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      Trump’s Dilemma: A Trade War That Threatens Every Other Negotiation With China

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      President Trump is staking everything on winning by imposing tariffs on China. But the fight threatens to choke off negotiations about other issues like Taiwan, fentanyl, TikTok and more.President Trump came into office sounding as if he were eager to deal with President Xi Jinping of China on the range of issues dividing the world’s two biggest superpowers.He and his aides signaled that they wanted to resolve trade disputes and lower the temperature on Taiwan, curb fentanyl production and get to a deal on TikTok. Perhaps, over time, they could manage a revived nuclear arms race and competition over artificial intelligence.Today it is hard to imagine any of that happening, at least for a year.Mr. Trump’s decision to stake everything on winning a trade war with China threatens to choke off those negotiations before they even begin. And if they do start up, Mr. Trump may be entering them alone, because he has alienated the allies who in recent years had come to a common approach to countering Chinese power.In conversations over the past 10 days, several administration officials, insisting that they could not speak on the record, described a White House deeply divided on how to handle Beijing. The trade war erupted before the many factions inside the administration even had time to stake out their positions, much less decide which issues mattered most.The result was strategic incoherence. Some officials have gone on television to declare that Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Beijing were intended to coerce the world’s second-largest economy into a deal. Others insisted that Mr. Trump was trying to create a self-sufficient American economy, no longer dependent on its chief geopolitical competitor, even if that meant decoupling from the $640 billion in two-way trade in goods and services.Shipping containers in the port of Tianjin, China, last month. Beijing has matched every one of Mr. Trump’s tariff hikes, trying to send the message that it can endure the pain longer than the United States can. The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Administration Memo Proposes Cutting State Department Funding by Nearly Half

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      The Trump administration could cut nearly 50 percent of the State Department’s funding next fiscal year, according to an internal memo laying out a downsizing plan being given serious consideration by department leaders, said two U.S. officials. The plan was drawn up as the White House pressures agencies to make significant budget cuts.The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, proposes eliminating almost all funding for international organizations like the United Nations and NATO, ending the budget for supporting international peacekeeping operations and curtailing all of the department’s educational and cultural exchanges, like the Fulbright Program.It also proposes cutting funding for humanitarian assistance and global health programs by more than 50 percent despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s pledges that lifesaving assistance would be preserved.It was not clear if Mr. Rubio had endorsed the cuts outlined in the memo, which was dated April 10. Pete Marocco, who oversaw the gutting of government foreign aid programs before abruptly leaving the department, and Douglas Pitkin, who is in charge of the department’s budget planning, prepared the document. It was also not clear how seriously the proposed cuts would be entertained in Congress, which appropriates federal dollars.But, according to a U.S. official familiar with the department’s review, it is likely that the White House will send Congress a budget proposal this spring that is substantially similar to what the memo outlines in an effort to press lawmakers to formalize downsizing efforts that are already underway.Agencies are facing a deadline this week to submit detailed reorganization plans to the White House explaining what cuts they will make to help further shrink the federal government. While many departments have already announced or begun carrying out their planned cuts, the State Department has yet to publicly detail complete plans for downsizing. The memo is part of a process involving the White House budget office and the State Department trading proposals and suggestions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Meta’s Antitrust Trial Begins as FTC Argues Company Built Social Media Monopoly

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      The tech giant went to court on Monday in an antitrust trial focused on its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The case could reshape its business.The Federal Trade Commission on Monday accused Meta of creating a monopoly that squelched competition by buying start-ups that stood in its way, kicking off a landmark antitrust trial that could dismantle a social media empire that has transformed how the world connects online.In a packed courtroom in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, the F.T.C. opened its first antitrust trial under the Trump administration by arguing that Meta illegally cemented a monopoly in social networking by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp when they were tiny start-ups. Those actions were part of a “buy-or-bury strategy,” the F.T.C. said.Ultimately, the purchases coalesced Meta’s power, depriving consumers of other social networking options and edging out competition, the government said.“For more than 100 years, American public policy has insisted firms must compete if they want to succeed,” said Daniel Matheson, the F.T.C.’s lead litigator in the case, in his opening remarks. “The reason we are here is that Meta broke the deal.”“They decided that competition was too hard and it would be easier to buy out their rivals than to compete with them,” he added.The trial — Federal Trade Commission v. Meta Platforms — poses the most consequential threat to the business empire of Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s co-founder. If the government succeeds, the F.T.C. would most likely ask Meta to divest Instagram and WhatsApp, potentially shifting the way that Silicon Valley does business and altering a long pattern of big tech companies snapping up younger rivals.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Inside Trump’s Pressure Campaign on Universities

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      As he finished lunch in the private dining room outside the Oval Office on April 1, President Trump floated an astounding proposal: What if the government simply canceled every dollar of the nearly $9 billion promised to Harvard University?The administration’s campaign to expunge “woke” ideology from college campuses had already forced Columbia University to strike a deal. Now, the White House was eyeing the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university.“What if we never pay them?” Mr. Trump casually asked, according to a person familiar with the conversation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussion. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”The moment underscored the aggressive, ad hoc approach continuing to shape one of the new administration’s most consequential policies.Mr. Trump and his top aides are exerting control of huge sums of federal research money to shift the ideological tilt of the higher education system, which they see as hostile to conservatives and intent on perpetuating liberalism.Their effort was energized by the campus protests against Israel’s response to the October 2023 terrorist attack by Hamas, demonstrations during which Jewish students were sometimes harassed. Soon after taking office, Mr. Trump opened the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, which is scrutinizing leading universities for potential civil rights violations and serving as an entry point to pressure schools to reassess their policies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Pete Marocco, Who Helped Gut Foreign Aid for Trump, Leaves State Department

