Oops, something went wrong Rocket Companies (RKT) CEO Varun Krishna has gone on a spring spending spree. Rocket made its second significant acquisition of the month on Monday as it looks to gain share in the fragmented mortgage servicing industry. The company will acquire mortgage servicer Mr. Cooper (COOP) for $9.4 billion in stock. The combined company will service more than $2.1 trillion in loan volume. Mr. Cooper boasts 7 million clients. "Our vision is that we want to build an integrated homeownership platform," Krishna said on Yahoo Finance's Wealth (see video above). "We want to make the entire experience of homeownership, from home search to origination to servicing, seamless and frictionless for our clients." Rocket expects the deal to generate annual run rate revenue and cost synergies of about $500 million. The deal is expected to be accretive to Rocket's business upon closing later this year. Rocket stock fell 9.5% in afternoon trading. Earlier this month Rocket said it would purchase popular real estate brokerage and home data website Redfin (RDFN) for $1.75 billion. The deal is seen boosting Rocket's mortgage origination business. Combined, Krishna has invested more than $11 billion this month. Rocket's stock price has fallen on both deals. That hasn't shaken Krishna. "We feel great about the story with our investors and our shareholders. We are building a generational company," Krishna said. Rocket's deal flurry comes at a crucial time for the US housing market as buyers continue to deal with elevated mortgage rates. But mortgage rates are off their highs — opening a window for improved demand trends during the peak spring buying season. Sales of new homes in February increased 1.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 676,000. Sales rose 5.1% year over year. And January's sales were revised higher. Read more: What is the best time of year to buy a house? The wildcard on the housing market passing an inflection point this spring are tariffs from the Trump administration. Not only could they raise the cost of building a home, but they may prompt a rate cut from the Federal Reserve. "When you think about things like tariffs and inflation, it's still a little early. I think there are a lot of folks that are speculating," Krishna said. "We see some really positive green shoots. We see inventory up. We see more homes selling at or below list [price]. We don't see as many of those competitive bidding dynamics that have existed in the past. We know that the mortgage origination market this year is going to be about $1.9 trillion, and that's up 10% to 15% from where it was last year. So what we see is actually positive." Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com. Click here for the latest stock market news and in-depth analysis, including events that move stocks Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

Oops, something went wrong Nvidia stock (NVDA) fell nearly 4% Monday after US President Donald Trump said he won't be granting any countries softer treatment when it comes to reciprocal tariffs. Speaking aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said reciprocal tariffs set to be announced on April 2 (which he dubbed “Liberation Day”) will target all countries, killing hopes from investors that his trade policy actions would be less aggressive and fueling recession fears. Trump's latest comments spurred a sell-off across markets, with US tech stocks leading the way lower and shares of Tesla (TSLA), down over 5%, pacing losses among the "Magnificent Seven" tech stocks. Read more about the sell-off in tech stocks and today's market action. Nvidia was already set to feel an impact from Trump's tariffs this week, as the US is set to impose 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada as well as reciprocal tariffs. Nvidia GPUs are used in AI servers, many of which are imported to the US from Mexico. US trade data shows the US imported $43 billion worth of "computers" — a data classification category that includes data center servers — from Mexico in 2024. Higher prices of those servers could affect demand for those products and, hence, Nvidia's AI chips. Additional sweeping reciprocal tariffs could further affect Nvidia, especially to the extent to which they target Taiwan. Some $33 billion worth of computer parts— including printed circuit boards with Nvidia's GPUs — were imported from Taiwan in 2024, according to trade data compiled by supply chain analyst and Michigan State University professor Jason Miller. Taiwan is home to TSMC, the leading AI chip contract manufacturer that produces Nvidia chips. Trump has also said he may impose an import tax on internationally produced semiconductors "down the road," though it's unclear what such duties would look like. Nvidia has suggested it may feel some impact from tariffs. “Tariffs will have a little impact for us short term,” CEO Jensen Huang told analysts in a call during its annual GTC conference. Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet Huang said that in the long term, the company is “preparing to manufacture onshore” in the US, pointing to TSMC's recent $100 billion investment to expand its American chip manufacturing footprint. Nvidia stock has been slammed in 2025 — down more than 21% year to date as of Monday afternoon — as investors scrutinize the high valuations of companies in the AI trade and brace for trade wars. Ahead of Trump's commentary Sunday, analysts had suggested the US president's tariffs were not fully priced in the markets, Yahoo Finance's Josh Schafer reported. "The market is going to have a lot to digest," Veda Partners director of economic policy Henrietta Treyz told Yahoo Finance. "And they're going to see just how forward-looking and long-term these tariffs are, which is not currently priced in." Laura Bratton is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Bluesky @laurabratton.bsky.social. Email her at laura.bratton@yahooinc.com. Click here for the latest technology news that will impact the stock market Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

