Trump Addresses Congress After Imposing Sweeping Tariffs, Halting Ukrainian Aid
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal. My word, there's a lot of news right now. President Trump addressed Congress last night to make the case for his agenda, including the tariffs that went into effect this week on China, Mexico and Canada. The markets are wobbly, our allies are upset, the federal government is in disarray, and it's unclear whose side the U.S. is on in the war in Ukraine.

Republicans, however, were in lockstep with the president during his 100-minute speech as he talked about immigration and railed against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. We'll digest the news and the speech with a panel of experts. It's all coming up next, right after this news.

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We can have nice things. We can have good things. Maybe even more than one. The Bay Area Collective Tradition. That's your one good thing today. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Given the tariffs and the recent signs that the economy might already be in a recession, we're starting our look at the news this morning with Annie Lowry, staff writer who covers the economy at The Atlantic. Welcome, Annie.

Thanks for having me. Okay, so I feel like I've been trying to read the tea leaves on the economy, and I feel quite confused. So what indicators do you think are actually worth looking at right now to get a sense of where the economy is and where it's headed?

It's a tough question to answer because I think that we might be in a moment of change. The economy has been growing really well. Wages have been rising, particularly at the lower end, which is a great trend. Unemployment has been ticking up a bit, but it's still pretty low. It's not that much higher than 4%.

But we've had some really big shifts in policy coming from Washington. We still have very high consumer prices, which are taxing families, making it really hard for them to feel like they're getting ahead. And now we have the announcement of truly enormous tariffs, which

which is leading to a drop in consumer sentiment, to a pullback in business investment. Because companies and people, they don't want to buy things if they think that these big policy changes are coming into effect. And these really could affect consumer spending in the United States a lot in the coming months. Yeah, one of the things that I've been tracking is just sort of consumer confidence and other indices of kind of economic uncertainty seem like they are just –

up and to the right right now? Absolutely. Consumers feel terrible. And there was some thought that consumer the consumer outlook would look up after Trump won the election and politics kind of quieted down and people felt a little bit more secure with somebody who had promised to tackle the cost of living crisis coming into the White House.

But instead, there's been chaos and consumers are very, very dire. On top of that, there's a lot of kind of signs that are flashing red. So the yield curve has been inverting. What is that? It's a little bit technical to explain, but basically, normally investors will charge a company more if they want to borrow money over the long term than the short term because the long term is more uncertain, right? There's more uncertainty far in the future. And

And so when there's more uncertainty about the near term, you can actually see the amount that gets charged to corporations or to individuals, that effect kind of flip, right? And that's usually a pretty good sign that people are really, really worried.

It's also, you know, credit card debt is really high right now, and the number of folks going into delinquency has been going up. So there's all these really soft signs that there's some weakness there. And, you know, I don't know that that means the economy is headed for a recession, but I certainly think that there's a lot of dark clouds, a lot of uncertainty.

You know, people have probably heard a lot recently about the federal job cuts, you know, instituted by Doge and that there's, you know, we don't know exactly, but let's call it tens of thousands of people laid off there. How much of this economic uncertainty results from that? And how much is just sort of the much broader economic picture?

I think that DOGE is leading to a certain amount of uncertainty because the federal government is a major employer in a number of regions. Because the DOGE cuts are reaching into almost every community in the country, right, into Indian Health Service hospitals, into national parks. These aren't just cuts in Washington. They're affecting everywhere.

And I think it's more a generalized sense of chaos, a generalized sense that, hey, wait, we voted expecting one thing and we're getting this other thing. So I don't think that the real effect is very big yet. I think it's just contributing to this sense that maybe the ground is a little bit shakier than we realized that we were standing on. Yeah.

One of the things that I have been watching is that, you know, all these cuts were coming, there was the threat of tariffs, there's all this uncertainty. And the stock market for its, you know, part as a collective endeavor, was just kind of puttering along basically until this week when you saw some major drops.

Do you think, based on what you've seen covering Trump over the years, do you think he'll prove sensitive to stock market dips and maybe more normatively? Should he be sensitive to that? Is that something that presidents in general should respond to?

Yes and no. He tends to be quite responsive to the stock market. And one thing that you'll hear people say all the time, and this is true, is the stock market's not the economy. It's really volatile, right? Who knows why stocks go up and down? They just, that's what they do, right?

