Trump administration

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Pentagon chief says US could ‘revive’ Panama bases

      by

      The US defence secretary has floated the idea of the country’s troops returning to Panama to “secure” its strategically vital canal, a suggestion quickly shot down by the Central American country’s government.Pete Hegseth suggested during a visit to Panama that “by invitation” the US could “revive” military bases or naval air stations and rotate deployments of its troops to an isthmus the US invaded 35 years ago.He also said his country was seeking free passage through the canal for its navy ships – which Donald Trump had said were “severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form”.Trump, since coming to power in January, has repeatedly claimed that China has too much influence over the canal, which handles about 40% of US container traffic and 5% of world trade.His administration has vowed to “take back” control of the strategic waterway that the US funded, built and controlled until 1999.Hegseth suggested on Wednesday the former US military bases that dot Panama could be used again to host American troops.He said a deal signed with Panama this week was an “opportunity to revive, whether it’s the military base, naval air station, locations where US troops can work with Panamanian troops to enhance capabilities and cooperate in a rotational way”.While Hegseth cited the possibility of joint exercises, the mention of a rotational force was likely to raise the hackles of Panamanians, for whom sole ownership of the canal is a source of national pride.The US has long participated in military exercises in Panama. However, a longer-term rotational force – such as the force the USmaintains in Darwin, Australia – is politically toxic for Panama’s centre-right leader, José Raúl Mulino.His government quickly slapped down the idea. “Panama made clear, through President Mulino, that we cannot accept military bases or defence sites,” said Panama’s security minister, Frank Abrego, in a joint public appearance with Hegseth.Hegseth also said the US was seeking an agreement under which its warships could pass through the canal “first, and free”.Jose Ramón Icaza, Panama’s minister for canal affairs, said: “We will seek a mechanism by which warships and auxiliary ships can have a compensation system for services, that is, a way to make them cost-neutral but not free.”The independent Panama Canal Authority (PCA) that manages the waterway said on Wednesday that it was seeking a “cost-neutral scheme” to compensate services rendered in security matters for warship tolls.Under current treaties, the canal is open to all countries and vessels must pay the same rates according to their capacity and cargo, regardless of their country of origin or destination.The PCA said the US recognised Panamanian sovereignty over the waterway, although Hegseth did not mention it in the news conference.The Pentagon chief’s two-day visit has been peppered with comments about China and its influence in Latin America. He said the US was not looking for war with China but would counter Beijing’s “threats” to the region.“We do not seek war with China. And war with China is certainly not inevitable. We do not seek it in any form,” Hegseth said. “But together, we must prevent war by robustly and vigorously deterring China’s threats in this hemisphere,” the former Fox News anchor said.China hit back after Hegseth’s comments, saying Washington officials “maliciously attacked China … exposing the US’s bullying nature”.Trump has zeroed in on the role of a Hong Kong company that has operated ports at either end of the canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans for decades.Hegseth asserted that China-based companies were also capturing Latin American land and infrastructure in strategic sectors, such as energy and telecommunications, and that China had too large a military presence in the hemisphere.“Make no mistake, Beijing is investing and operating in this region for military advantage and unfair economic gain,” he said.Under pressure from the White House, Panama has accused the Hong Kong-backed Panama Ports Company of failing to meet its contractual obligations and pushed for it to pull out of the country.The company rejected an audit on Wednesday that suggested it had failed to pay $1.2bn due under its concession.The ports’ parent company, CK Hutchison, announced last month a deal to offload 43 ports in 23 countries – including its two on the Panama canal – to a consortium led by the US asset manager BlackRock for $19bn in cash. A furious Beijing has since announced an antitrust review of the deal.The US invaded Panama in 1989 to oust the dictator Manuel Noriega, killing more than 500 Panamanians and razing parts of the capital. More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Thursday briefing: Trump puts global tariffs on pause – but hikes them for China

