By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — For weeks, President Donald Trump was promising the world economy would change on Friday with his new tariffs in place. It was an ironclad deadline, administration officials assured the public.

But when Trump signed the order Thursday night imposing new tariffs, the start date of the punishing import taxes was pushed back seven days so the tariff schedule could be updated. The change in tariffs on 66 countries, the European Union, Taiwan and the Falkland Islands was potentially welcome news to countries that had not yet reached a deal with the U.S. It also injected a new dose of uncertainty for consumers and businesses still wondering what’s going to happen and when.

Trump told NBC News in a Thursday night interview the tariffs process was going “very well, very smooth.” But even as the Republican president insisted these new rates would stay in place, he added: “It doesn’t mean that somebody doesn’t come along in four weeks and say we can make some kind of a deal.”

President Donald Trump speaks with the media during a meeting with Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland Monday, July 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Trump has promised that his tax hikes on the nearly $3 trillion in goods imported to the United States will usher in newfound wealth, launch a cavalcade of new factory jobs, reduce the budget deficits and, simply, get other countries to treat America with more respect.

The vast tariffs risk jeopardizing America’s global standing as allies feel forced into unfriendly deals. As taxes on the raw materials used by U.S. factories and basic goods, the tariffs also threaten to create new inflationary pressures and hamper economic growth — concerns the Trump White House has dismissed.

Questions swirl around the tariffs despite Trump’s eagerness

As the clock ticked toward Trump’s self-imposed deadline, few things seemed to be settled other than the president’s determination to levy the taxes he has talked about for decades. The very legality of the tariffs remains an open question as a U.S. appeals court on Thursday heard arguments on whether Trump had exceeded his authority by declaring an “emergency” under a 1977 law to charge the tariffs, allowing him to avoid congressional approval.

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Trump was ebullient as much of the world awaited what he would do.

“Tariffs are making America GREAT & RICH Again,” he said Thursday morning on Truth Social.

Others saw a policy carelessly constructed by the U.S. president, one that could impose harms gradually over time that would erode America’s power and prosperity.

“The only things we’ll know for sure on Friday morning are that growth-sapping U.S. import taxes will be historically high and complex, and that, because these deals are so vague and unfinished, policy uncertainty will remain very elevated,” said Scott Lincicome, a vice president of economics at the Cato Institute. “The rest is very much TBD.”

The new tariffs build off ones announced in the spring

Trump initially imposed the Friday deadline after his previous “Liberation Day” tariffs in April resulted in a stock market panic. His unusually high tariff rates unveiled then led to recession fears, prompting Trump to impose a 90-day negotiating period. When he was unable to create enough trade deals with other countries, he extended the timeline and sent out letters to world leaders that simply listed rates, prompting a slew of hasty agreements.

Swiss imports will now be taxed at a higher rate, 39%, than the 31% Trump threatened in April, while Liechtenstein saw its rate slashed from 37% to 15%. Countries not listed in the Thursday night order would be charged a baseline 10% tariff.

Vehicles for export are parked at a port in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Thursday, July 31, 2025. (Hong Ki-won/Yonhap via AP)

Trump negotiated trade frameworks over the past few weeks with the EU, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines — allowing the president to claim victories as other nations sought to limit his threat of charging even higher tariff rates. He said on Thursday there were agreements with other countries, but he declined to name them.

Asked on Friday if countries were happy with the rates set by Trump, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said: “A lot of them are.”

Thursday began with a palpable sense of tension

The EU was awaiting a written agreement on its 15% tariff deal. Switzerland and Norway were among the dozens of countries that did not know what their tariff rate would be, while Trump agreed after a Thursday morning phone call to keep Mexico’s tariffs at 25% for a 90-day negotiating period. The president separately on Thursday amended an order to raise Canada’s fentanyl-related tariffs to 35%.

European leaders face blowback for seeming to cave to Trump, even as they insist that this is merely the start of talks and stress the importance of maintaining America’s support of Ukraine’s fight against Russia. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has already indicated that his country can no longer rely on the U.S. as an ally, and Trump declined to talk to him on Thursday.

India, with its 25% tariff announced Wednesday by Trump, may no longer benefit as much from efforts to pivot manufacturing out of China. While the Trump administration has sought to challenge China’s manufacturing dominance, it is separately in extended trade talks with that country, which faces a 30% tariff and is charging a 10% retaliatory rate on the U.S.

