Morning Report — Trump digs in on tariffs

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In today’s issue:

Trump, allies defend tariffs
Senate lobs budget puzzle to House
Judge: Deportation of Maryland man “wholly unlawful”
Netanyahu, president to huddle in D.C.

President Trump on Sunday redoubled his support for massive tariffs on most of the world amid heavy market fallout and criticism from some allies.

Wall Street was rocked by losses Thursday and Friday and stock futures tumbled this morning. Global markets recoiled overnight. Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” the VIX, leapt to levels reminiscent of the pandemic meltdown and the financial crisis of 2008-2009 as investors brace today for more volatility.

Trump said Sunday that the U.S. is “stronger” from the tariffs and told reporters he’s receiving calls from foreign leaders who want to negotiate. The goal, he explained: “solve the [trade] deficit problem that we have with China, with the European Union and other nations.”

The president also insisted tariffs had already prompted nations to pledge investments in the U.S., which he sees as key to his tariff strategy to help workers and manufacturers.

“Because of the tariffs, we have $7 trillion already committed to be invested in the United States, building auto plants, building chip companies, and all sorts of companies are coming into our country at levels that we’ve never seen before,” he said on Air Force One while returning to Washington from Florida.

▪ CNBC: U.S. oil prices fell on Sunday to below $60 a barrel for the first time since 2021 on tariff-driven fears of recession.

▪ The New York Times: After a blowout week, Wall Street decisionmakers brace for more chaos.

DETRACTORS: In a sign of how some Trump supporters could break with the president over the tariffs, billionaire hedge fund investor Bill Ackman, who endorsed Trump last year and is behind Pershing Square, called for a 90-day pause in the tariffs to negotiate with other countries, warning that the alternative was “a self-induced, economic nuclear winter.”

“We are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital,” Ackman wrote in a social-media post on X.

Others expressing misgivings: Stan Druckenmiller, the investor and Republican who was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s boss at one time, on X: “I do not support tariffs exceeding 10%.”

Hedge-fund manager Dan Loeb pointed to Druckenmiller’s comments on his X feed. He suggested there are potential conceptual and practical errors in the policy announced by Trump last week, adding, “It will be a test of the administration’s judgment versus ideology how they resolve this over the weekend or coming days.”

Trump may also get an earful today from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will be at the White House. The U.S. last week hit Israel with a 17 percent reciprocal tariff.

DEALMAKER: Trump said he spoke over the weekend with “a lot of Europeans, Asians, all over the world. They’re dying to make a deal.”

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told ABC’s “This Week” that more than 50 countries had reached out to the president since last week to begin tariff negotiations.

BACKING THE POLICIES: Trump’s top advisers interviewed during Sunday’s news programs were on the defensive. Their themes: Markets are “adjusting” and investment portfolios, especially for retirement, are long-range. Trump sees a transition period ahead of “long-term economic fundamentals for prosperity,” Bessent told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The market consistently underestimates Donald Trump,” the secretary added.

But businesses, consumers and international leaders say they’re having a difficult time assessing just how set in stone Trump’s reciprocal tariffs may be. Does the president want to negotiate new agreements with all trading nations? What is the government’s timeline? Trump and his allies send mixed messages, reports The Hill’s Brett Samuels.

“There is no postponing,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CBS’s “Face the Nation. The tariffs “are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks. That is sort of obvious. The president needs to reset global trade,” he continued. “He announced it, and he wasn’t kidding, the tariffs are coming.”

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins previously said the administration had been examining possible federal payments to farmers and agricultural producers to soften the tariff blows, as Trump did during his first term. The administration has not been specific this time around.

▪ The New York Times analysis, by Nate Cohn: For Republicans, tariffs pose a risk like no other. “Trump and the Republicans today could be especially vulnerable, as so much of his political strength is built on the economy.”

▪ The Hill: Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), steeped in trade debates because his family runs dairy farms in his state, told “The Hill Sunday” on NewsNation, “I think [tariffs] should be used as a tool to get to a level playing field.” He said Republicans should consider legislation that would move tariff authority back to Congress.

