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    ‘The deification of Trump will be complete’ at CPAC 2025

    “I am your retribution.”When Donald Trump made this solemn promise to his supporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) two years ago, millions of Americans felt comfortable looking the other way.After all, opinion polls suggested that Trump was a spent force in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, disappointing midterm elections and a lacklustre start to his US presidential election campaign. He was the closing act of a CPAC that critics dismissed as a fringe freak show with obscure speakers addressing a half-empty ballroom.It won’t feel like that this time. CPAC 2025 kicks off at the National Harbor in Maryland on Wednesday with Trump set to return in triumph after regaining the White House and with Republican allies in control of Congress. The conference will be a vivid demonstration of how his “Make America great again” (Maga) movement has gone from the margins to the mainstream.“CPAC always been the the ideological north star for the conservative grassroots movement,” said Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill who used to regularly attend the conference. “Unless you weren’t paying attention, CPAC was the roadmap for what Maga becoming mainstream would look like and what they wanted to accomplish.”The history of CPAC mirrors the recent history of the Republican party. It began in 1974 in the throes of the Watergate scandal and the birth of a new conservative movement. The first CPAC was addressed by Ronald Reagan, then governor of California and destined for the White House. An annual dinner is still held in Reagan’s honour.The event spent years in the wilderness during Barack Obama’s presidency: the further its voices were from power, the louder they shouted. Among the speakers in 2011 was a businessman, TV celebrity and former Democrat from New York named Donald Trump, airing a grievance that America was being ripped off by China.In 2015, CPAC heard from nearly all the major Republican presidential candidates, including Trump and Jeb Bush, but a year later Trump cancelled his planned appearance amid fears that he would be booed by protesters. It did not prevent his hostile takeover of the Republican party by winning both the nomination and the presidency.CPAC impresario Matt Schlapp, a veteran of the George W Bush White House, then made a big bet on Trump as the future. The conference went all-in for Maga, casting Trump as a messianic figure saving America from illegal immigration and woke culture. His 2020 election defeat and the January 6 riot made no difference. A dedicated marketplace inside the event continued to sell Maga merchandise.View image in fullscreenAt last year’s event, as he closed in on the Republican nomination again, Trump described himself as a “proud political dissident” and his myriad legal troubles as “Stalinist show trials” orchestrated by then president Joe Biden. He promised the election would be “liberation day” for his supporters but “judgment day” for perceived enemies who had weaponised the government against him.The old Republican party, meanwhile, was left far behind. Trump has used CPAC to attack its establishment figures as “freaks, neocons, globalists, open border zealots, and fools”. Out are Liz Cheney, Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence; in are far-right nationalists such as Steve Bannon from the US, Viktor Orbán from Hungary and Nigel Farage from Britain.The lineup of speakers announced so far this year includes both Bannon and Farage along with the border czar, Tom Homan; the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, the US ambassador-designate to the United Nations, Elise Stefanik; senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida; the rightwing media personality Megyn Kelly; Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder; the