U.S. President Donald Trump struck a trade deal with Japan that lowers tariffs on auto imports and spares Tokyo from punishing new levies on other goods in exchange for a $550 billion package of U.S.-bound investment and loans.

The deal with Japan comes days ahead of the 1 August deadline, when 25% tariff rates on Japanese imports were due to take effect.

Trump believes he can deploy tariffs without tradeoffs or distortions. In reality, each new tariff move creates both.

President Trump says his new trade deal with Japan will generate massive U.S. profits and lower tariffs, but Morning Joe's economist analyst Steve Rattner says American consumers will end up footing the bill.

US stocks are floating near all-time highs as Wall Street maintains cautious optimism that Washington might ink more trade deals, avoiding a worst-case scenario of extraordinarily high tariffs and enabling the resilient economy to continue chugging along.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that "we'll have a straight, simple tariff of anywhere between 15% and 50%." Hiking the baseline reciprocal tariff rate to 15 percent means a 50 percent higher tax on American manufacturers and consumers than Trump originally promised.

On any list of central bankers dying to get off this crazy thing called 2025, Japan’s Kazuo Ueda deserves a spot at the very top.