By PAUL WISEMAN and CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, AP Economics Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump delivered another jarring reversal in American trade policy Wednesday, suspending for 90 days import taxes he’d imposed barely 13 hours earlier on dozens of countries while escalating his trade war with China. The moves triggered a powerful stock market rally on Wall Street but left businesses, investors and America’s trading partners bewildered about what the president is attempting to achieve.

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The U-turn came after the sweeping global tariffs Trump announced last week set off a four-day route in global financial markets, paralyzed businesses and raised fears the U.S. and world economies would tumble into recession.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to characterize the sudden change in policy as part of a grand negotiating strategy. But to those outside the Trump administration, it looked like a cave-in to market pressure and to growing fears that the president’s impetuous use of import taxes — tariffs — would cause massive collateral economic damage.

“Other countries will welcome the 90-day stay of execution — if it lasts — but the whiplash from constant zig-zags creates more of the uncertainty that businesses and governments hate,” said Daniel Russel, vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “The Administration’s blunt-force tactics have rattled allies, who see the sudden reversal as damage control following the market meltdown, rather than a pivot to respectful, balanced negotiations.’’

Trump’s turnaround Wednesday capped a wild week in U.S. trade policy. On Wednesday April 2 — which Trump labeled “Liberation Day’’ — the president announced plans to impose tariffs on almost every country on earth, upending the world trading system. The first of his new tariffs -– a 10% “baseline’’ tax on imports from most countries – went into effect Saturday.

At midnight Wednesday, he upped the ante by slapping what he called “reciprocal’’ taxes on countries he accused of unfair trading practices and adding to U.S. trade deficits. Those are the tariffs he suspended for 90 days, saying the pause would give countries time to negotiate with him and his trade team.

There was one exception to the reprieve: He raised the tariff on Chinese imports to a staggering 125%, punishing Beijing for announcing retaliatory tariffs on the United States. Meanwhile, the 10% baseline tariffs – a substantial act of protectionism in their own right – remain in place.

COMPANIES CUT BACK, DELAY PLANS

Trump’s ever-changing trade war tactics — which include earlier levies on cars, steel and aluminum, and Mexico and Canada — have already done damage, forcing dazed companies to delay or cancel plans as they tried to figure out what Trump was doing and how they should respond.

Some companies temporarily laid off workers after Trump’s widespread tariffs were announced, while there were signs that many firms held off on hiring amid the widespread uncertainty the tariffs created.

Carmaker Stellantis temporarily cut 900 jobs at factories in Michigan and Indiana after production was halted at two plants in Canada and Mexico in the wake of Trump’s 25% duties on imported cars.

And Cleveland-Cliffs laid off 1,200 workers at a factory in Michigan and an iron ore mine in Minnesota in response to a drop in demand from auto companies. Cleveland-Cliffs said it would resume production at the two facilities once auto production returned to the U.S.

Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s March 18-19 meeting, released Wednesday, showed that many of its policymakers said that their business contacts “reported pausing hiring decisions because of elevated policy uncertainty.”

And Delta Air Lines said earlier Wednesday that demand for domestic leisure trips and corporate travel has stalled because of the uncertainty around global trade. In a conference call with investors, the company said it was cutting capacity. It also declined to provide a full-year financial forecast.

“Right now, it’s hard to know how this is going to play out, given that this is somewhat self-imposed,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said. “I’m hopeful that sanity will prevail and we’ll move through this period of time on the global trade front relatively quickly.”

DESPERATELY SEEKING CLARITY ON TRUMP’S TARIFFS

Businesses have sought greater clarity around Trump’s ultimate tariff policies for weeks. It’s not clear that the 90-day pause has reduced their uncertainty.

Jeff Jaisli, CEO of the New Jersey-based importer/exporter Jagro, said Trump’s Truth Social post on Wednesday had made things “even worse’’ and more confusing. He was trying to figure out which tariffs applied to which countries.

“We’re scrambling to find correct information and procedures for entries we’re processing NOW in real time,’’ he said by email. He could find no guidance on the websites of the White House or the Customs and Border Protection agency, which collects tariffs. Earlier, Jaisli called Trump’s tariffs “a grenade that was thrown into the room that’s going to cause chaos.”

TRUMP’S TRADE WAR WITH CHINA ESCALATES

Trump’s tariffs have set off a tit-for-tat trade war with China, the world’s second-biggest economy. Even before Trump upped his taxes on China to 125%, the Chinese had set their own tariffs on the United States at 84%.

The World Trade Organization’s director-general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, warned that the rising tension could reduce U.S.-China merchandise trade by 80% and “severely damage the global economic outlook.”

“Of particular concern is the potential fragmentation of global trade along geopolitical lines,” she wrote in a statement late Wednesday. “A division of the global economy into two blocs could lead to a long-term reduction in global real GDP by nearly 7%.”

