Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today’s edition, Shannon Pettypiece breaks down another roller-coaster day for President Donald Trump’s tariff plans. Plus, Jonathan Allen explains that speed has proven to be Trump’s ally in his efforts to slash the government.
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— Adam Wollner
Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs are partly off again
President Donald Trump on Thursday issued exemptions on tariffs for some goods coming into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada, two days after putting in place sweeping 25% tariffs that rattled stock markets, as businesses warned the move would increase prices for consumers, NBC News’ Shannon Pettypiece reports.
It’s the second time in less than two months that Trump has announced and then backtracked on tariffs on the United States’ neighbors. But the exemption comes with an expiration date, just like Wednesday’s exemption for automakers, continuing to rattle the stock market and a wide range of industries.
“The can keeps getting pushed, kicked down the road, and we don’t know what that means,” said Chuck Dardas, president of AlphaUSA, an auto parts manufacturer in Livonia, Michigan.
Speaking to NBC News’ Christine Romans, he later added: “To make investments and to do things we need to do, we need some certainty. Not that we can have perfect certainty — but not be on a constant diet of, well, we’ll wait till next month to see if the ax is going to fall.”
“The only thing, I guess, to be certain is that we’ve got 30 more days to worry about it,” Dardas said.
The new exemption Trump signed on Thursday would apply to goods compliant with the North American free trade agreement reached during Trump’s first term — and will last until April 2, when Trump plans another round of retaliatory tariffs on goods from a range of countries.
About half of goods coming into the U.S. from Mexico would fall under the exemption, and around 38% of goods from Canada would qualify, said a senior administration official. That includes potash, which is used in fertilizers.
But some Canadian energy products won’t qualify and will be subject to a 10% tariff. And all other goods, including computers from Mexico, will be subject to the 25% tariff, the senior administration official said.
Read more: Stocks fall as markets grapple with Trump’s rapid shifts in tariff policy, by Rob Wile
What else to know from the Trump presidency today
- Trump is considering a major change to the United States’ participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to favor members of the alliance that spend a set percentage of their gross domestic product on defense.
- Some U.S. allies are weighing scaling back the intelligence they share with Washington in response to the Trump administration’s conciliatory approach to Russia.
- U.S. immigration agents are planning a new operation to arrest migrant families with children as part of a nationwide crackdown.
- A federal appeals court said Trump can fire a top government watchdog in the latest round of a legal fight over the authority to dismiss federal officials.
- The CIA has started to fire some of its recently hired officers.
- A federal judge ordered the reinstatement of a National Labor Relations Board member, calling the attempt to fire them “a blatant violation of the law.”
- The firings of over 5,000 probationary employees at the Agriculture Department may have been unlawful, and the workers should be reinstated for at least the next 45 days, a federal civil service board ruled.
- Federal student loan borrowers experiencing difficulties with their loans could find they have no recourse as Trump’s cuts to staff at the Department of Education are carried out.
- The Social Security Administration wrote in an email that employees can no longer read news websites on work devices.
Trump’s biggest advantage in his bid to slash the government: Speed
By Jonathan Allen
Speed kills. Especially when it comes to slashing government.
President Donald Trump has run into a few snags in his rush to slay the bureaucracy, including having to reverse some of his own decisions to summarily fire federal workers and watching courts intervene.
But Trump learned a valuable strategic lesson from his first term: The executive can move faster than the other branches of government. In less than seven weeks, Congress has become a bystander branch as Trump hacks up departments, agencies, programs and workforces that lawmakers created and funded.
Federal judges have noted that the Trump administration is ignoring orders to stop various aspects of its downsizing campaign. It remains to be seen whether he will listen to the Supreme Court. Some of his supporters are arguing that he should tell the justices to pound sand.
“I don’t know why President Trump can’t defy the Supreme Court & refuse to send the money,” Amy Kremer, an activist who helped organize Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, rally, wrote on X Wednesday after the high court ruled against the president’s freeze of $2 billion in foreign aid. “He is doing the work of the American people & trying to save our tax dollars from being abused & wasted. He has presidential immunity.”
But for the intended recipients, the money dried up weeks ago. It’s hard to imagine that even if the spigot is turned back on, there will have been no harm to the beneficiaries. Likewise, whether Trump can legally fire hundreds of thousands of federal workers — as he has done — there is zero chance that any court order will restore them all. The same goes for domestic-program grants halted by the Trump White House.
Judges and lawmakers spend a lot of their time theorizing about the balance of power. Trump is wasting no time in turning it toward him.
🗞️ Today’s other top stories
- 🗣 Address aftermath: The Republican-controlled House voted to censure Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, for disrupting Trump’s speech to Congress. Green is the 28th member of the House to be censured in its history. Read more →
- 🚫 CHIPS and dip: Trump made an unexpected call to repeal the CHIPS Act during his address to Congress, but Republicans “don’t see a huge appetite” to do so on Capitol Hill. Read more →
- 💲Budget warning: House Republicans can’t meet their own spending target that is necessary to pass Trump’s legislative agenda without making significant cuts to Medicare or Medicaid, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Read more →
- ➡️ Pushing back: The National Republican Congressional Committee is facing backlash after falsely referring to Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., as an “illegal immigrant.” Read more →
- 🌎 As MAGA world turns, part 1: MAGA activists have turned against one of Trump’s own appointees to the Supreme Court: Justice Amy Coney Barrett. She has been the deciding vote against Trump’s side in a couple of recent high-profile decisions. Read more →
- 🌎 As MAGA world turns, pa2t 2: GOP Sen. Thom Tillis slammed Arthur Schwartz, a MAGA-aligned operative, who called for a new candidate in next year’s North Carolina Senate race. Read more →
- 🌎 As MAGA world turns, part 3: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ statement that Andrew and Tristan Tate, the social media figures who had been charged with human trafficking in Romania, were not welcome in his state put him at odds with elements of the MAGA movement. Read more →
- 👀 New sheriff in town: Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser will remove Black Lives Matter Plaza amid pressure from the White House. Read more →
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner, Scott Bland and Faith Wardwell.
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