Evelyn Reynolds

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    Farmers hope Trump has their back but many voice misgivings as tariffs loom

    It has been a perilous few years for the Red Fire Farm in western Massachusetts.Since the pandemic, rising interest rates, labor and seed costs on the 200-acre produce farm have made life for owners Ryan and Sarah Voiland a spiraling challenge.Having spent millions of dollars building their business from scratch since 2001, last year the farm’s barn burned down, taking with it the store, a tractor, irrigation equipment and tools.This year, Ryan had hoped a $125,000 grant won through the Rural Energy for America Program to build a solar canopy system, and a $40,000 allowance to distribute fall leaf litter from nearby towns across their fields, would help offset the farm’s ever-increasing refrigeration and fertilizing costs.But in January, the Trump administration froze billions of government funding dollars from Biden-era projects – including more than $2bn for 30,000 ranchers and farms such as Red Fire Farm.“When something is signed and contracted it’s just totally unfair for [the government] to rescind something that farmers are already making investments in,” he said.“It’s leaving farmers on the hook for thousands of dollars.”That prompted Voiland to join an Earthjustice lawsuit against the US Department of Agriculture that’s seeking a court order against the administration’s refusal to disburse the funding.American farmers are not unused to the impulses of Donald Trump, who in his first presidency fueled a trade war with China that ended up adversely affecting exports of US pork and soybeans. But back then, many farmers stayed afloat in large part due to a $28bn handout from the federal government.Today, there’s no sign of checks in the post for farmers.Trump has suggested farmers are in for “a little bit of an adjustment period” with more reciprocal tariffs on China, Mexico, Canada and European countries set to come into force on Tuesday.This comes at a time when farming, whether at the local producer or commodity crop level, faces major challenges.Plummeting demand from China, rising land prices and Trump’s threats to cut visas for foreign farm workers have put one of the world’s most productive agricultural economies in a major spin. John Deere, the machinery manufacturer, has been shedding thousands of jobs across the midwest due to falling demand fueled by farmers’ economic struggles. Imports of agriculture products, which can undercut US farmers, have never been as high.And while ranchers and farmers make up a small part of the wider US economy, its struggles could have major implications: 10% of all US workers are employed in or adjacent to agriculture.Across the country, farming groups are beginning to voice concerns for Trump’s tough tariff approach.“Trade policies must come with real, tangible protections for the farmers directly affected,” said the National Farmers Union president, Rob Larew.“We’ve heard there’s a strategy in place – now we need to see it. Promises alone won’t pay the bills or keep farms afloat.”With around 20% of all US agricultural production going overseas, some agronomists fear the ructions caused by the Trump administration could put pay to relations that took decades to develop, and which in particular could ill-affect American corn and soybean farmers.“It’s been a very good relationship with Mexico. But if this tariffs situation gets out of control, I wouldn’t be surprised that within five years you hear of Mexico building a deep sea port [to facilitate imports from countries other than the US],” said Jim McCormick, the co-founder of Agmarket.net, a Missouri-based agricultural marketing and consulting firm.“The best thing you can do is build a trade relationship that works well for both countries. It works well for Mexico – they get a cheap supply of food – and it works well for the American producer – we overproduce in the United States. That is the reality – we are built to feed the world.”In recent years, China, the world’s largest importer of soybeans which until recently was largely sourced from American farmers, has developed a new trade relationship with Brazil as a direct result of the first Trump administration’s trade war.Brazil has rapidly grown its soybean crop to become the world’s largest producer today, with 40% of the global share, and is the world’s third-largest producer of corn. Its mild climate allows two harvests per year and it has cleared thousands of square miles of savannah and forest for crop farming.In November, a huge port opened in Chancay, Peru, which was paid for by China in a move meant to give Beijing easier access to South American products.“My fear is that it’s going to be a lot tougher negotiating with these countries than what people think,” said McCormick. “The first go around [in 2017] we were just battling China. Now, we’re pretty much battling the world. It could get very volatile.”Still, farmers have been widely supportive of the president. In the country’s 444 agriculture-dependent counties, Trump won 77.7% of the vote in last November’s presidential election, up from 73% in 2016 and 76% in 2020.Commodity crop growers are this month set for some relief with $10bn in assistance being released through a program signed into law during the Biden administration.“I think farmers are not exactly thrilled at the economic situation we’re in right now, but they still believe he’s got their back,” said McCormick, adding that whether or not tariffs go into place on 2 April will shape wider sentiment towards the White House. “They’re going to wait and see.”On the Red Fire Farm, which employs around 75 people during the summer season on its food subscription, U-pick and wholesale operations, feelings of hope and trepidation mingle as the Voilands gear up for the 2025 growing season. Construction of a new barn is in the works, although its financial implications are worrying, says Ryan.Another point of concern is the Trump administration’s canceling of $1bn worth of local food purchase funding for food banks and schools, which hits producers such as Voiland and in-need consumers alike.But pressure through calls and emails has helped a small conservation grant won by the Voilands and other farmers previously frozen in January be revived last month.“I wanted to do everything possible to fight back and resist it,” said Voiland, “both for the sake of my farm and for the general good of agriculture”. More

