Michigan’s official monthly unemployment rate in July remained at 5.3%, which was unchanged from June.
The number of unemployed people in Michigan decreased slightly by 1,000, according to the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics. But the labor force – people who are either working or looking for work – declined by about 5,000 people.
These numbers are close enough that, on balance, they failed to move the unemployment rate.
“The unemployment rate held steady because the labor force declined, and that’s not what we’d like to see,” said University of Michigan economist Gabriel Ehrlich. “The reason wasn’t because the count of employed Michigan residents increased or held steady, it actually fell. So, the number of Michigan residents who reported that they’re working actually dipped last month.”
Ehrlich said he does not see anything alarming in the data, but will continue to watch the workforce participation numbers.
Michigan Labor Market Information Director Wayne Rourke said Michigan is not seeing big month-to-month changes in its jobs numbers, which shows employment remains steady.
“Since January, the unemployment rates have really stabilized and Michigan’s rate has hovered between 5.3% and 5.5%,” he said. “So, looking at the last six months or so, Michigan’s unemployment rate has really stabilized after the large growth of last year, and that’s a good sign.”
Michigan’s July unemployment rate was 1.1 percentage points higher than the national rate. It is also half a percentage point higher than it was at this time a year ago.
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Business leaders say President Trump’s tariffs on various countries and products are creating a high level of uncertainty for companies.
That appears especially true for small business owners who often operate with razor-thin profit margins.
A national coalition of CEO’s called Small Business for America’s Future estimates owners of smaller firms account for the vast majority of U.S. imports, the kind directly impacted by tariffs.
The group recently drafted a letter to President Trump and other officials claiming tariffs place a disproportionate burden on small businesses and are creating a crisis for owners.
That includes Farmington Hills, MI-based Blitz Proto, a company that specializes in helping customers bring ideas from design and engineering to production.
Blitz Proto CEO Carrin Harris says tariffs are making it hard for her company to survive.
Listen: Small business owners ask Trump for tariff relief
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Carrin Harris: Blitz Proto is a small, three-person team. We’re focused on bringing innovative ideas to life. We help companies make prototypes from toys to medical devices and auto parts. Most of our prototypes involve electronics. That’s why we are having difficulty with the tariffs right now. Most of the electronic parts come from China. But we also do machining. So, the cost of all materials for machining has gone up. Aluminum, steel, everything’s going up quite a bit.
Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: Have you been able to absorb some of the costs from the tariffs? Or do you have to pass the full cost on to consumers?
CH: We do work on very small margins. We have done what we can to absorb the cost. But for the most part, we are passing it on to the customers.
QK: How is that going over?
CH: So far, it has been very difficult. Many of our customers come to us with very small budgets and they can’t afford the additional cost to make their product. So, we have lost some opportunities this year due to the increased costs that we’re passing on.
QK: There’s been reports that some suppliers are demanding additional payments to cover tariff-related costs they say they were not expecting. Has that happened with your business?
CH: Yes, it has. We had placed some orders back in December. Then we received communication from our vendors telling us the cost had gone up. They’re attempting to absorb the costs as well but they had to pass some additional fees on to us to account for the tariffs and duties and additional shipping costs.
QK: How does that affect your business? I imagine it impacts not only costs but also quoting people what you might have to charge them or the time frame for when you’ll be able to deliver a product?
CH: Yes, it has. We have changed our policies internally this year. Our quotes are now expiring in one week rather than one month. And a lot of our lead times are being pushed out because the shipping times are much longer.
QK: It must be difficult to form a business plan with that kind of a situation.
CH: It has been extremely difficult. I’m doing the best that I can to assure our customers that we are exploring alternative vendors. We’re looking into more suppliers here in the United States, although costs for items coming from the United States tend to be quite a bit higher, sometimes three times the cost.
QK: You are one of the owners included in the letter sent to President Trump and other officials regarding tariffs and how they’re affecting small business. President Trump has said over and over that he loves tariffs. But he’s also proposed huge tariffs and then reduced them and then added others. Given all that, how realistic do you think it might be that he could reverse course on any of these tariffs, especially ones dealing with electronics from countries like China?
CH: It does sound like a possibility. But it’s pretty unpredictable. I’m hoping that he’ll at least choose and stick with a tariff rate so that we can anticipate better. Because we quote customers ahead of time, sometimes months ahead of time, so they can plan their budgets. If they’re ready to start a project and the cost has skyrocketed in the meantime, they usually have to scrap the project.
QK: The president said earlier this year that his use of tariffs could mean, for example, that maybe someone can only buy two dolls for a child this year for Christmas instead of 30. That’s as he says he’s bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. For you, whose company actually makes prototypes for toys, among other things, what do those comments mean to you?
CH: It really means the supplier that wants to create a new toy is probably not going to do it. We are a very small business among many small businesses and these tariffs are threatening our livelihood. We already are working with almost no capital. So I don’t see how we can sustain this in the long run. I’d like to see more consistency.
QK: How long have you had your business going and how has it been doing?
CH: We started in mid-2022. It’s done pretty well up until the tariffs were put in place. We had really good outlooks for this year. We’ve formed a lot more customer relationships and have had a lot of new opportunities this year. Unfortunately, a lot of those customers have held back from putting in orders that they planned on making with us this year. I am sure that’s due to the fluctuating cost.
