PayPal shares fell 4% on Friday after comments from a European Union lawmaker raised concerns that payments firms could get swept up in escalating U.S.-Europe trade tensions and potential tariffs. Uncertainty over tariffs and mounting trade actions have unsettled global markets, causing volatility, straining supply chains and shifting investor sentiment across industries.
Reuters
Earlier this week, U.S. President Donald Trump said larger tariffs could be placed on the European Union and Canada if they both work together “to do economic harm to the USA”.
“In the case of digital service providers, there is also a huge economic interest on the part of U.S. companies,” said Bernd Lange, the head of the European Parliament’s international trade committee. “In this respect, you can also look at charging fees on PayPal or Google.”
If imposed, the measures would pose a new challenge for the payments sector, which is typically shielded from tariffs as it does not depend on trade of physical goods.
Separately on Friday, a German government spokesperson also said “nothing is off the table” with regards to punitive measures in response to the threat of U.S. tariffs.
Macy’s Inc. is clawing back more than $600,000 in cash bonuses from executives after an accounting scandal led to inflated pay.
Bloomberg
The department-store operator tied executives’ cash bonuses to an earnings metric that turned out to be overstated by around $81 million in 2023, Macy’s said in a securities filing on Tuesday evening.
That meant Macy’s overpaid executives by $609,613 as of the end of 2024, the company said. Some of that has already been clawed back, so the outstanding amount stood at $352,093 as of April 1, it added.
The company’s compensation committee said it “will seek to recover the remaining amount of the erroneously awarded compensation” from executives. Macy’s didn’t name the people whose bonuses will be affected. A spokesperson declined to comment.
Macy’s also said Tuesday its chief financial officer was leaving. The company said it was replacing him with his counterpart at Capri Holdings Ltd., Thomas J. Edwards, and said the move was part of its plan to return to long-term, profitable growth.
Under US Securities and Exchange Commission rules, public companies are required to assess whether they need to revoke corporate bonuses if they uncover accounting errors that miscalculated past profits.
In November, Macy’s delayed an earnings release and then issued a lower profit outlook after an investigation found an employee intentionally hid more than $150 million in delivery expenses from the fourth quarter of 2021 through the third quarter of 2024.
The probe didn’t uncover evidence of missing cash or unpaid vendors and instead pointed to accounting errors by the former employee, who also falsified documents to hide the problem, according to the company.
U.S. President Donald Trump‘s new tariff plan has the ocean shipping industry on edge as he stokes a trade war destined to stanch transport demand and send companies scrambling to manage the fallout.
Reuters
The Trump administration on Wednesday is set to announce “reciprocal tariffs” targeting nations that have duties on U.S. goods. That move would come after it slapped new import levies on products from Mexico, China and Canada – the top U.S. trading partners – as well as on goods including steel and autos.
Major global container shipping firms like MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd transport towering piles of colorful boxes stuffed with goods for U.S. customers like Walmart, Target and Home Depot.
They are giants in the roughly $14 trillion a year ocean shipping industry that handles about 80% of global trade. They are also reliant on companies that are getting whipsawed by Trump’s escalating, on-and-off tariffs.
“The implementation of stacked tariffs has led to mounting confusion,” said Blake Harden, the Retail Industry Leaders Association’s vice president of international trade. “Companies have not had adequate time, certainty, and guidance they need to incorporate these changes and comply.”
Trump has invoked emergency powers to swiftly add, and occasionally retract and reinstate, tariffs during his second term in office.
“Importers don’t know from one week to the next what their duty cost is going to be,” said Kit Johnson, director of import compliance at John S. James Co., a U.S. customs broker and freight forwarder whose customers include automakers and producers of chemicals, machinery, medical devices and textiles.
Johnson has seen an uptick in customers opting for high-cost air shipping for autos and other goods that normally would travel by sea, in a bid to front-run new tariffs.
U.S. container imports have also surged to record levels in recent months as companies rushed in toys, furniture, bedding, machinery and parts from China, the world’s No. 1 exporter, to avoid Trump’s tariffs.
