New tariffs announced and Trump and Modi meet

Trump won’t say if he thinks Russia needs to give something up as he seeks to broker an end to its invasion of Ukraine that he says will require the U.S. partner to give up a future stake in NATO.

Trump said the negotiations between the U.S., Russia and Ukraine have not yet begun and that “maybe Russia will give up a lot, maybe they won’t.”

Trump noted years of strenuous Russian objections to the potential of Ukraine joining the U.S.-led mutual defense pact, and blamed Ukraine’s desire to join NATO for sparking Russia’s invasion nearly three years ago.

“That’s the way it is,” Trump said of Russia’s opposition to Ukraine joining NATO, “and I think that’s the way it’s going to have to be.”

The decision to withhold the money pending an accountability review is threatening efforts to prevent or reduce damage from catastrophic blazes like the ones that recently ripped through Southern California.

It also undermines Trump’s repeated insistence that communities need to clear combustible materials like fallen branches and undergrowth to guard against wildfires.

The scrutiny is being applied only to projects using money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, two centerpieces of former President Joe Biden’s administration.

Lomakatsi Restoration Project, a nonprofit that works to reduce wildfire threats in western states, has stopped work on projects and laid off 15 employees.

“It just doesn’t make good business sense to keep operating, not knowing if we’re going to get paid,” said executive director Marko Bey.

▶ Read more about the decision to withhold money for wildfire mitigation projects

More than 725,000 immigrants from India are in the U.S. without authorization, the third-most of any country after Mexico and El Salvador, according to the Pew Research Center.

Recent years have also seen a jump in the number of Indians attempting to enter through the U.S.-Canada border. The U.S. Border Patrol arrested more than 14,000 Indians in the year ending Sept. 30 — 60% of all arrests there and more than 10 times the number from two years ago.

“Any verified Indian who is in the U.S. illegally, we are fully prepared to take them back to India,” Modi said.

Trump has promised a “mass deportation” of all who are in the U.S. illegally.

In comments alongside India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Trump said his administration would begin ”paving the way to ultimately provide India with the F-35 stealth fighter.”

The advanced fighter jet was considered a key get for India, which has tightened its defense ties with the U.S. over the last several years, including new port agreements and technology sharing. But the F-35 had not been on the list, in part due to India’s heavy use of Russian-made weapons systems.

The Joint Strike Fighter program is the United States’ most expensive weapon system. The Government Accountability Office has estimated the program will ultimately cost taxpayers $1.7 trillion total. There are eight development international partners in the F-35 program, and the U.S. has signed letters of foreign military sales with 12 additional overseas customers, including Israel, South Korea and Singapore.

The F-35 has also been a target of Elon Musk. In a November “X” post admiring drone swarms, Musk said, “Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35.”

Standing next to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Trump criticized India for having high tariffs as he said the U.S. would do the same to them with import taxes.

“Whatever India charges, we charge them,” Trump said at a joint news conference. “So frankly, it no longer matters to us that much what they charge.”

Trump said he wanted to levy “reciprocal” tariffs against all trade partners during his first term. But he said the coronavirus pandemic interrupted his efforts and left him not feeling “really in the mood” to launch tariffs that could trigger a broader trade conflict.

Earlier on Thursday, Trump signed a presidential memorandum that promised a review to establish tariffs that the U.S. president felt would be fair, under the premise that it could raise revenues and lead to negotiations for better trade terms.

The Indian prime minister said the new consulates will help strengthen the bonds between the United States and India.

He also said American universities and educational institutions have been invited to open “off-shore” campuses in India.

Modi also invited Trump to visit India.

The Indian prime minister said his vision for a developed India is to “Make India Great Again,” or “MIGA.”

It’s a play on Trump’s “MAGA,” or “Make America Great Again,” catch phrase and movement.

Trump says his administration has approved the extradition to India of one of the plotters of the 2008 attacks in Mumbai.

Standing alongside Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Trump appeared to be referencing Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who was convicted in 2011 in the U.S. for plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper.

“He’s going to be going back to India to face justice,” Trump said.

