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      Trump news at a glance: president unleashes slew of new tariff rates for trading partners

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      Donald Trump has signed an executive order placing tariffs on dozens of US trading partners just hours before the 1 August deadline he set for deals to be done.The new tariffs, the next step in his trade agenda that will test the global economy, are set to go into effect in seven days. The extension reflects the government’s need for more time to harmonize the tariff rates, AP reports, according to a senior official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.The order applies to 68 countries and the 27-member European Union. Rates were set at 25% for India’s US-bound exports, 20% for Taiwan, 19% for Thailand and 15% for South Korea.Trump also increased duties on Canadian goods to 35% from 25% for all products not covered by the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, but gave Mexico a 90-day reprieve from higher tariffs to negotiate a broader trade deal. Trump had threatened on Wednesday that Ottawa’s move to recognise a Palestinian state would make agreeing a trade deal “very hard”.Asian shares fell on Friday after the tariffs announcement.Read on for more on tariffs and other key US politics news of the day:Trump imposes tariffs of 10% to 41% on dozens of countries, hours before deadlineUS president Donald Trump has signed an executive order imposing reciprocal tariffs ranging from 10% to 41% on imports from dozens of countries and foreign locations, as he extended the deadline for a tariff deal with Mexico by another 90 days.Rates were set at 25% for India’s US-bound exports, 20% for Taiwan and 30% for South Africa ahead of Trump’s self-imposed deadline to strike trade deals with countries around the world by 1 August. Brazil’s tariff rate was set at 10%, but a previous order signed by Trump placed a 40% tariff on some Brazilian goods, to punish the country for prosecuting its former president, Jair Bolsonaro, for trying to overturn an election he lost and inspiring his supporters to storm the seat of government.Separately, the White House announced that Canadian imports will face tariffs of 35%, not the current 25%. Trump had threatened on Wednesday that Ottawa’s move to recognise a Palestinian state would make agreeing a trade deal “very hard”.Read the full storyTrump signs order increasing tariffs on Canadian goods from 25% to 35%Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday increasing tariffs on Canadian goods imported to the United States from 25% to 35%.The new import tax rates goes into effect on Friday, according to a White House factsheet. The tariff would cover all products not covered by the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Goods transshipped to another country to evade the new tariffs would be subject to a transshipment levy of 40%.The decision comes after months of tariff threats from the Trump administration, and escalating trade tensions that have sowed anger in Canada.Read the full storyTrump threatens drug giants with crackdown over pricesDonald Trump has threatened to use “every tool in our arsenal” to crack down on pharmaceutical companies if they fail to cut drug prices for Americans within 60 days.The president wrote to executives at 17 companies on Thursday, demanding they match their US prices for prescription drugs with the lowest price offered in other developed nations.Read the full storyExecutive order brings back presidential fitness test in schoolsDonald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to bring back the presidential fitness test, a series of physical tests for schoolchildren in the US that was in place for decades but suspended 12 years ago to focus less on competition and more on healthy lifestyles.Read the full storyHegseth aides used polygraphs against colleaguesSenior aides to the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, conducted polygraphs on their own colleagues this spring, in some cases as part of an effort to flush out anyone who leaked to the media and apparently to undercut rivals in others, according to four people familiar with the matter.Read the full storyFema denies grants to Kentucky counties ravaged by stormsThe Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) denied requests for three Kentucky counties affected by severe storms last spring, and deemed the state ineligible for hazard mitigation grants that would help prepare for future disasters.Read the full storyTrump to build ‘beautiful’ $200m ballroom at White HouseThe White House will soon begin construction of a new $200m ballroom to be ready before Donald Trump’s term ends in early 2029.Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the building will be 90,000 sq ft and will hold up to 650 seats.It will be the latest change introduced to what’s known as “the People’s House” since the Republican president returned to office in January. It also will be the first structural change to the executive mansion itself since the addition of the Truman Balcony in 1948.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      British singer Jess Glynne says she feels “sick” that the Trump administration was using her music to promote immigration deportations.

      The Pentagon will remove 1,350 national guard troops from Los Angelesoriginally sent to the state by the Trump administration to deal with protests over its immigration policies.

      Donald Trump evaded the question when asked if he agrees with Marjorie Taylor Greene that “what is occurring [in Gaza] is a genocide”. Trump replied: “Oh it’s terrible what’s occurring there, yeah”, before repeating his complaint that “nobody said thank you” when the US donated money to feed the people of Gaza, and his false claim that the recent donation of $30m was $60m.

