--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: President Trump is expected to take the next step today in imposing steep tariffs on imported goods from three countries. Setting the stage for more inflation and a trade war.
--:-- Scott Simon: I'm Scott Simon. And I'm Ayesha Rascoe, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: The president says it's about fentanyl. In one case, they're sending massive amounts of fentanyl, killing hundreds of thousands of people a year with fentanyl. And in the other two cases, they're making it possible for this poison to get in.
--:-- Scott Simon: We'll have more on that, including analysis from NPR's Ron Elving.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: Also, the FAA prohibits most helicopters from flying near Ronald Reagan National Washington Airport. That's after the fatal crash Wednesday night.
--:-- Scott Simon: So please stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend.
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--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: Trump says he'll impose tariffs on goods coming in from three of the nation's biggest trading partners, Mexico, Canada and China. The White House says the details are coming out today.
--:-- Scott Simon: And Pierre Scott Horsley joins us now with the latest.
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: Scott, thanks for being with us.
--:-- Scott Simon: Good morning, Scott. Certainly a lot of talk about tariffs during the campaign. But there was some feeling among certain analysts that Donald Trump was posturing.
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: Where do things stand today? We have yet to see any official tariff order from the White House. And Trump has a long history of threatening tariffs, some of which take effect, some don't.
--:-- Scott Simon: You know, we saw that last weekend when Trump threatened to slap tariffs on imports from Columbia but backed off after Columbia agreed to conditions for accepting deportations from the U.S.
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: So there was some thought maybe Trump would make a similar deal to avoid this round of tariffs. But White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt insisted yesterday this tariff threat is not a bluff.
--:-- Scott Simon: The president will be implementing 25% tariffs on Mexico, 25% tariffs on Canada, and a 10% tariff on China for the illegal fentanyl that they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country.
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: These are promises made and promises kept by the president. Trump also wants Mexico and Canada to curb illegal immigration into the U.S.
--:-- Scott Simon: Now, Levitt did leave the door open for Trump to backtrack on these tariffs if some kind of face-saving agreements reached.
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: We did see that back in 2019 when Mexico agreed to crack down on immigration from Central America.
--:-- Scott Simon: Recognizing there a possibility tariffs could be lifted in the meantime what kind of effect are they going to have on prices?
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: This is a tax on imports, so it's going to raise the price of everything we buy from these three countries, which is a lot.
--:-- Scott Simon: Last year we imported more than $1.2 trillion worth of stuff from Mexico, Canada, and China, everything from TVs and tequila to tomatoes and two-by-fours.
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: The good news is the avocados for your Super Bowl dip next weekend have probably already made it across the border. So that's not going to face a 25 percent guacamole tax.
--:-- Scott Simon: But, you know, Mexico supplies more than a quarter of all the fresh fruit and vegetables we eat in the U.S. Canada supplies a lot of crude oil to Midwestern oil refineries.
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: All those are going to be subject to tariffs, although Trump did hint the tax rate on Canadian oil could be less than 25 percent.
--:-- Scott Simon: Whatever the rate experience shows, much of the cost is going to be borne by businesses and shoppers here in the United States.
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: And what are the implications for major U.S. trading partners, especially Mexico and Canada?
--:-- Scott Simon: Yeah, it's going to hit them hard as well. The U.S. is a very big market for our next-door neighbors.
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned of difficult times ahead for his country. He says Canada doesn't want a trade war, but he added it's not going to just surrender either.
--:-- Scott Simon: Trudeau says Canada is ready to push back with retaliatory tariffs of its own on U.S. exports.
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: A purposeful, forceful, but reasonable, immediate response. We won't relent until tariffs are removed and, of course, everything is on the table.
--:-- Scott Simon: Mexico and China are also likely to retaliate. We saw that during the first Trump administration with other countries put tariffs on things like Kentucky bourbon and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: You might remember U.S. farmers lost a lot of business overseas, and the federal government wound up paying some of the farmers for the corn and soybean sales they missed out on.
--:-- Scott Simon: What happened to the free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that Trump negotiated just a few years ago?
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: You know, Trump was no fan of the original North American free trade agreement, but he and his allies did renegotiate that pact the last time he was in the White House.
--:-- Scott Simon: That deal is due for a possible update next year. Some analysts think these new tariffs are just a mechanism for Trump to drag Mexico and Canada back to the bargaining table a year earlier in hopes of extracting more favorable terms.
--:-- Pierre Scott Horsley: Scott Horsley, thanks so much for being with us.
--:-- Scott Simon: Good to be with you.
