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    Starmer warned British jobs at risk without better trade deal from Trump

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    Keir Starmer has been warned that UK jobs are at risk without a better trade deal with Donald Trump that removes tariffs from the beleaguered steel industry. President Trump and the PM finally signed off a US-UK agreement to slash trade barriers on goods when they met at the G7 in Canada on Monday.But missing from the deal was the steel industry, which still faces levies of a whopping 25 per cent on goods entering the US. Industry experts and unions have now called for these to be scrapped as soon as possible, amid warnings they are a threat to jobs and livelihoods. But there are fears negotiations could drag on into the autumn after the transport secretary said work to get tariffs removed will continue in the coming “days, weeks and months”. Alasdair McDiarmid, assistant general secretary of the Community union, said it was “absolutely vital” to secure a deal on steel as quickly as possible.“Our steel producers and their US customers need an end to the current state of uncertainty to allow normal business to resume,” he said.“Crucially, we must see a full exemption for all UK steel exports to the US – without that guarantee some of our leading steel businesses could be left behind, with a threat to jobs and livelihoods.”Gareth Stace, Director-General, UK Steel said the sector should also benefit “imminently… from a tariff rate cut similar to that which the automotive and aerospace industries will enjoy in seven days.” The government said the two leaders had pledged to “make progress towards 0% tariffs on core steel products”, but the Chinese ownership of British Steel could be a sticking point, as an executive order signed by Mr Trump suggests the US wants assurances that the metal originates in the UK.President Trump left the summit earlier than expectedAfter signing it, the US President was asked whether steel tariffs would be eliminated, to which he replied: “We’re gonna let you have that information in a little while.”In April, parliament gave the government emergency powers to take control of British Steel and continue production after Chinese owners Jingye proposed shutting the Scunthorpe site’s two blast furnaces and other key steelmaking operations.But its future is still uncertain.The uncertainty comes as a £500 million five-year deal has been struck between Network Rail and British Steel, which Ms Alexander said was a “vote of confidence”.Workers at the British Steel site in Scunthorpe will make rail tracks (Danny Lawson/PA)British Steel is to supply 337,000 tonnes of rail track, with a further 80-90,000 tonnes to be provided by other European manufacturers.The Network Rail contract will start on July 1 and is set to provide the company with 80 per cent of its rail needs.Jingye, which bought British Steel in 2020, launched a consultation in March which it said would affect between 2,000 and 2,700 jobs, despite months of negotiations and a £500 million co-investment offer from the Government.The Scunthorpe plant has been producing steel for Britain’s railways since 1865.The Network Rail agreement is the first major public procurement since the Government’s emergency legislation was passed.Network Rail’s group director for railway business services Clive Berrington said: “We are committed to buying British where it makes economic sense to do so and British Steel remain extremely competitive in the provision of rail and will remain our main supplier in the years ahead.”Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, national officer at the GMB union, said it was a “crucial first step in securing the future of our steel industry” and urged ministers to make sure British Steel has a “constant flow of orders” from other infrastructure projects.No 10 said it wanted to implement a further deal to remove tariffs on steel “as soon as possible”. More

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      ‘I have never seen such open corruption’: Trump’s crypto deals and loosening of rules shock observers

