It was hardly unexpected. The Supreme Court’s ruling last Friday that President Donald Trump had no authority to issue his “Liberation Day” tariffs has thrown the U.S.’s global trade relations into turmoil, with trading partners, importers and U.S. companies unsure which tariffs apply to what, and whether they will get back the $130 billion or more that they paid the U.S. Treasury to comply with the duties imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

“We are exactly where we thought we would be,” said Rebecca Homkes, a consulting economist and lecturer at the London Business School. Without the IEEPA, Trump announced he was imposing blanket tariffs of up to 15% on all goods coming into the country, using a trade tool called Section 122, which may have its own legal issues. It’s designed to combat balance of payments problems, and can only stay in place for 150 days, before Congress has to reauthorize the tariffs, something it’s unlikely to do with mid-term elections coming in the Fall.

Companies are either suing the government or working with advisors to figure out how big a refund they are owed. But Homkes says it’s unlikely the consumers will see either rebates or lower prices from the IEEPA rollback. “I would highly doubt they ever will,” she said. “We are still in an environment of pretty heightened volatility.”

The good news is that after a year of tariffs, economists are discovering that prices don’t necessarily shoot up, though not necessarily for good reasons. “Tariffs can reduce growth, but they tend to not raise prices in the long term in the next year or so because growth slows sufficiently that higher prices are hard to pass through,” Jose Rasco, chief investment officer for HSBC Global Private Banking and Wealth Management, Americas, told BBTW. Still, he says the tariffs are coming at a time when the economy is booming for other reasons, so they can’t slow it down that much.

“We’re going to focus on the fundamentals and the fundamentals, accelerating economic growth, inflation that is not at the Fed’s level of growth, but is well contained, and earnings that are accelerating at almost double the rate of the historic average, sign me up for that any day,” said Rasco. “So I think, you know, fixed income looks good. Equities look really good. We’re just in the middle of a repricing of AI, which I think will work out by the end of the first quarter.”

Lawyers are urging importers to get their refund claims in now, while the trade court is waiting to give its ruling on refunds. “That is the question on everybody’s mind, how to get refunds,” said Lizbeth Levinson, co-chair of the international trade practice group at law firm Fox Rothschild in Washington. “I’m recommending what I call the belt and suspenders approach; they should file a suit even now,” she said, and not wait for a court ruling.

Figuring out what that refund should be is massively complex, said Emil Stefanutti, CEO of Gaia Dynamics, a company that uses AI tools to help importers calculate duties. The U.S. uses 22,000 different product codes for imports, and each component of an imported product may have a different tariff rate. Where it gets really messy is with, say, a car part made with a chip from Taiwan, a lightbulb from Vietnam, and wiring from Thailand, all put together in China and installed into a car in Mexico.

It may take several years to settle the refunds, from the government reviewing claims to expected resistance from President Trump, who said tariffs could replace nearly all the government’s revenue from income tax. But the real disruption will come from the ongoing uncertainty, said Stefanutti, who works closely with firms navigating tariff and import duties.

“Whatever you had planned, whatever you thought you knew is changed,” he said. The Liberation Day tariffs had already upset companies’ expectations. “They plan for the year, they know the pricing, they know what kind of sourcing strategies they’re going to use, and now they have to recalculate again. It’s taxing, no pun intended, for companies to keep up with this,” he said.

“The real question isn’t whether tariffs exist or will keep existing, it’s whether policy stabilizes enough for companies to plan around it. The volatility that exists is very hard to predict, and I think companies are realizing that the era of frictionless global trade is over,” he said.

