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WSJ What’s News

The Trump Administration Is Quietly Watering Down Some Tariffs

17 Oct 2025

Description

P.M. Edition for Oct. 17. In recent weeks, President Trump has been tiptoeing away from some of the tariffs that underpin his signature trade policy, saying reciprocal tariffs don’t apply to dozens of different products. We hear from WSJ trade and economic policy reporter Gavin Bade about why that’s happening. Plus, a decade ago, Walmart rattled investors with a historic pay raise for employees to $9 an hour. WSJ reporter Sarah Nassauer tells us why today the move is considered a success. Plus, in a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House today, President Trump said he’d rather end the war in Ukraine than send Tomahawks to the country. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Transcription

Full Episode

0.132 - 15.792 Alex Ossola

President Trump says he'd rather end the war between Ukraine and Russia than send Ukraine powerful new weapons. Plus, Trump made tariffs his signature trade policy. Now he's pivoting away from some of them.

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16.032 - 23.001 Gavin Bade

They're putting the offer out there to other nations to say, if you do a deal with us, we can carve out more of these tariffs as well.

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23.099 - 46.187 Alex Ossola

And how Walmart's decision to pay workers more shocked Wall Street, but then put the company on a path to success. It's Friday, October 17th. I'm Alex Osola for The Wall Street Journal. This is the p.m. edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

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46.673 - 56.433 Alex Ossola

At a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky today, President Trump said he hoped Ukraine wouldn't need the U.S. to provide it with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles.

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56.754 - 67.737 Donald Trump

So we're going to be talking about Tomahawks and would much rather have them not need Tomahawks, would much rather have the war be over, to be honest.

67.987 - 85.253 Alex Ossola

Trump had been talking in recent weeks about sending the powerful weapons to Ukraine. The meeting between the two came after Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at length on the telephone yesterday. Trump says he plans to meet Putin separately in Hungary in the coming weeks to try to broker a peace deal.

90.16 - 110.987 Alex Ossola

Since taking office in January, President Trump has made tariffs his signature trade policy. Now, though, he's tiptoeing away from some of them, saying reciprocal tariffs don't apply to dozens of different products. WSJ trade and economic policy reporter Gavin Bade is here to tell us more. Gavin, what are some of the tariffs that the Trump administration is shifting on?

111.457 - 127.35 Gavin Bade

Yeah, so this is a subtle but important shift in the Trump administration's reciprocal tariffs. These are the ones that he unveiled on Liberation Day back in April, then paused, then there were a bunch of negotiations. He put them back in place in early August, right?

127.811 - 141.362 Gavin Bade

And so what he's done in the last few weeks here is he has increased the exemptions or the carve-outs from these tariffs for a few dozen products. They've also given indications that they're going to do more in the future.

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