The on-again, off-again tariffs between the United States and other countries are again under scrutiny, with the U.S. president not budging. VOA White House Correspondent Carolyn Presutti reports.
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NEW YORK — Wall Street’s sell-off hit a new low Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war dragged the S&P 500 more than 10% below its record, which was set just last month.
A 10% drop is deemed a correction by professional investors, and the S&P 500’s 1.4% slide on Thursday sent the index to its first since 2023. The losses came after Trump upped the stakes in his trade war by threatening huge taxes on European wines and alcohol. Not even a double-shot of good news on the U.S. economy could stop the bleeding.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 537 points, or 1.3% Thursday, and the Nasdaq composite fell 2%.
The dizzying, battering swings for stocks have been coming not just day to day but also hour to hour, and the Dow hurtled between a slight gain and a drop of 689 points through Thursday’s trading.
The turbulence is a result of uncertainty about how much pain Trump will let the economy endure through tariffs and other policies to reshape the country and world as he wants. The president has said he wants manufacturing jobs back in the United States, along with a smaller U.S. government workforce and other fundamental changes.
Trump’s latest escalation came Thursday when he threatened 200% tariffs on Champagne and other European wines, unless the European Union rolls back a tariff it announced on U.S. whiskey. The European Union unveiled that move on Wednesday, in response to U.S. tariffs on European steel and aluminum.
U.S. households and businesses have reported drops in confidence because of all the uncertainty about which tariffs will stick from Trump’s barrage of on-again, off-again announcements. That’s raised fears about a pullback in spending that could sap energy from the economy. Some U.S. businesses say they’ve begun to see a change in their customers’ behavior because of the uncertainty.
A particularly feared scenario for the economy is one where its growth stagnates but inflation stays high because of tariffs. Few tools are available in Washington to fix what’s called stagflation.
There was good news Thursday, and it came on both those economic fronts.
One report showed inflation at the wholesale level last month was milder than economists expected. It followed a similarly encouraging report from the prior day on inflation that U.S. consumers are feeling.
A separate report, meanwhile, said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected. It’s the latest signal that the job market remains relatively solid overall. If that can continue, it could allow U.S. consumers to keep spending, and that’s the main engine of the economy.
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened the European Union with 200% tariffs on wine, champagne and other spirits produced in the 27-nation bloc after the EU levied what he said was “a nasty 50% tariff” on American-distilled whiskey.
Trump contended in a post on his Truth Social media platform that the EU is “one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World.” He said it was formed in 1993 “for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States” economically.
Later, asked by a reporter at the White House whether he might back off his heightened tariff threats against America’s geopolitical allies, Trump said, “We’ve been ripped off for years, and we’re not going to be ripped off anymore. No, I’m not going to bend at all — aluminum or steel or cars.”
In the last month, Trump has been waging a tit-for-tat tariff fight with its biggest trading partners — Mexico, Canada, China and the EU — in what he says is an effort to staunch the flow of drugs, especially fentanyl, into the United States from Mexico and Canada, and also convince manufacturers to close their operations overseas and move them to the U.S. to create more American jobs.
On Wednesday, Trump levied 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum exports to the U.S. from 35 countries, including the EU bloc.
Europe quickly retaliated with its own tariffs on $28 billion worth of U.S. exports to countries that have long had close relations with the U.S., while Canada imposed new tariffs on $20.7 billion worth of U.S. exports to its northern neighbor.
The new EU measures will apply not only to steel and aluminum products but also textiles, home appliances and agricultural goods. Motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans also will be hit, as they were during Trump’s first term that ran from 2017 to 2021.
The EU duties aimed for political pressure points in the U.S. while minimizing additional damage to Europe. EU officials have said its tariffs, which are paid by importing companies and the cost of which is then mostly passed on to consumers, are targeting products from states dominated by Republicans like Trump, such as beef and poultry from Kansas and Nebraska, wood products from Alabama and Georgia, and liquor from Kentucky and Tennessee.
Spirits producers have become collateral damage in the steel and aluminum dispute.
