🗞️Lions & tariffs & bears, oh my!-more tariff changes

April 9th, 2025

What happened today 🇺🇸,

• President Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs, citing that over 75 countries have reached out to the U.S. seeking new trade deals, during this pause, a flat 10% tariff will remain in place on most imports…however, tariffs on Chinese goods will be raised to 125%, because of what Trump said was China’s “lack of respect” as the reason for the increase and them not being apart of the pause

• FBI Director, Kash Patel, has been replaced as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll has been appointed to fill the position

• The Trump administration is freezing $790 million in federal funding to Northwestern University and more than $1 billion in funding to Cornell University while the government investigates civil rights issues at the schools

• Google has announced new AI capabilities coming to its Workspace apps, which are its suite of cloud-based productivity tools…for more click here

• Amazon has canceled some inventory orders from China after the tariffs were put in place

• Carmakers are holding thousands of vehicles at U.S. ports and temporarily halting shipments into the U.S. as they seek to minimize the fallout from President Trump’s intensifying trade debacle, per the Financial Times

• The luxury fashion brand, Prada, looks set to acquire their competitor Versace for $1.4 billion

• DOW up 7.87% / S&P up 9.52%

• Universal is planning to build a theme park in the UK, it will be their first theme park in Europe…construction will start next year in Bedford, England and the plan is for it to be open by 2031

• China has denied the claims made by Ukrainian President Zelenskyy that a significant number of Chinese soldiers are fighting alongside Russia against Ukraine…this comes after the Ukrainian military captured two Chinese citizens in battle yesterday and their intelligence has allegedly identified over 150 Chinese citizens fighting

Bonus: A look at how state taxes have changed since 2000

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