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Trump Officials Defend Tariffs as Global Stock Markets Tank; Farmers Brace for Impact of Tariffs. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired April 07, 2025 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR/CORRESPONDENT: -- the invitation in late March. Manager Dave Roberts, he indicted in 2019 that he would decline an invitation to the Trump White House. Well, he now says that it is an honor, and he will be there.
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Well, thank you for joining us here on EARLY START. I'm Polo Sandoval, filling in for Rahel Solomon. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now. Have a great day.
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: It's Monday, April 7. Here's what's happening right now on CNN THIS MORNING.
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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I don't want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.
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CORNISH: And the result? Global markets in turmoil. President Trump defending it. How stock futures look ahead of the opening bell.
Plus, this.
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DR. PAUL OFFIT, DIRECTOR, VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: We have probably thousands of cases of measles in this country right now.
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CORNISH: A second unvaccinated child dies from the measles. Will vaccine skeptic RFK Jr. push for people to get immunized?
Also --
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You won't be able to get in or out without a boat or a helicopter.
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CORNISH: Communities cut off as relentless storms send rivers rising. The worst could be yet to come.
And later --
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our entire family is broken by what, in its words, an error.
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CORNISH: A Maryland father mistakenly deported to El Salvador. Today is the deadline for the Trump administration to bring him home. Why that won't be easy.
Six a.m. here on the East Coast. And here is a live look at New York. That's where I am this morning. So, good morning, New York. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you all for waking up with me.
And let's start with the fear and loathing down the street on Wall Street. More than $5 trillion in market value wiped out by last week's tariff-induced sell-offs.
And this morning, with just hours until that opening bell, U.S. futures are trending downward across the board.
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TRUMP: I was elected on this. This was one of the biggest reasons I got elected, was exactly because of this.
Now, what's going to happen with the market? I can't tell you, but I can tell you our country has gotten a lot stronger, and eventually, it will be a country like no other.
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CORNISH: In a preview of just how rough the opening bell could be, markets across Europe and Asia struggled overnight.
The White House claims the phones are ringing off the hook, with world leaders eager to cut a deal. The first to do so, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He's scheduled to meet with President Trump in just hours.
The two are expected to discuss not only tariffs, but also the ongoing war with Hamas and the potential for more conflict with Iran.
Joining me now to discuss: Errol Louis, host of "The Big Deal with Errol Louis" on Spectrum News; Jerusalem Demsas, staff writer for "The Atlantic"; and Stephen Collinson, CNN politics senior reporter.
So, guys, first, I just want to kick off this conversation talking about the impact on all of us, people who have 401{k}s, people who do not -- we reached out to the audience and asked people to tell us what they're going through. I want to show you some of the responses.
Because the stock market is one thing, but when people start thinking about whether they can afford clothes or food, that is very different.
So, I want to start with the Trump administration's approach, which seems to be "trust us" -- Demsas.
JERUSALEM DEMSAS, STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": Hi, Audie. Yes. I mean, this is a situation where people right now, they're looking at numbers on a screen. They're either looking at stock markets crashing, or they're looking at their own 401{k}s and investments.
And the really scary -- scary moment is going to be when and if. Does that actually impact people's jobs? Do businesses stop making investments?
How does that impact our ability to actually build up the manufacturing base that Trump says he wants to build up?
So, we're really in this moment right now where there's a lot of hope that there maybe won't be long-term harm to regular people, but that seems really ill-placed.
CORNISH: In the meantime, you have someone like Bill Ackman, right, billionaire hedge fund investor. He, of course, endorsed Trump in the election. And then here he is tweeting that he supports the president's tariffs, but he's also asking him to somehow pause or rethink how he implements them.
And Ackman went on to warn that Trump's current plan would result in, quote, "economic nuclear war that would scare businesses from investing in America."
Stephen, I don't know who is in more denial here. The business world, right? Or people talking about the Trump administration. He has always been clear about how he feels about tariffs. So, what do you hear in their scatter reaction?
STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Well, the -- there is great contradiction in that reaction. Some officials were on TV yesterday saying that this is all part of an attempt to completely transform the global economy and trading system to bring back those manufacturing jobs to the United States.
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The problem with that is -- and Trump said it in his comments on Air Force One there -- that's all about eventually. In the short term, there could be great economic pain, not just from markets and depleted retirement funds.
The tariffs, most of them haven't yet come into force. That will take place later this week, if the administration decides to carry on and go ahead. That's when prices could start rising for Americans.
