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      Donald Trump suggestion he will accept luxury plane from Qatar draws criticism from allies and rivals – US politics live

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      President Donald Trump is ready to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a gift from the ruling family of Qatar during his trip to the Middle East this coming week – and American officials say it could be converted into a potential presidential aircraft.The Qatari government said a final decision had not been made, AP reports.However, Trump defended the idea – what would amount to a US President accepting an astonishingly valuable gift from a foreign government – as a fiscally shrewd move for the country.“So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,” Trump posted on his social media site on Sunday night. “Anybody can do that!”ABC News reported that Trump will use the aircraft as his presidential plane until shortly before he leaves office in January 2029, when ownership will be transferred to the foundation overseeing his yet-to-be-built presidential library.The gift was expected to be announced when Trump visits Qatar, according to ABC’s report, as part of a trip that also includes stops in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the first extended foreign travel of his second term.Laura Loomer, a far-right ally of Trump, said accepting Qatar’s plane would be a “stain” on the administration, adding that Qatar “fund the same Iranian proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah who have murdered US Service Members.”The Democratic National Committee said the move was proof of Trump using the White House for personal financial gain, while Democratic lawmakers blasted the plan as “wildly illegal,” and “corruption in plain sight.”President Donald Trump is ready to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a gift from the ruling family of Qatar during his trip to the Middle East this coming week – and American officials say it could be converted into a potential presidential aircraft.The Qatari government said a final decision had not been made, AP reports.However, Trump defended the idea – what would amount to a US President accepting an astonishingly valuable gift from a foreign government – as a fiscally shrewd move for the country.“So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,” Trump posted on his social media site on Sunday night. “Anybody can do that!”ABC News reported that Trump will use the aircraft as his presidential plane until shortly before he leaves office in January 2029, when ownership will be transferred to the foundation overseeing his yet-to-be-built presidential library.The gift was expected to be announced when Trump visits Qatar, according to ABC’s report, as part of a trip that also includes stops in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the first extended foreign travel of his second term.Laura Loomer, a far-right ally of Trump, said accepting Qatar’s plane would be a “stain” on the administration, adding that Qatar “fund the same Iranian proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah who have murdered US Service Members.”The Democratic National Committee said the move was proof of Trump using the White House for personal financial gain, while Democratic lawmakers blasted the plan as “wildly illegal,” and “corruption in plain sight.”Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be bringing you the latest news lines.We start with the news that China and the US have agreed a 90-day pause to the deepening trade war that has threatened to upend the global economy, with reciprocal tariffs to be lowered by 115%.Speaking to the media after talks in Geneva, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said both sides had shown “great respect” in the negotiations.Bessent said: “The consensus from both delegations this weekend was neither side wants a decoupling”.The 90-day lowering of tariffs applies to the duties announced by Donald Trump on 2 April, which ultimately escalated to 125% on Chinese imports, with Beijing responding with equivalent measures.China also imposed non-tariff measures, such as restricting the export of critical minerals that are essential to US manufacturing of hi-tech goods.The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, said China’s retaliation had been disproportionate and amounted to an effective embargo on trade between the world’s two biggest economies.For the full story, see here:In other news:

      Hamas announced on Sunday that it will release the last living American hostage in Gaza, Edan Alexander, an Israeli-American soldier who was kidnapped on 7 October 2023. Trump confirmed the news in a social media post, writing that Alexander, 21, “is coming home to his family”, while thanking mediators Qatar and Egypt.

      A group of 49 white South Africans departed their homeland on Sunday for the United States on a private charter plane having been offered refugee status by the Trump administration under a new program announced in February. They are the first Afrikaners – a white minority group in South Africa – to be relocated after Trump issued an executive order in February accusing South Africa’s Black-led government of racial discrimination against them.

      Mass terminations and billions of dollars’ worth of cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have gutted key programs – from child support services to HIV treatment abroad – and created a “real danger” that disease outbreaks will be missed, according to former workers. Workers at the HHS, now led by Robert F Kennedy Jr, and in public health warned in interviews that chaotic, flawed and sweeping reductions would have broad, negative effects across the US and beyond.

      The US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, plans to reduce the number of flights in and out of the Newark Liberty international airport for the “several weeks”, as the facility – one of the country’s busiest airports – struggles with radar outages, numerous flight delays and cancellations due to a shortage of air traffic controllers.

