‘We’re in very good shape’: Trump dismisses tariff turmoil as ‘transition problems’
Donald Trump defended his tariff policies at a cabinet meeting on Thursday, while warning that there may be a “transition cost”. The president said:
We think we’re in very good shape. We think we’re doing very well. Again there will be a transition cost, transition problems, but in the end it’s going to be a beautiful thing.
We’re doing, again, what we should have done many years ago. We let it get out of control, and we allowed some countries to get very big and very rich at our expense. And I’m not going to let that happen.
His comments come as former US treasury secretary Janet Yellen called Trump’s economic policy the “worst self-inflicted wound” an administration has imposed on an otherwise well-functioning economy.
Key events
Donald Trump has reacted to the New York helicopter crash that killed six earlier today, calling it “terrible” and saying his transportation secretary is “on it”.
“Looks like six people, the pilot, two adults, and three children, are no longer with us,” he wrote in a social media post. “Announcements as to exactly what took place, and how, will be made shortly!”
My colleagues, Joanna Walters, Marina Dunbar and Maanvi Singh have more:
The Social Security Administration has added the names and social security numbers of more than 6,000 mostly Latino immigrants to a database used to track dead people, the Washington Post reports. The outlet cited four people familiar with the situation and records that showed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem making the request.
The news comes just hours after the New York Times reported earlier today that the Trump administration is working to effectively cancel the Social Security numbers of immigrants with legal status.
Gabrielle Canon
Letters went out to hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) today informing them their jobs had been terminated – again.
The probationary employees, many who performed important roles at the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency have spent weeks in limbo after being dismissed in late February, only to be rehired and put on administrative leave in mid-March following a federal court order.
“Well after about 3 weeks of reinstatement, I, along with other probationary employees at NOAA, officially got “re-fired” today (6 weeks after the original firing) after a temporary restraining order was lifted by an appeals court earlier this week,” Dr Andy Hazelton, a scientist who worked on hurricane modeling at Noaa posted on X. “What a wild and silly process this has been.”
On Tuesday, the US supreme court struck down that order on a technicality, ruling that the nonprofit groups who sued on behalf of the workers did not have legal standing. It’s one of several wins the highest court has granted to the Trump administration after federal judges ruled against him, including allowing deportations to continue and enabling a freeze of roughly $65m in grants for teacher training.
The letters, reviewed by the Guardian, were signed by John Guenther, acting general counsel of the US Department of Commerce, and consisted of two simple paragraphs: one reiterating that employees were reinstated and put in non-duty paid status, and a second explaining that the temporary restraining order protecting their jobs was no longer in effect.
“Accordingly, the Department is reverting your termination action to its original effective date,” Guenther wrote, adding that fired employees wouldn’t receive any pay beyond their termination date.
The impact from these firings is expected to have far-reaching effects, hampering the agency’s work to provide essential climate and weather intel. Meanwhile, the agency is bracing for the next rounds of cuts as leaders make moves to comply with Trump’s “reduction in force,” an order that will cull 1,029 more positions.
While the losses are expected to have a profound impact on the American public, the impact will be felt globally too. Scientists and forecasters around the world depend on Noaa satellites, studies, and intel, including data sharing that tracks severe weather across Europe, coordination for disaster response in the Caribbean, and monitoring deforestation and the effects of the climate crisis in the Amazon Rainforest.
Vital work has slowed or stopped as teams try to navigate the chaos, along with the threat of severe budget cuts and political restrictions.
The official terminations also came just days after the White House pulled funding for the national climate assessment, which summarizes the impacts of rising global temperatures on the United States.
The crackdown on climate science comes as the dangers from extreme weather events and deadly billion-dollar disasters continue to rise. Experts say these cuts, which will do little to limit the federal government’s budget, will only add to the threats.
Among 800 positions cut were workers who track El Niño-La Niña weather patterns around the world, people who model severe storm risks, and scientists contributing to global understanding of what could happen as the world warms.
In an interview with the Guardian last month, Hazelton said the firings across the agency and the pressures felt by those still there will affect the outcome of the work.
“It’s going to create problems across the board,” he said, adding that people are going to do their best but it will be a lot harder to achieve the mission. “It may be a slow process but the forecasts are going to suffer and as a result people will suffer.”
Anna Betts
Abrego Garcia, who has had protected legal status since 2019, is currently detained at Cecot, the notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, after he was deported by the Trump administration on 15 March.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys has previously told the court that Ice had initially attempted to deport him in 2019. At the time, immigration officials claimed that a confidential informant had told them that Abrego Garcia “was an active member of the criminal gang MS-13”, an accusation that he has denied.
That year, Abrego Garcia contested the claims and efforts to deport him and filed an application for asylum.
According to a court filing, Abrego Garcia was granted “withholding of removal to El Salvador” by an immigration judge in October 2019, a protected status that prevents an individual being returned to their home country if they can show that there’s a “more likely than not” risk that they will be harmed.
