President Donald Trump has abruptly fired the director of the National Security Agency, according to U.S. officials and members of Congress, but the White House and the Pentagon have provided no reasons for the move.
Senior military leaders were informed Thursday of the firing of Air Force Gen. Tim Haugh, who also oversaw the Pentagons Cyber Command, the officials said. They received no advance notice about the decision to remove a four-star general with a 33-year career in intelligence and cyber operations, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel decisions.
The move has triggered sharp criticism from members of Congress and demands for an immediate explanation. And it marks the latest dismissal of national security officials by Trump at a time when his Republican administration faces criticism over his failure to take any action against other key leaders’ use of an unclassified Signal messaging chat that included The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to discuss plans for a military strike.
It’s unclear who now is in charge of the NSA and the Cyber Command.
Also fired was Haugh’s civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble.
The NSA notified congressional leadership and top lawmakers of the national security committees of the firing late Wednesday but did not give reasons, according to a person familiar with the situation who insisted on anonymity to discuss the matter. The person said Noble has been reassigned to the office of the defense undersecretary for intelligence.
The White House did not respond to messages seeking comment. The NSA referred questions about Haugh to the Defense Department, which had no comment Friday.
Far-right activist and commentator Laura Loomer appeared to take credit Friday in a post on X, saying she raised concerns to Trump about Haughs ties to Gen. Mark Milley and the Biden administration and questioned the NSA chief’s loyalty to the president. Milley served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trumps first term but has since become an outspoken critic.
Given the fact that the NSA is arguably the most powerful intel agency in the world, we cannot allow for a Biden nominee to hold that position, Loomer wrote. Thank you, President Trump for being receptive to the vetting materials provided to you and thank you for firing these Biden holdovers.
Loomer, who has claimed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were an inside job, had discussed staff loyalty with Trump in an Oval Office meeting Wednesday, according to several people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive personnel manner. A day later, Trump said he fired some White House National Security Council officials.
Rep. Jim Himes, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanding to know why Haugh and Noble were fired.
Public reporting suggests that your removal of these officials was driven by a fringe social media personality, which represents a deeply troubling breach of the norms that safeguard our national security apparatus from political pressure and conspiracy theories, Himes, D-Conn., wrote.
Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, said Friday that he has long warned about the dangers of firing military officers as a political loyalty test.
“In addition to the other military leaders and national security officials Trump has fired, he is sending a chilling message throughout the ranks: dont give your best military advice, or you may face consequences, Reed said in a statement.
He added that Trump has given a priceless gift to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea by purging competence from our national security leadership.
Another Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the U.S. was facing unprecedented cyber threats and asked how firing Haugh, who has served in the military for more than 30 years, makes America safer.
Haugh’s firing sets off a 60-day process. Unless he is moved to another three- or four-star job in 60 days he would automatically revert to a two-star.
Any new high-level job would be unlikely since that would require a nomination from Trump, who just fired him. As a result, Haugh, who was confirmed for the NSA job in a unanimous Senate vote in December 2023, would likely retire.
Trump hasn’t commented on Haugh or Noble, but on Thursday he dismissed the National Security Council firings as normal.
Always were letting go of people, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he made his way to Miami on Thursday afternoon. People that we dont like or people that we dont think can do the job or people that may have loyalties to somebody else.
The firings come as Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, fights calls for his ouster after using the publicly available encrypted Signal app to discuss planning for a sensitive March 15 military operation targeting Houthi militants in Yemen.
Warner called it astonishing that Trump “would fire the nonpartisan, experienced leader of the National Security Agency while still failing to hold any member of his team accountable for leaking classified information on a commercial messaging app even as he apparently takes staffing direction on national security from a discredited conspiracy theorist in the Oval Office.
Haugh met last month with Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has roiled the federal government by slashing personnel and budgets at dozens of agencies. In a statement, the NSA said the meeting was intended to ensure both organizations are aligned with the new administrations priorities.
Haugh had led both the NSA and Cyber Command since 2023. Both departments play leading roles in the nations cybersecurity. The NSA also supports the military and other national security agencies by collecting and analyzing a vast amount of data and information globally.
Cyber Command is known as Americas first line of defense in cyberspace and also plans offensive cyberoperations for potential use against adversaries.
