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By ROB GILLIES

TORONTO (AP) — Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday that Canada will match U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25% auto tariffs with a tariff on vehicles imported from the United States.

Trump’s previously announced 25% tariffs on auto imports took effect Thursday. The prime minister said he told Trump last week in a phone call that he would be retaliating for those tariffs.

“We take these measures reluctantly. And we take them in ways that is intended and will cause maximum impact in the United States and minimum impact in Canada,” Carney said.

Carney said Canada won’t put tariffs on auto parts as Trump has done, because he said Canadians know the benefits of the integrated auto sector. The parts can go back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border several times before being fully assembled in Ontario or Michigan.

Carney said Canadians are already seeing the impact.

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Trump’s tariff push is a race against time, and potential voter backlash read more

By KEVIN FREKING

WASHINGTON (AP) — An obscure but consequential bookkeeping matter has become the latest flashpoint in Congress as Republicans labor to enact President Donald Trump’s sprawling tax cut agenda.

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Senate Republicans are looking to change how extending many of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts would be scored when it comes to future federal deficits. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that extending the cuts would increase deficits by nearly $4 trillion over the coming decade.

Democrats accuse Republicans of violating Senate norms with the move. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., says Republicans are going “nuclear,” blowing up the institution’s rules. read more

By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage in the U.S. edged lower for the second week in a row, a modest but welcome boost for prospective home shoppers in the midst of the spring homebuying season.

The rate fell to 6.64% from 6.65% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.82%.

The average rate has mostly trended lower since reaching just over 7% in mid-January. When mortgage rates decline, they boost homebuyers’ purchasing power.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also fell this week, pulling the average rate down to 5.82% from 5.89% last week. A year ago, it averaged 6.06%, Freddie Mac said.

Mortgage rates are influenced by factors including bond market investors’ expectations for future inflation, global demand for U.S. Treasurys and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions.

The overall decline this year in the average rate on a 30-year mortgage loosely follows moves in the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans. read more

By ALEXANDRA OLSON and CLAIRE SAVAGE, AP Business Writers

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — The acting chief of the top federal agency for protecting worker rights has signaled a pivot toward prioritizing President Donald Trump’s campaign to stamp out diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the private and public sectors.

The initial steps taken by Andrea Lucas, acting chief of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, have earned her strong backing from the Trump administration, which has moved against DEI through embattled executive orders that dismantled programs at federal agencies and threatened investigations and stiff financial penalties for federal contractors that engage in “illegal” diversity-related practices. Trump recently nominated Lucas, who has long been an outspoken critic DEI practices she argues result in discriminatory employment preferences, to a new five-year term as commissioner.

But former Democratic EEOC officials and prominent civil rights groups have accused Lucas of taking shortcuts that supersede her authority and they have urged employers to be wary of her directives and guidance, if not altogether ignore them. read more

By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Financial markets around the world are reeling Thursday following President Donald Trump’s latest and most severe set of tariffs, and the U.S. stock market is taking the worst of it so far.

The S&P 500 was down 3.7% in afternoon trading, more than other major stock markets, and at its bottom in the morning was on track for its worst day since COVID struck in 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,228 points, or 2.9%, as of 1:08 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 4.8% lower.

Little was spared in financial markets as fear flared globally about the potentially toxic mix of higher inflation and weakening economic growth that tariffs can create.

Everything from crude oil to Big Tech stocks to the value of the U.S. dollar against other currencies fell. Even gold, which has hit records recently as investors sought something safer to own, pulled lower. Some of the worst hits walloped smaller U.S. companies, and the Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks dropped 5.5% to pull it more than 20% below its record. read more