0:00

Let's do a show. What the heck?

0:02

On a Thursday that I thought was

0:04

a Friday. I know, right? I feel

0:06

like I haven't been here forever. It's

0:08

only been two days. Yeah, but I

0:10

feel it when you're not

0:12

here. President Trump has

0:15

hit pause on nearly all new

0:17

tariffs for 90 days. Well, I

0:19

thought that people were jumping a

0:21

little bit out of line. They

0:23

were getting... Yepy! With markets rebounding,

0:25

where does this trade war go? I

0:27

am Michelle Martin with Layla Foddle and

0:29

this is up first from NPR

0:32

News. As businesses welcome the

0:34

suspension of some tariffs planning

0:36

for an uncertain future is still

0:38

top of mind. He's going to

0:41

put a lot of people out

0:43

of business and people are going

0:45

to lose their drops. And I

0:48

might be one of them. How

0:50

a business owner is thinking about

0:53

survival. And President Trump has issued

0:55

executive orders targeting two individuals from

0:57

his first administration. The latest examples

1:00

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1:02

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1:05

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at one password.com/NPR. turning point Wednesday in

2:22

the drama over President Trump's trade

2:24

policy. Early in the morning his

2:26

steep new tariffs went into effect. Then

2:29

he told Americans to quote, be

2:31

cool as markets plunged, but by

2:33

afternoon he backed off and put a

2:35

90-day pause on most of the

2:37

tariffs. Market soared. Everybody wants to make

2:40

a deal, actually. And, you know,

2:42

we want to do what's right

2:44

for our country. We also want to

2:46

do what's right for the world.

2:48

NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordernius was

2:50

there. He joins us now. Good

2:52

morning, Franco. Good morning, little. So

2:54

you were at the White House yesterday

2:57

in the Oval Office. Tell us

2:59

about this really big day. Yeah, it

3:01

was a really big day. I

3:03

mean, for weeks, his team had

3:05

insisted that Trump was going to hold

3:07

the line. And just days ago,

3:09

Trump even wrote on social media

3:11

in all capital letters, my policies will

3:14

never change. And then they did.

3:16

In another social media post. And this

3:18

is how Trump explained it at

3:20

the White House. Well, I thought

3:22

that people were jumping a little bit

3:24

out of line, they were getting

3:26

yippy, you know, they were getting a

3:29

little bit yippy, a little bit

3:31

afraid. You know, he also talked

3:33

about concerns in the bond market, and

3:35

then he downplayed all those concerns.

3:37

And Trump and his aides began

3:39

painting this as being part of their

3:41

strategy all along. So how much

3:43

of this had to do with the

3:46

markets? Is this in a bow

3:48

face? There's no mistaking the turmoil

3:50

that the Marxists were under and it

3:52

was getting worse and worse. Top

3:54

investors were pleading with Trump. Some were

3:56

almost begging him to do this

3:59

very thing. Issue another. 90-day pause.

4:01

Now Trump did say you have to

4:03

be flexible in your policies, but

4:05

he insisted this was the right

4:07

thing to do. Okay, so what happens

4:09

now? There's a 90-day pause and then

4:11

what? Yeah, I mean we should

4:13

be clear that the administration is

4:16

keeping a baseline 10% tariff on

4:18

imports, which is a big deal.

4:20

But it is nothing, nothing like

4:22

what he was threatening, such as

4:25

a 46% tariff against Vietnam. Well,

4:27

so now they've begun these discussions

4:29

with these countries on what they've

4:31

described as tailor-made negotiations for each,

4:34

though we don't really know what

4:36

that involves. But his goals on

4:38

this have always been kind of

4:40

unclear. They've talked about the terrorists

4:43

being about reducing the trade. They've

4:45

talked about the terrorists being about

4:47

bringing back manufacturing. They've talked about

4:50

the terrorists being about boosting government

4:52

revenue. So it's always kind of

4:54

been this mixed back. Right. And

4:56

then to be clear, the president has spent

4:59

a lot of time talking about China's trade

5:01

practices. And again, those tariffs are still there

5:03

on China. So how does this shift affect

5:05

the country? Yeah, another really big

5:08

deal. I mean, while he

5:10

paused the tariffs on most

5:12

everyone else, he doubled down

5:14

on China, raising the tariffs

5:16

to 125 percent. He said

5:18

it was punishment when China

5:20

announced their own retaliatory terrorists.

