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    Trump’s already skirting due process. Now he’s musing about deporting citizens | Moira Donegan

    They’re rounding people up, and you could be next. The Trump administration has largely dispensed with due process rights in deporting immigrants, who are now being targeted for their protected speech, having their visas or green cards summarily cancelled without process and sometimes without notice, and getting kidnapped off the streets and hustled into vans so that they can be shipped to “detention centers” too far away for their loved ones, or their lawyers, to visit them.Some immigrants are being targeted for disappearance because they oppose Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, an opinion that it is now physically dangerous, instead of merely unpopular, to hold. But others the government seems to be seizing almost at random. More than 200 Venezuelan nationals have been seized and deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador, rendered outside of US jurisdiction in defiance of judges’ orders demanding that their deportation flights be stopped. Of those Venezuelans, most had no criminal record. Other deportees, like the Maryland father and sheet metal worker Kilmar Abrego García, seem to have been deported by mistake; the Trump administration says that Abrego García, who they admit they did not mean to deport, will not be brought back to his family in the United States. Conveniently, the fact that they have deported him to a foreign prison is supposed, in the Trump administration’s logic, to absolve them of responsibility for putting him there. “We suggest the judge contact [Salvadoran] President Bukele because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador,” the White House said, obnoxiously, after a judge ordered them to bring Abrego García back.Meanwhile, the sadism of the deportations, and the cruelty of the Salvadoran prison where the men are being kept, seem to hold a kind of aesthetic appeal for the Trump camp. The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, recently flew to the El Salvador prison for a photoshoot with the captives there, where she stood in front of a crowd of men packed into a cell behind bars with her hair coiffed in long beachy waves.Now, the Trump administration may be seeking to extend the lawlessness and cruelty of its deportation regime to the next logical target: American citizens. The White House spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, confirmed on Tuesday that the Trump administration is considering pathways to deport citizens as well. “The president has discussed this idea quite a few times publicly. He’s also discussed it privately. You’re referring to the president’s idea for American citizens to potentially be deported,” she said. “The president has said, if it’s legal, if there is a legal pathway to do that, he’s not sure.”This would be illegal. But so is so much of what the Trump administration is doing with its deportation policies. It is illegal to cancel visas and green cards without due process, as the Trump administration has done and continues to do as part of a widening dragnet in its anti-immigrant purges. It is illegal to target immigrants for their speech, as the Trump administration has done to pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide activists, from Rümeysa Öztürk to Mahmoud Khalil. It is illegal to deport people to a foreign prison where they have no recourse to enforce their rights and no path to pursue their freedom – it is illegal to do this, as the Trump administration has done, specifically to prevent its victims from seeking to enforce their own rights in American courts. And it is illegal to ignore the binding orders of federal judges to stop all of this conduct in order to ensure that the deportations can continue, punishing innocent people, silencing protected speech, and scaring whole populations out of work, travel, political participation or any of the other daily dignities that they are supposed to be entitled to in this country.But the law, increasingly, is whatever the Trump administration decides it is. And there is no force that seems prepared to make them obey the law when their will does not incline them to do so.That is because the supreme court has been no help, and if anything has acted, so far, as all but an accomplice to Trump’s dismantling of the rule of law in his pursuit of anti-immigrant vengeance. Lower court judges have attempted to intervene on behalf of the disappeared immigrants, issuing orders commanding the Trump administration to stop deportations under a long-dormant 1798 wartime measure known as the Alien Enemies Act, and to return Abrego García to the US immediately. But the supreme court has stepped in to pause these orders, allowing the Trump administration’s deportation agenda to continue. In the Abrego García case, the court weakened a district court order to “effectuate” the innocent man’s freedom and return to a mere command that they “facilitate” it, and only in ways that don’t interfere with the executive branch’s foreign policy prerogatives – in practice, a weakening of the demand to bring Abrego García back home to a request that the Trump administration provide more plausible deniability when they refuse to do so. And while Brett Kavanaugh weighed in with a concurrence to make a pious declaration of the need for due process in deportation proceedings, the court’s actions speak louder than its words: they are allowing the kidnapping and deportation of US residents to continue without due process.The legal precedents being established in these immigration disappearance cases have no limiting principles: if visa holders, asylum seekers and legal permanent residents can be snatched and deported with effectively no practicable recourse to due process protections, then there is no reason why citizens can’t be. It is in the interest of every American citizen to take an active stand in defense of our immigrant neighbors. Because once the Trump administration decides that they have no rights, then neither do we. More

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    Price hike on Shein? How Trump tariffs could shift the US’s love of fast fashion