Lolita C. Baldor and Lisa Mascaro, Associated Press
Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Aamer Madhani, Zeke Miller, David Klepper, and Lou Kesten contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump announced extensive tariffs on April 2, with the possibility to dramatically change costs of essential everyday items for American consumers. He has unveiled tariffs for 60 countries including Cambodia, Vietnam, China, and the European Union, which he deemed the “worst offenders” when it comes to trade imbalances.
Here are five types of items that may see price increases over the next few months as a result.
Gas
The U.S.s primary source of natural gas imports is Canada, and though Trump announced a lower tariff of 10% for Canadian energy imports, consumers are likely to still feel the effects. In 2022, 99% of the U.S.s total natural gas imports were from Canada.
These tariffs may lead to increased heating costs and gas pump prices. Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics and trade at the Cato Institute, predicted that consumers will see an increase of 10 to 20 cents per gallon with the 10% tariff on Canadian crude oil, according to NPR.
Electronics
It might not be the best time to invest in that new smartphone. In 2024, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam were the top three exporters of laptops and tablets to the U.S. Now, they’re some of the countries most taxed by the new tariff. Almost all consumer electronics are likely to see price hikes as a result.
These impacted products also include lithium-ion batteries and video game consoles. A Nintendo representative told CNBC that pre-orders for the widely-anticipated Nintendo Switch 2 would be delayed to an indeterminate date due to tariff concerns.
Toys
The increase in costs are not limited to smartphones and tablets. Ed Brzytwa, vice president for international trade at the Consumer Technology Association, estimates that toys made in China will likely cost consumers at least 30% more than their current price, according to CNN. These toys account for close to 77% of all toys sold in the U.S., and they are all about to face the upcoming 54% tariff.
Cars
A 25% tariff on finished cars took effect on April 3, and a 25% tariff on car parts is set to take effect by May 3 latest. Mexico is the seventh-largest passenger vehicle manufacturer in the world, and close to 76% of its exports go to the U.S.
In a 21-page analysis obtained by AP, economist Art Laffer estimates that fully implemented tariffs could increase per-vehicle costs by close to $4,711.
A 25% tariff would not only shrink, or possibly eliminate, profit margins for U.S. manufacturers but also weaken their ability to compete with international rivals, Laffer writes in the analysis.
Apparel
China and Vietnam, two of the most impacted by the tariffs, are also two of the top sources of foreign-made clothes for U.S. consumers, shipping close to $14 billion worth of clothing to the U.S. in 2024.
Even customers of fast fashion and internet-famous online retailers like Shein, Temu, and AliExpress will take a hit. Beginning on May 2, the 54% tariff will apply to packages worth less than $800 coming from China and Hong Kong, which will include packages from these online retailers.
These five categories make up only a portion of imported goods. Tariffs will continue to take effect over the next few months, possibly triggering an economic slowdown and increasing prices for American consumers as a whole.
Wall Streets worst crisis since COVID slammed into a higher gear Friday.
The S&P 500 lost 6% after China matched President Donald Trumps big raise in tariffs announced earlier this week. The move increased the stakes in a trade war that could end with a recession that hurts everyone. Not even a better-than-expected report on the U.S. job market, which is usually the economic highlight of each month, was enough to stop the slide.
The drop closed the worst week for the S&P 500 since March 2020, when the pandemic ripped through the global economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 2,231 points, or 5.5% Friday, and the Nasdaq composite tumbled 5.8% to pull more than 20% below its record set in December.
So far, there have been few, if any, winners in financial markets from the trade war. Stocks for all but 14 of the 500 companies within the S&P 500 index fell Friday. The price of crude oil tumbled to its lowest level since 2021. Other basic building blocks for economic growth, such as copper, also saw prices slide on worries the trade war will weaken the global economy.
Chinas response to U.S. tariffs caused an immediate acceleration of losses in markets worldwide. The Commerce Ministry in Beijing said it would respond to the 34% tariffs imposed by the U.S. on imports from China with its own 34% tariff on imports of all U.S. products beginning April 10. The United States and China are the worlds two largest economies.
Markets briefly recovered some of their losses after the release of Friday mornings U.S. jobs report, which said employers accelerated their hiring by more last month than economists expected. Its the latest signal that the U.S. job market has remained relatively solid through the start of 2025, and its been a linchpin keeping the U.S. economy out of a recession.
But that jobs data was backward looking, and the fear hitting financial markets is about whats to come.
The world has changed, and the economic conditions have changed, said Rick Rieder, chief investment officer of global fixed income at BlackRock.
The central question looking ahead is: Will the trade war cause a global recession? If it does, stock prices may need to come down even more than they have already. The S&P 500 is down 17.4% from its record set in February.
Trump seemed unfazed. From Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida, he headed to his golf course a few miles away after writing on social media that THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH.
The Federal Reserve could cushion the blow of tariffs on the economy by cutting interest rates, which can encourage companies and households to borrow and spend. But the Fed may have less freedom to move than it would like.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Friday that tariffs could drive up expectations for inflation. That could prove more damaging than high inflation itself, because it can drive a vicious cycle of behavior that only worsens inflation. U.S. households have already said theyre bracing for sharp increases to their bills.
Our obligation is to keep longer-term inflation expectations well anchored and to make certain that a one-time increase in the price level does not become an ongoing inflation problem, Powell said.
That could indicate a hesitance to cut rates because lower rates can give inflation more fuel.
Much will depend on how long Trumps tariffs stick and what kind of retaliations other countries deliver. Some of Wall Street is holding onto hope that Trump will lower the tariffs after prying wins from other countries following negotiations.
Trump has given mixed signals on that. On Friday, he said Vietnam wants to cut their Tariffs down to ZERO if they are able to make an agreement with the U.S. Trump also criticized Chinas retaliation, saying on his Truth Social platform that CHINA PLAYED IT WRONG, THEY PANICKED – THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO!
Trump has said Americans may feel some pain because of tariffs, but he has also said the long-term goals, including getting more manufacturing jobs back to the United States, are worth it. On Thursday, he likened the situation to a medical operation, where the U.S. economy is the patient.
For investors looking at their portfolios, it could have felt like an operation performed without anesthesia, said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.
But Jacobsen also said the next surprise for investors could be how quickly tariffs get negotiated down. The speed of recovery will depend on how, and how quickly, officials negotiate, he said.
On Wall Street, stocks of companies that do lots of business in China fell to some of the sharpest losses.
DuPont dropped 12.7% after China said its regulators are launching an anti-trust investigation into DuPont China group, a subsidiary of the chemical giant. Its one of several measures targeting American companies and in retaliation for the U.S. tariffs.
GE Healthcare got 12% of its revenue last year from the China region, and it fell 16%.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 322.44 points to 5,074.08. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 2,231.07 to 38,314.86, and the Nasdaq composite fell 962.82 to 15,587.79.
In stock markets abroad, Germanys DAX lost 5%, Frances CAC 40 dropped 4.3% and Japans Nikkei 225 fell 2.8%.
In the bond market, Treasury yields fell, but they pared their drops following Powells cautious statements about inflation. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.01% from 4.06% late Thursday and from roughly 4.80% early this year. It had gone below 3.90% in the morning.
Stan Choe, Associated Press business writer
AP Writers Jiang Junzhe, Huizhong Wu, and Matt Ott contributed.
Over the past few years, the job market has remained relatively strong despite rising inflation and other economic headwinds. Even amid ongoing cuts to the federal workforce, the jobs report released today offered a more optimistic outlook than many economists had anticipated: In March, employers added about 228,000 jobs, far exceeding the monthly average of 158,000 jobs over the last year. The number of hours worked each week also remained steady last month, as did hourly wage growth.
President Trump was quick to take credit for the job growth captured by the report. But the celebratory mood has been dampened as the administration’s long-awaited (and unprecedentedly high) global tariffs take effectand financial markets are already feeling the impact. Many experts have already noted that the latest jobs numbers may have little bearing on how the market will actually fare in the coming monthsand what the effect could be on employers and workers. As one economist told the New York Times: What we are really seeing is the calm before the storm.”
The impact of tariffs already
The fallout from Trumps tariffs is already well underway. Global markets have taken a significant hit, dropping to levels that havent been seen since the height of the pandemic in 2020. Economists have warned that the tariffs are more extreme than those imposed by the famed 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which is believed to have exacerbated the Great Depression.
“Today was the worst stock market experience in five years,” renowned economist and former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers wrote on Thursday, as part of a series of posts on X. “Usually when you have a terrible stock market experience, it’s because a bank fails, a pandemic, a hurricane, or because some other country does something. We don’t have these kinds of stock market responses in response to policies that the president of the United States is proud of. That is something that is entirely without precedent. It is extremely dangerous.”
How higher prices might affect hiring
While tariffs are usually intended to be a source of revenue for the federal government, research shows that the effects are typically shouldered by consumers and businesses. As the tariffs lead to higher prices for both parties, experts say companies will likely pull back on hiring and eventually resort to layoffs to cut costs.
The Trump administration has argued that while tariffs may drive up prices, they will also help fuel job creation stateside, particularly across manufacturing. While that could be true to some extent, those gains could be outweighed by other job lossesor the increased use of automation to mitigate costs for companies.
When analyzing the impact of tariffs levied during Trump’s first term, some economists found that manufacturing employment remained more or less unchanged; in other industries like agriculture, however, tariffs catalyzed job losses. Others have argued that manufacturing employment actually dropped overall, despite modest gains in job creation across the steel industry.
How business leaders are preparing
Still, economists of all stripes seem concerned about the potential repercussions of the sweeping new tariffs introduced by the Trump administration. There’s already evidence that companies are being more cautious: In March, a survey of chief financial officers found that one in four companies were cutting back on hiring and making changes to their capital spending plans for 2025, in anticipation of Trump’s tariffs.
Nearly a third of the 400 companies who were surveyed had cited trade policy and tariffsas well as the uncertainty around themas a source of anxiety. The tariffs were also the number-one business concern among chief financial officers in the first quarter of 2025.
Even industries that are not directly impacted by the tariffs could take a financial hit if consumers are spending less overall, which in turn could trickle down to workers. The uncertainty associated with tariffs could lead more companies to pause hiring.
While the labor market has largely been stable, it has still cooled over the past few yearsmaking it less resilient to unpredictable forces like the tariffs. Employers have, for the most part, wrested control from workers in the aftermath of the pandemic, especially as they have imposed strict return to work mandates and tightened their budgets.
Layoffs might have plateaued to some extent, but companies have also not been adding as many jobs. Many workers have reported finding it more difficult to land a new job. In January, data from the Labor Department indicated that it was taking longer for people who were unemployed or laid off to find new work. As Trump’s tariffs continue to send shock waves across the business world, workers likely need to brace themselves for yet another period of upheaval in the job market.
After Trump administration job cuts, nearly half of National Weather Service forecast offices have 20% vacancy rates twice that of just a decade ago as severe weather chugs across the nation’s heartland, according to data obtained by The Associated Press.
Detailed vacancy data for all 122 weather field offices show eight offices are missing more than 35% of their staff including those in Arkansas and Kentucky where tornadoes and torrential rain hit this week according to statistics crowd-sourced by more than a dozen National Weather Service employees. Experts said vacancy rates of 20% or higher amount to critical understaffing, and 55 of the 122 sites reach that level.
The weather offices issue routine daily forecasts, but also urgent up-to-the-minute warnings during dangerous storm outbreaks such as the tornadoes that killed seven people this week and catastrophic flooding that’s continuing through the weekend. The weather service this week has logged at least 75 tornado and 1,277 severe weather preliminary reports.
Because of staffing shortages and continued severe weather, meteorologists at the Louisville office were unable to survey tornado damage Thursday, which is traditionally done immediately to help improve future forecasts and warnings, the local weather office told local media in Kentucky. Meteorologists there had to chose between gathering information that will help in the future and warning about immediate danger.
It’s a crisis situation, said Brad Coleman, a past president of the American Meteorological Society who used to be the meteorologist in charge of the weather service’s Seattle office and is now a private meteorologist. I am deeply concerned that we will inevitably lose lives as a result of the added risk due to this short-staffing.
Former National Weather Service chief Louis Uccellini said if the numbers are right, it’s trouble.
No one can predict when any office gets stretched so thin that it will break, but these numbers would indicate that several of them are there or getting close, especially when you factor that large segments of the country are facing oncoming threats of severe weather, flooding rains while others are facing ominous significant fire risks, Uccellini said in an email.
The vacancy numbers were compiled in an informal but comprehensive effort by weather service workers after the cuts spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. They checked on individual office staffing levels and looked at how they compared to the past. Staffing levels, including vacancies, are detailed and cross-referenced by offices, regions, positions and past trends, with special notes on whether efforts are being made to fill them.
The AP, after obtaining the list from a source outside the weather service, sought to verify the numbers by calling individual weather offices, checking online staff lists and interviewing other employees not involved in the data-gathering effort. The workers’ data sometimes varied slightly from data shown on weather service websites, though employees said those could be out of date.
Rep. Eric Sorensen, an Illinois Democrat and the only meteorologist in Congress, said his office independently obtained the data and he verified parts of it with weather professionals he knows in Midwestern weather service offices, which are called WFOs. The Davenport-Quad Cities office near his home has a 37.5% vacancy rate.
