Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/4/25

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

Trade tensions heat up as China and Canada retaliate against U.S. tariffs

What do you need to see from President Zelensky to restart these negotiations? Well, I just think you should be more appreciative because this country has stuck with them Through thick and thin we've given them much more than Europe and Europe should have given more than us because as you know, that's right there That's the border As we've said many times the United States has not given more aid to Ukraine than the European Union has not given more aid to Ukraine than the European Union. It appears the U.S. will not be providing Ukraine with any more assistance, at least for the time being, now that the Trump administration is pausing military aid to that country as it fends off Russia.

We'll dig into that major move from the administration. Meanwhile, the president's tariffs on Canada and Mexico now are in effect as of midnight. We'll break down the numbers and bring you the response from both countries. This all comes as the president is set to deliver a joint address to Congress tonight. We'll go through what we might expect to hear from him there. And a Republican senator who shut down a town hall early

after facing criticism from the crowd is now explaining why he ended that meeting. Good morning, welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, March 4th with Joe and me this morning. The cohost of our fourth hour, Jonathan Lemire. He's a contributing writer at the Atlantic covering the White House and national politics, US special correspondent for BBC News and host of The Rest Is Politics podcast, Cady Kay, the host of Way Too Early,

Ali Vitale, US national Editor at the Financial Times, Ed Luce, and Rogers Chair in the American Presidency at the Vanderbilt University, Historian John Meacham. He's also an MSNBC political analyst. Joe, good morning. Good morning. I mean, there's so much to talk about in just your introduction.

You can talk about Senator Roger Marshall saying it was a bunch of city folk driving in their limousines or Mercedes or whatever. We saw the people that stood up and were speaking out for veterans. I guess he doesn't know the people of Kansas very well. They were not city slickers. They were the type of people that working people that show up in town hall meetings, I know what they look like and I know he knows what they look like, too. And people saying, hey, we're not Democrats.

We're just very concerned about what's happening to veterans. And then tariffs going into effect. Yesterday, the markets took a tumble and they've taken quite a tumble over the past month and that's just not going to get any better with the continued threats of tariffs. And again the question that a lot of these countries are raising are some of our closest allies, why? But again it's all the incoming and then of course the shocking news that I guess we shouldn't be shocked by now that Donald Trump is cutting aid to Ukraine and justifying it based on facts he's been saying for the past week that just aren't true.

Europe, as you said, Europe has given more money to Ukraine than the United States has. We haven't given $350 billion. It's been half of that. Zelensky has not been an ingrate. Really yesterday we played a clip where he said, thank you more than Andrew Goldin. Thank you for being a friend. I want to thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I thank the American people I think I mean, I mean seriously somebody should actually do a dance version of Andrew Gold and

Zelensky saying thank you because it would be like about a ten-minute dance mix. So again, they cut off Funding for a country invaded by Russia, and they're blaming it on him being an ingrate and not wearing a suit. I would say some people, Dr. Brzezinski, to Ronald Reagan, to Harry Truman, would be shocked at the state of affairs. But I think it's important today that we dig into why. Of course, there have been a lot of conspiracy theories, and there's always been a question hovering over Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin and how far back it goes and how far back it goes with Russia and when he visited the former Soviet Union in 1987.

We don't know what it is. It may be a lot more simple than that. He may just be beating down and trying to berate Zelensky to get him to the table to talk peace. But of course, then the real obstacle is Vladimir Putin, who does not want peace. He wants to reconstitute the Soviet empire. So if this is Donald Trump's art of the deal, because somebody close to him called me yesterday saying, listen, I think everybody's got this wrong.

Barack Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize. Donald Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize for ending this war. And he thinks this is the way he does it. The why, though, doesn't really matter. It's the what that matters. And what is happening is we are abandoning an ally, a friend, a democracy against Russian aggression. And it's just frightening.

As Europe rallies to its aid, to its side, gathers in London over the last day or two to support Zelensky and to support Ukraine. And you can add all this, Joe, together, and Putin cannot believe his luck. There's a reason he preferred Donald Trump in 2016 and this time, but talking about halting offensive cyber attacks on Russia from the Defense Department, a talk about easing the sanctions on Russia, as you say. Why?

Why is he tilting so hard in the direction of Vladimir Putin right now? Two US officials tell NBC News this morning the Trump administration is in fact pausing military aid to Ukraine. This follows Friday's tense Oval Office meeting between President Trump, Vice President Vance and Ukrainian President Zelensky. The White House says the pause is to ensure aid contributes to finding a peaceful solution to the war. The news comes as President Zelensky says he is working with American and European partners on

a path to peace. Zelensky made the comment on social media yesterday, just days after that contentious meeting with President Trump. He also said he's ready to open up Ukraine's minerals to US investment. Yesterday President Trump signaled that deal is not dead, but he continued to criticize the Ukrainian leader, specifically calling out Zelensky's comment to the Associated Press that a deal to end the war is, quote, very, very far away. Now, President Zelensky supposedly made a statement today in AP. I'm not a big fan of AP, so maybe it was an incorrect statement, but he said he thinks the war's gonna go on for a long time.

And he better not be right about that. I think everybody has to get into a room, so to speak, and we have to make a deal. And the deal can be made very fast. It should not be that hard a deal to make. It could be made very fast. Now, maybe somebody doesn't wanna make a deal, and if somebody doesn't wanna make a deal, I think that person It could be made very fast. Now, maybe somebody doesn't want to make a deal. And if somebody doesn't want to make a deal, I think that person won't be around very long. That person will not be listened to very long, because I believe

that Russia wants to make a deal. I believe certainly the people of Ukraine want to make a deal. They've suffered more than anybody else. We talk about suffering. They've suffered. Well, Jonathan Amir, that may be news. If Russia wants to make a deal, that's something that the Trump administration itself over the weekend said they don't know if Putin wants to make a deal. Marco Rubio doesn't know if Putin wants to make a deal.

Most people, most observers who see this say, Putin does not want to make a deal. So, okay, you're gonna get everybody around a table and gonna try to make a deal? Fantastic. But the idea that you bloody and rhetorically beat up your side to get them to the table without even knowing if Vladimir Putin wants to make a deal. When people in Donald Trump's own administration said this weekend, they weren't sure if Putin even wanted to make a deal.

It seems like quite an interesting way to go about it. Yeah, the negotiations puzzling to many. Zelensky, of course, has his once piece. He has said that he'd like to regain the territory seized by Russia. There's many in the, and he recognized that that won't be entirely possible. But this is his country three years now, continues to be bombarded. Even amid the last few days in the, in the aftershocks of what happened in the Oval Office on Friday, Russia continues its attacks on Ukraine.

And let's put a fine point on this. Trump's decision yesterday to halt aid, it's about a billion dollars worth of arms and ammunition in the pipeline and on order, arms that Ukraine desperately needs to front. And what this pause does, let's think about this for a second. It benefits Putin in so many ways. First of all, this just, of course, these arms aren't going to be in the battlefield that will allow Russian troops there to take advantage, potentially to press forward. This is largely a frozen conflict, but Russia has made slow, very slow grinding gains over

the last year or so, in part because of its manpower advantages and the drone strikes that it's been using. But this might allow them to press the advantage. He also, this might not spur Russia to the negotiating table. It might do the exact opposite here, where if he thinks this fight between Trump and Zelensky could keep these Americans's arms on the sidelines. Why not keep going? Why a caddy K?

Why would Putin suddenly realize I should come to the table when I'm getting everything I want here? Yes, we know the Russian economy is weak. We know he suffered huge losses, but it's also his war machine just in terms of pure numbers dwarfs what Ukraine can do. This would seem to be an incentive for him to keep going right now and not bring this conflict to an end. Yeah.

If you look at the actions of the White House over the last few days, including, of course, the decision not to continue with cyber offensive attacks against Russia, then you might think that the White House was actually trying to put Russia in as good a position as possible going into these negotiations. It's hard to see how the White House could have done much to improve Russia's chances at the moment. This cut in aid coming after such a dramatic, you know, few days in Russia-Ukraine-American relations. But actually, if you just combine that and pull back for a second with what Donald Trump

did to Ukraine last night with overnight imposing tariffs on America's closest allies, the strategy from the White House seems to be to shed as many friends as possible as fast as possible. And the long-term question is, does that leave America safer, stronger and greater, or does it leave it weaker? I mean, you just look at the risk at the moment is you push the Europeans closer to China, you push the Canadians closer to China, you push the South Koreans closer to a nuclear weapon. I mean, it's hard to see how this strategy plays out well for the United States in the

long run. It's hard to see how it plays out well in the short run as well. I mean, I think what the Trump people would say is that, if you caught them in private moments, is that friendship and economic deals between the US and Russia, between Trump and Putin will unleash all kinds of animal spirits and energy deals. And of course, the deal for Ukrainian minerals, which presumably in one form or another, Zelensky will be corralled into accepting.

