The Brief

This week was supposed to mark the deadline for other countries to strike trade deals with the U.S. — or face tariffs of up to 49% on the goods they sell in the United States.

President Donald Trump is still threatening sky-high import taxes, but he has pushed back the effective date to Aug. 1, sowing even more uncertainty.

Here's an update on where Trump's tariff policy stands, including which tariffs he has in place and which countries are currently affected.

A 10% tariff applies to just about everything the U.S. imports

Starting in April, Trump imposed a minimum 10% tariff on nearly everything the U.S. imports (with a few exceptions, such as cellphones and computers), although goods from China face a higher tariff rate of 30%.

The average tariff rate is now at the highest it has been since the 1930s. The government collected nearly $30 billion in tariff revenue during June, according to a daily tracker at the Bipartisan Policy Center. That's roughly three times what it collected in March, before the worldwide tariffs were announced.

While foreign companies may absorb some of the cost of those tariffs, the bulk of the expense is borne by U.S. businesses and consumers.

Higher tariffs on tap for other countries — maybe

Imports from many countries initially faced higher tariffs, including 24% on goods from Japan and 49% on goods from Cambodia.

The news prompted a sharp sell-off in the stock market, and Trump quickly backtracked — announcing a 90-day pause on those higher tariffs to allow time for trade negotiations.

As that 90-day window expires this week, Trump is once again calling for significantly higher tariffs on imports from more than a dozen countries — in most cases similar to the rates announced in April.

On Tuesday, for example, Trump said he would impose a 25% tariff on goods from Japan and South Korea. Wednesday he announced tariffs of up to 30% on goods from Libya and Iraq. In each case, though, he has postponed the effective date until Aug. 1, suggesting the tariffs could be adjusted again.

"Putting off the increased levy will no doubt bring some short-term relief for impacted business owners and purchasing managers, though it does little to alleviate the pervasive sense of uncertainty," wrote Wells Fargo economists Shannon Grein and Tim Quinlan in a research note.

That uncertainty has been a drag on the U.S. economy, especially the manufacturing sector.

A recent report from the Institute for Supply Management said tariffs are weighing on factory orders.

"The erratic trade policy with on-again/off-again tariffs has led to price uncertainty for customers, who appear to be prepared to hold off large capital purchases until stability returns," said one unnamed factory manager quoted in the report.

China already has a higher tariff after tit-for-tat retaliations

Goods from China are currently taxed at a minimum of 30%, which is higher than imports from other countries — but that's still a relative bargain after Chinese products were briefly hit with tariffs as high as 145%. Some Chinese products face additional tariffs, left over from Trump's first term in the White House.

Trump is frustrated that China sells much more to the U.S. — everything from cheap toys to fireworks — than it buys from American companies. The president has also accused China of not doing enough to crack down on the fentanyl trade.

Tariffs have led to uncertainty in sectors reliant on imports, including at the Port of Los Angeles.

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The European Union could also face stiffer tariffs

In April, Trump announced taxes of 20% on goods from the European Union, before rolling that back to 10%. He has yet to announce a new tariff rate for European products, but he has suggested it could be as high as 50%.

Europe has so far not imposed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports, but that's likely to change if the trade war escalates.

Mexico and Canada face special scrutiny

Mexico and Canada were among the first countries, along with China, that Trump targeted with tariffs this year.

Trump initially taxed imports from Mexico and Canada at a rate of 25% (or 10% for Canadian energy), but he later exempted that tariff for goods covered under a 2020 trade deal — the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) — which Trump himself had signed during his first term as president.

The tariff relief for goods under that USMCA trade agreement was ostensibly in response to Mexico and Canada taking action to curb illegal immigration and fentanyl trafficking, although the angry reaction to tariffs from investors and businesspeople also may have played a role.

Mexican and Canadian goods that aren't covered by the USMCA still face a 25% import tax.

The U.K. and Vietnam are the only two countries with deals in place.

They were the first to strike trade deals with the Trump administration, agreeing to increase U.S. access to their markets in exchange for limited tariffs on exports to the United States.

Trump agreed to keep tariffs on imports from the U.K. at the 10% baseline level, while imports from Vietnam will be taxed at 20%.