Chris Swonger, head of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, called the EU move to tax U.S.-produced spirits “deeply disappointing and will severely undercut the successful efforts to rebuild U.S. spirits exports in EU countries.”
The EU is a major destination for U.S. whiskey, with exports surging 60% in the past three years after an earlier set of tariffs was suspended.
On Thursday, Swonger said in a statement, “The U.S.-EU spirits sector is the model for fair and reciprocal trade, having zero-for-zero tariffs since 1997.” He urged the end to a tariff fight over spirits between the U.S. and Europe, saying, “We want toasts not tariffs.”
Trump’s tariff wars have led to a broad Wall Street stock selloff, with the three major U.S. stock indexes plunging in recent days, with stocks falling again on Thursday in midday trading. But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC he was not worried.
“We’re focused on the real economy,” he said. “I’m not concerned about a little bit of volatility over three weeks. I can’t tell you the market is going to go up today, tomorrow, next week.”
He dismissed concerns about Trump’s threat to impose bigger tariffs on European spirits.
“One or two items with one trading bloc — I’m not sure why that’s a big deal for the markets,” he said.
Trump said in his social media post that if Europe follows through on its 50% tariff on U.S.-distilled whiskey, he will impose the 200% tariff on “all wines, champagne & alcoholic products coming out of France and other E.U. represented countries. This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.”
Trump also attacked The Wall Street Journal newspaper, the country’s leading business publication, for refusing to support his tariff plans. A Journal editorial said this week that “most Americans understand that tariffs are a tax on consumers and businesses.”
The U.S. leader said the newspaper “has no idea what they are doing or saying. They are owned by the polluted thinking of the European Union.” He said the newspaper’s “thinking is antiquated and weak, and very bad for the USA.”
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. budget deficit for the first five months of fiscal 2025 hit a record $1.147 trillion, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday, including a $307 billion February deficit for President Donald Trump’s first full month in office that was up 4% from a year earlier.
The October-February deficit, which included nearly four months until Jan. 20 under former president Joe Biden, topped the previous record $1.047 trillion from October 2020 to February 2021, a period marked by high COVID-19 relief spending and pandemic-constrained revenues.
The Treasury said February’s deficit rose $11 billion from the same month in 2024, as outlays for debt interest, Social Security and health care benefits swamped growth in revenues.
The results showed little impact from Trump’s initial import tariffs on major trading partners and his administration’s efforts to slash government spending so far.
February receipts totaled $296 billion, a record for that month. That figure was up 9%, or $25 billion, compared with the year-earlier period. But outlays in February totaled $603 billion, also a record for that month, and up 6%, or $36 billion, from a year earlier.
After calendar adjustments for both receipts and outlays, the adjusted deficit would have been $311 billion, matching the record February reported budget deficit in 2021, which was driven by COVID-19.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog group, said government borrowings so far this fiscal year work out to about $8 billion a day.
“What needs no confirmation is that we are almost halfway through the fiscal year and yet we have done nothing in the way of making progress toward getting our skyrocketing debt under control,” the group’s president, Maya MacGuineas, said in a statement.
Fiscal year-to-date receipts rose 2%, or $37 billion, to a record $1.893 trillion, but outlays grew 13%, or $355 billion, to a record $3.039 trillion.
Including calendar shifts of benefit payments, the adjusted year-to-date deficit would have been $1.063 trillion – still a record – up 17%, or $157 billion, from the prior-year period.
Effects of tariffs, DOGE
Trump imposed an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports on Feb. 4, but that increase did not materially impact customs receipts last month and will likely start showing up in March data, a Treasury official said. Trump increased the extra duty on Chinese goods to 20% on March 4.
Net customs receipts totaled $7.25 billion in February, down from $7.34 billion in January but up from $6.21 billion in February 2024.
The budget results for February did not show an appreciable change in overall outlays as a result of Trump’s drive to slash the federal workforce and government spending through the informal Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, led by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