That's gonna be boom time for American businesses. His view of the world is about deals. It's also about an affinity with Putin. I'm not overlooking that, but it's chiefly his. If you want to summarize Trump's view of economics, it's about having lots of deals and punishing those who are in surplus with the United States. There are no friends in that world. There's just deals that Trump has skin in the game in.

And so that's how they would justify this as a success, because there is no sort of ethical, philosophical, or strategic justification for what he's doing. So there's the way that Trump is trying to reshape the contours of this conflict and American foreign policy overall. And then there's the way that Congress is responding to it, because broadly we've seen Republicans get on board with the way that he's negotiated with Zelensky, backing him

up on the way that he had in that stunning Oval Office exchange, dismissed the Ukrainian president. But then there's also the way that Speaker Johnson is talking about Ukraine, Russia and the United States basically seeding the ground on the Ukraine aid that Johnson fought so hard for just a year ago, seemingly willing to put his job on the line because he said history remembers or history judges us. And so he's happy to see the space on aid, but this is still the way that he's talking about efforts. This is a historic opportunity, this is a potentially historic agreement.

And, you know, obviously last week was a missed opportunity. But I think if people are operating in good faith, I think it would get things back on the road. I'm hoping that we can lower the temperature and get back to an agreement that's good for Ukraine, good for the U.S., and and frankly not that good for Russia. Do you think that, what are your thoughts about the fact that President Trump hasn't been able to say that you that Russia started the war and he's continued to you know?

Ah, not, all I'm focused on is exactly what we need to do to do right by Ukraine and actually address the the risk for the American people and people are our allies in Europe. and actually address the risk for the American people and people who are our allies in Europe. I'm in the middle of a line with Russia. I don't believe any Russian propaganda. We have to bring it into the war. What the President is doing is trying to set the table for that peace agreement to be made. And I'm very grateful that he's doing it. I encourage, as I did over the weekend, President Zelensky to come back to the table and accept the deal that was proposed, because that is the solution to get us out of this mess. And Joe, that hard-to-hear part at the end there is actually a really important piece

of this because even as Johnson is trying to give Trump the space to do exactly what he wants, however jarring it may be with this U.S.-Russia realignment, Johnson is also underscoring the thing that you heard from Thune and from Tillis, which is that Russia remains an untrusted non-ally, an adversary of the United States and should be treated as such. The striking part about it is that even as Republicans say that, they are not willing to criticize the president for this realignment. And it's stunning about face for the way that U.S. policy has always been done in regards

to Russia. It is a stunning about face. John Meacham, it is also the very interesting listing to Republican senators and Republican House members. You know, there's so many times over the past several years where Mitch McConnell believed one thing and then he would come out and say something else. And what he was saying when he came out and said something else was basically what he was hearing from the Republican

caucus. He was the Republican leader. And so you could always tell when there was a split between what McConnell wanted to do and what the majority in the caucus wanted to do. Obviously, frustrated a hell of a lot of people for a lot of good reasons. We're actually now seeing sort of the reverse in play from Speaker Johnson, a speaker that has a one, two vote majority, a speaker that also has Chairman McCall, Chairman Turner, and a lot of other Russia hawks. Unlike people that went into the administration, these Republicans remain Russian hawks who, I'm sure you remember, during the

Biden administration, were critical of Joe Biden for not doing enough, for not delivering the F-16s, for not delivering more offensive, more deadly, more vicious weapons to the Ukrainian people. So here you have Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson is in no position right now to parrot Donald Trump when he has a House membership. Certainly some of the most powerful members in that House membership angry at what happened to the White House last Friday. It's fascinating to see how it works itself out with these leaders. Now, John Thune's always been a Russia hawk. So what John Thune's saying, what Tom Tillis is saying,

pretty much straightforward. But Speaker Johnson held up funding for Ukraine for what, six months last year? So for him to say that, that is a direct reflection of what he's hearing from his caucus. Right, and the tension is going to be principle, which is this long-term, it goes pre-Cold War, but let's just use Russia as, keep the focus on Russia, a Cold War principle that was at the heart of the internationalist Republican.

Remember, there was a tension in the early days of the Cold War, you know all about this, between containment and rollback, right? That President Truman was seen as the architect of containment. John Foster Dulles and Dwight Eisenhower come in and there's a sense that, no, we're not just gonna contain communism, we're going to roll it back.

