Thomas Reisinger commutes almost an hour-and-a-half each way for a job in a cavernous steel processing plant here.

"I don't speed," he said dryly.

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Some of his coworkers come from much farther, including one who spends workweeks living in a camper and returns home only at weekends. This corner of eastern Arkansas is dotted with RV parks that cater to such workers.

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.”

Global investors scrambling for security rushed to gold on Tuesday, pushing its price to a record $3,500 an ounce, as concerns mount about President Trump’s trade war and his deepening anger at the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell.

Gold has set a series of records during an ugly stretch for the markets. Its latest peak came after a particularly rough day on Wall Street, when investors dumped stocks, sold U.S. Treasury bonds and cut their exposure to the dollar, causing its value to drop against most other major currencies.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection appears to be contradicting President Donald Trump’s comments on the daily revenue generated by his latest slate of tariffs.

The agency said in a statement to CNBC on Monday, “Since April 5, CBP has collected over $500 million under the new reciprocal tariffs, contributing to more than $21 billion in total tariff revenue from 15 presidential trade actions implemented since Jan 20, 2025.”

President Donald Trump has added to his unsupported claim that the U.S. is making “$2 billion a day” from tariffs by saying that the country was losing $2 billion or $3 billion “a day” under President Joe Biden. Economists told us that Trump appears to be wrongly comparing a very high – and unlikely – estimate of potential daily revenue from his tariffs with a figure reflecting the average daily U.S. trade deficit during Biden’s last year in office.

Before pausing country-by-country tariffs for 90 days, President Donald Trump repeatedly said tariffs were bringing in immense revenue.

At an April 8 executive order signing, Trump said, “We’re taking in almost $2 billion a day in tariffs. Two billion a day.”

He repeated the $2 billion figure during an April 8 speech to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Trump did not cite a source for the figure.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed his tariffs are bringing $2 billion a day to the U.S. — but federal officials say otherwise.

A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection — the agency that collects tariffs — told CNBC their office has taken in $21 billion in total tariff revenue from “15 presidential trade actions” since January 20, 2025. That includes $500 million in tariff revenue since April 5, the agency said, after Trump announced sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs, which he has since paused for 90 days.

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.