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    Trump’s tariffs have become his Vietnam – and the right is breaking ranks | Sidney Blumenthal

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    Donald Trump’s trade war has become his quagmire: legal, economic and political. On 28 May, the court of international trade ruled his tariffs exceeded his constitutional authority. Point by point, the decision decimated Trump’s arguments as flimsy and false, implicitly castigated the Republican Congress for abdicating its constitutional responsibility, and reminded other courts, not least the supreme court, of the judicial branch’s obligation to exercise its authority regardless of the blustering of the executive and the fecklessness of the legislative branches.Trump’s tariffs, along with his withdrawal of active support for Ukraine and passivity toward his strongman father figure Vladimir Putin, have broken the western alliance, forcing the west to make its own arrangements with China, and cementing the idea for a generation to come that the United States is an untrustworthy and unstable partner.On the economic front, Trump’s tariffs have already begun to increase inflation, shutter trade, devalue the dollar, and undermine manufacturing. They will soon create shortages of all sorts of goods, ruin small business, and force layoffs that bring about stagflation that has not been seen since the 1970s, which was then the result of an external oil shock, not self-harm. On 3 June, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported that as a result, principally, of Trump’s tariffs, the US will suffer a decline in the rate of growth from what had been forecast this year. “Lower growth and less trade will hit incomes and slow job growth,” the OECD stated.As a political matter, besides being unpopular, Trump’s tariffs, in combination with his assaults on the institutions of civil and legal society, have drawn out the most intelligent and skillful members of the conservative legal establishment, who themselves have been some of the most crucial players in the rise of the right wing, to man the ramparts against him. These are not the familiar Never Trumpers, but newly engaged and potentially more dangerous foes.While corporate leaders uniformly abhor Trump’s tariffs, they have stifled themselves into a complicit silence on the road to serfdom. But Trump’s new enemies coming from the conservative citadel of the Federalist Society are filing brief after brief in the courts, upholding the law to halt his dictatorial march.Trump naturally cannot help but turn everything he touches into sordid scandal. After announcing his “Liberation Day” tariffs, which tanked the stock market, Trump declared a pause during which he promised he would sign, seal and deliver 90 deals in 90 days. But he has announced only a deal with Britain. Most of the deals Trump has seen have been with the Trump Organization. Under the shadow of a threatened 46% tariff, Vietnam, after a visit from Eric Trump, granted a $1bn Trump Tower in Ho Chi Minh City and a $1.5bn golf club and resort near Hanoi with “two championship golf courses”, relative crumbs alongside the billions the Trump family has accrued from across the Middle East, not to mention the $400m jet that his team solicited from Qatar to serve as his palatial Air Force One.Standing before the white marble plinth of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington national cemetery on Memorial Day, 26 May, after reading prepared remarks about “our honored dead” to a gathering of Gold Star families, Donald Trump fell into a reverie about his divine destiny. “I have everything,” he said. He spoke about the parade of troops and tanks he has ordered for 14 June, his 79th birthday, which happens to coincide with the date that George Washington created the Continental army. “Amazing the way things work out. God did that, I believe that too. God did it.”Two days after Trump had mused about his election by heaven to possess “everything”, the court of international trade issued what the Wall Street Journal called the “ruling heard ‘round the world … proving again that America doesn’t have a king who can rule by decree’”.The US court of appeals for DC then temporarily stayed the ruling while it considered the case. But the trade court’s decision to deny Trump his toys was comprehensive, blistering and devastating. Now, Trump’s trade war is his Vietnam, a quagmire of his own.Trump’s entire program dances on the head of his tariffs. By fiat, without congressional approval, he has willfully invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act as cover for his helter-skelter gyrations to reshape the global economy according to his desire for domination of the Earth. He has further explained that his tariffs are necessary to pay for the vast tax cuts for the wealthy in his budget bill that would increase deficits. He claims that the tariffs will replace the revenue raised from income tax, fixed in the constitution by the 16th amendment, ratified in 1913. Without tariffs on the scope he projects his dream house of cards collapses. With his tariffs even as his stated minimal goal he blows up the world.The court of international trade, a court based on specialized expertise, whose judges have lifetime appointments, flatly stated that Trump’s use of the emergency law under which he claimed his authority does “not permit the president to impose tariffs in response to balance-of-payments deficits”, “exceeds any tariff authority delegated to the president”, “would create an unconstitutional delegation of power”, and is “contrary to law”.Having ruled that Trump’s worldwide tariffs are illegal, the court deemed his “trafficking tariffs” imposed on Canada and Mexico also lawless. Trump has asserted them on a contrived national security rationale of preventing the importation of fentanyl. But the court stated that Trump’s “use of tariffs as leverage … is impermissible not because it is unwise or ineffective but because … [the federal law] does not allow it”. Thus, the court concluded in both instances, “the worldwide and retaliatory tariff orders exceed any authority granted to the president … to regulate importation by means of tariffs. The trafficking tariffs fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders.”The trade court’s ruling suddenly exposed the extent to which Trump’s relationship with the conservative legal movement is unraveling. The fissure runs deeper and wider than name-calling. Trump’s trade war has morphed into a widespread civil war within the right with the core of the conservative legal establishment resisting him.Trump’s venomous social media posts against Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society co- chairman and rightwing powerhouse, reads like a memoir of an ingenue taken advantage of in the big city by strangers. “I was new to Washington,” Trump explained, “and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges. I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real ‘sleazebag’ named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions.”Slowly, Trump has come to the realization that this Leonard Leo “openly brags how he controls Judges, and even Justices of the United States Supreme Court”. Trump was revealing that Leo understood his power beyond his influence over Trump on appointments. “Backroom ‘hustlers’ must not be allowed to destroy our Nation!” He is victim of a con, Donald Chump.