QK: And not being a huge corporation, I imagine you don’t have the extra assets or resources available to help tide you over the way that a large company might?
CH: We’ve actually had some suppliers tell us that big corporations came in and bought up all of their stock. So they wouldn’t actually honor the orders that we’d already put in and paid for.
QK: How can they do that if you already paid for them?
CH: That’s a good question. They didn’t really have any answers for us
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Tariffs aren’t just numbers in a trade deal. They are hidden costs baked into the price of almost everything we buy and sell, and they have become a point of contention and anxiety with President Trump’s erratic maneuvers — announcing them, delaying them, increasing them, walking them back.
He says his new tariffs aim to protect American industries, but they are hitting small businesses and big supply chains in Michigan and beyond.
Economists warn that the state’s manufacturing base and retailers are especially vulnerable. That means higher costs for business owners, tougher choices on pricing, and potential sticker shock for many of us.
So we’re connecting the dots, from the global supply chain to the boutique sales floor with Rachel Lutz, owner of The Peacock Room, a women’s clothing and accessories boutique in Detroit, and Professor Jason Miller, interim chair of Supply Chain Management at Michigan State University.
They joined The Metro’s Robyn Vincent to explain tariffs’ local and less understood impacts.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump unexpectedly summoned reporters to the Oval Office on Thursday to present them with charts that he says show the U.S. economy is solid following a jobs report last week that raised red flags and led to the Republican firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Joining Trump to talk about the economy was Stephen Moore, a senior visiting fellow in economics at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and the co-author of the 2018 book “ Trumponomics.”
Flipping through a series of charts on an easel, Moore sought to elevate Trump’s performance as president and diminish the economic track record of former President Joe Biden. Trump stood next to Moore and interjected with approvals.
The moment in the Oval Office spoke to the president’s hopes to reset the narrative of the U.S. economy. While the stock market has been solid, job growth has turned sluggish and inflationary pressures have risen in the wake of Trump imposing a vast set of new tariffs, which are taxes on imports.
Moore said he phoned Trump because he put together some data that shows he was correct to dismiss Erika McEntarfer as the head of the BLS. He noted that’s because reports from the BLS had overestimated the number of jobs created during the last two years of Biden’s term by 1.5 million.
“I think they did it purposely,” said Trump, who has yet to offer statistical evidence backing his theory. Revisions are a standard component of jobs reports and tend to be larger during periods of economic disruption.
The economy has seldom conformed to the whims of any president, often presenting pictures that are far more mixed and nuanced than what can easily be sold to voters. Through the first seven months of this year, employers have added 597,000 jobs, down roughly 44% from the gains during the same period in 2024.
The July jobs report showed that just 73,000 jobs were added last month, while the May and June totals were revised downward by 258,000.
While Biden did face downward revisions on his job numbers, the economy added 2 million jobs in 2024 and 2.6 million in 2023.
The fundamental challenge in Biden’s economy was the jolt of inflation as the annual rate of the consumer price index hit a four-decade high in June 2022. That level of inflation left many households feeling as though groceries, gasoline, housing and other essentials were unaffordable, a sentiment that helped to return Trump to the White House in the 2024 election.
There are signs of inflation heating back up under Trump because of his tariffs. On Thursday, Goldman Sachs estimated that the upcoming inflation report for July will show that consumer prices rose 3% over the past 12 months, which would be up from a 2.3% reading in April.
Trump promised that he could galvanize a boom. And when nonpartisan data has indicated something closer to a muddle, he found an advocate in Moore, whom he nominated to serve as a Federal Reserve governor during his first term. Moore withdrew his name after facing pushback in the Senate.
Moore said that through the first five months of Trump’s second term in office that “the average median household income adjusted for inflation and for the average family in America, is already up $1,174.” Moore said his numbers are based on unpublished Census Bureau data, which can make them difficult to independently verify.
“That’s an incredible number,” Trump said. “If I would have said this, nobody would have believed it.”
President Donald Trump holds charts as he speaks about the economy in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Just after midnight, goods from more than 60 countries and the European Union became subject to tariff rates of 10% or higher. Products from the EU, Japan and South Korea are taxed at 15%, while imports from Taiwan, Vietnam and Bangladesh are taxed at 20%. Trump also expects the EU, Japan and South Korea to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the United States.
“I think the growth is going to be unprecedented,” Trump said Wednesday. He said the U.S. was “taking in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs,” but did not provide a specific figure for revenues because “we don’t even know what the final number is” regarding the rates.
FILE – President Donald Trump listens during a news conference with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 13, 2025, in Washington. (Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Despite the uncertainty, the White House is confident that the onset of his tariffs will provide clarity about the path for the world’s largest economy. Now that companies understand the direction the U.S. is headed, the Republican administration believes it can ramp up new investments and jump-start hiring in ways that can rebalance America as a manufacturing power.
So far, however, there are signs of self-inflicted wounds to the U.S. as companies and consumers brace for the impact of the new taxes.
Risk of economic erosion
Hiring began to stall, inflationary pressures crept upward and home values in key markets started to decline after the initial tariff rollout in April, said John Silvia, CEO of Dynamic Economic Strategy.
A sign announces a restaurant is hiring workers, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Richardson, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
“A less productive economy requires fewer workers,” Silvia said. “But there is more, the higher tariff prices lower workers’ real wages. The economy has become less productive, and firms cannot pay the same real wages as before. Actions have consequences.”