      A group of Quakers were marching more than 300 miles from New York City to Washington DC to demonstrate against the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants. Organisers of the march say their protest seeks to show solidarity with migrants and other groups that are being targeted by Trump.

      Trump said on Sunday he would sign an executive order to cut prescription prices to the level paid by other high-income countries, an amount he put at 30% to 80% less. The White House did not immediately offer more details on how the plan would work. More

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      Amy Klobuchar to Democrats: don’t rule out female candidate in 2028 after Harris loss

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      US senator Amy Klobuchar says she hopes her party does not reflexively rule out running a woman for the White House after Kamala Harris – her fellow Democrat – lost to her Republican rival Donald Trump in November’s presidential election, arguing it’s not the “lesson to learn”.Responding to a question Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press about whether Harris’s defeat might dissuade Democrats from nominating a female presidential candidate, Klobuchar said: “You have seen women run other countries quite well” before singling out the former German chancellor Angela Merkel as an example.Klobuchar added, “You’ve also seen women in the US [be] incredible mayors, incredible governors,” while further noting that fellow Democrats Tammy Baldwin, Elissa Slotkin and Jacky Rosen defeated Republican men in Senate races held in battleground states that Trump carried in the fall.“I mean – this happened,” Klobuchar, of Minnesota, said to Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker. “So I just – I don’t think that’s a lesson to learn.”Klobuchar’s remarks served to rebut comments that Joe Biden recently delivered to the ABC program The View about his vice-president’s electoral loss to Trump. In a clip Meet the Press aired Sunday, Biden said Harris was “qualified” to succeed him as president. But the president told The View that, as disappointed as he was, he wasn’t surprised Harris’s run for the Oval Office came up short after her critics went “the sexist route, of the whole, ‘This is a woman, she’s this, she’s that.’”Welker asked Klobuchar whether Democrats may have had a better chance of retaining the presidency if Biden, who defeated an incumbent Trump in 2020, had not waited until June to announce that he was abandoning his campaign for a second term.Klobuchar said her party “would have been served better by a primary” election that was different than the one which saw Biden easily beat a few longshot Democratic challengers. Biden subsequently avoided a rematch with Trump by dropping out in the wake of a disastrous debate performance that exacerbated questions about his mental acuity and then endorsing Harris for president instead.Trump then captured every battleground state in November to decisively win the electoral college at Harris’s expense. He also narrowly clinched the popular vote – though he didn’t quite manage to secure 50% of the ballots cast in the race. It was the second time Trump outran a woman for the presidency, having defeated former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in 2016.He summarily went on to spend the beginning of his second presidency implementing brutal cuts to the federal government, waging economically destabilizing trade wars and deporting or detaining a significant number of immigrants, sometimes defying court orders to do so, among other moves.“We are where we are,” Klobuchar said, before maintaining that she and her colleagues had “to deal with helping the American people” as Trump’s policies throttled the country ever closer to a constitutional crisis rather than “looking backwards”.Welker asked Klobuchar – a senator since 2007 – whether she would run for president as she did in the 2020 Democratic primary won by Biden on his way to victory against Trump. Klobuchar did not rule out joining what is widely expected to be a crowded field of contenders but said, “I’m focused on my job right now.” More

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      China and US agree 90-day pause to trade war initiated by Donald Trump

