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      Trump news at a glance: tariff threats draw muted reaction from Asian allies amid hopes deals can be reached

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      Donald Trump’s new tariff rates of as much as 40% for 14 countries have drawn muted responses from the hardest hit Asian countries who are hoping to renegotiate them before they come into effect next month.Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Tunisia were handed the lowest tariff rate of 25% while Laos and Myanmar – both facing high rates of poverty – were hit with the highest at 40%.Trump posted copies of his tariff letters to each of the countries on his social media site and press secretary Karoline Leavitt said more letters would be sent later this week.Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba said some progress had been made on avoiding higher tariffs of up to 35% that Trump had suggested recently, while South Korea’s industry ministry said it planned to intensify US trade talks by 1 August to “reach a mutually beneficial result”.South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said the 30% US tariff rate was unjustified given that 77% of US goods entered South Africa with no tariffs.Here is more on the tariffs and other key US politics news of the day:Trump delays tariff hikes but sets new rates for some countries The US president revealed plans to step up his trade wars on Monday but delayed tariff hikes on goods from key economies until next month, amid widespread confusion over his controversial economic strategy.Trump announced countries including Japan, South Korea and South Africa would face tariffs of up to 40% as part of a fresh wave of levies to kick in on 1 August. No increases will take place on Wednesday, however, after he extended a previous pause.Read the full storyNetanyahu nominates Trump for Nobel prize at meeting set to focus on GazaBenjamin Netanyahu told Donald Trump that he would nominate him for the Nobel peace prize on Monday, as the two leaders met for the first time since the US launched strikes on Iran’s nuclear program as part of a short-lived war between Israel and Iran.Trump was expected to press Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza amid an outcry over the humanitarian cost of an offensive that has led to nearly 60,000 deaths.Read the full storyPregnant doctor denied Covid vaccine sues Trump administrationA pregnant physician who was denied a Covid-19 vaccine is suing the Trump administration alongside a group of leading doctors’ associations, charging that the administration sought to “desensitize the public to anti-vaccine and anti-science rhetoric”, according to their attorney.Read the full storyDeportation protections for people from Honduras and Nicaragua endThe Trump administration has ended temporary protections for people from Honduras and Nicaragua in the latest phase of its effort to expel undocumented people from the US.The Department of Homeland Security announced it would end temporary protected status for an estimated 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans in moves that will come into effect in about 60 days. Citizens of the two Central American nations were accorded the status after Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which left 10,000 dead after it ripped through the region.Read the full storyPlanned Parenthood sues over funding cuts in Trump billPlanned Parenthood sued the Trump administration on Monday over a provision in Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill that would strip funding from health centers operated by the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider.In a complaint filed in Boston federal court, Planned Parenthood said the provision was unconstitutional and its clear purpose was to prevent its nearly 600 health centers from receiving Medicaid reimbursements.Read the full storyJeffrey Epstein died by suicide, review confirmsA review of files held by the US government on the financier Jeffrey Epstein has said there is no secret client list to be released, and confirmed his August 2019 death by suicide while in federal custody, both of which contradict conspiracy theories.Read the full storyAnalysis: cruelty is the point at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’After the cruelty, the mockery. As the first detainees were being hauled into Donald Trump’s controversial migrant jail in the inhospitable wetlands of the Florida Everglades last week, his supporters were indulging in some parallel retail therapy.“Surrounded by swamps & pythons, it’s a one-way ticket to regret,” the Florida Republican party’s official X account crowed, hawking its new range of Alligator Alcatraz-themed shirts and hats. “Grab our merch to support tough-on-crime borders! Limited supply – get yours before the gators do!”Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Mexican prosecutors accuse boxer Julio César Chávez Jr of being a henchman for the Sinaloa drugs cartel and say he used his skills to pummel rival gang members “like a punchbag” before his recent arrest in the US.

