Samsung and other smartphone manufacturers will also be subject to 25% tariff
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office Friday afternoon, Donald Trump said that he will also target Samsung, which is based in South Korea, and “any other company that makes” with a 25% tariff.
“Or it would not be fair,” he said, adding that the White House will “appropriately have that done by the end of June”.
“When they build their plant here, there’s no tariffs. So they’re going to be building plants here,” he said.
When Trump first announced the tariff Friday morning, he targeted Apple CEO Tim Cook, who said recently that the company was shoring up manufacturing in India.
“I said that’s okay to go to India, but not going to sell into here without tariffs,” Trump said.
Key events
Summary
Here’s a summary of what happened today:
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Donald Trump announced two huge tariff proposals this morning: A 50% tariff on all EU imports and a 25% tariff on Apple smartphones produced outside the United States.
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Trump later clarified all smartphones, including those manufactured by Samsung, will also be subject to tariffs.
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Trump said that trade talks with the EU had been “difficult”, while he criticized Apple for shoring up manufacturing in India.
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US trade secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Friday that Trump is trying to change “the EU’s pace” in negotiations, and that a 50% tariff would “light a fire under the EU”.
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US and European markets tumbled Friday afternoon off news of the tariffs, with Germany’s DAX down 1.6% for the day, and the Dow closed 2.2% down for the week. Apple stock has tumbled over 6% this week.
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Trump also announced a partnership between US Steel and Nippon Steel, saying that US Steel will still be based in Pittsburgh, after Joe Biden blocked a merger between the two companies in early January.
Shares of US Steel soared 21% as investors interpreted the post on Truth Social to mean Nippon Steel’s takeover of US Steel was nearing completion, having cleared the last major hurdle with Trump’s apparent approval.
“This will be a planned partnership between United States Steel and Nippon Steel, which will create at least 70,000 jobs, and add $14 Billion Dollars to the U.S. Economy,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Trump said the bulk of that investment would occur in the next 14 months. He added he would hold a rally at US Steel in Pittsburgh next Friday.
The two companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately reply to questions about the announcement.
Reuters reported this week that if the merger is approved, Nippon Steel has said it would invest $14bn into US Steel’s operations including up to $4bn in a new steel mill.
The justice department has reached a deal with Boeing that will allow the airplane giant to avoid criminal prosecution for allegedly misleading US regulators about the 737 Max jetliner before two of the planes crashed and killed 346 people, according to court papers filed on Friday.
Under the “agreement in principle” that still needs to be finalized, Boeing would pay and invest more than $1.1bn, including an additional $445m for the crash victims’ families, the justice department said. In return, the department would dismiss the fraud charge in the criminal case against the aircraft manufacturer.
“Ultimately, in applying the facts, the law, and Department policy, we are confident that this resolution is the most just outcome with practical benefits,” a justice department spokesperson said in a statement.
“Nothing will diminish the victims’ losses, but this resolution holds Boeing financially accountable, provides finality and compensation for the families and makes an impact for the safety of future air travelers.”
Shares of nuclear power companies closed higher on Friday after Donald Trump signed executive orders seeking to jumpstart the industry.
The orders direct the nation’s independent nuclear regulatory commission to cut down on regulations and fast-track new licenses for reactors and power plants.
US power consumption is estimated to reach record highs in 2025 and 2026, after stagnating for nearly two decades, as power-hungry data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence and crypto miners plug into the grid.
Shares of uranium mining companies Uranium Energy, Energy Fuels and Centrus Energy jumped between 19.6% and 24.2%. Canadian miner Cameco was up nearly 10%.
The Global X Uranium ETF, which invests in a broad range of uranium-linked stocks, rose more than 11.6%. Nuclear utilities Constellation Energy, Vistra , GE Vernova all added more than 1.2%.
Nuclear energy has garnered renewed interest from investors and companies, as it is considered to be a cleaner source of fuel and more reliable than wind or solar energy.
The industry is also expected to benefit from Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill, which rolled back many green-energy subsidies but preserved tax credits for nuclear energy.
Nano Nuclear Energy led the gains for companies involved in developing new nuclear technology, with its shares surging more than 30%. Sam Altman-backed nuclear startup Oklo gained 23.1%, while NuScale Power soared 19.6%.
Trading has just closed, capping off yet another tumultuous day on Wall Street amid Donald Trump’s trade wars.
The major indexes are all down for the week after Trump’s announcement of 50% tariffs on EU after trade talks broke down and a 25% tariff on smartphones.
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The Dow closed at 2.2% down for the week.
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The S&P is down 1.7% for the week
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Nasdaq Composite is down 1.06%
It is unclear when Trump plans on enacting the tariffs, though the White House is preparing to enact the smartphone tariffs in June.
Apple stock unsurprisingly took the biggest hit Friday, dropping over 4% at opening today, with shares down over 6% for the entire week.
