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      David Hogg to exit Democratic National Committee after months of turmoil

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      David Hogg, the young vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee whose vow to unseat “asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats roiled his party, said on Wednesday that he would step away from the high-ranking role in a move that ends months of internal infighting.Moments before Hogg announced his decision, members of the committee had voted to hold new vice-chair elections that could have led to his ouster.“I came into this role to play a positive role in creating the change our party needs,” Hogg said in a statement, announcing that he was withdrawing from the race. “It is clear that there is a fundamental disagreement about the role of a Vice Chair – and it’s okay to have disagreements. What isn’t okay is allowing this to remain our focus when there is so much more we need to be focused on.”He continued: “Ultimately, I have decided to not run in this upcoming election so the party can focus on what really matters.”Hogg’s brief tenure has been marked by dramatic infighting with members of the committee’s leadership team. After he announced his plans to spend $20m in Democratic primaries through his outside political organization, Leaders We Deserve.In April, DNC chair Ken Martin endorsed a proposal that would have forced Hogg to choose between his vice-chair position and his push to bring generational change to the party. Last weekend, audio from an internal Zoom meeting of party officers was leaked to Politico.In the recording, Martin accuses Hogg of having “destroyed” his ability to effectively lead Democrats out the political wilderness. Multiple officers publicly blamed Hogg for the disclosure, prompting Hogg to post screenshots of text he had ignored from the Politico reporter seeking comment.In a statement, Martin called Hogg a “powerful voice for this party” and said he commended his activism.“I respect his decision to step back from his post as Vice Chair,” Martin said. “I have no doubt that he will remain an important advocate for Democrats across the map. I appreciate his service as an officer, his hard work, and his dedication to the party.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHogg’s withdrawal means that Pennsylvania state lawmaker Malcolm Kenyatta is the only candidate eligible for the male vice-chair role. A second vote will be held later this week for the second vice-chair position, which can be a candidate of any gender.Kenyatta, who has been sharply critical of Hogg and the attention focused on him, said in a statement that he was “grateful” to his supporters and eager to move forward.“Democrats must be bold and meet this moment,” he said. “This is the urgent work in front of us: to stand up to authoritarianism, to protect care and dignity, and to make life better for the people who count on us.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: government ‘dragnet’ widens as undocumented farm workers targeted in fresh raids