“Talk about friendly fire,” editorialized the Wall Street Journal. But there was more to the story than Trump revealed, which the Journal’s editorial page, Leonard Leo’s friend in court as it were, happily provided. The judge on the trade court whom Trump appointed and blames on Leo, Timothy Reif, was in fact, according to the Journal, “recommended to the White House by Robert Lighthizer, who was Mr Trump’s first-term trade representative. Mr Leo had nothing to do with it.” Perhaps Trump is suffering from memory loss.Trump bellowed that the reason for the trade court’s ruling must be “purely a hatred of ‘TRUMP’? What other reason could it be?” “Well,” suggested the Journal, “how about the law and the constitution?” After Leo had been the one to give Trump the names of the three justices he appointed to the supreme court who made possible the infamous decision granting him “absolute immunity” for “official acts” that enabled his evasion of prosecution during the 2024 campaign, this was a thick and rich ragu.The Journal also rushed to Leo’s side with a podcast featuring John Yoo, who as deputy assistant attorney general under George W Bush and the author of the notorious Torture Memos. Yoo said it was “truly outrageous to accuse Leonard Leo, one of the stalwarts or the conservative movement, of being something like a traitor”. Yoo stated: “Why would President Trump turn his back on one of his greatest, if not his greatest achievements from the first term, appointing three justices?” Indeed, Yoo was right that Leo had dictated Trump’s choices, exactly as Trump confessed. What neither disclosed is that it was the price Trump paid for a political armistice with the mighty rightwing Koch political operation. Some deal, some art.And Yoo added in an admission of truth-telling about the supreme court’s invention of absolute presidential immunity for “official acts”: “If it weren’t for Federalist Society judges, he would be in jail right now because it was the Roberts court that said former presidents just can’t be prosecuted for crimes.”But to Trump, the betrayal is cutting. The trade court’s ruling against him echoed the amicus brief filed by a bipartisan group of legal eminences that included leading conservative lights. There was Steven Calabresi, professor at Northwestern Law School, the co-founder and co-chairman of the Federalist Society, and the chief theorist of the conservative doctrine of the “unitary executive”. There was Michael W McConnell, former federal judge, Stanford law professor, and a chief defender of religious right lawsuits. There was Michael Mukasey, former federal judge and George W Bush’s attorney general. There was Peter Wallison, President Reagan’s White House counsel. They all signed the brief stating: “The president’s tariff proclamations bypass the constitutional framework that lends legitimacy and predictability to American lawmaking.”The breaking of ranks on the right is not isolated. Other well-known members of the conservative legal establishment have done more than submit an amicus brief. They have become counsels to some of the most important institutions in Trump’s crosshairs – Harvard University, National Public Radio and the WilmerHale law firm.William Burck and Robert Hur are co-counsels representing Harvard in its suit against the Trump administration order denying its enrollment of international students unless the university submits to his draconian control over its academic processes.Burck, former deputy White House counsel to George W Bush and a current member of the board of directors of the Fox Corporation, is the head of “one of a few top US firms that seemed well placed not only to avoid Donald Trump’s wrath but also benefit from connections to the president’s inner circle”, according to the Financial Times. He was hired to be an ethics adviser to the Trump Organization – that is, until he chose to represent Harvard. Trump ranted against him: “Harvard is a threat to Democracy, with a lawyer, who represents me, who should therefore be forced to resign, immediately, or be fired. He’s not that good, anyway, and I hope that my very big and beautiful company, now run by my sons, gets rid of him ASAP!” Eric Trump, who had previously called Burck “one of the nation’s finest and most respected lawyers”, wielded the executioner’s axe for his father.Hur had been appointed the US attorney for Maryland by Trump and served as the special counsel investigating President Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents stored in boxes in his home’s garage. Hur filed no charges, but said of Biden that he was “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.In Harvard’s suit against the Trump administration, Burck and Hur state that its actions against the university are “a blatant violation of the first amendment, the due process clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act. It is the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its first amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students. The government’s actions are unlawful for other equally clear and pernicious reasons.”For its representation in its suit against the Trump administration, which seeks to slash its funding, National Public Radio has hired Miguel Estrada, a star of the conservative legal firmament, whose nomination to the federal bench by George W Bush was blocked by Senate Democrats in 2002. According to the NPR complaint, Trump’s action “violates the expressed will of Congress and the first amendment’s bedrock guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association, and also threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information”.When Trump issued executive orders against big law firms that had somehow offended him, coercing their surrender to his whim, one of those firms, WilmerHale, subject to such an order for having had as a senior partner Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who headed the investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election, did not cave. Instead, it hired Paul Clement, George W Bush’s solicitor general, who has argued on behalf of many of the most controversial conservative causes before the supreme court, including against the Defense of Marriage Act and against the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.Citing the example of John Adams, who defended British soldiers in the Boston Massacre, Clement argued against the Trump administration that “British monarchs’ practice of punishing attorneys ‘whose greatest crime was to dare to defend unpopular causes’ – which threatened to reduce lawyers to ‘parrots of the views of whatever group wields governmental power at the moment’ – helped inspire the Bill of Rights”.Then, Ed Whelan, who holds the Antonin Scalia chair in constitutional studies at the rightwing Ethics and Public Policy Center, and is a close surrogate for Leonard Leo, savaged Trump’s nomination of Emil Bove, who was his personal attorney in the New York hush-money trial and whom he had appointed as deputy attorney general, to be a judge on the US court of appeals for the third circuit.Bove ordered corruption charges dropped against the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, which a federal judge said “smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions”. The US attorney for Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon, a conservative Republican, resigned in protest, stating that the deal “amounted to a quid pro quo” and that Bove had ordered her not to take notes during meetings. Seven members of the public integrity section of the justice department also resigned.Whelan, writing in the conservative magazine National Review, called Bove Trump’s “henchman”, decried his “bullying mishandling” of the Adams case, and suggested he might be put on the federal bench to “position him well for the next supreme court vacancy. A rosier possibility is that Bove is tired of being Stephen Miller’s errand boy.”Now, Trump is worried about what conservatives on the supreme court might rule when presented with the trade court’s decision. He rails in private against Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whom he appointed to the supreme court, for her unexpected occasional independence. The Journal, with the inside track, writes that “the White House boasts it will win at the supreme court, but our reading of the trade court’s opinion suggests the opposite. Mr Trump’s three court appointees are likely to invoke the major-questions precedent” – which would uphold the trade court and force Trump either to bring his policy before the Congress or drop it.Trump is enraged that his betrayers from the Federalist Society have claimed roles in the resistance. He has no loyalty to anyone or thing, but demands personal fealty, certainly now above any ideological litmus tests. The only ideological tests are to be imposed on universities. Trump has learned his lesson. In his insistence on obedient judges, Trump is returning to his first principle as he was taught in the beginning by his mob attorney Roy Cohn, who said: “Don’t tell me what the law is, tell me who the judge is.”

    Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of The Court of History podcast More

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      Trump news at a glance: Hegseth warns of ‘imminent’ China threat, urging Asia to upgrade militaries

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      Pete Hegseth has called on Asian countries to increase their military spending to increase regional deterrence against China which was “rehearsing for the real deal” of taking over Taiwan.The US defense secretary, addressing the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday, reiterated pledges to increase the US presence in the Indo-Pacific and outlined a range of new joint projects.“It has to be clear to all that Beijing is credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific,” Hegseth said. “There’s no reason to sugar coat it. The threat China poses is real, and it could be imminent.”‘Deterrence doesn’t come on the cheap’Hesgeth said Donald Trump’s administration had pushed European countries to boost their defensive spending, taking on a greater “burden” of responding to conflicts in their region, and it was time for Asian nations to do the same.The defense secretary, who in March was revealed to have told a Signal group chat that Europe was “pathetic” and “freeloading” on US security support in the region, told the Singapore conference it was “hard to believe” he was now saying this but Asian countries should “look to allies in Europe as a newfound example”.“Deterrence doesn’t come on the cheap … time is of the essence.”Read the full storyGeorgia shows the effects of Trump tariffsIf you want a bellwether to measure the broad impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs on the economy, look to the state of Georgia.So far, it’s a mixed bag. The hospitality industry is facing an existential crisis and wine merchants wonder if they will survive the year. But others, like those in industrial manufacturing, carefully argue that well-positioned businesses will profit.Read the full storyAustralia says steel tariffs ‘not the act of a friend’Australia’s trade minister, Don Farrell, has described Donald Trump’s trade tariffs as “unjustified and not the act of a friend” after the US president announced he would double import duties on steel and aluminium to 50%.“They are an act of economic self-harm that will only hurt consumers and businesses who rely on free and fair trade,” Farrell said.Read the full storyImmigration authorities collecting DNA information of childrenUS immigration authorities are collecting and uploading the DNA information of migrants, including children, to a national criminal database, according to government documents released earlier this month.The database includes the DNA of people who were either arrested or convicted of a crime, which law enforcement uses when seeking a match for DNA collected at a crime scene. But most of the people whose DNA has been collected by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), the agency that published the documents, were not listed as having been accused of any felonies.Read the full storyUS energy department workers sound alarm over cutsWorkers at the US Department of Energy say cuts and deregulations are undermining the ability for the department to function and will result in significant energy cost hikes for consumers.Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” will raise energy costs for American households by as much as 7% in 2035 due to the repeal of energy tax credits and could put significant investment and energy innovation at risk, according to a report by the Rhodium Group.Read the full storyFour queer business owners on Pride under TrumpAs the first Pride month under Donald Trump’s second presidency approaches, LGBTQ+ businesses are stepping up, evolving quickly to meet the community’s growing concerns.The Guardian spoke with four queer business owners, and one message was clear: queer businesses are here to support the community now more than ever and spread joy as resistance.Read the full storyBruce Springsteen’s anti-Trump comments divide US fansTensions among Bruce Springsteen’s fanbase have spread to his home state of New Jersey because of what the rock icon has said about Donald Trump.Springsteen has long been a balladeer of the state’s blue-collar workers. But last year many of those same workers voted for the president. Now their split loyalties are being put to the test.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      An undocumented man who was accused by the Department of Homeland Security secretary last week of threatening to assassinate Donald Trump may have been framed by someone accused of previously attacking the man, according to news reports.

