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      ‘I became collateral damage’: the trans pilot falsely targeted over Washington DC crash

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      Jo Ellis is alive.It was a non-controversial, irrefutable fact – until she was accused of piloting the military helicopter that collided with a commercial airplane in Washington DC on 29 January, killing all involved.After the crash, before valid explanations began to surface, Donald Trump blamed diversity. There is no evidence that diversity initiatives played any role in the crash, but that didn’t matter.Ellis, 34, wasn’t involved in the crash in any way. But she is a Black Hawk pilot in the Virginia national guard. And she’s transgender.In the immediate aftermath of the crash, two of the helicopter pilots killed were named, but the family of the third pilot initially elected to keep her name private, though she was later identified. Ellis was misidentified as the pilot in the in-between.On Friday morning, Ellis got a text from a close friend at about 4.30am telling her a random account was commenting on all of his public Facebook posts asking if he was friends with Ellis, “the one that killed those people in the crash”. She thought it was maybe a bot and discounted it.Ellis, who has been in the Virginia national guard since 2009 and has deployed to Iraq and Kuwait, had written for the news website Smerconish.com about being trans in the military on 28 January and then spoken to the commentator Michael Smerconish for an interview. She thought the attention was because of her article.In the article, she wrote that she grew up in a religious and conservative home with a history of military service, but that she knew she had gender dysphoria since she was five years old. She tried to be “more religious, more successful, more manly” in hopes it would “cure” her.“I got married, bought a house, helped raise a stepdaughter, played drums in the church band, and adopted a dog,” she wrote. “All the things I believed a good man should do. And I really wanted to do those things, but I also secretly hoped it would fix me. It didn’t work.”She realized during the pandemic that she was at a point where she could begin to address her gender dysphoria. She notified her command in 2023 that she would begin transitioning and came out to her unit in 2024 and got “overwhelming support”, she wrote. She paid for all of her trans-related care out of pocket.Ellis said she believed she was targeted because she’s a trans woman.“Once I put that article out, I became collateral damage, just like so many other trans people that are being unnecessarily targeted.”Later, on the Friday morning after the crash, another friend sent her screenshots of an article on a Pakistani website that included Ellis’s photo and claimed she was the third pilot. (This article, which says Ellis was “rumored to be” the unnamed pilot, is still uncorrected.)“Then the Daily Mail called my personal cellphone and asked if I was alive,” Ellis said. “And that’s when it kind of sunk in. And I was like, oh, this is big. This is not some corner of the internet saying something ridiculous.”She discovered that her name was trending on X, with some posts getting hundreds of thousands of views. “Why is this only on Twitter?” rightwing commentator Ann Coulter wrote on X, sharing a post about Ellis being the pilot. One account said the crash could be “another trans terror attack”.People opined that she hated Trump and was motivated by that hatred to act, killing herself and dozens of others to make a point. Trump issued an executive order banning trans people from joining or serving openly in the military, though it did not immediately kick trans people out. A group of trans military members have sued over the order.Ellis says she’s a political moderate and has voted red more than blue. “I didn’t say anything negative about Trump. I just said I want to keep serving.”Ellis posted on Facebook on Friday morning to try to quash the rumors, asking people to report any posts naming her as the pilot. But she soon realized that wouldn’t suffice, so she made a video. Proof of life.“Interesting morning,” she starts in the video. “It is insulting to the families to try to tie this to some sort of political agenda. They don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve this. And I hope that you all know that I am alive and well, and this should be sufficient for you all to end all the rumors.”She went quiet from there, packed some bags, and left her home for the night after arranging armed security and arming herself. She worried someone might use public records to find her home and try to hurt her family.The response to her video was overwhelmingly, though not uniformly, positive. Some people messaged her to say said she should have been on the helicopter instead, or that it’s nice she was alive but she shouldn’t be in the military because she’s mentally ill. Others shared anti-trans and antisemitic (she had said in the Smerconish interview that she was exploring the faith) comments on social media.But she said the video ultimately worked, due in large part to the misinformation being easy to debunk. “All I had to do was say I’m alive, and that kind of broke the whole rumor,” she said.She watched as people started correcting the rumor. She saw some veteran, pro-Trump accounts telling others they shouldn’t be going after a member of the military like this. Two days after the rumors reached a fever pitch, it appeared, she said, as if the misinformation was stopped in its tracks.She has tried unsuccessfully to report some remaining social media posts that falsely claim she was a pilot. “Calling me a murderer is apparently not a violation of X rules,” she said.She said she was not deterred from speaking out again, though. Her guard supported her throughout the ordeal, and it affirmed she wants to continue serving in the military.“I know not everyone loves me back, and that’s OK, but I want to serve everyone,” she said. “I want to use this incident somehow as a form of good. I don’t know what that looks like yet, but I really want to turn this into something that does good for the world.“I don’t want to make it about me,” she added. “I don’t want to be the victim or the martyr. I want to show people that being strong and standing up to this hate, that hopefully something good can come from it.” More