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      Cryptocurrency multibillionaire Justin Sun could barely contain his glee.Last month, Sun publicly flaunted a $100,000 Donald Trump-branded watch that he was awarded at a private dinner at Trump’s Virginia golf club. Sun had earned the recognition for buying $20m of the crypto memecoin $Trump, ranking him first among 220 purchasers of the token who received dinner invitations.Trump’s much-hyped 22 May dinner and a White House tour the next day for 25 leading memecoin buyers were devised to spur sales of $Trump and wound up raking in about $148m, much of it courtesy of anonymous and foreign buyers, for Trump and his partners.Memecoins are crypto tokens that are often based on online jokes but have no inherent value. They often prove risky investments as their prices can fluctuate wildly. The $Trump memecoin was launched days before Trump’s presidential inauguration, spurring a surge of buyers and yielding tens of millions of dollars for Trump and some partners.Trump’s private events on 22 May to reward the top purchasers of $Trump have sparked strong criticism of the president from ethics watchdogs, ex-prosecutors and scholars for exploiting his office for personal gain in unprecedented ways. But they fit in a broader pattern of how Trump has exploited the power and lure of his office to enrich himself and some top allies via cryptocurrencies.“Self-enrichment is exactly what the founders feared most in a leader – that’s why they put two separate prohibitions on self-benefit into the constitution,” said former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig. “Trump’s profiting from his presidential memecoin is a textbook example of what the framers wanted to avoid.”Scholars, too, offer a harsh analysis of Trump’s crypto dealings.“I have never seen such open corruption in any modern government anywhere,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard University and an expert on authoritarian regimes who co-authored the book How Democracies Die.Such ethical and legal qualms don’t seem to have fazed Trump or Sun. The pair forged their ties well before the dinner as Sun invested $75m in another Trump crypto enterprise, World Liberty Financial (WLF), that Trump and his two older sons launched last fall and in which they boast a 60% stake.The Chinese-born Sun’s political and financial fortunes, as well as those of other crypto tycoons, have improved markedly since Trump took office and moved fast to loosen regulations of cryptocurrency ventures at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the justice department and other agencies to upend Joe Biden’s policies.As the SEC has eased regulations and paused or ended 12 cases involving cryptocurrency fraud, three Sun crypto companies that were charged with fraud by an SEC lawsuit in 2023 had their cases paused in February by the agency, which cited the “public interest” and reportedly has held settlement talks.Trump’s and Sun’s mutually beneficial crypto dealings symbolize how the US president has boosted his paper wealth by an estimated billions of dollars since he returned to office, and worked diligently to slash regulations fulfilling his pledges to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet” and end the “war on crypto”.After the 22 May dinner, Sun posted: “Thank you @POTUS for your unwavering support of our industry!”Although Trump’s crypto ventures are less than a year old, the State Democracy Defenders Fund watchdog group has estimated that as of mid-March they are worth about $2.9bn.In late March, Reuters revealed that WLF had raised more than $500m in recent months and that the Trump family receives about 75% of crypto token sales.Trump’s pursuit of crypto riches and deregulation represents a big shift from his comments to Fox News in 2021, when he said that bitcoin, a very popular crypto currency, “seems like a scam”.View image in fullscreenIn July 2019, Trump posted that “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade”, and noted that their value was “highly volatile and based on thin air”.Now, Trump’s new pro-crypto policies have benefited big campaign donors who lead crypto firms as well as Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who spent almost $300m to help elect Trump, and who boasts sizable crypto investments in bitcoin through his electric car firm Tesla and his other ventures. Though Trump and Musk have since fallen out, the mogul’s crypto fortunes seem to have improved due to the president’s deregulatory agenda.Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is a real estate billionaire who helped found WLF, in which he has a stake; Trump’s two oldest sons, Eric and Don Jr, and Witkoff’s son Zach have played key roles promoting WLF in the Middle East and other places.Trump’s use of his Oval Office perch to increase his wealth through his burgeoning crypto businesses while his administration rapidly eases regulations is unprecedented and smacks of corruption, say scholars, many congressional Democrats and some Republicans.“To me, Trump’s crypto dealings seem pretty explicit,” Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University professor who focuses on political history, told the Guardian. “Policy decisions are being made regarding parts of the financial industry that are being done not to benefit the nation, but his own financial interests … It’s hard to imagine what he’s doing benefits the nation.”Rosenzweig stressed that “not only do Trump’s extravagant crypto ventures benefit him personally as his administration slashes crypto regulations and takes pro-crypto steps at the SEC; they also benefit his tech bro backers who will take full advantage of the end of regulatory enforcement”.In Congress, leading Democrats, including Richard Blumenthal, a senator from Connecticut, and Jamie Raskin, a representative from Maryland, in May announced separate inquiries by key panels in which they are ranking members into Trump’s crypto dealings, and attacked Trump for using his office to enrich himself via his crypto operations.“With his pay-for-access dinner, Trump put presidential access and influence on the auction block,” Blumenthal told the Guardian. “The scope and scale of Trump’s corruption is staggering – I’ll continue to demand answers.”Last month, too, the Democratic senator Jeff Merkley, from Oregon, and the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, introduced the “end crypto corruption” bill, which 22 other Democrats have endorsed.“Trump’s crypto schemes are the Mount Everest of corruption,” Merkley told the Guardian. “We must ban Trump-style crypto corruption so all elected federal officials – including the president, vice-president and members of Congress – cannot profit from shady crypto practices,” which his bill would curtail.Some former congressional Republicans are also incensed by Trump’s blatant use of his presidency to peddle $Trump. “Nobody should be allowed to use their public positions while in office to enrich themselves,” said ex-Republican congressman Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, who once chaired the House ethics panel. “A member of Congress would not be permitted to engage in the kind of memecoin activities which the president has been doing.”Trump and his family have dismissed critics concerns about the 22 May events and his other crypto ventures.Before the 22 May dinner, Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters that the president would attend his crypto gala in his “personal time” and it was not a White House event, but declined to release names of the many anonymous and foreign attendees.To allay criticism, the Trump Organization said in January that Trump’s business interests, including his assets and investments, would be placed in a trust his children would manage and that the president wouldn’t be involved in decision-making or daily operations. Trump’s family also hired a lawyer as an ethics adviser.But those commitments have been dwarfed by Trump’s public embrace of his crypto ventures and strong deregulatory agenda. In March, for instance, Trump hosted the first-ever “crypto summit” at the White House, which drew a couple dozen industry bigwigs who heard Trump promise to end Biden’s “war on crypto”.Trump’s crypto critics worry that the president’s strong push for less industry regulation may create big problems: the crypto industry has been battered by some major scandals including ones involving North Korean hackers and has been plagued by concerns about industry’s lack of transparency and risks.For instance, a report last December by leading research firm Chainalysis found that North Korean hackers had stolen $1.34bn of cryptocurrency in 2024, a record total and double what they stole the year before.The report concluded that US and foreign analysts believe the stolen funds were diverted in North Korea to “finance its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs”.Other crypto fraud schemes in the US have spurred loud alarms.In an annual report last September, the FBI revealed that fraud related to crypto businesses soared in 2023 with Americans suffering $5.6bn in losses, a 45% jump from the previous year.Sam Bankman-Fried, who founded the now bankrupt FTX crypto exchange, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March 2024 by a New York judge for bilking customers out of $8bn.Nonetheless, a justice department memo in April announced it was closing a national cryptocurrency enforcement team that was established in 2022, which had brought major crypto cases against North Korean hackers and other crypto criminals.The memo stressed that the justice department was not a “digital assets regulator” and tried to tar the Biden administration for a “reckless strategy of regulation by prosecution”. The memo stated that a pro-crypto Trump executive order in January spurred the justice department’s policy shift.Ex-prosecutors and ethics watchdogs worry increasingly that crypto scandals and conflicts of interest will worsen as the Trump administration moves fast to ease crypto oversight at the justice department, the SEC and other agencies.Some of WLF’s high-profile crypto deals have involved overseas crypto firms which have had recent regulatory and legal problems in the US, fueling new concerns, watchdogs and ex-prosecutors say.View image in fullscreenOne lucrative deal raised eyebrows when WLF was tapped to play a central role in a $2bn investment by Abu Dhabi financial fund MGX that is backed by the United Arab Emirates in the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance.As part of the deal, the Abu Dhabi fund bought $2bn of a WLF stablecoin, dubbed USD1, to invest in Binance. Stablecoins are a popular type of cryptocurrency that are often pegged to the dollar.The WLF deal comes after Binance in 2023 pleaded guilty to violating US money-laundering laws and other violations and the justice department fined it a whopping $4bn.Furthermore, Binance’s ex-CEO and founder, Changpeng Zhao, pleaded guilty in the US to violating the Bank Secrecy Act and failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program.Zhao, who still owns 90% of Binance, served a four-month jail term last year.WLF’s $2bn deal was announced at an Abu Dhabi crypto conference on 1 May that drew Eric Trump two weeks before Trump’s visit to the UAE capital, sparking concerns of foreign influence and ethics issues.Increasing WLF’s ties further with Binance, the crypto exchange announced on 22 May that it had begun listing the stablecoin for trading purposes. Binance got some good news at the end of May, too, when the SEC announced the dismissal of a civil lawsuit it filed in 2023 against the exchange for misleading investors about surveillance controls and trading irregularities.Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of the justice department’s fraud section, noted that SEC moves back in February “to emasculate its crypto enforcement efforts sent crypto fraudsters a welcome mat of impunity”.He added: “The recent dismissal of the SEC’s lawsuit against Binance for mishandling customer funds, days after it began listing the Trump family’s cryptocurrency on its exchange, seemed to be the natural consequence of such enforcement laxity. Victims be damned.”Other agency deregulatory moves that favor crypto interests can boost Trump’s own enterprises and his allies, but pose potential risks for ordinary investors, say legal scholars.Columbia law professor Richard Briffault noted that as part of the Trump administration’s wide-ranging and risky crypto deregulatory agenda which can benefit Trump’s own crypto ventures, the Department of Labor in late May nixed a Biden-era “extreme care” warning about 401K plans investing in crypto.“[The labor department] has rescinded the red light from the Biden years for 401K retirement plans, which is another sign of the Trump administration’s embrace of crypto,” Briffault said.Briffault, an expert on government ethics, has told the Guardian more broadly that Trump’s crypto ventures and his 22 May memecoin bash are “unprecedented”.“I don’t think there’s been anything like this in American history,” he said. “Trump is marketing access to himself as a way to profit his memecoin. People are paying to meet Trump and he’s the regulator-in-chief. It’s doubly corrupt.”In late May, in a new crypto business twist, the Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent of Truth Social, said it had sealed a deal to raise $2.5bn to be used to buy bitcoin, creating a reserve of the cryptocurrency.Meanwhile, Trump’s stablecoin fortunes and those of many industry allies could get boosts soon from a Senate stablecoin bill, dubbed the “genius act”, that’s poised to pass the Senate on Tuesday but which critics have said loosens regulatory controls in dangerous ways unless amended with consumer protections and other safeguards.Senators Merkley and Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, led unsuccessful efforts to amend the bill to thwart potential criminal abuses, protect consumers and prevent Trump from using his office to profit his crypto businesses.“The ‘genius act’ fails to prevent sanctions evasion and other illicit activity and lets big tech giants like Elon Musk’s X issue their own private money – all without the guardrails needed to keep Americans safe from scams, junk fees or another financial crash,” Warren told the Guardian.“Donald Trump has turned the presidency into a crypto cash machine,” Warren said. The Genius act, Warren stressed, should have “prohibited the President AND his family from profiting from any stablecoin project.”More broadly, Kedric Payne, the general counsel and ethics director at the Campaign Legal Center, said: “President Trump’s financial stakes in the crypto industry at the same time that he is determining how the government will regulate the industry is unprecedented in modern history. This is precisely the type of conflict of interest that ethics laws and norms are designed to stop.” More

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      Trump’s ‘revenge tax’ could threaten foreign investment into US, analysts say

