NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-07-2025 7PM EDT

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. Even as President Trump promises retaliatory global tariffs that take effect this week will make America wealthy again, there is growing unease on Capitol Hill, Wall Street and Main Street. Republican Senator Ted Cruz has warned the tariff strategy has enormous risks. And Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said the drop in stocks is not good. San Piers Maria Aspin reports some Wall Street heavy hitters

are also speaking out. The big headline today was Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase. Dimon runs the country's largest bank and he's one of the most powerful and prominent people on Wall Street. And today he published his annual letter to shareholders warning that the tariffs will raise prices, slow economic growth, and hurt the country's global standing.

He said his quote, most serious concern is how this will affect America's long term economic alliances. NPR's Maria Aspin, Trump has given no indication he plans to end the tariffs, saying he's considering even higher tariffs against China. The first round of the European Union's counter tariffs on US goods will go into effect April 15th, although the list of goods has not yet been finalized. From Brussels, Terry Schultz reports the EU still says it's open negotiations with the administration on ending the escalating trade war.

As European shares hit a 16-month low, EU foreign and trade ministers gathered in Luxembourg to hash out a united response to Trump's tariffs. Irish Foreign Minister Simon Harris says the stock market turmoil indicates why the EU should seek to de-escalate the conflict with Washington. The pain that tariffs are causing and will cause, not just to economies in some sort of macro sense, but also to individual citizens in Europe and the United States of America. The bloc is already working on retaliatory measures for Trump's first round of tariffs imposed on European steel and aluminum imports last month.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants governments to agree this week on a list of U.S. items to be targeted. For NPR News, I'm Terri Schulz in Brussels. Former employees at the think tank, US Institute of Peace, cheering on the last day their colleagues retrieved their belongings from their Washington offices today. The think tank essentially shut down by the Trump administration and its office building as part of an ongoing legal fight. Here's MPR's

Emily Fang. Nearly all USIP employees were terminated last month, among them, Liz Callahan, who cleaned out her office this week. I feel extremely bad for the security guards that had to hold me as I cried because every day for 10 years I've walked past them. The think tank has sued President Trump and several other federal officials for what it called a hostile takeover and is fighting to retain control over its privately funded

office building. Emily Fang, NPR News, Washington. Stocks pinballed around today, closing sharply lower for a third straight session mid-tariff worries. The Dow fell 349 points. The S&P was down 11 points. This is NPR. Device maker Apple is fighting the British government over an order that the company

provides so-called backdoor access to a cloud data privacy feature. The group known as the Investigatory Powers Tribunal revealing the legal fight when it rejected a bid by Britain's Home Office to have the case heard in private. Apple said in February it intended to stop offering its advanced data protection feature for British users after the government issued the demand, heightening worries about electronics spying by national security officials. A Texas biotech company says it has created creatures with key features of an extinct species, the direwolf. Here's Rob Steiner's details. Colossal Biosciences in Dallas says company scientists edited the genes

of gray wolves to breed animals with key traits of dire wolves. Dire wolves have been extinct for more than 12,000 years and were featured in the HBO series Game of Thrones. The colossal scientists created embryos from genetically modified gray wolf cells and then implanted them into female dogs. The surrogate mother dogs gave birth to three healthy wolves with dire wolf traits. The company named the animals Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi. Colossal hopes to do something similar with other extinct species, including the woolly mammoth. Rob Stein, NPR News. Critical futures prices continue to slide today amidst ongoing global market jitters

due to the Trump administration's tariffs. Oil fell $1.29 a barrel to settle at $60.70 a barrel in New York. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington.