By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will double his planned tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25% to 50% for Canada, escalating a trade war with the United States’ northern neighbor.

Trump said on social media that the increase of the tariffs set to take effect on Wednesday is a response to the price increases that the provincial government of Ontario put on electricity sold to the United States.

“I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD,” Trump posted Tuesday on Truth Social.

Related Articles

How the White House hired Republican political firms to launch an anti-migrant ad campaign

Trump says he’s going to buy a Tesla as more Americans say they won’t

Supreme Court seems intent on taking small steps in dealing with challenges to Trump’s agenda

Republicans are marching ahead with a government funding bill despite Democratic opposition

David French: The feds go after a Catholic law school

The U.S. president has given a variety of explanations for his antagonism of Canada, saying that his separate 25% tariffs are about fentanyl smuggling and voicing objections to Canada putting high taxes on dairy imports that penalize U.S. farmers. But he continued to call for Canada to become part of the United States as a solution, a form of taunting that has infuriated Canadian leaders.

“The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,” Trump posted on Tuesday. “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.”

The U.S. stock market promptly fell following his social media post, triggering more concerns after a brutal selloff on Monday that puts Trump under pressure to show he has a legitimate plan to grow the economy instead of perhaps pushing it into a recession.

Trump was set to deliver a Tuesday afternoon address to the Business Roundtable, a trade association of CEOs that during the 2024 campaign he wooed with the promise of lower corporate tax rates for domestic manufacturers. But his tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China, steel, aluminum — with plans for more to possibly come on Europe, Brazil, South Korea, pharmaceutical drugs, copper, lumber and computer chips — would amount to a massive tax hike.

The stock market’s vote of no confidence over the past two weeks puts the president in a bind between his enthusiasm for taxing imports and his brand as a politician who understands business based on his own experiences in real estate, media and marketing.

Harvard University economist Larry Summers, a former treasury secretary for the Clinton administration, on Monday put the odds of a recession at 50-50.

“All the emphasis on tariffs and all the ambiguity and uncertainty has both chilled demand and caused prices to go up,” Summers posted on X. “We are getting the worst of both worlds – concerns about inflation and an economic downturn and more uncertainty about the future and that slows everything.”

The investment bank Goldman Sachs revised down its growth forecast for this year to 1.7% from 2.2% previously. It modestly increased its recession probability to 20% “because the White House has the option to pull back policy changes if downside risks begin to look more serious.”

Trump has tried to assure the public that his tariffs would cause a bit of a “transition” to the economy, with the taxes prodding more companies to begin the years-long process of relocating factories to the United States to avoid the tariffs. But he set off alarms in an interview broadcast on Sunday in which he didn’t rule out a possible recession.

“I hate to predict things like that,” Trump said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” ”There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing. And there are always periods of — it takes a little time. It takes a little time. But I don’t — I think it should be great for us. I mean, I think it should be great.”

The promise of great things ahead did not eliminate anxiety, with the S&P 500 stock index tumbling 2.7% on Monday in an unmistakable Trump slump that has erased the market gains that greeted his victory in November 2024. The S&P 500 index fell roughly 0.4% in Tuesday morning trading.

The White House after the markets closed on Monday highlighted that the tariffs were prompting companies such as Honda, Volkswagen and Volvo to consider new investments in U.S. factories.

It issued a statement that Trump’s combination of tariffs, deregulations and increased energy production had led industry leaders to promise to “create thousands of new jobs.”

The significance of thousands of additional jobs was unclear, as the U.S. economy added 2.2 million jobs last year alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

By PAUL WISEMAN, AP Economics Writer

U.S. job openings rose at the start of the year, another sign the job market was solid when President Donald Trump returned to the White House.

U.S. employers posted 7.7 million vacancies in January, the Labor Department reported Tuesday, up from 7.5 million. The outlook for the labor market is murky as Trump wages a trade war with foreign countries, purges federal workers and threatens to deport millions of immigrants.

Layoffs fell slightly in January, and the number of Americans quitting their jobs rose.

The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that openings rose in real estate, healthcare, manufacturing and construction firms. Federal government agencies posted 135,000 jobs, down from 138,000 in December. The fallout from purges of federal workers by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is not expected to show up in labor market data at least until the February numbers come out.

“These January data included only the earliest days of DOGE-inspired layoffs of Federal workers,” Carol Weinberg and Mary Chen of High Frequency Economics wrote in a commentary. “There is no evidence of Federal Government layoffs in this report. That does not mean that layoffs in size in Federal workers will not be a big feature of the February report, scheduled for release on April 1.”