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      What Republicans really mean when they blame ‘DEI’ | Mehdi Hasan

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      In 1981, Lee Atwater, the most influential Republican party strategist of the late 20th century, sat down for an off-the-record interview with the political scientist Alexander P Lamis. At the time, Atwater was a junior member of the Reagan administration, but he would later go on to run George HW Bush’s presidential campaign in 1988 and then become chair of the Republican National Committee in 1989.In perhaps the most revealing, and most infamous, portion of the interview, the hard-charging Republican operative explained to Lamis how Republican politicians could mask their racism – and racist appeals to white voters – behind a series of euphemisms.
      You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘[N-word, N-word, N-word]’. By 1968 you can’t say ‘[N-word]’ – that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites … ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘[N-word, N-word]’.
      Got that? No need to utter the N-word out loud as there were plenty of other “abstract” ways to say it.Today, more than four decades later, DEI has become the new N-word; the new rightwing abstraction deployed by Republicans to conceal their anti-Black racism. DEI – short for diversity, equity and inclusion – is thrown around by high-profile conservatives, from the president of the United States downwards, for the express purpose of undermining Black people in public life.Don’t believe me? In a recent interview on Fox News, the White House counselor and former Trump lawyer Alina Habba declared that the administration’s 27-year-old press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, “is overqualified, brilliant and was well-versed and ready … she didn’t need a thick binder … unlike our last press secretary who was put in there for … DEI reasons”.For the record, the “last press secretary”, Karine Jean-Pierre, is the Black daughter of Haitian immigrants. Is she less qualified than her successor? Well, let’s compare résumés, shall we?Neither Habba herself, nor Leavitt, are Ivy League grads.Jean-Pierre is.Neither Habba herself, nor Leavitt, worked in two different administrations before securing their top White House positions.Jean-Pierre did.Neither Habba herself, nor Leavitt, has served on three different election-winning presidential campaigns across three different decades.Jean-Pierre has.So when Habba says Jean-Pierre was appointed White House press secretary for “DEI reasons”, what else could she be alluding to other than that she is a Black woman?When the Republican congressman Tim Burchett called Kamala Harris – the then sitting vice-president, former senator and former attorney general of the country’s most populous state; a woman who would have entered the Oval Office with a longer record in elected office than Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump – a “DEI hire” within 24 hours of her becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, what else could he have been referring to other than that she is a Black woman?When a viral tweet (26m views and counting) from a popular far-right account (that is also amplified by Elon Musk) referred to Brandon Scott – the mayor of Baltimore who was elected with 70% of the vote and previously served eight years on the city council, including a stint as city council president – as the city’s “DEI mayor”, what else could it have been trying to point to other than that he is a Black man?DEI is the new N-word. In fact, the Black podcaster Van Lathan argues that DEI is now “worse than the N-word” and has become “the worst slur in American history”. The term “DEI hire”, he explains, “is not just being used to undermine the qualifications, capability and readiness of Black people … DEI is placing the blame of all of society’s ills at the feet of these people.”Plane crash? Blame DEI. Wildfires in LA? Blame DEI. Bridge collapse? Blame DEI.DEI is a racist dogwhistle. Blame Black people is the not so unsubtle message.You now cannot turn on the television or log on to social media without coming across a prominent conservative blathering on about the evils of DEI. To quote the loathsome Fox host Greg Gutfeld, DEI “can be used to explain everything … except, unlike racism and climate change, which the left found under every rock, every issue, DEI is, indeed, under every rock because the Democrats put it there.”This isn’t a good-faith critique of diversity programs or policies – whether they actually work or not; whether they restrict free speech; whether they are corporate box-ticking exercises. No, this is the weaponization of a three-letter term to denigrate Black people and pretend the political and economic advancement of minority communities over the past 60 years was a mistake. (“If I see a Black pilot, I’m gonna be like, ‘Boy, I hope he is qualified,” the rightwing activist and top Trump ally Charlie Kirk casually remarked last year.)So why on earth is our “liberal” media credulously giving Republicans the benefit of the doubt on this? Treating their obsession with DEI as anything other than what it is? Anti-Black racism. The new N-word. A three-letter slur that seeks to, once again, mainstream bigotry and discrimination in the United States. (“DEI halftime show,” tweeted the far-right influencer Jack Posobiec during the Super Bowl on Sunday night.)For years, Donald Trump has been plagued by allegations that he used the N-word while filming The Apprentice. In 2024, a former producer on the NBC reality show claimed Trump used the racial epithet in 2004 to describe Kwame Jackson, a Black finalist on the first season of The Apprentice. In 2018, the former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman claimed in her book Unhinged that Trump was caught on tape during the making of The Apprentice saying the N-word “multiple times”, according to three of her sources.At the time, Trump vociferously denied that he had ever used the N-word: “I don’t have that word in my vocabulary, and never have.”But the awful truth is that, these days, he doesn’t even need to have such a word in his vocabulary. He and his acolytes have another, more insidious one that serves a similar racist purpose: DEI.