In April, Trump had threatened to impose tariffs as high as 46% on goods from Vietnam. Some exporters that used to produce goods in China have shifted operations to Vietnam to take advantage of lower tariffs on that country's exports.

Separate tariffs apply to steel, aluminum and autos

Trump has imposed additional tariffs on certain goods as he tries to protect some U.S. industries.

Imported steel and aluminum are currently being taxed at a rate of 50% (except for steel and aluminum from the U.K., which is taxed at 25%), while imported cars and car parts are being taxed at 25% (except for those covered under the USMCA agreement, which are tariff-free).
In addition to taxing raw steel and aluminum imports, the administration has added tariffs on some products made from those metals. That's designed to avoid what happened during Trump's first term as president, when U.S. metal manufacturers had to pay higher prices for raw materials, only to be outsold by imported finished goods.

Rolls of steel sit in a yard at Canadian steel company Stelco's Hamilton Works plant in Hamilton, Ontario, on June 4.

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Other tariffs on some categories may be coming

The administration is also weighing additional tariffs on specific categories of imports, including copper, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and lumber.

But tariffs also face a legal challenge

In ordering many of the tariffs listed above, Trump relied on a 1977 statute called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Several states and businesses have challenged those tariffs, saying the law doesn't give the president power to impose sweeping import taxes in response to a long-running U.S. trade deficit.

A specialty federal trade court agreed in May and struck down the tariffs. However, they've been allowed to remain in effect as the administration pursues an appeal.

If the courts ultimately rule against Trump's worldwide tariffs under that 1977 law, he would still have the power under other statutes to impose tariffs on particular goods like steel and aluminum.

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It’s about the size of a park bench and made of steel and wood. The bench’s arm rests are formed by the letters “L” and “A” in a design that’s unmistakable to any sports fan. But the welder-artist who created it says it’s not a Dodgers bench.

“This is about civic pride, L.A. pride. I made a design statement saying that it has nothing affiliated with the Dodgers,” said Steve Campos.

Campos grew up near Dodger Stadium, raised by parents who were die-hard Dodgers fans. So much, that they named him after Steve Garvey but that legacy doesn’t keep him from confronting how the Dodgers benefitted from the mass displacement of working-class people from Chavez Ravine after World War Two. That’s why he calls it an L.A. Bench, and not a Dodgers Bench.

The logo may be synonymous with the city's beloved baseball team, but the design of the interlocking letters was used by the L.A. Angels minor league baseball team before the Dodgers moved to L.A. in 1958.

“The monogram was here before the Dodgers,” Campos said.

A second-generation welder

Welding is the Campos family business. His father created gates and security bars for windows and doors for L.A. clients. That was the foundation for the work Campos has done for two decades since graduating from Lincoln High School, L.A. Trade Tech College, and enrolling in a summer program at Art Center in Pasadena.

The inspiration for the L.A. Bench came last year while he was playing around in his shop creating versions of the L.A. logo. A friend he hangs with at Echo Park Lake asked Campos to make him a piece of furniture.

“I was trying to figure out what my friend Curly wanted. He liked Dodgers and drinking and getting into fights, so I was like, 'Let me make something with the LA monogram,'” he said.

Welder-artist Steve Campos created whimsical steel sculptures with the LA logo.

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It didn’t design itself. He said he had to lengthen the legs on the “A” and lean the back of the “L” in order to make the bench functional. In the process, he’s made a piece of furniture with a ubiquitous logo that he’s embedded with his own L.A. pride, as well as city history past and present.

LA civic pride travels to Japan

Campos vacationed in Japan the last week of April and took advantage of the trip to reach out to people who may be interested in the L.A. Bench. He was caught off guard by people’s reaction when he showed them pictures of it.

“They look at it and they go, 'Oh, Ohtani bench,'” he said.

For them, it’s still a bench embedded with pride, he said, but centered around Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, an icon in his native Japan.

Campos has made four L.A. benches and is selling them fully assembled, he said, for $2,500 each — taking into account his labor and how costly the raw materials have become. For now, he’s offering the metal parts as a package for $500, which requires the buyer to purchase the wood for the seat and the back — an easy process, he said.