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    Donald Trump is eyeing up a third term – and no one is opposing him | Arwa Mahdawi

    Hell is empty and all the devils are in Washington DC. And, what with devils being immortal and all, it looks as if they might stay there indefinitely. Now, before I seamlessly segue from fun devil facts into talking about Donald Trump threatening to run for a third term, the current political climate compels me to make a few things clear. I recently had to submit my US green card for renewal (impeccable timing!) so I’d like to explain to any United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers reviewing my file that the first line of this piece was just riffing on Shakespeare. I’m absolutely not comparing Trump, the greatest man to walk this Earth, to Satan. Nor am I suggesting evil people seem to live long lives.On the contrary, I am thrilled that our 78-year-old president has suggested he is looking into “methods” that will allow him to serve this wonderful country longer. And it’s a shame my enthusiasm isn’t universally shared. I mean, to quote JD Vance (who is up there next to Shakespeare in the words department), have any Trump detractors SAID THANK YOU ONCE? Trump could be relaxing with his billions; he could be playing golf every day. Instead, the poor man only gets to play golf every few days – costing taxpayers millions of dollars – and has to spend most of his time sorting out the US. The economy doesn’t just crash itself, you know? So thank you, Mr President. Thank you, thank you, thank you.But, look, while I’m obviously overjoyed by the idea that our esteemed leader might stick around far longer than norms, conventions and the constitution allow, just how realistic a prospect is Trump 3.0? The president has insisted he is “not joking” about seeking a third term in office, but is all this talk just a tactic to distract us from what he is getting up to in his current term?Obviously, I can’t tell you what goes on in the murky depths of Trump’s mind. But I can tell you this: Trump has no regard for norms or laws, and will do whatever he wants if he thinks he can get away with it.Perhaps the better question to ask isn’t whether Trump is serious about extending his rule, but – should he seek a third term – who might stop him? Unless they all get spine transplants, the Democrats aren’t going to put up a fight. Want to know what Kamala Harris is doing now? Getting ready to speak at a real estate conference in Australia. It’s obviously not Harris’s job to safeguard US democracy but, after raising enormous amounts of money from regular people who believed in her campaign promises, you would think she might care a little more about the optics.As for Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader – the person whose job it actually is to represent the opposition – his strategy for dealing with Trump appears to be to give Republicans whatever they want and hope that, somehow, this turns out badly for them. It’s not surprising then, that a recent survey showed 70% of Democratic voters gave the party’s response to Trump a “C” grade or below.It is not just the Democrats who appear to have capitulated to Trump: a number of big legal firms have also bowed down to the president’s efforts to get them to comply with his interpretation of the law. Elite universities such as Columbia University have also caved in to Trump’s demands. Even the White House Correspondents’ Association just cancelled an appearance by an anti-Trump comedian in an attempt to stay on the president’s good side. And, as we all know, Silicon Valley has been bending the knee to Trump for months.Meanwhile, as any opposition to Trump seems to evaporate, Elon Musk is running around handing out checks to voters in Wisconsin in what many critics have characterised as an attempt to influence the state’s supreme court election. Even if Trump doesn’t go for a third term, even if the Democrats win the next election, the US’s descent into techno-authoritarianism isn’t going to be easily reversed. Not, to be clear to any USCIS officers reading this, that I’m complaining. Not little old me! I’m renaming my daughter Donalda, getting a Tesla tattoo, and cheering as all my rights are systematically taken away. More