But in this case, I think that the stock market is reacting to, it's taking in new information. Investors are somewhat surprised that Trump is going forward with as aggressive tariffs as he is.

And for the amount of time that these are in place, they're really going to affect business investment and consumer spending in the United States. These are really, really large. They're functionally sales taxes on American consumers. And it's going to lead to a drop in consumer spending and an increase in prices, which could lead to something really terrible, which is called stagflation, which is when you have increased inflation along with a broader economic slowdown and rising unemployment. It's really hard to dig an economy out of.

So, you know, Trump and his allies can claim that tariffs are an attempt to rebalance the economy towards sort of working people by which I think the idea is, you know, manufacturing kind of jobs, you know, these some jobs making stuff.

Do you think that's possible? Like, is it possible to go back to a time? I mean, the U.S. clearly still also makes lots of things. But do you think it's possible to go back to a time when essentially our supply chains are domestic and not sort of integrated with the world?

It's certainly possible, right? Like you could make the U.S. economy much more hermetic through a series of policy choices. I don't know anybody who thinks that that would be better for the welfare of the American public. And that's kind of pulling aside the issue of domestic manufacturing and supporting it. So Trump's approach is kind of all stick, right?

right? It's that we are going to implement these tariffs to make the cost of imported goods more expensive for American firms and to induce American consumers to buy more American goods, whether or not they're actually produced here. But remember, like building factories is a slow project.

Right. And so it would take a really long time for the United States to reshore all of this activity that has moved to other parts of the world. These supply chains are really sensitive. They're very resource intensive. And, you know, I think that we need to be asking ourselves, right, like, I think it's a great thing to support American manufacturing and American manufacturing jobs.

I don't think tariffs are a great way to do that, as opposed to doing what previous Republican and Democratic administrations have done, which is more sort of direct forms of support, subsidies, loans, those kinds of things. More of the carrot, less of the stick. So last night, given all that we've been talking about here last night, did Trump acknowledge that the economy might go through some bumpy territory or do you just say it's all going to be great?

He did acknowledge it. So he lied several times about how the economy is doing, how it was doing under the Biden administration and how people are feeling now. This is an economy that is on the one hand good. You know, the GDP numbers are fine. Although there was a big dip, which seems to be related to the tariffs, people basically pulled their consumption forward and then stopped consuming as much, which affected the GDP number.

But, you know, then he said that people are going to have to, and I'm quoting here, "They're going to have to be okay with a little disturbance from the tariffs. They're going to have to put up with it, but things are going to even out."

And I actually think that the Trump administration's own policies sort of show the lie here. So egg prices due to the bird flu catastrophe are really, really high right now. They're really hitting consumers. There's not a lot of optionality for them to come down because we haven't contained

bird flu, right? I think it was 50 million chickens were depopulated last year due to it. And so to solve the bird flu crisis, they put out this five-point plan. And one of the points was increasing imports. So lo and behold, they understand that importing goods can lower the prices for American consumers. But Trump himself doesn't say that. So yeah, he's basically saying, like, we're going to have to get through a tough

period, you know, we're treating the trade war kind of like a war. We're asking people to make sacrifices. And I don't know how that's going to go over.

We're talking about Trump's address to Congress last night and this week in national news. We're joined first by Annie Lowry as a staff writer covering the economy for the Atlantic. Of course, we know that people are responding in all kinds of different ways to this speech and also to the current moment. We'd love to hear your thoughts. You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-7000.

6786. That's 866-733-6786. You can email comments and questions to forum at kqed.org. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, of course, on the Discord or KQED Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break.

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Welcome back to Forum. Alexis Madrigal here. We're talking about the news. There's a lot of it nationally, internationally. What were your reactions to Donald Trump's speech last night, if you watched it or read about it? The number is 866-733-6786. You can email your comments and questions

to forum at kqed.org. Joined this morning by Annie Lowry, staff writer covering the economy for The Atlantic, and I want to add a couple other voices, our own Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent for KQED and co-host of KQED's Political Breakdown. Thanks for joining us, Marisa. Good morning, Alexis. And we've also got Aaron David Miller, who's senior fellow at the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Thanks for joining us. Glad to be here. Yeah.

