Trump-Zelensky Fallout & Tariffs Hit Canada, Mexico | 3.4.25

The Trump administration continues to withdraw from Ukraine following the heated Oval Office exchange with President Zelensky. They want money and they want conflict, even if it means walking us into the brink of World War III, which frankly it is doing.
Will the president restart negotiations and what can we expect from his congressional address tonight? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley.

It's Tuesday, March 4th, and this is Morning Wire.

Trump's 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico go into effect today.

What kind of changes have we already seen as a result?

What they have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things in the United States, in which case they have no tariffs. And Trump announces the creation of a crypto reserve.
How are the markets responding? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.
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Learn more at meetfabric.com. As Donald Trump prepares for his highly anticipated joint address to Congress this evening, the fallout continues from his contentious meeting with Vladimir Zelensky last week.
Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips is here to preview the address. But first, let's talk about Ukraine.
There's been a lot of developments since that White House sit down on Friday. Right.
Coming into Friday's meeting, basically everyone believed the U.S. and Ukraine would sign that minerals deal and the stage would be set for a ceasefire and formal negotiations with Moscow.
But after that disastrous event at the White House, everything has changed. Zelensky was in London late Sunday night seeking financial support from Prime Minister Keir Starmer and told reporters that a peace deal with Russia is, quote, still very, very far away.
And no one has started all these steps yet. That just outraged Trump, who has said there could be a peace deal right now if Zelensky were willing.
Here he is elaborating on that sentiment during a press conference Monday. President Zelensky supposedly made a statement today in AP.
I'm not a big fan of AP, so maybe it was an incorrect statement, but he said he thinks the war's going to go on for a long time. And he better not be right about that.
That's all I'm saying. Trump went on to discuss his shifting relationship with Zelensky.
I just think he should be more appreciative because this country has stuck with them through thick and thin. We've given them much more than Europe.
The money is one thing, but they're losing thousands of soldiers a week. And I want to see it stop.
Well, and now Trump is taking concrete steps to pull back from Ukraine. What exactly does that look like? Right.
On Monday night, we learned that President Trump would be pausing all military aid to Ukraine. That pause will apply to all weapons, ammunition, and other equipment not already inside Ukraine's borders.
A White House official told The Daily Wire, quote, President Trump has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well.
We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution. According to European officials, without any new weapons from the U.S., Ukraine would, at its current pace, have enough resources to last until this summer.
So this could be a means of Trump attempting to force Zelensky to the negotiating table. For context, here's Trump National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on Fox ahead of that decision being made public.
He's not ready to talk peace at all. But here's the problem.
Time is not on his side. Time is not on the side of just forever continuing this conflict.
The American people's patience is not unlimited. Their wallets are not unlimited.
And our stockpiles and munitions are not unlimited. Now, as you talked about yesterday, in the fallout of Friday's meeting, European leaders rallied around Ukraine, taking open shots at the U.S., accusing Trump of siding with Putin and abandoning democracy.
For their part, White House officials were quick to point out that the European Union actually gave more money to Russia last year than to Ukraine. The EU purchased $23 billion worth of Russian oil and gas in 2024, compared to the $19 billion in military and financial aid to Ukraine.
So they're essentially calling the Europeans hypocrites. And it's worth noting that here stateside, the American public does seem to back Trump's approach to ending the war.
According to a new CBS poll, Trump has a net approval rating of plus two on Russia-Ukraine. When President Biden left office, he was at negative 22.
Well, and all of this comes as the president gears up for his joint address to Congress this evening. What are we expecting to see?

Well, he's almost certain to touch on Ukraine. But more broadly, from what we're hearing, the president is going to tout his efforts to fulfill campaign promises and reverse course from the Biden administration.
Specifically, expect to hear him focus a good chunk of time on immigration, where we've seen perhaps the most drastic turnaround. According to the latest government data, in the month of February, there were just 8,450 illegal crossings along the southern border.
For context, last February, that number was 140,000. It's now 8,000.
That means that Trump's first full month in office saw the lowest number of illegal border crossings for any month since, get this, 1968. Trump vowed to secure the border on

the campaign trail. He's clearly doing just that.
A stunning turnaround. We'll certainly hear about

that when he takes the podium this evening. And it's going to be streaming live on Daily Wire

at 9 p.m. Eastern.
And of course, we're going to have a full report Wednesday morning.

Cabot, thanks for reporting. Anytime.

