President Donald Trump on Monday said he will soon announce tariffs targeting automobiles, pharmaceuticals and other industries, signaling his plans to pile more sweeping duties on top of his forthcoming "reciprocal tariffs."
"We'll be announcing cars very shortly," Trump said at a Cabinet meeting. "We already announced steel, as you know, and aluminum."
"We'll be announcing pharmaceuticals at some point," he said, "because we have to have pharmaceuticals."
"So we'll be announcing some of these things in the very near future, not the long future, the very near future," Trump said.
Trump at another White House event later Monday added the lumber and semiconductor industries to his list, saying tariffs on those two sectors would come "down the road."
Yet even as he piled on new sectors for potential tariffs, Trump said at the same event that he "may give a lot of countries breaks" on the reciprocal tariffs, which are set to take effect April 2.
When pressed for clarification on whether sectoral tariffs will also start that day, Trump initially said, "Yeah, it's going to be everything."
Then he said, "but not all tariffs are included that day."
He also hinted that tariffs on autos may be announced before the reciprocal tariffs kick off.
"We'll be announcing that fairly soon over the next few days, probably, and then April 2 comes, that'll be reciprocal tariffs," he said.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the White House was likely to exclude industry-specific tariffs from the April 2 batch, despite Trump's suggestion a week earlier that both types of tariffs would start the same day.
The president's latest comments came hours after he vowed to slap 25% tariffs on all countries that buy oil and gas from Venezuela.
"We've been ripped off by every country in the world," Trump said in the Cabinet meeting.
"We did something with Venezuela, which is long in the making," he said. "And we'll be announcing cars very shortly."
A White House official told CNBC earlier Monday that the tariffs targeting specific sectors "may happen or may not."
"No final decision's been made as far as sectoral being tacked onto reciprocal," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Major stock indexes shot up Monday following the reports that Trump may be softening his tariff plans.
The official did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for additional comment following Trump's remarks in the Cabinet meeting
Source: CNBC
European stocks closed higher Thursday, as investors reacted to the latest policy decision by the European Central Bank as well as key U.S. inflation data. The DAX index in Germany climbed 0.3%, the ...
US stocks were in the green on Thursday, with the S&P 500 adding 0.3% to hit new highs, while the Nasdaq was up 0.3% and the Dow Jones rose almost 200 points as investors digested the latest US CP...
European stocks edged higher on Thursday ahead of the ECB policy decision and the US CPI release. At 07:05 GMT, Germany's DAX rose 0.1%, France's CAC 40 +0.3%, and the UK's FTSE 100 +0.3%. Gains were ...
Asian stocks moved mixed on Thursday after Wall Street rallied and pushed the S&P 500 to a new record. A decline in US producer price inflation (PPI) bolstered confidence that the Fed could cut in...
The S&P 500 notched a second straight record-high close on Wednesday, as Oracle surged and cooler-than-expected inflation data supported expectations the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut interest rat...
GBP/USD rebounds from session lows and trades marginally higher on the day above 1.3550. The renewed selling pressure surrounding the USD following the inflation and Jobless Claims data help the pair gain traction in the American session. Although...
United States (US) President Donald Trump and his administration have formally asked the federal appeals court to pause a federal order that would allow Lisa Cook to remain at her post at the Federal Reserve (Fed) pending an official probe into...
Gold price trimmed some of its earlier losses on Thursday, yet it remains negative in the day, down over 0.14% as the latest print of consumer inflation was aligned with estimates. Nevertheless, jobs data outweighed August's Consumer Price Index...
The Federal Reserve is likely to start a series of interest-rate cuts next week and keep going through the end of the year, traders bet on Wednesday...
Producer inflation in the United States, as measured by the change in the Producer Price Index (PPI), fell to 2.6% annually in August from 3.3% in...
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Tuesday that the preliminary estimate of the Current Employment Statistics (CES) national benchmark...
Poland shot down a drone in its airspace on Wednesday with the support of military aircraft from its NATO allies. This is the first time a member of...