Argentinian president, Javier Milei; and the British ex-prime minister Liz Truss.CPAC did not respond to an email asking whether this year’s conference will also include Elon Musk, the tech oligarch appointed by Trump to shrink the federal government, or individuals recently pardoned by the president for taking part in the January 6 insurrection.But nothing will top the expected appearance by Trump himself after what has been billed as the greatest political comeback in history. His early efforts to crush illegal immigration, transgender rights and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes are sure to receive ecstatic cheers. His claim that, in surviving an assassination attempt, he was “saved by God to make America great again” will be embraced with religious fervour.Setmayer, who now leads the Seneca Project, a women-led super political action committee, commented: “The deification of Trump will be complete ad nauseam at CPAC this year. We’ve already seen a golden calf-like statue of him. I’m not quite sure what’s next, but they’ll figure it out.”View image in fullscreenOne potential measure of CPAC’s devotion to Trump will be its annual straw poll, which asks attendees to state their preference for the next Republican presidential nominee. Senator Rand Paul topped the poll in 2013, 2014 and 2015 while Ted Cruz prevailed in 2016 with 40% of the vote, ahead of Marco Rubio at 30% and Trump at 15%.Trump has dominated ever since. He is constitutionally barred from running for a third term but has repeatedly hinted that he might try. Congressman Andy Ogles has even introduced a constitutional amendment that would allow Trump to run again. Setmayer believes that next week’s CPAC straw poll will include him – and he will win it again.“They absolutely will do it again and Trump will overwhelmingly win at North Korea-style numbers and he will continue to talk about a third term,” she said. “This is not a joke. He has been talking about this since his first term. He talked about it during the election in ‘jest’ and he’s been talking about it already three weeks into his new term. We need to pay attention to what they are doing concerning our elections.”Trump’s resurrection is a boost for CPAC, which has survived scandals of its own. Schlapp was hit by allegations that he groped a Republican operative’s genitals when the two men were alone in a car after a campaign event in Georgia in 2022. Carlton Huffman’s lawsuit was dropped last year after a reported $480,000 settlement.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, observed: “They never got him. He was so close. Of course in this day and time nothing matters. Trump has made anything possible.”In recent years Schlapp has sought to ride the nationalist-populist wave by staging CPAC events in Hungary and Argentina. Next week’s return to the National Harbor in Maryland will feel like vindication for a movement that just a few years ago seemed to be heading off a cliff to irrelevance. Now CPAC believes it represents the new political orthodoxy.Steve Schmidt, a political strategist and former campaign operative for George W Bush and John McCain, said: “This is an extremist freak show that retains that quality but has taken political power in the United States. By any reasonable definition, what you’re looking at is a gathering of fascists, political extremists coming together, a fusion of the youth arm, the Christian nationalist arm, the Catholic Maga extremist arm.”Schmidt added: “It is an event that portends what’s coming. These people have immense power. This should all be taken literally and seriously. Millions and millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump should appreciate that this is what they purchased and what they purchased is now emboldened. There will be a very pungent nationalism present – and extremism lurking below the surface.” More