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      Foreign investment into the US could be threatened by Donald Trump’s new “revenge” taxes, analysts have warned.A provision within the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will allow the US to apply higher taxes on foreign individuals, businesses and investors connected to jurisdictions that impose “unfair foreign taxes” on US individuals and companies.Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange could choose to avoid the measure by redomiciling in New York.Section 899, as it is called, classes digital service taxes and “diverted profits taxes” as unfair, along with any taxes that target US entities. It would allow US authorities to impose an additional tax starting at 5% and increasing by five percentage points annually, up to 20%.Max Yoeli, a senior research fellow in the US and the Americas programme at Chatham House, says section 899 “threatens to further alienate foreign investors”.It could chill investment into the US by calling into question its “fundamental openness”, he added.The Italian bank UniCredit agrees that section 899 could further damage foreign investor sentiment towards US dollar-denominated assets. It could backfire on the US, it says, given the large amount of domestic assets held by foreigners.“The list of countries that would fall into this category is long and encompasses most European countries, including Italy and Germany,” UniCredit told clients, saying that foreign investors had more than doubled their holdings of US assets over the past decade.“Not only would this additional tax serve to finance corporate tax reductions, but it would also likely be used as a negotiating tool for the US in trade deals, especially as Republicans seem willing to withdraw from the global minimum tax framework.”View image in fullscreenUniCredit also fears the dollar’s safe haven status could be undermined if there are fresh tax disputes between the US and other countries.The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was passed by the US House of Representatives last month. The Senate is yet to approve the bill, with the White House setting a deadline of 4 July.George Saravelos, the global head of FX research at Deutsche Bank, warned last month that section 899 could allow the US administration to transform its trade war into a capital war by “explicitly using taxation on foreign holdings of US assets as leverage to further US economic goals”.UK companies could certainly fall foul of section 899, as Britain operates a digital services tax aimed at tech multinationals, and a diverted profits tax designed to clamp down on tax avoidance by multinationals.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionGoldman Sachs has calculated that UK corporates are “particularly exposed” to section 899, as roughly 30% of the revenues of companies listed on the FTSE 100 are generated in the US.However, as companies that are majority-owned by US shareholders are exempt, City bosses may consider moving their stock market listing to New York, to dodge section 899.“This ownership dynamic not only mitigates tax risk but also reinforces the strategic case for relisting in the US, where investor bases are deeper and more aligned with US revenue exposure,” the Goldman Sachs analysts said.According to Goldman, the large UK companies with the most significant exposure to the US, and who are not majority-owned by US investors, are the media group Pearson, the business services group Experian, the pest control business Rentokil and the pharmaceuticals manufacturer Hikma.Ashtead Group, Compass and Melrose also generate a large proportion of their sales stateside, but as they have majority US ownership they should be exempt from section 899.French companies could also be at risk, as Paris operates a digital services tax on the revenues that large tech companies generate in France. More

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      ‘Stay below the radar’: corporate America goes quiet after Trump’s return

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      From vast protests and all-caps social media posts to acrimonious legislative hearings and pugnacious White House statements, Washington has perhaps never been noisier. But since Donald Trump’s return to office, one corner of civil society has been almost eerily quiet.Those leading corporate America rapidly turned down the volume after the president’s re-election. Gone are the days of political and social interventions, highly publicized diversity initiatives and donations to important causes.For months, some of the most powerful firms in the world have nervously navigated a dangerous US political landscape, desperate to avoid the wrath of an administration as volatile as it is vocal.“CEOs like two things. They like consistency and predictability,” said Bill George, former chairman and CEO of Medtronic and serial board director. “They like to know where things are going. No one can figure out where this administration’s really going, because everything is transactional.”View image in fullscreen“Stay below the radar screen,” George has been advising senior executives across the US. “Do not get in a fight with this president.”Industry leaders from David Solomon of Goldman Sachs to Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber extoled the benefits of “Trump accounts” for babies this week. It was the latest example of knee-flexing that began on the patio of Mar-a-Lago in the aftermath of Trump’s victory last November.The genuflections have been backed by big money, with millions of dollars thrown into the president’s inaugural fund by companies and executives. That started to look like chump change before long. Amazon reportedly paid $40m for a documentary about Melania Trump. Apple announced plans to invest $500bn in the US.But those moves do not appear to have bought much favor. The White House accused Amazon of being “hostile and political” following a report (upon which the company later poured cold water) that it would start disclosing the impact of Trump’s tariffs on prices. And the president threatened Apple with vast tariffs.No CEO seemed closer to Trump than Elon Musk, the billionaire industrialist behind Tesla and SpaceX, who gave almost $300m to Republican campaigns last year, and worked in the administration for months. Their explosive fallout, days after Musk’s exit, prompted the president to threaten the cancellation of federal contracts and tax subsidies for Musk’s companies.View image in fullscreenThe pair’s rupture underlined why many executives are struggling to trust the president, according to Paul Argenti, professor of corporate communication at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. “The mercurial nature of this guy kind of just seeps in, and people start to realize they’re dealing with something that’s a bit more difficult.”His advice? “Proceed with extreme caution.”“Loyalty only goes one way with Trump,” said Dan Schwerin, co-founder of Evergreen Strategy Group, and former speechwriter for Hillary Clinton, who has previously worked with firms including Levi Strauss and Patagonia. “This is like doing business with the mafia: you’re not going to win, and you’re not going to be safe.”The standard playbook is clear: “You make a big splashy announcement: the details don’t matter, you don’t have to follow through, but you placate the White House,” said Schwerin. “That maybe buys you a little time and a little goodwill.“But history suggests that Trump will do whatever is best for Trump, and he will turn on you in an instant, if it’s better for him. And that is true for his friends, so it will certainly be true for a company that he has no loyalty to.”Extreme caution has become the name of the game – anything to avoid your company getting drawn into the crosshairs of this administration. But companies can’t just focus on the president: they have shareholders, customers and employees to answer to.View image in fullscreen“You can’t base everything on getting through the next four years,” said George. “Yeah, it’s going to be chaotic. Yes, it’s going to be challenging. But you better hold firm to your purpose and your values.”He pointed to retailer Target, where he served on the board for 12 years. “They were very, very big on differentiating themselves from Walmart, using diversity as the criteria – and particularly being, they called themselves, the most gay-friendly company in town.“And then [Target CEO] Brian Cornell, six days after the inauguration, abandoned all that,” said George. The chain faced a backlash – and boycotts – for abruptly announcing the rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Breaking his silence in an email to employees three months later, Cornell claimed: “We are still the Target you know and believe in.”Contrast this with Costco, another retailer, which in January faced a shareholder proposal against DEI efforts from a conservative thinktank. The firm’s board robustly defended its “commitment to an enterprise rooted in respect and inclusion” before the proposal was put to its investors for a vote.“They got a 98% vote to stay the course, to stay true to what they were,” said George. “And their customer base is very conservative. This is not like they have some liberal customer base.”Argenti believes the period of strategic silence by many companies, and knee-flexing to the White House, might be coming to a close following Musk’s messy exit. “We’re at an inflection point,” he said. “There’s going to period where people realize you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”CEOs of companies counting the cost of Trump’s policies are “not going to suffer in silence”, he said. “You can’t win. It’s not like you can be secure in knowing if you follow this strategy, he’ll leave you alone.”View image in fullscreen“We are starting to see the pendulum swing back,” according to Schwerin, who claimed the administration’s erratic execution of tariffs had “opened some people’s eyes” that its policies were bad for business.“I think it’s crucial that we start to see a little more pushback. Better to have a backbone than to just bend the knee.”On controversial issues at the heart of political discourse, however, George does not expect much of a shift from CEOs. “It is radio silence, and I think you’ll see that continuing. There’s not much to be gained from speaking out today.”“Stick to your lane,” he has been counseling executives. “If you’re a banker, you can talk about the economy. If you’re an oil expert … talk to the energy industry. But you can’t speak ex-cathedra to everyone else.”“Only a handful” of business figures are deemed able to stand up and make bold public statements on any issue, according to George, who points to Jamie Dimon, the veteran JPMorgan Chase boss, and Warren Buffett, the longtime head of Berkshire Hathaway.“There are certain people who are really hard to take on. Jamie’s one,” he said. “If you were president of the United States, would you take on Warren Buffett?” More