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      Pete Marocco, who worked with Elon Musk’s team to oversee the gutting of foreign aid and the dismantling of the main U.S. aid agency, has left the State Department, administration officials said on Monday.The abrupt departure comes in the middle of the department’s efforts to merge the remnants of that aid group, the U.S. Agency for International Development, into the department by mid-August.Mr. Marocco had been acting as the head of foreign aid at the department and would have overseen the remaining aid operations, which amount to only a fraction of those active before President Trump took office.Mr. Marocco is expected to take another job in the administration, U.S. officials say.The State Department did not provide official comment on Mr. Marocco’s departure. But a statement from the department’s press office that was attributed to a “senior administration official” praised Mr. Marocco for finding “egregious abuses of taxpayer dollars” during his tenure. The statement provided no examples of such abuses.Mr. Marocco’s critics said they planned to continue scrutinizing how he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have gutted foreign aid.“Pete Marocco’s tenure brought chaos to U.S.A.I.D., reckless and unlawful policy to the State Department, and dismantled longstanding U.S. foreign policy,” Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, said in a statement, adding, “His actions deprived millions of people around the world of lifesaving aid and jeopardized U.S. credibility with our partners.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      DOGE Cuts Hobble Office That Would Aid NASA and SpaceX Mars Landings

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      The Astrogeology Science Center, which has helped astronauts and robots reach other worlds safely, is facing a substantial number of job reductions.An office in an obscure corner of the federal government that NASA has relied on to safely land astronauts on the moon and robotic probes on Mars is facing pressure to cut its tight-knit team of experts by at least 20 percent, according to two people familiar with the mandate.The thinning of the staff has already started at the Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Ariz., the people said, the result of an assortment of voluntary resignation offers put forward by the Department of Government Efficiency, led by the billionaire Elon Musk. More employees are expected to be laid off in the coming weeks, following a new open call for early retirements and resignations on April 4. The office, which is part of the U.S. Geological Survey under the Department of the Interior, has been subject to the cost-cutting efforts initiated in a mass email that Mr. Musk’s team sent across the federal government in January.Representatives for the Interior Department, the U.S.G.S. and the astrogeology center did not reply to requests for comment on the staff reductions or their potential ramifications.The cuts could affect crewed missions to Mars in the future, a key goal of Mr. Musk, who founded SpaceX. He has said he conceived of the company to make human life multiplanetary.Matthew Golombek, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has worked on the selection of landing sites for multiple probes to Mars, described the Astrogeology Science Center’s precision mapping as “the gold standard that basically everyone in the community uses.”At the start of the year, the office had 53 employees. Eight are already set to leave, with more encouraged to consider the latest offer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Teenager Charged With Killing Mother and Stepfather in a Plan to Assassinate Trump

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      A Wisconsin teenager was arrested last month on several charges, including two counts of first-degree murder. Federal investigators said he had a broader plot to kill the president.A Wisconsin teenager has been charged in the killing of his mother and stepfather in what the federal authorities described as an attempt to obtain the money and autonomy he believed was necessary for a plot to kill President Trump and overthrow the government.The teenager, Nikita Casap, 17, was arrested last month in the deaths of his mother, Tatiana Casap, 35, and stepfather, Donald Mayer, 51, according to the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department.Sheriff’s deputies found the bodies at the family’s home in Waukesha, about 17 miles southwest of Milwaukee, after receiving a call on Feb. 28 requesting a welfare check, the department said.According to federal documents unsealed on Friday, the fatal shootings were part of a plan by Mr. Casap, who identified with a right-wing terrorist network known as the Order of Nine Angels, to assassinate President Trump in what he believed would “foment a political revolution in the United States,” federal investigators said.Mr. Casap also paid, at least in part, for a drone and explosives that he planned to use in an attack, according to the documents, which were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.Mr. Casap’s lawyers could not be immediately reached on Sunday for comment.A self-described “manifesto,” found on Mr. Casap’s phone and detailed in the federal documents, contained images and praise of Adolf Hitler, as well as instructions to others to make bombs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump officials renew opposition to ruling on Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador

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      The Trump administration on Sunday evening doubled down on its assertion that a federal judge cannot force it to bring back to the United States a Maryland man who was unlawfully deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador last month.In a brief legal filing, the Justice Department reiterated its view that courts lack the ability to dictate steps that the White House should take in seeking to return the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to U.S. soil, because the president alone has broad powers to handle foreign policy.“The federal courts have no authority to direct the executive branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way, or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner,” lawyers for the department wrote. “That is the ‘exclusive power of the president as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations.’”The position taken by Trump officials was not the first time they had tried to defy efforts compelling them to seek Mr. Abrego Garcia’s return from El Salvador. Still, their continued recalcitrance meant that Mr. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old father of three, would for now remain at the CECOT prison in El Salvador, where he was sent with scores of other migrants on March 15.The administration’s stubbornness was also likely to heighten tensions between the White House and the judge overseeing the case, Paula Xinis. Judge Xinis has scheduled a hearing to discuss next steps in the matter on Tuesday in Federal District Court in Maryland.The conflict has persisted even though the Supreme Court last week unanimously ordered the administration to “facilitate” Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release from Salvadoran custody. Trump officials have in fact already admitted that they made an “administrative error” when they put Mr. Abrego Garcia on the plane to El Salvador in the first place.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More