Politics and views in the United States.

President Donald Trump pauses tariffs for 90 days, as Republicans question his trade policy. And a new federal executive order incentivizes coal for energy use but poses risks to public lands.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2025 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

Every country in the world who wants to come and negotiate, we are willing to hear you.

We're going to go down to a 10 percent baseline tariff for them, and China will be raised to 125 due to their insistence on escalation.

Treasury Secretary Scott Besen says duties on Chinese goods are being raised while President Donald Trump pauses most of his tariff increases for 90 days.

Trump's about-face caused a sharp rebound in the U.S. stock markets that recently crashed.

But it's unclear what deals the White House will be able to strike.

The European Union may still follow China's path and impose retaliatory levies.

While most congressional Republicans stood by Trump's policy, some like North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis sound more than a little frustrated.

He aired his questions with U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer in a hearing.

In this scenario, the decision-maker who decided the a la prima approach, who has obviously had to have spent time anticipating what we saw in the markets and some of the pushback, I'm assuming this all got gamed out.

Because it's a novel approach, it needed to be thought out.

Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?

Democrats are calling for Trump to repeal all the levies instead of pausing them.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says Trump's repeated reversals and inconsistent positions amount to government by chaos.

You cannot run a country with such chaos, with such unpredictability, with such lack of understanding of what's going on in the world and the facts.

Meanwhile, Trump signed several executive orders aimed at bolstering the coal industry.

One calls for all federal agencies to repeal regulations the order says are discriminating against coal, and another waives certain Biden-era air pollution rules for some coal-fired power plants at risk of closing.

Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso says what he calls clean coal from his state is needed now more than ever.

Available, affordable, reliable.

This has powered our nation for over a century, continues to be a major source of power for our nation, and we need it far into the future.

The price of renewable energy has dropped so quickly it produced more power than coal last year.

And coal employment fell more quickly during Trump's first term than under President Joe Biden.

But the Trump administration is moving aggressively to open public land to energy production.

A new study finds 15,000 mining claims in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming are within 30 miles of a national park or monument.

Beau Kickless with the National Parks Conservation Association says it only takes three years to get a claim.

That's pretty fast when you think about the potential threats that are associated with mining, like impacts to groundwater and water supply for communities, wildlife migration and habitat, air impacts.

You think about other public land uses like recreation and conservation and so forth.

He says the leases are already too easy to get even before legislation in the Senate, which aims to further loosen the process.

He calls this a real threat to the protected landscapes in national parks and monuments.

The Republican leadership of the U.S.

House has canceled a vote on the Senate version of a budget outline, lacking the votes to pass it.

Fiscal hardliners say they want the deeper cuts that pass the House.

I'm Edwin J. Vieira for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

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