The Headlines - The Global Backlash to Trump’s Tariffs, and Deep Cuts to Public Health

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Plus, a rare Beatles audition tape. On Today’s Episode: China and Europe Vow to Respond to Trump’s Tariffs, by Ana Swanson, Alan Rappeport and Tony RommC.D.C. Cuts Threaten to Set Back the Nation’s Health, Critics Say, by Apoorva Mandavilli and Roni Caryn RabinKennedy Guts Teams That Share Health Information With the Public, by Maggie AstorShingles Vaccine Can Decrease Risk of Dementia, Study Finds, by Pam BelluckRare Beatles Audition Tape Surfaces in a Vancouver Record Shop, by Neil VigdorTune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. 

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, April 3rd. Here's what we're covering. Good morning. President Trump's announcement of universal tariffs is a major blow to the world economy. Across the globe this morning, there's shock, confusion, and vows of retaliation as world leaders respond to President Trump's dramatic new tariffs.

Let's be clear-eyed about the immense consequences. The global economy will massively suffer. Uncertainty will spiral. And the tariffs will also hurt consumers around the world. Ursula von der Leyen, a top European Union official, didn't even wait for the Sun to come up before condemning the tariffs. At a 5 a.m. news conference she said Europe is already preparing countermeasures. If you take on one of us you take on all of us. Trump announced the tariffs against the EU and nearly

all of America's other trading partners yesterday afternoon at the White House. My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day. He framed the issue as a national emergency, claiming America is being taken advantage of. Foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream. The tariffs will take effect starting this weekend.

There will be a baseline 10% surcharge on nearly all products imported into the U.S., though products from some countries will face rates as high as 46%. Economists warn that higher costs will be passed on to Americans, with everything from clothing to food to smartphones becoming more expensive as the tariffs kick in. There was also immediate fallout. The value of the US dollar slumped even as Trump was announcing his plan.

And this morning, the stock markets in Asia have dropped sharply over fears about the disruption the tariffs will cause. It's like complete shock. Like the words that people have been using when I asked them are shell shock, madness. Everyone's just trying to get their hands around it. Like there's just like a ton of emergency meetings that are happening at the government and corporate level. My colleague, Damian Cave, covers global affairs for the Times.

Trump is basically trying to redraw the map of the global economy, and he's pitching it as something that will basically bring the United States roaring back, and all the jobs and all the manufacturing will flow back into the United States. But it's just nowhere near that simple. What we know from the tariffs

that Trump put in place in his first term, which hit China pretty hard and moved a lot of companies into other parts of Southeast Asia, is that jobs don't necessarily come back to the United States. In many cases, they just move elsewhere around the world where it's affordable and cheaper than it is actually to produce them in the United States, even with tariffs applied. So, you know, this is a moment of extreme global disruption that will play out for many, many years in ways that are likely to be very unpredictable. For more on the tariffs, listen to today's episode of The Daily.

This week, the Trump administration began carrying out the layoffs of 10,000 federal health workers from the Department of Health and Human Services. More than 2,000 of those layoffs happened at the country's top public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC has been a target of many conservatives since the pandemic when they criticized its response to COVID. But the cuts have gone beyond that, hitting across the entire agency and gutting whole offices dedicated to things like reproductive health or gun violence prevention. They've also hit scientists who are studying

the health effects of smoking, lead poisoning, and sexually transmitted diseases, among many other issues. The experts that I've been talking to, some of whom actually led the CDC and were involved in senior leadership roles, say that this is really a dismantling of the public health system. This isn't just a reorganizing. A poor from Mandeville covers public health for the Times.

What's clear from looking at some of the cuts is that the people who will be most affected are people who are poor, who live in rural areas, who are people of color, because some of the units that were cut specifically help those populations with their health issues. For example, a part of the Division of Reproductive Health that was cut specifically helps minority populations deal with their maternal and child health issues. And this is happening as we are already coping with multiple public health crises all over the country now. We have measles outbreaks. We have a bird flu epidemic.

We have STDs that have been soaring and are really not showing big signs of coming down. And so the CDC deals with all of those problems, and it's a bit difficult to imagine how it will do that work when it's been cut down so much. The Times has learned that the Trump administration has also gutted the communications staff at multiple health agencies. Many of those employees made sure the public was aware of food and drug recalls, shared information about disease outbreaks, or helped explain complex scientific

research in an accessible way. The head of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said he's cutting back on bloated bureaucracy. But an FDA spokeswoman, who was laid off this week, told the Times it's the complete opposite of the radical transparency that Kennedy promised when he took the job, and that it's, quote, doing a disservice to the public. A new study published this week in the journal Nature shows that getting vaccinated against shingles can reduce the risk of developing dementia. The research adds to the growing body of evidence that preventing some viral infections may help stave off cognitive decline.

Shingles is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox when you're a kid. It can remain dormant in your nerve cells for years. But as people age and their immune systems weaken, the virus can reactivate and cause symptoms like painful blisters. The study suggests shingles may also have lasting effects on brain function. Researchers found that people who were vaccinated

were 20% less likely to develop dementia over the next few years than people who were not vaccinated. In the U.S., about one in three people get shingles in their lifetime. developed dementia over the next few years than people who were not vaccinated. In the US, about one in three people get shingles in their lifetime. About a third of eligible adults have received the vaccine. And finally, a record shop owner in Canada had an old reel-to-reel tape sitting on his shelf for years collecting dust until he finally played it last month. And out of the speakers came The Beatles.

Very young Beatles. The label on the cardboard box had said it was a Beatles demo tape, but the shop owner hadn't really believed it until he heard it. The tape had 15 songs on it, most of which were covers. It appears to be a rare recording from the Beatles' infamous audition for DECA Records back in 1962, when basically no one knew who they were yet. Ringo wasn't even in the band. The record label turned them down.

The top executives supposedly told them, quote, guitar groups are on the way out. Bootleg copies of their audition have popped up over the years, and the Beatles themselves released a few of the songs back in the 90s. It's unclear exactly how the tape ended up at the shop. The owner said before he listened to it, he would have happily sold it for 20 bucks. Now he's a little more attached to it.

The news of the resurfaced tape comes on the heels of another big Beatles development. Director Sam Mendes is gonna start filming four movies on the band, one from each member's perspective, and he announced the casting this week. The biggest name, Paul Meskell, most recently of the Gladiator sequel, will play Paul McCartney, and you can see the rest of the Fab Four lineup at NYTimes.com. In my opinion, they kind of nailed the pick for Ringo. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.