    After a chaotic week of flip-flopping tariff policies, cheap clothes from China are nearly certain to face a steep price hike soon – prompting concern among fast fashion retailers and potentially pushing consumers to look for other alternatives.As part of a package of global tariff policies announced on “liberation day” last week, Donald Trump signed an executive order that ended a duty-free exemption for low-priced goods to enter the US from China and Hong Kong. Known as the “de-minimis” rule, packages under $800 do not qualify for any taxes or tariffs on the goods and are inspected minimally at the border.Conceived as a means to allow Americans to bring back low-cost goods to the US from abroad, fast fashion giants including Shein and Temu have used the rule to send low-cost e-commerce purchases to the US with few expenses.Alon Rotem, the chief strategy officer for ThredUp, an online thrift store, welcomed the executive order.“With the proliferation of fast fashion, this is something we’ve really supported because it creates an unfair competitive advantage,” he said.Ending the de-minimis rule has been a target of bipartisan legislators in recent years as the value of goods entering the US under the rule soared from about $5.5bn in 2018 to $66bn in 2023, according to a congressional report. Nearly two-thirds of packages under the rule were shipped from China and Hong Kong, said a US International Trade Commission briefing.ThredUp has pushed for legislation to end the de-minimis rule through the American Circular Textiles, a trade group it helped found that advocates for strengthening domestic supply chains. Other members include the RealReal, Reformation and H&M.“This change was coming,” said Derek Lossing, the founder of Cirrus Global Advisors, a global logistics firm. “Maybe it’ll catch consumers by surprise, but it’s ultimately not catching the brands significantly by surprise.”Some companies have already begun diversifying their production outside of China. Others have evolved their business model to begin stocking more inventory in the US as well as moving some production here and then fulfilling orders domestically, Lossing added.Trump first announced the rule change in February, but then recanted in order to give border agents time to figure out how to address an influx of so many packages that will require more extensive inspection.It is currently expected to take effect 2 May. After that, the packages will be subject to a tariff rate of 30% or $25 an item, rising to $50 an item on 1 June. When China responded with retaliatory tariffs this week, Trump hit back and then tripled the rates for previously exempt packages to 90% or $75 an item, rising to $150 on 1 June.“Everyone’s just pulling up their pants and bracing for impact,” said Jason Wong, who works in product logistics for Temu in Hong Kong. “We know it’s going to be a mess.”Wong said one plan is to make more of a push into Europe as well as Australia, which has its own de-minimis rule that goods under $1,000 can enter the country without taxes or tariffs.“We know for a fact that the demand from the US and North America will significantly decrease,” he said.Shein and Temu did not respond to requests for comment about any shifts to their business model in response to the forthcoming rule change.Rotem, the ThredUp executive, said the rule change creates an opening for consumers to consider other options, including buying secondhand clothes. While he acknowledged that shoppers care about sustainability, he said it’s a secondary decision of consumers to price.“All of a sudden, if ultra fast fashion is now 30% or so more expensive, it really does make the value proposition that much more compelling for resale,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSome retail experts cautioned that the rule change may not deter consumers from options like Shein or Temu, because many of their items are so inexpensive to begin with.“Americans’ love affair with cheap goods is not over,” said Jason Goldberd, chief commerce strategy officer at Publicis Groupe, a global communications firm. “Even with the tariffs, the products still may be attractively priced.”Rotem said he saw promise in the shift: “We’re never going to get this thing perfect, but the progress with public policy to encourage resale is something that we’re going to support.”While the de-minimis rule change remains intact for now, anxiety and confusion is also high amid a whiplash in policies and wild market swings. On Wednesday, Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on tariffs, though kept a 10% flat rate tariff intact and then raised tariff rates for China.“Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately,” Trump wrote.On Friday, China responded by raising its tariff rate to 125% as well. An official said it would not raise the tariff rate any further than that.Wong, who works in Temu logistics, said that there have been so many changes to the policies, that partly the move will be to simply keep watching for now.“We don’t know how long this de-minimis thing is going to last,” he said, adding that backlash from consumers could lead to yet another policy shift.Goldberg echoed that sentiment, calling it “a dynamic situation”.“It may be different tomorrow,” he said. More

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    Trump news at a glance: Big tech gets a big tariff reprieve; US military steps in on Mexico border

