"No Kings" Protests; Aid Slow for Gaza; U.S. - China Trade War Heats Up

0:02No King's events are planned across the U.S. today with large crowds expected in several cities. The rallies are intended to protest the Trump administration's policies. I'm Scott Simon. And I'm Don Gagné with Up First from NPR News. You know, they're saying they're referring to me as a king. I'm not a king. That was President Trump on Fox Business. Many Americans aren't sure he believes that. We'll tell you more about those protests. Plus, over a week into the Hamas-Israel ceasefire, much-needed humanitarian aid has been slow to arrive. We'll also look at the rising tensions in the U.S.-China trade war.

0:41Just how far will the retaliatory measures go? So stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend.

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1:32Stop by a Warby Parker store near you. This message comes from Mint Mobile. Starting at$15 a month, make the switch at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment for three months. 5-gigabyte plan equivalent to$15 a month. Taxes and fees extra. First three months only. See terms. This message comes from Carvana. Selling doesn't need to be stressful. With Carvana, it's quick, easy, and all online. Enter your license plate, get a real offer, and get paid. Visit Carvana.com to sell your car today. Americans across the U.S. are planning to take to the streets today in protest against the Trump administration.

2:13Organizers of the No Kings event say that they're demonstrating against the president's authoritarian agenda. But Republicans see the protests as unpatriotic and are trying to cast protesters as radicals. NPS Joel Rose is reporting on these protests and joins us now. Joel, thanks for being with us. Hey, Scott. Any idea of how big these protests are expected to be? The organizers are only saying that they expect millions of people to participate. They're not offering an exact prediction. But we do expect that this will be big and widespread. There are more than 2 ,600 individual events planned at locations all over the country in all 50 states.

2:51This is the second round of no kings protests. Back in June, when the first round happened, there were only 450 events. And the organizers seem confident they'll get at least as many people this time around. What other differences are there? Well, once again, the protest organizers are accusing President Trump of abusing his power. But the specifics have shifted in some ways since June. The organizers say they're concerned about the administration sending National Guard troops into American cities without the consent of local leaders, about the White House's escalating crackdown on immigrants, and what they see as the persecution of Trump's political opponents.

3:24Organizers say they're defending small-D democracy and their First Amendment right to protest peacefully. Here's Leah Greenberg from the nonprofit group Indivisible, which is one of the main organizers of these protests, on a Zoom call with reporters this week. There is nothing more American than saying that we don't have kings and exercising our right to peaceful protest. America doesn't have kings. That's our entire point. Joel, what are we hearing from Republicans? Well, they are framing the protests very differently. GOP leaders have been trying to describe the protests as hate America rallies.

3:56For example, here is House Speaker Mike Johnson at a press conference this week. I encourage you to watch. We call it the Hate America rally that will happen Saturday. Let's see who shows up for that. I bet you see pro-Hamas supporters. I bet you see Antifa types. I bet you see the Marxist in full display, the people who don't want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic. And it's not just Johnson. We've heard similar talking points from other GOP leaders comparing the protesters to terrorists and suggesting that these events are likely to turn violent. Here, for example, Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas speaking last week with Newsmax.

4:32This will be a Soros paid-for protest where his professional protesters show up, the agitators show up. We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully it'll be peaceful. I doubt it. You heard a reference there to the billionaire philanthropist George Soros. His open society foundations have given money to NPR and also to Indivisible, which is one of the groups organizing these rallies. But there is no evidence that these are paid professional protesters. And what's the response been from the organizers of the protest? Well, they have rejected those claims. They say it's ridiculous to suggest that millions of people are somehow being secretly paid to protest.

5:07And they also pushed back strongly on this attempt to smear the protesters as terrorists or somehow not real Americans and emphasize these events are intended to be nonviolent. Here's Deidre Schieffling with the ACLU, which is also involved in organizing the protests. We do not expect there to be any need for the National Guard to be deployed. But if the Trump administration attempts to do that as a way to intimidate peaceful protests, we are prepared for that. We know that several Republican governors have said they will send National Guard troops to these protests today. The organizers say they've done a lot of training around de-escalation and to make sure that the protesters know their rights.

5:44But they say they will not be intimidated into staying silent. And Piers-Jill Rose, thanks so much. You're welcome.

5:56The U.S. brokered peace deal between Hamas and Israel is in its second week. But Israeli strikes continue in Gaza. In fact, today, a family of 11, including seven children, were killed. As part of the agreement, Israel was to allow significantly more humanitarian aid into Gaza. But aid groups say that's not happening. NPR's Jane Araf has been following these developments from Amman, Jordan. Jane, thanks for being with us. Thank you, Scott. What's happened in this attack and what's happening with the ceasefire? Well, Gaza civil defense authorities say this was one of the many families returning to inspect the ruins of their home in Gaza City when Israeli forces fired a tank round at their minibus.

6:43The Israeli military said that the family was behind the yellow line where its troops are positioned and that they fired on it because they were an imminent threat. That yellow line, Scott, is visible on the map, we have to note, but not so much to families on the ground. And the ceasefire itself, it's still holding overall, but Israel still controls more than 50 % of Gaza territory. It says it plans to mark that yellow line with a physical barrier. Israel also pledged to allow 600 aid trucks per day into Gaza. Has that happened? It hasn't. The UN says that 600 is the bare minimum to keep people from starving, to provide shelter and repair infrastructure in what is a totally devastated territory.

7:33Israel is still keeping one of those main border crossings, Rafa, which is Egypt's border crossing with Gaza. And that's where many hundreds of trucks have been waiting for months to be allowed in. It has been allowing aid through two other crossings, but there it's a bit of a numbers game because Israel refers to all trucks as aid trucks. So just to give you an example, two days ago, the figures show 950 trucks entered Gaza. But a Trump administration official shed some light on that. It appears that only about 10 % of that figure were UN or international aid organizations, and most of the rest were commercial imports.

