What was the news around 2:20 PM Central Eastern when the trapdoor opened?

China imposed tariffs of up to 15 percent on a raft of U.S. farm products and blacklisted more than 20 U.S. companies, marking a major escalation in a brewing battle between the world’s two largest economies. The move targets some of the United States’ most important exports to China, including soybeans, meat and grains. China is the largest market for American farm products, accounting for 17 percent of total U.S. agricultural exports in 2023, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
China last year imported almost $20 billion in soybeans, corn, cotton and the other U.S. farm products that will be subject to the new tariffs, according to USDA data. Those products accounted for about 80 percent of all U.S. agricultural exports to China.
By late afternoon, futures tied to wheat and corn had shed about 2 percent and 1 percent, respectively.
The tariff news sent the U.S. major indexes reeling for a second day in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 670 points, or more than 1.5 percent, to close at 42,520.99. The S&P 500 shed 1.2 percent to settle at 5,778.15, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq dipped more than 0.3 percent to end at 18,285.16.
The new U.S. measures will result in levies as high as 45 percent on some Chinese goods that were already targeted during Trump’s first term, including home appliances, electronics, clothing and machinery.
Best Buy shares tumbled 13.3 percent after its chief executive said the Trump levies made price increases “highly likely” for Americans. Other consumer goods companies also slumped, including Wayfair and Whirlpool, which fell 8.1 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively. VF Corp., which lists Vans and Timberland among its labels, slumped 7.4 percent.

It's not just American consumers who will feel the impact of tariffs — the tariffs will be costly to American businesses, too. Most will try to pass the cost of the tax on to consumers but many will likely have to absorb some of the cost themselves. And businesses have also been operating in a state of limbo, unsure of when or whether the import taxes would take hold.
"Customers are pausing on new orders as a result of uncertainty regarding tariffs," one factory manager told the Institute for Supply Management for its monthly survey on manufacturing conditions.
Randy Carr runs a business based in Ft. Lauderdale that makes embroidered emblems for sports teams and work uniforms. Much of the manufacturing is done in Mexico. Carr said he'll try to pass the new import tax along to customers by raising prices, but assumes he'll have to bear some of the cost himself. As a result, he's temporarily halted investment at his factories in Texas and Georgia. "We have a plan to deal with it, but honestly it's punitive to my staff and the growth of the business, because it's just another form of a tax," Carr said.
Canada and China swiftly responded with tariffs of their own on U.S. exports. Mexico promised to do the same in the coming days. Those tariffs could hurt American producers. China, for example, imposed retaliatory tariffs on products including corn, cotton, soybeans and pork.
Bob Hemesath, who raises corn and hogs in Decorah, Iowa, worries about the potential fallout for rural communities across the country: "There's a lot of jobs associated with agriculture and agricultural trade," he said. "Once you lose those export markets, it's awful hard to get them back." A trade war during Trump's first term in office hit agricultural exports so hard, the federal government ended up making farm relief payments of more than $60 billion — much of the money brought in by tariffs on imports from China. Trump's new tariffs could also drive up the cost of potash fertilizer, much of which comes from Canada.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — which has welcomed much of Trump's pro-business agenda — urged the administration to backtrack quickly on the trade war: "Tariffs will only raise prices and increase the economic pain being felt by everyday Americans across the country," Neil Bradly, the chamber's chief policy officer, said in a statement. "We urge reconsideration of this policy and a swift end to these tariffs."
Meanwhile, stocks tumbled Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling nearly 600 points as of midday. That followed a 650 point drop on Monday, after Trump said there was "no room left" for a deal to avoid the tariffs.

Americans have been warned to brace for higher prices within days of Donald Trump pulling the trigger on Monday, imposing US tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico and hiking tariffs on China.
Global stock markets came under pressure again on Tuesday, with leading indices falling sharply – and the benchmark S&P 500 losing all its post-election gains – as Canada, Mexico and China vowed to retaliate, and investors balked at the prospect of an acrimonious trade war.
US retail giants predicted that prices were “highly likely” to start rising on shelves almost immediately after a 25% duty came into effect on exports from Mexico to the US.
Most Canadian exports to the US also now face a 25% duty, with a 10% rate for energy products. The Trump administration imposed a 10% levy on all Chinese exports to the US last month, which has now been doubled to 20%. With US retailers relying heavily on imports from Mexico and Canada to stock their shelves, top executives claimed they would have no choice but to increase prices.
Target, for example, relies heavily on Mexican produce during the winter months, and fruit and vegetable prices in its stores could rise as soon as this week, according to Brian Cornell, its CEO: “The consumer will likely see price increases over the next couple of days”, pointing to produce including strawberries, avocados and bananas. “If there’s a 25% tariff, those prices will go up.”
The consumer electronics retailer Best Buy said it expected the new tariffs to make their way along its supply chain. “We expect our vendors across our entire assortment will pass along some level of tariff costs to retailers, making price increases for American consumers highly likely,” CEO Corie Barry told investors.
The US’s largest trading partners have already hit back. Canada retaliated overnight with its own tariffs on US exports worth C$30bn ($20.71bn), from orange juice to motorcycles, and threatened to impose tariffs on a further C$125bn ($86.29bn) wave of US goods later this month. China plans to hit US farm products including chicken, beef, wheat and corn with 15% tariffs from next week. Mexico pledged to lay out its response on Sunday.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 1.22% and the Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.55%. The FTSE 100 retreated 1.27% in London.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has dropped its lawsuit against the operator of payment platform Zelle and three of its parent banks, in the latest move by the Trump administration to undo actions of the bureau's prior leadership. The bureau had filed the lawsuit in late December against the operator of Zelle, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo "for failing to protect consumers from widespread fraud." Customers of the top three banks lost more than $870 million over seven years due to the banks' failures to protect them, according to the CFPB.
"This is about financial institutions fulfilling their basic obligations to protect customers' money and help fraud victims recover their losses," then-CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said at the time. "These banks broke the law by running a payment system that made fraud easy, and then refusing to help the victims."
However, that was then. On Tuesday the administration dropped its case against Zelle, according to a filing in U.S. District Court in Arizona.
Zelle and its parent banks are just the latest enforcement target to be abandoned by the CFPB, which is currently led by acting director Russell Vought. Last week the bureau dropped cases it was litigating against five companies including Capital One, Rocket Homes and others. It had earlier dropped its case against online lending platform SoLo Funds.
The CFPB has also been decimated in a matter of weeks, with agency's employees ordered to stop essentially all work, while some 150 employees have been fired. The bureau's D.C. headquarters has also been shuttered.