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    Democrats still misunderstand working-class voters – to their peril | Dustin Guastella

    Progressives have plenty of bad ideas that should be axed, but populism without an economic promise is a bloodless bleat.It wasn’t long ago that Democratic party moderates expressed ambivalence toward the working class. In 2016, Chuck Schumer summed up the party’s attitude by predicting that “for every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia”.What a difference a decade makes. In a recent report titled Renewing the Democratic Party the thinktank Third Way warns: “For the first time since the mid-20th century, the central fault line of American politics is neither race and ethnicity nor gender but rather class.” The policy shop even organized a meeting of heavy-weight Democratic party leaders to develop a new strategy for how they might win back the working class.Can moderate Democrats, plotting their path back to power in Loudoun county, Virginia (the richest county in the US), convincingly make a populist pivot?While Third Way’s advice, collected in a widely circulated memo, has some useful insights, more than anything it demonstrates establishment Democrats’ failure to understand the nature of working-class woes. In fact, the revival of populism, left and right, can be understood as a revolt against the world Third Way helped midwife. After all, they embraced an economic model – defined by free trade, deindustrialization, mass global migration and stagnant wages – that was responsible for the left’s breakup with the working class in the first place.Working-class culture clashThird Way’s first takeaway from the election is that Democrats are culturally disconnected from the working class. And they’re right. They advocate moving away from identity politics, insist that candidates use “plain language”, “avoid jargon”, reject “fringe positions” and eschew “overly moralistic or condescending messaging”. This makes sense. Yet newfound fears of identity politics, or the excessive influence of the foundation-funded non-profit left, reflect a certain amnesia. Moreover, turning the ship around is easier said than done.It’s no secret that sanctimonious political correctness, and preachy “social-justice” rhetoric have served as a major means to sideline progressive critics of the prevailing economic order. In fact, long before Hillary Clinton infamously wondered whether breaking up the big banks would “end racism”, her husband’s campaign architects – paradigmatic Third Way Democrats – pursued the same line of attack against critics of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). Those who didn’t want jobs shipped to the lowest-wage corners of the globe were labeled “racists”. It’s not a coincidence, then, that the rise of identity politics, and even “wokeness”, happened in tandem with the ascent of globalization as championed by Third Way adherents.As factories closed and millions of jobs were drained out of the US, the economic and social power of the working class fell into a steep decline. By the mid-1990s non-profits and thinktanks replaced labor unions as the major source of political influence on the left. With unions taking a backseat, politicking within the Democratic party took on a more elite character. Fights over slices of the economic pie shifted from the vertical axis – between labor and big business, between the rich and the poor – to the horizontal, between cross-class “groups”, unfailingly represented by well-staffed professional advocacy organizations.This all had the convenient effect of rendering blue-collar concerns practically invisible to elite Democrats. While trade, immigration and dissension over cultural issues have long appeared at the top of lists of concerns for non-college educated workers, Democrats wouldn’t listen. Instead they embraced liberal professionals as the vanguard of the New Democrat movement. Welcoming the influence of the Brahmin caste. Meanwhile, liberal cultural institutions (the media, the academy, the arts) increasingly applied downward pressure on blue-collar workers to embrace new values. That is, the values of the elite.Consider that, for the first half of this decade, there were wall-to-wall injunctions from the largest corporations in retail, tech and even finance – not to mention virtually all major media conglomerates – to embrace liberal identity politics, “diversity, equity and inclusion”, and cosmopolitan sexual ethics. Looked at in this light, today’s culture war can best be understood as a working-class revolt against the values of “knowledge economy” elites. It won’t be easy to make peace with the same elite still in charge.Resentment is richNor is it a coincidence why educational cleavages, in