Principals

1. Biden’s China tariff call
2. U.S.-China talks
3. Massie threatens Johnson
4. Michaelah Montgomery’s moment
5. Czech leader urges Ukraine support
6. Powell squashes rate hike hopes

PDB: House Democrat pushes age verification for children online

Biden in Pittsburgh … White House preps Iran sanctions … Chuck Todd: Take RFK Jr. seriously

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

Biden will call for higher tariffs on Chinese steel, aluminum imports

Scranton Joe will lean hard into a pitch to blue-collar workers later today as he calls for higher tariffs on Chinese metals, a move that risks upsetting his administration’s careful efforts to manage tensions with Beijing. During a speech at United Steelworkers headquarters in the critical battleground of Pennsylvania, Biden will say he wants the U.S. Trade Representative to consider tripling existing Section 301 tariffs on steel and aluminum from China. The U.S. will also start working with Mexico to prevent Chinese tariff evasion and launch a probe of unfair trade practices by China in shipbuilding. White House National Economic Council Chair Lael Brainard characterized the moves as an effort to guard against “unfair exports associated with China’s industrial overcapacity.” Another senior Biden administration official insisted the move “has nothing to do with elections”

— Morgan Chalfant

With six sessions across two days — April 17 and 18 — and two stages, including the Gallup Great Hall, the 2024 World Economy Summit will showcase the most influential economic and business decision makers in the world, coming together for on-the-record interviews on the state of the global economic landscape. Each session will be streamed live, starting today at 9:30 a.m. ET with the Global Growth and Digital Infrastructure sessions. Later this afternoon, tune in for The Future of Mobility session starting at 2:30 p.m. ET. Stream the World Economy Summit Now.

New U.S.-China talks and tensions

Speaking of U.S.-China talks, they seem to be yielding mixed results. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin held a call with his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun on Tuesday, the first such high-level engagement since November 2022 and a sign the Biden administration’s efforts to open up lines of communication are working. But a U.S. congressional committee accused the Chinese government of continuing to fuel fentanyl sales in the U.S. by subsidizing companies that manufacture compounds used in the drug. The House select committee on China’s report said investigators found evidence “confirming that these subsidies remain in place as of April 2024” on a Chinese government website, despite a pledge by the U.S. and China to cooperate on countering fentanyl following a meeting between President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping last fall that the White House has said resulted in progress.

— Morgan Chalfant

Threats against Johnson play into Democrats’ hands, some Republicans worry

As the right-wing rebellion against House Speaker Mike Johnson grew slightly louder on Tuesday, so too did the groans from Republicans worried that hardliners were once again playing into the hands of Democrats, writes Joseph Zeballos-Roig. Johnson is facing conservative blowback over his decision to finally tee up a vote on Ukraine aid this week; on Tuesday, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. said he would co-sponsor Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, and urged Johnson to resign at a closed-door conference meeting (Johnson publicly declined.). The speaker, who has frequently relied on Democrats to move bills on the House floor, may now need their help to save his job — possibly giving the opposition critical policy leverage. “Every time that they do this, it actually strengthens the Democrats’ hands,” said Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., similarly complained that hardliners “force the House to go to the left consistently,” by sabotaging efforts to pass party-line bills. Senators are taking notice too: “The right flank almost daily risk undercutting the conservative goals that they’re after,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Semafor.

What’s next for Michaelah Montgomery after her viral Trump meetup

You’ve likely not heard the last of Michaelah Montgomery, the young Black conservative who went viral after hugging Donald Trump during a campaign stop at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta last week. She’s a veteran field consultant who started her career on Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms’ Atlanta mayoral campaign in 2017 before jumping to the GOP — and she’s eager to help out the Trump operation if given the opportunity, which seems likely. “I would be honored to go ahead and represent for my folks,” she told Semafor. “I’ve heard people say that this would be really good, not just for Trump, but for the Republican Party as a whole.” As the party slowly builds up an operation to take advantage of its improved polling with Black voters, Montgomery sees herself playing a role in cultivating a new base of young aspiring campaign volunteers and professionals. The Chick-fil-A visit was done on behalf of a group she founded called Conservative Culture, meant to expose HBCU students to politics, 12 of whom accompanied her to meet Trump. “They really enjoy the experience and really don’t have anybody else to provide these networking opportunities,” she told Semafor.

— Kadia Goba

Czech leader says Ukraine must ‘win the war’

Europeans are stepping up pressure on Congress to pass Ukraine assistance. U.S. support is critical “for international order,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala told a small group of reporters ahead of a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans on Tuesday. Fiala, who met with President Biden earlier this week, said that a Czech initiative to boost supplies of artillery ammunition for Ukraine is seeing success but that Europe could not replace U.S. support. “Without support or help from the United States, it is not possible to be successful,” he warned. Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told PBS that Ukraine will “have no chance of winning” the war without more U.S. backing. Fiala also pushed back on the notion that Ukraine should accept territorial concessions to Russia, which some U.S. politicians have suggested. Ukraine should aim to “push” Russian President Vladimir Putin out, and if that’s not possible “it is the decision of the Ukrainians which conditions they want to accept,” he said.

— Morgan Chalfant

Jerome Powell smothers hopes for rate hikes

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell made it crystal clear Tuesday that after three straight months of unexpectedly hot inflation reports, the central bank won’t be looking to cut interest rates any time too soon. “Right now, given the strength of the labor market and progress on inflation so far, it’s appropriate to allow restrictive policy further time to work,” he said in remarks at the Wilson Center. Stocks only fell slightly in response — investors had already begun discounting the possibility of hikes — but the comments signal a shift in the inflation debate. The hovering question is no longer when the Fed might feel confident enough to cut, but rather whether inflation is stuck in place, or even accelerating. Economics journalist Matt C. Klein argues it’s probably not at the Overshoot. Prices rose slower than one might expect late last year based on the rest of the economy, and now we might be seeing “just another temporary deviation—but in the opposite direction,” he writes.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: As a potential vote on foreign aid gets closer, Speaker Mike Johnson “finds himself slipping into an old habit that infuriates his leadership colleagues and senior Republicans. He’s taking meetings with all comers in the GOP conference, mulling different pathways to change his proposed plan in order to mollify the hardliners.”

