Up First from NPR - Jordan's King In Washington, New Tariffs, NYC Mayor's Corruption Charges

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Jordan's King Abdullah will meet with President Trump in Washington after rejecting Trump's plan to move Palestinians out of Gaza. President Trump announced new tariffs on steel and aluminum, and the Justice Department has asked prosecutors to dismiss corruption charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams. Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Nishant Dahiya, Roberta Rampton, Gerry Holmes, Janaya Williams and Alice Woelfle. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from David Greenberg. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, are you there? Yeah. What's happening? Nothing. I was, where'd you go? Greenland? I went to Turks and Geckos. Oh.

It was fun. It was beautiful. Was it really hard to work when I wasn't there? Did you miss me so much? I didn't. I decided not to work until you got back. This is my first day back. Oh, excellent. Jordan's King Abdullah is in the US to meet President

Trump. But it may be a tense meeting. The king, like most of the world's leaders, has rejected Trump's calls for the more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza to be displaced to Jordan and Egypt. I'm Ian Martinez. That's Leila Fadl. And this is Up First from NPR News. President Trump imposed new tariffs on imports of global metals. Economists say that's good for American steel and aluminum companies, but not so good for other industries. You lose jobs in the manufacturing sector when you put together the higher cost of input and the retaliation, which

is here to come. So what's the president's game plan? And the federal corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams may be dismissed. The Justice Department ordered prosecutors to drop the charges. We've got the news you need to start your day. At the Super Bowl halftime show, Kendrick Lamar indeed performed his smash diss track Not Like Us and brought out Samuel L. Jackson, Serena Williams, and SZA.

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It's ashes. To the potentially largest deportation in US history. They're going to come to the businesses. They're going to come to the restaurants. They're going to come here. Planet Money. We go to the places at the center of the story. The Planet Money podcast from NPR. President Trump and Jordan's King Abdullah are meeting today at the White House.

Jordan is one of the closest U.S. allies in the Middle East, but today's meeting is expected to be a little awkward to say the least. Trump has floated pushing Palestinians from Gaza into Jordan and Egypt. That's a plan rejected by both countries and the Palestinians. To discuss what to expect today, NPR's Jane Araf joins us from Jordan's capital, Amman. Hi Jane. Hi Leila. So what do you think the tone of this meeting will be after Trump has repeatedly said he wants the Palestinians out of Gaza and wants to own it. Yeah, I would expect tense and that's probably an understatement. It's hard to put a good face on this. That's because, as you noted, Jordan is a key ally and without any consultation,

according to Jordanians and White House officials, Trump floated that plan last week during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the U.S. to take over Gaza and forcibly push 2 million Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan. Monday night, Trump doubled down, threatening Jordan if it didn't accept the plan. If they don't agree, I would, I would conceivably withhold aid. If they don't agree, I would conceivably withhold aid. So Jordan is a small country with a large number of refugees and it relies on foreign aid. But this plan is one of those rare ones that has united citizens and the country's leaders in opposition to it. And what is the King likely to say? Well, I spoke with Marwan Washer, the foreign foreign minister of Jordan now with the Carnegie

Endowment think tank. He says this is going to be one of the toughest meetings the King has faced. Let's listen. The meeting is not going to be an easy one because there is no amount of pressure in my view that the United States can exert, that Jordan can accede to. This is an existential issue to Jordan. And by that he means that creating an alternative Palestinian homeland here means that Jordan would essentially cease to exist as a country in many ways.

The majority of its citizens are already descendants of Palestinian refugees. So this is something that Jordan doesn't believe it could or ever would agree to no matter what the cost. Danielle Pletka Now, as you point out, Jordan has rejected this plan. But what has the government officially said so far? Danielle Pletka Well, the Jordanian Foreign Minister, Ayman As-Safedi, has quite clearly said that expulsion of Palestinians here would be a breach of its historic peace treaty with Israel and therefore seen

as a declaration of war. Now despite that Trump keeps insisting Jordan and Egypt will succumb to US pressure and the US has leverage in the form of aid. Does Jordan have leverage? I asked Mawassir who's also a former senior official at the World Bank about that. Here's what he said. Jordan gets 1.5, 1.6 billion dollars from the United States each year. Any loss of that assistance is going to produce economic difficulty for Jordan. This is not to say also that cutting off aid to Jordan is not that easy. So he points out

that Congress would be quite resistant to this because it's a friend. Many of Congress people are friends of Jordan. If the US cut aid, would other countries step up? Well there is one key friend, Saudi Arabia, and its rulers have made clear that they will not accept this plan. So in the end, that could be what stops it. And Piers Janeroff and Aman, thank you. Thank you. President Donald Trump has announced more tariffs, this time on steel and aluminum.

