Tuesday Briefing: Trump Threatens New Tariffs

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President Trump said yesterday that countries that bought oil or gas from Venezuela would be forced to pay a tariff of 25 percent on their exports to the U.S., starting April 2. He claimed that Venezuela had “purposefully and deceitfully” sent criminals and murderers into the U.S.

Later in the day, Trump said that he “may give a lot of countries breaks” on the tariffs, but did not specify which ones. His administration gave Chevron, the second largest U.S. oil company, another two months to produce oil in Venezuela and sell it to the U.S.

Trump also celebrated Hyundai Motor, a South Korean conglomerate, at the White House for its announcement of a $21 billion investment in the U.S. The move may help South Korea avoid tariffs. The U.S. is set to enforce reciprocal tariffs on April 2 that will match the taxes that countries impose on American exports.

Far-reaching effects: Japanese automakers, initially optimistic about some of Trump’s policies, are reckoning with potentially devastating U.S. taxes on foreign-made cars.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed war plans in an encrypted Signal chat group that included a journalist hours before U.S. troops attacked the Houthi militia in Yemen, the White House said yesterday. The admission came after the journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, wrote in an article that he was mistakenly added to the chat by Michael Waltz, the national security adviser.

Details: On March 15, Hegseth posted the “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” according to Goldberg. The National Security Council spokesman said the message thread appeared to be authentic.

Context: The exchange took place outside the official channels that would normally be used for classified and highly sensitive war planning. But Hegseth, the journalist wrote, declared to the group that they were “currently clean on OPSEC,” the military acronym for operational security.

The biggest protests in more than a decade have erupted across Turkey, and more than 1,100 people have been detained, officials said. On Sunday, the authorities jailed and removed from power Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and the top rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Imamoglu was accused of corruption and supporting terrorism.

The government issued protest bans in major cities, limited access to social media sites and flooded pro-government news channels with leaks aimed at indicating Imamoglu’s guilt.

Background: Imamoglu was jailed hours before Turkey’s main opposition party named him as its candidate in the next presidential election. Many people called for his release and accused the government of sidelining a perceived political threat to Erdogan.

What’s next: If Imamoglu can escape his legal troubles, he could be in a head-to-head race with Erdogan, whose term expires in 2028. Some polls suggest that Imamoglu could win.

Max Park is a longtime speedcubing world-record holder, relying on a method of turns that was developed in 1982. Park’s best official solving time is 3.13 seconds, and he completes a cube in some 60 moves. It takes beginners 100.

“It’s like playing chess at the speed of Ping-Pong,” his dad said. See here how he does it.

Lives lived: Dag Solstad, a novelist who won the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature three times, died at 83.

It’s hard to describe classic English dishes without the stereotype that they’re all bland, beige and soggy. While other cultural foods have long been the prize of London’s dining scene, traditional British meals are finally improving, too.

So what’s cooking? There’s been an uptick in social media attention because of a perverse fascination with British grimness — think starkly lit images of baked beans. But the quality has also been elevated, in part because a new generation of chefs are opening their own restaurants and offering fresh takes on the familiar. There’s still a lot of beige, though.

As one chef put it, while British food is gentle and simply made, “simple is not easy.”

That’s it for today. See you tomorrow. — Emmett

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