Oops, something went wrong Days of rapid-fire developments raised the stakes for President Trump's coming promise of vast new tariffs. But it provided even less clarity on what he will actually implement as his self-imposed deadline looms in just two days. Perhaps the only thing clear at this point is that a dizzying array of options remain on the table for what Trump calls "Liberation Day." On Monday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that Trump would announce the details of his tariffs Wednesday in a Rose Garden event before his cabinet. She deferred repeatedly when asked about the president's plans but added that trading partners like the European Union, Japan, India, and Canada have shown "disdain for the American worker" and said that there would be "no exemptions at this time" for groups like farmers. She also downplayed recent stock market declines. Overall, the vastness of possibilities appears to be widening in recent day after Trump recently teased that he "may give a lot of countries breaks" and said Sunday night he could be "generous" even as he quickly added that "all countries" could be impacted. A campaign trail idea of blanket 20% across-the-board tariffs also appears to have reemerged as at least an option. The developments also made clear that a single person — Trump himself — will be the one determining the final decision with even his close advisers publicly and privately able to only offer guesses about what he would do. "I can't give you any forward-looking guidance on what's going to happen this week," National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett offered in a Fox News appearance on Sunday. "The president has got a heck of a lot of analysis before him, and he's going to make the right choice I'm sure." Meanwhile, the economic stakes are growing with a new round of market turbulence in evidence Monday morning especially in the Nasdaq (^IXIC) and S&P 500 (^GSPC) as some businesses rush orders to get ahead of tariffs. And Goldman Sachs (GS) revised its economic forecasts lower in response to the likelihood of larger tariffs, predicting slower growth and more inflation. "The only near-certainty is that the effective US tariff rate is heading to its highest level since the 1940s," Capitol Economics added Monday morning in an analysis. "That means rising inflation in the US and growing economic risks for its key trading partners." Even an overall hope that the coming week — however unsettling — may provide a measure of clarity for businesses going forward appears less and less likely. Economist Jens Nordvig, the founder of Exante Data, summed up those feelings by posting online that whatever Trump decides "is unlikely to be any final, complete and internally consistent solution." This week's news, he predicted, "will be adjusted and negotiated in coming weeks and months. Meaning that uncertainty will linger." Some went even further, with a Monday note from Yardeni Research suggesting "business and consumer uncertainty might be even higher after this week." Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet New hour-by-hour developments have also left previous assumptions perhaps moot about what "Liberation Day" could look like. The expectation in the middle of last week, echoed by a White House official to Yahoo Finance, was for "pretty straightforward" country-by-country duties structured in line with Wall Street expectations. But now Trump and his aides appear to be thinking in bigger terms. Senior White House trade and manufacturing counselor Peter Navarro offered an estimate Sunday that Trump 2.0 tariffs in total could add around $700 billion a year annually to US coffers — combining $100 billion from recently announced 25% auto tariffs to $600 billion more from other duties. Navarro didn't offer additional details in that interview on Fox News Sunday — and didn't respond to a request for clarity from Yahoo Finance — but it's an ambitious top-line number that suggests high duties. For example, even measures like a 20% blanket tariff are estimated as likely to raise only about half the amount floated by Navarro. On Sunday evening, the Wall Street Journal added in a report that those 20% across-the-board tariffs indeed remain on the table. It's a move, if Trump seriously considers it or moves forward with it, that could add a new level of instability to markets after the White House's focus on reciprocity in recent months had led some to take solace in the idea that at least the more dramatic options like blanket tariffs were less likely. Either way, in comments to reporters on Sunday night as Trump returned to Washington, the president promised that he