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From carmakers to restaurant chains, companies face financial setbacks amid tariff fears. Businesses across multiple sectors have cut financial guidance amid growing uncertainty as United States President Donald Trump’s trade war pushes up costs, upends supply chains and stirs concerns about the global economy. Thursday’s earnings made it clear that corporations around the world ran into a wall of uncertainty in the first quarter, as executives found themselves navigating the Trump administration’s constantly shifting stance on trade.   Comments from the biggest packaged food companies also underscored worries among businesses and investors that Trump’s tariffs and his attacks on US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will hurt confidence on Main Street. “Some political decisions, economic decisions taken have rather undermined already soft consumer confidence,” Nestle CEO Laurent Freixe told reporters in an earnings call. Dove soap maker Unilever, which was also reporting earnings, described “declining consumer sentiment” in its North American markets. Stocks drifted on Thursday, and a rebound in the dollar fizzled out as investors tried to pick through the Trump administration’s fast-changing announcements on tariffs and the leadership of the Fed, the US central bank. While most of the tariffs have been paused for 90 days until July 8, a 10-percent universal rate and additional duties on aluminium, steel and car imports remain in place, as do eye-popping levies on goods imported from China, to which Beijing has responded in kind. The Trump administration will look at lowering tariffs on imported Chinese goods pending talks between the two countries, a source told Reuters on Wednesday. With the first-quarter earnings season entering its second busy week, companies were counting the costs of the chaos and setting out how they plan to stem the fallout. Procter & Gamble, soda and snacks giant PepsiCo and medical equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific became the latest companies to cut annual profit forecasts, citing the trade turmoil. American Airlines withdrew its 2025 financial guidance, mirroring its peers. Thermo Fisher also warned of the impact of the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to academic research funding. Hyundai Motor said it had launched a task force to handle its response to the tariffs and moved production of some Tucson crossover vehicles from Mexico to the US. “We expect a challenging business outlook to continue due to intensifying trade wars and other various unpredictable macroeconomic factors,” it said. The carmaker is also considering whether to move production of some US-bound cars from South Korea to other locations, it said as it reaffirmed its annual earnings targets. Hyundai and affiliate Kia, which together are the world’s third-biggest automaking group by sales, generate about one-third of their global sales from the US market, and imports account for roughly two-thirds of their US car sales. Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com said nearly 3,000 firms have already made enquiries about its 200 billion yuan ($27.35bn) fund, announced on April 11, to help exporters sell their products domestically over the next year. Consumer sentiment tumbles  Adding to worries about economic weakness, the German government cut its 2025 growth forecast on Thursday and now sees stagnation instead of a 0.3 percent expansion as uncertainty from global trade disputes hobbles growth and dampens investment. And in another sign of ebbing consumer confidence, Essity’s CEO, Magnus Groth, told Reuters the Swedish tissue maker had seen a drop in demand for hygiene products from hotels and restaurants in North America because people are eating out less and may not be travelling. That echoed a warning from Chipotle Mexican Grill late on Wednesday that Americans are spending less on dining out due to elevated economic uncertainty, prompting the food chain to cut its sales outlook. Telecoms equipment maker Nokia flagged a short-term disruption from the US tariffs, while Dassault Systemes, which sells software to carmakers, aeroplane manufacturers and defence companies, cut its forecast profit margin due to tariff-related market volatility, knocking its shares. Nestle and Unilever delivered better-than-expected quarterly sales, but they and their big-brand rivals are easing US price increases to avoid losing US shoppers to retailers’ less expensive private-label brands. That may help soothe concerns that tariffs will fuel a spike in inflation and slow the US economy, although other companies, including Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica, LG Electronics and Interparfums, have said they are hiking US prices or may do so. “As we look ahead, we expect more volatility and uncertainty, particularly related to global trade developments, which we expect will increase our supply chain costs,” PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta said on Thursday. “At the same time, consumer conditions in many markets remain subdued and similarly have an uncertain outlook.” Follow Al Jazeera English:...