As that threat expanded, other vessel types and airplanes have been called to help U.S. firms stockpile cars from Europe and the Far East, cheese and wine from Italy, and prescription drugs from Ireland.
The average on-demand spot rate to ship a 40-foot container on the key Far East to U.S. West Coast route was $2,844 on Tuesday, a one-day gain of almost 16%, according to data from freight pricing platform Xeneta. That rate is still lower than a year ago, when the risk of Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes was a new phenomenon and trading was not distorted by importers seeking to avoid tariffs.
But companies’ knee-jerk, front-loading strategy is just a temporary fix – especially as retaliatory tariffs stoke trade wars that could suffocate demand.
The tariff tiffs come as ocean shipping faces greater potential peril from a separate Trump plan to impose hefty U.S. port call fees on ships with links to China.
Foes of that proposal say it could decimate domestic agriculture and energy exporters that Trump promised to support. They also warn it could reignite pandemic-level chaos at ports by prompting vessel operators to avoid fees by swamping some ports with cargo while starving others.
Layering that on top of tariffs has paralyzed decision-making around how to source, sell and move goods.
“You cannot make important decisions on your supply chain when the rules of the game keep changing,” said Peter Sand, Xeneta’s chief analyst.
One Greek container shipping executive, who requested anonymity due to fear that public comments could negatively affect business, said customers were not loading cargo for fear that a large levy might be imposed at the end of a lengthy ocean voyage.
“We are in a wait-and-see mode.”
Experts have begun counting the harm from Trump’s tariffs.
Anxiety over the levies already has helped derail a turnaround in the U.S. manufacturing sector that relies on imports and exports and drives significant demand for transportation, according to responses to the Institute for Supply Management survey.
S&P Global Market Intelligence expects the volume of U.S. ocean container freight imports to drop 0.7% in 2025.
“While there is still strong growth in the first quarter, this is expected to reverse in the second quarter of 2025 as tariffs bite,” S&P said.
Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is scrambling to reprogram and test systems needed to calculate and collect new tariffs. The Trump administration in February delayed a plan to begin collecting duties on direct sales of low-value goods from retailers like Temu and Shein after packages piled up at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
“The more of these tariffs we have, the harder it’s going to be for everyone to keep up,” customs broker Johnson said.
Dutch designer Duran Lantink has been named the winner of the 2025 International Woolmark Prize.
Duran Lantink wins 2025 Woolmark Prize. – 2025 Woolmark Prize
Lantink will receive AU$300,000 to invest in the growth of his business, along with ongoing mentorship from the industry and Woolmark Prize retail partners.
The Amsterdam and Paris-based designer, whose eponymous label was founded in 2019, is known for crafting sustainable, ever-evolving collections. His innovative approach blends pre-loved garments, deadstock fabrics, and new eco-friendly materials.
Lantink’s winning collection reimagined traditional knitting techniques through 3D reconstructed knitwear, incorporating historical Dutch knitting styles and recycled army sweaters, combined with contemporary woven check patterns.
“I feel very honoured to receive this award and I’m just so happy because we worked so hard with so many collaborators and it’s just really great to get this recognition,” Lantink said.
At the same event, Pieter Mulier was awarded the Karl Lagerfeld Award for Innovation, while Südwolle Group received the Supply Chain Award.
The winners were announced in Milan, where an expert panel of judges, chaired by Donatella Versace and including IB Kamara, Law Roach, Alessandro Sartori, Tim Blanks, Sinéad Burke, Honey Dijon, Alessandro Dell’Acqua, Simone Marchetti, Roopal Patel, and Danielle Goldberg, selected the winners.
Versace said, “We are in a moment when we need to feel better. Duran makes us feel that. His collection is a wonderful combination of respect for the fibre and a joyful sense of the future.”
For over 70 years, the International Woolmark Prize has championed the beauty and versatility of Merino wool while fostering sustainable growth through innovation and industry mentorship.
The 2025 edition, artistically directed by IB Kamara, was inspired by the sun, symbolizing energy, renewal, and interconnectedness.
Entertainment8 years ago