From CNN, I'm AfomaDK, with the five things you need to know for Thursday, July 31st.

Hours before his midnight deadline for countries to make trade deals with the U.S. or face higher

tariffs, President Donald Trump has announced an agreement to pause higher tariffs on Mexico for 90 days.

Trump says he had a, quote, successful phone conversation with Mexico's president earlier in the day

and that the two agreed to push back the 30% tariff that Trump had threatened to extend trade talks.

That means the U.S.'s current 25% tariff on certain Mexican goods will stay in place.

Trump said Mexico would immediately stop its so-called non-tariff barriers, but he didn't specify what changes Mexico would make.

Here's CNN's Elena Trin.

My conversations with people at the White House about this deadline,

you know, there's been a lot of questions on whether or not the president

would actually push it back again like he has done previously over the last several months.

But they say this time he's holding firm on that deadline because essentially he is now feeling very emboldened by all of the trade agreements that have they've been able to strike over the last week.

You have Japan. You have South Korea, Cambodia, Thailand, many other different, the European Union,

for example, all of those really adding to this feeling, I'm told that the president is feeling

vindicated behind the scenes from critics who have long argued that these tariffs would

tank the economy and global markets.

President Trump has called for Hamas to surrender and release all remaining hostages held in

Gaza. That's according to his truth social post, saying it's the fastest way to end the humanitarian

catastrophe there. It comes as U.S. Special Envoy Steve Wickoff met with Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem today. The meeting came one week after the U.S. pulled back from Gaza's ceasefire talks,

blaming Hamas for negotiating in quote, bad fate.

And now, according to two sources familiar with the matter,

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