      Donald Trump has issued his strongest defence to date of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, claiming the far-right leader is the victim of a “witch-hunt” in his home country.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 6 July 2025. More

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      Trump’s big beautiful betrayal – podcast

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      On 4 July – as Americans celebrated their country’s independence – Donald Trump signed into law his sweeping tax and spending bill.Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, as he and fellow Republicans call it, is a sprawling piece of legislation covering everything from tax cuts to border walls to repealing environmental protections, the Guardian US’s chief reporter, Ed Pilkington, explains.But for a president who normally rules by executive order, the act perhaps tells us better than anything so far what he wants to achieve in office. ‘It enshrines what Trump wants to do in his second term,’ says Pilkington.Most controversially, it includes enormous tax breaks for the country’s super-wealthy, while making swingeing cuts to social welfare programmes used by its poor. More than 10 million US citizens are expected to lose access to Medicaid – despite Trump’s continued insistence since coming into office that he would not touch the service.So, asks Michael Safi, why is Trump doing it? And will it cost him the support of the millions of poorer Americans, who came out to vote for him last year? More

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      Pregnant doctor denied Covid-19 vaccine sues Trump administration

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      A pregnant physician who was denied a Covid-19 vaccine is suing the Trump administration alongside a group of leading doctors associations, charging that the administration sought to “desensitize the public to anti-vaccine and anti-science rhetoric”, according to their attorney.The lawsuit specifically takes aim at health secretary Robert F Kennedy’s unilateral decision to recommend against Covid-19 vaccines for pregnant women and healthy children.Kennedy’s announcement circumvented expert scientific review panels and flouted studies showing pregnant women are at heightened risk from the virus, and made it more difficult for some to get the vaccine.“This administration is an existential threat to vaccination in America, and those in charge are only just getting started,” said Richard H Hughes IV, partner at Epstein Becker Green and lead counsel for the plaintiffs in a statement.The American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians and American Public Health Association are among a list of leading physicians associations named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.“If left unchecked, secretary Kennedy will accomplish his goal of ridding the United States of vaccines, which would unleash a wave of preventable harm on our nation’s children,” said Hughes. “The professional associations for pediatricians, internal medicine physicians, infectious disease physicians, high-risk pregnancy physicians, and public health professionals will not stand idly by as our system of prevention is dismantled. This ends now.”In late May, Kennedy announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children or pregnant women. The announcement, made on social media, contradicted a raft of evidence showing pregnant women and infants are at especially high-risk from the disease, including from the administration’s own scientific leaders.In June, Kennedy went further by firing all 17 sitting members of a key vaccine advisory panel to the CDC. The advisory panel is a key link in the vaccine distribution pipeline, helping to develop recommendations insurers use when determining which vaccines to cover.That panel met for the first time in late June. Members announced they would review both the childhood vaccine schedule and any vaccines that had not been formally reviewed in seven years. They also recommended against a long-vilified vaccine preservative, in spite of a lack of evidence of harm.The news comes amid the largest annual measles case count in 33 years, and amid reports of more parents seeking early vaccination for their children, fearing vaccines will go into shortage or no longer be covered by insurance. More

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      Planned Parenthood sues Trump administration over funding cuts in big bill

