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      Trump claimed he was pro-worker. His new order shows how absurd that was | Steven Greenhouse

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      If any workers are still holding on to the notion that Donald Trump is pro-worker or pro-union, his move last week to terminate union bargaining rights for 1 million federal workers should disabuse them of that notion. As a candidate Trump often wooed workers by promising to fight for them, but ever since he returned to the White House, he has taken dozens of anti-worker and anti-union actions.In an unprecedented anti-union action last Thursday, the president moved to end collective bargaining for a million federal employees and scrap union contracts nearly that number, while attacking their unions as “hostile” merely because they were doing what unions are supposed to do: battling to save the jobs of tens of thousands of union members whom Trump and Elon Musk had summarily fired.In an era when many workers are demanding respect, Trump keeps showing disrespect toward the country’s 2.3 million federal workers. He and Musk have cavalierly fired more than 50,000 federal employees, ignoring contractual protections saying they could only be terminated for poor performance. Then Trump blamed the victims, saying, without evidence: “Many of them don’t work at all. Many of them never showed up to work.” Trump views federal employees not as dedicated workers who serve the nation’s 340 million people, but as deplorables who work for the detested deep state.Not stopping there, Trump has named several vehemently anti-union figures to be his right-hand men. Russell Vought, head of Trump’s office of management and budget, has shown true sadism toward workers. “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought said in a video disclosed by ProPublica and the research group Documented. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains … We want to put them in trauma.”Would anyone who cared an iota about workers name such a callous, anti-worker person to a top position?Then there’s the aggressively anti-union Mr Musk. Trump praised Musk over the idea of firing striking workers, an action that is illegal and would go far to cripple labor’s most powerful weapon: the strike. Musk has become a pariah in Scandinavia for his extreme anti-union animus: Tesla has refused to recognize a union there – something that virtually all Scandinavian corporations do. Like Trump, Musk has a penchant for disrespecting workers, repeatedly tarring federal employees as being guilty of “waste, fraud and abuse”. Last week on Fox News, Musk insulted the intelligence of federal workers by falsely saying: “Basically almost no one [no federal employee] has gotten fired.”Again, would anyone who cared a whit about workers and unions tap Musk for such a powerful position?Trump’s first two months back in office have been filled with anti-worker and anti-union actions. In an unseemly move, the Trump administration called on federal workers to snitch on each other, to report on co-workers who promote diversity and inclusion. Trump fired Gwynne Wilcox, the acting chair of the National Labor Relations Board – a move she says is illegal – leaving the board without a quorum to penalize employers that break the law when fighting against unionization. Trump also fired the NLRB’s vigorously pro-union general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, and wants to replace her with a management-side lawyer whose firm represents many anti-union companies, including Tesla and SpaceX.Trump, the supposed champion of