      As the Trump administration continues to exploit antisemitism to arrest protesters and curb academic freedoms, more American Jews are saying “not in my name”.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 30 May 2025. More

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      Want to see where Trump’s tariffs are leading US business? Look at Georgia

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      If you want a bellwether to measure the broad impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs on the economy, look south, to Georgia. The political swing state has a $900bn economy – somewhere between the GDPs of Taiwan and Switzerland.The hospitality industry is facing an existential crisis. Wine merchants wonder aloud if they will survive the year. But others, like those in industrial manufacturing, will carefully argue that well-positioned businesses will profit. Some say they’re insulated from international competition by the nature of their industry. Others, like the movie industry, are simply confused by the proposals that have been raised, and are looking for entirely different answers. So far, it’s a mixed bag.In a state Trump won by two points and with yet another pivotal US Senate race in a year, Republican margins are thinner than those of the retailers with their business on the line here.Carson Demmond, a wine distributor in Georgia, finds herself looking at seaborne cargo notices for her wine shipments from France with the nervousness of a sports gambler watching football games. She’s betting on her orders of French champagne and bordeaux getting to a port in Savannah before tariffs restart.It’s a risk. Demmond put a hold on orders after Trump enacted sky-high tariffs on European goods last month. When he paused the tariffs days later, Demmond began to assess what she might chance on restarting some purchases.But her wine isn’t showing up on a ship in France yet, she said.“I don’t see them booked on ships yet, and normally they would already be booked, and I would already have sail dates,” she said. “I see a lot of my orders now collecting in consolidation warehouses in Europe, which says to me that there’s something wrong.”Demmond suspects that shipping is suffering from a bullwhip-like effect from uncertainty around tariffs and the economy: so many buyers are trying to get ahead of tariffs that there aren’t enough shipping containers to go around to meet the short-term demand.“It means that as strategic as I’m trying to be with regards to timing my orders so I don’t get hit with lots of tariff bills at the same time, I feel like now all of that is out of my control,” Demmond said. “I never want to face a situation where I have too many orders that all sail and land at the same time, and then getting hit with really large tariff bills in one fell swoop.”US courts, meanwhile, are vacillating on the legality of Trump’s tariffs. The stock market rallied this week after the US court of international trade (CIT) ruled that Trump’s use of extraordinary powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) exceeded his authority. Less than a day later, an appellate court lifted the lower court’s block on the tariffs while the case plays out.Unpredictability is driving volatility, and volatility is poisonous to businesses built for stable markets and stable prices.Georgia’s ports have not yet witnessed the massive slowdown occurring on the west coast. Shipping at the port of Los Angeles is down by a third as buyers cancel orders from China. But Savannah – the third-busiest port in the United States behind the Los Angeles area and New York/New Jersey ports – just came off its busiest month.“We’re still watching how this goes,” said Tom Boyd, the chief communications officer for Georgia’s ports authority. “We still are having 30 to 32 vessels a week. Most everybody has been front loading to avoid any supply chain disruptions. Volumes are strong, but we expect volumes to decrease.”Savannah’s port sees more ships from the Indian subcontinent, Vietnam and Europe than from China, because it’s a few days shorter from India through the Suez Canal than across the Pacific, he said.Demmond, who runs the wine distributor Rive Gauche, watches the reports up and down the eastern seaboard carefully because many of the ships from Europe dock in New Jersey before coming south, she said. About 60% of her business is in French wine. Shipping volumes are making logistical planning difficult, she said. Amazon has hired away warehouse workers, which slows down unloading and can leave her wine on a ship for longer periods.She likened the logistical disruption today to the effects of Covid-19 shutdowns.“There’s going to be a crazy ripple effect through multiple industries,” Demmond said. “In normal times, I could count on approximately eight weeks from the time I send my purchase order to the winery for them to prepare it, to the time that it arrives at port. Now, you know, I have no idea, because everything is different and unpredictable. I have a hard time quoting arrival times to people.”Demmond is a wine merchant, not a political economist. Predicting the course of trade negotiations has become a business hazard. She and other Georgia wine distributors met with the representative Hank Johnson last month to describe the effect of a 200% tariff on European wine imports on their business.Many restaurants derive half of their revenue or more from alcohol sales. If the cost of spirits triples, many people will change their dining habits. Domestic supply can’t make up the difference, she said. A decision to expand a domestic winery made today wouldn’t produce a bottle of wine for three to five years. By then, Congress or a new president may have rescinded the tariffs, blowing up the investment.If it were just European liquor, a conservative might dismiss the disruption as something affecting well-heeled wine snobs. But the problem has wide applicability, Demmond said.