Tariffs Come Due, Chopper Traffic After Crash

Summary

Up First from NPR – Episode: "Tariffs Come Due, Chopper Traffic After Crash" Release Date: February 1, 2025

NPR's "Up First" delivered a comprehensive overview of the day's most pressing issues in their February 1st episode, hosted by Scott Simon and Ayesha Rascoe. The episode delved into two major stories: President Donald Trump's impending tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China, and the tragic helicopter crash near Ronald Reagan National Washington Airport, which has led to significant changes in air traffic regulations.

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1. President Trump's Imposition of Steep Tariffs

[02:17 - 10:21]

Overview: President Donald Trump announced plans to impose substantial tariffs on goods imported from Mexico, Canada, and China. This move is framed as a strategy to combat the influx of illegal fentanyl and to address broader trade imbalances. The tariffs are set at 25% for imports from Mexico and Canada, and 10% for those from China.

Key Points:

• Justification for Tariffs:

  • Fentanyl Crisis: Trump emphasized that the tariffs are a response to the massive importation of fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid, which he claims is resulting in the deaths of "hundreds of thousands of people a year" in the United States. (Scott Simon, [00:21]; Ron Elving, [00:27])
  • Illegal Immigration: The tariffs are also linked to efforts to curb illegal immigration from Mexico and Canada, indicating a broader protectionist agenda.

• Economic Implications:

  • Impact on Prices: Scott Horsley pointed out that these tariffs will act as a tax on imports, raising prices for a wide range of consumer goods, including electronics, food products, and raw materials. He noted, "Everything from TVs and tequila to tomatoes and two by fours" will be affected, potentially leading to increased costs for American consumers. (Scott Horsley, [04:35])
  • Business and Consumer Burden: The cost of the tariffs is expected to be absorbed by both businesses and shoppers, potentially leading to inflationary pressures within the U.S. economy.

• Reactions from Trading Partners:

  • Canada and Mexico's Response: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned of challenging times ahead, stating, "Canada doesn't want a trade war," but also affirmed that Canada will not simply concede, implying potential retaliatory measures. (Scott Horsley, [04:48]; Joel Rose, [05:03])
  • China's Likely Retaliation: Similar responses are anticipated from China, following patterns observed during Trump's first administration when retaliatory tariffs were imposed on U.S. exports like bourbon and motorcycles. (Scott Horsley, [05:19])

• Political Analysis:

  • Strategy Behind Tariffs: Analysts suggest that these tariffs may be a tactic by Trump to reinvigorate negotiations with Mexico and Canada, aiming to extract more favorable terms ahead of scheduled free trade agreement updates. (Scott Horsley, [05:42]; [06:05])
  • Economic Perspectives: Ron Elving highlighted the divergence between Trump's supporters, who see tariffs as a means to rectify perceived trade imbalances, and economists, who largely view tariffs as outdated and potentially harmful economic tools. Elving remarked, "Tariffs ... often end up wounding the user as much as the target," referencing historical examples like those that exacerbated the Great Depression. (Ron Elving, [06:35]; [07:30])

• Historical Context and Political Impact:

  • Previous Tariff Effects: The tariffs from Trump's first term had mixed outcomes, providing short-term benefits in targeted sectors but failing to significantly bolster his reelection prospects or address underlying economic issues. (Ron Elving, [07:37])
  • Executive Actions: The episode also touched upon Trump's broader use of executive orders, noting his administration's aggressive stance on issues such as diversity hiring and federal spending freezes, which have faced legal challenges and public scrutiny. (Ron Elving, [08:08] - [10:21])

Notable Quotes:

• Joel Rose (02:32): "The President will be implementing a 25% tariffs on Mexico, 25% tariffs on Canada, and a 10% tariff on China for the illegal fentanyl that they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country."
• Ron Elving (06:35): "Tariffs ... often end up wounding the user as much as the target."

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2. Helicopter Crash Near Ronald Reagan National Washington Airport

[10:21 - 13:55]

Overview: A tragic collision between a military Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger jet over the Potomac River has resulted in multiple fatalities, including military personnel, athletes, and a civil rights lawyer. In response, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has instituted strict restrictions on helicopter flights in the vicinity of Ronald Reagan National Washington Airport to enhance airspace security and public safety.

Key Points:

• Accident Details and Investigation:

  • Black Box Recovery: Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have recovered the helicopter's black box, which will provide crucial data on the events leading up to the collision. Todd Inman of the NTSB emphasized the board's commitment to uncovering facts: "Our job is to find the facts ... Make sure this tragedy doesn't happen again." (Joel Rose, [11:19] - [11:21])
  • Potential Causes: Early analysis suggests that the helicopter may have deviated from its designated flight path and exceeded altitude restrictions, as indicated by flight data and video footage showing the helicopter "well out over the Potomac river" during the collision. (Joel Rose, [11:51]; [12:20])

• FAA's Response and Flight Restrictions:

  • Immediate Action: In light of the crash, the FAA has imposed tight restrictions on helicopter flights along the Potomac River and over Reagan National Airport. These measures aim to secure airspace and restore public confidence in aviation safety. (Joel Rose, [13:09])
  • Exemptions: The restrictions are not absolute; exemptions exist for critical operations such as medical emergencies, law enforcement activities, and VIP movements. ([13:09])

• Air Traffic Control Concerns:

  • Staffing Issues: Reports indicate that air traffic control staffing was below normal levels at the time of the crash, with controllers handling multiple positions simultaneously. Although the FAA has not independently confirmed these reports, the NTSB is investigating whether staffing shortages contributed to the accident. (Joel Rose, [12:26])
  • Union Perspective: The head of the air traffic controllers union downplayed the issue, stating that combining positions is a common practice, which adds complexity to determining the exact impact of staffing on the crash. (Joel Rose, [12:26])

• Political and Public Reactions:

  • Trump's Comments: President Trump controversially suggested that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs at the FAA might be to blame for the crash, despite lacking concrete evidence to support this claim. This stance contrasts sharply with the NTSB's evidence-based approach and has attracted criticism. (Joel Rose, [11:29]; [11:47])

• Casualties and Ongoing Efforts:

  • Victims: The collision resulted in the deaths of flight crew members, three soldiers, competitive figure skaters from the U.S. and Russia, a civil rights lawyer, and many others. Authorities continue to recover bodies and investigate the full extent of the tragedy. (Joel Rose, [13:09]; [13:53])

Notable Quotes:

• Todd Inman, NTSB (11:21): "Our job is to find the facts ... Make sure this tragedy doesn't happen again."
• Joel Rose (12:26): "Sources tell NPR it was also flying above the 200 foot ceiling that it was required to maintain."

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Conclusion

The episode of "Up First" provided listeners with an in-depth analysis of President Trump's latest tariff measures, exploring their economic and political ramifications, as well as the unfolding investigation of a significant aviation disaster. By featuring insights from NPR's Scott Horsley and Ron Elving, along with transportation reporter Joel Rose, the podcast ensured that audiences were well-informed on these critical national issues. The inclusion of direct quotes and timestamped segments added credibility and clarity, making the summary both engaging and informative for those who missed the live broadcast.

Transcript

[Scott Simon]

President Trump is expected to take the next step today in imposing steep tariffs on imported goods from three countries, setting.

[Ayesha Rascoe]

The stage for more inflation and a trade war.

[Scott Simon]

I'm Scott Simon.

[Ayesha Rascoe]

And I'm Ayesha Rascoe. And this is up first from NPR News.

[Scott Simon]

The president says it's about fentanyl.

[Ron Elving]

In one case, they're sending massive amounts of fentanyl, killing hundreds of thousands of.

[Scott Simon]

People a year with the fentanyl.

[Ron Elving]

And in the other two cases, they're making it possible for this poison to get in.

[Ayesha Rascoe]

We'll have more on that, including analysis from NPR's Ron Elving.

