Brian Dake

President Trump said he will announce 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum on Monday, adding that he would also kick off reciprocal tariffs in the days after.

Trump said that the steel and aluminum tariffs would impact “everybody” when asked what countries would be effected.

“Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25 percent tariff — aluminum too,” Trump told reporters. “Twenty-five percent … for both.”

He added that details of the reciprocal tariffs will be announced on Tuesday or Wednesday in a news conference.

On Friday, he warned that reciprocal tariffs would also be announced early next week, adding that he thinks reciprocal as opposed to a flat-fee tariff is the fair approach.

As the state’s primary consumer protection agency, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) responded to 11,374 written consumer complaints in 2024. The resulting mediations, enforcement actions, and settlements returned over $23 million to Wisconsin consumers through refunds and restitutions directly returned to consumers, and civil forfeitures deposited into the state’s common school fund for the benefit of public education.

The top ten complaint categories of 2024 are:

​​1. Landlor​​d-Tenant Issues

With 2,525​ complaints filed in 2024, landlord-tenant issues remained DATCP’s number one consumer complaint category. The most common disputes between lan​​dlords and tenants reported to DATCP include failure to maintain the premises, security deposit returns, unauthorized entry, mold and infestation, inadequate disclosures, and unsatisfactory service.

2. ​Telemarketing​​

Telemarketing was DATCP’s second most-reported consumer complaint category of 2024, with 1,513 complaints. Issues include phishing and spoofing, imposter scams, robocalls, harassment, and Do Not Call Registry violations.

3. Home Improvement

There were 664 consumer complaints filed with DATCP in the home improvement category in 2024. Top concerns include quality of work, delays in performance, failure to provide services and materials, failure to honor warranties, deceptive and misleading representations, and failure to disclose lien rights.

4. Identity Theft

DATCP received 618 complaints of identity theft in 2024, an increase over the previous year. The top issue in this category remains online account takeovers, with many of the complaints involving compromised Facebook accounts. S

5. Telecommunications​​

In 2024, DATCP received 527 complaints from consumers about their telecommunications services. Consumers reported issues about billing disputes, customer dissatisfaction, agreed-upon terms not being followed, deceptive and misleading representations, refund and adjustment policies, and denial of cancellation requests.

6. Medical Servi​​ces

Consumers filed 439 complaints related to medical services in 2024. The top issue in this category was medical billing disputes. Other topics include unsatisfactory service and misleading representations.

7. Motor Vehicle R​epair

There were 341 motor vehicle repair complaints filed with DATCP in 2024. Consumers reported issues such as unsatisfactory quality of work, damage and loss of property, failure to honor agreements or perform work, performance delays, and charges for work not permitted by the vehicle owner.

8. Motor Vehicle Sales (New and ​​Used)

The eighth most common consumer complaint in 2024 concerned sales of both new and used motor vehicles, about which DATCP received 297 complaints. The most common issues cited in these complaints were inadequate disclosures, prize notice mailers, and untrue, deceptive and misleading representations.

9. Tr​avel

DATCP received 244 travel complaints in 2024. The travel category covers a variety of areas such as airlines, hotels and lodging, auto rentals, and travel service bundles, with common consumer complaints including billing disputes, refund and adjustment policies, failure to provide services, failure to return deposits, and unsatisfactory service.

10. ​Motor Vehicle A​​ccessories

DATCP’s tenth most common consumer complaint category of 2024, having received 141 complaints, was motor vehicle accessories. Refunds, failure to deliver produ​​cts, and deceptive and misleading representations were the top issues reported by consumers.

The U.S. goods trade deficit increased in 2024 to a record $1.2 trillion. The Commerce Department report also showed the United States ran record bilateral trade deficits with Mexico, Vietnam, India, Taiwan, South Korea and the 27-nation European Union.

U.S. goods imports in 2024 totaled $3.3 trillion, a record high, while exports were nearly $2.1 trillion, producing a 14 percent jump in the trade gap to $1.2 trillion.

The United States still runs a surplus in services trade, such as banking, travel and transportation. When that is included, the combined goods and services trade deficit totaled $918 billion in 2024, up 17 percent from 2023 and the second highest on record.

The report showed the U.S. trade deficit with China increased to $295 billion in 2024, but remained well below the record level of $418 billion set in 2018.

Job openings slid in December while hiring, voluntary quits and layoffs held steady, the Labor Department reported Tuesday.

Available positions tumbled to 7.6 million, the lowest since September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. The decline left the ratio of open jobs to available workers at 1.1 to 1.

Though the report runs a month behind other jobs data, the Federal Reserve watches it closely for signs of a slack or tight labor market.

While the net gain in nonfarm payrolls picked up in the month by 256,000, the level of openings fell by 556,000. As a share of the labor force, openings declined to 4.5%, or 0.4 percentage point below November.

