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      Donald Trump threatens additional 50% tariffs on China over retaliatory levies – US politics live

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      Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the top news lines over the next few hours.We start with news that Donald Trump has threatened to impose an additional 50% tariff on imports from China on Wednesday unless the country rescinds its retaliatory tariffs on the United States by Tuesday.The news comes on the third day of catastrophic market falls around the globe since Trump announced his trade war last Wednesday with tariffs on the US’s trading partners.As part of that move the White House announced it would impose a 34% tariff on Chinese imports. In response, Beijing announced a 34% tariff on US imports.In a statement on Truth Social on Monday morning, the US president said that China enacted the retaliatory tariffs despite his “warning that any country that Retaliates against the U.S. by issuing additional Tariffs” would be “immediately met with new and substantially higher Tariffs, over and above those initially set”.“If China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th,” Trump wrote.“Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!” he added. “Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately.”China’s US embassy said on Monday it would not cave to pressure or threats over the additional 50% tariffs. “We have stressed more than once that pressuring or threatening China is not a right way to engage with us. China will firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” Liu Pengyu, an embassy spokesperson, told Agence France-Presse.Read the full report here:In other news:

      Donald Trump took questions from reporters during an Oval Office meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu today. In it, Trump indicated that he would attend “direct talks” with Iran on Saturday, that it “would be a good thing” to have the United States “controlling and owning the Gaza Strip”, and that European Union “rules and regulations” are “non-monetary barriers” on trade.

      Shortly after Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu, Iranian officials and state media disputed Trump’s claims that the US is scheduled to participate in “direct talks” with the country this weekend, indicating that the country understood it was entering indirect talks moderated by Omani officials.

      In a 5-4 decision, the US supreme court will allow the Trump administration to continue deporting Venezuelan migrants under an 18th-century wartime law.

      After a phone call with Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba this morning, Trump directed US treasury secretary Scott Bessent to open negotiations with the Japanese government.

      During speeches this afternoon, Democratic leadership in the House and Senate warned that Trump’s tariffs are teeing up “a nationwide recession”.

      After US stock markets opened this morning on bear market territory, the Cboe Volatility Index, also known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge”, reached “crisis levels” as it skyrocketed to its highest level since the Covid-19 pandemic.

      Canada has requested World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute consultations with the US over Trump’s decision to impose a 25% duty on cars and car parts from Canada, the WTO said today.

      Mexico is seeking to avoid retaliatory tariffs against the US but is not ruling them out, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said.

      The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is ending a half century of partnerships with the federal government to serve refugees and children, saying the “heartbreaking” decision follows the Trump administration’s abrupt halt to funding for refugee resettlement.

      Health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr will direct the CDC to stop recommending states add fluoride to their drinking water.