Many economists say the risk is that the American economy is steadily eroded.
“It’s going to be fine sand in the gears and slow things down,” said Brad Jensen, a professor at Georgetown University.
Trump has promoted the tariffs as a way to reduce America’s persistent trade deficit. But importers tried to avoid the taxes by bringing in more goods before the tariffs took effect. As a result, the $582.7 billion trade imbalance for the first half of the year was 38% higher than in 2024. Total construction spending has dropped 2.9% over the past year.
The economic pain is not confined to the U.S.
Germany, which sends 10% of its exports to the U.S. market, saw industrial production sag 1.9% in June as Trump’s earlier rounds of tariffs took hold. “The new tariffs will clearly weigh on economic growth,” said Carsten Brzeski, global chief of macro for ING bank.
Dismay in India and Switzerland
The lead-up to Thursday fit the slapdash nature of Trump’s tariffs, which have been rolled out, walked back, delayed, increased, imposed by letter and renegotiated.
Trump on Wednesday announced additional 25% tariffs to be imposed on India because of its purchases of Russian oil, bringing its total import taxes to 50%.
A leading group of Indian exporters said that will affect nearly 55% of the country’s outbound shipments to America and force exporters to lose long-standing clients.
“Absorbing this sudden cost escalation is simply not viable. Margins are already thin,” S.C. Ralhan, president of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations, said in a statement.
The Swiss executive branch, the Federal Council, was expected to meet Thursday after President Karin Keller-Sutter and other Swiss officials returned from a hastily arranged trip to Washington in a failed bid to avert a 39% U.S. tariffs on Swiss goods.
Import taxes are still coming on pharmaceutical drugs, and Trump announced 100% tariffs on computer chips. That could leave the U.S. economy in a place of suspended animation as it awaits the impact.
Stock market remains solid
The president’s use of a 1977 law to declare an economic emergency to impose the tariffs is under a legal challenge. Even people who worked with Trump during his first term are skeptical, such as Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who was House speaker.
“There’s no sort of rationale for this other than the president wanting to raise tariffs based upon his whims, his opinions,” Ryan told CNBC on Wednesday.
Trump is aware of the risk that courts could overturn his tariffs. In a Truth Social tweet, he said, “THE ONLY THING THAT CAN STOP AMERICA’S GREATNESS WOULD BE A RADICAL LEFT COURT THAT WANTS TO SEE OUR COUNTRY FAIL!”
The stock market has been solid during the tariff drama, with the S&P 500 index climbing more than 25% from its April low. The market’s rebound and the income tax cuts in Trump’s tax and spending measure signed into law on July 4 have given the White House confidence that economic growth is bound to accelerate in the coming months.
Global financial markets took the new tariffs in stride, with Asian and European shares and U.S. futures mostly higher.
But ING’s Brzeski warned: “While financial markets seem to have grown numb to tariff announcements, let’s not forget that their adverse effects on economies will gradually unfold over time.”
Trump foresees an economic boom. American voters and the rest of the world wait, nervously.
“There’s one person who can afford to be cavalier about the uncertainty that he’s creating, and that’s Donald Trump,” said Rachel West, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation who worked in the Biden White House on labor policy. “The rest of Americans are already paying the price for that uncertainty.”
A customer shops a grain isle at New India Bazar, where most merchandise is imported from India and Canada, on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025, in Fremont, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday called for the firing of the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures after a report showed hiring slowed in July and was much weaker in May and June than previously reported.
Trump in a post on his social media platform alleged that the figures were manipulated for political reasons and said that Erika McEntarfer, the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, should be fired.
“I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump said on Truth Social. “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.”
Friday’s jobs report showed that just 73,000 jobs were added last month and that 258,000 fewer jobs were created in May and June than previously estimated.
McEntarfer was nominated by Biden in 2023 and became the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in January 2024. Commissioners typically serve four-year terms but since they are political appointees can be fired. The commissioner is the only political appointee of the agency, which has hundreds of career civil servants.
Trump focused much of his ire on the revisions the agency made to previous hiring data. Job gains in May were revised down to just 19,000 from 125,000, and in June they were cut to 14,000 from 147,000. In July, only 73,000 positions were added. The unemployment rate ticked up to a still-low 4.2% from 4.1%.
“No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers,” Trump wrote. “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.”
The monthly employment report is one of the most closely-watched pieces of government economic data and can cause sharp swings in financial markets. The disappointing figure sent U.S. market indexes about 1.5% lower Friday.
While the jobs numbers are often the subject of political spin, economists and Wall Street investors — with millions of dollars at stake — have always accepted U.S. government economic data as free from political manipulation.
President Donald Trump speaks as Cody Campbell, left, and professional golfer Bryson DeChambeau listen during an event for the signing of an executive order restarting the Presidential Fitness Test in public schools, Thursday, July 31, 2025, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
New tariffs imposed earlier this year by the Trump administration are starting to raise prices on some consumer goods, and many Michigan households are struggling as a result.
The youth-led effort, funded through the city’s Grow Detroit’s Young Talent program, helps to educate Detroit youth about financial wellness and money management. Participating mentors receive extensive training on how to lead workshops and encourage participants to take control of their personal finance.
Mutakabbir joined The Metro on Monday to talk about the program and how her background in finance shaped her mission to educate others.
Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.