particular, play such a major role in cultural and political conflict today. While they were busy fashioning the “New Economy”, Third Way elites insisted that non-college educated workers refashion themselves to suit it. They implored everyone to go to college and learn to code to compete in the emerging high-tech hyper-global world. They were confident that the short-term pain of job losses would be rewarded with future gains. It hasn’t panned out. In terms of income, wealth and even life expectancy, blue-collar workers have found themselves lagging further and further behind their educated white-collar counterparts. Since 2000 wages for non-college educated workers have remained flat or actually fallen. For those with a college degree they have modestly increased. The earnings gap has grown wide.Meanwhile, none have benefitted from the contemporary economic and political arrangement as much as the wealthy. In inverse proportions have the rich profited alongside working-class decline. In 1990 – before Clinton signed Nafta, before Democrats presided over further deregulation of the financial sector, and before the dot-com boom – there were 66 billionaires in the United States. Just 10 years later – after gobs of factory jobs were off-shored – there were 298. A 350% increase. Today, there are more than 748.As a result, even Larry Summers (once a pre-eminent Third Way economist) has identified an “investment dearth” combined with a “savings glut” that has led to economic “secular stagnation”. In layman’s terms: the rich have all the money and they refuse to share. The billionaire hoarding of wealth means investment in the real economy is anemic. They sit like elephants on top of global growth rates. And because workers can’t spend wages they don’t have, effective demand stays flat.The Third Way left promised that the fire sale of public assets, the unshackling of big banks and the introduction of unfettered free trade would unleash unprecedented growth and a rising standard of living for American workers. It didn’t. Instead, it drove down wages and helped them transform their own party into a haven of the affluent and the educated.The paradoxes of pragmatic populismConfronting all this, Third Way now advocates that Democrats embrace a brand of pragmatic populism. They recognize the need to critique “corporate excess and corruption”, they counsel Democrats to avoid “dismissing economic anxieties” and instead acknowledge “real struggles like high prices and stagnant wages”. They even suggest that Democrats fight “for systemic reforms rather than just defending the status quo”.At the same time, they stress that Democrats are hurt by “reflexively attacking wealthy business leaders”. They warn against “vilifying the rich” and “demonizing” corporations. And insist that Democrats be pragmatic “pro-capitalist” reformers.They argue that candidates ought to own “the failures of Democratic governance” they don’t count among these, the broad failure of liberal economic policy to improve the lives of most voters. And while the authors of the memo are right to notice that “Democrats lack a cohesive, inspiring economic agenda”, they don’t offer any ideas for economic renewal. There is nothing about trade, manufacturing, the crisis of mass layoffs or the crumbling of American infrastructure. There is no discussion of jobs programs, labor market policies, overtime pay, or cost-of-living raises. The only mention of wages is to suggest that they ought to be “better”. Worse, Third Way’s insistence that candidates avoid blaming the corporations and the rich – the very group responsible for the broad economic and political crisis – presents a conundrum for would-be Democratic populists: how are they meant to make “the economy” a central talking point, if they don’t have anything to talk about?Blue-collar preferences do seem politically heterodox – progressive on wages and jobs, protectionist on trade, restrictive on immigration, moderate on culture and conservative on the deficit – and it can seem difficult to build a program to suit what seem like conflicting demands. But looked at another way these views add up to a fundamental break with the prevailing economic order. A call to shift society in favor of workers.Yet Third Way’s economic proposals – summed up by the demand for “middle-class tax cuts”– are a last gasp effort at preserving that order. Until, and unless, progressives can campaign in ways that address the root causes of workers’ cultural, social and economic concerns – that is, until the left can provide a compelling case for how to exit the global race to the bottom – the result will be a string of narrow majorities and narrow defeats.Each party taking their turn in office, neither providing a permanent home for the working class.

    Dustin Guastella is a research associate at the Center for Working Class Politics and the director of operations for Teamsters Local 623. More

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    Large majority of Europeans support retaliatory tariffs against US, poll finds

    A large majority of western Europeans support retaliatory tariffs against the US, a survey has shown, if Donald Trump introduces sweeping import duties for major trading partners as expected this week.The US president appears likely to unleash a range of tariffs, varying from country to country, on Wednesday, which he has called Liberation Day. He also said last week that a 25% levy on cars shipped to the US would come into force the next day.Many European firms are likely to be hit hard. Some, including Germany’s car manufacturers and France’s luxury goods firms and wine, champagne and spirits makers, rely on exports to the US for up to 20% of their income.The EU has already pledged a “timely, robust and calibrated” response to Washington’s plans, which experts predict are likely to depress output, drive up prices and fuel a trade war. Global markets and the dollar fell on Monday after Trump crushed hopes that what he calls “reciprocal tariffs” – arguing that trading partners are cheating the US – would only target countries with the largest trade imbalances.A YouGov survey carried out in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK found that if the US tariffs went ahead, large majorities – ranging from 79% of respondents in Denmark to 56% in Italy – favoured retaliatory levies on US imports.In both Germany, where carmakers such as Porsche, BMW and Mercedes face a significant blow to their profits, and France, where US sales of wines and spirits are worth nearly €4bn (£3.4bn) a year, 68% of respondents backed retaliation.Respondents in all seven countries favoured a tit-for-tat response despite the damage they expected US tariffs to do to their national economies, with 75% of Germans saying they expected “a lot” or “a fair amount” of impact.That assessment was shared by 71% of respondents in Spain, 70% in France and Italy, 62% in Sweden, 60% in the UK and half of Danes questioned in the survey, which was carried out in the second and third weeks of March.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOf the six EU countries polled, majorities of between 60% in Denmark and 76% in Spain thought US tariffs would have a significant impact on the bloc’s wider economy. That was the sentiment of 74% of German and 68% of French respondents.Trump, who was elected partly on a promise to restore US industry, has repeatedly complained that the EU has been “very unfair to us” when it comes to trade. He also said in February that the 27-nation bloc had been “formed to screw the United States”.Pluralities or majorities in all six EU countries surveyed, ranging from 67% in Denmark and 53% in Germany to 41% in France and 40% in Italy, said they did not agree with him, compared with only 7% to 18% who thought he was correct. More

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    Pro-Palestinian British Cornell student says he will leave US citing fear of detention

    A Cornell University student who participated in pro-Palestinian protests and was asked to surrender by United States immigration officials has said he is leaving the US, citing fear of detention and threats to his personal safety.Momodou Taal, a doctoral candidate in Africana studies and dual citizen of the UK and the Gambia, has participated in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war in Gaza after the October 2023 Hamas attack. His attorneys said last month that he was asked to turn himself in and that his student visa was being revoked.President Donald Trump has pledged to deport foreign pro-Palestinian protesters and accused them of supporting militant group Hamas, being antisemitic and posing foreign policy hurdles.Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the Trump administration wrongly conflates their criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian rights with antisemitism and support for Hamas.Last year, Taal was in a group of activists who disrupted a career fair on campus that featured weapons manufacturers and the university thereafter ordered him to study remotely. He previously posted online that “colonised peoples have the right to resist by any means necessary”.Taal filed a lawsuit in mid-March to block deportations of protesters, a bid that was denied by a judge last week.“Given what we have seen across the United States, I have lost faith that a favourable ruling from the courts would guarantee my personal safety and ability to express my beliefs,” Taal said on X on Monday.Trump’s administration has attempted to crack down on pro-Palestinian voices. Rights advocates condemn the moves.Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil was arrested in early March and is legally challenging his detention. Trump, without evidence, accused Khalil of supporting Hamas. Khalil denies links to the militant group that Washington considers a “foreign terrorist organisation”.Badar Khan Suri, an Indian studying at Georgetown University, was detained earlier in March. Suri’s lawyer denies he supported Hamas. A federal judge barred Suri’s deportation.The legal team of Yunseo Chung, a Korean American student of Columbia University, said last week her lawful permanent resident status was being revoked. A judge ruled she could not be detained for now.A judge on Friday temporarily barred the deportation of a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University named Rumeysa Ozturk, who was taken into custody by immigration officials and who, a year ago, co-authored an opinion piece calling to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide”.The Trump administration says it may have revoked more than 300 visas. More

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    The Tesla backlash – podcast