Citing WTO projections, she warned the negative effects could ripple through to other economies, especially developing ones. She urged countries to ensure an open global trading system and resolve differences through cooperation.

Meanwhile, U.S. companies struggled to figure out how to respond to huge levies on Chinese products they’d come to rely on.

Jessica Bettencourt is CEO of Klem’s, a third-generation store in Spencer, Massachusetts that sells everything from lawn and garden items to workwear and gifts. She said that the escalation of tariffs from China have made her stop ordering any new fourth-quarter product that is holiday, gifts or toys. She is also reconsidering any fall apparel and footwear orders that aren’t already placed.

“The worst thing is uncertainty and we have massive uncertainty,” said Jason Goldberg, chief commerce strategy officer at Publicis Groupe, a global marketing and communications company. “No one can make any moves. Everybody is trying to save as much cash and defer any unnecessary expense. People are getting laid off. Orders are getting cancelled. Expansion plans are being put on hold.”

Robert Bumsted and Anne D’Innocenzio in New York, Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this story.

What happened to Brittany Clardy a dozen years ago is not only painful to her family and her St. Paul community, it’s “reflective of a much larger crisis” in Minnesota and across the nation, her sister said Wednesday.

Clardy was 18 when she was murdered in 2013. Her sister, Lakeisha Lee, was co-chair of Minnesota’s Missing and Murdered African American Women Task Force.

The taskforce’s recommendations and legislation led to the creation of the Minnesota Office for Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls in 2023. Kaleena Burkes, the office’s first director, was appointed a year ago.

Lakeisha Lee in the state Capitol in St. Paul on April 9, 2025. (Mara H. Gottfried / Pioneer Press)

“Many Black women in the U.S. have the same story as Brittany,” Lee said Wednesday at the first Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls Day on the Hill. “… I, as Brittany’s keeper, want to bring awareness to those voices. … When Black women and girls are safe, all of our communities are safe.”

At Wednesday’s gathering in the Minnesota Capitol’s Rotunda, the aim was to bring awareness to the new office — so families know they can contact them for help — and to the disproportionate number of Black women and girls who are missing and murdered.

“We must first acknowledge the women and girls who are not here … lost to this epidemic of violence,” Burkes said. “Women and girls who deserve to be protected, women and girls whose names should have never become headlines or cold cases.”

“But let us also acknowledge a deeper truth: Too often, when Black women and girls go missing, they are not met with urgency,” Burkes continued. “Their disappearances are not met with national outcry, their lives are not deemed worthy of the same media coverage, the same law enforcement response and the same public sympathy.”

Minnesota became the first state in the U.S. to create an office dedicated to the problem, Burkes said. It’s part of the state’s Department of Public Safety’s Office of Justice Programs.

‘Heartbreaking’ statistics

Kaleena Burkes, director of the Minnesota Office for Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls, speaks at the office’s first Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls Day on the Hill. (Mara H. Gottfried / Pioneer Press)

Although Black women comprise 7 percent of the population in Minnesota, 40 percent of domestic violence victims are Black women. Black women are nearly three times more likely to be murdered than white women in Minnesota, according to the Office of Justice Programs.

“The statistics are heartbreaking and sobering,” said Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.

Former Minnesota Rep. Ruth Richardson was a chief author of the legislation that created the office. She said she will never forget Clardy’s mother, testifying at the legislature about the loss of her daughter, saying: “I wake up every morning asking myself, ‘If there had been an immediate response to my daughter being missing, would she be here today?’”

“No one should ever have to ask themselves that question every single morning,” Richardson said Wednesday. Clardy was missing for 10 days before her body was found in a vehicle at a Columbia Heights impound lot, after the car had been towed from a Brooklyn Park apartment complex.

The family of Taylor Hayden, previously from Medina and the sister of former Minnesota Sen. Jeff Hayden, also advocated for change.

The 25-year-old woman was fatally shot in 2016 in Atlanta. “She was simply walking to meet her Uber when someone ran up, grabbed her and used her as a human shield,” said Joyce Hayden. “… As a mother, my heart shattered into a million pieces.”

The creation of the state office recognizes the need to address disproportionate violence that Black women face, but Joyce Hayden said it shouldn’t be regarded as a solution.

“It’s the foundation of our work,” which must be built upon, she said.

The office’s budget is $2.5 million for the biennium, which is $1.25 million per year.

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Artika Roller, executive director of Cornerstone — which connects victims of domestic violence, sexual violence and other crimes to services — asked people to raise awareness by sharing information on social media and by talking to people they know.

“Bring this issue to light and let them know that we’re doing this work and we’re committed to bringing our family members back home,” she said.

If a family member or loved one is missing, the Office for Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls says people can contact them for support at 651-201-7326 or MMWG.office.dps@state.mn.us, after they notify law enforcement.

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer

Former Facebook executive Sarah Wynn-Williams testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, accusing the social media company of undermining national security and briefing China on U.S. artificial intelligence efforts in order to grow its business there.