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WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
A new state pilot program kicking off this fall aims to reduce turnover and attract talent in early childhood education by offering affordable benefits packages for educators.
The two-year pilot program, facilitated through the Small Business Association of Michigan (SBAM), will include health insurance, life and disability benefits, and 401(k) options for early education teachers and child care workers.
Michelle Beebe, chief revenue officer with the Small Business Association of Michigan, told WDET the high turnover rate in the childcare industry is bad for kids.
“Every time you adjust a caregiver it’s impacting a child’s life, it slows down the learning process,” she said. “You have training, it costs the business owner money to constantly be in a state of hiring, and this allows for stability within that industry.”
Beebe says the SBAM hopes to develop tiered benefits packages, where the base plan will be subsidized by the state and employers can buy into higher tiers.
Detroit has demolished thousands of vacant homes since voters approved Proposal N five years ago. The $250 million bond program enabled the city to tear down blighted properties while salvaging other homes to be renovated and sold. A contractor will carry out the 8,000th demolition under the proposal on Friday.
The Detroit Tigers will face the Texas Rangers on Friday, July 18, at Globe Life Field. The Tigers are currently No. 1 in the American league with a 59-38 record; and as they enter the second half of the season they are facing the 48-49 Rangers. First pitch is at 8:05 p.m. ET.
Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.
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WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
Michigan lost a deal for a massive semiconductor plant this week that was projected to bring about 10,000 jobs to the Flint area.
As part of WDET’s weekly series, MichMash, Gongwer News Service’s Zach Gorchow and Alethia Kasben break down Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s reaction to this and the new economic plans for the site.
Then later, Gorchow and WDET’s Cheyna Roth speak with Mike Csapo, general manager of the Resource Recovery and Recycling Authority of Southwest Oakland County, about the proposal to expand Michigan’s bottle bill and why he doesn’t support it.
Why SanDisk pulled out of the semiconductor plant deal
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s reaction to the deal’s collapse
A case against Michigan’s proposed bottle bill expansion
The $63 billion project proposed by SanDisk — a computer technology company — was a lofty goal for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who in a statement on Wednesday blamed the project’s collapse on “massive economic uncertainty at the national level.”
“Their board came to this decision amid national economic turmoil, which is at risk of worsening amid threats of even higher tariffs,” the emailed statement read. “Michigan’s Mundy Township site was the company’s preferred destination to build their massive facility.”
Both Whitmer’s office and local economic development groups have said the roughly 1,300-acre site is ready for other businesses, but Kasben cautioned against hope for such a deal.
“If economic uncertainty is the reason SanDisk pulled out, what are the odds of another company existing in this same economy being ready and willing to take on a similar project?” Kasben said.
Speaking with Roth and Kasben about the proposed expansion to Michigan’s bottle bill, Csapo explained his reasoning for not fully supporting the initiative.
“It’s not necessarily that we’re opposed to expansion. It’s that we need to be mindful of the law of unintended consequences,” he said. “If our goals are to continue to expand Michigan’s circular economy and capitalize on the economic, environmental and supply chain benefits of recycling, then any change to one part of the system has to consider the impacts and the other parts of the system expansion.”
With Michigan’s bottle return rate decreasing, a solution for increasing the state’s recycling efforts remains difficult to conceive.
The changes, which were unanimously approved by the council, will reduce administrative burdens by cutting redundant licensing requirements that “do not protect health and safety”; allow businesses to renew their business licenses every two years instead of annually; improve the city’s permitting and licensing processes and more.
Hassan Beydoun, group executive of Economic Development for the city of Detroit, joined The Metro on Tuesday to elaborate on what these new resolutions mean for small businesses in Detroit.
Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump sent out tariff letters to seven smaller U.S. trading partners on Wednesday with a pledge to announce import taxes on other countries later in the day.
None of the countries targeted in the first batch of letters — the Philippines, Brunei, Moldova, Algeria, Libya, Iraq and Sri Lanka — is a major industrial rival to the United States. It’s a sign that a president who has openly expressed his love for the word “tariff” is still infatuated with the idea that taxing trade will create prosperity for America.
Most economic analyses say the tariffs will worsen inflationary pressures and subtract from economic growth, but Trump has used the taxes as a way to assert the diplomatic and financial power of the U.S. on both rivals and allies. His administration is promising that the taxes on imports will lower trade imbalances, offset some of the cost of the tax cuts he signed into law on Friday and cause factory jobs to return to the United States.
Trump, during a White House meeting with African leaders talked up trade as a diplomatic tool. Trade, he said, “seems to be a foundation” for him to settle disputes between India and Pakistan, as well as Kosovo and Serbia.
“You guys are going to fight, we’re not going to trade,” Trump said. “And we seem to be quite successful in doing that.”
On Monday, Trump placed a 35% tariff on Serbia, one of the countries he was using as an example of how fostering trade can lead to peace.
Trump said the tariff rates in his letters were based on “common sense” and trade imbalances, adding that he would be sending a letter on Wednesday or Thursday to Brazil. Trump suggested he had not thought of penalizing the countries whose leaders were meeting with him in the Oval Office — Liberia, Senegal, Gabon, Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau — as “these are friends of mine now.”
Officials for the European Union, a major trade partner and source of Trump’s ire on trade, said Tuesday that they are not expecting to receive a letter from Trump listing tariff rates. The Republican president started the process of announcing tariff rates on Monday by hitting two major U.S. trading partners, Japan and South Korea, with import taxes of 25%.