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    Trump’s Gaza takeover won’t happen. But it has already changed the face of Israeli politics | Yair Wallach

    When President Donald Trump issued an ultimatum to Hamas last week to release all hostages by noon on 15 February, warning that otherwise “all hell [will] break loose”, the Israeli right was ecstatic. Here was a chance to finally move ahead with the complete occupation and annihilation of the Gaza Strip. The families of Israeli hostages were petrified about the prospect of the ceasefire collapsing, yet members of the ruling coalition called to kill the deal. “We have international support, give the order!” demanded the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich.But the order never came. Hamas abided by the agreement and freed three hostages; Israel then released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Trump shrugged and said that it was Israel’s decision. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, who visited Israel on Sunday, signalled that the direction of travel is not towards resuming hostility. Instead, the parties must now move to “substantive” negotiations over the second phase of the ceasefire, he said, leading to peace.In the whirlwind of the last four weeks, it is difficult to make sense of Trump’s approach to the Gaza Strip. On the one hand, the president is widely credited for pushing the parties to a ceasefire agreement, raising hopes among Israelis who want to see a return of the hostages and an end to the war. On the other, Trump embraced the hard-right Israeli vision of ethnically cleansing Gaza, through a forced “relocation” of its 2.2 million Palestinian residents, establishing a US real estate development that would turn the Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.Some suspect this is merely a negotiation ploy that he hopes will pressure Arab states to take responsibility over Gaza, and to force Hamas into relinquishing control and influence. Even if this were the case, Trump’s rhetoric has already damaged international law. For the first time in many decades, the US has publicly proposed the forced displacement of millions of people as a geopolitical solution. As the genocide scholar Dirk Moses recently observed, this may mark the end of the postwar order, which defined such “transfers” of populations as war crimes that were banned by the Geneva conventions. While episodes of forced mass displacement have taken place in the second half of the 20th century, such as those in Yugoslavia or in Syria, these were never endorsed or championed by the White House.The legitimisation of ethnic cleansing could have a lasting impact in Palestine, Israel and beyond. Palestine’s history is instructive: in 1937, the Palestine Royal Commission administered by Britain proposed the forced displacement of over 200,000 Palestinians from the Galilee as part of its partition plan. Mainstream Zionist leaders had long ruled out transfers on this scale as unrealistic. But British backing for this idea gave it legitimacy. David Ben-Gurion, then the leader of the Jewish community in British-ruled Palestine, wrote in his diary: “This is a possibility we did not dream of; that we could not dream of in our wildest imagination.”Ben-Gurion understood that the details of the partition plan mattered far less than the principle of forced mass displacement. In the aftermath of the second world war, “population exchanges” were explicitly or tacitly accepted by the great powers as a necessary evil. Eleven years after the royal commission, Ben-Gurion oversaw the permanent expulsion and dispossession of two-thirds of Palestinians, in the Nakba of 1948.We can already see the effect of Trump’s rhetoric on Israeli society. Since October 2023, rightwing ministers and political activists have been calling for a euphemistic “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza, and yet Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had sought to keep a safe distance from such ideas. The idea of forced displacement was broadly considered so beyond the pale that mainstream pollsters did not even pose the question in their Israeli public opinion surveys.Yet shortly after his return from Washington DC, a gleeful Netanyahu lauded Trump’s “revolutionary vision for the day after Hamas”. “We see eye-to-eye with the US administration on … all our war goals”, he told the Knesset. The political commentator and radio host Amit Segal, who has been accused of serving as Netanyahu’s mouthpiece, quoted the Psalms verse: “We were like them that dream.” The verse refers to the return of Jews to Zion; now it was being used to celebrate the looming expulsion of Palestinians from the country.Strikingly, most centrist Israeli parties welcomed the plan. The former defence minister Benny Gantz commended Trump for his “creative, original and interesting thinking”. An opinion poll found that no less than 82% of Jewish Israelis supported the plan in principle; 52% thought it was feasible. Only 3% of Israeli Jews rejected the plan as “unacceptable and immoral”.Yet even if many Israelis favourably view the fantasy plan of a depopulated Gaza, there’s no appetite for the total war that would be required to materialise that plan. Opinion polls showed that Israelis are resolutely opposed to an immediate return to hostilities. After 16 months of war, there is widespread fatigue. The malnourished condition of the hostages that returned most recently, and the reports of torture they faced, was deeply alarming. Two-thirds of Israelis believe the ceasefire agreement should be upheld, and the safe return of the hostages should take priority.We can expect further ultimatums and confusion for the foreseeable future. Even if an immediate return to war has been averted, the risk of one is greater than ever. Trump has let the genie of mass expulsion out of the bottle. The ethnic cleansing of Gaza would require carnage and atrocities even beyond the horrifying scale of the last 17 months. Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan are unlikely to survive, and the reverberations would be felt throughout the region. This is a scenario that would not only mean the likely death of the hostages, but an increasingly theocratic Jewish republic premised upon destruction and conquest. If Israel heads down this route, it will not only be destroying Palestinians in Gaza, but condemning itself to an ever escalating war.

    Yair Wallach is a reader in Israeli studies and head of the Centre for Jewish Studies at Soas University of London

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    Afflicted with liberal angst in the age of Trump? Take a leaf from Bridget Jones’s diary | Rafael Behr