While he has no plans to mass produce the L.A. Bench, he does have one goal in mind that shows how hard it is for him to separate L.A. civic pride and the Dodgers.

“I would love to get a couple of them installed at Dodger Stadium,” he said.

The Venice Boardwalk after sunset has generally been a no-go zone for tourists and locals alike, as the beachside bars and restaurants close on the early side and safety is often an issue. Now, a group of artists is out to bring some vibrancy to the creative neighborhood with a series of new installations that will include live evening performances – and even a “Venice Opera House.”

“Let's play with light and let's play with sound and give people a reason to come to the Boardwalk after sundown,” said artist and entrepreneur Stefan Ashkenazy, who is curating the project and owns the buildings housing them. “I mean, let's just be open 24 hours a day.”

The concept doesn’t have an official name yet, but he’s been calling it “See World.”

Artist James Ostrer's space looks out from a bed through the fence to the ocean at Venice Beach.

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William Attaway, a longtime Venice artist, created a gallery space filled with various paintings and sculptures.

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The pair of modern buildings on the Venice Boardwalk at Thornton Ave. – with their big balconies, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and seven open garage-style retail spaces – have sat mostly empty since Snapchat vacated their beachside offices in 2019. Ashkenazy recently bought the building and recruited artists to fill those front-facing spaces with creative work until a full-time tenant comes in.

Over the past several weeks the installations have been created in real-time, in public.

All of the projects are loosely along the theme of “home,” with each artist claiming a “room” in the two buildings that stretch across a full block on the Boardwalk. Several local Venice artists are featured, including William Attaway, whose intricate mosaic work is recognizable on the Venice public restrooms along the beach. Attaway’s space features a floating larger-than-life-sized statue and various works in a mini-gallery. In the next room is Robin Murez’s pieces, featuring carved wooden seats from her beloved neighborhood Venice Flying Carousel.

Ashkenazy is no stranger to wild (and wildly successful) art ideas. He’s the owner of the Petit Ermitage hotel in West Hollywood, a longtime haven for visiting artists, and the founder of the decade-old Bombay Beach Biennale, where artists install all kinds of work in an annual event near the Salton Sea. Many of the artists from that community are featured at the Venice project.

A "Venice Opera House" will host pop-up music events throughout the summer.

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny's paintings on the wall of his Venice space.

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny and London-based artist James Ostrer have brought some of their work in the Bombay Beach Biennale to the Venice project. Their windows on the Boardwalk both speak to a child-like sense of wonder and creativity.

“I think it's just kind of exploring and playing a little bit, to have the freedom to be able to do that,” Haberny says of his imagined child’s bedroom space, which includes a fort made out of puffy cheese balls. “It's a big space, too.
It's beautiful.”

Ostrer is experimenting with a performance art idea where he sits in bed amongst a room full of his own artwork, which he describes as “happy art with an edge.” Looking out at the ocean from the bed, he’s invited passersby to sit and have chats with him about his work or anything else they want to talk about.

“It’s a very intimate space, so you have a different kind of conversation,” he said. “I use art to channel human creativity, and [talk about] dark things.”

While there are open fences that block off the spaces, they aren’t sealed up at night. Both Ashkenazy and the team of artists seemed open to the idea that anything could happen and that the installations are a conversation with the public – and with that comes some risk.

Greg Haberny (right) works with his assistants on an installation featuring kid-inspired graffiti art and a "cheesy puff" fort.

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“I don't really know if I [would] say worried, but I guess it's just the cost of doing business,” Haberny said. “I don't really make things to get damaged or broken, sure. But I have done [things like] burned all my paintings and then made paint out of ash.”

While he’s felt safe – and even slept overnight in the installation – Ostrer has been collaborating with a local female artist who performs in a pig mask in front of his installation some nights. Watching her perform, he said, has taught him about the vulnerability of women in public spaces like the Boardwalk. “I've started to, on a very fractional level, have seen how scary that is. Because I've sat in the bed behind her performing at the front here… the way in which men are approaching her and shrieking at her … it's shocking.”

Ashkenazy says he will keep the artists in the space, potentially rotating new ones in, until a fulltime tenant takes over.