▪ The Los Angeles Times: Farmers fear tariffs could cost them one of their biggest markets: China.

▪ The Hill: California Sen. Adam Schiff (D) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that Trump is engaged in “a completely self-destructive economic act … and it’s not just the tariffs. It’s also the freezing of funds, the firing of people, the alienation of our allies in California. I’m hearing from farmers who still haven’t recovered market share from the tariffs during the first Trump administration.”

SMART TAKE with NewsNation’s BLAKE BURMAN

Many Republicans in Washington, D.C., are now backing tariffs. Could supporting some tax increases be next? I asked this question to President Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short.

“I absolutely believe that there will be at least some discussion about raising taxes on the most wealthy Americans,” Mulvaney said. “I don’t think that passes, but that discussion will take place.”

“It’s ridiculous to see where our party has gone. It’s totally abandoned its traditional roots in conservatism and has totally embraced populism,” Short said. “And so yeah, this shouldn’t be a shock. This is where it’s been trending for the last 6-7 years.”

This would represent a shift, but with tariffs now in vogue (for some), we will see what other economic policy transformations could come up for discussion.

Burman hosts “The Hill” weeknights, 6p/5c on NewsNation.

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ Social Security recipients born between the 1st and 10th of any month who began receiving benefits at age 62 will see the 2025 cost-of-living adjustment of 2.5 percent, approved in January, applied beginning on Wednesday.

▪ As the Department of Government Efficiency demands cuts to IT staff, the Social Security website keeps crashing.

▪ An 8-year-old girl who was not vaccinated died of a measles-related illness in Texas, a hospital confirmed on Sunday. She was the second U.S. measles fatality this year.

LEADING THE DAY

BUDGET BATTLES: The House faces a challenging week as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) must contend with how to handle the Senate’s framework to tee up Trump’s ambitious legislative agenda. Johnson and his leadership team are vowing to resolve internal tensions and pass a budget plan governing the major pieces of Trump’s domestic agenda — including huge tax cuts, tougher immigration laws and an expansion of oil and gas production — before Congress breaks Thursday for a long spring recess.

In February, House Republicans rallied behind their budget plan, which featured at least $1.5 trillion in cuts to federal programs while raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion to accommodate an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Republican senators, however, took a starkly different approach.

Their budget resolution, which passed through the upper chamber early Saturday morning after a night of amendment votes, requires the House and Senate to cut federal spending at starkly different levels. House committees would still be tasked with locating at least $1.5 trillion in federal cuts (with a “T”), but Senate committees would need to identify as little as $4 billion in reductions (with a “B”). The Senate plan also hikes the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, not $4 trillion.

Convincing House Republicans to support the legislation is going to be a heavy lift. House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) on Saturday blasted the Senate’s budget resolution, passed by the upper chamber only hours before, as “unserious and disappointing.”

In a “Dear Colleague” letter sent to members on Saturday, Johnson and House leadership got a head start on arguing in favor of the legislation as hardline conservatives publicly balked at the Senate product. They argued that adopting the budget resolution — even though it does not include House conservative’s ask of steep cuts — is only a procedural step, and that lawmakers can figure out the details later while staying on schedule.

The Hill: Senate Democrats on Saturday blasted their GOP colleagues for their budget blueprint, which passed along party lines.

ONE BRIGHT SPOT FOR JOHNSON? The Speaker on Sunday struck a deal on proxy voting with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) that last week brought the entire chamber to a standstill. The bill would have allowed for proxy voting for new parents for 12 weeks, a practice Johnson deems unconstitutional. But under the agreement being worked out, the House would formalize “vote pairing,” two sources familiar with the matter confirmed to The Hill. The procedure allows a new mother member who must be absent for a vote to coordinate with a lawmaker voting opposite their stance to abstain from the vote. That way the new mother’s absence is canceled out.

