00:00 Speaker A
President Trump may be rolling back some of his planned tariffs. According to the Financial Times, the president may be narrowing the scope of his steel and aluminum tariffs and our Washington correspondent Ben Worskill is with me now to discuss. You know, this follows the roll back of various sort of specific tariffs that we have been seeing gradually. So what do we know about this potential one and and the effect it could have?
00:23 Ben Worskill
Yeah, so the you’re right that this would be kind of the latest in a in a string of of tariff concessions from Trump, scaling back some of his tariffs in response to these affordability concerns that have emerged as a giant political issue. In terms of this one specifically, the debate here appears to be um amid the administration about scaling back tariffs on specific goods that have steel and aluminum in them. Basically excluding those goods, which would then lower the prices of those goods. This overall would be a really significant pivot for Trump if this goes forward on the signals from the White House are that it’s still a debate going on, but it’s clearly under consideration here.
00:58 Ben Worskill
Because how important steel and aluminum tariffs have been to the president. Going back all the way to his first term. Remember even in his second term, steel these new tariffs were some of the first ones out of the gate and you see Trump Trump officials often traveling to things like US steel plants to tout these tariffs as as as protecting this industry there.
01:13 Ben Worskill
So far the White House response today has been to kind of downplay these, but acknowledge that there is a debate here. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett was on CNBC, and he described it as a potential clarification on incidental objects. Still don’t have a lot of details on what exactly the objects would be there, but the reporting we have is broader than that. These are these are a lot of a lot of goods that could affect a lot of people.
01:36 Ben Worskill
Um, in the reporting this morning, washing machines, ovens, pie tins and drink cans were all mentioned as possible possible exclusions here. That lowering prices there would quite literally hit hit folks hit hit hit home for folks in these lower prices as these affordability worries continue this midterm here.
01:54 Speaker A
Meanwhile, we’re on shutdown watch, right? Right now, it looks like um that Polymarket is is pricing in a 25% chance that there could potentially be a shutdown after Democrats voted to block a motion to advance a House passed bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. So, Ben, what does this what’s a partial shutdown and what what is the whole situation here?
02:22 Ben Worskill
Yeah, we seem very likely to be headed into a shutdown. It’s only a few hours away. This this partial shutdown would happen at midnight tonight. Many lawmakers have actually already left Washington. This is the beginning of a recess, somewhere traveling overseas. So it seems very high likelihood that this partial shutdown is in the offing even as negotiations are forward.
02:44 Ben Worskill
This this is a kind of unique one because it’s a very, very partial shutdown. There’s 12 areas of government funding, 11 of them are done. Those are those aren’t going to be impacted this weekend no matter what. It’s this 12th one, the Department of Homeland Security, which by one measure is 4% of government funding that is an issue and could be shut down over the weekend.
03:07 Ben Worskill
Um this is a this is an an important department, the Department of Homeland Security. It touches a lot of areas including some of interest to the economy and to markets. The TSA is part of a department, FEMA is part of the department, the Coast Guard is part of the department. Um and so those could feel a pinch in the next few days depending on how how whether this shutdown begins and how long it goes out.
03:29 Ben Worskill
Perhaps ironically, this whole shutdown is about immigration and about the the um the the administration’s role and conduct and immigration over the last few months. Those areas of the department actually aren’t expected to be overly affected by a shutdown. Ice, the border patrol, they have separate funding that Republicans passed in the last year. So they they could kind of continue as they are. But this is clearly a back and forth as Democrats try to use this as leverage to get some changes in how the Trump administration approaches immigration.
03:59 Ben Worskill
As for negotiations, they’re apparently still going back and forth, the White House and Chuck Schumer, um the Senate minority leader are the main um people negotiating there, but logistically at least to this point, it’s very likely we’re going to have at least a shutdown begin this weekend depending on um and then the question becomes potentially how long does it go?