Trump team tries to project confidence and calm after his tariff moves rattled markets
ATLANTA (AP) — Trump administration officials were out in force across the television networks Sunday defending President Donald Trump’s economic policies after another week of reeling markets that saw the Republican administration reverse course on some of its steepest tariffs.
Trump, meanwhile, said on his social media platform that there ultimately will be no exemptions for his sweeping tariff agenda, disputing characterizations that he has granted tariff exceptions for certain electronics, including smart phones, whose production is concentrated in China. Rather, Trump said, “those products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket.’”
White House advisers and Cabinet members tried to project confidence and calm amid Trump’s on-again, off-again approach to tariffs on imported goods from around the world. But their explanations about the overall agenda, coupled with Trump’s latest statements, also reflected shifting narratives from a president who, as a candidate in 2024, promised an immediate economic boost and lower prices but now asks American businesses and consumers for patience.
A week ago, Trump’s team stood by his promise to leave the impending tariffs in place without exceptions. They used their latest news show appearances to defend his move to ratchet back to a 10% universal tariff for most nations except China (145%), while seeming to grant exemptions for certain electronics like smartphones, laptops, hard drives, flat-panel monitors and semiconductor chips.
Here are the highlights of what Trump lieutenants said last week vs. Sunday:
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China’s Xi says there are no winners in a tariff war as he visits Southeast Asia
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — China’s leader Xi Jinping said no one wins in a trade war as he kicked off a diplomatic tour of Southeast Asia on Monday, reiterating China’s commitment to global trade in contrast with U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs moves.
Although Trump has paused some tariffs, he has kept in place 145% duties on China, the world’s second-largest economy.
“There are no winners in a trade war, or a tariff war,” Xi wrote in an editorial jointly published in Vietnamese and Chinese official media. “Our two countries should resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and cooperative international environment.”
Xi’s visit lets China show Southeast Asia it is a “responsible superpower in the way that contrasts with the way the U.S. under President Donald Trump presents to the whole world,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.
Xi was greeted on the tarmac by Vietnam’s President Luong Cuong at the start of his two-day visit, a mark of honor not often given to visitors, said Nguyen Thanh Trung, a professor of Vietnamese studies at Fulbright University Vietnam. Students of a drum art group performed as women waved the red and yellow Chinese and Communist Party flags.
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What to know about Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and the alleged arson at his official residence
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A man is facing charges after authorities say he broke into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion in the middle of the night, set a fire that left significant damage and forced Gov. Josh Shapiro, his family and guests to evacuate the building during the Jewish holiday of Passover.
Firefighters extinguished the fire early Sunday morning and no injuries were reported. The suspect, identified as Cody Balmer, 38, was arrested nearby later in the day, police said.
Authorities said they were investigating how someone was able to elude police to break into the governor’s residence in Harrisburg.
Pennsylvania State Police Col. Christopher Paris said the fire was a carefully planned attack but emphasized the investigation is continuing. He did not give a possible motive.
Balmer apparently scaled an iron security fence that stands around 7 feet (2.1 meters) and is monitored by security cameras, police said.
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FAA says company whose sightseeing chopper crashed, killing 6, is ceasing operations immediately
NEW YORK (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration said Sunday that the helicopter tour company whose sightseeing chopper broke apart in flight and crashed in New York, killing the pilot and a family of five visitors from Spain, is shutting down operations immediately.
The FAA, in a statement posted on X, also said it would launch an immediate review of New York Helicopter Tours’ operating license and safety record.
The move came hours after New York Sen. Chuck Schumer had called on federal authorities to revoke the operating permits of New York Helicopter Tours.
The company’s sightseeing helicopter broke apart in midair and plunged into the Hudson River Thursday, killing the tourists from Spain and the pilot, a Navy SEAL veteran.
At a news conference Sunday, before the announcement by the FAA, Schumer said the company should be required to halt all flights as the National Transportation Safety Board investigates the deadly crash.
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Russian missiles hit Ukrainian city of Sumy during Palm Sunday celebrations, killing more than 30
SUMY, Ukraine (AP) — Russian missiles struck the heart of the Ukrainian city of Sumy as people gathered to celebrate Palm Sunday, killing at least 34 people, officials said, in the second large-scale attack to claim civilian lives in just over a week.
The two ballistic missiles hit around 10:15 a.m., officials said. Images from the scene showed lines of black body bags on the side of the road, while more bodies were seen wrapped in foil blankets among the debris. Video footage also showed fire crews fighting to extinguish the shells of burned-out cars among the rubble from damaged buildings.
The dead included two children, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said in a statement. A further 117 people were wounded, including 15 children, it said.
“Only filthy scum can act like this — taking the lives of ordinary people,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. In a statement on social media, he said the first strike hit buildings belonging to a city university, while the second exploded above street level.
