Hiring the US remained strong in the midst of the early days of the rate policy, according to a job report

The newest message from the data about the American economy is simple: so far so good, until further notice.

The labor market remained in a healthy state of balance when America started a global trade war in April. American employers added 177,000 jobs last month, the employment department reported on Friday. And the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.2 percent.

Both figures were based on surveys that were taken in the immediate name of the Trump administration movement in early April to set the highest level of rates on import since the 1930s, although some of those taxes were paused for 90 days. The wage profit expanded the series of American job growth to 52 months.

Data released earlier this week showed that the US economy has been contracted In the first three months of the year. But that was largely the result of an increase in imports, because companies and households bought goods to try to lead the rates. The process of trade and consumer expenditure remains unclear.

The image of a steady labor market, even if they look somewhat backwards, was reassuring for investors, who left economic data for signs of a deterioration caused by the trade. The S&P 500 gathered after the release and has already erased his losses from the beginning of April.

“What we can take today is that the US economy has entered the trade war on strong foot,” said Rebecca Patterterson, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former main investment strategist at Bridgewater Associates. “But the longer rates are present and the higher the tariff levels are, the greater the risk that this optimism fades quickly.”

The vast majority of analysts say that the ultimate effect of Mr Trump’s high rates will be completely felt on the labor market in the coming weeks and months. Yet the early impact is reflected by currency markets, global freight patterns and business business plans.

Bookings from the ocean containers from China to the United States have fallen 60 percent since the beginning of April. Various large, listed companies – General Motors, Delta Air Lines and UPS, including – have pulled their predictions for the rest of the year – something that has not happened on this scale since the Pandemic shock of March 2020.

Many companies that depend on shipments from China have stopped incoming orders. Import tax on Chinese goods, which have been set at least 145 percent, are so high that in many cases the input loads are effective a trade embargo.

The US economy is more oriented than ever around services, which form around 70 percent of American commercial activities. Nevertheless, goods purchases still form a large part of the household expenses, and more than 40 percent of American manufacturers relate to imported parts or end products.

Consumer sentiment has fallen in recent months. And predictors at large banks have brought the risk of recession and higher inflation this year.

The early rollout of the other policy of the Trump administration – including cutting the federal civil servant and immigration – intake – will also be felt for the rest of the year. The employment of the federal government fell by 9,000 in April and has fallen by 26,000 since January – not enough to lower the total employment. But as soon as many of these employees no longer have a dismissal, they can be in a much weaker labor market as job seekers.

Lower immigration will reduce employment and competition for jobs, which can exert some downward pressure on the unemployment rate. But it can also limit the growth of the jobs, especially in industries that continue to report labor shortages such as care work and construction work.

The average profit growth per hour for American employees, who has risen by 3.8 percent in the past year, has held a solid pace since catching up inflation in 2023. But a wide range of households remains pressed by the increased costs of living in recent years.

Rates, if held in place, can aggravate the voltage.

In response to the expectations of investors of a delay caused by the trade, the global oil price has fallen. And that in turn led to cheaper gasoline. But various calculations of non -party -related institutions indicate that the rates of President Trump – who are essentially taxes on domestic importers – can cost American families Thousands of dollars per year.

Said adidas This week Those steeper rates would ultimately lead to more expensive sneakers and sportswear for American customers. Executives at Procter & Gamble, who makes products such as Bounty Paper Towels and Tide Washing, said last week That the company would probably increase the prices for some products to tackle the effects of higher rates. And Hasbro officials recently said that the Toymaker should ‘increase the prices’.

The Trump government elimination of a mesh in the law As a result, items had $ 800 or less from China to enter the United States without import costs can lead to the most immediately visible impact for customers who do online summer shopping online.

There is a fear that inflation, which is currently a tame of 2.4 percent on an annual basis, can rise again due to the trade war, even if growth slows down. That could bring the Federal Reserve, who is responsible for maintaining employment and managing inflation in a difficult position. If the labor market slows down and prices rise, the Fed can find two goals in tension.

These fears and spinning are a great shift of the state of playing in February, when many of Wall Street and top company leaders in the company America expects interest rates, tax reductions, deregulation and more accurate rates to extend the bullmarkt that America has experienced in the past three years.

For companies that want to adapt to everything that this new unfolding reality can bring, “requires predicting the degree of deterioration both humility and agility,” said Dalep Singh, head of worldwide macro -economic research at Pimco, and a deputy national security adviser during the BIDEN administration. “The list of uncertainties is long and grows.”

At the moment, the business community depends on every word of Top -Trump officials, who have openly show that the White House is approaching a “framework” for new trade agreements with different nations, although they have not yet announced actual deals.

Most managers expect that as trading negotiations go, Mr Trump will continue to run and explain victories to cut down the worst results, “said Mr. Singh. “But the reversals may be too late.”

In the same way that a withdrawal of trade remains, the potential resuscitation of more normal relationships can also last a few months to be felt – with a large delay in investments and hiring by American companies in the meantime.

And there is little guarantee that America will retain or improve previous trade arrangements. European, Asian and Latin -American allies of the United States are already in conversation to create trade rules that are less subject to the volatility of the American hegemony.

Nevertheless, the US dollar remains the most dominant currency in world trade, and the purchasing power of American consumers is still unparalleled. And those starting points offer the Trump administration substantial buffers as civil servants jockey to reform the global order.

Balance sheets of the US are generally healthy. And American households are also in historically solid form in general, despite differences. Two -thirds of the American households are homeowners, and most of them still have relatively low, fixed mortgages. Credit card companies, such as Visa, report that, despite the negative national vote, consumers continue to spend on apparently self -assured fashion while the summer is beckoning.

Some analysts have left skeptically that the economy is everywhere near the recession.

“If all China rates remain in place, we can start hearing signs of stress in some affected bags of the economy per memorial day, but even that seems probably too early,” says Peter Williams, director of macro -economic research at 22V Research, an investment strategy and quantitative analysis company.

The threat is of course that those bags of weakness can suck.

Alan Bass and his family have a company exposed to the trade, Stevens International, a wholesale distributor based in Magnolia, NJ, who serve more than 1,000 hobby and game stores.

“What we do is that we bring things in all over the world that are not immediately available in the US and then offer them to retailers and consumers,” said Mr Bass, 35.

They wear more than 40,000 items – toys, paint, art and crafts and niche plastic model packages – and most of their around 300 suppliers come from abroad, many of them from China.

The heaven -high rates are such a shock for their company that they have stopped all orders from China and paused the recruitments. Mr Bass plans to place recent orders, currently at sea, in “Bound” warehouses – Places where importers pay a fee to have their sent goods temporarily stored without having to pay customs duties.

His wider plan, and hope, is that the trade war will blow over by the end of the summer.

“A good part of whom we buy are only foreign companies whose products are not available here,” said Mr. Bass. “It is not someone who has outsourced his work. It’s just someone who is not an American company.”

Madeleine NGO contributed reporting.