🚗🚗🚗🚗 The Trump White House levies 25 percent tariffs on foreign cars. It is now time to potentially back off these tariffs, no matter how tempting they appear to be for MAGA populists and economic protectionists. Evidence is now mounting.

• “What we’re going to be doing is a 25 percent tariff for all cars that are not made in the United States,” said President Donald Trump in the Oval Office this week. “We start off with a 2.5% base, which is what we’re at, and go to 25 percent.”

• Such an announcement and threat of border levies adds far more uncertainty to an already uncertain economic environment. Recent conclusions reached by the CNBC CFO Council’s quarterly survey found that a recession is coming by the end of the year. Most of the chief financial officers blamed Trump’s tariff policies.

• Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, responded with major opposition due to it being “bad for businesses, worse for consumers.”

• Other countries with strong auto sectors, like Japan and South Korea, were also alarmed at concerns that tariffs to raise costs by thousands for U.S. consumers.

• Across the board, major international leaders are pissed off (yes, pissed off). For example, Canada’s new chief executive, Prime Minister Mark Carney, called the new tariffs a “direct attack” on the country’s auto sector. He said, “We will defend our workers. We will defend our companies. We will defend our country.”

• In another survey of chief financial officers, the Duke CFO Survey, which is done in conjunction with the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta, found that the CFO’s economic optimism index dropped from 66.0 in the fourth quarter to 62.1 in 2025, now wiping out post-election gains, like the stock market.

• Economic indications of a slowdown also cross over to other consumer sectors. For example, The Guardian reports that airline travel between Canada and the United States is “collapsing” amid the trade war instigated by President Trump. That is over 70 percent in drops per new data released by the analytics firm OAG.

• To further validate these claims, modeling by Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) found that tariffs, like auto tariffs, will harm the global economy.

Bottom line: President Trump announced a 25% tariff on foreign-made cars, alarming international leaders and triggering economic concerns, with experts warning that his trade policies could lead to a recession by the end of the year. What do we all do?

MORE: “The Tariff Man Is Coming for America’s Entrepreneurs” - The Atlantic

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⛽ Diesel: $3.567 / gal (⬆️from $3.549 last week) - EIA

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🚢 Global Container Index: $2,094 on March 27, 2025 - Freightos

🛥️Donald Trump nominated retired U.S. Navy Captain Brent Sadler for the MARAD administrator position: The next administrator of the Federal Maritime Administration and commandant of the U.S. Merchant Marine could be right-winger, Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow for the Christian nationalist ultraconservative Heritage Foundation.

🌎Trump’s White House has cut World Trade Organization funding: The U.S. gov’t has reportedly paused its treaty-bound contributions to the World Trade Organization. Reuters secured the story’s exclusive…read it here…

📨Louis DeJoy resigns as Postmaster General of the U.S. Postal Service: DeJoy’s resignation comes as right-wing and libertarian groups call for the privatization of USPS.

Read this different perspective from Truthout…

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Stories of Resistance: Trump wants the Panama Canal—but Panamanians won’t surrender without a fight

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