The goal is to reach an agreement on how to address what Trump said are “long-running disparities” in the U.S.-India trade relationship.

Trump says the U.S. wants and is entitled to a “certain level playing field.”

Both Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver statements summing up their hours of private talks, then open the floor for questions from American and Indian journalists.

The event is about an hour behind schedule.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, and told him that the U.S. was committed to Ukrainian independence.

It comes a day after Trump held a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin about negotiating an end to the Russia-Ukraine war that raised concerns about the outcome for Kyiv.

Rubio reiterated on Thursday “the need for bold diplomacy to end the war in a negotiated manner,” according to a State Department readout of the call.

Some researchers at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs working on cancer treatment, opioid addiction, prosthetics and burn pit exposure have been laid off, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, said Thursday.

Murray said the Trump administration is not honoring a standard practice of extending the researchers’ three-year terms for their work.

“I’m hearing from longtime VA researchers in my home state of Washington who are right now being told to immediately stop their research and pack their bags,” Murray said in a statement, “not because their work isn’t desperately needed, but because Trump and Elon have decided to fire these researchers on a whim.”

There are more than 100 active VA research sites nationwide.

Trump is suggesting that the U.S. Agency for International Development could have played a role in his 2020 election loss.

“It could have a had a role. There were a lot of bad things that happened in 2020,” Trump said. He added, “I think they probably tried.”

That came in response to Trump being asked by reporters during a meeting with India’s prime minister about the USAID working to alter past elections in the U.S. and India.

Trump has moved to cut all but a fraction of the workforce at USAID, which works primarily overseas.

Trump insists, without evidence, that voter fraud denied him victory in the 2020 race.

Asked if he ordered federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Trump responded, “No, I didn’t,” and added for emphasis, “I did not.”

The move to end the case against Adams followed months of speculation that Trump would take steps to dismiss it.

Adams, a Democrat, has moved noticeably right following his indictment, rankling some within his own party.

In a letter to the heads of the Senate Finance Committee, a Treasury official declined to brief the lawmakers on the ongoing controversy related to the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to Treasury payment systems, citing ongoing litigation.

Advocacy groups and labor unions have filed lawsuits over DOGE’s potential unauthorized access to sensitive Treasury payment systems, and five former Treasury secretaries are warning of risks associated with Elon Musk’s DOGE accessing sensitive Treasury Department payment systems.

“Treasury’s actions in this matter have been fully consistent with the law under the President’s authorities,” said Jonathan Blum, the letter’s author who is with Treasury’s Office of Legislative Affairs.

“Odds are this is a baseless excuse to avoid accountability, but it’s possible Treasury officials discovered evidence of criminal activity by DOGE personnel and are going mum to avoid adding to their legal trouble,” Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and a ranking member of the finance committee, said in a statement.

Trump says Ukraine will be part of talks to end the war after raising concerns following a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump was noncommittal on Wednesday about whether Ukraine would be an equal participant in U.S. negotiations with Russia.

Asked by reporters Thursday if Ukraine would have a seat at that table, Trump said, “Of course they would. I mean, they’re part of it. We would have Ukraine, we have Russia, and we’ll have other people involved too.”

He also noted that representatives from Russia would be at the Munich Security Conference, which Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will also be attending. Vance, Rubio and Zelenskyy planned to meet there.

Before resigning, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan told her boss that she was confident that New York City Mayor Eric Adams “has committed the crimes with which he is charged” and that she would refuse the Justice Department’s order to drop the corruption case.

Danielle Sassoon said in a letter Wednesday to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that prosecutors were prepared to seek a new indictment charging Adams with additional crimes of destroying evidence, instructing others to destroy evidence and providing false information to the FBI.

Sassoon resigned Thursday, announcing her decision in an email to staff.

The acting deputy U.S. attorney general, Emil Bove, said the case would be transferred to the Justice Department, which would file a motion to drop the charges and bar “further targeting” of Adams.

