The White House says President Trump will implement tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China on Saturday. Also, the FAA prohibits most helicopters from flying near Reagan Washington National Airport.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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.
I'm Scott Simon.
And I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and this is Up First from NPR News.
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 the fentanyl. And in the other two cases, they're making it possible for this poison to get in.
We'll have more on that, including analysis from NPR's Ron Elving.
Also, the FAA prohibits most helicopters from flying near Ronald Reagan National Washington Airport.
That's after the fatal crash Wednesday night.
So please stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend.
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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, and PR Scott Horsley joins us now with the latest. Scott, thanks for being with us.
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. 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. You know, we saw that last weekend when Trump threatened to slap tariffs on imports from Colombia, but backed off after Colombia agreed to conditions for accepting deportations from the U.S.
So there was some thought maybe Trump would make a similar deal to avoid this round of tariffs. But White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt insisted yesterday this tariff threat is not a bluff.
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. These are promises made and promises kept by the president.
Trump also wants Mexico and Canada to curb illegal immigration into the U.S. Now, Levitt did leave the door open for Trump to backtrack on these tariffs if some kind of face-saving agreements reached. We did see that back in 2019 when Mexico agreed to crack down on immigration from Central America.
So recognizing there's a possibility tariffs could be lifted. In the meantime, what kind of effect are they going to have on prices?
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. 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. The good news is the avocados for your Super Bowl dip next weekend have probably already made it across the border.
That's not going to face a 25% guacamole tax, but 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. All those are going to be subject to tariffs.
Although Trump did hint the tax rate on Canadian oil could be less than 25%, whatever the rate, experience shows much of the cost is going to be borne by businesses and shoppers here in the United States.
And what are the implications for major U.S. trading partners, especially Mexico and Canada?
Yeah, it's going to hit them hard as well. The U.S. is a very big market for our next-door neighbors. 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. Trudeau says Canada is ready to push back with retaliatory tariffs of its own on U.S. exports.
A purposeful, forceful, but reasonable, immediate response. We won't relent until tariffs are removed and, of course, everything is on the table.
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. 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.
What happened to the free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that Trump negotiated just a few years ago?
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. 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.
Scott Horsley, thanks so much for being with us.
Good to be with you.
If these new tariffs will likely raise prices in the U.S., why is Trump in favor of them?
Well, for that, we turn to Ron Elving, NPR senior Washington editor and correspondent. Ron, thanks for being with us. Good to be with you, Scott. Donald Trump campaigned on that pledge. That said, other than President Trump, who thinks these big new tariffs are a good idea?
By and large, it would be people who share Trump's sense of grievance about world trade and global affairs. 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.
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. And that must sound pretty good to a lot of folks judging by the election results. Of course, as we just heard from Scott Horsley, economists see tariffs quite differently.
They tend to see an outmoded and counterproductive blunderbuss of a weapon that often winds up wounding the user as much as the target. 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.
What was the political effect of the tariffs that President Trump put in place during his first administration?
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's standing for reelection in 2020 or, for that matter, when he came back in 2024. 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.
Of course, tariffs are just one of a host of executive actions and orders from the Trump White House this week. Which one stands 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. When we still don't know who or what was responsible for that crash, Trump said he was using common sense 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. As for the executive orders, it's quite a competition. I'd have to go with the now rescinded order to freeze federal spending. That order said all grants had to be frisked for Marxism or race and gender diversity or approval of certain sexual orientation. 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. Of course, the courts had already paused an earlier order against birthright citizenship. But perhaps the most notable evidence, of the overall attitude of these orders is the preemptory nature of it.
There was a sense Trump was testing the boundaries and trying all the locks on the Constitutional House at once.
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. President Trump doesn't have to contend with that problem, does he? No.
Not at the moment, although the margins in both chambers are historically slim. 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.
When you go around Congress for short-term success, you risk a reckoning that can have longer-lasting effects.
And Pierre's Ron Elving, thanks so much for being with us on this very important week. Well, I guess they all are, but thanks so much, Ron. Thank you, Scott.
Investigators are still trying to find out why a military helicopter collided with a passenger jet this week near Washington, D.C.
In the meantime, the Federal Aviation Administration has placed tight restrictions on helicopter flights in the area. NPR transportation reporter Joel Rose joins us. Joel, thanks for being with us. Hi, Scott. Good morning. And what's the latest on the investigation?
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. And if that works, it should tell them a lot about what was happening in the moments before the collision on Wednesday night.
But board members have been emphatic that they will not speculate and will wait until they have all the facts before drawing any conclusions. Here's board member Todd Inman at a briefing yesterday evening.
The NTSB is an independent bipartisan board. 58 years is 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 of what anyone may be saying.
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.
Gerald, do you see any indication of what the focus of the investigation might be at the moment?
There are a lot of questions focusing on that US Army Black Hawk helicopter and whether it was in the right place. 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.
Instead, it was well out over the Potomac River when it collided with the plane. Sources tell NPR it was also flying above the 200-foot ceiling that it was required to maintain.
And what about reports that the air traffic control tower might have been understaffed at the time of the crash?
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. NPR has not been able to confirm that independently. The head of the air traffic controller's union says it is not uncommon to combine positions like that.
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. The board says they have begun interviewing the controllers who were on duty that night. But again, board member Inman did not want to speculate on whether that was a factor in the collision.
And Joe, what are the new flight restrictions near Reagan National?
The FAA will limit helicopter flights on routes along the Potomac River near the airport as well as over the airport itself. And Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that would help secure the airspace and restore public trust. 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. And investigators continue to pore over that area of the river where the two aircraft went down. 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.
Authorities say they have located many bodies so far, but they say they will keep looking until they have found all of them.
And Pierce, Joel Rose, thanks so much.
You're welcome.
And that's up first for Saturday, February 1st. I'm Ayesha Roscoe.
And I'm Scott Simon.
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