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      in US Politics

      US allies worldwide decry Trump’s car tariffs and threaten retaliation

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      Governments from Tokyo to Berlin and Ottawa to Paris have voiced sharp criticism of Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on car imports, with several of the US’s staunchest long-term allies threatening retaliatory action.Trump announced on Wednesday that he would impose a 25% tariff on cars and car parts shipped to the US from 3 April in a move experts have predicted is likely to depress production, drive up prices and fuel a global trade war.The US imported almost $475bn (£367bn) worth of cars last year, mostly from Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Canada and Germany. European carmakers alone sold more than 750,000 vehicles to American drivers.France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Thursday he had told his US counterpart that tariffs were not a good idea. They “disrupt value chains, create an inflationary effect and destroy jobs. So it’s not good for the US or European economies,” he said.Paris would work with the European Commission on a response intended to get Trump to reconsider, he said. Officials in Berlin also stressed that the commission would defend free trade as the foundation of the EU’s prosperity.Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, bluntly described Trump’s decision as wrong, and said Washington appeared to have “chosen a path at whose end lie only losers, since tariffs and isolation hurt prosperity, for everyone”.France’s finance minister, Eric Lombard, called the US president’s plan “very bad news” and said the EU would be forced to raise its own tariffs. His German counterpart, Robert Habeck, promised a “firm EU response”. “We will not take this lying down,” he said.Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said Europe would approach the US with common sense but “not on our knees”. Good transatlantic relations are “a strategic matter” and must survive more than one prime minister and one president, he said.The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, described the move as “bad for businesses, worse for consumers” because “tariffs are taxes”. She said the bloc would continue to seek negotiated solutions while protecting its economic interests.The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, said the tariffs were “very concerning” and that his government would be “pragmatic and clear-eyed” in response. The UK “does not want a trade war, but it’s important we keep all options on the table”, he said.His Canadian counterpart, Mark Carney, said on social media: “We will get through this crisis, and we will build a stronger, more resilient economy.”Carney later told a press conference that his administration would wait until next week to respond to the new US threat of tariffs, and that nothing was off the table regarding possible countermeasures.He would, he added, speak to provincial premiers and business leaders on Friday to discuss a coordinated response.“It doesn’t make sense when there’s a series of US initiatives that are going to come in relatively rapid succession to respond to each of them. We’re going to know a lot more in a week, and we will respond then,” he said.One option for Canada is to impose excise duties on exports of oil, potash and other commodities. “Nothing is off the table to defend our workers and our country,” said Carney, who added that the old economic and security relationship between Canada and the US was over.South Korea said it would put in place a full emergency response to Trump’s proposed measures by April.China’s foreign ministry said the US approach violated World Trade Organization rules and was “not conducive to solving its own problems”. Its spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, said: “No country’s development and prosperity are achieved by imposing tariffs.”The Japanese prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, said Tokyo was putting “all options on the table”. Japan “makes the largest amount of investment to the US, so we wonder if it makes sense for [Washington] to apply uniform tariffs to all countries”, he said.Reuters and Agence-France Presse contributed to this report More