“This is an experiment … and after acquiring the building, the intention wasn't, ‘let's open a bunch of public art spaces,’ he said. “It is kind of …what the building wanted and listening to what the Boardwalk needed. Let's play, let's have the artists that we love and appreciate have a space to play and engage and give the locals and the visitors to the Boardwalk something to experience.”

A new trail across the beloved natural area of Elephant Hill in Northeast Los Angeles is officially opening this weekend.

The route is years in the making, and it's a big milestone in the decades-long conservation efforts to preserve this local jewel in the community of El Sereno.

The hiking trail connects one side of Elephant Hill to the other — from the corner of Pullman Street and Harriman Avenue all the way across to Lathrop Street.

It's 0.75 miles in total, but packs a punch.

"It's a pretty straight shot, but because of the terrain — the trail is kind of twisty and curvy. There's switchbacks — and great views," Elva Yañez, board president of the nonprofit Save Elephant Hill, said.

People have always been able to access the 110-acre green space, but Yañez said the new trail provides a safe and easy way to navigate the steep hillsides.

The El Sereno nonprofit has been working for two decades to preserve the land. Illegal dumping and off-roading have damaged the open space over the years. And the majority of the 110 acres are privately owned by an estimated 200 individual owners.

Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) joined the efforts in 2018, spurred by a $700,000 grant from Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District, in part, to build the trail. The local agency received some $2 million in grants from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to add to the 10 acres of Elephant Hill it manages and conserves. This year, MCRA acquired an additional 12 parcels — or about 2.4 acres.

And the spiffy new footpath — with trail signage, information kiosks and landscape boulders — is not just a long-sought-for victory but a beginning in a sense.

"We know that it means a lot to the community," Sarah Kevorkian, who oversees the trail project for MRCA, said. "We're wrapping up the trail, but it really feels like the beginning of all that is to come."

A hint of that vision already exists — for hikers traversing the new route, courtesy of Test Plot, the L.A.-based nonprofit that works to revitalize depleted lands.

"They're able to see at the end of the trail, at the 'test plot' — exactly what a restored Elephant Hill would look like," Yañez said.

Here's a preview:

A coalition of residents from across the San Gabriel Valley are mobilizing over a battery storage project and possibly more industrial development in the City of Industry they say could pollute communities next door.

A protest is scheduled today in neighboring Rowland Heights, targeting a 400-megawatt battery energy storage facility sited on about 9 acres that was approved by the City of Industry leaders in January.

Such Battery Energy Storage Systems, or BESS, are used to keep the power grid stable, especially as output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind fluctuate. But fires involving lithium batteries at some sites have heightened environmental and public health fears.

Because of the City of Industry’s unusual, sprawling shape stretching along the 60 Freeway, it borders on more than a dozen communities, meaning what happens there can have far-reaching impact.

“Pollution does not end right at the border,” said Andrew Yip, an organizer with No Data Centers SGV Coalition. “Pollution travels.”

Some local activists with the Puente Hills Community Preservation Association have challenged the approval of the battery facility under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Beyond environmental concerns, locals have also been frustrated with how decisions are made by officials in the City of Industry, a municipality that’s almost entirely zoned for industrial use and has less than 300 residents.

Organizers say they’ve struggled to get direct responses from city officials whom they say have replaced regular meetings with special meetings, which under state law require less advance notice.

A city spokesperson has not responded to requests for comment.

The so-called Marici Energy Storage System Facility would be run by Aypa Power. The fact that the battery storage developer is owned by the private equity giant Blackstone, a major investor in AI and data centers, has only fueled concerns that a battery storage facility would lay the groundwork for data center development.

A request for comment from Aypa was not returned.

Today’s protest is taking place at Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights across the street from the Puente Hills Mall, a largely vacant “dead” mall, which activists fear could be redeveloped into a data center and bring higher utility costs and greater air and noise pollution.

Yip pointed out that industrial developments make a lot of money for the City of Industry.

“But none of these surrounding communities receive any of those benefits,” Yip said. “Yet we have to put up with all the harmful effects and impacts from this city that does all this development without really reaching out.”