5:22

Treasury Secretary Scott Besson said

5:24

China made a mistake and

5:26

was basically being isolated as

5:28

a result. You might even

5:30

say that he'd go to China into a

5:32

bad position. They responded, they have shown

5:34

themselves to the world to be the

5:36

bad actors. Now Trump said he did

5:38

not think he would need to raise

5:40

the China tariffs any further. And even

5:43

though he had some very harsh words

5:45

about China's trade abuses, he actually called

5:47

Kijing Pang a friend and said he

5:49

expects she to eventually call, and then

5:51

he says they'll work out a deal.

5:53

So all of that is something we'll

5:55

be watching for. That's White House correspondent,

5:57

Franco Ordunius. Thank you.

5:59

Franko? Thank you, Leo. But the market's

6:02

way down and now way up,

6:04

how are businesses responding to the

6:06

latest twist in this trade war?

6:08

To understand that, we're joined by

6:10

NPR's chief economics correspondent, Scott. Horsley,

6:12

good morning, Scott? Good morning, Lou. Okay,

6:14

it's pretty clear that the stock

6:16

market was not happy with the

6:19

president's tariffs. How are investors feeling

6:21

now? The message from the market could

6:23

not be any clear. The market likes

6:25

global trade and does not like anything

6:28

that interferes with that. When President Trump

6:30

was running interference with his deep

6:32

tariffs, the market sank. When he suspended

6:34

some of those tariffs, the market soared.

6:37

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped more

6:39

than 2,700 points yesterday. The S&P 500

6:41

index was up more than 8.5 percent.

6:44

But... Keep in mind, that's only

6:46

about two-thirds of what the market had

6:48

lost since the president first announced these

6:50

tariffs last Wednesday. So even with this

6:53

partial ceasefire, the trade war has

6:55

left a mark. Right, and as we

6:57

heard from Prago earlier, not all tariffs are

6:59

gone, right? That's right. There's still a

7:01

10% tariff on nearly everything the U.S.

7:03

imports, and that's significantly higher than we

7:06

were paying a few months ago. But

7:08

the terrorist Trump has suspended would have

7:10

been higher still. So let's say you

7:12

go to the grocery store and you're

7:14

buying some Italian cheese to put on

7:16

your pasta tonight. This time yesterday, there

7:19

was a 20% import tax on that

7:21

Pecorino Romano. Today, the tariff is half

7:23

of that. So are you grateful? You

7:25

can grate for less or disappointed that

7:27

the tariff is still higher than it

7:29

was before Trump took office. I spoke

7:31

to Philip Marfuge, who runs the Ambriola

7:34

Company. That's a big cheese importer in

7:36

Porter in New Jersey. He would rather

7:38

see no terrace. Ideally, I would think

7:40

it should be zero to zero and

7:42

have free trade both ways between the

7:44

US and Europe and let the consumers

7:46

decide whether they want to buy a

7:49

domestic product or a European product. Americans

7:51

are already unhappy about the cost of

7:53

groceries. Even a 10% import tax is

7:55

not going to help with that. Marfuge

7:58

says some companies may shift to... smaller

8:00

packages to try to mask the cost

8:02

of these tariffs. And since imported cheese

8:04

is going to cost more, he suspects

8:07

domestic dairy producers will raise their cheese

8:09

prices as well. Okay, and Trump has

8:11

not lowered the tax on goods from

8:13

China. In fact, he's raised it. What

8:15

impact is that going to have? When

8:18

it comes to China, the trade war

8:20

is still very much in force, and

8:22

that is a headache for people like

8:24

Bonnie Ross. She imports clothing from China

8:27

to sell at discount stores like Burlington

8:29

and Didees. Ross notes that over the

8:31

last week, Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods

8:33

have gone from 20 percent to 54

8:35

percent to 104 percent and now 125

8:38

percent. And who knows where it's going

8:40

to go from here. It's just insanity.

8:42

And this is every industry. It's not

8:44

just mine. Toys, food, everything. It does

8:47

nothing unaffected. Aside from the cost, which

8:49

is significant, there's also just the uncertainty.