This is a president that was elected a few months ago, partly on the basis of the fact that he promised to bring down grocery prices and prices for housing. And if prices start shooting up, and that starts causing the recessionary factors that Jerusalem was talking about, then this gets a lot more serious.
CORNISH: Errol, I want to bring you in on this, as well, because you are going to have countries calling to say, let's make a deal. You are going to have countries that feel like they don't have leverage. So, is it working for Trump?
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you're going to have countries calling. You're also going to have industry leaders calling. You're going to have individual companies calling.
We went through a version of this before, Audie. Let's remember: in the first Trump administration, he imposed tariffs. And there was a flocking of industries to lobbyists. And those lobbyists besieged the first Trump White House with requests for exemptions from these tariffs.
That's what the whole game was always about. And Donald Trump never made any bones about it. In that case, there was something like 7,000 requests for exemptions, and about 10 or 14 percent of them got through.
We're going to see world leaders asking for relief. We're going to see companies asking for relief. We're going to see Donald Trump enjoying all of it. And in some perhaps random fashion, granting favors here and there.
What that's going to do to the economy, I think it's pretty clear that business leaders are not going to start opening new factories or creating entirely new supply chains based on the whims of the current president. They know that, 48 months from now, we're going to have a different president.
CORNISH: OK. Group chat, stick around. We've got a lot more to talk about today, especially as markets will be opening soon.
And also to you, our viewers, we want to hear from you here at CNN. So, are you making changes to how you live or how you shop or preparing for your retirement? I want you to scan the QR code on the screen. It's going to take you online, where you can fill out a little block and tell us what you're going to be going through. And we're going to be keeping an eye on that. You could end up seeing your responses here on CNN THIS MORNING.
Also coming up, don't try to stay. The federal government will find you. That's the email some migrants who live in the U.S. legally just received. And it was all a mistake.
Plus, will President Trump seek a third term? His A.G. says it would be a heavy lift, but she's not ruling it out.
And making hockey history. Alex Ovechkin now the NFL's greatest goal scorer, surpassing a legend.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, it's amazing. I mean, I've grown up watching Ovechkin from, like, right when he was drafted in 2004. It was amazing just to see everything going on. Now we're on 895. Here's to 995. Let's go! Woo!
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CORNISH: If you're up and getting ready, it's almost 15 minutes past the hour. I want to give you your morning roundup, some of the stories you need to know to understand the rest of your day.
Nineteen people confirmed dead after violent storms, tornadoes, and flooding hit the Central and Southeastern U.S. Ten of those fatalities reported in the in the state of Tennessee.
The National Weather Service warns severe storms will continue throughout the region today.
And some Ukrainians who have been living in the U.S. here legally got an email this week telling them to leave. The claim from the Department of Homeland Security was that it was an error.
They said, in that erroneous email, that those Ukrainians had just seven days to get out of the country and ended with, quote, "The federal government will find you if you try to stay."
Overnight, President Trump confirmed that China put the kibosh on a deal to sell TikTok.
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TRUMP: China changed the deal because of tariffs. If I gave a little cut in tariffs, they'd approve that deal in 15 minutes, which shows you the power of tariffs.
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CORNISH: The White House is extending the deadline for TikTok to be sold or banned for another 75 days.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here is -- Ovechkin shoots. He scores! He scores! Number 895!
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CORNISH: And Alex Ovechkin breaking Wayne Gretzky's all-time goal- scoring record. The 39-year-old Washington Capitals star notching the 895th goal of his NHL career last night in a 4-to-1 loss to the New York Islanders.
And you've got to see this. Cows swept away in flood waters in Brazil. This is video captured by residents, who were forced to climb on their rooftops to escape the rising waters.
Hundreds of people have been displaced because of those heavy rains.
Ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, the government faces a deadline tonight to return a man who had been deported to a prison in El Salvador. Why the Justice Department is now placing one of those lawyers on leave.
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Plus, every aspect of America's economy feels the impact of these tariffs. How some farmers are preparing for history to repeat itself from Trump's first term.
And good morning, Cincinnati. You're dealing with some major flooding right now, and the National Weather Service expects the Ohio River to crest this morning. We're going to keep an eye on things there.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With tariffs, we could see those prices go up, which could actually help the domestic grass-fed beef industry.
It's good and bad, right? Because we get a higher price for the animals that we sell in a -- in a -- in that way. But it's also bad, because how much more beef will people eat if it gets so expensive?
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AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Farmers across the country are playing a game of wait and see to find out just how President Trump's new sweeping tariffs will impact them.
Later this week, China's retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports are set to go into effect, potentially harming one of the farmers' largest markets.
Trump's agriculture secretary says the White House is considering aid to farmers who are impacted.
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BROOKE ROLLINS, AGRICULTURE SECRETARY: We will make sure that we have the funds in working with the senators and working with the appropriators that we can do what we did last time, which I think Secretary Perdue last time spent about 25 to $28 billion to mitigate some of the fallout from the last tariffs for the short term. The long term, the tariffs worked.
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CORNISH: Joining me now, Bob Kuylen. He's the vice president of the North Dakota Farmers Union. Bob, thanks for getting up early with us, though I suspect that's not such a big deal to you. Welcome to CNN THIS MORNING.
BOB KUYLEN, VICE PRESIDENT, NORTH DAKOTA FARMERS UNION: Thanks for having me.
CORNISH: As the secretary just mentioned, the Trump administration did give out emergency funding to support farmers struggling due to tariffs the last time around. It was $23 billion. Is that something you're going to need again?
KUYLEN: Most likely, we will need to have some support. We would rather have it come from a fair market than just farm and sell our crops on a decent market. But those have gone away again.
CORNISH: Did it work last time? I mean, you -- at the time when CNN reached out to you, you talked about losing $400,000. Can you talk about whether those subsidies actually made a difference? And because they think that will kind of quiet things down if they bring them up again.
KUYLEN: Well, we got $0.17 a bushel. Aid at that time. And we lost about $5 a bushel off of our grain. So, it didn't solve a lot of the problems. It let us skimp by.
Sonny Perdue had soybeans. So, soybeans got $1.28 a bushel. Just depends on -- on who sets the program up.
CORNISH: We spoke to one of our affiliates, actually spoke to a farmer who is a little more hopeful about what these tariffs will do for his business. I want to play that and get your reaction.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For farmers themselves, it's a good thing. Specialty crops are pretty much everything that you find in the produce aisle of your grocery store. All of those products are grown here in the states, but were competing against foreign competition that just floods the market.
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CORNISH: Bob, can I get your understanding or response to that?
KUYLEN: Well, that -- that might be true in -- in some of the specialty markets where they sell in grocery stores. But we're in production agriculture up here. We raise thousands and thousands of acres of corn and soybeans and wheat and other products, and we export just about half of what we raise in the United States.
So, that's not true in our -- in our situation, because we lose these markets, we don't get them back.
And -- and when it comes to when it comes to our grain, I don't know if many people know this, but on a -- on a 5.99 loaf of bread, the farmers' share that we get is $0.13. So, what happens in the grocery store and what we get in our markets is a totally different thing.
Corporate America handles most of our -- most of the profits in -- in farming. And everyone who's involved in agriculture is making record profits except for the farmers. We're -- we're kind of held down to almost serf levels, just, barely getting by.
CORNISH: Held down to serf levels.
You know, Bob, I just want to ask you one more question. Which is the last time we talked, you talked about the concern of more farms going out of business.
And what we've heard from the Trump administration is to wait; to be patient. Things will get better over time. Do you think a generation of farmers will survive this -- this president's policies?
KUYLEN: Well, there's people in the position that, if they can't get an operating loan to put in their crop, they're not going to be able to put it in a crop to pay off their debt.
So, I don't know what waiting is going to help them.
And -- and you've got farmers that are -- are -- have everything paid for, and they don't know if they want to go into another crop and put all those input costs in and not get back any of the money or lose money on it. Why not just sell your equipment and get out of it?
CORNISH: Are you doing OK, Bob? I mean, what has this been like?
KUYLEN: We're -- we're hanging in there, you know, but we're -- we're not making any money. We're using up -- using up some of our assets and stuff, and it -- it -- it's not fun.
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We're still -- we haven't recovered from the last tariffs that the president put on. We haven't gotten them markets back yet. And now he's picking on our -- on Canada and Mexico and China, which are -- buy over 50 percent of the products that we raise.
CORNISH: Bob Kuylen, vice president of the North Dakota Farmers Union, thanks for being with us this morning.
KUYLEN: Thank you.
CORNISH: Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, RFK Jr. with some advice for parents as a second death from measles is reported in the state of Texas.
Plus, Israel's prime minister meeting with President Trump today. One of the topics will be tariffs.
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