[Scott Simon]

Also, the FAA prohibits most helicopters from flying near Ronald Reagan National Washington Airport.

[Ayesha Rascoe]

That's after the fatal crash Wednesday night.

[Scott Simon]

So please stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend.

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[Ayesha Rascoe]

Trump says he'll impose tariffs on goods coming in from three of the nation's biggest trading partners, Mexico, Canada and China.

[Scott Simon]

The White House says the details are coming out today. NPR Scott Horsley joins us now with the latest. Scott, thanks for being with us.

[Scott Horsley]

Good morning, Scott.

[Scott Simon]

Certainly a lot of talk about tariffs during the campaign, but there was some feeling among certain analysts that Donald Trump was posturing. Where do things stand today?

[Scott Horsley]

We have yet to see any official tariff order from the White House. And Trump has a long history of threatening tariffs, some of which take effect. Some don't. You know, we saw that last weekend when Trump threatened to slap tariffs on imports from Colombia, but backed off after Colombia agreed to conditions for accepting deportations from the U.S. so there was some thought maybe Trump would make a simple to avoid this round of tariffs. But White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt insisted yesterday this tariff threat is not a bluff.

[Joel Rose]

The President will be implementing a 25% tariffs on Mexico, 25% tariffs on Canada, and a 10% tariff on China for the illegal fentanyl that they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country. These are promises made and promises kept by the president.

[Scott Horsley]

Trump also wants Mexico and Canada to curb illegal immigration into the U.S. now, Levitt did leave the door open for Trump to backtrack on these tariffs if some kind of face saving agreement's reached. We did see that back in 2019 when Mexico agreed to crack down on immigration from Central America.

[Scott Simon]

So recognizing there's a possibility tariffs could be lifted, in the meantime, what kind of effect are they going to have on prices?

[Scott Horsley]

This is a tax on imports. So it's going to raise the price of everything we buy from these three countries, which is a lot more than $1.2 trillion worth of stuff from Mexico, Canada and china. Everything from TVs and tequila to tomatoes and two by fours. The good news is the avocados for your super bowl dip next weekend have probably already made it across the border. So that's not going to face a 25% guacamole tax. But you know, Mexico supplies first. That's right. But Mexico supplies more than a quarter of all the fresh fruit and vegetables we eat in the U.S. canada supplies a lot of crude oil to Midwestern oil refineries. All those are going to be subject to tariffs. Although, hint, the tax rate on Canadian oil could be less than 25%. Whatever the rate, experience shows much of the cost is going to be borne by businesses and shoppers here in the United States.

[Scott Simon]

And what are the implications for major US Trading partners, especially Mexico and Canada?

[Scott Horsley]

Yeah, it's going to hit them hard as well. The US Is a very big market for our next door neighbors. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned of difficult times ahead for his country. He says Canada doesn't want a trade war. But he added, it's not going to just surrender either.

[Jon Stewart]

You know.

[Scott Horsley]

Trudeau says Canada is ready to push back with retaliatory tariffs of its own on US Exports.

[Ron Elving]

A purposeful, forceful, but reasonable immediate response. We won't relent until tariffs are removed. And of course, everything is on the table.

[Scott Horsley]

Mexico and China are also likely to retaliate. We saw that during the first Trump administration with other countries put tariffs on things like Kentucky bourbon and Harley Davidson motorcycles. You might remember US Farmers lost a lot of business overseas, and the federal government wound up paying some of the farmers for the corn and soybean sales. They missed out on what happened to.

[Scott Simon]

The free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that Trump negotiated just a few years ago.

[Scott Horsley]

You know, Trump was no fan of the original North American Free Trade Agreement, but he and his allies did renegotiate that pact the last time he was in the White House. That deal is due for a possible update next year. Some analysts think these new tariffs are just a mechanism for Trump to drag Mexico and Canada back to the bargaining table a year earlier in hopes of extracting more favorable terms.

[Scott Simon]

Scott Horsley, thanks so much for being with us.