    When future generations study creative works that capture the unsettled spirit of our age, they might easily neglect Bridget Jones 4: Mad About the Boy. The movie isn’t about the historical inflection point that coincides with its release. It doesn’t feature Donald Trump, his vandalism of US democracy or his dissolution of the transatlantic alliance. Such things are not the stuff of romantic comedy. Also, they hadn’t yet happened in 2013, when Helen Fielding wrote the book on which the film is based.But the lack of intentional allegory doesn’t prevent us projecting one on to the story. Or maybe it was just me, experiencing a sentimental hallucination induced by events outside the cinema. Indulge me a moment (and forgive any plot spoilers), as I explain.The first three volumes of the Jones diaries are picaresque chronicles of professional and sexual misadventure that resolve themselves in the reassuring arms of Mark Darcy, a human rights barrister: stolid, emotionally reticent, honourable and kind. That on-and-off romance sweeps Bridget from twentysomething anxiety to thirtysomething neurosis; from post-adolescent insecurity to early midlife crisis, unplanned pregnancy and, in the happy ending, marriage.Allowing for some chronological elasticity (with lags between books being written and adapted for cinema), Jones’s relationship with Darcy unfolds against a political and economic backdrop that hindsight reveals to be exceptionally benign. It is that period sometimes called the Great Moderation: roughly from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the global financial crisis in 2007-09.Democracy sprawled eastwards across Europe. Captive peoples were liberated from communist dictatorship. The dissolution of the Soviet threat generated a “peace dividend” for western governments, permitting a diversion of budget resources from defence to social spending.There was a viable Middle East peace process. In 1993, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands over the Oslo accords on the White House lawn. Apartheid was dismantled in South Africa, which held its first free, multiracial elections in 1994. The Good Friday agreement brought peace to Northern Ireland in 1998. The UK was then well into an economic boom that had another nine years still to run.View image in fullscreenLondon was basking in its status as capital of “Cool Britannia” – a powerhouse of art, music and self-congratulation. This was the context in which Bridget Jones’s diary first appeared as a weekly newspaper column in 1995. Her avid readership was the same generation that hit their young adult stride in that bright springtime of liberal metropolitan complacency.Jones was not very political, which made her an eloquent exponent of the zeitgeist. “It is perfectly obvious that Labour stands for sharing, kindness, gays, single mothers and Nelson Mandela,” she wrote on the eve of Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide election victory. The Tories were “braying bossy men having affairs with everyone shag shag shag left right and centre and going to the Ritz in Paris then telling all the presenters off on the Today programme.”We know also from a one-off column published in 2019 that Jones was a remainer in the Brexit culture wars. To break the legislative deadlock in parliament, she proposed that Queen Elizabeth, David Attenborough and Joanna Lumley join forces, urging the nation to reconsider the referendum question.It makes perfect sense that the love of Bridget’s life should be a distinguished lawyer who battles global injustice. It was a match made in the late 20th century, when human rights were a byword for all that was virtuous in western democracy. A career dedicated to their defence was the obvious device for a comic novelist wanting to signal intimidating levels of moral uprightness in a character. (It is often said that Darcy was modelled on a younger Keir Starmer. Fielding acknowledges uncanny likenesses in profession and manner, while insisting they are coincidental.)In the opening minutes of Mad About the Boy, we learn that Darcy is dead. He was killed in the line of duty, of course, on a humanitarian mission overseas. His widow is struggling to restart her life and raise two children alone.If, like me, you succumb easily to cinematic schmaltz, this is already an affecting scenario. What I found unexpectedly poignant was the thought that Darcy’s untimely death also functions as a metaphor for the demise of political certainties that defined the world in which Bridget Jones’s generation came of age. Her heartbreak is a parable of political bereavement, describing liberal angst at the sudden unravelling of institutional and legal norms underpinning European security. (Plus sex and jokes.)In the week that the movie was released, the US president reached over the heads of his country’s former Nato allies to embrace Vladimir Putin. He sketched the outline of a deal to end the war in Ukraine that was part territorial capitulation to the aggressor, part gangster extortion – offering Kyiv protection in exchange for mineral wealth. Vice-president JD Vance gave an ominously unhinged speech at the Munich security conference. He claimed that freedom is more imperilled by imaginary culture-war spectres haunting European democracies than it is by a Russian dictator whose tanks are churning up the sovereignty of a neighbouring state.In case of any lingering doubt that the Trump regime has authoritarian ambitions, the president also asserted on social media last week that “he who saves his country does not violate any law”. It is a signal that judges, courts and constitution should all be subordinate to a leader whose personal preference is synonymous with the national interest. Coming from the man who fomented insurrection to overturn the 2020 election, Trump’s aphorism should be read as a hint that the spirit of Maga patriotism is vested in thugs and militias, not statutes.This was the advertised programme. None of it should surprise the US’s allies. But it was easier to hope there might be momentum in the old order than to work out how to live in the new one. Now European leaders are scrambling to convene summits, scraping the sides of their depleted defence budgets, flexing atrophied military muscle in panicky gestures of continental solidarity.There is no going back to Darcy’s world. The idea that human rights are universal and the principle that no one is above the law are losing ground to older axioms – big nations extract tribute from smaller ones; a strongman ruler makes the rules.Pained by these existential challenges, it is hard not to reach for the anaesthetic balm of nostalgia, mythologising the late 90s and early 21st century as a golden age of liberal democratic primacy. In reality, that was a cosy bubble around one generation in one corner of the world: a historical fluke. To move on, we have to get through denial, anger and the other stages of grief to acceptance. We need to recognise that we live for the foreseeable future in a world without a friend in the White House, and that this points to a destiny for Britain much closer to Europe.And we need politicians who will dare to say as much aloud. This, too, is something that occurred to me as I left the cinema last weekend. Maybe if we had leaders capable of expressing the magnitude of the crisis, and rising to the challenge, I wouldn’t have to look for messages of solace between the lines of Bridget Jones’s diary.

    Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist More

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    Musk and Trump put on lovefest in Sean Hannity interview

    Donald Trump and his wealthiest backer, the multi-billionaire Elon Musk, expressed gushing admiration for each other in a Fox News interview in which each accused a critical media of trying to drive them apart.Interviewed together in the White House, the pair spoke of each other in such warm terms that the interviewer, Sean Hannity, was moved to say: “I feel like I’m interviewing two brothers here.”The united front was maintained to reject accusations that Musk’s so-called “department of government of efficiency” (Doge) – which has upended huge swathes of the federal bureaucracy in a supposed attempted to find “waste, fraud and corruption” – is a violation of the US constitution, saying their critics were themselves guilty of this.They also dismissed complaints that Musk, who has billions of dollars of government contracts through his ownership of companies such as SpaceX and Tesla, had serious conflicts of interest that could lead him to skew federal spending in his favour.Asked by Hannity how he would respond if he saw a conflict, Trump said: “He wouldn’t be involved.” Musk followed up by saying: “I’ll recuse myself. I mean, I haven’t asked the president for anything, ever.”The interview was aired after a chorus of criticism of Musk’s prominent role in Trump’s administration and suggestions from critics that he was usurping the president’s power, earning the appellation of “President Musk” in some quarters, including the cover of Time magazine.Amid speculation of incipient tensions supposedly fueled by Trump’s known dislike of sharing the limelight, the pair went to great lengths to show personal fealty to each other.“I love the president, I just want to be clear about that,” Musk said. “I think President Trump is a good man. The president has been so unfairly attacked in the media, it’s really outrageous.”Trump described Musk in equally flattering terms, several times describing him as “caring” and “amazing” before delivering a soaring personal testimonial near the end of the interview.“This guy’s a brilliant guy. He’s a great guy. He’s got tremendous and scientific imagination,” the president said, as Musk sat by his side. “But he’s also a good person. He’s a very good person, and he wants to see the country do well.”He said Musk, who described himself as “tech support” to the president, had been of practical value in ensuring that the avalanche of executive orders signed by Trump since his inauguration on 20 January were implemented – although many of them have been subjected to legal challenges and been blocked by court rulings.Musk had also brought “high IQ” young people to his Doge team who were dedicated to changing the country, Trump said.The pair mocked media speculation that their partnership was destined to end in an acrimonious split.“Actually, Elon called me and said, you know, they’re trying to drive us apart.,” Trump said. He went on: “Now they said: ‘We have breaking news. Donald Trump has ceded control of the presidency to Elon Musk.’ And I say it’s just so obvious, so bad. I used to think they were good at it. They’re actually bad at it because if they were good at it, I’d never be president – because nobody in history has ever got more bad publicity than I’ve had.”He predicted that Musk would be able to cut$1tn of government spending, but added that it would only be a small percentage of the waste and fraud that existed. Key programs such as social security, Medicare and Medicaid, would remain untouched, he insisted – except in cases where they went to “illegal migrants”. (Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for such benefits). More