“There are no American coffee growers. There are no coffee farms here,” she said. “That’s an impossibility. All you’re doing is increasing prices. You’re not helping create jobs by taxing that stuff. Some of it is impossible to re-shore.”Georgia calls itself the Peach state, but California has long eclipsed Georgia’s peach production. Instead, the most widely exported Georgia peach has been the one moviegoers see at the end of the credits: Georgia had $2.6bn in film and television production in 2023.Georgia’s tax incentive program is among the most aggressive in the US and the reason Georgia has become a rival to Hollywood. It’s an economic development strategy that has unusually bipartisan support in a state famously split down the middle politically. Studios have invested billions in Georgia over the last 10 years.Between Disney’s Marvel movies such as The Avengers, Tyler Perry’s studios in Atlanta and Netflix productions including Stranger Things, Georgia has overtaken Hollywood as a center for cinematic production. In any given year, studios spend $2-$4bn making movies in Georgia, according to figures from the Georgia Film Office.But the tax-incentive-chasing film industry is fickle. Acres of shiny new studio space springing up across the state have not prevented the movie business from slowing down a bit over the last couple of years. With the release of Thunderbolts*, for the first time in more than a decade no Marvel movies are slated for production in Georgia. Disney has shifted to studios in England and Australia.So when Trump said he wanted a 100% tariff on foreign-produced films, Georgia Entertainment CEO Randy Davidson did a double take.“It kind of took people by surprise,” Davidson said. “You know, on the one hand, you have people that have been struggling with their jobs here already, thinking initially that was going to be like a quick-fix answer to get production back here. … And then there was the other side: how is politicizing movies into the tariff discussion beneficial? Because it doesn’t make sense.”Trump’s tariff talk emerged after a meeting at the White House with actor Jon Voight and independent film producer Steven Paul. Voight proposed to support the domestic film industry with federal tax credits and international cooperative production agreements, not with a tariff, said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, Sag-Aftra’s chief negotiator and national executive director.“You know, we haven’t had a federal tax incentive in the United States,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “It’s quite common in a lot of major production centers around the world now, and I think it’s definitely time for us to have that conversation.”Films are largely a digital service today. Setting aside the logistical difficulty of assessing a tariff on intellectual property, doing so would violate American law.Crabtree-Ireland suggested that Trump’s rhetoric might be an aggressive negotiating ploy, starting out with an extreme stand that moves a compromise point to a more favorable position. But a workable plan would have more nuance, Crabtree-Ireland said: “Which is what I think ultimately would be under consideration.”Crabtree-Ireland said he wouldn’t expect a federal tax incentive to supplant state tax credits. But any international agreement to level the incentive playing field would have to address it.“What Georgia can hope for is that this topic does not get entangled in a charged-up political atmosphere where it will have a shot to be an actual bipartisan effort and initiative that would actually be good for the country,” Davidson said.As Georgia companies try to manage inventory before a tariff deadline, warehouse space is only one issue. Capital is another.“Most companies can’t afford to get two years’ worth of inventory to manage their business while we figure out what’s going to happen, right? So, they’re going to buy a little time, but not a lot,” said Carl Campbell, an executive director for business recruitment at the Dalton chamber of commerce.Not that there’s a warehouse to be rented in Dalton right now. The north Georgia mill town of about 34,000 in far-right representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district is a longstanding center of the carpet-and-flooring industry in the US. But it has had competition for warehouse and industrial space in recent years from solar panel manufacturers, spurred by state tax incentives, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and federal incentives for the semiconductor industry.“Everything’s full, you know.” Campbell said. “We’ve got companies that are going to grow manufacturing capacity. They’re currently deciding where to do it, and so the tariffs may swing it to the US. Sometimes that’s swinging that our way. Sometimes it’s making that decision happen sooner rather than later, and sometimes it makes it not happen at all.”Campbell notes that both Democrats and Republicans can lay claim to Dalton’s industrial successes. Qcells, a solar panel manufacturer owned by the Korean conglomerate Hanwha, is an example, he said.“When Trump was in office the first time, he implemented tariffs on goods from China,” Campbell said. “They suddenly got very, very serious about doing panel production and assembly in the US. And they had to do that quickly and as fast as possible.” The same tariff regime began imposing costs on imported flooring from Asia, which boosted Dalton’s flooring manufacturers.Three years later, the Inflation Reduction Act – enacted under Joe Biden – added incentives for clean energy manufacturing, and Georgia’s two Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, worked to make sure some of the benefit landed in Georgia. About $23bn has been invested in clean energy production in the state since the act passed. Qcells used those incentives to expand in 2023, and employs more than 2,000 people today.“Tariffs are sometimes a tale of winners and losers. And so, yeah, we won a little bit on that,” Campbell said. “And of course, some of our companies got hurt, and they lost a little bit on that.”The problem, again, is uncertainty, he said.“It can create an opportunity for folks like me and companies like ours, yeah, but it can also crush business plans – if you’re reliant on foreign goods and suddenly you just took a 25% hit on your cost. It’s made some people sit on their hands and not move forward on some efforts that we were thinking would happen soon. It’s made some other folks, you know, escalate plans and have to do them faster.” More