We're going to liberate the captive countries. And that was an animating force on the right, except for the other animating force, or in addition to the other animating force, which was a kind of isolationism that if you look at the rhetoric of the McCarthy era, early 1950s, you see on the Republican right and some Democrats, you see this fear that we are being ripped off, that we're pouring money into NATO, that we're pouring money into other countries, and we're not getting anything for it. So in this tension, you have the caucus, as you mentioned, some hawks who believe in the principle, who believe that you stand against aggression because aggressors almost never stop. And you have this position that President Trump embodies, which is, in fact, it has

roots. And it's the sense that America is somehow a sucker. And the animating drama for President Trump is that he's not going to be seen as a loser. He's going to be a winner. Well, I mean, American presidents have been made suckers of Russian leaders and Soviet leaders for 80 years, Willie. I mean, you can go back to Yalta, actually, and talk to John about this later, and you actually had FDR thinking he was winning Joseph Stalin over with a charm offensive while Winston Churchill was left on the outside.

You could, again, we've talked about it before, but we could talk about JFK and his disastrous summit in Vienna with Khrushchev, thinking that he could charm Khrushchev. And he just, again, it was an international embarrassment. We could talk about George W. Bush saying he looked in the eyes of Vladimir Putin and saw his soul. A couple of years later, it was Vladimir Putin, I think it was at the Munich Security Conferences, basically declaring war on the West.

A couple of years later, he invaded Georgia. We were weak. We were suckers. We did nothing. In 2012, you had Barack Obama telling Medvedev, hey, got to get elected. After I get elected, then we can do more things. Talking about the reset with Russia two years later, an invasion of Ukraine. We were the weak ones. We were the suckers. Then the invasion of Crimea. Then commercial aircrafts getting shot out of the sky. For some reason, time and time again, American presidents think they can deal with Russia, that they can win them over with a charm offensive, the hey, just between you and me as Barack Obama did in 2012?

No. It doesn't work. And it's plain to see, ask a European and they will tell you. If Donald Trump gives up on Ukraine, Putin won't end with Ukraine. Next it will be Moldova. Then it will be Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. And then he reconstitutes the old Soviet Union. That's his endgame. And right now we're doing nothing but making that endgame more possible for him. Yeah, Putin's getting everything he ever could have dreamed of to that end to continue that

march to reconstitute the Soviet empire. We're going to hear more of President Trump's defense of his new stance toward Ukraine in that address to a joint session of Congress tonight. We'll talk about that in just a bit. Also, President Trump's tariffs on Canada and Mexico taking effect overnight, along with added measures against China. We'll talk about the impact on the U.S. economy and Wall Street and those countries already retaliating.

Plus, a top FBI official has been forced to retire after criticizing President Trump's efforts to identify agents who investigated January 6 crimes. NBC's Ken Delaney joins us with some new reporting on that. And as I mentioned, what to expect ahead of President Trump's primetime address for Congress tonight. A very busy morning. We're coming back in 90 seconds. We've had a lot of experience with them. They're an act of war to some degree.

Over time, there are attacks on goods. I mean, the tooth fairy doesn't pay up. You always have to just, and then what? You always have to ask that question in economics. Always say, and then what? That is, of course, legendary investor Warren Buffett warning Sunday morning about President Trump's tariffs, which did go into effect, 25 percent tariffs. In fact, on imports from Canada and Mexico going in overnight, the Trump administration imposing an extra 10% tariff on China on top of the already instituted 10% tax on Chinese imports. Both China and Canada moved swiftly after midnight to retaliate, announcing their own levies

on U.S. goods. Canada vowed tariffs of up to 25 percent. And late yesterday, the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, warned the economic back and forth will be a disaster for both countries. It's one person that's coming to attack us economically. Your closest friend, your treasured ally that will stand shoulder to shoulder with you in every situation you've faced, and he's attacking the person, his number one customer. There's no country in the world that buys more products off the U.S. than we do. We're the number one trading customer to 28 states, and a lot of them are red states. They're going to feel the pain like they've never felt before.

Meanwhile, Mexico's president expected to announce her response at a news conference in Mexico City later this morning. Together, China, Canada and Mexico accounted for more than 40 percent of all U.S. imports last year. Also, its top three export markets for the United States. Let's bring in the anchor of CNBC's worldwide exchange, Frank Holland. Frank, so how are the markets reacting to these new tariffs?

