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How we will cover a second Trump presidency

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This is the introduction to The Economist this week, a free weekly newsletter that includes a note from our editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes.

Sign up for The Economist this week

The world has just witnessed a historic turn. Donald Trump’s election as America’s 47th president was not a fluke: his victory was decisive. By securing more than 70m votes, he has won the popular vote for the first time in three attempts. The Republican Party now runs the Senate and is likely, within days, to secure control of the House. Add that the Supreme Court will be firmly entrenched with MAGA values for a generation. All this constitutes a stunning comeback and provides a powerful mandate for Mr Trump; in our cover leader we call him the most consequential American president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Our weekly edition considers what a second Trump presidency means. If Mr Trump has wrecked the old order, what will take its place? Will the return of Trumponomics spark a global trade war? How will Mr Trump handle the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East? His sweeping victory could set the tone for fellow nationalist populists such as Marine Le Pen, who hopes to secure France’s presidency in 2027. Mr Trump was too easily dismissed as an aberration in his first term. Not now. He has defined a new political era, for America and the world.

Subscribers can now sign up to participate in our live digital event on Friday November 8th, where our editors will discuss the election’s aftermath and what comes next. I also recommend the US in brief, our daily newsletter devoted to the most important matters in American politics.

Wherever you live, Mr Trump’s presidency will affect you. Over the next four years, we will report on and analyse the effects of the second Trump presidency on policy, business, economics and more—in America and around the world.

I invite you to be a part of this. If you already subscribe to The Economist, thank you.

Economics

China to impose 34% retaliatory tariff on all goods imported from the U.S.

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Chinese and U.S. flags flutter near The Bund, before U.S. trade delegation meet their Chinese counterparts for talks in Shanghai, China July 30, 2019.

Aly Song | Reuters

China’s finance ministry on Friday said it will impose a 34% tariff on all goods imported from the U.S. starting on April 10, following duties imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration earlier this week.

“China urges the United States to immediately cancel its unilateral tariff measures and resolve trade differences through consultation in an equal, respectful and mutually beneficial manner,” the ministry said, according to a Google translation.

It further criticized Washington’s decision to impose 34% of additional reciprocal levies on China — bringing total U.S. tariffs against the country to 54% — as “inconsistent with international trade rules” and “seriously” undermining Chinese interests, as well as endangering “global economic development and the stability of the production and supply chain,” according to a Google-translated report from Chinese state news outlet Xinhua.

Separately, China also added 11 U.S. firms to the “unreliable entities list” that the Beijing administration says have violated market rules or contractual commitments. China’s ministry of commerce also added 16 U.S. entities to its export control list and said it would implement export controls on seven types of rare-earth related items, including samarium, gadolinium and terbium.

CNBC has reached out to the White House for comment.

Beijing, which also entertained a tenuous trade relationship with Washington under Trump’s first term, had warned that it would take “resolute counter-measures” to safeguard its own interests after the White House disclosed its latest sweeping tariffs on Wednesday.

Other U.S. trading partners had held off from announcing retaliatory tariffs amid hopes of further negotiations, with the European Union nevertheless voicing a readiness to respond.

The mutual U.S.-China levies are set to impact a trade relationship worth $582.4 billion in goods in 2024, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Analysts expect the U.S.’ protectionist trade policies to steer China toward other trading partners and see it implement further stimulus measures in an effort to galvanize the economy. China has been battling a property crisis and weak consumer and business sentiment since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic.

China’s retaliatory tariffs announced Friday exacerbated declines in global markets which had already been thrust into turmoil by fears of inflationary, recessionary and global economic growth risks following the White House’s tariffs.

Mohamed Aly El-Erian, chief economic advisor for Allianz SE. 

El-Erian says U.S. recession risks are now ‘uncomfortably high’

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Economics

Donald Trump is attacking what made American universities great

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The conservative counter-revolution began with a secret memo, at least as the tale is often told on America’s political left, with the mix of fear and envy characteristic of the conspiracy-minded. In the summer of 1971 Lewis Powell was an eminent corporate lawyer, soon to be nominated and confirmed for the Supreme Court, when he drafted a confidential proposal for the US Chamber of Commerce. Powell laid out a costly, co-ordinated, years-long programme to counter the left’s influence in the media, the courts, the boardroom and, above all, universities. “There is reason to believe that the campus is the single most dynamic source” of an intensifying assault on free enterprise, he warned.

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How Donald Trump is shaping other countries’ politics

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He is boosting the centre and centre-left and delighting the hard right

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