U.S. President Donald Trump struck a trade deal with Japan that lowers tariffs on auto imports and spares Tokyo from punishing new levies on other goods in exchange for a $550 billion package of U.S.-bound investment and loans.

Trump believes he can deploy tariffs without tradeoffs or distortions. In reality, each new tariff move creates both.

US stocks are floating near all-time highs as Wall Street maintains cautious optimism that Washington might ink more trade deals, avoiding a worst-case scenario of extraordinarily high tariffs and enabling the resilient economy to continue chugging along.

On any list of central bankers dying to get off this crazy thing called 2025, Japan’s Kazuo Ueda deserves a spot at the very top.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that "we'll have a straight, simple tariff of anywhere between 15% and 50%." Hiking the baseline reciprocal tariff rate to 15 percent means a 50 percent higher tax on American manufacturers and consumers than Trump originally promised.

Trump announced Tuesday that the U.S. had reached a “massive” deal with Japan to levy 15 percent tariffs on Japanese imports — including automobiles and auto parts — instead of the 25 percent rate he threatened earlier this month.

Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs are scheduled to go into effect on August 1 after a 90-day delay—just as American families begin back-to-school shopping—and could hike up the cost of consumer goods imported from other countries.