      In a social media post, Trump backed the Senate’s budget proposal – lending his support to the plan as House speaker Mike Johnson tees up a vote on the budget later this week despite still not having enough votes to guarantee its passage.
      President Donald Trump’s administration is considering drone strikes on drug cartels in Mexico to combat trafficking across the southern border, NBC News reported on Tuesday.It cited six current and former US military, law enforcement and intelligence officials with knowledge of the matter.The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, met with Donald Trump on Monday for the second time since the US president’s return to office, marking the first effort by a foreign leader to negotiate a deal after Trump announced sweeping tariffs last week.Speaking alongside Trump in the Oval Office, Netanyahu said Israel would eliminate the trade deficit with the US. “We intend to do it very quickly,” he told reporters, adding that he believed Israel could “serve as a model for many countries who ought to do the same”.Trump said the pair had a “great discussion” but did not indicate whether he would reduce the tariffs on Israeli goods. “Maybe not,” he said. “Don’t forget we help Israel a lot. We give Israel $4bn a year. That’s a lot.”Trump denied reports that he was considering a 90-day pause on his tariff rollout. “We’re not looking at that,” he told reporters. “We have many, many countries that are coming to negotiate deals with us, and there are going to be fair deals.”European stock markets have risen on Tuesday in early signs of a rebound from the punishing global sell-off triggered by US trade tariffs.Stock markets in the UK and across the EU were in positive territory in early trading on Tuesday, as some investor optimism returned after heavy falls as a result of Donald Trump’s “liberation day’” tariff announcements last Wednesday.London’s FTSE 100 index of blue-chip stocks was 106 points higher, up 1.4%, at 7811. In Frankfurt, Germany’s Dax was 1.5% higher while France’s CAC jumped by 1.4%. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index rose 1.4%.On the FTSE, theindustrial companies Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems were the biggest risers, up 5% and 4% respectively, followed by miners, oil companies and banks.Investors are hoping that the market could stabilise as reports have emerged that the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, will lead trade talks with Tokyo, in a sign that the Trump administration will be open to negotiate on tariffs.The news drove a modest rebound in Asian markets overnight, led by Japanese stocks. Tokyo’s Nikkei index recovered by 5.6%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose by 1.6% after its steepest drop since the 1997 Asian financial crisis on Monday.Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the top news lines over the next few hours.We start with news that Donald Trump has threatened to impose an additional 50% tariff on imports from China on Wednesday unless the country rescinds its retaliatory tariffs on the United States by Tuesday.The news comes on the third day of catastrophic market falls around the globe since Trump announced his trade war last Wednesday with tariffs on the US’s trading partners.As part of that move the White House announced it would impose a 34% tariff on Chinese imports. In response, Beijing announced a 34% tariff on US imports.In a statement on Truth Social on Monday morning, the US president said that China enacted the retaliatory tariffs despite his “warning that any country that Retaliates against the U.S. by issuing additional Tariffs” would be “immediately met with new and substantially higher Tariffs, over and above those initially set”.“If China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th,” Trump wrote.“Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!” he added. “Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately.”China’s US embassy said on Monday it would not cave to pressure or threats over the additional 50% tariffs. “We have stressed more than once that pressuring or threatening China is not a right way to engage with us. China will firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” Liu Pengyu, an embassy spokesperson, told Agence France-Presse.Read the full report here:In other news:

      Donald Trump took questions from reporters during an Oval Office meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu today. In it, Trump indicated that he would attend “direct talks” with Iran on Saturday, that it “would be a good thing” to have the United States “controlling and owning the Gaza Strip”, and that European Union “rules and regulations” are “non-monetary barriers” on trade.

      Shortly after Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu, Iranian officials and state media disputed Trump’s claims that the US is scheduled to participate in “direct talks” with the country this weekend, indicating that the country understood it was entering indirect talks moderated by Omani officials.

      In a 5-4 decision, the US supreme court will allow the Trump administration to continue deporting Venezuelan migrants under an 18th-century wartime law.

      After a phone call with Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba this morning, Trump directed US treasury secretary Scott Bessent to open negotiations with the Japanese government.

      During speeches this afternoon, Democratic leadership in the House and Senate warned that Trump’s tariffs are teeing up “a nationwide recession”.

      After US stock markets opened this morning on bear market territory, the Cboe Volatility Index, also known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge”, reached “crisis levels” as it skyrocketed to its highest level since the Covid-19 pandemic.

      Canada has requested World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute consultations with the US over Trump’s decision to impose a 25% duty on cars and car parts from Canada, the WTO said today.

      Mexico is seeking to avoid retaliatory tariffs against the US but is not ruling them out, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said.

      The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is ending a half century of partnerships with the federal government to serve refugees and children, saying the “heartbreaking” decision follows the Trump administration’s abrupt halt to funding for refugee resettlement.

      Health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr will direct the CDC to stop recommending states add fluoride to their drinking water.

      In a social media post, Trump backed the Senate’s budget proposal – lending his support to the plan as House speaker Mike Johnson tees up a vote on the budget later this week despite still not having enough votes to guarantee its passage. More

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      ‘Everything is political’: how film can guide us through difficult times

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      From its opening frame, Costa-Gavras’s political thriller Z promises to be an unflinching denunciation of authoritarianism. The kinetic camera work matches its forthright narrative of state-sponsored violence and the erosion of democracy. The Greek expatriate director’s film is loosely based on the 1963 assassination of the democratic leader Grigoris Lambrakis and although it was released in 1969, when Costa-Gavras reigned as a political storyteller, the film still has something to say today in this “golden age” for the United States.In the flurry of Donald Trump’s executive orders, I found myself watching Z again as I contemplated how we arrived at this political moment – the polarization, disinformation, corruption and complicity by individuals and institutions that precede and abet the collapse of democracy – and what cinema can reveal at a time of censorship, deportations and protesters vilified as domestic terrorists.It turns out, that’s a lot.There’s a long tradition of turning anti-totalitarian books into films. George Orwell’s 1984, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale have been revisited multiple times, confirming the staying power of these cautionary tales in a world where freedom is still dispensable. And there’s also a long tradition of films commenting on totalitarianism. Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, released in 1940, mocked Adolf Hitler while warning about the dangers of the Führer before the US entered the second world war. I’m Still Here, this year’s Oscar winner for best international feature film, looks at the real-life fallout from Brazil’s dictatorship through the lens of Eunice Paiva’s struggle to discover what happened to her husband Rubens, a former politician who was disappeared by the military in 1971.View image in fullscreenCosta-Gavras has said: “Everything is political.” We can see his point in several films across genres that capture how authoritarianism takes root, the importance of resisting unjust systems and the often-protracted fight for human rights and dignity.Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, about a slave uprising in the Roman empire, depicts a hero who fought for the principle of self-determination. Kirk Douglas plays the titular character, a reluctant gladiator who leads the uprising. But the politics behind the 1960 film – and the politics the film represented – are as powerful as the story of the slave revolt. In the hands of screenwriters Dalton Trumbo and Howard Fast, who were blacklisted and imprisoned during the red scare, Spartacus is an allegory for the human right to resist oppressive systems. (The film was based on Fast’s book, written in prison and published in 1951.) In universalizing Spartacus’s desire for freedom, the film-makers echoed the themes of the growing civil rights movement and defended dissent against the censorship of McCarthyism. However, the film isn’t content to leave us with a depiction of heroic freedom fighters. Instead, in its final scenes it highlights the steep price of dissent and the sometimes-protracted struggle for social change. When the uprising fails, Spartacus and his followers are crucified, but his son is born free. The rebellion may be short-lived, but it’s not in vain.V for Vendetta, the 2005 dystopian film based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore, is a less straightforward story of rebellion against an unjust system and more a critique of the role of government and commentary on the power of an idea to incite social change. Set in a future London in the grips of a fascist regime, the film follows V, played by Hugo Weaving, who is determined to destroy the regime and repay its leaders for torturing him. He hides his identity behind a mask of Guy Fawkes, who with a small band of Catholic co-conspirators attempted to blow up parliament and assassinate King James in 1605. The conspirators wanted the Protestant king to be more tolerant toward Catholics. The conspiracy’s failure is commemorated annually. In the final standoff with the regime’s enforcers, V says: “People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people,” a statement that could be a motto and a rallying cry for our times.French film-maker Ladj Ly told the Hollywood Reporter: “I’m an artist, and my job is only to denounce the unjust reality as I see it. I have no solutions. I hope what the film will do is expose the humiliating situations that people are dealing with every day and help more people understand the situation – and why so many of us feel this rage.”View image in fullscreenLy’s acclaimed film Les Misérables, about an uprising against police violence by young Black and Arab men, is set in the segregated banlieues outside Paris. The Siege, a 1998 American film directed by Edward Zwick and co-written by Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower, mines similar territory. The film is set in contemporary Brooklyn where the US military has seized control of the borough after a string of terrorist attacks. The military detains thousands of men of Arab and Middle Eastern descent while people demonstrate for their release outside the barbed-wire fences surrounding the stadium where they are held. Released five years after the first attempt to blow up the World Trade Center and three years before 9/11, The Siege is perhaps more relevant now than it was when it premiered. The ongoing deaths in Gaza and the threats of deportation against foreign students demonstrating on behalf of Palestinians give the film an urgency.While aspects of the film seem improbable – given its history of surveillance, it’s doubtful that the FBI would confront the military over defending the constitutional rights of detainees – The Siege dares to have a debate we need to have: what it means to be a patriot. When FBI agent Denzel Washington walks in on commanding general Bruce Willis as a man is being tortured, Washington asks, exasperated and outraged: “Are you people insane?” The ensuing argument between the men about the relationship between patriotism and the US constitution could be richer, but at least the film knows the issue must be debated.As Ly says, film, like art, can reflect and shape reality. Not surprisingly, Z was a favorite of the Black Panther party, which screened an advanced print at a national anti-fascist conference. The Panthers, whose members were surveilled and killed, saw their story in the film. In the climax of Z, everyone involved in exposing the truth about the murder of the populist leader is imprisoned, killed or exiled. And as the military cracks down on free speech, a list of banned words and activities, from freedom of the press to labor unions, continuously scrolls behind the television news anchors announcing the decrees. In its disturbing epilogue, Z reminds us of a universal truth about authoritarians that we can’t afford to ignore: to succeed they must first control information. More