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      China and the US have agreed a 90-day pause to the deepening trade war that has threatened to upend the global economy, with reciprocal tariffs to be lowered by 115%.Speaking to the media after talks in Geneva, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said both sides had shown “great respect” in the negotiations.Bessent said: “The consensus from both delegations this weekend was neither side wants a decoupling.”The 90-day lowering of tariffs applies to the duties announced by Donald Trump on 2 April, which ultimately escalated to 125% on Chinese imports, with Beijing responding with equivalent measures.China also imposed non-tariff measures, such as restricting the export of critical minerals that are essential to US manufacturing of hi-tech goods.The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, said China’s retaliation had been disproportionate and amounted to an effective embargo on trade between the world’s two biggest economies.With the 115% deduction, Chinese duties on US goods will be lowered to 10%, while the US tax on Chinese goods will be lowered to 30%. That is because the US tariffs include a 20% rate imposed by Trump before the latest trade war, which the president said was related to China’s role in the US’s fentanyl crisis. The fentanyl-related tariff will still apply.A spokesperson for China’s ministry of commerce said: “This move meets the expectations of producers and consumers in both countries, as well as the interests of both nations and the common interest of the world.“We hope that the US side will, based on this meeting, continue to move forward in the same direction with China, completely correct the erroneous practice of unilateral tariff hikes, and continually strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation.”China’s yuan jumped to a six-month high on the signal that the trade war would be paused. Up to 16m jobs were at risk in China, according to some estimates, while the US faced rising inflation and empty shelves thanks to dizzying tariffs on the biggest supplier of US goods.Bessent said he was impressed by the level of Chinese engagement on the fentanyl issue during the talks in Switzerland. “For the first time the Chinese side understood the magnitude of what is happening in the US,” Bessent said.A joint statement published by the US and China on Monday said that both sides would “continue to advance related work in a spirit of mutual openness, continuous communication, cooperation and mutual respect”.William Xin, the chair of the hedge fund Spring Mountain Pu Jiang Investment Management, told Reuters: “The result far exceeds market expectations. Previously, the hope was just that the two sides can sit down to talk, and the market had been very fragile. Now, there’s more certainty. Both China stocks and the yuan will be in an upswing for a while.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHu Xijin, the former editor of the nationalist Chinese tabloid the Global Times, said on social media the agreement was a “great victory for China in upholding the principles of equality and mutual respect”. Hu noted on Weibo that the recently agreed UK-US trade deal maintained the US’s 10% tariff on UK imports, “while the UK did not implement reciprocal measures”.Wang Wen, the head of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University in Beijing, said: “This is an unexpected achievement in Sino-US tariff negotiations.”However, Wang also urged caution, as he said the agreement “does not represent the resolution of the structural contradictions between China and the United States, nor does it mean that there will be no friction and serious differences between China and the United States in the future”.Stock markets across Europe rose in the aftermath of the US-China announcement. Germany’s DAX index jumped by 1.5%, with Mercedes-Benz, Daimler Trucks and BMW among the biggest risers. France’s CAC index rose by 1.2%.Additional research by Lillian Yang More

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      A bicycle, pencil sharpener, 300lb of raw meat: US presidential gifts and the rules governing them

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      Reports that Donald Trump’s administration is preparing to accept a luxury plane from the Qatari royal family have set off a storm of criticism, as ethics experts say such a gift would violate rules within the constitution that seek to guard against bribery and corruption.There is a long history of US presidents accepting gifts from foreign powers. The very desk from which Trump has signed a record number of executive order was given to the US by Queen Victoria in 1880. The “Resolute Desk” was given to President Rutherford B Hayes and is made from the oak timbers of the British ship HMS Resolute.Clothes, antiques – and even animals – have all in the past been presented to US presidents. Most often these gifts are then disposed of through a complicated bureaucratic process enshrined in the constitution.During George W Bush’s administration, a puppy given to the president by the leader of Bulgaria was sent directly to the National Archives which preserves government and historical records. The puppy was then placed with a family.Bush was unable to keep the dog because under the constitution’s emoluments clause, government office holders are banned from accepting gifts from any “king, prince, or foreign state”, without the approval of Congress. Trump officials reportedly believe the president might be able to keep the luxury plane because it will be transferred to his presidential library at the end of his term. Sources say they arrived at that conclusion after determining that the gift was not conditioned on any official act and therefore was not bribery.View image in fullscreenUnder US law, foreign gifts valued at less than $480 can be retained by federal employees. Anything over that amount is considered a gift to the “people of the United States” and must be logged and then disposed of by the White House Gift Unit. Most gifts are transferred to the national archives or the presidents future presidential library which acts as an archive of the leader’s administration.Like other presidents, Barack Obama’s presidential library contains thousands of gifts, given to the former presidents, including silver cufflinks, Christmas ornaments and a double decker bus pencil sharpener.If a gift does take the president’s particular fancy, they can retain it, as long as they pay a fair market value for it.View image in fullscreenIn 2023, the US House oversight committee reported 100 items given to Trump from foreign nations in his first term were missing, after the White House failed to log them. They included a lifesize painting of the president given by the president of El Salvador and golf clubs from the prime minister of Japan that were valued at more than $250,000 in total. A spokesperson for Trump said many of the items “were received either before or after the administration”.The New York Times has reported that at an estimated value of $400m, the Boeing jet offer currently making headlines would probably be the most expensive gift from a foreign government in US history. It has been reported that the president would use the plane as the new Air Force One until shortly before the conclusion of his second Oval Office stint, at which point it could be transferred to his presidential library foundation, raising the prospect that Trump would have use of the plane even after his presidency ends.In a statement, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said: “Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws. President Trump’s administration is committed to full transparency.Despite the ethical concerns, foreign leaders use gifts as an important tool to strengthen relationships and break the diplomatic ice.In 1997, President Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan gave Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton a 6ft by 5ft rug with their faces on it, which was woven in just weeks, after the president accepted an invitation to the White House. Twelve women worked around the clock in eight-hours shifts to produce the carpet, a process that normally takes months.In 2008, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert gave Bush a bicycle after it was reported that the then president was unable to jog because of an injury to his knee.Other members of the administration are governed by the same rules of gift giving and receiving. In 2005, vice-president Dick Cheney’s log of gifts was double that of president George W Bush’s. That year Cheney, an avid hunter, received four guns including one worth more than $6,000. For his part, Bush’s most eye-opening gift in 2005 might have been 300 pounds (136kg) of raw lamb from Argentina – a gift that was likely destroyed by the secret service due to official White House rules on food and drink gifts. More

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      White House claims China trade deal reached after ‘productive’ Geneva talks

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      The White House has announced that a trade deal with China has been struck after two days of talks in Geneva.The announcement on Sunday came after the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, told reporters that there had been “substantial progress” in talks between his team and that of the Chinese vice-premier, He Lifeng, in Geneva on defusing the trade war between the world’s two largest economies sparked by Donald Trump’s 145% tariffs.At a news conference later on Sunday, He, the top Chinese trade official, called the talks “candid” and said substantive progress had been made to reach an “important consensus”, according to China’s state-run media. The two sides will issue a joint statement agreed during the talks, the vice-premier said.In televised remarks that were posted on social media by the White House, Bessent said he would give more details on Monday, “but I can tell you that the talks were productive”.“I’m happy to report that we’ve made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks,” Bessent told reporters.The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, who spoke alongside Bessent, suggested more strongly that a deal had been reached.“It’s important to understand how quickly we were able to come to agreement, which reflects that perhaps the differences were not so large as maybe thought,” Greer said.“Just remember why we’re here in the first place,” he added. “The United States has a massive $1.2tn trade deficit, so the president declared a national emergency and imposed tariffs, and we’re confident that the deal we struck with our Chinese partners will help us to resolve, work toward resolving that national emergency.”Bessent said he had informed Trump of the progress of the talks.The meeting was the first face-to-face interaction between Bessent, Greer and He since the world’s two largest economies imposed tariffs well above 100% on each other’s goods.Although Bessent has said the bilateral tariffs were too high and needed to come down in a de-escalation move, he did not offer any details of reductions agreed and took no questions from reporters.On Saturday night, Trump wrote on his social media platform that the two sides were working on “a total reset … in a friendly, but constructive, manner.”“Many things discussed, much agreed to,” Trump posted. “We want to see, for the good of both China and the U.S., an opening up of China to American business. GREAT PROGRESS MADE!!!,” Trump added. Trump’s rhetoric, that China needs to be “opened” to US business seemed to ignore a half century of trade between the two nations since one of his political heroes, Richard Nixon, visited China in 1972.The US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, confirmed to CNN that the US will continue to keep “a 10% baseline tariff to be in place for the foreseeable future” even on imports from nations the US strikes new trade deals with.On Sunday, Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, said: “What’s going to happen in all likelihood is that relationships are going to be rebooted. It looks like the Chinese are very very eager to play ball and renormalise things … they really want to rebuild a relationship that’s great for both of us.”Last week, Trump and the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, announced a limited bilateral trade deal.Hassett said the UK agreement provided a “really exciting blueprint” and that he had been briefed on 24 deals with other countries that are in the works. “They all look a little bit like the UK deal but each one is bespoke,” he said.Meanwhile, Lutnick dismissed reports of dock workers and truckers losing their jobs as a result of the tariffs.“This is just a China problem right now,” Lutnick said. “The rest of the world is 10% [tariffs]. So don’t overdo it.”“Prices are going to stay stable once this policy is done,” Lutnick added.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Trump reportedly prepared to accept ‘palace in the sky’ as gift from Qatar