The Department of Education, a major target of DOGE for cuts, saw its outlays fall to $8 billion last month from $14 billion in the year-earlier period. The Treasury official attributed the decline to reductions in outlays for elementary and secondary education programs.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which the Trump administration is attempting to dismantle, still showed an outlay of $226 million for February, compared to $542 million in the year-earlier period.
Driving the spending growth in February and year-to-date periods were higher spending on Treasury’s interest on the public debt, outlays for Child Tax Credit payments and increased Social Security payments due in part to a 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment for 2025.
For the year-to-date period, Treasury’s interest costs for the public debt came to $478 billion, up about 10%, or $45 billion, from a year earlier and outstripping military outlays of about $380 billion. Social Security outlays grew 8% to about $663 billion.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump met Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin on Wednesday for wide-ranging talks that reflected differences over trade and the conflict in Gaza, although both leaders pledged to expand cooperation between the two countries.
The annual White House meeting around the time of St. Patrick’s Day is usually a relatively straightforward affair for both the United States and Ireland.
Trump, sitting next to Martin in the Oval Office, said “of course” he would respond to retaliatory tariffs announced Wednesday by the European Union, of which Ireland is a member, and said April 2 would mark the start of reciprocal tariffs.
“Whatever they charge us, we’re charging them,” Trump said. “If they charge us 25% or 20% or 10% or 2% or 200%, then that’s what we’re charging them.” Trump underscored his belief that higher tariffs will encourage investment and increased manufacturing in the United States.
He said Ireland had lured away U.S. pharmaceutical companies and others with low tax rates, telling Martin that while he respected that decision, he felt U.S. leaders should have acted to prevent the offshoring moves.
He said he expected to work with Ireland, calling it a beautiful country, but said the “massive deficit” in trade had to be addressed.
Martin lauded Trump’s own investment in Ireland, a golf course in Doonbeg, and said he was the only president to have invested there.
Martin also noted that companies like pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, which has extensive operations in Ireland, valued the skilled workforce and good productivity in his country but had also announced plans to invest more heavily in the U.S.
The Indianapolis-based drugmaker announced plans to plow money into four new U.S. production plants, more than doubling its investments announced since 2020 to $50 billion. It has been operating in Ireland since 1978 and currently employs more than 3,500 people across three sites there.
Irish companies were also investing more in the U.S., he said, citing investments by Ryanair and others. “It’s only fair … I think it’s a relationship that can develop.”
Trump said he expected the two countries to work together.
“There’s a massive deficit that we have with Ireland and with other countries, too, and we want to sort of even that out as nicely as we can, and we’ll work together,” he said.
While none of Trump’s trade measures has been aimed directly at Ireland, the nation of 5.4 million has a trade surplus with the United States and U.S.-owned foreign multinationals employ a significant portion of Irish workers. It will be subject to any EU tariffs, given that trade is governed by the bloc.
Trump has also threatened to place tariffs on pharmaceutical products, a major industry in Ireland.
Martin downplayed differences over Gaza, saying that both countries were pressing for the release of hostages held by Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group, and enactment of a ceasefire.
Trump has resumed his close alliance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since taking office in January, and he has said that all Palestinians should be removed from Gaza, at least temporarily, following a peace deal.
In December, Israel announced it would close its embassy in Ireland, citing the country’s “anti-Israel policies.” Among the moves Ireland has made that have upset Israel was one in May to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
The Irish leader repeated his call for a surge of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave and his support for a two-state solution, but did not directly address a question about Trump’s call for removing Palestinians from Gaza.
“Nobody is expelling any Palestinians from Gaza,” Trump shot back to a question on the issue.
The two leaders later traveled to the U.S. Capitol for a traditional lunch.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who joined Trump and Martin in the Oval Office, also hosted the Irish leader at his vice presidential residence for a breakfast.
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All three major U.S. stock indexes dropped sharply in Monday morning trading, with investors worried about the uncertainty of tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on key trading partners and then his refusal to rule out the possibility of a U.S. recession in the coming months.  