      Reuters reports the Trump administration has sent a letter to Harvard informing the university it has referred been referred to the Department of Justice, to address allegations of antisemitic discrimination.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 30 July 2025. More

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      Trump threatens drug giants with crackdown over prices

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      Donald Trump has threatened to use “every tool in our arsenal” to crack down on pharmaceutical giants if they fail to cut drug prices for Americans within 60 days.The president wrote to executives at 17 companies on Thursday, demanding they match their US prices for prescription drugs with the lowest price offered in other developed nations.Current prices were an “unacceptable burden” on US families, Trump said, claiming they could be up to three times higher than in other countries.After returning to the White House earlier this year and pledging to bring down drug prices, the president claimed that “most proposals” from the pharmaceutical industry amounted to “more of the same”, accusing firms of seeking to shift blame and requesting policies that would pave the way for handouts worths billions of dollars for the sector.“Make no mistake: a collaborative effort towards achieving global pricing parity would be the most effective path for companies, the government, and American patients,” Trump wrote. “But if you refuse to step up we will deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices.“Americans are demanding lower drug prices, and they need them today.”The bosses of Pfizer, AstraZeneca and GSK were among those who received the letters. GSK did not respond to requests for comment. AstraZeneca declined to comment.Pfizer said: “Pfizer is working closely with the Trump administration and Congress on solutions that will increase access and affordability for American patients and enhance the power of the biopharmaceutical innovation ecosystem in the United States. Our discussions have been productive.”Shares in Pfizer slipped 2%, AstraZeneca fell 3.8% and GSK dropped 3.9% during afternoon trading in New York.At the heart of of Trump’s proposal is a status known as “Most Favored Nation”, through which he wants to bind the cost of medications sold in the US to the lowest prices paid elsewhere.The White House is demanding that pharmaceutical companies extend this to drugs used by older people through the government-backed Medicaid health program, as well as new drugs. More

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      Jess Glynne feels ‘sick’ over use of Jet2 song to promote US deportations

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      It is the internet meme of the summer, sparking laughter and thousands of wry smiles at the pitfalls of a British summer holiday.But the journey of the viral Jet2 holiday advert – with its promotional voiceover played out over cheerless summer holiday footage, including water-slide disasters and images of pouring rain – took a darker turn this week when it was used by the White House in a post on X to promote Ice (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) deportations.Jess Glynne – whose 2015 single Hold My Hand accompanies the advert – responded to the post on Wednesday, saying she felt “sick” that her music was being used to spread “division and hate”.She told the Guardian on Thursday: “I’m devastated to see my song used in this way. Hold My Hand was written about love, support, and standing by someone through everything – it’s meant to offer hope and empowerment. Using it to promote something I fundamentally disagree with goes completely against the message of the song.”On Thursday afternoon Jet2 also condemned the post, saying it was “disappointed to see our brand being used to promote government policy such as this”.The official White House account posted a clip on X on Wednesday evening showing people wearing handcuffs and being taken out of cars and on to planes, captioned: “When Ice books you a one-way Jet2 holiday to deportation. Nothing beats it!”In the six months since Donald Trump took office, the US president has supercharged the country’s immigration enforcement, overseeing a sweeping mass arrest and incarceration scheme, which resulted in a record number of arrests by immigration officers in June, according to Guardian analysis.The post delighted Trump supporters but was decried as disgusting, embarrassing and unchristian by critics. Glynne, who has previously joined in with the fun spirit of the Jet2 holidays meme by posting a TikTok video miming the voiceover, expressed her disapproval of the White House’s appropriation of the trend on Instagram.“This post honestly makes me sick,” she wrote. “My music is about love, unity and spreading positivity – never about division or hate.”Jet2 had previously appeared to welcome the extra publicity generated by the meme, launching a challenge that offered a £1,000 holiday voucher as a prize.A spokesperson said the company welcomed the “good humour” of the viral phenomenon, but not the White House’s contribution. “We are of course aware of a post from the White House social media account,” they said. “This is not endorsed by us in any way, and we are very disappointed to see our brand being used to promote government policy such as this.”The advert’s voiceover actor, Zoë Lister, said she would never condone her voiceover “being used in promotion with Trump and his abhorrent policies”.She told the BBC: “The Jet2 meme has spread a lot of joy and humour around the world, but the White House video shows that Trump has neither.”The White House Ice deportation post is the latest example of an unorthodox digital communications strategy that has veered away from previous administrations’ traditional – and relatively sedate – use of social media platforms.In February, the White House used X to promote Trump’s congestion pricing policy, posting a fake Time magazine front cover portraying the president as a monarch, along with the phrase: “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”The post was described as “revoltingly un-American” by Adam Keiper, the executive editor of the conservative Bulwark news site, while New York state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, said: “New York hasn’t laboured under a king in over 250 years and we sure as hell are not going to start now.”The administration also faced criticism after Trump shared an AI-generated video that showed him in a transformed, glittering Gaza, topless and sipping a cocktail with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. After criticism, the administration recently posted on X: “Nowhere in the constitution does it say we can’t post banger memes.”Last month the Trump administration appeared to be on track to oversee one of the deadliest years for immigrant detention after the deaths of two men – one from Cuba and another from Canada – while in federal custody.Human rights experts have raised concerns about the detention of children with their parents at the newly recommissioned “family detention centres” in Texas, and while Trump has repeatedly claimed his administration is trying to arrest and deport “dangerous criminals”, analysis shows that most of the people Ice is now arresting have never been convicted of a crime. More