8:51

Bonnie Ross typically places big clothing orders

8:53

five months out so there's time to

8:55

make and move the clothes across the

8:58

ocean. How do you do business in

9:00

an environment where you don't know what

9:02

the tariff's going to be this afternoon,

9:04

let alone during back-to-school shopping season, next

9:07

September? I don't think that they really

9:09

understood the chaos that was going to

9:11

ensue once they did all this without

9:13

giving people enough time to plan. He's

9:15

going to put a lot of people

9:18

out of business and people are going

9:20

to lose their jobs. And I might

9:22

be one of them. You know, for

9:24

the moment, at least, investors are relieved

9:27

by this 90-day pause on at least

9:29

some of the president's tariffs, but it

9:31

has been a very rocky seven days,

9:33

and the roadmap could change at any

9:35

moment with another stroke of the president's

9:38

big sharpie pen. NPR, Scott Horsley, I'm

9:40

sure, will be talking again soon. Thank

9:42

you, Scott. You're welcome. President

9:50

Trump signed two executive orders

9:52

targeting individuals from his first

9:54

administration. The orders stripped the

9:56

security clearance as a former

9:58

top cybersecurity... official Chris Crabs

10:01

and former national security official Miles

10:03

Taylor. They also order investigations into

10:05

their conduct while they were federal employees.

10:07

These are just the latest in a

10:10

pattern that's emerged of Trump bringing

10:12

down the full weight of the

10:14

presidency on individuals and private companies.

10:16

Here to help us understand what

10:18

happened and why is NPR political

10:21

correspondent Ashley Lopez? Good morning, Ashley.

10:23

Good morning. Okay, let's start with

10:25

Chris Crabs. What exactly does this

10:27

executive order say? So this order

10:29

broadly accuses Christopher Krebs, the former

10:31

head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure

10:34

Security Agency, also known as Siza,

10:36

of weaponizing his government authority when

10:38

running that agency some years ago.

10:40

Specifically, Trump's order claims that Krebs

10:42

was misusing his office by censoring

10:44

conservative viewpoints under the guise of

10:46

combating misinformation. So what are some

10:48

examples of what he says Krebs

10:50

was censoring? Yeah, so well, it's

10:52

a slew of conservative grievances we've

10:54

been hearing in the past several

10:56

years, so Hunter Biden's laptop and

10:58

the origins of COVID-19. But most

11:00

notably, this is about the 2020

11:02

election. For folks who don't remember

11:05

this, right after the 2020 election,

11:07

Krebs, who by the way has

11:09

described himself as a lifelong Republican

11:11

and he had been appointed by

11:13

Trump, basically refuted Trump's big lie

11:15

about the election being stolen. Here

11:17

he is on NPR in December

11:19

of that year. That is a success

11:21

story. That is something that everyone in

11:24

the administration should be proud of. As you can

11:26

imagine, Trump didn't like that. He

11:28

fired Krebs at the time and

11:30

now he's ordering the Attorney General,

11:32

the Director of National Intelligence, and

11:34

other agency leaders to immediately suspend

11:37

any active security cleanses held by

11:39

him and entities associated with him.

11:41

And what about Miles Taylor? Yeah,

11:43

so Miles Taylor is a former

11:45

Department of Homeland Security official and

11:47

in 2018 he wrote this pretty

11:50

high-profile anonymous op-ed criticizing Trump. He

11:52

later wrote a book and lifted

11:54

his anonymity in yesterday's order Trump

11:56

accused Taylor of treasonous behavior and

11:58

now Taylor will be the subject

12:00

of an investigation by the department he

12:02

once worked for. So this sounds sort

12:04

of similar to the executive orders Trump

12:06

is issued against private law firms. Yeah,

12:09

I mean, this has been a theme

12:11

throughout the first few months of his

12:13

administration. A lot of what Trump has

12:15

been focused on is political retribution, whether

12:17

it's law firms that are not aligned

12:19

with his interests or university leaders who

12:21

don't share his worldview. Trump has been

12:23

directly focused on dealing with all of

12:25

these perceived enemies. So what does this

12:27

tell us about the priorities of the

12:29

president and his administration? Well, I

12:31

mean, if nothing else, it seems like

12:34

a lot of his priorities right now

12:36

have a lot to do with his

12:38

first term. He remembers who had his

12:40

back at the time and who didn't.

12:42

It's worth noting that this is an

12:44

example of the Department of Justice being

12:46

weaponized against people who criticized Trump in

12:48

the past, which was a fear that

12:51

many Democrats vocalized ahead of the election

12:53

and something that Republicans accused Democrats of

12:55

doing while in office, specifically around January

12:57

6. NPR political correspondent Ashley Lopez. Thank

12:59

you, And that's

13:01

up first for Thursday, April 10th.

13:03

I'm Layla Faudin. And I'm Michelle

13:05

Martin. For your next listen, why

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