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    Trump administration gives schools deadline to cut DEI or lose federal funds

    The Trump administration is giving the US’s schools and universities two weeks to eliminate diversity initiatives or risk losing federal money, raising the stakes in the president’s fight against “wokeness”.In a memo on Friday, the education department gave an ultimatum to stop using “racial preferences” as a factor in admissions, financial aid, hiring or other areas. Schools are being given 14 days to end any practice that treats students or workers differently because of their race.Educators at colleges nationwide were rushing to evaluate their risk and decide whether to stand up for practices they believe are legal. The sweeping demand threatens to upend all aspects of campus operations, from essays on college applications to classroom lessons and campus clubs.It’s meant to correct what the memo described as rampant discrimination in education, often against white and Asian students.“Schools have been operating on the pretext that selecting students for ‘diversity’ or similar euphemisms is not selecting them based on race,” said Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights. “No longer. Students should be assessed according to merit, accomplishment and character.”The guidance drew sharp backlash from civil rights groups and university groups. Some believe its vague language is meant to have a chilling effect, pressuring schools to eliminate anything touching on the topic of race even if it may be defensible in court.“Creating a sense of risk around doing work that might promote diverse and welcoming campuses is much more of the goal than a clear statement of existing law,” said Jonathan Fansmith, senior vice-president of government relations at the American Council on Education, an association of college presidents.The memo is an extension of Donald Trump’s executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs. As legal justification, it cites the 2023 supreme court decision barring race as a factor in college admissions.“Put simply, educational institutions may neither separate or segregate students based on race, nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race,” it said.On Monday the education department announced it also cut $600m in grants for organizations that train teachers. The programs promoted “divisive” concepts such as DEI, critical race theory and social justice activism, the department said.Confusion around the implications of Trump’s anti-DEI order was apparent at last week’s confirmation hearing for education secretary nominee Linda McMahon. Asked whether classes on African American history would run afoul of Trump’s order, McMahon said she wasn’t certain.The California School Boards Association is awaiting legal guidance so it can advise schools on the Trump administration’s deadline, spokesperson Troy Flint said.“At this point there is not enough information for a step-by-step playbook that tells school districts if you were doing A then now you should do B, or perhaps eliminate the whole program entirely,” he said. “I know people want that granular level of detail. But this is a new era, with some novel civil rights theories and there is no definitive reference for what’s happening now.”The new guidance takes aim directly at college admissions, suggesting colleges have sought to work around the supreme court’s decision.College essays, for instance, cannot be used to predict a student’s race, the guidance says. In the supreme court decision, Chief Justice John Roberts said nothing prevents colleges “from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life,” though he warned that colleges couldn’t use essays as an indirect workaround to consider students’ race.The memo also said it’s unlawful for colleges to eliminate standardized testing requirements “to achieve a desired racial balance or to increase racial diversity”. Dozens of colleges across the US have dropped SAT and ACT requirements in recent years, citing concerns the exams favor students from high-income families.Practices that have long been commonplace could become legal liabilities, including recruiting in underrepresented areas or buying lists of potential students with certain academic and demographic information, said Angel B Pérez, the CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.“Colleges and universities are going to find themselves between a rock and a hard place,” Pérez said. “They know that what they’re doing is not illegal, but they are worried that if they do not comply, not having federal funding will decimate them.”Some universities said they expect little change. At Oregon State University, a legal review concluded that its programs “are fully compliant with all state and federal laws”, according to a campus message from Rob Odom, vice-president of university relations and marketing.The department memo appears to take aim at scholarships for students from certain racial backgrounds. There’s been legal debate about whether the supreme court decision extends to financial aid, with some schools and institutions deciding to scrap racial requirements for some scholarships.The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators said there’s no consensus on the question, and the group is trying to understand how the memo could affect student aid.“The last thing students need when making plans about how to pay for college is uncertainty over when or whether they will receive financial aid they’ve been relying on,” the group said in a statement.Trump has called for the elimination of the education department, and Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has slashed dozens of contracts deemed wasteful.The Doge team won a legal victory on Monday when a federal judge declined to block it from federal student loan records. The judge said the plaintiff, the University of California Student Association, failed to prove it was harmed by Doge’s access to the data. More