workers, has done little to raise workers’ wages. As in his first term, he’s done zilch to increase the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at a shockingly low $7.25 an hour for 15 years. He also rescinded Joe Biden’s order securing a $17.75-an-hour minimum wage for federal contractors. As a candidate Trump wooed tipped workers by vowing to end the income tax on employee tips, but he has failed to get the House budget bill to end that tax, although that bill tentatively includes Trump’s idea not to tax overtime pay.Labor leaders have denounced Trump’s order to gut union bargaining for 1 million workers. Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, called Trump’s actions “the biggest assault on collective bargaining rights we have ever seen in this country”. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said Trump’s order was “a disgraceful and retaliatory attack on the rights of hundreds of thousands of patriotic American civil servants – nearly one-third of whom are veterans – simply because they are members of a union that stands up to his harmful policies”.Anti-union CEOs and ideologues will no doubt applaud Trump’s order. By targeting unionization among 1 million workers, Trump aims to weaken the nation’s 14-million-member labor movement. If successful, his move would end bargaining for those 1 million workers, holding down employee pay and thereby making more money available for Trump’s tax cuts for the rich.Republican lawmakers will love Trump’s move because it undermines a key financial pillar for the Democrats. Half of US union members are government employees, and their unions are often major funders of Democratic candidates. Trump certainly knows that – 10 minutes after the supreme court issued its Janus decision in 2018, ruling that no federal, state or local government employee can be required to pay union dues, Trump tweeted “big loss for the coffers of the Democrats!” Trump’s new executive order will further skew a huge imbalance: Open Secrets, a research group that tracks political contributions, found that in the 2024 election cycle, business out-donated unions by 16 to one. Corporations donated $6.1bn to unions’ $264m, which is less than the gazillionaire Musk gave all by himself.Trump also won over many workers by vowing to cut prices. Not only did he vow to cut egg prices, he boldly said he’d cut auto insurance prices and energy prices in half. But Trump has totally failed to do any of that. Moreover, his 25% auto tariff will cause auto prices to soar.One has to strain to think of even one or two pro-worker or pro-union moves that Trump has taken. The White House says his tariffs are pro-worker and pro-union, insisting they will bring back manufacturing jobs. But many economists say Trump’s tariffs will hurt myriad industries and workers. His auto tariffs, for instance, will increase car prices and as a result, auto sales, auto production and auto jobs will decline, at least short-term. Not only that, other countries’ retaliation will pummel various US industries and trigger additional layoffs. Moreover, Trump’s tariffs will undermine GDP growth and perhaps push the US into recession. Bottom line: Trump remains obsessed with tariffs, even though they’re likely to result in more pain than gain for US workers.When it comes to worker issues, Trump resembles the emperor in the famous fairytale: he sees himself wearing magnificent union-made clothes covered with buttons containing pro-worker slogans. But more and more Americans realize that when it comes to helping workers, Trump is like Hans Christian Andersen’s emperor: his nakedness is showing.

      Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues More

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      Farmers hope Trump has their back but many voice misgivings as tariffs loom

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      It has been a perilous few years for the Red Fire Farm in western Massachusetts.Since the pandemic, rising interest rates, labor and seed costs on the 200-acre produce farm have made life for owners Ryan and Sarah Voiland a spiraling challenge.Having spent millions of dollars building their business from scratch since 2001, last year the farm’s barn burned down, taking with it the store, a tractor, irrigation equipment and tools.This year, Ryan had hoped a $125,000 grant won through the Rural Energy for America Program to build a solar canopy system, and a $40,000 allowance to distribute fall leaf litter from nearby towns across their fields, would help offset the farm’s ever-increasing refrigeration and fertilizing costs.But in January, the Trump administration froze billions of government funding dollars from Biden-era projects – including more than $2bn for 30,000 ranchers and farms such as Red Fire Farm.“When something is signed and contracted it’s just totally unfair for [the government] to rescind something that farmers are already making investments in,” he said.“It’s leaving farmers on the hook for thousands of dollars.”That prompted Voiland to join an Earthjustice lawsuit against the US Department of Agriculture that’s seeking a court order against the administration’s refusal to disburse the funding.American farmers are not unused to the impulses of Donald Trump, who in his first presidency fueled a trade war with China that ended up adversely affecting exports of US pork and soybeans. But back then, many farmers stayed afloat in large part due to a $28bn handout from the federal government.Today, there’s no sign of checks in the post for farmers.Trump has suggested farmers are in for “a little bit of an adjustment period” with more reciprocal tariffs on China, Mexico, Canada and European countries set to come into force on Tuesday.This comes at a time when farming, whether at the local producer or commodity crop level, faces major challenges.Plummeting demand from China, rising land prices and Trump’s threats to cut visas for foreign farm workers have put one of the world’s most productive agricultural economies in a major spin. John Deere, the machinery manufacturer, has been shedding thousands of jobs across the midwest due to falling demand fueled by farmers’ economic struggles. Imports of agriculture products, which can undercut US farmers, have never been as high.And while ranchers and farmers make up a small part of the wider US economy, its struggles could have major implications: 10% of all US workers are employed in or adjacent to agriculture.Across the country, farming groups are beginning to voice concerns for Trump’s tough tariff approach.“Trade policies must come with real, tangible protections for the farmers directly affected,” said the National Farmers Union president, Rob Larew.“We’ve heard there’s a strategy in place – now we need to see it. Promises alone won’t pay the bills or keep farms afloat.”With around 20% of all US agricultural production going overseas, some agronomists fear the ructions caused by the Trump administration could put pay to relations that took decades to develop, and which in particular could ill-affect American corn and soybean farmers.“It’s been a very good relationship with Mexico. But if this tariffs situation gets out of control, I wouldn’t be surprised that within five years you hear of Mexico building a deep sea port [to facilitate imports from countries other than the US],” said Jim McCormick, the co-founder of Agmarket.net, a Missouri-based agricultural marketing and consulting firm.“The best thing you can do is build a trade relationship that works well for both countries. It works well for Mexico – they get a cheap supply of food – and it works well for the American producer – we overproduce in the United States. That is the reality – we are built to feed the world.”In recent years, China, the world’s largest importer of soybeans which until recently was largely sourced from American farmers, has developed a new trade relationship with Brazil as a direct result of the first Trump administration’s trade war.Brazil has rapidly grown its soybean crop to become the world’s largest producer today, with 40% of the global share, and is the world’s third-largest producer of corn. Its mild climate allows two harvests per year and it has cleared thousands of square miles of savannah and forest for crop farming.In November, a huge port opened in Chancay, Peru, which was paid for by China in a move meant to give Beijing easier access to South American products.“My fear is that it’s going to be a lot tougher negotiating with these countries than what people think,” said McCormick. “The first go around [in 2017] we were just battling China. Now, we’re pretty much battling the world. It could get very volatile.”Still, farmers have been widely supportive of the president. In the country’s 444 agriculture-dependent counties, Trump won 77.7% of the vote in last November’s presidential election, up from 73% in 2016 and 76% in 2020.Commodity crop growers are this month set for some relief with $10bn in assistance being released through a program signed into law during the Biden administration.“I think farmers are not exactly thrilled at the economic situation we’re in right now, but they still believe he’s got their back,” said McCormick, adding that whether or not tariffs go into place on 2 April will shape wider sentiment towards the White House. “They’re going to wait and see.”On the Red Fire Farm, which employs around 75 people during the summer season on its food subscription, U-pick and wholesale operations, feelings of hope and trepidation mingle as the Voilands gear up for the 2025 growing season. Construction of a new barn is in the works, although its financial implications are worrying, says Ryan.Another point of concern is the Trump administration’s canceling of $1bn worth of local food purchase funding for food banks and schools, which hits producers such as Voiland and in-need consumers alike.But pressure through calls and emails has helped a small conservation grant won by the Voilands and other farmers previously frozen in January be revived last month.“I wanted to do everything possible to fight back and resist it,” said Voiland, “both for the sake of my farm and for the general good of agriculture”. More

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

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

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      Large majority of Europeans support retaliatory tariffs against US, poll finds