According to Trump’s letters, imports from Libya, Iraq, Algeria and Sri Lanka would be taxed at 30%, those from Moldova and Brunei at 25% and those from the Philippines at 20%. The tariffs would start Aug. 1.
The Census Bureau reported that last year U.S. ran a trade imbalance on goods of $1.4 billion with Algeria, $5.9 billion with Iraq, $900 million with Libya, $4.9 billion with the Philippines, $2.6 billion with Sri Lanka, $111 million with Brunei and $85 million with Moldova. The imbalance represents the difference between what the U.S. exported to those countries and what it imported.
Taken together, the trade imbalances with those seven countries are essentially a rounding error in a U.S. economy with a gross domestic product of $30 trillion.
The letters were posted on Truth Social after the expiration of a 90-day negotiating period with a baseline levy of 10%. Trump is giving countries more time to negotiate with his Aug. 1 deadline, but he has insisted there will be no extensions for the countries that receive letters.
Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s chief trade negotiator, told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday that the EU had been spared the increased tariffs contained in the letters sent by Trump and that an extension of talks until Aug. 1 would provide “additional space to reach a satisfactory conclusion.”
Trump on April 2 proposed a 20% tariff for EU goods and then threatened to raise that to 50% after negotiations did not move as fast as he would have liked, only to return to the 10% baseline. The EU has 27 member states, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The tariff letters are worded aggressively in Trump’s style of writing. He frames the tariffs as an invitation to “participate in the extraordinary Economy of the United States,” adding that the trade imbalances are a “major threat” to America’s economy and national security.
The president threatened additional tariffs on any country that attempts to retaliate. He said he chose to send the letters because it was too complicated for U.S. officials to negotiate with their counterparts in the countries with new tariffs. It can take years to broker trade accords.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba interpreted the Aug. 1 deadline as a delay to allow more time for negotiations, although he cautioned in remarks that the tariffs would hurt his nation’s domestic industries and employment.
Malaysia’s trade minister, Zafrul Aziz, said Wednesday that his country would not meet all of the U.S. requests after a Trump letter placed a 25% tariff on its goods. Aziz said U.S. officials are seeking changes in government procurement, halal certification, medical standards and digital taxes. Aziz he indicated those were red lines.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to arrive Thursday in Malaysia’s capital of Kuala Lumpur.
Associated Press writers David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump waves to the media after exiting Air Force One, at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, July 6, 2025, en route to the White House after spending the weekend in New Jersey. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and his advisers promised a lightning round of global trade negotiations with dozens of countries back in April.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro predicted “90 deals in 90 days.’’ Administration officials declared that other countries were desperate to make concessions to avoid the massive import taxes – tariffs — that Trump was threatening to plaster on their products starting July 9.
But the 90 days have come and gone. And the tally of trade deals stands at two – one with the United Kingdom and one with Vietnam. Trump has also announced the framework for a deal with China, the details of which remain fuzzy.
Trump has now extended the deadline for negotiations to Aug. 1 and tinkered with his threatened tariffs, leaving the global trading system pretty much where it stood three months ago — in a state of limbo as businesses delay decisions on investments, contracts and hiring because they don’t know what the rules will be.
“It’s a rerun, basically,’’ said William Reinsch, a former U.S. trade official who’s now an adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. Trump and his team “don’t have the deals they want. So they’re piling on the threats.”
The pattern has repeated itself enough times to earn Trump the label TACO — an acronym coined by The Financial Times’ Robert Armstrong that stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
“This is classic Trump: Threaten, threaten more, but then extend the deadline,” Reinsch said. “July 30 arrives, does he do it again if he still doesn’t have the deals?’’ (Trump said Tuesday that there will be no more extensions.)
The deal drought represents a collision with reality.
Negotiating simultaneously with every country on earth was always an impossible task, as Trump himself belatedly admitted last month in an interview with the Fox News Channel. (“There’s 200 countries,’’ the president said. “You can’t talk to all of them.’’) And many trading partners — such as Japan and the European Union — were always likely to balk at Trump’s demands, at least without getting something in return.
“It’s really, really hard to negotiate trade agreements,” which usually takes several months even when it involves just one country or a small regional group, said Chad Bown, an economic adviser in the Obama White House and now senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “What the administration is doing is negotiating a bunch of these at the same time.’’
The 10% baseline tariffs appear to be here to stay. Trump needs them to raise money to patch the hole his massive tax-cut bill is blasting into the federal budget deficit.
By themselves, the baseline tariffs represent a massive shift in American trade policy: Tariffs averaged around 2.5% when Trump returned to the White House and were even lower before he started raising them in his first term.
But the reciprocal tariffs are an even bigger deal.
In announcing them, Trump effectively blew up the rules governing world trade. For decades, the United States and most other countries abided by tariff rates set through a series of complex negotiations known as the Uruguay round. Countries could set their own tariffs – but under the “most favored nation’’ approach, they couldn’t charge one country more than they charged another.
Now Trump is setting the tariff rates himself, creating “tailor-made trade plans for each and every country on this planet,’’ in the words of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
But investors have recoiled at the audacious plan, fearing that it will disrupt trade and damage the world economy. Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, for instance, set off a four-day rout in global financial markets. Trump blinked. Less than 13 hours after the reciprocal tariffs took effect April 9, he abruptly suspended them for 90 days, giving countries time to negotiate with his trade team.
