Catch up on the top industries and stocks that were impacted, or were predicted to be impacted, by the comments, actions and policies of President Trump and his administration with this weekly recap compiled by The Fly: 1. AMAZON: Amazon (AMZN) was once again in the President’s crosshairs this week after Trump tweeted, “Only fools, or worse, are saying that our money losing Post Office makes money with Amazon. THEY LOSE A FORTUNE, and this will be changed. Also, our fully tax paying retailers are closing stores all over the country…not a level playing field!” While speaking to reporters in the White House on Tuesday, Trump said Amazon “will have to pay much more money to the Post Office.” Trump spoke of Amazon’s role in what he sees as two different issues – paying too little to the Post Office to get its packages shipped and the closing of retailers across the country. Meanwhile, UBS said it hosted an expert call with Patrick Donahoe, former Postmaster General at the USPS, who unequivocally stated that the Amazon contract is profitable for the USPS. Separately, in another tweet, President Trump called “The Fake News Washington Post,” which is also owned by Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s “chief lobbyist.” 2. CHINESE TARIFFS: China’s Ministry of Commerce announced that it will levy 25% reciprocal tariffs on 106 U.S. products including planes, soybean, automobile, chemicals, wheat, corn, cotton, sorghum, tobacco and beef. The agency said the move is in response to the United States’ proposal to impose a 25% tariff on imported high-tech products. China said the reciprocal tariffs will apply to around $50B of U.S. imports. Following the announcement, shares of several companies including Boeing (BA) and Tesla (TSLA) were under pressure. Commenting on potential implications, Bernstein analyst Robin Zhu told investors that if enforced, this would mean cars imported from the U.S. would face 50% import tariffs, up from the usual 25%. The analyst believes the biggest losers among carmakers would be BMW (BMWYY), Mercedes (DDAIF) and Tesla. BMW and Mercedes import the largest volumes of cars from the U.S. into China, followed by Tesla with 14k units of projected imports, he pointed out. 3. NAFTA: According to a report by Bloomberg earlier this week, Trump’s administration is pushing for a preliminary NAFTA agreement to announce at a summit in Peru next week and will host cabinet ministers in Washington to attempt to reach a breakthrough. The White House wants leaders from Mexico and Canada to join in rolling out the broad outlines of an updated agreement at the Summit of the Americas, which starts on April 13, the report said. On Wednesday, the publication reported that the Trump administration has softened a key NAFTA demand for more North American content in car manufacturing as the U.S. pushes to reach a stopgap deal this month. Citing people familiar with the talks, Bloomberg said the proposal would distinguish between different NAFTA car parts by grouping them into five categories, some of which would have a lower requirement for North American content or none at all. Publicly traded automakers include Daimler AG, Fiat Chrysler (FCAU), Ford (F), General Motors (GM), Honda (HMC), Nissan (NSANY), Toyota (TM) and Volkswagen (VLKAY). 4. SINCLAIR CONTROVERSY: Deadspin put a focus on Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBGI) after a video created by the popular sports news site – which cut together news anchors on multiple local stations reciting the exact same lines – went viral. A number of media pundits and politicians bashed Sinclair’s editorial practices as a threat to democracy, prompting a reply Monday from President Trump, who tweeted, “So funny to watch Fake News Networks, among the most dishonest groups of people I have ever dealt with, criticize Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased. Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC, which is a total joke.” NBC is owned by Comcast (CMCSA) and CNN is owned by Turner Broadcasting, a division of Time Warner (TWX). “Week in Review” is The Fly’s weekly recap of its recurring series of “Trump Effect” exclusive stories.
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