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      Donald Trump is reportedly ready to accept a luxury plane described to be a “palace in the sky” being offered to the US president as a gift from Qatar’s royal family, almost immediately igniting accusations of bribery and corruption as well as commensurate criticism.A statement from Qatar on Sunday acknowledged it had held discussions with the US about “the possible transfer” of a plane to be used temporarily by Trump as his presidential aircraft, usurping Air Force One. But the emirate’s statement denied a final decision over the transfer had been made – or that it was a gift.On Sunday, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter, ABC reported that the Trump administration was girding itself to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8, a jumbo jet from the Qatari royals that was estimated to be about $400m. Trump would then use the 13-year-old plane as the new Air Force One until shortly before the conclusion of his second Oval Office stint, at which point it would be transferred to his presidential library foundation no later than 1 January 2029.The luxury gift from Qatar was expected to be announced next week during Trump’s three-day tour of the Middle East that includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, ABC reported. Yet a Qatari spokesperson said it was “inaccurate” to say that the jet would be gifted “during the upcoming visit of president Trump”.Trump toured the opulent plane in February while it was parked at the West Palm Beach international airport, ABC added.Assuming Trump accepts the plane as planned, the jumbo jet would first be transferred to the US air force so the military branch could configure the aircraft to meet the specifications required for presidential travel, ABC’s sources told the network. The network added that any costs affiliated with its transfer would be paid for by the US air force, which receives a significant portion of the revenue generated by federal taxpayers.According to ABC’s sources, Trump’s attorney general Pam Bondi and his top White House lawyer David Warrington have pre-emptively concluded that it is “legally permissible” for Trump to accept the luxury gift and then transfer it over to his presidential library.Both reportedly arrived at that conclusion after lawyers for the White House counsel’s office as well as the justice department said the gifted plane was not conditioned on any official act and therefore was not bribery.Those lawyers drafted an analysis for defense secretary Pete Hegseth which reiterated that nothing about the plane violated federal laws prohibiting US government officials accepting gifts from foreign states or their royals. In fact, ABC’s sources said, Bondi’s reading of the situation was that the plane was being given to the US air force and then Trump’s presidential library foundation rather than her boss himself.Nevertheless, reports of the highly unusual – if not unprecedented – gift that Trump’s subordinates had afforded their blessing for him to receive triggered a wave of criticisms towards the president.The Democratic senator Chuck Schumer quickly mocked Trump’s political slogan of “America first”.“Nothing says ‘America First’ like Air Force One, brought to you by Qatar,” the US Senate minority leader from New York said in a statement. “It’s not just bribery – it’s premium foreign influence with extra legroom.”On X, Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland said: “Trump must seek Congress’ consent to take this $300m from Qatar. The Constitution is perfectly clear: no present of any kind whatever’ from a foreign state without Congressional permission. A gift you use for four years and then deposit in your library is still a gift (and a grift).”Democratic pollster Matt McDermott echoed similar sentiments, saying: “Literally speechless…“A foreign regime gifting a jet to a former president. It’s bribery in broad daylight.”McDermott remarked that the Trump Organization run by the president’s children only days earlier had announced a new $5.5bn golf course in Qatar.“Today: Qatar ‘gifts’ Trump a luxury jet. Surely just a coincidence,” McDermott said.Meanwhile, Harvard University international security professor Juliette Kayyem said: “The surveillance and security aspects are also as disturbing as the grift.”The CNN security analyst added that “Qatar will surely offer a plane that satisfies their needs as well.”CNN medical analyst Jonathan Reiner took to X and said: “Air Force One is a (checks notes) Air Force plane. A military aircraft. It’s not intended to be a palace because the US doesn’t have a king.”Similarly, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman and prolific Trump scoopster wrote that the plane in question was “likely the most expensive gift from a foreign government in US history and will likely raise questions from legal experts”.She added: “If Trump continued using it out of office, it would give him access to a much more modern plane than Trump Force One,” which is a private Boeing 757 built in 1991 that belongs to the organization run by his sons. More