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      Trump trade deal shows how vital China’s rare-earth metals are to US defense firms

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      The draft trade agreement with China announced by Donald Trump on Wednesday would ease concerns from top US military suppliers about rare-earth metals and magnets that, if cut off permanently, could hobble production of everything from smart bombs to fighter jets to submarines and other weapons in the US arsenal.While the deal has not yet been finalised, it may reassure major defense companies such as Lockheed Martin, the largest US user of samarium – a rare-earth metal used in military-grade magnets – whose supply is entirely controlled by China.The issue of China’s export restrictions on the metals and magnets was so important that Trump specifically mentioned them as part of his announcement of a broader trade agreement with China that would reduce US tariffs to 55% and Chinese tariffs to 10%.“Our deal with China is done, subject to final approval with President Xi and me,” Trump wrote. “Full magnets, and any necessary rare earths, will be supplied, up front, by China.”Rare earths are crucial to the production of F-35 fighter jets, Virginia- and Columbia-class nuclear-powered submarines, Tomahawk missiles, radar systems, unmanned aerial vehicles and smart bombs, according to Gracelin Baskaran of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a thinktank.China in April imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements during the tough negotiations over Trump’s new tariffs. China also targeted the aerospace and defense industries by limiting 15 US entities with ties to the industry from receiving dual-use goods.“The United States is already on the back foot when it comes to manufacturing these defense technologies,” Baskaran said in an interview published by CSIS. “China is rapidly expanding its munitions production and acquiring advanced weapons systems and equipment at a pace five to six times faster than the United States. While China is preparing with a wartime mindset, the United States continues to operate under peacetime conditions.”Trump has amassed a team of foreign policy China hawks, including a number who have warned that the US should focus more on the pacing threat posed by China over the coming decades instead of current conflicts in Ukraine or the Middle East.“Even before the latest restrictions, the US defense industrial base struggled with limited capacity and lacked the ability to scale up production to meet defense technology demands,” she continued. “Further bans on critical minerals inputs will only widen the gap, enabling China to strengthen its military capabilities more quickly than the United States.”China and the US had agreed last month in Geneva to pause the implementation of sky-high tariffs that would have delivered a severe economic blow to manufacturers and consumers in the US, as well as exporters in China.But China maintained export licenses on rare-earth metals used by both defense producers and carmakers that threatened to upend global supply chains and imperil production in the US.In particular, China has a stranglehold on the production and export of samarium, a magnet used in combination with cobalt to provide highly durable magnets used to withstand the intense temperatures in military-grade tech. China produces the entire world’s supply of the rare-earth metal.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn particular, the magnets are important for the production of guided missiles, satellite-guided “smart bombs”, and aircrafts, including fighter jets, according to Apex Magnets, a supplier.Those supplies of weapons have been depleted through deliveries of missiles and other ordnance to Ukraine and to the Israeli military. Pentagon planners and other officials in the administration of Joe Biden, regularly squared off over whether foreign weapons deliveries expose a US vulnerability in case it faced off with a major military power.In order to break the deadlock, secretary of state Marco Rubio also abruptly announced plans to cancel hundreds of thousands of visas for Chinese students in the US. While publicly that was said as a plan to root out Chinese spies in US higher education, Axios reported that the visa ban was also motivated by China’s obstinance on resuming rare earths exports.The breakthrough comes as Trump is planning to display US military prowess at a parade in Washington DC this weekend that has been seen as an attempt to flex American muscle and reinforce the US president’s bonafides as a supporter of the military.Trump in 2019 ordered the Pentagon to find new sources of procuring rare earth minerals, in particular samarium, because the US did not have the capacity to produce them domestically. The initiative was “essential to the national defense”, he said then. More

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      Trump’s tariffs have become his Vietnam – and the right is breaking ranks | Sidney Blumenthal

