By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The global economy appeared to be in open rebellion against President Donald Trump’s tariffs as they took effect Wednesday.

Business executives are warning of a potential recession caused by his policies, some of the top U.S. trading partners are retaliating with their own import taxes and the stock market is quivering after days of decline.

Trump’s tariffs kicked in shortly after midnight, including 104% on products from China, 20% on the European Union, 24% on Japan and 25% on South Korea. Administration officials have tried to reassure voters, Republican lawmakers and CEOs that the rates are negotiable, but by their own admission that process could take months.

When a downturn appears on the horizon, investors typically crowd into U.S. Treasury notes as a safe haven, viewing the federal government as a source of stability. Not this time. Government bond prices are down, pushing up the interest rate on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note to 4.39% in a sign that the world is increasingly leery of Trump’s moves.

John Bowers works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

The Republican president was publicly defiant as the stock market recovered slightly and then sold off in morning trading.

“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” he posted on Truth Social, his social media site. “BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!”

Presidents often receive undue credit or blame for the state of the U.S. economy as their time in the White House is subject to financial and geopolitical forces beyond their direct control. But by unilaterally imposing tariffs, Trump is exerting extraordinary influence over the flow of commerce, creating political risks that could prove difficult to avoid if his plans do not pan out. After early success in exerting control over American institutions, from law firms and universities to federal agencies and cultural organizations, he is now facing off with global markets that will not simply bend to his will.

JPMorgan Chase CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon said there would “probably” be a recession, although he also deferred to his economists.

“I do think fixing these tariff issues and trade issues would be a good thing to do,” he said in an interview with Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria.”

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, left, is interviewed by Maria Bartiromo on the “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo” program, on the Fox Business Network, in New York Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

On CNBC, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said the administration was being less strategic than it was during Trump’s first term.

“Trying to do it all at the same time has created chaos in terms of being able to make plans,” he said, noting that demand for air travel has weakened.

Economic forecasters say Trump’s return to the White House has had a series of negative and cascading impacts that could put the country into a downturn.

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“Simultaneous shocks to consumer sentiment, corporate confidence, trade, financial markets as well as to prices, new orders and the labor market will tip the economy into recession in the current quarter,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the consultancy RSM.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has previously said it could take months to strike deals with countries on tariff rates, and the administration has not been clear on whether the baseline 10% tariffs imposed on most countries will stay in place. But in an appearance on “Mornings with Maria,” Bessent said the economy would “be back to firing on all cylinders” at a point in the “not too distant future.”

He said there has been an “overwhelming” response by “the countries who want to come and sit at the table rather than escalate.” Bessent mentioned Japan, South Korea, and India. “I will note that they are all around China. We have Vietnam coming today,” he said.

Even as the administration has tried to calm the world, new risks are forming.

China imposed 84% tariffs on goods from the United States. Canada now has auto tariffs to match the 25% being charged by Washington. The EU approved new taxes on U.S. goods after the 25% steel and aluminum tariffs from Trump.

Trump is already calling for more tariffs, looking at copper, lumber and computer chips. In a Tuesday night speech, he said taxes on imported drugs would happen soon.

By REBECCA BOONE, Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Prosecutors and attorneys for a man charged in the killings of four University of Idaho students in 2022 will argue some of the final ground rules they want for Bryan Kohberger’s trial in a two-day hearing set to begin Wednesday morning.

Kohberger, 30, is accused in the stabbing deaths of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves at a rental home near campus in Moscow, Idaho. Prosecutors say the four were killed in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, and their bodies were discovered later that day.

Kohberger, then a criminal justice graduate student at Washington State University, was arrested in Pennsylvania weeks after the killings. Investigators said they matched his DNA to genetic material recovered from a knife sheath found at the crime scene.

When asked to enter a plea to the charges, Kohberger stood silent, prompting the judge to enter a not-guilty plea on his behalf.

Here’s what to know about the case and the motion hearing as his trial is set to begin this summer.

What will happen at the hearing?

Attorneys on both sides of the case have filed hundreds of pages of legal motions, including whether Kohberger should face the death penalty if he is convicted, whether witnesses should be allowed to testify about things like “touch DNA,” and about who should be allowed in the courtroom during the trial.

The hearing will give the attorneys a chance to make their case in person, discussing the legal reasoning behind their requests. It will also give 4th District Judge Steven Hippler a chance to ask the attorneys questions as he weighs their arguments.

What will the judge be deciding?

Many of the motions are focused on what evidence can be presented to jurors during the trial.

For instance, defense attorneys have asked the judge to find that an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis would make Kohberger ineligible for the death penalty. The defense and prosecution will also likely present arguments over whether jurors should hear audio of a 911 call made by two women in the house roughly eight hours after the killings, as they realized one of their roommates wasn’t waking up.

Legal filings also show that prosecutors want to introduce evidence of Kohberger’s “click history” at Amazon.com showing that he purchased a Ka-Bar brand fixed-blade knife eight months before the killings. A Ka-Bar knife sheath was found next to one of the victims.

Kohberger’s attorneys have asked the judge to exclude that online shopping history, saying it could be taken out of context or not reflect the influence of algorithms that recommend purchases.

Prosecutors also want to introduce a photo that Kohberger took of himself hours after the time of the killings because they say it shows what he looked like at that time. A roommate who was in the rental home told police she woke up and saw a stranger with “bushy eyebrows” wearing a face mask inside the home.

Defense attorneys want the judge to bar any testimony about “bushy eyebrows,” because they say it could prejudice the jury against him.

Other topics that could come up include what kinds of questions will be asked during the jury selection process. Attorneys on both sides have submitted proposed questionnaires that could be used to narrow the jury pool down to a small group of candidates, but so far those documents have been sealed from public view.

Will the judge issue rulings during the hearing?

Hippler can “rule from the bench” — simply telling the attorneys what his decision is on each request — but he can also decide to issue a written ruling sometime after the hearing is over. Sometimes written rulings can be particularly helpful in complicated legal cases like this one, because they can help attorneys quickly find and refer to the judge’s decisions months or even years down the road.

When is the trial?

Jury selection in the case is expected to begin July 30, with the trial starting Aug. 11 in the Ada County Courthouse in downtown Boise.

The trial is expected to take nearly three months to complete, lasting into the start of November.

By JUAN ZAMORANO, Associated Press

PANAMA CITY (AP) — U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday focused again on China’s presence in the western hemisphere, one day after calling the world power a threat to the Panama Canal.

Speaking at a regional security conference, Hegseth said that China-based companies were controlling land and critical infrastructure in strategic sectors.

“China’s military has too large of a presence in the western hemisphere,” Hegseth said. “Make no mistake, Beijing is investing and operating in this region for military advantage and unfair economic gain.”

He called on the region’s governments to work together to deter China and address threats posed by transnational drug cartels and mass immigration.

Hegseth was speaking a day after meeting Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino and touring the Panama Canal. The two countries agreed to step up security coordination and appeared to say they would work toward a way to pay back fees that U.S. warships pay to pass through the Panama Canal.

The visit comes amid tensions over U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that the U.S. is being overcharged to use the Panama Canal and that China has influence over its operations — allegations that Panama has denied.

Shortly after Hegseth and Mulino met, the Chinese Embassy in Panama criticized the U.S. government in a statement on X, saying Washington had used “blackmail” to further its own interests and that who Panama carries out business with is a “sovereign decision of Panama … and something the U.S. doesn’t have the right to interfere in.”

China’s concern was provoked by Hong Kong-based consortium CK Hutchison holding a 25-year lease on ports at either end of the canal. The Panamanian government announced that lease was being audited and late Monday concluded that there were irregularities, which CK Hutchison denied in a statement Wednesday.

CK Hutchison had already announced that it would be selling its controlling stake in the ports to a consortium including BlackRock Inc., effectively putting the ports under American control once the sale is complete.

After rising for the last decade, the number of green job opportunities in New York City declined between 2022 and 2023, from 19,476 to 15,501. The recent dip suggests that continued growth ‘is far from assured,’ a new report says.  

An electrical Industry training center in Long Island City, Queens in 2017. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

New York City’s green economy is “not yet anywhere close to fully charged,” a new report by the research hub Center for an Urban Future (CUF) says. The organization analyzed data by the labor market firm Lightcast on job opportunities posted by employers online between 2013 and 2023.

Green jobs totaled about 2.2 percent of all unique New York City job postings in 2023. That’s up from 1.4 percent of job postings in 2013, according to CUF. 

After rising for the last decade, the number of green job opportunities declined between 2022 and 2023, from 19,476 to 15,501. The recent dip suggests that continued growth “is far from assured,” the report says.  

New York City faces a series of hurdles in its quest to shift to cleaner sources of energy. For one, buildings are transitioning away from planet-warming fossil fuels and switching to clean electric energy at a sluggish pace, and both solar and wind are failing to reach their full potential.

Last year, the city announced big plans to host nearly 400,000 green jobs by 2040. 

That would be up from 133,000 in 2021, according to the most recent estimates provided by the New York City Development Corporation (NYCEDC), which worked in partnership with the Mayor’s Office to create the plan. 

The ambitious “Green Economy Action Plan” involves activating public sites for electric vehicle charging, creating 12,000 green apprenticeships by 2040 and green training facilities in every borough. It will also invest $100 million in a Climate Innovation Hub at Brooklyn Army Terminal to generate 5,000 new jobs.

But a progress report on the plan is yet to be released. While city officials noted the green action plan projections are for the long-run and that economic conditions can vary a lot by year, CUF says job prospects in the green sector are off to a sluggish start.

“No part of New York City’s economy has greater potential for long term growth than the green economy,” said Eli Dvorkin, policy director at CUF and co-author of the study.