plans to target "essentially all of the countries that we're talking about" with new duties this week. It was the latest in a series of comments from the president that offered little in the way of clarity. At one point last week, he said some countries could be "pleasantly surprised" with the coming rates. But in an NBC interview on Saturday, he also said of foreign automakers potentially raising prices in response to his coming auto tariffs: "I couldn't care less." "I hope they raise their prices," he added, "because if they do, people are going to buy American-made cars." The president has also continued to add new tariff threats almost daily. This weekend he mentioned new ideas for "secondary tariffs" on Russian oil if peace talks drag out there as well as another round of secondary tariffs on Iran over that country's nuclear program. Other key tariffs are also set to begin this week and have been announced and implemented by Trump via presidential action. Those include those 25% auto tariffs as well as new "secondary tariffs" on Venezuela to the potential full reinstatement of 25% duties on Mexico and Canada over illegal drugs and migration. Trump has also promised other new sector-specific duties soon with pharmaceuticals and lumber seemingly most in focus in new duties that could also be announced this week. It was all a reflection of how Trump has given himself extraordinary latitude in the coming days to implement tariffs as he alone sees fit. One early hint may come on Tuesday, when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is scheduled to deliver to the president the results of a weeks-long investigation into reciprocity in world trade that is intended to allow Trump to decide the duties he would like to levy in response. This post has been updated with additional developments. Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Sign in to access your portfolio

Oops, something went wrong A weekend of rapid-fire developments raised the stakes for President Trump's coming promise of vast new tariffs. But it provided even less clarity on what he will actually implement as his self-imposed deadline looms in just two days. Perhaps the only thing clear at this point is that a dizzying array of options remain on the table for what Trump calls "Liberation Day." The vastness of possibilities appears to be widening after Trump recently teased that he "may give a lot of countries breaks" and said Sunday night he could be "generous" even as he quickly added that "all countries" could be impacted. A campaign trail idea of blanket 20% across-the-board tariffs also appears to have reemerged as at least an option. The developments also made clear that a single person — Trump himself — will be the one determining the final decision with even his close advisers publicly and privately able to only offer guesses about what he would do. "I can't give you any forward-looking guidance on what's going to happen this week," National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett offered in a Fox News appearance on Sunday. "The president has got a heck of a lot of analysis before him, and he's going to make the right choice I'm sure." A White House official declined to add more — even on questions like how much remains in flux internally and whether any of Trump's decisions to be unveiled this week have been made. Meanwhile, the economic stakes are growing with a new round of market turbulence in evidence Monday morning especially in the Nasdaq (^IXIC) and S&P 500 (^GSPC) as some businesses rush orders to get ahead of tariffs. And Goldman Sachs (GS) revised its economic forecasts lower in response to the likelihood of larger tariffs, predicting slower growth and more inflation. "The only near-certainty is that the effective US tariff rate is heading to its highest level since the 1940s," Capitol Economics added Monday morning in an analysis. "That means rising inflation in the US and growing economic risks for its key trading partners." Even an overall hope that the coming week — however unsettling — may provide a measure of clarity for businesses going forward appears less and less likely. Economist Jens Nordvig, the founder of Exante Data, summed up those feelings by posting online that whatever Trump decides "is unlikely to be any final, complete and internally consistent solution." This week's news, he predicted, "will be adjusted and negotiated in coming weeks and months. Meaning that uncertainty will linger." Some went even further, with a Monday note from Yardeni Research suggesting "business and consumer uncertainty might be even higher after this week." Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet New hour-by-hour developments have also left previous assumptions perhaps moot about what "Liberation Day" could look like. The expectation in the middle of last week, echoed by a White House official to Yahoo Finance, was for "pretty straightforward" country-by-country duties structured in line with Wall Street expectations. But now Trump and his aides appear to be thinking in bigger terms. Senior White House trade and manufacturing counselor Peter Navarro offered an estimate Sunday that Trump 2.0 tariffs in total could add around $700 billion a year annually to US coffers — combining $100 billion from recently announced 25% auto tariffs to $600 billion more from other duties. Navarro didn't offer additional details in that interview on Fox News Sunday — and didn't respond to a request for clarity from Yahoo Finance — but it's an ambitious top-line number that suggests high duties. For example, even measures like a 20% blanket tariff are estimated as likely to raise only about half the amount floated by Navarro. On Sunday evening, the Wall Street Journal added in a report that those 20% across-the-board tariffs indeed remain on the table. It's a move, if Trump seriously considers it or moves forward with it, that could add a new level of instability to markets after the White House's focus on reciprocity in recent months had led some to take solace in the idea that at least the more dramatic options like blanket tariffs were less likely. Either way, in comments to reporters on Sunday night as Trump returned to Washington, the president promised that he plans to target "essentially all of the countries that we're talking about" with new duties this week. It was the latest in a series of comments from the president that offered little in the way of clarity. At one point last week, he said some countries could be "pleasantly surprised" with the coming rates. But in an NBC interview on Saturday, he also said of foreign automakers potentially raising prices in response to his coming auto tariffs: "I couldn't care less." "I hope they raise their prices," he added, "because if they do, people are going to buy American-made cars." The president has also continued to add new tariff threats almost daily. This weekend he mentioned new ideas for "secondary tariffs" on Russian oil if peace talks drag out there as well as another round of secondary tariffs on Iran over that country's nuclear program. Other key tariffs are also set to begin this week and have been announced and implemented by Trump via presidential action. Those include those 25% auto tariffs as well as new "secondary tariffs" on Venezuela to the potential full reinstatement of 25% duties on Mexico and Canada over illegal drugs and migration. Trump has also promised other new sector-specific duties soon with pharmaceuticals and lumber seemingly most in focus in new duties that could also be announced this week. It was all a reflection of how Trump has given himself extraordinary latitude in the coming days to implement tariffs as he alone sees fit. One early hint may come on Tuesday, when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is scheduled to deliver to the president the results of a weeks-long investigation into reciprocity in world trade that is intended to allow Trump to decide the duties he would like to levy in response. This post has been updated with additional developments. Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

Oops, something went wrong If AI infrastructure demand is slowing, as some market watchers claim, AMD (AMD) CEO Lisa Su isn't seeing it. "The need for compute continues to be immense," Su told me in a Yahoo Finance exclusive interview on Monday. "We see that throughout all of our customers globally, and we're going to continue to invest strongly in this area because I think this is the single most important technology. I like to say it's the single most important technology of the last 50 years." Su is backing up her views with cold, hard cash. AMD announced today it closed on its $4.9 billion acquisition of ZT Systems. Announced in August 2024, the deal is expected to bolster AMD's presence in compute infrastructure for hyperscalers. ZT Systems counts Microsoft (MSFT) as a key customer, as does AMD. The company anticipates the transaction to be accretive to non-GAAP results by the end of 2025. The company is "actively engaged" with strategic partners to purchase ZT Systems' US-based data center infrastructure manufacturing business in 2025. Su said a decision on the manufacturing business will be shared in "coming months." Added Su, "I want to be really clear about this. There is no question we are in the very early innings of AI now — to put some of the noise aside. We continue to see more applications, more capability. Enterprises are just at the very early innings of adoption. And frankly, they need more help from folks like ourselves." AMD's stock continues to be held back amid the broader sell-off in momentum tech names such as rival Nvidia (NVDA). Shares are down 15% year to date, underperforming the S&P 500's 5% drop. The company's first quarter guidance left some on the Street uneasy too. AMD said in early February first quarter sales would be down 7% sequentially. Data center and PC chip sales are seen lower. "Although AMD has improved its competitiveness across CPU and GPU products with Ryzen, EPYC, and Radeon platforms and is on track to improve its market share and drive meaningful revenue growth in the near term, we believe long-term share gains are less certain," said JPMorgan analyst Harlan Sur in a note to clients. "In addition, AMD will have to invest heavily in operating expense (especially R&D) in order to keep pace with the market leaders." Sur reiterated a Neutral rating on AMD's stock. Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com. Click here for the latest stock market news and in-depth analysis, including events that move stocks Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Sign in to access your portfolio

