Your World Tonight - New tariffs set to go into effect, Iran nuclear talks, biotech company claims Dire wolves have made a comeback and more

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

The stock market continued its volatility today as the Trump administration said that new tariffs would go into effect at midnight. With the economic uncertainty, the administration faced new questions about their trade policy.And: Talks between Iran and the US will begin this weekend. This after a surprise announcement of negotiations by President Trump yesterday.Also: Dire wolves have been extinct for thousands of years. But now an American biotech company says it has resurrected the species. Not everyone is convinced.Plus: The Conservative campaign is having huge rallies — will this translate into votes, the NDP is fighting for political survival — will a change in strategy boost its electoral chances, the Liberal campaign travels to Alberta, and more.

You know what I'd like to hear people say more often? I'm not sure. Let me think about that. I'm Nala Ayed, host of Ideas, a podcast that brings you deep thought every day. We're a show for listeners who like to slow down, to check their assumptions, and maybe even change their minds. If that's you, find and follow ideas wherever you get your podcasts. We have a trade surplus with Australia. We have a free trade agreement. They are an incredibly important national security partner.

Why were they whacked with a tariff? Trade aggression spilling over from the White House to a Senate committee hearing. The Trump administration defending its tariffs and just hours away from hitting China with even more. As exporters in Canada and around the world scramble to ship out before a midnight deadline. Welcome to Your World Tonight. I'm Stephanie Scandaris. It's Tuesday, April 8th, coming up on 6 p.m. Eastern Time, also on the podcast.

I think it's pretty broad. I think how many how many people do you think we had last night? If there were a bigger rally than that, you would know about it. To have 10 or 15000 people at one political rally, this is a movement like we've never seen because people want change. Sizing up the Conservative Party, drawing bigger and bigger crowds at campaign rallies, Pierre-Paul Liev says his message is growing on Canadians.

But will it translate to voter turnout, with less than three weeks until all of the parties will just be counting votes. A bumpy ride on stock markets isn't stopping Donald Trump from accelerating his global tariff plan. After days of mixed messaging, the White House says country-specific tariffs will go ahead at midnight. It comes as the Trump administration is facing more questions about the president's plan and what he's trying to accomplish. Katie Simpson has the latest from Washington. The U.S. president is now acknowledging the instability caused by his tariff plan. Donald Trump veered from his prepared remarks at an announcement on coal mining, defending the latest moves in his trade war.

It was somewhat explosive. Sometimes you have to mix it up a little bit. Trump says officials from nearly 70 countries have reached out to negotiate tariffs. So many calls the president says his team is having trouble keeping up. And we're doing very well in making, I call them tailored deals, not off the rack. These are tailored, highly tailored deals. The U.S. will start collecting country-specific tariffs at midnight. Canada is exempt from this move, though it continues to deal with tariffs related to border security, the auto sector, steel and aluminum.

Dozens of countries will be hit, including China, with a record high 104 percent tariff, punishment after Beijing retaliated. There are no winners in a trade war, said the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman. China will, as always, fight to the end. While the White House says it believes China wants to reach a deal, it will continue to make an example of Beijing unless it backs down. While White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt says she believes China wants to reach a deal, the U.S. will continue to make an example of Beijing unless it backs down.

When America is punched, he punches back harder. There's plenty of backlash at home too, with complaints coming from Trump's Republican allies. Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong? Republican Senator Tom Tillis among the lawmakers at a committee hearing grilling Jameson Greer who serves as the U.S. Trade Representative. This adjustment may be challenging at times and in a moment of drastic overdue change I'm confident, I'm certain that the American people can rise to the challenges they've done before. Greer called the trade deficit a national emergency while downplaying the scale and

scope of Trump's efforts. This is not a trade war. We have most countries have said they're not going to retaliate. Claims attacked and questioned by lawmakers, including Republican Senator Stephen Daines. Who pays these high tariffs? In the short medium term, it will be the consumer. And so I'm worried about the inflationary effect. The sentiment shared by Democrat Mark Warner.

Incredulous about, I think, probably the worst economic policies that I've seen in my lifetime. There's also Democrat Elizabeth Warren. Donald Trump is single-handedly driving this economy off a cliff. And Democrat Ron Wyden. The U.S. economy has gone from the envy of the world to a laughing stock in less time than it took to finish March Madness. There's no specific timeline around when Trump hopes to have deals completed. It's more mixed messaging. Some warn weeks to months.