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      Trump’s tariffs face skepticism in court hours before latest round is set to kick in

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      Donald Trump’s global tariffs faced significant skepticism in a federal appeals court on Thursday, as judges investigated whether the president had overstretched his powers just hours before the latest sweeping round of duties is set to kick in.The full 11-strong bench of the US court of appeals for the federal circuit in Washington DC is considering whether Trump exceeded his authority in imposing “reciprocal” tariffs on a large number of US trading partners.Judges repeatedly asked if Trump was justified in relying on emergency powers to effectively tear up the US tariff schedule without consulting Congress.Businesses challenging his strategy accused the White House of engineering a “breathtaking” attempt to force it through, unlike any trade move attempted by a US administration in two centuries.The 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which Trump has used to invoke emergency powers and enforce many of his tariffs, “doesn’t even say ‘tariffs’”, one of the judges noted. “Doesn’t even mention them.”In May a three-judge panel of the court of international trade blocked the import duties on grounds that Trump’s use of IEEPA was unjustified. The appeals court has stayed that ruling pending the outcome of Thursday’s hearing.“The government uses IEEPA all the time,” said Brett Shumate, assistant attorney general in the justice department’s civil division, representing the administration, to the court. He conceded, however, that it was the first IEEPA had been used to implement tariffs.The US trade deficit – the gap between what it imports to and exports from the world – has “reached a tipping point”, claimed Shumate, enabling Trump to take emergency action. “It’s affecting our military readiness,” he said. “It’s affecting our domestic manufacturing capability.”But Neal Katyal, a lawyer representing businesses challenging the tariffs, argued that Trump was laying a “breathtaking claim to power that no president has asserted in 200 years”.The administration is effectively saying “that our federal courts are powerless; that the president can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, for as long he wants – so long as he declares an emergency”, Katyal argued.Trump posted about the hearing on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, calling it “America’s big case”. He said: “If our Country was not able to protect itself by using TARIFFS AGAINST TARIFFS, WE WOULD BE ‘DEAD,’ WITH NO CHANCE OF SURVIVAL OR SUCCESS.”“Now the tide has completely turned, and America has successfully countered this onslaught of Tariffs used against it,” the president claimed. “ONE YEAR AGO, AMERICA WAS A DEAD COUNTRY, NOW IT IS THE ‘HOTTEST’ COUNTRY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.”The challenge to Trump’s use of emergency powers has been brought by five small businesses acting alongside 12 Democratic-controlled states. They argue that the IEEPA was designed to address “unusual and extraordinary” threats arising in national emergencies, and that the reason for the tariffs do not meet that standard.The small businesses are being represented by a libertarian public interest law firm, the Liberty Justice Center. The non-profit is supported by billionaire rightwing donors including Robert Mercer and Richard Uihlein, who, paradoxically, have also been major backers of Trump’s presidential campaigns. More

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      Canada braces as tariff deadline looms and talks with US ‘chaos machine’ drag

