Top Stories — Friday, April 10, 2026
What is trending in the USA today? Here is Breaking News:
- White House Secures Foreign Steel for Trump’s Ballroom Project — nyt News
- Asia-Pacific markets open mostly higher as a fragile Iran-U.S. ceasefire keeps investors on edge — CNBC
- Iran’s Battered Leaders Emerge From War Confident — and With New Cards — nyt News
White House Secures Foreign Steel for Trump’s Ballroom Project
Source: nyt News • Published: 4/10/2026, 6:02:33 AM
President Trump has championed the U.S. steel industry, promising to strengthen it and to impose stiff tariffs on foreign metals to shield manufacturers from overseas competitors.
Yet the White House has secured tens of millions of dollars worth of donated foreign steel for Mr. Trump’s $400 million ballroom project, according to two people familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive and private conversations.
ArcelorMittal, a Luxembourg-based firm that is the world’s second-largest steel maker, is providing steel for the structure of the ballroom project, the people said. They said the steel was produced in Europe, where the bulk of ArcelorMittal’s production is concentrated.
The White House has not disclosed details of the donation, but Mr. Trump said last October that he had been offered a donation of steel for the ballroom valued at $37 million.
The president’s comments came just days before the White House made adjustments to its tariffs that could benefit ArcelorMittal, by cutting in half the tariffs applied to exports of automotive steel from its Canadian plant.
Mr. Trump has boasted that taxpayers are not on the hook for building his ballroom, the cost of which has risen by 100 percent, according to the president’s own estimates. But the use of foreign steel for a ballroom built at the most recognizable building in the United States may anger domestic companies and unions that are trying to promote the U.S. industry.
The president has said that he already raised the money for the ballroom from wealthy donors, including major tech and crypto companies, and that businesses pledged to donate all of the steel and air conditioning for the structure.
He identified Carrier, a U.S. company, as the donor behind the air conditioning, but did not say which business would provide the steel. The White House has made public the names of some donors to the project, but has allowed others to remain secret.
ArcelorMittal declined to comment. Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman, said that Mr. Trump was “making the White House beautiful and giving it the glory it deserves at no cost to the taxpayer — something everyone should celebrate.”
He added: “Only people with a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome would find a problem with that.”
Mr. Trump spoke about the donated steel at a White House event last October for wealthy donors to the ballroom, saying a “great steel company” had approached him seeking to give him a gift to facilitate the project.
“He said, ‘Sir, I’d like to donate the steel for your ballroom,’” Mr. Trump told the crowd. “I said: ‘Whoa., that’s nice.’ And I found out — ‘How much is the steel?’ I called the contractor. ‘Sir, it’s down for $37 million.’ I said, ‘This is a nice donation, right?’”
Mr. Trump described the metal as “great steel as opposed to garbage steel, because they dump a lot of garbage around. You know, steel is like everything else, including human beings. Steel could be high quality, and it can be low quality. He wants to make sure it’s high quality.”
Two days after the remarks, the White House issued a lengthy and legalistic proclamation with a provision that would benefit ArcelorMittal. The document made various adjustments to tariffs on trucks, buses and auto parts.
The proclamation contained a provision authorizing Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, to reduce by up to half the tariffs for aluminum or steel producers that operate facilities in Canada or Mexico and supply U.S. makers of cars or trucks. The adjustments would be limited to quantities of aluminum or steel “equal to newly committed United States production capacity, as determined by the secretary,” the document said.
ArcelorMittal makes automotive steel in Canada that is exported to the United States. The company also committed last year to expanding a facility in Alabama, which could help it qualify for the provision.
A White House official who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject pushed back on the idea that there was any connection between a donation and the tariff exemption, calling the link “tenuous.” Neither ArcelorMittal nor any other company had yet received the tariff exemption that was outlined in the proclamation, the official said, adding that the provision would benefit other steel companies, too.
Reviving the steel industry has been a focus of Mr. Trump’s trade policies. The president first imposed a 25 percent tariff on foreign steel in 2018. Last June, he doubled it to 50 percent, an effort to block foreign metals from the U.S. market and encourage more domestic production.
Representatives of U.S. steel companies said the choice to accept foreign steel for such an iconic American building could anger U.S. producers, given the sensitivity surrounding steel tariffs.
Brandon Farris, the executive vice president of the Steel Manufacturers’ Association, a trade group representing North American steel makers, said in a statement that the domestic steel industry was “experiencing a resurgence” thanks to the tariffs, and could supply whatever steel the president would need for his projects.
