Happy Thursday! Five years ago today, as COVID-19 made its way to the United States, TMD covered President Donald Trump’s alarming address to the nation about the fast-spreading virus. “The speech itself was riddled with serious errors,” we wrote at the time. Oh, how things change—and don’t.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- President Donald Trump on Wednesday implemented 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports to the United States, prompting swift countermeasures by affected countries. Canada, America’s largest trade partner, announced plans to impose a 25 percent reciprocal tariffs on $20 billion worth of U.S. goods starting today. The European Union, meanwhile, said new levies on $28 billion worth of American exports—including beef, bourbon, and motorcycles—will take effect beginning on April 1. “In the meantime, we will always remain open to negotiation,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday. “Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business, and even worse for consumers.”
- Russia is awaiting “detailed information” from U.S. officials before it agrees to the American proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday. The noncommittal response comes ahead of U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff’s upcoming visit to Moscow, where he is expected to push Russian President Vladimir Putin to accept the Ukraine-supported deal to temporarily freeze fighting along the current front lines. “It’s up to Russia now,” President Trump said from the Oval Office. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian foreign minister said Wednesday that U.S. weapons shipments through Poland had resumed.
- The consumer price index rose 0.2 percent month-over-month and 2.8 percent annually in February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday, down from 0.5 and 3 percent in January, slightly lower than economists’ expectations. The data will likely keep the Federal Reserve on track to resume cutting interest rates in June. But even as inflation shows signs of cooling, economists warned about looming price rises as U.S. tariffs take effect.
- Senate Minority Leader* Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Wednesday that his conference wouldn’t support a Republican-backed bill that would fund the government into the fall. The funding plan, which was passed by the House on Tuesday, needs at least eight Democratic votes to make it through the upper chamber. Ahead of the Friday deadline to avoid a government shutdown, Schumer instead called for a one-month stopgap measure to allow for continued negotiations.
- President Trump plans to name Michelle Bowman, a Federal Reserve board member, to serve as the next vice chair for supervision at the central bank, multiple outlets reported Wednesday. If confirmed by the Senate, Bowman is expected to usher in a lighter approach to financial regulation as the Fed’s top bank watchdog. Her nomination follows Michael Barr’s decision to step down from the job late last month.
- Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, announced Wednesday that she will not seek reelection in 2026, setting up a competitive race for the purple state’s seat. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority in the upper chamber; Shaheen’s departure and other planned retirements leave three seats vulnerable to Republican challengers next year, further complicating Senate Democrats’ path to regaining a majority.
From ‘Bidenomics’ to ‘Trumponomics’
When voters went to the polls in November, the economy loomed large. Donald Trump had for months sought to tie the Democratic administration’s runaway spending to the high prices plaguing American consumers, and the strategy succeeded. “We will be a rich nation again,” the president declared during his inaugural address.
But now, as a brewing trade war wreaks havoc on the stock market, the very issue that propelled Trump to victory threatens to derail the early days of his presidency. Asked by Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday whether the U.S. can expect a recession this year, the president demurred: “I hate to predict things like that,” he said. “There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big.”
A day later, Wall Street suffered its worst showing of the year, with the S&P 500 falling 2.7 percent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 2 percent. The Nasdaq composite took an even heavier hit, sliding 4 percent to record its worst day since 2022. The nearly across-the-board rout was somewhat checked by positive unemployment and inflation reports for February—the first full-month economic metrics of Trump’s second term. But as the president presses forward with a protectionist economic agenda, economists warn that the figures could belie …
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. You can read our 1,200-word item on Trump’s early economic policy in the members-only version of TMD.
Today’s Must-Read
The Government Shouldn’t Keep Crypto in a Digital Fort Knox
Toeing the Company Line
Things Everyone Should Know About Trade Deficits
Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Is a Smart Power Play
Looming Funding Deadline Squeezes Senate Democrats
How Trump’s Civil Rights Agenda Uses the Democrats’ Playbook
The Mom and Pop School of Business
Worth Your Time
- In an essay for Quillette, Saul Zimet debunks the the zero-sum idea that the future thriving of human beings is inherently at odds with the preservation of wildlife. “The truth is quite different. In the long run, the dangers of disordered nature are so pervasive, and humanity’s potential solutions so indispensable, that advancing human wealth and economic flourishing is necessary, not detrimental, if we want to protect wildlife and maintain or even increase biodiversity,” he wrote. “Attempts to conserve Earth’s current ecosystems through non-intervention are doomed because change is a constant of nature and environmental change is a constant of Earth’s geology. Plus, in addition to being futile, it is pessimistic to think that mere conservation should be the highest hope of a forward-looking environmentalist movement. Human non-intervention may benefit non-human life in an unsustainable, short-term way. But acting in the long-term interest of Earth’s wildlife means protecting species from exogenous existential threats and investing in technological and scientific advances that will enable them to thrive at unprecedented levels.”
Presented Without Comment
BBC: Amazon Forest Felled to Build Road for Climate Summit
Also Presented Without Comment
The Hill: RFK Jr. Says Trump ‘Lost 30 Pounds’ Even With All the ‘Crap That He Eats’
In the Zeitgeist
Netflix premiered its latest live offering, a talk show featuring comedian John Mulaney, to mixed reviews yesterday. The late-night series, which will feature a variety of celebrity guests, is set to run weekly for 12 episodes.
Correction, March 13, 2025: Chuck Schumer is the Senate’s minority leader, not majority leader.
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