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    House Votes to Curb National Injunctions, Targeting Judges Who Thwart Trump

    The House passed legislation on Wednesday that would bar federal district judges from issuing nationwide injunctions, part of an escalating Republican campaign to take aim at judges who have moved to halt some of President Trump’s executive orders.The bill, approved mostly along party lines on a vote of 219 to 213, would largely limit district court judges to issuing narrow orders that pertain to parties involved in a specific lawsuit, rather than broader ones that can block a policy or action from being enforced throughout the country. It would make an exception in cases that were brought by multiple states, which would need to be heard by a three-judge panel.It faces a slim chance of becoming law because of the obstacles it faces in the Senate, where seven Democrats would have to join Republicans to allow it to advance. So far, similar bills have not been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.House Republicans have framed the legislation, named the No Rogue Rulings Act, as a necessary constitutional check on what they claim is an abuse of power by judges attempting to wield political influence from the bench.Citing an increase in nationwide injunctions since Mr. Trump took office, Republican lawmakers have argued that an unelected federal judge in one district should not be able to block the executive branch from implementing nationwide policies, a duty they say should be left to appeals courts or the Supreme Court.The Supreme Court “must reach a majority in order to make something the law of the land, and yet a single district judge believes that they can make the law of the land,” Representative Darrell Issa, the California Republican who introduced the bill, said on the House floor on Wednesday.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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    Bond Sell Off Raises Questions About U.S. Safe Haven Status

    A sharp sell-off in U.S. government bond markets has sparked fears about the growing fallout from President Trump’s sweeping tariffs and retaliation by China, the European Union and others, raising questions about what is typically seen as the safest corner for investors to take cover during times of turmoil.Yields on 10-year Treasuries — the benchmark for a wide variety of debt — shot 0.2 percentage points higher on Wednesday, to 4.45 percent, a big move in that market. Just a few days ago, it had traded below 4 percent. Yields on the 30-year bond rose significantly as well, at one point on Wednesday topping 5 percent. Borrowing costs globally have also shot higher.The sell-off comes as investors have fled riskier assets globally in what some fear has parallels to what became known as the “dash for cash” episode during the pandemic, when the Treasury market broke down. The recent moves have upended a longstanding relationship in which the U.S. government bond market serves as a safe harbor during times of stress.Volatility has surged as stock markets have plummeted amid fears that the U.S. economy is hurtling toward stagflation, in which economic growth contracts while inflation surges. The S&P 500 is now on the verge of entering a bear market, meaning it has dropped 20 percent from its recent high.“The global safe-haven status is in question,” said Priya Misra, a portfolio manager at JPMorgan Asset Management. “Disorderly moves have happened this week because there is no safe place to hide.”Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury secretary, sought to tamp down concerns on Wednesday, brushing off the sell-off as nothing more than investors who bought assets with borrowed money having to cover their losses.“I believe that there is nothing systemic about this — I think that it is an uncomfortable but normal deleveraging that’s going on in the bond market,” he said in an interview with Fox Business.But the moves have been significant enough to raise broader concerns about how foreign investors now perceive the United States, after Mr. Trump decided to slap onerous tariffs on nearly all of its trading partners. Some countries have sought to strike deals with the administration to lower their tariff rates. But China retaliated on Wednesday, announcing an 84 percent levy on U.S. goods after Mr. Trump raised the tariff rate on Chinese goods to 104 percent.In a social media post on Wednesday, the former U.S. Treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers said the broader sell-off suggested a “generalized aversion to US assets in global financial markets” and warned about the possibility of a “serious financial crisis wholly induced by US government tariff policy.”“We are being treated by global financial markets like a problematic emerging market,” he wrote. More

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    Delta Warns Trump’s Trade War Could Lead to a Recession

    Delta Air Lines on Wednesday became one of the largest American companies to warn that President Trump’s escalating trade war was weighing on its business and the global economy.In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, Delta’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, said a recession was possible as companies pulled back spending.“Everyone’s being prepared for uncertainty,” he said, “if that continues, and we don’t get resolution soon, we will probably end up in a recession.”Airlines are highly sensitive to changes in the economy because air travel is among the first things that individuals and businesses can cut back on when they are worried about their paychecks or profits.Mr. Bastian expressed shock at the speed at which the trade tensions had taken the wind out of the economy.“We’re in uncharted, unprecedented uncertainty, when you look at what’s happened and the pivot so quickly to this self-inflicted situation,” he said.Mr. Bastian’s comments are at odds with those of the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, who said on Wednesday that chief executives had told him the economy was solid.In its first-quarter earnings release, Delta said it no longer expected its business to grow in the second half of the year and added that a lack of the clarity about the economy prevented it from telling investors how much money it expects to make this year.Mr. Bastian said summer bookings were in line with last year. Some customs data show a sharp decline in foreigners entering the United States. Mr. Bastian said around 80 percent of Delta’s international bookings are made in the United States. “U.S. consumers are looking to go somewhere, particularly to try to get a reprieve from all the craziness we’re going through,” he said.Delta’s shares have fallen around 40 percent this year. More

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    Trump Administration Freezes $1 Billion for Cornell and $790 Million for Northwestern, Officials Say

    The Trump administration has frozen more than $1 billion in funding for Cornell and $790 million for Northwestern amid civil rights investigations into both schools, two U.S. officials said.The funding pause involves mostly grants from and contracts with the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education and Health and Human Services, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the unannounced decision.The moves are the latest and largest in a rapidly escalating campaign against elite American universities that has resulted in roughly $3.3 billion in federal funds being suspended or put under review in just over a month. Other schools that have had funds threatened include Brown, Columbia, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton.Cornell and Northwestern are both facing investigations into allegations of antisemitism and into accusations of racial discrimination stemming from their efforts to promote diversity.Cornell officials said in a statement that they had received more than 75 stop-work orders from the Defense Department on Tuesday, but that they had no information to confirm that more than $1 billion in funding had been suspended. The affected grants, they said, supported research that they described as “profoundly significant to American defense, cybersecurity and health.”“We are actively seeking information from federal officials to learn more about the basis for these decisions,” according to the joint statement from Michael Kotlikoff, the university president; Kavita Bala, the provost; and Robert Harrington, provost for medical affairs.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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    Amid Tension Around H.H.S. Cuts, Kennedy Meets With Tribal Leader

    At the very moment that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was set to take the stage, the governor of Gila River Indian Community was still standing at the podium, articulating his uneasiness around recent Trump administration moves.“Let me repeat that: We have spent a good part of this year providing education on why tribes have a political status that is not D.E.I.,” Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said to a room of 1,200 people, who clapped and cheered.When it comes to cuts sought by what has been called the Department of Government Efficiency, “we need a scalpel and not a chain saw approach to making these changes,” he said. The Gila River Wild Horse Pass Resort and Casino in Chandler, Ariz., owned and operated by two tribes, was the latest stop on Mr. Kennedy’s Make American Healthy Again tour through three Southwestern states. Mr. Kennedy was set to host a “fireside chat” at the Tribal Self-Governance Conference, an event celebrating 50 years of tribal sovereignty under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.The act, passed by Congress in 1975, marked a shift away from federal government control, so that Native communities could run their own programs based on their unique cultural needs.Mr. Kennedy has long expressed a particular zeal for improving tribal health, citing his family’s long history of advocacy, his childhood trips to American Indian reservations, and parts of his own environmental career.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 Point to Outreach on Tariffs in a Bid to Calm Markets

    President Trump’s top trade official defended the administration’s aggressive tariff moves on Tuesday, arguing before a Senate committee that the U.S. economy is facing “a moment of drastic, overdue change” after decades of being propped up by the financial sector and government spending.The remarks by Jamieson Greer, the United States trade representative, came as the Trump administration faced blowback from trading partners, businesses and investors over Mr. Trump’s approach. The president’s moves this month to impose a 10 percent global tariff and steep “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries have already triggered a trade war with China and caused other countries to draw up their own retaliation plans. Economists now consider a recession increasingly likely.Mr. Trump has dismissed those concerns and said he will not back away from his trade agenda, which he says is necessary to return manufacturing and industrial production to the United States. He and his economic advisers have claimed that countries are clamoring to make new trade agreements with the United States and to lower their tariffs and other trade barriers.In a social media post on Tuesday, Mr. Trump described a call with South Korea’s acting president, Han Duck-soo, about trade and tariffs and that South Korean officials were heading to the United States for talks. He also expressed optimism that a trade war with China could be averted.“China also wants to make a deal, badly, but they don’t know how to get it started,” Mr. Trump wrote. “We are waiting for their call. It will happen!”Mr. Greer said in his prepared remarks that nearly 50 countries have approached him to discuss how to “achieve reciprocity on trade.”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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    Chris Sununu Skips a New Hampshire Senate Bid, Dashing Trump’s Hopes

    The former New Hampshire governor had been seen as a top Republican recruit in the liberal-leaning yet competitive state. President Trump had said on Sunday, “I hope he runs.”Chris Sununu, the Republican former governor of New Hampshire, announced on Tuesday that he would not run for Senate in 2026, dashing the hopes of President Trump and others in their party that he would help flip a seat in the state after a Democratic senator’s retirement.Mr. Sununu, who served for four two-year terms as governor, was once a vocal critic of Mr. Trump’s — he endorsed Nikki Haley in the 2024 primary race — but the president had warmed to the possibility of luring the popular former governor into the Senate race.“I hope he runs,” Mr. Trump said on Air Force One on Sunday, noting that he had met recently with Mr. Sununu in the Oval Office. “He’s been very nice to me over the last year or so.”Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, announced her retirement last month. Representative Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, a Democrat, recently began a bid to succeed her. The other House member from the state, Representative Maggie Goodlander, has said she is also considering a run.Mr. Sununu, who has flirted with Senate campaigns for years but never actually declared a candidacy, officially pulled himself out of contention on Tuesday.”No, I’m not going to run,” he said in a radio interview on The Pulse of NH, saying it was not right for his family.He said that Republicans could still win, and that he had on Tuesday informed Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, of his decision. “It doesn’t have to be me,” Mr. Sununu said.A spokeswoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Maeve Coyle, called it “ an embarrassing recruitment failure.”Another potential Republican candidate is Scott Brown, a former senator from Massachusetts, whom Ms. Shaheen needled after she announced her exit, telling Semafor: “He’s making noises. He’s not from New Hampshire.”The New Hampshire seat is one of three vacancies that Democrats must defend in 2026, along with Michigan and Minnesota. No Republican senators in competitive states have yet to announce retirements. More