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Breaking down Trump’s tariff truce with China
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Software update keeps Newark airport radar online but network concerns and flight limits remain
By JOSH FUNK
A new software update prevented a third radar outage in the last two weeks at New Jersey’s busy Newark airport when a telecommunications line failed again over the weekend, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday.
At a news conference, Duffy also said the recent problems that have led to hundreds of cancellations and delays in Newark could have been avoided had action been taken by President Joe Biden’s administration to better equip the air traffic control facility in Philadelphia — particularly after issues with the hardware in October and November that should have set off alarms.
Duffy said the update the Federal Aviation Administration installed Friday night helped ensure the backup system worked on Sunday when there was another problem with the primary line coming into the air traffic control facility in Philadelphia. When a similar issue happened Friday and on April 28, the radar and communications systems went offline briefly, leaving controllers unable to see or talk to the planes.
The FAA restricted traffic into Newark Liberty International Airport after the first incident, partly because several air traffic controllers went out on trauma leave afterward, worsening the already short staffing. Those limits, designed to keep flights safe, combined with an ongoing runway construction project in Newark, led to all the cancellations and delays. Later this week, the FAA will meet with all the airlines to discuss making those limits last into the summer.
Even though the radar system stayed online Sunday, controllers were worried because of the two previous outages, so Duffy said they stopped all traffic at Newark airport for about 45 minutes as a precaution.
Duffy said he will request an investigation into last year’s move of Newark air traffic controllers from New York to Philadelphia to determine why more wasn’t done to ensure there wouldn’t be problems. Philadelphia is about 85 miles (137 kilometers) southwest of Newark.
“The Biden-Buttigieg FAA bungled this move without properly hardening the telecom lines feeding the data, which was already well-known to be error-prone,” Duffy said. “Without addressing the underlying infrastructure, they added more risk to the system.”
Duffy also said the FAA should have set up a new radar system for Newark in Philadelphia instead of piping the signal in from New York for controllers.
Duffy and President Donald Trump have said that the problems in Newark are a prime example of why they developed a multibillion-dollar plan to overhaul that nation’s air traffic control system, unveiled last week. Duffy blames the Biden administration for failing to do that, but those problems go back decades, even before the first Trump administration.
An advisor to former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Duffy should spend more time trying to deal with the nation’s problems, and he defended the Biden administration’s efforts to bolster air traffic controller hiring and make a down payment on dealing with some of the infrastructure problems.
“Secretary Duffy has a tough job. But he needs to spend more time doing what the American people are paying him to do — fix problems — and less time blaming others,” said Chris Meagher.
Duffy laid out an extensive plan to replace the nation’s outdated air traffic control system last week, including installing 4,600 new high-speed data connections and replacing 618 radars, but didn’t put a price tag on the plan other than to say it will cost billions.
The FAA has installed new fiber optic lines at Newark airport and New York’s Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports to replace old copper wires since the first outage, but plans to spend the next two weeks testing those new lines out before switching over to them.
Originally Published:
Ticketmaster begins up-front ticket pricing as Biden admin
As a Biden administration ban on so-called “junk fees” took effect Monday, Ticketmaster said it will start displaying the full price of a ticket as soon as consumers begin shopping.
Ticketmaster, long a subject of complaints about its hidden fees, was among those targeted by the new rule, which was announced in December by the Federal Trade Commission. The rule requires ticket sellers, hotels, vacation rental platforms and others to disclose processing fees, cleaning fees and other charges up front.
Ticketmaster said Monday it commended the FTC’s action.
“Ticketmaster has long advocated for all-in pricing to become the nationwide standard so fans can easily compare prices across all ticketing sites,” Ticketmaster Chief Operating Officer Michael Wichser said in a statement.
Additional improvements
Ticketmaster said it will also tell shoppers where they are in line when they log in to buy tickets to an event. It will also give real-time updates to customers whose wait times exceed 30 minutes, letting them know ticket price ranges, availability and whether new event dates have been added.
Ticketmaster, which is owned by Beverly Hills, California-based concert promoter Live Nation, is the world’s largest ticket seller, processing 500 million tickets each year in more than 30 countries. Around 70% of tickets for major concert venues in the U.S. are sold through Ticketmaster.
Ticketmaster said Monday’s changes will bring North America in line with the rest of the world, where the full ticket price was already displayed as soon as customers started shopping.
Cracking down on bots
The company also says it plans to step up its fight against ticket bots, or automated software used by resellers to bulk-buy mass quantities of tickets. Complaints about these systems came to a head during the November 2022 presale to Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, when its site crashed during a presale event for Taylor Swift’s upcoming stadium tour.
The company at the time said its site was overwhelmed by both fans and attacks from bots, which were posing as consumers in order to scoop up tickets and sell them on secondary sites. Thousands of people lost tickets after waiting for hours in an online queue.
“We now block an average of 200 million bot attempts every day, stopping them from stealing tickets meant for real fans,” Ticketmaster said in a statement. “In 2024 alone, we blocked over 53 billion bot attacks, a more than 5x increase from 2019.”
Monopoly trial
Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Ticketmaster and Live Nation, accusing them of running an illegal monopoly that drives up U.S. ticket prices and asking a court to break them up. That case is ongoing.
President Donald Trump is also eyeing the industry. In March, he signed an executive order that he said will help curb ticket scalping and bring “commonsense” changes to the way live events are priced.
Under the order, the FTC must ensure “price transparency at all stages of the ticket-purchase process” and take enforcement to prevent unfair, deceptive, and anti-competitive conduct.
“Anyone who’s bought a concert ticket in the last decade, maybe 20 years — no matter what your politics are — knows that it’s a conundrum,” said Kid Rock, who joined Mr. Trump in the Oval Office as Mr. Trump signed the order.
Watch Live: Donald Trump and RFK Jr. Hold Press Conference
President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hold a press conference on Monday, May 12.
On Sunday, the president announced he would sign an executive order reducing the cost of prescription medications by 30 to 80 percent.
“Our country will finally be treated fairly, and our citizens Healthcare Costs will be reduced by numbers never even thought of before,” Trump wrote.
House Republicans unveil Medicaid cuts that Democrats warn will leave millions without care
By LISA MASCARO, Associated Press Congressional Correspondent
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans have unveiled the cost-saving centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” at least $880 billion in cuts largely to Medicaid to help cover the cost of $4.5 trillion in tax breaks.
Tallying hundreds of pages, the legislation revealed late Sunday is touching off the biggest political fight over health care since Republicans tried but failed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, during Trump’s first term in 2017.
While Republicans insist they are simply rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse” to generate savings with new work and eligibility requirements, Democrats warn that millions of Americans will lose coverage. A preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the proposals would reduce the number of people with health care by 8.6 million over the decade.
“Savings like these allow us to use this bill to renew the Trump tax cuts and keep Republicans’ promise to hardworking middle-class families,” said Rep. Brett Guthrie of Kentucky, the GOP chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which handles health care spending.
But Democrats said the cuts are “shameful” and essentially amount to another attempt to repeal Obamacare.
“In no uncertain terms, millions of Americans will lose their health care coverage,” said Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the panel. He said “hospitals will close, seniors will not be able to access the care they need, and premiums will rise for millions of people if this bill passes.”
As Republicans race toward House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Memorial Day deadline to pass Trump’s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, they are preparing to flood the zone with round-the-clock public hearings this week on various sections before they are stitched together in what will become a massive package.
The politics ahead are uncertain. More than a dozen House Republicans have told Johnson and GOP leaders they will not support cuts to the health care safety net programs that residents back home depend on. Trump himself has shied away from a repeat of his first term, vowing there will be no cuts to Medicaid.
All told, 11 committees in the House have been compiling their sections of the package as Republicans seek at least $1.5 trillion in savings to help cover the cost of preserving the 2017 tax breaks, which were approved during Trump’s first term and are expiring at the end of the year.
But the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee has been among the most watched. The committee was instructed to come up with $880 billion in savings and reached that goal, primarily with the health care cuts, but also by rolling back Biden-era green energy programs. The preliminary CBO analysis said the committee’s proposals would reduce the deficit by $912 billion over the decade — with at least $715 billion coming from the health provisions.
Central to the savings are changes to Medicaid, which provides almost free health care to more than 70 million Americans, and the Affordable Care Act, which has expanded in the 15 years since it was first approved to cover millions more.
To be eligible for Medicaid, there would be new “community engagement requirements” of at least 80 hours per month of work, education or service for able-bodied adults without dependents. People would also have to verify their eligibility to be in the program twice a year, rather than just once.
This is likely to lead to more churn in the program and present hurdles for people to stay covered, especially if they have to drive far to a local benefits office to verify their income in person. But Republicans say it’ll ensure that the program is administered to those who qualify for it.
Many states have expanded their Medicaid rosters thanks to federal incentives, but the legislation would cut a 5% boost that was put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Federal funding to the states for immigrants who have not shown proof of citizenship would be prohibited.
There would be a freeze on the so-called provider tax that some states use to help pay for large portions of their Medicaid programs. The extra tax often leads to higher payments from the federal government, which critics say is a loophole that creates abuse in the system.
The energy portions of the legislation run far fewer pages, but include rollbacks of climate-change strategies President Joe Biden signed into law in the Inflation Reduction Act.
It proposes rescinding funds for a range of energy loans and investment programs while providing expedited permitting for natural gas development and oil pipelines.
Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz contributed to this report.
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US and China take a step back from sky-high tariffs, agree to pause for 90 days
By JAMEY KEATEN, DAVID McHUGH, ELAINE KURTENBACH and KEN MORITSUGU, Associated Press
GENEVA (AP) — U.S. and Chinese officials said Monday they had reached a deal to roll back most of their recent tariffs and call a 90-day truce in their trade war for more talks on resolving their trade disputes.
Stock markets rose sharply as the globe’s two major economic powers took a step back from a clash that has unsettled the global economy.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the U.S. agreed to drop its 145% tariff rate on Chinese goods by 115 percentage points to 30%, while China agreed to lower its rate on U.S. goods by the same amount to 10%.
Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the tariff reductions at a news conference in Geneva.
The two officials struck a positive tone as they said the two sides had set up consultations to continue discussing their trade issues. Bessent said at the news briefing after two days of talks that the high tariff levels would have amounted to a complete blockage of each sides goods, an outcome neither side wants.
“The consensus from both delegations this weekend is neither side wants a decoupling,” Bessent said. “And what had occurred with these very high tariff … was an embargo, the equivalent of an embargo. And neither side wants that. We do want trade.”
“We want more balanced trade. And I think that both sides are committed to achieving that.”
The delegations, escorted around town and guarded by scores of Swiss police, met for at least a dozen hours on both days of the weekend at sun-baked 17th-century villa that serves as the official residence of the Swiss ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.
At times, the delegation leaders broke away from their staffs and settled into sofas on the villa’s patios overlooking Lake Geneva, helping deepen personal ties in the effort to reach a much-sought deal.
China’s Commerce Ministry said the two sides agreed to cancel 91% in tariffs on each other’s goods and suspend another 24% in tariffs for 90 days, bringing the total reduction to 115 percentage points.
The ministry called the agreement an important step for the resolution of the two countries’ differences and said it lays the foundation for further cooperation.
“This initiative aligns with the expectations of producers and consumers in both countries and serves the interests of both nations as well as the common interests of the world,” a ministry statement said.
China hopes the U.S will stop “the erroneous practice of unilateral tariff hikes” and work with China to safeguard the development of their economic and trade relations, injecting more certainty and stability into the global economy, the ministry said.
The joint statement issued by the two countries said China also agreed to suspend or remove other measures it has taken since April 2 in response to the U.S. tariffs.
China has increased export controls on rare earths including some critical to the defense industry and added more American companies to its export control and unreliable entity lists, restricting their business with and in China.
The full impact on the complicated tariffs and other trade penalties enacted by Washington and Beijing remains unclear. And much depends on whether they will find ways to bridge longstanding differences during the 90-day suspension.
But investors rejoiced as trade envoys from the world’s two biggest economies blinked, finding ways to pull back from potentially massive disruptions to world trade and their own markets.
Futures for the S&P 500 jumped 2.6% and for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 2%. Oil prices surged more than $1.60 a barrel and the U.S. dollar gained against the euro and the Japanese yen.
“This is a substantial de-escalation,” said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics. But he warned “there is no guarantee that the 90-day truce will give way to a lasting ceasefire.”
Jens Eskelund, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, welcomed the news but expressed caution. The tariffs only were suspended for 90 days and there is great uncertainty over what lies ahead, he said in a statement.
“Businesses need predictability to maintain normal operations and make investment decisions. The chamber therefore hopes to see both sides continue to engage in dialogue to resolve differences, and avoid taking measures that will disrupt global trade and result in collateral damage for those caught in the cross-fire,” Eskelund said.
Trump last month raised U.S. tariffs on China to a combined 145% and China retaliated by hitting American imports with a 125% levy. Tariffs that high essentially amount to the two countries boycotting each other’s products, disrupting trade that last year topped $660 billion.
The announcement by the U.S. and China sent shares surging, with U.S. futures jumping more than 2%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index surged nearly 3% and benchmarks in Germany and France were both up 0.7%
The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on countries worldwide, but its fight with China has been the most intense. Trump’s import taxes on goods from China include a 20% charge meant to pressure Beijing into doing more to stop the flow of the synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States.
McHugh contributed from Frankfurt, Germany, Kurtenbach from Mito, Japan, and Moritsugu from Beijing.
Originally Published:
U.S. and China to ease tariffs significantly for 90 days, White House announces
The U.S. and China have agreed to a temporary but significant easing of the tariffs imposed over the last couple months, the country’s said in a joint statement shared by the White House, heralding significant success in trade negotiations that ramped up over the weekend.