    Big tech has gained a major exemption from Donald Trump’s trade war after the US president exempted smartphones, computers and other electronics from the 125% levies imposed on imports from China as well as tariffs imposed on other countries.Experts had previously warned tariffs would cause electronic consumer prices to spike in the US, with Apple reportedly chartering cargo flights to bring in 600 tons of iPhones from India rather than China amid the cratering trade ties between the two countries.Dan Ives, the global head of technology research at financial services firm Wedbush Securities, said on Saturday: “This is the dream scenario for tech investors … Smartphones, chips being excluded is a game-changer scenario when it comes to China tariffs.”The move will benefit many countries in South-east Asia, for whom tech exports are a key part of their US trade. It coincides with a visit to the region this week by Chinese president Xi Jinping on his first official foreign trip this year.Catch up with the key Trump administration stories of the day:Americans on how Trump’s tariffs are affecting their spendingA few weeks ago, Dane began stocking up on paper towels, toilet paper and “piddle-pads” for their shih-tzu, while his wife upgraded from an iPhone 8 to 14. The 73-year-old in South Carolina said the purchases – which were made to get ahead of Donald Trump’s trade policies – reminded him of the early weeks of the Covid pandemic.“It’s scary,” Dane said. “Prices are going to go up because of tariffs … It’s going to be messy.”Read the full storyHow rightwing media stuck by Trump as global markets collapsedThe chaos of last week posed a serious challenge to many aspects of rightwing US media, which often acts as a largely unquestioning cheerleader for Trump and his Maga movement.Despite warnings of a recession, Fox New host Sean Hannity described the start of the tariff war as “a day that will be remembered as a turning point and the start, I hope for every American, of a new golden age”. Fox Business, a sibling network, had guests who criticized the tariffs, Fox News personalities told viewers nervous about their investments that everything would work out well.Read the full storyTrump lawyers confirm wrongly deported Maryland man is in El Salvador prisonThe Trump administration on Saturday confirmed that a Maryland man who was wrongly deported last month remains confined in a notorious prison in El Salvador.However, the White House filing did not address the judge’s demands that the administration detail the steps it was taking to return Kilmar Abrego García to the United States.Read the full storyTrump authorizes US military to take control of land at US-Mexico borderDonald Trump has authorized the military to take over control of land at the US-Mexico border as part of the president’s broader efforts to crack down on undocumented immigration. The president’s memorandum allows the US armed forces to “take a more direct role” when it comes to securing the boundary in question.Read the full storyHarvard professors sue to block Trump review of nearly $9bn in fundingHarvard University professors are suing to block the Trump administration’s review of nearly $9bn in federal contracts and grants awarded to the Ivy League school as part of a crackdown on what the White House says is antisemitism on college campuses.The group said in a lawsuit filed on Friday in a Boston federal court that the administration was trying to unlawfully undermine academic freedom and free speech.Read the full storyUS ‘demands control’ from Ukraine of key pipeline carrying Russian gasThe US has demanded control of a crucial pipeline in Ukraine used to send Russian gas to Europe, according to reports, in a move described as a colonial shakedown.Volodymyr Landa, a senior economist with the Centre for Economic Strategy, a Kyiv thinktank, said the Americans were out for “all they can get”. Their bullying “colonial-type” demands had little chance of being accepted by Kyiv, he predicted.Read the full storyPro-Palestinian protester’s lawyer stopped and searched at US border Amir Makled thought he was being racially profiled. A Lebanese American who was born and raised in Detroit, the attorney was returning from a family vacation when he said an immigration official at the Detroit Metro airport asked for a “TTRT” agent after scanning his passport.“So I Googled what TTRT meant. I didn’t know,” Makled said. “And what I found out was it meant Tactical Terrorism Response Team. So immediately I knew they’re gonna take me in for questioning.”Read the full storyGolf and dinners for ‘king’ Trump as economy melts downAfter lighting a fuse under global financial markets, Donald Trump stepped back – all the way to a Florida golf course. A week later, having just caved to pressure to ease his trade tariffs, the US president defended the retreat while hosting racing car champions at the White House.Trump has spent time golfing, dining with donors and making insouciant declarations such as “this is a great time to get rich”, even as the US economy melted down. It was a jolting juxtaposition that prompted comparisons with the emperor Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned, or insane monarchs who lost touch with reality.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    Bernie Sanders drew a record-breaking crowd at his rally in Los Angeles on Saturday, which included musical acts from Joan Baez and Neil Young, who encouraged the crowd to “take America back”.

    Panamanian opposition politicians have accused the US of launching a “camouflaged invasion” of the country, amid simmering discontent over the government’s handling of the diplomatic crisis.

