Trump’s New Trade Threats, and the Return of Land Mines

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From the New York Times, it's the headlines.

I'm Tracy Mumford.

Today is Tuesday, July 8th.

Here's what we're covering.

President Trump is reframing his tariff plans and rolling out new threats of a trade war.

After shocking the global economy with tariffs in the 20, 30, 40 plus percent range back in April, he put them on hold.

Trump said the pause would allow for negotiations to get the U.S.

more favorable trade agreements, and his administration promised they would use the 90 days to get 90 deals.

Those 90 days are up tomorrow, with just two provisional deals in place.

And now, Trump is pushing back his deadline and taking aim at countries who haven't been negotiating as quickly as he wants.

So we just send him a letter.

If you want to play ball,

this is what you have to pay.

Yesterday, he told Japan and South Korea that they'll face tariffs of 25% starting August 1st.

If they call up and they say would like to do something a different way, we're going to be open to that.

But essentially, that's the way it is right now.

The countries are significant trading partners for the U.S.

They're the number two and three sources of auto imports.

They also ship a lot of steel and electronics.

Markets dropped at the news of Trump's latest threats as investors reacted to the prospect of more trade conflict.

Economists say the shifting deadlines and strong arm tactics are feeding the uncertainty that's kept people on edge for months.

The frequent changes have led many businesses to put hiring and investment plans on hold to see how things will shake out.

I have said this a hundred times, and I will say it again.

We need your prayers.

We need your prayers.

In Texas, search and rescue teams are still scouring the debris along the Guadalupe River, looking for those swept away in the recent flash floods.

Officials say the death toll has now risen to more than 100 people and have suggested that their efforts are transitioning from saving lives to recovering bodies.

In the aftermath of the disaster, state leaders are facing questions about how prepared the region was for the intense rainfall.

Had we had sirens along this area, up and down, that would have blown very loudly.

It's possible that that would have saved some of these lives.

In an interview with Fox News, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said, even if the local government can't afford a flood warning system, the state will step in to install one by next summer.

The county had previously rejected one because of the cost.

Texas already has a growing backlog of flood management projects, totaling more than $50 billion.

For more on the devastating flooding, listen to today's episode of The Daily, a conversation with a former camper from Camp Mystic, the all-girls Christian camp on the banks of the Guadalupe, where at least 27 people died in the flooding.

Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine has now prompted multiple European countries to turn back to a deadly weapon that much of the world had largely abandoned.

Landmines.

Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which all border border Russia, have pulled out of a treaty banning the use of mines, and Ukraine, with a stockpile of 3 million mines, has pledged to do the same.

For decades, activists had waged a largely successful campaign against the weapon, pushing world leaders to ban them and to dig up tens of millions of landmines across the globe.

They said the weapons do more harm to innocent people than to soldiers and tanks.

The Red Cross estimates that 80% of deaths from landmines are civilians, many of of them children.

While Lithuania's defense minister acknowledged the suffering the weapons have caused, he told the Times that they are useful to halt or slow military attacks.

For example, Russia, which never agreed to the treaty, used mines to blunt a major Ukrainian offensive in 2023.

The head of one anti-landmine group said she was furious about the idea of bringing back the weapon, saying it quote, opens up a dangerous can of worms for everyone.

In Mexico City this week,

protesters took to the streets to rail against the influx of remote workers from other countries.

Demonstrators chanted, Gringo's go home and speak Spanish or die, and damaged businesses in some of the neighborhoods most popular with foreigners.

These neighborhoods in Mexico City have drastically transformed in the past few years, particularly as more so-called digital nomads, many of them American, have come to live in the city permanently or temporarily.

There's this joke among Mexicans that if you go to these neighborhoods, you have to show your American visa just in order to enter.

Emiliano Rodriguez-Mega covers Mexico for the Times.

He says that longtime residents of some of those neighborhoods are frustrated by the changing identity of the city, where where in some cafes or on some corners, there's more English spoken than Spanish.

And they've focused on the recent wave of workers from the U.S.

who are living large on big American salaries, even as the cost of living for local families skyrockets.

While the escalation of the protests is new, this is just the latest expression of tensions that have been brewing in Mexico over gentrification.

What some experts have told me is that the problem has deeper roots.

The thing that we've seen is that real estate developers in Mexico City have driven up rents, displaced long-term residents, and also altered the character of these neighborhoods for decades.

Gentrification has been a constant, and this all is happening as Mexicans' incomes have declined somewhat.

There was a recent study that saw that some gentrified neighborhoods experienced an eight-fold increase in housing prices from 2000 to 2022.

So that's a lot.

And finally.

So you've applied for the new safety fellow position.

I'll spend the next 15 minutes asking a few questions and answering anything you like to know.

Sitting down for a job interview has always meant preparing to face a whole bunch of questions.

Let's dive in.

How do you typically prioritize tasks when you're under pressure?

You've had to think about how you want to present yourself.

How are you going to pitch your work style?

Will the interviewer like you?

Now you've got to wonder what AI thinks about you.

The Times recently got a demo of technology that some people are already running into on their job hunts, an AI interviewer.

Once you've prioritized, how do you ensure you stay on track and meet deadlines?

People are finding themselves face-to-face or face-to-faceless voice with something known as agentic AI, where AI chat agents carry out real-time conversations and build on a person's responses.

While some parts of job hunting have been automated for a long time, like anyone who's tried to front-load keywords in their resume to trick an algorithm knows, the shift to AI interviews crosses a new line.

Several people who faced them told the Times they felt it was dehumanizing.

One called it, quote, some horror movie type stuff.

Another just hung up on hers partway through.

But the companies rolling out the new screening technology said they're basically just trying to keep up with the AI tech that job applicants are using.

People can now use AI to churn out tailored resumes and cover letters at lightning speed and apply to a ton of openings with just a few clicks.

Sorting through all of that to find actually qualified candidates is a monumental task.

If you're thinking, wait, so an AI interviewer is now asking people questions about their potentially AI-generated resume, yes, that is where we're at.

Basically, one step away from one chatbot turning to another chatbot to ask, so where do you see yourself in five years?

Those are the headlines.

I'm Tracy Mumford.

We'll be back tomorrow.