The EU has just announced it’s pausing retaliatory tariffs on the U.S., one day after Trump abruptly lowered his so-called reciprocal tariffs on most countries for 90 days — just hours after they took effect Wednesday. Most U.S. trading partners will now see a blanket 10% tariff in addition to the previously imposed 25% tariffs on cars, steel and aluminum. But China was not spared in Trump’s sudden U-turn. Beijing now faces a hiked-up total tariff of 125% in retaliation for Beijing enacting an 84% levy on U.S. goods Wednesday. Markets rallied following the announcement after days in freefall. Trump told reporters he made the decision to halt the tariffs yesterday morning because people were “getting a little bit yippy,” but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed the move was part of Trump’s larger plan to create “maximum negotiating leverage.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent: “It took great courage — great courage — for him to stay the course until this moment. And what we have ended up with here, as I told everyone a week ago in this very spot, 'Do not retaliate, and you will be rewarded.'”

Earlier on Wednesday, House Republicans deployed a rare procedural maneuver to block a Democratic measure that sought to force a vote on repealing Trump’s tariffs by challenging his national emergency powers. We’ll have the latest on Trump’s tariffs after headlines with guests Joseph Stiglitz and Nancy Qian.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says the death toll from an Israeli missile attack Wednesday on Gaza City’s Shuja’iyya neighborhood has risen to at least 35 people and is expected to rise. At least 55 people are wounded, and as many as 80 others still trapped under the rubble. Victims include children, some of them torn to pieces, as multiple missiles struck a residential block where Israel later claimed a senior Hamas fighter was staying, without naming them or providing evidence.

The killings came as Haaretz reported Israel’s army is preparing to incorporate the southern city of Rafah and surrounding neighborhoods into a buffer zone along Gaza’s border. Rafah comprises about 17% of Gaza’s territory; before October 2023, it was home to some 200,000 Palestinians. It’s now largely deserted after Israel in late March once again ordered the mass expulsion of the city’s residents.

Nearly 40 days after Israel shattered the ceasefire and reimposed a near-total blockade on aid shipments, prices for food, fuel, medicine and other essential goods are skyrocketing in Gaza. The U.N. says 60,000 children are at risk of malnutrition, with people forced to forage for food as community kitchens run dry.

Neama Farjalla: “I swear to God, if we don’t die from airstrikes, we will die of hunger. We are not safe. The whole world, listen to us, we are really not safe. We move from one soup kitchen to another with danger. I swear to God, they are striking everywhere. If I don’t die in these strikes, I will die of hunger with my children. What shall we do? Where shall we go? Look at us. Find us a solution. We’ve been in this torture for a year and a half. We are tired.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview this week France might soon formally recognize a Palestinian state, with a decision expected in June.

Meanwhile, the United States Senate on Wednesday confirmed former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is a far-right Christian Zionist who’s openly advocated for Israel’s annexation of Palestinian lands and has said, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.”

Yemen’s Houthis say U.S. airstrikes overnight killed three people in the rebel-held Yemeni capital, Sana’a. The strikes follow a U.S. attack Tuesday on the port city of Hodeidah that reportedly killed 13 people and injured 15 others. Houthi officials said most of the dead were women and children. The U.S. has been carrying out near-daily strikes on Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis since March 15.

The Trump administration has levied new sanctions against Iran, targeting its uranium enrichment program. The ratcheted-up sanctions come ahead of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, scheduled to take place in Oman on Saturday. This week, Trump threatened that if the talks don’t go well, “Iran is going to be in great danger.” We’ll have more on Iran later in the broadcast.

The Trump administration says it has reversed cuts in emergency food aid to several nations after the World Food Programme blasted the cuts as a “death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation.” USAID Acting Deputy Administrator Jeremy Lewin, a member of Elon Musk’s DOGE team, reportedly ordered staff to resume assistance to the World Food Programme in Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, Jordan, Iraq and Ecuador. But the list does not include Afghanistan and Yemen, two countries with dire humanitarian situations that have been ravaged by U.S. intervention.