    Iran and the US completed a successful opening round of indirect talksin Oman designed to prevent the weaponisation of Iran’s nuclear programme.
    Catching up? Here’s what happened on 11 April. More

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    The case against Mahmoud Khalil is meant to silence American dissent | Moustafa Bayoumi

    On Friday afternoon, a federal immigration judge in Louisiana ruled that Mahmoud Khalil, the lawful permanent resident who was arrested last month for his advocacy for Palestinian rights at Columbia University, was removable – that is to say, deportable – under the law.Let’s be absolutely clear about how outrageous this decision is. The judge, Jamee Comans, had given the Trump administration a deadline to produce the evidence required to show that Khalil should be deported. In a functional state, such evidence would rise to a standard of extreme criminality necessitating deportation.But not in this case and certainly not with the Trump administration, which has summarily deported hundreds of Venezuelan men based not on any verifiable criminal activity but simply on the basis of their body art. In response to the judge’s order, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, produced a flimsy one-and-a-half-page memo that admits that Khalil engaged in no criminal conduct. Instead, the memo, citing an arcane law, stated that Khalil’s “past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise lawful … compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest”. In other words, the government was saying that Khalil’s views – including even his future views – were sufficient grounds for his deportation.Make no mistake. The government is seeking to deport Khalil solely for his constitutionally protected speech, a protection that applies to everyone in the United States. If the government succeeds, you could well be next. And don’t think that your citizenship will protect you. If the government can deny the basic right of freedom of speech to lawful permanent residents, what’s to stop them from going after citizens next? (The administration already has a plan to denaturalize US citizens.)Do we really want to live in a country where the government can decide which ideas are allowed to be heard and which cannot? I’m surprised that I even have to write these words. In an open society, free debate is encouraged and needed, while in a closed society, lists of proscribed ideas circulate and proliferate, and it’s frighteningly clear which way we’re headed. The Trump administration has already banned the use of words and phrases such as “equity”, “women” and “Native American” from government websites and documents, showing us how the open door of American democracy is slamming shut faster and louder than we could have imagined. And Khalil’s case is the test of what this government can achieve.Rubio alleges that Khalil engaged in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States”. But he provides no evidence whatsoever. Meanwhile, here’s what Khalil told CNN last year: “As a Palestinian student, I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand-by-hand, and you cannot achieve one without the other. Our movement is a movement for social justice and freedom and equality for everyone.”It would seem that Rubio believes the phrase “freedom and equality for everyone” undermines US foreign policy interests. He may finally be right about something. But he’s wrong about Khalil, who clearly is not antisemitic. If Rubio wanted to cleanse the country of the noxious hatred of Jewish people, he could start by examining members of his own party. Marjorie Taylor Greene once speculated publicly that California wildfires were started by a beam from “space solar generators” linked to “Rothschild, Inc”, a disgusting nod to bizarre antisemitic conspiracy theories. Robert F Kennedy Jr said that the coronavirus had been manipulated to make “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people” the most immune to Covid-19. Elon Musk can barely keep his arm from extending into a salute, Dr Strangelove-style.It’s not some illusory antisemitism that has brought the wrath of the Trump administration raining down on Khalil. It’s the fact that he was standing up for Palestinian rights and calling out Israel’s actions, labelled genocidal by jurists, experts and international human rights organizations alike. But the US government does not want the American people to even entertain this discussion, which includes American complicity in this human catastrophe that is also US foreign policy, and so it will use every means at its disposal to forestall the possibility, including the bluntest instrument in the political book: mass fear.The attempt to deport Khalil is meant primarily to discipline the people of the United States into silence and conformity. For that reason alone, the government’s actions must be resisted. Healthy societies are based on free thinking and dissent. Unhealthy societies mobilize fear and intimidation to regulate opinion and manufacture consent. Today, that consent is about Israel. Tomorrow, it will be about something else. Either way, it will never be your choice, and it will always be theirs.Many legal observers were anticipating today’s ruling by Comans. Immigration judges are appointed by the Department of Justice. As such, they are employees of the executive branch and not the federal judiciary. The New York Times even noted that, had Comans dissented from the government, she would also have “run the risk of being fired by an administration that has targeted dissenters”. The ACLU speculated that the decision to deport Khalil had been “pre-written”, as it was delivered so fast. And Comans stated that the constitutional questions raised by the case will be heard in federal court in New Jersey and not in immigration court in Louisiana.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThat doesn’t mean that Judge Comans couldn’t have ruled otherwise. On the contrary, the decision is another dangerous illustration of how much power the executive branch in the United States always wields, how much more power the Trump administration is willing to assume, and how deferential the institutions that could rein in this administration have become.This structural cowardice on the part of these institutions is doing great harm to the integrity of American democracy, often expressed in some sort of embarrassed whisper. Khalil, on the other hand, speaks loudly and eloquently for his position. At the end of his hearing in Louisiana, Khalil asked to address the court. “You said last time that there’s nothing that’s more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness,” he said. “Neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process. This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family. I just hope that the urgency that you deemed fit for me are afforded to the hundreds of others who have been here without hearing for months.”Mahmoud Khalil is clearly a remarkable, principled man. He doesn’t deserve this unjust detention the US government is subjecting him to. The irony is that this United States doesn’t deserve a Mahmoud Khalil.

    Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist More

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    Trump administration to exempt smartphones and computers from tariffs

    Donald Trump’s presidential administration has exempted smartphones and computers from the 125% levies imposed on imports from China as well as other reciprocal tariffs, which experts had cautioned might cause electronic consumer prices to dramatically spike in the US.The announcement was made late on Friday in a US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) notice that said the devices would be excluded from the 10% global tariff that Trump recently imposed on most countries, along with the much heftier import tax on China.The CBP’s notice follows concerns from tech companies that the price of electronics for US consumers might surge with many of them manufactured in China. The notice also contained exemptions for additional electronics and components, such as memory cards, solar cells and semiconductors.The exclusions were applied retroactively to the products under the reciprocal tariffs beginning at 12.01am ET on 5 April, according to the notice.“Importers may request a refund by filing a post summary correction for unliquidated entries, or by filing a protest for entries that have liquidated but where the liquidation is not final because the protest period has not expired,” the CBP said.On Saturday, Trump released a statement of “clarification of exceptions” pertaining to the previous evening’s announcement. Speaking to CNBC, Dan Ives, the global head of technology research at the Los Angeles-based financial services firm Wedbush Securities, said on Saturday: “This is the dream scenario for tech investors … Smartphones, chips being excluded is a game-changer scenario when it comes to China tariffs.”Ives added: “I think ultimately big tech CEOs spoke loudly, and the White House had to understand and listen to the situation that this would have been Armageddon for big tech if it were implemented.”Similarly, Paul Ashworth, Capital Economics’ chief north America economist, said that the tariff exceptions “represent a partial de-escalation of president Trump’s trade war with China”.“There were even bigger winners in Asia, however, since the exemptions apply to all countries – not only China. At a stroke, 64% of US imports from Taiwan are now exempt from the 10% reciprocal tariff, 44% from Malaysia, and almost 30% from both Vietnam and Thailand. Ten to 12% of imports from India, Korea and Mexico will also now be exempt,” Ashworth added.“These exemptions will presumably not be the last either, with the success of Apple’s Tim Cook in getting its smartphones exempted likely to boost the lobbying by firms in other sectors.”Since Trump announced his tariffs, Apple was among the hardest hit tech companies – as 90% of its iPhones are reportedly assembled in China.Invoking imagery associated with the strongest classification for hurricanes, Ives had previously described the Chinese tariffs as a “category 5 price storm for the US consumer”. He added in a note to investors: “The reality is it would take three years and $30bn in our estimation to move even 10% of its supply chain from Asia to the US with major disruption in the process … For US consumers, the reality of a $1,000 iPhone being one of the best made consumer products on the planet would disappear.”According to analysts at the investment bank UBS, costs of iPhones would rise exponentially under Trump’s Chinese tariffs. The price of an iPhone 16 Pro Max (with 256GB of storage) could rise by 79% from $1,199 (£915) to about $2,150 (£1,600), the Guardian reported earlier.In attempts to mitigate the blow of Trump’s tariffs, Apple reportedly chartered cargo flights to transport iPhones from its Indian factories, with Reuters reporting the company having flown 600 tons of iPhones – or approximately 1.5m devices – to the US since March.Meanwhile, China’s Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA) announced that the country’s “retaliatory” tariffs on US imports were limited to chips made in the US. Chips manufactured in Taiwan and South Korea remain unaffected.According to the CSIA, the “country of origin” for integrated circuits would be determined by the location of the manufacturing facility, not the final packaging or design location, CGTN reportsed. In other words, US chipmakers that outsource manufacturing to other parts of the world are exempt from China’s “retaliatory” tariffs.The latest announcement from the CSIA came as China slapped 125% tariffs on US products on Friday as part of the latest trade-war escalation between the two trade giants. More

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    Trump authorizes US military to take control of land at US-Mexico border

