Tariff Fears, Trump Budget Plan Passes House, Deportation Ruling

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What are the key highlights of the latest trade developments?

Steve Inskeep 0:11
Will the Fed step in to stabilize things with lower rates? I'm Steve Inskeep with Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News. A budget plan extending President Trump's tax cuts narrowly gained approval in the House.
Mike Johnson 0:26
That will allow us now to move forward to have our committees actually drafting the one big beautiful bill.
Steve Inskeep 0:33
Even some Republicans worried that spending cuts targeting Medicaid could hurt working class Trump voters. So what is the Republican strategy?
Michelle Martin 0:41
And the Supreme Court says the Trump administration must return a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.
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Michelle Martin 1:56
One of President Trump's many changes to the tariff rates on Chinese goods underlined the power held by a single person.
Steve Inskeep 2:03
This week, the president made up a new tax rate that Americans pay for Chinese imports. He made the announcement by composing a social media post with a couple of cabinet secretaries in the room. That was the process. One day later, the White House said the rate was actually different than announced, marking the sixth time the president has changed the China tariff in a matter of weeks.

What is the Supreme Court's latest ruling on deportation?

Steve Inskeep 2:23
Last night, China struck back by raising their tariffs on U.S. imports to 125 percent. So what does all this mean for financial markets and the broader economy?
Michelle Martin 2:33
NPR's Scott Horsley has been watching all these ups and downs, and he is with us now. Good morning, Scott.
Scott Simon 2:38
Good morning. More downs than ups lately.

How is the trade war influencing the U.S. economy?

Michelle Martin 2:40
Well, you sure got that right. So the stock market regained a lot of its earlier losses on Wednesday when Trump backtracked on some of its tariffs. But then the air went out of the balloon pretty fast. What happened?
Scott Simon 2:51
Yeah, math happened. Analysts crunched the numbers yesterday and figured out that even with Wednesday's rollback, we're still looking at the highest import taxes in well over a century. There's now a 10% tax on everything the U.S. buys from most countries around the world. And the tax on imports from China is even higher than we thought, 145%. Now, overnight, China punched back with its own triple-digit tariff on U.S. exports. And investors are worried this could really be a drag on economic growth. Speaking at the Economic Club of New York yesterday, Austin Goolsbee used a technical term to describe all this. He called it the freak-out channel. Goolsbee is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Michelle Martin 3:30
The market is kind of like, ah! And the consumer's like, uh, and the Fed's job in that environment is to be the one to say, please remain seated with your seatbelt fastened until the pilot indicates it is time to move about the cabin.
Scott Simon 3:45
President Trump's been lobbying the Fed to cut interest rates, but Goolsbee says the central bank's going to take its time. He notes that before this trade war took off last week, the U.S. was actually in solid economic shape with low unemployment and falling inflation.
Michelle Martin 3:58
Yeah, and there was some good news on inflation yesterday, but that was largely drowned out by the tariff talk. Would you say more about that?
Scott Simon 4:06
Yeah, yesterday's report from the Labor Department showed inflation seemed to be coming under control last month. Prices in March were up only 2.4% from a year ago. Prices actually came down a little bit between February and March, thanks to a sharp drop in gas prices.

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