In an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday President Donald Trump said he “may delay” traveling to a summit with Xi Jinping, the president of China, this week until he knows if China, an ally of Iran, would help open the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. inflation stayed subdued in February, the month leading up to the war in Iran. Which makes the data basically meaningless. February’s report, which was released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday, covers the period up until the United States and Israel first struck Iran on the final day of the month. The Consumer Price Index report showed that headline inflation steadied at a 2.4% annual rate in February, matching January’s annual rate of increase. On a monthly basis, prices ticked up 0.3%. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices registered a 2.5% year-over-year increase. The month to month increase was 0.2%
What we know so far. Trade lawyers say “over 2,000” refund lawsuits have already been filed at the Court of International Trade (CIT) since the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s IEEPA tariffs. Why that total will keep rising. Nearly 2,000 individual importers had filed suits challenging the IEEPA tariffs even before the ruling, but a CIT stay had paused “hundreds” of refund cases pending the decision.
Over 300,000 importers paid the invalidated tariffs, and estimates put potential refunds at about $170–175 billion.
FedEx, a big tariff refund player, has sued the Trump administration seeking a full refund of tariffs it paid under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act after the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that President Donald Trump exceeded his authority in imposing the duties. The company argues it suffered financial injury from the now-overturned tariffs.
The U.S. supreme court today declared many of President Donald Trump’s tariffs illegal. In a 6-3 ruling, the court said that a 1977 law designed to address national emergencies did not provide the legal justification for most of the Trump administration’s tariffs on countries across the world. This is by no means the end to tariff chaos. In fact the decision makes it worse.
The overall U.S. trade deficit with the world narrowed in 2025, data released Thursday by the Census Bureau showed. But the “good” news was the result of an expanding trade surplus in services. The trade deficit in goods was the highest on record.
This week’s three questions and answers are about the neutral interest rate (and Fed interest rate policy), global economic volatility, and tariffs and productivity.
I’m cautious about calling anything a trend in the tariff chaos that is global trade right now, but if, as now looks likely, the “trend” in the U.S. trade deficit looks pretty grim. On Thursday, new data from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau showed that the U.S. trade deficit spiked 94% in November from $29.4 billion in October to $56.8 billion, as imports jumped 5% and exports fell nearly 4%. It’s the largest month-to-month jump in almost 34 years, blowing past economists’ expectations of around $40 billion for the shutdown-delayed report.
Taiwanese semiconductor and tech companies, led by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), the chip foundry critical to global AI supply chains, have committed at least $250 billion in investmentS to build and expand chip, energy, and AI production capacity in the U.S.
CEOs will sit down at their desks next week all across the U.S. economy and ask “What does this do to my costs and my supply chains.”And there won’t be any answers. This is the newest disruption to U.S. trade put forward by President Donald Trump. On Saturday President Trump announced that he would impose a new 10% tariff, effective February 1, on a bloc of European nations until they come to the negotiating table to sell Greenland. The targets include Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands and Finland.
If those nations do not relent, he added in his post, the rate will increase to 25% on June 1, “until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.”
Costco Wholesale (COST) has sued seeking a full refund on the duties it has paid as a result of President Donald Trump’s global tariffs imposed this year. Costco filed the lawsuit at the U.S. Court of International Trade on Friday, saying the administration’s tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) are unlawful. It comes as the Supreme Court is considering whether Trump has legal authority to impose tariffs on a vast range of goods from nearly all countries.
Novo Nordisk (NVO) and Eli Lilly (LLY) traded higher on Thursday as the companies announced a major drug-pricing deal with the Trump administration. The companies’ GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which cost roughly $1,000 to $1,350 per month now for patients without insurance, will be available for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries at sharply lower prices from 2026. The Wall Street Journal reported that Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly will offer the lowest doses of their weight-loss drugs, Wegovy and Zepbound, through TrumpRx for $149 and $299 per month, respectively. So why would these drug makers agree to cut prices by $850 to $1,000 a month?
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