What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts, you'll get 10 different answers. Cabot, thanks for reporting.
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Again, that's netsuite.com slash morningwire. New tariffs on the United States' largest trading partners go into effect this morning as President Trump tries to leverage America's economic might to score wins on drugs and immigration.
Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about how the new tariffs could impact Americans. Hey, Tim.
So Canada and Mexico were able to negotiate a pause to these tariffs the first time around, but not again. What was the White House's message yesterday? So President Trump delayed the tariffs last month.
And leading up to the second deadline, there was a lot of confusion about what these tariffs would look like. Would an agreement be reached to avoid the tariffs? Would Trump delay again? Would he go halfway? None of those scenarios played out.
Here was Trump yesterday. Very importantly, tomorrow tariffs, 25% on Canada and 25% on Mexico.
The blanket tariff is now in place except for Canadian energy, and this is going to have some major economic effects on North America, especially as Canada and Mexico implement their own retaliatory tariffs. Many companies have already shifted supply lines and factories to avoid the brunt of the costs.
Of course, onshoring this manufacturing is one of the goals of putting these tariffs in place. I should note that Trump also levied this morning an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods to the United States.
That falls on top of the 10% tariff Trump applied on China last month. Right.
Now, the president has said that he wants Canada and Mexico specifically to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs. Has there been any progress there? And what does Trump want to see happen? Yeah, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was on Fox News over the weekend, and he said that the illegal immigration numbers are way down.
But drugs are another matter. Here's Lutnick.
They just haven't moved on the fentanyl deaths in America. And that's one of those key things protecting the lives of Americans.
So it's not that Canada and Mexico won't work with the White House, but the president feels like they could do more. For what it's worth, Mexico has evidently taken some basic law enforcement steps that it's been neglecting for decades.
Here's what Mexican General Hector Jimenez-Báez told The Daily Caller. We are working every day, National Guard and the Mexican Army, to stop the drugs, to stop illegal immigration that try to cross the border.
That is the first time in my entire career that I see checkpoints shaking Mexican vehicles and people before to cross the border to the USA. For context, the general is in his 36th year of his career with the Mexican military.
Wow, and just now seeing these kinds of enforcement. You mentioned that the tariffs will have some major impacts.
What could they mean for American consumers and workers? Well, we've already seen a lot of investment come into the U.S. as companies try to avoid the cost of importing.
That includes companies such as Honda that now plans to build its new Civic in Indiana instead of Mexico. Trump announced on Monday that Taiwanese chip giant TSMC is also making a heavy investment in the United States.
Here's that. This $100 billion in new investment will go into building five cutting-edge fabrication facilities in the great state that we just discussed, Arizona, and will create thousands of jobs, many thousands of jobs, and high-paying jobs.
In total, today's announcement brings Taiwan semiconductor investments to about $165 billion. So some major investments in the U.S., but economic experts are warning about the inflationary pressure these new trade barriers could put on prices.
But Trump's team is confident that their pro-growth policies will ultimately counteract those pressures. Right.
The Trump team remains very bullish that this is going to ultimately benefit Americans. Tim, thanks for reporting.
Thanks for having me on. President Trump sent cryptocurrency markets soaring over the weekend when he announced the creation of a crypto reserve.
Here to tell us more about the announcement is Daily Wire deputy managing editor Tim Rice. So, Tim, this is clearly a big announcement, but what would a crypto reserve actually look like? Yeah, good morning, Georgia.
Let's start with what we do know. Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday that, quote, a U.S.
crypto reserve will elevate this critical industry after years of corrupt attacks by the Biden administration. He said that the reserve would include Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies like Solana, Ether, and Cardano.
Trump says creating this reserve will ensure that the United States becomes the crypto capital of the world. At a basic level, this just means that the federal government is going to buy and hold a bunch of cryptocurrency.
That's going to signal the government's support of digital currencies, and it will allow the government to release crypto to stabilize the market if need be. Crypto advocates have long been pushing for the government to do something like this in the hopes that it will bring some modicum of stability to this notoriously tumultuous market.
Now, how would the government go about doing that and building the reserve? That's where things get a little bit unclear. Trump gave us a clue as to how this could work in July when he spoke at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville.
Many Americans do not realize that the United States government is among the largest holders of Bitcoin. Does anyone know that? The federal government has almost 210,000 Bitcoin or 1% of the total supply that will ever exist.
But for too long, our government has violated the cardinal rule that every Bitcoiner knows by heart. Never sell your Bitcoin.
That's right, isn't it? That's right. How did I figure that one? Never sell your Bitcoin.
And so as the final part of my plan today, I am announcing that if I am elected, it will be the policy of my administration, United States of America, to keep 100% of all the Bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires into the future.
We'll keep 100%. Now, this could be as simple as sitting on all the crypto the federal government seizes from criminals.
But Trump could also direct the Federal Reserve or some other agency to purchase a lot of crypto outright and build the stockpile that way. Critics are suggesting that Trump will pursue that latter route in a bid to enrich certain members of the crypto community.
That includes his AI crypto czar, David Sachs, who is reportedly an early investor in Solana, one of the currencies set to be included in the stockpile. Now, Sachs said on Sunday that he sold all of his crypto before joining the Trump administration,

but we can still expect a lot of this speculation in the coming days, or at least until Friday. That's when the White House is scheduled to host a crypto summit, where Sachs is expected to outline the plans for the strategic reserve in greater detail.
Now, how did the market respond to his first announcement? Bitcoin briefly surged to $95,000 on Monday, along with other cryptocurrencies. But after a sell-off, it dipped back into the mid-80s, which is part of a general downward trend.
The crypto market hit an all-time high in January, but has been faltering ever since. Just last week, Bitcoin dropped below $90,000 for the first time in months,

a significant dip that had experts worrying the value would continue its nosedive.

So still a little bit unclear as to what's going to happen here. Although I'll leave you with this.

Kathy Wood, the CEO of ARK Invest, a pretty big figure on Wall Street,

insists that Bitcoin is going to hit $1 million by 2030.

Well, interesting to see what we learn on Friday.

Tim, thanks for reporting.

You bet.

Thanks for waking up with us.

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