By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is getting pulled in different directions Thursday as President Donald Trump’s latest tariff escalation creates winners and losers among auto stocks, while better-than-expected data on the economy helps support the market.

The S&P 500 was 0.3% higher in midday trading after erasing an early loss of 0.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 18 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 11 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher.

General Motors sank 6.8% for one of the market’s sharper losses after Trump announced 25% tariffs on imported cars. Ford Motor dropped 2.6%.

Even U.S. automakers selling vehicles in the country can feel the pain of such tariffs because their supply chains are spread throughout North America. Trump says he wants more manufacturing to take place within the United States.

“There are still a lot of unknowns, but if this remains in place, there will clearly be some pain for the companies to digest,” according to UBS analyst Joseph Spak.

Among the uncertainties are how the U.S. government will determine how to apply tariffs to parts that are compliant with the free-trade agreement that the United States and Mexico and Canada have, but are not made entirely within the United States. Tracking parts could be difficult, according to Spak.

Automakers based outside the United States also sank. In Seoul, Hyundai Motor dropped 4.3%. In Tokyo, Honda Motor fell 2.5%, and Toyota Motor lost 2%.

But U.S. electric-vehicle makers Tesla and Rivian held up much better. They look to face less pressure from Trump’s tariffs because more of their production happens in the United States.

Rivian rallied 6.6%. Elon Musk’s Tesla drove 6.9% higher, and because it’s one of the most influential stocks on Wall Street by virtue of its massive size, it was the single strongest force pushing upward on the S&P 500.

Companies that could benefit from drivers opting against buying new cars also rose. Among auto parts retailers, O’Reilly Automotive climbed 3.5%, and AutoZone gained 3.5%. CarMax, which sells used autos, rose 2.9%

Expectations are high for stock markets worldwide to remain shaky as an April 2 deadline approaches for tariffs. That’s what Trump has called “Liberation Day,” when he will roll out tariffs tailored to the United States’ trading partners. In each case, he said the “reciprocal” tariff will match the burden the other country places on the United States, including things like value-added taxes.

Hopes are still high that Trump may ultimately opt for more targeted or milder tariffs that are less painful for the global economy than feared. But even if he does, all the talk about tariffs has already made U.S. consumers and businesses feel more cautious and pessimistic. If such sour moods convince them to pull back on their spending, it could hurt the economy.

So far, the economy has seemed to be holding up.

One report on Thursday said slightly fewer workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected. It’s the latest hopeful sign for a job market that may be settling into a “low hire, low fire” state.

A second report said the U.S. economy’s growth during the final three months of last year was slightly stronger than earlier estimated.

The better-than-expected data helped Treasury yields in the bond market remain relatively steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.38% from 4.35% late Wednesday.

On Wall Street, Petco Health & Wellness jumped 35.2% after the retailer reported slightly stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell across much of Europe after finishing mixed in Asia.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.6% following the losses for many of its automakers, and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Thursday, “We strongly request that tariff measures not be applied to Japan.”

In China, stocks rose 0.1% in Shanghai and 0.4% in Hong Kong.

Chinese automakers and parts manufacturers have been expanding sales around the world, but not in the United States, so any impact from the tariffs announcement would be an indirect one.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott and AP Videographer Ayaka McGill contributed.

By JOHN LEICESTER and SAMUEL PETREQUIN, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — Ukraine’s European allies did not all agree Thursday on the proposed deployment of troops in the country to back up an eventual peace deal and only some want to take part, French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday.

“It is not unanimous,” he said after wrapping up a summit on strengthening Kyiv’s hand and its military as it pushes for a ceasefire with Moscow. “We do not need unanimity to achieve it.”

Macron said France and Britain, which are driving the initiative, would forge ahead with a “reassurance force” with several countries.

The summit hosting the leaders of nearly 30 countries plus NATO and European Union chiefs comes at a crucial juncture in the more than three-year war, with intensifying diplomatic efforts to broker ceasefires, driven by pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to end the fighting.

But the conflict is raging on.

Before the leaders met in the luxury of the French presidential palace, Russian drone attacks overnight wounded more than 20 people and heavy shelling Thursday afternoon killed one person and knocked out electricity in parts of Kherson, Ukrainian officials said.

U.S.-brokered agreements this week to safeguard shipping in the Black Sea and last week to halt long-range strikes on energy infrastructure were greeted as a first step toward peace. But Ukraine and Russia have disagreed over the details and accused each other of deal violations, foreshadowing a long and contentious process ahead.

Europe mulls boots on the ground

France and the United Kingdom are pushing a separate initiative to build a coalition of nations willing in one way or another to support the deployment of a European armed force in Ukraine, with the aim of securing any peace deal by dissuading Russia from attacking the country again.

French President Emmanuel Macron, right, greets Latvia’s Prime Minister Evika Silina during arrivals for a summit on Ukraine at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Thursday, March 27, 2025 . (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Some European countries are more comfortable with a potential deployment than others — not least because a big unknown is whether Trump would allow American forces and intelligence agencies to back up any European contingent with air and logistical support and other assistance.

Building a force big enough to act as a credible deterrent — U.K. officials have talked about possibly 10,000 to 30,000 troops — would also be a considerable effort for nations that shrank their militaries after the Cold War but are now rearming. There would also be questions to resolve about who would command the force and how it might respond to a major violation by Russia of any peace agreement.

The office of U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who’s driving the European initiative together with Macron, said that military planners from Europe and beyond have been drilling down into details of how such a force might be put together, examining “the full range of European military capabilities including aircraft, tanks, troops, intelligence and logistics.”