Playbook: If Democrats do decide to save Johnson’s speakership from a conservative attempt to oust him, one scenario could involve Democratic members deliberately not showing up for the vote, giving him a lower threshold to clear.

Axios: Unable to dictate his schedule and speak freely in court, “former President Trump is confronting the same rare feeling that fueled his erratic behavior in the wake of the 2020 election: a loss of control.”

White House

• President Biden will spend the day in Pittsburgh before returning back to the White House.
• White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan promised new sanctions targeting Iran’s missile and drone program, as well as those on entities backing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran’s Defense Ministry following the attack on Israel. European countries are getting ready to issue their own sanctions on Iran’s missile and drone program, but are “resisting pressure” to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization, the Financial Times reported.
• Office of Personnel Management Director Kiran Ahuja plans to leave the Biden administration in May due to personal circumstances.
• The White House launched a new program to prevent future pandemics.

Congress

• Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., sent a letter to leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee ahead of today’s hearing on children’s online safety urging them to consider his legislation to require social media companies to verify the age of their users. His bill would also increase the age of children covered by the protections under a 2000 law — the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act — from 13 to 16. “The lack of strong protections for children online has led to rampant abuse by social media companies,” he wrote in a letter shared first with Semafor.
• The House will vote today on the “Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act,” a bill designed to prevent law enforcement and intelligence agencies from purchasing data on Americans. The Biden administration is coming out firmly against the legislation. FBI Director Chris Wray warned the proposal would “significantly degrade law enforcement’s ability to bring criminals to justice and protect victims and our communities, while doing nothing to stop adversaries and criminals from continuing to purchase and exploit this information against American citizens and businesses.”
• The House overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning the “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free” chant as antisemitic as well as several other measures targeting Iran.
• Rep. Debbie Dingell is the new chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee.
• Former three-term Democratic Florida Sen. Bob Graham has died at 87.

Courts

• Donald Trump trial day two: The former president appeared to fall asleep again and was chastised by the judge for directing remarks at a potential juror. A number of jurors were questioned over past social media posts mocking Trump — including one woman who confessed to reading Borowitz Report — but the day nevertheless ended with seven jurors selected. Afterwards, Trump visited a Harlem bodega where a clerk stabbed a man who confronted him in 2022 — Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg charged him with murder, but dropped the case after an outcry.
• Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., may shift blame onto his wife for their federal bribery charges.
• Smartmatic settled its lawsuit against conservative network One America News over its 2020 coverage of baseless voter fraud allegations, but the terms weren’t made public.
• The Justice Department is considering a plea deal with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that could allow him to return to Australia. — Bloomberg

On the Trail

• President Biden’s campaign got a big donation from the son of GOP donor Larry Ellison. — CNBC
• The Democratic Party’s divide over Israel has widened since the Iran attack. — Politico
• Democratic Senate candidates are largely outraising their Republican rivals, Semafor’s David Weigel reports, but the GOP is also set to benefit from a slate of wealthy self-funded nominees.

Foreign Policy

Venezuela is cutting off diplomatic ties with Ecuador after a police raid on Mexico’s embassy in Quito, becoming the third country to do so.

Media

• Trump Media shares lost 14% on Tuesday, a day after the parent of Truth Social lost 18%. The latest drop came as the company announced plans to launch a live streaming TV platform. Trump Media shares have sunk by about two-thirds since its listing late last month.
• NPR has suspended senior business editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he published an essay online saying the network had “lost America’s trust” by reporting news with a rigidly progressive viewpoint. The network told Berliner he failed to secure the required approval for outside work for other news organizations. Berliner is not appealing the suspension through the NPR newsroom’s union.

Technology

Elon Musk’s Starlink is cracking down on users connecting to the internet service in countries where it isn’t approved, sending them letters warning that they’ll lose access by the end of the month. — WSJ

Economy

The United States is expected to grow twice as fast as any other member of the G7, according to the IMF’s latest economic outlook.

Big Read

The imminent ban on most abortions in Arizona is set to create a lack of access that will cross into Mexico, where abortions are also nearly totally banned in that country’s Sonora state, NBC News says. For Mexican women in the state that borders the U.S., crossing into Arizona for the procedure was one of a limited set of options for them, Leticia Burgos Ochoa, an abortion rights activist and former Mexican senator from Sonora, was quoted as saying. Three of the other Mexican states along the US border also severely limit abortions. A network of activists in Sonora have helped to get abortion drug misoprostol to Mexican and American women, but they say there is misinformation and price gouging by pharmacies in Mexican states with the most stringent abortion limits. The drug is sold over-the-counter in Mexico to treat stomach ulcers.

Blindspot

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, according to data from our partners at Ground News.

What the Left isn’t reading: Nikki Haley is joining the conservative Hudson Institute.

What the Right isn’t reading: The Biden administration finally completed work on a rule limiting exposure to silica dust, which is tied to lung damage.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann, Morgan Chalfant

Editor-at-Large: Steve Clemons

Reporters: Kadia Goba, Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Shelby Talcott, David Weigel

Steny Hoyer is the former House Majority Leader. He is among the guests speaking at Semafor’s World Economy Summit, which kicks off today. Watch him live here.