U.S. doubles tariffs on steel and aluminum
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The planet Earth got U.S. tariffs on metals today, but Britain gets an asterisk. I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. The White House triggered the doubling in tariffs on steel and aluminum imports as of today. The tax at the border is now 50 percent, but one trading partner got an exemption. It's Britain. The BBC's Leanna Byrne joins us now from the U.K. London gets a pass.

Yes, David, the UK seems to have avoided this one for now. So this exemption hinges on a bilateral agreement that the US and the UK signed back in May. And that deal would remove sector-specific tariffs altogether. So given the news today, you might think that this is a big relief for UK exporters. But the thing is, it's not a done deal yet. And UK steelmakers are still facing duties for now. Also, if the pact falls through,

their products could still get hit with that full 50% tariff.

So what are we hearing from British businesses? Well, there's frustration. I spoke to Rowan Crozier, who runs a metal stamping firm in Birmingham, and he told me the uncertainty is making planning a nightmare. Materials like steel have long lead times, and if customers delay orders because they're unsure about tariffs, it throws production into chaos. All right, but no doubling of tariffs today, and post-Brexit Britain is not to be confused with the rest of Europe.

No, the European Union hasn't been spared and tensions are still really high right now. The EU's trade commissioner is meeting a top US negotiator in Paris to try and avoid a wider trade war. But if talks collapse, tariffs could rise across a huge range of EU exports and the EU is already preparing retaliatory measures.

Leanna Byrne, Marketplace BBC. Thank you. Today's also a deadline of sorts when the White House is expecting countries to submit their best and final offers for how they propose handling trade with the U.S. In return, trading partners will soon expect a letter from the U.S. outlining tariffs and quotas that will apply starting next month. July the 8th is when President Trump's 90-day pause on tariffs is set to end.

The ADP Payroll Company's monthly jobs report out today was the weakest in two years, with just 37,000 more people getting paychecks in May. That is a third of what was forecast. Some of this is the question, are tariffs on or off? And if on, how high and when? Susan Schmidt is Portfolio Manager at Exchange Capital Resources. When you have an uncertainty like a tariff impacting the profitability of your business, it's

CEOs are sitting back and waiting. They're not sure what to do with the level of employment at their company. Employees are cost. And while they're waiting for this to settle down and be definitively decided, they've decided they're not going to take on new staff. We're seeing that in these employment numbers. And I expect this to continue until we get more certainty in the market. What makes Hawaiian Bros so different? We

We have no freezers, no fryers, and no microwaves. Because when you skip all that, you're left with one thing. Fresh. Right now, we're grilling, saucing, and tossing fresh ingredients into our mouth-watering new wraps. Choose teriyaki-glazed huli huli chicken, the kickin' sweet heat of our Molokai Mac, or the citrusy, irresistible Pacific Island wrap. Grab one today for just $7.99. Only at Hawaiian Bros. ♪

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Arts organizations around the country have started receiving letters telling them that grants they had already been awarded from the National Endowment for the Arts were being terminated because they, quote, no longer effectuate agency priorities. Receiving that synthetic language are real organizations. One seeing its federal funding cut is the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music Marketplace's Samantha Fields reports.

One Saturday every spring, you can wander around the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn and hear live music everywhere for free. Jazz groups playing on brownstone stoops. Drummers playing in gardens. And elementary and middle school kids playing trumpets, flutes, and drums outside the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, the local nonprofit that puts on this Open Stages event. ♪

Mila Suarez is on percussion there. She's 11 and lives in Brooklyn. I didn't get as nervous because we always have concerts at the end of every semester. It was just really nice because I got to do what I love in front of a lot of people. Suarez takes both percussion and guitar lessons at the conservatory's community music center in her neighborhood.

Her mom, Anclen Suarez, signed her up three years ago. As soon as she learned, the center would be offering lessons to low-income families at little to no cost. From the get-go, I mean, I didn't ask my kids. I was like, you know, otherwise we wouldn't be able to be honest with you to afford, you know, the type of music education that they were providing. And it was like a no-brainer. When Suarez was a kid in the Dominican Republic, she didn't have any kind of music education.

And so, you know, though I listen to music and I like music, I never had access to it. So that was something that I wanted to provide for my kids. The Community Music Center and the heavily subsidized lessons it offers have been funded in part by a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The conservatory had been hoping and expecting to have that money doubled this year. Instead, director Dorothy Savage says it was all pulled. This puts tremendous pressure on our programs. We're going to do all we can. We're going to find a way. We're asking our other funders and colleagues and families and all our supporters to help us. So far, she says the outpouring of support has been huge.

But even if private donors are able to bridge the gap for now, Chad Cooper, the conservatory's executive director, says there are few private funders willing to take chances like the federal government has. When a brand new program got a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts... It said the NEA thinks this is a great program and that helps us attract other funders and that telegraphs to a whole group of people a certain kind of credibility.

In the absence of federal funding, Anclan Suarez is concerned about the future of arts education in low-income communities like hers. It's crucial for, you know, development of our kids, for their emotional health. What they get from it is not only discipline, it's a sense of community, it's a sense of peace within themselves, you know, it's a self-expression. It's a way to get away from reality. A way to get away from reality, Mila says. ♪

Whenever you're playing your hardest, you forget that there's anything else in the world. And it's just really fun and you don't have to worry. At 11, she already knows she wants to keep playing music for a long time. I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace. And in Los Angeles, I'm David Brancaccio. This is the Marketplace Morning Report from APM American Public Media.

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