Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Soon: Markets Open After Trump Pauses Most Tariffs; Beijing Not Backing Down as Trump Hikes Tariffs on China to 125%; House Republicans Plan to Vote on Budget at 10AM ET. Aired 9-9:30 am ET

Aired April 10, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: -- more than 345 scholars, students, faculty members have had their visas revoked. But behind those numbers there's a real effect. These are real people whose lives are being upended. Their education is being sort of stopped in its track and it's not clear whether or not they're going to be able to complete their degrees.

[09:00:20]

I spoke to one of these students. He's at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and he told me last night that he has no idea whether he's going to be able to graduate in December.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAYSON MA, CARNEGIE MELLON STUDENT: I have, you know, my suitcase half-packed and it's a real possibility. It's something that I'm mentally preparing for and it's for my life to go back to normal. I want to go back to school, finish school. I want to, you know, not have to worry about getting arrested and I trust that my school is doing everything they can to help me but it doesn't help when they're confused about what's happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAZMINO: Jayson Ma is speaking publicly. His parents are in China. They do not know that this is going on. He said all he wants is just to make sure that he can graduate by the end of the year. He's not sure if he's going to be able to do that.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Gloria Pazmino, thank you for sharing his story. The market's set to open shortly. A brand-new hour of CNN News Central starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And some of the breaking news this morning, we have new inflation numbers just in showing inflation cooled to a six-month low last month but concern of course is that's not going to last given Donald Trump's trade war and how it continues to set in adding to the tension and the worry the tariff standoff between the U.S. and China only getting worse. China's retaliation against the U.S. setting in today. President Trump hiking tariffs against Beijing to 125%. Who will blink first?

And tech giants who cozied up to President Trump are out big money because of the market chaos. How much they've lost in just three months. I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman. Sara Sidner is out today.

This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: All right, we are just moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street. You can see U.S. stock futures are down across the board. This follows yesterday's historic surge and that came after President Trump blinked on many of his tariffs. A 90-day pause on many of them. On all people except China, if this was an actual roller coaster many would be begging to get off by now.

As for China the president hiked the penalties on China even higher to a combined 125% after Beijing raised its own tariffs on U.S. goods to 84%. China does say it's willing to negotiate with the U.S. as long as it's done with, quote, "mutual respect and equality." Unclear if that's a door opening or not because they also say they're willing to fight until the end.

Also new today just in the last few hours the European Union announced it will pause its payback tariffs against the U.S. after the U.S. retreated first. The U.S. says it wants to quote give negotiations a chance. The White House has been spinning all this as some kind of 4D chess game that the president is playing but this is how a column in "Politico" puts it today, quote, "We Just Saw the Cracks in Trump's Wall of Power."

Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House a new morning no doubt new twists and turns ahead, Alayna.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: That's exactly right. I think there's still so many questions, John, that really need to be answered. Of course, what is going to happen with China being at the top of that list? I had asked President Donald Trump about that yesterday, and he said essentially that he does believe that China wants a deal. Again, it's very unclear from what we've been hearing from Beijing. They say that they're open to negotiating, but as long as it's in good faith, but also that they're willing to fight.

I actually asked the President's Director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, about it. I said, you know, we had heard from Treasury Scott Bessent yesterday that perhaps this White House strategy on that is going to be working out deals with the United States allies like South Korea, Japan, who we know they have been discussed -- have been having discussions with regarding these tariffs and potential trade deals. But then going as a group of allies to China, he said that is something that is going to come up today.

All to say, I think there -- this cabinet meeting that the president has, we're told it was set up by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles' office, is going to be really telling. They're supposed to be getting together to really try and map out where to move forward on here, not just with China, but also on all of these other countries, because again, this pause in tariffs is still temporary, and it still has a lot of the markets and a lot of economists and people from Wall Street to Capitol Hill worried about the economy still and what this is going to mean moving forward.

Now, what was interesting as well, and what Hassett said this morning when I and other reporters were talking with him here at the White House, he said that around 15 countries now have come to the White House with very specific trade deals. Listen to how he put it.