    Donald Trump has authorized the military to take control of land at the US-Mexico border as part of the president’s broader efforts to crack down on undocumented immigration.The authorization came late on Friday in a memorandum from Trump to interior secretary Doug Burgum, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem and agricultural secretary Brooke Rollins, outlining new policies concerning military involvement at the US’s southern border.The memorandum, entitled “Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions”, allows the US’s armed forces to “take a more direct role” when it comes to securing the boundary in question.“Our southern border is under attack from a variety of threats,” the order claimed. “The complexity of the current situation requires that our military take a more direct role in securing our southern border than in the recent past.”The memorandum added that the Department of Defense should be given jurisdiction to federal lands, including the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60ft-wide strip that stretches over California, Arizona and New Mexico. Doing that would give troops stationed there the legal right to detain immigrants accused of trespassing on what in effect is an elongated base – and unauthorized immigrants would be held in custody until they could be turned over to immigration agents.Military activities that could be carried out on federal land include “border-barrier construction and emplacement of detection and monitoring equipment”, according to the memorandum.After 45 days, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, will assess the “initial phase” of the order. But at any time, Hegseth could extend the amount of federal land included in the memorandum.The ordered military takeover excludes Native American reservations, according to the memorandum.Friday’s order is the latest step from Trump in his administration’s ongoing focus on immigration enforcement, which has involved declaring a national emergency on the southern border.On Thursday, a US federal judge ruled that the Trump administration was allowed to require people who are in the country but not citizens to register with the federal government, a requirement that advocates say hasn’t been universally implemented since it was enacted as a law in the 1940s.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe ruling comes after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the new requirement on 25 February, adding that those who failed to report could face fines or possible prison time.The DHS’s announcement was widely seen as a workaround of the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that bars US military troops from participating in most civilian law enforcement actions.One of the purported justifications for militarizing the US border most commonly cited by Trump and his Republican colleagues is that people crossing the border with Mexico without permission carry much of the fentanyl sold in the US. Yet official statistics show 90% of convicted fentanyl peddlers are US citizens. More

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    ‘It’s going to be messy’: Americans on how Trump’s tariffs are shaping their spending

    A few weeks ago, Dane began stocking up on “paper products”, “cases of paper towels, toilet paper”, “piddle-pads” for their shih-tzu, and his wife upgraded from an iPhone 8 to 14.The 73-year-old in South Carolina said the purchases – which were made to get ahead of Donald Trump’s trade policies – reminded him of the early weeks of the Covid pandemic, when he scrambled to buy masks, gloves and toilet paper.“It’s scary,” Dane said. “Prices are going to go up because of tariffs … It’s going to be messy.”While campaigning last year, Trump constantly touted his love of tariffs. But it was not until his so-called “liberation day” on 2 April – where the president announced sweeping duties on incoming goods, punishing competitors, allies and small and developing countries alike – that he spooked global financial markets and provoked fears of spiralling inflation and stagnant growth.Amid a US government bond sell-off, the president paused his most eye-watering tariffs for 90 days, apart from China, whose goods are set to be hit with a 145% levy.Hundreds of Americans got in touch with the Guardian to share how the uncertainty is affecting their consumption habits.Dane, who is retired, worked as an entrepreneur with his wife most of his career before later becoming an English teacher. He said he was a Republican in the 1980s but is fearful about how the US is “not going the right way” under Trump, and is unhappy with his “dystopian” policies towards global allies, the economy, education, scientific research and more.View image in fullscreenCurrently, Dane is on a trip to Paris and plans to bring home consumer goods potentially hit by 10% tariffs on European Union imports.“We’ll probably be getting tea, bringing back some cheese, some butter,” he said. “I would love to bring back eggs but that would be a disaster. I’d have scrambled eggs in my suitcase.”Amid tariff uncertainty, Heather, a 61-year-old college professor in Texas, said she and her husband can mostly weather food cost fluctuations, but brought forward the purchase of a new car “inanticipation of price hikes”.She said they owned a 14-year-old Mini Cooper, which ran on gas, that they planned to replace with a hybrid vehicle at some point. They decided to replace their car now to avoid potential inflation – and reduce expenditure on gas.“The economic instability of the Trump administration certainly gives one pause,” she said. “It’s just so much instability, chaos and [the] unknown.”It’s a similar story for Stefanie, a 56-year-old educator and former tech worker in Nevada, who bought a Toyota Tacoma to replace her old Jeep as well as converting some investments into cash.Stefanie began strategizing about being more resilient to tariffs as soon as Trump was elected.“The one thing I learned in the first administration is to believe him: he says bizarre things, and then he does bizarre things,” she said.She’s cutting back on subscriptions and future travel plans, while stockpiling kitchen staples such as rice, cooking oils, vinegar and flour and replacing worn-out clothes including shoes and jeans, “before inflation hits”.“The supply chain is so globalized that tariffs really hit everything,” Stefanie said.But for Ishaan*, a 51-year-old engineer in Texas, the economic picture means he is abstaining from major purchases.“Everyone I know has started tightening their belts,” he said. “I am cutting out unnecessary expenses, cancelled my gym membership, focusing on savings.”The focus for Ishaan, who fears higher prices and an economic slowdown, is to build up his savings in cash. He feels “scared to invest in any stocks or bonds right now” amid market volatility.Likewise for Jonathan*, a 70-year-old in New Jersey, the financial fallout from Trump’s trade wars means he has been forced to rule out planned purchases and strip consumption back to the essentials.Jonathan said his individual retirement account (IRA) was initially “decimated” – although it ticked up slightly after Trump paused his tariffs on Wednesday. He said it was currently down about 15%.That means cancelling plans to redo the carpet in his house and replace two old televisions, Jonathan said. “In short, we’ll buy only necessities and pay bills until this stupidity ends.”Russ a 35-year-old physicist in New Mexico, said the Trump administration’s policies were “causing me to think about what kinds of spending behavior I could have done without this whole time”.He has an eight-year-old phone and nine-year-old MacBook computer that still work fine, which he will not be replacing. The prospect of runaway price rises for consumer electronics, often from China, have led him to reconsider: “Do I really need this, or do I just want this?“I see these things as being as much toys as necessities,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just go back to a dumbphone or something like that – I fantasize sometimes about not getting all these notifications all the time, like the phones we had back in 2005. But maybe that’s a Luddite fantasy.”Russ said that he was already boycotting Amazon and Target – companies that many feel have aligned themselves with Trump’s agenda such as rolling back their own DEI schemes. He’s trying to shop more at local, independent shops rather than “everything stores”, which he notes is more expensive and time consuming but ultimately worth it.“As an American citizen and registered voter, nobody really cares what you think until November of every other year, you feel kind of voiceless,” he said. “You think, well, if dollars are the only tools we have any more, then damn it, I’m going to cast those votes and allocate my spending accordingly.”View image in fullscreenLikewise, small business owner Christine* said the disruption could cause a wider re-evaluation of US consumer habits.Amid the uncertainty, Christine, 41, stocked up on supplies for her Miami acupuncture business for two years, and bought her son’s fifth birthday present – a bike – early for July. But she said she had already noticed less demand for her work.More broadly, the prospect of inflationary tariffs is accelerating Christine’s reconsideration of how much “stuff” she needs. She’s recently attended “these lovely parties” where friends bring unwanted clothes and they “switch it all around” rather than buying fast fashion.“I really resent being drafted into this mad trade war,” Christine said, “but if there is a silver lining, maybe it’s that at least some people like me will question their unsustainable capitalistic practices.”*Some names have been changed. More

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    These Tennessee lawmakers love the unborn. After birth? Not so much