      by

      Good morning. Two main pieces of news from Donald Trump yesterday: he has rolled back water efficiency standards to “make America’s showers great again”, because he likes “to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair”; and he has rolled back the exorbitant tariffs he applied to many countries last week to 10% – but increased them for China. “No longer will showerheads be weak and worthless,” the White House said. This will come as welcome news for the many investors who have recently been taking a bath.It was a pretty chaotic change, all told: there were contradictory messages from Trump’s advisers on which countries would be affected, why he did it, and what Beijing should expect to happen next. Still, the markets breathed a large sigh of relief, and the S&P 500 had one of the strongest days of its postwar history. This morning, share indices in Asia have jumped in turn.But that still isn’t enough to undo the full damage that Trump’s hot-and-cold tariff policy has inflicted on the American and global economy – and only a fool would presume that a more settled approach is now a given. For the very latest, head to the business live blog; today’s newsletter explains what’s going on, and whether the reversal is a sign of strength or weakness. Here are the headlines.Five big stories

      Gaza | Israeli aircraft struck a residential block in war-ravaged northern Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 23 people, including eight women and eight children health officials said, as the Israeli military is reportedly preparing to seize the entire city of Rafah.

      Trade | The UK and India have agreed 90% of their free trade agreement, businesses were told on a call with negotiators this week. There are hopes the UK government will succeed in finalising a highly coveted trade deal with India, a booming economy of 1.4 billion people, this year.

      Smartphones | Almost all schools in England have banned mobile phone use by pupils, according to a survey run by Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England. Among 15,000 schools, 99.8% of primaries and 90% of secondaries have some form of ban.

      Defence | Hot weather is expected to bring highs of 24C to the UK as fire services continue to warn of wildfires across the country. The Met Office said temperatures would peak on Friday in London and south-east England, which could make it the hottest day of the year so far, while temperatures could hit 23C on Thursday.