Oops, something went wrong Wall Street strategists keep moving their year-end targets for the S&P 500 (^GSPC) lower as President Trump's tariffs become a reality. On Sunday, both Yardeni Research and Goldman Sachs lowered their year-end targets for the second time in the past month. Yardeni Research now sees the S&P 500 hitting 6,100 this year, below a prior forecast for 6,400. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs projects the benchmark index will end the year at 5,700, down from its previous forecast of 6,200. "These estimates incorporate downward revisions to both earnings growth and valuations, reflecting a weaker base case economic growth backdrop, higher uncertainty, and higher recession risk," Goldman Sachs chief US equity strategist David Kostin wrote. Key to both projections is an admission that Trump's tariffs are likely to be more widespread than most economists initially thought and that they will weigh on the overall economy and potentially provide further near-term downside to stocks. Goldman Sachs now has a three-month target on the S&P 500 of 5,300. Key to Goldman's call was a bleaker outlook for the US economy. Goldman's team of economists recently raised their tariff assumptions to a 15% tariff rate, above their prior forecast of 10%, and raised its probability of a recession in the next 12 months to 35% from 20% seen previously. Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet Goldman's baseline forecast is for the S&P 500 to bottom "this summer, slightly ahead of the trough in economic growth in our forecasts." "We continue to recommend investors watch for an improvement in the growth outlook, more asymmetry in market pricing, or depressed positioning before trying to trade a market bottom," Kostin wrote. Meanwhile, Yardeni Research president Ed Yardeni now sees a 45% chance the economy tips into recession and the S&P 500 enters a bear market as market conditions "have continued to deteriorate under Trump's Reign of Tariffs." A bear market would mark a 20% decline for the benchmark from its recent all-time high to a level of just over 4,900. This would mean stocks could have at least another 12% in downside from current levels. Yardeni wrote he's "losing confidence" that the US economy will remain resilient in the face of "Trump's reign of tariffs." Yardeni pointed to the already growing signs that stagflation, a period where inflation remains sticky while economic growth slows, is already showing up in economic data. On Friday, a fresh release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed that consumer spending increased less than expected in March while inflation increased more than expected. "Admittedly, it's getting harder to be optimistic, but we are doing the best we can under the circumstances," Yardeni wrote. Josh Schafer is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X @_joshschafer. Click here for the latest stock market news and in-depth analysis, including events that move stocks Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

Oops, something went wrong WHIPPANY, New Jersey — President Trump's auto tariffs have customers and dealers spooked. At the Lexus of Route 10 dealer in the New Jersey suburbs, the showroom floor was buzzing more than normal for a weekday at the end of the month ahead of the 25% tariffs on foreign cars that are poised to take effect on April 2. “Well, we're seeing people come in; they want to buy cars because they're afraid,” said Tom Maoli, the owner of Celebrity Motor Car Company, which runs Lexus of Route 10 as well as BMW, Ford, and Mercedes dealerships and a few others. “The average car in the United States of America now sells for $40,000, so you're talking about a $10,000 increase. … They're buying. They want to buy. Now.” The smooth-talking and sharply dressed dealer claims the average auto payment will go up by a whopping $300 per month. Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet Maoli told Yahoo Finance that the total MSRP of a car doesn't matter to buyers — it's all about the monthly payment. With the average monthly payment for a new car hitting $754 a month last quarter, adding $300 puts these owners over the $1,000/month barrier. Maoli said he and other dealers have few options except to build up supply before the tariffs go into effect. Most dealers have around 50 to 100 days of new car supply, depending on the brand. "Well, there's not really much we can do right now," Maoli said. "The only thing we can do is build up inventory, try and get inventory from the manufacturers as much as we can — whatever's on the ground in the ports — and the same thing on the parts side because it's going to affect repairs." Maoli told Yahoo Finance he's currently “hoarding” auto parts for his service centers, anticipating waves of customers looking to repair their existing cars to keep them on the road. "That same 25% tariff is going to affect repairs," he said. "Repairs are going to go up. And, you know, if they're not buying, consumers have to repair because they have to keep their cars on the road. You can't stop transportation." Maoli said that the tariffs won't just hurt foreign automakers like BMW (BMW.DE), Volkswagen (VOW.DE), and Lexus (owned by Toyota (TM)). Domestic automakers are feeling the pain, too, from their international assembly footprint and the complex auto supply chain for parts that spans the globe. Maoli noted domestic automaker stocks are also getting