The head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andriy Yermak, said cluster munitions were used to kill as many people as possible. The Associated Press was unable to verify that claim.
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Israel intensifies strikes across Gaza on Palm Sunday and hits a hospital in the north
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — A wave of Israeli strikes across Gaza on Sunday hit a hospital and other sites, killing at least 21 people, including children, as Israel vowed to expand its security presence in the small coastal strip.
The predawn strike on Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City was the latest of several attacks on northern Gaza’s last major hospital providing critical health care.
Hospital director Dr. Fadel Naim said the emergency room, pharmacy and surrounding buildings were severely damaged, affecting over 100 patients and dozens of staff.
One patient, a girl, died during the evacuation following an Israeli warning because staff were unable to provide urgent care, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. Israel said it struck a Hamas command and control center at the hospital, without providing evidence. Hamas denied the allegations.
Al-Ahli Hospital is run by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which condemned the attack, saying in a statement it happened on “Palm Sunday, the start of the Holy Week, the most sacred week of the Christian year.”
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What to know about Ecuador’s reelected President Noboa and his plans to fight crime
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Daniel Noboa stunned voters in 2023 when he won a snap election for a 16-month presidency after only a brief stint as a lawmaker and with no established political machinery.
No longer a political neophyte, the conservative millionaire defeated the protegee of Ecuador’s most influential recent president for a second time and earned four years in office with Sunday’s election victory.
The new term will allow Noboa, 37 and heir to a fortune built on the banana trade, to continue some of his no-holds-barred crimefighting strategies that part of the electorate finds appealing but which have tested the limits of laws and norms of governing.
“A huge hug to all the Ecuadorians who always believed in this young president,” he told supporters after the National Electoral Council said results showed an “irreversible trend” in his favor. “Ecuador wants to be different… it wants to move forward.”
Noboa opened an event organizing company when he was 18 and then joined his father’s Noboa Corp., where he held management positions in the shipping, logistics and commercial areas. He began his political career in 2021, when he won a seat in the National Assembly and chaired its Economic Development Commission.
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War in Ethiopia’s Tigray region has left many disabled veterans without care
MEKELE, Ethiopia (AP) — Chandera Weldesenbet is worried about dying before he receives the help he needs.
The 41-year-old veteran of the recent war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region has metal shrapnel in his body that is yet to be removed, more than two years after the fighting ended.
Unable to get specialized medical care, Chandera is bedridden most of the time because of the pain. He is one of many casualties whose untreated or poorly treated injuries are a reminder of the war’s toll.
“When I think about my future prospect and my ability to raise a child in such hardship and circumstances, I feel hopeless,” he said, with a toddler at home.
Chandera, a former hotel worker in the town of Shire, found that health facilities across the region had been largely destroyed in the fighting.
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Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian author and Nobel literature laureate, dies at 89
LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel literature laureate and a giant of Latin American letters, died Sunday. He was 89.
He was a prolific author and essayist with such celebrated novels as “The Time of the Hero” (La Ciudad y los Perros) and “Feast of the Goat,” and won myriad prizes. The Nobel committee said it was awarding him in 2010 “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.”
“It is with deep sorrow that we announce that our father, Mario Vargas Llosa, passed away peacefully in Lima today, surrounded by his family,” read a letter signed by his children Álvaro, Gonzalo and Morgana, and posted by Álvaro on X.
“His departure will sadden his relatives, his friends and his readers around the world, but we hope that they will find comfort, as we do, in the fact that he enjoyed a long, adventurous and fruitful life, and leaves behind him a body of work that will outlive him,” they added.
The author’s lawyer and close friend, Enrique Ghersi, confirmed the death to The Associated Press and recalled the writer’s last birthday on March 28 at the home of his daughter, Morgana. “He spent it happy; his close friends surrounded him, he ate his cake, we joked that day that there were still 89 more years to go, he had a long, fruitful, and free life,” Ghersi said.
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Rory McIlroy wins Masters playoff to complete the career Grand Slam
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — The closer Rory McIlroy came to fulfilling his lifetime dream — winning the Masters — the more it kept slipping away. Sunday at Augusta National felt like his last 11 years in the majors, blunders mixed in with sheer brilliance.
A two-shot lead gone in two holes. A four-shot lead gone in three holes with a shocker of a mistake. A 5-foot putt on the final hole to win narrowly missed.
And then McIlroy turned what could have been another major collapse into his grandest moment of all when he hit wedge to 3 feet for birdie in a sudden-death playoff against Justin Rose to become — finally — a Masters champion and take his place in golf history as the sixth player with the career Grand Slam.
“There were points in my career where I didn’t know if I would have this nice garment over my shoulders,” McIlroy said, that Masters green jacket looking like a perfect fit. “But I didn’t make it easy today. I certainly didn’t make it easy. I was nervous.
“It was one of the toughest days I’ve ever had on the golf course.”