As part of the deal, Luna would not force a vote on her discharge petition, which she successfully executed last month to dispatch Rep. Brittany Pettersen’s (D-Colo.) resolution to the floor, allowing House business to resume this week.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at noon.
The Senate will convene at 3 p.m.
The president at 11 a.m. in the East Room will host the Los Angeles Dodgers, the 2024 World Series champions. Trump will welcome Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to the White House at 1 p.m. They will meet in the Oval Office before holding a joint press conference at 2:30 p.m.

ZOOM IN

“WHOLLY LAWLESS”: A federal judge on Sunday said the Trump administration had no legal grounds to arrest, detain and deport a Salvadoran national from Maryland to a prison in his home country. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in a scathing 22-page decision ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Secretary Kristi Noem to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States.

“Neither the United States nor El Salvador have told anyone why he was returned to the very country to which he cannot return, or why he is detained at CECOT,” Xinis wrote, referring to the El Salvador prison now holding Abrego Garcia. “That silence is telling. As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador — let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere.”

In 2019, an immigration judge granted Garcia withholding of removal, which protected him from being returned to El Salvador. The protection was granted because the judge concluded that El Salvador’s Barrio 18 gang had been “targeting him and threatening him with death because of his family’s pupusa business.”

DHS now faces an 11:59 p.m. ET deadline today to return Abrego Garcia back to the United States. In her Sunday decision, Xinis rejected a request by the Justice Department to pause the order as a federal appeals court considered its validity.

The Hill: A Justice Department lawyer who criticized the Trump administration over Abrego Garcia’s deportation was placed on leave.

COURT BATTLES: The Trump administration’s repeated losses in courts have sparked Republican efforts to limit the reach of the judiciary. The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch and Zach Schonfeld report congressional Republicans have rolled out two legislative vehicles that would curb nationwide injunctions. Democrats, however, say the bills are an attack on a system that is rightfully reviewing a record-high number of executive actions from Trump that exceed the bounds of the law.

“We’ve heard repeated complaints from Republicans about the number of injunctions issued against this president compared to other presidents. Why so many?” said Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “They ignore the fact that this president has issued more than 100 executive orders, the most by any president at this point in his term in at least four decades. Many are clearly illegal.”

GENERATIONAL SHIFT: A growing number of Democratic incumbents are facing primary challenges from younger progressives, underscoring the generational and ideological rifts within the party. At least three long-serving members of the House — including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — have drawn younger primary opponents, with more potentially on the way. The Hill’s Julia Mueller writes these developments come amid growing speculation that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) could primary Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). The primary challenges shine a fresh light on the Democratic frustration with their leaders following the party’s losses last year, and they point to a potentially volatile campaign season leading up to the midterms.

RISK ASSESSMENT: Republicans are divided on how much of a political liability Elon Musk is following their loss in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, where he played a central role. Trump and his allies have so far stood by Musk, who has emerged as Democrats’ main foil amid sweeping anger over federal cuts made under his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The Hill’s Caroline Vakil reports that while some members of the GOP acknowledge Musk was a factor in their loss in the Badger State and that he could hurt them going forward, others see the billionaire tech entrepreneur as an asset.

▪ The Hill: Trump said Sunday that he met with former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) about a potential Senate bid and that he hopes Sununu launches a campaign.

▪ The Washington Post: Virginia’s gubernatorial contest next year will officially feature Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former member of Congress, against Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the lieutenant governor, who has been spared a potentially costly primary. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) is term-limited.

HEALTH: Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and DOGE are reshaping the U.S. health care system, starting with deep cuts to the agencies Kennedy now leads. Kennedy and his allies argue such moves are needed to change federal culture and improve efficiency in the name of long-term health improvements. Even critics concede the sprawling health department could work better, but they see the Trump administration’s approach of seemingly indiscriminate job cuts as potentially harmful to Americans, including children.

Amid the cuts to HHS, measles is making a comeback in several states, with the first deaths recorded in Texas since 2015. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, touted the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine as the “most effective” way to prevent the spread of measles during a recent visit to Texas to visit with the family of an 8-year-old girl who died from the disease and attend her funeral.

“The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” Kennedy wrote on the social platform X. “I’ve spoken to Governor Abbott, and I’ve offered HHS’ continued support. At his request, we have redeployed CDC teams to Texas. We will continue to follow Texas’ lead and to offer similar resources to other affected jurisdictions.”

▪ The Hill: Republican senators are brushing off concerns that high-profile arrests and deportations of foreign students will have a chilling effect on a group that is a major contributor to the U.S. economy.

▪ The Hill: Families and students are nervous about the fate of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid amid Trump’s massive cuts to the Department of Education and his plans to do away with it entirely.

ELSEWHERE

ISRAEL: Netanyahu will discuss tariffs and the war in Gaza with Trump today, among other issues. The visit could be the first effort by a foreign leader to negotiate a deal with Trump to remove tariffs.

▪ The Associated Press: Israel walked back its account of the killing of 15 medics in Gaza after video seemed to contradict it.

▪ Foreign Affairs: The forever war in Gaza.

▪ France24: French President Emmanuel Macron is meeting today in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II to discuss the war in Gaza.

▪ The New York Times: Britain and Israel traded sharp criticisms this weekend after Israel blocked two British lawmakers from entering the country and sent them back to London.

UKRAINE: Ukraine will send a team to Washington this week to begin negotiations on a new draft of a rare minerals deal that would give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s valuable mineral resources. The long-running negotiations over the mineral deal have strained relations between Kyiv and Washington. In February, the two sides had been preparing to sign a framework, but the plan was derailed following a contentious meeting in the Oval Office between Trump, Vice President Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Russia needs to move more quickly to end the war in Ukraine, and he’s been told by the U.S. that Moscow must “do more.”

“The ball clearly is in the court of the Russians,” Rutte said in an interview that aired on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “They are not moving fast enough, is my impression — including the impression I’m getting from my American interlocutors, that — that Russia really has to do more to bring this war to an end.”

▪ The New York Times: While Russian missile and drone bombardments have been unrelenting over more than three years of war, they have intensified in recent weeks amid U.S.-led peace talks.

▪ The Washington Post: Everyone wants Europe’s largest nuclear plant. Ukraine wants it back.

▪ The Economist: How Europe hopes to turn Ukraine into a “steel porcupine.”

SYRIA: The fate of Russia’s remaining military presence in Syria is a matter of fraught debate within the Trump administration, and it will prove a major part of evolving policy discussions over U.S. engagement with the new government in Damascus, more than three months since Syrian rebels launched a shocking offensive to oust long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad in December. Assad relied on Russia’s military power to help quash the more than 13-year civil war and took safe haven in Moscow. The Hill’s Laura Kelly reports U.S. sanctions on Syria provide Washington with enormous leverage to influence the new government headed by Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former designated terrorist who led Assad’s overthrow.

The Wall Street Journal: In southern Syria, Israel is the power that matters.

OPINION

■ A playbook for law firms, universities and other institutions to stand up to President Trump, by The New York Times editorial board.

■ IRS data privacy is a right worth fighting for, by The Washington Post editorial board.

THE CLOSER

And finally … 🐋 There’s nothing nicer to read on a Monday morning than a whale of a tale that includes a dog. 🦴

Here’s a video of an 11-year-old golden retriever whose human, Chrissy Lovitt, lost her whale-watching fleet in the Lahaina wildfire in Hawaii in 2023, then revived her business, which still includes her sea-loving canine, Macy.

Years of barking at sea did not lure humpback whales to swim closer, until Saturday. The snout of a curious whale and the muzzle of a four-legged sentry came oh-so close.

Macy is “obsessed with sea life and whales,” Lovitt said. “She’s 11 and I know we don’t get forever with her. But this has been on her bucket list so I’m just super happy for her.”

Stay Engaged

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