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      The Guardian view on the US suspension of military aid: Ukraine and Europe’s race against time | Editorial

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      How long do Ukraine and Europe have to respond to US betrayal? When Russia launched its full-scale invasion three years ago, each day that Kyiv held out was a victory. The west rallied to Ukraine’s support at equally remarkable speed.Now, as the Trump administration turns upon the victim, and embraces the aggressor, Europe is accelerating nascent plans to bolster Ukraine and pursue security independence. Trump allies blame Friday night’s extraordinary Oval Office confrontation between Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Donald Trump and JD Vance for the shocking halt to all US military aid. Others suspect that the administration was seeking a pretext for the suspension. Mr Zelenskyy pledged on Tuesday to “work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts” and expressed gratitude for his first-term approval of Javelin missile defence systems sales.That may or may not be enough. The suspension concluded a fortnight in which Mr Trump attacked Mr Zelenskyy as a “dictator”, the US sided with Russia against western allies at the UN, and the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, suspended offensive cyber operations against Moscow. There are reports that the US is preparing plans for loosening the economic pressure on Russia – even as it imposes punitive tariffs on allies. Little wonder the Kremlin crows that Washington “largely coincides with our vision”. Vladimir Putin has reportedly offered to mediate US-Iran nuclear talks. Observers were braced for further developments in the US president’s address to Congress on Tuesday.Analysts suggest that Ukraine’s forces should be able to continue fighting at their current rate for a few months if US aid does not resume, depending on what it has stockpiled. Though it is far less dependent on the US than three years ago, key elements like Patriot air defence missiles will be hard to replace. If US logistical and intelligence assistance and Elon Musk’s Starlink’s services were suspended, those would be further punishing blows.Mr Trump is in a hurry – hence his angry threat that Mr Zelenskyy “won’t be around very long” if he doesn’t cut a deal. This came after the Ukrainian president suggested on Sunday that the end of the war was “very, very far away”. Yet he has also squandered leverage he might have exerted on Moscow before reaching the table. He has emboldened Russia to pursue further territorial gains, especially if it can shape a deal with the US before a ceasefire.The US has already undermined central pillars of Sir Keir Starmer’s approach – maintaining military support for Kyiv and economic pressure on Moscow, and creating a “coalition of the willing” to guarantee Ukrainian security. Mr Vance derided “20,000 troops from some random country that has not fought a war in 30 or 40 years”, then claimed that he was not referring to Britain or France.European leaders must continue trying to buy time, deferring further US perfidy, and hasten rearmament for themselves and Ukraine. On Tuesday, Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, announced a proposal, including changes to EU fiscal rules, which she said could mobilise nearly €800bn for defence spending. A rival operator to Starlink is in talks with European leaders about satellite services.But this is an administration which moves abruptly and erratically. Ukraine and Europe are racing against the clock, not knowing when zero hour will arrive. It is likely to be sooner rather than later. More

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      Stephen Colbert on Trump-Zelenskyy meeting: ‘Embarrassing, chilling and confusing’