      Mehdi Hasan is the CEO and editor-in-chief of the new media company Zeteo More

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      Canada’s Liberal party was left for dead, but Trump might have just given it a second chance

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      Until just a few weeks ago, it was an exhilarating time to be a Conservative in CanadaAfter nearly 10 years of Liberal rule, a deepening cost of living crisis had soured public support for Justin Trudeau and his shop-worn government. The Tory leader, Pierre Poilievre, had seized on a controversial carbon levy, and pledged to make the next federal vote an “axe the tax” election. Pollsters predicted his party would seize a convincing majority of seats. The country was on the cusp of a new Conservative era.And then Donald Trump suggested the US might take over Canada.The US president’s threats – ranging from “economic coercion” to outright annexation – have upended Canadian politics in a way few could have predicted. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday as he travelled to the Super Bowl game, Trump further escalated his rhetoric, claiming that Canada is “not viable as a country” without US trade, and warning that it can no longer depend on the US for military protection.For the last two years, any consideration of the future of Canada’s Liberal party had focused on the scale of its impending electoral loss. But in recent weeks, a series of polls have suggested that the Liberals have reversed their freefall.And a key factor in the party’s apparent resurrection has been Trump.Since Trump’s comments, Canada has seen a groundswell of visceral patriotism. Maga-style hats emblazoned “Canada Is Not for Sale” went viral. Canadians jeered visiting American sports teams, even during a children’s ice hockey tournament in Quebec City.And amid a shift in the public mood, the Canadian prime minister has positioned his government as leading a “Team Canada” approach to the emerging threat from the south.“In this moment, we must pull together because we love this country,” Trudeau said in a recent speech in response to Trump’s threats. “We don’t pretend to be perfect, but Canada is the best country on earth. There’s nowhere else that I and our 41-million strong family would rather be, and we will get through this challenge just as we’ve done countless times before: together.”But for Poilievre, who had harnessed a populist current in the country and drawn comparisons with Trump, the avenues forward are less clear.The Conservative leader’s combative politics have served him well against Trudeau, but now appear to be faltering as nationalism supplants partisanship.One poll, from Ipsos, found the Conservatives had shed roughly 12 points of support within two weeks. Another survey in Quebec, from the firm Leger, found that if the Liberals put former central banker Mark Carney atop their ticket, the party vaulted far ahead of both the Conservatives and the separatist Bloc Québécois.A third, from the outfit Mainstreet, found the Liberals were tied – or even leading – among likely voters in the battle ground of Ontario.“This is very much a race that still favours the Conservatives. But if the Liberals gain even a couple more points, we’re in a place where they would suddenly become much more competitive, and the potential for minority government is possible,” said Éric Grenier, a political analyst at the Writ.One of the main drivers in shifting sentiment has been the resignation of Trudeau as Liberal leader, after the Conservatives had gleefully prepared to wage an entire federal election campaign against him.“Now the election isn’t going to be about Trudeau. And with both Liberal candidates saying they won’t move forward with the carbon tax, it also won’t be about that. It will most likely be about the next four years and who is best able to dealing with Trump,” said Grenier.Last week, another poll from the Globe and Mail and Nanos found that 40% of Canadians felt Carney – the former governor of the Bank of England – was best suited to face off against Trump. Only 26% of respondents felt that person was Poilievre.For a campaign to go from a very specific issue – a referendum on Trudeau’s last nine years as leader – to a completely different issue – Donald Trump – is “rare”, said Grenier.The Conservatives plan to present a new, patriotic election message in the coming days. Attenders have been instructed to wear red and white – the colours of Canada, but also the colours of the Liberal party.“Adopting a Canada-first approach to the election is needed, but it’s an awkward one for them, because they’ve been saying for the last couple years that the country is broken,” said Grenier. “And now they have to say: ‘Well, it is but we still really love it.’ And it also feels a bit forced because a segment of their voting base – and probably a segment of their caucus – prefers to have Donald Trump as a president.”For the Liberals, the reversal confirms their decision to force Trudeau out. But Grenier cautions against reading too much into the polling.“The danger for someone like Carney, who is polling surprisingly well in a place like Quebec, is that some of the numbers are quite high. Can he live up to that? Or is the idea of him more attractive to voters than the reality of him as an actual leader?”Still, in an election fought over national identity and the protection of sovereignty, Liberals have unexpectedly found themselves dealt a few lucky cards.None of the Liberal candidates vying for the party’s top job are cabinet ministers, depriving opposition parties the chance to accuse them of dereliction.“It may still be a ‘change’ election, but it looks like it is not going to be a carbon tax election. Rhyming couplets like ‘axe the tax’ feel a little stale and disconnected from contemporary political and economic challenges,” said Scott Reid, a political adviser and former director of communications to the former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin. “And if the next election is going to be about how we rewire our relationship to the United States in the face of Trump’s capriciousness, someone with the credentials of Mark Carney starts to look interesting to some voters, and it at least gives the Liberal party the possibility of resurrecting itself.”Still, the polls at this point are “more akin to a spark than a bonfire’’, Reid said, adding that if an election were held today, Poilievre’s Conservatives would probably win a majority of seats.But the largely unprecedented nature of Trump’s unpredictable incursions into the national discourse means that honing a careful message, for either party, is largely a useless task.“What will Donald Trump do in the coming months when there’s a new prime minister on the scene [after the Liberals select their new leader]? How might he blunder into the minefield of Canadian politics? We just don’t know,” said Reid. “But we almost do know that it will happen. Either he determines the ballot question or, on any given day, he has the capacity to dictate the ballot question of the next election. That’s just the reality of it.” More