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    Trump threatens 25% tariffs on foreign cars and semiconductor chips

    Donald Trump stood firm against warnings that his threatened trade war risks derailing the US economy, claiming his administration could hit foreign cars with tariffs of around 25% within weeks.Semiconductor chips and drugs are set to face higher duties, Trump told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday.The White House has repeatedly raised the threat of tariffs since Trump returned to office last month, pledging to rebalance the global economic order in America’s favor.A string of announced tariffs have yet to be introduced, however, as economists and business urge the Trump administration to reconsider.Duties on imports from Canada and Mexico have been repeatedly delayed; modified levies on steel and aluminum, announced last week, will not be enforced until next month; and a wave of so-called “reciprocal” tariffs, also trailed last week, will not kick in before April.Tariffs are taxes on foreign goods. They are paid by the importer of the product – in this case, companies and consumers based inside the US – rather than the exporter, elsewhere in the world.Asked on Tuesday if he had decided the rate of a threatened tariff on cars from overseas, Trump said he would “probably” announce that on 2 April, “but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25%”.Upon being asked the same question about threatened tariffs on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, Trump replied: “It’ll be 25% and higher, and it’ll go very substantially higher over the course of a year.”The ramp-up, he explained, was designed to lure manufacturers to the US. “When they come into the United States, and they have their plant or factory here, there is no tariff.”Executives have cautioned that the administration’s plan for tariffs risks harming the US economy. A 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada “will blow a hole in the US industry that we have never seen”, Jim Farley, the Ford CEO, told an investor conference in New York last week. More

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    Top US prosecutor quits over pressure to investigate Biden climate spending

    A top federal prosecutor has quit after refusing to launch what she called a politically driven investigation into Biden-era climate spending, exposing deepening rifts in the US’s premier law enforcement agency.Denise Cheung, head of criminal prosecutions in Washington, resigned on Tuesday after Trump appointees demanded she open a grand jury investigation into Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grants based largely on an undercover video, multiple people familiar with the matter told CNN.The directive came from the acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove through Ed Martin, Trump’s nominee for Washington DC US attorney. Officials wanted Cheung to investigate EPA contracts awarded during Biden’s tenure and freeze related funding, CNN reported.In her resignation letter, Cheung wrote to Martin that she and other prosecutors had determined there was insufficient evidence to warrant grand jury subpoenas, even if senior officials cited the Project Veritas video as justification.“When I explained that the quantum of evidence did not support that action, you stated that you believed that there was sufficient evidence,” Cheung wrote to Martin. “You also accused me about wasting five hours of the day ‘doing nothing’ except trying to get what the FBI and I wanted, but not what you wanted.”The dispute stems from the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin’s claim last week about $20bn in climate law funding being held in a Citibank account.The resignation adds to broader upheaval within the justice department, where prosecutors considered unaligned with current leadership have faced termination, particularly those involved in January 6 investigations. More

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    Trump signs executive order expanding access to IVF, says White House

    Donald Trump has signed an executive order to expand access to in vitro fertilization, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday.“The Order directs policy recommendations to protect IVF access and aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health plan costs for such treatments,” Leavitt said in a post on Twitter/X.More details soon … More