▶ Read more on developments involving Trump and the CDC

Steve Witkoff was in Moscow on Thursday, just the latest high-profile assignment for a real estate magnate turned White House foreign policy fixer.

The longtime Trump pal is also a key player in the Republican administration’s efforts to end the war in Gaza.

Now he’s expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a U.S. official who also confirmed Witkoff’s arrival in Russia for the sensitive engagement. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of the anonymity.

Ukraine agreed Tuesday to a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire. Trump said he hopes Russia will quickly agree.

▶ Read more about Witkoff’s rise in Trump’s foreign policy apparatus

“The US-EU spirits sector is the model for fair and reciprocal trade, having zero-for-zero tariffs since 1997,” says the statement by Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council.

“The U.S. spirits sector supports more than $200 billion in economic activity, 1.7 million jobs across production, distribution, hospitality and retail, and the purchase of 2.8 billion pounds of grains from American farmers,” it says.

“We urge President Trump to secure a spirits agreement with the EU to get us back to zero-for-zero tariffs, which will create U.S. jobs and increase manufacturing and exports for the American hospitality sector. We want toasts not tariffs.”

The Labor Department reported that its producer price index — which tracks inflation before it reaches consumers — was unchanged from January to February, and core wholesale prices that exclude volatile food and energy costs dropped 0.1%, the first drop since July.

Thursday’s numbers hit as President Donald Trump ramps up his trade war, threatening to send inflation higher.

Gasoline prices fell 4.7% last month, while food prices rose 1.7% from January to February, led by a 28% surge in the price of eggs.

▶ Read more on producer prices and inflation

Trump issued his threat on social media, saying he’d impose a 200% tariff on European wine, champagne and spirits if the European goes forward with a planned tariff on American whiskey on April 1.

Trump called the longtime U.S. ally “one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States.”

He said the 200% tax on U.S. consumption of the European products “will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.”

▶ Read more on Trump’s trade wars

It’s not clear when job cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency will show up in the weekly layoffs report, though some analysts expect them to surface in data in the coming weeks.

Those layoffs are part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce through billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Senior U.S. officials set the government downsizing in motion weeks ago via a memo dramatically expanding President Donald Trump’s efforts to scale back the workforce. Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired, and now the Republican administration is turning its attention to career officials with civil service protection.

▶ Read more about U.S. unemployment numbers

Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs, and have remained mostly in a range between 200,000 and 250,000 for the past few years.

U.S. jobless claims filings fell by 2,000 to 220,000 for the week ending March 8, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s fewer than the 226,000 new applications analysts forecast.

The four-week average, which evens out some of the week-to-week swings, ticked up by 1,500 to 226,000.

The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of March 1 fell by 27,000 to 1.87 million.

The U.N. humanitarian chief says more than 300 million people across the globe need humanitarian support and many will die because funding from the United States and others is drying up.

Tom Fletcher told a U.N. news conference that the cuts have caused “a seismic shock.”

The Trump administration has dismantled the U.S. aid agency, USAID, and terminated 83% of its programs.

Across the humanitarian community, he said, programs have been stopped and staff have been laid off including about 10% in February from nongovernmental organizations doing humanitarian work.

Fletcher said that in December global experts estimated that 300 million people needed help in 2025, and the U.N. prioritized 190 million it was aiming to reach, which would cost $47 billion.