      BBC | A controversial sculpture outside the BBC’s headquarters has been restored and put back on display behind a screen after being vandalised, with the corporation saying it in no way condoned the “abusive behaviour” of its creator, Eric Gill. There have long been calls for Gill’s works to be removed since his diaries revealed he had sexually abused his two eldest daughters.
      In depth: ‘THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!’View image in fullscreenAt 9.37am Eastern Time, Donald Trump advised his followers with an appetite for speculation: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” Less than four hours later, in what Treasury secretary Scott Bessent magnificently described as “one of the most extraordinary Truth posts of his Presidency,” he announced the rollback of his tariff policy, and the market duly soared. Is it insider trading if your source is the president?Anyway, as the dust settled, traders kept buying. That was claimed as a major victory by Trump: “It’s up almost 2,500 points,” he said. “Nobody’s ever heard of it. It’s got to be a record.” But the reality is that the mood of uncertainty he has created will not easily be dispelled.What does the US tariff regime look like now?With the caveat that this is liable to change at any moment even though everyone in the White House is now asleep, here’s where things now stand: China’s tariff was raised to 125%, which means – given an existing 25% tariff – that some goods are now subject to an additional 150% rate. That is massively up on the 34% Trump announced last week. With a new 84% tariff in response yesterday, Trump again said that Beijing has been “ripping off the USA”. Every other country which saw its tariff raised above the baseline 10% in Trump’s “liberation day” announcement has seen the rate dialled back to that 10%. So no change for the UK; a very significant change for Vietnam (46%), India (26%), the European Union (20%), and the Falkland Islands (41%), whose 3,600 residents can now resume selling Americans frozen fish. Trump initially claimed that this was because more than 75 countries, of 190 affected, had sought to negotiate a deal without retaliating. The higher tariffs are paused for 90 days, and could be reimposed or increased again. There was some confusion over what would happen to Mexico and Canada, whose tariffs were not included in the announcement last week because they had already been set as high as 25% on a large proportion of their exports. Scott Bessent said the 10% rate would apply to them too; the White House later contradicted him and said that their tariffs would remain unchanged.Where does this leave China?In truth, the new announcement doesn’t change much. With tariffs that high, Trump might as well set them to a gazillion per cent and demand every import comes with a free Fabergé egg: the additional rate will make a minimal difference, because hardly anyone will be exporting anything from China to the US. The World Trade Organization forecast yesterday that trade between the two countries could drop by 80%, or $466bn a year.So is the goal to tank the Chinese economy, or to force China to negotiate? That was unclear yesterday. Bessent praised Trump for “goading China into a bad position” so that they “showed themselves to the world to be the bad actor”. That would seem to imply the tank strategy. But Trump himself took a much sunnier line later on: he told reporters that president Xi Jinping “is a smart guy and we’ll end up making a very good deal.”It is certainly plausible that the two sides will eventually arrive at some figure that both can present as a victory domestically. But as Amy Hawkins writes in this piece, that is unlikely to be on the basis of a major Chinese retreat. That is partly because Chinese exports to the US are largely consumer goods, badly exposed to eye-watering price increases, while the goods going the other way are commodities whose expense can be at least somewhat absorbed before they reach the consumer market.What about the UK?In one sense, the UK is exactly where it started: because it was already on the lowest 10% rate, nothing has changed. On the other hand, the fact that 10% is now the same rate as almost everyone else erases the comparative advantage that has been presented as a bright side.Speaking to ITV before the latest announcement, Keir Starmer reiterated that “a trade war is in nobody’s interest” but that retaliatory measures remained on the table. He also acknowledged that it was impossible to know if the 10% will ever be removed. In this piece, Rowena Mason reports that Whitehall sources are “increasingly downbeat” about striking a deal to reduce the tariffs.Why did Trump do it?That depends on who you ask. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt implied that the change was part of a long-term strategy, saying that reporters had “clearly missed the art of the deal” and “failed to see what President Trump is doing here”. Bessent claimed similarly that this had been Trump’s “strategy all along”. And Trump advisor Stephen Miller claimed it was “the greatest economic master strategy from an American president in history”.But those confident assertions looked a bit shakier when Trump himself emerged to speak to reporters and said that he was acting in a “flexible” way, and that he reacted because “people … were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid”. He also said that “A lot of times it’s not a negotiation until it is”, so make of that what you will. As for what he does next: that will be based on “instinct”, he said.The economist Mohamed El-Erian suggested that Trump was responding above all to a major sell-off in US government debt, a dangerous sign of investor scepticism of the US since its bonds are generally viewed as a safe harbour in an economic storm. The New York Times reports that Bessent and other advisors emphasised the issue in a meeting with Trump yesterday morning. But if you concluded that Trump may just as easily have made a capricious choice based on no serious rationale at all, you wouldn’t sound like an idiot.Where does this leave the markets – and the wider global economic outlook?In the context of the last week, this was a euphoric day for traders. The S&P 500 rose 9.5%, its biggest single-day climb since 2008; 494 of the 500 stocks covered ended higher than they began. One index of the improving mood was Goldman Sachs’ decision to rescind their recession forecast within hours of making it. Overnight, Asian markets have also climbed, and futures – a way to bet on prices ahead of markets opening – were up for European stocks and the FTSE 100.On the other hand, the S&P 500 is still down a significant 11.2% on where it was in February – and 10% universal tariffs are still a really big deal. Bob Elliott, a prominent hedge fund manager, said the market response was “likely far too positive” and noted that when taken alongside the Chinese rate and sector-specific rates elsewhere, the effective overall rate on imports is closer to 20%. That is only down 5% on where it stood before Trump’s announcement, and higher than it has been since the 1930s.The China tariffs alone could lead to a long term reduction in global GDP by nearly 7%, the WTO estimated. And when the dust settles, many companies will still be deeply sceptical that they can count on the kind of stability that tends to promote investment, new hiring, and economic growth.For now, the next questions are whether deals start to be struck, and whether improving share prices are the start of a sustained recovery or merely a “relief rally”. Jake Schurmeier, a portfolio manager at Harbor Capital Advisors, told Bloomberg: “Good news doesn’t eliminate the overarching uncertainty. We [will] likely go higher for a few days, but I think permanent damage has been done.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhat else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen

      Richard Wright (above) once painted 47,000 stars on the ceiling of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. Charlotte Higgins talks to the Turner prize-winning artist about his gorgeous, insanely intricate work – which he describes as “torture”. Alex Needham, acting head of newsletters

      Amazon’s prestige drama about Jesus Christ, The Chosen, claims to have reached 280 million viewers – and it’s just the tip of the holy iceberg. Steve Rose has a great piece about how the Messiah became TV and box office gold. Archie

      Could New York ever have a democratic socialist mayor? The city’s residents could, in the unlikely event they vote for Zohran Mamdani. He’s offering a rent freeze, free buses and universal childcare. For Interview magazine, 18 New Yorkers grill him. Alex

      Alice Wilkinson has lived in eight houseshares, and has the stories to show for it. They are compulsively readable, especially the one about the housemate who stole all the cutlery. Archie

      The speed of Trump’s transformation (or degradation) of America has been breathtaking. Osita Nwanevu steps back and surveys the epic scale of the damage: “Humiliation, immiseration, chaos and more of all to come.” Alex
      SportView image in fullscreenFootball | A late goal for Nuno Mendes (above) gave Paris St-Germain a two-goal cushion in their Champions League quarter-final tie against Aston Villa. The 3-1 victory in the first leg came despite Morgan Rogers’ 35th minute opener for the visitors. In the night’s other first leg match, Barcelona beat Dortmund 4-0.Football | Liverpool are increasingly confident Mohamed Salah will sign a contract extension beyond this summer after progress in talks over recent weeks. It is a significant boost with the captain, Virgil van Dijk, also likely to extend his stay beyond June.The boat race | The bad blood between Oxford and Cambridge continues to fester in the buildup to Sunday’s University Boat Race, with fallout from the row over a ban on PGCE students competing leading to the abandonment of the women’s trial race on Wednesday morning.The front pagesView image in fullscreenTrump’s 90-day pause on tariffs dominate the front pages today. The Guardian splashes on “Trump pauses global trade war but hits China with 125% tariffs”, the Times leads with “Trump puts the brakes on tariffs for 90 days” and the Daily Telegraph has “Trump blinks first in trade war”. The FT is going with “Stocks soar as Trump presses tariffs pause button and hits China harder”, the Mail leads with “Trump blinks … but doubles down on China” and the Metro has “Trump risks the great maul of China”. In the Mirror, it’s “Great War of China”.In the Express, it’s “Kemi: PM must make more of our Brexit freedoms.” And the Sun runs with a story about Chelsea footballer Moises Caicedo allegedly driving without a licence, and “Police in swoop on £115m Chelsea ace”.Today in FocusView image in fullscreenRats, rubbish and rising taxes: why Birmingham stinks right nowWhy have the city’s bin collectors gone on strike? Jessica Murray reportsCartoon of the day | Ben JenningsView image in fullscreenThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badView image in fullscreenMetuktire, a village in the Indigenous Capoto-Jarina territory in the Brazilian Amazon , stands as a stronghold against logging and mining in the rainforest. The village has preserved its traditional ways while embracing sustainable energy through solar panels.The community actively resists illegal intrusion by patrolling their territory and educating younger generations on environmental protection. They maintain their customs, such as harvesting cassava, while adopting modern conveniences such as mobile phones and solar panels (pictured above).Chief Beptok Metuktire remains a beacon of resilience fiercely defending the local heritage. “We have had goldminers and outsiders who wanted to occupy our lands,” he says. “We show them that this is our territory.”Bored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

      Quick crossword

      Cryptic crossword

      Wordiply More

    • 200 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: Trump pulls back on global tariffs but slaps China with 125%

      by

      Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs for most countries except China, whose tariffs he raised to 125% on Wednesday.After insisting for days that he would hold firm on his aggressive trade strategy, Trump announced that all countries that had not retaliated against US tariffs would receive a reprieve – and only face a blanket US tariff of 10% – until July.Asked why he had ordered the pause, the US president told reporters: “People were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy.”Trump tariff pause for all but ChinaStock markets soared after Trump’s announcement of a tariff pause. On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 rallied by 9.5% – its biggest single-day increase since 2008 – and the Dow Jones industrial average jumped 7.9%. Meanwhile, Republicans are quietly pushing a procedural rule that would curb the power of the US Congress to override Trump’s tariff policy.Read the full storyWhite House insists iPhones can be US-made, Apple says noThe White House is insisting that Donald Trump’s vision of Apple’s flagship iPhones being manufactured in the US will come to fruition, despite assertions from analysts and the company itself that it would not be possible.Read the full storyRun deportations like ‘Amazon Prime for humans’ – Ice chiefThe head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said he would like the agency to implement a system of trucks that rounds up immigrants for deportation in a system similar to how Amazon delivers packages around the US.“We need to get better at treating this like a business,” the acting Ice director, Todd Lyons, said. He added that he wanted to see a deportation process “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings”. His comments were first reported by the Arizona Mirror.Read the full storyTrump orders DoJ to investigate duo who debunked claims of election fraudDonald Trump’s persecution of critics intensified when he ordered the justice department to investigate a whistleblower and a cybersecurity director who refuted unfounded claims of election fraud.Read the full storyRFK Jr: my measles response is ‘model for world’The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said on a press tour that his response to a large measles outbreak in west Texas should be a “model for the world”. The statement came after Kennedy attended the funeral of a third measles victim over the weekend.Read the full storyUS steps up anti-protest crackdownAnti-protest bills that seek to expand criminal punishments for constitutionally protected peaceful protests – especially targeting those speaking out on the US-backed war in Gaza and the climate crisis – have spiked since Trump’s inauguration.Forty-one new anti-protest bills across 22 states have been introduced since the start of the year – compared with a full-year total of 52 in 2024 and 26 in 2023, according to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law tracker.Read the full storyFBI chief axed from alcohol, tobacco, firearms bureauThe Trump administration has replaced the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, as the interim head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and installed Dan Driscoll, secretary of the army, in his place, according to two people familiar with the matter.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Despite the tariff chaos, Trump took a moment to sign an executive order on water pressure. “I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair,” Trump said.

      He also signed an executive order punishing the law firm that helped a company obtain a $787.5m settlement from Fox for lies about the 2020 election.

      A Democratic senator introduced a bill that would prohibit awarding government contracts and grants to companies owned by special government employees, taking aim at Elon Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla CEO.

      Dr Mehmet Oz reportedly told federal staffers that artificial intelligence models may be better than frontline human physicians in his first all-staff meeting this week.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 9 April. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump orders DoJ to investigate two former officials who defied him

