What I Read This Week…

President Trump announces 90-day pause on proportional tariffs, companies are developing the infrastructure for multi-agent AI systems, and airborne microplastics enter our food supply through plants

Watch All-In Episode 223

Read our Short Dive: The Trump Administration’s Fiscal Strategy

Caught My Eye…

• Last week, President Trump maintained the baseline 10% tariff on all imports and announced a 90-day pause on his country-specific tariff increases, with the exception of China where he punitively raised tariffs to 145% (combining a new 125% proportional tariff on top of the existing 20% baseline). After those actions, the President announced that he was carving out exemptions for semiconductors and certain electronics that were critical to U.S. technology supply chains. China responded to the punitive tariffs with multifaceted retaliation, raising tariffs from 84% to 125% by the end of the week, effectively halting bilateral trade. China also suspended exports of rare earth minerals and specialized magnets to the U.S., leveraging its near-monopoly on these materials to target U.S. vulnerabilities. To counteract these actions, President Trump initiated plans to stockpile rare earth minerals and expand domestic deep-sea rare earth mining operations. Beyond China’s response, the EU, Canada, and Mexico have responded with measured resistance, with the EU proposing 25% counter-tariffs on select U.S. products scheduled for mid-May. Around 75 other countries have sought discussions with the President’s administration, with many capitulating and offering concessions, including decreasing their tariffs on U.S. products and commitments to buy American-made products, including U.S.-made aircraft and agricultural products. The administration has strategic objectives and a game plan, but they want to avoid revealing a roadmap that would give trading partners (namely China) opportunities to develop effective counter-strategies. At this point, it’s unclear how U.S. tariff policy will continue to develop.

• Companies are currently developing communication standards as part of the infrastructure for multi-agent AI systems. Today, AI agents are optimized to accomplish narrow, domain-specific tasks because there is a trade-off between the reliability of these agents and the broadness of the tasks given to them to complete. This creates AI silos, making it useful to build systems that connect these isolated agents so they can collectively accomplish complex, multi-step tasks with low failure rates. To bridge these silos, companies are creating standardized protocols that enable agents to work together seamlessly. These protocols define how agents can discover each other's capabilities, exchange information securely, and coordinate their activities while preserving context across interactions. The approach mirrors how HTML established a common language for documents to be shared across the early internet, creating a foundation for more complex interactions. With standardized communication frameworks in place and industry consensus forming around key protocols, organizations can more rapidly build integrated multi-agent systems that operate across teams or between companies. This enables complex workflows like hiring processes where a recruiting agent finds candidates, an HR agent verifies credentials, and a calendar agent schedules interviews, all working together seamlessly. As these standards mature, we may see the emergence of an interconnected "internet of agents" where specialized AI systems are dynamically assembled to solve difficult problems and automate complex workflows.

• Recent research has uncovered that airborne microplastics enter our food supply through plant leaves. While previous studies focused primarily on soil and water contamination, scientists have now confirmed that airborne microplastics can be absorbed directly by plants. Originating from synthetic clothing, tire wear, and industrial emissions, these tiny plastic particles travel through air currents before landing on leaves. Plants absorb these particles through small pores on leaf surfaces. Once inside the plant, microplastics can move through the plant's vascular system and accumulate in edible parts like leaves, fruits, and grains. This pathway has implications for both human health and ecology. For humans, ingesting microplastics through food may cause inflammation and disrupt gut microbiomes. These particles can also carry toxic chemicals that may be released in the body. In plants, microplastics can interfere with normal processes, including photosynthesis and water regulation. Studies also indicate that exposure to nanoplastics can reduce chlorophyll content and slow plant growth. The concentration of microplastics varies by location, with urban gardens near high-traffic areas showing higher levels than rural sites, and plants with textured leaves capturing more airborne particles than those with smooth surfaces.
  
  

Other Reading…

• The Chinese Goods Affected by Trump’s Tariffs (Financial Times)

• House GOP Budget Framework Paves Way for ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ (Politico)

• Apple Vision Pro 2 Cheaper, Mac-Tethered Headset Coming Too (UploadVR)

• Apple India Produces $22 Billion of iPhones in Shift From China (Bloomberg)

• Amazon Enters AI Voice Race With Voice Model that Detects Emotion (GeekWire)

• ChatGPT Hits 1 Billion Users? ‘Doubled In Just Weeks’ (Forbes)

• Quark Surpasses DeepSeek as China’s Top AI App (South China Morning Post)

• Netflix Tests New AI Search Engine to Recommend Shows (Bloomberg)

• Orchestrating Agents and Data for Enterprise (arXiv)

• Everything Wrong with Model Context Protocol (Shrivu Shankar)

• Compute in America: A Policy Playbook (Institute for Progress)

On X…