Category: Markets and Macro

President Trump’s 25% tariffs on imported automobiles and parts threatened to add billions in costs for Detroit’s Big Three automakers, but a series of White House amendments and executive orders have carved out targeted relief that softens the blow. The escape is real but narrow: automakers assembling vehicles in the United States can claim offset…

The European Data Protection Board forced Meta to stop using contract and legitimate interest as legal grounds for behavioral advertising across the entire European Economic Area, a direct ban that marked one of the sharpest regulatory strikes against a major tech platform’s data practices. Yet even as European regulators tighten the screws, the United States…

South Carolina’s aggressive courtship of data center operators is delivering generous tax breaks to some of the world’s largest technology companies while many local retailers and service businesses continue to operate under the standard tax rules. A layered system of state sales tax exemptions, county-level property tax deals, and a recent legislative pause on certain…

The Supreme Court on February 20, 2026, struck down President Trump’s sweeping tariffs in a 6-3 ruling, declaring that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not grant the president authority to impose them. But the decision in Learning Resources, Inc., et al. v. Trump does not mean shoppers will see lower prices anytime…

International arrivals to the United States fell nearly 5% in January compared with a year earlier, extending a downturn that made the country the only major destination to lose foreign visitors in 2025 even as global tourism grew. The decline, tracked through federal I-94 admission records covering overseas, Canadian, and Mexican travelers, signals that political…

Detroit’s biggest automakers asked the White House on February 20, 2026, to be exempted from a fresh round of trade penalties that threaten to add billions of dollars in costs to vehicles assembled with imported parts. The appeal, delivered while President Donald Trump was visiting Ford’s historic River Rouge Complex in Dearborn, Michigan, underscores mounting…

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on February 20, 2026, that President Donald Trump overstepped his authority when he imposed sweeping global tariffs on goods from all countries, striking down most of the levies. The decision landed like a relief for importers who had spent months absorbing steep duties, but for small businesses that already paid…

The American economy keeps splitting into two separate tracks, and the divide is growing harder to ignore. Low-wage workers who bore the brunt of pandemic-era job losses have, in several measures, struggled to recover lost ground, while wealthier households have ridden soaring stock portfolios and rising home values to gains in net worth documented in…

Oil prices held relatively flat on Friday as President Donald Trump publicly acknowledged that he is weighing a limited military strike on Iran, even as Tehran signaled it would soon present a nuclear proposal to Washington. The simultaneous threat of force and diplomatic outreach created a tug-of-war in energy markets, with crude benchmarks climbing modestly…

Precious metal futures were little changed to slightly higher on February 20, 2026, as traders weighed the fallout from a court ruling that curtailed President Trump’s global tariffs and his rapid pivot to a replacement levy. Gold’s modest moves reflected a market caught between two competing forces: relief that the broadest tariffs were curtailed, and…