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      With limited access to immigrants in detention, US attorneys are scrambling to understand the scope of California’s immigration raids, and the extent to which the Department of Homeland Security has violated immigrants’ rights.Immigration lawyers have said some detainees – including families with small children – were held in a stuffy office basement for days without sufficient food and water.Elsewhere, US immigration officials carried out further “enforcement activity” in California’s agricultural heartland, with one advocacy group saying agents pursued workers through blueberry fields.The raids have sparked ongoing protests in Los Angeles and led to demonstrations in other cities across the country.Here are the key stories:US immigration officials raid California farms as Trump ramps up conflictAn estimated 255,700 farm workers are undocumented and the raids have been sharply criticized by advocacy groups and local officials, who said they were “outraged and heartbroken by Ice activities targeting immigrant families”.The increasing raids come as Ice ramps up its efforts to meet a reported quota of 3,000 detentions a day set by Stephen Miller, Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff.Read the full storyFamilies arrested in LA Ice raids held in basements with little food or water, lawyers sayThe children, the youngest of whom is three years old, were provided a bag of chips, a box of animal crackers and a mini carton of milk as their sole rations for a day. Agents told the family they did not have any water to provide during the family’s first day in detention; on the second day, all five were given a single bottle to share.The one fan in the room was pointed directly towards a guard, rather than towards the families in confinement, they told lawyers.Read the full storyWorld’s biggest TikTok star Khaby Lame leaves US after Ice agents detain him over visaThe world’s most followed TikToker, Khaby Lame, has left the US after being briefly detained by immigration agents for allegedly overstaying his visa. The Italian-Senegalese influencer is now one of the most high-profile people to be swept up in Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration.The social media star, whose legal name is Seringe Khabane Lame, was detained last Friday at an airport in Las Vegas. He was released the same day and has since left the US, a spokesperson for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) told the Guardian in a statement.Read the full storyTrump says China will face 55% tariffs as he endorses trade dealDonald Trump has endorsed the US-China trade deal struck in London that will ramp up supplies of rare earth minerals and magnets needed for the automotive industry, saying it will take total tariffs on Beijing to 55%.Acknowledging that his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, still needed to give his final approval on the terms agreed late on Tuesday night at Lancaster House, the US president disclosed the pact would also facilitate Chinese students’ access to US colleges.Read the full storyJudge rules Trump administration can no longer detain Mahmoud Khalil A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration can no longer detain Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil on the basis of federal claims that he is a threat to US foreign policy.In his order on Wednesday, Judge Michael E Farbiarz said that the ruling will come into effect at 9.30am on Friday, adding: “This is to allow the respondents to seek appellate review should they wish to.”Read the full storyMajor US climate website likely to be shut down after almost all staff firedA major US government website supporting public education on climate science looks likely to be shuttered after almost all of its staff were fired, the Guardian has learned.Climate.gov, the gateway website for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa)’s Climate Program Office, will no longer publish new content, according to multiple former staff responsible for the site’s content whose contracts were recently terminated.Read the full storyPentagon launches review of US-UK-Australia security allianceThe Pentagon has launched a review of the Aukus submarine agreement to make sure it is aligned with Trump’s “America first” agenda, throwing the $240bn defense pact with Britain and Australia into doubt.The review may trigger more allied anxiety over the future of the trilateral alliance designed to counter China’s military rise.Read the full story EPA announces major rollbacks to power plant pollution limitsUS power plants will be allowed to pollute nearby communities and the wider world with more unhealthy air toxins and an unlimited amount of planet-heating gases under new regulatory rollbacks proposed by Donald Trump’s administration, experts warned.Read the full storyTrump plans to ‘phase out’ Fema after hurricane seasonPresident Donald Trump said on Tuesday he planned to start “phasing out” the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the hurricane season and that states would receive less federal aid to respond to natural disasters.Read the full storyMusk says he regrets some of his posts about TrumpElon Musk has expressed contrition for some of his tweets about Donald Trump last week, in an apparent effort to retreat from an explosive falling out that has threatened to damage the Tesla boss’s business interests.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Barely one-third of people polled across 24 countries say they have confidence in Donald Trump as a world leader, with most describing the US president as “arrogant” and “dangerous”, and relatively few as “honest”.

      Donald Trump’s administration is discouraging governments around the world from attending a UN conference next week on a possible two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, according to a US cable seen by Reuters.

      US prices continued to rise in May as companies and consumers grappled with Donald Trump’s tariffs. Annualized inflation ticked higher to 2.4% in May, up from 2.3% in April.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 10 June. More

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      Trump trade deal shows how vital China’s rare-earth metals are to US defense firms