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      Late-night hosts recap Donald Trump’s shocking rebuke of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during a disastrous White House press conference.Stephen ColbertStephen Colbert braced himself on Monday to recap Friday’s chaotic White House meeting between Trump, JD Vance and Zelenskyy that devolved into a shouting match between the two world leaders, with Trump as the aggressor, blaming Zelenskyy for continuing Russia’s war in his country.“In just 10 minutes, Donald Trump reversed 80 years of postwar US foreign policy,” the Late Show host explained. “A mere six weeks ago, America defended democracy against autocrats and promoted free and open societies all over the world. Now, we’re on the same pickleball team with Russia. And you don’t want to know who’s pickled balls we’re playing with.“So our friends are now our enemies, our enemy is now our friend, we’re breaking up with Europe, we’re friends with Russia,” he continued. “You could argue that’s a good thing, you could argue that’s a bad thing. But what you can’t argue with is that’s the thing.”The talks, nominally to sign a deal in which Ukraine promised the US 50% of its profits from rare earth minerals, collapsed within 10 minutes. “So things were looking promising, but then everything exploded and collapsed. It’s a phenomenon political scientists refer to as the Emilia Pérez Oscar campaign,” Colbert quipped.“Zelenskyy kept reminding these numbnuts that Putin breaks every single deal he ever signs,” he added. When a reporter then asked Trump what would happen if Putin broke any deal, the president responded: “What if anything? What if a bomb drops on your head right now.“Yeah, that’s how Putin’s going to break the ceasefire,” Colbert responded. “This meeting was embarrassing, chilling and confusing.”Seth MeyersOn Late Night, Seth Meyers also tore into Vance and Trump for their handling of the Zelenskyy meeting, starting with Vance’s insistence that Zelenskyy thank Trump personally for US aid. “JD Vance sounds like a boyfriend who just got caught cheating for the third time – ‘You keep asking where I was last night, but have you said thank you once for the bracelet I got you!’” said Meyers.“For the record, Zelenskyy has said thank you many times, directly to the American people, in English, a language he speaks more fluently than Donald Trump,” he added.Meyers went on to note: “Diplomacy is good, we should try to achieve a ceasefire to stop the killing and bring peace, but it is possible – in fact, it’s necessary – to do that while also remaining clear-eyed about who the aggressor is. Who violated sovereignty and international law and human rights by starting the war in the first place.“But Trump doesn’t give a shit about any of that,” he continued. “All he cares about is self-enrichment and raw power and territorial conquest. That’s why he’s doing a solid for Russian oligarchs by letting them keep their superyachts.”Meyers also blasted Democrats for their feckless response, referring to comments from Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, that “we’ll need to see some mature leadership from the Trump administration.”“What is wrong with all of you?” Meyers fumed. “You want to see some mature leadership from the Trump administration? Well, I want to see all the gold in Fort Knox. And guess what? Neither of us is getting what we fucking want!“Seriously, Democrats, show some spine,” he added. “Do you want to get primaried? Why do you guys keep acting like this is your first day on the job?”Jon StewartAnd on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart mulled an offer by Elon Musk to appear for an interview on the show, as long as it was unedited. “After thinking about his offer, I thought, you know, hey, that’s actually how the in-studio interviews normally are. It’s unedited,’” Stewart said. “So sure, we’d be delighted.”Stewart added that he would “sweeten the pot” and keep the cameras rolling for as long as Musk wanted their conversation to last. “The interview can be 15 minutes. It can be an hour. It can be two hours, whatever,” he said.Musk later appeared to renege on his offer, posting on X that “Jon Stewart is much more a propagandist than it would seem” and not “bipartisan”.“The guy who custom-made his own dark Maga hat that he wears to opine in the Oval Office with the president who he spent $270m to elect thinks I’m just too partisan,” Stewart laughed. “I’m really not sure what he thinks bipartisan means, but it’s generally not ‘I support Donald Trump and also Germany’s AFD party.’ That’s not bipartisan, that’s just the same shit.“Look, Elon, I do have some criticisms about Doge,” he continued. “I support, in general, the idea of efficiency and delivering better services to the American public in cheaper and more efficient ways. And if you want to come on and talk about it on the show, great. If you don’t want to, sure.“But can we just drop the pretense that you won’t do it because I don’t measure up to the standards of neutral discourse that you demand and display at all times? Because quite frankly, that’s bullshit.” More

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      Tariffs can help US workers. But Trump’s doing them all wrong | Dustin Guastella