Big Businesses mentioned this week:$NFLX ( ▲ 3.19% ) $WBD ( ▼ 0.27% ) $PSKY ( ▲ 10.04% ) $NVO ( ▼ 1.34% ) $LLYZ ( ▲ 0.28% ) $BBAI ( ▲ 5.6% ) $UBER ( ▲ 2.71% ) $BKNG ( ▲ 2.07% ) $DASH ( ▲ 4.25% ) $AXP ( ▲ 2.61% ) $AAL ( ▲ 4.47% ) $GRAL ( ▲ 11.32% ) $MSFT ( ▲ 0.22% ) $AMLX ( ▲ 5.57% ) $NVDA ( 0.0% ) $MBG ( ▲ 0.18% ) $STLA ( ▲ 4.41% ) $GOOG ( ▼ 1.88% ) $AMD ( ▼ 3.41% ) $META ( ▲ 0.66% ) $CRWV ( ▲ 0.31% ) $SAVEQ ( ▲ 0.43% ) Chips on the shoulder

• Anthropic and Pentagon battle over Kill Switch: What do you do when the Pentagon says “Fire”? That’s the challenge for Anthropic, the self-professed ethical AI company, which said the Pentagon can’t use Anthropic software for autonomous killing machines or mass domestic surveillance. Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth summoned Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to the Pentagon on Tuesday and issued an apparently contradictory ultimatum: If Anthropic doesn’t bend by Friday, the Defense Dept. will both label the company a supply chain risk, banning it from being used by the military and any military contractor, and at the same time invoke the Defense Production Act, effectively nationalizing the company — or at least its Claude AI software — so the military can use it without the company’s consent. The standoff comes at a pivotal moment for the AI industry. Anthropic is the only AI provider that has so far been approved for use in classified settings, but as AI technology far outpaces government regulation, Anthropic has set its own guardrails. Those rules limit what the Pentagon wants to do, hence the standoff. As Dean Ball, a former Trump AI adviser, warned, the Pentagon’s stand could hurt both the military and Anthropic, calling Hegseth’s threat “incoherent.”
• DeepSeek or DeepFake? China’s DeepSeek, which claimed to have used an array of lower-grade silicon chips and home-grown ingenuity to match the capabilities of the most advanced U.S. AI models for a fraction of the cost, was actually built and trained with Nvidia’s $NVDA ( ▼ 5.55% ) most sophisticated AI processor, the Blackwell, an unidentified Trump Administration official told Reuters. Nvidia’s stock fell 17% on the day in January 2025, when DeepSeek announced its supposed breakthrough, as investors questioned whether Nvidia’s high-cost, high-margin AI chips would find a market. The U.S. official did not say how China obtained the Blackwells, which are barred from export to China. Both Nvidia and the U.S. Commerce Dept. declined to comment on how the chips might have gotten to China. The official said DeepSeek was probably trained by having OpenAI, Anthropic and other AI models vet its responses. White House AI chief David Sacks and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang have argued that the U.S. should allow China access to advanced U.S. AI tech to keep it from developing its own chips.
• The circularity continues: Desperate to catch up with booming rival Nvidia $NVDA ( ▼ 5.55% ) , chipmaker AMD $AMD ( ▼ 3.41% ) has been selling off parts of itself to potential customers. After selling a stake to OpenAI in exchange for chips, Meta $META ( ▲ 0.66% ) will now buy chips from AMD and get a stake in the company of up to 10%. It’s the reverse of what cash-rich rival Nvidia is doing. Nvidia has been buying stakes in its clients, OpenAI, xAI and data center developer CoreWeave $CRWV ( ▲ 0.31% ) , who use the cash to buy Nvidia chips. AMD’s stock rose 6% on news of the deal.
• What if… Oooops! A thought experiment by a 30-year old stock analyst sent real-life tech stocks tumbling briefly on Monday, after it described a potential future where AI had sent unemployment soaring, gutted software companies, and sent shockwaves through financial markets, as an Occupy Silicon Valley movement protested outside the office of OpenAI and Anthropic. “What if our AI bullishness continues to be right...and what if that’s actually bearish,” Citrini Research published in a Substack post that went viral. The note said that it’s describing “a scenario, not a prediction. This isn’t bear porn or AI doomer fan-fiction.” Even so, some Wall Streeteers said the note was a necessary warning. “I don’t think it’s necessarily going to play out as they see it, but it’s a bit of a wake-up call that the economy already no longer resembles the one just a few years ago,” Neil Wilson, an analyst at Saxo Capital Markets, told the Guardian.

