Don't screw over Americans: FTC issues stark warning to US companies as Wall Street decimated

Washington D.C.: The head of America’s Federal Trade Commission, Andrew Ferguson, has warned US retailers not to use tariffs as an excuse to hike prices.

He posted on X: "President Trump is reorienting our nation’s economy to put Americans first. As we adjust to the new economic order, the @FTC will be watching closely to make sure American companies are vigorously competing on prices. These necessary tariffs should not be interpreted as a green light for price fixing or any other unlawful behavior. We will always protect American consumers."

Earlier Canadian PM Mark Carney said his country would retaliate against “unjustified, unwarranted” tariffs imposed by the United States with a 25% tax on US vehicles. “The president’s actions will reverberate here in Canada and across the world. They are all unjustified, unwarranted, and in our judgment misguided,” Carmey said at a press conference.

President Donald Trump has claimed that his new tariff plan is “going very well”, despite world stock markets taking a hammering.

According to CNBC, Trump said: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom. The rest of the world wants to see, is there any way they can make a deal?”

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But Trump's optimism belied the state of the US stock market with Wall Street suffering its worst day since the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the closing bell at the NYSE, a wave of selling drove the main indices to their worst one-day falls in around five years. The S&P 500 index is down 4.9% at the close, which Reuters flags is the biggest one-day drop since June 2020.