Today's top stories, with context, in just 15 minutes.
On today's podcast:
1) President Trump vowed to keep US troops in the Persian Gulf ahead of talks with Iran that are planned to firm up a fragile truce, while Tehran warned there may be mines in a strategic waterway Washington wants reopened. Both sides accused each other of violating the truce that was announced Tuesday after six weeks of fighting, with a disagreement over whether the ceasefire extends to Lebanon emerging as a key flashpoint that could unravel the accord. Despite the escalating rhetoric, there were signs the ceasefire was largely holding, with a notable decline in attacks across Arab states in the Persian Gulf. Vice President JD Vance said Washington never suggested that fighting between Israel and Tehran-aligned Hezbollah in Lebanon would cease. But Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said continued attacks on Hezbollah — along with what Tehran described as an Israeli drone strike on its territory overnight — amounted to clear violations of the agreement.
2) President Trump lashed out at NATO after meeting with the military alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, making clear that his anger over the organization’s stance on the Iran war remained acute. “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN. REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!” the president wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday evening. Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, was in the US on a mission to temper Trump’s public displeasure after NATO allies refused to help him protect commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz or let the US use some of their bases to attack Iran during the war that began on Feb. 28. Trump has also revived his grievance that NATO countries wouldn’t give him Greenland, a Danish territory.
3) A growing number of Federal Reserve officials worried the Iran war could further stoke inflation and wanted to make clear following their March meeting that the central bank may have to consider raising interest rates. Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s March 17-18 meeting, released Wednesday in Washington, showed policymakers wrestled with starkly differing scenarios for the US economy following the outbreak of the Iran war, and the policy reactions that might follow. Most officials worried a protracted war could hurt the labor market and warrant lower interest rates. At the same time, many policymakers highlighted the risk to inflation that might ultimately warrant rate increases.