The Latest: Trump downplays tariff concerns as US stock sell-off worsens
President Donald Trump is dismissing business concerns over the uncertainty caused by his planned tariffs on a range of American trading partners and the prospect of higher prices and isn’t ruling out the possibility of a recession this year.
Also, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday the Trump administration had finished its six-week purge of programs of the six-decade-old U.S. Agency for International Development, and said he would move the 18% of aid and development programs that survived under the State Department.
Here’s the latest:
FDA says safety inspectors and some other staff cannot take buyout
An email viewed by The Associated Press explains that Food and Drug Administration staffers who handle inspections, criminal investigations and the review of drugs, vaccines, medical devices and other products cannot take the $25,000 buyout.
The email lists a number of other roles eligible for the offer, including staffers in administration, finance, communications and other operations. The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA and other health agencies, has given staffers until Friday to apply for the payment.
Last month the FDA abruptly fired hundreds of staffers, including medical reviewers, only to bring many of them back days later. The agency’s reviewers are mainly funded by fees from the medical industry, not the federal government.
Trump and Ireland’s leader to meet on Wednesday
Trump’s talks with Prime Minister Micheál Martin are expected to cover a range of issues, including Ukraine, the Middle East and Northern Ireland.
The two will attend an annual White House St. Patrick’s day celebration and continue a tradition of presenting the president with a bowl of shamrocks, extending St Patrick’s Day greetings from the people of Ireland to the United States.
Martin is also meeting separately with Vice President JD Vance.
EPA froze ‘green bank’ funds worth billions, climate group’s lawsuit says
A nonprofit that was awarded nearly $7 billion by the Biden administration to finance clean energy and climate-friendly projects has sued President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, accusing it of improperly freezing a legally awarded grant.
Climate United Fund, a coalition of three nonprofit groups, demanded access to a Citibank account it received through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program created in 2022 by the bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act and more commonly known as the green bank. The freeze threatens its ability to issue loans and even pay employees, the group said.
“The combined actions of Citibank and EPA effectively nullify a congressionally mandated and funded program,” Climate United wrote in a Monday court filing.
▶ Read more about the climate group’s lawsuit
Homeland Security app once used for asylum applications is now for leaving the the US
The Trump administration has overhauled the cellphone app once used to let migrants apply for asylum, turning it into a system that allows people living illegally in the U.S. to announce they want to voluntarily leave.
The renamed app, now called CBP Home, is part of the administration’s campaign to encourage “self-deportations, ″ touted as an easy and cost-effective way to nudge along Trump’s push to deport millions of immigrants.
“The app provides illegal aliens in the United States with a straightforward way to declare their intent to voluntarily depart, offering them the chance to leave before facing harsher consequences,” Pete Flores, the acting commissioner for U.S Customs and Border Protection, said in a statement.
Moments after Trump took office, the former app, CBP One, stopped allowing migrants to apply for asylum, and tens of thousands of border appointments were canceled.
Ontario slaps 25% increase on electricity exports to US in response to Trump’s trade war
Ontario’s premier, the leader of Canada’s most populous province, announced that effective Monday his province is charging 25% more for electricity to 1.5 million Americans in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war.
Ontario provides electricity to Minnesota, New York and Michigan.
“President Trump’s tariffs are a disaster for the U.S. economy. They’re making life more expensive for American families and businesses,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said in a statement. “Until the threat of tariffs is gone for good, Ontario won’t back down. We’ll stand strong, use every tool in our toolkit and do whatever it takes to protect Ontario.”
Ford has said Ontario’s tariff would remain in place despite the one-month reprieve from Trump, noting a one month pause means nothing but more uncertainty.
Ford’s office said the new market rules require any generator selling electricity to the U.S. to add a 25% surcharge to the U.S. Ontario’s government expects it to generate revenue of $300,000 Canadian (US$208,000) to $400,000 Canadian (US$277,000) per day, “which will be used to support Ontario workers, families and businesses.”
▶ Read more about the trade war.
No more COVID-19 tests from the US government
The federal government has shut down ordering from the site where Americans could have COVID-19 tests delivered to their mailboxes for no charge.
“The free at-home COVID-19 test distribution program is not currently accepting orders,” the website, covidtests.gov, reads.
Americans were able to order up to four tests through the site and they were delivered by the United States Postal Service. The Biden administration launched the program during the COVID-19 pandemic and would intermittently turn ordering on and off, typically reopening it ahead of the respiratory illness season in the fall.
Any orders placed by 8 p.m. on Sunday, March 9 will still be shipped, according to the website.
Abortion Provider Appreciation Day focuses on Trump policies
Abortion rights supporters were marking the day Monday through letter and postcard writing events, donation drives, social media posts and sidewalk chalking with messages of support.
The day honors the life of David Gunn, a doctor who was shot to death outside an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida in 1993. The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which is designed to protect abortion clinics from obstruction and threats, was passed in 1994 in response to Gunn’s murder and mounting violence against clinics.
Trump’s Justice Department has curtailed prosecutions under the FACE Act, and he has pardoned anti-abortion activists convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances.
Wall Street’s sell-off gets worse as worries deepen over tariffs
Worries about the economy and President Trump’s tariffs are sending U.S. stocks further from their record set just last month.
The S&P 500 was down 1.5% in early trading Monday, coming off its worst week since September. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 415 points, or 1%, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.2% lower.