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      The draft trade agreement with China announced by Donald Trump on Wednesday would ease concerns from top US military suppliers about rare-earth metals and magnets that, if cut off permanently, could hobble production of everything from smart bombs to fighter jets to submarines and other weapons in the US arsenal.While the deal has not yet been finalised, it may reassure major defense companies such as Lockheed Martin, the largest US user of samarium – a rare-earth metal used in military-grade magnets – whose supply is entirely controlled by China.The issue of China’s export restrictions on the metals and magnets was so important that Trump specifically mentioned them as part of his announcement of a broader trade agreement with China that would reduce US tariffs to 55% and Chinese tariffs to 10%.“Our deal with China is done, subject to final approval with President Xi and me,” Trump wrote. “Full magnets, and any necessary rare earths, will be supplied, up front, by China.”Rare earths are crucial to the production of F-35 fighter jets, Virginia- and Columbia-class nuclear-powered submarines, Tomahawk missiles, radar systems, unmanned aerial vehicles and smart bombs, according to Gracelin Baskaran of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a thinktank.China in April imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements during the tough negotiations over Trump’s new tariffs. China also targeted the aerospace and defense industries by limiting 15 US entities with ties to the industry from receiving dual-use goods.“The United States is already on the back foot when it comes to manufacturing these defense technologies,” Baskaran said in an interview published by CSIS. “China is rapidly expanding its munitions production and acquiring advanced weapons systems and equipment at a pace five to six times faster than the United States. While China is preparing with a wartime mindset, the United States continues to operate under peacetime conditions.”Trump has amassed a team of foreign policy China hawks, including a number who have warned that the US should focus more on the pacing threat posed by China over the coming decades instead of current conflicts in Ukraine or the Middle East.“Even before the latest restrictions, the US defense industrial base struggled with limited capacity and lacked the ability to scale up production to meet defense technology demands,” she continued. “Further bans on critical minerals inputs will only widen the gap, enabling China to strengthen its military capabilities more quickly than the United States.”China and the US had agreed last month in Geneva to pause the implementation of sky-high tariffs that would have delivered a severe economic blow to manufacturers and consumers in the US, as well as exporters in China.But China maintained export licenses on rare-earth metals used by both defense producers and carmakers that threatened to upend global supply chains and imperil production in the US.In particular, China has a stranglehold on the production and export of samarium, a magnet used in combination with cobalt to provide highly durable magnets used to withstand the intense temperatures in military-grade tech. China produces the entire world’s supply of the rare-earth metal.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn particular, the magnets are important for the production of guided missiles, satellite-guided “smart bombs”, and aircrafts, including fighter jets, according to Apex Magnets, a supplier.Those supplies of weapons have been depleted through deliveries of missiles and other ordnance to Ukraine and to the Israeli military. Pentagon planners and other officials in the administration of Joe Biden, regularly squared off over whether foreign weapons deliveries expose a US vulnerability in case it faced off with a major military power.In order to break the deadlock, secretary of state Marco Rubio also abruptly announced plans to cancel hundreds of thousands of visas for Chinese students in the US. While publicly that was said as a plan to root out Chinese spies in US higher education, Axios reported that the visa ban was also motivated by China’s obstinance on resuming rare earths exports.The breakthrough comes as Trump is planning to display US military prowess at a parade in Washington DC this weekend that has been seen as an attempt to flex American muscle and reinforce the US president’s bonafides as a supporter of the military.Trump in 2019 ordered the Pentagon to find new sources of procuring rare earth minerals, in particular samarium, because the US did not have the capacity to produce them domestically. The initiative was “essential to the national defense”, he said then. More

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      Trump administration urges other countries to skip UN conference on Israel-Gaza war

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      Donald Trump’s administration is discouraging governments around the world from attending a UN conference next week on a possible two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, according to a US cable seen by Reuters.The diplomatic demarche, sent on Tuesday, says countries that take “anti-Israel actions” following the conference will be viewed as acting in opposition to US foreign policy interests and could face diplomatic consequences from Washington.The demarche runs squarely against the diplomacy of two close allies, France and Saudi Arabia, who are co-hosting the gathering next week in New York that aims to lay out the parameters for a roadmap to a Palestinian state, while ensuring Israel’s security.“We are urging governments not to participate in the conference, which we view as counterproductive to ongoing, life-saving efforts to end the war in Gaza and free hostages,” read the cable.Emmanuel Macron has suggested France could recognise a Palestinian state in Israeli-occupied territories at the conference. French officials say they have been working to avoid a clash with the US, Israel’s staunchest major ally.“The United States opposes any steps that would unilaterally recognise a conjectural Palestinian state, which adds significant legal and political obstacles to the eventual resolution of the conflict and could coerce Israel during a war, thereby supporting its enemies,” the cable read.The United States for decades backed a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians that would create a state for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza alongside Israel.Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of US Middle East policy. The Republican president has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term.But on Tuesday, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a long-time vocal supporter of Israel, said he did not think an independent Palestinian state remained a US foreign policy goal.“Unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state would effectively render Oct 7 Palestinian Independence Day,” the cable read, referring to when Palestinian Hamas militants carried out a cross-border attack from Gaza on Israel in 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.Hamas’ attack triggered Israel’s air and ground war in Gaza in which almost 55,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of the population of 2.3 million displaced and the enclave widely reduced to rubble.If Macron went ahead, France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim communities, would become the first Western heavyweight to recognise a Palestinian state.This could lend greater momentum to a movement hitherto dominated by smaller nations generally more critical of Israel.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMacron’s stance has shifted amid Israel’s intensified Gaza offensive and escalating violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, and there is a growing sense of urgency in Paris to act now before the idea of a two-state solution vanishes forever.The US cable said Washington had worked tirelessly with Egypt and Qatar to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, free the hostages and end the conflict.“This conference undermines these delicate negotiations and emboldens Hamas at a time when the terrorist group has rejected proposals by the negotiators that Israel has accepted.”This week the UK, Australia and Canada were joined by other countries in placing sanctions on two Israeli far-right government ministers to pressure Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, to bring the Gaza war to an end.“The United States opposes the implied support of the conference for potential actions including boycotts and sanctions on Israel as well as other punitive measures,” the cable read.Israel has repeatedly criticised the conference, saying it rewards Hamas for the attack on Israel, and it has lobbied France against recognising a Palestinian state.“Nothing surprises me anymore, but I don’t see how many countries could step back on their participation,” said a European diplomat, who asked for anonymity due to the subject’s sensitivity. “This is bullying, and of a stupid type.“ More

