Imported Steel Tariffs Double, White House Rescission Request, Gaza Aid Paused

0:00Good morning, Layla. Good morning. Just waking up? Yes, I'm so tired today. Oh, I'm so sorry. But I sound like this all the time. You're the first person I've spoken to, though. Wow, I'm touched. Do you know, I run into, like, listeners who will say that. They'll say, you're the first person who talks to me in the morning. Oh, that's sweet. Yeah. There might be variants on that. You're the first person I like who I talked to today. Everyone else in this house, get rid of it.

0:32How will new tariffs affect the cost of U.S.-made products that use imported aluminum and steel? We, as canmakers, pass these increases on to our customers. Domestic businesses consider the cost. I'm Steve Inskeep with Leila Fathol, and this is Up First from NPR News. The White House formally asked Congress to claw back some spending it had previously approved. The administration made that request after failing to cut spending very much on its own. The losses that the administration is seeing in the courts may be impacting how they think they need to approach issues. What would a vote in Congress mean for public broadcasting and foreign aid?

1:12And the U.S.-backed organization delivering food aid in Gaza has paused distribution for the day following yet another deadly shooting by the Israeli military near one of its sites. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

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2:48President Trump is doubling down on steel and aluminum tariffs, literally. Starting today, the tax on the imported metals is 50 percent, and that is double what it was yesterday. It's the president's latest move and is constantly shifting trade war. With me now is NPR's chief economics correspondent, Scott Horsley. Good morning, Scott. Good morning, Lila. So what's the president's goal in doubling these steel and aluminum tariffs? It trumps us he wants to protect the blue-collar jobs at U.S. steel mills and aluminum smelters. He announced that the tariffs going to 50 % in front of a crowd of hardhat-wearing steel workers outside Pittsburgh on Friday.

3:26And the higher tariffs likely will provide a boost for those domestic companies that produce steel and aluminum. However, for every steel worker in America, there are about 80 people who work at companies that use steel, and their cost are about to go up. So what does this mean for those businesses and their customers? Yeah, it's very challenging. I spoke to H.O. Woltz, who runs a company in Mount Airy, North Carolina, that twists steel wire into cables used in reinforced concrete. He's worried that his cost for raw materials is now going to be twice as high as what international competitors are paying on the world market.

4:00You can build all the walls and implement all the tariffs that you want to. But at a point, you don't get away from the fact that Chinese are driving this whole world market. During the first Trump administration, Walsh's company was doubly squeezed because they had to pay more for raw steel, but were still competing with imported finished goods that didn't face tariffs. This time around, he is better off because the Trump administration is also taxing some of those downstream finished goods. But Walsh worries that the tariffs might push the cost of building materials up so high that it just puts some construction projects on hold.

4:34And what other industries will be affected by these new higher tariffs? It's really widespread. You know, steel and aluminum are used in so many of the things we make or buy in this country, from auto parts to oil drilling equipment to a can of soda pop or green beans you buy at the supermarket. Robert Budway, who's president of the Can Manufacturers Institute, says about three-quarters of the steel used in soup cans and the like is now imported, so they'll be subject to these increased taxes. We know that we, as canmakers, pass these increases on to our customers, the food producers and the soft drink makers and the beer brewers, and they'll pass it on to the consumer as well.

5:13It's a lose-lose for American consumers. It's an unusual strategy for a president who campaigned and got elected on a promise to bring down the cost of groceries. Right, and canned goods are what we go to when we want to save money, really. Trump has a history with steel and aluminum tariffs going all the way back to his first term in the White House. What can we learn from that? Yeah, there's a track record here. And I should say Trump ordered these tariffs under a national security statute, which is different than the 1977 emergency law he's relied on for many other tariffs this year, and which is the subject of that ongoing legal battle we talked about last week.

5:49Catherine Russ is an economist at UC Davis who studied the effects of tariffs in Trump's first administration. She estimated those earlier tariffs resulted in loss of some 75 ,000 downstream manufacturing jobs. When there's a tariff on steel, that can drive up the cost for producers who use steel as an input to make other stuff, and that can prompt them to pull back on hiring. A survey of factory managers that came out this week showed managers complaining of being whipsawed by the cost of tariffs and the unpredictable way they've been rolled out. They said factory orders, output, and employment have all taken a beating as a result.

6:28NPR's Scott Horsley. Thank you, Scott. You're welcome.

6:36The Trump administration has formally asked Congress to take back money for foreign aid and public media. The president would like Congress to vote down money that it previously voted up. $8 billion are for the U.S. Agency for International Development. $1.1 billion are set aside to support the next two years of public broadcasting, mainly local stations. The process of taking back the money is called rescission. Congress has 45 days to approve these requests or let them die. NPR covers itself like anybody else, so we will give you the facts, and no NPR newsroom or corporate executives had any input into this story.

7:14Joining us now is NPR correspondent Fatima Tannis. Good morning, Fatima. Good morning, Leila. Okay, so let's start with this request to defund public broadcasting. What can you tell us? So this is part of the president's broader clash with major cultural institutions, as my colleague David Folkenflik has been reporting over the last few months. Now, the president and his Republican allies have accused NPR and PBS of partisan bias. President Trump issued an executive order last month that would defund both organizations. NPR CEO Catherine Marr has said that the administration is punishing public media for coverage that the president dislikes, and both NPR and PBS are challenging that order in court.