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      After months of tariff threats from the US and escalating trade tensions that have sowed anger in Canada and fractured a once-close alliance, the country is now fast approaching a 1 August deadline to reach a deal with the Trump administration – which has shown no signs of backing down.And observers are keeping a close eye on negotiations this week to determine whether too large a chasm has grown between the countries, resulting in what could be an explosive end to what was decades of free-flowing trade.Canada is also in a highly vulnerable position, as it has closely intertwined its economy with the US’s, and is extremely reliant on a low-barrier trade environment, said William Huggins, an assistant professor in economics at McMaster University in Ontario.“Canada has tried to negotiate sort of forcefully from a position of not acquiescing to every demand, but by the same token, has also realised it’s not in the strongest position to do so … We’ve had to navigate carefully,” said Huggins.The Canadian public is also anxiously awaiting the deadline to strike up a deal. Economists and political scientists say the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney, was elected on the belief that he’s the right person to be at the helm of negotiations and lead Canada through a tenuous period with their southern neighbour.His successes or failures in this arena could affect public perception – as he has characterised his government as being the most adept in the crisis around its sovereignty due to the tariffs and Donald Trump’s persistent claims that he’d like to make Canada the 51st state.“[Carney] is in a situation where he doesn’t hold all the cards and whoever we put in was going to have to figure out a way through this … [His] ability to plan is severely limited by the chaos machine that is operating south of the border,” said Dennis Pilon, the chair of the politics department at York University in Ontario.On Monday, Carney said at a news conference on Prince Edward Island that the trade negotiations are at an “intense pace” and that they are “complex”. But he projected tentative optimism, stating that the negotiations are “tough” because the government is standing up for Canadian interests.“There is a landing zone that’s possible but we have to get there. We’ll see what happens,” he told reporters.But Trump spoke of the negotiations flippantly when asked by reporters outside the White House last Friday. “We haven’t really had a lot of luck with Canada … Canada could be one where there’s just a tariff, not really a negotiation,” he said.So far, much of the talks have happened behind closed doors. There was a glimpse into what could be the dynamic between Carney and Trump when the prime minister had his first meeting with the president in the Oval Office in early May. There were positive tones in both initially offering praise for each other, but the encounter quickly grew tense as Trump repeated his annexation claims, which were subsequently rebuffed by Carney.Since March, Trump has imposed several tariffs on Canadian goods and energy resources. There is a 25% tariff on all goods, excluding potash and energy products. But there’s separately a 10% tariff on energy resources, including potash. Additionally, there’s a further 50% tariff on steel and aluminum imports and a 25% tariff on autos and auto parts.At this stage, the tariffs have seemingly not delivered a significant blow to Canada’s economy, but that could change quickly. The Royal Bank of Canada noted in its June forecast that nearly 90% of Canadian goods are exempt from tariffs under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the free trade deal that replaced Nafta in 2020 and which provides a degree of insulation.In an assessment published by the Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) on Tuesday, it reported that energy exports have not been significantly affected by the tariffs, as most exports are compliant under the USMCA, and are therefore exempt from tariffs.Some of the insulation so far from tariffs could be from opening Canada up to other markets. TD said that in the past four months, Canadian businesses rapidly moved to reorient supply chains and export to non-US markets. Now about 30% of exports go outside the US – a level not seen since the pandemic, when TD notes there was disorientation in trade.But TD also warned that the negative effects of the tariffs might be beginning to emerge. It said that Canadian exports to the US are “generally underperforming” in tariff-targeted industries, particularly steel and automaking. Canada’s auto exports fell to levels not seen since late 2022, following the April imposition of tariffs. Automakers have also “slashed” production in response, it said.Andrea Lawlor, an associate professor of political science at McMaster University, said that while there haven’t been many layoffs or a complete reorientation of production lines yet, industries targeted by tariffs are preparing to do so.Lawlor also said that Carney has been prudent in his negotiation strategy so far, and right in waiting for deals to be brokered between the US and other nations, as they were this month with Japan and the EU, to help inform Canada’s strategy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnd despite concerns about marred relationships with First Nations people, pushing forward controversial infrastructure legislation and his quick scrapping of Canada’s digital services tax – which many, including top former diplomats, viewed as fawning capitulation toward Trump – the prime minister is still enjoying fairly positive polling in his term’s infancy.Abacus Data reported at the end of June that 52% of Canadians surveyed approve of the Carney government. The research firm states it shows that his post-election honeymoon period is “far from over”.Lawlor said the best outcome for Carney in the negotiations is a favourable trade deal – however, there has been signalling from Carney, in his discussion of “tough” talks so far, that Canadians may have to accept a baseline of tariffs.“Many Canadians just simply will not be satisfied if that is the outcome,” she said. But due to Carney facing limited criticism of his interactions with the Americans so far, Lawlor said she believes the prime minister will not face extreme negative blowback if he doesn’t trounce tariffs for good this week.But he will be more vulnerable if the tariffs start to place downward pressure on multiple industries, she said.As Canadians are waiting and watching for the Friday deal deadline, the real fears are around the cementing of a new world order and whether long-term business and consumer decisions need to be made in response, said Preetika Joshi, an assistant professor at McGill University in Quebec that specialises in taxation.“If you were a business owner and you knew Trump is going to be in power for only three, four years, would you necessarily make big, significant changes in your supply chain … or would you just wait it out?” she said.But given some grim messaging from those close to Carney – Canadians might be facing tough decisions. Dominic LeBlanc, the federal minister responsible for Canada-US trade, said last week there’s a lot of work ahead of them and minimised the 1 August deadline.“We’re going to continue to work toward the 1 August deadline,” said LeBlanc to reporters in Washington. “But all of these deadlines are with the understanding that we’ll take the time necessary to get the best deal,” he said.Deal or no deal, the negotiations might reveal that there isn’t a best-case scenario, said Joshi.“What we were used to before Trump, where there were very little tariffs, that reality is slightly over,” she said. “We’ll have to wait and see … but the reality is that there are going to be some tariffs.” More

