Reuters World News - U.S. economy shrinks, deported Cuban mother and Europe's mystery blackout

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump touts his economic policies as he marks 100 days in office. But for the first time in three years the U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter. Polling shows Americans growing more skeptical of his hardline approaches on trade and immigration. We look at the case of a woman deported to Cuba while her one-year-old daughter remains in the United States. Plus, the cause of a massive power outage in Spain and Portugal is still a mystery. EDITOR'S NOTE: This episode was updated to include details of the GDP report. Find our recommended read here. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Find the latest podcast episode ⁠⁠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, the U.S. economy contracts in the first quarter. Trump's approval rating holds steady, but discontent grows over his handling of the economy and his hardline approach to immigration, and what we know so far about the cause of the massive blackout in Spain and Portugal. It's Wednesday, April 30th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm David Spencer in London. The land of our nation to celebrate the most successful first 100 days of any administration.

US President Donald Trump marking the first 100 days of his second term at a rally in Michigan. He says his policies will lead to a resurgence in growth and domestic manufacturing. But Americans are not convinced. The latest Reuters, Ipsos poll, shows discontent is rising over Trump's handling of the economy. Hours before that, Michigan rally, Trump signed a pair of orders to soften the blur of his auto tariffs. And today, GDP figures show the U.S. economy contracting in the first quarter as businesses

rushed to import goods ahead of those tariffs, in a first snapshot of the ripple effects from Trump's trade policies. Here's U.S. economics editor Dan Burns. What economists think is coming next is all hinges. on what happens over the next three weeks, 60 days or so until this 90-day pause on the reciprocal tariffs expires in early July. There's real clamoring for certainty for progress on deals, on meaningful deals, on credible deals with trading partners that give some certainty to the outlook because the buzzword of the year has been uncertainty. It's been plaguing companies and households.

It's been stymying efforts to make decisions around investments and purchases. And until that uncertainty is lifted, any certainty around the outlook is really impossible to get your arms around. Over on Wall Street, that lack of certainty is a major issue. Earnings reports from major companies are rolling in. But investors are not guessing. much in the way of forward guidance, as Carmore Crimmons explains. Shares in tech companies snap plunged in after hours trading after it declined to issue a sales forecast, and General Motors and JetBlue both pull their outlooks due to uncertainty over the economy. In fact, a whole host of airlines, including Delta and American, have all withdrawn their financial forecasts.

Both tourists and corporations are sitting tight, leading to a pullback in travel spending. We're also starting to see the economic hits in other countries. China's factory activity contracted at the fastest pace in 16 months in April as Trump's tariffs kicked in. A grand parade in Ho Chi Minh City, with thousands celebrating the 50th anniversary at the end of the Vietnam War. The celebrations featured Russian-made fighter jets and more than 100 Chinese troops marching alongside Vietnamese soldiers. A pair of reports on Harvard University, show Jewish and Muslim students face bigotry and abuse on campus. The combined 500 pager was the result of two task forces set up by the university

a year before Donald Trump took office. Harvard says it will do more to teach its students how to have productive and civil dialogue with people from different backgrounds. The power is back on in Spain and Portugal, after one of Europe's biggest ever blackouts. but there are still no answers as to what actually caused it, or how they could prevent it from happening again. Our Iberian co-bure chief, Ashlyn Lange, is looking at this story. Ashlyn, what do we actually know?

It's extremely unclear still what caused the blackout, and there is something of a political blame game initiating. We are also seeing an intense discussion about the merits of different power sources. Spain is and Portugal are big renewables producers. French ministers were saying yesterday, well, you know, if they used more nuclear power, perhaps that wouldn't have happened. The Spanish Prime Minister has firmly rejected that, saying actually even nuclear power couldn't help us get this restarted. We were relying on a lot of hydro. The Spanish power grid operator has said that this is absolutely not a cyber attack from their point of view.

They say there was a massive drop-off in power. supply, what cause that is becoming a key area of investigation. It is unclear. The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, is not ruling out a cyber attack. And in the absence of concrete answers, what are the authorities doing to make sure there isn't a repeat to this? Well, that is the big question is whether it can happen again. We have heard energy analysts saying that this could indeed happen again. This was, you know, one of the, possibly the only big power cut in the era of green electricity, certainly the largest that anyone can remember. There has been an ongoing debate about, you know, the viability of European grids, whether they are having sufficient

amounts of investment in them, particularly now that we are seeing these new sources of power come online. Some analysts suggesting that, you know, you're trying to operate a Ferrari on a country road and that sometimes that will result in its own challenges to the system. Whether that was the case here, whether there was a third party's involvement, it still very much remains to be seen. Heidi Sanchez is speaking with her one-year-old daughter on the phone, at one point breaking down in tears. Sanchez was deported last week to her home country of Cuba.

She says immigration officials forced her to leave her daughter, a U.S. citizen behind. The Department of Homeland Security disputes this, saying Sanchez was given a choice of whether to bring the child or leave her behind with a relative. Ted Heson covers immigration. Ted, this is not the only case like this that we've seen reported. Is what we're seeing here new to previous administrations? It's not new that, you. you may have a parent facing deportation who has a U.S. citizen child creating this complex situation. Former Biden officials have said that under their administration, there were more considerations when it came to enforcement regarding parents, especially if they were primary caregivers,

and also just humanitarian circumstances. I've spoken to a few former Biden officials who've looked at these cases and said that these are textbook cases that would have deserved some form of relief or discretion if they had still been in office. What does the White House say? President Trump took office saying that he wanted to have the most deportations in U.S. history. And it's taken some time to ramp that up. It still seems to be a work in progress for them.

But it's something that if it does go forward the way he wants it to, it will be extremely disruptive to families in the U.S., including some of those who have U.S. citizen children. In the cases that we've come across, the Trump administration has said that the parents have had the choice as to whether they would like to separate or remain together. But there have been cases where parents and their attorneys have said that no, they didn't get the choice that they were told what they have to do. I think as this goes on and if arrests of people in the country illegally and deportations increase, we're likely to see more and more cases like this. Our recommended read today takes us to an island paradise deep in the Pacific, which is the front line of a gigantic geopolitical struggle. Palau is where brutal World War II clashes once unfolded, and it is once again on the front line, as the US and China can test for control over the Asia-Pacific region. Find out more via the link 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.