Trump announces Nippon Steel and US Steel partnership
After a $14.9bn merger between Japanese steel company Nippon and Pittsburgh-based US Steel was blocked by the Biden administration earlier this year, Donald Trump announced on social media Friday that the two companies will form a “partnership”.
The terms of the partnership steel remain unclear, but Trump said that US Steel will remain in Pittsburgh and that it “will create at least 70,000 jobs and add $14 Billion Dollars to the US Economy” over the next 14 months.
What happened between the Apple CEO Tim Cook and Donald Trump? It all seems to come down to what Cook said during an Apple’s earnings call earlier this month.
Cook joined a small group of business leaders who have started spoken out about the impact that tariffs could have on their prices. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said the company would likely have to raise prices. Barbie-maker Mattel said that it would have to do the same.
“Assuming the current global tariff rates, policies and applications do not change… we estimate the impact to add $900m to our costs,” Cook said. He also said the company would continue to shift production to China and India, defying Trump’s stated purpose of his tariffs: to bring manufacturing back to the US.
While Cook never explicitly said that the company would have to raise prices, it would be nearly impossible for Apple to absorb the entire costs of tariffs.
A few weeks later, Trump said that he had “a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday” after he spoke with the CEO at the White House.
“I don’t want you building in India,” Trump said he told Cook. “We want you to build here.”
Trump appears very sensitive to how CEOs frame his tariffs. After reports said that Amazon was floating the idea of displaying how much a tariff is adding onto the prices of goods on its marketplace, the White House called it a “hostile and political act by Amazon”.
The major tech CEOs have spent much of the last year trying to get on Trump’s good side – Cook was even present at Trump’s inauguration ceremony in January – but it’s clear that the president’s goodwill has steep limits.
Trump says EU tariffs to start 1 June and he’s not looking for a deal
Lucy Campbell
Trump says he’s not looking for a trade deal with the EU – who he announced earlier today will be slapped with 50% tariffs from 1 June.
He says the EU is “too slow-moving” and “if they build their plants [in the US] then they have no tariff at all”.
I’m not looking for a deal. We’ve set the deal, it’s at 50%. But there’s no tariff if they build their plant here … If somebody wants to build a plant here I can talk to them about a little bit of a delay, while they’re building their plant, which is something that might be appropriate, maybe.
Samsung and other smartphone manufacturers will also be subject to 25% tariff
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office Friday afternoon, Donald Trump said that he will also target Samsung, which is based in South Korea, and “any other company that makes” with a 25% tariff.
“Or it would not be fair,” he said, adding that the White House will “appropriately have that done by the end of June”.
“When they build their plant here, there’s no tariffs. So they’re going to be building plants here,” he said.
When Trump first announced the tariff Friday morning, he targeted Apple CEO Tim Cook, who said recently that the company was shoring up manufacturing in India.
“I said that’s okay to go to India, but not going to sell into here without tariffs,” Trump said.
How would a 25% tariff on iPhones effect prices?
Keep in mind that iPhones are largely manufactured outside of the United States, particularly in China, which has been a major hub for Apple production. The company has also been expanding production in India, where 10% to 15% of iPhones are manufactured.
One analysis in April that looked at the possible impact of 54% tariffs on China said that the cost of producing iPhones could rise 43%. If Apple were to pass that cost entirely onto customers, that would mean the cheapest iPhone 16 model, which is currently $799, would cost $1,142, according to projections from Rosenblatt Securities – about a $343 increase.
A lower tariff would mean the cost increase would be smaller, and it all depends on how much of the tariff Apple is willing to absorb, but analysts say a cost increase would be difficult for Apple to avoid, given how dependent the company is on manufacturing outside the US.
Trump has been undeterred by warnings from the Federal Reserve that tariffs would inject instability into the economy that would be hard to control with monetary policy.
The Fed has the power to set interest rates, which dictates the price of borrowing money for mortgages or other types of loans.
Earlier in May, Fed officials – who are known for reticence in public remarks and statements – cautioned that “the risks of higher unemployment and higher inflation have risen” and, without naming Trump’s tariffs as the reason, said that uncertainty in the economy has increased.
Trump has suggested he has power over the Fed, at one point saying he would fire Fed chair Jerome Powell if the central bank didn’t lower interest rates. The president eventually walked back on the threats, particularly after negative reaction from the stock market.
It now seems that the courts could provide the Fed, which has historically been nonpartisan and independent from the executive branch, with protection from the White House. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court suggested that the Fed is uniquely protected from overreach from the White House in a ruling over the firing of two officials who were on the National Labor Relations Board.
“The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks,” justices wrote in a majority opinion for the Supreme Court.
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday that he expects the US and China to continue in-person trade negotiations soon.
The US and China held talks in Switzerland earlier this month that lead to a deal rolling back the bulk of tariffs and other countermeasures imposed by the two countries.
Speaking on Bloomberg TV, Bessent said he expects several large deals to be announced in the coming weeks. He did not provide further details.
President Donald Trump’s 50% tariff threat is just another step in the on-going trade negotiations between the European Union and the United States, Polish deputy economy minister Michal Baranowski told reporters on Friday.
“I am sure we will get a good deal. I see this … as another step in our negotiations that in the end, I truly hope, will result in a good agreement that is balanced and fair for both sides”, he said.
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday the Trump administration’s previously announced sovereign wealth fund plans have been paused.
President Donald Trump ordered the creation of the fund in February and has previously said revenue earned from tariffs on US imports could form the basis for a wealth fund.
“I think (the) president’s decided that it’s on pause while we work on everything else that we’re doing now,” Bessent said during an interview with Bloomberg TV.
Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee said Friday that president Donald Trump’s new tariff threats have complicated monetary policy and likely delayed interest rate changes.
In a CNBC interview, he reaffirmed his view that rates will eventually move lower but said the Fed will pause for now amid trade uncertainty.
“Everything’s always on the table. But I feel like the bar for me is a little higher for action in any direction while we’re waiting to get some clarity,” Goolsbee told Squawk Box. He warned that tariffs with a “stagflationary impact” would be “the central bank’s worst situation.”
“So I think we’ll have to see how big the impacts on prices are,” he added. “I know people hate inflation.”
Jillian Ambrose
Reform UK has promised to reverse the government’s ban on fresh North Sea oil and gas drilling as a “day one” priority if elected to power, with the taxpayer taking a stake in the projects.
Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader, has met with senior UK oil executives in recent weeks to pledge the party’s support for the industry, which has been hit hard by the government’s windfall tax and moves to block fresh North Sea exploration licences.
Tice told the energy bosses to expect a reversal of the government’s ban alongside billions of pounds of public investment in their projects if the party comes to power in the 2029 election.
The public investments would effectively hand taxpayers an equity stake in North Sea fossil fuel developments, which have stalled in recent months after Labour swept to power with a manifesto that promised to end fresh exploration licences for new oil and gas fields.
“As long as there’s oil in the North Sea, we should be drilling for it,” a spokesperson for Reform UK said. “There are clear benefits for securing jobs and energy independence.”
A senior cognac industry official slammed on Friday US president Donald Trump’s latest tariffs proposal for the European Union (EU), saying it would put the cognac industry in an untenable position, Reuters reported.
On Friday, Trump recommended a 50% tariff on European Union goods starting 1 June.
“The 50 percent tariffs proposed by president Trump would mean we will no longer be able to sell our products in the United States, which is our biggest market, representing more than 50 percent of cognac sales in terms of volumes”, said the official.
European markets close
Graeme Wearden
Donald Trump’s threat of a 50% tariff on EU imports have led to losses on the major European indices today.
Germany’s DAX has closed for the week, down 1.6% today, with carmakers BMW (-3.7%) and Mercedes-Benz (-4%) among the fallers.
France’s CAC share index shed 1.65% and Italy’s FTSE MIB dropped by almost 2%.
The London stock market got away lightly, with the FTSE 100 only dropping by 21 points or 0.24% to 8,718 points, its lowest closing level since Monday.
Kate Leaman, chief market analyst at AvaTrade, reports that investors are uneasy.
“President Trump’s latest tariff threats have once again put the markets on edge, reminding investors just how quickly geopolitical risks can resurface.
The proposal to slap 50% duties on European imports and 25% tariffs on iPhones not made in the U.S. has jolted sentiment, and sparked a broad selloff that saw U.S. stocks slide around 1% on Friday. At the heart of the reaction is the fear escalating trade tensions are once again back in play and the reaction that this could have on inflation, corporate earnings, and also global supply chains.
Wall Street’s main indexes slumped on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump recommended 50% tariffs on the European Union, while Apple tumbled after he warned it would have to pay tariffs if iPhones were not manufactured in the United States.
“The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on TRADE, has been very difficult to deal with,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Apple touched a two-week low and was down 2.5% after Trump said in a separate post before this that the iPhone-maker would be subject to 25% tariffs if its phones sold in the U.S. were not made within the country’s borders.
At 11.18am ET, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 330.17 points, or 0.79%, to 41,526.96, the S&P 500 lost 54.98 points, or 0.94%, to 5,787.03, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 229.40 points, or 1.20%, to 18,697.82.
Wall Street’s “fear gauge”, the CBOE Volatility Index , spiked to a more than two-week high and was last at 22.14 points. Ten of the 11 S&P sub-sectors fell, with consumer discretionary and information technology being the worst hit.
Most megacap and growth stocks dropped, with Amazon and Nvidia declining more than 1% each. A gauge for semiconductor stocks fell more than 2%, while carriers including American Airlines shed about 2%.
Deckers Outdoor slumped almost 20% after the maker of UGG boots forecast first-quarter net sales below estimates and said it would not provide annual targets. Sportswear giant Nike also dropped, falling 2.2%.