“Our members stand ready to supply the high-quality, American-made steel needed to bring the president’s infrastructure and manufacturing priorities to life,” he said.
ArcelorMittal is a globe-spanning metals and mining company. It produces steel in France, Germany, Brazil, Canada, India and other locations. The company completed the acquisition of a plant in Alabama last year that produces a type of steel used in electric vehicle motors, and is planning another nearby. The facilities would partially insulate it from the effect of Mr. Trump’s tariffs on foreign metals.
A White House official emphasized that while ArcelorMittal is a foreign firm, it is benefiting the U.S. economy through a joint venture with Nippon steel in Alabama and an iron mine in Minnesota. The official also denied that ArcelorMittal got anything in return for its donation.
ArcelorMittal was formed in 2007 when a steel firm owned by Lakshmi N. Mittal, an Indian-born billionaire and business magnate, acquired the European steel giant Arcelor.
Mr. Mittal, the company’s chairman and former chief executive, has been a vocal supporter of Mr. Trump, praising him in a business round table in New Delhi in 2020.
Tariffs have made exporting steel into U.S. markets more expensive. But they have also raised global steel prices as a result, benefiting Mr. Mittal’s business. Mr. Mittal commended Mr. Trump’s efforts to place trade restrictions on Chinese steel exports. And in response to U.S. tariffs, Mr. Mittal urged the European Union to step up its trade protections of European steel.
Mr. Mittal also had a long history of business dealings with Wilbur Ross, Mr. Trump’s commerce secretary in his first term. Mr. Ross sold a steel company to Mr. Mittal’s firm and served on ArcelorMittal’s board of directors until he was confirmed as commerce secretary.
Mr. Mittal is also a board member at Goldman Sachs and the partial owner of an oil refinery business in India. The Financial Times reported last October that the refinery had bought Russian oil transported on vessels sanctioned by the United States and Europe. It subsequently halted the purchases.
Kenneth P. Vogel contributed reporting.
Ana Swanson covers trade and international economics for The Times and is based in Washington. She has been a journalist for more than a decade.
Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.
Read the full story at nyt News.
Asia-Pacific markets open mostly higher as a fragile Iran-U.S. ceasefire keeps investors on edge
Source: CNBC • Published: 4/10/2026, 5:55:21 AM
Asia-Pacific markets opened mostly higher Friday, as a fragile two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran keeps investors on tenterhooks.
The Mideast conflict, which has been going on for more than a month, led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and traffic continues to largely be restricted via the crucial energy waterway despite the ceasefire.
Tehran had said it would reopen the strait as long as all attacks on the country were halted, according to a statement from its foreign minister. Media reports said that Israel had also agreed to the ceasefire. That followed U.S. President Donald Trump pausing attacks on Iran on Tuesday.
Trump said Thursday that Iran "better stop now" if it was charging fees to oil tankers for allowing them passage through the strait, while Iran's parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, charged the U.S. on Wednesday of violating the ceasefire agreement.
The West Texas Intermediate was up 0.64% at $98.50 per barrel as of 8:04 p.m. ET. Brent crude rose by 0.90% to $96.83 per barrel. WTI had crossed $100 per barrel earlier in the session, as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained minimal despite the ceasefire agreement with U.S.
South Korea's Kospi advanced at 1.88% higher, while the small-cap Kosdaq was 1.04% higher. Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 1%, while the Topix rose 0.34%. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was 0.68% lower.
Hong Kong Hang Seng index futures were last at 25,900, compared with the index's Thursday close of 25,752.40.
In Australia, futures for the benchmark index last traded at 8,995, while the S&P/ASX 200's closed at 8,973.20.
Overnight on Wall Street, oil prices came off their highs of the day while the S&P 500 traded into the green.
The S&P 500 ended the session at 6,824.66, adding 0.62%, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.83% to 22,822.42. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 275.88 points, or 0.58%, and settled at 48,185.80. The 30-stock index turned positive for the year, up 0.25%.
— Sean Conlon and Lisa Kailai Han contributed to the report
Iran’s Battered Leaders Emerge From War Confident — and With New Cards
Source: nyt News • Published: 4/10/2026, 5:50:57 AM
Their supreme leader and top commanders were killed. Military bases, factories and bridges were reduced to rubble. Their economy has taken blow after blow. Yet Iran’s authoritarian rulers believe they have emerged from this war in a stronger position than when it began.