The nonprofit Save the Children says eight people in South Sudan, including five children, died last month as they were forced to walk for three hours to seek medical care for cholera after U.S. aid cuts shuttered local health services. South Sudan is grappling with a worsening political crisis, which has stoked fears of a renewed civil war.

Federal judges in Texas and New York have temporarily blocked the removal of U.S. residents under the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime law invoked by Trump to fast-track the expulsion of immigrants he’s accused of being gang members. Both judges said any targets for removal must be able to have their cases heard in court.

Trump expelled 238 people from the U.S. without due process in March, the vast majority from Venezuela. They’ve effectively disappeared into El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison CECOT. Despite the Trump administration’s claims it’s targeting so-called violent criminals, data shows 90% of those removed in last month’s flights had no criminal record.

In Venezuela, families of the removed individuals rallied outside a U.N. office in Caracas to call for the release of their loved ones.

Mirelis Cacique López: “I want to ask, with my heart in my hands, for them to give us back our children. We Venezuelans are very united. Our priority is our family. If we are missing one, we are missing everything. That is the only thing we need. Please give us back our children.”

The Trump administration on Wednesday said it’s looking into a possible “legal pathway” to transfer U.S. citizens to El Salvador’s CECOT prison.

In other immigration news, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says it’s started screening social media activity of immigrants for evidence of so-called antisemitic activity that could be used to deny benefits, including permanent residency status. Jewish groups spoke out against the new policy. The group Bend the Arc: Jewish Action says it’s “using Jews as an excuse to move a cruel, anti-immigrant, authoritarian agenda.” The pro-Israel group J Street said, “The fight against antisemitism won’t be advanced by attacks on 250-year-old cherished American rights like free speech.”

Germany’s incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced Wednesday his center-right Christian Democratic Union made a deal to form a governing coalition with the center-left Social Democrats. The deal shuts out the extreme-right party Alternative for Germany, which had come in second place in February elections. Merz said Germany would boost its military spending and vowed to enact more hard-line immigration policies.

Friedrich Merz: “As for migration, we will pursue a new approach. We will better organize and steer, and we will all but end illegal migration. There will be border checks and rejections of asylum requests. We will start a deportation program.”

Doctors Without Borders is calling for immediate action after identifying cases of malnourished children in an asylum seeker camp on the Greek island of Samos. The group said six children from Syria and Afghanistan, between the ages of 6 months and 6 years, had been diagnosed with acute malnutrition and required urgent care. A quarter of the camp’s residents are children.

Mexico is demanding the United States respect its national sovereignty, after NBC News reported President Trump is considering drone strikes on Mexican drug cartels. President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke Tuesday.

President Claudia Sheinbaum: “We reject any of these actions, and we also do not believe they will occur, because there is a lot of dialogue on security issues and many other topics. So, no, not in Mexico.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson delayed a vote Wednesday on a Trump- and Senate-approved budget framework after he failed to gain sufficient support from his Republican caucus. House Republicans want to enact $2 trillion in spending cuts to offset tax cuts for the wealthy. Democrats oppose the budget. This is Massachusetts Congressmember Jim McGovern.

Rep. Jim McGovern: “It is a budget that will hurt working families. It is a budget that will especially hurt families who are struggling in poverty. Republicans have succeeded in putting together a Marie Antoinette budget, helping the richest of the rich while hurting the poorest of the poor. 'Let them eat cake,' that is the Republican motto. And I’ve never seen such cruelty contained in a budget in all my years here.”

President Trump has instructed the Justice Department to stop the enforcement of state climate laws. Trump’s sweeping executive order seeks to gut California’s cap-and-trade program to limit carbon emissions, as well as “climate superfund” laws like New York’s and Vermont’s requirements that major fossil fuel companies help cover the costs of extreme weather events. In a statement, the climate action group the Sunrise Movement said, “This is corruption at its most blatant. Last spring, Trump told oil and gas billionaires that if they gave his campaign a billion dollars, he would do their bidding. The money flowed, and now they are cashing in.”

President Trump has signed several executive orders seeking to boost U.S. coal production and consumption, declaring, “We’re bringing back an industry that was abandoned.” The United Nations has called the continued burning of coal and other fossil fuels “incompatible with human survival.”