China calls new U.S. tariff exemptions a "small step", but urges President Trump to heed rational voices and abolish all reciprocal tariffs, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele visits Washington to meet President Trump and discuss El Salvador's role in locking up deportees, and Meta's antitrust case begins.Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Ryland Barton, Tara Neil, Brett Neely, Mohammad ElBardicy and Janaya Williams. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Adam Bearne, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent. And our technical director is David Greenburg. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What are the latest developments in the US-China tariff exemptions?
There's now a carve-out for electronics on those steep tariffs the U.S. slapped on Chinese goods, but maybe not for long. Publicly, China showed defiance in the face of this trade war. Are the U.S. and China any closer to negotiations? I'm Leila Faldil with Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News. El Salvador's president is in D.C. for a meeting with President Trump.
Nayib Bukele has taken hundreds of people deported from the U.S., alleging they're gang members. Bukele has called himself the world's coolest dictator, but has few fans among human rights advocates after locking up his own citizens without due process.
What comes out of this meeting? And the Federal Trade Commission is taking on social media giant Meta in court. The case centers on whether Meta broke competition laws when it acquired Instagram and WhatsApp. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.
Does the idea of listening to political news freak you out? Well, don't sweat it. The NPR Politics Podcast makes politics a breeze. Every episode will break down the day's headlines into totally normal language and make sure that you walk away understanding what the day's news might mean for you.
Take a deep breath and give politics another chance with the NPR Politics Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Do you think you have ADHD? You're not alone. After the pandemic hit, there was a huge jump in ADHD diagnoses among adults. And at the same time, the internet is more and more obsessed with saying everything is a sign of it. To identify the red flags when a diagnosis goes viral, listen to the It's Been a Minute podcast today.
Over the weekend, there were no new tariffs on Chinese goods coming into the United States or on U.S. goods flowing into China.
In fact, late on Friday, the Trump administration outlined a substantial carve-out for mobile phones, computers, and other electronics. But that may not last very long, and neither side appears ready to back down.
NPR's John Ruitt has been following all these twists and turns from Beijing, and he's with us now to tell us more. Good morning, John.
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Chapter 2: How is China responding to the new US tariff carve-outs?
Yeah, late on Friday, Customs and Border Protection posted a notice online. It was full of legalese and arcane tariff codes, and what it translated into was no tariffs on mobile phones, computers, memory chips, flat screens, LEDs, stuff like that. This is substantial because electronics account for roughly a quarter of Chinese exports to the U.S.
China's Commerce Ministry responded fairly quickly over the weekend, calling it a small step toward correcting the error of imposing those so-called reciprocal tariffs on China and on other countries.
How is this being interpreted? Is it seen as a sign of goodwill or maybe a faith-saving way to de-escalate this trade war that Trump started?
It was initially, but it doesn't look like it is. You know, Trump's come out on social media to say that nobody's getting off the hook. These products are just moving to a different tariff bucket. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick explained it on Sunday on ABC's This Week.
So all those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they're going to have a special focus type of tariff to make sure that those products get resured.
So he's saying they're exempted from the so-called reciprocal tariffs that Trump announced so that they're sort of off the menu for negotiation. Why? Because they're going to be lumped in with semiconductors under a separate tariff that he says will be announced in the next month or two. And not just on China. And the idea is to force supply chains of those products back to the U.S.
So where do things stand from China's perspective? Right.
Well, China's been pretty consistent. They've projected defiance throughout this. You know, Trump seems to be waiting for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to pick up the phone and call him. That's not how China operates. It doesn't mean that they're not open to discussion, though. I asked Andy Rothman about this last night here in Beijing.
He advises investors and corporate boards on China, and he's been on a trip here meeting companies and contacts.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of Xi Jinping's first overseas trip this year?
He heads to Malaysia next for three days and then to Cambodia. The Chinese government's projecting China as sort of an anchor in rough seas, a reliable trading partner. In fact, she had a piece in the Vietnamese Communist Party's mouthpiece newspaper today calling for joint efforts to protect the multilateral trading system and maintain stable supply chains.
But these Southeast Asian countries are in a tough spot. They've all benefited to some extent from the trade friction between the U.S. and China in recent years because manufacturing has moved their way. And also, they are all negotiating or seeking to negotiate with the Trump administration to keep the tariffs off.
That is NPR's John Rourke in Beijing. John, thank you.