hurt, even Tesla. Maoli, a Republican who worked on Trump's first-term transition team, believes the president should be using a “carrot” instead of a “stick” to boost domestic production. Maoli said that like dealers, consumers have few choices — and they are not good. "Ultimately, the consumer is going to have to do one of three things," Maoli said. "They're going to buy a new car at the higher price, which that's going to, I believe, pull back. They're going to either fix their car and elongate the cycle, keep their car for 150,000 miles and just keep it glued together, or they're going to try and buy a used car, and the used car market is going to skyrocket because there's only a certain amount of used cars out there." The used market, the most important market for first-time buyers and more price-conscious buyers, is likely the next domino to fall. For example, in the past, almost all buyers would return their leased vehicles at the end of the contract — creating a huge supply for the used-car market. Post-pandemic, however, more owners are buying out the cars. Maoli said his lease buyback rates, in some instances, top 50%, something that was unheard of only a few years ago. Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on X and on Instagram. Click here for the latest stock market news and in-depth analysis, including events that move stocks Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

Oops, something went wrong What if tariffs are only the beginning? What if President Trump has a far bolder plan to reshape the US economy, regardless of the consequences? Investors hope it isn't so. But they're still paying attention to a concept known as the “Mar-a-Lago Accord,” which would dramatically rewire global capital flows by permanently devaluing the US dollar, refinancing trillions of dollars of US debt, and putting the United States in a much more adversarial role with its trading partners. Most doubt it will amount to anything, but Trump is so unpredictable that investors are learning to prepare for the unthinkable. The idea of a “Mar-a-Lago Accord” comes from Stephen Miran, who was a senior strategist at investing firm Hudson Bay Capital last November when he wrote a 41-page essay on “restructuring the global trading system.” Miran wrote from a Trumpian perspective, explaining how the incoming president's fondness for tariffs and protectionism could be the basis for reshaping much of the global economy. The paper probably would have gotten little notice, except that Trump tapped Miran to head the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He started the job this month. Trump himself hasn't said anything publicly about Miran's Mar-a-Lago plan. But now that Miran is a Trump whisperer, investors want to know what he might be whispering. “Wall Street can't stop talking about the Mar-a-Lago Accord,” MarketWatch declared earlier this month. The basic premise behind Miran's plan is that the US dollar has been overvalued for decades, leading to chronic trade deficits — and the migration of manufacturing out of the United States to other countries such as China. Reversing that imbalance would therefore require a devaluation of the US dollar, something Trump does seem to favor. When the dollar is relatively strong, imports become cheaper to Americans, while US exports to other countries become more expensive. That shows up as a growing trade deficit in goods, as the gap between imports and exports grows. The goods trade deficit was $1.2 trillion in 2024, the highest ever and 175% larger than the deficit in 2000. Trump thinks the growing trade deficit is inherently bad. Economists don't necessarily agree. The US economy is powered by consumption, and more imported products at lower prices boost the buying power of Americans. Running a trade deficit isn't harmful if the US economy is otherwise healthy, with high levels of investment, innovation, and job creation. Many experts also think a strong dollar is better for the United States than a weak dollar. "A Mar-a-Lago Accord would be pointless, ineffectual, destabilizing, and only lead to the erosion of the dollar's pre-eminent role in the global financial system," economists Steven Kamin and Mark Sobel of the American Enterprise Institute wrote recently. They argue that a strong dollar gives American businesses privileged access to overseas markets while enhancing economic stability at home. It's true that a lot of lower-level assembly-line work has left the United States and that manufacturing employment has dropped. But manufacturing has been declining for years as a percentage of output in all the world's advanced economies as growth comes from technology and services. Since the 1980s, manufacturing as a share of US GDP has dropped from around 25% to less than 10%. Yet America's industrial output is nearly as high as it's ever been. Manufacturers simply make more with fewer workers due to automation, technology, and innovation. If there's a fatal flaw in Trump's economic thinking, it's his fetishization of manufacturing. The service economy employs 86% of American workers today. Just 8% work in manufacturing. And the United States has a longstanding trade surplus in services, exporting more than it imports. "Are assembly jobs good jobs? Yes," economist Mary Lovely of the Peterson Institute for International Economics said on the latest episode of