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      Trump news at a glance: Wild swings on global markets as Trump threatens further China tariffs

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      Global stock markets fell catastrophically on Monday following President Trump’s tariff rollout.Despite the economic turmoil, the US president doubled down on his plan, threatening to impose an additional 50% tariff on imports from China on Wednesday, unless the country rescinds its retaliatory tariffs on the United States by Tuesday.Trump has defended his sweeping tariffs, saying: “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something”. Top officials in the administration have brushed aside fears of a recession and reiterated the tariff policy will be implemented as planned.Here are the key stories at a glance:Wild swings on global stock marketsExtreme volatility plagued global stock markets on Monday, with Wall Street swinging in and out of the red as Donald Trump defied stark warnings that his global trade assault will wreak widespread economic damage, comparing new US tariffs to medicine.A renewed sell-off began in Asia, before hitting European equities and reaching the US. It was briefly reversed amid hopes of a reprieve, only for Trump to threaten China with more steep tariffs, intensifying pressure on the market.Read the full storyEU offered ‘zero-for-zero’ tariff deal weeks agoThe EU has said it offered the US a “zero-for-zero” tariff deal on cars and industrial goods weeks before Donald Trump launched his trade war, but that it would not wait to defend itself. Maros Šefčovič, the EU commissioner for trade, said he had proposed zero tariffs on cars and a range of industrial goods, such as pharmaceutical products, rubber and machinery on 19 February.He said the EU and US were in early stages of talks while EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the offer remained on the table. However, later on Monday Trump appeared to quash any such discussions, telling reporters zero-zero tariffs were not on the cards.Read the full storySupreme court allows deportations under 18th century law Donald Trump may continue using a 1798 law to deport alleged gang members to Venezuela, the supreme court ruled on Monday, however it will apply certain limits. Despite siding with the administration, the court’s majority placed limits on how deportations may occur, emphasizing that judicial review is required.Read the full storyTrump unveils ‘direct talks’ with Iran on nuclear dealDonald Trump has announced that the US is to hold direct talks with Iran in a bid to prevent the country from obtaining an atomic bomb, while also warning Tehran of dire consequences if they fail.He said the talks were happening in an effort to avoid what he called “the obvious” – an apparent reference to US or Israeli military strikes against the regime’s nuclear facilities.Read the full storyIsraeli PM discusses Gaza and tariffs at White HouseThe Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, met with Donald Trump Monday for the second time since the US president’s return to office, marking the first effort by a foreign leader to negotiate a deal after Trump announced sweeping tariffs last week.Read the full storyRFK Jr claims anti-vax doctors healed kids with measlesRobert F Kennedy Jr followed up his attendance at the Texas funeral of a child who died from measles by praising two unconventional “healers”, one of whom was previously disciplined by the state’s medical board for “unusual use of risk-filled medications”.Read the full storyRepublican senator claims ‘kill journalists’ comments were ‘joke’ The Republican US senator and Donald Trump loyalist Markwayne Mullin has evidently sought to backtrack from comments suggesting politicians could “handle our differences” with journalists by shooting and killing them, insisting he was trying to make a joke.The Oklahoma lawmaker, a former mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, on Saturday posted to X a video of himself at a stairway in the US Capitol building recounting the tale of the newspaper columnist Charles Kincaid.Read the full storyAnti-DEI purge of Harriet Tubman webpageThe National Park Service has removed a quote and an image of US abolitionist Harriet Tubman from a webpage about the Underground Railroad network that helped enslaved people escape captivity – and instead, the page now emphasizes what it describes as “Black/White Cooperation” as Donald Trump’s presidential administration continues its effort to sanitize the country’s history.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      A libertarian group backed by Leonard Leo and Charles Koch has mounted a legal challenge against Donald Trump’s tariff regime, in a sign of spreading rightwing opposition to a policy that has sent international markets plummeting.

