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Now: Trump Meeting With Netanyahu As Markets Enter Final Hour Of Trading On Volatile Day; U.S. Markets Volatile As Trump Triples Down On Trade War; Global Markets On Edge As Trump Tariffs Drive Steep Losses; Trump Hosts Israeli Prime Minister At White House. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired April 07, 2025 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[15:00:19]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Happening now, a split-screen moment in President Trump's escalating trade war that you just have to see. On the left side of your screen, live look at the Dow. The market's volatile all day, down - with trading now minutes away from closing, you see the Dow down about 430 points. On the right side, it's a live look at the White House.

President Trump is there. He's hosting his first face-to-face tariff negotiations with a foreign leader.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Yes. He's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and we're standing by to see exactly how they're going to take questions in the Oval Office soon. The White House said they might.

Of course, this was after a planned press conference that was on the schedule for the day was abruptly canceled. Let's take you to the White House right now with CNN's Jeff Zeleny.

And Jeff, you were supposed to attend that press conference. I understand that there was a setup inside a room at the White House for this press conference. But now instead, they're only doing a more limited Oval Office spray with members of the press pool. Do we understand why?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: At least that is the plan, Boris, but those members of the press pool, those are reporters both from here in the United States and Israel as well have been waiting for more than an hour now in the White House briefing room to go into the Oval Office to watch this conversation and pose some questions, so we do not know what the delay is. They obviously have much to discuss, these two leaders.

But you also have the sense that the White House is being very judicious with the President's words and comments as the market is still open. We're in the final hours of the market being open here on this Monday and we, of course, have seen what has happened as well as the financial markets across the world. But - and this is one of the reasons why, one of the central questions hanging over all of this, the policy the administration has rolled out is, is the President going to be open to negotiating with these countries where the deadline is Wednesday to impose those new so- called reciprocal Tariffs or not. And we're getting conflicting accounts even in real time from some of the President's top advisors.

Here's a look at what I mean, if you look at the Treasury Secretary just a short time ago sending out a message on social media saying that he is going to be having a phone conversation with Japanese leaders there to negotiate to implement the President's vision for the new golden age of global trade. So this is a sense that the administration is open for negotiation before that Wednesday deadline possibly.

But at the same time, literally in the same breath, the top trade advisor here is saying the President is not open for negotiation. This was in a - an op-ed in the Financial Times that Peter Navarro saying, "This is not a negotiation. President Trump is always willing to listen. But to these world leaders who, after decades of cheating, are suddenly offering to lower tariffs - know this: that it's just the beginning."

So, one question is, is the President open to negotiating and, two, how long will these tariffs be in place? Is it, A, negotiating - a tool temporarily or something much longer. Is it a permanent levy on the country. So, that is one of the reasons that has created market uncertainty. It's one of the reasons the market has been giving its clear response to this administration's policy.

So, as we sit here at the top of the hour at three o'clock in the East Coast waiting for one more hour of the markets and also waiting for the President to try and give some clarity on all of this. Boris and Brianna.

SANCHEZ: Yes. We will stay tuned. Jeff Zeleny live force at the White House keep us posted.

Let's get more reaction to this tumultuous time for markets. With us now is economist Natasha Sarin.

Natasha, thanks for being with us.

Treasurer Secretary Scott Bessent is downplaying losses in the stock market saying the administration is focused on building out the long- term economic fundamentals for prosperity. What do you make of this promise from the administration that this is all about the long term? Don't panic when you see markets afflicted the way they have been.

NATASHA SARIN, ECONOMIST: The thing about that sort of argument is it really doesn't make any sense and it reflects like a misunderstanding of what the stock market is telling us. The stock market in the market reaction tells you what the view is of the long-term prospects of these companies. It tells you what the view is of this trade war and what its likely impacts are going to be on households who are going to pay thousands of dollars more a year. But also on American firms, non- American investment, where betting on this country and investing in this country is getting less sustainable and less desirable in ways that are going to eat at the American economy not just today, tomorrow, the next month, but literally for years to come.

[15:05:12]

So, Natasha what's your reaction when Bessent says he's been very impressed with the market infrastructure and pointed to the record volume the markets had on Friday.

SARIN: You know, it is - the last three days have been the worst three days of stock market performance that this country has seen since at least the financial crisis. So, it is hard to - I mean, to take joy in the fact that there has been a lot of trading volume as people are looking to sell off in a world in which they're no longer sure that the United States and the American economy are really going to be the envy of the world, they have been historically, isn't really sort of a cheerleading point from my perspective.

And it's not just my perspective, if you look at the sort of understanding of what the probability is that we're going to enter a recession when Donald Trump took office, that probability was - this year - about 15 percent. It's kind of always 15 percent in any given year. Since this trade war has been ignited, since this administration's unsustainable policies, you've seen that probability jump to somewhere over 50 percent. It could be as close as six - close to 60 percent today.

SANCHEZ: And if the administration moves forward with this threatened extra 50 percent tariff on China, is it likely that we do wind up in a global recession?

SARIN: Well, the thing that is sort of challenging that you're already starting to see play out from this trade war and from the Rose Garden event that the President hosted last week is that you are seeing other countries do what you would expect, which is if the U.S. is going to slap on China sort of 54 percent tariffs, well, China is going to tear up them back.

And it's kind of a ratchet that keeps escalating, such that you're in a situation where every country just has higher tariffs on the U.S. and the U.S. Is higher tariffs in all those countries and the result is both imports and exports are much more expensive in the future than they have been historically. And so, I think you're going to start to see more and more of this.

It is striking to me that China, Japan and South Korea, three countries that hadn't had an economic policy conversation in years came together and said we need to figure out a way to respond as a unit to the United States' trade war.

And I just worry that you're not just seeing the economic pain in both the short-term in the long-term, but you're seeing a fundamental realignment of the global order in ways that are going to disadvantage the United States in the years to come.

KEILAR: Those are strong words.

Natasha Sarin, thank you so much for that. We appreciate it.

And joining us now is CNN Global Affairs Analyst Brett McGurk. He is a former lead U.S. negotiator on the Israel-Hamas hostage deal. We also have CNN Senior Political Analyst Mark Preston with us.

Okay. So, I wonder, Brett, as you were looking here towards this, this meeting between President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, especially knowing that we're not going to get this press conference where hopefully they would have dealt with some substantial issues you would expect, what are you looking for?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think, Brianna - look, this is a bit of a mess. I mean, this meeting was set up just the other day. In fact, senior U.S. officials from the Trump administration were supposed to be here with senior Israeli Administration officials at a conference. I'm at in Abu Dhabi with former and currently serving officials from across the region, so it's a last-minute trip kind of adds to the sense of crisis.

And the issues are quite important. So number one is tariffs. We have a free trade agreement with Israel. Israel announced before President Trump announced his tariffs that they would reduce all customs duties on U.S. goods and yet the Trump administration still slapped a 17 percent tariff on Israel, which really jeopardizes Israel's economy in a time of war, so that's issue number one.

Issue number two is Iran. We're about 30 days into a 60-day deadline that the Trump administration gave Iran to negotiate an Iran nuclear deal. That is not going to happen in that timeframe. It might not happen at all over the course of this year and we are gearing up, militarily, for the potential - for military strike in Iran, which President Trump has threatened. That's a very serious issue. That will be discussed.

And obviously, third, Gaza and the hostages. There's about 25 living hostages in Gaza. Those talks have stalled. There's been some momentum behind the scenes. But we got to do all we can to get those hostages out including American citizen, Edan Alexander. So, these are huge issues.

The second and third issue. I just mentioned alone are massive and to add to it, this issue of tariffs and this economic uncertainty, which is the talk of this conference I'm at, just makes everything more complex.

[15:10:04]

And then when you have a press conference that was supposed to happen pull down, it just adds to this sense of crisis, which I don't think helps anybody.

SANCHEZ: A lot of angles to a lot of issues.

Mark, what are you anticipating is going to come out of this meeting with Netanyahu?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you know, when Netanyahu showed up today, I was thinking to myself what is really at the top of his list right now. And clearly it's the conflict with Gaza.

I do wonder how much tariffs came up or even if they did come up with Netanyahu more pliable so to speak. Remember, he was having trouble back home. Trump in some ways kind of saved him in a sense by being very supportive of the actions that he was taking, you know, to deal with what was happening in Gaza.

So, you know, I don't think we're going to get anything solid out of here. I'm not surprised by the way that Trump canceled this news conference. If he doesn't have good news, why would you go out and deliver news specifically before the markets closed anyway.

So, I think it was probably a smart move on his part not to do anything, but he has to have an answer. And for his economic advisors to go out there and to continue to say this is something that is not going to be - go away, you know, within days or nights that this is going to stay in place for weeks, that is not the kind of confidence right now that, I think, investors are looking for.

KEILAR: What do you think might come out of the Oval Office? I mean, you would expect hopefully that he - he's going to get some questions that perhaps he would have seen in the press conference, but certainly not entirely.

PRESTON: No, certainly not entirely. What he'll do though what he's been very effective and we saw this last night is if he's asked a question that he doesn't like to answer, he'll say next question. So, he's done that, you know, several times. And he did it last night on the - on Air Force One coming back into Washington.

Clearly, he's going to be asked about what's going to be the resolution now in Israel. Then, he's going to be asked about what about Russia. I mean, are you going to hit Russia with tariffs now because you're very upset about how they're handling the war or the war trying to bring it to a closure.

So, he's going to get all those kinds of answers. I don't think anyone's going to get the answer that they want to hear though. People hear a lot from Donald Trump. Unless you're supportive of him. You don't like what he says.

SANCHEZ: Brett, I wonder since this is the first face-to-face meeting between Trump and a world leader since the announcement of these tariffs, whether you imagine that other foreign leaders are watching this closely to imagine or to sort of figure out whether this is going to portend something for them in their attempts at negotiation with the United States.

MCGURK: I think it's a great question and if - as the Treasury Secretary just said - the intent is to negotiate deals, this should be an easy one. Again, we have a free trade agreement with Israel. Israel is one of our closest partners and Israel reduced all customs duties on U.S. Goods. And so this should be, okay, we have an agreement. We're - I'm dropping that 17 percent tariff I just inflicted on Israel.

Again, Israel's in a time of war. It's kind of the last thing they really need. This should be an easy deal. But if they come out of today with no deal, I think that just adds to the uncertainty and risk that, number one, the administration is kind of charting a course here without a compass. And secondly, there might not be any deals at all anytime soon, so we'll see.

I would say - I mean, I think that's an opportunity. Two leaders, they know each other. Two countries - we're very close to the Israelis, obviously - come out and say hey, we just reached a deal. It's a good one for both of our countries and move on to these other very serious issues. I cannot stress enough how serious this Iran issue is and it's coming down the pike and, of course, Gaza where we have to get those hostages out. So, it's a big agenda, but I do think tariffs are going to overshadow it.

SANCHEZ: Brett McGurk, Mark Preston appreciate the conversation.

Still to come, the impact of President Trump's global tariff policy in Mexico's auto industry We're going to take you live to a jeep plant in Mexico that already paused production because of these new tariffs.

KEILAR: Plus, the new Health and Human Services Secretary, RFK Jr. offering his most direct endorsement of the measles vaccine as a second school-age child dies from the virus in Texas. We'll have the latest on the growing outbreak.

And then, later the Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to block a judge's order to return to the U.S. - sorry to return a man deported to El Salvador by mistake to the U.S. We'll have that and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[15:16:04]

SANCHEZ: Breaking news to CNN. Let's take you straight to the White House in the Oval Office with President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Let's listen.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... lunch together, we had meetings together along with his very capable staff. And I think we've come up to some pretty good solutions and conclusions. And we'll be working a little bit after this. And then, I assume you're going back home.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: (INAUDIBLE) ...

TRUMP: This is a quick stop, in and out. But we appreciate you being here and we are a friend of Israel, as you know. I would say that I'm by far the best president that Israel has ever even thought of seeing and it's an honor to be so and to be so thought of. And many friends in Israel, they are not in an easy area, doesn't go easy, but we are helping them and, likewise, they've been helping us very much. And so we'll see how it all works out. But we had great discussions today, I think on the obvious subject of Iran and also the less obvious subject with respect to Israel and that's trade. And I think the Prime Minister is going to tell you a little bit about trade and what they're doing for the United States. So, I want to thank you all for being here. Thank you very much and --

NETANYAHU: Thank you.

TRUMP: -- Benjamin, thank you very much.

NETANYAHU: Thank you, Mr. President.

TRUMP: (INAUDIBLE) ...

NETANYAHU: Thank you, Donald. Thank you.

Mr. President, I want to first thank you for inviting me again to the White House. You've been a remarkable friend of the state of Israel. You stand by us. You're standing with us. You are a great, great champion of our lives and you actually do the things that you say you do and I think that people respect that enormously.

I certainly do and people of Israel do, and I think the Jewish people do as well. We just saw your representative in the Department of Justice fighting anti-Semitism, standing up for Israel in international forums.

I just want you to know from the heart, it's deeply, deeply appreciated. As you said, we had the opportunity to talk today about many subjects. First, if I can mention, tariffs is a subject of some interest today.

I can tell you that I said to the President a very simple thing, we will eliminate the trade deficit with the United States. We intend to do it very quickly. We think it's the right thing to do and we're going to also eliminate trade barriers. A variety of trade barriers that have been put up unnecessarily and I think Israel can serve as a model for many countries who ought to do the same.

I recognize the position of the United States. It says, you know, we're allowing other countries to put tariffs on us, but we don't put tariffs on them and, you know, I'm a free trade champion and free trade has to be fair trade, and I think that's basically the position that you've put forward, Mr. President. And we are going to eliminate the tariffs and rapidly.

I had the opportunity to speak to Secretary Lutnick yesterday. We talked about how we could affect this quickly and I hope to bring the solution very quickly. We're not talking about intentions. We're not talking about, you know, just words. We're talking about results and those results are going to come in. That's the first one.

TRUMP: Thank you. Very nice. That's very nice. NETANYAHU: Thank you.

TRUMP: Thank you.

NETANYAHU: Thank you, Mr. President.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, what the (INAUDIBLE) ...

NETANYAHU: Well, let me ...

TRUMP: (INAUDIBLE) ...

NETANYAHU: ... (INAUDIBLE) but we spoke about not only the hostages, but about Gaza. The hostages obviously is a human story of - just unbearable agony. I speak to the families. I spoke to yesterday, spoke to another one when I was in Hungary before I came here. I speak to them every day, they're in agony. The hostages are in agony.

[15:20:00]

And we want to get them all out.

Steve Witkoff, who's President Trump's very able representative helped us get a deal that got 25 out. We're working now on another deal that we hope will succeed. And we're committed to getting all the hostages out, but also eliminating the evil tyranny of Hamas in Gaza and enabling the people of Gaza to freely make a choice to go wherever they want. I mean they should have that choice and the President put forward a vision, a bold vision which we discussed as well, including the countries that might be amenable and are amenable to accepting Palestinians of their free choice if they choose to go there. And I think that's the second thing that we discussed, but the hostages came right on top.

We also discussed the situation in Syria. We have - we've had neighborly relations with Turkey that have deteriorated and we don't want to see Syria being used by anyone, including turkey, as a base for attack in Israel. Turkey is a country that has a great relationship with the United States. The President has a relationship with the leader of turkey. We discussed how we can avoid this conflict in a variety of ways. And I think we can't have a better interlocutor than the President of the United States for this purpose.

And, of course, we also discussed Iran. Look, we're both united in the goal that Iran does not ever get nuclear weapons. If it can be done diplomatically in a full way the way it was done in Libya, I think that would be a good thing. But whatever happens, we have to make sure that Iran does not have nuclear weapons. That's the end of my speech.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: We are ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is your (INAUDIBLE) ...

TRUMP: ... we're having direct talks with - wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, we're having direct talks with Iran and they've started. It'll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting and we'll see what can happen and I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious. And the obvious is not Something that I want to be involved with or frankly that Israel wants to be involved with if they can avoid it. So, we're going to see if we can avoid it, but it's getting to be very dangerous territory.

And hopefully those talks will be successful and I think it would be in Iran's best interest if they are successful. We hope that's going to happen. And we had just a lot of good talks on a lot of things. I appreciate very much what you said about the tariffs. We've been ripped off and taken advantage of by many countries over the years and can't do it anymore. I just can't do it anymore. Can't be the stupid people anymore and it's all because of the people that sat in the seat right here, not your seat, but this seat. They allowed things to happen to our country that they shouldn't have allowed to happen on trade and other things, many other things.

I mean, look at what's happened with our last president where he allowed millions of people to come into our country with an open border Who would want an open border? How stupid was that? But he allowed millions and millions of people and of the millions - and I think it was 21 million people - but let's say three of them were serious criminals, serious murderers, and drug dealers, and gang members and people from jails, all the jails emptied out right into our country, right along the open border of the - on Mexico, generally the Mexico. They came in from Canada too, by the way, a lot, but generally speaking on the southern border.

And what a shame it is that we are now working very hard to get them out, get the criminals out, get the murderers out, the drug dealers, the mentally insane get them out. They dropped the mentally insane in our country, too. And this was all done by the Biden administration. It's a disgrace that we have to work so hard.

And then, we have judges that try and protect these people. But they didn't protect us when the people were being let in, but to get them out is never easy with these people. So, I think we're doing a great job. The border is the best it's ever been, it's even as strong as it was I had a great solid border. I think it might even be tougher right now and stronger.

So, people are coming into our country, but they're coming in legally. We have a legal process and we have that moving along properly because we need people to come into our country, but we want people that can love our country and cherish our country. So, that's where we are and with that, any questions?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) to the markets today and would you be open to a pause in tariffs to allow for negotiations?

TRUMP: Well, we're not looking at that. We have many, many countries that are coming to negotiate deals with us and they're going to be fair deals. [15:25:02]

And in certain cases, they're going to be paying substantial tariffs. There'll be fair deals. As you know, I spoke this morning with the prime minister of Japan and we had a very good conversation. They're coming and I said one thing you're going to have to open up your country because we sold no cars like zero cars in Japan and they sold millions of cars into our country. They don't really take our agriculture, a little bit of just to keep us slightly happy, but they don't take what they're supposed to be taking.

So we have a great relationship with Japan. We're going to keep it that way, but they're coming in to meet and other countries are coming in.

With China, as you know, against my statement, they put a 34 percent tariff on above what their ridiculous tariffs were already. And I said if that tariff isn't removed by tomorrow at 12 o'clock We're putting a 50 percent tariff on above the tariffs that we put on. So, they've gone for years, they've become a rich country because of people, again, that were in the White House that allowed this to happen. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year they'd make on us on trade and it shouldn't be that way.

And I have a great relationship with President Xi. I hope it's going to stay that way. I have great respect for China, but they can't do this. We're just - we're going to have one shot at this and no other president is going to do this, what I'm doing. And I'll tell you what, it's an honor to do it because we have been just destroyed, what they've done to our system.

You know, we have 36 trillion dollars of debt for a reason. And the reason is that people allowed it to get that way, so we'll be talking to China. We'll be talking to a lot of different countries and I think you know if we can make a really fair deal and a good deal for the United States, not a good deal for others. This is America first, it's now America first. And we didn't put America first. We put America last.

The people that were in the Oval Office put America last and we're not going to stand for it. Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, (INAUDIBLE) to represent the U.S. in the talks with Iran.

TRUMP: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Two questions, do you expect any of these deals to be made before April 9th? And secondly, there have been some mixed messages from your administration. You're talking about negotiations and yet others in your administration are saying that these tariffs are actually permanent. What is the (INAUDIBLE) ...

TRUMP: Well, it could be they can both be true. There can be permanent tariffs and there can also be negotiations, because there are things that we need beyond tariffs. We need open borders. You know, we almost had a deal with China where we're going to open up China. It was almost done, some of you remember it during my first term, and it was very disappointing. We ended up making a great deal - $50 billion worth of product was sold, 50 billion, you'd like that in Israel.

And I made that deal, but it wasn't the deal that I wanted. It was - the deal that I wanted was that, plus they're going to open up China so that our companies could go into China and compete with other countries and China for the, you know, for a large number of people. And at the very end that deal was terminated and we went to a piece of the deal.

And there - so there are a lot of things outside of tariffs, but tariffs are very important - but there are a lot of things like opening up countries that were totally closed. China is essentially a close country. In fact, it is a close country. And what they do is they charge tariffs so that if you if you sell cars or if you sell anything, nobody's going to buy it because the price is out of control.

But that's true with a lot of other countries also. So, we're going to get fair deals and good deals with every country. And if we don't, we're going to have nothing to do with them. They're not going to be allowed to participate in the United States.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Hold it, hold it, hold it ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President ...

TRUMP: ... just relax, we have time. This gentleman has all day long.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, many of the - thank you for the chance ...

TRUMP: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many of Palestinian-Americans who voted for you voted for you and not for Biden because you've promised them to end the war in Gaza.

TRUMP: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do ...

TRUMP: I'm very honored by that vote, too.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The war is still going on and there's no hostage deal. Do you have any update on that?

TRUMP: Well, I'd like to see the war stop and I think the war will stop at some point that won't be in the too distant future. Right now., we have a problem with hostages. We're trying to get the hostages out. We got quite a few of them out, but it's a long process. It shouldn't be that long. We have a big problem that we've done, I think, I'll ask Pete to maybe talk about it for a second, because a lot of people are asking the Houthis. We've been very tough and very successful, militarily. We've really damaged them badly. These were the people shooting down ships and other things, by the way, flying objects like airplanes.

[15:30:05]