Japan and South Korea made those financial commitments in August to try to get Trump to ratchet down his planned tariff rates from 25% to 15%. But as the U.S. president is set to depart Friday night for Asia, the pledges are more of a loose end than money in the bank for American industry.
Japan pledged $550 billion in investments, but it wants the money to benefit its own companies, and its new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, is operating in an untested coalition government.
South Korea offered $350 billion — but wants a swap line for U.S. dollars, funded through loan guarantees, or else the commitment could sink its own economy. Trump maintains that he will personally direct how the money is spent, enabling him to pick winners and losers.
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Many Hispanic voters were motivated by economic concerns in last year's presidential election. A new AP-NORC poll shows that despite Trump's promises of economic revitalization, they continue to feel higher financial stress than Americans more broadly.
"Now it's like, OK, you're in office. I'm still getting done dirty at the grocery store. I'm still spending an insane amount of money," said Alejandro Ochoa, 30, a warehouse worker in Adelanto, California, who said she voted for Trump in 2024.
According to the survey, 65% of Hispanic adults say the cost of groceries is a "major" source of stress in their lives right now, compared to 54% of Americans overall. And 61% of Hispanic adults say this about the cost of housing, compared to 45% of Americans overall.
The new AP-NORC poll also finds that Hispanic adults are slightly less likely to approve of Trump's handling of immigration and the economy than they were earlier in the year.
In March, 41% of Hispanic adults approved of the way Trump was handling his job as president, but now that has fallen to 27%.
The poll found particularly high levels of financial stress among Hispanic adults, compared to Americans overall, and Latino communities have also been a target of the president's aggressive immigration tactics. Some see the two issues as linked. Trump's attacks on immigration have affected low-wage and high-skilled workers alike, at a moment when the economy is already uncertain because of his erratic trade policies.
Trump 's falling favorability among Hispanic adults since the beginning of the year is a potential warning sign from a key constituency that helped secure his victory in the 2024 election.
The shift could spell trouble for Republicans looking to cement support with this group in future elections. Many Hispanic voters were motivated by economic concerns in last year's election, and the new AP-NORC poll shows that despite Trump's promises of economic revitalization, they continue to feel higher financial stress than Americans overall.
Consumer prices increased 3% in September from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Friday, up from 2.9% in August, as the costs of some imported goods rose while rental prices cooled. It's a smaller increase than many economists had forecast, and will likely encourage the Federal Reserve to cut its key interest rate when it meets next week.
Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices also rose 3%, a decline from 3.1% in the previous month. Both figures are above the Federal Reserve's 2% target.
The report on the consumer price index is being issued more than a week late because of the government shutdown, now in its fourth week. The Trump administration recalled some Labor Department employees to produce the figures because they are used to set the annual cost-of-living adjustment for roughly 70 million Social Security recipients.
Read more about the latest U.S. inflation numbers
Agency officials said Friday that the benefits increase takes effect in January. The cost-of-living adjustment for retirees and disabled beneficiaries is financed by payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers. An annual salary cap, slated to increase to $184,500 in 2026, from $176,100 in 2025, limits what higher-income earners contribute.
Recipients received a 2.5% cost-of-living boost in 2025 and a 3.2% increase in their benefits in 2024, after a historically large 8.7% benefit increase in 2023, brought on by record 40-year-high inflation.
The president has more to say about his move to cut off trade talks with Canada, which were prompted by a provincial Ontario television ad that quoted President Ronald Reagan criticizing the use of tariffs.
"CANADA CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!!They fraudulently took a big buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like Tariffs, when actually he LOVED TARIFFS FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS NATIONAL SECURITY," Trump posted on his social media site Friday morning, echoing his comments from late Thursday night.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute posted Thursday that the ad used selective audio and video to misrepresent Reagan's 1987 speech on "Free and Fair Trade. The ad was paid for by Canada's most populous province, not the federal government, but Trump was undeterred.
In another post, Trump added: "THE UNITED STATES IS WEALTHY, POWERFUL, AND NATIONALLY SECURE AGAIN, ALL BECAUSE OF TARIFFS! THE MOST IMPORTANT CASE EVER IS IN THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT. GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!"
The deployment of National Guard troops on the streets of Washington faces challenges in two courts on Friday — one in the nation's capital and another in West Virginia — while across the country a judge in Portland, Oregon, will consider whether to let Trump deploy troops there.
The hearings are the latest developments in a head-spinning array of lawsuits and overlapping rulings prompted by Trump's push to send the military into Democratic-run cities over fierce resistance from mayors and governors. Deployment remains blocked in the Chicago area, where all sides are waiting to see if the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes to allow it.
Here's what to know about legal efforts to block or deploy the National Guard in various cities.
The October survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 25% of Hispanic adults have a "somewhat" or "very" favorable view of Trump, down from 44% in an AP-NORC poll conducted just before Trump took office in January.
The percentage of Hispanic adults who say the country is going in the wrong direction has also increased slightly over the past few months, from 63% in March to 73% now.
Trump said the television ad opposing U.S. tariffs misstated the facts and called it "egregious behavior" aimed at influencing U.S. court decisions.
The post on Trump's social media site came after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he aims to double his country's exports to countries outside the U.S. because of the threat posed by Trump's tariffs.
Trump says he's backing off a planned surge of federal agents into San Francisco after the CEOs of Nvidia and Salesforce urged him to give the city time. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff had faced a backlash after saying federal troops should come.
He also heard from Mayor Daniel Lurie, who said the city is making progress in reducing crime, so Trump agreed to let San Francisco keep trying on its own for now.
— Friday 11 p.m. EDT — The president set to depart.
— Sunday morning local time — Trump will arrive in Malaysia. Then he'll meet Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and attend a working dinner for the leaders attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summits.
— Monday morning local time — Trump will fly to Tokyo.
— Tuesday morning local time — Trump meets with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
— Wednesday — Trump will fly to Busan, South Korea for a meeting with Korean President Lee Jae Myung. He is then scheduled to deliver keynote remarks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO luncheon and later participate in a working dinner with APEC leaders.
— Thursday morning local time — Trump will meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
— Thursday evening — Trump will fly back to the United States.