Maurice, I want to get to you on the Democratic response. You know, there's been a lot of discussion among Democrats outside the Democratic Party, inside the Democratic Party about sort of what should Democrats be doing right now in this kind of whirlwind executive order tariff world that Donald Trump has made. What did they do last night?

a mix of things. I mean, some folks just didn't show up. Uh, others sort of silently protested. Of course, Congressman Al Green of Texas was not silent and got kicked out after he basically harangued, uh, Trump through the beginning of the speech. Yeah. Saying you don't have a mandate to cut Medicaid and shaking his cane at him. Um, I mean, that was the most dramatic moment, but you know, we saw a lot of Democrats in the chamber with, uh, signs that, that had sort of, uh,

something about Elon Musk on one side and lies on the other. They kind of looked like what you would put up in an auction, you know, those sorts of signs. Like a little paddle. Yeah, and then we saw, you know, some folks leaving partway through. It was a very long speech. And so, you know, I think, you know, it was definitely interesting

in some ways sort of harken back to the opposite when we had folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene haranguing Joe Biden. But I would say a lot of the protest was just silent, right? Democrats didn't stand up. They did not help escort Trump into the chambers. They didn't clap. He even commented on that at one point. And so, you know, I think that this is emblematic of a party that is trying to find its footing and figure out what the best way to communicate is when you have so

Someone with a megaphone like Trump who just gets so much attention. And then you add to that someone like Elon Musk, who's also been kind of sucking a lot of the media attention. I think you really see in real time Democrats sort of trying to figure out what the best way is to get attention. Listener writes, you know, Democrats are toothless. Those signs really helped last night. I'm embarrassed for our country. Noel on Discord writes, Hakeem Jeffries says,

There were a few other approaches that people took, right? Some of the Democrats, like Ron Wyden, for example, Senator Ron Wyden in Oregon, held like a town hall speech.

Do we have any sense of, you know, whether that was effective or whether that was kind of represented in a new kind of strategy? I don't know. What do we mean by effective, Alexis? Like, I think, you know, at the end of the day, Democrats are in the minority. They are.

Republicans did sweep these past elections. A lot of the power they have is through either protest or sort of trying to gum up the works within Congress. You know, I think certainly that speaking to constituents directly is going to be one of the strategies that's really important for them. And I do think we're seeing, you know, if not the party itself being successful, but just the

a lot of outcry publicly. We saw just this week the head of the NRCC, the campaign arm of the House Republicans, as well as I believe Speaker Mike Johnson say that Republicans should stop holding in-person town halls because of the disruptions we've seen. So I do think that there's, you know, a quote unquote resistance or opposition kind of getting its legs under it. I think that, you know, some of what we saw at those town halls are not only hardcore, you know, progressive Democrats protesting.

what's happening here, but, you know, folks pushing back against some of the federal cuts, some of the things Elon Musk and his team have been doing. I think we're seeing some concern, as you highlighted at the top, about the potential economic impacts of tariffs. But, you know...

whether or not on March 5th Democrats are successful, quote unquote, I think is pretty difficult to sort of measure. Yeah, some of the strongest protests I've seen have actually been from scientists who are worried about the way that scientific funding, particularly through NIH, is going to be allocated and whether it'll be allocated in sort of adequate amounts to keep scientists

keep universities kind of running. But it does feel like a lot of the opposition hasn't really been through the traditional party apparatus, right? It's been sort of outside of the Democratic Party.

I think that's fair. And again, I mean, you know, you only have so many levers you can pull in the minority, especially given some of the ways that we've seen sort of, you know, some of the minority rights chipped away in the Senate, which, you know, was Democrats doing as much as Republicans when we talk about removing filibusters for judicial appointments and things like that. But, you know, I do think this is.

A party that is doesn't have an obvious leader. And I think, you know, back to the sort of ability to grab a megaphone, that is part of the problem. You have individual members getting attention, I think, in their sort of home states and districts.

for their pushback. But there's no one person who can kind of command the national attention for the Democrats the way that Trump does, I mean, virtually every day. And so this is something that they're going to have to sort of figure out as not just the midterms approach in 2026, but I think looking towards the next month or so, as we're going to see the rubber hit the road around things like the budget and the debt ceiling. I mean, there are some

you know, ways that Democrats can really, if they stick together, undermine Republicans because there's so much, I mean, there's such a tight majority, right, for both the House and Senate. Remind me when that fight is going to come? Well, they have to extend the debt limit or raise the debt limit and fund the government, I believe, by March 14th. But whether they sort of tie the budget to that, I think is, it seems like

Speaker Johnson is looking more towards April for these budget details. And, you know, that's where you're going to see, I think, some more potency for Democrats. I mean, we all remember back during Obama's first administration, the sort of potency of things like death panels during the Affordable Care Act fight. Right. This idea that by giving people the ability to vote.

you know, talk to doctors and others about end of life care. I think it was Sarah Palin who dubbed it death panels. I mean, this is where Democrats really need the details of these budget proposals so that they can say definitively, oh, they're trying to cut your Medicaid. Oh, I know, you know, Trump promised not to touch Social Security last night, but that seems like something that there's a lot of skepticism about. So what we know is there's sort of marching orders to cut $880 billion out of the area where

Medicaid lies within the federal government. 100 percent. And then there's also been, I think, some threats to Social Security. So, you know, those types of specificity when it comes to policy areas is going to be, I think, helpful for Democrats. But again, they need good messengers and they need to decide what their message is. And I think we're still kind of waiting to see.

All right, we're going to come back to some of this national stuff. Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. There wasn't a ton of foreign policy in the speech, despite last week, obviously, the Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky was a world news and world altering kind of meeting. Were you surprised you didn't hear a little more about Ukraine in the speech last night?

Yeah, I was, although Ukraine and the president of mine has brought consistently negative sort of connotations and associations. I don't think President Trump likes Zelensky. I think it reminds him of his first impeachment, as does Ukraine and the whole issue of corruption. I was a little surprised that there wasn't more crowing on the part of the administration or, frankly, more

Criticism of the Biden administration. I mean, it's fascinating, though, that he took a swipe at his secretary of state and having worked for half a dozen and watched this process unfold. I felt a little badly, even though Marco Rubio, having supported USAID in a tough position on Russia, has essentially presided over the hollowing out of USAID and has taken a position on Russia.

on Ukraine and Russia, which I don't think he even believes. So it reminded me that in Trump 1.0, he had six secretaries of Homeland Security, four attorney generals, four directors of national intelligence, two secretaries of state, four secretaries defense. The reality is you cross Trump,

You're going to be out of a job. So what was the swipe he took at Marco Rubio? What was it about? He said we can always blame. I think it was a reference to Panama. Panama, right? The issue was, yeah, if it doesn't work out, we can always blame. I saw, I watched Rubio's expression. He doesn't have a whole lot of confidence in his relationship with Donald Trump to begin with. Yeah. Reality is it's yet to be determined whether Rubio has what it, what is required or not.

to be a consequential Secretary of State. I work for Republicans and Democrats. And, you know, you need a very close relationship, number one, with the President of the United States, and number two, you need to be, other than the President,

the most authoritative voice when it comes to formulating and articulating U.S. foreign policy. And I'm not sure what we're six weeks in, right? The Brits would say it's early days and it is early days. And, you know, Donald Trump changes positions like I changed my socks. So the question is, where are we going to be six months from now? Where's Rubio going to be six months from now? And where is U.S. foreign policy going to be six months from now? Yeah.

You know, this morning we got a ruling from the Supreme Court on USAID funding for

Do you think it's possible that USAID survives in, you know, an ineffective form over time because of this ruling? Or is it they'll just find another way to dismantle an agency that they're trying to dismantle? I mean, you know, it's a good question. I hope a way can be found because given what given its demands and its requirements, USAID does a yeoman's job in dismantling

protecting U.S. interests and projecting U.S. values, which is also very important these days. You know, I'm not a lawyer. I don't know where this unsigned Monday morning, excuse me, Wednesday morning, which is unusual for the Supreme Court, probably the timing with, you know, Trump's fabulism is

in terms of what he was saying last night and the relentlessness of what he claims to be his change mandate, it's got to be a slap in the face. U.S. foreign assistance is going to survive. Whether or not USAID won't de facto become part of the State Department and controlled by the State Department, Marco Rubio is now the acting, actually, de facto head of USAID.

I'm not sure. And as you know, there have been carve outs and exceptions. Foreign military financing for Israel and Egypt has been an exception and they've made other exceptions for critical programs. Yeah. I just wanted to note if people hadn't seen that Supreme Court ruling that it was 5-4. Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts, the Supreme Court justice, joined the liberals on the court to unfreeze funding or at least to...

Make sure funding could go forward, ruled against the Trump administration.