Major companies came into the week warning that tariffs would begin to squeeze them financially. Ford Motor Co. said it anticipated a net $2 billion hit to earnings this year from tariffs. French skincare company Yon-Ka is warning of job freezes, scaled-back investment and rising prices.

It’s unclear whether Trump’s new tariffs will survive a legal challenge

Federal judges sounded skeptical Thursday about Trump’s use of a 1977 law to declare the long-standing U.S. trade deficit a national emergency that justifies tariffs on almost every country on Earth.

“You’re asking for an unbounded authority,” Judge Todd Hughes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit told a Justice Department lawyer representing the administration.

The judges didn’t immediately rule, and the case is expected to eventually reach the Supreme Court.

The Trump White House has pointed to the increase in federal revenues as a sign that the tariffs will reduce the budget deficit, with $127 billion in customs and duties collected so far this year — about $70 billion more than last year.

New tariffs threaten to raise inflation rates

There are not yet signs that tariffs will lead to more domestic manufacturing jobs, and Friday’s employment report showed the U.S. economy now has 37,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than it did in April.

On Thursday, one crucial measure of inflation, known as the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, showed that prices have climbed 2.6% over the 12 months that ended in June, a sign that inflation may be accelerating as the tariffs flow through the economy.

The prospect of higher inflation from the tariffs has caused the Federal Reserve to hold off on additional cuts to its benchmark rates, a point of frustration for Trump, who on Truth Social, called Fed Chair Jerome Powell a “TOTAL LOSER.”

But ahead of Trump’s tariffs, Powell seemed to suggest that the tariffs had put the U.S. economy and much of the world into a state of unknowns.

“There are many uncertainties left to resolve,” Powell told reporters Wednesday. “So, yes, we are learning more and more. It doesn’t feel like we’re very close to the end of that process. And that’s not for us to judge, but it does — it feels like there’s much more to come.”

AP writer Paul Wiseman contributed to this report.

By Kimberly Palmer, NerdWallet

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, and other government agencies have scaled back their consumer protection work in recent months, but there are still steps people can take to keep their money safe.

In fact, consumer advocates say doing so is more important than ever.

“We as consumers are quite vulnerable right now,” says Christine Hines, senior policy director at the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

“We all need to be much more diligent about the products and services that we sign up for,” she adds.

Here are four ways to be your own advocate:

Enter new financial relationships with skepticism

Before taking out a new loan, insurance policy or any other kind of financial product, research the company, says Jeanine Skowronski, author of the “Money As If” newsletter.

Read reviews on Google, Trustpilot, Reddit, the Better Business Bureau and other sources that collect consumer feedback and complaints, she says. The CFPB complaint database is still available, too.

“You want to take everything in aggregate. Look at a lot of sources and identify themes,” Skowronski says. “Use many voices to help you decide.”

Even after you choose, keep track of how it’s going, she says. It might be worth shopping around again if you’re not happy after a few months.

Monitor accounts closely

Carefully check your financial accounts. If there is an error or extra fee tacked on, you can investigate right away, Hines says.

“I am monitoring my accounts more frequently,” she adds.

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Sometimes, an unexpected charge is the first sign of identity theft.

Bob Sullivan, an independent journalist and author of “The Red Tape Chronicles” on Substack, suggests signing up for text alerts from your financial institution with balance or deduction updates.

“I always have a good grasp of what the balance should be in all my accounts and get a text with the balance at least once a week,” Sullivan says.

Credit monitoring services can also help, especially if you get access to a free service after being involved in a data breach, he adds.

You can also consider a credit freeze to prevent new accounts from being opened in your name.

Speak up if you have concerns

“If there’s something wrong, call the company,” Hines says. Ask about why a fee was charged or why you were automatically opted into data sharing, for example.

“You can say, ‘There’s something wrong here and you can fix it right now before I make a public complaint,’” she suggests.

If you’re not sure what to say, you can follow a handy online script to talk through various concerns — like cutting cable and internet bills, trimming phone bills and saving on utilities — with a human customer service rep.

But maybe you can’t get a human. Sullivan says it can be frustrating to interact with a chatbot when you’re hoping to resolve a problem swiftly. That’s why he recommends walking into a bank branch or a store’s physical location with customer service representatives available if that’s an option.

