U.S. stocks opened higher Wednesday after President Donald Trump signaled a softer stance toward the eye-watering tariffs he had set for China, while also stating he would not make an immediate change in leadership at the Federal Reserve.

Investors were also cheered by Elon Musk's imminent return to a more full-time focus on Tesla, dialing back his controversial stint as a Trump White House adviser to one to two days a week.

President Donald Trump said he plans to be “very nice” to China in any trade talks and that tariffs will drop if the two countries can reach a deal, a sign he may be backing down from his tough stance on Beijing amid market volatility.

“It will come down substantially but it won’t be zero,” Trump said Tuesday in Washington, following earlier comments from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the standoff was unsustainable. Trump added that “we’re going to be very nice and they’re going to be very nice, and we’ll see what happens.”

President Donald Trump hinted Thursday evening that there is a potential end in sight to the back-and-forth tariff hikes between the U.S. and China as well as a possible deal on the horizon for the fate of TikTok.

When speaking with reporters at the White House, Trump said officials believed to be representing the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, had sought to start talks.

Unless something goes wrong, most spaceflights are little reported in the news. Monday’s launch of a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket, though, was an exception. Its all-female crew attracted a huge amount of attention, thanks in part to the inclusion of the pop star Katy Perry. The six women comprised the eleventh crew to fly on this vehicle, with previous passengers including company founder Jeff Bezos and Star Trek actor William Shatner.

Technology stocks declined Wednesday, led by a 6% drop in Nvidia, as the chipmaking sector signaled that President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff plans could hamper demand and growth.

Nvidia revealed in a filing Tuesday that it will take a $5.5 billion charge tied to exporting its H20 graphics processing units to China and other countries and said that the government will require a license to ship the chips there and other destinations.

An alleged sushi-slinging spy is in ICE custody. 

Ming Xi Zhang, known as “Sushi John,”  the 61-year-old owner of Ya Ya Noodles in Montgomery Township, NJ, was arrested March 24 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark.

Zhang was convicted in April 2024 of acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government and sentenced to three years’ probation. In May 2021, he pleaded guilty to having served as an agent of China in 2016 without notifying the U.S. Attorney General.

This is an edited transcript of an episode of “The Ezra Klein Show.” You can listen to the conversation by following or subscribing to the show on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode contains strong language.

Here’s a simple principle that I believe deeply: You cannot make a good argument for a bad policy. You cannot make a coherent argument for an incoherent policy.

Cao Lili, a Sichuan mother of three, once embraced products made around the world. Now she is shopping local.

A few years ago, she traded her Honda for a Chinese electric vehicle made by Li Auto. She decided to turn in her iPhone for a model made by China’s Huawei in light of the escalating trade war. And she saw the Chinese animated movie “Ne Zha 2” in theaters twice earlier this year, tickets that helped power the film to a record-setting gross of $2.1 billion.

China has suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to choke off supplies of components central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world.

Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system. Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors.

President Donald Trump knows his hike in tariffs for China's goods to 145 percent will up the ante in a trade war, but Beijing also holds a strong hand with its control of the materials critical for the United States defense industry.

China first responded on April 3 to Trump's initial salvo of 54 percent levies on its exports by placing export restrictions on rare earth elements, which are key for the fighter aircraft that will form the backbone of the U.S. Air Force's next-generation fleet.