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      Planned Parenthood sued the Trump administration on Monday over a provision in Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill that would strip funding from health centers operated by the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider.In a complaint filed in Boston federal court, Planned Parenthood said the provision was unconstitutional, and its clear purpose is to prevent its nearly 600 health centers from receiving Medicaid reimbursements.Planned Parenthood said that would have “catastrophic consequences”, given that the health centers serve more than 1 million patients annually through Medicaid, the US government’s insurance program for low-income people. More than 80 million people use Medicaid.“The true design of the Defund Provision is simply to express disapproval of, attack, and punish Planned Parenthood, which plays a particularly prominent role in the public debate over abortion,” Planned Parenthood said in its lawsuit.The lawsuit continued: “Stripping away this patient volume and reimbursements for care provided will result in the elimination of services, laying off staff and health center closures. The public health consequences for Medicaid patients and non-Medicaid patients alike will be dire and compounding.”The organization has estimated that the defunding could force roughly 200 Planned Parenthood clinics to shutter. Blue states, which are home to more people on Medicaid, would probably see a disproportionate number of closures.Since it is illegal to use Medicaid to pay for most abortions, Planned Parenthood clinics rely on the insurance program to reimburse them for providing services like birth control, STI tests and cancer screenings. But if blue-state clinics are forced to close, people will no longer be able to seek abortions at those clinics – a possibility that has led some abortion rights supporters, including Planned Parenthood, to call the Trump bill’s provision a “backdoor abortion ban”. Planned Parenthood provides an estimated 38% of US abortions.“We’re facing a reality of the impact on shutting down almost half of abortion-providing health centers,” Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Federation of Americas’s CEO, told the Guardian last week. “It does feel existential. Not just for Planned Parenthood, but for communities that are relying on access to this care.”Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit asks the courts to declare the Trump bill’s provision unconstitutional on numerous grounds, or to at least preserve Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood clinics that do not provide abortions. The reproductive health giant suggests in the lawsuit that Congress did not understand its structure when it passed the provision. The Planned Parenthood technically consists of a mothership group, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and nearly 50 regional affiliate groups that operate as independent entities.Medicaid is overseen by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, part of the US Department of Health and Human Services. That agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Planned Parenthood is being buffeted by intense financial headwinds. This spring, the Trump administration froze tens of millions of dollars earmarked for family planning providers who participate in Title X, the nation’s largest family planning program. Although several of those providers have since had their funding restored, a Planned Parenthood spokesperson said last week their affiliates had not received funding.The US supreme court also ruled in late June in favor of South Carolina in a case involving the state’s attempt to kick Planned Parenthood out of its state Medicaid reimbursement program. Red states may see that ruling as a blessing to their own efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.Even if Planned Parenthood’s Monday lawsuit succeeds, the organization will probably have to grapple with the consequences of that supreme court ruling for years to come. More

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      Floods are swallowing their village. Trump’s EPA cut a major lifeline for them and others

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      This story was originally published by FloodlightAcre by acre, the village of Kipnuk is falling into the river.The small Alaska tribal village sits on permafrost, which is thawing fast as global temperatures rise. That’s left the banks of the Kugkaktlik River unstable – and more likely to collapse when floods hit, as they often do. Buildings, boardwalks, wind turbines and other critical infrastructure are at risk, according to Rayna Paul, the village’s environmental director.So when the village learned late last year that it had been awarded a $20m federal grant to protect the riverbank, tribal members breathed a sigh of relief.But that relief was short-lived. On 2 May, the US Environmental Protection Agency canceled the grant. Without that help, Paul says, residents may be forced to relocate their village.“In the future, so much land will be in the river,” Paul says.Kipnuk’s grant was one of more than 600 that the EPA has canceled since Donald Trump took office, according to data obtained by Floodlight through a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) request. Through 15 May, the cuts totalled more than $2.7bn.View image in fullscreenFloodlight’s analysis of the data shows:

      Environmental justice grants took by far the biggest hit, with more than $2.4bn in funding wiped out.

      The EPA has also canceled more than $120m in grants aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of cement, concrete and other construction materials. Floodlight reported in April that the cement industry’s carbon emissions rival those of some major countries – and that efforts to decarbonize the industry have lost momentum under the Trump administration.

      Blue states bore the brunt. Those states lost nearly $1.6bn in grant money – or about 57% of the funding cuts.