Despite the Trump administration’s expressions of confidence, the talks turned into a slog.
“Countries have their own politics, their own domestic politics,” Reinsch said. “Trump structured this ideally so that all the concessions are made by the other guys and the only U.S. concession is: We don’t impose the tariffs.’’
But countries like South Korea and Japan needed “to come back with something,’’ he said. Their thinking: “We have to get some concessions out of the United States to make it look like this is a win-win agreement and not a we-fold-and-surrender agreement. ”
Countries may also be hesitant to reach a deal with the United States while the Trump administration conducts investigations that might result in new tariffs on a range of products, including pharmaceuticals and semiconductors.
Frustrated by the lack of progress, Trump on Monday sent letters to Japan, South Korea and 12 other countries, saying he’d hit them with tariffs Aug. 1 if they couldn’t reach an agreement. The levies were close to what he’d announced on April 2; Japan’s, for example, would be 25%, compared to the 24% unveiled April 2.
Trump did sign an agreement last month with the United Kingdom that, among other provisions, reduced U.S. tariffs on British automotive and aerospace products while opening the U.K. market for American beef and ethanol. But the pact kept the baseline tariff on British products mostly in place, underlining Trump’s commitment to the 10% tax despite the United States running a trade surplus — not a deficit — with the U.K. for 19 straight years, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
On July 2. Trump announced a deal with Vietnam. The Vietnamese agreed to let U.S. products into the country duty free while accepting a 20% tax on their exports to the United States, Trump said, though details of the agreement have not been released.
The lopsided deal with Vietnam suggests that Trump can successfully use the tariff threat to bully concessions out of smaller economies.
“They just can’t really negotiate in the same way that the (European Union) or Korea or Japan (or) Canada can negotiate with the United States,’’ said Dan McCarthy, principal in McCarthy Consulting and a former official with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in the Biden administration. “A lot of (smaller) countries just want to get out of this and are willing to cut their losses.’’
But wrangling a deal with bigger trading partners is likely to remain tougher.
“The U.S. is gambling that these countries will ultimately be intimidated and fold,” Reinsch said. “And the countries are gambling that the longer this stretches out, and the longer it goes without Trump producing any more deals, the more desperate he gets; and he lowers his standards.
“It’s kind of a giant game of chicken.’’
Cranes and shipping containers are seen at a port in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Tuesday, July 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
The industry for materials key to American manufacturing could receive extra government support under proposed legislation from a Michigan congresswoman.
The bill, called the “Unearth America’s Future Act,” would create new federal loans, tax credits, and programs to spur the domestic production and refining of critical minerals like copper, magnesium and aluminum.
“What this bill is, is focused on public-private partnerships, supply chain opportunities, as well as recyclability, which is something that’s gaining a lot of traction in the critical materials space right now,” U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Michigan) said about her pending legislation.
Stevens estimates her plan would invest around $10 billion in the industry. It would cover loans, tax credits, partnerships and the creation of a new national center to oversee research and development.
The policy proposal is a response to concerns about China’s dominance in the market for precious metals, especially those used in goods like smart phones or vehicle batteries.
Stevens said that makes both the country’s and Michigan’s current situations untenable.
“Leaving Michigan’s entire manufacturing base on the hook for materials coming from minerals that are refined in China, that’s a risk. And that’s not working,” she said.
The Trump administration has already issued executive orders aimed at increasing the country’s mining capacity, despite environmental concerns. Separately, existing bipartisan bills in Congress are also trying to address that issue.
Stevens, however, said her way of addressing the matter is by taking a similar approach to how the bipartisan CHIPS Act addressed a shortage of American semiconductor chip makers: increasing the capacity for processing and refining already-mined minerals.
“This will increase our resilience here in the United States of America, but it will also increase our domestic production capabilities, which means lowering costs, lowering costs, lowering costs — we need to lower costs, and that’s what this bill’s going to be about as well. And job creation,” Stevens said.
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Efforts to attract and settle immigrants in Detroit may have been a contributing factor in the city’s recent population growth, according to recent reporting from The Conversation.
Research shows that Immigration has a positive impact on the economy through a larger employee talent pool, increased social and civic engagement, and offsetting the decrease of Detroit native born children.
Despite a national shift in tone towards immigrants, cities like Detroit are prepping for a globalized future by investing in programs that encourage and support immigrants looking to start a life here.
The Detroit Tigers are facing the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday at Comerica Park. The Tigers are close to locking up their division and are proving to be the team to beat. This may be the year of the Tiger after all. First pitch for today’s game is at 6:40 p.m.
Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.
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She says the middle class has been shrinking since the ’70s, making it more challenging for young Americans to become as affluent as their parents. Part of the reason for that, she says, is how much the economy has changed structurally, and the failure of government to change along with it.
“We were already taking on water as the middle class, and now we’re about to hit a Category 5 hurricane in the form of artificial intelligence,” she said. “We gotta reset on how we do the basics of government and of our lives and focus on those essential things.”
Slotkin says part of the solution is to build more housing, expand access to health care, invest more resources in small businesses and to ban donations from corporatePolitical Action Committees.
Metro Producer Sam Corey spoke with the senator about her “economic war plan” to build up the middle class, and why she says Democrats should be on the offense right now.
—WDET’s Jenny Sherman contributed to this report.
