Trump's New Tariffs, China Reacts To Tariff Ruling, State Of The Union Poll

0:28What did you just say? This is from Mara Liason. I'm Steve Inskeep with Leila Faddle, and this is Up First from NPR News. The president's new global tariff rate is far lower than the taxes he raised, then re-raised, then lowered and raised on imports from China. Trump lost leverage just as he was announcing a trip to meet China's president. What does that mean for his trade war? And heading into President Trump's national address tomorrow night, a new poll finds most Americans say the State of the Union is not strong. We'll break down the numbers and what they mean in a midterm election year. Stay with us.

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1:58It took President Trump almost no time to resume his signature economic policy, raising and lowering tariffs on an almost daily basis. The Supreme Court struck down Trump's tariffs on Friday, saying he violated the Constitution and the law that he cited. Trump immediately claimed the authority of a different law to impose a global tariff of 10%. And then one day later, he said, let's make that 15. The lawyer who won the case before the Supreme Court tells NPR those tariffs are also illegal and his clients may sue again. NPR senior political correspondent Mara Liason is covering the political cost.

2:34Good morning, Mara. Good morning. Okay, so there are already questions about whether this new move by the president is legal. Can the president raise tariffs on his own? He says he can. He says he's now going to put, as you said, global tariffs of 15 % under a different section of the Trade Act. But these new sections are much more cumbersome than the sweeping powers he had claimed that the Supreme Court struck down. For instance, some of these new tariffs will only last 150 days before Congress has to weigh in. Other ones could be permanent, but they require months of investigations. And if he's going to China in April to meet Xi Jinping, he just lost a big piece of his leverage because he won't be able to issue tariffs by proclamation for any reason he wants whatsoever.

3:16Okay, so that's the international impact that you mentioned there. Let's go domestic now. How much does it matter that we're in a midterms year? It matters a lot. The politics are very complicated. At first glance, the ruling was seen as a godsend for Republicans. They were not going to have to defend Trump's unpopular tariffs. Maybe prices would go down. But that optimism among Republicans lasted about five minutes because Trump immediately said that not only was he going to put more tariffs on under a different authority, But that means he has to ask Congress to vote on the tariffs, and Republicans on Capitol Hill will have to show their loyalty to Trump by voting to impose the tariffs, taking even more ownership of an unpopular policy that a majority of voters believe have driven their costs up.

3:57Now, Trump might back off. He might not have the votes. We just saw six House Republicans vote with Democrats against the tariffs on Canada. How are Democrats responding? Well, several Democratic governors, including Illinois' J.B. Pritzker and California's Gavin Newsom, demanded that the White House pay back tariff revenues to their states. The administration pushed back on that, saying that has to work its way through the courts. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was asked about the impact of tariffs on Fox News Sunday yesterday. Here's what he said. The trade deficit has not been meaningfully closed.

4:30That's number one. Point number two is that we know farmers and small business owners, companies, as well as perhaps most importantly, the American consumer have been hurt, being forced to pay thousands of dollars more per year in additional expense when the affordability crisis right now is already crushing everyday Americans, middle class Americans and working class Americans. And we also haven't seen a return of manufacturing jobs to the United States of America, which is what the Trump administration promised would take place. So the short translation, Trump made you pay more and it wasn't even legal.

5:04That's likely to be the Democrats' message going into the midterms. OK, before I let you go, Mara, the State of the Union is on Tuesday. What will you be listening for? Well, the timing is pretty auspicious. The State of the Union's or any president's biggest opportunities to speak to the public. And the big question for me is how much time Trump will spend in his State of the Union address excoriating the Supreme Court justices who will be sitting right in front of him. Will he repeat his insults, call them lapdogs and fools? or how much time he will be talking about affordability. That's something he has struggled to do consistently for months.

5:35NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Lyson. Thank you, Mara. You're welcome. Many of America's trading partners are trying to make sense of the state of U.S. tariffs. And that would include China, which has been a major target of the president's tariffs. NPR's China correspondent Jennifer Pack is in Shanghai and joins me now. Good morning, Jennifer. Good morning. So what's been the reaction in China to the Supreme Court's ruling and Trump's new 15 % tariffs? So this morning, China's Ministry of Commerce issued a statement saying it's making a full assessment of the ruling. It's also urged Washington to lift unilateral tariffs on its trading partners.

6:12Now, that's the official view. On the ground, Chinese business owners who deal with the U.S. are cautiously optimistic, I'd say, about this development. I spoke to a shoe manufacturer based in southern China in Guangdong province. James Gao owns this company called ShoeBot, and he says Friday's news sounds positive, but... From my side, I don't really know what this change exactly means. Because, he says, it all comes down to how it's enforced and what's next. Like, when he loads his shoes on a ship today, will it be the same tariff rate when it arrives in the U.S.? You know, this past year has just been a rollercoaster ride with tariffs.

6:49Wow, I mean, obviously a real concern that it could change just on that journey. At one point last year, the tariffs and counter tariffs from both sides were over 100 percent. How are Chinese businesses you've been speaking to coping with the decision making from Washington? Well, they've been living with uncertainty for quite a while since Trump's first term when he launched a trade war with China in 2018. So Chinese manufacturers that are still standing, they've built this uncertainty into their business model by looking for ways to hedge the tariffs. So take that shoe manufacturer you heard from earlier.