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      ‘Ridiculous blunder’: Trump wades into California’s water wars – and strikes some of his strongest supporters

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      Under orders from Donald Trump, billions of gallons of irrigation water were laid waste in California’s thirsty agricultural hub this month, a move that left water experts shocked and local officials scrambling.The water, stored in two reservoirs operated by the army corps of engineers, is a vital source for many farms and ranches in the state’s sprawling and productive San Joaquin valley during the driest times of the year. It will be especially important in the coming months as the region braces for another brutally hot summer with sparse supplies.The reservoirs are also among the few the US president can control directly.Staged to give weight to Trump’s widely debunked claims that flows could have helped Los Angeles during last month’s devastating firestorm and to show that he holds some power over California’s water, he ordered the army corps to flood the channels. Less than an hour of notice was reportedly given to water authorities down-river who rushed to prepare for the unexpected release, which threatened to inundate nearby communities.The move is just the latest in a series of misinformed attempts Trump has made to wade into California’s water wars, adding new challenges and conflicts over the state’s essential and increasingly scarce water resources. But in what now appears to be just a political stunt, Trump has struck some of his strongest supporters. Many counties across California’s rural Central valley – home to much of its roughly $59bn agricultural industry – backed Trump in the last election, forming a red strip at the heart of the blue state.“It is almost mind-boggling that this has happened,” said Thomas Holyoke, a professor of political science and water expert at California State University, Fresno, calling the act a “ridiculous blunder”.Experts, who were left scratching their heads in the aftermath, have found no justification for the order. The reservoirs were not at risk of overflowing and irrigation is not necessary during the wetter winter months. These releases also did not support threatened ecosystems such as those in the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta, where contentious debates continue about flows and diversions.Some have suggested the flows will help bolster groundwater stores, “but a lot of that water will end up evaporating,” said Holyoke. “It’s just going to be water lost – and they know it.”‘Purely a stunt’Governed by agreements between an array of stakeholders and close coordination between federal and local officials, releases from these reservoirs are typically well-planned. Lake Kaweah and Lake Success, the two reservoirs in Tulare county, are part of a sprawling network of channels that do not flow to the ocean or connect to the aqueduct serving the southern part of the state.The water held within them is also largely spoken for. Its distribution isn’t often contentious.But Trump, it seems, saw it differently.“Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory!” he said in a post on Truth Social the day the release was ordered, boasting that he opened a flow for 5.2bn gallons of water alongside a photo of a nondescript waterway.Acting quickly, local authorities were able to convince federal officials to bring that total down to 2bn, which was released over three days.View image in fullscreenBut Trump’s rhetoric around the issue hasn’t shifted. He has made several false statements about water in California and his ability to direct it including claims that he sent the US military to turn on the water in the aftermath of the deadly fires, his clear misunderstanding about where water supplies originate from and distribute to, and his allusion to a simple valve that can be turned to control water supply.He posted again thanking the army corps of engineers “for their LOVE of our Country, and SPEED in getting this Emergency DONE! [sic]” saying that water was “heading to farmers throughout the State, and to Los Angeles”, even as experts repeatedly debunked this claim.