Trump updates: US president vows to revive ‘ abandoned’ coal industry

This live page is now closed. Thank you for joining Al Jazeera for coverage of day 79 of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Read more here about how the US calculated its tariffs against other countries.

Also, go inside the back-and-forth statements between the US and China over tariffs, here.

And follow our broader coverage of the Trump administration here.

This live page is closing soon. Here’s a recap of today’s main events:

• China has voiced defiance against the US’s imposition of tariffs against its imports, pledging to defend its interests and “fight to the end” if Washington does not change course.
• Donald Trump has said he is waiting for a call from China to make a deal.
• But White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt struck a more combative tone, saying that the US president “has a spine of steel, and he will not break”.
• Trump has signed an executive order to boost the US coal industry, including by loosening environmental regulations and opening federal lands for mining.
• Global markets have fluctuated amid a short-lived hope of Trump delaying or scrapping his tariff plans.
• US officials have confirmed that additional tariffs on countries across the world will kick in on Wednesday, stressing that no exemptions will be granted immediately.
• Canada has said its own retaliatory tariffs against the US will also take effect after midnight.
• Trump aides have stressed that dozens of countries contacted the US for trade talks, touting the prospect of bilateral deals as an early achievement of Washington’s trade policies.

This month’s tariffs have spurred concerns that technology prices could shoot upwards, making products like Apple’s iPhones increasingly unaffordable.

Trump and his officials have sought to downplay those concerns, however.

Over the weekend, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that the “tradecraft of America” would take over iPhone production.

“The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones — that kind of thing is going to come to America,” Lutnick said.

The White House faced questions about those comments on Tuesday, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirming that Trump would like to see iPhones built in the US.

“Absolutely. He believes we have the labour, we have the workforce, we have the resources to do it,” she said.

But at an event with coal miners later at the White House, Trump seemed to cast doubt on the idea that the US’s blue-collar workers would thrive in such jobs.

He accused his 2016 Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, of trying to push tech jobs on coal miners.

“She was talking about  how bad coal was and how they were going to teach coal miners how to make widgets and gadgets and technology, which they didn’t want to do. They want to mine,” Trump said.

“One thing I learned about the coal miners – that’s what they want to do. You could give them a penthouse on Fifth Avenue and a different kind of a job, and they’d be unhappy. They want to mine coal. That’s what they love to do. And she was going to put them in a high-tech industry where you make little cell phones.”

The S&P 500 has sold off sharply to close below 5,000 points for the first time in almost a year after it reversed a strong morning rally, while investor hopes faded for any imminent US delays or concessions on tariffs ahead of a midnight deadline.

The benchmark index, which fell 1.6 percent on Tuesday, has lost $5.8 trillion in market value since US President Donald Trump unveiled hefty global tariffs against US trading partners late on Wednesday. This represented more than 12 percent for its biggest four-day percentage decline since the coronavirus pandemic, according to LSEG data.

The S&P had risen more than 4 percent earlier on Tuesday as investors had hoped that Trump would soften his stance or postpone an April 9 deadline for tariffs.

But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump expects tariffs will go into effect even though she said nearly 70 countries reached out looking to begin negotiations to reduce the impact of US trade policies.

Market participants “were optimistic this morning that we would get some sort of sign that we’re moving closer to a deal or a compromise with some of these bigger countries or that there would be a delay coming given that so many people wanted to negotiate”, said Lindsey Bell, chief market strategist at Clearnomics in New York.

“That doesn’t seem to necessarily be the case as we are quickly approaching the midnight deadline and investors are losing confidence.”

The Senate has pushed forward the nomination of Mike Huckabee, setting him up for a final confirmation vote to be the US ambassador to Israel.

Huckabee has been facing strong opposition over his anti-Palestinian statements, including claiming that the West Bank is not occupied.

The Senate voted 53 to 46 along party lines to advance Huckabee’s nomination, with the staunchly pro-Israel lawmaker John Fetterman becoming the sole Democrat to join the Republican majority.

It was expected earlier that the final confirmation vote would take place today, but with the legislative day coming to an end, it is unclear when that will happen.

🚨 Today, senators are voting on the confirmation of right-wing, fanatical Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel.

Huckabee’s embrace of annexation and extremist settlers makes him unfit for the role. Nothing gets an official's attention like a direct call. Here's a script: 1/5

— J Street (@jstreetdotorg) April 8, 2025

In introducing his executive action to spur the coal-mining industry, Trump veered briefly into a question of branding.

“ I call it beautiful clean coal. I told my people, ‘Never use the word coal unless you put ‘beautiful, clean’ before it,'” Trump told his audience in the White House.

“ So, we call it beautiful, clean coal. Beautiful, clean coal!”

Experts say the phrase “clean coal” largely came from mining lobbyists, who sought to deflect concerns that coal is one of the most polluting forms of energy production.

The term is vague, and Trump has avoided defining what precisely he means by “clean coal”. But generally speaking, “clean coal” enterprises attempt to use technology to capture carbon emissions and store them underground, so as to avoid contributing to climate change.

However, even with such measures, critics warn that coal is still far more harmful to the environment and public safety than alternatives like natural gas or nuclear power.

During his first term, Trump, now 78, faced questions about his age and mental health.

But as Trump ran in the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, he deployed a similar criticism against his Democratic rival, Joe Biden.

Concerns about Biden’s health ultimately forced him from the 2024 race, despite his incumbency in the White House.

Speaking at an event to promote the coal industry on Tuesday, Trump continued to take jabs at Biden’s fitness for office, spurred on by a recent exposé about his health.

Author Chris Whipple released a book this year – Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History – arguing that Biden’s inner circle was in denial about his declining health.

Looking at his notes, Trump noted that he could not speak about coal mining without mentioning West Virginia, which he said had been left off the document.

