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Traders are moving volumes of gold and silver into the US via plane as President Trump prepares to impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China on Saturday.

Bloomberg reports that planes commonly carry gold between hubs in London, New York, Zurich, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, while "bulkier silver is typically sent by ship."

But as traders rush to obtain the precious metals ahead of looming trade escalations and futures surge, shipping silver by air has become worth the cost for some traders.

According to the report, nearly 14 million ounces of gold and 45 million ounces of silver "have flowed into the depositories of New York’s Comex futures exchange since election day" and "the rush for bullion led to weeks-long queues to withdraw the metal from the Bank of England’s vault into the custody of private banks."

Gold futures (GC=F) touched a record high above $2,860 per ounce on Friday as traders looked to hedge against tariff risks. Silver futures (SI=F) also advanced Friday.

Tariffs have emerged as a key theme in earnings calls so far, as corporate executives weigh the potential effects of President Trump’s tariff promises and seek to mitigate the impact of increased duties.

"AI-identified mentions of tariffs on S&P 500 earnings calls have surged under the incoming Trump administration’s threat of significant US import tariffs, with the industrial sector seeing the largest spike,” Michael McDonough, chief economist for financial products at Bloomberg, told Yahoo Finance’s Josh Schafer.

While Industrials has led S&P sectors in tariff mentions, as the chart above indicates, companies across all sectors of the economy have chimed in, including Tesla (TSLA), JPMorgan (JPM), Delta (DAL), and Whirlpool (WHR).

For more charts that tell the story of Trump, tariffs, and markets, click here to download YF Chartbook Vol. 4.

Reuters reports that Colgate-Palmolive is working on "potential mitigation plans" to blunt the effects of possible tariffs on the company's toothpastes made in Mexico.

Colgate-Palmolive CFO Stan Sutula said Friday on a call with Wall Street analysts that its plans to reduce the impact of tariffs could have an impact on its import of raw materials like vitamins and amino acids. He added that the company is also planning for retaliatory tariffs.

Sutula's comments came as the White House reiterated its plans to impose 25% tariffs on goods imported from Mexico, Canada, and China beginning Saturday, denying an earlier Reuters report that President Trump planned to delay implementing his long-promised tariffs until March 1.

Colgate has said its toothpaste brands account for about a third of the US market. The company did not factor the costs of potential tariffs in its 2025 fiscal year financial guidance, Sutula said.

Colgate stock was down 5% Friday.

Read more here.

As a crucial moment for President Trump’s agenda approaches, markets are bracing for the potential fallout from tariffs.

But the Trump administration may also be bracing for the potential fallout from the stock market — a favorite scoreboard of Trump's — as it weighs its options.

On a new episode of Capitol Gains, Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman, Ben Werschkul, and Seana Smith discuss how tough Trump will get on tariffs and how that dynamic is affecting markets.

“I think the shock at this point would be if Trump really did impose significant tariffs — at least, I don’t think Wall Street is pricing that in,” Newman said.

However, Werschkul noted that markets may be underestimating how much Trump wants to push through heavy tariffs.

"There’s a lot of issues that [Trump] talks about that you kind of get the sense that he’s not personally invested in," Werschkul said. "That’s not true with tariffs. It’s a sort of throughline of his career."

Capital Economics Group chief economist Neil Shearing also weighed in.

"My sense is tariffs are coming, but I don’t think they’ll be quite on the same scale that the president has talked about," Shearing said, adding, "for obvious reasons, and that is that it would tank the market."

See the full episode of Capitol Gains here.

Yahoo Finance's Ben Werschkul reports:

Market anxiety ahead of Donald Trump's self-imposed Feb. 1 deadline for a first round of tariffs focused on oil and gas after the president appeared to acknowledge Thursday there could be issues with the energy staples in his overall plans.

On Friday, Reuters reported that Trump is weighing a delay on the actual implementation of tariffs by a month, to March 1, and that exceptions would be possible but "few and far between."

But even that left questions surrounding how Trump will approach oil, with petroleum representing Canada’s biggest export to the US.

Oil markets reacted to the news Friday, injecting yet another question mark in the runup to tariffs, which has seen an array of mixed signals.

Read more here.

Yahoo Finance's Josh Schafer highlighted two charts that show how markets are thinking about President Trump's tariff threats in the days leading up to his self-imposed deadline of Feb. 1.

In the latest Yahoo Finance Chartbook, Yale Budget Lab director of economics Ernie Tedeschi pointed out that, when taken literally, Trump's campaign proposals could increase the average effective tariff rate by anywhere from 7 to 27 percentage points. The high end of the estimate would bring the average effective tariff rate to a level not seen since 1900.

"That would represent the most dramatic shift in both trade and tax policy in the US in generations," Tedeschi said.

Specifically, markets are focused on what tariffs could mean for inflation and, therefore, the Fed's interest rate plans.

Deutsche Bank chief US economist Matthew Luzzetti told Yahoo Finance that without tariffs, his team expects core PCE inflation, the Fed's preferred gauge, to fall to 2.5% by the end of 2025. This would be in line with the Fed's target. The metric clocked in at 2.8% on an annual basis in December.

"But if you factor in 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, it is very easy to get to 3% plus core PCE inflation forecast this year and acceleration in inflation, not a deceleration," Luzzetti said.

This leads Luzzetti to believe the chart below is "exactly why the Fed has uncertainty right now and is in a wait-and-see mode."

Read more here.

Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian reports:

Ford CEO Jim Farley believes Trump’s tariff gambit will be a policy issue that extends beyond February and said that Ford has had a game plan in place.

"We think this will play out over the next couple of months,” Farley said to Yahoo Finance at a Ford Performance event in Charlotte (see video below).

Farley believes Ford is set up the best among its competitors if tariffs come to pass because of its large presence in the US.

“Ford has the largest US manufacturing footprint," he said. And so we're really encouraged about the administration's positive outlook on the auto industry and the impact on our overall economy."

Read more here.

President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his threat to impose 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada but said he was weighing whether to exclude oil imports.

"We may or may not," Trump told reporters in the White House about whether tariffs would be levied on Mexican and Canadian oil, according to Reuters. "We're going to make that determination probably tonight."

His comments come as markets await further tariff action ahead of Trump’s self-imposed Feb. 1 deadline. Uncertainty around tariffs has left a wide array of officials, from Fed Chair Jerome Powell to several heads of state and business leaders, in wait-and-see mode.

The two neighboring countries are the US’s largest trading partners.

Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul reports:

A self-imposed Feb. 1 deadline by Donald Trump for a first round of tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China looms in less than two days as economic observers and world leaders try to plan amid the uncertainty.

A series of comments in recent days from the president and his Commerce secretary pick have offered little clarity, leaving many in wait-and-see mode.

The uncertainty could already be weighing on business decisions, according to Charles Schwab's Kevin Gordon, citing the effects of last weekend's 10-hour trade war with Colombia that ended as quickly as it began.

"That nature of policymaking is what causes companies to maybe take a step back and halt their spending," he said during a Yahoo Finance interview.

Read more here.

Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul reports:

Donald Trump's pick for Commerce secretary underlined that broad country-by-country tariffs can be used to address a host of economic issues, including the protection of America's artificial intelligence lead.

"I prefer across the board" tariffs, Howard Lutnick told senators during his confirmation hearing Wednesday just days ahead of a key deadline that could see these types of blanket duties in place on Canada, Mexico, and China.

He also linked tariffs to a debate this week about AI export controls, which he would oversee if confirmed, saying that such controls without the backing of tariffs lead to "a whack-a-mole model."

Read more here.