8:13Those are imports from Israel, by the way. And the United Nations has urged Israel to allow the aid organization with which it partners to continue to send aid into Gaza. Help us understand that. Yeah, that's a huge issue which hasn't received a lot of attention. The UN doesn't need to be registered, but international non-governmental organizations, INGOs, do. And Israel this year said it would shut down aid groups that didn't re-register under the new criteria. So it's begun that process. This criteria has a committee that determines whether the organizations have delegitimized Israel through statements or anything else.

8:56Here's Ivan Karkashian, the communications manager at the Norwegian Refugee Council in Jerusalem. We quickly realized that the intent behind the process wasn't to facilitate the re-registration of INGOs, of humanitarian INGOs, but rather to find a way to deregister us and to remove our ability to operate within the occupied Palestinian territory. He says his organization is in the process of trying to re-register, and that also applies to some of the biggest U.S. aid groups. If they don't, if they can't, that means they're shut down. Jane, the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees, known as UNRWA, was the biggest provider of aid in Gaza for decades.

9:45Before Israel banned staff and shipments there, is that expected to change? Israel hasn't given any indication it's lifting that ban. It had claimed without evidence that hundreds of Anurwa staff are Hamas, and the U.S. also cut funding to Anurwa. Some of that funding, but not all of it, was made up by other countries. I spoke with Anurwa's head of external relations, Tamara Rafa 'i, and here's what she had to say. We still are trying to work our way back into discussions with the U.S. You know how they say it takes a village? It takes an international community to want the situation in Gaza, in the occupied Palestinian territory, and in the region to be stable.

10:30Anirwa has been banned by Israel from sending in supplies since March. It has warehouses in Egypt and here in Jordan full of food that Anirwa says could feed the entire population of Gaza for three months. And Paris Jain Araf, thanks so much. Thank you.

10:53For a minute, it looked like progress was being made in the trade talks between China and the U.S. But after a series of aggressive moves from both countries, an agreement between the trading titans remains out of reach. All of this is happening as Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping are expected to meet in South Korea later on this month. NPR's international affairs correspondent, Jackie Northam, has been following this story, and she joins us now. Hi, Jackie. Hi, Don. Jackie, things seem to be moving toward a U.S.-China trade deal, but now tensions are rising again. What triggered this latest shift?

11:32Well, you know, things have deteriorated very quickly. I spoke with Mary Lovely, and she's a specialist on China's economy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. And she said recently the U.S. greatly expanded the number of Chinese companies that would no longer be able to access U.S. technology products. So, you know, semiconductors and software and the like. And it's a way of preventing that technology being used for China's military. Earlier this month, Beijing retaliated hard. It announced it would implement sweeping restrictions on critical minerals, which lovely says the U.S.

12:08both wants and needs. Critical minerals like the rare earths are so important to so many different things that we consider vital, not only for armaments, jet fighters, but cars and everyday items. So if this actually took place, it would be a very fast and brutal rupture of U.S.-China trade. And Don, the Trump administration was outraged at this news, and Trump threatened to call off talks with Xi Jinping and add an additional 100 percent in tariffs on China. So by withholding rare earth exports, it sounds like China is hitting America's pain point. But this tactic sounds very familiar here. Oh, yes.

12:50Beijing is essentially showing that, like the Trump administration and the previous Biden administration, it is quite willing to leverage its lead in sophisticated technology. And, you know, Mary Lovely says Beijing is simply engaging in tit for tat to get what it wants. It's kind of in your face, right? and it is very extreme. So it's kind of like we could go very far and really cause you, the United States, a lot of trouble. We're going to say we're not going to do it for a couple months. We're going to see where this goes. And that's the issue. You know, does this continue to escalate or does it calm down?

13:25And already we've seen some other retaliatory measures over the past week by both sides. What can you tell us about that? Well, you know, China currently produces more than half the world's ships and Trump wants to make the U.S. a shipbuilding nation again. So on Wednesday, he announced fees on any vessel made or owned by China. Not surprisingly, China followed suit. I spoke with Peter Tershaw, and he's a maritime trade specialist at IHS Market. He's a global information and analytics firm. And he said these fees are forcing shipping companies worldwide to readjust their routes and schedules, which will have an effect on the economy.

14:05In other words, when barriers to trade go up, that means costs go up and that means those costs have got to be absorbed somewhere in the supply chain. And Tertiwell says the fees will cost big shipping companies hundreds of millions of dollars. So given these retaliatory moves on both sides, what are the chances of Trump and Xi Jinping meeting later this month at a summit scheduled in South Korea? Most people think the chances are still good. You know, despite all of these moves, both sides do ultimately want a trade deal. But they want the other side to blink first. That's NPR's international affairs correspondent, Jackie Northam.

14:46Thanks, Jackie. Thanks, Don.

14:51And that's up first for Saturday, October 18, 2025. I'm Scott Simon. And I'm Don Gagné. Dave Mistich produced today's podcast with help from Gabe O 'Connor and Elena Quarek. Our editor has been Deepar Vaz, along with Vincent Nee, Acacia Squires, Tara Neal, Kate Bartlett, and Hadil Alshulci. Fernando Naro directed. Our technical director was David Greenberg, with engineering support from Zoe Vangenhoven and Damian Herring. Our senior supervising editor is Shannon Rhodes. E.B. Stone is our executive producer. And our deputy managing editor is Jim Kane. Tomorrow on The Sunday Story, a look at what happened when the residents of a homeless encampment in Oakland, California, fought back efforts to clear them out of the waterfront park they called home.

15:38And there's so much more for which you can join us on the radio. Find your local NPR station at stations.npr.org.

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