Looked like they kind of were anticipating them yesterday. Yeah, good morning. Right now we're looking at the futures. I'm looking right now, I mean, basically flat, moving fractionally higher or lower. But of course, yesterday we saw a major sell-off on Wall Street with the S&P 500, often called the broader market having its worst day of the year, the tech heavy NASDAQ down more than 2.5%. So these tariffs, they're raising a lot of questions for investors, business leaders, and small business owners.

We can't leave Main Street out of this. The questions are, will they spark inflation? Will they, metaphorically, be the straw on the back of the camel for the consumer that's already stretched thin? And what will other countries do in response from tariffs to other measures? Today we saw China put US biotech company, Illumino, on their list of companies that they

believe threaten national security. And while these kind of things, it's not necessarily official retaliation, there's other companies that work within China that need state approval for different business initiatives. One name often mentioned is Apple. They essentially need Chinese government approval to launch their Apple intelligence service for iPhones there. So as we look at this, the question is, what kind of impact will tariffs have on the US need Chinese government approval to launch their Apple intelligence service for iPhones there. So as we look at this, the question is, what kind of impact will tariffs have on the U.S.

economy and on the markets? We had the head of research for JPMorgan on my show yesterday. According to her research last year, the effective tariff rate here in the U.S., it was about 2% just over that. With these tariffs that went into effect today, that's going to jump up to approximately 9%. And then we also have a Wall Street that's become increasingly sensitive to economic reports and economic data.

Yesterday we had one that certainly seemed to shock investors. It came from the Atlanta Fed. They put out a forecast for GDP, gross domestic product, kind of the report card for the economy. They updated on a regular basis. So back on February 28th, they had a forecast

of GDP being down 1.5% for Q1. Yesterday, they put out a new forecast, down 2.8%, certainly a shock to the market, a big change when it comes to that. So a lot of questions about these tariffs and how's it all going to play out. There wasn't thought before that these tariffs, they were a negotiating ploy, but now we see the president's very serious about implementing them. GDP down, inflation up. CNBC's Frank Holland.

Frank, thanks so much. We'll be watching those markets as they open. A short time from now. Joe, just looking at the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, the title, Trump Takes the Dumbest Tariff Plunge. They write, we've quartered Mr. Trump's ire by calling the Mexico and Canada levies the dumbest in history,

and we may have understated the point, writes the Wall Street Journal. Closing by calling Trump unbridled tariff man, saying he was always going to be a big economic risk in a second term. And here we are, writes the Wall Street Journal. I mean, it's unbelievable. He says a 25 percent levies on Mexico and Canada will begin today. And again, here's the Wall Street Journal editorial page Willie was talking about. Ed Luce, you've got a lot of really smart people over at Financial Times that went to

those really smart schools, I'm sure, over in Britain. Maybe you can help me out here. And I'm dead serious. I mean, this Wall Street Journal obviously been consistent on this. When Donald Trump got into office, we talked about how the economy was strong. But I talked about we had three bubbles.

We had the fiscal bubble, a $36 trillion debt that at some point is going to be a bomb that's going to wreck our economy, the world's economy if we don't take care of it. No, it doesn't look like they're going to take care of that. We have the crypto bubble that of course is blowing up right now. And we have the stock market bubble. And so the point was we have to handle this with care. We can't go around talking about tariffs.

We can't go around talking about fights with our best trading partners. And now here we are more than a month in, and what do we have? More threats of tariffs. You've got consumer confidence going down. You've got all those mergers that everybody said, oh, we're gonna to dive into after those

left wingers from the Biden administration leave Washington. They were saying that on Wall Street. Now they're afraid to do anything because of the uncertainty that's surrounding it. And with consumer confidence down, now you're seeing the Atlanta Fed, and I suspect it's not going to be that bad. I mean, I don't think we're going to be like minus 3% at the end of the first quarter, but the economy is grinding down and slowing down. The stock market over the past month has dropped a great deal. Just look at Tesla's stock numbers over the past month and see how they've dropped. look how the Nasdaq has dropped, look how the top tech companies have dropped, all of it around uncertainty. All of this talk, you know a lot,

a lot of people assumed that this tariff talk was just sort of posturing and negotiating. But even if it ends up being that, Ed, it's having a detrimental impact on this economy and shaking investors and shaking consumers to their core. Yeah, I mean, the school of wishful thinking after last November was, look, we've got Scott Besant, we've got Howard Lutnick, we've got adults being appointed to these roles, and they're not going to let Trump carry out such suicidal actions. And that explains to some degree why the stock market remains so frothy during the transit