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      In the run-up to the 2024 election, a lot of people were ringing alarms about Donald Trump’s tariffs. Kamala Harris called Trump’s policies a “tax on the American people” and warned of sky-high prices. According to the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, they are “very bad for America and for the world”. His fellow Nobel laureate Paul Krugman called them “small, ugly, and stupid”. More recently, the whirlwind tariff drama of the past two months – first a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada, then a 30-day “pause” on that policy, a plan to raise tariffs on steel, aluminum and agricultural goods, plus an across the board tariff hike on China – has generated yet more frenzied debate about the danger of tariffs.Observers aren’t wrong to criticize the US president’s policies. His proposed tariffs seem unlikely to improve what ails the US economy. Worse, applying tariffs as broadly as he’s proposed, and without any supplementary industrial strategy, does risk needlessly raising prices while acting like a big corporate giveaway. Yet, despite what elite economists say, tariffs can be sound, and progressive, economic policy.In fact, liberals might be surprised to learn that during his administration Joe Biden actually raised the highest tariffs in recent American history: a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles. Why? Because tariffs work.Tariffs are, simply put, taxes on certain imported goods, paid by the importer. The goal is to make foreign products more expensive than their Made-In-USA counterparts. This is why people refer to tariffs as “walls” that help “protect” domestic industry from global competition. Right now, China quickly and efficiently produces fleets of electric vehicles that are – thanks to the low cost of Chinese labor – a lot cheaper than the EVs made in the United States. Without tariffs, it would be impossible for US-made models to compete. Since making electric cars was a big goal for Biden, his administration raised an eye-watering tariff that would double the price of any Chinese-made import.The EV example is useful because it demonstrates the difference between Biden’s tariff policies and Trump’s.Trump has, for the most part, not focused on raising tariffs on particular imported goods but instead on all goods coming from certain countries. Mexico and Canada face across-the-board tariffs; China was already facing 10% tariffs, doubling to 20%. But raising the prices of all products from these countries doesn’t help develop any particular line of US manufacturing. Tariffs like these are both too broad and too small to make a positive impact. A 20% tariff on all Chinese goods might make it more expensive for Americans to continue to buy certain things from China. But nothing in that policy encourages Americans to buy American-made products; they might just as well find a Vietnamese supplier to avoid the tariff while continuing to reap the benefits of cheap labor. Moreover, it’s possible that some Chinese manufacturers will simply eat the additional costs and sell their goods at slightly slimmer profit margins. Or, equally likely, they will try to avoid the tariffs by having other companies assemble their products in neighboring countries before sending them to the US. As is, Trump’s country-based tariffs seem more like a geopolitical tool than an economic one. Frankly, they don’t make much sense if the goal is to bring factories home.Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs are closer to the mark. By making all steel imports (regardless of national origin) subject to the same tariff, the policy could succeed in making US steel comparatively cheaper for domestic buyers.View image in fullscreenYet even this wouldn’t make US steel bigger or better, or make its production more efficient. Nor would it necessarily raise the wages of steel workers. Pure and simple protectionism will benefit existing US steel manufacturers, but no one much beyond that. Without the government stepping in to develop new manufacturing – encouraging the adoption of the latest techniques to make a superior product, actively building new demand for American steel, or providing social guarantees for steel workers – tariffs alone risk protecting a sick industry without much upside.So what would a labor-forward tariff program look like? It would combine tariffs with big investments in infrastructure to help steer industry, and the country, into better economic health.For steel, such a fix isn’t hard to imagine. The US benefits from being a continental-sized country, with hundreds of thousands of bridges, school buildings, libraries, miles of rail and highway. All of those things are made with steel. And all of them are falling apart. Major new investments in infrastructure upgrades would provide the tariff-protected steel industry the new demand needed to grow, and provide the requisite scale for industrial dynamism.In exchange, steel firms should be required to provide family-sustaining wages and benefits, and promise to stay neutral in union elections. Not only this, but the government should have some say in actually directing the production process. New steel plants should be built in places that need jobs, not isolated tax-free industrial parks, but in the very same areas that were obliterated by deindustrialization. That is, production should be directed, first and foremost, toward public use and social ends.Some might wonder: why bother with such an expensive experiment?Manufacturing is still a huge part of the US economy and it is among the only sectors that consistently provides high wages for a large base of workers. Protecting that industrial foundation is essential not only for those workers, but for the health of other sectors too. When a factory closes, it’s not just the high-wage blue-collar workers who are thrown out of jobs. So are all the middle-income truck drivers who deliver the goods. And all the high-skilled mechanics who fix the machines. Not to mention the servers and cooks who staff now empty local restaurants. The only businesses that grow in the wake of a factory closing are those related to opioids and alcohol.Since Nafta was signed, tens of thousands of factories have closed in the US. Millions of largely union jobs have been lost. This fact alone explains so much of the populist revolt against globalization. And while it’s unlikely that we could ever return to the industrial output of 1946, is it that hard to imagine returning to 1994? If Pearl Jam is still making albums, can’t the US still make steel?Rebuilding our manufacturing capacity will be a big part of building a better country. And tariffs – deployed wisely with big investments – are an indispensable tool for doing so.