One of the other major issues, obviously, in the international stage, Aaron David Miller, is what's happening in Gaza. There hasn't been a ton of talk or movement out of the Trump administration except for a sort of AI slop produced video of a sort of, I don't know, almost like a Carnival Cruise Lines video showing Gaza with like,

dancers and cocktails in the future. Very strange turn of events. What do you make of what's happening there right now between the major players in the Middle East? I mean, look, I think it's quite clear that what was to be a three-phased implementation agreement that was brokered by the previous administration and pushed over the finish line by Donald Trump and his special envoy, Stephen Whitakoff, is increasingly fraught. Phase one is over.

33 hostages were exchanged, eight dead on the Israeli side for 1,900 Palestinian prisoners. Negotiations on phase two were never going to happen because neither Hamas nor this Israeli government could ever have implemented what phase two required them to do. So you have a situation in which

The Trump administration has more or less acquiesced, I think, in Prime Minister Netanyahu's view of what should happen here. And what should happen here, according to the prime minister's latest proposal, which he's calling a U.S. proposal, is that if Hamas doesn't agree to extend phase one and there are likely anywhere from 18 to 25 living people

Israeli hostages out of 59 total, most are dead that Hamas now holds. But if Hamas doesn't agree to an extended phase one and return 10 hostages, living hostages and half of those who are dead, then there will be no humanitarian assistance in Gaza. And that the Israelis have imposed a pretty severe blockade. There is no humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza.

So you're faced with either Hamas agrees to another incremental exchange, or I think you have now a new Israeli chief of staff this week. The Israelis are going to resume their war. I'll break some news for you, although I didn't break it. Barack Ravid broke it, running a report today. Fascinating that Trump's hostage negotiator, Adam Boehler, has been meeting, get this, has been meeting with Hamas officials recently.

in Doha in an effort to redeem and figure out a way to get the U.S. hostages back. Now, as you know, Hamas is a foreign terrorist organization by law, by statute. The U.S. is not allowed to engage. I think this really is quite an extraordinary sort of report. And it suggests just how transactional and how committed

Donald Trump is to deals and getting deals. So it'll be fascinating to see. The Israelis, I think, were informed about this. They can't be happy about it. But since...

Donald Trump more let's speaks for the Republican Party. I doubt if there's gonna be a lot of pushback, but it's a Fascinating sort of thread. Let's see where it goes and are you? Speaking of deals. Are you expecting a deal to be hammered out in? Ukraine between the Russians and Ukrainians a deal. I mean, you know the Linsky's really in a tough spot and

Putin's strategy of the long war is paying off. He's got Donald Trump essentially conceding even before serious negotiations begin that Putin will more or less hold the 20% of Ukraine that they now occupy and could grab more and that there'll be no NATO membership.

Certainly, that was the position of the Biden administration as well under Trump. So Putin's winning. He sees no reason to stop the war. Although if Trump ups the pressure on him, it's conceivable that, yes, you could get some sort of ceasefire. But that is a fraught enterprise because it will essentially mean that Vladimir Putin, having paid no cost in terms of U.S. policy for Putin,

attacking Ukraine three years ago, Trump will normalize relationships with the Russians and the Russians will re-up rest and continue Putin's long-term strategy to undermine Ukraine either through black ops operations and or military pressure. So yeah, you want to end the fighting? I think there's a reasonable chance you can end the fighting, but you will not end the war.

We're talking about the monster week in national and international news with Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former negotiator and advisor on Middle Eastern issues to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state. Also joined by Andy Lowery, staff writer covering the economy for The Atlantic and Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent here at KQED and co-host of KQED's Political Breakdown.

I want to get to some more of your calls and comments, things that you're concerned about, things that you're interested in learning more about. You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. You can email your comments and questions to forum at kqed.org or find us on all the social media things. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Be back with more right after the break.

Welcome back to Forum. Alexis Madrigal here. We're talking about the big week in national and international news here. Drawn by The Atlantic's Annie Lowry, KQED's Marisa Lagos, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Aaron David Miller.

A bunch of comments coming in about the Democratic response. Marisa, I want to send this to you. One listener writes, what about Senator Slotkin? Why isn't anyone analyzing her speech? Chris writes, two items. Trump lies so much, I assume it's all lies. Second, Senator Slotkin's rebuttal was exceptional. What did you think?