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      Donald Trump’s trade war has become his quagmire: legal, economic and political. On 28 May, the court of international trade ruled his tariffs exceeded his constitutional authority. Point by point, the decision decimated Trump’s arguments as flimsy and false, implicitly castigated the Republican Congress for abdicating its constitutional responsibility, and reminded other courts, not least the supreme court, of the judicial branch’s obligation to exercise its authority regardless of the blustering of the executive and the fecklessness of the legislative branches.Trump’s tariffs, along with his withdrawal of active support for Ukraine and passivity toward his strongman father figure Vladimir Putin, have broken the western alliance, forcing the west to make its own arrangements with China, and cementing the idea for a generation to come that the United States is an untrustworthy and unstable partner.On the economic front, Trump’s tariffs have already begun to increase inflation, shutter trade, devalue the dollar, and undermine manufacturing. They will soon create shortages of all sorts of goods, ruin small business, and force layoffs that bring about stagflation that has not been seen since the 1970s, which was then the result of an external oil shock, not self-harm. On 3 June, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported that as a result, principally, of Trump’s tariffs, the US will suffer a decline in the rate of growth from what had been forecast this year. “Lower growth and less trade will hit incomes and slow job growth,” the OECD stated.As a political matter, besides being unpopular, Trump’s tariffs, in combination with his assaults on the institutions of civil and legal society, have drawn out the most intelligent and skillful members of the conservative legal establishment, who themselves have been some of the most crucial players in the rise of the right wing, to man the ramparts against him. These are not the familiar Never Trumpers, but newly engaged and potentially more dangerous foes.While corporate leaders uniformly abhor Trump’s tariffs, they have stifled themselves into a complicit silence on the road to serfdom. But Trump’s new enemies coming from the conservative citadel of the Federalist Society are filing brief after brief in the courts, upholding the law to halt his dictatorial march.Trump naturally cannot help but turn everything he touches into sordid scandal. After announcing his “Liberation Day” tariffs, which tanked the stock market, Trump declared a pause during which he promised he would sign, seal and deliver 90 deals in 90 days. But he has announced only a deal with Britain. Most of the deals Trump has seen have been with the Trump Organization. Under the shadow of a threatened 46% tariff, Vietnam, after a visit from Eric Trump, granted a $1bn Trump Tower in Ho Chi Minh City and a $1.5bn golf club and resort near Hanoi with “two championship golf courses”, relative crumbs alongside the billions the Trump family has accrued from across the Middle East, not to mention the $400m jet that his team solicited from Qatar to serve as his palatial Air Force One.Standing before the white marble plinth of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington national cemetery on Memorial Day, 26 May, after reading prepared remarks about “our honored dead” to a gathering of Gold Star families, Donald Trump fell into a reverie about his divine destiny. “I have everything,” he said. He spoke about the parade of troops and tanks he has ordered for 14 June, his 79th birthday, which happens to coincide with the date that George Washington created the Continental army. “Amazing the way things work out. God did that, I believe that too. God did it.”Two days after Trump had mused about his election by heaven to possess “everything”, the court of international trade issued what the Wall Street Journal called the “ruling heard ‘round the world … proving again that America doesn’t have a king who can rule by decree’”.The US court of appeals for DC then temporarily stayed the ruling while it considered the case. But the trade court’s decision to deny Trump his toys was comprehensive, blistering and devastating. Now, Trump’s trade war is his Vietnam, a quagmire of his own.Trump’s entire program dances on the head of his tariffs. By fiat, without congressional approval, he has willfully invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act as cover for his helter-skelter gyrations to reshape the global economy according to his desire for domination of the Earth. He has further explained that his tariffs are necessary to pay for the vast tax cuts for the wealthy in his budget bill that would increase deficits. He claims that the tariffs will replace the revenue raised from income tax, fixed in the constitution by the 16th amendment, ratified in 1913. Without tariffs on the scope he projects his dream house of cards collapses. With his tariffs even as his stated minimal goal he blows up the world.The court of international trade, a court based on specialized expertise, whose judges have lifetime appointments, flatly stated that Trump’s use of the emergency law under which he claimed his authority does “not permit the president to impose tariffs in response to balance-of-payments deficits”, “exceeds any tariff authority delegated to the president”, “would create an unconstitutional delegation of power”, and is “contrary to law”.Having ruled that Trump’s worldwide tariffs are illegal, the court deemed his “trafficking tariffs” imposed on Canada and Mexico also lawless. Trump has asserted them on a contrived national security rationale of preventing the importation of fentanyl. But the court stated that Trump’s “use of tariffs as leverage … is impermissible not because it is unwise or ineffective but because … [the federal law] does not allow it”. Thus, the court concluded in both instances, “the worldwide and retaliatory tariff orders exceed any authority granted to the president … to regulate importation by means of tariffs. The trafficking tariffs fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders.”The trade court’s ruling suddenly exposed the extent to which Trump’s relationship with the conservative legal movement is unraveling. The fissure runs deeper and wider than name-calling. Trump’s trade war has morphed into a widespread civil war within the right with the core of the conservative legal establishment resisting him.Trump’s venomous social media posts against Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society co- chairman and rightwing powerhouse, reads like a memoir of an ingenue taken advantage of in the big city by strangers. “I was new to Washington,” Trump explained, “and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges. I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real ‘sleazebag’ named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions.”Slowly, Trump has come to the realization that this Leonard Leo “openly brags how he controls Judges, and even Justices of the United States Supreme Court”. Trump was revealing that Leo understood his power beyond his influence over Trump on appointments. “Backroom ‘hustlers’ must not be allowed to destroy our Nation!” He is victim of a con, Donald Chump.“Talk about friendly fire,” editorialized the Wall Street Journal. But there was more to the story than Trump revealed, which the Journal’s editorial page, Leonard Leo’s friend in court as it were, happily provided. The judge on the trade court whom Trump appointed and blames on Leo, Timothy Reif, was in fact, according to the Journal, “recommended to the White House by Robert Lighthizer, who was Mr Trump’s first-term trade representative. Mr Leo had nothing to do with it.” Perhaps Trump is suffering from memory loss.Trump bellowed that the reason for the trade court’s ruling must be “purely a hatred of ‘TRUMP’? What other reason could it be?” “Well,” suggested the Journal, “how about the law and the constitution?” After Leo had been the one to give Trump the names of the three justices he appointed to the supreme court who made possible the infamous decision granting him “absolute immunity” for “official acts” that enabled his evasion of prosecution during the 2024 campaign, this was a thick and rich ragu.The Journal also rushed to Leo’s side with a podcast featuring John Yoo, who as deputy assistant attorney general under George W Bush and the author of the notorious Torture Memos. Yoo said it was “truly outrageous to accuse Leonard Leo, one of the stalwarts or the conservative movement, of being something like a traitor”. Yoo stated: “Why would President Trump turn his back on one of his greatest, if not his greatest achievements from the first term, appointing three justices?” Indeed, Yoo was right that Leo had dictated Trump’s choices, exactly as Trump confessed. What neither disclosed is that it was the price Trump paid for a political armistice with the mighty rightwing Koch political operation. Some deal, some art.And Yoo added in an admission of truth-telling about the supreme court’s invention of absolute presidential immunity for “official acts”: “If it weren’t for Federalist Society judges, he would be in jail right now because it was the Roberts court that said former presidents just can’t be prosecuted for crimes.”But to Trump, the betrayal is cutting. The trade court’s ruling against him echoed the amicus brief filed by a bipartisan group of legal eminences that included leading conservative lights. There was Steven Calabresi, professor at Northwestern Law School, the co-founder and co-chairman of the Federalist Society, and the chief theorist of the conservative doctrine of the “unitary executive”. There was Michael W McConnell, former federal judge, Stanford law professor, and a chief defender of religious right lawsuits. There was Michael Mukasey, former federal judge and George W Bush’s attorney general. There was Peter Wallison, President Reagan’s White House counsel. They all signed the brief stating: “The president’s tariff proclamations bypass the constitutional framework that lends legitimacy and predictability to American lawmaking.”The breaking of ranks on the right is not isolated. Other well-known members of the conservative legal establishment have done more than submit an amicus brief. They have become counsels to some of the most important institutions in Trump’s crosshairs – Harvard University, National Public Radio and the WilmerHale law firm.William Burck and Robert Hur are co-counsels representing Harvard in its suit against the Trump administration order denying its enrollment of international students unless the university submits to his draconian control over its academic processes.Burck, former deputy White House counsel to George W Bush and a current member of the board of directors of the Fox Corporation, is the head of “one of a few top US firms that seemed well placed not only to avoid Donald Trump’s wrath but also benefit from connections to the president’s inner circle”, according to the Financial Times. He was hired to be an ethics adviser to the Trump Organization – that is, until he chose to represent Harvard. Trump ranted against him: “Harvard is a threat to Democracy, with a lawyer, who represents me, who should therefore be forced to resign, immediately, or be fired. He’s not that good, anyway, and I hope that my very big and beautiful company, now run by my sons, gets rid of him ASAP!” Eric Trump, who had previously called Burck “one of the nation’s finest and most respected lawyers”, wielded the executioner’s axe for his father.Hur had been appointed the US attorney for Maryland by Trump and served as the special counsel investigating President Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents stored in boxes in his home’s garage. Hur filed no charges, but said of Biden that he was “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.In Harvard’s suit against the Trump administration, Burck and Hur state that its actions against the university are “a blatant violation of the first amendment, the due process clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act. It is the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its first amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students. The government’s actions are unlawful for other equally clear and pernicious reasons.”For its representation in its suit against the Trump administration, which seeks to slash its funding, National Public Radio has hired Miguel Estrada, a star of the conservative legal firmament, whose nomination to the federal bench by George W Bush was blocked by Senate Democrats in 2002. According to the NPR complaint, Trump’s action “violates the expressed will of Congress and the first amendment’s bedrock guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association, and also threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information”.When Trump issued executive orders against big law firms that had somehow offended him, coercing their surrender to his whim, one of those firms, WilmerHale, subject to such an order for having had as a senior partner Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who headed the investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election, did not cave. Instead, it hired Paul Clement, George W Bush’s solicitor general, who has argued on behalf of many of the most controversial conservative causes before the supreme court, including against the Defense of Marriage Act and against the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.Citing the example of John Adams, who defended British soldiers in the Boston Massacre, Clement argued against the Trump administration that “British monarchs’ practice of punishing attorneys ‘whose greatest crime was to dare to defend unpopular causes’ – which threatened to reduce lawyers to ‘parrots of the views of whatever group wields governmental power at the moment’ – helped inspire the Bill of Rights”.Then, Ed Whelan, who holds the Antonin Scalia chair in constitutional studies at the rightwing Ethics and Public Policy Center, and is a close surrogate for Leonard Leo, savaged Trump’s nomination of Emil Bove, who was his personal attorney in the New York hush-money trial and whom he had appointed as deputy attorney general, to be a judge on the US court of appeals for the third circuit.Bove ordered corruption charges dropped against the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, which a federal judge said “smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions”. The US attorney for Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon, a conservative Republican, resigned in protest, stating that the deal “amounted to a quid pro quo” and that Bove had ordered her not to take notes during meetings. Seven members of the public integrity section of the justice department also resigned.Whelan, writing in the conservative magazine National Review, called Bove Trump’s “henchman”, decried his “bullying mishandling” of the Adams case, and suggested he might be put on the federal bench to “position him well for the next supreme court vacancy. A rosier possibility is that Bove is tired of being Stephen Miller’s errand boy.”Now, Trump is worried about what conservatives on the supreme court might rule when presented with the trade court’s decision. He rails in private against Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whom he appointed to the supreme court, for her unexpected occasional independence. The Journal, with the inside track, writes that “the White House boasts it will win at the supreme court, but our reading of the trade court’s opinion suggests the opposite. Mr Trump’s three court appointees are likely to invoke the major-questions precedent” – which would uphold the trade court and force Trump either to bring his policy before the Congress or drop it.Trump is enraged that his betrayers from the Federalist Society have claimed roles in the resistance. He has no loyalty to anyone or thing, but demands personal fealty, certainly now above any ideological litmus tests. The only ideological tests are to be imposed on universities. Trump has learned his lesson. In his insistence on obedient judges, Trump is returning to his first principle as he was taught in the beginning by his mob attorney Roy Cohn, who said: “Don’t tell me what the law is, tell me who the judge is.”

      Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of The Court of History podcast More

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      ‘Saying Trump is dangerous is not enough’: Bernie Sanders on Biden, billionaires – and why the Democrats failed

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      ‘I think what Trumpism is about, is an understanding that the system in America is not working for working-class people,” says Bernie Sanders, sitting in the Guardian’s offices in London. “In a phoney, hypocritical way, Trump has tapped into that. His quote-unquote ‘solutions’ will only make a bad situation worse.”View image in fullscreenIn person, Sanders’ 83 years read differently than in photograph, perhaps because of how conversational he is. His voice is magnetic – a Brooklyn accent that feels both warm and tough. “But what I have been aware of, and I’ve talked about it for years, is that in America, the very richest people are doing phenomenally well, while 60% of our people live paycheck to paycheck.”Later, he will say the same thing to an audience in London – only with more emphasis and passion. “Sixty per cent. Six-zero. Do you know what paycheck to paycheck means?” It’s exhilarating to hear Sanders speak to a crowd: his zeal is reflected back in their faces, his moral clarity is such a relief, set against the cynicism and resignation of most of the Democratic party’s opposition to Trump and his administration. Class war is as old as time, but it’s a peculiarity of this age that you rarely hear a politician name it. “I do,” he tells me. “There is a class war going on. The people on top are waging that war.”It’s a look at what could have been. Sanders ran, of course, to be the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, and again in 2020. The first time, there was a real sense, in the US and abroad, that something incredible might happen: that someone with “almost no name recognition,” he says, a senator from the small state of Vermont, might successfully challenge Hillary Clinton, whom the party had already anointed. We all know how that worked out. Was it the greatest disappointment of his political life? “Well, you’re too busy to feel things,” he says. “You’re just working very hard.”What is absolutely unequivocal is his criticism of the Democrats. The party, he thinks, lacks any real progressive promise. “What they say is, ‘The status quo is working pretty good, and we will tinker around the edges’, and that is not a message that resonates with working people”. He refuses to indulge in any personal ill-will towards Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. The most he’ll voice is a weary resignation about 2020, when his campaign “won the first three states, primary states, in terms of popular votes. Then the Democratic establishment made sure the other candidates dropped out, and they rallied around Joe Biden. You know, that’s the world that we live in. We are taking on not just the Republican leadership, we are taking on a Democratic establishment which is tied to elements of corporate America.”During the 2024 election, he “worked very hard to see that Kamala Harris was elected. I was all over the country and was one of her major surrogates. We begged our campaign to start talking about the needs of working people. But their consultants and the money people behind them thought of another strategy, showing that she was more conservative, that she worked with people like Liz Cheney, worked with Republicans, had billionaires going out and saying that she’s wonderful. They thought that was the right approach. I did not think that was the approach, and I was public about that.” He pauses, and not for effect: it’s hard to relive November 2024. “But my voice did not carry,” he says.Sanders started his political life in 1981, when he was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont. His brother, Larry, is 90 and lives in Oxfordshire. He stood as a Green candidate in David Cameron’s old parliamentary seat in 2016. In a speech that year, supporting Sanders as the Democratic nominee, Larry gave a brief portrait of their parents. “Eli Sanders and Dorothy Wexford Sanders. They did not have easy lives, and they died young,” he said. Dorothy was born in New York, to Jewish immigrant parents fleeing Russian pogroms. Eli arrived in the US in 1921, most of his family remaining in what is now Poland and what was then Austrian Galicia, to be “wiped out by Hitler,” Sanders has said in the past. Eli worried constantly about providing for his family and both he and Dorothy were political, Larry said in the speech: “They loved the New Deal of Franklin D Roosevelt, and would be especially proud that Bernard is renewing that vision.”View image in fullscreenSanders’ charge to the Democrats now is twofold. “Their weakness is, I think, that their credibility is now quite low. And they don’t have much of a message for working people, other than to say Trump is dangerous. I think that’s just not enough.” He point blank refuses to get into Trump’s administration – its excesses, surprises, non-surprises, without first walking through everything that was already wrong with the US. “What the Democrats have to absolutely make clear is this: we’re going to take on the billionaire class. They’re going to start paying their fair share of taxes. We’re going to have healthcare for all people as a human right. We’re going to have a strong childcare system that every American can afford. We’re going to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. We’re going to create millions of jobs transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel. We’re going to build housing – boy, housing is like it is here, just a huge crisis. We’re going to build millions of units of low-income and affordable housing. Do Democrats say that? No.”That Sanders will not be drawn on every new Trump calumny, instead focusing on an economic reality that’s been worsening for decades, does help him keep on course. And it definitely doesn’t stop him giving Trump both barrels. “We don’t usually have presidents suing the media, threatening the media if they write bad stories about them. We don’t usually have presidents threatening to impeach judges. We don’t have presidents suing law firms. You add all that together, it is a movement for authoritarianism.” Is it worse than he predicted? I was thinking specifically about the extrajudicial detentions and deportations, students dragged off campus and held for weeks, perfectly legal migrants sent to El Salvador, when they weren’t even from there. “First time around, Trump was not as well organised. They’ve had four years to get their act together, so to speak. And that’s what this Project 2025 document was about.”Project 2025 was a document published by rightwing thinktank the Heritage Foundation in 2024, offering a terrifying vision for a second Trump term. An outright proposal to dismantle the US government, it was a roadmap to crackdown on immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, abortion rights – as well as being against action on the climate crisis and against vaccines. If it looked like a blueprint for The Handmaid’s Tale and The Road combined, none of the alarm last year could ever have encompassed the reality that would come. Among many other things, the Trump administration would go on to deport people without due process, and then ignore a supreme court ruling that an 18th-century wartime declaration about “alien enemies” was not a proper legal instrument.I ask a question about who funds the Heritage Foundation – as it keeps all donations secret, which raises questions about whose interests Project 2025 is really serving. His reply is impatient: “It doesn’t matter who it is they have. There’s no lack of well-paid, right-wing consultants and intellectuals who can move this country to an oligarchic authoritarian society.” His tone is clear – stop getting lost in detail, stop looking for hidden connections, stop messing around and start fighting.“One of the frightening aspects of what’s going on is the degree to which the establishment-type folks have caved in, and so quickly,” he says. “That was much less the case, during Trump’s first term.” He mentions Jeff Bezos, “who one had assumed was kind of a moderate Democrat”, losing his editorial board because they were going to endorse Kamala Harris. “Same thing in the Los Angeles Times. When you have ABC agreeing to a settlement with Trump; the bogus lawsuit against CBS that Paramount are negotiating right now. When you have major, billion-dollar law firms saying, ‘OK, we plead guilty to having clients who went to court against you and your friends, that was a terrible crime, we’re going to give you millions of dollars.’ Harvard has buckled up a little bit and appears not to be caving in, but a lot of universities have. None of this was the case eight years ago. They are creating the overall mentality that it will be dangerous to be strongly critical of Donald Trump.”View image in fullscreenIn other areas, money is talking so loudly in politics that it’s all you can hear. Sanders has used Gaza as an example when he says that politicians are afraid to speak out on Israel’s actions in case Super Pacs – which can put forward unlimited amounts of money for a candidate – will penalise them at the next election. Today, he says it’s not just Gaza, but a host of other issues. “If you say, ‘Do you really think it’s a good idea to cut Medicaid and give tax breaks to billionaires? Do you really think that climate change is a hoax?” there will be a number, not a majority, but a number of Republicans who would say: ‘No. But if I stand up and vote ‘no’, the next day, Elon Musk would say, “All right, you are going to be primaried [a candidate will be fielded against you], and Trump will support your opponent. I will put unlimited sums of money to elect your opponent.”’ Good luck to you.’”While that pattern is undoubtedly visible across many issues, the example of Gaza is particularly stark – with groups such as Aipac, funded by pro-Israel billionaires, putting tens of millions of dollars against congressional candidates, mainly Democrats, that it did not deem to be sufficiently supportive of Israel in the run-up to 2024. As the atrocities in Gaza leave many in civil society dumbfounded, what is the long game here, I ask. “That’s a difficult question, and I don’t know the answer. I will tell you that the United States has had a long-term relationship with Israel, and there are many people who have intellectually chosen not to understand that Netanyahu does not represent the Israel of 20 years ago. The moderate democratic society is now controlled by right-wing racist extremists who have done, and are doing today, absolutely horrific things to the Palestinian people in violation of American law and international law. They refuse to recognise that.” In Dublin, he was heckled for not using the word genocide, and some US progressives were dismayed, two years ago, when he didn’t call for an immediate ceasefire. He speaks out now, choosing his words carefully; he’s not on the fence.Since the end of March, Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (he always calls her that, never AOC), have been holding campaign rallies all over the US from Arizona to Utah. They are deliberately not skipping the diehard Democratic states – but have been more surprised by the numbers they’ve been getting in red states. “This is not a campaign. This is a political rally, and I think the numbers are almost unprecedented. Large numbers of people, including in conservative areas, do not want to see oligarchy in America, do not want to see authoritarianism, do not want to see massive tax breaks for the rich and cuts to the programmes that working-class people desperately need.” Sure, he and AOC sometimes disagree, “my wife and I disagree on issues! But Alexandria, I think, comes pretty much from where I come from.”View image in fullscreenHe has hope for the future, too. There are a couple of dozen people in the house Progressive Caucus – a 98-strong group of the more left-wing members of the Democratic party in Congress – that are “strong progressives”, he says. “Alexandria is maybe one of the most articulate and charismatic, but there are others there as well.” Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib to name a few.Sanders is clear that he and Ocasio-Cortez are not trying to start a third political party. Instead, they’re “trying to build a grassroots movement of working-class people and young people … If you’re seeing candidates now arising who are progressive, that’s down to a lot of the work that we are doing for the 2026 midterms.”Sanders in person is very much as he is in his book, It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism, in which he lays out some principles, among them, “wars and excessive military budgets are not good”; “carbon emissions are not good”; “racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia are not good”; “exploiting workers is not good”. It’s really the sight of him igniting a crowd that’s so hopeful, which holds for him, too – he keeps his optimism because he has the “fortune of being able to go around the country and speak to large numbers of wonderful people”. The message doesn’t change, though – it doesn’t have to be new: it just has to be true.As he leaves to make his way upstairs to the photography studio, he strides on ahead, his wife Jane O’Meara Sanders, an activist herself, making small talk with me in his wake. It’s not that he’s performing vigour in an era where politicians’ ages are relentlessly analysed. It’s just his manner – all this urgent change should have happened yesterday. More