After six weeks of an intense U.S.-Israeli campaign and with a temporary cease-fire in place, Iran’s leadership isn’t conciliatory as it enters into renewed negotiations with the United States. Instead, it has a new set of maximalist demands.
“Good morning to victory! Today, history has turned a new page,” Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad Reza Aref, wrote on social media the day the cease-fire took hold. “The era of Iran has begun.”
Just surviving the U.S.-Israeli war was a triumph for the Islamic Republic and its supporters — proof of their ability to withstand an onslaught from two of the world’s most powerful militaries, and confirmation, in their view, of the ideology of resistance that helped sweep the clerics into power in 1979. They also maintained firm control of the domestic sphere and continued to enact repressive force, despite a population that is broadly dissatisfied with their rule.
“They managed to overcome, in their view, two superpowers,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a former head of the Iran branch of Israeli military intelligence. For Iran’s theocratic leaders, he said, that is a “divine win.”
On top of that, Iran may feel it is in a stronger negotiating position than before the war.
Its continued ability to exert its will over the strategic Strait of Hormuz — despite bombardment that U.S. and Israeli officials assess to have largely destroyed Iran’s air force and navy — has provided a tried and tested means for wreaking havoc on the global economy. Iran aims to finish the war with effective control over this shipping lane, through which a fifth of the world’s oil usually passes.
“It’s actually more of a leverage than the nuclear program ever was,” said Hamidreza Azizi, an expert on Iran security issues at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “Now they are in a better position to bargain.”
In January, Iran’s leaders were grappling with one of the most precarious moments of their 47-year rule.
Iranian security forces unleashed a bloody crackdown to silence nationwide dissent, and a large part of the population was still seething as the country sunk deeper into economic free fall. The network of militias they used to project power across the region had been battered by Israeli strikes, leaving them exposed to ever-more-aggressive American and Israeli demands.
But those allies were still able to join Iran in inflicting a heavy cost, through drones and missile strikes, on Gulf Arab countries that host U.S. bases and whose economies are based on their image of prosperity and stability.
“Two months ago the global news story was Tehran massacring its own people,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Today the global news story is Tehran successfully resisting America and Israel.”
As the strikes on Iran grew deadlier and more destructive, many Iranians opposed to or ambivalent toward their government began to see the suffering inflicted on them as unacceptable. Some Iranians who once voiced hopes that bombardment could dislodge their rulers say they are now worried that they have ended up with the worst of both worlds — abandoned in a country in ruins, governed by an entrenched, emboldened leadership who they fear could act more aggressively against dissent.
Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, said he expected a large wave of emigration from Iran.
Iranians could soon face deeper isolation from the world, he said, as their new leaders are likely to believe survival depends not on international negotiations and moderation, but on tougher deterrence — and perhaps even a race toward a nuclear bomb.
“This model will transform Iran into the North Korea of the Middle East: diplomatically isolated, impoverished, nationalist and revanchist,” Mr. Alfoneh said.
And yet even as Iran’s leaders declare victory, the war they have survived could slowly be laying the groundwork for their next crisis.
Iran was in economic crisis before the war — and the pain that it caused many Iranians was a driver of the recent protests. Rebuilding will be a monumental, costly challenge, and how Iran’s government can afford to do so is an open question. Major steel producers that supplied domestic manufacturers have halted production, possibly for months, after being hit in airstrikes, and many retail businesses have seen their sales wither during the last few months of unrest and war. Several Iranians said in interviews that they worried about mass job losses on the horizon, which would shrink government revenue from taxes.
Iran will embark on the rebuilding process with even fewer friends in the region: Relationships that it spent years fostering with Gulf Arab neighbors have now been shattered.
Among their base, Mr. Azizi, the expert on Iran security issues, said Iran’s leaders could potentially be at risk.
Many hard-liners did not want to accept a cease-fire, he said, but rather to push the war further. If the planned talks lead nowhere, “this can actually lead to some real fragmentation within the system,” he said.
And with both Washington and Tehran declaring that they have the advantage in this round of conflict, many regional experts believe more war, not reconciliation, lies ahead.
“All of the issues that separated the U.S. and Iran have only grown harder to solve through compromise,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank that is hawkish on Iran. “Another round of fighting, sooner or later, is therefore likely to come.”
Yeganeh Torbati is the Iran correspondent for The Times.
Read the full story at nyt News.
For complete details, visit the original sources linked above.
Comments
Post a Comment