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The usual suspects

• Weakened Spirit: That tiny yellow dot on the horizon? That’s all that’s left of Spirit Airlines $SAVEQ ( ▲ 0.43% ) , after the failing budget carrier said it’s near agreement with its creditors. Nearly all flights will touch one of four hubs: New York, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, or Orlando. Fewer U.S.-based passengers are risking flights to see family in Latin America, putting a big dent in the airline’s Central and South American flight plans. And expect fewer flights on low-demand Tuesdays and Wednesdays. With fewer flights and fewer planes (and fewer crew members), Spirit will cut its debt load to $2.1 billion from $7.4 billion. And if the company can emerge from bankruptcy, a merger could be in the cards, its attorney told CNBC.
• Cheaper Glutamides! NovoNordisk $NVO ( ▼ 1.34% ) says it’s slashing prices for weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy as it ramps up a price war with rival Eli Lilly’s $LLY ( ▼ 0.66% ) Zepbound for a global market that could reach $139 billion by 2030. Both Ozempic and Wegovy will list for $675 a month, from next January - that’s a 50% cut for Wegovy and a 34% cut for Ozempic, which is focused on diabetes. Zepbound retails online for about $299 a month. The price cuts are aimed at the increasing number of people who need the weight loss drugs but who lack insurance that covers the cost.
• Boeing’s Boost: Recovering U.S. planemaker Boeing $BA ( ▼ 0.3% ) has secured $30B worth of orders from three different Vietnamese airlines for nearly 100 jets. The Boeing buy is part of a proposed trade deal that would lower tariffs on Vietnamese imports to the U.S., which are stuck now at 20%. In 1997, Boeing bought McDonnell-Douglas, the plane maker that manufactured the A4E Skyhawk, the plane the late Sen. John McCain was flying when he was shot down by North Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War.
• Reservation Wars: Book a table or order in - Now you can do it all on Uber Eats $UBER ( ▲ 2.71% ) , as the restaurant reservation wars heat up. Last year, Uber Eats partnered with Booking Holdings’ $BKNG ( ▲ 2.07% ) Open Table (60,000 restaurants) and DoorDash $DASH ( ▲ 4.25% ) paid $1.2 billion to buy booking platform SevenRooms. In 2024, American Express $AXP ( ▲ 2.61% ) , which already owned Resy (20,000 restaurants), bought upscale-focused reservations app Tock (5,000 restaurants) for $400 million. Industry watchers expect the three firms to start an all-out war this year with price incentives and loyalty perks as each attempts to corner the market. “It’s three very large, very ambitious, very well-resourced companies all vying for the same exact piece of real estate, which is high-demand restaurants,” Resy and Eater founder Ben Leventhal told CNBC. DoorDash is expected to lead the shakeup. It’s got about 63% of the delivery market, to Uber Eats’ 25%, and Grubhub’s 6%. SevenRooms claims more than 15,000 restaurants worldwide use its service. Last year, Uber sued DoorDash saying it was strong-arming restaurants into dropping Uber Eats. DoorDash called the suit “a cynical and calculated scare tactic from a frustrated competitor.”
• Never-ending story: Is Netflix $NFLX ( ▲ 3.19% ) about to lose its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery $WBD ( ▼ 0.27% ) ? It looks like the ball is back in play after Paramount Skydance $PSKY ( ▲ 10.04% ) upped its offer for WBD by $1 a share, and promised to pay off Netflix if the streaming giant gets jilted by WBD shareholders. Those shareholders vote on March 20 on whether to accept the Netflix deal, which applies only to the studio and streaming assets, leaving CNN and other linear channels ready for a spinoff. Netflix is offering to buy the studios and HBO Max for $27.75 a share, or $72 billion. The prior bid from Paramount was $30 a share, or $77.9 billion, for the entire company, including its cable networks CNN and TNT. The deal is no financial stretch for Netflix, with its market cap of $350 billion. Paramount’s market cap, at $11.2 billion, means it will load the company with a mountain of debt to complete the deal, and David’s Dad, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, has