“Those releases had absolutely zero to do with anything to do in Los Angeles,” said Gregory Pierce, a water policy expert and the director of the UCLA Water Resources Group, adding that this also did not benefit anyone in the central valley. “This was a stunt purely so Trump could say that he did something and released the water.”Few have been willing to admonish the administration for the move. Support for Trump and hopes that he will aid agriculture with its water woes is still strong in this region.“I have a conservative mindset. I encourage the trigger-pulling attitude, like: ‘Hey, let’s just get stuff done,’” Zack Stuller, a farmer and president of the Tulare county farm bureau told Politico, admitting that the reservoir release was a little nerve-wracking.The bureau declined to comment to the Guardian, but sent a combined statement from the four water management associations and districts, which attempted to make sense of the puzzling and dangerous release. In it, they said there would be “continued close coordination with the Administration and the Army Corp of Engineers”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSome locals who said they were deeply concerned about the act and its outcome said they were afraid to speak out because their businesses might be targeted by supporters of the administration.While Trump continues to frame the action as evidence that he has taken power over California water, he isn’t able to control much water policy in the state, according to Pierce.“The federal government of course matters for water in California, but not that much,” he said, adding that’s why Trump ordered releases where he was able to, even if they weren’t connected to the overall problem he was claiming to address. The federal government does play a role in funding big projects but “California’s been left on an island with respect to federal support for quite some time,” he said.Trump has tried to exert more control through funding, especially now that the state is depending on the federal government for aid in the aftermath of the Los Angeles wildfires, now considered one of the most costly natural disasters in history with damage estimates climbing above $250bn.View image in fullscreenTrump has cast California’s governor Gavin Newsom as his opponent on the issue, but when it comes to water, and more specifically boosting supplies of it for cities and agriculture, the two might already be on the same page.The state recently issued a fact-check on Trump’s claims, which criticized him for spreading misinformation, but highlighted how supplies have increased since Trump’s first term.Environmental advocates have long criticized the Delta Conveyance, a controversial infrastructure project championed by Newsom that would reroute more water to the south, which could get even more momentum under a Trump presidency.“The governor is actually aligned with Trump on this and I think Trump has only recently figured that out,” Pierce said. “The cards are certainly stacking up that that’s going to be pushed forward.”That doesn’t mean that Trump’s misleading rhetoric won’t leave a mess.“President Trump comes blundering into this complex situation with no understanding at all or no effort at understanding how it works,” said Holyoke.“California is trying to strike a delicate balance,” he added, detailing the challenging and layered issues that come with distributing essential resources to residents, the agricultural industry, and declining ecosystems as the world warms and supplies run short.“Farmers in the valley are hurting from water cutbacks, there is no question about that,” Holyoke said. “The answer isn’t to toss all the laws and court orders aside and throw lots of water at farmers. We simply need to find inventive ways to make the best use of the water that we have.” More

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      US accuses Australia of breaking ‘verbal commitment’ on aluminium exports as Trump weighs tariffs exemption

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      Donald Trump has called Australia’s prime minister a “very fine man” and said he would give “great consideration” to exempting the country from his new 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, after a phone call between the two leaders.It came after comments on Tuesday from the US president that there would be no exceptions or exemptions on the tariffs, which will start on 12 March unless Anthony Albanese can secure an exemption.The official proclamation to impose the aluminium tariff appeared to explain why Australia was not exempted from the outset, with the US accusing Australia of breaking a “verbal commitment” to limit aluminium exports.