      At least 39 international students have had their visas revoked in the past week without notice or clear explanation – with one student losing her legal status due to a speeding ticket.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 6 April 2025. More

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      Trump threatens additional 50% tariffs on China over retaliatory levies

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      Donald Trump has threatened to impose an additional 50% tariff on imports from China on Wednesday unless the country rescinds its retaliatory tariffs on the United States by Tuesday.The news comes on the third day of catastrophic market falls around the globe since Trump announced his trade war last Wednesday with tariffs on the US’s trading partners.As part of that move the White House announced it would impose a 34% tariff on Chinese imports. In response, Beijing announced a 34% tariff on US imports.In a statement on Truth Social on Monday morning, the US president said that China enacted the retaliatory tariffs despite his “warning that any country that Retaliates against the U.S. by issuing additional Tariffs” would be “immediately met with new and substantially higher Tariffs, over and above those initially set”.“If China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th,” Trump wrote.“Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!” he added. “Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately.”China’s US embassy said on Monday it would not cave to pressure or threats over the additional 50% tariffs. “We have stressed more than once that pressuring or threatening China is not a right way to engage with us. China will firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” Liu Pengyu, an embassy spokesman, told Agence France-Presse.A senior White House official told ABC News that the increased tariffs on China would be on top of the 34% reciprocal tariff Trump announced last week and the 20% already in place.Trump’s new ultimatum to China marked the latest escalation from the White House and came as US stocks swung in and out of the red on Monday morning as a report circulated that Trump was going to pause the implementation of his sweeping tariffs for 90 days, but then was quickly dismissed by the White House as “fake news”.Not long after Trump threatened China with additional tariffs on Monday morning, he participated in a White House visit from the Los Angeles Dodgers to celebrate their World Series title. More

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      Mother and three kids released by Ice after protests from US ‘border czar’s’ hometown

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      A mother and her three children who were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents as part of a sweep in the tiny hometown of the Trump administration’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, have been released following days of outcry from community figures and protesters calling for their freedom.Over the weekend, about a thousand protesters marched outside of Homan’s home in a small New York village, calling for the release of the children and their mother after they were detained last month. The family has not been named or spoken out publicly.Jaime Cook, principal of the Sackets Harbor school district where the children reportedly attended class, wrote a letter to the community pleading for the students’ safe return.She described the children as having “no ties to criminal activity” and that they are “loved in their classrooms”.“We are in shock,” the letter reads. “And it is that shared shock that has unified our community in the call for our students’ release.”The family was taken into custody in a 27 March raid at a large dairy farm in the remote town that has a population of fewer than 1,500 in Jefferson county in north-western New York state, on Lake Ontario near the Canadian border. The target of the raid was reportedly a South African national charged with trafficking in child sexual abuse material, whom they apprehended, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents said.But authorities separately picked up and detained the family, as well as three other immigrants they said were without documentation. The family was moved to the Karnes county immigration processing center, a privately run detention facility in Texas, by 30 March.Cook’s letter said that the family had declared themselves to immigration judges, were attending court on their assigned dates and had been following the legal process.The release of the family was confirmed on Monday by local officials, school administrators, and the New York governor, Kathy Hochul.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHochul said in a statement that she had direct confirmation from Homan that “this family – a third grader, two teenagers and their mother – are currently on their way back to Jefferson county. I cannot imagine the trauma these kids and their mom are feeling, and I pray they will be able to heal when they return home.”The protests were organized with the help of the Jefferson county committee of the Democratic Party. Corey Decillis, committee chair, told NBC News that protestors had seen these raids “occur right in the last 60 days across the country, but when it happens in your backyard, I think that’s what garners people’s attention.” More