      The single largest grant canceled: A $95m award to the Research Triangle Institute, a North Carolina-based scientific research organization that had planned to distribute the money to underserved communities. RTI also lost five other EPA grants, totaling more than $36m.
      The EPA plans to cut even more grants, with the Washington Post reporting in late April on a court filing that showed it had targeted 781 grants issued under Biden.The Foia shows that the majority of these have now been canceled; more cuts could follow.Lawsuit challenges grant cancellationsLast month, a coalition of non-profits, tribes and local governments sued the EPA, alleging the Trump administration broke the law by canceling environmental and climate justice grants that Congress had already funded.“Terminating these grant programs caused widespread harm and disruption to on-the-ground projects that reduce pollution, increase community climate resilience and build community capacity to tackle environmental harms,” said Hana Vizcarra, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, one of the non-profits that filed the lawsuit. “We won’t let this stand.”The EPA declined to comment on the lawsuit. But in a written response to Floodlight, the agency said this about the grant cancellations: “The Biden-Harris Administration shouldn’t have forced their radical agenda of wasteful DEI programs and ‘environmental justice’ preferencing on the EPA’s core mission. The Trump EPA will continue to work with states, tribes, and communities to support projects that advance the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment.”Congress created the Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant program in 2022 when it enacted the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Joe Biden’s landmark climate bill. The program was designed to help the disadvantaged communities that are often hit hardest by pollution and climate change.But on 20 January, Trump’s first day back in office, he signed an executive order halting funding under the IRA, including money for environmental justice. Trump also cancelled Biden-era executive orders that federal agencies prioritize tackling environmental racism, and separately in his orders on diversity, equity and inclusion called for the closures of all environmental justice offices and positions in the federal government​.Underserved communities are often the most vulnerable to climate impacts such as heatwaves and flooding because they have fewer resources to prepare or recover, according to a 2021 analysis by the EPA.Inside the agency, not everyone agrees with the new direction. In a “declaration of dissent”, more than 200 current and former EPA employees spoke out against Trump administration policies, including the decision to dismantle the agency’s environmental justice program.“Canceling environmental justice programs is not cutting waste; it is failing to serve the American people,” they wrote.On Thursday, the EPA put 139 of the employees who signed the petition on administrative leave, Inside Climate News reported.From hope to heartbreak in TexasThe people at Downwinders at Risk, a small Texas non-profit that helps communities harmed by air pollution, thought they were finally getting a break.Last year, they learned that the EPA had awarded them a $500,000 grant – enough to install nine new air quality monitors in working-class neighborhoods near asphalt shingle plants, a gas well and a fracking operation in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The data would have helped residents avoid the worst air and plan their days around pollution spikes.View image in fullscreenBut on 1 May, the group’s three employees received the news they had been dreading: Their grant had been canceled.“It was a very bitter pill to swallow,” said Caleb Roberts, the group’s executive director.He and his team had devoted more than 100 hours to the application and compliance process.The non-profit’s annual budget is just over $250,000, and the federal funding would have allowed the group to expand its reach after years of scraping by. They had even paused fundraising for six months, confident the federal money was on the way.“We feel like we’re at ground zero again,” Roberts said. “And that’s just very unfortunate.”Floodlight is a non-profit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action More

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      The Trump administration pushed out a university president – its latest bid to close the American mind | Robert Reich

