Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today’s edition, we dive into President Donald Trump’s sudden decision to pause many of his new tariffs. Plus, we explain why Texas is set to host one of the most intense contests of the 2026 midterms. And Andrea Mitchell previews the upcoming nuclear talks between the United States and Iran.
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— Adam Wollner
Trump abruptly backs off major tariff plan after days of turmoil
By Rob Wile, Colleen Long and Shannon Pettypiece
One week after his “Liberation Day,” President Donald Trump said he was pausing higher targeted tariffs for most countries for 90 days, a stunning reversal in his trade war that sent markets reeling.
In a social media post just before 1:30 p.m., Trump wrote that he came to the decision because more than 75 trading partners did not retaliate and have reached out to the United States to “discuss” some of the issues he had raised.
But the pause didn’t apply to China, which has retaliated with 84% hikes. Trump instead raised duties for it to 125%, effective immediately.
Zooming out: The trade war isn’t exactly over, and the pause didn’t return the world to the time before Trump touched off the global instability. A 10% across-the-board duty will remain — including for some products from Canada and Mexico.
The White House wouldn’t say which countries would be covered by the pause. Earlier Wednesday the European Union voted to impose fresh retaliatory duties, but they aren’t set to take effect until next week.
And separate tariffs on imported autos, steel and aluminum will remain, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said later — while planned tariffs on items like lumber and pharmaceuticals are still on.
How Wall Street responded: Markets soared on the surprising news Wednesday, with the S&P 500 climbing more than 9%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq closing up more than 12% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending nearly 3,000 points higher.
Goldman Sachs lowered its odds of a recession but said it is still forecasting minimal economic growth and a 45% probability of a recession given the remaining tariffs in place.
What Trump said: Trump appeared to dig in on his tariff plan just hours earlier, telling Americans “BE COOL” on Truth Social. And he suggested not that long ago that the tariffs could be permanent.
“I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippie, you know, they were getting a little bit yippie, a little bit afraid,” he told reporters at the White House.
“So we’ll see how it all works out. I think it’s going to work out amazing,” he added.
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Paxton kicks off a bitter GOP primary battle against Cornyn
By Ben Kamisar, Bridget Bowman and Frank Thorp V
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempt to topple Republican Sen. John Cornyn in a primary next year kicks off one of the most intense contests of the 2026 elections — an intraparty battle between two men who have been sparring for years and vying for President Donald Trump’s attention.
Cornyn is a fixture of the Republican Party in Texas, serving in its highest offices for more than 30 years and becoming a key voice on Capitol Hill. Paxton, the third-term attorney general who survived a bipartisan impeachment last year in part thanks to support from Trump and conservative activist allies, believes there’s an opening to cut him down from the right.
Now, both sides are aligning themselves with Trump amid the possibility of an endorsement that could tip the primary.
Whether one comes or not, one thing is clear. “This is gonna be the nastiest race in the modern era of Texas politics, period,” former Travis County GOP chairman Matt Mackowiak said.
More on the midterms: Former Rep. Wiley Nickel became the first major Democrat to enter the race against GOP Sen. Thom Tillis in battleground North Carolina.
Direct or indirect, the U.S. and Iran are set for critical talks this weekend
By Andrea Mitchell
With the threat of U.S. military action against Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program hanging in the balance — a program Tehran insists is for peaceful purposes — officials from the Trump administration and Iran will meet in the Persian Gulf island nation of Oman this weekend to open talks about holding nuclear negotiations.
The United States will be represented not by Secretary of State Marco Rubio but by special envoy Steve Witkoff. Leading the talks for Iran: Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, a veteran of nuclear negotiations. But so far, the two sides can’t even agree on the nature of the talks.
President Donald Trump told reporters they would be holding direct talks, which Iran has rejected since Trump withdrew in 2018 from the multinational Iran nuclear deal President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, John Kerry, negotiated three years earlier. Araghchi says they’ve agreed only to hold indirect talks, exchanging proposals through diplomatic go-betweens as they’d done with the Biden administration for two years, which went nowhere.
The stakes are serious: Iran has been processing nuclear fuel so rapidly it now has the ability to create one bomb within a week or two, according to the United Nations, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Trump administration warnings — though it would still take an estimated year or longer for Tehran to be able to create a warhead small enough for one of its ballistic missiles to carry.
Why are the talks so critical? Trump warned Monday that “it’s getting to be very dangerous territory, and hopefully those talks will be successful. And I think it would be in Iran’s best interests if they are successful.” Last month, he was more explicit, telling “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker, “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing, and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”
Multiple U.S. officials told NBC News that Iran is vulnerable to an attack: Israel’s retaliatory strike against Iran last fall eliminated many of Tehran’s air defenses. Israel has also killed the leader of Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy and front line of defense in neighboring Lebanon. Hamas’ leaders in Gaza, also Iran’s proxies, are gone. So is Tehran’s powerful ally in Syria, Bashar al-Assad. Trump has repeatedly signaled that he doesn’t want a war with Iran. To avoid one, the two sides have to at least agree, finally, to come face to face.
🗞️ Today’s other top stories
- 📝 Budget battle: House Republicans teed up a vote on a Senate-approved budget resolution for Trump’s agenda. But a group of conservative holdouts still aren’t on board, even after Trump dialed up the pressure. Read more →
- ✈️ Whitmer in Washington: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer laid out what she called a “consistent national strategy” for bringing manufacturing back to the United States in a lengthy speech in Washington, D.C. She also met with Trump for the second time in the past month and appeared in the Oval Office while he signed several executive orders. Read more →
- ⬅️ Stepping aside: The acting commissioner of the IRS resigned over a deal to share tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the purpose of identifying and deporting people in the United States illegally. Read more →
- ⚖️ In the courts: A federal appeals court paused a lower court’s ruling ordering the government to rehire around 24,000 probationary workers. Read more →
- ➡️ New front in the culture wars: One of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s top advisers has recommended that the Pentagon cut ties with Scouting America, known for decades as the Boy Scouts, saying it is too “woke” to support, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions. Read more →
- 💰Fanning the flames: Trump and Elon Musk have spread a baseless rumor that someone might have stolen the gold reserves from Fort Knox, Kentucky, at least a dozen times since mid-February. Read more →
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.
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