      Dustin Guastella is a research associate at the Center for Working Class Politics and the director of operations for Teamsters Local 623 More

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      Federal layoffs hit the deep-red, rural US west: ‘Our public lands are under threat’

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      Republican representative McKay Erickson walked through the halls of the Wyoming capitol with a Trump 2024 pin on the front of his suit jacket. Much of Erickson’s home district in Lincoln county falls under the jurisdiction of the Bridger-Teton national forest and Grand Teton national park.With that federal land, comes federal workers. While it appears districts in Wyoming crucial to US energy dominance have been spared the brunt of the layoffs, McKay said his forest-heavy district has not been so fortunate. He’s hearing from his constituents about the layoffs, and he’s troubled about the implications for his district’s future.“These people have a face to me,” Erickson said. “They have a face and a place in either Star Valley or Jackson that I know quite well.”Erickson is a small-government conservative, laments bureaucracy and stands by his belief that there’s a need to “cut the fat” at the federal level. But in his district, he foresees a lack of trail maintenance hurting local outfitting companies and understaffed parks with closed gates.“This way is so indiscriminate, and it doesn’t really drill down on the real issue as to where those cuts need to be,” Erickson said. “I’m afraid that probably all we’re going to lose is services.”Erickson’s district is in a bind that’s playing out across the American west.Wyoming, for the third presidential election in a row, voted for Donald Trump by a wider margin than any other state in the country. Neighboring states Idaho and Montana also swung red with mile-wide margins. All three have high proportions of federal land (Idaho – 62%, Wyoming – 48%, Montana – 29%), and thriving outdoor recreation industries dependent on public lands.Erickson, while watching cuts with apprehension, said that he is still supportive of the president, who won more than 81% of presidential votes cast in Lincoln county in 2024.“It hasn’t really shaken me. It’s concerned me, but not shaken me in my support,” Erickson said.As layoffs under Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) bleed out of the Beltway and across the country, local business owners, politicians and federal employees in the rural Mountain West told the Guardian that they feared devastating consequences for their communities.The Guardian reached out to US senators from Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, some of whom have publicly praised Doge’s work, about their constituents’ concerns. None responded to a request for comment.Few towns represent the ties between small town economies and public lands better than Salmon, Idaho. With a population of just over 3,000, Salmon is cradled by a nest of federal lands, including the Salmon-Challis national forest, the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness and a smattering of Bureau of Land Management holdings.Dustin Aherin calls Salmon home, and is the president of Middle Fork Outfitters Association, which represents 27 local businesses. He said that the day-to-day duties of forestry service employees, from river patrol to permitting to conservation, keep businesses like his alive. Recent layoffs put their future in jeopardy.“The team in the field that manages the Middle Fork and Main Salmon river, all but two were terminated. And the two that were left have been reassigned,” Aherin said. “We have no on-the-ground management as of right now.”The urgency caused by the layoffs sent Aherin to Capitol Hill, where he spoke with the Guardian between meetings with federal officials. He held cautious optimism that Idaho’s federal delegation would be able to help craft a solution.A hundred miles south-west of Salmon, in Stanley, Idaho, Hannah, a terminated employee from the Sawtooth national forest who requested anonymity, has a grim outlook for the future of the small mountain town. She said that about 40% of staff was cut, including the entire wilderness and trail crew. She wonders who will handle the public-facing jobs, from cleaning toilets and campgrounds to providing visitor information, and worries about the effects on Stanley, which took a major hit in the 2024 wildfire season.“In a small town like this where you only have a couple good months of a summer season, one hard year and another hard-ish year could be really bad for some local businesses,” Hannah said.Hannah said the termination cost her her health insurance just weeks before a costly surgery, and she expects to have to relocate. In the early stages of her career, she said the experience will likely sour her, and other young civil servants, on public service.“We’re losing the next generation of public land stewards,” Hannah said. “And our public lands are under threat.”Similar anxiety is creeping into communities surrounding the Mountain West’s marquee national parks, which are economic engines for the region. A 2023 report estimated that National Parks generated more than $55bn in economic impact off of a budget of $3.6bn. Many of these dollars went to gateway towns in red states, such as those framing the entrances to Grand Teton national park or Yellowstone national park.Dale Sexton, owner of Dan Bailey’s fly shop in Livingston, Montana, is helping push the revival of the Yellowstone Business Coalition, whose 400-plus members are lobbying Montana’s federal delegation to work to address the effects of federal layoffs. Sexton is pragmatic about the national political climate and is betting that an economics-based argument will move the needle.“I’m envisioning that our delegation currently doesn’t want to abandon the Doge ship,” Sexton said. “But I’m also hopeful that outcry becomes so loud that it garners their attention and affects change.”Livingston city commissioner Karrie Kahle envisions a trickle-down effect from the layoffs.“As we lose federal workers first, if one of them is lost, we’re potentially losing a whole family from our community,” Kahle said. “If that federal worker has a partner, is that partner a teacher or doing other work in our community? Are we going to lose kids out of our school systems?”Andrea Shiverdecker, an archaeologist in Montana’s Custer-Gallatin national forest, lost her job on Valentine’s Day. Along with the impact on her personal life and community, Shiverdecker dwells on potential consequences for Yellowstone.“I don’t think people understand the sheer volume and amount of people that come through our ecosystem every year and the amount of manpower it takes to keep cleaned up,” Shiverdecker said. “This is what we fear with our public lands … We need to be stewards and foster them for future generations.”Shiverdecker said the layoff process has been disorienting. She said she was terminated 25 days before the end of her probationary period, while paperwork was being run for her promotion. She said she believes in “good people” and hopes to somehow return to her job, but right now, she has a lot of frustration.“How am I getting laid off for performance issues when you were processing my promotion?” Shiverdecker said. “It’s heartbreaking as a dedicated public servant, as a disabled veteran, as somebody who loves the fact that they’ve served. That’s the biggest honor you can give.” More

