China Tariffs, El Salvador President In DC, Meta Antitrust Trial

0:02There's now a carve-out for electronics on those steep tariffs the US slapped on Chinese goods. but maybe not for long. Publicly, China showed defiance in the face of this trade war. Are the U.S. and China any closer to negotiations? I'm Leila Faldil with Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News. El Salvador's president is in D.C. for a meeting with President Trump. Naive Bukele has taken hundreds of people deported from the U.S., alleging they're gang members. Bukele has called himself the world's coolest dictator, but has few fans among human rights advocates after locking up his own citizens without due process.

0:39What comes out of this meeting? And the Federal Trade Commission is taking on social media giant Metta in court. The case centers on whether Metta broke competition laws when it acquired Instagram and WhatsApp. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

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1:40Get market insights, education, and human help when you need it. This message comes from Rince, who knows that greatness takes time. So does laundry. So Rince will take your laundry and hand-deliver it to your door, expertly cleaned. And you can take the time pursuing your passions. Time once spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating and pushing your way to greatness. So pick up that Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or the daunting Beef Wellington recipe card and leave the laundry to Rince. Rinse. It's time to be great. Over the weekend, there were no new tariffs on Chinese goods coming into the United States or on U.S.

2:20goods flowing into China. In fact, late on Friday, the Trump administration outlined a substantial carve-out for mobile phones, computers, and other electronics. But that may not last very long, and either side appears ready to back down. NPR's John Ruit has been following all these twists and turns from Beijing, and he's with us now to tell us more. Good morning, John. Good morning. So no new tariffs. And what about that carve out for electronics? Can you tell us more? Yeah, late on Friday, Customs and Border Protection posted a notice online. It was full of legalese and arcane tariff codes. And what it translated into was no tariffs on mobile phones, computers, memory chips, flat screens, LEDs, stuff like that.

3:01This is substantial because electronics account for roughly a quarter of Chinese exports to the U.S. China's commerce ministry responded fairly quickly over the weekend, calling it a small step toward correcting the error of imposing those so-called reciprocal tariffs on China and on other countries. How is this being interpreted? Is it seen as a sign of goodwill or maybe a face-saving way to de-escalate this trade war that Trump started? It was initially, but it doesn't look like it is. You know, Trump's come out on social media to say that nobody's getting off the hook. Look, these products are just moving to a different tariff bucket.

3:37Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick explained it on Sunday on ABC's This Week. So all those products are going to come under semiconductors and they're going to have a special focus type of tariff to make sure that those products get reassured. So he's saying they're exempted from the so-called reciprocal tariffs that Trump announced so that they're sort of off the menu for negotiation. Why? Because they're going to be lumped in with semiconductors under a separate tariff that he says will be announced in the next month or two, and not just on China. And the idea is to force supply chains of those products back to the U.S.

4:10So where do things stand from China's perspective? Well, China's been pretty consistent. They've projected defiance throughout this. You know, Trump seems to be waiting for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to pick up the phone and call him. That's not how China operates. It doesn't mean that they're not open to discussion, though. I asked Andy Rothman about this last night here in Beijing. He advises investors and corporate boards on China, and he's been on a trip here meeting companies and contacts. I think the Chinese have made clear they want to negotiate. They want to resolve this problem, but they're not sure what the U.S.

4:42is looking for. They're also very unsure about what the U.S. is willing to offer in return. Meanwhile, China has taken steps to, you know, gird for these tariffs. One part of that is deepening relations with other countries, in particular neighbors. And it just so happens that Xi Jinping left today on his first overseas trip of the year. OK, now that's interesting. So where is he headed? First stop is Vietnam. He's in Hanoi now. He heads to Malaysia next for three days and then to Cambodia. The Chinese government's projecting China as sort of an anchor in rough seas, a reliable trading partner.

5:15In fact, Xi had a piece in the Vietnamese Communist Party's mouthpiece newspaper today calling for joint efforts to protect the multilateral trading system and maintain stable supply chains. But these Southeast Asian countries are in a tough spot. They've all benefited to some extent from the trade friction between the U.S. and China in recent years because manufacturing has moved their way. And also, they are all negotiating or seeking to negotiate with the Trump administration to keep the tariffs off. That is NPR's John Ruch in Beijing. John, thank you. You're welcome.

5:52El Salvador's president is expected to meet with Donald Trump at the White House later today. Yeah, Nayib Bukele is the man the Trump administration paid to imprison hundreds of people deported from the U.S. and accused of being gang members. El Salvador got about$6 million in that deal. Those deportations are facing numerous legal challenges in the U.S. Bukele is no darling to human rights organizations because he's imprisoned thousands of his own citizens with no due process. He's called himself the world's coolest dictator. To hear more about this, we're joined by freelance reporter Manuel Ureira.

6:27He's following all this from Medellin, where you can hear that it is pouring rain. Hopefully he's indoors. Good morning, Manuel. Good morning. So this is the first leader from a Latin American nation to get an official invitation to the White House in President Trump's second term. What is Trump trying to get out of this meeting? Well, in Latin America, the Trump administration has been looking for allies that will help it to deliver quickly in its priorities. And in this case, it's the effort to reduce immigration to the United States. In March, El Salvador took in more than 200 Venezuelan migrants who were accused of being GAM members and were deported from the U.S.