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      in US Politics

      Trump floats easing tariffs on China in return for TikTok deal

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      Donald Trump has said he would be willing to reduce tariffs on China to get a deal done with TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell the social media app used by 170 million Americans.He acknowledged the role China would play in any agreement. “With respect to TikTok, and China is going to have to play a role in that, possibly in the form of an approval, maybe, and I think they’ll do that,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “Maybe I’ll give them a little reduction in tariffs or something to get it done,” he added.Trump’s comment suggests the sale of TikTok’s is a priority for his administration and important enough to use tariffs as a bargaining chip with Beijing.TikTok did not immediately comment.ByteDance has a 5 April deadline to find a non-Chinese buyer for TikTok or face a US ban on national security grounds that was supposed to have taken effect in January under a 2024 law.The move is the result of concern in Washington that TikTok’s ownership by ByteDance makes it beholden to the Chinese government and that Beijing could use the short video app to conduct influence operations against the US and collect data on Americans.In February and earlier this month, Trump added levies totalling 20% to existing tariffs on all imports from China.Getting China to agree to any deal to give up control of a business worth tens of billions of dollars has always been the biggest sticking point to getting any agreement finalised. Trump has used tariffs as a bargaining chip in the TikTok negotiations in the past.On 20 January, his first day in office, he warned that he could impose tariffs on China if Beijing failed to approve a US deal with TikTok.Vice-president JD Vance has said he expects the general terms of an agreement that resolves the ownership of the social media platform to be reached by 5 April.Reuters reported last week that White House-led talks among investors are coalescing around a plan for the biggest non-Chinese backers of ByteDance to increase their stakes and acquire the video app’s US operations, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.The future of the app used by nearly half of all Americans has been up in the air since a law – passed with overwhelming bipartisan support – required ByteDance to divest TikTok by 19 January.The app briefly went dark in January after the US supreme court upheld the ban, but flickered back to life days later once Trump took office. Trump quickly issued an executive order postponing enforcement of the law to 5 April and said last month that he could further extend that deadline to give himself time to shepherd a deal.The White House has been involved to an unprecedented level in the closely watched deal talks, in effect playing the role of investment bank.Free speech advocates have argued that the ban unlawfully threatens to restrict Americans from accessing foreign media in violation of the first amendment of the US constitution. More

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      in Elections

      Trump Floats Chinese Tariff Cuts in Exchange for TikTok Deal

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      President Trump on Wednesday raised the possibility that he could relax steep upcoming tariffs on China in exchange for the country’s support on a deal to sell TikTok to a new owner supported by the United States.Acknowledging that Beijing is “going to have to play a role” in any transaction, Mr. Trump signaled to reporters at the White House that he could be open to negotiation. “Maybe I’ll give them a little reduction in tariffs or something to get it done,” he said.Under a law enacted before Mr. Trump took office, the Chinese-based parent company of TikTok must either sell the social media app’s U.S. operations or face what essentially amounts to a domestic ban. Lawmakers adopted that policy in response to growing, bipartisan concerns that the app posed threats to U.S. national security, which TikTok denies.Congress originally set a January deadline for its ultimatum. But no sale occurred, prompting Mr. Trump — as one of his first executive actions — to delay enforcement of the law for 75 days in the hopes of securing a buyer.The new deadline arrives on April 5, just three days after Mr. Trump separately plans to announce what he has described as “reciprocal” tariffs, imposing new duties on foreign nations based on the trade barriers that they erect to U.S. imports. The president has already subjected Chinese goods to a 20 percent tariff, on top of those he enacted during his first term in office.“Every point in tariffs is worth more than TikTok,” Mr. Trump said about the prospects of a negotiation, adding: “Sounds like something I’d do.”Mr. Trump on Wednesday said he could issue another order that grants the government additional time to find a buyer for TikTok, stressing the goal is an outcome “that’s best for our country.” The president has raised the possibility that the U.S. government could acquire a stake in the app.”If it’s not finished, it’s not a big deal. We’ll extend it,” Mr. Trump said.Chinese officials, for their part, maintain that any sale or divestiture must comply with local export laws, potentially giving Beijing power over any arrangement brokered by Mr. Trump. More

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      in Elections

      U.S. Adds Export Restrictions to More Chinese Tech Firms Over Security Concerns

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      The additions included companies that are customers of Intel and Nvidia, and one firm that was the focus of a New York Times investigation last year.The Trump administration on Tuesday added 80 companies and organizations to a list of companies that are barred from buying American technology and other exports because of national security concerns.The move, which targeted primarily Chinese firms, cracks down on companies that have been big buyers of American chips from Nvidia, Intel and AMD. It also closed loopholes that Trump administration officials have long criticized as allowing Chinese firms to continue to advance technologically despite U.S. restrictions.One company added to the list, Nettrix Information Industry, was the focus of a 2024 investigation by The New York Times that showed how some Chinese executives had bypassed U.S. restrictions aimed at cutting China off from advanced chips to make artificial intelligence.Nettrix, one of China’s largest makers of computer servers that are used to produce artificial intelligence, was started by a group of former executives from Sugon, a firm that provided advanced computing to the Chinese military and built a system the government used to surveil persecuted minorities in the western Xinjiang region.In 2019, the United States added Sugon to its “entity list,” restricting exports over national security concerns. The Times investigation found that, six months later, the executives formed Nettrix, using Sugon’s technology and inheriting some of its customers. Times reporters also found that Nettrix’s owners shared a complex in eastern China with Sugon and other related companies.After Sugon was singled out and restricted by the United States, its longtime partners — Nvidia, Intel and Microsoft — quickly formed ties with Nettrix, the investigation found.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump’s shuttering of global media agency endangers reporters, staff say

