WSJ What’s News - White House Says Trump Tariffs Tomorrow Will Take Effect ‘Immediately’

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

P.M. Edition for April 1. Trump met with advisers to iron out the final details of his reciprocal tariff plans, as Canada and the EU prepare their responses. Plus, anticipation of tariffs boosts U.S. car sales for March. But, as deputy bureau chief for autos Mike Colias tells us, companies don’t think the good times can last. And the M&A boom Wall Street was hoping for is happening. Reporter Ben Glickman says it just looks a little different than they might have expected. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump puts the final touches on the tariffs he's set to announce tomorrow, as Canada and the European Union plan for retaliation. Plus, U.S. auto sales ticked up in anticipation of tariffs. But can the good times last? Most of the tariff talk that we've all heard and been consuming the news over the last several weeks have not gone into effect. What you're seeing now is the effect of people's concern around the threat of tariffs.

And Wall Street is experiencing a mergers and acquisitions boom, just not where you'd expect it. It's Tuesday, April 1st. I'm Alex Osceola for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. The White House said today that President Trump is putting the finishing touches on

his tariff plans, which he will announce tomorrow at 4 p.m. Eastern. White House Press secretary Caroline Levitt said the president met with advisors this morning to iron out the final details. My understanding is that the tariff announcement will come tomorrow. They will be effective immediately. And the president has been teasing this

for quite some time, as you know. He's talked a lot about April 2nd as Liberation Day in America. It would be taking place today, if not for April Fool's Day, but tomorrow will be the day. Levitt said the president had already decided on his overall approach to the tariffs, but declined to provide additional details.

She also played down concerns about how Wall Street would fare under the new levies. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney reiterated his intention to slap retaliatory tariffs against the US should the country be targeted under President Trump's latest batch of tariffs coming tomorrow. At an election campaign stop in Winnipeg today, Carney acknowledged there were limits on what duties Canada can impose, given that the country is about one-tenth the size of the US. Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

says the European Union has a plan to counteract the swath of tariffs President Trump is planning to impose on foreign goods. Von der Leyen told EU lawmakers today that the bloc is waiting for announcements on U.S. tariffs tomorrow and that policymakers will assess them carefully to calibrate a response. We would all be better off if we could find a constructive solution. At the same time, it also has to be clear. Europe has not started this confrontation.

We do not necessarily want to retaliate. But if it is necessary, we have a strong plan to retaliate and we will use it. And we'll have more on Trump's liberation day tomorrow morning. What's News will look at what the new tariffs mean for investors, markets and central bankers trying to gauge the economic impact. That's with Newberger Berman's CIO Maya Bandari on tomorrow morning's What's News. Investors were in a wait-and-see mode ahead of President Trump's tariff announcement tomorrow.

Major U.S. indexes ended the day mixed. The Dow was mostly flat, while the S&P 500 rose about 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq ticked up about 0.9 percent. Automakers are seeing what might be described as a Trump bump. Today, manufacturers such as General Motors, Hyundai, and Ford reported double digit percentage increases in U.S. sales in March or the first quarter. I'm joined now by Deputy Bureau Chief for Autos, Mike Kalias. So Mike, how much of this increase is tariff related?

Right now, it's like the feast before the famine or maybe the buzz with a Hyundai executive. That brand had its best sales in its history. And this executive said it was the busiest weekend he's seen since the federal cash for clunkers program. And that was back in 2009. So there's definitely something going on. And I don't think it's a coincidence that tariffs have been constantly in the news. So given that these car makers had a pretty good march, what are they expecting in the

quarter ahead? People are assuming that some level of these tariffs is going to take effect and start to add cost into the system. And third party analysts who track the auto sales are expecting that to have not only increased prices, but then for sales to go down. You could see a lot of people go to the used market. But we've had a nice recovery out of the pandemic. It's likely to get upended this year if these tariffs go into effect and stick. That was WSJ Deputy Bureau Chief for Autos, Mike Koliass.

Thank you, Mike. You bet. Thank you. New data from the Labor Department showed that hiring and layoffs mostly held steady in February. In the first full month of the Trump administration, an equilibrium of fewer opportunities, but also few big staff reductions, continued. And the Institute for Supply Management said that U.S. factory activity retreated in March, reflecting renewed concerns about cost pressures and demand in light of the uncertainty surrounding

the Trump administration's trade policy. The Institute's index of manufacturing activity dropped to 49, indicating contraction. Coming up, they may not be blockbuster mergers, but these small M&A deals are still a very big deal. That's after the break. With the FIZ loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. big deal. That's after the break. Some on Wall Street may have hoped that a Trump presidency would mean a bonanza for flashy mega-mergers.