Others say they're moving as quickly as they can. Katie Simpson, CBC News, Washington. The U.S. go-ahead on tariffs rippled around the world from international stock markets to independent businesses. As Peter Armstrong tells us, Canadian companies spent the day scrambling to get products shipped ahead of the midnight tariff deadline. Stock markets surged at the open.

Optimism and enthusiasm returned to Wall Street. But it didn't last. Stocks turned sour in what traders call a sucker's rally, where the hopes that a sell-off had hit bottom lead to a surge only to fall further on the first hint of bad news. Today's bad news was that the Trump administration would go ahead and hike China's tariff rate to 104%.

We are experiencing a mild state of panic, well, between mild and extreme, depending on the company's circumstances. That's Ryan Peterson, founder of the shipping logistics company Flexport. He's been helping clients move product out of China and into the U.S. before the tariffs kick in. of the shipping logistics company Flexport. He's been helping clients move product out of China and into the US before the tariffs kick in.

And now he says they're watching live tracking to see if shipments made it out on time. And so if it departs before midnight tonight, you'll still pay only a 10% duty, additional duty. Whereas if it departs at 1201 a.m., then these new tariffs go into effect, which for China is 104 percent. So that is just a massive difference of one minute on the clock that everybody's paying attention to. Behind the scenes of a trade war, companies big and small are scrambling. Car makers

like Jaguar and Lexus have paused shipments. Major retailers are adjusting their prices, but big multinational companies have cash and market share to provide some cushion. Small independent store owners like Kara Arding do not. She's the owner of Pickleball Depot in Vernon, BC. It's really been a huge time of uncertainty, not knowing what's what, in terms of our end costing, what we're going to be landing our products for. So for us, it's the last month has been a little bit chaotic.

Arting imports pickleball equipment from China, but almost a third of that ships through the US. So she's trying to find alternatives in terms of shipping and trying to decide how much of the tariff cost she can pass along to consumers. We have just increased our costing by 3% on that those items so right now we're sort of subsidizing we're eating that cost just because we don't know if this is a temporary thing if those tariffs are going to be pulled back. That dilemma is being faced by businesses around the world tonight. If these new tariffs go ahead those businesses will suffer they'll invest less and hire fewer workers. And if that's sustained, it won't be long before economies start to contract.

Peter Armstrong, CBC News, Toronto. Still ahead on the podcast, the U S is restarting talks with Iran on a nuclear deal after abandoning a previous one. Plus the latest from the federal campaign trail and why the conservatives say big crowds will add up to big support on election day. We'll also tell you about the complicated science behind a dire wolf resurrection. That's all coming up on Your World Tonight. The head of the United Nations says Israel's blockade of Gaza is turning it into a killing field.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres rejected Israel's claim that sufficient aid is reaching the two million Palestinians there. He described the shortages of food and essential supplies in stark terms. More than an entire month has passed without a drop of aid into Gaza. No food, no fuel, no medicine, no commercial supplies. As aid has dried up, the floodgates of horror have reopened. Gaza is a killing field and civilians are in an endless death slope. Israel resumed its blockade and bombing of Gaza last month with the collapse of a ceasefire

agreement with Hamas. Guterres's comments come after the heads of six UN agencies appealed to world leaders to get involved to ensure more aid is allowed in. He also repeated his call for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas. While there's still uncertainty about what form they will take, both Iran and the U.S. confirm nuclear negotiations will begin this weekend. The U.S. president made the surprise announcement yesterday. The two sides are returning to official talks for the first time in years amid heightened military tension across the Middle East. CBC's senior international correspondent Margaret Evans has more.

We're having direct talks with Iran. The U.S. president set the stage for the upcoming talks with a familiar mix, short on detail but big on bravado and with a threat to back it up. I think if the talks aren't successful with Iran, I think Iran is going to be in great danger and I hate to say it, great danger because they can't have a nuclear weapon. Donald Trump dropped the news to reporters in the Oval Office while seated next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose far-right government would no doubt prefer U.S. support for military action against Iran.