--:-- Scott Simon: If these new tariffs will likely raise prices in the U.S., why is Trump in favor of them?
--:-- Pierre Scott Simon: Well, for that, we turn to Ron Elving, NPR senior Washington editor and correspondent.
--:-- Ron Elving: Thanks for being with us.
--:-- Scott Simon: Good to be with you, Scott.
--:-- Ron Elving: Donald Trump campaigned on that pledge. That said, other than President Trump, who thinks these big new tariffs are a good idea?
--:-- Scott Simon: By and large, it would be people who share Trump's sense of grievance about world trade and global affairs.
--:-- Ron Elving: People who believe the United States has been getting ripped off, to quote the president, they tend to also believe that tariffs will help even the score.
--:-- Scott Simon: Now, Trump says tariffs will be our external revenue service, collecting money from other countries instead of taxing Americans like the internal revenue service, we all know.
--:-- Ron Elving: And that must sound pretty good to a lot of folks judging by the election results.
--:-- Scott Simon: Of course, as we just heard from Scott, hoarsely, economists see tariffs quite differently.
--:-- Ron Elving: They tend to see an outmoded and counterproductive blunderbuss of a weapon that often winds up wounding the user as much as the target.
--:-- Scott Simon: The classic example being the tariffs the U.S. imposed in the early 1930s. Historians tell us those tariffs actually deepened and lengthened the Great Depression.
--:-- Ron Elving: What was the political effect of the tariffs that President Trump put in place during his first administration?
--:-- Scott Simon: You'd have to say it was mixed and rather limited, really. Those tariffs served their purpose in the short run in targeted areas But they did not measurably improve Trump standing for re in 2020 or for that matter when he came back in 2024
--:-- Ron Elving: The tariffs were not the salient issue either time There were just too many other issues and the blame for the inflation of the past few years had long since gone elsewhere.
--:-- Scott Simon: Of course, tariffs are just one of a host of executive actions and orders from the Trump White House this week.
--:-- Ron Elving: Which ones stand out to you? To me, the chief executive moment of the week was Trump's news conference Thursday morning about the midair collision over Ronald Reagan National Airport, diverting attention from that tragedy to make a tech on diversity hiring.
--:-- Scott Simon: When we still don't know who or what was responsible for that crash, Trump said he was using common sense.
--:-- Ron Elving: And that's a phrase he's been using a lot lately. I think people are beginning to get a sense of what that common sense means to him.
--:-- Scott Simon: As for the executive orders, it's quite a competition. I'd have to go with the now rescinded order to freeze federal spending.
--:-- Ron Elving: That order said all grants had to be frisked for Marxism or race and gender diversity or approval of certain sexual orientation.
--:-- Scott Simon: That language was striking as well as confusing. Federal judges stepped in. The freeze is off for now. But the underlying orders, the judgments from the Trump administration remain in effect.
--:-- Ron Elving: Of course, the courts had already paused an earlier order against birthright citizenship, but perhaps the most notable aspect of the overall attitude of these orders is the preemptory nature of it.
--:-- Scott Simon: There was a sense Trump was testing the boundaries and trying all the locks on the constitutional house at once.
--:-- Ron Elving: I do recall that President Obama was criticized for relying on executive orders. He said at the time that he had non-cooperative Republican majorities in the House and Senate.
--:-- Scott Simon: President Trump doesn't have to contend with that problem, does he? Not at the moment, although the margins in both chambers are historically slim.
--:-- Ron Elving: All presidents have used executive orders, at least at times, and often at critical times. It's fast. It creates an impression of action and change and effectiveness, but only for a time, and only if the various orders survive court challenges and other forms of pushback.
--:-- Scott Simon: When you go around Congress for short-term success, you risk a reckoning that can have longer-lasting effects.
--:-- Ron Elving: And Pierre's Ron Elving, thanks so much for being with us on this very important week.
--:-- Scott Simon: Well, I guess they all are, but thanks so much, Ron.
--:-- Scott Simon: Investigators are still trying to find out why a military helicopter collided with a passenger jet this week near Washington, D.C.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: In the meantime, the Federal Aviation Administration has placed tight restrictions on helicopter flights in the area.
--:-- Scott Simon: NPR transportation reporter Joel Rose joins us.
--:-- Joel Rose: Hi, Scott. Good morning.
--:-- Scott Simon: And what are the latest on the investigation?
--:-- Joel Rose: Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board say they have recovered the black box from the helicopter. In this case, that is a combined voice and data recorder, and now they will try to extract that information from it.
--:-- Scott Simon: And if that works, it should tell them a lot about what was happening in the moments before the collision on Wednesday night.
--:-- Joel Rose: But board members have been emphatic that they will not speculate and will wait until they have all the facts before drawing any conclusions.
--:-- Scott Simon: Here's board member Todd Inman at a briefing yesterday evening.
--:-- Todd Inman: The NTSB is an independent bipartisan board. 58 years as the gold standard. Our job is to find the facts, but more importantly, our job is to make sure this tragedy doesn't happen again, regardless of what anyone may be saying.
--:-- Scott Simon: Inman did not mention President Trump by name but it was hard not to see the sharp contrast after the president claimed this week that diversity equity and inclusion programs at the Federal Aviation Administration were to blame while also acknowledging that he had no direct evidence linking DEI to the crash.
--:-- Joel Rose: Jill do you see any indication of what the focus of the investigation might be at the moment?
--:-- Scott Simon: There are a lot of questions focusing on that U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and whether it was in the right place.
--:-- Joel Rose: There is growing evidence that it was not, based on NPR's analysis of flight data, along with new video footage that circulated yesterday of the collision, which show the helicopter out of the flight corridor where it was supposed to be operating.
--:-- Scott Simon: Instead, it was well out over the Potomac River when it collided with the plane.
--:-- Joel Rose: Sources tell NPR it was also flying above the 200-foot ceiling that it was required to maintain.
--:-- Scott Simon: And what about reports that the air traffic control tower might have been understaffed at the time of the crash?
--:-- Joel Rose: Yes, several outlets have reported on an internal FAA report that says an air traffic controller was doing double duty in two separate positions at the time of the collision because staffing was lower than normal for that time.
--:-- Scott Simon: NPR has not been able to confirm that independently. The head of the air traffic controllers union says it is not uncommon to combine positions like that.
--:-- Joel Rose: The NTSB says staffing is something they are looking at, not just at the moment of the collision, but in the days and weeks leading up to it.
--:-- Scott Simon: The board says they have begun interviewing the controllers who were on duty that night.
--:-- Joel Rose: But again, board member Inman did not want to speculate on whether that was a factor in the collision.
--:-- Scott Simon: And, Joe, what are the new flight restrictions near Reagan National?
--:-- Joel Rose: The FAA will limit helicopter flights on routes along the Potomac River near the airport, as well as over the airport itself.
--:-- Scott Simon: And Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that would help secure the airspace and restore public trust.
--:-- Joel Rose: The FAA says helicopter traffic will be restricted, but not completely suspended. There will be exemptions, for example, for medical emergency flights, for law enforcement activity, and VIP movements.
--:-- Scott Simon: and investigators continue to pour over that area of the river where the two aircraft went down.
--:-- Joel Rose: The victims included the flight crew, three soldiers, competitive figure skaters from the U.S. and Russia, a civil rights lawyer, and dozens of others.
--:-- Scott Simon: Authorities say they have located many bodies so far, but they say they will keep looking until they have found all of them.
--:-- Joel Rose: And Piers-Joel Rose, thanks so much.
--:-- Scott Simon: You're welcome.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: And that's up first for Saturday, February 1st.
--:-- Scott Simon: I'm Ayesha Rascoe. And I'm Scott Simon.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: Our producer is Martin Patience with help from Andrew Craig and Elena Twork.
--:-- Scott Simon: Our director is Michael Radcliffe.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: Our editors are Pallavi Gogoy, Ed McNulty, Russell Lewis, Shannon Rhodes, and Matthew Sherman.
--:-- Scott Simon: Andy Huther is our technical director with engineering support from J.C.S. David Greenberg and Arthur Halliday-Lorett.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: Evie Stone is our senior supervising editor.
--:-- Scott Simon: Sarah Oliver is our executive producer.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: And Louise Clemens is our deputy managing editor.
--:-- Scott Simon: Tomorrow on the Sunday Story, we re-air our episode about three communities in the U.S. that are balancing the need for more housing with the threat of climate-related disasters.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: And for more news, interview, sports, and music, you can tune in to Weekend Edition on your radio.
--:-- Scott Simon: Go to stations.npr.org to find your local station.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: You won't regret it. No, you may regret a lot of things, but not listening to NPR.
--:-- Scott Simon: This message comes from ZipRecruiter. Finding great candidates to hire can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: Unless you use ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you.
--:-- Scott Simon: That's why four out of five employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: And right now, you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash zip.
--:-- Scott Simon: That's ZipRecruiter.com slash zip.