Signing the order for the tariffs last night, Trump emphasized the sweeping nature of his new taxes on imports. It's 25% without exceptions or exemptions. And that's all countries, no matter where it comes from, all countries. NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben is here to explain what's going on. Good morning, Danielle. Good morning. So what are these tariffs and how do they compare to what Trump imposed in his first

term? Well, American importers will now be paying a 25% tax on steel and aluminum. And that makes these tariffs a lot like some you might remember him imposing during his first term, except this time the aluminum rate is higher. It was 10% back then. In doing this, the administration has stressed they're trying to use these tariffs to stick it to China, which is the world's biggest steel exporter. Now, the U.S. doesn't actually get much steel or aluminum directly from China, but the White House argues that

Chinese steel makes it into the U.S. by being sold through other countries. Danielle Pletka So you point out that China doesn't export much steel or aluminum to the U.S. What countries do export all that steel and aluminum? Danielle Pletka Well, the US gets by far the most of its aluminum imports from Canada, according to data compiled by Reuters. And on steel, Canada is also first. And there are other allies on that list, like Mexico and South Korea. You might notice that in all those countries I mentioned, Canada and Mexico feature prominently. Trump had recently threatened tariffs on them and then paused them at the last minute. Well, with this new announcement,

he's putting tariffs on those two countries anyway, just not on all of their goods. And that gets to one really important thing about these tariffs. There are no exceptions to these, and that's different from Trump's tariffs last time around. It's also different from how Biden treated tariffs. Both of them had carve- outs on tariffs for some allies, but not now. I think the big question for so many Americans are what are these tariffs going to mean for the U.S. economy and for them? Well, in the near term, this should be good for American steel and aluminum companies because tariffs raise the price of steel and aluminum and they protect against some foreign

competition. And markets seem to think so yesterday. Shares of Alcoa, an American aluminum company, and U.S. Steel were both up. But that doesn't mean this is great for the rest of the economy. I talked to Gary Huffbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He told me that industries that use those metals like aircraft and auto manufacturing, also bridge construction, those could lose jobs. You lose jobs in the manufacturing sector when you put together the higher cost of

inputs and the retaliation, which is sure to come like night follows day. He's saying there that not only would prices be higher for steel and aluminum, but other countries are likely to hit back and tariff American exports, which will hurt these companies. Now, the president has talked about imposing still more tariffs this week. What has he said? Well, it's unclear, but he's dribbled out a bit of information. He has said he'll be announcing what he calls reciprocal tariffs. The idea there seems to be that whatever tariff a foreign country has put on a U.S. good, he wants to impose it back in return. He also said yesterday that he'll be considering tariffs on cars,

pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, but it was unclear whether those are separate from the reciprocal tariffs. And this is one constant feature of how Trump does tariff policy. There's often not an orderly rollout. We really just don't know what's coming until he says it. I'm Piers Danielle Kurtzleben. Thank you for your reporting. Yeah, thank you. President Trump's Justice Department is ordering prosecutors to drop the case against the Democratic mayor of the nation's largest city. New York City Mayor Eric Adams was indicted last year on corruption charges with a trial

scheduled for April. He's also up for reelection this year. Adams has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Joining me now with the latest is Brigid Bergen. She's a senior politics reporter at member station WNYC in New York. Good morning, Brigid. Good morning. Okay. So for those who haven't been following this closely, just lay out the charges the mayor was facing. Brigid Yeah, he was charged in September in a five-count

criminal indictment. Prosecutors alleged that Adams accepted about $100,000 in luxury travel perks, as well as illegal foreign campaign contributions from people connected to the Turkish government in exchange for official acts from City Hall. Adams, as you said, has pleaded not guilty to those charges and has been really pretty vocal about calling the case politically motivated without really any evidence. He says it was payback for speaking out against the Biden administration's handling of the migrant crisis. And since President Trump's election, he's been very careful not to criticize him. He visited him at Mar-a-Lago, attended the inauguration. Adams even held a meeting yesterday with heads of city agencies, according to

sources at the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the administration. They were also told not to publicly criticize President Trump. So why does the Justice Department say this case should be dropped? of the administration, they were also told not to publicly criticize President Trump. So why does the Justice Department say this case should be dropped? So they sent a memo to federal prosecutors outlining two very specific reasons. First, it says the charges were filed too close to the mayor's re-election. And the second reason relates to the Trump administration's ongoing immigration enforcement

actions. The memo states that the pending prosecution has, quote, unduly restricted the mayor's ability to devote his full attention to illegal immigration and really his ability to support the Trump administration's efforts. The memo also seeks to have the mayor's security clearance restored and says that no further steps should be taken as it relates to the investigation, at least for now. And what is the mayor saying? So there was a post on the social media platform X last night.

It was from a Fox News reporter who actually caught up with the mayor who was out at a restaurant. Adams has said, you know, he's speaking with his attorney, still looking at what's happening. Normally on Tuesdays, he holds a weekly off-topic press conference, but instead he's scheduled to deliver an address today at noon that's going to stream online. So at this point, there's not going to be any chance for reporters to really ask him about any questions about whatever it is he announces. So at this point, does this all mean that Adam's legal troubles are over?

Well, not quite yet, Leila. Now the acting U.S. attorney of the Southern District will need to decide whether to follow the direction in that memo and the judge overseeing the case would need to decide on whether to sign off on dropping the charges. You know, those actions could set off another set of repercussions in this office that's really known for taking on these high-profile corruption cases. We haven't heard from the Southern District yet. It's also worth noting that the memo explicitly says the charges will be dropped without prejudice, which means they could potentially be brought again. The memo states the case should be reviewed after the general election in November.

As WNYC senior politics reporter, Bridget Bergen. Thank you, Bridget. Thank you. And that's a first for Tuesday, February 11th. I'm Laila Fadl. Thank you. That's Up First for Tuesday, February 11th. I'm Leila Fadl. And I'm A. Martinez. Remember, you can listen to this podcast sponsor free while financially supporting public media with Up First Plus.

Learn more at plus.npr.org. That's P-L-U-S dot N-P-R dot org. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Nishant Dahiya, Roberta Rampton, Jerry Holmes, Janaya Williams, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from David Greenberg, and our technical director is Carly Strange. Join us again tomorrow. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to Up First sponsor free through Amazon Music.

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