News when you wanted with Bloomberg News. Now, I'm Doug Krisner. We begin in Washington, where President Trump officially announced his tariff policy. A minimum levy of ten percent will be applied on all imports to the US beginning at midnight on Saturday, and the President announced reciprocal tariffs at rates of roughly fifty percent below what foreign countries place on
US imports. A few examples thirty four percent on Chinese goods, twenty four percent on imports from Japan, and twenty percent on all imports from the European Union. They take effect, by the way, April ninth. Here is Trump speaking earlier outside the White House.
My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day waiting for a long time. April second, twenty twenty five will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again.
That is President Trump speaking there. We also heard from Mary Lovely, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and she called these tariffs much worse than feared. Mexico and Canada were not named. Trump is keeping the tariff exemption in place for USMCA products. However, the levees on steel and aluminum do remain in place, and twenty five percent tariffs on autos and light trucks are about to take effect. And we are now hearing from China. The
government has firmly opposed the latest US tariff move. According to a statement from the Ministry of Commerce, Beijing is vowing to take countermeasures to safeguard its own interest. Meantime, in Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanizi called the imposition of a ten percent baseline tariff on Australian goods a poor decision, and Albanizi added he would not respond with retaliatory levies. Here is Albanizi speaking with reports for Australia.
These tariffs are not unexpected, but let me be clear, they are totally unwarranted. President Trump referred to reciprocal tariffs. A reciprocal tariff would be zero, not ten percent. The administration's tariffs have no basis in logic, and they go against the basis of our two nations partnership. This is not the act of a friend.
That is Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanizi. He went on to say that Australia would strengthen its anti dumping regime and provide millions of dollars in support to affected sectors and create trade missions to diversify its export partners. Shares and Tesla jump by more than five percent today, This on hope Elon Musk will refocus on the Carmaker. This after Politico reported that Musk's time as a top advisor
to President Trump may soon end. Later in the day, Press Secretary Caroline Levit posted x that Musk will depart from public service when his work at DOGE is complete, as previously stated, and she dismissed the Politico story, calling it garbage. Investors, meantime, have been concerned about Musk's absence from Tesla, as well as a lack of strategy when it comes to addressing consumer backlash. Here is Bloomberg's Max Chafkin.
So we've seen that play out in the sales, and the stock is going up at the moment. My assumption is people reading this political report and thinking, Okay, look, he's going to have influence in Washington. It's it's going to be hard to like totally untangle Elon Musk from
Donald Trump. But if he's not in the White House on a day to day basis, that's got to help Tesla a little bit, both because Elon Musk is going to be less distracted and perhaps because he won't suffer the brand penalty as much.
That is Bloomberg's Max Chafkin. Sources tell Bloomberg that Amazon has reportedly made a last minute bid to buy the US operations of TikTok. Now President Trump will soon decide the fate of those operations before a deadline comes on Saturday, when the Chinese owner of TikTok must either find a buyer or face a ban in the US. Here is Bloomberg's Spencer Soaper.
It's really a site where people dip in by what they need dip out, you know, which has been very good for Amazon. But if it could get people to linger around and be entertained there, all the better. You know, people spend even more in its advertising business will be that much more lucrative.
That is Bloomberg Spencer Soaper. Earlier, The New York Times reported Amazon made and eleventh hour bid in a letter to Vice President jd Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik. Meantime, The Financial Times was reporting that the White House is close to approving the sale of half of TikTok's US operations to a group of new outside investors, including Andresen Hurwitz, Blackstone and some other large private equity players. And that
is news when you want it with Bloomberg News. Now, I'm Doug Prisner, and this is Bloomberg