Before leaving Washington today, Netanyahu said he and the U.S. president agreed that any deal must include the complete dismantling of Iran's nuclear capabilities. If they drag out the talks, he's saying, then the option is military. Everyone understands that. That's certainly a fear in Tehran. But regional experts say Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will undoubtedly reject Trump's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will undoubtedly reject Trump's initial demands, leaving pundits to guess at what room there might be for diplomatic

maneuvering. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi has confirmed the negotiations to take place, but insists they'll be indirect, messaging perhaps intended for a domestic audience negotiations where they try to impose their will on us through pressure and threats are not truly negotiations he's saying it was Donald Trump who pulled Washington out of a 2015 agreement between Iran and world powers that limited Iran's nuclear activities. Since then analysts say Iran has been stockpiling enriched uranium while continuing to insist its nuclear program is for civilian use only. On the streets in Tehran

where people live with the economic bite of US sanctions, reaction to news of the talks was guarded. This man says he hopes negotiations might improve the economy, but he also says it's important for Iran to show strength. That's much harder for Iran given developments in the Middle East in the wake of the Gaza War. Its proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon much weakened, and the loss of its long-term ally in Syria with the toppling of former President Bashar al-Assad. Margaret Evans, CBC News, London. In a federal election, the most important thing to count are votes.

But throughout the current campaign, the Conservative Party has been tallying up something else – the growing number of people attending their rallies. But throughout the current campaign, the Conservative Party has been tallying up something else. The growing number of people attending their rallies. Large crowds don't necessarily mean success on election night, but the party says size matters. Olivia Stefanovich has more. Look, this has got to be the biggest political gathering of the 21st century. In a large warehouse outside of Edmonton in an industrial park, Pierre Poliev was treated

to a rock star reception with supporters of all ages, some parking more than a kilometer away for a chance to see the Conservative leader, their pick to become the next Prime Minister. I've never needed to be into politics until this year I think and I'm excited to be a part of it now for Pierre. Marissa Innis, one of the thousands of people who arrived hours early to wait in a line that snaked around the building and spilled onto the streets. He kind of tells it how it is and I think that's how it has to be in our country right now and he doesn't hold back.

Who's ready for change in Canada? Poliev is drawing by far the largest crowds in the campaign so far, but his party still trails the Liberals in the polls. The kind of people who attend rallies aren't swing voters. They're not the people who decide elections. They're the people who go out and knock on doors and volunteer and donate to a party. Eric Grenier runs the CBC's poll tracker. He says big rallies are a sign of the Conservatives' ability to organize, not necessarily a reflection

of Poliev's support. The party is trying to get these people to go to the rallies, to give the perception of momentum, to give the party supporters and party volunteers some optimism that they can win the race and also to change the narrative from a situation that puts them in a losing position when it comes to where they are on the polls. My choice without hesitation. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper is trying to give the conservatives a boost. Pierre Paulien.

Harper hit the campaign trail for the first time since the 2015 federal election, endorsing Poliev at the Alberta rally last night and declaring that the country's problems are not being caused by US President Donald Trump. They were created by the policies of three liberal terms, policies that the present Prime Minister supported and wants a fourth liberal term to continue. Listen, I think to have 10 or 15,000 people at one political rally, this is a movement like we've never seen because people want change. Poliev says his crowd sizes show his momentum has the momentum, no matter what the polls say.

What they want is a new conservative government that will put Canada first for a change. Oh Canada. And Poliev believes that desire for change will translate into votes on election day. Olivia Stefanovic, CBC News, Edmonton. Poliev's campaign promise today was aimed at cracking down on tax cheats. My task force will specifically propose solutions to close loopholes

that allow tax havens to be a source of evading taxes for the well-connected and the global elite. Poliev says his government would also create a registry to list corporations that evade taxes and he pledged to reward whistleblowers with some of the recovered funds when they report illegal tax schemes. Liberal leader Mark Carney is in Alberta tonight. It's his first stop in the province since the campaign began and he'll be confronting one of his party's biggest challenges, winning over voters in the West. Carina Roman is traveling with the liberals and has this look at the party's strategy so far. I'm not a career politician. I'm a pragmatist.