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      Netanyahu discusses Gaza and tariffs with Trump at White House meeting

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      The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, met with Donald Trump on Monday for the second time since the US president’s return to office, marking the first effort by a foreign leader to negotiate a deal after Trump announced sweeping tariffs last week.Speaking alongside Trump in the Oval Office, Netanyahu said Israel would eliminate the trade deficit with the US. “We intend to do it very quickly,” he told reporters, adding that he believed Israel could “serve as a model for many countries who ought to do the same”.Trump said the pair had a “great discussion” but did not indicate whether he would reduce the tariffs on Israeli goods. “Maybe not,” he said. “Don’t forget we help Israel a lot. We give Israel $4bn a year. That’s a lot.”Trump denied reports that he was considering a 90-day pause on his tariff rollout. “We’re not looking at that,” he told reporters. “We have many, many countries that are coming to negotiate deals with us, and there are going to be fair deals.”Trump also announced that the US and Iran were beginning talks on Tehran’s nuclear program. “We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started. It’ll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen,” he told reporters. He warned Tehran would be “in great danger” if the talks collapse.Netanyahu expressed a cautious support for US-Iran talks but insisted Tehran must not have nuclear weapons. “If it can be done diplomatically … I think that would be a good thing,” he said. “But whatever happens, we must make sure that Iran does not have nuclear weapons.”The comments came in the Oval Office after Trump and Netanyahu held private talks. The White House canceled a joint press conference that was scheduled to take place afterward, without offering an immediate explanation.Netanyahu, announcing the last-minute meeting on Sunday, said he was visiting at the invitation of Trump to speak about efforts to release Israeli hostages from Gaza, as well as new US tariffs.The meeting came after the Trump administration announced his trade war last Wednesday with tariffs on the US’s trading partners, including a 17% tariff on Israeli goods.The US is Israel’s closest ally and largest single trading partner. Israel had hoped to avoid the new tariffs by moving to cancel its remaining tariffs on US imports a day before Trump’s announcement.Before his meeting with Trump, Netanyahu met with the US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff. He also met with the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, and the US trade representative Jamieson Greer on Sunday night in Washington. The Israeli government described the latter meeting as “warm, friendly and productive”.During Netanyahu’s last visit in February, Trump shocked the world by proposing to take over the Gaza Strip, removing more than 2 million Palestinians and redeveloping the occupied territory as a “Riviera of the Middle East”, in effect endorsing the ethnic cleansing of the people of Gaza.Since then, Israel has resumed its bombardment in Gaza, collapsing nearly two months of ceasefire with Hamas that had been brokered by the US, Egypt and Qatar.Nearly 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli operations in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, taking the total death toll since the start of the war to more than 50,000. Israel has also halted all supplies of food, fuel and humanitarian aid into Gaza.Netanyahu’s visit to the US comes as he faces pressure at home to return to ceasefire negotiations and secure the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza.Netanyahu told reporters on Monday that he and Trump had discussed the US leader’s “bold” vision to move Palestinians from Gaza, and that he is working with the US on another deal to secure the release of additional hostages. “We’re working now on another deal, that we hope will succeed,” he said.Netanyahu also claimed that Israel is committed to “enabling the people of Gaza to freely make a choice to go wherever they want”. Last week, he said Israel was “seizing territory” and intended to “divide up” the Gaza Strip by building a new security corridor, inflaming fears that Israel intends to take permanent control of the strip when the war ends.Netanyahu arrived in Washington on Sunday night from Hungary, after a four-day official visit that marked the Israeli leader’s first visit to European soil since the international criminal court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for him over allegations of war crimes in Gaza.Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, made it clear he would defy the court to host Netanyahu, and announced that he would take Hungary out of the ICC because it had become “political”. The US is not a member of the court. More