    “It felt like you were driving in this future dream car,” says Mike Schwede, an entrepreneur based between Zurich and London. For him, driving a Tesla used to feel special.“People on the streets really liked it,” Schwede says. “I got so many thumbs-up.”When Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, became a supporter of Donald Trump and spearheaded his so-called “department of government efficiency”, Schwede’s thoughts about his car changed.“You kind of sit in a right-wing car, without having any power to influence this. So I thought, OK, every kilometre I’m driving, I will donate 10 cents to US anti-racism and LGBTQ foundations to get some money to people … Elon doesn’t like, so that’s my way of revenge.”In this episode, the Guardian’s global technology editor, Dan Milmo, talks to Michael Safi about the recent protests against Tesla, and we hear from current and former Tesla enthusiasts, Jim, Mika and Kam, about what they think of Elon Musk’s rise in US politics.Support the Guardian today: theguardian.com/todayinfocuspod More

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    Democrats sue Trump over ‘unlawful’ plan to overhaul US elections

    Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to overhaul the nation’s elections faced its first legal challenges Monday as the Democratic National Committee and a pair of nonprofits filed two separate lawsuits calling it unconstitutional.The Campaign Legal Center and the State Democracy Defenders Fund brought the first lawsuit Monday afternoon. The DNC, the Democratic Governors Association, and Senate and House Democratic leaders followed soon after with a complaint of their own.Both lawsuits filed in the US district court for the District of Columbia ask the court to block Trump’s order and declare it illegal.“The president’s executive order is an unlawful action that threatens to uproot our tried-and-tested election systems and silence potentially millions of Americans,” said Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at the DC-based Campaign Legal Center.“It is simply not within the president’s authority to set election rules by executive decree, especially when they would restrict access to voting in this way.”The White House did not respond to a request for comment.The legal challenges had been expected after election lawyers warned some of Trump’s demands in the order, including a proof-of-citizenship requirement for voter registration and new ballot deadline rules, may violate the US constitution.The order also asserts power that legal experts say the president doesn’t have over an independent agency. That agency, the US Election Assistance Commission, sets voluntary voting system guidelines and maintains the federal voter registration form.The suits come as Congress is considering codifying a proof-of-citizenship requirement for voter registration into law, and as Trump has promised more actions related to elections in the coming weeks.Both the legal challenges draw attention to the constitution’s “elections clause”, which says states – not the president – get to decide the “times, places and manner” of how elections are run. That section of the constitution also gives Congress the power to “make or alter” election regulations, at least for federal office, but it does not mention any presidential authority over election administration.“The constitution is clear: states set their own rules of the road when it comes to elections, and only Congress has the power to override these laws with respect to federal elections,” said Lang, calling the executive order an “unconstitutional executive overreach”.The lawsuits also argue the president’s order could disenfranchise voters. The nonprofits’ lawsuit names three voter advocacy organizations as plaintiffs that they allege are harmed by Trump’s executive order: the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Secure Families Initiative and the Arizona Students’ Association.The DNC’s lawsuit highlights the role of the government’s controversial cost-cutting arm, the so called “department of government efficiency”.It alleges the order’s data-sharing requirements, including instructing Doge to cross-reference federal data with state voter lists, violate Democrats’ privacy rights and increase the risk that they will be harassed “based on false suspicions that they are not qualified to vote”.“This executive order is an unconstitutional power grab from Donald Trump that attacks vote by mail, gives Doge sensitive personal information and makes it harder for states to run their own free and fair elections,” reads a statement from the plaintiffs.Trump, one of the top spreaders of election falsehoods, has argued this executive order will secure the vote against illegal voting by noncitizens. Multiple studies and investigations in individual states have shown that noncitizens casting ballots in federal elections, already a felony, is exceedingly rare.Monday’s lawsuits against Trump’s elections order could be followed by more challenges. Other voting rights advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have said they’re considering legal action. Several Democratic state attorneys general have said they are looking closely at the order and suspect it is illegal.Meanwhile, Trump’s order has received praise from the top election officials in some Republican states who say it could inhibit instances of voter fraud and give them access to federal data to better maintain their voter rolls.If courts determine the order can stand, the changes Trump wants are likely to cause some headaches for both election administrators and voters. State election officials, who already have lost some federal cybersecurity assistance, would have to spend time and money to comply with the order, including potentially buying new voting systems and educating voters of the rules.The proof-of-citizenship requirement also could cause confusion or voter disenfranchisement because millions of eligible voting-age Americans do not have the proper documents readily available. In Kansas, which had a proof-of-citizenship requirement for three years before it was overturned, the state’s own expert estimated that almost all the roughly 30,000 people who were prevented from registering to vote during the time it was in effect were US citizens who had been eligible.Monday’s lawsuits are the latest of numerous efforts to fight the flurry of executive actions Trump has taken during the first months of his second term. Federal judges have partially or fully blocked many of them, including efforts to restrict birthright citizenship, ban transgender people from military service and curb diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives among federal contractors and grant recipients. More