Yeah, I mean, I think as much as like the substance of what someone like Sotkin said, it's also just interesting to think about like who they chose to put up there. So this is, you know, somebody newly elected to the Senate, but who's been in the House of Representatives is, you know, is from a white or from white. She is a white woman and is from, you know, the Midwest. I think that this sort of speaks to.

some of it we're kind of hearing behind the scenes about a lot of pushback to the idea of, say, another Californian running again nationally. You know, whether, you know, the brand of politics that California Democrats sort of represent are not actually that attractive to a cross-section of America or certainly to those more centrist and independent voters that Democrats would need to kind of win back. So, you know,

You know, look, that's a hard job, no matter who the president is or what the situation is. These rebuttals never get the kind of airtime and sort of attention, obviously, as the main speech. And I think that what's also interesting is we saw because of the sort of.

you know, maybe you could say scattered or, you know, across the board, Democratic pushback. A lot of members leaving like Bernie Sanders, Senator Bernie Sanders, and actually putting out their own response even before Slotkin gave hers. And so I do think that it was like, you know,

Often, if there's a lot of attention given to these responses, it's more sort of making fun of them. You know, I think about the water situation or Katie Britt in her kitchen and, you know, a lot of people sort of pushing back humorously. That was the Marco Rubio reaching for his water off camera. Yes. But the most relatable thing is.

Let's, Annie Lowry, I mean, one of the questions or problems, too, is like, what is the sort of alternative vision that Democrats could lay out given that they're in the minority slot and also given what sort of that the economy that was built under the Biden administration is?

Though it looked good on the top lines, it seemed like people didn't actually many, many people in the country didn't actually feel good about where the economy was, which makes it sort of difficult to present that as like, here's what we want to do again. Absolutely. And I think it's worth noting that especially, you know, in House and Senate races, those are kind of already getting underway. The jostling is already getting underway for 2026.

There's a lot of time between now and then. There's a lot of time between now and the next presidential election. But nevertheless, I think that there is a lot of soul searching among Democrats about what they might have done differently and why their fairly decisive loss, although I would note that Donald Trump did not win a majority of the popular vote.

vote and the Senate and the House, as Marisa pointed out, are very, very tight what they could have done differently. And I think that there were some real idiosyncrasies in the Biden Harris campaign. And I think that probably Democratic strategists are going to be looking forward

As a general point, it's easier to run against something than it is to sort of make your case for, you know, what is already going on. And, you know, Democrats are going to be running against a Trump administration that is deeply underwater, that is about to undertake a series of

of wildly unpopular policies that is raising consumer prices through its tariff policies. And so I feel like there's going to be a lot of low hanging fruit in terms of running against. And I think that there's a really big question mark in terms of running for. And the people I would kind of look to who seem to be kind of positioning themselves a little, there's several of them, but one is Ruben Gallego and the other is Pete Buttigieg, right? How are they talking about

positive Democratic policies, I think you're going to start see Democrats talk about things like capping prescription drug prices, which is one of the most universally popular policy proposals, as well as really campaigning on the rule of law, the restoration of democracy and an end to this chaos in Washington.

You know, what do you think might happen with the tariffs? I mean, there's been kind of this game inside the Trump administration with sort of the Commerce Secretary hinting last night like, oh, well, maybe these tariffs are going to pull back and markets kind of, you know, giving it seems to give a little red meat to the markets that maybe this won't last forever. Maybe it's not serious. Maybe Trump isn't serious about the tariffs.

And at the same time, Trump didn't say that and has even said, you know, there's going to be other tariffs added in April. So if we had to like forecast forward, what do you think is going to happen there?

It's hard to say. Trade wars are really hard to win because they tend to encourage other countries to retaliate. And we've already seen that, right? China's foreign affairs ministry said, if war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war or trade war, you know, we're ready. We're ready to fight to the end. And we've already seen Mexico, Canada, China either propose war

or implement retaliatory tariffs. And then last night, Trump talked about reciprocal tariffs on any country that has tariffs on us. He specifically cited the EU. He cited South Korea. He cited

India. And so I fear that on the one hand, you have some of his officials indicating that there's going to be dealmaking going on and that they're going to reduce these. And Trump has shown a remarkable willingness to basically as long as he can save face and say that he won some concession, he's willing to say that that's it. But on the other hand, I think he really has gotten a lot of other countries' hackles up.

And I would note that this is coming in a climate in which the Trump administration has turned its back on the EU and Canada and Mexico, historically some of the United States' absolutely closest partners in terms of foreign policy. So it's a very fraught environment in which I'm really, really not sure I could see it going either direction.

