Macro Dose: What Happened Last Week?
Weekly Data Summary Report
As of August 04, 2025
Below is a summary of the United States, primarily based on critical events related to President Donald Trump, the trade war, and war conflicts within the week.
Disclaimer: Please note this is opinion-based; do not take it as investment advice.
Key Highlight Event:
Tariff Development: On July 31, 2025, the White House announced revised tariff rates, implementing a baseline 10% tariff across multiple countries, with duties escalating to 15% or higher for nations maintaining trade surpluses with the United States.
In fact, for a major trading partner—Canada—tariffs increased from 25% to 35%, while Mexican tariffs were extended for an additional 90 days. Separate reports on imports of pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, critical minerals, and other key industrial goods are expected in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Trump also ordered two nuclear submarines, which could possibly be positioned in regions near Russia, aiming to put pressure on ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But that alone also conveys a signal that if things go south, then tension will arise. According to Trump, Witkoff will likely travel to Russia on Wednesday or Thursday for a meeting.
US Economic Brief: The Federal Reserve maintained an unchanged rate while reassuring that it has strong economic conditions, solid labor, and persistent inflation on hand, as well as no direction for the September rate decision yet. All are sending a hawkish statement. The majority of data are leaning toward a positive outlook for the US economy as well—a.k.a. 3% GDP, and above the restrictive level of inflation data. Except for the labor data on Friday, which has entirely changed the picture of the recent trend. Nonfarm Payroll was downwardly revised from 147K to 14K this month, while the unemployment rate (both U3 and U6) unusually rose higher; all of these are suggesting softer labor market conditions. In fact, the US Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, stated that, “What we need is the Federal Reserve to jump in and lower the interest rates.” Therefore, the market re-priced for the September rate cut from roughly 50% to over 80% this time. This pushed the gold price higher.
Japan and Canada’s Central Bank Brief: Both the Bank of Japan and the Bank of Canada held their interest rate decision unchanged, given that the uncertainty remains unsolved. All are pinning down on how Trump’s tariffs would affect their economy, especially when Canadian imports have now surged from 25% tariffs to 35% today, which could alarm the inflation problems in this country even more.
Stock market: Most of the 7 magnificent stocks, including Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOG), Meta (META), and Microsoft (MSFT), surpassed earnings expectations, leaving some positive sentiment on the stock market. Some analysts also stated that there will be more spending that goes directly to AI investment, which will fuel a better outlook for tech companies.
Except for Tesla, which missed the beat and had a drawdown due to challenges such as increased competition in EVs, pricing pressures, and production issues etc.
Regardless, investors are also being cautious ahead of uncertainty in US tariffs as well, particularly when 50% tariffs are being imposed on semi-finished copper products and copper-intensive derivative products.