The key Dow Jones average of 30 blue chip stocks dropped more than 1%, with the broader S&P 500 index falling 2 percentage points and the tech-heavy Nasdaq barometer off more than 3 percentage points.  

The S&P 500 finished Friday with a 3.1% weekly drop, its biggest such decline in six months, and the index is down 7.4% from its all-time high set on Feb. 19. 

Trump imposed new 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian exports to the U.S. last week and then days later paused the duties until April 2, leaving it uncertain what might happen then. 

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told NBC News over the weekend, “There’s going to be no recession in America,” but Trump hedged. 

“I hate to predict things like that,” the U.S. leader told Fox News. “There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing.” He then added, “It takes a little time. It takes a little time.” 

On Monday, the sell-off of big-tech stocks continued. The stock of electric carmaker Tesla, whose chief executive is billionaire Elon Musk, a key Trump adviser, slid more than 8%.  

Other key technology stocks such as Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia and Meta Platforms all dropped by more than 2%. 

The U.S. economy, the world’s largest, has already given some signals of weakening, mostly through surveys showing increased pessimism from consumers, whose purchases account for 70% of the country’s economic output. A widely followed collection of real-time indicators compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta suggests the U.S. economy may already be shrinking. 

Analyst David Mericle at the Goldman Sachs investment company cut his 2025 year-over-year estimate for U.S. economic growth from 2.2% to 1.7%, largely because Trump’s tariffs look like they will be bigger than he was previously forecasting. He said he sees a one-in-five chance of a recession over the next year.
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Berlin — A one-day strike by workers at 13 German airports, including the Frankfurt and Munich hubs and all the country’s other main destinations, caused the cancelation of most flights on Monday.

The 24-hour walkout, which started at midnight on Sunday, involves public-sector employees at the airports as well as ground and security staff.

At Frankfurt Airport, 1,054 of the day’s 1,116 scheduled takeoffs and landings had been canceled, German news agency dpa reported, citing airport traffic management.

All of Berlin Airport’s regular departures and arrivals were canceled, while Hamburg Airport said no departures would be possible. Cologne/Bonn Airport said there was no regular passenger service and Munich Airport advised travelers to expect a “greatly reduced flight schedule.”

The ver.di service workers union’s strike also targeted the Bremen, Hannover, Duesseldorf, Dortmund, Leipzig/Halle and Stuttgart airports. At the smaller Weeze and Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden airports, only security workers were called out.

The German airports’ association, ADV, estimated that more than 3,500 flights in total would be canceled and about 560,000 passengers affected.

The union announced the strike last Friday. But at Hamburg Airport, it added a short-notice walkout on Sunday to the strike on Monday, arguing that it must ensure the measure was effective.

The so-called “warning strike,” a common tactic in German wage negotiations, relates to two separate pay disputes: negotiations on a new pay and conditions contract for airport security workers, and a wider dispute over pay for employees of federal and municipal governments.

The latter already has led to walkouts at Cologne/Bonn, Duesseldorf, Hamburg and Munich airports. Pay talks in that dispute are due to resume on Friday, while the next round of talks for airport security workers is expected to start on March 26.
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U.S. President Donald Trump is keeping new tariffs in place on Mexico, Canada and China to pressure them to block the flow of the deadly opioid fentanyl into the United States, top White House economic officials said Sunday.

“If fentanyl ends, I think these [tariffs] will come off,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told NBC’s “Meet the Press” show.

“But if fentanyl does not end, or he’s uncertain about it, he will stay this way until he is comfortable,” he said. “This is black and white. You got to save American lives.”

Trump last week issued a string of whip-sawing tariff decisions that plunged the three major U.S. stock market indexes and roiled relations with Canada and Mexico, which are long-time U.S. allies and its closest neighbors, as well as its two biggest trading partners.

Trump at first imposed 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican exports to the U.S., then exempted the duties on Mexican- and Canadian-made vehicles being transported into the U.S. and later by week’s end delayed the tariffs on almost all items for four weeks until April 2.

But Lutnick said 25% U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports will take effect Wednesday as scheduled. Canada and Mexico are both top exporters of the metals to U.S. markets, with Canada accounting for most aluminum imports.

The Commerce chief also rebuffed fears that Trump’s global tariffs would cause a recession in the United States.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “There’s going to be no recession in America.”

But Lutnick acknowledged that the tariffs would lead to higher prices for U.S. consumers on foreign-made goods.

“Some products that are made foreign might be more expensive, but American products will get cheaper, and that’s the point,” Lutnick said. It was not clear how U.S.-produced goods would become cheaper, except in comparison to foreign-manufactured products.

Trump, in a taped interview with Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” show, dodged a question about a possible recession because of his tariff boosts, but said, “There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big.”

“There could be a little disruption,” he said about stock market losses last week. “Look, what I have to do is build a strong country. You can’t really watch the stock market. If you look at China, they have a 100-year perspective. We go by quarters. And you can’t go by that.”

Trump has at various times said his new tariffs are aimed at raising government revenue, protecting U.S. jobs and pressuring foreign manufacturers to relocate their operations to the U.S., and to curb the flow of fentanyl.

Like Lutnick, Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, emphasized the fentanyl issue in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week” program. He said Trump’s tariffs targeting Canada and Mexico, along with doubling a previous 10% duty on Chinese exports to 20%, are aimed at cutting the tens thousands of fentanyl deaths that have occurred in recent years.

“We launched a drug war, not a trade war,” he said. “We hope we’ll round up the cartels” while there is a pause in the tariffs on Mexico and Canada.

“It is a big problem,” he said. “Get the drug cartels out of Canada and Mexico.”

Both Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Trump in phone conversations last week they have made strides in curbing the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. Sheinbaum sent 10,000 troops to Mexico’s northern border with the U.S. to try to curb the flow of drugs and undocumented migrants while Trudeau also ramped up border enforcement.

But it is unclear whether Trump will be satisfied enough with the Mexican and Canadian efforts to drop the tariff increases next month.

Even with the White House effort targeting fentanyl, Hassett said Trump’s economic concerns remain as important.

“He’s trying to make it so when we produce something, we produce it at home,” not in another country, Hassett said. “Bring the jobs home, bring the wealth home. If you want to increase the welfare of Americans, then produce the jobs here.”
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NEW DELHI — India said Friday it is working to lower trade barriers with the United States as it tries to reach a bilateral trade deal with Washington this year.

The two countries said after a February White House meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that they will try to reach a deal by fall, aiming to increase bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters Friday the objective of the bilateral trade agreement would be “to strengthen and deepen India-U.S. two-way trade in the goods and services sector, increase market access, reduce tariff and nontariff barriers, and deepen supply chain integration between the two countries.”

Trump has accused Delhi of imposing unfair trade barriers through high tariffs and has been putting pressure on India to cut duties on U.S. imports. India, for example, imposes tariffs of up to 110% on all car imports.

“India charges us massive tariffs. Massive. You cannot even sell anything in India,” Trump said Friday at the White House. “They have agreed. By the way, they want to cut their tariffs way down now because somebody is finally exposing them for what they have done.”

There was no immediate comment from Indian officials.

Conciliatory approach

Analysts say India has adopted a conciliatory approach on tariffs, opting to engage the U.S. in talks as it looks to avoid friction. India already has lowered duties on some imports that will benefit American companies, such as high-end motorcycles and bourbon.

“The U.S. is, first of all, India’s largest export market, so we do not want to upset that,” said New Delhi-based trade analyst Biswajit Dhar. “Then there are other considerations at play. There is a sense that the U.S. is a valued strategic partner, so we don’t want trade tensions to upset that equilibrium, also.”

While India has been spared tariffs so far from the Trump administration, reciprocal tariffs that Trump has said he will be announcing early next month could affect Indian exports to the U.S. in areas from pharmaceuticals and drugs to auto components. Two-way trade in goods between the countries was more than $129 billion last year, with Indian exports surpassing $87 billion.

Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal visited Washington this week to discuss trade issues with American officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

During remarks to an Indian television network, Lutnick called on India to reconsider its tariffs in light of the “special relationship” with the United States.

“It’s time to do something big, something grand, something that connects India and the United States together, but does it on a broad scale, not product-by-product, but rather the whole thing,” he said speaking Friday from Washington to India Today TV.

Defense purchases

He also said India must shift defense equipment purchases away from Russia and buy more from the U.S.

Analysts say purchasing more military hardware from the U.S. could help bridge India’s trade surplus with the U.S., which stood at more than $40 billion last year.

Lutnick also said he wanted India to open its market to U.S. farm exports, which New Delhi has long resisted for fear it will hurt tens of millions of India’s small farmers.

In New Delhi, trade analysts said there is room for India to lower tariffs in several areas outside of agriculture.

“I think we can lower tariffs to zero level on most industrial goods, but agriculture we don’t want to touch. It is very sensitive,” said Ajay Srivastava, founder of the Global Trade Research Initiative think tank in New Delhi. “For us, that is not a trade issue but a livelihood issue, with more than 700 million farmers depending on it for their incomes.”

Other analysts agree that tariffs on imports of farm products, a key area in which the U.S. wants access, could pose a hurdle for the two countries during negotiations.

“Agricultural products are a strict ‘no’ for India. This will cause unease here and could become a sticking point as they try to clinch a trade deal,” trade analyst Dhar said.
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WASHINGTON — Calls to revoke China’s Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status have grown louder in recent months.

In a memo released on the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump asked his Cabinet members to “assess legislative proposals regarding PNTR.” Three days later, Republican Representative John Moolenaar, the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Democratic lawmaker Tom Suozzi introduced the first bipartisan bill that would revoke China’s PNTR status.

China has held PNTR status since 2000, when Congress first passed legislation on the matter. Prior to that, Beijing’s trade status was reviewed annually.

