Reuters World News - Trump's auto tariffs, Hegseth’s denial and Kursk

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump announces his latest trade war salvo – a 25% tariff on imported vehicles. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth texted about plans to kill a Houthi leader just two hours before a military operation that was meant to be top secret, but denies that he shared war plans. And Reuters is one of the first international news outlets to gain access to Kursk – hear from the ground as Russian troops are close to driving out the last Ukrainian forces. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast here. Find the Recommended Read here. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, automakers warn of higher prices as Trump unveils new tariffs on imported vehicles. Defense Secretary Pete Hegesith denies that chat messages on signal were classified. And on the ground in Kursk, as Russia expels Ukrainian troops. It's Thursday, March 27th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Sharon Reich Garson in New Jersey. And I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. What we're going to be doing is a 25% tariff on all cars that are not made in the United States.

If they're made in the United States, it's absolutely not tariff. It's U.S. President Donald Trump's latest trade war salvo, 25% on imported vehicles and foreign-made auto parts. They're expected to kick in on April 3rd. The day after, we find out Trump's other plans for reciprocal tariffs around the world. The news has been rattling markets, and economics editor Dan Burns is here with more. Well, the market took it pretty rough. U.S. stocks ended down by more than 1% after it became clear that Trump was proceeding with this. And automaker stocks took it,

very hard. And aside from investors, what is this going to mean for consumers? The expectation is that this could add thousands of dollars to the cost of a new car in the U.S. Some estimates potentially as little as a couple thousand, and depending on the vehicle, it could get up to maybe 6,000. And that's not just the tariffs. That's the anticipated supply disruptions that could result from this, that could limit vehicle availability on dealer lots. There's pretty broad agreement that this is something that results in higher prices for vehicles for consumers in the United States. These tariffs are intended to boost manufacturing in the U.S., right? Yes, and there may be some of that. About half of the vehicles sold in the U.S. are considered domestically produced,

and quite a number of the foreign automakers have U.S. production facilities here. Not all GM, Ford, Stalantis, Chrysler vehicles are made in the United States. Some of their final assembly occurs in Canada or in Mexico. and are brought back here. All of those are at risk of being hit with these tariffs. A U.S. appeals court is upholding a temporary block on the Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act to quickly deport some Venezuelan immigrants.

The ruling came as U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Christy Knoam was visiting El Salvador's mega-prison where the Venezuelan deportees are being held. Trump is seeing wider support from Americans for his crackdown on immigration than other parts of his policy initiatives. That's according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll. Our politics editor is Scott Malone. Basically half of respondents approve of Trump's handling of immigration.

That's a far higher approval rate that he gets on really any of the other issues that we poll on. On cost of living, just one in three respondents say they approve of Trump's handling of that issue. And that's important when you consider that his November victory was powered really by two main areas. One was his promise to crack down on illegal immigration, the other one was his promise to fight inflation and strengthen the economy. U.S. immigration authorities have revoked the visa of a Turkish student at Tufts University. The 30-year-old had voiced support for Palestinians during Israel's war with Gaza. She was taken into custody in Massachusetts while on her way to break the Ramadan fast.

The Sudanese army has pushed out its rival from most of Khartoum City, according to residents. It's a major gain over the rapid support forces, or RSF, in a war that's been ongoing for nearly two years. There's no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegsa, denies to the U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegsa denies sharing war plans in a group chat on signal that included a journalist. And others in the administration are backing up his argument that the messaging didn't include actual classified information. While officials are parsing the terminology of what was shared, the chain of texts published by the Atlantic show that two hours before the U.S. strikes on Houthis, Hegseth shared details about the

first and second strike window and the F-18 weapons that would be used. used. Phil Stewart covers the Pentagon. For the military, war plans can mean a great number of things and often have to do with the order of battle and where troops are going to be staging from and how they're going to move in a sequence of time. And so I think when you hear folks like Defense Secretary Pete Hexas say these weren't war plans, well, that might be true. But for the sake of the general U.S. audience, you know, these were very detailed sequencing of movements of U.S. and so certainly this information would have been highly sensitive. And it's worth saying that we spoke to one official who said that as far as they knew on March 15th,

those details were classified. Maybe this person was wrong, but their understanding was that the sequence of events, the events that were detailed in this text chain, were classified. Now, Phil, President Trump says that there was no operational impact, and he seems to be implying that the Secretary of Defense isn't at fault here. How do you bring Hankseth into it? He had nothing to do. Look, look, it's all a witch hunt. Right now, Trump has played down the significance of this episode.

But I think that there are major questions, especially in Congress, that remain unanswered and calls for investigations that could yet produce new revelations, not necessarily about the chat group itself. But what we don't know is what were the reactions when they realized that a journalist, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, was in the group. And what were the actions taken to either declassified information or to decide that information was not classified? What were the actions to try and clean up the mess internally in the government? I think we still don't know that. In Korsk, Russian troops are close to expelling the last Ukrainian forces seven months after Kiev pushed into the Russian border region. And while locals cheer the Russian counter-offensive, the damage that has been unleashed

has brought the devastation of war to the doorsteps of these Russians, the first time since World War II. A Moscow bureau chief Guy Falkenbridge visited Kursk, one of the first international news outlets to gain access to the region since Russia's push to expel Ukraine. What is going on in Korsk? There's a lot of people with weapons. There's a lot of people with uniforms. And there's a lot of destruction. And I noticed on all of the civilian cars, there are these special things strapped to their roofs,

which are essentially anti-dron detection devices. And it really brought home to me just how much this is perhaps the first really big drone war in human history. So I met with the mayor of Rilsk, Sergei Kornosov, in the House of Culture, which is a kind of Soviet institution and it was completely wrecked. The theatre was completely just a scene of debris. There were pianos with music just scattered all over the place and these giant craters.

So we spoke in the theater as the sirens were blaring out and he said, oh, don't worry, we're going to be fine. With the sense of fear, of fear, of fear, we've, of course, we've already, many people are used to this feeling. And he was talking about how, you know, they all club together when the missiles struck, when the drone strike, when the electricity goes off. A lot of people there are still pretty angry about what has happened. And there's a sort of foreboding as well, right? They want this war to stop, but they are also very wary about the future.

How is Ukraine's Korsk offensive being viewed after all this? So when Ukraine went into Korsk, it was a big, shock for Russia. They smashed through the border with swarms of drones and backed up with heavy Western military equipment. And Ukraine at the time said, we want to bring the war to Russia. We want to get a bargaining chip in future negotiations. And we want to distract Russian forces from eastern Ukraine. Now that Russia has pretty much pushed them out, of course, they don't have a bargaining chip anymore. Russia says it definitely wasn't worth it. And you spent a lot of treasure and blood on something that was just about embarrassing Russia.

Whatever the truth of that all is, it's clear that a lot of blood has been shed on both sides. And for today's recommended read to Gaza and a rare show of opposition to Hamas, on social media show hundreds of Palestinians demanding an end to the war and chanting Hamas out earlier this week. There's a link to the story in the pod description.

For more on any of the stories from today, Check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.