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    Trump prepares to unveil reciprocal tariffs as markets brace amid trade war fears

    As Donald Trump prepared to unveil a swathe of reciprocal tariffs, global markets braced and some Republican senators voiced their opposition to a strategy that critics warn risks a global trade war, provoking retaliation by major trading partners such as China, Canada and the European Union.The US president said on Monday he would be “very kind” to trading partners when he unveils further tariffs this week, potentially as early as Tuesday night.The Republican billionaire insists that reciprocal action is needed because the world’s biggest economy has been “ripped off by every country in the world”, promising “Liberation Day” for the US.He could also unveil more sector-specific levies.Asked for details, he told reporters on Monday: “You’re going to see in two days, which is maybe tomorrow night or probably Wednesday.”But he added: “We’re going to be very nice, relatively speaking, we’re going to be very kind.”Some Republican senators spoke out against Trump’s tariffs on Canada and are considering signing on their support for a resolution blocking them, CNN reported. Senator Susan Collins warned that tariffs on Canada would be particularly harmful to Maine and that she intended to vote for a resolution aimed at blocking tariffs against Canadian goods.Republican Senator Thom Tillis also said he was considering backing the resolution, adding: “We need to fight battles with our foes first and then try to figure out any inequalities with our friends second.”Already, China, South Korea and Japan agreed on Sunday to strengthen free trade between themselves, ahead of Trump’s expected tariff announcement.But Trump said on Monday he was not worried that his action would push allies toward Beijing, adding that a deal on TikTok could also be tied to China tariffs.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the goal on Wednesday would be to announce “country-based tariffs”, although Trump remained committed to imposing separate sector-specific charges.The uncertainty has jolted markets, with key European and Asian indexes closing lower, although the Dow and broad-based S&P 500 eked out gains.Market nervousness intensified after Trump said on Sunday his tariffs would include “all countries”.The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that advisers have considered imposing global tariffs of up to 20%, to hit almost all US trading partners. Trump has remained vague, saying his tariffs would be “far more generous” than ones already levied against US products.Trump’s fixation on tariffs is fanning US recession fears. Goldman Sachs analysts raised their 12-month recession probability from 20% to 35%.This reflects a “lower growth forecast, falling confidence and statements from White House officials indicating willingness to tolerate economic pain”. Goldman Sachs also lifted its forecast for underlying inflation at the end of 2025.China and Canada have imposed counter-tariffs on US goods, while the EU unveiled its own measures to start mid-April. Other countermeasures could come after Wednesday.For now, the IMF chief, Kristalina Georgieva, said at a Reuters event on Monday that US tariffs were causing anxiety, although their global economic impact should not be dramatic.Ryan Sweet of Oxford Economics said to “expect the unexpected”, anticipating that Trump would “take aim at some of the largest offenders”.Besides reciprocal country tariffs, Trump could unveil additional sector-specific levies on the likes of pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. He earlier announced car tariffs to take effect on Thursday.Economists have expected the upcoming salvo could target the 15% of partners that have persistent trade imbalances with the US, a group that the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has dubbed a “Dirty 15”.The US has some of its biggest goods deficits with China, the EU, Mexico, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Canada and India.US trade partners are rushing to minimise their exposure, with reports suggesting India may lower some duties.The European Central Bank president, Christine Lagarde, said on Monday that Europe should move towards economic independence, telling France Inter radio that Europe faces an “existential moment”.Separately, the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, spoke with Trump on “productive negotiations” towards a UK-US trade deal, while the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said the EU would respond firmly to Trump but was open to compromise.It was “entirely possible” for fresh tariffs to be swiftly reduced or put on hold, said Greta Peisch, a partner at law firm Wiley Rein.In February, Washington paused steep levies on Mexican and Canadian imports for a month as the North American neighbours pursued negotiations.With Agence France-Presse More