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      Yes, Trump is a hypocrite. But is pointing that out an effective attack? | Jan-Werner Mueller

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      Historians and psychologists will study when exactly the meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy started to descend into political disaster. A plausible contender for an answer is the – in itself trivial – moment when Brian Glenn, representative of the far-right outlet Real America’s Voice (newly admitted to the press pool) asked the Ukrainian president why he was not wearing a suit.That framing – the wartime president was somehow “disrespecting” America – was then picked up in the vile attack on Zelenskyy by JD Vance and repeated by a chorus of sycophants in the Republican party (including Glenn’s girlfriend Marjorie Taylor Greene). Critics immediately pointed out the hypocrisy: if Elon Musk can appear in a T-shirt and a baseball cap at a cabinet meeting, what is wrong with someone wearing fatigues? That gotcha might provide momentary psychological satisfaction – but it’s important to understand why the charges of hypocrisy achieve little with the Maga-world and why, as a matter of political psychology, something different is needed.According to a much-repeated maxim from a 17th-century French moralist, hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. According to this logic, hypocrisy actually contributes to moral standards being upheld, as no one wants to be seen flaunting them openly. Wearing a suit is obviously not an important “norm” – part of the problem with the whole debate about aspiring authoritarians breaking norms and crashing through guardrails has been that those diagnosing violations of norms have not always distinguished between different kinds of norms. They have also not made it clear why some norms matter for democracy much more than others (Trump was criticized for breaking the “norm” of having a pet in the White House).The larger issue, though, is that charges of hypocrisy do not land if the supposed hypocrite is not committed to any kind of consistency in the first place. They can simply assert that that the inconsistency happens to be justified: Musk de facto presiding over the cabinet meeting is OK because, hey, he’s a genius who can see more clearly than the rest of us why stopping cancer research and making hurricanes more deadly are actually making America greater in the long run. Zelenskyy, by contrast, is a Democrat in disguise who just does “propaganda”, according to Vance.An even better option for seeming hypocrites is to assert their superiority over those making the charge: Viktor Orbán is frequently accused of having betrayed his original liberal convictions; after all, he had been financed by George Soros to spend time at Oxford, his political party had a liberal, even outright anti-clerical, and pro-European program – before Orbán transformed himself into a cheerleader for the international far right. The response easily available to the authoritarian prime minister is that he has actually learnt something over the course of his career – to wit, that liberalism doesn’t work in his country – whereas the liberal critics, contrary to their self-image as sophisticated thinkers, cling to dogmas. Vance has kept pulling the same trick: he has learnt to stop worrying about Trump being Hitler and simply come to love the good felon, always emphasizing that he was able to see something in Trump that lesser mortals fail to get.A final reason why the accusation of hypocrisy is hardly a knock-down argument – and the one most applicable to Maga – is that those always ready to lie can hardly be caught out by claims about inconsistency. It is now clear that the Trump campaign was based on deceptions – starting with strident denials of any association with the Project 2025 Christian nationalists-cum-authoritarians. By the same token, Trump’s nominees were not exactly truthful in their confirmation hearings; and the entire Republican party is now evidently lying about their intended spending cuts.Pointing out the inconsistencies between what Maga Republicans – it’s not clear at this point whether there are any others – say one day and do the next will not be seen as a cause for moral introspection; rather, the inconsistency is proof of Maga’s power. What observers call performative lying is part of authoritarianism – think of Vladimir Putin lying to his interlocutor’s’ face, smiling, knowing that they know that he is lying, but cannot do anything about it.What about broader audiences? Do they not care about hypocrisy? True, some might; but, given the self-enclosed rightwing media ecosphere which has been created in the United States over decades – and the attention deficit of the public more broadly, to put it bluntly – it is unlikely that finer points about inconsistencies will get much of a hearing.The challenge is to devise rhetoric – and powerful gestures – that do not rely on complicated comparisons but stress how Trump and Musk are sabotaging the country. Democrats might simply boycott the Trump address to Congress next week and instead hold rallies and town halls establishing meaningful connections with citizens who Republicans are now refusing to listen to – and, yes, on those occasions, also slip in a point about hypocrisy: that the party that blathers about “giving power to the people” is afraid of any contact with the people.

