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Yokohama Rubber, a Japanese corporation with a history of over 107 years, has purchased a tire factory for the mining industry, as well as for earthmoving and oversized transport machinery, located in Drobeta Turnu Severin, according to Profit.ro. The factory, built in the 1970s–1980s, was put up for sale by the judicial liquidator of the company Euro Tyres Manufacturing SRL, which went bankrupt at the end of January 2025 after nearly 7 years of insolvency. The company owns an industrial platform spanning over 19 hectares in the city of Drobeta Turnu Severin.

The Federal Reserve warned that the economy faced growing risks of higher unemployment and higher inflation due to tariff increases when officials agreed to hold interest rates steady on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. “If the large increases in tariffs that have been announced are sustained, they’re likely to generate a rise in inflation, a slowdown in economic growth, and an increase in unemployment,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference. Tariffs represent a shock that can decrease an economy’s ability to supply goods or services while sending up prices.

The European Commission will announce on Thursday details of its next countermeasures against U.S. tariffs should negotiations with Washington fail, European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. "Tomorrow we will announce next preparatory steps, both in the area of possible rebalancing measures, and also in the areas important for the further discussions," Sefcovic told a news conference in Singapore after the signing of a digital trade agreement with the Southeast Asian country.

The rush to cut interest rates at major central banks slowed to a trickle in April, as policymakers faced uncertainty on the outlook for economic growth and inflation in the wake of escalating trade tensions, Reuters reported. Two of the five central banks overseeing the 10 most heavily traded currencies that held meetings in April - the European Central Bank and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand – lowered interest rates by a cumulative 50 basis points.

China’s central bank cut interest rates and made it easier on Wednesday for banks to increase lending and pump more money into the economy, in the most significant policy steps taken by Chinese officials to limit the impact of the trade war with the United States, the New York Times reported. The central bank, the People’s Bank of China, cut short-term interest rates and the amount of funds banks have to hold in reserve in a series of 10 measures.

Chinese authorities announced on Wednesday a raft of stimulus measures, including interest rate cuts and a major liquidity injection, as Beijing steps up efforts to soften the economic damage caused by the trade war with the United States, Reuters reported. The announcements come shortly after U.S. and Chinese officials said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and chief trade negotiator Jamieson Greer will meet China's top economic official He Lifeng in Switzerland this weekend for talks.

Eurozone consumers tightened their purse strings at the end of a first quarter marked by growing unease about the coming U.S. trade tariffs, the Wall Street Journal reported. Retail trade slipped by 0.1% across the 20 nations that share the euro, defying economists’ expectations for an increase that would have built on February’s growth in sales, figures from the European Union statistics agency showed Wednesday. February remains the only month in the last six in which trade has increased.

German factory orders climbed surprisingly sharply in March, reflecting the stockpiling of goods in the U.S. to get ahead of tariffs placed by the Trump administration in the following month, the Wall Street Journal reported. Manufacturing orders jumped 3.6% on month at the end of the first quarter, after flatlining in February, German statistics agency Destatis said Wednesday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expected a 1.0% uptick. Despite the increase, new orders were 2.3% lower in the first quarter than in the final three months of 2024, Destatis said.

Mark Branson, the president of Germany's bank watchdog BaFin, said on Wednesday that the nation's financial firms were in a strong position but that uncertainty would remain extremely high, Reuters reported. "The possibility that problems in the non-banking sector have an impact on banks cannot be ruled out just because we have weathered the turbulence well so far," Branson said. Read more.

Vietnam's imports from China and exports to the United States both reached a post-pandemic record in April, amid talks with Washington to reduce Hanoi's trade surplus and a crackdown on Chinese goods being shipped to the U.S. via its territory, Reuters reported. The Southeast Asian nation faces the risk of 46% duties on its exports to the U.S. if the White House confirms this rate at the end of a global tariff pause in July. This could undermine Vietnam's growth model and hit multinationals exporting from the country, including Samsung and Nike.