Weinberg and Chen said that Tuesday’s JOLTS report is unlikely to sway the Federal Reserve from its cautious approach toward cutting interest rates this year. The Fed is expected to leave its benchmark rate alone at its meeting next week. “The (Fed) will find no cause to rush to cut rates in today’s data,” they wrote. “The labor market does not need it, at least not yet.”

Openings are down from 8.5 million in January 2024 and a peak of 12.2 million in March 2022 when the economy was roaring back from COVID-19 lockdowns.

The American labor market has slowed from the frenzied hiring of 2021-2023. Employers added 168,000 jobs a month in 2024, decent but down from 216,000 in 2023, 380,000 in 2022 and a record 603,000 in 2021.

They created 125,000 new jobs in January and 151,000 in February. The unemployment rate is a low 4.1%.

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street’s sell-off is slowing on Tuesday, for now at least, following a scary stretch where worries about the economy and tariffs sent it close to 9% below its all-time high.

The S&P 500 was down 0.3% in early trading. While still a loss, such a modest move would be a respite after the main measure of Wall Street’s health swung by at least 1%, up or down, seven times in the last eight days.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 202 points, or 0.5%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time. A day earlier, it had been down more than 1,100 points at one point. The Nasdaq composite was virtually unchanged.

Several Big Tech stocks held steadier after getting walloped in recent months. Elon Musk’s Tesla rose 1.1%, for example. President Donald Trump even said he would buy a Tesla in a show of support for “Elon’s ‘baby.’ ”

A day earlier, the electric-vehicle company’s stock tumbled 15.4% to deepen its loss for the young year so far to 45%. Trump blamed political opponents who are “trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla,” as Musk leads efforts in Washington to cut spending by the federal government.

Other Big Tech superstars, which had led the market to record after record in recent years, also held a bit firmer. Nvidia rose 1.2% to trim its loss for the year so far to 19.3%. It’s struggled as the market’s sell-off has weighed heavily on stocks seen as getting too expensive in Wall Street’s frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology.

Still, warning signals continue to flash about the economy, where Trump’s on -and- off -again rollout of tariffs has caused confusion and pessimism among U.S. households and businesses. The fear is that whipsaw moves will either hurt the economy directly or create enough uncertainty to drive U.S. companies and consumers into an economy-freezing paralysis.

Delta Air Lines said late Monday that it’s already seeing the change in confidence and that demand is waning for close-in bookings for flights. That pushed it to roughly halve its forecast for revenue growth in the first three months of 2025, down to a range of 3% to 4% from a range of 7% to 9%.

Delta’s stock lost 5.2%.

Southwest Airlines also cut its forecast for an important underlying revenue trend, pointing to less government travel, among other reasons. But its stock nevertheless rallied 8.9% after the airline said it would soon begin charging some passengers to check bags and announced changes to encourage its most loyal customers.

Oracle dropped 6.4% after the technology giant reported profit and revenue for the latest quarter that fell short of analysts’ expectations.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia.

Stocks rose 0.4% in Shanghai and were nearly unchanged in Hong Kong as China’s annual national congress wrapped up its annual session with some measures to help boost the slowing economy.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held steadier after tumbling in recent months on worries about the U.S. economy. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was holding at 4.22%, where it was late Monday. In January, it was nearing 4.80%.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

If the Vikings decide to hand the keys over to young quarterback J.J. McCarthy next season, they are doing everything in their power to make sure he has time to throw the ball.

A source confirmed to the Pioneer Press that the Vikings have agreed to terms with guard Will Fries. It’s a massive 5-year, $88 million deal for Fries, who started his career with the Indianapolis Colts, and was regarded by many as the best player at his position on the open market.

The agreement with Fries comes roughly 12 hours after the Vikings agreed to terms with Pro Bowl center Ryan Kelly on a 2-year, $18 million deal. The fact the Vikings have committed to both players, who were teammates with the Colts, shows how much they have prioritized adding talent in the trenches.

To say the interior of the offensive line was a major weakness for the Vikings last season would be an understatement.

Whether it was the inconsistent play of left guard Blake Brandel rearing its ugly head at the worst time, the seemingly constant struggles of right guard Ed Ingram ruining plays right from the snap, or any of the other lowlights in between, the Vikings entered this offseason knowing they needed to improve that part of the roster.

That’s exactly what they have done so far while also adding talent in various other areas.

Related Articles

Vikings make another splash, add defensive tackle Jonathan Allen

Vikings agree to terms with cornerback Byron Murphy Jr.

Source: Vikings agree to terms with Pro Bowl center Ryan Kelly

Report: Sam Darnold leaves the Vikings, agrees to terms with the Seahawks

Source: Vikings agree to terms with cornerback Isaiah Rodgers