Theyre doing heroic effort. Just with what happened the other day with the tornado outbreak, the killer tornado outbreak, I saw incredible work being done by the WFOs down around Memphis and up to Louisville. Incredible work that saved peoples lives, Sorensen told the AP on Friday. Going forward with these types of cuts, we cant guarantee that people are going to be as safe as they were.
I’m incredibly concerned because this affects everyone in every part of the country, Sorensen said, noting the potential for severe storms Friday in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s home district near Shreveport, Louisiana, where the data shows a 13% vacancy rate, well below the average for the south and the rest of the country.
The employees’ data, which goes back to 2015, showed that in March 2015 the overall vacancy rate was 9.3%. Ten years later, as of March 21, it was 19%.
The weather service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some northern and central stations such as Rapid City, South Dakota, with a 41.7% vacancy rate, Albany, New York, at 25%, Portland, Maine, at 26.1% and Omaha, Nebraska at 34.8% have been so short-staffed that they’ve curtailed weather balloon launches that said provide vital observations for accurate forecasts.
The vacancies go beyond meteorologists who do forecasts. Twenty-three offices are without the meteorologist-in-charge who oversees the office. Sixteen have vacancies in the crucial warning coordination meteorologist job which makes sure emergency officials and the public prepare for oncoming weather disasters. The Houston office, with a 30% vacancy rate, is missing both those top positions, according to the data and the office’s own website.
Houston has so much damage from flooding, hurricanes and even a derecho that their (damage) numbers are through the roof, said Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist for Climate Central and a former television meteorologist.
The National Weather Service employees are still going to do everything they can to keep people safe and prepared. Its just that much harder and it puts lives at risk, Placky said. This time of the year and in this situation, this is when severe weather season peaks and were heading into the season of the biggest extremes with wildfires, with hurricanes, with extreme heat, which is our deadliest of all of extreme weathers.
One weather service field office chief, who asked not to be identified because of fears of job loss, said the lack of technicians to fix radar and other needed equipment could be critically dangerous.
People are bending over backwards to cope with the lack of staffing, the chief meteorologist said. The burden is going to kill us.”
Northern Illinois atmospheric sciences professor Victor Gensini and others compared being stretched thin to cracks in aviation safety.
“The question becomes, what falls through the cracks because theyre busy doing other things or theyre short-staffed,” Gensini said. Maybe they cant answer the phone to take a critical weather report thats coming in. Maybe theres so many storms in the counties that theyre responsible for that they cant physically issue warnings for every single storm because they dont have enough people working on the radar.
These are all theoretical concerns, but its sort of like when you read about aircraft disasters and how they occur, Gensini said. Its the cascading of risk, right? Its the compounding, like the pilot was tired. The pilot missed the cue.
Seth Borenstein, AP science writer
The Associated Presss climate and nvironmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
March is kind of a wild month its got a little bit of everything. At first glance, Womens History Month and March Madness might feel like an odd pairing, but lately, they actually go hand in hand. Thanks to the Caitlin Clark effect (you know the one), womens college basketball has been booming. In fact, in 2024, the womens NCAA championship game drew more viewers than the mens for the first time ever. Will that momentum keep going this year? Were about to find out. The Final Four is here, and UCLA, South Carolina, Texas, and UConn are all ready to bring it. Heres what you need to know and how to catch every minute of the action.
When and where is the Womens Final Four?
The action is taking place at the Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida. Friday, April 4 is game day. First, the South Carolina Gamecocks and Texas Longhorns will battle it out at 7 p.m. ET. Then the UCLA Bruin will face the UConn Huskies for the remaining spot in the championship game at 9:30 p.m. ET.
Players and coaches to watch
As the defending champion, South Carolina, wants back-to-back titles. Head coach Dawn Staleys roster is a mix of developmental talent and experienced players which may prove to be a deadly weapon. Joyce Edwards, Chloe Kitts and MiLaysia Fulwiley are eager to prove themselves on the national stage. Sometimes you dont need a household-name superstar to win it all.Madison Booker and the Texas Longhorns want to stop this crew. The team hasnt seen the Final Four since 2003. The organization only has a single championship under its belt.Lauren Betts started her college basketball career at Stanford but left to become a Bruin after freshman year. Shes an imposing figure to guard at six feet seven inches. Led by coach Cori Close, this is the first time UCLA has been in the Final Four since 1979 which was before the NCAA sponsored women’s basketball. The team is hopeful the party doesnt stop here but not if Paige Bueckers has anything to say about it.One could argue Bueckers has filled the void left by Clark at the collegiate level. If shes successful in the Final Four she will have the opportunity to surpass her predecessor by winning a national championship. This UConn Guard wants to help her team go all the way especially since the organization has not accomplished this feat since 2016.
How to tune in
Traditional cable subscribers can tune into ESPN to watch all the free throws and three-pointers. Those who cut the cord can turn to a live television streaming service that carries ESPN such as Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV, Fubo, YouTube TV, or DirecTV Stream.
Both Final Four games are evenly matched with no clear front-runners so the competition is sure to be fierce.
An overlooked executive order, crowded out by the administrations new tariff schedule, could have big implications for relatively small imports. On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order that ended de minimis treatment for small or low-value Chinese imports.
That’s as Trumps team is pushing ahead to close the trade loophole that has allowed certain goods from China to dodge tariffs. Trump had previously suspended the loophole in February and tasked the Commerce Department with putting together a more comprehensive plan. Now that the loophole is closed, there could be many implications for Chinese retailers that specialize in selling inexpensive goods to American consumerscompanies like Temu or Shein.
Here’s what to know.
What is de minimis?
Under previous standards, imports with values of less than $800 were granted de minimis exemptions from tariffs. Effectively, that meant that companies specializing in selling cheap goods to American consumers could avoid existing tariffs and added duties.
The phrase de minimis is Latin, and loosely translates to minimal things. As it relates to tariffs, it basically boils down to a translation of, tariffs dont apply to relatively small imports.
The de minimis rule had existed under U.S. tax law, but small shipments and imports utilizing the loophole have increased significantly in recent years, which caught the attention of regulatorsand Trump. In fact, the number of shipments has more than doubled since 2018.
Trumps executive order claims that the loopholes closure has to do with imports of drugs or drug-producing compounds. President Trump is targeting deceptive shipping practices by Chinese-based shippers, many of whom hide illicit substances, including synthetic opioids, in low-value packages to exploit the de minimis exemption, the White House said.
What does it mean for consumers?
Closing the loophole likely means higher prices for American consumers, and a potential knockout blow to Chinese retailers who have exploited the loophole in recent years.
That could potentially make American retailers more competitive. Forever 21, which recently filed for bankruptcy protection and announced that it was closing all of its U.S. stores, blamed part of its faltering on Chinese rivals like Shein and Temu.
So the trade-off appears to be that American retailers may be more competitive, but that consumers will likely pay higher prices.
President Donald Trump on Friday said is signing an executive order to keep TikTok running in the U.S. for another 75 days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership.
Congress had mandated that the platform be divested from China by Jan. 19 or barred in the U.S. on national security grounds, but Trump moved unilaterally to extend the deadline to this weekend, as he sought to negotiate an agreement to keep it running. Trump has recently entertained an array of offers from U.S. businesses seeking to buy a share of the popular social media site, but Chinas ByteDance, which owns TikTok and its closely-held algorithm, has insisted the platform is not for sale.
My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress, Trump posted on his social media platform. The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days.
Trump added: We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal.
TikTok, which has headquarters in Singapore and Los Angeles, has said it prioritizes user safety, and Chinas Foreign Ministry has said Chinas government has never and will not ask companies to collect or provide data, information or intelligence held in foreign countries.
Trumps delay of the ban marks the second time that he has temporarily blocked the 2024 law that banned the popular social video app after the deadline passed for ByteDance to divest. That law that was passed with bipartisan support in Congress and upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court, which said the ban was necessary for national security.
If the extension keeps control of TikToks algorithm under ByteDances authority, those national security concerns persist.
Chris Pierson, CEO of the cybersecurity and privacy protection platform BlackCloak, said that if the algorithm is still controlled by ByteDance, then it is still controlled by a company that is in a foreign, adversarial nation state that actually could use that data for other means.
The main reason for all this is the control of data and the control of the algorithm, said Pierson, who served on the Department of Homeland Securitys Privacy Committee and Cybersecurity Subcommittee for more than a decade. If neither of those two things change, then it has not changed the underlying purpose, and it has not changed the underlying risks that are presented.
The Republican presidents executive orders have spurred more than 130 lawsuits in the little more than two months he has been in office, but his order delaying a ban on TikTok has barely generated a peep. None of those suits challenges his temporary block of the law banning TikTok.
The law allows for one 90-day reprieve, but only if theres a deal on the table and a formal notification to Congress. Trumps actions so far violate the law, said Alan Rozenshtein, an associate law professor at the University of Minnesota.
Rozenshtein pushed back on Trumps claim that delaying the ban is an extension.Hes not extending anything. This continues to simply be a unilateral non enforcement declaration, he said. All hes doing is saying that he will not enforce the law for 75 more days. The law is still in effect. The companies are still violating it by providing services to Tiktok.
The national security risks posed by TikTok persist under this extension, he said.
The extension comes at a time when Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago.
A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they werent sure.
Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.
Daniel Ryave, in Washington, D.C., runs the TikTok account @SATPrepTutor with about 175,000 followers. It offers testing advice and helps Ryave find tutoring students. He has Instagram and YouTube accounts, but TikTok is better for reaching people, he said.
Almost all of my new students come through TikTok, he said. A big chunk of my revenue is from one-on-one tutoring, and thats a great way to source clients.
When he heard about the extension, he was relieved, he said.
This extension will allow students to continue accessing high quality short form educational content that they arent seeking out elsewhere, he said.
Fatima Hussein and Sarah Parvini, Associated Press
AP Business Writer Mae Anderson in New York contributed to this story.
For all of the risks and potential dangers associated with crypto, it is still becoming an increasingly mainstream asset. Thats according to the latest data from the National Cryptocurrency Association (NCA), a non-profit aimed at helping Americans better understand cryptocurrency and digital assets.
One in five Americans currently owns cryptocurrency in some shape or form, according to the NCAs 2025 State of Crypto Holders Report. The report, which was produced with The Harris Poll, also finds that nearly 40% use crypto to pay for goods or services, and that two-thirds say that crypto has a positive impact on their lives.
The data was sourced from a Harris Poll survey conducted in January and February this year, from a pool of 54,000 respondents that was winnowed down to 10,000 crypto holders. It’s the largest survey conducted to date of crypto holders.
A couple of other interesting findings include that nearly 40% of American crypto holders live in the Southmore than double the amount that live in the Midwest (17%) or the Northeast (18%). Twenty-six percent live in the West. Also, while 14% of crypto holders work in the tech sector, 12% work in construction. And only 7%, a perhaps surprisingly low number, work in finance.
The report also notes that crypto owners are a fairly diverse set, and that one reason is that crypto has a surprisingly low bar for entry. That is truein many cases, all thats needed to start purchasing crypto is a brokerage account and a few dollars, as many cryptocurrencies have low values.
But that also makes it a fairly risky field. In 2023, for instance, the amount lost to crypto scams added up to more than $5.6 billion, according to FBI data. Early estimates seem to indicate that the total lost to crypto scams during 2024 will be at least double that amount.
Either way, the report points to a rather obvious conclusion: Crypto seems to be growing, and even becoming more mainstream. Of course, that’s as the NCA is also pushing for more mainstream adoption of crypto itself. The organization launched just one month ago.
In the wake of immigration enforcement showing up on college campuses, and in some cases detaining students and revoking student visas, universities are responding. But the reaction has been strikingly different from school to school across the U.S.Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio clarified the Trump administrations right to rescind student visas and deport international students who are critical of Israels U.S.-backed takeover of Palestine. At a press conference he said that at least 300 student visas have already been revoked. The statements, along with the ongoing uptick in immigration raids, further stoked fear in international students.
Declarations of support
Amid the worries, some universities are standing firmly by their international students. Tufts University made a bold show of support for Rumeysa Ozturk, the international graduate student who was taken into custody by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on March 25. Ozturk was cornered by agents while off-campus after she, along with three other students, wrote an op-ed urging divestment from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel. Ozturk was accused of supporting Hamas, while the article made no mention of the group.On April 2, Tufts University President Sunil Kumar issued a declaration in support of a motion filed by Ozturk’s legal team. The statement made clear that Tufts supports Ozturk and believes there are absolutely no legal grounds for her detainment. “The University has no information to support the allegations that she was engaged in activities at Tufts that warrant her arrest and detention.” The statement called for the students immediate release so that she can continue her education at the university.
Updated guidance for the international school community
Other schools are responding to the possibility of deportations and detainments, too, simply by updating guidance on school platforms or sending school-wide emails. In February, Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Baltimore sent a memo to its student body, advising bystanders not to intervene with immigration agents. “Obstructing or otherwise interfering with certain government activity can be a crime,” the memo states. “Do not attempt to notify any person who may be subject to federal immigration enforcement that federal law enforcement officers are present, or engage in any behavior in an effort to enable them to leave the premises or hide.”A representative from JHU told Fast Company in an emailed statement that the university shares the “concerns arising from recent detentions of international students and scholars across the country” and pointed to the importance of “due-process.” The statement continued, explaining that the school “does not provide information about the immigration status of members of our community unless required by law, and Johns Hopkins safety, security, and police officers do not request information regarding citizenship,” but said if immigration agents presented a warrant or court order, the university would comply. The representative pointed to JHU’s personalized immigration-related service and support for international students through its Office of International Services.The representative did not respond to a question about whether the university would consider issuing a declaration of support, similar to Tufts’, if a student were to be taken into custody by DHS.Temple University in Philadelphia released a statement regarding immigration enforcements recent arrests and detainment of students on other campuses, too. In it, President John Fry wrote, Please know that if a similar situation were to arise here at Temple University, we are committed to doing all we lawfully can to assist our students in these circumstances. When pressed, as to whether the school would offer legal statements of support to students if detained, a representative deferred Fast Company to another representative who, ultimately, did not reply by the time of publication. Shortly after Fry’s statement, the university announced that one student had their visa revoked and self-deported.Harvards Dean of Students, Thomas G. Dunne, similarly addressed concerns over possible deportations or detainments in a school-wide email. The email did not advise students on what to do in the presence of ICE, but rather, directed students to the Harvard University Police Department and Harvard Office of the General Counsel. Yale went further, publishing a page on the school website dedicated to answering student questions on what their rights are when it comes to dealing with immigration agents. It advised students that agents must present a warrant to enter nonpublic areas of campus, and gave specific and thorough advice for both students and staff on what to do when encountering immigration enforcement.
Penalizing students for exercising first amendment rights
Stunningly, other schools have gone in another direction entirely, seeming to turn away from supporting international students and graduates. At Columbia University, outraged students chained themselves to the gate outside the school this week to protest the detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, the graduate student who was taken by ICE agents after organizing pro-Palestinians demonstrations. And some staff have come out fiercely against the arrest. But the university hasn’t released statements pressing for Khalils release.Instead, Columbia itself has even disciplined students for participating in pro-Palestine demonstrations. In a campus-wide email, the school’s judicial board announced they had expelled, suspended, and even revoked degrees from some students who occupied Hamilton Hall last spring to protest the ongoing genocide. The announcement said the board determined findings and issued sanctions to students ranging from multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions related to the occupation of Hamilton Hall last spring.
In response to questions on whether the school would consider releasing a statement in support of Khalil, a representative pointed Fast Company to a March 13 statement, which said, Columbia continues to make every effort to ensure that our campus, students, faculty, and staff are safe. Columbia is committed to upholding the law, and we expect city, state, and federal agencies to do the same. The representative did not say if the school would provide legal statements to help expedite Khalil’s release.
Some say, it’s not enough
As universities are being tested, some students and staff feel that the response from their schools have been utterly inadequate. A graduate student worker with the Johns Hopkins University Union, who only wanted to be referred to as April M. for safety reasons, told Fast Company that JHU has “refused” to meet the needs of students and workers. “International students and workers make up a significant percentage of Hopkins’ population, and Hopkins Justice Collective has been making a clear call for a sanctuary campus and denunciation of current university practices, which the university has not only ignored, but papered over with essentially an affirmation of our feelings.”They added, “Acknowledgment means nothing when student visas can be revoked without notice.” The graduate student also said that students at JHU are actively wiping their phones, cancelling flights to their home countries, and staying inside out of fear, all while the university ramps up its private police force, “growing the punitive muscle of the university that costs millions.”The feeling that universities aren’t doing enough to stand up to the new anti-first-amendment push is shared by some professors, too. Jason Stanley, an American professor of philosophy at Yale who wrote the books How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them and Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, is taking his lessons, and at least two other professors, to Canada. Suddenly if youre not a citizen of the United States, you cant comment on politics if youre a professor? Stanley told CNN on his decision to move out of the country. Thats crazy, said Stanley. Thats not a free society.While the professor blames the Trump administration, he feels now is the time for colleges to stand up to the president. Instead, he isn’t seeing the reaction from universities that he would’ve hoped for, saying, “Theyre humiliating the universities and I dont see the universities standing up to it.”