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(THE CONVERSATION) Americans love small businesses. We dedicate a week each year to applauding them, and spend Small Business Saturday shopping locally. Yet hiding in plain sight is an enormous challenge facing small business owners as they age: retiring with dignity and foresight. The current economic climate is making this even more difficult.
As a professor who studies aging and business, I’ve long viewed small business owners’ retirement challenges as a looming crisis. The issue is now front and center for millions of entrepreneurs approaching retirement. Small enterprises make up more than half of all privately held U.S. companies, and for many of their owners, the business is their retirement plan.
But while owners often hope to finance their golden years by selling their companies, only 20% of small businesses are ready for sale even in good times, according to the Exit Planning Institute. And right now, conditions are far from ideal. An economic stew of inflation, supply chain instability and high borrowing costs means that interest from potential buyers is cooling.
For many business owners, retirement isn’t a distant concern. In the U.S., baby boomers – who are currently 61 to 79 years old – own about 2.3 million businesses. Altogether, they generate about US$5 billion in revenue and employ almost 25 million people. These entrepreneurs have spent decades building businesses that often are deeply rooted in their communities. They don’t have time to ride out economic chaos, and their optimism is at a 50-year low.
New policies, new challenges
You can’t blame them for being gloomy. Recent policy shifts have only made life harder for business owners nearing retirement. Trade instability, whipsawing tariff announcements and disrupted supply chains have eroded already thin margins. Some businesses – generally larger ones with more negotiating power – are absorbing extra costs rather than passing them on to shoppers. Others have no choice but to raise prices, to customers’ dismay. Inflation has further squeezed profits.
At the same time, with a few notableexceptions, buyers and capital have grown scarce. Acquirers and liquidity have dried up across many sectors. The secondary market – a barometer of broader investor appetite – now sees more sellers than buyers. These are textbook symptoms of a “flight to safety,” a market shift that drags out sale timelines and depresses valuations – all while Main Street business owners age out. These entrepreneurs typically have one shot at retirement – if any.
Adding to these woes, many small businesses are part of what economists call regional “clusters,” providing services to nearby universities, hospitals and local governments. When those anchor institutions face budget cuts – as is happening now – small business vendors are often the first to feel the impact.
Research shows that many aging owners actually double down in weak economic times, sinking increasing amounts of time and money in a psychological pattern known as “escalating commitment.” The result is a troubling phenomenon scholars refer to as “benign entrapment.” Aging entrepreneurs can remain attached to their businesses not because they want to, but because they see no viable exit.
This growing crisis isn’t about bad personal planning — it’s a systemic failure.
Rewriting the playbook on small business policy
A key mistake that policymakers make is to lump all small business owners together into one group. That causes them to overlook important differences. After all, a 68-year-old carpenter trying to retire doesn’t have much in common with a 28-year-old tech founder pitching a startup. Policymakers may cheer for high-growth “unicorns,” but they often overlook the “cows and horses” that keep local economies running.
Even among older business owners, circumstances vary based on local conditions. Two retiring carpenters in different towns may face vastly different prospects based on the strength of their local economies. No business, and no business owner, exists in a vacuum.
Relatedly, when small businesses fail to transition, it can have consequences for the local economy. Without a buyer, many enterprises will simply shut down. And while closures can be long-planned and thoughtful, when a business closes suddenly, it’s not just the owner who loses. Employees are left scrambling for work. Suppliers lose contracts. Communities lose essential services.
Four ways to help aging entrepreneurs
That’s why I think policymakers should reimagine how they support small businesses, especially owners nearing the end of their careers.
First, small business policy should be tailored to age. A retirement-ready business shouldn’t be judged solely by its growth potential. Rather, policies should recognize stability and community value as markers of success. The U.S. Small Business Administration and regional agencies can provide resources specifically for retirement planning that starts early in a business’s life, to include how to increase the value of the business and a plan to attract acquirers in later stages.
Second, exit infrastructure should be built into local entrepreneurial ecosystems. Entrepreneurial ecosystems are built to support business entry – think incubators and accelerators – but not for exit. In other words, just like there are accelerators for launching businesses, there should be programs to support winding them down. These could include confidential peer forums, retirement-readiness clinics, succession matchmaking platforms and flexible financing options for acquisition.
And finally, policymakers should include ripple-effect analysis in budget decisions. When universities, hospitals or governments cut spending, small business vendors often absorb much of the shock. Policymakers should account for these downstream impacts when shaping local and federal budgets.
If we want to truly support small businesses and their owners, it’s important to honor the lifetime arc of entrepreneurship – not just the launch and growth, but the retirement, too.
The United Auto Workers union announced last month it would be endorsing Rev. Solomon Kinloch Jr. in the Detroit mayoral race, calling him “a longtime advocate for working-class people.”
Kinloch, a senior pastor at Detroit’s Triumph Church, is the only candidate in the mayoral race who has not held an elected position. He is currently battling for second place in the race behind frontrunner Mary Sheffield — who continues to maintain a sizable lead. The top two vote getters in the Aug. 5 primary will face off in the November general election.
In Detroit, a political endorsement from the UAW has always carried considerable weight, but membership is down in recent decades, and there are shifting political views within.
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Residents and landowners in Holly will be paying higher taxes so the village can stay solvent and prevent a takeover by the state.