Mark Carney says that's why voters in the West should trust that he cares about their issues. The liberals have won government without a surge of seats in Western provinces. But Carney says he cares more about voter issues in BC than he does about election math. I'm here to address a series of crises. The crisis first and foremost with the United States, the crisis in housing, the cost of living crisis. At a timber facility that builds prefabricated houses, Carney says his promise to double the number of homes built in Canada each year,

using Canadian lumber and creating Canadian jobs, will make the country less dependent on the U.S. And that Canadians in every part of the country care about that. I am asking for, through the Liberal Party, for the support of all Canadians to serve all Canadians for those crises. Liberal supporters at the Richmond, B. to serve all Canadians for those crises. Liberal supporters at the Richmond, BC rally last night clearly agree with Carney that the U.S. threats to Canada's economy and sovereignty are the top issue in this election.

It's really important we have a good leader who can represent us on the world stage, you know, make those trade deals, negotiate with other people. Housing shortages, cost of living are top of mind too for Liberal supporters here. But mostly in the sense that those issues will only get worse if the right leader isn't in place to stare down the existential threat Canada faces. I'm here to support somebody that I believe in and you know probably the smartest person in the room. At his rally in Victoria two nights ago, Carney made a couple of jabs at Alberta Premier Danielle Smith Including when he was talking about clean energy and then his microphone cut out

Don't take it away. I was just saying clean Was that was Danielle she was Carney says they were just light-hearted comments that he has a great deal of respect for Smith and any differences of opinion have not impacted the ability of the federal government and provinces to unanimously agree to eliminating internal trade barriers. Carney also points out that he grew up in Edmonton and has family in BC. I know the West. Carney will get to test that claim at his next stop as he heads to Alberta where Conservative blue dominates. Carney has a rally in Calgary.

He says if the Liberals win this election and he remains Prime Minister, he would govern for all Canadians, even those who don't like him. Karina Roman, CBC News, Richmond, BC. The NDP leader is also in Western Canada with a vow to keep foreign buyers out of Canada's housing market. We're going to make it permanent, the ban on big money investors buying up Canadian homes. In addition, we're going to end the loophole that allows speculators to flip homes year after year.

Jagmeet Singh says his plan includes, as you heard, closing loopholes in existing rules and taxing profits on homes sold within five years of their purchase unless it's a principal residence. The Trudeau Liberals had put a ban in place on foreign home buyers. It ends in 2027. The NDP is fighting for every single vote right now. It's also fighting for relevancy in a campaign where global economic threats are drowning out other issues. As Ashley Burke explains, it's forcing the party and its leader to adjust. Hi. Nice to see you. How are y'all doing? NDP leader Jagmeet Singh joining LifeLab workers on a picket line in Vancouver. Together, united!

They're fighting for higher wages as Singh fights to hold on to a dozen seats in the province, including his own. Well, if the election was today, the NDP might see one of its worst outcomes in its history. Abacus data pollster David Colletto says the NDP is struggling to be relevant in a campaign dominated by Donald Trump's trade war and affordability, including in B.C. I mean, Mr. Singh himself is in jeopardy of losing his seat because the NDP has fallen so far in British Columbia. I mean one of the most remarkable things about this election is how fast and how significant the rise in liberal support has been right across BC.

The Conservatives are also targeting NDP-held ridings in the province, where the NDP holds half its seats. Do you have any concerns about winning your own riding? This is a really important election. Asked by CBC News Today about his odds, Singh at first dodged the question then answered. Do you think you can win your own riding? Absolutely. I'm confident that I'll be able to serve the people of Burnaby Central.

And I'm also confident that people in this country need New Democrats. Singh's no longer saying he's running to become prime minister like he did on day one, asking instead for there to be more NDP MPs. Re-elect your New Democrat incumbents, elect New Democrats, send more New Democrats to Ottawa because we're going to stand up and fight for you. Singh's former spokesperson, Melanie Richet, says Singh's message needed to change with polling showing the liberals in the lead and potentially majority territory. And then what do you need to do? You almost need

to give permission to people that they can vote NDP. You need to give permission to people. Unlike the conservatives and the liberals, the NDP hasn't been holding big rallies, instead focusing on meeting with workers, unions and campaign volunteers. Incumbent NDP candidate Jenny Kwan says the focus is on the ground. She's running in Vancouver East and says national polls aren't capturing the real picture in B.C. To have a rally, yeah, it feels nice, but that doesn't necessarily bring you the vote home. And right now, my canvassers, my volunteers, what are they doing? They're phoning, they're canvassing, they're out there

pounding the pavement so that we can actually bring home the vote. This is Singh's third campaign as party leader, making him the most experienced one on the trail, but also the most vulnerable with less than three weeks left to go. Ashley Burke, CBC News, Burnaby, B.C. You're listening to Your World Tonight from CBC News. And if you want to make sure you never miss one of our episodes, follow us on Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts.