7:03in an expedited and controversial fashion. Bukele put them in a notorious prison known as the SECOT. There have been more deportation flights like that since then, the latest on Sunday. During this visit, both sides might talk about how to expand those kinds of partnerships, including the possibility of sending some U.S. prisoners to El Salvador to be incarcerated there. So this has obviously been hugely controversial in the United States. Has there been any pushback in El Salvador about this kind of deal? Well, in El Salvador, Bukele is a hugely popular president, and many people don't mind his prison system.

7:41That's because El Salvador used to be one of the most violent countries in the world, with fighting between gangs controlling daily life in many communities. But in 2022, Bukele declared a state of emergency, which is still ongoing, that gave the police the power to arrest anyone they suspect of being a gang member and lock them up for months at a time without any kind of due process. Since those policies began, the number of homicides in El Salvador fell by 75%, consent and gangs lost their grips on many communities where they were taxing local businesses. Of course, human rights groups have been very critical of these tactics.

8:15Another concern is that people who get sent from the U.S. to El Salvador will basically be treated in the same way that local prisoners are treated and disappear into the system. Last month, a Maryland resident, Gilmar Abrego Garcia, was sent by mistake to El Salvador. The Trump administration admitted it was a mistake. His family hasn't been able to get in touch with him yet, despite the Supreme Court's insistence that he should be brought back. On Sunday, the Justice Department said the courts had, quote, no authority to force El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia. So the question now is if Trump will discuss with Bukele the return of this Maryland resident.

8:55And what about Mr. Bukele? What might he be looking for in this visit? Well, I think one big thing is that this gives him the validation of the United States, something that helps Bukele to dismiss the criticism he gets from human rights groups at home. By shoring up relations with the Trump administration, Bukele might also be trying to reduce tariffs on El Salvador's exports. El Salvador is the U.S.'s main trading partner. They send about 30 percent of their exports to the United States. That is freelance reporter Manuel Rueda. He's reporting from Medellin. Manuel, thank you. Absolutely.

9:34A case considered the most significant legal challenge in Meta's history starts today in Washington, D.C. Yeah, the trial pits the Federal Trade Commission against the social media giant. It's expected to last two months, and executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are set to take the witness stand. The case centers on this question. Did Meta break competition laws when it acquired Instagram and WhatsApp? NPR's Bobby Allen joins us to talk about what the trial could mean for the future of Meta and the entire social media landscape. Welcome, Bobby. Thanks for joining us. Hey there, Michelle.

10:08What exactly is the government's case against Meta and what is it asking for? The FTC says Meta acquired Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp two years later as part of a strategy to eliminate competition and maintain monopoly power over the whole social media market. The government says Meta was motivated by a buy or bury strategy, meaning Meta would try to purchase a rival or put them out of business entirely. The FTC says this is illegal and the only way to remedy it is for Meta to be broken up. So the FTC is pushing for Instagram and WhatsApp to be spun off in two separate companies. The government says this will allow smaller social media companies to compete for consumers and ad dollars and loosen Meta's grip on the industry.

10:51And as you might imagine, Michelle, Metta is fighting back against this pretty hard. Do we have a sense of how Metta is likely to respond in court? Yeah, Metta is expected to say it's always competed fairly and that regulators are trying to punish the company for being so successful and so innovative. Lawyers for Metta have said in court filings that, you know, the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. And look, they were quite prescient and made the company really successful. Metta says they were approved by regulators at the time. So to go back years and try to unwind these deals, Meta says is unreasonable.

11:24Meta also says by breaking up an American tech company, who are you going to benefit? Rivals abroad, including Chinese competitors. What would it mean for people who use Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp if Meta had to spin them off into separate companies? Well, the FTC says it would mean more competition and therefore better quality social media services. The FTC says since Meta is a monopoly, all of its apps have become pretty lousy and full of intrusive advertising. The agency also says privacy protections for users has suffered. So, you know, if the FTC is to be believed here, a breakup would mean just better quality social media apps for all of us.

12:02But Meta says the opposite, that a breakup would make each of its individual apps less integrated and just worse overall. So we have been talking about the legal case just now, but let's pivot back to the politics. Does Mark Zuckerberg's relationship with Trump play into this? Yeah, this case first started in Trump's first term. That's when Trump was at war with Zuckerberg. And until very recently, Trump has not been a fan of him. Trump even threatened to throw Zuckerberg in prison before the 2024 presidential election, saying if Zuckerberg did anything to hurt Trump on the campaign trail, he would, quote, spend the rest of his life in prison.

12:36Now, in recent months, Zuckerberg has been ingratiating himself with the Trump administration like so many others in Silicon Valley. Zuckerberg has publicly praised Trump. Meta donated a million dollars to Trump's inaugural committee fund. He made these company-wide shifts to appease Trump, like ending Facebook and Instagram's fact-checking program and rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Zuckerberg has also made several visits to Trump's Mar-a-Lago, and there has been tons of speculation in Washington about whether the Trump administration would settle with Meta and not go forward with his trial.

13:08But so far, Michelle, all indications are that this case will be going on for weeks inside of a federal courtroom in Washington. That is NPR's Bobby Allen. Bobby, I know you'll be watching it. So thank you. Thanks, Michelle.

13:22And that's up first for Monday, April 14th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Leila Faldin. For your next listen, consider this from NPR. We here at Up First give you the three big stories of the day. Our Consider This colleagues take a different approach. they dive into a single news story and what it means to you. Learn about a big story of the day in less than 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Ryland Barton, Tara Neal, Brett Neely, Mohamed Elvardisi, and Jenea Williams. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Adam Bearn, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas.

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