President Donald Trump said that tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada would go into effect Tuesday, ending a month-long delay and sending stock prices into a swift decline.
On Wall Street on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down around 1.5 percent, as investors digested Trump’s comments. The broader S&P 500 index fell nearly 2 percent. Both market measures are now in the red since Trump’s election win.
Imposing tariffs on everything Americans buy from Mexico and Canada is an extraordinary political gamble by a president who was returned to power by voters angered over years of high inflation. The new import taxes are likely to raise the market prices of Mexican tequila, beer and avocados, along with Canadian crude oil and lumber, testing consumer patience with Trump’s approach.
Tariffs on China will also increase by an additional 10 percentage points for the second time in two months, bringing the total tax on some Chinese products to 45 percent.
“Tomorrow, tariffs — 25 percent on Canada and 25 percent on Mexico. And that’ll start,” Trump told reporters. “So they’re going to have a tariff. So what they have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things in the United States, in which case they have no tariffs.”
Trump’s midafternoon announcement in the Roosevelt Room drew a rapid response from business groups, unions and the affected trading partners. Statements of opposition came from the National Foreign Trade Council, the Distilled Spirits Council and the International Association of Machinists.
Even some supporters of the president’s overhaul of trade policy were critical: “Tariffs are great when they stop unfair trade that could hurt U.S. producers and workers, but we have balanced trade with Canada, and tariffs don’t affect smuggled stuff like fentanyl,” said Lori Wallach, director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project.
Many analysts are skeptical of their long-term prospects: “This action effectively destroys the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), disrupts the integrated North American economy we have spent decades building and forces American manufacturers to scramble to restructure their supply chains,” said William Reinsch, a trade specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Meanwhile, the economy will be disrupted, consumers will pay higher prices, inflation will resume, and workers and farmers will lose their jobs, due to the inevitable retaliation.”
Both Canada and Mexico have vowed to hit back. The Canadian government plans to retaliate with levies on as much as $107 billion worth of U.S. goods, including oranges from Florida, motorcycles from Pennsylvania and home appliances from Ohio. The goal is to maximize pain in electoral swing states or those home to Trump supporters.
Several Canadian provinces have said they will implement their own retaliatory measures, including pulling U.S. alcohol from shelves and limiting procurement opportunities for U.S. firms. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has promised to cancel a nearly $70 million contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink and threatened to cut electricity exports to several U.S. states.
China already has imposed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports of farm machinery, coal and liquefied natural gas in response to the additional 10 percent tariff Trump put on Chinese goods early last month. His action Monday, citing China’s continued shipments of fentanyl precursors, added an additional 10 percent levy.
Trump is dismissive of the effect of tariffs on prices and inflation, claiming wrongly that foreign countries will pay the tab while acknowledging that Americans may feel “some pain.” The tariffs will cost the typical American household $1,200 each year, according to a separate analysis by economists at the Peterson Institute of International Economics. As a share of after-tax income, that is three times what the top 1 percent of households will pay.
Factories experienced “the first operational shock of the new administration’s tariff policy,” said Timothy Fiore, chair of the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing survey committee.
The ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index for February was 50.3, down from 50.9 the month before, and below Wall Street’s expectations. Input prices rose at their fastest pace since mid-2022, when consumer price inflation was at a 40-year high.
“Prices growth accelerated due to tariffs, causing new order placement backlogs, supplier delivery stoppages and manufacturing inventory impacts,” Fiore said. “Although tariffs do not go into force until mid-March, spot commodity prices have already risen about 20 percent.”
Since taking office six weeks ago, Trump has threatened or imposed tariffs on the top three U.S. trading partners; commodities such as steel, aluminum and copper; and products like pharmaceuticals, automobiles and semiconductors. And he has announced a comprehensive rethinking of U.S. tariffs that would match other countries’ tax rates on specific products in a “reciprocal” approach.