      by

      Donald Trump’s persecution of critics intensified on Wednesday when he ordered the justice department to investigate a whistleblower and a cybersecurity director who refuted unfounded claims of election fraud.The US president signed memorandums targeting Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, former homeland security officials who served in the first Trump administration.Taylor had worked in the George W Bush administration and as a senior aide on Capitol Hill. After Trump’s election in 2016, he joined the homeland security department, eventually becoming chief of staff to the secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen.But in 2018, under the pseudonym “Anonymous”, he wrote a column in the New York Times newspaper under the headline “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration”. Trump demanded that the Times reveal his identity, tweeting: “TREASON?”Taylor subsequently quit the administration and followed up with a book, A Warning, attributed to “Anonymous: A Senior Trump Administration Official”, again portraying the president as unfit for office. Taylor made his identity public in October 2020.On Wednesday, Trump, who campaigned with a promise of “retribution”, signed a presidential memorandum accusing Taylor of leaking classified information, stripping him of any active security clearance and ordering the Department of Justice to investigate his activities.Sitting in the Oval Office, the president said he could barely remember Taylor: “I said, who the hell is Miles Taylor? And he made a living on going on CNN talking about the president. And I think what he did – he wrote a book, Anonymous, said all sorts of lies and bad things. I think it’s like a traitor. It’s like spying.”Trump added: “I didn’t know anything about him and he wrote a book, Anonymous, and I always thought it was terrible … We’re going to find out whether or not somebody is allowed to do that. I think it’s a very important case and I think he’s guilty of treason, if you want to know the truth, but we’ll find out.”Taylor responded on social media that Trump had proved his point by using the justice department to pursue revenge. He wrote on X: “I said this would happen. Dissent isn’t unlawful. It certainly isn’t treasonous. America is headed down a dark path. Never has a man so inelegantly proved another man’s point.”Asked by the Guardian whether he had concerns about his civil liberties were officials to seek to prosecute him, Taylor said in a text message: “Well, if they do that, all Americans should be worried about their own.”Trump also took action against Krebs, who served as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within the homeland security department. Krebs was responsible for coordinating efforts to secure the 2020 presidential election and countered false claims of voter fraud. Trump fired him two weeks later.Wednesday’s memorandum accused Krebs of weaponising his position against free speech in the context of the election and the Covid pandemic, again addressing his clearances and ordering the justice department to investigate.Trump repeated his bogus claims of a “badly rigged election”, which have been widely debunked by courts and experts. He said: “We’re going to find out about this guy, too, because this guy’s a wise guy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“He said this is the most secure election in the history of our country. No, this was a disaster and frankly we should go to paper ballots, same-day voting, voter ID and one other thing: a vote, you should get a little certificate that says you’re a citizen of our country.”The president added: “I think he said this is the safest election we’ve ever had and yet every day you read in the papers about more and more fraud that’s discovered. He’s the fraud. He’s a disgrace. So we’ll find out whether or not it was a safe election and, if it wasn’t, he’s got a big price to pay, and he’s a bad guy.”The actions against Taylor and Krebs came amid a flurry of executive orders and memoranda signed by Trump, who was flanked by cabinet members including the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick and the interior secretary, Doug Burgum.One executive order was aimed at reviving US shipbuilding and reducing China’s grip on the global shipping industry. Trump told reporters that he would be spending “a lot of money on shipbuilding” because the country had fallen “way behind” in the sector.Another launched a review of procurement programmes at the Pentagon. The order aims to modernise the structure at the department to ensure the US is “getting value for the money [and] to ensure that we’re getting the best possible systems in the field”.One of the orders ends what was billed as Joe Biden’s “war on showers” by deregulating water pressure from shower heads and household appliances. “In my case I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair,” Trump mused. “I have to stand under the shower for 15 minutes till it gets wet. It comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.” More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump signs executive order on water pressure to ‘restore shower freedom’

      by

      A global trade-war rollercoaster was not enough to distract Donald Trump from fulfilling one of his longtime priorities on Wednesday: changing the federal definition of “shower head”, a move the White House said would “end the Obama-Biden war on water pressure”.Trump has complained for years about inadequate water pressure in American showers, sinks and toilets, and has blamed federal water-conservation standards for the problem.“In my case, I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair,” Trump said as he signed the executive order, which the White House said would apply to multiple household appliances, including toilets and sinks. “I have to stand under the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. It comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.”The White House said in a statement on the executive order: “By restoring shower freedom, President Trump is following through on his commitment to dismantle unnecessary regulations and put Americans first.”Some appliance experts have found Trump’s continued focus on American water pressure notable.“It was very striking that the White House memo included toilets and shower heads as a presidential priority. It really was something,” Andrew deLaski, executive director at the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, told the Guardian in January. “But I think Donald Trump’s concerns are somewhat out of date, to tell you the truth.”Trump’s comments on Wednesday echoed remarks he has made many times before. He claimed in 2019 that “people are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once” as a result of insufficient water pressure. “When you go into these new homes with showers, the water drips down slowly, slowly,” he said in 2023.During his first term as president, Trump rolled back stricter energy-efficiency standards for lightbulbs, again citing consumer choice as the reason for the change. At the time, Xavier Becerra, then attorney general of California, called it “another dim-witted move that will waste energy at the expense of our people and planet”. The first Trump White House also created loopholes for less efficient appliances such as dishwashers and showers, moves that were later reversed by Joe Biden.“Biden undid this progress and the shower wars continued,” the White House said on Wednesday, claiming that Trump’s new executive order would “make America’s showers great again”.Oliver Milman contributed reporting More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump signs order targeting law firm behind $787.5m Fox defamation suit