      Jan-Werner Müller is a professor of politics at Princeton University and is a Guardian US columnist More

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      China and Canada retaliate after Trump trade tariffs come into effect

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      China and Canada unveiled retaliatory measures against the US after Donald Trump imposed his sweeping tariffs plan at midnight US time, despite warnings it could spark an escalating trade war.US tariffs have come into force of 25% against goods from Canada and Mexico, the US’s two biggest trading partners, and 20% tariffs against China – doubling the levy on China from last month.The duties will affect more than $918bn-worth (£722bn) of US imports from Canada and Mexico.China on Tuesday said it would impose fresh tariffs on a range of agricultural imports from the US next week. Its finance ministry said additional 15% tariffs would be imposed on chicken, wheat, corn and cotton, with further 10% tariffs on sorghum, soya beans, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruits, vegetables and dairy products.The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said Ottawa would respond with immediate 25% tariffs on C$30bn-worth ($20.7bn) of US imports. He said previously that Canada would target US beer, wine, bourbon, home appliances and Florida orange juice.Tariffs will be placed on another C$125bn ($86.2bn) of US goods if Trump’s tariffs were still in place in 21 days.“Tariffs will disrupt an incredibly successful trading relationship,” Trudeau said, adding that they would violate the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement signed by Trump during his first term.Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, was expected to announce her response on Tuesday morning, the country’s economy ministry said.Asian markets were down – after sharp falls in US markets on Monday – as Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.6%, Taiwan’s benchmark TWII index was off 0.5% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.$%.The Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso fell to their lowest levels in a month on Tuesday.In Europe, the FTSE 100 dropped by 57 points, or 0.65%, at the start of trading to 8,813 points, a day after rising more than 8,900 points for the first time. France’s CAC 40 fell 0.9% and Spain’s Ibex was down 0.8%.Trump and his allies claim that higher tariffs on US imports from across the world will help make America great again by enabling it to obtain political and economic concessions from allies and rivals on the global stage.Businesses, inside the US and worldwide, have warned of widespread disruption if the Trump administration pushes ahead with this strategy.Since winning November’s presidential election, the president has focused on China, Canada and Mexico, threatening the three markets with steep duties on their exports unless they reduced the “unacceptable” levels of illegal drugs crossing into the US.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhile he slapped a 10% tariff on China last month, Trump has repeatedly delayed the imposition of tariffs on Canada and Mexico. The president has pledged to bring down prices in the US, but economists have warned that consumers in the country could be aversely affected by his trade plans.A 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico and a 10% levy on China would amount to “the largest tax increase in at least a generation”, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a thinktank, which estimated such a move would cost the typical US household more than $1,200 each year.Trump has vowed to go further, threatening to introduce “reciprocal” tariffs on countries that have their own duties on goods made in the US. He has said these will come into effect as soon as next month.China’s finance ministry said in a statement: “The US’s unilateral tariff increase damages the multilateral trading system, increases the burden on US companies and consumers, and undermines the foundation of economic and trade cooperation between China and the US.”The ministry said products shipped from the US to China that departed before 10 March and arrived before 12 April would not be subject to the tariffs.Trump has said the tariffs on China are because the government has failed to stop illicit fentanyl entering the US, which Beijing says is a “pretext” to threaten China.“China opposes this move and will do what is necessary to firmly safeguard its legitimate interests,” a foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, said.Chris Weston, an analyst at the brokerage Pepperstone, said: “Market anxiety levels have been dialled up, and we see traders having to react aggressively and dynamically to the deluge of headlines and social posts confirming that tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada are to be implemented in full and as threatened.” More