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      Under pressure from the Trump administration, the University of Virginia’s president of nearly seven years, James Ryan, stepped down on Friday, declaring that while he was committed to the university and inclined to fight, he could not in good conscience push back just to save his job.The Department of Justice demanded that Ryan resign in order to resolve an investigation into whether UVA had sufficiently complied with Donald Trump’s orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion.UVA dissolved its DEI office in March, though Trump’s lackeys claim the university didn’t go far enough in rooting out DEI.This is the first time the Trump regime has pushed for the resignation of a university official. It’s unlikely to be the last.On Monday, the Trump regime said Harvard University had violated federal civil rights law over the treatment of Jewish students on campus.On Tuesday, the regime released $175m in previously frozen federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania, after the school agreed to bar transgender athletes from women’s teams and delete the swimmer Lia Thomas’s records.Let’s be clear: DEI, antisemitism and transgender athletes are not the real reasons for these attacks on higher education. They’re excuses to give the Trump regime power over America’s colleges and universities.Why do Trump and his lackeys want this power?They’re following Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s playbook for creating an “illiberal democracy” – an authoritarian state masquerading as a democracy. The playbook goes like this:First, take over military and intelligence operations by purging career officers and substituting ones personally loyal to you. Check.Next, intimidate legislators by warning that if they don’t bend to your wishes, you’ll run loyalists against them. (Make sure they also worry about what your violent supporters could do to them and their families.) Check.Next, subdue the courts by ignoring or threatening to ignore court rulings you disagree with. Check in process.Then focus on independent sources of information. Sue media that publish critical stories and block their access to news conferences and interviews. Check.Then go after the universities.Crapping on higher education is also good politics, as demonstrated by the congresswoman Elise Stefanik (Harvard 2006) who browbeat the presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and MIT over their responses to student protests against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, leading to several of them being fired.It’s good politics, because many of the 60% of adult Americans who lack college degrees are stuck in lousy jobs. Many resent the college-educated, who lord it over them economically and culturally.But behind this cultural populism lies a deeper anti-intellectual, anti-Enlightenment ideology closer to fascism than authoritarianism.JD Vance (Yale Law 2013) has called university professors “the enemy” and suggested using Orbán’s method for ending “leftwing domination” of universities. Vance laid it all out on CBS’s Face the Nation on 19 May 2024:
      Universities are controlled by leftwing foundations. They’re not controlled by the American taxpayer and yet the American taxpayer is sending hundreds of billions of dollars to these universities every single year.
      I’m not endorsing every single thing that Viktor Orbán has ever done [but] I do think that he’s made some smart decisions there that we could learn from.
      His way has to be the model for us: not to eliminate universities, but to give them a choice between survival or taking a much less biased approach to teaching. [The government should be] aggressively reforming institutions … in a way to where they’re much more open to conservative ideas.”
      Yet what, exactly, constitutes a “conservative idea?” That dictatorship is preferable to democracy? That white Christian nationalism is better than tolerance and openness? That social Darwinism is superior to human decency?The claim that higher education must be more open to such “conservative ideas” is dangerous drivel.So what’s the real, underlying reason for the Trump regime’s attack on education?Not incidentally, that attack extends to grade school. Trump’s education department announced on Tuesday it’s withholding $6.8bn in funding for schools, and Trump has promised to dismantle the department.Why? Because the greatest obstacle to dictatorship is an educated populace. Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny.That’s why enslavers prohibited enslaved people from learning to read. Fascists burn books. Tyrants close universities.In their quest to destroy democracy, Trump, Vance and their cronies are intent on shutting the American mind.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      Tesla shares dive as investors fear new Elon Musk political party will damage brand

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      Shares in Tesla are heading for a sharp fall in the US as investors fear Elon Musk’s launch of a new political party will present further problems for the electric carmaker.Tesla stock was down more than 7% in pre-market trading on Monday, threatening to wipe approximately $70bn (£51bn) off the company’s value when Wall Street opens.If the shares fell by that much, the value of Musk’s stock would fall by more than $9bn to about $120bn. The Tesla and Space X boss remains comfortably the world’s richest person, with a wealth of about $400bn, according to Forbes.Tesla is valued at just under $1tn but its shares have come under pressure owing to the Tesla CEO’s relationship with Donald Trump.First, Musk’s strong support for the US president created a consumer backlash and now the antagonistic turn in his relationship with Trump has investors worried Musk will be distracted from his day job, or that the White House will punish his businesses.Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities, said Musk’s announcement that he is bankrolling a US political party will alarm investors.“Very simply, Musk diving deeper into politics and now trying to take on the Beltway establishment is exactly the opposite direction that Tesla investors/shareholders want him to take during this crucial period for the Tesla story,” Ives said, adding that there was a “broader sense of exhaustion” among Tesla investors that Musk – the company’s largest shareholder – will not stay out of politics.Trump on Sunday called Musk’s plans to form the America party “ridiculous”, launching new barbs at the world’s richest person.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a post on the Truth Social tech platform, Trump wrote: “I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks.”Musk announced the creation of the America party on his X platform at the weekend. He wrote: “When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy. Today, the America party is formed to give you back your freedom.” More