▶ Read more about Sassoon’s resignation

“My uncle started USAID in 1961 for humanitarian purposes to put our country on the side of the poor. It has been captured by the military industrial complex. It has become a sinister propagator of totalitarianism across, and war, across the globe, and very few people understand how sinister this agency really is. And President Trump saw that and he stood up to it with a master stroke, and we want to do the same thing with the institutions that are stealing the health of our children.”

Trump has appeared in the Oval Office with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said the pair would talk trade during their bilateral meeting.

“They’re going to be purchasing a lot of our oil and gas,” the president said. “They need it. And we have it.”

Modi said that, on behalf of the 1.4 billion people of India, he wanted to congratulate Trump on his “grand and historic victory” in last fall’s election. He said he was confident that U.S.-India relations would be even warmer than they had been during Trump’s first term.

Attorneys general from 14 states are challenging the authority of billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency to access sensitive government data and exercise “virtually unchecked power.”

Thursday’s lawsuit against Musk says that his actions at DOGE should only be taken by a nominated and Senate-confirmed officer, under constitutional provisions that delineate the powers of Congress and the president.

In the filing, the attorneys general said the court should bar Musk from issuing orders to anyone in the executive branch outside DOGE and declare that his actions have no legal effect.

They asked the court to order Musk to identify ways that “any data obtained through unlawful agency access was used” and destroy “such unauthorized access in his or DOGE’s possession,” and bar Musk and DOGE from ordering changes in the disbursement of public funds, cancelling government contracts, taking steps to dismantle agencies and more.

“We are asking the court to invalidate his directives and actions and to issue a restraining order,” said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.

Members of the Department of Government Efficiency group appeared at the Internal Revenue Service building Thursday, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press.

The person was not authorized to speak on the record and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“I think the Internal Revenue Service will be looked at just like everyone else,” Trump said Thursday while taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office. He referred to the DOGE group as a “force of super-geniuses.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, tweeted on the social media site X that “Musk’s henchmen are in a position to dig through a trove of data about every taxpayer in America.”

While federal workers are bracing for layoffs, IRS employees involved in the 2025 tax season will not be allowed to participate in the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program until after the taxpayer filing deadline, according to a letter IRS employees received.

Representatives from the IRS did not respond to requests for comment.

Issa Rae has called off a show at the Kennedy Center in protest of Trump’s firing of much of the center’s leadership and being elected chair of its board.

The sold-out show was scheduled for March 16.

“Thank you so much for selling out the Kennedy Center for An Evening with Issa Rae,” the actor who stars in ”Insecure” announced Thursday in a statement on her Instagram Stories.

“Unfortunately, due to what I believe to be an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums, I’ve decided to cancel my appearance at this venue,” she said.

Rae’s decision comes soon after the resignations of artistic advisers Ben Folds and Renée Fleming.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived at the White House for a meeting with Trump.

Modi is the fourth foreign leader to visit Trump since his inauguration last month. He follows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

Modi met earlier in the day with national security adviser Mike Waltz and with billionaire SpaceX founder and top Trump administration official Elon Musk.

Trump has nominated an Apple lawyer to lead the nation’s top auto regulator overseeing Elon Musk’s Tesla and other carmakers.

If confirmed by the Senate, Jonathan Morrison would take over as administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the agency for which he once served as chief counsel before joining Apple.

Tesla is under several safety investigations at the NHTSA, a Department of Transportation unit, and future decisions on regulations and recalls could greatly impact Tesla’s profits.

Musk is now head of Trump’s government efficiency group and is widely expected to push for changes at the agency. The Trump campaign donor has complained for years that NHTSA has been too heavy handed with regulation, unfair to his company and generally an impediment to the development of self-driving cars.

Morrison did not hold back from criticizing Tesla in his first stint at NHTSA during the first Trump administration, once criticizing the company for misrepresenting the safety of its cars and bucking agency guidelines on the matter.

Alexander Vinnik, a Russian cryptocurrency expert who faced Bitcoin fraud charges in the United States, returned to Russia on Thursday after being freed in a swap that saw Moscow release American Marc Fogel, Russian news agencies reported.

Alexander Vinnik arrived in Moscow on a flight from Turkey, where he was flown after being released from custody in California, Russia’s state Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies reported, citing his lawyer.