Just find the follow button and lock us in. To fans of the popular fantasy series Game of Thrones, dire wolves are the fiercely loyal companions of the House of Stark. In reality, the animals have been extinct for more than 10,000 years. Now, an American biotech company claims it has resurrected the species. But spoiler alert, not everyone is convinced. Anand Ram reports. What you're hearing hasn't been heard in more than 10,000 years. At least, that's how the multi-billion dollar biotech company that made these animals wants

you to think about it. Beth Shapiro is the chief science officer at Colossal Biosciences. In a time where the news headlines are dominated by climate anxiety, biodiversity loss, etc. This is an announcement that says that there is something that we can do. What it says it did resurrect dire wolves. Three of them, two males, Romulus and Remus, and a female, Khaleesi. Gold Star, the dire wolf is a sigil of your house. Yes, a nod to the popularity of the wolves in HBO's Game of Thrones, but most of what Colossal created is modern wolf.

Right now what we have is a 99.999% gray wolf with 0.001% dire wolf. Kevin Campbell is a professor at the University of Manitoba. Colossal scientists learned from direwolf fossils, then edited modern wolf genes so that the end result would look like a direwolf. Phenotypically, meaning how it looks, it is very much like a direwolf. What we don't know yet is physiologically, if they're the same as a direwolf.

Dave Coltman studies molecular biology and wildlife at Western University. While he says the tech has come a long way, it can lead to dangerous thinking about conservation. It kind of feeds this belief that technology is going to save us from all of the mistakes we've made to mess up the planet. So, you know, we shouldn't worry about extinction because we can always just go back and recreate those animals

and then we can have them back again. Joe Walston is executive vice president at the Wildlife Conservation Society. He says bringing back the idea of an iconic species is missing what we have before us. We don't have direwolf, but we have tigers, we have lions, we have wolves themselves, we have these great predators ranging this earth which are in trouble and need our help. For its part, the company does want to inspire with this project and it used the same technology to breed four red wolf pups, a species that's currently critically endangered. There's human ingenuity out there that we can apply to helping protect species to slow

the rate of biodiversity loss and potentially reverse it. Still, there is skepticism, especially considering the company hasn't shared any science for review and also hopes to eventually bring back the woolly mammoth. Anand Ram, CBC News, Toronto. Finally tonight, during a time of tension between Canada and the United States, it's proof the weather can still move freely across the border. And so can generosity. Efforts continue in northern Michigan tonight to restore power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses in the aftermath of that devastating ice storm.

Well, that may sound familiar to people in central Ontario, a region still coping with the fallout of a powerful ice storm last month. It closed roads and knocked out power. And the same weather system also hit northern Michigan. Thousands of homes lost hydro. And when the local utility couldn't handle it, they called Canada for help. There's going to be some ups and downs with respect to, you know,

political leadership and that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, you know, our kids play hockey together. We visit quite regularly in both directions. They really are our neighbors. And so we get a call like that asking for help. We're going to go. Rob Brewer is the CEO of PUC Services in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

He sent a five person crew to Michigan to help repair downed power lines and get the community back on its feet. The gesture didn't go unnoticed and like a stubborn spring storm, goodwill goes both ways. We need each other. I know someone who hasn't had heat for two weeks finally got the power on today. So people coming over to assist was just an indication of how we work together. You do that here. Patrick Shannon is a retired prosecutor and former mayor of Mackinac Island, Michigan. He's one of several community members who banded together to purchase ads in Canadian newspapers

where they published a letter thanking the hydro crew in Canada for the helping hand. The group says they wanted to show their appreciation a letter thanking the hydro crew in Canada for the helping hand. The group says they wanted to show their appreciation and reinforce the two countries' close ties at a time when it feels like they're drifting further apart. This has been your World Tonight for Tuesday, April 8th. I'm Stephanie Scanderis. Thank you for listening.