President Donald Trump has signed executive orders to relax some of his 25% tariffs on automobiles and auto parts, a significant reversal as the import taxes threatened to hurt domestic manufacturers.
Automakers and independent analyses have indicated that the tariffs could raise prices, reduce sales and make U.S. production less competitive worldwide. Trump portrayed the changes as a bridge toward automakers moving more production into the United States.
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That’s according to two senior Ukrainian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko is currently in Washington for the final coordination of the agreement’s technical details, the sources said.
The Ukrainian Cabinet is expected to approve the agreement’s text earlier Wednesday, after which it will be signed by an authorized government representative. The deal will then require ratification in the Ukrainian parliament before it can take effect.
▶ Read more about the Russia-Ukraine war
— Samya Kullab and Hanna Arhirova
The economy shrank 0.3% from January through March, the first drop in three years. It was slowed by a surge in imports as companies in the United States tried to bring in foreign goods before Trump imposed massive tariffs.
The January-March expansion was the slowest in almost three years and was down from 2.4% in the last three months of 2024. Imports shaved 5 percentage points off first-quarter growth. Consumer spending also slowed sharply.
Trump inherited a solid economy that had grown steadily despite high interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve to fight inflation. His erratic trade policies — including 145% tariffs on China — have paralyzed businesses and threatened to raise prices and hurt consumers.
▶ Read more about the state of the economy
The speech planned for Wednesday comes amid speculation about whether she’ll mount another presidential campaign or opt to run for California governor.
Harris will address the 20th anniversary gala for Emerge America, an organization that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office that grew in part from Harris’ run for San Francisco district attorney in the early 2000s.
Her speech also comes the day after Trump reached 100 days in office. It’s expected to be her most extensive public remarks since leaving office in January following her defeat to Trump, with planned critiques of the Republican president’s handling of the economy, U.S. institutions and foreign policy.
▶ Read more about Kamala Harris’ speech
The gun violence prevention advocacy group is naming the former top official in the Biden administration’s office of gun violence prevention as its president.
Greg Jackson was deputy director of the White House office of gun violence prevention. A first for the federal government, the office was created under President Joe Biden but closed by Trump in the early days of his second term.
Jackson will serve as a president of the Rocket Foundation, which is dedicated to preventing gun violence. The group was founded by the rapper Quavo and hosted a summit in Atlanta last June attended by then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
Quavo’s nephew, the rapper Takeoff, was killed in a 2022 shooting and the Rocket Foundation seeks to turn his death into a force for change.
The U.S. government has begun shedding new light on a crackdown on international students, spelling out how it targeted thousands of people and laying out the grounds for terminating their legal status.
The new details emerged in lawsuits filed by some of the students who suddenly had their status canceled in recent weeks with little explanation.
In the past month, foreign students around the U.S. have been rattled to learn their records had been removed from a student database maintained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some went into hiding for fear of deportation or abandoned their studies to return home.
On Friday, after mounting court challenges, federal officials said the government was restoring international students’ legal status while it developed a framework to guide future terminations. In a court filing Monday, it shared the new policy: a document issued over the weekend with guidance on a range of reasons students’ status can be canceled, including the revocation of the visas they used to enter the U.S.
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The Trump administration has told Congress that it intends to designate Haitian gangs as foreign terrorist organizations, people familiar with the notification told The Associated Press.
The State Department similarly labeled eight Latin American crime organizations in February as it ratcheted up pressure on cartels operating in the U.S. and anyone assisting them. The new move indicates that the administration plans to put similar pressure on gangs from Haiti. The designation carries with it sanctions and penalties for anyone providing “material support” for the group.
It comes after a series of steps against the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which was designated a foreign terror organization and then dubbed an invading force under an 18th-century wartime law to justify the deportation of Venezuelan migrants to a notorious El Salvador prison under Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown.
Trump, at a rally in Michigan on Tuesday, touted his designation of the six Latin American crime groups as foreign terrorist organizations, including MS-13 and Tren de Aragua.
▶ Read more about the designation of Haitian gangs
Trump on Tuesday celebrated the 100th day of his second term — yet spent much of his rally marking it in campaign mode, fixated on past grudges and grievances.
He repeatedly mocked his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, attacking his mental acuity and even how he appears in a bathing suit. He again uttered the lie that he won the 2020 presidential election. And he attacked polling and news coverage not favorable to him.
And Trump again and again returned to immigration, his signature issue, at the rally that marked his largest political event since returning to the White House — boasting about his administration’s “mass deportation” efforts that have sent arrests for illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border plummeting.
▶ Read more about Trump’s Michigan rally
American businesses are cancelling orders from China, postponing expansion plans and hunkering down to see what trade policy surprises President Donald Trump plans to spring on them next.
The president’s massive and unpredictable taxes on imports seem likely to mean emptier shelves and higher prices for American shoppers, perhaps within weeks.
And the higher costs and paralyzing uncertainty could exact an economic toll: U.S. consumers are in the biggest funk since COVID-19 hit five years ago, and economists say recession risks are climbing.
An early sign of the damage is expected to emerge on Wednesday when the Commerce Department releases its first look at first-quarter economic growth.
The economy is forecast to have expanded at an annual pace of just 0.8% from January through March, according to a survey of economists by the data firm FactSet. That would be the slowest quarter of growth in nearly three years and would be down from a
▶ Read more about the impact of Trump’s tariffs on China
Trump signed executive orders to relax some of his 25% tariffs on automobiles and auto parts, a significant reversal as the import taxes threatened to hurt domestic manufacturers.
Automakers and independent analyses have indicated that the tariffs could raise prices, reduce sales and make U.S. production less competitive worldwide.
The amended order provides a rebate for one year of 3.75% relative to the sales prices of domestically assembled vehicles. That figure was reached by putting the 25% import tax on parts that make up 15% of a vehicle’s sales price. For the second year, the rebate would equal 2.5% of a vehicle’s sales price, as it would apply to a smaller share of the vehicle’s parts.
A senior Commerce Department official, insisted on anonymity to preview the order on a call with reporters, said automakers told Trump that the additional time would enable them to ramp up the construction of new factories, after automakers warned that it would take time for them to shift their supply chains.
▶ Read more about the new executive order
