Crypto News: Trump touts his tariff plan

Good morning. Donald Trump warns Americans of economic discomfort ahead. Federal property may be for sale soon. And another big-name billionaire joins a bid for TikTok. Listen to the day's top stories.

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Donald Trump offered the first big speech of his second term last night, defending his plan to remake the world's largest economy through the biggest tariff increases in a century, and acknowledged to Americans there could be more discomfort ahead. He also hammered topics such as migrant crime and DEI, saying he's leading a "common-sense revolution." Here's the fact-check on what he said.

Some Democrats boycotted the speech, while others invited guests including fired federal workers and beneficiaries of safety-net programs such as Medicaid. Texas Rep. Al Green was removed from the chamber after verbally disrupting the address. The official opposition response came from Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, who warned Trump is "going to make you pay in every part of your life."

Trump Calls Chips Act 'Horrible, Horrible Thing'

President Trump calls for an end to a $52 billion semiconductor subsidy program that's spurred more than $400 billion in investments.

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Message received: Trump said he got an "important letter" from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy voicing regret over their recent Oval Office meeting and saying he was ready to sign a natural-resources deal. Trump also said he's gotten "strong signals" from Russia that it's ready for peace.

In other international relations, Trump and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau are set to speak today, ABC reported. Trudeau warned that Trump is using tariffs to weaken the country to make it easier to annex. Trump has repeatedly referred to Canada as the future 51st state and Trudeau, its governor. (Reminder: Canada has valuable minerals.) Meanwhile, Taiwan is "praying" for closer security ties with the US.

Over in the Middle East, Arab leaders endorsed Egypt's Gaza reconstruction plan, though a number of crucial details remain to be ironed out. This is to counter Trump's idea of removing Palestinians to develop a US-led real-estate project on the land. Israel's Economy Minister Nir Barkat warned that those posing a threat to the nation will face consequences similar to Gaza.

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Deep Dive: Federal Property for Sale

Clockwise, from top left: the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco, the Department of Justice building in Washington, the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Building in Atlanta and the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Boston. Source: ZUMA Press/Alamy Stock

The Trump administration is considering selling a sprawling portfolio of properties across 47 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico, part of a campaign to shrink the federal workforce and the buildings it occupies.

The list of properties that may be for sale shrank to 320 from 443 in the span of hours Tuesday, as the General Services Administration pulled some buildings from the website.
The headquarters for the FAA, FBI and Office of Personnel Management were removed, as was a group of buildings in northern Virginia that doesn't officially appear on federal property rolls but has long been associated with the CIA.

The Big Take

Barack Obama was the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review. Source: Boston Globe

Harvard Law School has a long history of catapulting Black students into the American elite. Barack Obama graduated in 1991, Ketanji Brown Jackson in 1996. But Black student enrollment plummeted in 2024 following the Supreme Court's ban on race-based admissions—and the repercussions will extend well beyond the classroom.

Big Take Podcast

SCOTUS Admissions Ruling Hits Harvard Law

Opinion

The biggest question over the next 24 hours is whether US tariffs stay in force, John Authers writes. If they do, the so-called "Trump put"—the idea that the president cares too much about the stock market to persist in a policy that causes a selloff—is no longer operative. And in that case, markets are on their own.

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James Stavridis

Europe Is Getting Ready for the End of NATO

Nia-Malika Henderson

A Speech Long on Gloating, Short on Plans

Before You Go

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Photographer: Chandan Khanna /AFP/Getty Images

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian joined a bid led by real estate mogul Frank McCourt to buy TikTok and stave off a US ban, becoming the latest big name to covet a slice of the Chinese-owned social media platform. Trump has given the company until April to make a deal that satisfies US national security concerns.

A Couple More