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      Pete Hegseth’s aides used polygraphs against their own Pentagon colleagues

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      Senior aides to the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, conducted polygraphs on their own colleagues this spring, in some cases as part of an effort to flush out anyone who leaked to the media and apparently to undercut rivals in others, according to four people familiar with the matter.The polygraphs came at a time of profound upheaval in his office, as Hegseth opened a leak investigation and sought to identify the culprits by any means necessary after a series of sensitive disclosures and unflattering stories.But the polygraphs became contentious after the aides who were targeted questioned whether they were even official, given at least one polygraph was ordered without Hegseth’s direct knowledge and sparked an intervention by a Trump adviser who does not work at the Pentagon.The fraught episode involved Hegseth’s lawyer and part-time navy commander Tim Parlatore seeking to polygraph Patrick Weaver, a senior adviser to the secretary who was at the White House in Donald Trump’s first term and has ties to Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, the people said.When Weaver learned of his impending polygraph, he complained to associates that he had been suspected without evidence, the people said. That led the external Trump adviser to take his complaint to Hegseth – only for Hegseth to say he did not even know about the test.The external Trump adviser called Parlatore on his cellphone to shut down the impending polygraph, shouting down the line that in Trump’s second term, career employees did not get to question political appointees, according to two people familiar with the conversation.Weaver does not appear to have escalated his complaint to the White House, telling associates that he preferred not to bother Miller with problems. Earlier reports suggested the White House intervened on Weaver’s behalf but the people said the White House learned of the test after it was cancelled.A White House spokesperson declined to comment. A Pentagon spokesperson, Sean Parnell, said in a statement: “The Department will not comment on an ongoing investigation.”The extraordinary episode underscored ongoing concerns around Hegseth’s ability to manage the Pentagon – he is still facing an inspector general report into his disclosures in a Signal chat about US strikes against the Houthis – and why a Trump adviser ended up staging an intervention.Weaver’s cancelled polygraph was earlier reported by the Washington Post. But the effort at the Pentagon to weed out leakers with lie detector tests continued against uniformed military officers even after the incident with Weaver, three of the people said.Hegseth’s then-military aide and current acting chief of staff, Ricky Buria, at one point ordered polygraphs against several people connected to possible and perceived rivals at the Pentagon including senior adviser Eric Geressy, despite his own polygraph coming back as inconclusive.View image in fullscreenBuria, who is said not to care for Geressy, did not order a polygraph against him in the wake of the Weaver incident. Instead, the people said, he ordered polygraphs for officers who worked for Geressy, including Hegseth’s military assistants Capt William Francis, a former Navy Seal, and Col Mike Loconsolo.In an additional twist, the polygraphs for the uniformed officials became fraught after one person complained his had not been conducted by the Defense Intelligence Agency but a defense department contractor, and was separately told his polygraph could just double as being for his regular background investigation, two people familiar with the matter said.Hegseth himself threatened polygraphs to catch leakers, including against two top military officials, the Wall Street Journal earlier reported: navy Adm Christopher Grady, the vice-chair of the joint chiefs of staff, and army Lt Gen Douglas Sims, the director of the joint staff.According to two people familiar with the case of Sims, Buria had privately suggested that he might have played a role in leaking a classified plan for the Panama canal to NBC News, among other transgressions that included an allegation that Sims had been disrespectful.While it does not appear that Sims was actually polygraphed, Hegseth revoked his promotion to a four star general, despite earlier agreeing to the move at the recommendation of multiple career and political officials, the New York Times earlier reported.Hegseth told Sims that his connections to Gen Mark Milley, the former chief of the joint staff that Trump hates, were disqualifying – although Sims had ironically helped remove Milley’s portrait off the wall at the Pentagon when Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon, one of the people said.Several officials, including the chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen Dan Caine, told Hegseth that Sims was not a leaker and deserved better. Hegseth told officials he would sleep on it but never revisited the matter, the people said. More