Well, so far, that hasn't happened. Deals valued at $10 billion or more were down 28% by value globally through the first quarter, excluding Elon Musk's unorthodox deal announced Friday that his AI startup acquired his ex-social media platform. But relatively smaller deals are up and are having the best start to their year since the 2021 pandemic era M&A boom. According to the London Stock Exchange Group, total deal value for transactions in the $1 billion to $10 billion range is up 42% in the first quarter.

Ben Glickman covers mergers and acquisitions for the journal and joins me now. So Ben, why are smaller M&A deals doing so well? Ben Glickman A lot of it has to do with the fact that there's a lot of uncertainty right now in the United States around the administration's policies, around where the economy might be headed. And that's deterring some of these larger companies from spending $10, $20, $50 billion to acquire another company. But a deal of $1 to $5 billion or $5 to $10 billion tends to be a lot easier pill to swallow. Those kinds of deals for large companies tend to attract less attention from antitrust regulators.

They also tend to be much easier to finance. A lot of the time, companies with a lot of cash on their balance sheet can just use that cash to do the acquisition instead of having to line up new debt or selling stock to make that happen. You know, according to LSAC, dealmaking seems to have shifted to Europe and Asia, rising 12% and 59% from last year, respectively. What's driving this? A lot of it has to do with this volatility that we've seen in the United

States. If you are a European company, you are a little bit shielded from that relative to U.S. companies. So you might be looking to do business with other European companies where the tariffs to the United States might not necessarily affect you. There's also something to be said for the fact that currently the dollar is quite strong, which provides an impetus for US companies to make more deals overseas because it's more affordable relative to foreign currencies.

That was WSJ reporter Ben Glickman. Thank you, Ben. Thanks for having me. The Trump administration began drastic staff cuts at the Health and Human Services Department. Emails notifying employees of cuts and reassignments to new agencies flooded inboxes last night and this morning. Some workers were locked out of federal buildings.

The cuts extended far and wide, from the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing a United Health executive. A lawyer for Mangione accused the Justice Department of being motivated by politics. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, which brought the federal charges, declined to comment. Voters in Wisconsin and Florida are going to the polls today. Republicans are likely to win the elections in Florida, but the Wisconsin race is expected to be much closer.

Both races will offer Donald Trump's first electoral test of his second presidency and also assess whether Elon Musk is a political asset or liability. National political reporter John McCormick is here to tell us more. John, I want to talk about Wisconsin first. Elon Musk has taken a particular interest in this race for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. According to the most recent disclosure records,

Musk and groups tied with him spent at least $20 million on ads and get out the vote activities. Why has he taken such an interest in this election? What is at stake here? Well, there's a lot at stake for Wisconsin and potentially nationally. The issues of abortion are going to potentially be decided by the state Supreme Court. There's also a lot of union topics that could potentially come before this court. And Musk has his own sort of personal issue as well. There's also a lot of union topics that could potentially come before this court. And Musk has his own sort of personal issue as well. Tesla is not allowed to sell cars directly in Wisconsin because of a law in the state.

His company has challenged that law and it's possible that that case will eventually make its way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. So he's been very involved financially and even physically. He came to the state on the final Sunday evening before the election to campaign and also hand out money. Democrats in the state have painted Musk in a negative light and use that as a tactic to push voters away from voting for the conservative candidate in this election. Do we have any indication whether that's working? That's really one of the central questions in this race is both parties have made Musk

a central figure and rightly so. He is easily the biggest donor in the race and obviously he's the world's richest man and very tied to the Trump administration right now. Overall, he's not wildly popular in Wisconsin. So Democrats are making the case that is trying to buy this election and Republicans are saying, well, here's a guy who's trying to support the Trump agenda. So the outcome is a referendum on his popularity and the role that he's playing in the Trump administration right now as part of his Department of Government Efficiency mandate. That was WSJNational political reporter John McCormick. Thank you, John.

Thank you. And that's what's News for this Tuesday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Anthony Bansi and Pierre Bienamé with supervising producer Michael Kosmitis. I'm Alex Osela for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.