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The on-again, off-again tariffs between the United States and other countries are again under scrutiny, with the U.S. president not budging. VOA White House Correspondent Carolyn Presutti reports.
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NEW YORK — Wall Street’s sell-off hit a new low Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war dragged the S&P 500 more than 10% below its record, which was set just last month.
A 10% drop is deemed a correction by professional investors, and the S&P 500’s 1.4% slide on Thursday sent the index to its first since 2023. The losses came after Trump upped the stakes in his trade war by threatening huge taxes on European wines and alcohol. Not even a double-shot of good news on the U.S. economy could stop the bleeding.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 537 points, or 1.3% Thursday, and the Nasdaq composite fell 2%.
The dizzying, battering swings for stocks have been coming not just day to day but also hour to hour, and the Dow hurtled between a slight gain and a drop of 689 points through Thursday’s trading.
The turbulence is a result of uncertainty about how much pain Trump will let the economy endure through tariffs and other policies to reshape the country and world as he wants. The president has said he wants manufacturing jobs back in the United States, along with a smaller U.S. government workforce and other fundamental changes.
Trump’s latest escalation came Thursday when he threatened 200% tariffs on Champagne and other European wines, unless the European Union rolls back a tariff it announced on U.S. whiskey. The European Union unveiled that move on Wednesday, in response to U.S. tariffs on European steel and aluminum.
U.S. households and businesses have reported drops in confidence because of all the uncertainty about which tariffs will stick from Trump’s barrage of on-again, off-again announcements. That’s raised fears about a pullback in spending that could sap energy from the economy. Some U.S. businesses say they’ve begun to see a change in their customers’ behavior because of the uncertainty.
A particularly feared scenario for the economy is one where its growth stagnates but inflation stays high because of tariffs. Few tools are available in Washington to fix what’s called stagflation.
There was good news Thursday, and it came on both those economic fronts.
One report showed inflation at the wholesale level last month was milder than economists expected. It followed a similarly encouraging report from the prior day on inflation that U.S. consumers are feeling.
A separate report, meanwhile, said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected. It’s the latest signal that the job market remains relatively solid overall. If that can continue, it could allow U.S. consumers to keep spending, and that’s the main engine of the economy.
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BEIJING — China has been “doing its best” to push for negotiations with the European Union over its tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, a commerce ministry spokesperson said on Thursday, almost four months after the punitive import curbs took effect.

The bloc voted to increase the tariffs to as much as 45.3% in October after the European Commission — which oversees EU trade policy — launched an anti-subsidy probe into whether Chinese firms benefited from preferential grants and financing as well as land, batteries and raw materials at below market prices.

“China has been doing its best to push for negotiations with the EU,” He Yadong said. “It is hoped that the EU will take notice of the call from industry and promote bilateral investment cooperation through dialogue and consultation.”

China launched its own probes last year into imports of EU brandy, dairy and pork products.

He told reporters China’s anti-dumping probe into Europe’s pork products and anti-subsidy investigation into the 27-strong bloc’s dairy trade were still ongoing, when asked how the cases were progressing.

“We will conduct the investigation in an open and transparent manner in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations and World Trade Organization rules,” he added. China’s commerce ministry in December decided to extend its anti-dumping investigation into EU brandy imports by three months to April 5.
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NAIROBI, KENYA — Milk and egg vendor Caroline Mukundi has lost a lot of her stock in her years of selling fresh food at a Nairobi market.

Mukundi said she had no way to keep food fresh, and the cost of refrigerating was out of reach.

“The food would go bad,” she said, and she would have to throw it away. “It was a big challenge for me.”

Mukundi said her situation turned around when she acquired a solar-powered refrigerator.

The refrigerators, named Koolboks and manufactured in Kenya, are fitted with ice compartments that can chill food even without a source of power. The devices can keep food cool for up to four days without electricity, even with limited sunlight.

Customers can buy the refrigerators on a customized payment model, said Natalie Casey, chief business officer at the Koolboks startup company.

“They can be between 1,500 and 3,000 US dollars, because it includes not only the appliances but also the solar panels and battery storage to enable the continuous cooling,” she said. “We’ve decided what might be more accessible to them is to first pay a down payment between 20 and 35% of the total, and the customer can pay in installments of up to 24 months.”

Koolboks has sold about 7,000 solar-powered refrigerators.

Conventional refrigerators for businesses can cost anywhere from $11,000 to $100,000 or more, said Dorothy Otieno, program manager at the Center for Environmental Justice and Development.

“Some businesses, especially small businesses, are not able to afford it,” she said.

“We are looking at, for example, how businesses can be supported to get access to [the Koolboks refrigerators], especially for communities that are not able to afford,” she said.

The refrigerator was among dozens of innovations showcased at the recent Africa Tech Summit in Nairobi. The conference’s founder, Andrew Fassnidge, told VOA that such creations are crucial to solving local problems on the continent.

“What’s interesting with … Koolboks refrigeration is, if we look at the Covid vaccine, one of the biggest issues at the time was refrigeration, and it’s still an issue in most markets,” he said.

Koolboks markets a refrigerator specifically for vaccines.

The refrigerators could have an impact on climate change, too.

A 2024 survey by the U.N. Environmental Program showed Kenya has a high level of food waste, with annual waste ranging from 40 to 100 kilograms per person.

Environmentalists say high levels of organic waste worsen climate change, so preventing food waste can have an impact.
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Tokyo — Global shares traded mixed on Monday as investors continued to watch economic data and policy moves from U.S. President Donald Trump, as both are likely to impact upcoming central bank moves.

France’s CAC 40 dipped nearly 0.1% in early trading to 8,171.59, while Germany’s DAX added 0.4% to 22,560.00. Britain’s FTSE 100 edged up 0.1% to 8,742.97.

U.S. markets are closed on Monday for a holiday.

In Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose in early trading after the Cabinet Office reported that the economy grew at a better-than-expected annual rate of 2.8% in October-December, underlined by steady exports and moderate consumption. But the benchmark quickly fell back and then recovered to be little changed, finishing up less than 0.1% at 39,174.25.

On a quarter-to-quarter basis, the world’s fourth-largest economy grew 0.7% for its third straight quarter of growth. Japan marked its fourth straight year of expansion, eking out 0.1% growth last year in seasonally adjusted real gross domestic product, which measures the value of a nation’s products and services.

In other regional markets, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.2% to 8,537.10. South Korea’s Kospi surged 0.8% to 2,610.42. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng reversed course, to slip less than 0.1% to 22,616.23, while the Shanghai Composite added 0.3% to 3,355.83.

Markets around the world are nervously watching what upward pressure may come from tariffs that Trump has announced recently. But analysts now think Trump may ultimately avoid triggering a punishing global trade war.

His most recent tariff announcement, for example, won’t take full effect for at least several weeks. That leaves time for Washington and other countries to negotiate.

The Federal Reserve’s goal, as well as that of the Bank of Japan, is to keep inflation at 2%.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude added 28 cents to $71.02 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 34 cents to $75.08 a barrel.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar declined to 151.90 Japanese yen from 152.25 yen. The euro cost $1.0472, down from $1.0495.
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It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem.

Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Eggs Up Grill has 90 restaurants in nine southern states, up from 26 in 2018. Florida-based Another Broken Egg Café celebrated its 100th restaurant last year.

Fast-food chains are also adding more breakfast items. Starbucks, which launched egg bites in 2017, now has a breakfast menu with 12 separate items containing eggs. Wendy’s reintroduced breakfast in 2020 and offers 10 items with eggs.

Reviews website Yelp said 6,421 breakfast and brunch businesses opened in the United States last year, 23% more than in 2019.

In normal times, producers could meet the demand for all those eggs. But an ongoing bird flu outbreak, which so far has forced farms to slaughter nearly 159 million chickens, turkeys and other birds — including nearly 47 million since the start of December — is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. In January, the average price of eggs in the U.S. hit a record $4.95 per dozen.

The percentage of eggs that go to U.S. restaurants versus other places, like grocery stores or food manufacturers, is not publicly available. U.S. Foods, a restaurant supplier, and Cal-Maine Foods, the largest U.S. producer of shell eggs, did not respond to The Associated Press’ requests for comment.

But demand from restaurants is almost certainly growing. Foot traffic at U.S. restaurants has grown the most since 2019 for morning meals, 2019, according to market research firm Circana. Pre-lunchtime hours accounted for 21% of total restaurant visits in 2024.

Breakfast sandwiches are the most popular order during morning visits, Circana said, and 70% of the breakfast sandwiches on U.S. menus include eggs.

Eggs Up Grill CEO Ricky Richardson said breakfast restaurants took off after the COVID pandemic because people longed for comfort and connection. As inflation made food more expensive, customers saw breakfast and lunch as more affordable options for eating out, he said.

The growth in restaurant demand reverses a pattern that emerged during the pandemic, when consumers tried to stock up on eggs for home use but restaurants needed fewer of them because many of them had to close for a time, according to Brian Earnest, a lead economist for animal proteins at CoBank.

U.S. egg consumption declined for more than five decades before reaching a low of 247 per person in 2008, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As nutritional research and marketing established eggs as an inexpensive protein source instead of heart-clogging cholesterol bombs, per capita consumption of egg products grew to the equivalent of 292 fresh eggs in 2019, the data shows.

“Consumers think eggs are really fresh, so if you’re making something with eggs, you know it’s fresh,” Earnest said.

Before the pandemic reduced demand and bird flu outbreaks impacted supplies, the USDA had forecast that Americans would continue eating more eggs. By 2023, the most recent year for which annual data is available, they were down to 249 eggs per person.

Other trends have impacted the economics of eggs. To address animal rights concerns, McDonald’s and some other companies have switched to 100% cage-free eggs, which limits the sources they will buy from. Ten states, including California and Colorado, have passed laws restricting egg sales to products from cage-free environments.

“It makes the market much more complicated than it was 20 years ago,” Earnest said.

The higher prices are hitting restaurants hard. Wholesale egg prices hit a national average of $7.34 per dozen last week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That was 51% higher than at the beginning of the year. Wholesale costs may be higher than retail prices since grocers use eggs as a loss leader to get customers in the door.

Some chains, like Waffle House, have added a surcharge to help offset the cost of eggs. Others may turn to egg substitutes like tapioca starch for some recipes or cut egg dishes from the menu, said Phil Kafarakis, the president and CEO of the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association.

First Watch President and CEO Chris Tomasso said eggs are critical for the chain’s brand and are found in the majority of its offerings, whether at the center of the plate or as an ingredient in batters. So far, he said, the company has been able to obtain the eggs it needs and isn’t charging extra for them.

First Watch is also increasing portion sizes for non-egg items like meat and potatoes, Tomasso said.

Richardson, of Eggs Up Grill, said he recently met with franchisees to discuss adding a surcharge but they decided against it.

“Eggs have always been and will continue to be an important part of American diets,” Richardson said.
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