during most of the transition and why Bitcoin and others were searching. But the school of wishful thinking was wishful thinking. This is Trump in charge. It's not Scott Besson in charge. It's not Howard Lutnick in charge. And what he's just outlined, what he's just announced with these tariffs against, huge tariffs against America's three largest trading partners, by far, by the way, China, Mexico and Canada, is the largest tax increase on the American consumer since 1993. It's not a tax on foreign companies,

it's a tax on the American consumer, something Trump refuses to acknowledge, but is borne out by all the economics on this subject. And at a time when, as you mentioned, Joe, consumer confidence is not just falling, it's falling steeply, it's falling sharply. This is going to be a hammer blow because people are going to see higher prices. And those higher prices are going to cause the Fed not to cut interest rates and quite possibly to raise them because they are inflationary. And we are then going to start to get into a situation where the Atlanta Fed's projections for the first quarter become reality for two quarters, which is a shrinking economy, which is a Trump recession, and which was, would be an avoidable Trump recession.

It's very avoidable. This is self-inflicted harm that we're seeing at enormous speed. And that's one of the reasons that we and other people have been warning from the very beginning that there's a strong, that Donald Trump inherited a strong economy, handle it with care because there are a lot of plates that are spinning.

And right now it appears that the goal is to let those plates fall to the ground and break and see exactly what happens. Jonathan LaMere, so what I need you to do right now is tell our viewers, not what the reports appear to say or what Warren Buffett appears to say, what are people inside the White House, what are people inside the White House, what are people closest to Donald Trump telling you? What does your reporting tell you about the White House's view on why they are doing this

when the economy is in a precarious position? What do they hope to get out of this? It's two parts here, Joe. First of all, there is just the pure politics part of this. Trump, we talked about this yesterday, has believed in tariffs. It's one of the few through lines of his political ideology. Even as he's shifted back and forth on many issues, including what party he belongs to, he has always believed in tariffs, despite what economists warn.

He promised them, it was so central to what he talked about all last year on the campaign trail, in his early weeks in office, there was a sense there that he had to fall through. He couldn't be seen as just bluffing. I think they believe that tariffs can be a tool. And again, we've just gone through the reasons why economists think it's a bad idea. They believe it could be tariffs could be a tool to push some of these trading partners, even our closest allies, to give up something, to negotiate something here.

I think for Mexico, it remains the border. Trump has been privately frustrated that the border crossings go low. He wants them even lower. He wants more deportations. He feels like he needs to have a show with Mexico. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's twin this with- Let me ask you this though. I thought border crossings on the southern border were pretty darn low.

I thought that they were lower than they've been in years. That's number one. Number two, I thought Mexico was already moving troops to the border. Number three, I thought the problem was not coming from Mexico. The problem was coming from the United States and that they're just not able to find quickly enough for the president's appetite enough immigrants, migrants to deport.

I thought that was the problem with the numbers. Is this, and this is not a leading question, but how is this a Mexico problem right now? Because I thought illegal border crossings were relatively low right now for Mexico. They are, but this is still the Trump's White House's point of view, which is that they still want it to be even lower. Also, let's twin this with the reporting from last week from the Wall Street Journal about how Secretary Hagsteth from the Pentagon suggested there might even be U.S. military options within Mexico because of the way the cartels, the U.S. claims, are working with the Mexican government to get fentanyl across the border.

That was the other part of this. It's not just migrants. It's about the drugs coming across the border. And that was the other part of this. It's not just migrants. It's about the drugs coming across the border from the White House's point of view. Mexico's pushed back saying, well, the issue is the U.S. not being able to curb the demand for those drugs inside our own borders. But they believe the tariffs can still be a tool. White House aides really have told me that these may not be in place all that long. If Trump can claim some sort of concessions,

some sort of victory, whether it is on the numbers or some other ill-defined measure that allows him to like, say, hey, another one, you know, look tough, get a win, we'll move on before there's too much economic damage, that may be how this plays out. But Trump, in a way, I'm told by a few people, had sort of backed himself into a corner that he needed to, at for time being put in place

Some tariffs and then there's China as President Trump pushes ahead with tariffs on the United States top trading partners China is hitting back with its own targeting American agriculture as well as banning 15 American companies from doing business in China Let's bring in NBC News international correspondent Janice Mackey frayerrayer. She is live for us in Beijing. Janice, how's this playing in Beijing? China didn't waste any time in retaliating against the new U.S. tariffs, announcing their own broad tariffs on American food and effectively telling U.S. companies, 15 of them, that they can no longer do business here without getting special permission. Now, this is a big hit for American farmers, especially in the Midwest.