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      Trump’s EPA announces major rollbacks to power plant pollution limits

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      US power plants will be allowed to pollute nearby communities and the wider world with more unhealthy air toxins and an unlimited amount of planet-heating gases under new regulatory rollbacks proposed by Donald Trump’s administration, experts warned.The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled a plan on Wednesday that would repeal a landmark climate rule that aims to mostly eliminate greenhouse gases from power plants by the 2030s and would, separately, weaken another regulation that restricts power plants’ release of hazardous air pollutants such as mercury.“We choose to both protect the environment and grow the economy,” said Lee Zeldin, administrator of the EPA, at an event to announce the plans. He said the rollbacks will save households money while also defying what he called “the climate change cult”.The climate rule has “saddled our critical power sector with expensive, unreasonable and burdensome regulations”, Zeldin said. “American energy suffered and Americans who rely on reliable, affordable energy suffered. The good news is those days are over.”The EPA’s proposals will go out for public comment and are likely to face legal challenges.They target a rule crafted last year by the Biden administration to phase out emissions from electricity-producing fossil fuel plants, which are responsible for around a quarter of US greenhouse gases, and a regulation called the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which Biden toughened in 2023 to slash harmful pollution suffered by communities.These rollbacks come despite overwhelming scientific evidence of the dire consequences of the worsening climate crisis and the harm caused by pollutants such as mercury, which can seep into water, soils and the air and has been linked to neurological damage in young children as well as heart, lung and immune system ailments in adults. Coal-fired power plants cause nearly half of all mercury emissions in the US, according to the EPA.More than 200 health experts wrote to the EPA on Wednesday warning the moves “would lead to the biggest pollution increases in decades and is a blatant give-away to polluters”. The experts added the reversals are “a direct contradiction to the Environmental Protection Agency’s mission of protecting public health and the environment”.Trump, however, has vowed to boost fossil fuel production at all costs, having reaped record donations from the oil and gas industry during his election campaign. At Wednesday’s EPA event, Zeldin was joined by eight lawmakers, all Republicans – Kevin Cramer, Troy Balderson, Brett Guthrie, Carol Miller, Dan Meuser, Rob Bresnahan, Michael Rulli and Riley Moore – who have collectively received more than $3m from fossil fuel donors in their own election campaigns, a Guardian analysis of the OpenSecrets database shows.Bresnahan, a Pennsylvania representative, holds personal financial interests in more than 20 fossil fuel companies.In justifying the deletion of the Biden climate plan, which the EPA previously estimated would deliver $370bn in net benefits, Zeldin has claimed that US power plants only produce a small and declining fraction of the world’s emissions. This is despite the fact that if these power plants were a country, it would be the sixth-largest emitter on the planet.Gina McCarthy, who was EPA administrator under Barack Obama, said that Zeldin’s “dismantling of our nation’s protections from power plant pollution is absolutely illogical and indefensible. It’s a purely political play that goes against decades of science and policy review.”“By giving a green light to more pollution, his legacy will forever be someone who does the bidding of the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our health,” she added. “Everyone will be affected by his actions, but the most vulnerable among us, our kids and grandkids, will suffer the most.”The EPA has embarked upon a wide-ranging blitz upon environmental regulations since Trump became president, setting about removing or loosening clean air and water rules that, collectively, were on track to save 200,000 American lives in the decades ahead.Trump, who has adopted the mantra of “drill, baby, drill”, has claimed unhindered fossil fuel production will bring down energy costs, although he has sought to hobble clean energy such as solar and wind, which are typically the cheapest sources of new electricity generation.The rollbacks follow the second-hottest May on record globally, and a record-hot 2024 that unleashed a stunning number of climate-driven disasters and six weeks of extra-dangerously hot days. Experts have warned that sea level rise is on track to cause “catastrophic inland migration”, including to millions of Americans, with climate shocks set to wipe 50% from global GDP by the end of this century.“It’s completely reprehensible that Donald Trump would seek to roll back these lifesaving standards and do more harm to the American people and our planet just to earn some brownie points with the fossil fuel industry,” said Patrick Drupp, climate policy director at the Sierra Club.“This administration is transparently trading American lives for campaign dollars and the support of fossil fuel companies, and Americans ought to be disgusted and outraged that their government has launched an assault on our health and our future.” More