      by

      Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday punishing the law firm that helped Dominion voting systems obtain a $787.5m settlement from Fox for lies about the 2020 election.The order against the firm, Susman Godfrey, marks the latest effort by the president to punish attorneys and firms who have opposed his interests.The order seeks to cripple the firm by limiting the firm’s attorneys from accessing government buildings, revoking security clearances and essentially making it impossible for the firm to represent anyone who has business before the federal government.Trump’s rationale for targeting the firm was not immediately clear.“There were some very bad things that happened with these law firms,” he said in the oval office on Wednesday when he signed the order.Susman Godfrey represented Dominion voting systems in its lawsuit against Fox, which ended in a landmark settlement to avoid a trial. On Wednesday, a Delaware judge ruled in a separate lawsuit that the conservative outlet Newsmax Media defamed Dominion with its false reporting about a rigged 2020 election.Trump has also issued orders punishing five other firms for connections to political rivals: Covington & Burling, Perkins Coie, Paul Weiss, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale.Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale all have filed suit against Trump and successfully earned preliminary court orders blocking them. Susman Godfrey on Tuesday filed an amicus brief on behalf of several high-ranking government officials supporting Perkins Coie’s legal challenge.“This firm is very involved in the election misconduct,” Stephen Miller, a top White House aide, said on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPaul Weiss negotiated a widely-criticized settlement with Trump to have the order against it rescinded.Experts say the orders are blatantly unconstitutional and violate the constitution’s guarantee of freedom of expression and the right to counsel. They also say they are an obvious anti-democratic effort by the president to intimidate lawyers from challenging his administration in court.Several firms – Skadden, Arps, Meagher, & Flom; Milbank LLP; and Willkie, Farr, & Gallagher – have entered into preemptive settlements with the Trump administration to try and avoid executive orders. Many of the country’s largest and most prominent firms have stayed silent as several firms have been targeted. More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Full list of Trump’s tariffs: a country by country look after the 90-day pause

      by

      Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs for most countries except China, whose tariffs he raised to 125% on Wednesday.After insisting for days that he would hold firm on his aggressive trade strategy, Trump announced that all countries that had not retaliated against US tariffs would receive a reprieve – and only face a blanket US tariff of 10% – until July.The White House’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Trump had raised tariffs against China because “when you punch at the United States of America, President Trump is going to punch back harder.”Here is a look at the full list of tariffs Trump originally threatened – and the new updated rate country by country: More

    • 188 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      FBI director Kash Patel removed as director of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

      by

      The Trump administration has replaced the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, as the interim head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and installed Dan Driscoll, secretary of the army, in his place, according to two people familiar with the matter.The abrupt change, which was announced to senior ATF officials on Wednesday morning, for the first time placed control of the embattled agency responsible for enforcing the nation’s gun laws to the defense department.Patel has been running the FBI and the ATF for months, but it had proved to be overly burdensome, and Driscoll was selected to replace Patel as the interim head, as he was one of the few Senate-confirmed appointees available, one of the people said.The initial move to have the FBI director run the ATF was unusual because the agency has traditionally had its own, separate director. The move to now transfer leadership outside the justice department entirely marks an additional departure.Driscoll is expected to simultaneously run the ATF and continue with his current role. A spokesperson for the justice department did not respond to a request for comment about the long-term implication of the move.Trump’s aides have viewed the ATF and its mission with skepticism and have discussed gutting the ATF or merging it with the Drug Enforcement Administration, another small and underfunded agency that has previously been part of the justice department.The decision to have the army secretary run the ATF could be the precursor to such a move or at least to dramatically reduce its size and scope. In recent weeks, ATF agents have been diverted to help with enforcing Trump’s immigration agenda.It also comes as Pam Bondi, the US attorney general who is under pressure from pro-gun groups, announced plans to eliminate the Biden-era ATF’s “zero tolerance” policy that strips licenses of firearms dealers found to have repeatedly violated federal laws and regulations. More