7:22James Gao, he's expanded his manufacturing to Vietnam, where the U.S. tariff rate is lower there than the ones placed on China. So right now, most of his athletic shoes destined for the U.S. are made in Vietnam. But that hasn't meant that he cuts China out of his operations. He says for more specialized shoes, he still uses his factory in China because they have the high-end machinery and technical know-how here. China is still the place to manufacture high-quality stuff. And on the government level, Beijing has been trying to diversify its trading partners. And they've been doing it for some years now.

8:00In other words, they're trying to be less reliant on trade with the U.S. And they've had some success. OK, so now President Trump is about to head to China in a few weeks. How might this Supreme Court ruling influence the trip? Before the Supreme Court's decision, both the US and China put a brief pause on some trade restrictions and the higher tariffs on each other's exports. Now, President Trump has used tariffs against China as a threat to lower the trade deficit, to stop intellectual property theft, to stop the flow of chemicals used to make street fentanyl. So in theory, this decision on Friday by the Supreme Court might weaken Trump's hand.

8:39However, China also has its own issues. Its domestic economy is sluggish. Consumption has been weak, which is why some Chinese manufacturers have been selling more to other countries. And now some of those countries, they're starting to push back on cheap Chinese exports, saying that those exports are destroying their local industries. So China really needs the relationship with the U.S. to stabilize. And like the Chinese Commerce Ministry has said, when the U.S. and China fight, both sides hurt. That's NPR's Jennifer Pack in Shanghai. Thank you so much for your reporting. Thanks for having me.

9:21The State of the Union is not strong. That's according to the majority of respondents in the latest NPR PBS News Marist poll out today. President Trump is said to give his update on the State of the Union tomorrow night. To tell us more about the findings of this survey is NPR's senior political editor and correspondent, Domenico Montanaro. Domenico, good morning. Hey, great to be with you. What did the survey say about the State of the Union? Well, I mean, 57 percent say that it is not strong. That's up four points from last year. That includes eight in 10 Democrats and nearly seven in 10 independents who say that it's not strong.

9:58Three quarters of Republicans, though, say that it is strong. Maybe no surprise, given that Trump is in office and they've backed him on almost everything else. Are there other notable divides other than political party? Yeah, I mean, there are really big splits by education and gender. I mean, of those with college degrees, 69 % say that the State of the Union is not strong. Those without degrees, though, are split 50-50. Women, 63 % say that the State of the Union is not strong. That's 12 points higher than men. Both of those divides have been really pronounced throughout this decade with Trump on the political scene and how people view him.

10:34And here on the eve of Trump's report about the country, it really gives a good view of how some Americans are seeing things. Yeah. What else jumped out at you? Yeah, we asked about whether people thought the country was better off or worse off than a year ago, just after Trump came into office. 60 % say that the country is worse off now. 55 % see the direction that Trump is moving the country as, quote, change for the worse. And that, by the way, is the highest number that Trump has faced in either of his terms in our poll. Interesting. I also thought it was interesting in this survey that we asked people whether they think there's a threat to democracy.

11:10What did we find? Yeah, here's one place where majorities across parties agreed, you know, saying that there is a serious threat to democracy. You don't get almost eight in 10 people in polling agreeing on much, but that's what we found here. Nine in 10 Democrats, eight in 10 independents, 61 % of Republicans all say that there's a serious threat. Now, as we know from other surveys and conversations we've had with voters, what they see as those threats in many cases is very different. Democrats see the country backsliding on liberal democracy. Republicans have concerns that elections aren't secure, something Trump has pushed to explain away his 2020 loss despite evidence to the contrary.

11:50We also asked whether the system of checks and balances in the country is working two-thirds say it is not. Here again, though, with Trump in office, Democrats and independents overwhelmingly say that it's not working. But a majority of Republicans do see it working well. And that makes some sense because Republicans in Congress, as we've seen, haven't put many checks on Trump during his first year as he's tried to centralize power. Many of these splits feel like what we've seen all along when it comes to Trump. Yeah, I asked our pollster about this, and he said that views of Trump are very, quote, baked in, in his words.

12:24And, you know, that makes Trump's challenge at the State of the Union all the more difficult. He's facing a very skeptical public in a midterm election year, and those are generally not very good for the party in power anyway. And whatever he says as it relates to midterm messaging is going to set the backdrop for the next several months until those November elections. You know, people have been saying that prices, the cost of living are their top concern and don't think that the Trump administration is focused on it enough. You know, Trump has mostly sidestepped it and focused on other things like immigration, foreign affairs.

12:54But how does he try to reset that, if at all, tomorrow night? That's NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro. Thank you, Domenico. You're welcome. This news probably pulls well. The U.S. ended the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy with a triumph. They won the gold in men's hockey. They beat their longtime rivals from Canada 2-1 in overtime. The first time Americans won gold in Olympic hockey since 1980. The American women's team won hockey gold, too. Those are just two of the 12 gold medals won by Team USA in the games. If you're keeping track, the United States won 33 medals overall, making it the best winter games showing in decades for the United States.

13:36Although that was not good enough to beat out the Norwegians, who won 41 medals.

13:45And that's Up First for Monday, February 23rd. I'm Leila Faldin. And I'm Steve Inskeep. For tomorrow's top three stories, follow Up First on your podcast app and you get coverage of the news you need to start your day delivered directly to you when you wake up. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Krishnab Kallamer, Vincent Nee, Dana Farrington, Mohamed El-Bardisi and H.J. Mai. It was produced by Ziad Batch and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hainas. And our technical director is Carly Strange. Join us again tomorrow.

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