Trump Pauses Tariffs, Businesses Welcome Relief, Trump Targets Former Officials
12:29 Share

Let's do a show. What the heck? On a Thursday that I thought was a Friday. I don't know, right? I feel like I haven't been here forever. It's only been two days. Yeah, but I feel it when you're not here. President Trump has hit pause on nearly all new tariffs for 90 days. Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy. With markets rebounding, where does this trade war go? I'm Michelle Martin with Leila Thottle, and this is Up First from NPR News.

As businesses welcome the suspension of some tariffs, planning for an uncertain future is still top of mind. He's going to put a lot of people out of business. And...

People are going to lose their jobs. And I might be one of them. How are business owners thinking about survival? And President Trump has issued executive orders targeting two individuals from his first administration. The latest examples of the president using the full power of his office to exact retribution on his perceived enemies. So stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

This message comes from Rinse. These days, you can do a lot from your phone. Book a vacation, buy and trade stocks, but you can also make your dirty laundry disappear and then reappear washed and folded with Rinse. Schedule a pickup with the Rinse app, and before you know it, your clothes are back, folded, and ready to wear. They even do dry cleaning. Sign up now and get $20 off your first order at Rinse.com. That's R-I-N-S-E dot com.

Wait, wait, don't tell me. Fresh Air, Up First, NPR News Now, Planet Money, TED Radio Hour, ThruLine, the NPR Politics Podcast, Code Switch, Embedded, Books We Love, Wildcard, are just some of the podcasts you can enjoy sponsor-free with NPR+. Get all sorts of perks across more than 20 podcasts with the bundle option. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

When Malcolm Gladwell presented NPR's ThruLine podcast with a Peabody Award, he praised it for its historical and moral clarity. On ThruLine, we take you back in time to the origins of what's in the news, like presidential power, aging, and evangelicalism. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR.

There was a big turning point Wednesday in the drama over President Trump's trade policy. Early in the morning, his steep new tariffs went into effect. Then he told Americans to, quote, be cool as markets plunged. But by afternoon, he backed off and put a 90-day pause on most of the tariffs. Markets soared. Everybody wants to make a deal, actually. And

You know, we want to do what's right for our country. We also want to do what's right for the world. NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordonez was there. He joins us now. Good morning, Franco. Good morning, Laila. So you were at the White House yesterday in the Oval Office. Tell us about this really big day. Yeah, it was a really big day. I mean, for weeks, his team had insisted that Trump was going to hold the line. And just days ago, Trump even wrote on social media, in all capital letters, my policies will never change.

And then they did in another social media post. And this is how Trump explained it at the White House. Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know, getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid. You know, he also talked about concerns in the bond market. And then he downplayed all those concerns. And Trump and his aides began painting this as being part of their strategy all along. So how

So how much of this had to do with the markets? Is this an about face? There's no mistaking the turmoil that the markets were under, and it was getting worse and worse. Top investors were pleading with Trump. Some were almost begging him to do this very thing, issue a 90-day pause. Now, Trump did say you have to be flexible in your policies, but he insisted this was the right thing to do. Okay, so what happens now? There's a 90-day pause, and then what?

Yeah. I mean, we should be clear that the administration is keeping a baseline 10% tariff on imports, which is a big deal. But it is nothing, nothing like what he was threatening, such as a 46% tariff against Vietnam. Well, so now they've begun these discussions with these countries on what they've described as tailor-made negotiations for each, though we don't really know what that involves.

But, you know, his goals on this have always been kind of unclear. They've talked about the tariffs being about reducing the trade deficit. They've talked about the tariffs being about bringing back manufacturing. They've talked about the tariffs being about boosting government revenues. So it's always kind of been this mixed bag. Right. And then to be clear, the president has spent a lot of time talking about China's trade practices. And again, those tariffs are still there on China. So how does this shift affect the country? Yeah.

Yeah, another really big deal. I mean, while he paused the tariffs on most everyone else, he doubled down on China, raising the tariffs to 125%. He said it was punishment when China announced their own retaliatory tariffs. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson said China made a mistake and was basically being isolated as a result. You might even say that he goaded China

into a bad position, they responded, they have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actors. Now, Trump said he did not think he would need to raise the China tariffs any further. And even though he had some very harsh words about China's trade abuses, he actually called Xi Jinping a friend and said he expects Xi to eventually call, and then he says they'll work out a deal. So all of that is something we'll be watching for.

That's White House correspondent Franco Ordonez. Thank you, Franco. Thank you, Layla. With the markets way down and now way up, how are businesses responding to the latest twist in this trade war? To understand that, we're joined by NPR's chief economics correspondent, Scott Horsley. Good morning, Scott. Good morning, Layla. Okay, it's pretty clear that the stock market was not happy with the president's tariffs. How are investors feeling now?

The message from the market could not be any clearer. The market likes global trade and does not like anything that interferes with that. When President Trump was running interference with his deep tariffs, the market sank. When he suspended some of those tariffs, the market soared. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped more than 2,700 points yesterday. The S&P 500 Index was up more than 8.5%.

But keep in mind, that's only about two-thirds of what the market had lost since the president first announced these tariffs last Wednesday. So even with this partial ceasefire, the trade war has left a mark. Right. And as we heard from Franco earlier, not all tariffs are gone, right? That's right. There's still a 10% tariff on nearly everything the U.S. imports, and that's significantly higher than we were paying a few months ago. But the tariffs Trump has suspended would have been higher still.