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“We are engaged in a high-stakes AI arms race against China. And during my time at Meta, company executives lied about what they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party to employees, shareholders, Congress, and the American public,” Wynn-Williams said in her prepared testimony.

Her book “Careless People,” an explosive insider account of her time at the social media giant, sold 60,000 copies in its first week and reached the top 10 on Amazon’s best-seller list amid efforts by Meta to discredit the work and stop her from talking about her experiences at the company. Meta used a “campaign of threats and intimidation” to silence the former executive, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, during the hearing.

Wynn-Williams served as director of global public policy at Facebook, now Meta, from 2011 until she was fired in 2017.

“Throughout those seven years, I saw Meta executives repeatedly undermine U.S. national security and betray American values. They did these things in secret to win favor with Beijing and build an 18 billion dollar business in China,” she said in her prepared remarks.

Wynn-Williams also said Meta deleted the Facebook account of a prominent Chinese dissident living in the U.S., bowing to pressure from China to do so. Meta says that account, belonging to billionaire Guo Wengui, shared personally identifiable information such as people’s passport numbers, social security numbers, national ID numbers and home addresses and was removed because this violated Facebook’s rules.

And she said Meta “ignored warnings” that building a “physical pipeline” between the U.S. and China would provide China with backdoor access to U.S. user data. These plans — called the Pacific Light Cable Network — never materialized, but Wynn-Williams said that was only because lawmakers stepped in.

In a statement, Meta said Wynn-Williams’ testimony “is divorced from reality and riddled with false claims. While Mark Zuckerberg himself was public about our interest in offering our services in China and details were widely reported beginning over a decade ago, the fact is this: we do not operate our services in China today.”

Zuckerberg, along with other Big Tech executives, have been trying to improve their standing with President Donald Trump’s administration in recent months — through visits to Mar-a-Lago and the White House, as well as monetary donations — it’s not yet clear if the efforts are paying off.

“This is a man who wears many different costumes,” Wynn-Williams said of Zuckerberg. “When I was there, he wanted the president of China to name his first child, he was learning Mandarin, he was censoring to his heart’s content. Now his new costume is MMA fighting or… free speech. We don’t know what the next costume is gonna be, but it will be something different. It’s whatever gets him closest to power.”

The hearing comes just days before Meta’s massive antitrust trial is scheduled to begin. The Federal Trade Commission’s case against the tech giant could force the company to divest Instagram and WhatsApp.

Plans to spray for spongy moths in five Minnesota counties have been scrapped after the federal funding for the aerial treatments didn’t come through.

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture said it planned to spray more than 2,700 acres throughout St. Louis, Carlton, Itasca, Anoka and Winona counties this spring, striking in the short period in the invasive insect’s lifespan when the bacterial insecticide is effective against it.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Forest Service’s Slow the Spread program funded such work for decades, reducing the moth’s spread by 60% and treating more than 1 million acres. But the state agency said it has not received the money it needs in time to carry out this spring’s aerial assault.

The agency planned to spray Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki, or Btk, a naturally occurring soil bacteria that kills spongy moth caterpillars feeding on canopy foliage. Btk is nontoxic to people, bees, pets and other animals.

“Having to cancel Btk aerial management operations in these areas jeopardizes the future success of this program,” Minnesota Department of Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen said in a news release. “Spongy moth populations in these areas will likely increase and advance quicker into neighboring areas, making future years of management more complicated and costly.”

The USDA and Forest Service did not immediately respond to the Duluth News Tribune’s request for comment Tuesday evening.

The state agency said it still plans to aerially apply a mating disruption pheromone to stop the moths from reproducing on 112,000 acres across Minnesota and conduct its annual spongy moth population survey, but both those rely on federal funding, too.

“Overall, federal funding for these strategies is still uncertain; however, the MDA has been assured to receive initial funding for the spongy moth survey,” the agency said in a news release. “It is still unknown if federal funds to perform aerial mating disruption operations will be distributed in 2025.”

The agency said it may need to put temporary quarantines in place to prevent spongy moths hitchhiking on woody tree material from leaving the area.

Formerly called gypsy moths, the spongy moths are native to Europe and are considered a major problem for North American trees because they have few natural enemies here and can overwhelm patches of forest, defoliating trees quickly. They will munch on more than 300 species of trees and bushes, including aspen, birch and oak.

Spongy moths first came to the eastern U.S. from Europe in the 1860s, arriving by ship, and have been expanding ever since. They travel slowly on their own but have ridden west as egg clusters on cars, trucks, trains, trailers and campers. They have been in eastern Wisconsin since the 1970s and have now spread across the entire state and into eastern Minnesota.

The moth does its damage when it’s in its caterpillar stage. Forest health experts say the moths can’t be stopped. But their westward movement can be slowed, and outbreaks can be kept smaller, with annual aerial spraying efforts where the largest concentrations of moths are located.

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