Axios

ROME — A second round of U.S.-Iran nuclear talks wrapped up in Rome after four hours on Saturday, with President Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi leading the delegations.

Why it matters: The talks took place with debate still raging within the Trump administration — and between the U.S. and Israel — over whether diplomacy or military strikes are more likely to prevent Tehran from obtaining a bomb.

Stop trying to predict and appraise President Trump's tariffs policies based on economic theories or market realities. Tariffs are pure psychology for the president, fused into his brain like no other topic.

Why it matters: Trump's tariff brain is unpredictable to the outside (and to market analysts) but wholly knowable to those who know how his mind works.

Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, mistakenly deported from the U.S., was moved from CECOT to a detention center in Santa Ana, El Salvador, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said on Friday.

The big picture: Ábrego García said he was traumatized at the Salvadoran megaprison.

The U.S. will shrink its military footprint in Syria over the coming months, bringing troop levels below 1,000.

Why it matters: President Trump tried to pull all American forces from the war-ravaged country during his first term.

Several days before President Trump and members of his administration said publicly that they were prepared to wash their hands of Russia-Ukraine diplomacy, Trump ranted in private about his frustrations that the negotiations were going nowhere.

Why it matters: After promising a deal within 24 hours of taking office, then kicking off weeks of negotiations, Trump said Friday that he was about ready to give up. He hasn't set a deadline or said whether he would take any further action beyond walking away.

Two top Israeli officials had an unannounced meeting in Paris on Friday with White House envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks, three Israeli sources familiar with the meeting tell Axios.

Why it matters: Ron Dermer and David Barnea, Israel's strategic affairs minister and the director of the Mossad intelligence agency, slipped into Paris for the low-profile meeting with Witkoff to try to influence the U.S. position ahead of the second round of talks in Rome on Saturday, the officials said.

The Trump administration's informal end-of-April deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine is drawing near without any commitments from the Kremlin.

Why it matters: U.S.-Russia talks have shown little clear progress and President Trump's promise of a swift peace deal appears nowhere near fruition. Still, he insisted Thursday that a ceasefire was getting closer and that he'd be "hearing from Russia this week."

Pro-globalist, free trade institutions have an awkward admission: President Trump is right.

Why it matters: The era of America as the world's biggest customer looks like it might be over.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen met with Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, a Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, per social media posts by the country's president and the Democrat .

Why it matters: Van Hollen said he was twice denied requests to visit Ábrego García at the high-security Salvadoran prison for terrorists where the legal U.S. resident is being held as the Trump administration evades courts' orders to facilitate his release, despite conceding that he was deported in an "administrative error."