[Scott Horsley]

Good to be with you.

[Ayesha Rascoe]

If these new tariffs will likely raise prices in the US Why is Trump in favor of them?

[Scott Simon]

Well, for that we turn to Ron Elving, NPR's senior Washington editor and correspondent. Ron, thanks for being with us.

[Ron Elving]

Good to be with you, Scott.

[Scott Simon]

Donald Trump campaigned on that pledge. That said, other than President Trump who thinks these big new tariffs are a.

[Ron Elving]

Good idea, by and large, it would be people who share Trump's sense of grievance about world trade and global affairs, people who believe the United States has been getting ripped off, to quote the president. They tend to also believe that tariffs will help even the score. Now, Trump says tariffs will be our External Revenue Service, collecting money from other countries instead of taxing Americans like the Internal Revenue Service we all know. And that must sound pretty good to a lot of folks, judging by the election results. Of course, as we just heard from Scott Horsely, economists see tariffs quite differently. They tend to see an outmoded and counterproductive blunderbuss of a weapon that often winds up wounding the user as much as the target. The classic example being the tariffs the U.S. imposed in the early 1930s. Historians tell us those tariffs actually deepened and lengthened the Great Depression.

[Scott Simon]

What was the political effect of the tariffs that President Trump put in place during his first administration?

[Ron Elving]

You'd have to say it was mixed and rather limited, really. Those tariffs served their purpose in the short run in targeted areas, but they did not measurably improve Trump's standing for reelection in 2020, or for that matter, when he came back in 2024. The tariffs were not the salient issue either time. There were just too many other issues. And the blame for the inflation of the past few years had long since gone elsewhere.

[Scott Simon]

Of course, Tariffs are just one of a host of executive actions and orders from the Trump White House this week. Which ones stand out to you?

[Ron Elving]

To me, the chief executive moment of the week was Trump's news conference Thursday morning about the mid air collision over Ronald Reagan National Airport. Diverting attention from that tragedy to make attack on diversity hiring when we still don't know who or what was responsible for that crash. Trump said he was using common sense and that's a phrase he's been using a lot lately. I think people are beginning to get a sense of what that common sense means to him. As for the executive orders, it's quite a competition. I'd have to go with the now rescinded order to freeze federal spending. That order said all grants had to be frisked for Marxism or race and gender diversity or approval of certain sexual orientation. That language was striking as well, is confusing. Federal judges stepped in. The freeze is off for now, but the underlying orders, the judgments from the Trump administration, remain in effect. Of course, the courts had already paused an earlier order against birthright citizenship. But perhaps the most notable aspect of the overall attitude of these orders is the preemptory nature of it. There was a sense Trump was testing the boundaries and trying all the locks on the constitutional House at once.

[Scott Simon]

I do recall that President Obama was criticized for relying on executive orders. He said at the time that he had non cooperative Republican majorities in the House and Senate. President Trump doesn't have to contend with that problem, does he?

[Ron Elving]

Not at the moment. Although the margins in both chambers are historically slim, all presidents have used executive orders, at least at times and often at critical times. It's fast. It creates an impression of action and change and effectiveness, but only for a time, and only if the various orders survive court challenges and other forms of pushback. When you go around Congress for short term success, you risk a reckoning that can have longer lasting effects.

[Scott Simon]

NPR's Ron Elving, thanks so much for being with us on this very important week. Well, I guess they all are, but thanks so much, Ron.

[Ron Elving]

Thank you, Scott.

[Ayesha Rascoe]

Investigators are still trying to find out why a military helicopter collided with a passenger jet this week near Washington, D.C.

[Scott Simon]

In the meantime, the Federal Aviation Administration has placed tight restrictions on helicopter flights in the area. NPR transportation reporter Joel Rose joins us. Joel, thanks for being with us.

[Joel Rose]

Hi Scott. Good morning.

[Scott Simon]

And what's the latest on the investigation?