So let's say you go to the grocery store and you're buying some Italian cheese to put on your pasta tonight. This time yesterday, there was a 20% import tax on that Pecorino Romano. Today, the tariff is half of that. So are you grateful? You can grate for less. Or disappointed that the tariff is still higher than it was before Trump took office. I spoke to Philip Marfuggi, who runs the Ambriola Company. That's a big cheese importer in New Jersey. He would rather see no tariffs.

Ideally, I would think it should be zero to zero and have free trade both ways between the U.S. and Europe and let the consumers decide whether they want to buy a domestic product or a European product. Americans are already unhappy about the cost of groceries. Even a 10% import tax is not going to help with that.

Marfucci says some companies may shift to smaller packages to try to mask the cost of these tariffs. And since imported cheese is going to cost more, he suspects domestic dairy producers will raise their cheese prices as well. Okay, and Trump has not lowered the tax on goods from China. In fact, he's raised it. What impact is that going to have?

When it comes to China, the trade war is still very much in force, and that is a headache for people like Bonnie Ross. She imports clothing from China to sell at discount stores like Burlington and Dee Dee's.

Ross notes that over the last week, Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods have gone from 20% to 54% to 104% and now 125%. And who knows where it's going to go from here. It's just insanity. And this is every industry. It's not just mine. Toys, food, everything. There's nothing unaffected. Aside from the cost, which is significant, there's also just the uncertainty.

Bonnie Ross typically places big clothing orders five months out so there's time to make and move the clothes across the ocean. How do you do business in an environment where you don't know what the tariff's going to be this afternoon, let alone during back-to-school shopping season next September? I don't think that they really understood the chaos that was going to ensue once they did all this without giving people enough time to plan. He's going to put a lot of people out of business, and people are going to lose their jobs, and I might be one of them. Yeah.

For the moment, at least, investors are relieved by this 90-day pause on at least some of the president's tariffs. But it has been a very rocky seven days. And the roadmap could change at any moment with another stroke of the president's big Sharpie pen. NPR's Scott Horsley, I'm sure, will be talking again soon. Thank you, Scott. You're welcome. Thank you.

President Trump signed two executive orders targeting individuals from his first administration. The orders stripped the security clearances of former top cybersecurity official Chris Krebs and former national security official Miles Taylor. They also order investigations into their conduct while they were federal employees. These are just the latest in a pattern that's emerged of Trump bringing down the full weight of the presidency on individuals and private companies. Here to help us understand what happened...

And why is NPR political correspondent Ashley Lopez? Good morning, Ashley. Good morning. Okay, let's start with Chris Krebs. What exactly does this executive order say?

So this order broadly accuses Christopher Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, also known as CISA, of weaponizing his government authority when running that agency some years ago. Specifically, Trump's order claims that Krebs was misusing his office by censoring conservative viewpoints under the guise of combating misinformation. So what are some examples of what he says Krebs was censoring?

Yeah, so, well, it's a slew of conservative grievances we've been hearing in the past several years. So Hunter Biden's laptop and the origins of COVID-19.

But most notably, this is about the 2020 election. For folks who don't remember this, right after the 2020 election, Krebs, who, by the way, has described himself as a lifelong Republican and he had been appointed by Trump, basically refuted Trump's big lie about the election being stolen. Here he is on NPR in December of that year. This was a secure election. That is a success story. That is something that everyone in the administration should be proud of.

As you can imagine, Trump didn't like that. He fired Krebs at the time, and now he's ordering the attorney general, the director of national intelligence, and other agency leaders to immediately suspend any active security cleanses held by him and entities associated with him. And what about Miles Taylor?

Yeah. So Miles Taylor is a former Department of Homeland Security official. And in 2018, he wrote this pretty high profile anonymous op ed criticizing Trump. He later wrote a book and lifted his anonymity in yesterday's order. Trump accused Taylor of treasonous behavior. And now Taylor will be the subject of an investigation by the department he once worked for. So this sounds sort of similar to the executive orders Trump has issued against private law firms.

Yeah, I mean, this has been a theme throughout the first few months of his administration. A lot of what Trump has been focused on is political retribution, whether it's law firms that are not aligned with his interests or university leaders who don't share his worldview. Trump has been directly focused on dealing with all of these perceived enemies. So what does this tell us about the priorities of the president and his administration?

Well, I mean, if nothing else, it seems like a lot of his priorities right now have a lot to do with his first term. He remembers who had his back at the time and who didn't. It's worth noting that this is an example of the Department of Justice being weaponized against people who criticized Trump in the past, which was a fear that many Democrats vocalized ahead of the election and something that Republicans accused Democrats of doing while in office, specifically around January 6th. NPR political correspondent Ashley Lopez. Thank you, Ashley. Yeah, thank you.

And that's Up First for Thursday, April 10th. I'm Leila Fadil. And I'm Michelle Martin. For your next listen, why not consider Consider This from NPR. We here at Up First give you the three big stories of the day. Our Consider This colleagues take a different approach. They dive into a single news story and what it means to you in less than 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Today's episode of Up First was edited by Roberta Rampton, Raphael Nam, Megan Pratt, Lisa Thompson, and Janae Williams. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hynes, and our technical director is Carly Strange. Join us again tomorrow.

Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to Up First sponsor-free through Amazon Music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get Up First Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.

Psychologist Dolly Chug studies the lengths we will go to protect the way we see ourselves. We care about whether we're seen as a good person, whether others see us as a good person, and whether we feel like good people. Ideas about our self-image. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR.

This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. You'll see your favorite actors, directors, and comedians on late-night TV shows or YouTube. But what you get with Fresh Air is a deep dive. Spend some quality time with people like Billie Eilish, Questlove, Ariana Grande, Stephen Colbert, and so many more. We ask questions you won't hear asked anywhere else. Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.