U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 26, 2025.
Another day, another tariff development from the Trump administration.
In his latest move in the global trade war, U.S. President Donald Trump has announced a 25% tariff on “all cars not made in the U.S.,” rattling auto stocks. This would be in addition to any existing duties.
The announcement comes ahead of Trump’s “liberation day” on April 2, which was originally envisioned as the day the U.S. would slap reciprocal tariffs, while also imposing duties in response to other disfavored trade policies, such as the use of value-added taxes.
But, Trump and his officials have recently suggested that the “liberation day” tariffs could end up being softer than expected.
While this could soothe investor turmoil, it might in fact increase uncertainty, due to the “on again, off again” nature of these announcements, which leave business leaders unable to plan for the future and undermine investor confidence in U.S. policy stability.
To paraphrase Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz, Trump might say that everything in this trade war seems simple, but even the simplest things are difficult.
— Lim Hui Jie
25% tariffs on all cars ‘not made in the United States’ …
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he would impose 25% tariffs on “all cars that are not made in the United States,” and added that there is “absolutely no tariffs” for cars that are built in the United States. White House aide Will Scharf said the new tariffs apply to “foreign-made cars and light trucks.”
… but April tariffs may be more ‘lenient’
In another tariff development, Trump said that tariffs will likely be more “lenient than reciprocal,” as the April 2 tariff deadline looms for a number of levies to go into effect. The White House later clarified that this means that the administration will no longer take into account non-tariff barriers that countries raise against the United States — such as value-added tax to determine the reciprocal tariff rate.
Full texts from Signal chat group published
The Atlantic on Wednesday published the full text thread from the Trump administration’s Signal group that accidentally included the editor in chief of The Atlantic in discussions of pending U.S. military strikes. Jeffrey Goldberg had initally withheld some of the contents of the group, but the outlet published the full texts after Trump and others in the group chat declared Tuesday that none of the messages were classified, and said that they did not contain “war plans,” as The Atlantic’s initial headline stated.
OpenAI expects revenue tripling to $12.7 billion
Artificial intelligence firm OpenAI expects revenue will triple to $12.7 billion in 2025, CNBC has confirmed. This comes as OpenAI announced some key changes in the C-suite earlier this week. CEO Sam Altman will shift his focus away from day-to-day operations and focus more on research and product, the company said, while operating chief Brad Lightcap’s role will expand to oversee “business and day-to-day operations.”
Tariffs continue to pressure stocks
All three major U.S. stock indexes dipped on Wednesday, led by tech names. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 2.04%, with names like Meta, Amazon and Alphabet sustaining losses of 2%-5%. Chip giant Nvidia dropped nearly 6%. The S&P 500 lost 1.12%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 132.71 points, or 0.31%.
[PRO] Gold seen to hit $3,500 per ounce by 2027
Gold could hit $3,500 per ounce within the next two years, with central banks and China’s insurance industry driving demand, according to Bank of America. The yellow metal has gained more than 15% this year to break $3,000 per ounce for the first time as geopolitical tensions and Trump’s trade war pushes some investors into safe haven assets.
China is focusing on large language models (LLMs) in the artificial intelligence space.
China’s artificial intelligence boom might help mitigate some tariff pain
With a surge in AI companies in China, analysts expect Chinese businesses to stand a better chance of weathering any tariff shocks from the U.S., as AI tools could cut costs for companies and offset some of the impact of an economic slowdown.
Nearly every day in the last two weeks, a Chinese firm has announced a new AI product — or how they’re making money with the tech, which has lifted expectations for Chinese corporate earnings growth in the year ahead.
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Computer chip with Chinese flag, 3d conceptual illustration.
BEIJING — For Chinese companies wary of U.S. tariffs, the big difference between President Donald Trump’s first and second terms is the emergence of generative artificial intelligence.
Chinese companies are hard at work. Nearly every day in the last two weeks, a Chinese firm has announced a new AI product — or how they’re making money with the tech.
To name a few:
Short-video company Kuaishou said Tuesday its AI tool for generating videos, Kling, has raked in more than 100 million yuan ($13.78 million) since its launch last summer.
Tencent last week updated its AI model for generating 3D visuals — which can be used in games or for 3D printing — and released the full version of its Hunyuan T1 reasoning model. A few weeks earlier, Tencent had integrated T1 with its Yuanbao chatbot app that also lets users tap DeepSeek’s R1.
Daily active Yuanbao users surged by 20 times in just a month, Tencent said last week. The company also shared how some farmers have used the AI app to analyze soil conditions for planting.
Baidu on Monday launched tools for people to build websites and simple games with conversational prompts instead of having to write code. Kunlun Tech, parent of browser Opera, on Wednesday upgraded its Mureka app for using AI to generate music.
As a manufacturing hub, China has “great advantages in terms of ‘physical’ AI” since the country has lots of machines that can collect valuable data for training industry-specific models, Maxwell Zhou, CEO of autonomous-driving software company DeepRoute.ai, told CNBC on Friday in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.
DeepRoute.ai, launched in 2019, announced last week it was building a system for autonomous-delivery vehicles to send parcels with simple voice commands such as “pick up coffee from this store and send it to the apartment.”
Zhou said he hopes the system to be operational in China by early next year.
While it’s unclear which AI companies will ultimately succeed, analysts expect Chinese businesses stand a better chance at excelling with the help of AI applications. AI tools could cut costs for companies and offset some of the impact of an economic slowdown.
The combined impact of the tech is lifting expectations for Chinese corporate earnings growth in the year ahead, said Ding Wenjie, investment strategist for global capital investment at China Asset Management.
Earnings will signal whether the economy is really turning around, especially under the pressure of tariffs and other trade restrictions.
Goldman Sachs in early February estimated a 20% increase in U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods could shave off 5% in Chinese corporate earnings, in Hong Kong dollar terms.
The greater question for the U.S. and China, however, stretches beyond tariffs.
After a visit to China this week for a conference, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman concluded that it was not tariffs or Taiwan that the U.S. and Chinese presidents needed to discuss immediately — but rather AI that’s as smart as humans and pervades the world.
The author of “The World is Flat” likened a possible U.S.-China collaboration on AI to the Soviet-U.S. nuclear arms control deal.
