WSJ What’s News - White House Scales Back Planned April Tariffs

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

A.M. Edition for Mar. 24. The Trump administration is considering holding off on industry-specific tariffs when it unveils a raft of trade measures on April 2nd. Plus, Greenland’s prime minister condemns a planned trip to the island this week by a U.S. delegation as ‘highly aggressive.’ And as Israel prepares for a scaled-up ground offensive in Gaza, WSJ correspondent Dov Lieber reports that a majority of Israelis would prefer negotiating with Hamas to end fighting. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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A lot of investors feel like if they can have their money, not just in the U.S., but in Europe, in China, in commodities like gold, it'll make them feel less like the value of their portfolio is tied to the day-to-day actions of the White House. And with ceasefire talks stalled, Israel expands its ground operations across Gaza. It's Monday, March 24th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal and and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

The White House is narrowing down the list of tariffs set to take effect next week. We report that while so-called reciprocal tariffs remain likely to kick in on April 2, a day President Trump has called Liberation Day for the U.S. Sector-specific tariffs on cars, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors are now likely not to be announced. The White House didn't respond to requests for comment on if or when those tariffs are still planned to go into effect.

While also being dialed back is the scope of those reciprocal tariffs that seek to match US duties with those charged by trading partners. According to people with knowledge of the planning, they will now be focused on just 15% of countries that maintain persistent trade imbalances with the US, which would likely include Canada and Mexico, China, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, and the European Union. Israel is expanding its ground operations in Gaza, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the new national security team around him confident that they can finally defeat

Hamas. So, reports the journal's Dov Lieber, who told me the preparations for renewed fighting come as a recent poll found that nearly three-quarters of Israelis would prefer negotiating with Hamas to end fighting. Now there's a new crop of leaders who are hewing to Prime Minister Netanyahu's desire to first defeat Hamas completely militarily, and only then can a solution to the political problem as to who would rule Gaza after the war be found. And they're coming up with a new game plan to defeat Hamas in the battlefield. And that has to do with both the Israeli military planning to invade Gaza,

wide-scale ground invasion in a way that we didn't see in the first part of the war. What we are told, according to people familiar with the government speaking, is that this time around Israel will do a simultaneous invasion across the Gaza Strip. At the same time, it will seek to hold territory and control the distribution of humanitarian aid so that distribution of humanitarian aid isn't overseen by Hamas, who can use its control of humanitarian aid either to take the aid and sell it for money or to use it as a lever of control over the population. Nat. Dov, needless to say, I imagine this strategy is not without significant risks.

Dov. It is a very risky strategy. On the one hand, Gaza has already been devastated by what's already happened during the war. According to Gaza health authorities, now 50,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began and much of the infrastructure there is devastated. On the other hand, the military may have a logistical problem insofar as that it will lead large amounts of reservists who have already fought hundreds of days of war and now given the fact that returning to fighting is already a contentious

issue inside Israeli society, that means the reservists will be less motivated to return to war. This could be a serious problem for the Israeli government and the military going forward. That was journal correspondent Dov Lieber. US officials are meeting with a Russian delegation in Saudi Arabia today following talks with their Ukrainian counterparts on Sunday. According to US officials, the goal of the talks is to extend a shaky ceasefire preventing attacks on energy infrastructure to the Black Sea, with Washington hoping that the deal will be followed by broader peace negotiations.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, President Trump's chief negotiator Steve Witkoff defended the administration's efforts to cut a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying, quote, this is not me taking sides. And I simply have said that I just don't see that he wants to take all of Europe. This is a much different situation than it was in World War II. In World War II, there was no NATO. So I just, you have countries that are armed there. To me, I take him at his word in this sense.

European leaders fear a bad deal that allows Russia to rearm and attack Ukraine in several years could leave countries west of Ukraine vulnerable to Russia's military. Greenland's Prime Minister Muta Iga has slammed U.S. plans for a visit this week as quote, highly aggressive. That says U.S. National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Second Lady Usha Vance will travel to Greenland on Thursday, just days before local elections take place. It marks the first high-level U.S. delegation to visit the self-governing island since Trump vowed to acquire Greenland from

