--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Leila Fadel: President Trump's tariffs on nearly all imported goods will go into effect at midnight. This is the reordering of global trade. Will the U.S. come out ahead or fall behind?
--:-- Michelle Martin: I'm Leila Fadel, that's Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Small business owners are reacting to the magnitude of the White House's new tariffs. I had to come up with $15,000 of extra cash to release my goods just this last month. How are they thinking about their future?
--:-- Leila Fadel: And several National Security Council staffers have been fired following a meeting between President Trump and far-right activist Laura Loomer.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Always we let go of people, people that we don't like or people that we don't think do the job.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.
--:-- Leila Fadel: This message comes from BetterHelp. It's only human to ask others for advice, like turning to your barista, hairdresser, or a taxi driver for life advice. But when you're looking for help about relationships, anxiety, depression, or other clinical issues, they may not have all the right answers.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Instead, get guidance from a licensed therapist online with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR for 10% off your first month.
--:-- Leila Fadel: This message comes from Doctors Without Borders. People are living through a moment defined by unrelenting crises and need. Civilians are caught in the crossfire of violence and war. Malnutrition threatens the lives of children. Communities depend on life-saving humanitarian aid.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Doctors Without Borders is meeting this moment of overwhelming need with action. But they can't do it alone. Help provide life-saving care around the world. Learn how to donate today at doctorswithoutborders.org slash NPR.
--:-- Leila Fadel: This message comes from Mint Mobile. If you're tired of spending hundreds on big wireless bills, bogus fees, and free perks, Mint Mobile might be right for you with plans starting from $15 a month.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Shop plans today at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for a 3-month 5-gigabyte plan required. New customer offer for first 3 months only. Then full-price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.
--:-- Leila Fadel: From Wall Street to Main Street, businesses are reeling from President Trump's expanded trade war. Steep new tariffs are set to take effect at midnight on nearly everything the U.S. imports.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And even higher taxes are due to kick in next week. Big businesses are losing market value and small businesses feel like they're caught in the middle of something they can't control.
--:-- Leila Fadel: We're going to talk this through with two of NPR's business correspondents, Scott Horsley and Alina Seljuk.
--:-- Scott Horsley: Welcome to you both. Hello, hello. Good morning.
--:-- Alina Seljuk: Good morning.
--:-- Scott Horsley: So Scott, I'm going to start with you. Judging by the stock market's reaction, a lot of investors have been really rattled by these tariffs. But you know, Trump had been talking about this for weeks. So why are they so spooked?
--:-- Alina Seljuk: Yeah, this was a seismic shakeup. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 1,600 points yesterday, or nearly 4%. The Nasdaq dropped nearly 6%. It was the biggest one-day sell-off in the stock market since early in the pandemic.
--:-- Scott Horsley: President Trump has ordered a minimum 10% tax on nearly everything the U.S. buys from other countries. He's also ordered much higher levies on things we buy from China, Japan, the European Union. Altogether, we are looking at about a nine-fold increase in tariffs now compared to what we were paying last year.
--:-- Alina Seljuk: And businesses are worried that it's going to cause higher prices for them.
--:-- Scott Horsley: For weeks, investors have been waving the caution flag, saying they don't want a wider trade war. But Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNN the president's not about to change course. I don't think there's any chance that President Trump's going to back off his tariffs.
--:-- Alina Seljuk: This is the reordering of global trade. If these tariffs stick, it's going to upend the global trading system that the U.S. has spent decades building and leave this country more isolated from the rest of the world.
--:-- Scott Horsley: Scott how will these tariffs affect the economy more broadly?
--:-- Alina Seljuk: These tariffs are going to bring higher prices. They also going to bring slower economic growth. And there could be some fallout in the job market. We're going to get the monthly jobs report later this morning. And that could also start to show the impact of the large-scale layoffs that Elon Musk's team has been carrying out in the federal government.
--:-- Scott Horsley: And remember, President Trump took over an economy that was in solid shape. Unemployment was low. GDP was growing at a respectable clip. Inflation was a little high, but it was much improved from a few years ago. And Trump made the decision to turn over the furniture and kick up a lot of dust.
--:-- Alina Seljuk: So where that dust settles now is going to be on him. It's the old pottery barn rule. If you break it, you own the results.
--:-- Scott Horsley: And the president says he's also counting on these steps to raise a lot of money for the government, will they?
--:-- Alina Seljuk: These are high tariffs and they could bring in a lot of money. That's one way the administration plans to make up for the money that the government stands to lose if it extends the 2017 tax cuts.