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      The insidious doublespeak of Trump’s freedom of ‘choice’

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      View image in fullscreenFreedom of choice is a venerable American value. Donald Trump’s attachment to it is, however, highly selective.Over the first four months of his administration, Trump has been eagerly promoting the expansion of choice in our economic lives. That’s especially the case when it comes to our role as consumers. Think kitchens, baths and automobiles; the stated goal every time he talks about commodities has been increasing the number of options so we can select and buy what we like best – environmental effects notwithstanding. Even his tariffs are only supposed to bring temporary pain, as in emptier toy shelves, before American-made abundance starts to rule the day once again.In our political lives, though, it’s a different story: the president and his administration have been busy instituting new restrictions on both the possibilities on offer and the picking itself. As citizens rather than consumers, we’ve been explicitly told our options are permanently contracting to “save our country”. No longer, for example, should it be possible to share “radical, anti-American ideologies” in our classrooms or decide how we want to be addressed.As a result, our economic and political existences are now on rapidly diverging paths – with questions about what choice is good for, where it counts, and who is in charge of the menu at the core. What we are seeing is the emergence of a new kind of authoritarianism that still pays homage to libertarianism, but only in the realm of consumer choice.View image in fullscreenA choice explosionThere is a long backstory here. Ordinary people, wherever they found themselves in the world, once had many fewer choices to make than we typically do today – and they didn’t attach as much meaning to the act of choosing either. One of the things that made one free prior to the modern era was not having to make a lot of decisions about where to live, how to make money, whom to marry, what to own or which political philosophy to back.But over the last two and a half centuries, the range of both options and opportunities for choice-making – from determining what to eat for lunch to deciding with whom to spend one’s days and nights – has increased exponentially. The categories of people given the formal power to exercise this kind of self-determination have expanded, too, even as the possibility of being able to use this power has remained wildly unevenly distributed. This isn’t just an American story either. Something similar has happened in countries around the globe that consider themselves capitalist democracies.The roots of this choice explosion extend all the way to the 17th and 18th centuries. The expansion of global commerce in the first age of empire is one major source. That’s when advertisements and displays of new products in western European cities made use of increasing variety in goods, such as colored and patterned fabrics from south Asia, to develop the idea of consumer choice. The Reformation is another point of origin insofar as it shattered the unity of European Christendom, eventually putting religious and then intellectual choice on the table as well.Shopkeepers, auctioneers, itinerant preachers and printers helped lead the way, alongside philosophers and novelists. We might think of all of those figures as early versions of what behavioral economists today call “choice architects”: people whose job is to construct the menus of options and, often without calling much attention to themselves, establish the rules for the game of selection. Their power, even when limited, stemmed from creating the conditions for the flourishing of what we have come to experience as the “freedom of choice”.But it was the late 19th and 20th centuries that truly sped the process along, turning choice-making into a habitual part of life. Along with more to choose with every passing year came a mass movement towards imagining ones’ life story as constructed out of free choices made in our free time. Democracies were a final piece of the puzzle. Though the era of the American and French Revolutions had already established elections as vital to self-rule, after about 1870, one nation after another began instituting and standardizing technologies like the secret ballot that brought political determinations into line with a range of other individualized, preference-based activities.View image in fullscreenToday – at least in theory – we shop for goods, entertainments, courses of study and vacations. We pick our friends, lovers and life partners. We vote for our favorite candidates. We select where we want to live, what we want to do for a profession (though, exceptionally, not what we do when we are actually on the job), whether to have children, and even insurance plans to hedge our bets when facing situations beyond our control. Whole sciences explain how and why we choose what we do and with what consequences. The promise is that, with our own choices, we can get what we personally prefer. And we can be the autonomous people that we yearn to be.None of this is to suggest that the proliferation of choice has been an unmitigated boon for humanity, as critics have pointed out repeatedly along the way. Voices on the right of the political spectrum have long bemoaned the way an emphasis on choice upends tradition, especially in the moral sphere – making almost every decision into a form of marketplace transaction in which individual taste rules the day. Many on the left have agreed to an extent, suggesting that modeling life on a shop window or bazaar – in which a product, human or otherwise, exists for every desire – leads to the obfuscation of deep inequalities of opportunity and the neglect