But last month, on 12 March, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys say that he was stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, who they say “informed him that his immigration status had changed”.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said in the filing that “Ice was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador”.
US district Judge Paula Xinis had ordered Abrego Garcia returned to the United States by midnight on Monday. Chief Justice John Roberts paused Xinis’ order to give the court time to weigh the issue.
That deadline has now passed and the justices directed the judge to clarify her order, which called on the administration to “faciliate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return.
The high court also said the administration should be prepared to share what steps it already has taken and what it still might do.
Supreme court orders Trump officials to facilitate return of Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador
The US supreme court has told the Trump administration it must facilitate the return of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was living in Maryland and has had a work permit since 2019, was stopped and detained by Ice agents on 12 March and questioned about his alleged gang affiliation. He was deported on 15 March on one of three high-profile deportation flights to El Salvador that also included alleged Venezuelan gang members. His family sued the administration over his deportation.
The justice department argued while Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador was an “administrative error”, his actual removal “was not error”. But officials have now been told they must ensure they handle Garcia’s return as though he hadn’t been improperly sent to El Salvador.
BREAKING: the Supreme Court orders the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Abredo Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly sent to El Salvador. pic.twitter.com/X8Fq5mAFoH
— Steven Mazie (@stevenmazie) April 10, 2025
Following last week’s news that the Trump administration cut 85% of the National Endowment for the Humanities’s grants, it appears some of that funding may be redirected to build Donald Trump’s “National Garden of American Heroes”, the New York Times reports. Trump has floated a proposal for the sculpture garden since 2020, as a symbolic celebration of patriotic Americans.
The Senate is poised to vote overnight to confirm Donald Trump’s pick for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CNN reports.
The vote will likely occur early Friday morning. Trump’s pick for the role, Air Force Lt Gen Dan “Razin” Caine, has received bipartisan support from the Senate armed services committee.
Nearly 1,000 international students and scholars have had their visas revoked or academic records terminated since mid-March. The Washington-DC based NAFSA: Association of International Educators says that it has been collecting reports in the month since immigration officials ramped up their efforts to detain or deny entry to international students and professors.
“There is no clear pattern or trend in the nationalities of the affected students,” it reports.
The Trump administration is considering placing Columbia University under a consent decree, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The decision would mark a major escalation in the federal government’s crackdown on the Ivy League institution.
My colleague Lauren Gambino has more:
A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration can require all people in the country without authorization to register with the federal government.
In a decision issued today, Judge Trevor Neil McFadden sided with the government. The requirement will go into effect Friday.
The news comes as the Trump administration is ramping up its efforts to force immigrants to “self-deport”. The New York Times reports that the administration is also working to effectively cancel the Social Security numbers of immigrants with legal status.
A day after the interior department announced sweeping planned layoffs, the agency has fired its top technology and cybersecurity leadership, Government Executive reports. The news comes after department leaders refused to grant the so-called “department of government efficiency” access to a federal personnel and payroll system.
Yesterday, interior department announced plans to consolidate and eventually lay off up to 50% of employees in IT, communications, finance, human resources and contracting departments.
Ahead of planned talks with Iran this weekend, the United States has imposed additional sanctions on the nuclear power’s “shadow fleet”.
The Trump administration imposed economic sanctions on the United Arab Emirates-based Indian national owner of several firms that transport Iranian oil illegally. The treasury department says Jugwinder Singh Brar’s ships transfer Iranian oil in the waters off Iraq, Iran, the UAE and the Gulf of Oman.
“The Iranian regime relies on its network of unscrupulous shippers and brokers like Brar and his companies to enable its oil sales and finance its destabilizing activities,” the treasury secretary Scott Bessent said.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio says the government can deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil for his “beliefs”.
In response to a judge’s request for evidence, the government submitted a two-page memo, signed by Rubio, in which it argues that the Trump administration may deport noncitizens whose “beliefs, statements or associations” represent a threat to US foreign policy interests.
Khalil is deportable because of “beliefs, statements or associations” that would compromise US foreign policy interests, the Associated Press and CNN report. the memo does not allege any criminal conduct by Khalil, a legal permanent resident who was detained last month after serving as a spokesperson for Columbia student activists protesting the war in Gaza.
The memo came just hours after Rubio spoke at a Trump administration Cabinet meeting earlier today, where he promised to revoke student visas from “lunatics”.
“If you come here to vandalize a library, take over a campus, and do all kinds of crazy things, we’re going to get rid of these people and we’re gonna continue to do it,” he said.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has deleted a social media post it shared earlier today saying that it is responsible from stopping illegal “ideas” from crossing the US border.
The news comes as immigration officials have denied entry or detained a growing number of people for their political views, including pro-Palestinian student protesters and a French scientist who was blocked from entering the US after immigration officers found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration on his phone.
“That post was sent without proper approval and should not have been shared,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told CNN. “‘Ideas,’” she added should have said “‘intellectual property’” instead.
