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Asia tries to prepare for Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ wave of new tariffs: ‘We’re working on this matter nonstop, even on weekends’

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Liberation Day,” in the words of U.S. President Donald Trump, is coming. The White House will formally unveil new tariffs on both friend and foe on April 2 at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time in the Rose Garden, as the president seeks to retaliate against what he sees as mistreatment by the U.S.’s trading partners. 

Many of those trading partners are in Asia, where governments are already trying to prepare for what may be coming.

On Monday, Vietnam—which enjoys a large trade surplus with the U.S.—said it would cut import duties on a range of products including cars, food products, and liquefied natural gas. 

Vietnam has benefited from companies reshoring their supply chains away from China; the Southeast Asian country now has the third-largest trade surplus with the U.S. That’s put it high on the list of countries at risk of steep Trump tariffs—and Hanoi could be preemptively offering concessions to avoid triggering a trade war.

India is also offering to slash import taxes on agricultural products like almonds and cranberries, Reuters reported last week. The South Asian country, which had a $47.5 billion trade surplus with the U.S. last year, is reportedly considering removing some tariffs on imported goods entirely. 

Trump has grumbled about India’s tariffs on U.S. goods, which are higher than what the U.S. imposes on Indian products. The U.S. president has blasted Indian protectionism as “brutal,” even as he heaps praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

‘All countries’

Since coming into office, Trump has imposed an additional 20% tariff on Chinese goods, 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, and 25% tariffs on auto imports.

There are no clear details on the tariffs coming on April 2, such as what level of duties will be imposed and what countries will be affected. Yet on Sunday, Trump suggested that tariffs would hit “all countries” as a starting point, pushing back against earlier reports that new trade measures may be more narrow in scope. 

Many Asian governments are adopting a wait-and-see approach to the tariffs ahead of Wednesday. 

U.S. allies like Japan, South Korea and Australia have tried to negotiate trade issues with Washington—as of now, with apparently little success. 

In mid-March, after failing to secure an exemption from new U.S. steel tariffs, Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese complained that the move was “against the spirit of our two nations’ enduring friendship.” On Tuesday, his administration reiterated that they would not offer concessions to the U.S. to get a deal. 

Japan and South Korea are both pledging to offer support to their industries in the event of new U.S. tariffs. “We’re working on this matter nonstop, even on weekends,” Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Tuesday. (New U.S. auto tariffs pose a threat to Japan and its automaking sector.)

Then there’s China, already subject to multiple new tariffs from the Trump administration. Beijing has responded to new import duties with its own measures, ranging from imposing retaliatory tariffs and expanding its “unreliable entities” blacklist. Chinese officials have said that they are ready to fight a “trade war, tariff war, or any other type of war”.

On Sunday, trade ministers from Japan, South Korea, and China held their first economic dialogue in five years. 

Companies getting ready too

In addition to tariffs on steel, aluminum and cars, Trump has promised new levies on semiconductor and pharmaceutical imports as well. 

Asian companies have also promised to invest in the U.S. in a likely bid to avoid new tariffs and show support for Trump’s wish to restore domestic manufacturing. 

In January, Japanese carmaker Honda pledged to increase its investment in three Ohio car plants by $300 million to expand their capability to build EVs, hybrids and internal combustion engine vehicles.  

In March, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s leading chipmaker, announced a $100 billion investment to expand its operations in Arizona, to be spent over the next four years. (Taiwan’s government is also reportedly considering purchasing more U.S. goods to reduce its trade surplus.) 

Last week, South Korean automaker Hyundai promised to invest $21 billion in American manufacturing, including a $5.8 billion steel plant in the state of Louisiana.

Yet the biggest promise comes from Japan’s Softbank. Earlier this year, Softbank, in partnership with OpenAI and Oracle, promised $500 billion in new investments in U.S.-based AI infrastructure. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com



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Parents hit back at RFK Jr.’s claim that ‘autism destroys families’

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The Education Department has a rude awakening for 5.3 million student loan borrowers: giving their info to debt collectors

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Trump’s memecoin enjoys surprise 10% surge after sales lock up is lifted

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President Donald Trump’s personally endorsed memecoin surged over the weekend, despite expectations that its price would tumble as tens of thousands of fresh tokens were released to project insiders.

$Trump, a memecoin launched by Trump in the lead up to his second inauguration, has gained 10% since Friday, when 40 million additional tokens were to be released into circulation. The event, known as a token unlock, was expected to depress the memecoin’s price by increasing its supply but it seems to have had the opposite effect. 

Token unlocks are when a group of people—usually project team members, early investors or advisors—receive their allocated tokens for free or at a lower price after a predetermined amount of time and are allowed to sell them. Token unlocks are a way for project founders to guarantee to investors that they won’t do a rug pull—a common scam in which a memecoin project’s team members dump their holdings at once, tanking the token’s price and leaving investors holding the bag.

The tokens that were released last week were allocated to “creators and CIC digital,” according to the token’s website. While the identity of the token’s creators is unclear, CIC Digital is a company known to be affiliated with Trump. As the $330 million worth of tokens were unlocked, investors feared that these holders would immediately try to turn a profit by dumping the tokens into the market. 

Despite these concerns, the team has not made any significant sales yet, according to crypto analysis firm Chainalysis. “As of 1 p.m. ET on Monday, Chainalysis hasn’t detected any on-chain actions from the creators of $Trump coins,” the firm told Fortune

The token team’s perceived commitment to the project has led to increased confidence in the token’s longevity, leading investors to rush back over the weekend, Dylan Bane, an analyst at research firm Messari, told Fortune. “Because the price hasn’t gone down and a large-scale sale has not occurred, the markets might be pricing in the possibility that the Trump team just chooses to hold on to these tokens,” he said. 

However, this does not mean that the team behind the token won’t ever sell, Bane added. While there were 200 million tokens released for the launch in January, there are staggered unlocks scheduled every few months until 2028, when the total supply of tokens will reach 1 billion. 

“There’s a lot more to be unlocked,” Bane said. “So, if the price goes down, that’s not in the team’s interest since most of their tokens are not unlocked yet.”

Investors’ anxiety with Trump’s memecoin may be justified. The coin’s entry into the market was tumultuous, skyrocketing from $1.21 to $75.35 within its first two days, reaching a total market cap of $14 billion. But the coin’s price began to plummet soon after, and it has lost 90% of its value since Jan. 19. The token’s price now sits at $8.28. 

In the aftermath of the launch, investors lost more than $2 billion, according to an analysis by Chainalysis for The New York Times. Meanwhile, Trump-affiliated entities have produced $350 million in revenue from trading fees and selling the token itself, according to an analysis conducted by the Financial Times

According to the memecoin’s website, two Trump-affiliated entities—CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight—will own 80% of the 1 billion total $Trump tokens once they are all unlocked in 2028. That would mean, at its current price, Trump’s team stands to walk away from the project with a profit in the billions of dollars. 

It’s unclear how much of the token Trump and his family own directly, if at all. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com



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