I think one of the wildest charts, and Aaron David Miller, I'm going to ask you about this, that I've seen in recent years even, is the change in the polling in Canada. You have had the Liberal Party just skyrocket in response to all this really absurd and damaging talk about making Canada the 51st state. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

how the Trump administration is approaching our traditional allies and what it's doing to their domestic politics, Aaron. Look, I think it speaks to the broader point. And again, I voted for Democrats and Republicans. I work for Democrats and Republicans. I think the line separating a judicious foreign policy shouldn't be between left and right.

liberal or conservative or Democrat and Republican. It should be between dumb on one hand and smart on the other. And the only thing that really matters is what side of the line do you want America to be on? The smart side or the dumb side? If you want to be on the smart side, then you ascribe to something that rational humans would regard as the national interest.

And I think the problem here is that Donald Trump's conception of the national interest is subordinated and/or tethered to any number of other factors: his financial interests, his politics, his vanities, his whims and fancies, and frankly, his pet peeves, projects, tariffs, or grievances. He doesn't like Trudeau, it's quite clear.

Normal presidents take their first foreign trip, what, to Canada, Mexico, Britain. In Trump 1.0, Donald Trump took his first foreign foray. Where did he go? He went to Saudi Arabia and then Israel and then to a NATO meeting. So I think that he doesn't really see the merit or the strength in alliance politics. And he's far more comfortable.

with authoritarian strong leaders than he is with our traditional democratic allies. So I think that that's not going to I don't think that's going to change. And I think it's a serious mistake when it comes to protecting our interests. Let's bring in a caller. Let's bring in Louie in Redwood City. Hi, Louie. Go ahead.

Hi. I've got a question. Nobody's talking about it too much, but what do the people feel or is there any information on what Putin is holding over Trump to control him? Yeah. Louis, appreciate that. I mean, a point kind of made even just yesterday by Thomas Friedman in editorial in The New York Times as well. I mean, what do you make of that line of questioning, Aaron?

Is that to me? Yes. Yeah, look, you know, this is like second guessing who shot John Kennedy. And it belongs in the, I guess, in the sort of basket of fascinating things to speculate about, but very difficult to prove. And I think we can speculate all day long.

Does Vladimir Putin have compromise? Is that what it's called? Yes. Some sort of compromising intelligence on Donald Trump. I mean, you would have thought, though, in this sort of leaky world in which we live, where there aren't that many secrets, that somebody at some point would have put flesh on the bones if this were in fact true.

the case. I mean, it puzzles me as well. And Tom is right to ask that question, as is the caller. But the answer is, we just don't know. I could give you a rational line of argument as to why Donald Trump likes strongmen, authoritarians. He feels more comfortable with them.

It'll be interesting to see where the Putin-Trump meeting is. It'll have to be in a place where Vladimir Putin doesn't face extradition and where there'll be no protests. My candidate right now would be Saudi Arabia. So Donald Trump is a member in good standing, frankly, of what I would call the first autocrats club.

Got a lot of on the comments, got a lot of criticism, both of the Trump speech and also this sort of Dem response here. You know, Rich writes, Democrats should have stayed home or walked out of Trump's speech. It would have been a much more powerful statement and not given Trump a close target for his lies. Kayla writes, I saw the speech in its entirety and I was sickened by what I saw. Trump spoke lies that have been repeatedly fact checked.

He failed to mention all the people affected by his government slashing of jobs. He spoke about taking back Panama and wanting Greenland by special means if necessary. I saw nothing but a narcissistic bully with an imperialism complex. And Brian writes, if the Dems are a minority and their only power is to protest or muck up the works in Congress, why didn't they protest at the speech? Sad, even pathetic. Where's the good trouble they were all parroting? A

a year ago clearly people feeling good about last night um we are joined this morning to talk about the national international news by aaron david miller senior fellow at the carnegie endowment for international peace former negotiator and advisor on middle eastern issues to secretaries of state also joined by kqed's marisa lagos and the atlantic's amy lowry she covers the economy there we're going to get to some more of your comments this is forum and

And I'm Alexis Madrigal. So one of the other sort of topics that's coming up, Annie Lowry, is whether or not crashing the economy or sending the economy into recession is something that's being sort of planned. You know, Joel writes, Trump's economic policy is designed to crash the economy. The ultra wealthy do not suffer downturns in the economy, but plan to benefit. Assets become cheaper for those with deep pockets to grab on the cheap. What do you think?