[Joel Rose]

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board say they have recovered the black box from the helicopter in this case. That is a combined voice and data recorder. And now they will try to extract that information from it. And if that works, it should tell them a lot about what was happening in the moments before the collision on Wednesday night. But board members have been emphatic that they will not speculate and will wait until they have all the facts before drawing any conclusions. Here's board member Todd Inman at a briefing yesterday evening. The NTSB is an independent, bipartisan board, 58 years as the gold standard.

[Scott Horsley]

Our job is to find the facts.

[Joel Rose]

But more importantly, our job is to.

[Scott Horsley]

Make sure this tragedy doesn't happen again, regardless of what anyone may be saying.

[Joel Rose]

Inman did not mention President Trump by name, but it was hard not to see the sharp contrast after the president claimed this week that diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the Federal Aviation Administration were to blame, while also acknowledging that he had no direct evidence linking DEI to the crash.

[Scott Simon]

Joel, do you see any indication of what the focus of the investigation might be at the moment?

[Joel Rose]

There are a lot of questions focusing on that U.S. army Blackhawk helicopter and whether it was in the right place. There is growing evidence that it was not, based on NPR's analysis of flight data, along with new video footage that circulated yesterday of the collision, which show the helicopter out of the flight corridor where it was supposed to be operating. Instead, it was well out over the Potomac river when it collided with the plane. Sources tell NPR it was also flying above the 200 foot ceiling that it was required to maintain.

[Scott Simon]

And what about reports that the air traffic control tower might have been understaffed at the time of the crash?

[Joel Rose]

Yes, several outlets have reported on an internal FAA report that says an air traffic controller was doing double duty in two separate positions at the time of the collision because staffing was lower than normal for that time. NPR has not been able to confirm that independently. The head of the air traffic controllers union says it is not uncommon to combine positions like that. The NTSB says staffing is something they are looking at not just at the moment of the collision, but in the days and weeks leading up to it. The board says they have begun interviewing the controllers who were on duty that night, but again, board member Inman did not want to speculate on whether that was a factor in the collision.

[Scott Simon]

And Joe, what are the new flight restrictions near Reagan national the FAA will.

[Joel Rose]

Limit helicopter flights on routes along the Potomac river near the airport as well as over the airport itself. And Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that would help secure the airspace and restore public trust. The FAA says helicopter traffic will be restricted but not completely suspended. There will be exemptions, for example for medical emergency flights, for law enforcement activity and VIP movements. And investigators continue to pour over that area of the river where the two aircraft went down. The victims included the flight crew, three soldiers, competitive figure skaters from the US And Russia, a civil rights lawyer and dozens of others. Authorities say they have located many bodies so far, but they say they will keep looking until they have found all of them.

[Scott Simon]

NPR's Joel Rose, thanks so much.

[Joel Rose]

You're welcome.

[Ayesha Rascoe]

And that's up first for Saturday, February 1st. I'm Aisha Roscoe.

[Scott Simon]

And I'm Scott Symes.

[Ayesha Rascoe]

Our producer is Martin Patience with help from Andrew Craig and Alaina Twerk.

[Scott Simon]

Our director is Michael Radcliffe.

[Ayesha Rascoe]

Our editors are Pahlavi Gogoi, Ed McNulty, Russell Lewis, Shannon Rhodes and Matthew Sherman.

[Scott Simon]

Andy Huether is our technical director with engineering support from Jay Siz, David Greenberg and Arthur Halliday Laurent.

[Ayesha Rascoe]

Evie Stone is our senior supervising editor. Sarah Oliver is our executive executive producer.

[Scott Simon]

And Luis Clements is our deputy managing editor.

[Ayesha Rascoe]

Tomorrow on the Sunday Story, we re air our episode about three communities in the U.S. that are balancing the need for more housing with the threat of climate related disasters.

[Scott Simon]

And for more news, interviews, sports and music, you can tune into WEEKEND EDITION on your radio. Go to stations npr.org to find your local station. You won't regret it.

[Ayesha Rascoe]

No, you may regret a lot of things, but not that. Not listening to npr.

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