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President Trump announced Friday he will raise tariffs on China in response to a move from Beijing to tighten its control over certain critical minerals and rare earth elements.

Trump announced on Truth Social that he would impose a tariff of 100 percent on Chinese goods beginning Nov. 1 or sooner. Those tariffs will supersede existing duties already in place on Chinese goods.

The president said his administration would also place export controls “on any and all critical software.”

“It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History,” Trump posted.

China announced this week that foreign entities must obtain a license in order to export any products containing more than 0.1 percent of rare earths that are either sourced in China or manufactured using the country’s extraction process. China controls roughly 70 percent of the world’s rare metals and earths.

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The Supreme Court said President Donald Trump must allow Lisa Cook to remain on the Federal Reserve for now, rejecting his bid to immediately fire her from the central bank, which has broad influence over the economy through its interest rate decisions.

Rather than grant Trump’s emergency request for her to be fired, the high court said it would hear oral arguments on the issue in January.

The justices are already set to consider a similar case on the Federal Trade Commission, which raises the issue of whether Congress or the courts can protect leaders of independent agencies from removal by the president.

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The time has come to ban the “revolving door” between the White House and the Federal Reserve, two academics argued last year. Doing so would be “critical to reducing the incentives for officials to act in the short-term political interests of the president”, they wrote.

Eight months ago, the two writers – Dan Katz and Stephen Miran – joined the Trump administration in senior roles. On Tuesday, Miran, the chair of the US council of economic advisers, walked into the Fed as a governor.

Strolling through the revolving door himself, Miran pledged during his confirmation hearing to preserve the Fed’s independence, but made clear he would not resign from the White House, just take unpaid leave.

Having expressed concern last year about the Fed’s vulnerability to the short-term political interests of the president, Miran was rushed into his new seat on the central bank’s board of governors hours before its latest meeting – as Donald Trump continued to push to have another voting member removed.

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Inflation rose slightly in August as companies continued to push the cost of tariffs on to consumers.

The newest update to the consumer price index (CPI), which measures a basket of goods and services, showed that prices increased 2.9% over the last year – the highest since January. Core CPI, which excludes energy and food costs, stayed stable at 3.1% after going up in July.

Despite this slight uptick in inflation, Wall Street remains optimistic that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at the central bank’s board meeting next week. The Fed is under intense pressure from Donald Trump to cut rates, but the decision looks likely to be led by fears that the US jobs market is weakening.

Investors are anticipating a quarter-point rate cut. Rates currently stand at a range of 4.25% to 5.5%.

US stocks shot up on Wednesday after the producer price index, which tracks wholesale prices, showed a slight dip in August after a steep rise in July, making investors hopeful that inflation – while still rising – is going up at a slow pace.

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The U.S. jobs engine is sputtering and looks to be in danger of stalling out.

U.S. employers added just 22,000 jobs in August, according to a report Friday from the Labor Department. The unemployment rate inched up 4.3%. Revised figures also show there was also a net loss of jobs in June for the first time since 2020, in the midst of the pandemic.

The U.S. has now had four months in a row of pretty anemic job growth. Average job growth between May and August was down 75% from the same period a year ago.

The weakness was visible all across the economy.

"There are not a lot of silver linings in the report," said economist Julia Coronado of Macropolicy Perspectives. "We are losing engines of job growth."

There was a net loss of jobs last month in manufacturing, construction, and oil drilling — all industries that the Trump administration is trying to promote.

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A federal appeals court on Friday rejected President Trump’s assertion that emergency powers justify his worldwide tariffs, a blow to his efforts to refashion global trade. 

In a 7-4 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the tariffs were not authorized by the statute Trump cited to justify them.  

The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) authorizes the president to issue certain economic sanctions to counter an “unusual and extraordinary threat” in an emergency, but it does not permit the president’s sweeping moves, the court ruled.

“Because we agree that IEEPA’s grant of presidential authority to ‘regulate’ imports does not authorize the tariffs imposed by the Executive Orders, we affirm,” the court wrote.  

The ruling does not take effect immediately, as the court withheld the mandate for its decision until Oct. 14, so the administration can appeal to the Supreme Court.

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