Vinnik, who operated cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, was arrested in 2017 in Greece at the request of the U.S. on cryptocurrency fraud charges and was later extradited to the United States, where he pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Steve Witkoff, a special envoy for U.S. President Donald Trump, left Russia with Fogel earlier in the week and brought him to the White House, where Trump greeted him on Tuesday.

Trump questioned McConnell’s mental and political fitness after the former Senate Republican leader voted against Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

McConnell also voted against Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence.

“I feel sorry for Mitch, and I was one of the people that led, he wanted to go to the end, and he wanted to stay leader,” Trump said. “He’s not equipped mentally. He wasn’t equipped 10 years ago, mentally, in my opinion. He let the Republican Party go to hell. If I didn’t come along, the Republican Party wouldn’t even exist right now. Mitch McConnell never really had it.”

A federal judge in Baltimore has temporarily blocked President Trump’s executive order restricting gender-affirming health care for transgender people under age 19.

A lawsuit was filed on behalf of families with transgender or nonbinary children alleges that their health care has already been compromised by the president’s order. A national group for families of LGBTQ+ people and a doctors organization are also plaintiffs.

Judge Brendan Hurson, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, said Trump’s order “seems to deny that this population even exists, or deserves to exist.”

▶ Read more about the order blocking ban on gender-affirming care

“I trust him on the subject. I think he’d like to see something happen,” the U.S. president said about Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Trump also repeated his long-standing criticism that President Joe Biden had invited the conflict by assuring Ukraine it would eventually join NATO.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Putin was encouraged to invade because he sensed U.S. and NATO weakness after the chaotic withdrawal of allied troops from Afghanistan.

Trump said Russia’s expulsion from the G8 group of leading industrialized countries after its 2014 annexation of Crimea was another key factor in forcing Putin’s hand.

The Office of Personnel Management has told federal agencies to lay off all their probationary employees, who generally have less than a year on the job and don’t have full civil service protection.

The notification was confirmed by a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

It’s an expansion of previous directions from OPM, which told agencies earlier this week that probationary employees should be fired if they weren’t meeting high standards.

Speaking at his swearing-in, Kennedy said USAID has become a “sinister propagator of totalitarianism” and that he supports Trump’s efforts to downsize it.

USAID was established by his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, in 1961 to bring several existing foreign assistance organizations and programs into one agency.

A single military flight to deport 104 people to India cost $2.5 million to operate, New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said Thursday at a hearing on border security.

Other flights by the large C-17 military cargo aircraft have cost an average of $30,000 an hour.

Shaheen and other lawmakers questioned the U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Southern Command chiefs on why cheaper commercial chartered flights were not taken instead.

The military shared the cost with lawmakers last week, according to an official familiar with the briefing who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details not publicly known. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Asked by reporters for any updates on negotiations to keep TikTok alive in the U.S., Trump said the deadline for a sale that he imposed could be pushed further.

“I have 90 days from about two weeks ago and I’m sure it can be extended but let’s see, I don’t think you’ll need to,” he said.

A law passed with bipartisan support and signed by President Joe Biden last year required TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to find an approved buyer for its U.S. platform by Jan. 19 or face a ban. The Supreme Court upheld the law a few days before Trump was inaugurated.

An executive order Trump signed shortly after being sworn in as president enabled the app to continue operating for 75 days, or until early April.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Trump’s health secretary, was sworn into office in the Oval Office, by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, just hours after the Senate confirmed his nomination on a narrow, 52-48 vote.

Kennedy was joined by his wife, other family members and several members of Congress.

Trump announced that Kennedy will lead a new commission on making America healthy again.

▶ Read more on HHS Secretary RFK Jr.

When Russ Vought took over as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, he ordered all employees to stop working.

Now he’s trying to enforce that.

The agency has advertised a tip line on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk: “Are you being pursued by CFPB enforcement or supervision staff, in violation of Acting Director Russ Vought’s stand down order? If so, DM us or send an email.”

The Environmental Protection Agency chief says he’ll try to rescind $20 billion in grants awarded by the Biden administration for climate and clean-energy projects.

In a video posted on X, Administrator Lee Zeldin said the EPA would revoke contracts for tens of thousands of projects to fight climate change and promote environmental justice.

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund was approved by Congress — without a single Republican vote — under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The money has already been awarded to eight nonprofits, including the Coalition for Green Capital, Climate United, Rewiring America, Habitat for Humanity and the Community Preservation Corporation, for projects aiding disadvantaged communities.

“The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over,” Zeldin said.

▶ Read more about the new EPA chief and the “green bank”

The U.S. has sanctioned the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor, following up on President Donald Trump’s order last week targeting the court because of its investigations of Israel.

The prosecutor, Karim Khan, was added Thursday to Washington’s list of “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons.” They are barred from doing business with Americans and face restrictions on entry to the U.S.

The U.S. never has recognized the Hague-based court’s authority.

Trump’s Feb. 7 executive order imposed sanctions on the ICC and foreshadowed “tangible and significant consequences” for those responsible for the court’s “transgressions.”

The court’s president has condemned the move.

A court order halting Trump administration plans to pull all but a fraction of USAID staffers off the job worldwide will stay in place for at least another week.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols ordered the extension after a nearly three-hour hearing, much of it focused on how employees were affected by the abrupt moves to put thousands of workers on leave and freeze foreign aid funding.

He closely questioned the government about keeping employees on leave safe in high-risk overseas areas. When a Justice Department attorney could not provide detailed plans, the judge asked him to file court documents after the hearing.

Nichols said he plans to issue a written ruling in the coming days on whether the week-long pause will continue indefinitely.

“We had a very unfair system to us,” Trump said as he signed his reciprocal tariffs order.

Trump said he won’t be basing these new import taxes solely on other nations’ tariff rates. The subsidies that foreign countries provide their companies as well as value added taxes — which are similar to sales taxes — also would be part of the calculation.

Higher tariffs under current law would be paid by U.S. consumers and businesses, either directly or in the form of higher prices. The White House has treated these tariffs as a tool to negotiate new trade deals as well as a way to raise government revenues.

If other countries retaliate and the tariffs stay in place, most economists say growth would suffer and inflationary pressures would intensify.

▶ Read more about Trump’s tariffs

Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday that once the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have settled down, he wants to meet with Russia and China to discuss all three nations drastically cutting back their defense spending.

“When we straighten it all out, then I want to one of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia. And I want to say, let’s cut our military budget in half,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Such a move would cuts against decades of traditional Republican national defense posturing.

He said he also wants to restart denuclearization talks with both nations.

The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan resigned Thursday rather than obey a Justice Department order to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

The resignation of Danielle Sassoon, a Republican who was the interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was confirmed by a spokesperson for the office.

It came after acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove directed New York prosecutors to drop the case against Adams, who was accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions and bribes of free or discounted travel from people who wanted to buy his influence.

Bove’s memo Monday said the case should be dismissed so the Democratic mayor could help the president crack down on immigration.

▶ Read more about the NYC mayor’s federal case

Like a watered-down drink, domestic sales for American whiskeys were unsatisfying in 2024, as inflation reined in consumer spending on some distilled spirits. But tariffs loom as one of the stiffest challenges ahead.

The Distilled Spirits Council says the biggest risk is in the European Union, where tariffs set to double are set to resume April 1 at double the rate on American whiskey producers, undoing their strong rebound since a 25% EU tariff was suspended a few years ago.

“The reimposition of these tariffs at a 50% rate would gut this growth and do irreparable harm to distillers large and small,” council CEO Chris Swonger said. “It would be a catastrophic blow that will force many distillers out of our largest export market.”

▶ Read more on prospects for American whiskey if tariffs are imposed

Employees at the National Science Foundation and the Housing and Urban Development Department have already been told that reductions in force are coming — and as much as half the workforce could get laid off, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.

NSF employees were told to expect a 25% to 50% reduction within two months, while HUD workers were told to plan for a 50% reduction.

Employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were also bracing for RIFs.