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      Trump announces 50% steel tariffs and hails ‘blockbuster’ deal with Japan

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      Donald Trump announced on Friday he was doubling foreign tariffs on steel imports to 50%, as the president celebrated a “blockbuster” agreement for Japan-based Nippon Steel to invest in US Steel during a rally in Pennsylvania.Surrounded by men in orange hardhats at a US Steel plant in West Mifflin, Trump unveiled the new levies, declaring that the dramatic rate increase would “even further secure the steel industry in the United States”.“Nobody is going to get around that,” Trump said, of the tariff rate hike from what was 25%.In a social media post after the conclusion of his remarks, Trump announced that the 50% tariffs on steel would also apply to imported aluminum and would take effect on 4 June.“This will be yet another BIG jolt of great news for our wonderful steel and aluminum workers,” he declared in the post.It was not immediately clear how the announcement would affect the trade deal negotiated earlier this month that saw tariffs on UK steel and aluminum reduced to zero.Trump’s Friday tariffs announcement came a day after a federal appeals court temporarily allowed his tariffs to remain in effect staying a decision by a US trade court that blocked the president from imposing the duties.The trade court ruling, however, does not impede the president’s ability to unilaterally raise tariffs on steel imports, an authority granted under a national security provision called section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act.The precise relationship between Nippon Steel and US Steel raised questions on Friday, even for some of Trump’s allies. The president has thrown his full support behind the deal, months after insisting he was “totally against” a $14.9bn bid by Nippon Steel for its US rival.The United Steelworkers union had previously urged Trump to reject Nippon’s bid, dismissing the Japanese firm’s commitments to invest in the US as “flashy promises” and claiming it was “simply seeking to undercut our domestic industry from the inside”.Speaking to steelworkers, Trump insisted that US Steel would “stay an American company” after what he is now calling “a partnership” with Nippon.But US Steel’s website links to a standalone site with the combined branding of the two companies that features a statement describing the transaction as “US Steel’s agreement to be acquired by NSC”.On the website touting the deal, there were also multiple references to “Nippon Steel’s acquisition of US Steel” and the “potential sale of US Steel to Nippon Steel”.Even pro-Trump commentators on Fox expressed bafflement over the exact nature of the deal.“This is being described as ‘a partnership’, this deal between Nippon and US Steel – but then it’s described as an acquisition on the US Steel website,” Fox host Laura Ingraham pointed out on her Friday night show.She asked a guest from another pro-Trump outlet, Breitbart: “Who owns the majority stake in this company?”When the guest said he did not know, Ingraham suggested Trump might not be aware of the details. “I don’t know if he was fully informed about the terms of the deal. We just don’t know.”Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, had blocked Nippon’s acquisition, citing national security concerns, during his final weeks in office.During his remarks at the rally, Trump gloated that the Nippon investment would once again make the American steelmaker “synonymous with greatness”. He said protections were included to “ensure that all steel workers will keep their jobs and all facilities in the United States will remain open and thriving” and said Nippon had committed to maintaining all of US Steel’s currently operating blast furnaces for the next decade.The president also promised that every US steel worker would soon receive a $5,000 bonus – prompting the crowd to start a round of “U-S-A!” chants.Trump told the steelworkers in attendance that there was “a lot of money coming your way”.“We won’t be able to call this section a rust belt any more,” Trump said. “It’ll be a golden belt.”During the event, Trump invited local members of United Steelworkers on to the stage to promote the Nippon deal, which saw its leader break with the union to support it. Praising the president, Jason Zugai, vice-president of Irvin local 2227, said he believed the investments would be “life-changing”.But the powerful United Steelworkers union remained wary.“Our primary concern remains with the impact that this merger of US Steel into a foreign competitor will have on national security, our members and the communities where we live and work,” United Steelworkers president David McCall said in a statement.“Issuing press releases and making political speeches is easy. Binding commitments are hard.”Trump framed the administration’s drive to boost domestic steel production as “not just a matter of dignity or prosperity or pride” but as “above all, a matter of national security”.He blamed “decades of Washington betrayals and incompetence and stupidity and corruption” for hollowing out the once-dominant American steel industry, as the jobs “melted away, just like butter”.“We don’t want America’s future to be built with shoddy steel from Shanghai. We want it built with the strength and the pride of Pittsburgh,” he said.In his remarks at a US steel plant, Trump also repeated many of the false claims that have become a feature of his rallies including the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He gloated over his 2024 victory and, gesturing toward his ear that was grazed by a would-be assassin’s bullet last year at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, said it was proof that a higher power was watching over him.He also called on congressional Republicans to align behind his “one big, beautiful bill,” urging attendees to lobby their representatives and senators to support the measure.Lois Beckett and Callum Jones contributed reporting More

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      Trump news at a glance: Surprise doubling of steel tariffs risks global market turmoil – again

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      Donald Trump said he was doubling tariffs on imported steel to 50% at a rally celebrating a “partnership” deal between US Steel and Japan-based Nippon Steel on Friday.Speaking in front of an audience of steelworkers, the US president said: “We are going to be imposing a 25% increase. We’re going to bring it from 25% to 50%, the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States.”The surprise announcement, which contained no further detail, was cheered by the crowd at a US Steel plant in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania. Trump added: “Nobody is going to get around that.”He spoke after US markets closed for the weekend. But the increase, set to take effect next week, is likely to create fresh economic turmoil.Here are the key stories of the day:Trump announces 50% steel tariffsThe US president announced he was doubling foreign tariffs on steel imports to 50%, as he celebrated a “blockbuster” agreement for Japan-based Nippon Steel’s to invest in US Steel during a rally in Pennsylvania.Surrounded by men in orange hardhats, Donald Trump unveiled the tariff rate increase as he spoke at a US Steel plant in West Mifflin, declaring that the dramatic hike would “even further secure” the US steel industry.It was not immediately clear how the announcement would affect the trade deal with the UK, negotiated earlier this month, that saw tariffs on steel and aluminium from the UK reduced to zero.Read the full storyTrump bids farewell to Musk – though not reallyThe president saw Elon Musk off from the White House on Friday, as the Tesla chief concluded his more than four months leading the so-called department of government efficiency’s disruptive foray into federal departments that achieved far fewer cost savings than expected.Standing alongside Trump in the Oval Office, Musk – who faced a 130-day limit in his tenure as a special government employee that had ended two days prior – vowed that his departure “is not the end” of Doge.Read the full storyMusk allegedly took lots of drugs while advising TrumpElon Musk engaged in extensive drug consumption while serving as one of Trump’s closest advisers, taking ketamine so frequently it caused bladder problems and travelling with a daily supply of about 20 pills, according to claims made to the New York Times.Read the full storyGolden Dome won’t be done by end of Trump’s termThe president’s so-called Golden Dome missile defence program – which will feature space-based weapons to intercept strikes against the US – is not expected to be ready before the end of his term, despite his prediction that it would be completed within the next three years.Read the full storyTrump fires National Portrait Gallery chiefDonald Trump says he is firing the first female director of the National Portrait Gallery, which contained a caption that referenced the attack on the US Capitol that his supporters carried out in early 2021.Read the full storyHarvard visitors to face social media screeningThe Trump administration has ordered US consulates worldwide to conduct mandatory social media screening of every visa applicant seeking to travel to Harvard University, with officials instructed to view private accounts as potential signs of “evasiveness”.Read the full storySupreme court allows White House to revoke migrants’ protected statusThe US supreme court on Friday announced it would allow the Trump administration to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the US, bolstering the Republican president’s drive to step up deportations.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The state department is seeking to create an “Office of Remigration” as
      part of a restructuring of the US diplomatic service to facilitate Trump’s rightwing anti-immigration policies.