--:-- Scott Horsley: But this is not a simple matter of taking money out of one pocket and putting it in the other. Tariffs will be paid disproportionately from the pockets of working people. That's who's shopping at Walmart and paying higher prices for imported toys and shoes and winter produce.
--:-- Alina Seljuk: Meanwhile, the savings from the tax cuts will primarily flow to the pockets of the wealthy. So this is a reverse Robin Hood policy, trading taxes for tariffs. It takes money from the poor and gives it to the rich.
--:-- Scott Horsley: And how are other countries responding?
--:-- Alina Seljuk: Other countries will likely buy less from U.S. exporters, which will hurt farmers and factories here. What's more, a lot of countries that depend on exports to the United States will find it harder to sell their goods here, and they may be pushed towards recession.
--:-- Scott Horsley: Trump has ordered tariffs that are not only higher, but also broader than those we've seen before. He's planning to tax all kinds of things that we do not and cannot produce at scale here, like tropical fruit.
--:-- Alina Seljuk: You know, even with global warming, I don't think we're going to start growing a lot of bananas in the U.S. So we're going to import the bananas, but Americans are going to pay more for them, and nervous shoppers have already started to dial back their spending.
--:-- Leila Fadel: We're going to turn to Alina Seljuk now. Alina, you've been talking to small retailers, shopkeepers and suppliers from around the country. What have you heard so far?
--:-- Alina Seljuk: You know, they feel like collateral damage. The evening when the tariffs were announced, I was actually at a big reception organized by the National Retail Federation. They had scheduled a fly-in for small business owners. And when the magnitude of tariffs became clear, it was like shell shock because it's these companies that are on the hook to pay many of these fees.
--:-- Leila Fadel: For example, Sarah Wells from Virginia shared her story. She sells purses and clothes for new moms. They're like for breast pumps and breastfeeding. They're made in China. And late last year, she made a huge shipment order. It was loading at the port when the White House raised tariffs on China by 10% in February.
--:-- Alina Seljuk: By the time it docked stateside, that tariff was raised again another 10%. And I had to come up with $15,000 of extra cash to release my goods just this last month.
--:-- Leila Fadel: And now that the total tariff on Chinese imports is up to 54%, you know, Wells is reeling. What do people like her plan to do?
--:-- Alina Seljuk: You know, one common answer is retrenching and scaling back. Maybe your store shrinks the selection, so there's less stuff to ship. Maybe you stop hiring, stop advertising or developing new products, essentially stop growing and go into survival mode.
--:-- Leila Fadel: One retailer talked about saving a lot of money in his bank account. It's money that he could be spending on all kinds of things to expand, hire, market. But now he wants that money to just kind of sit on the sidelines because he expects to pay big tariffs.
--:-- Alina Seljuk: And then the other answer is what Scott talked about. It's raising prices. Giant companies like Walmart are pressuring suppliers overseas to bear some of those tariff costs. Well small retailers they don't have that kind of muscle. And if they pass the cost to consumers with higher prices you know how high can they really go before they start losing sales.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Sarah Wells had a grim take. Even if we pass some to the consumer, we can't pass at all. So I really think the honest answer is that businesses will close. And that's the worst case scenario that she thinks a lot of business owners will have to confront and will have to see.
--:-- Leila Fadel: You know, Elena, one of President Trump's arguments for these tariffs is that they would bring manufacturing back to the U.S. What about these businesses? Can they find suppliers here?
--:-- Alina Seljuk: There was a lot of discussion about this at the event that I attended. There was actually this moment when a moderator asked a panel of small business owners, including Wells, to raise their hands if they tried to find domestic manufacturers first, and all the hands went up.
--:-- Leila Fadel: But the reality is for so many things, you know, clothes, shoes, toys, electronics, the U.S. has not manufactured them at scale in ages or ever.
--:-- Alina Seljuk: And so, you know, one shopkeeper says she sells work boots. She has American-made boots. They are $400. Not everyone can afford that. So she also has imported ones that are half the price.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Or I also talked to Danny Reynolds. He runs Stevenson's Clothing Boutique in Indiana. It sells also wedding gowns, and he says he supports the president's mission to level the trade playing field. He would love to have more U.S.-made gowns. They are great quality, but they're three times as expensive.
--:-- Alina Seljuk: And all the big bridal gown makers, they're overseas. There are only so many wedding gown manufacturers in this world, especially playing in our price range space. And as a smaller retailer, our hands are kind of tied in this regard.
--:-- Leila Fadel: He says business people love to negotiate their deals, make their own decisions, and live and die by them. And the sweeping tariffs take that ability out of their control.