VOA recently sat down with Republican Representative Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, who also proposed legislation, along with Republican lawmaker Chris Smith, to revoke China’s PNTR status. He said China is stealing American technology, setting up police stations in various cities across the U.S. and engaging in unfair trade practices. “One of the most important things we can do is to revoke China’s PNTR and have it renewed on an annual basis,” he said.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: The relationship between the U.S. and China has gone through dramatic changes since China entered the WTO in 2001. How do you describe the current state of U.S.-China relations? How did we get here?

U.S. Representative Tom Tiffany: I think the goodwill of the American people has been abused. When you look at the theft of intellectual property — I just mentioned the police stations, something that is anathema to American society — I believe this goes back to when most favored nation status was given to Communist China and that’s why I’ve introduced legislation with Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey to revoke that permanent status and have it be renewed annually. I believe we will get much greater accountability by the Communist Chinese government. I think this is one of the most important things that we can do. We have the largest consumer base, and that has led to prosperity for China over the last few decades. I believe they should respect that, and they have not. One way in which we can deal with this is to have an annual renewal for most favored nation status.

VOA: You represent Wisconsin’s 7th congressional district. How have the actions taken by China affected people in your district, especially on the trade front?

Tiffany: I’ll give you one example. We grow almost all the ginseng in my district, in northern Wisconsin, and the Communist Chinese have used this as a weapon in trade negotiations. Because Wisconsin is such an important state, in terms of elections, they’ve tried to turn the ginseng growers against Republicans, against President Trump, by saying we’re not going to take your ginseng anymore. Because China took a lot of America’s ginseng — it’s the best that is produced in the world — they’ve used trade, specifically in regard to ginseng, as a political weapon and that should not be the case. I’m hoping that the Communist Chinese will relent on this now and allow ginseng to be imported into their country once again in the same volumes that they did a decade ago.

VOA: Do you support imposing tariffs on Chinese goods coming to the U.S., and what are the other urgent steps that the U.S. should be taking to deal with China’s unfair trade practices?

Tiffany: I do agree with tariffs, and I like the president’s idea of having reciprocal tariffs. If you’re going to tariff 25% on a particular product, then we’re going to tariff 25% on a particular product. We would prefer to just see free trade, but it has to be fair trade.

I think there’s a couple other things that we watch very closely here in America. We see the abuse of the Uyghur people in Western China. That is unacceptable in a free society. We do not want companies importing goods that are using slave labor. We haven’t had a full accounting of what happened in the Wuhan lab with the coronavirus … it appears almost certain that it came from that lab and caused incredible damage to not just America, but countries around the world. We need a full accounting in regard to those things and China needs to provide that.

VOA: Where do you see U.S.-China relations heading in the next decade?

Tiffany: If we continue with the policies of President Trump, I think we have the potential to have good relations. You know, maybe [Chinese President] Xi Jinping chooses not to give up communism, and that’s how he wants to rule his country, and that would be very unfortunate. But I think we’d end up with better relations when we have a strong America.
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President Donald Trump said Friday that he was committed to making the U.S. a world leader in cryptocurrencies as industry leaders heaped praise on him for reversing what they said had been unfair attacks on digital assets by the previous administration. 

“I thought it was very important that we stay in the front of this one,” Trump said at the first-ever White House “Crypto Summit.” 

A former crypto-skeptic, Trump has warmly embraced an industry that’s shown him significant love in return and spent heavily to help him win last year’s election. 

“It’s truly wonderful to see how things have changed and how the pendulum has swung back,” Cameron Winklevoss, the co-founder of the crypto exchange Gemini, told Trump. 

The summit included crypto company executives, Cabinet officials and lawmakers, many of whom took turns raving about Trump’s leadership on digital assets. The emboldened industry said it was unfairly treated by the Biden administration and helped Trump and other Republicans score wins in the last election. 

Trump reiterated his eagerness to help the crypto industry with friendly legislation and light-touch regulations. 

Friday’s summit was the latest in a series of actions the new Trump administration has taken to try to boost the crypto industry. Notably, that has included the Securities and Exchange Commission’s dropping of several enforcement actions against large crypto companies, including those whose leaders were at Friday’s summit. 

On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order establishing a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,” which essentially bars the U.S. government from selling bitcoin – currently valued at about $17 billion – it has acquired through criminal and civil asset forfeiture. 

