The Trump Administration Is Quietly Watering Down Some Tariffs

WSJ What’s News

The Wall Street Journal

News, Daily News

4 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

P.M. Edition for Oct. 17. In recent weeks, President Trump has been tiptoeing away from some of the tariffs that underpin his signature trade policy, saying reciprocal tariffs don’t apply to dozens of different products. We hear from WSJ trade and economic policy reporter Gavin Bade about why that’s happening. Plus, a decade ago, Walmart rattled investors with a historic pay raise for employees to $9 an hour. WSJ reporter Sarah Nassauer tells us why today the move is considered a success. Plus, in a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House today, President Trump said he’d rather end the war in Ukraine than send Tomahawks to the country. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Corporate megastores are spending millions lobbying DC politicians on one-sided policies that send small businesses tumbling.
0:08.1	They want to enact harmful credit card mandates that take resources away from your local credit union and community bank.
0:14.7	Leaving Main Street businesses with less access to credit, making it harder for your family to pay for everyday goods like gas and groceries.
0:23.0	Tell Congress to guard your card and oppose the Durban Marshall credit card mandates.
0:28.4	Paid for by Electronic Payments Coalition.
0:33.7	President Trump says he'd rather end the war between Ukraine and Russia than send Ukraine powerful
0:38.9	new weapons. Plus, Trump made tariffs his signature trade policy. Now, he's pivoting away from
0:45.5	some of them. They're putting the offer out there to other nations to say, if you do a deal with
0:49.8	us, we can carve out more of these tariffs as well. And how Walmart's decision to pay workers more shocked Wall Street,
0:57.8	but then put the company on a path to success.
1:01.0	It's Friday, October 17th.
1:03.1	I'm Alex Oslo for the Wall Street Journal.
1:05.5	This is the PM edition of What's News,
1:08.0	the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.
1:16.5	At a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodemir Zelensky today,
1:21.0	President Trump said he hoped Ukraine wouldn't need the U.S. to provide it with long-range
1:25.4	tomahawk cruise missiles.
1:27.0	So we're going to be talking about tomahawks and would much rather have them not need
1:33.6	tomahawks. Would much rather have the war be over, to be honest.
1:38.3	Trump had been talking in recent weeks about sending the powerful weapons to Ukraine.
1:43.0	The meeting between the two came after Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin
1:47.1	spoke at length on the telephone yesterday.
	...

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