The Latest: Trump’s tax cuts and tariff hikes spark concerns
Jun 2, 2025, 5:06 AM
President Donald Trump, right, walks toward the Oval Office as he returns to the White House with Bryson DeChambeau, winner of the 2024 U.S. Open, after playing golf, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Donald Trump faces the challenge of convincing Republican senators, global investors, voters and even Elon Musk that he won’t bury the federal government in debt with his multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package. The response so far from financial markets has been skeptical.
Meanwhile, Trump’s doubling of tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum could hit Americans in an unexpected place: grocery aisles. The announcement Friday of a staggering 50% levy on those imports stoked fear that big-ticket purchases from cars to washing machines to houses could see major price increases.
Here’s the latest:
President Donald Trump faces the challenge of convincing Republican senators, global investors, voters and even Elon Musk that he won’t bury the federal government in debt with his multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package.
The response so far from financial markets has been skeptical as Trump seems unable to trim deficits as promised.
The tax and spending cuts that passed the House last month would add $5.1 trillion to the national debt in the coming decade if they are allowed to continue. That’s according to the Committee for a Responsible Financial Budget, a fiscal watchdog group.
President Donald Trump’s doubling of tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum could hit Americans in an unexpected place: grocery aisles.
The announcement Friday of a staggering 50% levy on those imports stoked fear that big-ticket purchases from cars to washing machines to houses could see major price increases. But those metals are so ubiquitous in packaging, they’re likely to pack a punch across consumer products from soup to nuts.
“Rising grocery prices would be part of the ripple effects,” says Usha Haley, an expert on trade and professor at Wichita State University, who added that the tariffs could raise costs across industries and further strain ties with allies “without aiding a long-term U.S. manufacturing revival.”
Trump’s return to the White House has come with an unrivaled barrage of tariffs, with levies threatened, added and, often, taken away, in such a whiplash-inducing frenzy it’s hard to keep up. He insisted the latest tariff hike was necessary to “even further secure the steel industry in the U.S.”
Trump says he is withdrawing the nomination of tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, an associate of Trump adviser Elon Musk, to lead NASA, saying he reached the decision after a “thorough review” of Isaacman’s “prior associations.”
It was unclear what Trump meant and the White House did not respond to an emailed request for an explanation.
“After a thorough review of prior associations, I am hereby withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacman to head NASA,” Trump wrote late Saturday on his social media site. “I will soon announce a new Nominee who will be Mission aligned, and put America First in Space.”