Denmark quote, one way or the other. Both local lawmakers and the Danish government have expressed strong opposition to Trump's approach, insisting that the mineral-rich island, while open to stronger commercial ties with the U.S., isn't interested in an American takeover. Greenland leaders said they'd been approached to meet with the U.S. delegation, but declined. Less than two weeks after taking over for Justin Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has called a snap election a vote that will revolve largely around the question of how Canada will deal with President Trump. Speaking yesterday in Ottawa, Carney said Canadians will go to the polls at the end of April. We are facing the most significant crisis of our lifetimes because of President Trump's

unjustified trade actions and his threats to our sovereignty. The former central banker is hoping to capitalize on momentum in the polls for his Liberal Party, which has coincided with a patriotic backlash against Trump's threats to slap tariffs on one of the U.S.'s largest trading partners or annex the country entirely. Conservative party leader Pierre Poliev was also quick to hit the campaign trail in Toronto. Under the Liberals led by Trudeau or Carney, what we have is out of touch, weak leadership. And for Mr. Carney, someone who will not stand up for our country. Poliev, a career politician, used populist rhetoric in building up a huge polling lead last year, and has recently tried

to capture some of the anti-US energy in his speeches. Coming up as markets around the world trade at near-record discounts to the US, even some of the most all-American investors are shifting their assets abroad. That story and more after the break. With the Fizz loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. 2025 was supposed to be the year of American exceptionalism, yet the US stock market finds itself languishing. Not least because investors who were all in on US stocks are starting

to look elsewhere. My colleague Kate Bullivant spoke to journal reporter Owen Tucker-Smith to find out where they're putting their money instead. Owen, from your reporting, why are people who were all in on US stocks, why are they starting to look elsewhere for their investments? Yeah, so for the investors who I spoke to, there's two big factors going into this. The first is uncertainty in the United States. President Donald Trump's policies and the potential trade standoff he started has many investors worried that economic growth might be dampened in the coming years, which makes having a lot of your portfolio in U.S. stocks less desirable. And the second factor is that many markets that many investors

brushed off over the years abroad are actually doing pretty well this year. The European index and indexes in Asia are in many cases outperforming the S&P 500. And so one investor I talked to, he's born in Canada and he understands that the US stock market is, in his opinion, overpriced. But he also has just taken many of President Trump's remarks about Canada personally, especially the comment about annexing Canada and making it the 51st state. And so these factors combined when put together have made him really want to just totally pull out of the US stock market, even though for years that's where the majority of his equities were. We're four months roughly into a four-year Trump presidency. It's relatively early days.

So why do you think people you spoke to are not wanting to ride out this period of volatility? Well, I think part of it is that for the past couple of years, the US has been experiencing this massive bull market. And everyone's just gotten really used to seeing their portfolios go up and up every day. And so the past couple of weeks, it's just this general sense of uncertainty.

And investors don't like uncertainty. And the stock market doesn't like uncertainty either. And so in my reporting, I heard from a lot of investors who just thought it would be safer to diversify. They feel like if they can have their money, not just in the US, but in Europe and China and commodities like gold, it'll make them feel less like the value of their portfolio is tied to the day today actions of the White House. So if people are looking to move out of the US, where are they looking to invest their money now? Well, the S&P 500 is down this year.

Indexes like the Stocks Europe 600 and the Hang Seng Index have outpaced US markets. And this has left many investors willing to pile in abroad to places like China and Europe. Some of them are looking at stocks like LVMH and Alibaba and others are looking at lesser known stocks in the European defense sector, both out of a desire to help if they live in Europe defend Europe but also because they see that these stocks have just risen enormously over the past couple of months. And what about those investors who aren't looking for the exit when it comes to American stocks?

Yeah, so plenty of investors I talked to still acknowledge that US exceptionalism is going to continue to be a dominant trend. Many people think that the current stock market downturn is a correction and they view AI as a major tailwind in the stock market that will continue to push the S&P 500 up over the next couple of years. Owen, thanks so much for bringing us this reporting. Thanks so much for having me. And DNA testing company 23andMe filed for bankruptcy last night. CEO Anne Wojcicki also stepped

down from her role, but will remain on the board as she continues efforts to buy the company's assets. Those include DNA samples from more than 15 million people which could be sold in bankruptcy proceedings. Prior to the Chapter 11 filing, California's Attorney General reminded consumers in his state of their right to delete their information, a step some may scramble to take due to concerns over who could ultimately own their personal genetic data. 23andMe said any buyer would have to comply with applicable law governing consumer data. The company had an enterprise value of more than $6 billion as recently as 2021, but struggled to find a profitable business

model. And that's it for what's News for this Monday morning. Additional sound in this episode was from Reuters. Today's show was produced by Kate Bulevent and Daniel Bach, with supervising producer Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.