As the New York Stock Exchange closes today, the S&P 500 is down 3.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.5%, and the Nasdaq dropped 4.3%.
My colleagues Anna Betts and Lauren Aratani report:
The falls came as the president blamed “transition problems” for the market reaction and the sell-off deepened after a White House clarification noted that total tariffs on China had been raised by 145% since Trump took office.
US stocks fall again after rally following Trump’s shock retreat on tariffs
Anna Betts and Lauren Aratani in New York
US stocks fell again on Thursday morning after a historic rally following Donald Trump’s shock retreat Wednesday on the hefty tariffs he had just imposed on dozens of countries.
The falls came as the president blamed “transition problems” for the market reaction and the sell-off deepened after a White House clarification noted that total tariffs on China had been raised by 145% since Trump took office.
Speaking at the White House, Trump said:
We think we’re in very good shape. We think we’re doing very well. Again there will be a transition cost, transition problems, but in the end it’s going to be a beautiful thing.
The sell-off comes as Democrats continue to react with anger over the sudden retreat that rattled markets, while Republicans praised Trump’s “art of the deal” in action, referencing Trump’s 1987 book.
The Dow was down 5% on Thursday morning after soaring on Wednesday afternoon. The Nasdaq Composite was down over 4% and the S&P 500 down over 3.5% after jumping over 8% and 5% on Wednesday, respectively.
The market seems to be in a state of fatigue after a rollercoaster week. Stocks were even unresponsive to news on Thursday morning that the European Union announced it will suspend 25% retaliatory tariffs against US imports and new data showed inflation in the US cooled to 2.4% in March – both would typically be cause for optimism on Wall Street.
On CNN, former US treasury secretary Janet Yellen called Trump’s economic policies the “worst self-inflicted wound” an administration had ever imposed on a “well-functioning economy”.
The day so far
Donald Trump defended his tariff policies at a cabinet meeting, saying, “We’re in great shapes,” while warning that there may be a “transition cost”. He said: “We think we’re in very good shape. We think we’re doing very well. Again there will be a transition cost, transition problems, but in the end it’s going to be a beautiful thing.” Meanwhile, former US treasury secretary Janet Yellen called Trump’s economic policy the “worst self-inflicted wound” an administration has imposed on an otherwise well-functioning economy. More on our business live blog.
Meanwhile, the president’s abrupt global tariff U-turn has sparked accusations of market manipulation and insider trading. Shortly after US markets opened on Wednesday morning, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.” His post – and its timing – is referenced in a letter from Democratic senators demanding on investigation into whether anyone in the Trump family or administration has profited from the recent tariff chaos through insider trading. As an example of concern, the senators highlight that Elon Musks’s Tesla gained 18% in value immediately following Trump’s announcement of a 90-day pause on tariffs for most countries.
In better news for the Trump administration, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, was finally successful in muscling through a multitrillion-dollar budget framework that paves the way for Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, just a day after a rightwing rebellion threatened to sink it. Despite the rocky road to passing the blueprint, that was the easy part. Now Republicans in both chambers need to come together to actually write the legislation and lay out the spending cuts they have promised to pay for the plan. Johnson has insisted that it’s possible to achieve the savings without major cuts to “essential programs” such as Medicaid. But budget experts and Democrats say the scale of the GOP’s cost-cutting goals makes it nearly impossible to achieve without significant reductions to critical programs and services.
Elsewhere:
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The US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, is stepping down from her role, a state department spokesperson has told Reuters, in a move that injects new uncertainty into the relationship between Washington and Kyiv.
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The Trump administration said it will no longer require environmental impact statements for oil and gas leases across the US west, in a step toward lifting green hurdles to drilling that environmental groups will probably challenge in court.
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The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, floated the idea of US troops returning to Panama to “secure” its strategically vital canal, a suggestion quickly shot down by the Panamanian government.
Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr claims US will know cause of autism epidemic by September
The government will identify the cause of autism by September this year, the US secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said on Thursday.
“At your direction, we are going to know by September. We’ve launched a massive testing and research effort that’s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world,” Kennedy said at a meeting of Donald Trump’s cabinet earlier.
“By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.”
Trump in February ordered the creation of a “Make America healthy again” commission made up of Kennedy and other secretaries to look at everything from the rates of autism and asthma in children to how much medicine is being prescribed to them for ADHD or other conditions.
Autism diagnoses in the United States have increased significantly since 2000, intensifying public concern. Scientists have been researching for decades what genetic or environmental factors might contribute to autism, but the causes of most cases remain unclear.
They say that the major drivers of the increase in US autism rates are an expanded definition that includes more types of behaviors and more widespread awareness and diagnosis.
Kennedy has long promoted a debunked link between vaccines and autism despite scientific evidence to the contrary.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says many studies have looked at whether there is a connection between vaccines and autism and “to date, the studies continue to show that vaccines are not associated with” autism.