Trump pauses tariffs on some Canadian, Mexican goods another 30 days

President Donald Trump is already rolling back some of the tariffs he slapped on Canada and Mexico earlier this week. And his administration is bringing back a controversial practice involving children as it aims to meet Trump’s goal of the largest deportation of undocumented immigrants in U.S. history. These stories and more highlight your Unbiased Updates for Friday, March 7, 2025.

Trump pauses tariffs on some Canadian, Mexican goods another 30 days

Just days after imposing sweeping 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, President Donald Trump reversed course and delayed tariffs on certain items.

The 30-day exemption will apply to approximately half of the goods entering the U.S. from Mexico and 38% of those from Canada.

The goods exempt until April 2 all comply with the “North American trade deal” established during Trump’s first term, according to a senior administration official.

This marks the second time Trump has backtracked on certain products. On Wednesday, March 5, Trump gave the three largest automakers a tariff exemption for 30 days.

Once the 30 days are up, the tariffs against Canada and Mexico will go into effect. Trump is also expected to announce another round of retaliatory tariffs on goods from additional countries.

Meanwhile, China’s foreign minister stated that his country will continue retaliating against U.S. tariffs.

In a press conference Friday on the sidelines of the Chinese parliament’s annual session, the foreign minister also accused Washington of “meeting good with evil,” saying China’s efforts to help America contain the fentanyl crisis have been met with “arbitrary tariffs.”

Republicans must cut Medicaid to fund Trump’s agenda, budget office says

House Republicans have struggled to meet their own budget target needed to advance Trump’s legislative agenda without implementing major cuts to Medicare or Medicaid.

Last week, House Republicans adopted a budget blueprint that would facilitate the passage of Trump’s policy priorities on immigration, energy and taxes.

It directs the House Energy and Commerce Committee to reduce spending within its jurisdiction by $880 billion.

The Congressional Budget Office said that when Medicare is excluded from that, the total funding under the committee’s jurisdiction amounts to $8.8 trillion over ten years.

Medicaid accounts for $8.2 trillion of that, or 93%.

Straight Arrow News political correspondent Ray Bogan explains why analysts believe they have no choice but to cut Medicaid if they want it to happen here.

ICE to resume detaining migrant families with children

The Trump administration announces it’s reopening at least two migrant holding facilities in Texas — a place for ICE to detain families with children.

CBS News spoke with officials who stated that the administration has already sent the first group of migrant parents and children to the holding facility. The group included a family with three children, whom ICE claimed were in the country illegally.

This is part of Trump’s effort to carry out the largest deportation in U.S. history.

His Department of Homeland Security confirmed that whole families are once again permitted to be taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

According to DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, the Trump administration is refitting two Texas immigration detention centers to accommodate families with minor children who are in the U.S. illegally.

The Biden administration ended the practice of detaining families with children four years ago.

Judge orders Trump administration to pay USAID debts by Monday

A federal judge gave the Trump administration until Monday to pay several nonprofit groups and aid organizations affected by the executive order that froze foreign assistance and shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development.

A U.S. district judge ruled Thursday that the federal government must release funds to at least nine groups, including the Global Health Council, Chemonics International and the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition.

The judge did not order the administration to pay the full $2 billion by Monday’s deadline, but it will have to pay a smaller amount, which is expected to be determined sometime Friday.

That same judge previously ordered the administration to temporarily continue distributing up to two billion dollars in foreign aid that was already established before Trump took office in January.

New Mexico resident suspected of dying from measles

The New Mexico Department of Health suspected that a resident died from measles after an “adult male” tested positive for the disease posthumously.

The individual was unvaccinated, and although the official cause of death remains under investigation, this may represent a possible second measles-related fatality in the U.S. this year.

The first confirmed measles death was an unvaccinated school-aged child in western Texas. It was the first person to die from measles in the U.S. in a decade.

That child’s death is linked to an ongoing outbreak that has now reached 159 cases.

The illness has hospitalized at least 22 people, and most cases involve unvaccinated individuals or those with unknown vaccination status.

New Mexico has reported 10 measles cases so far this year — many in Lea County, which borders western Texas.

Health officials suspected a connection between the cases in both states but have not confirmed a direct link, according to multiple reports. The CDC reported health officials have detected measles across nine states this year.

SpaceX’s starship explodes over Florida, the Caribbean for second time

SpaceX’s Starship, the largest rocket system ever built, lost its “upper stage spacecraft” after lift-off in Thursday’s test flight.

This mishap comes after a starship mega-rocket explosion in January, but Elon Musk’s rocket company does have something to tout from the mission.

The 400-foot-tall starship system launched its eighth test flight Thursday evening, March 6.

However, the mission cut short when controllers lost contact with the upper-stage portion of the starship 8 minutes after launch.

After the launch, SpaceX posted to X, “With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability. We will conduct a thorough investigation, in coordination with the FAA, and implement corrective actions to make improvements on future Starship flight test.”

But not all was lost on Starship’s mission.

While the “upper stage vehicle portion” disappeared, the first-stage booster successfully returned to its launch site. It settled onto the tower’s robotic arms, demonstrating once again what it calls the “catch maneuver.”

Starship plans to eventually carry humans to the moon in 2027, but SpaceX said it will conduct hundreds of test missions before then.