They export a lot to China. It's the largest food importer in the world. Chicken, wheat, corn, cotton, all subject to a 15% tariff and 10% tariffs on sorghum, soybeans, pork, beef, fruits, vegetables, dairy, and aquatic products. Now, these levies take effect on March the 10th, which is a sign that Beijing is allowing some time and room for negotiation. But the fact is there has been very little communication between these two sides since President Trump announced tariffs last month.

There's now together 20% on nearly all Chinese goods. Now the White House says this is about fentanyl accusing China of doing too little to stop the flow of it into the US. This is something China takes great exception to, pointing to counter narcotics cooperation with US officials. Beijing is also warning the US about using tariffs as a national security tool and say that the Trump administration to this point doesn't appear to know what it wants from China? There is high level ambiguity understood from here

because one is that what exactly Donald Trump really wants from China? So simply to address the drug issue the drug issue, or he wants something of significant meaning of economic pack, what exactly is the package he really desire of? So retaliation is to express the Chinese attitude, but eventually China sees that it's not really going to help the US industry, it's not going to help the US economy. Officially, China's foreign ministry has called the terrorist blackmail and they've hinted that it might curtail or even cut counter-narcotic cooperation.

They've done it before, so there's precedent for that. And it also reiterated the position that they think the root cause of the fentanyl problem was in the U.S. itself. Now, for the U.S. businesses added to this unreliable entities list, it means companies like Skydio, the drone maker that supplies the military, they can't buy Chinese-made components anymore without special permission. Now, in terms of next steps, Beijing could move to improve trade relations with Europe which has its own complaints about China and EVs and over capacity and also facing U.S. tariffs but the

message the leadership here appears to be sending is that unilateral tariffs don't work and that ultimately U.S. businesses and U.S. consumers will pay the price and I just want to quickly add something on Chinese consumers who are

seen as being quite conformist and following the government guardrails. We have over the past year or so seen a move that Chinese consumers have made from American products to more Chinese made products. What there is some discussion of is perhaps the potential for Chinese consumers to outright boycott American companies like Starbucks, like McDonald's, like KFC, which would, of course, hurt U.S. businesses even further. Joe? All right. NBC's Janice McEvrayer, live in Beijing, as always. Thank you so much. Greatly appreciate it. You know, John, several years ago during the Biden administration, so just so people don't

think I'm talking about what's happening right now, but it applies generally. I had a leader of a foreign country say after the United States had taken a pretty aggressive action economically against them, a leader of a foreign country say, you know, it's not 1992. Like, we don't have to just deal with the United States. Like, for those watching, 1992 the Soviet Union had just fallen. China had not risen to the economic power it is now. But they said, it's not 1992, Joe. If you guys don't want to deal with us, we'll just look east. We can deal with China.

We can deal with India. We can deal with other countries. We can deal within the EU. We've got enough markets to work in. And it is fascinating that it does seem inside the White House, you have a president and others and in the Republican Party that believe that the United States and the world that we live in is like, you know, that we're the, it's a unipolar world that it's just the United States. But as I explained time and time again, we've got about a $26 trillion GDP every year.

Europe has a $26 trillion GDP every year. China's moving up on 20 trillion dollars. India, an emerging economy that continues to grow. You know, if we say take it or leave it for a lot of these countries, a lot of them will leave it and they will, again, they will look east. They will look to Europe. They don't, we aren't the only game in town anymore, but we became the most powerful country because we kept trade open with Europe, because we kept free markets open across the world, and that benefited the United States and American consumers. You know, 100 years ago, if we'd been having this conversation, 1925, what would

be going on? You would have this idealism after the First World War that we could outlaw war. You know, there was a treaty to outlaw war. Two of the signatories were Germany and Japan. We had tariffs. We had a reaction against immigration. We had significant demographic change. 1920 was the first time more Americans lived in cities than on farms. And we had a technological change about how people experienced the world and got information. It was the

rise of radio. And we had this reaction to modernity. This is a reaction. We are living at this hour through a serious reaction to the dislocations and rough edges of globalization. It's a fundamental, it's a huge question. The answer that the incumbent administration is offering is one that seems to me is an ahistorical one in terms of what's the road to prosperity. As you say, you know, we use the Wall Street Journal's old motto, free men, free markets.