Facing a deficit of over $600,000, the village council voted unanimously, 6-0, to approve a special assessment millage to balance the budget before June 20 as required by state law. President April Brandon was absent.
The one-year, 4-mill assessment is for “all lands and premises” in the village and equals $4 per $1,000 of taxable value. It will raise $658,710 in revenue.
“The reason why we are looking at a special assessment rather than a vote, is because in order to get the money in to finance our village and in order to get a balanced budget which we are legally obligated to do, we have to get everything into the state by June 20,” said Village Manager Tim Price. “Even if we had found out about this on our first day in office, there would have been no time for a special election to put this on a ballot.”
“This is literally a tourniquet to stop the bleeding at this point,” said Trustee Amber Kier, who chaired the meeting in place of Brandon.
Price said the problem has not been with the village spending beyond their means but a lack of revenue.
The village’s millage rate has decreased over the past 43 years due to Headlee Rollbacks, which was established in 1982 to protect home owners by limiting the amount of property tax increases.
The millage rate has dropped to 11.32 mills for fiscal year 2025, while inflation and need for public services have escalated, according to Price, who took over as village manager in January. The assessment will appear on village residents’ tax bills next month.
“The can has been kicked down the road progressively for 43 years,” Price said. “This (assessment) is not going to answer all the financial questions right now, this just gets our heads above water. It allows us more time to develop some more strategies in order to meet these responsibilities.”
Holly resident Amber DeShone told the board the new assessment is happening too quickly.
“This increase with barely a month to prepare would be devastating for us,” said DeShone. “This will add $361.32 (to our expenses) with only a month to prepare. It feels rushed, it feels thoughtless and it feels unfair.”
Price said previous councils had borrowed money from the village fund balance to keep from going into a deficit and ignored warnings from their auditor Plante Moran.
“If you look back at previous meetings in previous years, such as 2020, this (budget deficit) information was presented to them (during audits) at the time and they were told they were facing this kind of environment and council chose not to do anything at that time,” said Price. “There was no sense of urgency for it and I don’t know why that is.”
Trustee Kier read a statement from Brandon.
“We (the council) did not create this problem, we inherited it,” said Brandon. “The deficit was hidden, though we don’t think it was intentional. None of us knew about it until this year.”
She added, “Now this council has to make a difficult decision, either cut essential services like fire and police… or we can raise taxes on residents that are already struggling.”
The Village of Holly has approved a 4-mill special assessment tax increase to help balance their budget.
Photo by Matt Fahr
Photo by Matt Fahr
Media News Group
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s trade wars are expected to slash economic growth this year in the United States and around the world, the World Bank forecast Tuesday.
Citing “a substantial rise in trade barriers’’ but without mentioning Trump by name, the 189-country lender predicted that the U.S. economy – the world’s largest – would grow half as fast (1.4%) this year as it did in 2024 (2.8%). That marked a downgrade from the 2.3% U.S. growth it had forecast back for 2025 back in January.
The bank also lopped 0.4 percentage points off its forecast for global growth this year. It now expects the world economy to expand just 2.3% in 2025, down from 2.8% in 2024.
In a forward to the latest version of the twice-yearly Global Economic Prospects report, World Bank chief economist Indermit Gill wrote that the global economy has missed its chance for the “soft landing’’ — slowing enough to tame inflation without generating serious pain — it appeared headed for just six months ago. “The world economy today is once more running into turbulence,” Gill wrote. “Without a swift course correction, the harm to living standards could be deep.’’
America’s economic prospects have been clouded by Trump’s erratic and aggressive trade policies, including 10% taxes — tariffs — on imports from almost every country in the world. These levies drive up costs in the U.S. and invite retaliation from other countries.
The Chinese economy is forecast to see growth slow from 5% in 2024 to 4.5% this year and 4% next. The world’s second-largest economy has been hobbled by the tariffs that Trump has imposed on its exports, by the collapse of its real estate market and by an aging workforce.
Police officers stand guard at the entrance of Lancaster House, where the trade talks between the U.S. and China are taking place, in London, Monday, June 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
FILE -The “Cosco Shipping France” container ship is moored at the Long Beach Container Terminal, LBCT, at Middle Harbor in the Port of Long Beach, Calif., , April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
FILE – An employee welds metal at a steel tank factory in Mexico City, Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)
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Police officers stand guard at the entrance of Lancaster House, where the trade talks between the U.S. and China are taking place, in London, Monday, June 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
The World Bank expects the 20 European countries that share the euro currency to collectively grow just 0.7% this year, down from an already lackluster 0.9% in 2024. Trump’s tariffs are expected to hurt European exports. And the unpredictable way he rolls them out — announcing them, suspending them, coming up with new ones — has created uncertainty that discourages business investment.
India is once again expected to the be world’s fastest-growing major economy, expanding at a 6.3% clip this year. But that’s down from 6.5% in 2024 and from the 6.7% the bank had forecast for 2025 in January. In Japan, economic growth is expected to accelerate this year – but only from 0.2% in 2024 to a sluggish 0.7% this year, well short of the 1.2% the World Bank had forecast in January.
The World Bank seeks to reduce poverty and boost living standards by providing grants and low-rate loans to poor economies.
Another multinational organization that seeks to promote global prosperity — the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — last week downgraded its forecast for the U.S. and global economies.
President Donald Trump speaks during an “Invest in America” roundtable with business leaders at the White House, Monday, June 9, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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