In the joint statement released early Monday morning, the two sides said they had agreed that ongoing “discussions have the potential to address the concerns of each side in their economic and trade relationship,” and that “moving forward in the spirit of mutual opening, continued communication, cooperation, and mutual respect,” both parties had committed to a 90-day suspension of most of the levies imposed since early April.
“We have reached an agreement on a 90-day pause,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, where he spent the weekend in meetings with Chinese counterparts. He said Washington and Beijing would reduce their reciprocal tariffs by 115 percentage points for three months to give the negotiations room to move forward.
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty
This developing story will be updated.
Trump Confirms Qatar Giving U.S. Luxury Boeing Jet ‘Free of Charge’
President Donald Trump confirmed that Qatar is giving the United States a luxury Boeing 747 jet “free of charge,” which will temporarily replace Air Force One.
“So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA.”
While reports have surfaced regarding the Trump administration reportedly preparing to accept the luxury Boeing 747 plane from Qatar, Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar’s Media Attaché to the U.S. issued a statement describing the reports as “inaccurate” and said the “possible transfer of an aircraft” to temporarily serve as Air Force One was “under consideration.”
“Reports that a jet is being gifted by Qatar to the United States government during the upcoming visit of President Trump are inaccurate,” Al-Ansari said. “The possible transfer of an aircraft for temporary use as Air Force One is currently under consideration between Qatar’s Ministry of Defense and the US Department of Defense, but the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made.”
Trump’s post comes as “sources familiar with the proposed arrangement” told ABC News that the Trump administration is reportedly “preparing to accept” the luxury Boeing 747 plane, which is described as being “a flying palace.”
The plane, which Trump toured in February, will be “available” for Trump to use as “the new Air Force One” during his time in office, and after Trump leaves office, the plane’s ownership “will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation”:
In what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States from a foreign government, the Trump administration is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar — a gift that is to be available for use by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation, sources familiar with the proposed arrangement told ABC News.
Lawyers from the White House counsel’s office and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have reportedly “drafted an analysis” for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, finding that it is “legal for the Department of Defense” to accept the plane from Qatar and then later have ownership turned over to the Trump presidential library foundation, sources told the outlet.
“Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to the outlet. “President Trump’s Administration is committed to full transparency.”
Breitbart News’s Nick Gilbertson reported in February that Trump was touring a new Boeing plane to view its hardware and technology. Sources told Breitbart News at the time that it would “underscore the company’s failure to produce new Air Force One planes” on time, years after “Trump finalized a contract with the company in 2018:
Trump spoke about his dissatisfaction with Boeing over the failure to produce the two replacement presidential aircraft in the 2018 contract while speaking with reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
While updated Air Force One planes were originally supposed to be completed by 2024, the time frame was pushed to “2027 for the first plane” and 2028 “for the second,” the Associated Press reported.
Trump to Sign Executive Order Reducing Cost of Prescription Drugs
President Donald Trump revealed that he would be signing an executive order on Monday reducing the cost of prescription and pharmaceutical drugs by 30 to 80 percent.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump pointed out that “for many years the World has wondered why” prescription and pharmaceutical drugs are so much more expensive in the U.S. than they are “in any other nation,” adding that sometimes they are “five to ten times more expensive than the same drug, manufactured in the exact same laboratory or plant, by the same company.”
Trump also criticized the pharmaceutical and drug companies and the Democratic Party in his post.
“The Pharmaceutical/Drug Companies would say, for years, that it was Research and Development Costs, and that all of these costs were, and would be, for no reason whatsoever, borne by the ‘suckers’ of America, ALONE,” Trump said. “Campaign Contributions can do wonders, but not with me, and not with the Republican Party. We are going to do the right thing, something that the Democrats have fought for many years.”
“I am pleased to announce that Tomorrow morning, in the White House, at 9:00 A.M., I will be signing one of the most consequential Executive Orders in our Country’s history,” Trump said. “Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be REDUCED, almost immediately, by 30% to 80%.”
Trump added that the cost of prescription and pharmaceutical drugs would “rise throughout the World in order to equalize and, for the first time in many years, bring FAIRNESS TO AMERICA!”
“I will be instituting a MOST FAVORED NATION’s POLICY whereby the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World,” Trump continued. “Our country will finally be treated fairly, and our citizens Healthcare Costs will be reduced by numbers never even thought of before.
A fact sheet from the White House in April revealed that Trump had signed an executive order directing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “to take steps to significantly reduce drug prices for American patients.”
Trump’s executive order also “provides massive discounts to low-income patients for life-saving medications,” such as insulin and “helps states reduce drug prices” through the facilitation of “importation programs that could save states millions in prescription drug costs.”