“If you’re a good customer, a lot of these banks will waive a late fee once in a while. It’s always worth asking,” he says.

If your concerns are not addressed, Skowronski says it might be time to take your business elsewhere.

“You’re not stuck with a particular financial institution. Let your money talk,” she says.

File an official complaint if necessary

The CFPB might be scaled back, but it’s still accepting complaints on its website, and Hines recommends starting there.

“It helps build a record of what’s going on out there if consumers are having issues,” she says.

Hines also suggests contacting your state’s attorney general’s office, member of Congress or even a consumer attorney.

Going public can also be a useful option that helps other consumers, Skowronski says.

“Go write a review. People will use that to determine where they shop next.”

Kimberly Palmer writes for NerdWallet. Email: kpalmer@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @kimberlypalmer.

The article 4 Ways to Become Your Own Consumer Advocate originally appeared on NerdWallet.

By PAUL WISEMAN, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers added just 73,000 jobs last month and Labor Department revisions showed that hiring was much weaker than previously reported in May and June. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%.

The deterioration in the job market is taking place with companies paralyzed by uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s erratic trade policies.

The Labor Department reported Friday that revisions shaved a stunning 258,000 jobs off May and June payrolls.

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The stock market tumbled on the news.

There are subtle signs that the labor market has been weakening for months, however.

New college graduates are struggling to break into the job market. The unemployment rate for college graduates 22 to 27 years old, reached 5.8% in March, the highest, excluding the pandemic, since 2012, and far above the nationwide unemployment rate.

Many Americans are staying in their jobs, unwilling to start the job hunt, because they believe this is as good as it gets, and there is growing evidence that they’re right: Few industries are actually hiring aggressively.

The current situation is a sharp reversal from the hiring boom of just three years ago when desperate employers were handing out signing bonuses and introducing perks such as Fridays off, fertility benefits and even pet insurance to recruit and keep workers.

Employers added an average 130,000 jobs a month through June, down 23% from last year’s hiring and a whopping 68% below the 2021-2023 average when the economy was bounding back from COVID-19 lockdowns.

Weighing on the job market are the lingering effects of higher interest rates that were used by the Federal Reserve to fight inflation; President Donald Trump’s massive import taxes and the costs and uncertainty they are imposing on businesses; and an anticipated drop in foreign workers as the president’s massive deportation plans move forward.

“The labor market is poised for a summer slowdown as businesses put hiring plans on hold but refrain from broad-based layoffs,” Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon wrote in a commentary this week. “We see job growth slowing well below trend in the coming months.’’

Still, most American workers enjoy an unusual level of job security. The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits — a proxy for layoffs — remains at healthy levels.

But Adam Schickling, senior economist at Vanguard, cautions that “a low unemployment rate and a muted pace of layoffs mask underlying weakness.’’

In a commentary Tuesday, Schickling wrote that the health of the job market “can be a matter of individual perspective…If you’re a registered nurse, you may believe the job market’s health to be excellent. The unemployment rate for experienced health care practitioners is currently below 2%. If you’re young and just entering the labor force or you’re older and seeking to reenter it, prospects may seem bleak.’’

The rate of people quitting their jobs — a sign they’re confident they can land something better — has fallen from the record heights of 2021 and 2022 and is now below where it stood before the pandemic.

For one thing, hiring has become concentrated in a handful of industries. So far this year, for example, private U.S. employers have added 644,000 jobs. Of those, nearly 405,000 — or 63% — were in just one of the Labor Department’s industry categories: healthcare and social assistance, which spans everything from hospitals to daycare centers.

As hiring has cooled over the past couple of years it’s become harder for young people or those re-entering the workforce to find jobs, leading to longer job searches or spells of unemployment. The Labor Department said the number of discouraged workers, who believe no jobs are available for them, rose by 256,000 in June to 637,000.

“Historically, a decline in hiring has been accompanied by a swift rise in layoffs, a one-two punch that drives up the unemployment rate,” Schickling wrote in a commentary. “Today’s labor market is defying that pattern.’’

One reason is that manufacturing companies, which tend to pull the trigger on layoffs quickly when economic conditions weaken, account for an ever-smaller share of American jobs. “So there is simply less headcount to cut,’’ he said.

