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Stock market today: Wall Street hits records despite tariff talk

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Stock market today: Wall Street hits records despite tariff talk

By STAN CHOE

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks rose to records Tuesday after Donald Trump’s latest talk about tariffs created only some ripples on Wall Street, even if they could roil the global economy were they to take effect.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.6% to top the all-time high it set a couple weeks ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 123 points, or 0.3%, to its own record set the day before, while the Nasdaq composite gained 0.6% as Microsoft and Big Tech led the way.

Stock markets abroad mostly fell after President-elect Trump said he plans to impose sweeping new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China once he takes office. But the movements were mostly modest. Stock indexes were down 0.1% in Shanghai and nearly flat in Hong Kong, while Canada’s main index edged down by less than 0.1%.

Trump has often praised the use of tariffsbut investors are weighing whether his latest threat will actually become policy or is just an opening point for negotiations. For now, the market seems to be taking it more as the latter.

AP AUDIO: Stock market today: Wall Street hangs near its records despite tariff talk

The AP’s Seth Sutel reports Wall Street hangs near its records despite tariff talk.

The consequences otherwise for markets and the global economy could be painful.

Unless the United States can prepare alternatives for the autos, energy products and other goods that come from Mexico, Canada and China, such tariffs would raise the price of imported items all at once and make households poorer, according to Carl Weinberg and Rubeela Farooqi, economists at High Frequency Economics.

They would also hurt profit margins for U.S. companies, while raising the threat of retaliatory tariffs by other countries. And unlike tariffs in Trump’s first term, his latest proposal would affect products across the board.

General Motors sank 9%, and Ford Motor fell 2.6% because both import automobiles from Mexico. Constellation Brands, which sells Modelo and other Mexican beer brands in the United States, dropped 3.3%. The value of the Mexican peso fell 1.8% against the U.S. dollar.

Beyond the pain such tariffs would cause U.S. households and businesses, they could also push the Federal Reserve to slow or even halt its cuts to interest rates. The Fed had just begun easing its main interest rate from a two-decade high a couple months ago to offer support for the job market. While lower interest rates can boost the economy, they can also offer more fuel for inflation.

“Many” officials at the Fed’s last meeting earlier this month said they should lower rates gradually, according to minutes of the meeting released Tuesday afternoon.

The talk about tariffs overshadowed another mixed set of profit reports from U.S. retailers that answered few questions about how much more shoppers can keep spending. They’ll need to stay resilient after helping the economy avoid a recession, despite the high interest rates imposed by the Fed to get inflation under control.

A report on Tuesday from the Conference Board said confidence among U.S. consumers improved in November, but not by as much as economists expected.

Kohl’s tumbled 17% after its results for the latest quarter fell short of analysts’ expectations. CEO Tom Kingsbury said sales remain soft for apparel and footwear. A day earlier, Kingsbury said he plans to step down as CEO in January. Ashley Buchanan, CEO of Michaels and a retail veteran, will replace him.

Best Buy fell 4.9% after likewise falling short of analysts’ expectations. Dick’s Sporting Goods topped forecasts for the latest quarter thanks to a strong back-to-school season, but its stock lost an early gain to fall 1.4%.

Still, more stocks rose in the S&P 500 than fell. J.M. Smucker had one of the biggest gains and climbed 5.7% after topping analysts’ expectations for the latest quarter. CEO Mark Smucker credited strength for its Uncrustables, Meow Mix, Café Bustelo and Jif brands.

Big Tech stocks also helped prop up U.S. indexes. Gains of 3.2% for Amazon and 2.2% for Microsoft were the two strongest forces lifting the S&P 500.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 34.26 points to 6,021.63. The Dow gained 123.74 to 44,860.31, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 119.46 to 19,174.30.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady following their big drop from a day before driven by relief following Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury inched up to 4.29% from 4.28% late Monday, but it’s still well below the 4.41% level where it ended last week.

In the crypto market, bitcoin continued to pull back after topping $99,000 for the first time late last week. It’s since dipped back toward $91,000, according to CoinDesk.

It’s a sharp turnaround from the bonanza that initially took over the crypto market following Trump’s election. That boom had also appeared to have spilled into some corners of the stock market. Strategists at Barclays Capital pointed to stocks of unprofitable companies, along with other areas that can be caught up in bursts of optimism by smaller-pocketed “retail” investors.

___

AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

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The Dictatorship

Elon Musk says President Donald Trump has ‘agreed’ USAID should be shut down

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Elon Musk says President Donald Trump has ‘agreed’ USAID should be shut down

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Agency for International Development is on the cusp of being shuttered, according the Trump administration’s billionaire adviser and Tesla CEO Elon Musk — who has been wrestling for control of the agency in recent days.

Early Monday, Musk held a live session on X Spaces, previously known as Twitter Spaces, and said that he spoke in detail about USAID with the president. “He agreed we should shut it down,” Musk said.

“It became apparent that its not an apple with a worm it in,” Musk said. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.” “We’re shutting it down.”

His comments come after the administration placed two top security chiefs at USAID on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk’s government-inspection teams, a current and a former U.S. official told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Members of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiencyknown as DOGE, eventually did gain access Saturday to the aid agency’s classified information, which includes intelligence reports, the former official said.

Musk’s DOGE crew lacked high enough security clearance to access that information, so the two USAID security officials — John Voorhees and deputy Brian McGill — believed themselves legally obligated to deny access.

The current and former U.S. officials had knowledge of the incident and spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share the information.

Musk on Sunday responded to an X post about the news by saying, “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” He followed with additional posts on X about the aid agency.

Kate Miller, who serves on an advisory board for DOGE, said in a separate post that no classified material was accessed “without proper security clearances.”