I don't think that the Trump administration would purposefully crash the economy. We have seen them bully the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates in order to increase growth. We have seen them insist that tariffs, despite the literal centuries of evidence in opposition, would actually improve the American economy. I don't think that they would do it on purpose.

I would also note that the recession that it seems that we could be heading for, or the slowdown, is a particularly perilous one if it means stagflation. That said,

I also think that if we see enormous cuts to SNAP and Medicaid, which look like they might be coming, paired with very deep tax cuts, I'm not sure that's going to tip the economy into recession, but it's going to heighten inequality. It is going to kill people, kind of literally. It is going to make people less healthy. It is going to make agriculture

make at-risk communities, you know, make it that much harder for them to thrive. This is going to be really, really bad whether it causes a recession or not. And right now, you know, we're looking at supposedly $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid and $200 billion in cuts to SNAP. Those are just enormous numbers. Enormous. You know, Marisa Lagos, what did Trump say about the tax cuts yesterday?

Well, he implored both the leaders of the House and Senate to get him a bill. He said he would sign it so fast, you know, and make your head spin. And he...

actually, I think, made their jobs harder because he also talked about the need for expanding some tax cuts. So, you know, what Republicans want to do, what they see as sort of do or die is expand the 2017 tax cuts, which would expire at the end of this calendar year. That largely benefits the wealthiest Americans.

However, you know, most Americans, I think 90% see some benefit, although, you know, the less you make, the less the benefit. But he's also promised to remove taxes on tips, taxes on Social Security, things like that that are going to make this a much bigger sort of line item budget. And that's a

problem for Republicans because don't forget they have this sort of dual challenge of their right flank that does not want to see any spending increase and also wants to see the deficit shrink combined with Trump, who doesn't really seem to care about

it seems like, about the deficit number. And so I think that the more sort of Christmas tree, you know, things that you add to this, making it a Christmas tree, so to speak, of a fiscal bill, the harder it's going to be to get those very narrow majorities in both houses to pass it, particularly in the House of Representatives, where you have sort of more hardline fiscal hawks. Mm-hmm.

Last major topic I want to try and get to, which is the conflicts and cooperation between Doge, this Elon Musk operation newly created, people aren't really sure exactly what's going on there, and the actual agencies and cabinet heads. Are you seeing them working in concert, Marisa, or is there friction between them on a political level?

Sorry, say that again. Oh, like are the are you seeing conflict between Doge and the sort of the cutters of that kind and the, you know, cabinet heads and the traditional department? You know, we've seen a little bit of daylight. It's hard to tell. I mean, everybody that Trump appointed is kind of, you know, unrecognizable.

I guess sycophant might be the right word. I mean, it's so different than his first term where you did have people kind of pushing back. So I think we've seen around the margins like, you know, when Elon Musk sent out that tell me five things you did this week, we did see some of even his closest allies within his cabinet say, hey, hey, you don't need to do this. But

But broadly, you know, they're all saying that they support the basic idea of this. And I think that so much of what Musk has done has either been really murky in terms of the details or they're just straight up lying about it. I mean, so much of what he and the president have sort of

quote about cutting, you know, in terms of spending has turned out not to be true. The New York Times had a very interesting investigation into this this week. And also a lot of the numbers that Trump even put out during his speech talking about, you know, these millions of people over the age of 100 collecting Social Security benefits. There's like no proof of that. There are, you know, some people who have stayed on the rules too long, although most of them there's no evidence they're actually getting checks anymore or whoever they were.

So I do think that that's sort of one of the tension points I'm going to be watching as the weeks and months play out is like, yeah, do you have a different point of view if you are running this agency or department, even if you agree with the broader sort of proposal to really cut federal spending and cut the workforce? And really, you know, I think what you could say Doge is doing is trying to sort of blow up the government and remake it entirely. We

We have been trying to digest this fire hose of news this last week. We've been joined by KQED's Marisa Lago, staff writer at The Atlantic, Annie Lowry, where she covers the economy. Check out her work, as well as Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Thank you all so much for joining us this morning. And thank you to our listeners for all of your comments and for sticking with us. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of Forum Ahead.

with Mina Kim. Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Support for KQED podcasts come from San Francisco International Airport. At SFO, you can shop, dine, and unwind before your flight. Go ahead, treat yourself. Learn more about SFO restaurants and shops at flysfo.com.