[09:05:11]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: USTR has informed us that there are maybe 15 countries now that have made explicit offers that we're studying and considering and, you know, deciding whether they're good enough to present to the President. And we're setting up with the Chief of Staff's office, a very orderly process to prioritize countries and to make sure that the countries that are most important for getting this to the finish line are the countries that we bring in first. We could do negotiations a number of ways. We would expect that there'll be quite a bit of movement of world leaders into the White House in the next three to four weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So my take away from that, John, is that they're still really trying to map out exactly how this is going to look, which countries to try and prioritize. They said they have more than 70 countries have come to them wanting to make deals. So how do they do this in a 90-day span? All of that still really a big question, but hopefully we'll learn more today following that Cabinet meeting.

BERMAN: It's a great question, that Cabinet meeting, where they want to get administration officials in the room to make sure that they're all on the same page.

TREENE: On the same page, yeah.

BERMAN: As you've reported. Terrific reporting. Alayna Treene at the White House, thank you very much.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: Let's talk much more about this. Joining us right now is CNN Anchor and Business Editor At Large Richard Quest.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR & BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: Morning.

BOLDUAN: Morning. With what Kevin Hassett just said, they now have -- I think he said, 15 countries with very specific deals that they have brought forward. But how much of a challenge are these negotiations now for these deals?

QUEST: They are very challenging because of the detail. The President was absolutely right when he said it's not the headline number that's important. It's these non-tariff barriers. Different countries have rules, no GM beef, ownership rules, procurement rules, local ownership rules, anything designed to stop you getting your product into the country.

Now, luckily, the U.S. knows exactly what those barriers are, so they're going to go to each country and they're literally going to say, right, that's got to go, that's got to go, that's got to go. And now the countries involved have a choice. They lose them or they take the higher tariffs in 90 days. This is how the process should have been done. This is what they should have done last week. They should have said, here are the tariffs, you've got 90 days, bring us your best offer. Now we have a proper process.

BOLDUAN: So with fresh eyes today on the very abrupt shift that happened yesterday, what is the general react? What do you think of how markets have reacted? I mean, I just talked to two small business owners who say, like, we can't handle this. I can't even make a decision because of the whiplash.

QUEST: And they won't be able to for several months to come, because as you wait for the process to go through, nothing really -- don't forget, you've still got the steel tariffs on most of the on the world. You've still got the auto tariffs. You've still got the China tariff, which is some 12% of U.S. imports. So China is still way up there of importance. And you've got pharmaceutical tariffs still to come. And you have a new baseline tariff of 10% across the whole world, which I mean, I may be proven wrong in the long run. I don't think that's ever going away.

I think this is what President Trump has always wanted. He's always wanted a proper baseline tariff and people can live with 10%. But this inflation number we saw this morning, yippy, no, inflation is coming down. But it's coming down because the economy is slowing down. And therefore, yes, maybe the Fed will have to move. Maybe, who knows? But it's an evidence that that recession, I think it's coming. It's probably coming mid to late this year. It'll be short and shallow, but it is on its way.

BOLDUAN: What do you -- so we heard from the Chinese commerce ministry this morning saying the door is open for negotiation. But as John was saying, but they also said they're going to fight till the end. How -- how willing -- how willing does it appear that the with the United States and or China are to negotiate?

QUEST: They both want to negotiate. They both want to negotiate because the stakes are so high. I think that the increase --

BOLDUAN: Can I amend that? They both need to negotiate.

QUEST: Much better. I'm grateful. They both need to negotiate because the stakes are so high. I think that yesterday was an interesting development when the president increased the escalatory tariffs by, what was it, 21% from 104 to 125. That was a signal.

BOLDUAN: OK. QUEST: That was a signal to the Chinese because it could have gone 200%. It could have been 250%, whatever, whatever. But he was basically saying it's time to bring this to a close. We've got to do this. The Chinese have basically said, we'll fight to the end. You watch the two getting inching closer to us. But it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be on U.S. terms. That, I think, is the difference between China and the rest of the world. The non-tariff barriers are where this is going now.

[09:10:04]

BOLDUAN: OK, Richard Quest. Thank you, dear.

John.

BERMAN: Let's get right to Capitol Hill. House Speaker Mike Johnson is speaking in advance of what we think will be a vote on the budget.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON, (R-LA) SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Our aim is to deliver on our promises in this big, beautiful bill regarding things like border security and restoring peace and American energy dominance and regulatory reform to get the economy really humming again.

And, of course, also tax relief, tax reductions. We have to make the tax cuts permanent. And that's all involved and enveloped in this big effort and all the other promises and priorities we made.

Now, it's important to note that at the same time, we also need to achieve the maximum amount of savings for the American people because that's what fiscal responsibility is. And we even want to start reducing the deficit.

So with all that in mind, our first big, beautiful reconciliation package here involves a number of commitments. And one of those is that we are committed to funding at least $1.5 trillion in savings for the American people while also preserving our essential programs.

The Democrats are out right now trying to make hay out of the fact that we're going to gut Medicaid and all these other things. They're simply not true. We're going to protect the essential programs for everybody who's eligible to receive those. And you'll see that reflected in the final bill.

But I think it's very important for us to note that we'll be looking for $1.5 trillion in savings. And I can tell you that many of us are going to aim much higher and find those savings because we believe they are there. We want to make government more efficient, effective and leaner for the American people. And I think that will serve every American of every party. And we're happy to do that.

This morning, we'll take the next big step in that process. And I just want to say I'm very happy to have our partners in the Senate working so closely with us as one team, one unified team, which is very important for us to deliver on all these objectives.

And I can't tell you how much I thank Senate Majority Leader Thune for his principled, steady leadership and his resolve through this entire process. And I'm delighted to yield the podium to him next. Thank you.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD), MAJORITY LEADER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And good morning. A lot of work been going on here the last few days. But what I can tell you is that I think, as you know, last week that there were 51 Senate Republicans that passed a budget resolution that seeks to accomplish all the things that the speaker outlined. We are all aligned on the need to make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent to restore American energy dominance, to grow our economy and to make a generational investment in our border security and also make sure that we are ready militarily to deal with any of the threats that the country faces around the world.

And those are all things that are addressed in this budget resolution, which is why it's really important that we act. The budget resolution, as you know, is the first step. It unlocks budget reconciliation, which is where all this can be achieved. But one of the principal objectives in our budget resolution and in the houses is outlined by the Speaker is spending cuts.

We have got to do something to get the country on a more sustainable fiscal path. And that entails us taking a hard scrub of our government, figuring out where we can find those savings. And our ambition in the Senate is we are aligned with the House in terms of what their budget resolution outlined in terms of savings.

The Speaker's talked about $1.5 trillion dollars. We have a lot of United States senators who believe that is a minimum. And we're certainly going to do everything we can to be as aggressive as possible to see that we are serious about the matter, not only of, you know, making our federal government more fiscally sustainable, but also deficit reduction, which is critical to a lot of our members in the Senate and I know to his members in the House.

So we're ready to move forward. I'm hoping that the Speaker and his team and his House colleagues can succeed today, get the budget resolution passed, and that will set us up for the next step in this process, which enables us to achieve all the things on President Trump's agenda, including those I just outlined. But absolutely essential that we work really, really hard to see what we can do to make government smaller, more efficient and more accountable to the American taxpayer.

Thank you.

JOHNSON: Thanks so much. Thanks.

BERMAN: All right. You're listening to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune. They say they've reached, I think, what amounts to a verbal handshake agreement that they're going to work to find one point five trillion dollars in cuts in the budget as the process moves forward.

The House Speaker says he now believes he does have the votes in the House to move this process forward. And that vote will take place a little more than an hour from now. The issue had been that the Senate -- Senate Republicans and House Republicans are in a little bit different places in the size of the cuts.

With us now is Republican Congressman from Florida, Carlos Gimenez. Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

[09:15:04]

I don't want to spend too much time on this. You have a vote in just an hour, but is it your understanding that this is -- this is basically a handshake and a wink saying, hey, we're both going to work hard to find cuts?

REP. CARLOS GIMENEZ (R-FL): Well, I think that it was necessary for the Senate Majority Leader to make those statements. I think that from what I'm hearing, those on my side of the aisle that were hesitant to vote for this, the budget resolution, didn't trust the Senate to cut as much as they would like to cut. And so it was good to hear the Senate president reassure them. And hopefully that's enough to get this over the line.

BERMAN: We're going to have to see what happens, obviously, in the vote. And then we'll have to see what happens when it really gets to the issue of writing these laws and making these cuts.

Let me talk to you about tariffs, because you've been supportive of the President's tariffs from the beginning. You said just to Wolf Blitzer a few days ago that you thought they were on the right track. So what was it that you think convinced the President yesterday that at least some of them were on the wrong track, and he blinked or paused them?

GIMENEZ: I don't think he was on the wrong track at all. I don't think he did that yesterday at all. You had, what, 75 countries come and say, hey, we want to renegotiate our deal. We want to negotiate with the United States. And I think it was prudent for him to say, OK, you want to renegotiate and negotiate now with the United States in good faith? Then I'll pause for 90 days in order for us to get those negotiations underway.

And, you know, your guest was right in that this is going to take some time. I think, though, what's important for the market is to try to get a couple of these deals done as quickly as possible so that it kind of calms the markets down and says, yeah, this was the strategy all along, try to reestablish a new base and a new reality for commerce around the world with the United States for far too long we've been taken advantage of. And the president wants that stopped. And this was his strategy all along.

And so I think he's doing just fine. And I think that this is exactly what he wanted to do, say, hey, this is what's going to happen, come to the table. A lot of them did come to the table, says, OK, now I'll negotiate with you. I just think that that's a good negotiating tactic and also negotiating in good faith.

BERMAN: You know, they said this wasn't the strategy all along. There are all kinds of comments over the last week with them saying, no, no, no, this is not open to negotiation. These are sticking. And it was the bond markets. The President said it himself yesterday. He says the bond markets were going yippy. He did say the bond markets were going yippy. Why do you think the bond markets were going yippy?

GIMENEZ: The bond markets -- I don't know why the bond markets are going yippy. Look, whenever you're trying to reestablish commerce around the world and how the world trades with the United States, you're going to have ripples. You're going to ruffle some feathers. And you're going to have some waves. We all need to do it. And I've said it for a while. Hey, everybody needs to calm down. This is going to work out in the end. And I believe it's going to work out in the end. And yesterday was the beginning of that. The president has said, hey, we're going to stop this. You're going to come to the negotiating table. Now we're going to negotiate with all of these countries on their tariffs because we're going to reestablish this space. And so America gets a good deal.

The one place that's not going to get that good deal is China. And so he doubled down on China. And frankly, I'm glad he did because I've been saying all along, we need to decouple from China as quickly as we can. They want to be the dominant economic power of the world. They want to be the dominant military power of the world. And every dollar that we send to China is actually going to be used against us. And so I'm very happy with what he's doing with China.

I know he's going to negotiate something with them. But again, we're going to reestablish the basis of our trade with China so that we don't get taken advantage of like we've been doing for the last, you know, decades.

BERMAN: You've been very consistent on your urge and your policy of being hard on China. I do want to ask you, there's a cabinet meeting today, and the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, apparently put it together. Our Alayna Treene is reporting, one of the reasons is -- is that she wants to make sure that everyone within the White House is on the same page on tariffs and where this is all headed. How necessary do you think it is to get people on the same page where they may not have been?

GIMENEZ: Look, whenever you have an administration, I used to be the mayor of Miami-Dade County. I certainly wanted everybody, all of my directors to be on the same page, all right? And so that's why you have staff meetings, to make sure everybody is on the same page, to get the input from all of your senior advisors and then say, this is the direction we're going and this is the direction we're going.

Now everybody get on board and let's move on. That's just something that, you know, happens in every boardroom in America, and it should happen in every government in America where the lead executive sets the direction and everybody goes in the same direction and is on the same page. Let's do it.

BERMAN: I do want to ask you about some questions that have been raised about the timing of everything that happened yesterday. The President put out a post on Truth Social at, what was it, 9:18 a.m. -- 9:37 a.m., I should say, where he said, this is a great time to buy. And then, of course, after 1 p.m., he announced the pause or the blinking on some of the tariffs there.

[09:20:16]

Do you have any questions about the timing there? Was he telling people -- was he tipping people off? Was it market manipulation?

GIMENEZ: No, actually, we had lunch with a major stockbroker, you know, from New York, and we were talking to him about these tariffs and all that, and then one of the things he said was, it's time to buy. He had no idea what was going to happen later. I mean, look, you buy when the market is low and the market has just taken a pretty big dip. That's when the smart people start to buy. And like I said, everybody needs to calm down and not panic. Well, some people did panic, all right, and they sold.

And this has happened, you know, throughout history of the stock market. I've always said also that, hey, I'm 71 years old. I've seen this, you know, I've seen this play before where the stock market goes down. It always comes back. And the smart money is always buying low, and the stock market will always come back, and then you can ride that high. No, I don't have a problem with what he said because everybody was saying, hey, it may be time to buy now since it's taken a dip.

BERMAN: All right, Congressman Carlos Gimenez from Florida. Nice to see you this morning. Thanks so much for coming on.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: Ahead for us, new details on the prisoner's strop that has happened overnight, while you were sleeping, with Russia, new images just in of the Russian-American ballerina who's just freed after being sentenced to 12 years in a Russian prison. Her crime, donating to a U.S. charity supporting Ukraine, but now who the U.S. has swapped to bring her home.

Also ahead, the tech world aggressively backed President Trump's re- election, and now they're losing billions. How the tariff turmoil is impacting some of America's biggest companies.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:26:02]

BOLDUAN: Breaking news this morning, the Trump administration has announced another prisoner swap deal with the Kremlin. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issuing a statement that Russian-American Ksenia Karelina is, quote, "on a plane back home to the United States." She's an amateur ballerina arrested while visiting her grandparents last year. She was sentenced in August to 12 years in a Russian prison for treason. Her offense, donating less than $100 to a U.S.-based charity supporting Ukraine.

According to U.S. officials, her release was part of a prisoner swap. She was exchanged for a Russian-German man who Russian state media says was being held in the U.S. on smuggling, wire fraud and money laundering charges. We'll be continuing to track that breaking news this morning.

But also this. Back to the trade war. And who will blink first over the tariffs when it comes to China and the United States? President Trump says that the Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to make a deal. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, though, says neither he nor Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are negotiating with any Chinese officials. But the conversations likely will be held much more much higher than that between Trump and Xi.

So what happens next? Jim Sciutto joining us right now for much more on this. Jim, what -- where do you think -- where do you see things as standing right now? A question is who will blink first or what do actual negotiations look like? Or simply, what is today going to bring?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Listen, Kate, I'll tell you, the last 24 hours, my phone's been lighting up for contacts in Asia and those who cover Asia. And this is their sense of where China stands on this. For one, I would say China doesn't have democracy, but it does have politics. And its internal politics are such that Chinese leaders cannot bend, break, kowtow to U.S. leaders any more than Americans like to see their leaders bow to foreign leaders either.

And to that point, it's notable that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been tweeting out videos of the former Chinese dictator Mao Zedong during the Korean War when he said that China would not back down to the U.S., it would not yield. Of course, that's the last time the U.S. and China were shooting at each other. So that's a notable comment for the Chinese Foreign Ministry to tweet out today.

That said, it is believed that China wants a deal, it wants to negotiate. It has economic risks of its own from a protracted trade war. But one, they can't be seen to be bullied. And two, right now, China apparently doesn't see the outreach from the U.S., it doesn't see the diplomatic channels open to begin those talks. And that's problematic, right, if those -- if those channels aren't open.

So for now, the read is both sides are digging their heels in, there's more pain to come.

BOLDUAN: Richard Quest and I were talking about it, hitting -- touching on it just a little while ago, which, you know, when you go into a negotiation, who has more leverage and where is it, which kind of like the most basic question is, who needs who more? Does the U.S. need China more or does China need the U.S.?

SCIUTTO: Listen, the short answer is the U.S. and China need each other, right? As much as both countries are attempting now to decouple, the U.S. is trying to decrease its reliance on, for instance, manufacturing in China. That's at least the ambition of Donald Trump, despite the fact that our iPhones and Teslas and so on, you know, still a lot of them made there depend on things that are made there.

And China is trying to do the same. It's trying to rely more on its domestic consumers as opposed to American consumers for the health of its economy going forward. But that's the kind of transition that takes years. And today, that means that both sides suffer from this continuing -- arguably, one could argue China might suffer more because it's already faced some economic headwinds in recent years. But that doesn't mean --