Professional and business services saw a drop of 225,000, while private education and health services declined by 194,000, and financial activities decreased by 166,000.

Layoffs totaled 1.77 million for the month, down just 29,000, while hires nudged up to 5.46 million and quits also saw a small gain to near 3.2 million. Total separations also moved little, at 5.27 million.

President Trump agreed Monday to delay for a month the aggressive tariffs he levied on Canada and Mexico, receiving in return pledges from both trading partners to help him strengthen U.S. border security.

But China struck back against new U.S. tariffs with a targeted tit-for-tat warning.

President Trump told reporters he would speak on Monday with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, prior to imposing import tariffs on their goods. The U.S. president is expected to sign executive orders on Tuesday putting in place 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada and 10% tariffs on those from China, according to the White House.

Prime Minister Trudeau responded to the planned tariffs on Saturday evening, announcing his country will implement 25% tariffs on 155 billion Canadian dollars, or about $107 billion, of U.S. goods. The prime minister said he has not talked to President Trump since his inauguration.

President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico plans on Monday to announce her country’s “Plan B” response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on imported goods.

President Trump on Sunday told reporters he was unconcerned about the potential impact of imposing tariffs on close trading partners, saying the American people would understand.

“We may have short term, some, a little pain, and people understand that, but, long term, the United States has been ripped off by virtually every country in the world,” he told reporters on Sunday, as he departed Air Force One at Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he will follow through with his threat to hit imports from Canada and Mexico with 25% border taxes, known as tariffs, on 1 February.

But he added that a decision about whether this would include oil from those countries had not yet been made.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said the move was aimed to address the large amounts of undocumented migrants and the fentanyl that come across U.S. borders as well as trade deficits with its neighbors.

The president also suggested that he was still planning to impose new tariffs on China, which he said earlier this month would be 10%, but did not give any details.

Canada and Mexico have said that they would respond to U.S. tariffs with measures of their own, while also seeking to assure Washington that they were taking action to address concerns about their U.S. borders.

The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady Wednesday as it seeks to curb stubborn inflation.

Fed policymakers have hinted that they’ll be cautious about additional rate cuts, so long as the job market remains solid and prices continue to climb.

“We feel like we don’t need to be in a hurry to make any adjustments,” Fed chairman Jerome Powell told reporters Wednesday.

Members of the Fed’s rate-setting committee voted unanimously to leave their benchmark interest rate between 4.25% and 4.5%. That helps determine the cost of other short-term borrowing, such as car loans and credit card debt.

The central bank has already cut its benchmark rate by a full percentage point since September. But faced with sticky inflation, policymakers are in no hurry to make additional cuts. Consumer prices in December were up 2.9% from a year ago — a slightly larger annual increase than the previous month.

Meanwhile, the job market has proven to be remarkably resilient, with employers adding more than a quarter-million jobs last month. If the labor market were weaker, there would be more pressure on the Fed to cut borrowing costs and stimulate hiring.

Sean Duffy was confirmed Tuesday as transportation secretary, giving him a key role in President Donald Trump’s administration.

Duffy, a 53-year-old former Wisconsin congressman, was approved on a 77-22 vote in the Senate.

Duffy has promised safer Boeing planes, less regulation, and help for U.S. companies developing self-driving cars — while not giving any breaks to Elon Musk, a key player in that technology.

Duffy also vowed to “restore global confidence” in Boeing, hire more air traffic controllers, cut DEI programs in the Department of Transportation and create federal rules for self-driving cars.

Wisconsin Republicans are calling for an amendment to the state constitution aimed at narrowing the governor’s partial veto powers. The push comes amid a legal battle over Gov. Tony Evers’ use of a partial veto to extended a school funding increase for 400 years.

On Monday, State Rep. Scott Allen, R-Waukesha; State Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin; and State Sen. Cory Tomczyk, R-Mosinee, sent an email seeking cosponsors for a joint resolution pursuing an amendment that would only allow Evers and future governors to veto entire sections of a spending bill “capable of separate enactment as a complete, entire, and workable law.”

Because the lawmakers are seeking a constitutional amendment, their joint resolution must be passed during two successive legislative sessions and then be approved by voters in a statewide referendum.

The partial veto powers enjoyed by Wisconsin governors stand out from all others across the nation. Currently, the only restrictions in Wisconsin are that governors cannot create new words in spending bills by vetoing individual letters and they cannot create new sentences by vetoing parts of others.

Both Republican and Democratic governors have extensively used Wisconsin’s partial veto powers, which date back to 1930.

The most recent example came from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in July 2023. By crossing out a 20 and a dash before signing the state budget, Evers authorized school districts to receive a $325 per-pupil increase for more than 400 years. The Republican-controlled Legislature intended the increase to expire in two years.

A lawsuit challenging Evers’ veto is currently being considered by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Both liberal and conservative justices voiced skepticism about how Evers changed the school funding provision with some calling it “extreme” and “outrageous.”