--:-- Leila Fadel: That is NPR business correspondents Alina Seljuk and Scott Horsley. Alina, thank you.
--:-- Alina Seljuk: Thank you.
--:-- Scott Horsley: Thank you. Good to be with you.
--:-- Leila Fadel: The director of the National Security Agency and head of U.S. Cyber Command, General Timothy Hawk, has been fired. This, according to top Democrats on Congressional Intelligence Committees, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia and Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut.
--:-- Michelle Martin: The New York Times and The Washington Post are reporting that the firing is in connection to a meeting between President Trump and far-right activist Laura Loomer, during which she advocated for their dismissal.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Now, I want to mention here that NPR has not independently verified this. A number of National Security Council staffers have also been fired, and President Trump is downplaying that move.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Here he is talking on Air Force One last night. Always we let go of people, people that we don't like, or people that we don't think can do the job, were people that may have loyalties to somebody else.
--:-- Leila Fadel: You'll always have.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Here with more on the NSC firings is NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: Hi, Domenico. Hey, good morning. Good morning.
--:-- Leila Fadel: So what do we know about these firings?
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: Well, Trump confirmed that there were firings at the NSC. For what? We don't know exactly. And the NSC said it wouldn't comment on personnel matters.
--:-- Michelle Martin: But all this came after Trump met with Loomer. You know, she's someone who was close to Trump during the 2024 campaign, which raised some eyebrows even among those on the right because, you know, she's someone who's peddled conspiracy theories or misinformation about everything from COVID to the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas and the attempted assassination of Trump.
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: You know, she's called herself pro-white nationalist and a white advocate, written racist things about Muslims and former Vice President Kamala Harris that I won't repeat, applauded the deaths of immigrants and a whole lot of other stuff.
--:-- Leila Fadel: You know, Trump denied that Loomer was the reason for the firings. He said that she recommended additions. But Loomer herself posted on X, one of the many platforms that she'd been banned from before Elon Musk bought it, that she did report people to Trump who she sees as disloyal to him not necessarily to the country or constitution.
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: The NSA director and his deputy are among the people she called disloyal people her evidence being that they were she says recommended by former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley who broke with Trump and called him a fascist.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Okay, so what's going on here? What's this all about?
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: Well, it's the kind of thing Loomer does. She's very online, far-right activist, bills herself as a, quote, investigative journalist. But what that means is that she goes through people's social media history, their backgrounds, and connects dots that are often in conspiratorial ways and puts it all out there.
--:-- Michelle Martin: In this case, Trump seemed to be taking Loomer's word over even his national security advisor, Mike Waltz. The New York Times reported that Waltz briefly defended his staff, but quote, it was clear he had little, if any, power to protect their jobs.
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: Remember, it was Waltz or someone on his staff who inadvertently added that reporter to Signal chat group in the first place.
--:-- Leila Fadel: That's right. So what does this say about the people Trump is surrounding himself with and who has influence over him?
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: Yeah, it's always a question with every president who they're listening to, who their advisors are. What this tells us is this is a very different group of people around Trump now than in his first term. Then there were more established, experienced people, but he really soured on those kinds of folks and moved more toward people in the right wing ecosphere of Trump acolytes and devotees that cropped up with him out of office.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And the thing is, on any given day, you just don't know who's in Trump's ear or who he's seeking out. Someone with more Washington experience or someone like Loomer, and that makes for a very chaotic and destabilizing White House.
--:-- Leila Fadel: That's NPR's Domenico Montanaro. Thank you, Domenico.
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: Thank you.
--:-- Leila Fadel: The crackdown on immigrants in the U.S. without legal status has left many unsure what to do. This weekend on The Sunday Story, how some immigrants are responding to the clear message that the Trump administration is sending. Leave now. If you don't, we will find you. And we will deport you. You will never return.
--:-- Michelle Martin: A look at the fear spreading in many immigrant communities. That's on the next Sunday story from Up First.
--:-- Leila Fadel: And that's Up First for Friday, April 4th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Leila Fadel.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Just a reminder, Up First airs on Saturdays, too. Aisha Roscoe and Scott Simon will have the news. Look for it wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- [Theme music starts playing]
--:-- Leila Fadel: Today's episode of Up First was edited by Pallavi Gogoi, Lisa Thomson, and Alice Woelfle.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas.
--:-- Leila Fadel: We get engineering support from Damian Herring. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange. And our Executive Producer is Jay Shaylor.
--:-- [Theme music continues to play]
--:-- Michelle Martin: We hope you'll join us again on Monday.
--:-- [Theme music fades out]