Stocks are on track for another bumpy day following a scary stretch dominated by worries that Trump’s on-and-off-again tariffs will either hurt the economy directly or create enough uncertainty to drive U.S. companies and consumers into an economy-harming paralysis.
Volatility persists on Wall Street as tariffs continue to drag on confidence
Most major U.S. indices swung to significant losses Monday after President Trump dismissed concerns over the possibility of his upcoming tariffs causing a recession.
Futures for the S&P 500 were down 1.4%, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.1%. Nasdaq futures slid 1.6%.
In an interview that aired on Fox News Channel on Sunday morning, Trump acknowledged that his plans could affect U.S. economic growth in the short term though he fell short of predicting a recession this year. Trump said his plan to bring wealth back to American “takes a little time.”
Also this weekend, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports will take effect Wednesday.
▶ Read more about Trump’s effect on financial markets
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says purge of USAID complete, with 83% of its programs gone
And said he would move the 18% of aid and development programs that survived under the State Department.
Rubio made the announcement Monday in a post on X. It marked one of his relatively few public comments on what has been a historic shift away from U.S. foreign aid and development, executed by Trump political appointees at State and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency teams.
Rubio in the post thanked DOGE and “our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform” in foreign aid.
Trump on Jan. 20 issued an executive order directing a freeze of foreign assistance funding and a review of all of the tens of billions of dollars of U.S. aid and development work abroad. Trump charged that much of foreign assistance was wasteful and advanced a liberal agenda.
▶ Read more about Trump’s changes to foreign aid
China learned from Trump’s first trade war and changed its tactics when tariffs came again
The leaders of both Canada and Mexico got on the phone with Trump this past week to seek solutions after he slapped tariffs on their countries, but China’s president appears unlikely to make a similar call soon.
Beijing, which unlike America’s close partners and neighbors has been locked in a trade and tech war with the U.S. for years, is taking a different approach to Trump in his second term, making it clear that any negotiations should be conducted on equal footing.
China’s leaders say they are open to talks, but they also made preparations for the higher U.S. tariffs, which have risen 20% since Trump took office seven weeks ago. Intent on not being caught off guard as they were during Trump’s first term, the Chinese were ready with retaliatory measures — imposing their own taxes this past week on key U.S. farm imports and more.
After the U.S. this past week imposed another 10% tariff, on top of the 10% imposed on Feb. 4, the Chinese foreign ministry uttered its sharpest retort yet: “If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.”
▶ Read more about China and the U.S. in the trade war
Musk and DOGE try to slash government by cutting out those who answer to voters
For decades, conservatives in Congress have talked about the need to cut government deeply, but they have always pulled back from mandating specific reductions, fearful of voter backlash.
Now, DOGE is trying to do exactly that.
The dynamic of cutting government while also cutting out those who answer to voters has alarmed even some fiscal conservatives who have long pushed for Congress to reduce spending through the means laid out in the Constitution: a system of checks and balances that includes lawmakers elected across the country working with the president.
“Some members of the Trump administration got frustrated that Congress won’t cut spending and decided to go around them,” said Jessica Reidl of the conservative think tank The Manhattan Institute. Now, she said, “no one who has to face voters again is determining spending levels.”
▶ Read more about DOGE’s latest government staffing cuts
Trump downplays business concerns about uncertainty from his tariffs and prospect of higher prices
Trump is dismissing business concerns over the uncertainty caused by his planned tariffs on a range of American trading partners and the prospect of higher prices, and isn’t ruling out the possibility of a recession this year.
After imposing and then quickly pausing 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada that sent markets tumbling over concerns of a trade war, Trump said his plans for broader “reciprocal” tariffs will go into effect April 2, raising them to match what other countries assess.
Asked about the Atlanta Fed’s warning of an economic contraction in the first quarter of the year, Trump seemingly acknowledged that his plans could affect U.S. growth. Still, he claimed, it would ultimately be “great for us.”
Though Trump’s early implementation of tariffs has been inconsistent — with him imposing them, then pulling many back — he has been steadfast in endorsing the idea of 21st century protectionism. There have even been suggestions that higher import tariffs on the country’s foreign trading partners could eventually replace the federal income tax.
▶ Read more about concerns surrounding Trump’s tariffs
Trump loves the Gilded Age and its tariffs. It was a great time for the rich but not for the many
In Trump’s idealized framing, the United States was at its zenith in the Gilded Age, a time of rapid population growth and transformation from an agricultural economy toward a sprawling industrial system.
The desire to recreate that era is fueled by Trump’s fondness for tariffs and his admiration for the nation’s 25th president, William McKinley.
Though Trump’s early implementation of tariffs has been inconsistent — with him imposing them, then pulling many back — he has been steadfast in endorsing the idea of 21st century protectionism. There have even been suggestions that higher import tariffs on the country’s foreign trading partners could eventually replace the federal income tax.
Experts on the era say Trump is idealizing a time rife with government and business corruption, social turmoil and inequality. They argue he’s also dramatically overestimating the role tariffs played in stimulating an economy that grew mostly due to factors other than the U.S. raising taxes on imported goods.
And Gilded Age policies, they maintain, have virtually nothing to do with how trade works in a globalized, modern economy.
▶ Read more about Trump and the Gilded Age
By The Associated Press