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      Trump administration briefing: Vance defends US position on Ukraine; tariffs hit Canada, Mexico and China

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      Donald Trump has paused military aid to Ukraine following his clash with the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, last week, according to US media reports.Vance told Fox News in an interview recorded before the announcement on Monday that giving Washington an economic interest in the future of Ukraine will serve as a security guarantee for the country that Russia invaded in February 2022.“If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine,” Vance said in the interview.“That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years,” he added.US suspends all military aid to Ukraine, reports say, in wake of Trump-Zelenskyy rowThe Trump administration has suspended delivery of all US military aid to Ukraine, according to US media reports, blocking billions in crucial shipments as the White House piles pressure on Ukraine to sue for peace with Vladimir Putin.It comes after a dramatic blow-up in the White House on Friday during which Donald Trump told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he was “gambling with” a third world war. The Ukrainian president was told to come back “when he is ready for peace”.Read the full storyChina and Canada retaliate after Trump trade tariffs come into effectChina and Canada unveiled retaliatory measures against the US after Donald Trump imposed his sweeping tariffs plan at midnight US time, despite warnings it could spark an escalating trade war.Read the full storyUS health department offers early retirement in latest round of Musk-led cutsThe US health department told employees on Monday they could apply for early retirement over the next 10 days and should respond to a request for information on their accomplishments of the past week, according to emails seen by Reuters.Read the full storyTrump outraged at Zelenskyy – againThe rift between Washington and Kyiv over a potential ceasefire in the war with Russia grew larger on Monday as Donald Trump expressed new outrage at Volodymyr Zelenskyy for saying that the end of the war could be “very, very far away”.Read the full storyLinda McMahon, wrestling industry billionaire, confirmed as US education secretaryThe US Senate has confirmed Linda McMahon as the nation’s next education secretary, entrusting the former wrestling executive with a department marked for dismantling by Donald Trump.The 76-year-old billionaire businesswoman and longtime Trump ally was approved 51-45, reflecting deep divisions over her qualifications and the administration’s education agenda. McMahon, who previously led the small business administration during Trump’s first term, now faces the paradoxical task of running an agency while simultaneously working toward its potential elimination.McMahon’s ascension comes amid reports that Trump is preparing an executive order instructing her to slash the department’s operations to the legal minimum while pushing Congress for its complete closure.Read the full storyHealth official quits after reported clashes with RFK JrA top spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly resigned from the department, just two weeks after starting the job and as the country grapples with an escalating measles outbreak.Read the full storyDemocrats invite fired federal workers to Trump’s addressWorkers fired in Donald Trump’s mass purge of the federal government will attend his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday at the invitation of Democrats seeking to display the human costs of the president’s radical policies.Read the full storySchumer: pause on cyber operations gives Putin ‘free pass’A senior US Democrat has hit out at Donald Trump’s attempt to reset relations with Russia following revelations that the president’s administration is retreating from the fight against Russian cyberthreats, calling the reported move “a critical strategic mistake”.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      A natalist conference featuring speakers including self-described eugenicists and promoters of race science will be held at a hotel and conference venue operated by the public University of Texas, Austin.

      Republicans in red states across the US have been pushing a slew of anti-LGBTQ+ measures targeting same-sex marriages with an aim of ultimately securing a supreme court ban on the federally protected right.

      The CEO of a giant in the semiconductor chip industry joined Trump to announce the Taiwanese company’s new $100bn investment in production in the United States. CC Wei, the chief executive of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) said the new investment brings TSMC’s total investment in chip manufacturing in the US to $165bn.

      US stocks plunged Monday afternoon as selling intensified after Trump said there was “no room left” for tariff negotiations with Canada and Mexico. The ISM survey showed manufacturing PMI slipped to 50.3 last month from 50.9 in January. More