The order also allows the Treasury and Commerce departments to come up with “budget-neutral” plans for the government to acquire additional bitcoin, though no details of what those plans might look like have been released. 

The order is a significant boost for bitcoin’s credibility and legitimacy. The oldest and most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin has gone from an experiment by libertarian cryptography enthusiasts to an asset worth $1.7 trillion in less than two decades. 

“Bitcoin is special,” David Sacks, the Trump administration’s “crypto czar,” told reporters Friday. 

Trump’s order also creates a “Digital Asset Stockpile,” where the government will hold seized cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin. On Sunday, Trump sent crypto prices on a short-lived surge after a surprise announcement that he wanted the government to hold lesser-known cryptocurrencies XRP, solana and cardano. 

It’s unclear why Trump named those specific cryptocurrencies and not others. His announcement caused a stir in the crypto community about whether the government would pick winners and losers among various types of cryptocurrencies. 

Yesha Yadav, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School, said it’s clear the Trump administration wanted to avoid getting dragged into that kind of fight with the way the executive order was worded. 

“It’s unsurprising that the Trump [executive order] from yesterday has been quite neutral,” she said. 

Trump’s foray into crypto has included backing a personal meme coin and other ventures to enrich himself and his family. Those moves have drawn swift criticism from Democrats and even some crypto enthusiasts who support Trump. 

Sacks told reporters Friday that Trump’s personal crypto-related projects were “irrelevant” to the administration’s work related to the industry. That work, Sacks said, was focused on making the U.S. the world capital in crypto through fair and clear regulations that promote innovation while still protecting investors. 

Sacks added his role was not to try to persuade Americans to buy crypto. 

“You should do your homework because this is a very volatile industry,” Sacks said. “It’s not for everyone.”
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WASHINGTON — U.S. employers added a solid 151,000 jobs last month, but the outlook is cloudy as President Donald Trump threatens a trade war, trims the federal workforce and promises to deport millions of immigrants.

The Labor Department reported Friday that hiring was up from a revised 125,000 in January. Economists had expected 160,000 new jobs last month.

The unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.1% as the number jobless Americans rose by 203,000.

Employment rose in health care, finance, transportation and warehousing. The federal government shed 10,000 jobs, the most since June 2022, although economists don’t expect Trump’s federal layoffs to have much of an impact until the March jobs report. Restaurants and bars cut nearly 28,000 jobs last month on top of a loss of almost 30,000 in January.

“The labor market continues to hold up, but we’re still a far cry from where we were a year or two years ago,’” said Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo.

House expects hiring to slow and unemployment to creep higher as Trump continues to cut spending on programs and slash the federal workforce, while imposing tariffs on America’s trading partners.

The spending cuts “are likely to spill over into the private sector, hitting contractors and nonprofits, and we still have a trade war that is picking up,” House said. “There are multiple battles for the labor market to fight off, multiple shocks it’s having to work through in the months ahead.”

The economy’s unexpectedly strong recovery from the pandemic recession of 2020 set loose an inflationary surge that peaked in June 2022, when prices came in 9.1% higher than they’d been a year earlier.

In response, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023, taking it to the highest level in more than two decades. The economy remained sturdy despite the higher borrowing costs, defying expectations of a recession, thanks to strong consumer spending, big productivity gains at businesses and an influx of immigrants who eased labor shortages.

The American job market has remained remarkably resilient, but it has cooled from the red-hot hiring of 2021-2023. Employers added a decent average of 168,000 jobs a month last year. But that was down from 216,000 in 2023, 380,000 in 2022 and a record 603,000 in 2021 as the economy rebounded from COVID-19 lockdowns.

Inflation came down — dropping to 2.4% in September — allowing the Fed to reverse course and cut rates three times in 2024. The rate-cutting was expected to continue this year, but progress on inflation has stalled since summer, and the Fed has held off.

Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% last month, down from a 0.4% increase in January.

Fed officials will likely see the figures as supporting their current wait-and-see approach toward interest-rate cuts. With inflation still modestly above the Fed’s 2% target, several have made clear in recent remarks that they would like to see more progress before cutting their benchmark rate any further.

Steady hiring and an expanding economy make it easier for the Fed to stay on the sidelines. Should companies start laying off workers and the unemployment rate rise, pressure could rise on the Fed to cut rates.

On Thursday, Fed governor Chris Waller suggested a cut was unlikely at the central bank’s March meeting, adding that Fed officials would like to see more data before making any further moves.
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