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      The new proclamation read: “The volume of U.S. imports of primary aluminum from Australia has also surged and in 2024 was approximately 103% higher than the average volume for 2015 through 2017. Australia has disregarded its verbal commitment to voluntarily restrain its aluminum exports to a reasonable level.”Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull negotiated a carve out from steel and aluminium tariffs during Trump’s first term.Asked about the proclamation on Tuesday night, the deputy prime minister and defence minister, Richard Marles, told ABC’s 7.30: “I can’t speak for the former government, in terms of what it did or didn’t do … but in the discussion that was had today, in the president’s own press conference, having signed the executive order, he made clear that Australian exemptions to this order would be under active consideration. And that’s where this is now at.”Earlier on Tuesday, Albanese said his second call with Trump had been a “very positive and constructive discussion”, which canvassed the Aukus defence pact, critical minerals and foreign investment between the two countries.Albanese said he had also made the case for Australia to be exempted from tariffs and was hopeful of such an outcome.“If you have a look at what we’ve achieved already, it’s been a tremendous start to the relationship,” Albanese told a press conference in Parliament House.Minutes later, the White House announced that the president was signing executive orders to place a 25% tariff on the imports, stepping up a long-promised trade war.Trump initially said the tariffs would be imposed without exceptions but then confirmed he was giving “great consideration” to an Australian carve-out.Asked about his call with Albanese, Trump called the Australian leader “a very fine man” and noted the US trade surplus with Australia.“We have a surplus with Australia, one of the few … I told him that [exemptions] is something we will give great consideration,” Trump said.The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, also publicly urged the Trump administration to exempt Australia from tariffs, claiming any move to the contrary would “damage the relationship” between the two countries.“Tariffs are not warranted against Australia because we have a trade surplus,” he said.Australian politicians were rocked on Monday when Trump told reporters in the US that he planned to announce new tariffs on all steel and aluminium arriving in America.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Labor government been bracing for such a decision after Trump levelled similar tariffs in his first term, with senior ministers and officials working behind the scenes for some time to secure exemptions like those secured by the then-Coalition government after months of negotiations in 2018.“Our aluminium is a critical input for manufacturing in the United States,” Albanese said on Tuesday after his call with Trump. “Our steel and aluminium are both key inputs for the US-Australia defence industries in both of our countries.“I presented Australia’s case for an exemption and we agreed on wording to say publicly, which is that the US president agreed that an exemption was under consideration in the interests of both of our countries.”Albanese would not reveal more about the process by which the exemption would be considered, the timeline by which a decision would be reached, or what Australia would do if the exemption was ultimately rejected. He said he would not speak for Trump but again referred warmly to the Australia-US relationship.“What I envisage is continuing to act to respond diplomatically,” he said. “That’s how you get things done. My government’s got a record of getting things done in Australia’s national interest. I’ll continue to do so.”A US congressman has hit out at any attempt to slap tariffs on Australian products.Joe Courtney, a Democratic politician and co-chair of the Friends of Australia Caucus,, noted that Australia had just this week begun sending payments to Washington as part of the Aukus pact to help bolster the US submarine construction program.“What we’re seeing is a completely needless, almost insult to the people of Australia by raising tariffs of Australian products coming into this country,” Courtney said.The shadow trade minister, Kevin Hogan, suggested that the government should “reach out to whoever may help” Australia secure exemptions, including the former Coalition politicians Scott Morrison and Joe Hockey.“I encourage the prime minister and indeed ambassador [Kevin] Rudd to talk to people like Morrison, people like Hockey,” he told the ABC. “We had a precedent when we got an exemption, they should be using those resources.” More

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      Trump announces 25% tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum

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      Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum on Monday, ramping up his controversial bid to boost the US economy by hiking taxes on imports from overseas.The modified US duties will be enforced “without exceptions or exemptions”, the president declared, dashing the hopes of countries that hoped to avoid them.Trump first imposed steep tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum during his first presidency. The action announced on Monday night ends exemptions granted to certain countries, and increases the duty rate on aluminum.The changes are not due to come into effect until 4 March, however, according to a White House official – raising the prospect of the Trump administration brokering deals with governments seeking reprieve.Countries including Australia have already been making their case and Trump later said he would give “great consideration” to Australia’s request for an exemption to the steel tariffs due to that country’s trade deficit with the US.Trump first trailed his latest tariff actions on Sunday, adding that he would also announce a further set of reciprocal tariffs later in the week, drawing warnings of retaliation from trade partners.“The steel and aluminum tariffs 2.0 will put an end to foreign dumping, boost domestic production and secure our steel and aluminum industries as the backbone and pillar industries of America’s economic and national security,” Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, told reporters.“This isn’t just about trade. It’s about ensuring that America never has to rely on foreign nations for critical industries like steel and aluminum.”Trump will also impose a new North American standard requiring steel imports to be “melted and poured” and aluminum to be “smelted and cast” within the region to curb US imports of minimally processed Chinese and Russian metals that circumvent other tariffs.Trump and his allies, who repeatedly claimed that tariffs could “Make America great again” when fighting to regain the White House, believe that higher taxes on imported steel and aluminum will help shore up US industrial heartlands.The US president said he would announce plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on other countries over the next two days. He signed two proclamations as he spoke to reporters in the Oval Office: one ending waivers granted by Joe Biden to steel and aluminum tariffs instituted during his first term, and the other raising duties on both metals to 25%.He also raised the prospect of future US tariffs on cars, semiconductor chips and pharmaceuticals from markets across the world.Asked about the possibility of other countries retaliating against US tariffs, Trump said: “I don’t mind.”Canada’s industry minister said the US tariffs were “totally unjustified”, with Canadian steel and aluminum supporting key US industries including defense, shipbuilding, energy and autos.“This is making North America more competitive and secure,” Francois-Philippe Champagne said in a statement. “We are consulting with our international partners as we examine the details. Our response will be clear and calibrated.”The European Commission said it saw no justification for the tariffs and said President Ursula von der Leyen would meet US vice-president JD Vance in Paris on Tuesday during an AI summit.In South Korea, the industry ministry called in steelmakers to discuss how to minimize the impact of tariffs.Ahead of a meeting with Trump on Wednesday, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi was preparing to offer to cut Indian tariffs in a range of sectors that could boost US exports to the country, government officials in Delhi said.Trump has previously called India a “very big abuser” on trade, and his top economic adviser Kevin Hassett singled out the country as having “enormously high” tariffs in a CNBC interview.This latest wave of tariffs is different than the one imposed by the White House on China last week, which hit all goods traveling from the country to the US with an additional 10% duty. He also threatened Canada and Mexico with the same blanket tariffs, at higher a rate of 25%, only to agree to a one-month delay before pulling the trigger.Trump signed proclamations that raised the tariff rate on aluminum imports to 25% from the previous 10% that he imposed in 2018 to aid the struggling sector. His action reinstates a 25% tariff on millions of tonnes of steel imports and aluminum imports that had been entering the US duty-free under quota deals, exemptions and thousands of product exclusions.The proclamations were extensions of Trump’s 2018 section 232 national security tariffs to protect steel and aluminum makers. A White House official said the exemptions had eroded the effectiveness of these measures.About a quarter of steel used in the US is from overseas, with Canada, Brazil and Mexico as the top providers. South Korea, Japan and Germany are also key markets.China, hit by a 25% steel tariff during Trump’s first administration that was maintained under Joe Biden, is not a significant exporter of steel to the US. But it is the largest exporter of steel to the world, dominating the global market with typically cheaper products. Some countries then export their own steel products, at higher rates, to markets including the US.Trump’s fixation with tariffs has alarmed economists, who have warned their imposition may derail his repeated promises to rapidly bring down prices for millions of Americans.But Trump has defended his strategy, claiming they could raise “trillions” of dollars for the US economy – and that even the mere threat of import duties can prompt countries to bend to his will. “Tariffs are very powerful, both economically and in getting everything else you want,” he said last week.Reuters contributed to this story More

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      Trump signs order to bring back plastic straws claiming paper ones ‘explode’

