New tariffs imposed: Yesterday, President Donald Trump introduced he would impose a 25 p.c tariff on all imported automobiles beginning April 3, and automobile elements beginning Could 3.
Half of the automobiles bought in the USA are imported, and each automobile constructed within the U.S. final 12 months contained foreign-made elements—the industry average is about 60 p.c.*
“Shares of Toyota Motor Corp. dropped 2% in Tokyo,” stories Bloomberg. “In Europe, Stellantis NV fell 4.1%, Valeo SE sank 5.1%, Porsche AG declined 4.3% and Mercedes-Benz Group AG dipped 3.5%. Shares of General Motors Co. have been down 6.5% in pre-market buying and selling, whereas Ford Motor Co. was down 2.6% whereas Tesla Inc. inched 0.4% increased. The MSCI World Cars Index has tumbled 22% to this point this 12 months.” Markets do not love tariffs, and so they positive as hell have not been loving Trump since he is taken workplace.
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United Auto Staff President Shawn Fain says the tariffs “finish the free-trade catastrophe that has devastated working class communities for many years.” Probably not. They are going to as an alternative make it extraordinarily arduous for regular folks to afford new automobiles whereas lining authorities coffers a bit.
Trump envisions these tariffs as everlasting, not mere negotiating instruments, and he is not stopping there: “Different industry-specific tariffs are additionally within the works, with Trump threatening levies on lumber, semiconductors and pharmaceutical medication,” reports Bloomberg.
“If the European Union works with Canada so as to do financial hurt to the USA, massive scale Tariffs, far bigger than presently deliberate, will likely be positioned on them each so as to shield the perfect pal that every of these two nations has ever had!” wrote Trump on Fact Social in the midst of the evening. Once more, it isn’t clear what financial hurt he is referring to, or how he believes jacking up automobile costs for middle-class People already combating inflation will assist. (I might be remiss if I did not point out {that a} fairly scathing Trump tariffs episode—wherein I repeatedly try to steelman Vice President J.D. Vance’s financial coverage preferences and may’t fairly get to one thing cogent—will likely be dropped on the Just Asking Questions channel later today, just in time for your evening commute home.)
One final thing. These paying shut consideration would possibly discover that essentially the most American-made automobile, with its worth least affected by these insurance policies, simply occurs to be a Tesla Model 3. Fascinating. Wild that the top of that firm simply so occurs to be a really particular authorities worker.
No extra tote baggage? Dragged earlier than a Home Oversight and Authorities Reform subcommittee, NPR and PBS heads have been compelled to grapple with the bias current at their partially government-funded establishments. NPR President Katherine Maher—sure, the “truth might be a distraction” woman—”mentioned the radio community was mistaken to dismiss what was on Hunter Biden’s laptop computer as a non-story,” reports the Related Press. Higher late than by no means, I assume. “After they have been repeatedly referenced by Republicans on the committee, Maher mentioned she regretted posting some anti-Trump tweets earlier than she started working for NPR.”
Here is a full, hilarious clip of lawmakers reading Maher’s personal tweets again to her—together with these praising writer and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates and reflecting on how white supremacy manifests in her personal life—and her claiming she now not believes this stuff:
It truly is wonderful watching folks like Katherine Maher hear issues she’s mentioned and posted, and be so surprised at how absurd and ridiculous they sound that they deny saying what they’ve already mentioned
pic.twitter.com/nP2IKv3VtN— Ian Miller (@ianmSC) March 26, 2025
Cause‘s been hitting this for a very long time—the concept that NPR and PBS do not have to be funded by the taxpayers of Burlington, Iowa, or Odessa, Texas (and even by the taxpayers within the coastal-elite metropolises whose worldviews these retailers maybe higher symbolize). It is all a foul use of taxpayer {dollars}, a relic of an earlier period (58 years ago!) wherein there wasn’t practically as a lot information choice from which to decide on. “The concept we’ve an inalienable proper to Automobile Speak or Sesame Road to be piped in over tax-supported airwaves strikes me as a stretch,” mentioned Cause‘s Nick Gillespie again in 2010.
“It is time for the federal authorities to kick NPR and PBS out of the nest,” I argued in 2023. “Your taxpayer {dollars} ought to by no means have been subsidizing Huge Chook, Tiny Desk concert events, or these unbearable tote baggage within the first place, and so they actually should not now within the period of audiovisual abundance.”
Scenes from New York: Workers with the U.S. Postal Service have been charged with kidnapping a colleague and trying intercourse acts at the back of a mail observe after a celebration in Manhattan in 2023. A darkish story, and a reminder that our nation has a protracted historical past of Postal Service staff going actually insane and committing horrible crimes (thus the origin of the phrase going postal).
QUICK HITS
- Plainclothes, masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers took a Tufts University student accused of supporting pro-Palestine/pro-Hamas protests into custody, transport her off to Louisiana. It took her lawyer nearly a whole day to find her. “A visa is a privilege not a proper. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill People is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated,” said a spokesman for the Division of Homeland Safety. Rumeysa Ozturk “was transferred to Louisiana regardless of a federal decide ordering US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tuesday evening to not take away Ozturk from Massachusetts with out prior discover,” reports The Boston Globe.
- Deportations now indiscriminately concentrating on…folks with ink:
NEW: @MotherJones stories that one of many males renditioned to El Salvador is Neri Alvarado, who was working in Dallas as a baker. An ICE agent informed him they have been questioning all males with tattoos.
Neri has an AUTISM AWARENESS TATTOO in honor of his 15-year-old brother with autism. pic.twitter.com/eufotQrax2
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) March 26, 2025
- “A authorities watchdog group is suing nationwide safety leaders for his or her use of Sign to debate army actions, saying the transfer violated the Federal Information Act (FRA),” stories The Hill. In the meantime, Tulsi Gabbard, director of nationwide intelligence, told a Home Intelligence Committee that “it was a mistake {that a} reporter was inadvertently added.” Extra on the persevering with fallout here.
- “The Democrats is not going to save faculties and universities,” writes Musa al-Gharbi at The Guardian. “They’ve been key companions and pioneers for the entire actions presently being undertaken by the Trump administration on this area.”
- Honest level:
The proper place, held by nearly nobody, is that voter ID legal guidelines are eminently cheap, and in addition will make nearly no distinction to election outcomes. https://t.co/29C1pA2A4s
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) March 26, 2025
So President Trump is “utilizing battle authorities” within the absence of a declared battle when he deports Venezuelans, nevertheless it’s not “battle plans” (simply “assault plans”) to bomb the Houthis as a result of there is no such thing as a declared battle. pic.twitter.com/mNMk2ybDEo
— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) March 26, 2025
*CORRECTION: The unique model of this text misstated the share of automobiles constructed within the U.S. that use overseas elements.