A litmus test for Europe

In the face of enduring pressure from Trump on European nations to increase military spending and rely less on U.S. forces, dating back to his first presidency, the proposed contingent is also seen as a test of Europe’s ability to defend itself and its interests.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted an image from inside the summit of him and other leaders standing together with the caption: “Europe knows how to defend itself. We must prove it.”

Macron said Wednesday that the proposed European force could deploy to “important towns, strategic bases” in Ukraine and that it could “respond” to a Russian attack if Moscow launched one.

Macron didn’t specify what sort of response he envisaged. But he suggested that a Russian attack might not go unanswered, even though the European troops wouldn’t be deployed to the front lines.

“If there was again a generalized aggression against Ukrainian soil, these armies would, in fact, be under attack and then it’s our usual framework of engagement,” Macron said. “Our soldiers, when they are engaged and deployed, are there to react and respond to the decisions of the commander in chief and, if they are in a conflict situation, to respond to it.

“So we are not on the front lines, we don’t go to fight, but we are there to guarantee a lasting peace. It’s a pacifist approach,” he said. “The only ones who would, at that moment, trigger a conflict, a bellicose situation, would be the Russians if they decided again to launch an aggression.”

How Russian sanctions could affect a ceasefire

The meeting in Paris came as Russia has demanded lifting sanctions to meet its terms for the Black Sea ceasefire.

Sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe have punished Russia’s economy and limited its access to global markets.

Zelenskyy accused Moscow of attempting to add conditions to what should be an unconditional agreement.

While the White House said that it would help restore Russia’s access to the world market for fertilizer and farm exports, it didn’t validate Moscow’s conditions. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Russia’s demands would be evaluated and presented to Trump.

There has been a growing chorus of opposition in Europe to lifting the sanctions, which remain their main leverage against Moscow.

António Costa, the president of the European Council representing the EU’s 27 member states, said that sanctions are crucial to support Ukraine and reach a lasting peace.

“This means keeping up the pressure on Russia through sanctions,” Costa said Thursday.

More aid and more attacks

As ceasefire efforts gather steam, Ukraine’s allies in Europe are working to strengthen Kyiv’s hand militarily. Their aim is to enable it to keep fighting until any broad peace takes hold and also to turn the Ukrainian army into the first line of defense against any future Russian aggression.

Macron announced a new package of defense aid for Ukraine that he said was worth 2 billion euros ($2.15 billion) and will include light tanks, air defense and anti-tank missiles and other weaponry and support.

Russian drone attacks overnight wounded at least 18 people in the Kharkiv region and three people in Dnipro, officials said. Shelling in a front-line community in the Zaporizhzhia region knocked out electricity and phone coverage, regional head Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram.

Zelenskyy said that the attacks were further evidence that the U.S. and Europe shouldn’t ease sanctions on Moscow.

“Russia is killing every day and prolonging this war,” Zelenskyy said on social media. “The American proposal for an unconditional ceasefire has been on the table for half a month now.”

Separately, the Ukrainian Army General Staff said that its attack at Engels military airfield in Russia on March 20 had destroyed 96 air-to-air cruise missiles and significant reserves of aviation fuel.

Satellite imagery taken the next day by Maxar Technologies appeared to show damage to ammunition and weapons storage at Engels, the main base for Russia’s nuclear-capable strategic bombers.

Illia Novikov contributed to this report from Kyiv, Ukraine.

By AMANDA SEITZ, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will eliminate 10,000 jobs as part of a major restructuring plan, it announced Thursday.

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Overall, the agency, which is responsible for monitoring infectious diseases, inspecting foods and hospitals and overseeing health insurance programs for nearly half the country, says it will decrease its workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 positions. That includes 10,000 in layoffs as well as another 10,000 workers who are taking early retirements or buyout offers that were given to nearly all federal employees by the Trump administration.

Most of the cuts will come from the public health agencies: The Food and Drug Administration, responsible for setting standards for Americans’ foods and medications, will shed 3,500 workers, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tracks infectious disease outbreaks, will cut 2,400 positions.

Meanwhile, the National Institutes for Health, the world’s leading public health research agency, will lose 1,200 people. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees health coverage for older and poor Americans, will shed 300 jobs.

By MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writer

U.S. applications for unemployment benefits held steady last week, a sign that the labor market remains healthy as companies continue to retain their employees.

Jobless claim filings ticked down by 1,000 to 224,000 for the week ending March 22, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s mostly in line with the 225,000 new applications analysts forecast.

Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs, and have remained mostly in a range between 200,000 and 250,000 for the past few years.

It remains unclear when job cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE,” will show up in the weekly layoffs report, though the Labor Department’s February jobs report showed that the federal government shed 10,000 jobs. That’s the most since June of 2022.

Economists don’t expect the federal workforce layoffs to have much of an impact until the March jobs report, which comes out April 4.

Those layoffs are part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce through DOGE, spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk.

Senior U.S. officials set the government downsizing in motion late last month via a memo dramatically expanding President Donald Trump’s efforts to scale back the workforce. Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired — though two federal judges last week issued orders requiring the rehiring of thousands of those workers.

Despite showing some signs of weakening during the past year, the labor market remains healthy with plentiful jobs and relatively few layoffs.

The Labor Department reported that U.S. employers added a solid 151,000 jobs in February, and while the unemployment rate ticked up to a 4.1%, it remains a historically healthy figure.

Some high-profile companies have announced job cuts already this year, including Workday, Dow, CNN, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines and Facebook parent company Meta.

The government’s weekly jobless claims report includes a four-week average of applications, meant to even out some of the week-to-week swings. That fell by 4,750 to 224,000.

The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of March 15 declined by 25,000 to 1.86 million.