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      On Monday, Donald Trump took aim at a “ridiculous situation” that directly affects his daily life: paper straws.He signed an executive order that rolls back a Biden administration policy to phase out federal purchases of single-use plastics, including straws, from food service operations, events and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035.“It’s a ridiculous situation. We’re going back to plastic straws,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he signed the order. “These things don’t work,” he said, referring to paper straws. “I’ve had them many times, and on occasion, they break, they explode.”But Trump, such a fan of drinking Diet Coke that he has installed a button in the Oval Office in order to summon staff to deliver the drink, has long railed against any restrictions upon plastic straws. When attempting to gain re-election in 2020, his campaign sold reusable straws on its website claiming that “liberal paper straws don’t work”.View image in fullscreenWhile plastic straws have been blamed for polluting oceans and harming marine life, Trump said on Monday that he thinks “it’s OK” to continue using them. “I don’t think that plastic is going to affect the shark very much as they’re … munching their way through the ocean,” he said at a White House announcement.White House staff secretary Will Scharf, who presented the executive order to Trump, told him the push for paper straws has cost the government and private industry “an absolute ton of money and left consumers all over the country wildly dissatisfied with their straws’.’The order directs federal agencies to review procurement processes to allow use of plastic straws. “It really is something that affects ordinary Americans in their everyday lives,” Scharf said.The plastic manufacturing industry applauded Trump’s move.“Straws are just the beginning,” Matt Seaholm, president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association, said in a statement. “‘Back to Plastic’ is a movement we should all get behind.”The world is undergoing a glut of new plastic production, and a summit among countries last year failed to come to a deal to address this despite growing recognition of the harm caused by waste that takes hundreds of years to break down. Global annual plastic production doubled in the two decades since 2000 to about 460m tonnes and is expected to quadruple again by 2050.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenLess than 10% of this plastic waste is now being recycled. The rest invariably ends up in the environment, with the equivalent of one truck filled with plastic dumping its contents into the ocean every minute, according to experts’ estimates. Much of this trash is composed of single-use plastics, such as straws, which make up about 40% of plastic production.The result of this boom has been a world riddled with plastics, with large or microscopic fragments of the material found in every corner of the planet, even in the air. Plastics choke and throttle marine creatures and birds and microplastics have been found deep within the bodies of animals, including humans. Research has found plastics present in people’s brains, testicles, blood and even placentas.More than 390m straws are used every day in the United States, mostly for 30 minutes or less, according to advocacy group Straws Turtle Island Restoration Network. Straws take at least 200 years to decompose and pose a threat to turtles and other wildlife as they degrade into microplastics, says the group.“To prevent another sea turtle from becoming a victim to plastic, we must make personal lifestyle alterations to fight for these species,’’ the group said in a statement.Oliver Milman contributed to this report More

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      Trump names loyalist Ric Grenell as interim Kennedy Center leader

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      Donald Trump has named longtime foreign policy adviser Ric Grenell as interim executive director of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, a move likely to raise concerns about the politicisation of the arts and potential for censorship.Grenell has been a vocal tribune of Trump’s “America First” ideology, and was not afraid to ruffle feathers during past spells as ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence (he was the first openly gay person to lead the intelligence community). More recently, the 58-year-old has served as the president’s envoy for special missions, and was involved in securing the release of Americans detained in Venezuela.Trump had announced on Friday that he was firing multiple individuals from the national cultural complex’s board of trustees, including chairman David Rubenstein, a billionaire philanthropist.Trump named himself chairman and said he would soon announce a new board for the Kennedy Center, which he condemned for having featured “drag shows specifically targeting our youth”.In a social media post on Monday, the president wrote: “Ric shares my Vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture, and will be overseeing the daily operations of the Center. NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA – ONLY THE BEST. RIC, WELCOME TO SHOW BUSINESS!”The tirade contradicts Trump’s past statements. In 2020, defending $25m in funding for the Kennedy Center as part of economic relief during the Covid pandemic, he said: “The Kennedy Center, they do a beautiful job, an incredible job.”The Kennedy Center, which receives federal funding, is one of the nation’s leading arts venues and has long enjoyed bipartisan support.Its programming includes classical music concerts, dance performances such as Alvin Ailey and The Nutcracker, magic shows, numerous operas and shows specifically aimed at children. Its roster of musicals over the past two years has included Frozen, Funny Girl, Les Misérables, The Lion King, Mamma Mia!, Moulin Rouge, Spamalot, Sunset Boulevard and Wicked.The board was in the process of selecting a new president to replace the outgoing Deborah Rutter, who announced last month her intention to step down after 11 years.Presidents appoint members of the center’s board of trustees. On Monday, a list of previous board members had been removed from the center’s website, according to a report by CNN.In response to Trump’s announcement last week, the Kennedy Center highlighted its long and “collaborative relationship with every presidential administration” and said it had not received any information from the White House regarding the change.Grenell delivered an address at last year’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, just days after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.Speaking to reporters during the convention, Grenell said: “I’m really struck this week that we could we be having a funeral for Donald Trump.“I believe that God intervened. I believe it was a total divine intervention and, for me, just personally, I believe that means that God isn’t finished with him. There’s more work to be done.”Since taking office last month, Trump has launched a massive government makeover, firing and sidelining hundreds of civil servants and top officials at agencies in his first steps toward dismantling the bureaucracy and installing loyalists.During his first term in office, Trump snubbed the annual Kennedy Center Honors, considered the top national award for achievement in the arts. Joe Biden went to the honors in each of the four years of his presidency.In December, at the last show attended by Biden, the center’s leaders made clear that Trump is welcome to come in the future.The Kennedy Center is considered a living memorial to former president John F Kennedy, and its exterior wall is inscribed with quotations from the 35th president. One says: “I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft.“I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well.” More