    Think of the children? NahYou’ve probably seen this quote from an Alabama pastor called Dave Barnhart. It goes viral all the time. But I’m resurfacing the quote because it is another day that ends with “y” in America, which means it is relevant once again.“The unborn are a convenient group of people to advocate for,” Barnhart said back in 2018, remarking wryly on the movement’s priorities. “They never make demands of you … They don’t need money, education or childcare … They allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn.”Over in Tennessee, there are a lot of lawmakers who are very proud of how much they advocate for unborn children. In 2022, as soon as Roe was overturned, the state passed one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans – one without explicit exceptions to save the life of a pregnant person. The ban also made performing or attempting to perform an abortion a class C felony – akin to aggravated assault – which means aiding in an abortion can land you prison time and a hefty fine. That ban has been continuously challenged in court but the bottom line is that getting an abortion in Tennessee is almost impossible.Those Tennessee lawmakers who love unborn children? Surprise, surprise, they’re not so keen on the born ones. Particularly if those kids are immigrants. On Thursday, the GOP-dominated state senate approved a bill that lets public schools check the citizenship or legal immigration status of every student. Undocumented children can be denied enrollment at these public schools or forced to pay tuition. In other words: Tennessee wants to make it legal to deny undocumented kids an education. By requiring school systems to check legal immigrant status, they’re also turning what should be safe spaces into immigration enforcement centers.All of which, to be clear, is blatantly unconstitutional. In 1982, the supreme court decision in Plyler v Doe found states cannot deny students a free public education over their immigration status. The Tennessee bill is not law yet, and if the Tennessee governor does sign it, it will almost certainly face legal challenges. But even if it eventually gets struck down, there is a chance it will stay on the books as a “zombie law” – ready to rise again when circumstances allow.Perhaps you are wondering why all these fierce advocates for the rights of unborn children are so keen on denying kids an education? According to lawmakers who voted for the measure, it’s not because they’re hateful racists who want to punish kids, it’s because they are being fiscally responsible. Their argument is that the state simply doesn’t have enough money for education for undocumented kids, particularly since some will require English language learner classes.There’s a small possibility – just throwing it out there – that one of the reasons Tennessee is finding it hard to find money for education is because its regressive tax policies are heavily weighted towards extracting money from the poor rather than making the rich pay their fair share. Tennessee is one of the nine states in the US that doesn’t have an income tax. It also doesn’t have inheritance tax and has very low business tax. Residents (including undocumented immigrants) pay sales tax, property tax and a grocery tax. Undocumented immigrants are putting money into the system and getting very little out of it. Pretending that this attack on undocumented children is about money is disingenuous. Deep down, I’m sure even the people voting for the bill know that investing in children pays dividends to society.Still, while it is disheartening that a bill like this got as far as it did, it’s also important to note that it faced a lot of opposition. Nearly half of the senate’s members spoke on the bill – many of them, including some Republicans, in passionate disagreement. There were tears and a lot of Bible verses quoted about compassion for children. As the US becomes increasingly dystopian, it’s important that we don’t lose sight of just how much opposition there is to the extremist policies and legislation a hate-filled minority are pushing through. Donald Trump likes to say that winning the popular vote gave him and his cronies a mandate to do whatever they like; that all the policies getting passed have the support of the people. This simply isn’t true. Only around 32% of eligible voters actually voted for Trump.While we must not minimize the amount of misogyny and racism there is in the US (and there is a lot!), we should also take heart from the fact that a sizable number of Americans do not want to live in an authoritarian dystopia where women have no rights and undocumented kids get no education. Sixty-three percent of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases according to Pew research from 2024. Most Americans say undocumented immigrants should have a way to stay in the country legally if certain requirements are met. Increasingly, the actions of the American government don’t reflect the views of the American people.Which, of course, is why the Trump administration is so obsessed with undermining education as a whole. From trying to stop undocumented immigrants from going to school, to tightly controlling how Ivy League universities operate, to attempting to eliminate the US Department of Education, Republicans are waging a war on critical thinking.The US just made it harder for married women to voteOn Thursday the US House approved the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act, which requires people to prove they are citizens when they vote. If you changed your birth name – as around 80% of women in opposite-sex marriages in the US have – you will have to show a lot more paperwork to vote.Mickey Rourke tells JoJo Siwa he will tie her up and make her straightI had to look up who Rourke is because he hasn’t been relevant for a while. Now, however, he is making headlines for being misogynistic and homophobic on Celebrity Big Brother UK. Rourke, 72, recently told JoJo Siwa (a gay singer and social media personality) that he’d turn her straight. “If I stay [in the Big Brother house] longer than four days, you won’t be gay any more,” Rourke said to Siwa in a clip from Wednesday. “I’ll tie you up,” he added. Rourke got a warning from producers for his language but his comments were not censored. This is in stark contrast to a Big Brother “controversy” last year, when ITV, the broadcaster, edited an episode of the show to remove shots of a T-shirt worn by one of the contestants featuring a watermelon, which is a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhite House says it will ignore reporters with gender pronouns in email signatureThe amount of time these people spend obsessing over pronouns boggles the mind. Get a hobby! Get therapy! Try thinking about literally anything else!Student found guilty of rape goes unpunished because of promising future in gynecologyA criminal court in Leuven, Belgium, recently found a 24-year-old medical student, who was training as a gynaecologist, guilty of rape but suspended his sentence because of his lack of prior offences and his “promising future”. This has sparked a lot of anger in Belgium and many commentators have drawn parallels to the Brock Turner case in the US.Does sitting behind a screen turn you into a woman?Fox News’s Jesse Watters, who sits behind a screen all day, seems to think so. This profundity comes after he declared public soup consumption unmanly and said that real men “don’t wave simultaneously with two hands”.The week in pawtriarchyRemember those tariffs Trump imposed on Heard Island and McDonald Islands, inhabited only by penguins? Those penguins now have their own social media account, @PenguinsAgainstTrump. “What are you going to do, deport us?” one post reads. “We’ve been dealing with ICE for centuries.” More