promised to backstop the bid. Talks with both sides will continue, but Paramount’s board said there’s no guarantee it will find the Ellisons’ bid “superior,” and “continues to recommend” the Netflix offer. President Donald Trump himself jumped into the fray this week, telling Netflix to dump board member Susan Rice, a former Obama national security adviser. That’s because Rice told podcaster and former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara that when Democrats regain power, they shouldn’t “forgive or forget” corporations that “bent the knee” to Trump. “Netflix should fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, atop a repost of a post by Trumpfluencer Laura Loomer.
• Diamonds are definitely not an investor’s best friend. Don’t listen to Marilyn. Global mining giant AngloAmerican $AAL ( ▲ 4.47% ) wrote down the value of its De Beers diamond business by half to $2.3 billion, the third cut in three years, as the Chinese market cools and lovers across the globe opt for increasingly realistic—and cheap—synthetic diamonds. The company is now worth about a quarter of what it was three years ago. Last year, the De Beers unit booked a loss of nearly $500 million. De Beers is looking to spin off the diamond business this year. Diamond prices have fallen from a high of over $8,000 a carat in 2012 to just over $4,000 today.
• The Unholy Grail fail: It was supposed to be the answer to many of the world’s medical problems: A simple blood test, developed by a medtech startup Grail $GRAL ( ▲ 11.32% ) , would detect cancer long before other tests, extending lives and slashing care costs by allowing patients to be treated long before they had visible symptoms. But a three-year study of 142,000 British adults showed no significant reduction in early cancer detection. Some 185,000 of the tests were sold in the U.S. last year, bringing in revenue of $136.8 million, but Grail lost $408 million. When word of the test results came out, the stock lost 58% of its value. Still, it’s more than tripled in value since September, and it recovered slightly this week. Despite the failure of the UK test, analysts say a few more years of data could show some efficacy, letting the test win FDA approval, which could make it eligible for Medicare reimbursement.
• Seahawks for Sale? Fresh off their crushing defeat of the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX, the Seattle Seahawks are up for sale. That’s not an unexpected move: The team was owned by Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 0.22% ) co-founder Paul Allen from 1997 until his death in 2018. Since then, it’s been owned by Allen’s estate, which his sister Jody Allen has been slowly winding down as she donates the proceeds to charity. Before their Super Bowl win, the Seahawks were valued at about $7 billion according to a CNBC ranking, ranking them 19th in the NFL by value, with 2024 revenue of $638 million. The question is, of course, what they’re worth now?
• You only live, er…thrice? Aston Martin $AMGDF ( ▼ 11.84% ) , makers of the famous James Bond car with the ejector seat, laid off 20% of its workforce, saying U.S. tariffs were killing its business. Aston Martin sold just 5,448 cars in 2025, down 10% from 2024. It lost 363.9 million pounds last year, down from a 289.1 million pound loss in 2024. The U.S. is Aston Martin’s largest single market, but only 25,000 UK-made cars are allowed into the U.S. every quarter, on a first-come first-serve basis. Shares are down 50% in the past year.
• Wayve g’bye, Tesla $TSLA ( ▼ 2.11% ) : Wayve, a UK-based maker of self-driving software, says it’s raised $1.2 billion from investors including Softbank $SFTBY ( ▲ 0.38% ) , Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 0.22% ) , Nvidia $NVDA ( ▼ 5.55% ) , Uber $UBER ( ▲ 2.71% ) , and automakers Mercedes $MBGAF ( ▼ 0.12% ) Nissan $NSANY ( ▼ 2.07% ) , and Stellantis $STLA ( ▲ 4.41% ) . The raise values Wayve at $8.6 billion. Wayve isn’t building its own cars like Tesla, or deploying fleets of self-driving taxis like Alphabet’s $GOOGL ( ▼ 1.76% ) Waymo. Instead, carmakers incorporate Wayve’s software into their vehicles.

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