Trump trade war spreads more gloom across businesses

LONDON/SEOUL, Apr 24 (Reuters): Businesses across multiple industries are increasing prices, cutting financial guidance and warning of growing uncertainty as US President Donald Trump's trade war pushes up costs, up-ends supply chains and stirs concerns about the global economy.

Comments on Thursday from the world's biggest packaged food companies underscored worries among business executives and investors that Trump's tariffs and his attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will hurt confidence on Main Street.

"Some political decisions, economic decisions taken have rather undermined already soft consumer confidence," Nestle CEO Laurent Freixe told reporters in an earnings call.

Dove soap maker Unilever, which was also reporting earnings, described "declining consumer sentiment" in its North American markets.

Stocks drifted on Thursday and a rebound in the dollar fizzled out as investors tried to pick through the Trump administration's fast-changing announcements on tariffs and the leadership of the Fed, the US central bank.

While most of the tariffs have been paused for 90 days until July 8, a 10 per cent universal rate and duties on aluminium, steel and car imports remain in place, as do eye-popping levies on goods imported from China, to which Beijing has responded in kind.

The Trump administration will look at lowering tariffs on imported Chinese goods pending talks between the two countries, a source told Reuters on Wednesday.