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      How an 18th-century law enabled internment – and may do so again

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      Naoko Fujii’s great-grandfather Jotaro Mori was out fishing when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.When Mori returned home hours later, the FBI was waiting at his door, ready to arrest him under a wartime law that declared citizens of foreign adversaries “alien enemies”. He was detained without due process and spent the next four years in concentration camps across the western US, including the infamous camp Lordsburg in New Mexico where two elderly Japanese internees were killed. The government seized his home and laundry business so that when he was released, he was left with nothing.“There was no warrant, no charges, no evidence he ever did anything,” said Fujii, who added that, at the time of his arrest, her great-grandfather had been living in America for more than four decades. “He was picked up just because he’s Japanese.”In March, Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for just the fourth time in US history, deporting scores of Venezuelan migrants, without due process, to a mega-prison in El Salvador. Civil rights groups challenged the administration’s authority to use the law, which is now being heard by the conservative 5th circuit court of appeals.As the case looks likely to soon reach the supreme court, advocates and legal experts pointed to the dangerous precedent established by the last time the law was invoked, which led to the mass incarceration of both immigrants and US citizens of Japanese descent.“The Alien Enemies Act normalized the idea of internment and targeting people not based on their conduct but on their ancestry,” said Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice and leading expert on the history of the 18th-century law.The law stipulates that, when war is declared, “all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation” over the age of 14 can be apprehended or removed. This means anyone who was born or holds citizenship in a country considered a “foreign adversary” is vulnerable, Yon Ebright said, whether or not they actually pose a national security threat.“By the structure of the law,” Yon Ebright said, “you can be targeted based on who you are and where you’re born, not what you’ve done.”The Alien Enemies Act was one of four laws passed as part of the sweeping Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798; the three others have since expired or been repealed. The law was invoked just three times in US history, all in times of war.On 7 December 1941, in the immediate aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, President Franklin D Roosevelt invoked the Alien Enemies Act to round up more than 31,000 Japanese, German and Italian nationals. Two months later, the law paved the way for executive order 9066, which directed 120,000 Japanese on the west coast – two-thirds of whom were US citizens – to internment camps across the country.In the 1940s, Japanese immigrants faced an impossible situation, said Aarti Kohli, executive director at the legal services group Asian Law Caucus. Discriminatory federal laws barred them from becoming naturalized citizens, which made them targets under the Alien Enemies Act.“It’s a catch-22,” Kohli said. “They were targeted because they weren’t citizens, but they also couldn’t become citizens.”The Trump administration invoked the law to deport more than 200 Venezuelan migrants it accused of being members of the transnational criminal gang Tren de Aragua. Similar to Japanese internees, experts say, Venezuelan deportees were not given a chance to disprove the government’s accusations. In a 14 March memorandum, the Department of Justice claimed that the Alien Enemies Act allows federal law enforcement officers to conduct warrantless house raids and deportations without court hearings.Government deception is one throughline connecting the current and most recent invocations of the Alien Enemies Act, Kohli said.In 1983, the organization was part of a multi-team effort to clear the conviction records of three Japanese Americans held in wartime concentration camps. Their legal cases uncovered proof that the justice department suppressed, altered and destroyed intelligence reports that acknowledged Japanese Americans did not pose a military threat to the US.Similarly, Kohli said, multiple intelligence agencies have contradicted Trump’s claim that the Venezuelan government is controlling Tren de Agua – which formed his rationale for invoking the Alien Enemies Act.Descendants of those who suffered under the law are fighting to ensure that history does not repeat itself. In January, dozens of groups representing former internees and their families endorsed a measure to repeal the statute, introduced by Senator Mazie Hirono and Representative Ilhan Omar.The legacy of the Alien Enemies Act is not confined to the US. More than 2,000 Japanese immigrants in Latin America were deported to the US for internment as part of an obscure hostage exchange program. The Latin Japanese internees were treated both as “alien enemies” and unlawful entrants whom the US tried to deport to warn-torn Japan, Yon Ebright said, a country that many had little memory of.Grace Shimizu’s father immigrated from Japan to Peru in the 1920s, when he was 18. He and his brothers operated a successful charcoal business in Lima that was blacklisted by authorities. When war broke out, the government seized the company and shipped the brothers to a US concentration camp.None of them ever returned to Peru, Shimizu said. After the war, her uncle and his family were deported to Japan. Her father fought his deportation order and, with the sponsorship of Japanese American relatives in California, lived out the rest of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area.“This kind of government abuse is not new,” said Shimizu, director of the Campaign for Justice: Redress Now for Japanese Latin Americans. But today, “there are many more individuals and communities targeted as ‘the enemy’, technological advances to enhance overreach and capacity, and twisted government policies, actions and justifications.” More