the Yahoo Finance Capitol Gains podcast. "But there are lots of other good jobs in the US." Despite some rough patches, the United States has had the world's most dynamic and durable economy for at least 40 years. If the United States has somehow been handicapped by a lost blue-collar economy and a gamed trading system, it's a handicap any nation would gladly endure. Drop Rick Newman a note, follow him on Bluesky, or sign up for his newsletter. Trump, nonetheless, is basing his whole economic plan on boosting the manufacturing sector. In the Mar-a-Lago plan, tariffs would only be the beginning. Devaluing the dollar would come next. To do that without printing money and triggering runaway inflation, the Trump administration would have to intervene in currency markets. If other nations happened to agree with Trump's plan to devalue the dollar, the signatories could all gather at Mar-a-Lago and ink an accord similar to other marquee events in financial history. Voluntary agreement is unlikely, however, since trading partners would end up at a disadvantage. “The circumstances do not look good for a voluntary currency agreement,” Capital Economics explained in a recent analysis of the idea. “But a coercive deal forced on others by the US using threats or inducements may be possible.” A “coercive” deal would involve some way of reducing the flow of foreign money into US dollar assets, especially Treasury securities. Miran, for instance, suggested a new user fee on some foreign purchases of Treasurys, which would reduce demand for Treasurys and weaken the dollar. But that would force interest rates higher in the United States, and Trump wants lower rates, not higher ones. So there would have to be some corrective for rising rates. One concept here is that the Trump team could somehow force current foreign holders of Treasury securities, which have a maximum maturity of 30 years, into a new “century” bond with a 100-year maturity. The catch is that century bonds would be hard to trade in public markets the way Treasurys trade now. So there would have to be some new way of providing liquidity if century bondholders needed it, such as short-term loans from the Federal Reserve. Read more: What are bonds, and how do you invest in them? There are other twists and wrinkles. Trump, for instance, has talked about establishing a US sovereign wealth fund, which, if it ever existed, he could use to force the dollar lower by purchasing massive amounts of foreign assets. The United States could exploit its role as a defense guarantor for nations such as Taiwan, South Korea, and much of Europe to try forcing them into buying century bonds. Trump could also dangle tariff relief as an incentive for foreign help devaluing the dollar. If this scheme sounds remarkably convoluted, well, it is. “There's no easy road to dollar weakening,” Oxford Economics said in a March 20 report. “Achieving the size of depreciation that we think would be needed to have a significant impact on the trade deficit would involve swimming against a strong tide. The costs imposed on the economies and financial markets in the US and beyond could be large.” Those costs would most likely include sharply higher prices for both imported and domestic goods, higher interest rates, and whatever economic damage the disruption might cause. A worst-case outcome would be wrecking investor confidence in the sanctity of US Treasurys, which could happen if the United States did anything markets interpreted as a default, or refusal to pay, what Treasury holders are legally entitled to. That would devalue the dollar for sure, but at the devastating cost of much higher rates on Treasurys to compensate holders for the higher risk of losing their money. If that happened, US government borrowing costs would explode, and the gigantic national debt, now $36 trillion, could quickly become unsustainable. Economists also point out that there are better ways of addressing some legitimate problems in markets. One reason the dollar might be slightly overvalued today is the sheer amount of debt the Treasury has issued to finance annual deficits that now run close to $2 trillion per year. “If the reduction in US domestic demand were done via fiscal tightening, that would have the added benefit of putting the US public debt onto a more sustainable path,” Capital Economics said. There are also real casualties of global trade, including American manufacturing towns that lost employers with nobody to take their place. Luring growth industries such as green energy, data centers, warehousing, and healthcare to such areas would likely be more effective than trying to hold onto the enterprises of the past. There's also an ongoing need for tradespeople and a mismatch between the skills companies need and the skills workers have that policymakers could do a much better job of reconciling. Trump, of course, sees tariffs as a kind of multitool that can solve many problems, including some that might not be problems at all. Investors generally dislike Trump's tariffs, which have dented stock values and raised new inflation fears. But tariffs may be tame medicine compared with other potions Trump might try to brew up. Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Bluesky and X: @rickjnewman. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices. Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance