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      Trump news at a glance: sweeping tariffs announced; Musk could be nearing end of role

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      Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on some of its largest trading partners on Wednesday, upending decades of US trade policy and threatening to unleash a global trade war on what he has dubbed “liberation day”.Trump said he will impose a 10% universal tariff on all imported foreign goods in addition to “reciprocal tariffs” on a few dozen countries, charging additional duties onto countries that Trump claims have “cheated” America.The 10% universal tariff will go into effect on 5 April while the reciprocal tariffs will begin on 9 April. Markets plunged as they opened in Asia on Thursday – you can follow the latest here, live.Trump launches trade onslaught with celebratory airFor the start of what appears to be a dramatic shift in American trade policy, one that could cause ricochets in the global economy, Trump tried to sell the tariffs with a celebratory tone.Nine giant US flags flanked Trump on stage in the Rose Garden, as the president spoke in front of his cabinet and a crowd of union workers wearing hard hats and fluorescent construction worker vests. Before Trump came on stage, a marine band played celebratory music to excite the crowd.At one point, Trump paused his speech to throw a Maga hat into the crowd. In the next breath, he announced the 10% universal baseline tariff.Read the full storyCanada exemption ‘like dodging a bullet into the path of a tank’Canada’s exemption from Donald Trump’s global tariffs was “like dodging a bullet into the path of a tank”, said one business leader as other levies are poised to hit key industries that drive the country’s economy.Speaking speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill, prime minister Mark Carney said 25% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, as well as on automobiles, will come into effect within hours.Read the full storyRepublicans join Democrats in symbolic Senate vote to rescind Canada tariffsSeveral Republican senators joined Democrats to pass a resolution that would block Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, a rare rebuke of the president’s trade policy just hours after he announced plans for sweeping import taxes on some of the country’s largest trading partners.In a 51-48 vote, four Republicans – Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and both Kentucky senators, the former majority leader Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul – defied Trump’s pressure campaign and supported the measure. Democrats used a procedural maneuver to force a vote on the resolution, which would terminate the national emergency on fentanyl Trump is using to justify tariffs on Canada.Read the full storyMusk to soon step down from Trump administration – reportElon Musk’s polarizing stint slashing and bashing federal bureaucracy will probably soon end, with the world’s richest man’s government service hitting its legal limit in the coming weeks. Insiders reportedly told Politico that Musk will leave when 130-day cap on government service expires.Read the full storyGloating at Musk after liberal judge wins Wisconsin raceDemocrats were tasting unfamiliar triumphalism on Wednesday after the election for a vacant Wisconsin supreme court seat turned into an emphatic repudiation of Elon Musk, Donald Trump’s richest supporter and key ally.Read the full storyWaltz’s team set up at least 20 Signal chats – reportDonald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and his team have created at least 20 different group chats on the encrypted messaging app Signal to coordinate sensitive national security work, sources tell Politico.Read the full storyUS health secretary and agency sued by 23 states over $11bn funding cutTwenty-three states and the District of Columbia are suing the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, alleging the abrupt terminations of $11bn in public health funding were “harmful” and “unlawful”.Read the full storyHead of DC’s African American museum on leaveKevin Young, the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington DC, is not currently in charge of the museum and has been on leave since 14 March, as Donald Trump targets the Smithsonian museum network for its content.Read the full storyJoe Rogan breaks with Trump on Venezuelan deportationsJoe Rogan, the influential podcast host and prominent supporter of Donald Trump, has criticized the president’s administration over the deportation of a professional makeup artist and hairdresser to a prison in El Salvador, calling it “horrific”.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Joe Biden’s former White House chief of staff paints a devastating picture of the then-US president’s mental and physical state before the debate with Donald Trump that sent his 2024 campaign into a tailspin.

      A judge dismissed the corruption case against New York City mayor Eric Adams weeks he bowed to Trump administration pressure cooperate on immigration crackdowns.

      Former Biden administration health secretary Xavier Becerra became the latest Democrat to join the crowded field seeking to become California’s next governor.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 1 April 25. More

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      Republicans join Democrats in Senate vote to rescind Trump Canada tariffs

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      Several Republican senators joined Democrats to pass a resolution that would block Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, a rare rebuke of the president’s trade policy just hours after he announced plans for sweeping import taxes on some of the country’s largest trading partners.In a 51-48 vote, four Republicans – Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and both Kentucky senators, the former majority leader Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul – defied Trump’s pressure campaign and supported the measure. Democrats used a procedural maneuver to force a vote on the resolution, which would terminate the national emergency on fentanyl Trump is using to justify tariffs on Canada.While Trump’s sweeping new tariffs, introduced in a White House Rose Garden ceremony on Wednesday, did not include additional levies on Canada, the Senate vote amounted to a significant bipartisan condemnation of the president’s escalating global trade war with allies and enemies alike.“Tariffs will hurt our families. Canada is not an enemy,” the Democratic senator Tim Kaine, the bill’s sponsor, said in a floor speech on Wednesday. “Let’s not label an ally as an enemy. Let’s not impose punishing costs on American families at a time they can’t afford it. Let’s not hurt American small businesses. Let’s not make our national security investments in ships and subs more expensive.”Republicans have expressed varying degrees of unease over Trump’s clampdown on free trade – once a pillar of conservative orthodoxy – but few were willing to cross him, and many GOP leaders and supporters, including the House speaker Mike Johnson, were in the Rose Garden on Wednesday – a day dubbed “liberation day” by the president – as a way of championing the historic barrage of tariffs on goods from overseas he believes will boost American manufacturing.The Senate’s legislation has practically no chance of passing the Republican-controlled House and being signed by Trump, but it showed the limits of Republican support for Trump’s vision of remaking the US economy by restricting free trade. Many economists are warning that the plan could cause an economic contraction, and GOP senators are already watching with unease as Trump upends the United States’ relationship with the rest of the world.Before the vote, the Senate majority leader John Thune of South Dakota urged Republicans to oppose the resolution, arguing that the tariffs were needed to “ensure that President Trump has the tools to combat the flow of fentanyl from all directions”.In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, sent just before 1am ET on Wednesday, Trump assailed the four GOP senators who had expressed opposition to his tariffs, imploring them to “get on the Republican bandwagon, for a change, and fight the Democrats wild and flagrant push to not penalize Canada for the sale, into our Country, of large amounts of Fentanyl”.He vowed not to sign the measure if it reached his desk.Defending her vote, Collins said that the tariffs would hurt working families in her state of Maine, which shares a long border with Canada.“The price hikes that will happen for Maine families, every time they go to the grocery store, they fill their gas tank, they fill their heating oil tank, if these tariffs go into effect, will be so harmful,” she said in a Wednesday floor speech. “And as price hikes always do, they will hurt those the most who can afford them the least.”She also argued that fentanyl from Canada was not a major threat to the US, as Trump’s national emergency claims. “The fact is the vast majority of fentanyl in America comes from the southern border,” she said.Democrats argued that Americans were turning against Trump’s agenda, pointing to a string of strong performances by their party in recent special elections that included a consequential victory in a Wisconsin state supreme court race on Tuesday night.“The American people are seeing how bad Trump is,” the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said in a floor speech. “Tariffs is a good part of it. And they are not supporting people like Elon Musk and those who support Donald Trump.”Earlier on Wednesday, the representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House foreign affairs committee, said he would also force a similar vote in the House on the tariffs.“Republicans can’t keep ducking this – it’s time they show whether they support the economic pain Trump is inflicting on their constituents,” he wrote on X. More

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      The Florida and Wisconsin election results are a warning for Trump and Republicans | Lloyd Green

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      Donald Trump and the Republicans ought to be wary of a possible blue wave in next year’s midterms. On Tuesday, voters in Florida and Wisconsin signaled dissatisfaction with Elon Musk, the GOP and the president. On the surface, the results spelled political equipoise. No seats changed hands.A closer look, however, reveals possible headaches for Donald Trump and his party.In a special election in Florida’s sixth congressional district to fill the vacancy left by Mike Waltz, Trump’s beleaguered national security adviser, voters elected Randy Fine, a Republican state senator, as Waltz’s replacement. Last November, Trump won the district by a whopping 30 points. By contrast, Fine’s margin was about 14 points.Beyond that, voter turnout was markedly lower than a half-year ago. Talk about underperforming.Then again, the closeness of the contest came as no surprise to the White House. A poll conducted by Tony Fabrizio, a pollster to the president, actually showed Fine down by four points less than two weeks before the election. Those figures gave Trump and Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, plenty to worry about.Fabrizio’s survey also triggered Trump’s decision to pull the nomination of Elise Stefanik as ambassador to the UN. Although she represented a so-called safe GOP district in upstate New York – “Mississippi with icicles”, in the words of one observer – the president was not prepared to take unnecessary chances.He made the right call, politically speaking. Turns out, Florida’s sixth congressional district was not the only storm cloud in the Sunshine state.The election to fill the seat vacated by Matt Gaetz, Trump’s first pick for attorney general, in the first congressional district experienced an even larger drop in GOP support. Back in November, Trump garnered a 37-point margin. On Tuesday, Republican Jimmy Patronis carried the district by about 13 points, a 24-point decline.In hindsight, Trump was right to end Stefanik’s dreams. The GOP dropoffs in Florida’s first and sixth congressional districts signaled that the battle to replace her would have been a nailbiter.Every vote counts, the saying goes. Quite possibly doubly so in the House. Mike Johnson maintains control by the thinnest of margins. On a good day, the Republicans will now hold 220 seats in the 435-member chamber. The results out of Florida are a warning that his tenure is in jeopardy come January 2027.Earlier on Tuesday, the House rejected an attempt to thwart an effort to enable new parents to vote remotely. Nine Republicans joined the Democrats to hand the speaker a humiliating loss. Johnson labeled the result “disappointing”. The headline at Axios blared: “Mike Johnson scraps his whole week after brutal defeat”. Apparently, being the party of “traditional family values” doesn’t necessarily translate into support for newborn babies and their moms.The results of the Tuesday’s House races also bear strong similarities to the special elections of 2017 and 2018. Back then, Democrats ran about 15 points ahead of Hillary Clinton’s performance on election day 2016.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOver in the midwest, voters stuck a finger in the eye of Musk, the king of Doge. Wisconsinites elected the liberal Susan Crawford to a seat on the state supreme court. With more than half the vote counted, she held an insurmountable double-digit lead. Musk’s expenditures of time and money in favor of Brad Schimel, her conservative opponent, were in vain.In the run-up to the election, Musk handed out $1m checks to voters. In the face of a legal challenge, Musk prevailed, claiming that efforts to restrain his expenditures constituted a violation of his rights under the first amendment.Just days before the election, Musk also appeared onstage wearing a giant yellow cheese hat. His nod to Wisconsin’s dairy industry and the state’s beloved Green Bay Packers amused the crowd and the denizens of X, the Musk-owned social media platform. Actual voters, however, not as much.Whether Musk steps back from the spotlight or whether Trump reels him in remains to be seen. Regardless, a Marquette poll shows his favorability ratings to be underwater, 38-60.With the stock market in the doldrums, stagflation a real possibility and tariffs on tap, Trump and his minions have a real problem. To add to their woes, estimates peg economic growth for the first quarter of 2025 to be in retrograde. Higher prices loom. The rationale for swing voters to cast their lot with Trump dwindle daily. More

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      After months of surrender, the Democrats have finally stood up to Trump – thank you, Cory Booker | Emma Brockes

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      One of the problems beleaguering political opponents of Donald Trump has been finding a form of protest that, given the scale of his outrages, doesn’t seem entirely futile. You can parade outside a Tesla showroom. You can hold up dumb little signs during Trump’s address to Congress inscribed with slogans such as “This is not normal” and “Musk steals”. You can, as Democrats appear to have been doing since the election, play dead.Alternatively, you can go for the ostentatious, performative gesture. On Monday evening, Cory Booker, the Democratic senator for New Jersey who carries himself like someone who’d have been happier in an era when men wore capes, started speaking on the floor of the Senate and carried on for 25 hours and five minutes, breaking the chamber’s record by almost 50 minutes and delivering – finally – a solid, usable symbol of rebellion.This wasn’t a filibuster per se; no legislation was being passed. Booker decided to speak for “as long as I am physically able”, he said, in general protest against Trump and in what he described as a “moral moment” – a claim that, when he ended his speech on Tuesday evening, hoarse of voice and teary-eyed, didn’t seem to me an exaggeration.The power of the filibuster is vested in the iron-man stamina required to perform it: in Booker’s case, standing for longer than a direct flight between Washington DC and Sydney, without food, rest or toilet breaks. It puts him in a category of protest that floats somewhere between a sit-in and a hunger strike, a measure of commitment that demands a kind of default respect, as does the technical challenge of filling the airtime. A few hours into his speech, Booker asked a Senate page to remove his chair and with it the temptation to sit down. Democratic senators were permitted to ask him questions or make short remarks to give him brief respite from speaking. Mostly, however, it was on Booker to keep talking and talking, which he did – it should be noted, quite easily – by enumerating all the terrible things Trump has done in his first three months in office.View image in fullscreenThere was something immensely satisfying – cathartic, even – in watching Booker protest against Trump via a form of dissent that, while radical and pushed to its absolute limit, still fell within congressional norms. Part of the fallout from Trump and his cohorts’ behaviour has been the shocking realisation that you can ditch standards and protocols, ignore judges and bin entire social and scientific programmes created by Congress, and, at least in the immediate term, nothing will happen. (In the medium to long term, of course, people will die.)It could be argued that Trump’s extraordinary, norm-busting behaviour requires protest that meets it in the extra-political realm. Democrats aren’t going to storm the Capitol, but I have friends who have talked about withholding their federal taxes this tax season. Teslas aren’t only being boycotted but set on fire. Beyond the US, Europe is targeting Republican states in particular with reciprocal tariffs – Alabama beef and soybeans from Louisiana – to inflict personal economic pain on Trump and his supporters.Still, it is the direct political victories that matter the most. In a ringing blow to Trump this week, the election of judge Susan Crawford over her Musk-backed rival for the Wisconsin supreme court – in a race that garnered a huge turnout from voters – highlights the power of boring, process-observant political pushback over more flamboyant gestures. This race was critical in determining the state’s congressional lines, gerrymandered by the Republican-controlled state Senate to favour Republican outcomes. But it also sent a more broadly cheering message: that the involvement of Elon Musk – who, along with affiliated groups, ploughed more than $20m into trying to get Brad Schimel elected – ended up motivating the Democratic vote more emphatically than the Republican.Meanwhile, Booker kept talking. It was telling that, during and after his marathon speech, neither Musk nor Trump acknowledged him on their various social media platforms, although a White House spokesman did derisively refer to Booker’s performance as a “Spartacus” moment. Over the course of the 25 hours, people drifted in and out to watch his feat of endurance, while his staff kept his face wipes replenished and placed folders of material before him to read from. To date, the art of the political spectacle has been almost exclusively Trump’s for the taking. It was a relief, finally, to see a Democrat seize and hang on to the mic.

      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      Wisconsin supreme court race: liberal Susan Crawford beats Musk-backed candidate

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      Susan Crawford won the race for a seat on the Wisconsin supreme court on Tuesday, a major win for Democrats who had framed the race as a referendum on Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s popularity.Crawford, a liberal judge from Dane county, defeated Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general and conservative judge from Waukesha county, after Musk and groups associated with the tech billionaire spent millions to boost his candidacy in what became the most expensive judicial contest in American history.“Today Wisconsinites fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy,” Crawford said in a speech at her victory night event in Madison. “Wisconsin stood up and said loudly that justice does not have a price. Our courts are not for sale.”With more than 84% of the vote tallied, Crawford led Schimel by nearly 10 percentage points.In remarks on Tuesday night, Schimel said he and his team “didn’t leave anything on the field” and announced that he had conceded the race in a call to his opponent before taking the stage. When his supporters began to boo, Schimel stopped them. “No, you gotta accept the results,” he said, adding: “The numbers aren’t gonna turn around. They’re too bad, and we’re not gonna pull this off.”Musk said hours after the result that “The long con of the left is corruption of the judiciary” and that the most important thing was that a vote on the addition of voter ID requirements passed.The result means that liberals will keep a 4-3 ideological majority on the state supreme court. That majority is hugely significant because the court will hear major cases on abortion and collective bargaining rights. The court could also potentially consider cases that could cause the state to redraw its eight congressional districts, which are currently drawn to advantage Republicans.View image in fullscreenMilwaukee, Wisconsin’s largest city, reported “historic turnout” for a spring election, with election officials saying in a statement Tuesday evening that due to the “unprecedented high turnout,” seven polling places ran out of ballots. The city’s elections commission said it was working to replenish resources to voters during the evening rush.A combined more than $80m was spent on the race, topping the previous record of some $51m that was spent in the 2023 Wisconsin state supreme court race. Elon Musk and affiliated groups spent more than $20m alone. Musk reprised some of the tactics that he used last fall to help Trump win, including offering $100 to people who signed a petition opposing “activist judges” and offering $1 million checks to voters.Pointing to the potential to redraw House districts, Musk had said the race “might decide the future of America and western civilization”.Democrats seized on Musk’s involvement in the race to energize voters who were upset about the wrecking ball he and his unofficial “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, have taken to federal agencies. They raised the stakes of an already high-stakes contest by holding out Wisconsin as a test case for Musk, saying that if he succeeded, he would take his model across the country.“Growing up in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, I never thought I would be taking on the richest man in the world for justice,” Crawford said on Tuesday night. “And we won.”After Musk’s involvement became public, Democrats saw an explosion in grassroots donations and people “coming out of the woodwork” to get involved in the race, Ben Wikler, the state’s Democratic party chair, said last month. When the party tested its messaging, Wikler said, messages that highlighted Musk’s involvement in the race motivated voters who were otherwise disengaged from politics.Jeannine Ramsey, 65, voted in Madison on Tuesday for Crawford because she said the “Elon Musk-supported Brad Schimel” wouldn’t rule fairly on the issues most important to her.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I think it’s shameful that Elon Musk can come here and spend millions of dollars and try to bribe the citizens,” Ramsey said. “I don’t think it should be allowed. He doesn’t live in our state, and I don’t think he should be able to buy this election. It makes me angry.”Trump won Wisconsin in the presidential election in November by less than 1 percentage point – the closest margin of any battleground state.Because turnout in a state supreme court election is lower than that of a typical election and those who vote tend to be highly-engaged, experts have cautioned against trying to read too much into the election results for national political sentiment. Still, there were encouraging signs for Democrats.“The hard work of reaching the voters who pay the least attention to politics is going to take years for Democrats to build that kind of communications strength that can puncture the Republican propaganda bubble,” Wikler said in March. “But for laying the groundwork for flipping the House and the Senate in 2026 and winning governorships and state legislative majorities, the supreme court race can really point the way.”Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, also celebrated the result.“Tonight, the people of Wisconsin squarely rejected the influence of Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and billionaire special interests. And their message? Stay out of our elections and stay away from our courts,” he said in a statement.In Madison, Crawford said she was ready to turn from the campaign trail, which she described as a “life-altering experience,” to the bench, where she promised to “deliver fair and impartial decisions”. Concluding her remarks, Crawford wished her mother, watching from home, a happy birthday and quipped: “I know how glad you are to see the TV ads end.”Jenny Peek contributed reporting from Madison, Wisconsin More

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      House revolt over Republican bid to stop new parents from voting by proxy

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      An attempt by Republican leaders to stop new parents from voting by proxy sparked a bipartisan mutiny in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, during which a small group of GOP lawmakers joined with all Democrats to obstruct a key procedural motion and paralyze the chamber.The revolt was the first legislative setback Republicans have faced since Donald Trump returned to the White House with the GOP holding a slim majority in Congress’s lower chamber. It also delayed consideration of House speaker Mike Johnson’s legislative agenda for the week, which included a bill to stop federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions – as several have done for Trump’s executive orders – and to require proof of citizenship to vote.Fueling the split was an attempt by the Republican Anna Paulina Luna and the Democrat Brittany Pettersen to force consideration of a measure allowing new parents to temporarily designate someone else to vote in their place. House leaders attempted an unusual parliamentary tactic to prevent the proposal from going forward, but were blocked by the votes of all 213 Democrats and nine Republicans.“I think that today is a pretty historical day for the entire conference. It’s showing that the body has decided that parents deserve a voice in Washington,” Luna said after the vote, though it remains unclear when the chamber will consider allowing proxy voting.Cradling her infant son, Pettersen referred to a fellow lawmaker who just announced she was pregnant: “I’m really excited to think that she will not go through what we went through on trying to make sure that we’re representing our constituents and taking care of our baby.”“It’s all worth it – changing Congress for the better,” the Colorado lawmaker added.The House’s then Democratic leadership allowed lawmakers to vote remotely after Covid broke out, but Republicans ended that policy after they took control of the chamber two years ago. In an interview with National Public Radio last week, Johnson described himself and the GOP as “pro-family” but said he opposed a return of proxy voting.“We want to make it as easy as possible for young parents to be able to participate in the process,” the speaker said. “But proxy voting, in my view, is unconstitutional.”Pettersen and Luna had managed to attract 218 signatures, including 12 Republicans, to a discharge petition, which forces a vote on a bill even if leadership objects. In response, GOP lawmakers on Friday inserted language blocking the petition in a rule that would have to pass the House in order to begin consideration of the bills targeting nationwide injunctions and requiring proof of citizenship to vote.“Congress is defined as ‘act of coming together and meeting’. I’ve never voted by proxy, because I believe it undermines the fabric of that sacred act of convening,” said the Republican Virginia Foxx, the chair of the rules committee, who added she feared the measure would pave the way for a return of universal proxy voting if Democrats retake control.“I know there’s a new laptop class in America that seems to operate increasingly in a virtual space, but that’s simply not a fact of life for most American workers, and I believe Congress should live by that standard.”Elected in 2022 to a Florida gulf coast district, Luna was a member of the far-right House Freedom caucus, but reportedly left on Monday after several of her counterparts backed leadership’s efforts to block her petition. In a speech on the House floor, Luna called herself “one of the most conservative members of this body” but said she viewed the issue as important enough to risk upending the House’s business for the week.“For almost two years now in this cause, I’ve met with leadership, and I’ve exhausted all tools in my legislative toolkit to to be able to bring this to the floor,” she said. “For a while we’ve had the majority, and we’ve had the ability to bring legislation to the floor on election integrity and also to call out rogue judges, and yet they chose at this point in time to tie this discharge petition killer to this rule that would also permanently paint me and the members supporting it.”The episode was reminiscent of the infighting that gripped the House GOP during Joe Biden’s presidency, which climaxed when a small group of Republicans collaborated with the Democrats to oust Kevin McCarthy as House speaker.Democratic lawmakers, who are still reeling from their party’s underwhelming performance in last November’s elections, broke into applause in the House chamber after the rule was voted down. The House then announced that no further votes were expected for the remainder of the week, though Pettersen said that her petition must be voted on by Thursday, raising the possibility that lawmakers will reassemble. More

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      Senate Republicans consider joining Democrats to oppose Trump over tariffs

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      On the eve of Donald Trump’s so-called “liberation day” for tariffs, a handful of Senate Republicans are debating whether to defy the president and join Democrats to stop the US from imposing levies on Canadian imports.The resolution, offered by the Democratic senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, would terminate the emergency order that Trump is using to justify tariffs against Canada, citing the flow of fentanyl across the US’s northern border. The vote is largely symbolic – the House is not expected to take up the measure – but several defections would amount to a rare and notable rebuke of the president by his own party.Senator Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine, which shares a border with Canada, told reporters on Monday night that imposing tariffs on Canada was a “huge mistake” that would cause major “disruption in the economies of both countries”. The senator, one of the few Republicans with a history of breaking ranks, indicated her support for the “intent” of the resolution and suggested that she would likely lend her vote as well.Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, has co-sponsored the legislation. Meanwhile, several other Republican senators, including Thom Tillis of North Carolina, have expressed concern over the impact of tariffs on Canadian goods, set to go into effect on 2 April.Republican leaders on Tuesday were racing to keep their senators in line, as Trump moves quickly to upend the global trading system. In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump lashed out at Kaine, who was Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016, and delivered an all-caps demand that Senate Republicans vote to keep the national emergency in effect so we can “finish the job”.“Don’t let the Democrats have a Victory,” Trump wrote. “It would be devastating for the Republican Party and, far more importantly, for the United States.”In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday, Kaine said Trump’s tariffs on Canada amounted to the “largest sales tax ever in the history of the United States” and were based on claims of a “fake” emergency at the northern border. The senator pointed to recent congressional testimony by Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who cited fentanyl as a top threat to US national security but acknowledged that Canada was not a significant source of trafficking into the country.“It is an invented rationale to allow the president to do what he wants to do, which is use tariffs to collect revenues so that he can use that revenue to pay for a big tax cut for the rich,” Kaine said. He was hopeful a strong bipartisan show of support “could have an effect on curbing the president’s behavior”.A vote on the resolution could come as early as Tuesday afternoon, but may happen on Wednesday as Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, delivers a marathon speech on the floor to protest – and draw attention to – the Trump administration’s tumultuous opening months.In the CBC interview, Kaine said he was still working to get the support of all 47 Democrats, while indicating that he expected to win a handful of Republican votes.Trump – a self-described “tariff man” who believes levies are the answer to many economic woes – is also challenging Republican orthodoxy on free trade, leaving a handful of GOP senators torn between swallowing a policy they disagree with or opposing the president.He has moved aggressively to slap tariffs on allies, neighbors and top trading partners, provoking retaliation and shaking global markets. Trump has said he would roll out the new tariffs on Wednesday, claiming the taxes on imports from other countries will “liberate” Americans from their reliance on foreign goods.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFears of a global trade war have hurt consumer confidence and caused wild swings in the stock markets. They have also hurt Americans’ assessment of Trump’s job performance as it relates to the economy, once one of his biggest strengths. Just four in 10 Americans have a positive view of Trump’s handling of the economy and trade, according to a poll from the Associated Press-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research.Meanwhile, Americans are increasingly concerned about the implementation of sweeping tariffs on foreign goods, according to a survey conducted recently for the Guardian.House Republican leaders have pre-empted any effort to reverse Trump’s controversial tariffs on Canada, as well as Mexico and China, by slipping language into their stopgap funding bill, which passed earlier this month. The provision effectively removed the House’s ability to undo the tariffs by terminating Trump’s declaration of a national emergency.The Senate majority leader, John Thune, has argued that tariffs are an important negotiating tool Trump can use to combat fentanyl traffic into the US. He said this week that the case for tariffs remains “the same”. He was expected to publicly urge Senate Republicans to oppose Kaine’s resolution in a floor speech on Tuesday, according to the Daily Caller. More

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      Donald Trump is eyeing up a third term – and no one is opposing him | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Hell is empty and all the devils are in Washington DC. And, what with devils being immortal and all, it looks as if they might stay there indefinitely. Now, before I seamlessly segue from fun devil facts into talking about Donald Trump threatening to run for a third term, the current political climate compels me to make a few things clear. I recently had to submit my US green card for renewal (impeccable timing!) so I’d like to explain to any United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers reviewing my file that the first line of this piece was just riffing on Shakespeare. I’m absolutely not comparing Trump, the greatest man to walk this Earth, to Satan. Nor am I suggesting evil people seem to live long lives.On the contrary, I am thrilled that our 78-year-old president has suggested he is looking into “methods” that will allow him to serve this wonderful country longer. And it’s a shame my enthusiasm isn’t universally shared. I mean, to quote JD Vance (who is up there next to Shakespeare in the words department), have any Trump detractors SAID THANK YOU ONCE? Trump could be relaxing with his billions; he could be playing golf every day. Instead, the poor man only gets to play golf every few days – costing taxpayers millions of dollars – and has to spend most of his time sorting out the US. The economy doesn’t just crash itself, you know? So thank you, Mr President. Thank you, thank you, thank you.But, look, while I’m obviously overjoyed by the idea that our esteemed leader might stick around far longer than norms, conventions and the constitution allow, just how realistic a prospect is Trump 3.0? The president has insisted he is “not joking” about seeking a third term in office, but is all this talk just a tactic to distract us from what he is getting up to in his current term?Obviously, I can’t tell you what goes on in the murky depths of Trump’s mind. But I can tell you this: Trump has no regard for norms or laws, and will do whatever he wants if he thinks he can get away with it.Perhaps the better question to ask isn’t whether Trump is serious about extending his rule, but – should he seek a third term – who might stop him? Unless they all get spine transplants, the Democrats aren’t going to put up a fight. Want to know what Kamala Harris is doing now? Getting ready to speak at a real estate conference in Australia. It’s obviously not Harris’s job to safeguard US democracy but, after raising enormous amounts of money from regular people who believed in her campaign promises, you would think she might care a little more about the optics.As for Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader – the person whose job it actually is to represent the opposition – his strategy for dealing with Trump appears to be to give Republicans whatever they want and hope that, somehow, this turns out badly for them. It’s not surprising then, that a recent survey showed 70% of Democratic voters gave the party’s response to Trump a “C” grade or below.It is not just the Democrats who appear to have capitulated to Trump: a number of big legal firms have also bowed down to the president’s efforts to get them to comply with his interpretation of the law. Elite universities such as Columbia University have also caved in to Trump’s demands. Even the White House Correspondents’ Association just cancelled an appearance by an anti-Trump comedian in an attempt to stay on the president’s good side. And, as we all know, Silicon Valley has been bending the knee to Trump for months.Meanwhile, as any opposition to Trump seems to evaporate, Elon Musk is running around handing out checks to voters in Wisconsin in what many critics have characterised as an attempt to influence the state’s supreme court election. Even if Trump doesn’t go for a third term, even if the Democrats win the next election, the US’s descent into techno-authoritarianism isn’t going to be easily reversed. Not, to be clear to any USCIS officers reading this, that I’m complaining. Not little old me! I’m renaming my daughter Donalda, getting a Tesla tattoo, and cheering as all my rights are systematically taken away. More