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      Trump’s Unesco withdrawal is part of a broader assault on democracy | Liesl Gerntholtz and Julie Trebault

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      Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States a second time from what is essentially the beacon of global culture and heritage – Unesco – is depressing but unsurprising given the administration’s lack of respect for art and culture that celebrates the diversity of humanity in all of its fullness. But it is still a grave error of moral leadership that harms the United States’ global standing on free expression, human rights and democracy.Earlier this year, he initiated a takeover of the Kennedy Center’s programming and content, and linked National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants to highly partisan ideological conditions. Meanwhile, the government’s attempts at censorship in schools are all but rewriting American history.Trump has also systematically removed the United States from global obligations connected to health, human rights and the betterment of society. This includes withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN human rights council (UNHRC) and in effect the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).It was only a matter of time before Unesco – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – came under fire, representing as it does everything the Trump White House rails against. Unesco’s chief was unsurprised, saying that since the last time Trump was in power and pulled the US out of the organization, they had reduced their reliance on US funding significantly and would be carrying on with its mission.Why, then, does this withdrawal matter? Surely it can be chalked up to another strong-arm tactic designed to make headlines and give the administration some more “America First” policies to boast about. Unfortunately, when it comes to culture, it is not that simple.Culture comes under fire when democracy is dying. Russia’s imprisonment of writers, artists and cultural figures who question official narratives about the war on Ukraine; or the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas – these are examples of how culture becomes both a target and a battleground because it represents identity, memory and freedom of thought – the very things authoritarianism seeks to control or erase.What the US administration has dismissed as “woke” is actually Unesco preserving democratic ideals, teaching the world valuable lessons based in history and protecting artistic freedom – all things that autocrats see as a threat to their ability to control the narrative. It is no small irony that the organization’s recognition of Palestine has also been used as an excuse for the withdrawal, when Unesco is one of the leaders of Holocaust education in the world, and Palestine itself is suffering near total cultural obliteration.It would be a grave error for the United States not to recognize that Trump’s disdain for cultural preservation is part of a broader assault on human rights, democracy, free expression and artistic freedom. It is a story repeated across the world and throughout time. It is notable that one of the few countries to also withdraw from Unesco was South Africa, which withdrew in 1955 in protest against Unesco’s stance against apartheid. During this period of isolation, the apartheid government intensified its control over culture and education, seeking to tightly control the narrative in South Africa and globally about its discriminatory policies.There is still time to reverse this decision. PEN America, which defends free expression worldwide and ARC, the Artists at Risk Connection that protects artistic freedom, urge Congress to oppose this latest move to further isolate the United States globally, and ensure that the country continues to fulfill its international human rights obligations. US funders and foundations should also increase support to writers, journalists and media outlets, artists and cultural institutions, and free expression advocates in countries affected by the shutdown of US foreign assistance.By working with Unescoto commemorate sites of apartheid resistance when it rejoined in 1994, South Africa has shown how global engagement can honor truth and build inclusive memory; the United States, by contrast, risks forfeiting that same moral leadership by retreating from the very institution that makes such progress possible.

      Liesl Gerntholtz is the managing director of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center at PEN America. Julie Trebault is executive director of the Artists at Risk Connection More