 2024, and it’s expected to fall another 4% from 2024 to 2029, according to IWSR, an alcohol data insights firm.

“For casual drinking occasions, wine has often been the choice for drinkers who prefer not to drink beer. But wine can be expensive and only comes in larger bottles,” said Marten Lodewijks, president of IWSR.

Read more here.

From Bloomberg:

An executive order Trump signed on Thursday would exempt dozens of popular food items from a 40% levy he imposed on goods from Brazil earlier this year. Last week, the president knocked a separate 10% duty off those items, but did not originally include the higher rate, which was intended to punish the country over its prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro.

The changes are effective retroactive to Nov. 13. A spokesperson for the Brazilian government said it’s analyzing the order.

The decision could help bring down prices of coffee, orange juice and beef in particular, providing a salve for Americans who have struggled under the strain of high grocery bills and given Trump increasingly poor marks over his handling of the economy. Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of coffee and beef. Prior to the implementation of tariffs, it was the largest supplier of coffee to the US. Shipments of Brazilian beef to the US had also been increasing before the levies, due to a cattle shortage that had affected the North American industry.

Tariffs on those items from Brazil, a major South American agricultural power, have exacerbated ongoing shortages in both markets that pushed consumer prices to records. The pullback is a major victory for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose government has long sought to persuade Trump to drop the duties.

Read more here.

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:

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.