“Do you think Joe Biden would’ve picked that up? I don’t think so. ‘Geez, I didn’t mention West Virginia.’ I don’t think so. I don’t think he’d be standing up here either,” Trump said in his latest dig at Biden.

The US president, who has long dismissed climate change as a “hoax”, has mocked scientists and politicians who have been warming about the rise in global temperatures.

“You don’t have to worry about: ‘The air is getting warmer. The ocean will rise one-quarter of an inch within the next 500 to 600 years, giving you a little bit more waterfront property,” he said.

The UN has dubbed climate change the “defining issue of our time”.

A 2024 UN report found that sea levels are rising at an unprecedented rate due to “human-induced global warming”.

“It can pose major risks to the safety, security, and sustainability of many lowlying islands, populous coastal megacities, large tropical agricultural deltas, and Arctic communities,” the report said of the rising waters.

In recent years, the US has seen an increase in deadly natural catastrophes, including heatwaves, wildfires and hurricanes, which scientists have linked to climate change.

Since taking office for his second term, Trump has threatened major law firms with executive orders that would strip them of the security clearances needed for sensitive work — and bar their personnel from entering federal buildings like courts.

To avoid such punishments, several law firms have cut deals, each offering anywhere from $40m to $100m in pro bono legal services to causes of Trump’s choice.

On Tuesday, at an event to promote the coal mining industry, Trump indicated a way he plans to use those services.

“Have you noticed that lots of law firms have been signing up with Trump?” he asked.

He then told the energy executives in the room that they could expect assistance from those firms.

“We’ll use some of those people, some of those great firms,” he said. “We’re going use some of those firms to work with you on your leasing and your other things.”

He also hinted that the law firms in question had done something wrong, though critics say they did little more than represent causes and Democratic lawmakers Trump disagreed with.

“They give you a hundred million, and then they announce that, ‘But we have done nothing wrong.’ And I agree they’ve done nothing wrong. But what the hell? They give me a lot of money considering they’ve done nothing wrong,” Trump said to chuckles.

To read more about the executive orders facing the law firms, check out our coverage here.

Without providing details, Trump says US tariffs are bringing in $2bn per day.

He added that his government was making “tailored deals” with trading partners after Washington imposed punishing tariffs based on trade imbalances with countries around the world.

“We’re doing very well and making – I call them tailored deals, not off the rack. These are tailored, highly tailored deals,” Trump said. “Right now, Japan is flying here to make a deal. South Korea is flying here to make a deal. And others are flying here.”

Trump has touted coal as playing an integral part in the future of the US energy sector at a White House event on Tuesday.

“This is a very important day to me, because we’re bringing back an industry that was abandoned, despite the fact that it was just about the best — certainly the best in terms of power, real power,” he said.

He added that he planned to boost energy output. “ We need more than double the energy, the electricity that we currently have.”

Michael Strain — the director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank — says that Trump’s tariffs will hike prices and hurt exports, leading businesses and consumers to curb their spending.

“The risk of recession from the policies the president announced is very, very real,” Strain told Al Jazeera’s the Bottom Line programme.

A recession is a significant decline in transactions across broad sectors of the economy.

Since Trump announced this month’s two-tiered tariff scheme, prices for goods like cocoa have been on a downward slide.

Today, cocoa prices hit a five-month low. The industry has been rocked by fears that Trump’s tariffs could increase consumer prices and thereby dampen demand.

Cocoa is made from cacao beans, and countries like the Ivory Coast have been particularly hard hit: It faces a 21-percent “reciprocal tariff” from Trump.

Other main sources of cacao, like Ecuador, face the baseline 10-percent tariff Trump has imposed across the board.

Coal has long been seen as a declining energy source — soon to be of the past — due to the pollution it produces, amid the rise of reliable, cleaner alternatives.

Artificial intelligence (AI), meanwhile, is seen as the future of cutting-edge technology.

Trump is linking the two. Later this afternoon, the US president is expected to sign an order to boost coal plants to answer the growing energy demands of AI and other technologies.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, burning coal emits numerous harmful gases for humans, including sulfur dioxide, “which contributes to acid rain and respiratory illnesses”.

It also produces carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas fuelling climate change.

Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada’s 25 percent tariffs on US cars that are not compliant with the free trade agreement between the two countries will come into effect at 12:01 Eastern Time (4:01 GMT).

“President Trump caused this trade crisis — and Canada is responding with purpose and with force,” the Canadian PM wrote in a social media post.

At 12:01 EDT tonight, Canada’s counter-tariffs will come into force.

There will be 25% tariffs on all non-CUSMA-compliant vehicles from the U.S., and 25% tariffs on the contents of CUSMA-compliant vehicles that are not from Canada or Mexico.

President Trump caused this trade…

— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) April 8, 2025

Democrats in Congress have raised concerns that proposed spending cuts would whittle away funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), sometimes known as food stamps.

As part of the US Department of Agriculture, SNAP provides benefits to low-income households so they can buy essential groceries.

But with Republicans in the House of Representatives pushing a $230bn cut to agriculture spending, Democrats fear programmes like SNAP could disappear.

They also warned that cutting SNAP would essentially cut consumer spending on farm products.

“This cut would slash farm revenue by approximately $30bn on top of the markets they’re losing because of the dumbest trade war in history,” Democratic Congresswoman Angie Craig said.

The Republican chairman on the House Agriculture Committee, Glenn “GT” Thompson, said he would aim to preserve SNAP while tightening requirements for recipients.

“We must preserve benefits for those truly in need but also ensure that SNAP guides participants to independence and self-sufficiency,” Thompson said.

But Democrats argued that reducing SNAP eligibility is tantamount to a cut in the programme.