Donald Trump hit dozens of US trading partners with tariffs while formalising recent deals with others, including the UK and EU, as he plunged the global economy into a new era of mercantile competition.

The Trump administration signaled on Thursday afternoon that it will stick with its deadline of Friday for imposing higher tariffs on trading partners that haven’t made trade deals with administration officials.

Businesses finally got a bit more certainty on the direction of President Donald Trump’s trade war, but it’s not making it much easier to digest. A half-dozen leaders from financial firms, corporations and trade groups said in interviews that the series of tariff rates Trump unveiled Thursday night were steeper than they had expected,