of our obligations to each other along with the planet itself. They have also complained (quite rightly) that choice is always a lot less free, in the sense of unconstrained, than we might think.Still, “choice” has long been a favorite word on both sides of the aisle in US politics (and not least when the issue is contentious, like the future of healthcare). That helps explain why “the right to choose” seemed like a promising slogan in the early 1970s to abortion rights defenders who were eager to find an uncontroversial framing device for their advocacy work in the aftermath of Roe v Wade. Who could object to simply having more choices, especially when the promise was that one could pick in accord with one’s personal values and desires? From billboards to human rights decrees and constitutions, choice has come to stand for freedom itself. It is even a marker now on global happiness indexes; more of one means more of the other. Ever since the end of the second world war, this assumption has made our economic and political lives seem intrinsically linked.View image in fullscreenA shrinking political menuBut that isn’t where we are now. Despite its sporadic and often misleading appeal to the language of choice, the Trump administration is intent on undoing this historical pact between consumer and political choice and thus of a key element of the liberal paradigm. While expanding consumer options, or at least giving the impression this is the plan, this presidency is working hard to limit options in almost all other spheres.Something similar is being attempted by many of Trump’s counterparts in other increasingly illiberal capitalist democracies, from Hungary to India, around the globe. (And perhaps this is not just a story about capitalist democracies – even China could now be understood as a nation in thrall to consumer choice at the expense of other forms of freedom.) But this disjunction is becoming especially pronounced in the US, where choice is continuing its ascent in one sphere (albeit within the constraints of an ever-changing policy on tariffs), just as it is being rapidly circumscribed, in both practice and lingo, in most others.When it comes to freedom of choice for consumers, which has long been offered up as the flip side of deregulation for industries, Trump and his minions are all in – at least rhetorically. They borrow cliches that are recognizable from 18th-century sales pitches promising “the greatest choices” in fabrics all the way to Milton and Rose Friedman’s bestselling 1980 book and TV series, Free to Choose. The argument is as much about personal liberty as economic benefit.Right off the bat, in his inaugural address this January, Trump promised Americans that he was ending the electric vehicle mandate, as well as the rest of Joe Biden’s environmental initiatives, not just to save the auto industry but also so “you’ll be able to buy the car of your choice.” Consecutive executive orders have extended that same logic to appliances, lightbulbs, plumbing and even K-12 education. Undoing regulations that save water and energy and reduce global warming will “safeguard the American people’s freedom to choose from a variety of goods and appliances”. Getting rid of “federal meddling” will also restore “shower freedom”, which depends upon Americans being “free to choose their showerheads”. As for schools, in which the right has long supported a voucher system so that families can select the educational approach they prefer in a marketplace that includes religious and for-profit along with public options, the executive order states: “Pres. Trump will provide every available opportunity for parents to enrich the education of their children through individual choice.”“Making America Great Again” thus turns out to be largely a promise about an odd kind of consumer paradise. It is not competitive pricing and affordability Trump is after. Nor is it safer or improved goods that would lead to better health and welfare. Rather, just having more options from which to pick is the new holy grail, whether we are talking about dishwashers or elementary schools. Never mind that high tariffs and protectionism will likely make everything more expensive or constrict the field of choice itself at least for a while, forcing parents to buy, in Trump’s words, “two dolls instead of 30”. In fact, under pressure from the business wing of his party, he’s already backed away from the most dramatic of these measures. In the Maga utopia, the deregulation of businesses, especially when it comes to abandoning rules about environmental concerns or racial equity or even corrupt practices, ultimately creates a cornucopia of possibilities for purchasers, who are going to be newly empowered to vote with their wallets for whatever products they like best. Consumer choice is recast as a fundamental right and freedom.Yet apart from the arena of consumption, Trump is little invested in expanding individual, preference-based selection making. On the contrary, in the political sphere, the president seems to be looking to move the US in precisely the opposite direction. Even with falling approval ratings, he is still counting on considerable popular support for a vision of the world in which Amazon offers up thousands of potential possibilities, from movies to toasters, for our pleasure, but nativist chauvinism and a limited repertoire of Christian values curtail options and opportunities for choice in most other domains. He and his fans view it as the function of a strong executive to make both our reality.View image in fullscreenWhen it comes to things that don’t take the form of sellable commodities, the parallel framing around freedom as choice has all but disappeared from the vocabulary of this administration. It’s also fast disappearing from policy itself, as representatives of Trump’s brand of Republicanism