7:55Now, the White House is asking Congress to officially cancel all the funding it has set aside for the public broadcasters over the next two fiscal years. That's the$1.1 billion. It's a fraction of the overall federal budget. And to be clear, the Corporation for Public broadcasting sends much of those funds directly to member stations of NPR and PBS. In statements yesterday, the heads of NPR and PBS outlined the serious impact that losing that funding would have on their stations that reach Americans all over the country. And what do they say those implications would be? Well, they said that it would be, quote, devastating, and especially to local public media stations in rural communities that would be disproportionately harmed because they rely on Those stations, not only for news, but for life-saving emergency alerts.

8:43They also said that these cuts would accelerate the spread of news deserts. And what about that$8 billion in foreign aid that the White House wants to send back to the Treasury? What are those funds for? So they fund global health programs aimed at controlling the spread of diseases like HIV-AIDS. The White House is cutting$400 million for that. millions of dollars also in contributions to the World Health Organization, various United Nations agencies, programs related to women's health and gender issues, the environment, climate change research, that's all a part of this package. Now in the memo that the White House sent to Congress, it says some of the funds have been used for quote radical projects and that the cuts are part of an effort to quote eliminate wasteful foreign assistance programs.

9:30The memo also adds this approach best serves the American taxpayer. I mean, Fatima, you've been on this program a lot talking about the way the administration effectively dismantled USAID. So why is the White House sending these requests to Congress now? Yes, you may remember that the agency was the first to see mass staffing cuts, termination to its programs. Effectively, it's been shut down. All of that was done without congressional approval. And there have been several lawsuits where the president's power to withhold funds without congressional approval has been challenged. There's no ruling on this yet.

10:04I spoke with Jonathan Katz. He's a senior director of anti-corruption, democracy, and security at the Brookings Institution. He sees this request as a sign that the administration is hitting walls in its efforts to dismantle federal agencies. I think part of the losses that the administration is seeing in the courts may be impacting how they think they need to approach issues, including congressional funding or reorganizing government. They need to go to Congress to do these things. So this is the legal avenue for the administration to codify the cuts it has already made and there will likely be more rescission requests for all the other budget cuts the president wants to see happen across the federal government.

10:46That's NPR's Fatima Tanis. Thank you, Fatima. Thank you.

10:56A private U.S. group running food distribution sites in Gaza says it has put its operations on hold today. That's after another deadly shooting occurred near its site yesterday, killing 27 Palestinians, according to hospitals and health officials in Gaza. As with so much else about this war, there are conflicting accounts of what happened. Israeli military officials say the troops fired warning shots, quote, near a few individual suspects. but Israel says they did not fire at crowds. Airstrikes continued overnight in Gaza as Israel expands its military campaign and continues to restrict aid into the enclave.

11:33With me now is NPR's Hadil El-Shalchi in Tel Aviv for the latest. Good morning, Hadil. Good morning, Lila. Okay, the rollout of this aid distribution has been deadly, and that's not just yesterday. What can you tell us about the operations of this U.S. group? Well, nearly every day since the group started operations more than a week ago, Gaza health officials have told us that dozens of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli gunfire near sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation or GHF. Israel, of course, denies this. But because of this, the United Nations has called a delivery today in Gaza a, quote, death trap.

12:12Today, GHF said they would take a, quote, one day pause in activity. In a statement, organizers said that the sites need to prepare logistically with the Israeli military to deal with the size of the crowds arriving. They said they didn't expect 15 ,000 people in one hour to show up yesterday. I mean, it seems that the GHF didn't know how many Palestinians are sheltering close by or how many were willing to walk miles to get the food because of their desperation. And then yesterday, GHF appointed a U.S. evangelical leader, Reverend Dr. Johnny Moore, as its executive chairman. You know, before GHF started operating, the head of the group, Jake Wood, resigned.

12:53He said that the group was unable to operate according to humanitarian principles. And then the GHF says it is aware that the Israeli military is investigating casualties. But despite Israel's admission, troops fired near the site. Reverend Moore posted on social media that the shootings are a lie. Okay, so is that assertion true? I mean, what are we hearing from Gaza? I mean, first of all, remember that Palestinians have been under a total blockade for nearly three months. So people are very hungry, desperate. They're swarming the GHF sites. It's been chaotic. And we've talked to people who say they storm the sites.

13:29They grab however many boxes they can. They also tell us that they leave empty handed. And there are the shootings. You know, we have heard from doctors in hospitals say that they are receiving victims. For example, we spoke to Ahmed Abuswed. He's a doctor volunteering from Australia at Nasser Hospital in Gaza. Here's what he had to say. The basic supplies they do have are dwindling and they're consuming them at a rapid rate because of the sheer volume of mass casualty events that come through this hospital. So he says that the hospital just can't keep up with the number of people getting shot and injured in those sites or around those sites.

14:04And you mentioned that Israel denies shooting into the crowds. What other things have they said about these incidents? Well, yesterday, the Israeli foreign minister, the PMO, and the Israeli military all held press conferences. Their messages were the same. They say that they've repeated throughout the week that the multiple deadly shootings are exaggerated and hyped up by the media. NPR's Hadil El-Shalchi in Tel Aviv. Thank you, Hadil. You're welcome.

14:33And that's up first for Wednesday, June 4th. I'm Leila Faldig. And I'm Steve Inskey. Keep your next listen can be Consider This from NPR News. Up First gives you the three big stories of the day. Consider This goes deep into a single story 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 Pallavi Gagoi, Jerry Holmes, Carrie Kahn, Lisa Thompson, and Adriana Gallardo. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from David Greenberg, and our technical director is Carly Strange.

15:08Join us again tomorrow.

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