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      A large majority of western Europeans support retaliatory tariffs against the US, a survey has shown, if Donald Trump introduces sweeping import duties for major trading partners as expected this week.The US president appears likely to unleash a range of tariffs, varying from country to country, on Wednesday, which he has called Liberation Day. He also said last week that a 25% levy on cars shipped to the US would come into force the next day.Many European firms are likely to be hit hard. Some, including Germany’s car manufacturers and France’s luxury goods firms and wine, champagne and spirits makers, rely on exports to the US for up to 20% of their income.The EU has already pledged a “timely, robust and calibrated” response to Washington’s plans, which experts predict are likely to depress output, drive up prices and fuel a trade war. Global markets and the dollar fell on Monday after Trump crushed hopes that what he calls “reciprocal tariffs” – arguing that trading partners are cheating the US – would only target countries with the largest trade imbalances.A YouGov survey carried out in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK found that if the US tariffs went ahead, large majorities – ranging from 79% of respondents in Denmark to 56% in Italy – favoured retaliatory levies on US imports.In both Germany, where carmakers such as Porsche, BMW and Mercedes face a significant blow to their profits, and France, where US sales of wines and spirits are worth nearly €4bn (£3.4bn) a year, 68% of respondents backed retaliation.Respondents in all seven countries favoured a tit-for-tat response despite the damage they expected US tariffs to do to their national economies, with 75% of Germans saying they expected “a lot” or “a fair amount” of impact.That assessment was shared by 71% of respondents in Spain, 70% in France and Italy, 62% in Sweden, 60% in the UK and half of Danes questioned in the survey, which was carried out in the second and third weeks of March.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOf the six EU countries polled, majorities of between 60% in Denmark and 76% in Spain thought US tariffs would have a significant impact on the bloc’s wider economy. That was the sentiment of 74% of German and 68% of French respondents.Trump, who was elected partly on a promise to restore US industry, has repeatedly complained that the EU has been “very unfair to us” when it comes to trade. He also said in February that the 27-nation bloc had been “formed to screw the United States”.Pluralities or majorities in all six EU countries surveyed, ranging from 67% in Denmark and 53% in Germany to 41% in France and 40% in Italy, said they did not agree with him, compared with only 7% to 18% who thought he was correct. More

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      Pro-Palestinian British Cornell student says he will leave US citing fear of detention

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      A Cornell University student who participated in pro-Palestinian protests and was asked to surrender by United States immigration officials has said he is leaving the US, citing fear of detention and threats to his personal safety.Momodou Taal, a doctoral candidate in Africana studies and dual citizen of the UK and the Gambia, has participated in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war in Gaza after the October 2023 Hamas attack. His attorneys said last month that he was asked to turn himself in and that his student visa was being revoked.President Donald Trump has pledged to deport foreign pro-Palestinian protesters and accused them of supporting militant group Hamas, being antisemitic and posing foreign policy hurdles.Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the Trump administration wrongly conflates their criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian rights with antisemitism and support for Hamas.Last year, Taal was in a group of activists who disrupted a career fair on campus that featured weapons manufacturers and the university thereafter ordered him to study remotely. He previously posted online that “colonised peoples have the right to resist by any means necessary”.Taal filed a lawsuit in mid-March to block deportations of protesters, a bid that was denied by a judge last week.“Given what we have seen across the United States, I have lost faith that a favourable ruling from the courts would guarantee my personal safety and ability to express my beliefs,” Taal said on X on Monday.Trump’s administration has attempted to crack down on pro-Palestinian voices. Rights advocates condemn the moves.Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil was arrested in early March and is legally challenging his detention. Trump, without evidence, accused Khalil of supporting Hamas. Khalil denies links to the militant group that Washington considers a “foreign terrorist organisation”.Badar Khan Suri, an Indian studying at Georgetown University, was detained earlier in March. Suri’s lawyer denies he supported Hamas. A federal judge barred Suri’s deportation.The legal team of Yunseo Chung, a Korean American student of Columbia University, said last week her lawful permanent resident status was being revoked. A judge ruled she could not be detained for now.A judge on Friday temporarily barred the deportation of a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University named Rumeysa Ozturk, who was taken into custody by immigration officials and who, a year ago, co-authored an opinion piece calling to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide”.The Trump administration says it may have revoked more than 300 visas. More

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      Trump officials to cut Planned Parenthood family planning funds

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      The reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood said the Trump administration would cut federal family planning funding as of Tuesday, affecting birth control, cancer screenings and other services for low-income people.Planned Parenthood said that nine of its affiliates received notice that funding would be withheld under a program known as Title X, which has supported healthcare services for the poor since 1970.The Wall Street Journal reported last week the US Department of Health and Human Services planned an immediate freeze of $27.5m in family planning grants for groups including Planned Parenthood.Planned Parenthood says more than 300 health centers are in the Title X network and Title X-funded centers received more than 1.5m visits in 2023. It not say how much funding would be halted by the Trump administration.The White House and HHS did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. An HHS spokesperson said last week the department was reviewing grant recipients to ensure compliance with Donald Trump’s executive orders.Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, predicted that cancers would go undetected, access to birth control would be severely reduced, and sexually transmitted infections would increase as a result.“President Trump and Elon Musk are pushing their dangerous political agenda, stripping health care access from people nationwide, and not giving a second thought to the devastation they will cause,” McGill Johnson said in a statement.Trump has named billionaire Musk, who helped the president get elected, to head up an initiative to target government agencies for spending cuts.Conservatives have long sought to defund Planned Parenthood because it also provides abortions. However, US government funding for nearly all abortions has been banned since 1977. More