challenge both the traditional understandings of executive power and constitutional protections around civil and political rights. The latter are precisely those rights outside the consumer sphere – such as religious rights, marriage rights, and rights to determine political representatives – that have been redefined as matters of choice ever since the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the aftermath of the second world war. This isn’t how they are being defined by the US government now.The ability to make one’s own determinations in ideas, expression and ideology, despite some early Trump administration bromides about the importance of freedom of speech, is on the chopping block as a result of yet another set of executive orders and agency moves. That includes bans, wherever federal dollars or other forms of federal patronage are at stake, on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, the investigation of the climate crisis, the expression of pro-Palestinian sentiments, or the promotion of history, art or literature that runs counter to so-called “patriotic” education, among other topics. Such menu limitations are already being felt from classrooms and laboratories to federal agencies and cultural institutions, even as court challenges are growing in number. Restrictions on people’s choice of residency or travel are also more visible by the day, not least in the actions of Ice. Let’s not forget, either, new limits on options in our sexual and familial lives – such as efforts to further reduce abortion rights at the federal level and refusals to allow people to determine their own identities – especially when it comes to gender.Then there are efforts to curtail voting itself, which is the primary form of political choice. Kamala Harris tried during her brief presidential campaign last year to tie support for voting rights to abortion rights as similarly threatened “fundamental freedoms”, though the idea never gained much traction. This administration sees things differently.Elections themselves are not likely to disappear entirely any time soon; almost every nation state in the world, no matter how dictatorial, continues to enable some form of voting by citizens. That’s because voting is so closely associated today with the idea that, in any legitimate state, the people’s interests need representation. Trump, moreover, likes to claim a popular mandate for his actions, even as he sometimes flirts with the idea that he is a “king” who is unbeholden to anyone but himself.Still, the Trump administration is already eagerly suggesting that elections won’t be happening in the same way as they once did, after long insisting that any Trump defeat would be a sure sign of election fraud, thus delegitimizing in advance all but one predetermined result. Indeed, as a slate of proposed new rules designed to actually discourage voting in future federal elections makes clear, much of his administration’s energy in these first months has gone into trying to find new ways to limit who has access to political or intellectual or even cultural choices; to take off the table or reduce rather than increase the set of options available; and to narrow the parameters within which choices can be made and registered. What other purpose could, say, new restrictions on the due dates for mail-in ballots in federal elections serve?Even the study of choice-making, one of the great developments of 20th-century social science including psychology and economics, is now being reduced by every means possible, from cuts to whole research-funding programs to the blockage of grants for projects making use of certain prohibited words.View image in fullscreenChoice architect in chiefWhat Trump is doing is not so much abandoning the idea or practice of choice as making himself our nation’s premier “choice architect”. And he’s doing it – at the expense of both the other branches of government and much of the private sector – as part and parcel of the expansion of executive power. That is, he is using the authority of his position to grant the rest of us sets of approved options, from ideas to identities, but also continually reminding us that it is he, as the nation’s chief executive, who determines who gets to choose and how and when and where. Even threats of high tariffs are meant as leverage – pressure tools in a competitive environment, so that the president can tilt the field the way he likes and remake the set of options on behalf of the US consumer. (Artificial intelligence will surely help.)This is a new, 21st-century form of authoritarianism marked by an enduring quasi-libertarian streak when it comes to consumption rather than citizenship. Of course, the freedom of the shopper has never been total freedom. It has always been shaped and bounded by multiple forces, from the interests of business owners and for-profit taste makers to the “nudges” characteristic of anonymous, technocratic policy making, such as using incentives to get people to willingly choose to save more for retirement. But over the last 75 years, much of this choice architecture has become both ubiquitous and invisible, with the promise that personal choice meant personal liberty and that freedom in one sphere would be matched by a similar form of freedom in another.The age of choice isn’t fully going away any time in the near future. It is both too entrenched and too profitable. But in a sharp break from much of recent history, our political and economic lives seem to be heading in opposite directions: investment in consumer choice (even if tempered for now by tariffs) is expanding in the Trump era in part as cover for the fact that political choice, along with choice in how to think and live, is on a steep decline.Sophia Rosenfeld is Annenberg professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life (2025). More