A look at China’s targeted response to Trump’s tariffs. Lingling Wei with the Wall Street Journal has the details. The IRS and the DHS have finalized an agreement to share taxpayer data with federal immigration authorities as part of Trump’s deportation crackdown. Shannon Najmabadi with the Washington Post breaks down what the policy change could mean for immigrants without legal status. International students are seeing their visas revoked without warning or reason. Axios reports. Plus, the U.S. government will screen immigrants’ social-media accounts for content it considers antisemitic, funding was cut for climate research at Princeton University, and the Masters is marking a historic anniversary. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
Chapter 1: What is the main focus of the episode on April 10th?
Good morning. It's Thursday, April 10th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, a change to a longstanding IRS rule, why the State Department is revoking visas for hundreds of international students in the U.S., and the Masters marks a historic anniversary.
Chapter 2: How did Trump change his stance on tariffs?
But first, President Trump abruptly reversed course on widespread global tariffs yesterday in the face of forecasts of a potential recession, pushback from the business community, and growing discontent among some Republican members of Congress. Here's how the president put it.
People were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.
Now Trump says he's instituting a 90-day pause for most countries while retaining a baseline tariff of 10 percent. The exception? China. Instead of pulling back, Trump doubled down, now saying China will face a 125 percent tariff, a jump up from where he was just two days ago when he promised tariffs of 104 percent. This comes after China, the world's second largest economy, didn't bend to Trump.
Chapter 3: What is China's response to Trump's tariffs?
Instead of calling up the White House and offering concessions, China retaliated, increasing tariffs on all U.S. imports to 84 percent.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been preparing for this moment for many years.
Lingling Wei is the chief China correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.
Chapter 4: How is China preparing for economic sanctions?
So ever since Trump left office, Xi Jinping has tried to build up this arsenal of retaliatory tools. And not only that, he has doubled down on central control over China's economy. China has invested so much more in high tech, in industrial capabilities and all that. Basically, the goal is to fortify the economy against potential sanctions from the United States.
Part of that fortification, according to Wei, also has to do with Chinese export controls. In the same way that the U.S. has restricted China's access to high-tech, like semiconductors, China is employing a similar tactic for U.S. access for certain products.
It's not high-end semiconductors or other stuff. It's really things like rare earth minerals, the kind of components that U.S. companies need to use in order to make trips, in order to make defense-related products.
China is also obstructing deals that could be beneficial to the United States. For example, a recent merger between Intel and an Israeli chipmaker fell through because Chinese authorities dragged their feet on approval. And China has a rule not dissimilar to a rule the United States has that allows it to restrict U.S.
companies from doing business there if it deems them harmful to China's national security interests.
They have a lot of incentives, a lot of reasons to project strengths as opposed to, you know, project weakness. So that's why we are seeing that Xi Jinping is standing very firm. He's not calling President Trump. He's not, like other countries, trying to negotiate with Trump because he feels like we cannot do this under such maximum pressure. That would make us look weak.
Because politically speaking, looking weak would be very costly for authoritarian leadership.
With neither country seeming willing to give in, Wei says the world is watching the two largest economies effectively playing a game of chicken. Whichever has less tolerance for economic pain is the one we could see bend first.
The Department of Homeland Security and the IRS have reached an agreement to provide sensitive taxpayer information to federal immigration officials, according to recent court filings. That will allow the IRS to learn more about immigrants living in the U.S. without legal status.
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Chapter 5: Why is the IRS sharing taxpayer data with DHS?
Washington Post reporter Shannon Najmabadi spoke to us about the change in policy.
What critics of this potential deal had said is that this contravenes the IRS's longtime promise that if you pay your taxes and you are undocumented, we're not going to turn around and give your information to other agencies that could then use it to deport you.
There are about 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally, and many pay their taxes, just like U.S. citizens do. In fact, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that in 2022, immigrants without legal status paid close to $100 billion in federal, state, and local taxes. DHS officials said they could use data from the IRS to locate up to 7 million people.
And there could be economic consequences, too.
They could lead specifically this group of undocumented immigrants to try to avoid providing information to the IRS and thus avoid paying taxes for fear that that information would then be used ultimately to help deport them.
The sharing of tax data for anyone, U.S. citizen or not, U.S. president or not, has long been a very sensitive issue. So much so that improperly sharing tax information is punishable by civil and criminal penalties, which is why this policy move is considered such a big deal and such a shift from our norms.
The Post reports that even though IRS attorneys advised that the deal likely violates privacy laws, the agreement was signed by Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. But one key person was largely left out of the loop.
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Chapter 6: What are the potential consequences of the IRS-DHS data sharing agreement?
Evidently, Melanie Krause, who was acting IRS commissioner, didn't learn of it until the Treasury Department had released news of the deal to Fox News.
After news of the agreement became public, Krause informed staff she is stepping down. Tomorrow, an immigration judge in Louisiana will decide the fate of Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil, whether he can be deported or whether his case should be terminated and he should be released. Khalil's story so far offers an alarming glimpse into what could happen to others.
As reports begin to bubble up of international students learning that their visas are being revoked by the State Department. At least eight students at Arizona State University, six at UC Berkeley, at least three students and two recent grads at Harvard.
The Washington Post reports it's unclear how many visas in total have been revoked so far, or if all students have even been informed that they must now leave the United States. And it's contributing to an overall sense of dread among foreign-born students that any immigrant could be targeted without warning for anything from protesting the war in Gaza to something minor like a traffic violation.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said two weeks ago that more than 300 student visas had been revoked under his direction. That same week, a video circulated on social media of the arrest of a Turkish student at Tufts University, where the woman was approached on the street by law enforcement agents who were mostly masked and led away.
At the time, Rubio was asked about her arrest and the detention of other foreign-born students who, like her, have expressed pro-Palestinian viewpoints.
You want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus. We're not going to give you a visa. If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States and with that visa participate in that sort of activity, we're going to take away your visa.
Administrators at colleges have also raised concerns about a federal database where international students' records have been terminated. The CEO of a nonprofit that works on behalf of international and immigrant students called the changes arbitrary and unresolvable and said they're creating havoc for anyone on campus who isn't a U.S. citizen.
Daniel Kanstrom, an immigration law professor at Boston College, told NPR's Fresh Air recently the targeting of these students is an escalation in Trump's deportation plan.
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