The bottom line: “Firms are pulling back on hiring without shedding existing workers in significant numbers,’’ Schickling said. “The result is a labor market that is softening gradually, not collapsing.’’

By JANIE HAR and JAIMIE DING, Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge ruled on Thursday against the Trump administration’s plans and extended Temporary Protected Status for 60,000 people from Central America and Asia, including people from Nepal, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Temporary Protected Status is a protection that can be granted by the Homeland Security secretary to people of various nationalities who are in the United States, preventing from being deported and allowing them to work. The Trump administration has aggressively been seeking to remove the protection, thus making more people eligible for removal. It’s part of a wider effort by the administration to carry out mass deportations of immigrants.

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem can extend Temporary Protected Status to immigrants in the U.S. if conditions in their homelands are deemed unsafe to return due to a natural disaster, political instability or other dangerous conditions. Noem had ruled to end protections for tens of thousands of Hondurans and Nicaraguans after determining that conditions in their homelands no longer warranted them.

The secretary said the two countries had made “significant progress” in recovering from 1998’s Hurricane Mitch, one of the deadliest Atlantic storms in history.

The designation for an estimated 7,000 from Nepal was scheduled to end Aug. 5 while protections allowing 51,000 Hondurans and nearly 3,000 Nicaraguans who have been in the U.S. for more than 25 years were set to expire Sept. 8.

U.S. District Judge Trina L. Thompson in San Francisco did not set an expiration date but rather ruled to keep the protections in place while the case proceeds. The next hearing is Nov. 18.

In a sharply written order, Thompson said the administration ended the migrant status protections without an “objective review of the country conditions” such as political violence in Honduras and the impact of recent hurricanes and storms in Nicaragua.

If the protections were not extended, immigrants could suffer from loss of employment, health insurance, be separated from their families, and risk being deported to other countries where they have no ties, she wrote, adding that the termination of Temporary Protection Status for people from Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua would result in a $1.4 billion loss to the economy.

“The freedom to live fearlessly, the opportunity of liberty, and the American dream. That is all Plaintiffs seek. Instead, they are told to atone for their race, leave because of their names, and purify their blood,” Thompson said.

Lawyers for the National TPS Alliance argued that Noem’s decisions were predetermined by President Donald Trump’s campaign promises and motivated by racial animus.

Thompson agreed, saying that statements Noem and Trump have made perpetuated the “discriminatory belief that certain immigrant populations will replace the white population.”

“Color is neither a poison nor a crime,” she wrote.

The advocacy group that filed the lawsuit said designees usually have a year to leave the country, but in this case, they got far less.

“They gave them two months to leave the country. It’s awful,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney for plaintiffs at a hearing Tuesday.

Honduras Deputy Foreign Minister Antonio García told The Associated Press, “The judge recognized the need of the (TPS holders) to be able to work in peace, tranquility and legally.”

He recalled that during the first Trump administration, there was a similar legal challenge and the fight took five years in the courts. He hoped for a similar outcome this time that would allow the Hondurans to remain in the U.S.

“Today’s news is hopeful and positive and gives us time and oxygen, hopefully it will be a long road, and the judge will have the final word and not President Trump,” he said.

Meanwhile in Nicaragua, hundreds of thousands have fled into exile as the government shuttered thousands of nongovernmental organizations and imprisoned political opponents. Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-President Rosario Murillo have consolidated complete control in Nicaragua since Ortega returned to power two decades ago.

In February, a panel of U.N. experts warned the Nicaraguan government had dismantled the last remaining checks and balances and was “systematically executing a strategy to cement total control of the country through severe human rights violations.”

The broad effort by the Republican administration ’s crackdown on immigration has been going after people who are in the country illegally but also by removing protections that have allowed people to live and work in the U.S. on a temporary basis.

The Trump administration has already terminated protections for about 350,000 Venezuelans, 500,000 Haitians, more than 160,000 Ukrainians and thousands of people from Afghanistan and Cameroon. Some have pending lawsuits at federal courts.

The government argued that Noem has clear authority over the program and that her decisions reflect the administration’s objectives in the areas of immigration and foreign policy.

“It is not meant to be permanent,” Justice Department attorney William Weiland said.

Ding reported from Los Angeles. Marlon González contributed from Tegucigalpa, Honduras.