You're welcome.
El Salvador's president is expected to meet with Donald Trump at the White House later today.
Yeah, Nayib Bukele is the man the Trump administration paid to imprison hundreds of people deported from the U.S. and accused of being gang members. El Salvador got about $6 million in that deal. Those deportations are facing numerous legal challenges in the U.S., Bukele is no darling to human rights organizations because he's imprisoned thousands of his own citizens.
With no due process, he's called himself the world's coolest dictator.
To hear more about this, we're joined by freelance reporter Manuel Ureda. He's following all this from Medellin, where you can hear that it is pouring rain. Hopefully he's indoors. Good morning, Manuel. Good morning. So this is the first leader from a Latin American nation to get an official invitation to the White House in President Trump's second term.
What is Trump trying to get out of this meeting?
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Chapter 4: Who is El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele and why is he meeting President Trump?
Well, in Latin America, the Trump administration has been looking for allies that will help it to deliver quickly in its priorities. And in this case, it's the effort to reduce immigration to the United States. In March, El Salvador took in more than 200 Venezuelan migrants who were accused of being gang members and were deported from the U.S. in an expedited and controversial fashion.
Bukele put them in a notorious prison known as the Secot. There have been more deportation flights like that since then, the latest on Sunday. During this visit, both sides might talk about how to expand those kinds of partnerships, including the possibility of sending some U.S. prisoners to El Salvador to be incarcerated there.
So this has obviously been hugely controversial in the United States. Has there been any pushback in El Salvador about this kind of deal?
Well, in El Salvador, Bukele is a hugely popular president and many people don't mind his prison system. That's because El Salvador used to be one of the most violent countries in the world, with fighting between gangs controlling daily life in many communities.
But in 2022, Bukele declared a state of emergency, which is still ongoing, that gave the police the power to arrest anyone they suspect of being a gang member and lock them up for months at a time without any kind of due process. Since those policies began, the number of homicides in El Salvador fell by 75%, and gangs lost their grips on many communities where they were taxing local businesses.
Of course, human rights groups have been very critical of these tactics, and now their concern is that people who get sent from the US to El Salvador will basically be treated in the same way that local prisoners are treated and disappear into the system. Last month, a Maryland resident, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was sent by mistake to El Salvador. The Trump administration admitted it was a mistake.
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Chapter 5: What is the significance of the US-El Salvador agreement on deported gang members?
Chapter 6: What is the Federal Trade Commission's case against Meta about?
What comes out of this meeting? And the Federal Trade Commission is taking on social media giant Meta in court. The case centers on whether Meta broke competition laws when it acquired Instagram and WhatsApp. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.
Does the idea of listening to political news freak you out? Well, don't sweat it. The NPR Politics Podcast makes politics a breeze. Every episode will break down the day's headlines into totally normal language and make sure that you walk away understanding what the day's news might mean for you.
Take a deep breath and give politics another chance with the NPR Politics Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Chapter 7: How can listeners better understand political news through NPR's podcasts?
Do you think you have ADHD? You're not alone. After the pandemic hit, there was a huge jump in ADHD diagnoses among adults. And at the same time, the internet is more and more obsessed with saying everything is a sign of it. To identify the red flags when a diagnosis goes viral, listen to the It's Been a Minute podcast today.
Over the weekend, there were no new tariffs on Chinese goods coming into the United States or on U.S. goods flowing into China.
In fact, late on Friday, the Trump administration outlined a substantial carve-out for mobile phones, computers, and other electronics. But that may not last very long, and neither side appears ready to back down.
NPR's John Ruitt has been following all these twists and turns from Beijing, and he's with us now to tell us more. Good morning, John.
Good morning.
So no new tariffs. And what about that carve out for electronics? Can you tell us more?
Yeah, late on Friday, Customs and Border Protection posted a notice online. It was full of legalese and arcane tariff codes, and what it translated into was no tariffs on mobile phones, computers, memory chips, flat screens, LEDs, stuff like that. This is substantial because electronics account for roughly a quarter of Chinese exports to the U.S.
China's Commerce Ministry responded fairly quickly over the weekend, calling it a small step toward correcting the error of imposing those so-called reciprocal tariffs on China and on other countries.
How is this being interpreted? Is it seen as a sign of goodwill or maybe a faith-saving way to de-escalate this trade war that Trump started?
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