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      Trump and US commerce secretary say tariffs are delayed until 1 August, sparking confusion

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      Donald Trump has said his administration plans to start sending letters on Monday to US trade partners dictating new tariffs, amid confusion over when the new rates will come into effect.“It could be 12, maybe 15 [letters],” the president told reporters, “and we’ve made deals also, so we’re going to have a combination of letters and some deals have been made.”With his previously announced 90-day pause on tariffs set to end on 9 July, the president was asked if the new rates would come into effect this week or on 1 August, as some officials had suggested.“No, there are going to be tariffs, the tariffs, the tariffs are going to be, the tariffs,” the president began uncertainly. “I think we’ll have most countries done by July 9, yeah. Either a letter or a deal.”Sensing the confusion, his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, jumped in to add: “But they go into effect on August 1. Tariffs go into effect August 1, but the president is setting the rates and the deals right now.”In April, Trump announced a 10% base tariff rate on most countries and additional duties ranging up to 50%, although he later delayed the effective date for all but 10% duties until 9 July.The new date of 1 August offers countries a further three-week reprieve but also plunges importers into an extended period of uncertainty because of the lack of clarity around the tariffs.Stock markets slipped in Asia on Monday amid the confusion. Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.3%, while South Korean stocks fell 0.7%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.1%.European stocks were mixed. In the UK, the blue chip FTSE 100 index slipped 0.3%, with Shell and BP the biggest fallers on the back of weaker oil prices. The German Dax index rose by 0.3%, while in France the Cac 40 was broadly flat. The Stoxx Europe 600, which tracks the biggest companies on the continent, was also flat.Industrial metals dropped, with copper down by 0.6% to $9,808 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange. Aluminium fell by 1.1% to $2,561 a tonne on the exchange, where all major metals were trading lower on Monday morning.In an update on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said the US would begin delivering “TARIFF Letters, and/or Deals” from noon ET on Monday.“Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy,” he added in a separate post, referring to the developing nations bloc that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.After a summit in Brazil on Sunday, Brics leaders had issued a joint statement raising “serious concerns about the rise of unilateral tariff” measures, which they said risked hurting the global economy.On Monday, the Chinese government said it opposed tariffs being used as a tool to coerce others. Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said the use of tariffs served no one.Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, told CNN’s earlier on Sunday that several big announcements of trade agreements could come in the next days, noting that the EU had made good progress in its talks.He said Trump would also send out letters to 100 smaller countries with whom the US does not have much trade, notifying them that they would face higher tariff rates first set on 2 April and then suspended until 9 July.“President Trump’s going to be sending letters to some of our trading partners saying that if you don’t move things along then on August 1 you will boomerang back to your April 2 tariff level. So I think we’re going to see a lot of deals very quickly,” Bessent told CNN.Since taking office, Trump has set off a global trade war that has roiled financial markets and sent policymakers scrambling to guard their economies, including through deals with the US and other countries.Bessent said on Friday that negotiations were focused on 15 to 18 agreements with important partners. So far, Trump has signed deals with only two of the 60 countries he threatened with tariffs in April – the UK and Vietnam.Indonesia, with which the EU hopes to sign a trade deal by the end of the summer, will sign a deal to import at least 1m tonnes of US wheat annually for the next five years, the country’s flour mills association told AFP on Monday, as Jakarta lays the groundwork to avoid the worst of Trump’s tariffs. More