      The FBI is investigating an apparent impersonator who pretended to be the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, in texts and calls to her contacts, including prominent Republicans.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 29 May 2025. More

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      Why Trump does not suffer Congress when it comes to his prized tariffs

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      When it comes to cutting taxes or paying for mass deportations, Donald Trump is happy to work with Congress. But if the issue is his prized and disruptive tariff policy, the president has made clear that he has no time for their legislative wrangling.Trump underscored his sentiment towards Congress after a US trade court this week briefly put a stop to his controversial policy of placing levies on a wide range of countries, before a different court reversed that decision while legal proceedings continue.“The horrific decision stated that I would have to get the approval of Congress for these tariffs. In other words, hundreds of politicians would sit around DC for weeks, and even months, trying to come to a conclusion as to what to charge other Countries that are treating us unfairly. If allowed to stand, this would completely destroy Presidential Power – the Presidency would never be the same!” the president wrote on Truth Social.The statement served to put Congress in its place, even though its Republican leaders have shown Trump great deference since taking office. The Senate has approved just about every official he has nominated, no matter how controversial, while the House of Representatives last week overcame substantial differences among the GOP conference to pass the One Big Beautiful bill containing Trump’s tax and spending priorities.If there’s one place where there is daylight to be found between Trump and his Republican allies, it’s his tariff polices. Even avowed supporters of the president have raised their eyebrows at his on-again, off-again imposition of levies on the countries from which US consumers buy their goods and factories source their inputs, and Republican leaders have gone to great lengths to thwart their attempts to do something about them.Which might be why Trump struck out on his own, and hoped the courts would back him up. So far they have not. The US court of international trade, which ruled to block Trump’s tariffs on Wednesday, was very clear it believed his policies “exceed any authority granted to the president”.The matter may ultimately come down to the views of the supreme court, where Trump appointed half of the six-justice conservative supermajority during his first term. Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor, said the case is likely to present a test of how the supreme court views the “major questions doctrine” (MQD), which argues clear congressional authority is needed for agencies to carry out any regulations of national importance, in light of Trump’s tariffs moves.The doctrine was used to defang regulators last year when the court overturned the Chevron decision, limiting regulators’ powers and arguing they had overstepped their authority.The supreme court may not be minded to accept the major questions doctrine when it comes to the commander in chief, wrote Goldsmith in his newsletter, Executive Function. “It is an open question whether the MQD applies to congressional authorizations to the president. Every Supreme Court decision involving the MQD has involved agency action, and lower courts are split on whether the MQD applies to presidential authorizations,” he said.For Congress’s beleaguered Democrats, this week’s court intervention, however fleeting, provided grist for the case they’ve been trying to make to voters ever since Trump took office, which is that he is trying to act like the sort of monarch America was founded on rejecting.“This is why the Framers gave Congress constitutional power over trade and tariffs,” said Suzan DelBene, a Washington state House Democrat who has proposed one of many bills to block Trump’s tariffs. “The court spoke decisively in defense of our democracy and against a president attempting to be king.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: tariffs reinstated, for now, after rollercoaster of court decisions

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      President Trump’s tariffs remain in place, at least for now, after an appeals court ruled that his administration can continue to collect import fees.The latest ruling came just a day after a separate court ruled that Trump had overstepped his power, a judgment that his administration has pushed back against.White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that America cannot function when diplomatic or trade negotiations are “railroaded by activist judges”.Here are the key stories at a glance:Trump wins breathing space after major blow to tariff policyThe Trump administration is racing to halt a major blow to the president’s sweeping tariffs after a US court ruled they “exceed any authority granted to the president.”A US trade court ruled the US president’s tariffs regime was illegal on Wednesday in a dramatic twist that could block Trump’s controversial global trade policy.On Thursday, an appeals court agreed to a temporary pause in the decision pending an appeal hearing. The Trump administration is expected to take the case to the supreme court if it loses.Read the full storyTrump allies rail against court’s tariff rulingRepublicans and close allies of Donald Trump are railing against a federal judicial panel that blocked a wide swath of the US president’s tariffs Wednesday night, including those against China.Some attempted to frame the decision as part of a broader fight between the Trump administration and US justice system. Trump has frequently complained about legal decisions that don’t go his way, attacking judges on social media in ways that have alarmed civic society experts.Read the full storyTariffs derailed by law firm that received money from Trump backersDonald Trump’s tariff policy was derailed by a libertarian public interest law firm that has received money from some of his richest backers.The Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit against the US president’s “reciprocal” tariffs on behalf of five small businesses, which it said were harmed by the policy.Previous backers of the firm include billionaires Robert Mercer and Richard Uihlein, who were also financial backers of Trump’s presidential campaigns.Read the full storyChina condemns US decision to revoke student visasChina has lodged a formal protest over the US declaration that it will “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students, with the foreign ministry saying it had objected to the announcement made a day earlier by Marco Rubio.Read the full storyFed asserts independence from Trump over interest ratesThe Federal Reserve issued a rare, strongly worded statement on Thursday after chair Jerome Powell spoke with Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday morning, holding firm on the central bank’s independence amid pressure from Trump to lower interest rates.The three-paragraph statement emphasized the Fed’s independent, non-partisan role in setting monetary policy based on economic data.“Chair Powell did not discuss his expectations for monetary policy, except to stress that the path of policy will depend entirely on incoming economic information and what that means for the outlook,” the statement read.Read the full storyTrump violating right to life with anti-environment orders, youth lawsuit saysTwenty two young Americans have filed a new lawsuit against the Trump administration over its anti-environment executive orders. By intentionally boosting oil and gas production and stymying carbon-free energy, federal officials are violating their constitutional rights to life and liberty, alleges the lawsuit, filed on Thursday.Read the full storyImmigration agents get quota to arrest 3,000 people a dayThe Trump administration has set aggressive new goals in its anti-immigration agenda, demanding that federal agents arrest 3,000 people a day – or more than a million in a year.The new target, tripling arrest figures from earlier this year, was delivered to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) leaders by Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, and Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, in a strained meeting last week.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Robert F Kennedy Jr’s flagship health commission report contains citations to studies that do not exist, according to an investigation by the US publication Notus.