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      Foreign workers at US government-backed media outlets being cut by the Trump administration say they face deportation to their home countries, where some risk imprisonment or death at the hands of authoritarian governments.Earlier this month, the Trump administration moved to defund the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), an independent federal agency that oversees the Voice of America (VoA), the US’s largest and oldest international broadcaster, and provides grants to Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other news agencies. Staff have been placed on administrative leave and contractors have been fired. The agency had around 3,500 employees with an annual budget of $886m in 2024.“We have many coworkers in different services, several of whom came here and sought asylum visas. If their own government knew they worked for RFA [Radio Free Asia] and they went back to their own country, their lives would be at risk,” Jaewoo Park, a journalist for RFA, who was placed on administrative leave along with all of his coworkers, told the Guardian.“Authoritarian governments have praised what Trump is doing right now,” Park said. “In Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, there were people who fought for freedom and democracy, and they came to work at RFA. It’s very risky for them. Their lives are in danger if Radio Free Asia doesn’t exist.”Chinese and Russian state media have praised the cuts of the news agencies, with a Russian broadcaster calling the cuts a “holiday” for Russian state media outlets.The shuttering of the agency was unexpected and has caused chaos for Park and others. “My wife is 28 weeks pregnant and we’re very concerned because I might go back to South Korea because I’m on a working visa. My wife is almost due and we just bought a home last year,” he added. “It’s very concerning and depressing.”But the impact of the decision will be felt globally, said Park. He cited Radio Free Asia’s broadcasts to North Korea which, he noted, defectors from North Korea have cited as an important source of independent news.“We know North Korea is a very oppressed country. They cannot hear anything other than the government press,” he said.Workers at Voice of America have also pointed out the risks and dangers posed to some employees on visas who may have to return to their home countries now their positions are in jeopardy.Two contributors for VoA are currently imprisoned in Myanmar and Vietnam and four contributors to Radio Free Asia are currently imprisoned in Vietnam. Russia, Belarus and Azerbaijan also reportedly have journalists affiliated with the news agencies currently imprisoned.“Dozens of VoA staffers in Washington are on J-1 visas [non-immigrant visas meant to encourage cultural exchange], and if they lose them, they may have to return to countries whose governments have a record of jailing critics,” wrote Liam Scott in the Columbia Journalism Review, a VoA journalist who was notified their contract would be terminated on 31 March. “Two Russian contractors on J-1 visas who are set to be officially terminated at the end of March are considered at significant risk of being imprisoned if they return to Russia, according to a VoA staffer with knowledge of the situation.”Stanislav Aseyev, a Ukrainian journalist, shared in a post on X that he was tortured for writing for Radio Liberty after being told it was an “enemy” of Russia.“Now, the ‘enemy of Russia’ is being destroyed by America itself, and my torture seems doubly in vain,” he wrote.A VOA employee who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, told the Guardian: “Screwing over the people who worked for them and helped them, reminds me of what happened to Afghan interpreters.” Following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Afghan interpreters for the US military were left behind, stranded and in danger while trying to obtain special visas to escape to the US.“It would be an even bigger shame if people that sacrificed for our country were thrown under the bus. It’s a tremendous own goal in terms of US foreign policy and US national interests,” they said.Federal workers, journalists and labor unions filed a lawsuit last week against the US Agency for Global Media over the shuttering of the agency by the Trump administration, seeking immediate relief to reverse it.Donald Trump issued an executive order to defund the US Agency for Global Media, on 14 March. Kari Lake, a former TV anchor, formally joined Voice of America as special adviser in late February 2025.Lake lost the 2022 election for governor of Arizona and a 2024 US Senate race in Arizona as the Republican nominee. She claimed the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump and filed lawsuits claiming her 2022 election bid was also stolen from her. Those lawsuits were dismissed and her lawyers were recently ordered by a federal court to pay $122,000 in legal fees to Maricopa County for the “frivolous” lawsuits.Lake claimed in a press release that the agency was “not salvageable” and accused it of “massive national security violations, including spies and terrorist sympathizers and/or supporters infiltrating the agency”.The US state department and US Agency for Global Media did not respond to multiple requests for comment.Asked about the visa and immigration statuses for workers at the news agencies during a press briefing on 21 March, state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said: “I have the question out to the secretary. It’s something that I’m following up with as well. He’s a busy guy.” More

