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--:-- A Martinez: We get a picture today of employment, a snapshot slightly out of date. Future job reports will reflect federal job cuts and employers who paused as U.S. trade policy keeps changing. Where's the economy heading?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm A. Martinez, that's Steve Inskeep, and this is a first from NPR News.
--:-- A Martinez: The president takes an opportunity today to promote cryptocurrency. Bitcoin has set multiple all-time record highs because everyone knows that I'm committed to making America the crypto capital. Trump himself has invested in crypto, so how does he plan for the government to promote it?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Also, why did Israel change its terms for extending a ceasefire in Gaza? With U.S. help, Israelis are pressing Hamas to accept a different deal and withholding food and fuel. Stay with us.
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: Employers added 151,000 jobs in February. That's according to today's jobs report from the Labor Department. And 151,000 is a fairly healthy number, although it does not reflect the economic turmoil of the past several weeks. This is a snapshot of the economy, useful but ever so slightly out of date.
--:-- Scott Horsley: NPR's Scott Horsley is here. Good morning, Steve.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Good morning, Scott. So what is in and what is out of this snapshot?
--:-- Scott Horsley: Well, the monthly jobs report is always based on a survey that's taken around the middle of the month. And that timing is important here because a lot of the federal government job cuts began around the 14th of February, a Friday, which some people refer to as the St. Valentine's Day massacre. People who got their walking papers that Friday are still counted as employed in this February jobs report.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The overall report actually shows somewhat more job growth in February than the month before when cold, snowy weather was blanketing much of the country and keeping a lot of construction workers idle, for example.
--:-- Scott Horsley: But even though the report looks pretty good on the surface, there are some warning signs out there.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: When you look below the surface, what are the warning signs that you see?
--:-- Scott Horsley: Yeah. The outplacement firm Challenger Gray and Christmas keeps a running tally of layoff notices. And its count for February shows the biggest job cuts since 2020, which is the early months of the pandemic. Andrew Challenger says there were 172,000 layoffs announced last month, and that includes more than 62 in the federal government.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: This is a really big number in terms of what we ever recorded. The fact that we reached that level so quickly this year is surprising to us and certainly something worth taking note of.
--:-- Scott Horsley: Now, the official jobs report today shows just 10,000 federal jobs cut last month, which we know is a fraction of the real total. We also know the Trump administration is considering much more widespread layoffs as it seeks to radically downsize the federal workforce.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Yeah, and it's numbers that couldn't affect the employment numbers in a measurable way. So what would that radical downsizing look like?
--:-- Scott Horsley: The administration reportedly wants to cut tens of thousands of jobs, for example, from both the VA and the IRS. The IRS already cut more than 6,000 workers last month.
--:-- Eddie Walker: I'm Eddie Walker, I represent some of those workers at an IRS office in Austin, Texas.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Of course, there's a lot of crying. I'm looking at some of the emails and stuff I've got, like they are ripping apart my work family. I left a job of 13 years to come here, and what do I get? How am I going to survive? I'm a single mom.
--:-- Scott Horsley: This is obviously painful for the affected workers. Some context important, though. There are about 2.4 million federal workers, not counting the military and the post office. That's about 1.5% of the overall U.S. workforce.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Oh, thanks for the reminder. The vast majority of people are working, the state and local government or whatever, or in the private sector, of course.
--:-- Scott Horsley: So how is the private sector holding up?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Yeah, restaurants and bars cut about 27,000 jobs last month. Temporary services cut jobs as well. There's been a lot of whiplash around the president's trade policy.
--:-- Scott Horsley: I mean, just this week we saw tariffs imposed, then relaxed, then mostly suspended on Mexico and Canada. Andrew Challenger says a lot of private sector businesses are considering their own job cuts.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: There's just been this extra uncertainty that's entered into some industries around tariffs, around potential trade wars.
--:-- Scott Horsley: We're seeing big announcements from very large Fortune 500 companies this month that are tuning down their growth forecasts for the next three or four years. So it's just not an environment that encourages a lot of hiring.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: NPR, Scott Horsley, thanks.