      Top House Democrat Jamie Raskin has demanded Donald Trump reveal a list of who attended his private dinner last week for major investors in his meme coin, as questions swirl about the deep and secretive connections between the Trump administration and the cryptocurrency industry.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 28 May 2025. More

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      The Guardian view on Trump’s tariffs: the courts have drawn a line. So must Congress | Editorial

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      If one thing is more challenging to the rule of law than a genuine emergency, it is the invention of a phoney one. Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has upended global trade and international relations, wiping billions off the stock market in the process, by imposing tariffs that he claims are a necessary response to an emergency. Yet that emergency does not really exist, except in the manner that Mr Trump himself has created it.The president claimed, on 2 April, that a lack of reciprocity in US overseas trade arrangements was “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States”. He claimed that this justified him in declaring an emergency and governing by executive decree under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Congress, which normally has the responsibility to decide US trade policy, was thus wholly ignored. Statutory consultative arrangements, traditionally an essential preliminary, went out of the window too. Mr Trump was effectively exercising an executive power grab.Now, after this week’s ruling by a US federal trade court, most of Mr Trump’s tariffs have been blocked. In a case brought by a coalition of businesses and US states, the court of international trade found that most of the tariffs “exceed any authority granted” to the president under the 1977 law. The White House will appeal. Meanwhile, trade talks aimed at creating so-called deals between the US and nation-state victims of the Trump policies are likely to be paused, while existing deals, including that with the UK, may be affected too.There will be a worldwide sense of relief for as long as it lasts. But the higher courts now face an important political responsibility as well as a judicial one. The ruling has left nations and businesses hanging. Some tariffs will remain, such as those on steel, aluminium and cars. Many others are suspended. Markets hate uncertainty.The issues at stake are very large. They are immediate, because the ruling suspends many but not all tariffs, and also strategic, because it challenges Mr Trump’s wide-ranging attempts to rule by executive order. Both are extremely important. Global trade and economic recovery, in Britain among many other countries, rest on the outcome. But so does Mr Trump’s strategy, which dates back to his first term, of using IEEPA powers to rule by decree, not merely on trade issues but, for example, in sanctioning officials from the international criminal court.The good news is that the president’s plans to impose tariffs on almost every country on the planet will now be subjected to something approaching the legal and constitutional scrutiny that they should have had in the first place. The rule of law, thankfully, has struck back, at least for now.The bad news is that Congress still shows no sign of reining Mr Trump in, as it should. Ironically, the IEEPA was originally a Jimmy Carter-era legislative attempt to boost congressional oversight of presidential emergency powers. Under Mr Trump, that role has been trashed. The worst of all outcomes would be for Congress to now give Mr Trump the powers to which he has laid claim. That is a real danger. The best outcome would be for Congress to give the IEEPA a fresh set of teeth. These would ensure that emergency powers are properly defined and applied, and never again abused by this or any other overmighty president.

      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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      ‘Trump always chickens out’: Taco jibe ruffles president’s feathers

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      Trump Always Chickens Out – or Taco for short. Investors like narratives to explain the financial world, and they appear to have seized on this one: whenever Donald Trump faces a market backlash, he will back down.It would be fair to say the US president did not take kindly to the suggestion that he was being a “chicken” when asked by a reporter at the White House about the term that is gaining traction on Wall Street.“Oh isn’t that nice – ‘I chicken out.’ I’ve never heard that,” Trump mused on Wednesday in response to the reporter’s question on the so-called Taco trade. He then launched into extended comments on how high the tariffs he imposed on China were, and how he had “helped” China by cutting them.“But don’t ever say what you said,” he added to the reporter. “That’s a nasty question.” Apparently riled, he later returned to the theme, insisting that he was no chicken, and that often people accused him of being too tough.But recurrent retreats by Trump have become the basis for stock markets rebounding after falls, even as the US president has raised tariffs to their highest level in more than a century.The S&P 500, the US stock market benchmark, has gained about 1% during 2025, despite a deep slump in April as Trump announced “liberation day” tariffs on trade with most countries in the world.The stock market rise appears to have been aided by the Taco trade narrative: that market turmoil will correct the president’s course and allow companies to keep on making strong profits. That belief will strengthen if courts uphold Wednesday night’s ruling by New York’s court of international trade that Trump’s tariffs have been imposed illegally.When the Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong coined the Taco acronym on 2 May, it was a pithy observation of market reaction to Trump’s chaotic policymaking. However, less than a month on, one question is whether being accused of being “chicken” will needle the president to take a harder line with trading partners.On some fronts – notably on transporting people to El Salvador without due process – the Trump administration has indeed defied barrages of criticism and several court orders. Yet on financial markets, the pattern is clear of a harsh initial position followed by a sizeable retreat. The partial climbdowns have often followed close behind slumping bond prices – increasing US government borrowing costs – a dynamic that could expose the world’s largest economy if left unchecked.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe liberation day tariff announcement was followed by a 90-day pause. Trump said he would raise EU tariffs to 50%, before delaying that until 9 July. He ratcheted up levies to a punitive 145% on China, before dropping them to 30% during a 90-day pause. And he toyed with forcing out the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, only to backtrack quickly once investor displeasure became clear.However, the market optimism has not matched economic forecasts, which suggest that the White House’s actions are still historically significant. More