It comes a day after DOGE carried out a similar operation at the Treasury Departmentgaining access to sensitive information including the Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems. The Washington Post reported that a senior Treasury official had resigned over Musk’s team accessing sensitive information.

Musk formed DOGE in cooperation with the Trump administration with the stated goal of finding ways to fire federal workerscut programs and slash federal regulations.

USAID, whose website vanished Saturday without explanation, has been one of the federal agencies most targeted by the Trump administration in an escalating crackdown on the federal government and many of its programs.

“It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics. And we’re getting them out,” Trump said to reporters about USAID on Sunday night.

The Trump administration and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have imposed an unprecedented freeze on foreign assistance that has shut down much of USAID’s humanitarian, development and security programs worldwide — compelling thousands of layoffs by aid organizations — and ordered furloughs and leaves that have gutted the agency’s leadership and staff in Washington.

The U.S. is by far the world’s largest donor of humanitarian aid, with USAID administering billions of dollars in humanitarian, development and security assistance in more than 100 countries.

Peter Marocco, a returning political appointee from Trump’s first term, was a leader in enforcing the shutdown. USAID staffers say they believe that agency outsiders with visitors badges asking questions of employees inside the Washington headquarters are members of Musk’s DOGE team.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a post on Sunday that Trump was allowing Musk to access people’s personal information and shut down government funding.

“We must do everything in our power to push back and protect people from harm,” the Massachusetts senator said, without giving details.

___

Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price in New York, Matthew Lee in Panama City and Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

___ This story has been updated to correct the surname name of one of the USAID security officials. He is John Voorhees, not John Vorhees.

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‘Serial disappointer’ Sen. Collins indicates she’ll vote for Tulsi Gabbard

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‘Serial disappointer’ Sen. Collins indicates she’ll vote for Tulsi Gabbard
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There’s a lot of craziness in D.C. right now. But you can safely ignore these stunts.

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There’s a lot of craziness in D.C. right now. But you can safely ignore these stunts.

When I took a job years ago managing a website about Congress, I was shocked to discover that the most-searched bill was an obscure piece of legislation called the Blair Holt Act.

The bill, which would require gun licenses and background checks, was going nowhere. It had two sponsors in the House — one of whom was a nonvoting member representing the Virgin Islands. It didn’t have a companion bill in the Senate. It was what people in Washington call a “messaging bill” designed to signal to voters that the lawmaker takes a particular issue seriously. But every month, it was at the top of our Google Analytics.

In this case, the bill had inadvertently provoked another group of voters — gun owners who believed the Blair Holt Act was the first sign that the government was coming for their firearms. They were sharing the legislation on message boards and in conspiracy theory-minded emails, panicking over a bill that was never going to be signed into law.

As the president has signed executive orders right and left, some lawmakers seem to feel left out.

Now this dynamic is playing out in a novel fashion in President Donald Trump’s chaotic first two weeks in office. Normally members of Congress reserve messaging bills for closer to the next election. But as the president has signed executive orders right and left, some lawmakers seem to feel left out. They’re turning to messaging bills earlier to draw attention and getting more extreme than we’ve seen in the past. The worst of these aren’t so much messaging bills as the legislative equivalent of what people euphemistically call “trashposting” on the internet. And some of the president’s critics are falling for it.

In January, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., filed a bill to direct the interior secretary to “arrange for the carving of the figure of President Donald J. Trump on Mount Rushmore.” The bill, which has no co-sponsors, was dutifully referred to a House committee, where it will die a quiet death. But in the meantime, Trump might hear about it and think nicely of Luna, or she can tout it on social media posts about triggering the libs.

That same month, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., proposed a constitutional amendment to allow presidents to serve third terms — as long as their other two terms weren’t consecutive, a loophole that appears designed to give Trump a pass while keeping, say, Barack Obama, on the sidelines.

The bill, which also has zero co-sponsors, is about as serious as the Mount Rushmore proposal. If anything, it’s an even heavier lift than carving into the side of a mountain in South Dakota. A constitutional amendment requires approval by two-thirds of both chambers and ratification by three-fourths of states. That’s just not going to happen, much less in time for an 82-year-old Trump to run again in 2028.

In Ogles’ case, he might have another motive for trying to score points with Trump. A week after he filed his bill, federal prosecutors in Nashville withdrew from a criminal investigation into why Ogles misrepresented how much money he lent his campaign on federal forms. That case will now be handled entirely from the Justice Department’s Washington headquarters, which Trump has vowed to exert more control over.

Other lawmakers seem emboldened by Trump’s dramatic proposals to remake the federal government, and, to be honest, it’s understandable if the average voter can’t tell if they are serious or not. Here are a few more examples:

Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona proposed a bill to abolish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which handles workplace safety (no co-sponsors).

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia proposed two bills to “expunge” Trump’s first-term impeachments (10 co-sponsors each).

And Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter of Georgia proposed a bill to abolish the IRS and enact a national sales tax (11 co-sponsors).

These bills aren’t going to pass. They’re interesting as a sign of the current thinking among the outer reaches of today’s Republican Party, but you don’t need to ever think about them again.

Amid the uncertainty of Trump’s second term, it’s important to take a breath, check the sources and make sure we’re not getting riled up over a messaging bill going nowhere. First, is it dramatic and easy to explain? Second, does it have almost no co-sponsors? If the answer to both questions is yes, then it’s a trashposting bill.

There are a lot of unnerving things going on in Washington these days. It’s important to save your attention — and your outrage — for the ones that are real.

Ryan Teague Beckwith

Ryan Teague Beckwith is a newsletter editor for BLN. He has previously worked for such outlets as Time magazine, Bloomberg News and CQ Roll Call. He teaches journalism at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies.

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