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      in Elections

      The Vicious Cycle of Extreme Heat Leading to More Fossil Fuel Use

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      A new report illustrates a concerning dynamic: Record heat last year pushed countries to use more planet-warming fossil fuels to cool things down.Last year was the hottest on record, and global average temperatures passed the benchmark of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times for the first time. Simultaneously, the growth rate of the world’s energy demand rose sharply, nearly doubling over the previous 10-year average.As it turns out, the record heat and rapidly rising energy demand were closely connected, according to findings from a new report from the International Energy Agency.That’s because hotter weather led to increased use of cooling technologies like air-conditioning. Electricity-hungry appliances put a strain on the grid, and many utilities met the added demand by burning coal and natural gas.All of this had the makings of a troubling feedback loop: A hotter world required more energy to cool down homes and offices, and what was readily available was fossil-fuel energy, which led to more planet-warming emissions. This dynamic is exactly what many countries are hoping to halt through the development of renewable energy and the construction of nuclear power plants.Put another way, the I.E.A. estimated that if 2024’s extreme weather hadn’t happened — that is, if weather was exactly the same in 2024 as in 2023 — the global increase in carbon emissions for the year would have been cut in half.It’s not all bad news: Increasingly, the global economy is growing faster than carbon emissions. “If we want to find the silver lining, we see that there is a continuous decoupling of economic growth from emissions growth,” said Fatih Birol, the executive director of the agency.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      A Montana Senator Seeks to Be Trump’s Voice in Beijing

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      Since President Trump began his second term in January, no high-level officials from the United States have met with their counterparts in China, even as the world’s two largest economies have taken turns imposing steep tariffs on each other.In the absence of official meetings, Senator Steve Daines of Montana has cast himself as a go-between. Mr. Daines met with Vice Premier He Lifeng, who oversees many economic issues for China, on Saturday and was set to meet Premier Li Qiang, the country’s second-highest official, on Sunday.In an interview with The New York Times on Saturday after the meeting with Mr. He, Mr. Daines, a Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he urged China to take effective action to halt the export of chemical precursors for fentanyl.“I met with President Trump a few days before I came over, and he was pleased that I was coming to communicate his ‘America First’ message and, importantly, to make sure that Chinese leaders knew the seriousness of the fentanyl issue, and the role that China can play in stopping the shipment of precursors to the Mexican cartels,” Mr. Daines said.Chinese officials have said that the fentanyl crisis is rooted in an American failure to curb demand for the drug, and that Beijing has taken effective measures to limit shipments of fentanyl and its chemical precursors. China’s cabinet issued a report earlier this month on its fentanyl measures, and Mr. Daines said this was being studied by American officials.Mr. Daines said he was trying to lay the groundwork for a meeting between President Trump and Xi Jinping, China’s top leader. “This visit is the first step to arrange and set up the next step, which will be a very important meeting between President Xi and President Trump — when that occurs, I don’t know, where it occurs, I don’t know.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump makes rare admission of Musk’s conflicts of interest after Pentagon visit