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      Four queer business owners on Pride under Trump: ‘Our joy is resistance’

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      As the first Pride month under Donald Trump’s second presidency approaches, LGBTQ+ businesses are stepping up, evolving quickly to meet the community’s growing concerns.Since day one, Trump has signed executive orders targeting the LGBTQ+ community, particularly the trans and gender non-conforming population. He aims to eradicate “gender ideology” by enforcing a two-sex binary determined at conception, reinstating and expanding the military ban on transgender service members, and directing agencies to prevent gender-affirming care for youth.This leaves the LGBTQ+ community feeling apprehensive about losing further rights and protections.The Guardian spoke with four queer business owners, and one message was clear: queer businesses are here to support the community now more than ever and spread joy as resistance.Uptick in weddingsBusiness is surging for New England-based wedding photographer Lindsey “Lensy” Michelle as queer couples decide to take their vows, fearing the Trump administration will go after marriage equality. Michelle says she’s only getting louder and even “more queer”.“I’m not changing anything about my business, no matter what the government says,” Michelle said. “We elected a president who doesn’t support this type of marriage, or at the very least doesn’t care enough to try to protect it.”View image in fullscreenShe is seeing queer couples accelerate their wedding plans in fear of Trump and the supreme court overturning 2015’s ruling on Obergefell v Hodges, which recognized same-sex marriages. Michelle currently offers accessible pricing for queer couples.“[Pride] is a good time to remind wedding vendors to stop advertising to only brides or using very gendered language, or assuming that every couple has a bride and a groom,” she said. “Performative allyship is really dangerous, and for businesses June can be a time of greater reflection on how they can be more clear and inclusive.”According to Michelle, there is an emerging trend for queer couples to distinguish legal marriage from a wedding ceremony. Many of her clients explained that they are registering their marriage now out of an “abundance of caution” because they don’t feel like “their rights will be protected”, she said.“It’s a privilege when you’re able to celebrate instead of protest and queerness is always rebellious,” she said. “You protest when things aren’t welcoming to begin with and you celebrate when you’re able to but I think also you have to do both. Otherwise, it becomes quite sad.”After noticing an uptick in demand, she created an LGBTQ+ wedding directory of more than 130 businesses. She didn’t stop there: Michelle then teamed up with five other vendors to throw a queer mass wedding ball for six lucky couples on 5 January.“We don’t really feel like celebrating. We feel like crying and we feel helpless and all we’re trying to do is get married,” Michelle said. “We just wanted to throw a party. This event is coming out of the time of fear and uncertainty, but that’s always been the queer story.”View image in fullscreenThe team behind the wedding ball are “open to the idea” of hosting a similar event in other states, particularly in Republican-led ones.Nine states are urging the supreme court to reverse Obergefell v Hodges.“We’re scared, and I don’t put that lightly,” Michelle said.We will surviveIn Decatur, Georgia, Charis Books & More aims to alleviate the fears the queer and trans community are experiencing.“My job is to support young people and those with children and to say: ‘Look, we have spent most of our history as queer and trans people as outlaws and we can be outlaws again. But, we will survive, we are very creative and we’ll figure out how to get through this time,’” said Errol Anderson, the executive director of Charis Books & More’s non-profit arm, Charis Circle.View image in fullscreenCharis Circle hosts events like story time and offers support groups, especially for the trans community. They have four support groups for trans and gender non-conforming individuals across ages. Georgians in less welcoming parts of the state see Charis “as a beacon”, according to Anderson.“We’re seeing these particularly aggressive attacks on trans people for the past couple years now being mirrored in national legislation and it’s very scary,” Anderson said. “A lot of people right now feel very hopeless, but we need to remember we do actually have a lot of power to speak up for what we believe in and our voices do matter.”Joy as resistanceNew York’s 34-year-old queer bar Henrietta Hudson is returning to its roots as a political activist space, especially as Pride approaches.View image in fullscreen“Acutely since the inauguration, but really since the election, there’s a different tone to how people come to [the bar]. It feels more necessary,” Hutch Hutchinson said. “People are craving to be around other queer people and to be in a safer space. We have to buckle down for the family we have here.”Hutchinson, who uses he/they pronouns, is the director of operations at Henrietta Hudson. He said Pride is already in the air as the bar has seen a surge in energy and purpose.“[Pride] often does feel like a protest and we call our Pride as occupying Hudson, a very definitive statement on us taking up space in the West Village,” he said. “The general feeling at Henrietta Hudson is that we’ve just become more political. This place has been through so many eras of queer resistance and uprising. We are relighting that fire.”They lend their bar to vetted non-profits and local grassroots organizations for events giving back to the LGBTQ+ community, such as a Pride week fundraiser benefiting the BTFA Collective for Black trans femme artists and the annual NYC Dyke March.Hutchinson explained that the bar will always take explicit stances to protect and support the community. It posted a message on their Instagram, calling out the “immoral”, “dangerous” and “unlawful” attacks by Trump’s administration.“We talk, as a [staff] about, what does resistance look like? Sure, resistance is showing up to rallies and supporting the ACLU, learning your rights, marching and protesting,” he added. “But it’s so important for us to dance and to see each other smile and laugh and sing. Our joy is resistance.”Being visible is more importantDown in St Louis, Missouri, art collective Swan Meadow plans to be a safe third space for the community where members can “simply exist as who they are”. Partners Fern and Mellody Meadow, who both use they/them pronouns, emptied their savings to open the collective last fall after a close presidential election.View image in fullscreen“We are always trying to craft events and spaces for people to come to and to sit with complicated emotions and thoughts and to talk to people about them,” Fern said. “It can be isolating and so frustrating to know that things are wrong that are outside of our control, but when you come together as a community, so much positive change can happen.”They open their workshop multiple times a month for free community-focused events such as “crafternoons”. ​Some events act as fundraisers for local mutual aid organizations such as the Community Closet, which distributes free household, cleaning and hygiene items. The collective also offers branding, photography and printing services.The Meadows envision Swan Meadow taking on a larger role in political advocacy for the community.“As pushback becomes more prevalent and discrimination becomes more normal, being visible is more important than ever,” Mellody said. “I’m tired of living through history.” More