But President Trump, with 49.9% of the country, has decided to use a different set of tools. The question is, will in fact the results create the aura of success that he wants? Because let's be very clear, that one of the most consistent things in President Trump's public and private life is he wants to be seen as successful. And if the current policy takes a lot of folks the other way, I suspect he'll change course. Again, the headline Wall Street Journal op-ed page this morning, Trump takes the dumbest tariff plunge. John Meacham, thank you as always. Also U.S. National Editor of the Financial Times, Ed Luce, thank you as well. We'll be reading your new column online titled Trump's Heist in Broad Daylight, in which Ed

argues there's nothing cryptic about Donald Trump's self-serving endorsement of cryptocurrency. Coming up, we'll take a look at how some Democrats are planning to protest the administration's sweeping federal workforce cuts during President Trump's joint address to Congress tonight in primetime. Morning Joe's coming right back. Beautiful live picture with the sun up. Lower Manhattan, 651 in the morning here. The top FBI official at the New York Field Office is saying he was forced into retirement.

Assistant Director in Charge James Denehy, now out of a job after he urged his employees to dig in following the Trump administration's efforts to get a list of agents who investigated cases around January 6th. In an email to staffers, Denehy wrote, I apologize to all of you for not being able to fulfill my commitment to you. I've been told many times in my life, when you find yourself in a hole, sometimes it's best to quit digging. Screw that.

I will never stop defending this joint, he wrote. I'll just do it willingly and proudly from outside the wire. Let's bring in NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent, Ken Delaney. Ken, good morning. Good to see you. So let's talk about this. A big job, first of all, to run the FBI New York field office.

Why ultimately did he step aside? That's right, Willie. It's a huge job. His title was assistant director, not the normal special agent in charge because New York City is a flagship field office of the FBI. And James Dennehy was a leader's leader. He spent seven years as a Marine officer before joining the private sector, then 9-11 hit,

and he joined the FBI and spent a career working his way up the ranks, mostly as a spy catcher, as a counterintelligence official, but in a lot of leadership jobs. And the quote you read there gives you an idea of why he is so revered far and wide inside the FBI. And when that battle took hold, when the Trump administration appeared to be attempting

a mass firing of FBI agents and employees who worked on January 6th cases, Dennehy was one of the people who threw his body on a grenade in retrospect. He did something that appeared to spell the end of his career. He issued an email to his staff saying, we're going to stand up to this. And he and some of the other acting leaders of the FBI managed to stave off what many people believe would have been a mass firing as it is more than a dozen top officials, including Dennehy have now been removed from the

FBI. So he got crosswise with the Trump administration over that issue, but also more recently over this bizarre episode where the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, is insisting that somehow the FBI is holding back files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. And our reporting really is that there's nothing really new that's in these files. But apparently there were some files in the FBI office up in New York that Bondi wanted, she didn't get. So that may have contributed to him being essentially ousted from his job. But here you have a person who devoted his career to national security, one of the top leaders in the FBI, now out at a time when the FBI is really starving for experienced leadership guys. So, Ken, give us an update on that, if you will,

on this Epstein deal that was a massive story on X and among MAGA influencers. There was the Pam Bondi directive, and then she ordered that Cash Patel basically deliver the rest of the files to her office by 8 a.m. Friday morning. Friday morning came and went and I didn't hear of a great document dump. In fact, I asked reporters who didn't hear about that, what is the latest on that? Did Cash Patel find hidden Epstein files behind radiators in the New York field office.

What happened in Pam Bondi get any additional files on the Epstein case? Well so what happened on Friday was that she handed the files that she was given to some right-wing influencers who looked and found nothing of significance. No, no, that was Thursday. Oh, sorry. I was off, Joseph, forgive me. They held it up and then she said, I demand these files be put on my desk by 8 a.m. tomorrow morning.

And that's the last we heard, or at least that's the last I heard. Have you heard anything? Did any more files appear from New York to the Attorney General's office on Friday morning at the 8 a.m. deadline? I don't believe so, but last night she said that she discovered that the FBI in New York or the Southern District of New York

was holding back and that they had discovered hundreds of more files in their possession and that they are turning them over now. And that may have contributed to what happened to Mr. Dennehy. But look, I don't cover this case very closely, but my colleagues in New York who do, say that they don't believe, their reporting suggests

there's nothing significant in any of these files. There is no Epstein client list, which is the holy grail of these right-wing influencers. So we'll have to see what's in these particular files that I believe are on their way to the Justice Department as we speak. But this whole episode has been kind of the source of laughter among some people, but a source of real anger on the right directed at Pam Bondi.