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      Trump administration deports more alleged gang members to El Salvador

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      The 17 additional people the US shipped off to a prison in El Salvador on Sunday and accused of being tied to transnational gangs were sent there from immigration detention at Guantánamo Bay, a White House official confirmed to the Guardian on Monday afternoon.The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced the overnight military transfer, asserting that the group included “murderers and rapists” from the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs, which the Trump administration has recently labeled foreign terrorists.The 17 now-deported individuals were Salvadoran and Venezuelan nationals. Fox News was first to report the names and crimes allegedly committed that the White House has since confirmed.El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, posted on social media that the deportees were “confirmed murderers and high-profile offenders, including six child rapists”.Immigration officials announced in mid-March they had removed all migrants being held at Guantánamo Bay and returned them to the US, just weeks after sending the first batch to the US military base in Cuba. Donald Trump had pledged to carry out the largest deportation operation in US history, and controversially, Guantánamo was considered to be a staging ground for the actions, with options to expand the facilities used for immigration-related detention.Approximately 300 migrants, mostly Venezuelans, were recently deported to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), a mega-prison notorious for brutal conditions.Family members have repeatedly denied gang affiliations, while the administration has refused to provide evidence, invoking “state secrets” privilege.Questions about the accuracy of these gang allegations have intensified as more information has emerged about some of them, such a 23-year-old gay makeup artist with no apparent gang affiliations who was deported to the Cecot prison without a hearing. His attorney, Lindsay Toczylowski, said officials had previously misinterpreted his tattoos as gang symbols, and that his client was scheduled to appear at an immigration court appearance in the US before he was suddenly sent to El Salvador.The deportations come amid legal challenges to Trump’s use of the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act, which a federal appeals court has blocked. A federal judge has ordered “individualized hearings“ for those targeted for removal.Intelligence agencies reportedly contradict Trump’s claims linking the Tren de Aragua gang to the Venezuelan government, undermining a key justification for the deportations, according to the New York Times.Still, the Trump administration has vowed to continue the deportation strategy through other means, and is currently petitioning the supreme court to lift the block on its use of the wartime deportation powers. More

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      Trump officials to review $9bn in Harvard funds over antisemitism claims

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      The Trump administration announced a review on Monday of $9bn in federal contracts and grants at Harvard University over allegations that it failed to address issues of antisemitism on campus.The multi-agency Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism said it will review the more than $255.6m in contracts between Harvard University, its affiliates and the federal government, according to a joint statement from the education department, the health department and the General Services Administration. The statement also says the review will include the more than $8.7bn in multi-year grant commitments to Harvard University and its affiliates.“Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from antisemitic discrimination – all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry – has put its reputation in serious jeopardy. Harvard can right these wrongs and restore itself to a campus dedicated to academic excellence and truth-seeking, where all students feel safe on its campus,” education secretary Linda McMahon said.Any institution that is found to be in “violation of federal compliance standards” could face “administrative actions, including contract termination”, the statement says.The General Services Administration has been asked to facilitate the review of federal funding received by Harvard, including grant and contract reviews across the federal government, according to the statement.The news comes as the Trump administration is in negotiations with Columbia University over $400m in federal funding over alleged similar failures to protect students from antisemitic harassment. The administration initially froze funding to the school before offering preconditions for the institution to be granted the money back.The announcement also comes just two days after at least 94 professors at Harvard Law School signed a letter addressed to students that condemned the Trump administration’s “challenge” to the rule of law and the legal profession.Harvard University did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More