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      ‘Going to increase prices on everybody’: US energy department workers sound alarm over cuts

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      Workers at the US Department of Energy say cuts and deregulations are undermining the ability for the department to function and will result in significant energy cost hikes for consumers.Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” will raise energy costs for American households by as much as 7% in 2035 due to the repeal of energy tax credits and could put significant investment and energy innovation at risk, according to a report by the Rhodium Group. The non-partisan thinktank Energy Innovation calculated the average US household will see its utility bills rise by over $230 by 2035 as a result of cuts to renewable energy investments.The rises are being driven in part by cuts to the agency. Trump has proposed cutting the department’s budget by $19.3bn.More than 3,500 employees at the Department of Energy have reportedly taken delayed resignation buyout offers, though the Department of Energy declined to provide final numbers or an estimate on the departures. Some 43% of its workforce of nearly 16,000 employees was deemed “non-essential”, not including 555 probationary employees that were fired earlier this year.The US Department of Energy announced on 12 May plans to eliminate 47 regulations, comprising mostly of energy efficiency standards for appliances, claiming the cuts would save nearly $11bn, but did not provide any analysis or data for how it came to that savings estimate.The Department of Energy estimated in December 2024 that stronger energy efficiency appliance standards would save consumers about $1trn over the next three decades. An analysis by the Appliance Standards Awareness Project found the energy efficiency cuts would add $54bn in utility energy costs.“The impact of a lot of what I was working on in the energy efficiency and electrification space is aimed at saving folks money. The business case around energy efficiency has been made for the past 30 years. Reducing the cost of energy, any of those fixed costs for folks, can really be life changing, freeing up their budget for other necessities,” said a US Department of Energy employee who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation as they have accepted a resignation buyout offer.“Changing that has so many effects down the line,” they added. “We already know things are getting more expensive. Budgets are getting tighter for many households in the state, and also territories and tribes. The work that I did was not only with states, but also with us, territories and tribes as well, and a lot of these communities, every dollar matters, and that’s not unique to red or blue areas or anything like that.”Another employee at the US Department of Energy said morale at the department sank after attacks on civil servants by the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and the chaos and uncertainty of the firings of probationary employees, contractors, and employees resigning, leaving a drain on resources, talent and knowledge throughout the agency.“Appointees came in with a clear agenda to dismantle programs and shrink staff,” they said. “It is very clear they don’t care about the work or the workforce. Many were looking to score points with Doge and made quick cuts without concerns for long-term damage, such as the chaos and lost knowledge caused by the delayed resignation program.”A former senior Department of Energy official who requested to remain anonymous explained the totality of the cuts to personnel, grants, regulations and budget for the department are “going to increase prices on everybody”.“As much as the election was on affordability, there’s a reason that Trump is doing incredibly poorly on affordability and inflation. I think what’s happening at the Department of Energy is just such a great example of a whole variety of efforts that near-term, medium-term and longer-term are going to raise prices on consumers, on companies, and make us less competitive internationally,” they said.“The efficiency regulations end up saving consumers an awful lot of money, certainly as a percentage of their budget. I don’t think there is any truth whatsoever, if you talk to anyone who’s ever done analysis and rigor on this, that somehow not doing these regulations is actually saving money. It’s the exact opposite if you think of the whole system.”They also criticized the fact that many of these actions will result in lawsuits and legal changes, and the negative impacts of research and development cuts to renewable energy.They cited the demand for energy to power emerging AI and data centers and energy consumption is expected to rise significantly and wind, solar, and battery energy storage are relatively quick and cheap to construct.About 96% of added US energy capacity to the grid in 2024 was from carbon-free sources.“If you stop any research for next generation solar or battery technology, or wind or geothermal or other pieces, what you’re effectively doing is compromising a huge range of technology that has the potential to reduce costs, and of course, has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But even if you don’t care about that, these are the technologies that could reduce costs for consumers,” they added. “The chaos with the tariffs, with the regulations, with the not fully thought through and analyzed nature of this is just causing a lot of confusion, a lot of incoherence, a lot of inconsistency and uncertainty. And that’s just not good for businesses, let alone consumers.”A spokesperson for the US Department of Energy refuted claims of costs due to eliminating regulations.“President Trump and Secretary Wright pledged to restore commonsense to our regulatory policies and lower costs for American consumers – that is exactly what these deregulatory actions do. To argue consumers benefit from being forced to purchase more-expensive, time-intensive products that are often less energy efficient because they don’t do the job right the first time is total nonsense,” they said in an email. “DOE’s approach recognizes that consumer choice and market-driven innovation, not bureaucratic mandates, lead to better-performing and more affordable consumer products. DOE’s deregulatory actions empower consumers to choose products that meet their needs and budgets, while also supporting American manufacturers.” More