“But our report finds that job growth has been far slower than most city leaders anticipated.”

Slow growth

Compared to the larger labor market, green job growth has lagged, especially within the city’s “core green” economy, the CUF report finds.

Core green jobs are those that play a direct role in reducing planet-warming emissions, like installing solar panels or energy efficient systems in buildings. 

Of the 719,367 New York City job postings made in 2023, there were just 2,184 unique opportunities available in the core green economy, accounting for only 1 percent of all jobs posted that year, according to Dvorkin. 

Meanwhile, the same period saw 70,002 postings in health care, 56,314 in finance and insurance, 46,912 in tech, and 18,318 in the management, scientific, and technical consulting services sector, the report says.

NYCEDC has a more optimistic outlook on the growth of the green sector over the coming years. The organization says expected gross domestic product (GDP) output could nearly triple to $89 billion annually by 2040 as city officials carry out the “Action Plan” to create 400,000 new green jobs.

“With hundreds of thousands of jobs expected in the coming decades, it remains vitally important we continue to grow this sector in an equitable way that all New Yorkers can benefit from,” a spokesperson for NYCEDC said in an email. 

The Action Plan projects job growth in 21 types of occupations, which will provide “pathways to stable and well-paying careers for all New Yorkers,” the Mayor’s Office of Talent and Workforce Development said.

Since the Action Plan’s release, the administration has made “great strides in amplifying the vision” it lays out. The Mayor’s Office added that they “are committed to ensuring the city’s necessary decarbonization translates to a more inclusive economy and shared prosperity for all New Yorkers.”

But inroads for green jobs have been particularly scarce in the building electrification sector, the CUF report notes. A series of laws to boost this area are slowly kicking into gear over the next few years, so the effects are yet to fully translate into the job market.

While a local prohibition on the use of gas equipment in new construction started last year in New York City for new buildings of seven stories or less, the mandate won’t go into effect for larger buildings until 2027. 

Starting this year, the city’s Local Law 97 (LL97) will fine buildings larger than 25,000 square feet that fail to reduce their carbon emissions through energy efficiency upgrades. 

But putting together the funds to make the necessary LL97 building retrofits has “gotten more challenging for many property owners due to rising interest rates,” the report notes.

As of now, city property owners have filed just 2,021 permits to install new, more energy efficient heating and cooling systems since 2017. Heat pumps, an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional heating and cooling systems, are yet to reach their full potential either, as less than 1 percent of all housing units statewide have one. 

There is also a shortage of job opportunities for electricians and heating and cooling technicians, which could further delay the shift to electric in buildings and limit the number of solar panels installed on New York roofs, the report points out.

“Of the more than 40,000 job listings in New York City’s construction industry posted since 2020, 6,500 were for HVAC technicians while nearly 6,000 were for electrical contractors and installers,” the report notes.

Headwinds 

Approximately 70 percent of job growth in New York City’s green economy is expected to come from transitioning existing positions like construction managers and financial consultants into the green sector, according to NYCEDC. And 30 percent would be entirely new jobs that do not exist today.

But when industries that generate clean energy like solar and wind aren’t growing fast enough, green job growth also takes a hit.

The Big Apple’s solar industry, for instance, has accounted for only about 750 new jobs over the past decade, the CUF report reveals.

Two thirds of the city’s entire solar capacity comes from single-family homes. Meanwhile, large commercial and industrial buildings together account for just 7 percent of the city’s total expected annual production of solar energy, according to the report.

Clean energy generated from offshore wind is also facing headwinds thanks to the federal government. President Donald Trump, who has declared he “hates wind,” paused new leases and halted new permits for offshore wind contracts. 

Mayor Eric Adams and NYCEDC announcing the release of the Green Economy Action Plan on Feb. 28, 2024. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

And the Republican ordered all federal agencies to stop distributing federal dollars for clean energy projects made possible under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. 

The myriad delays New York City faces in carrying out its green transition is taking a toll on its workers, union leaders say.

“It’s having a terrible impact on the workforce in New York City,” said John Murphy, a member of the Clean Energy Jobs Coalition and international representative of the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters.

“The unions can’t bring people into their apprenticeship programs without knowing there’s going to be work there, and so everything’s kind of at a standstill right now,” Murphy added.

Plus, the city has a growing ecosystem of green economy workforce training organizations, which New Yorkers can check out here, that rely on the green economy to stay alive and thriving.

The only way to ensure workers aren’t left out of a job, the CUF report says, is for New York City officials to do a “full court press” to implement the green policies that are already underway. And environmental groups across the city agree. 

“There’s definitely more work that could be done, both on the city and the state level when it comes to advancing green projects,” said Jenille Scott, climate director at a non-profit that champions for green jobs, the Alliance for a Greater New York (ALIGN).

“We need more green projects to come to life in order to create those opportunities for working class New Yorkers.”

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Mariana@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

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