US trade representative Jamieson Greer has a level-headed reputation but commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and White House adviser Peter Navarro also have key roles

Having reportedly read Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, in French, during a military tour of duty in Iraq, Jamieson Greer considered himself an unlikely target for accusations of francophobia.

But Donald Trump’s US trade representative, hitherto one of the president’s less high-profile cabinet members, found himself in that uncomfortable position amid the acrimonious collapse of bilateral trade talks with Canada that now threatens to degenerate into an all-out trade war between the two close trading partners whose economies are tightly intertwined.

With traditional goals such as stability and home ownership feeling out of reach, young people are focused on the present

By now, we all know the shape of financial nihilism: the throw-your-money-at-anything reaction to the dissolution of the slow, linear path to wealth; the prediction markets, meme stocks, cryptocurrencies and microluxuries growing in its place. We’re left in an economic no man’s land. But financial nihilism only describes where we put our money. What about how we earn it in the first place?

The modern economy has long relied on our need for stable employment – to pay the mortgage, to keep our kids fed, or, for some, to chase prestige and power – to generate the work ethic that keeps the wheel of production turning. None of this is going well for young people. Our jobs are insecure, we can’t afford houses, we’re deferring having kids (if we have them at all), and only 6% of us say a leadership position is our primary career goal. Hope is one of the economy’s most productive inputs, powering our willingness to endure long hours. When the production function of income – the mechanism that turns hard work into a stable salary, then a mortgage, then a pension – breaks down, so does our relationship with the input. I call this production nihilism: my generation’s growing indifference to the kinds of work we’re willing to participate in, and where we’re willing to earn.

Some young people are teaching in countries like South Korea as education funding is gutted and recent grads face a tough job market in their own countries

A year ago, Arianna Marie, 25, was struggling to control the students in her Florida elementary school classroom.

She was living with her parents to save on rent and quickly feeling her passion for teaching dry up, even though it was her first job since graduation.

There’s little optimism about treasury secretary’s ability to handle Trump’s tariffs, Iran sanctions and colossal US debt

History remembers Gen Dwight Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the allied forces in Europe during the second world war, for his role in the D-day invasion of Normandy. Whether Scott Bessent will achieve similar posterity as the face of the “economic D-day” in Iran remains to be seen.

The US treasury secretary, already trying to manage a $40tn national debt pile, this week took charge of Donald Trump’s effort to reverse-engineer his war of choice. Whereas the US would typically take on an adversary with diplomacy, sanctions and military force, in that order, the US president started with a six-month bombing campaign and now hopes that economic isolation can finish the job.

Avoiding US goods and services – from tech to whisky to air travel – has forced many to find a new way of living

For William McDonald, 38, a diesel mechanic from Thunder Bay, Ontario, “Canadian is always the first choice,” even if it means his weekly bills are higher.

“As soon as Trump started putting those tariffs on in February [last year], I started boycotting US goods,” he said. “Avoiding American products has driven my costs up, and I’m still happy to do it.

However, Kevin Warsh didn’t say if interest rates would change in coming months, as inflation remains stubborn

The US Federal Reserve is not done fighting high inflation, its chair, Kevin Warsh, said in his first major speech in the role on Friday, emphasizing that it was “the Fed’s job to deliver stable prices”.

Warsh did not indicate where the Fed will take interest rates in the coming months, despite US inflation remaining stubbornly above the central bank’s 2% target amid the war in Iran. But his speech was taken by markets as a signal that rates may rise in the coming months, a move that may put him at odds with Donald Trump, who has aggressively called for rates to be cut.

Unpopular new policy comes as midterms loom and control of Congress could be decided by several Michigan races

Every day $1bn worth of goods crosses the river dividing Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, two largely blue-collar US and Canadian cities that have come to act as one in the creation of North America’s auto industry.

News this week of Donald Trump’s escalating trade spat with Canada has everyone worried. Political and economic leaders and observers labeled the move an act of “hubris” , blamed Trump’s “ego”, and called the escalation “insanity”.

Unpopular new policy comes as midterms loom and control of Congress could be decided by several Michigan races

Every day $1bn worth of goods crosses the river dividing Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, two largely blue-collar US and Canadian cities that have come to act as one in the creation of North America’s auto industry.

News this week of Donald Trump’s escalating trade spat with Canada has everyone worried. Political and economic leaders and observers labeled the move an act of “hubris” , blamed Trump’s “ego”, and called the escalation “insanity”.