--:-- Scott Horsley: You're welcome.
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: When he was campaigning for office, the president promised to make the United States the crypto capital of the planet. And he's taken major steps this week when it comes to digital assets.
--:-- Deepa Shivram: NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivram has more on this. Good morning.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Good morning. Would you just explain for me, I mean, I can understand why the U.S. needs a strategic petroleum reserve. If there's a shortage of petroleum, you'll let some out. Supply and demand keeps the price down. But why would Americans need a crypto reserve?
--:-- Deepa Shivram: Yeah, the argument the White House is making is that the U.S. is losing money by selling the Bitcoin they already have seized from court proceedings.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So Trump's crypto czar David Sachs said on social media last night that the government has about 200,000 in Bitcoin, which is worth about $17 billion.
--:-- Deepa Shivram: And the idea is that the reserve will be a, quote, digital Fort Knox. All of that Bitcoin just stays there. And that was a campaign promise from President Trump.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But the idea of having a crypto reserve is pretty controversial, even among those in the crypto space, coming down to details like which cryptocurrencies do you keep in the reserve and why is the president picking some over others?
--:-- Deepa Shivram: So there's a lot of lingering questions.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And of course, it's an industry in which he's invested. So this is just one move the president is making. There's this summit coming today. What's going on?
--:-- Deepa Shivram: Yeah the White House hasn shared a lot of details about who attending today who going to be speaking though we do expect the president to make remarks But I will say the big overarching thing that people are expecting from this summit is a pretty wide open question which is what are the rules when it comes to cryptocurrency
--:-- Steve Inskeep: This is a space that involves trillions of dollars, so many players and a lot of opportunity, but also a lot of volatility and risk and bad actors. So there's a desire here to build a regulatory framework.
--:-- Deepa Shivram: And And a lot of folks in the crypto space see this summit as an opportunity to get the ball rolling on those discussions, especially because there are a lot of conversations like this that they feel weren't happening under the Biden administration.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, what was Biden doing then?
--:-- Deepa Shivram: The Biden administration focused on enforcement in trying to crack down on cryptocurrency rather than coming up with the new rules of the road to help the industry and help consumers.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Trump's approach so far has been to undo that. In the last few weeks, his administration has backed away from a lot of the lawsuits and investigations that the SEC, which is the Securities and Exchange Commission, had been doing on crypto businesses.
--:-- Deepa Shivram: I talked to Campbell Harvey. He's a finance professor at Duke University about the change in approach to crypto.
--:-- Campbell Harvey: Over the past four years, at least, the regulatory complex has been very combative, almost in a warlike situation, against the innovators in the space. So it's time to step back and to look at the possible benefits of this new technology and weigh them against the costs.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And he says the summit happening today is important because it's a first step in making a framework for cryptocurrency that balances that innovation with protection for consumers.
--:-- Deepa Shivram: I'm just thinking, though, when the government changes the rules, there are winners, there are losers, you may be picking winners and losers. And doesn't the president himself have a financial stake here?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Correct. That's very important to point out. Trump was seen as a very crypto-friendly presidential candidate. He received a lot of financial support from people in the crypto industry who also invested in down-ballot races.
--:-- Deepa Shivram: And during the campaign, Trump also rolled out his own crypto venture called World Liberty Financial. That's run by Trump's kids, but he has a sizable financial stake in it.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And right before inauguration, Trump and First Lady Melania Trump rolled out their own meme coins. That's a kind of cryptocurrency that the SEC recently said is not subject to oversight, which has raised questions about conflicts of interest.
--:-- Deepa Shivram: And Piers Deepa Shivaram, who, so far as we know, has not yet released the Deepa coin, but we'll look forward to that. Stay tuned.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: All right. Thanks so much. Thank you very much. Thank you.
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: President Trump says his own threats forced a ceasefire in the war in Gaza. But that was six weeks ago, and that phase of the ceasefire deal ended with no agreement between Israel and Hamas on what comes next.
--:-- Abitraoui: NPR international correspondent Abitraoui joins us now from Dubai to explain. Hi there.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm just trying to think this through. There was a ceasefire that lasted six weeks. Hamas released some hostages in exchange for Israel freeing some Palestinians. But why haven't they agreed to the second phase yet?
--:-- Abitraoui: Well, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he never actually sent negotiators to hammer out the details of a second phase. And he wants a different deal now that does not permanently end the war, but frees more hostages taken in the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So instead of proceeding with the original deal, Trump's Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, came up with a different plan in recent days that gives Netanyahu what he wants.
--:-- Abitraoui: And to pressure Hamas into this new deal, Israel's blocked all food, fuel, and aid into Gaza for six days now. Now, countries around the world, aid organizations, and several Israeli rights groups say this violates international humanitarian law.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So how again is this plan this proposal from the Israelis and from the United States different from what was expected?
--:-- Abitraoui: The main difference is the original deal agreed to would have ended the war now Basically, an agreement to lasting truce. And then all remaining Israeli hostages still alive would be freed over the next six weeks. And Israeli troops would withdraw from Gaza and more Palestinian prisoners would be freed.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: In contrast, the Wyckoff plan would have Hamas release half the remaining hostages still held in Gaza now, with only the promise to negotiate a lasting end to the war after six weeks.
--:-- Abitraoui: Hamas has not agreed to that, and Netanyahu may decide not to end the war because of pressure from his far-right coalition. He's in a bind because he has vowed to return all the hostages and eliminate Hamas, but a return to war doesn't guarantee either.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay, so we're maybe at this moment not getting closer to a permanent end to the war, but people still talk about what that's supposed to look like. What are some of the visions on the table?
--:-- Abitraoui: Okay, so you may have heard Trump's idea that everyone in Gaza is going to be displaced to other countries like Egypt and Jordan, and then the U.S. takes over the Gaza Strip somehow, turning it into a world-class real estate development without Palestinians who live there now.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now, Israel's government has embraced this plan and is drafting up ways to implement it, but Egypt has been clear it will not be a part of Trump's plan to permanently expel Palestinians off the land.
--:-- Abitraoui: And Egypt says the plan is destabilizing to the region and would unravel its decades-old peace treaty with Israel.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So instead, Egypt drew up a detailed reconstruction plan for Gaza of its own, and it got the backing of all Arab states at a summit in Cairo this week. They also all rejected any displacement of Palestinians.
--:-- Abitraoui: So Israel and the U.S. immediately criticized this lengthy Egyptian plan. But then Steve Whitcoff said this yesterday. I just finished reading it. There's a lot of compelling features to it. We need more discussion about it. But it's a good faith first step from the Egyptians.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So, Steve, the plan doesn't address every single concern that Israel or, you know, Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have about, you know, what would come next. And they'll be needed to help fund the reconstruction.
--:-- Abitraoui: But it would exclude Hamas from any governance. And Hamas says they agree to that.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Oh, interesting.
--:-- Abitraoui: Aya, thanks so much. Thank you, Steve.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That's NPR correspondent Aya Batraoui in Dubai.
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: And that's it first for this Friday, March 7th. I'm Steve Inskeep. And I'm Martinez.
--:-- A Martinez: Now, one of the impending legal battles for the Trump administration is over birthright citizenship for people born in the U.S. whose parents are here without legal status.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now, at the center is a question that's centuries old. Who is truly American and who gets to decide?
--:-- A Martinez: This weekend on the Sunday story from Up First, we hear the origins of this question through an 1898 court case that would transform the life of one Chinese immigrant and generations to follow.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That's this Sunday right here in the Up First podcast feed.
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--:-- Announcer: Today's Up First was edited by Rafael Nam, Roberta Rampton, Russell Lewis, Alice Woelfle and Mohamad ElBardicy.
--:-- Announcer: It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Chris Thomas.
--:-- Announcer: We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis, our technical director is Stacey Abbott.
--:-- Announcer: And our Executive Producer is Jay Shaylor.
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