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      Donald Trump said on Friday that plans for possible war with China should not be shared with Elon Musk because of his business interests, a rare admission that the billionaire faces conflicts of interests in his role as a senior adviser to the US president.Trump rejected reports that Musk would be briefed on how the United States would fight a hypothetical war with China, saying: “Elon has businesses in China. And he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that.”The reference to Musk’s businesses – which include Tesla, an electric vehicle manufacturer trying to expand sales and production in China – is an unusual acknowledgment of concerns about Musk balancing his corporate and government responsibilities.Trump had previously brushed off questions about Musk’s potential conflicts of interest, simply saying that he would steer clear when necessary.The president said that Musk visited the Pentagon on Friday morning to discuss reducing costs, which he has been working on through the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge).The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said Musk was there “to talk about efficiencies, to talk about innovations”.Musk said while leaving the Pentagon that he was ready to do “anything that could be helpful”. He also refused to answer questions as to whether he received a classified briefing on China as part of the visit.As a key adviser to Trump and the head of Doge, Musk has exercised broad powers in the two months since Trump returned to the White House, conducting mass layoffs and slashing budgets across the federal government. But while the Pentagon was also in line to be a target for job cuts, Musk has yet to play any role there, including in defense intelligence and military operations.A senior defense official told reporters on Tuesday that roughly 50,000 to 60,000 civilian jobs would be cut in the defense department.Musk’s involvement in any US plans or dealings with China would raise not only security concerns but questions over a significant conflict of interest, as he has considerable economic interests in China as the owner of Tesla and SpaceX, which also has contracts with the US air force.In the early hours of Friday morning, Musk denied the reports that he would be briefed on war with China, calling it “pure propaganda” and threatening to find those who leaked the information.“I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information,” he wrote. “They will be found.”Musk repeated his demand for such prosecutions upon arrival at the Department of Defense on the outskirts of Washington DC on Friday morning. He left the Pentagon about 90 minutes after arriving.A Pentagon spokesperson, asked by email to explain the true purpose of Musk’s briefing given administration denials that it would involve putative war plans with China, referred the Guardian to a statement posted on social media by Hegseth.In a Friday meeting at the White House to announce new air force fighter planes, Trump and Hegseth both firmly rejected reports that Musk was shown any Pentagon plans regarding a potential conflict with China during his visit earlier that day.“They made that up because it’s a good story to make up. They’re very dishonest people,” Trump said about the New York Times reporting. “I called up Pete [Hegseth] and I said: ‘Is there any truth to that?’ Absolutely not, he’s there for Doge, not there for China. And if you ever mentioned China, I think he’d walk out of the room.”Hegseth echoed Trump’s notion that the visit was focused on discussing government efficiency initiatives and innovation opportunities, adding that there were “no Chinese war plans”.“We welcomed him today to the Pentagon to talk about [the ‘department of government efficiency’], to talk about efficiencies, to talk about innovations. It was a great informal conversation,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHegseth suggested the reporting was deliberately intended to “undermine whatever relationship the Pentagon has with” the Tesla CEO.However, some military experts have still expressed concern about Musk’s level of access to sensitive information.Wesley Clark, retired general and former Nato supreme commander, told CNN in an interview on Friday afternoon that the administration has been “cutting a lot of corners in a lot of areas”.“It’s no problem giving him a general impression, we do this for contractors, but the conflict of interest – I’m more interested in his interests abroad, he talks to Putin, he has business in China, he has other considerations and those can impact things,” Clark said.“I’m more worried about Elon Musk coming into the Pentagon and saying ‘I’m high tech and I have smart people in Silicon Valley and these generals do not know anything’. You have got to be really careful about jumping on the next shiny object.”According to a New York Times report, the meeting was set to take place not in Hegseth’s office, where informal meetings about innovation would normally take place, but in a secure conference room known as “the Tank”, which is typically used for higher-level meetings. Musk was to be briefed on a plan that contains 20 to 30 slides and details how the US military would fight a conflict with China.Officials who spoke anonymously with the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal offered up potential reasons why Musk was receiving the briefing. The Times suggested that Musk, in his Doge capacity, might be looking into trimming the Pentagon’s budget and would need to know what military assets the US would use in a potential conflict with China.One source told the Journal that Musk was receiving the briefing because he asked for one.Though Musk has a “top-secret” clearance within the federal government, lawyers at SpaceX advised him in December not to seek higher levels of security clearances, which would probably be denied due to his foreign ties and personal drug use.The Associated Press contributed reporting More