And that is thanks to a political elite that did not heed prescient warnings. For many Canadians, a thrilling ice hockey game turned out to be an exhilarating antidote to an unforgiving winter. More than that – as a subdued Canadian coach Jon Cooper told reporters after Canada’s best hockey players beat America’s best hockey players in overtime last week – the beleaguered country “needed a win”. Cooper wasn’t asked nor did he elaborate on why Canada had to prevail. He didn’t have to. The reasons were plain to the millions of Canadians who leapt, I reckon, with a mixture of joy and relief when the world’s most gifted hockey player, Connor McDavid, potted the goal that sent his team and a grateful nation into a happy frenzy. For weeks, a blustering US President Donald Trump has taunted Canada and its prime minister. He has referred to a proud people and land as America’s would-be 51st state and Justin Trudeau as its “governor”. Trump’s antics and threats have triggered a surge of pride among usually reserved Canadians about their beloved home and worry for its uncertain future. And the trash-talking leader of Canada’s “dearest” and “closest” ally has proven that most politicians and corporate-hugging columnists have the foresight of Mr Magoo. Like the doddering, shortsighted, cartoon character, a host of free-trade-adoring politicos and polemicists refused to see or heed the warnings sounded in the 20th century about the existential risks of tying Canada more tightly into the dominant US economy in the 21st century. It is a remarkable sight to watch, hear, and read Canada’s myopic “intelligentsia” drape themselves in the Maple Leaf while urging the country to “buy Canadian” and fashion other systemic and structural ways to try, belatedly, to curb its dependency on the United States to stave off becoming – officially – America’s 51st state. It is a remarkable sight because, since the early 1980s, the reactionary elites have devoted – without hesitation or regret – their considerable powers and influence to backing every calculated step towards Canada morphing, in effect, into America’s 51st state – economically, culturally, militarily, and diplomatically. The beaming poster boy for this blatant hypocrisy is Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, who, by conviction and temperament, was all for Donald Trump before he was against him. In a rare moment of sincerity, Ford – the pretend “populist” anointed “Captain Canada” by a gullible and easily impressed establishment press – admitted that he had wanted the havoc-wreaking Trump to return to the White House. A crystal ball wasn’t necessary to picture that, given the right conditions, a resource-hungry commander-in-chief with hegemonic aspirations would eventually occupy the Oval Office and attract like-minded acolytes in Canada. In the early 1980s, I was a lowly undergraduate political science student, studying at the University of Toronto. One of my professors was the late and renowned Canadian political economist, Stephen Clarkson. Professor Clarkson was a brilliant teacher and thinker who thought and wrote a lot about Canada’s past, present, and the turbulent waters the country was heading into at that pivotal time. I was among the lucky stable of Clarkson’s research assistants when he embarked on writing a book about the perils that the brewing prospects of a free trade deal between Ottawa and Washington – championed by US President Ronald Reagan – posed to Canada’s sovereignty. The book published in 1982 and titled, Canada and the Reagan Challenge, was, at once, a sober rebuttal to the legion of giddy continentalists who were convinced that Canada should deepen its already inexorable links to the United States, as well as a flare that raised the alarm about the country’s fast waning ability to exert any tangible measure of independence at home and abroad. While Clarkson was a nationalist, he was also a realist. He knew that, by virtue of geography and history, Canada and America were bound to one another. Still, he understood the urgent imperative for Canada to look beyond the immediate horizon to broaden trade in existing and emerging markets outside the United States as a means to diversify its export and import policies and, as a result, reduce America’s gravitational pull. Clarkson’s prescient cautions were dismissed by a smug gallery of “free-trade” apostles as the anachronistic, anti-American “spleen bursts” of an academically trained ostrich opposed to prosperity. So, when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney negotiated a comprehensive free-trade deal with Reagan in 1988 – much of Parliament and the press trumpeted the agreement as a victory of commerce over silly, outdated notions of Canadian autonomy. The 1988 federal election was fought over the potential consequences for Canada of the Mulroney-Reagan pact. In a televised debate, then Liberal leader, John Turner, famously challenged Mulroney – who claimed, absurdly, that the deal could be “cancelled” at any time. “With one signature of a pen,” Turner thundered, “you’ve … thrown us into the north-south influence of the United States and will reduce us, I am sure, to a colony of the United States because political independence is sure to follow.” Turner’s chest-thumping performance was just that – a performance. The Liberal Party’s opposition to the Mulroney-brokered free-trade accord was a rhetorical pantomime. Soon enough, Liberal prime ministers were singing their own fulsome praises of the deal and inviting Mexico to join the continent-wide arrangement consecrated by the smiling, hand-holding “Three Amigos”. Fast forward to February 2025 and Professor Clarkson’s admonitions and reservations from more than four decades ago have come to fruition. An emboldened US president appears intent on annexing Canada by economic coercion and, given the policy of almost unfettered integration pursued by a succession of Liberal and Conservative governments – and endorsed by starry-eyed editorial writers – Trump has the levers and leverage to do it. Suddenly, Clarkson’s critics – inside and outside amnesiac newsrooms and capital cities – are rushing to adopt his “silly, outdated” prescriptions to preserve the nation’s phantom sovereignty and outdo one another as standing on guard for thee – Canada, that is. Their epiphanies are 40 years too late. Canada has, by their deliberate design, long been America’s eager, “open for business” vassal. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

WITH Nigerians still grappling with soaring prices, deep economic uncertainty, and widespread hardship, the introduction of a 5.0 per cent surcharge on locally produced and imported petrol and diesel set to take effect from January 1, 2026, under the new tax law, is not only untimely but fundamentally unjust. Since President Bola Tinubu removed the petrol subsidy on his Inauguration Day (May 29, 2023), coupled with the subsequent devaluation of the naira, ordinary Nigerians have faced relentless inflation. Food and transportation costs have skyrocketed, with high inflation affecting everything from medical expenses and school fees to telecom services and electricity tariffs. For a population already stretched to its limits, any further increase in petroleum product prices is nothing short of rubbing salt into an open wound. Since May 2023, petrol prices have risen fivefold, and the naira has lost over 60 per cent of its value against the US dollar under Tinubu’s economic reforms. As of July 31, petrol averaged N900 per litre nationwide, compared with N187/pl before Tinubu took office. With this new levy, household budgets, already decimated by the high costs of petrol and diesel that influence everything from the price of beans to bus fares, will be crushed even further. Therefore, it must be expunged from the tax act. Fuel marketers, drivers, farmers, and even human rights advocates have sounded the alarm that another tax on petrol will directly lead to higher transport and commodity costs, worsening the daily hardships faced by millions. The Federal Government’s argument that the surcharge will boost non-oil revenue and promote fiscal sustainability rings hollow, given the severe toll this policy will take on families, small businesses, and the working poor. The Tinubu administration’s focus on revenue generation, seemingly indifferent to the struggles of ordinary people, borders on cruelty. The government claims it has saved about $600 million monthly, and allocations to states have increased by 40 per cent annually since 2023 due to the fuel subsidy removal. So why are Nigerians being taxed further? This defeats the purpose of the tax reforms to reduce the incidence of multiple taxation. While the government projects a N796 billion windfall from this surcharge, it comes at the expense of consumers already suffocating under high inflation, food insecurity, and rising transportation costs. The rationale that these taxes promote fiscal sustainability is weak, especially considering that recent tax reforms were designed to broaden compliance, close revenue leaks, and expand the tax base. As these reforms take effect, there is simply no moral or practical justification for imposing an additional direct tax on essential items like transport fuel. For an administration that claims “renewed hope” as its central theme, this insensitive new tax is a betrayal of that promise. As Akintade Abiodun, National Chairman of the Joint Drivers Welfare Association, aptly puts it, the government is using Nigerians as “lab rats” for unpopular economic decisions. If the government truly wants to raise more revenue from the oil sector, it should answer persistent calls for accountability, enforce fiscal discipline, and plug systemic leakages within the NNPC. It should focus on boosting oil production, selling the bankrupt refineries, and investing in gas gathering, processing facilities, and pipelines to enhance sector performance and profitability. The answer is not to shift the burden onto ordinary citizens under the guise of reform. Recommendations for digital tracking, transparent pricing, and robust oversight to improve efficiency in the oil downstream sector must not be overlooked in favour of the easier path of squeezing Nigerians to the bone. Imposing this new tax at a time when citizens are already reeling from multiple economic shocks reveals a leadership tone-deaf to the suffering of the people. Revenue generation cannot come at the expense of social justice. Fiscal reforms should aim to uplift, not further impoverish, the very citizens the government is meant to serve. This petrol tax should be shelved until the economy and its people have genuinely recovered. To do otherwise is not just bad policy, it is patently unfair.