Stocks surge after 90-day pause announced for most countries

China’s State Administration Council said 84% tariffs against U.S. imports took effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday.

Goods shipped to China that left before 12:01 a.m. and are received before midnight Sunday won’t be subjected to the tariff, China said.

China levied retaliatory tariffs in response to tariffs Trump imposed Wednesday, which raise the total duties on Chinese imports to 125%.

Acting South Korean President Han Duck-soo said the country must negotiate to escape tariffs after Trump paused most levies Wednesday.

“Over the next 90 days, we must make progress in all negotiations to escape the burden of tariffs, and we must put in even greater effort,” Han said at a Cabinet meeting Thursday local time, his office said.

“As a country like South Korea, which depends heavily on trade for its growth and development, I urge all ministers to put in special efforts and show determination,” Han said, according to his office.

Trump announced Wednesday he was pausing most of the tariffs for 90 days.

The owner of a California home decor and plant shop said that even in dealing locally, the sourcing of goods from China is impossible to avoid.

“Even when I’m buying local companies, local small businesses, there are things that are in China,” Kate Nelson, owner of the Greenwood Shop, said on NBC News Now.

Trump yesterday imposed, and then suspended, sweeping tariffs on countries around the world but left them in place — and increased them to 125% — for China. Even with the latest suspension, though, a 10% across-the-board tariff that Trump imposed last week will remain.

The levies, Nelson said, will greatly affect her business.

“It’s really difficult, because I look at my wholesale costs, and that would double,” Nelson said. “I don’t know how to do that. That math and having consumers pay for it — I don't know how we do that.” 

China has responded to Trump’s tariffs with tariffs on U.S. goods. It announced an extra tariff that brings the total to 84%.

Japan’s chief Cabinet secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, said Thursday local time that the government was pleased Trump suspended some of the threatened tariffs — but it urged continued review.

“We would first like to carefully examine the details of what will be announced in the coming days,” Hayashi said.

“We have explained our concerns at various levels and have urged for the reconsideration of these measures, and so we take this recent announcement by the U.S. government positively,” he told reporters at a briefing.

“We will continue to strongly urge the United Staes to review its reciprocal tariffs and their levies on steel and aluminum products, as well as automobiles and auto parts,” he said.

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and other Democrats on Capitol Hill raised questions today about Trump’s reversal on tariffs — after days of administration insistence that they would stay — which sent the markets shooting up.

“Who in the administration knew about Trump’s latest tariff flip flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public’s expense?” Schiff posted on social media.

“I’m writing to the White House — the public has a right to know,” he said.

Japan’s Nikkei index was up around 8% at 11 a.m. Thursday local time (10 p.m. tonight ET) after Trump’s reversal on most global tariffs.

The Kospi index in South Korea was up 5½%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was up more than 4% and Shanghai's SSE Composite Index was up about 1.6%.

Australia’s ASX 200 was up 4¾% shortly after 12 p.m. local time there.

Trump signed an executive order today removing restrictions on water pressure for showerheads, toilets, dishwashers and other household appliances. The order directs the energy secretary to rescind Obama- and Biden-era rules limiting showerhead water pressure.

Trump joked as he signed the order that reduced water flow was interfering with his hair routine.

"In my case, I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair for 15 minutes till it gets wet. It comes out, drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous," he said.

“Liberation Day” just gave way to Capitulation Day.

Trump pulled back today on a series of harsh tariffs targeting friends and foes alike in an audacious bid to remake the global economic order.

Trump’s early afternoon announcement followed a harrowing week in which Republican lawmakers and confidants privately warned him that the tariffs could wreck the economy. His own aides had quietly raised alarms about the financial markets before he suspended a tariff regime that he had unveiled with a flourish just one week earlier in a Rose Garden ceremony.

The stock market rose immediately after the about-face, ending days of losses that have forced older Americans who’ve been sinking their savings into 401(k)s to rethink their retirement plans.

Read the full story here.

A federal judge today temporarily lifted a 2021 order governing the release of government materials related to the Jan. 6 riot.

Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of the Washington, D.C., Circuit granted a Jan. 6 defendant’s motion to lift a protective order that has restricted the release of discovery materials tied to the attack on the Capitol after the Justice Department failed to respond. Boasberg later put his order on pause after federal prosecutors asked for more time to respond to the motion.

Roger Roots, an attorney for Jan. 6 defendant Ryan Zick, asked Boasberg last month to lift the 2021 protective order. Roots, who represented several Jan. 6 defendants, including a member of the Proud Boys, had asked the court to lift the order and require that “the government’s discovery databases Evidence.com and Relativity be maintained and made available to the public, for present and future research and transparency.”