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      The Guardian view on Trump and deportation protests: the king of confected emergencies | Editorial

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      Donald Trump will celebrate his birthday with a North Korean-style military parade costing tens of millions of dollars this weekend. He has gratefully accepted the early gift of the demonstrations, which have spread across the country, with more scheduled for Saturday. The president’s immigration crackdown spurred overwhelmingly peaceful protests in Los Angeles. Ordering in troops, over the governor’s head, then inflamed the situation and allowed the agent of chaos to portray himself as its nemesis once more.Mr Trump has diverted attention from his rift with Elon Musk, the stalling of his “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill, the court-ordered return of the wrongly deported Kilmar Ábrego García and the impending impact of tariffs. But underlying the manufactured crisis is a deeper agenda: reigniting fear of undocumented migrants, delegitimising protest, and thus expanding his power. Migrant families, and those who have taken to the streets to support them, are portrayed as “animals” and the perpetrators of “invasion and third-world lawlessness” – requiring Mr Trump to amass more might to protect America.Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, rightly described this as an assault on democracy. As he noted, “authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves. But they do not stop there.” Due process has been discarded. American citizens are among those being swept up in raids. Mr Trump has said that Mr Newsom himself should be arrested. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, calls the protesters “insurrectionists” – though his boss, of course, pardoned the actual insurrectionists of the January 6 Capitol attack.Mr Trump’s tactics are familiar in both the broad and narrow sense. In his book On Tyranny, published in 2017, the historian Timothy Snyder urged readers to listen for “dangerous words” such as “emergency” and reminded them that “the sudden disaster” requiring the suspension of freedoms “is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book”.Mr Trump drew a bleak portrait of American carnage in his inaugural speech and described himself as “the only thing standing between the American dream and total anarchy”. Since his re-election he has declared emergencies to push through tariffs, loosen energy regulations and ramp up deportations. His methods are transparent – and sometimes blocked by courts – yet still effective. For his supporters, each rock thrown, each billow of smoke, is fresh evidence of the menacing “other” encroaching upon their home.Yet if his methods are familiar, they are also going further. He has moved from xenophobia to echoing fascist tropes of migrants “poisoning the blood” and portrays an enemy within,suggesting that Mr Newsom and Karen Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, are trying to aid “criminal invaders”. In his first term, Mr Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act (and, reportedly, said that troops should “just shoot” Black Lives Matter protesters). Gen Mark Milley and others are no longer present to hold him back. Alarmingly, he warns that any protests at his parade will face “very heavy force”.All those who stand against Mr Trump’s weaponised bigotry and hunger for untrammelled power must make it clear that they are defending the law and not defying it. Responsibly challenging the abuse and entrenchment of power is not only the right of citizens, but a duty. More

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      World’s biggest TikTok star Khaby Lame leaves US after Ice agents detain him over visa

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      The world’s most followed TikToker, Khaby Lame, has left the US after being briefly detained by immigration agents for allegedly overstaying his visa. The Italian-Senegalese influencer is now one of the most high-profile people to be swept up in Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration.The social media star, whose legal name is Seringe Khabane Lame, was detained last Friday at an airport in Las Vegas. He was released the same day and has since left the US, a spokesperson for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) told the Guardian in a statement.The spokesperson said Lame, had arrived in the US on 30 April and alleged that the influencer had “overstayed the terms of his visa”.Trump’s escalating crackdown on immigration continues to roil the country as agents intensify operations to carry out the US president’s hardline promises. In recent days, raids have triggered protests in Los Angeles and other cities amid concerns the focus has shifted to a broader sweep of people who are not US citizens, including some who have valid documentation such as green cards or visas.US immigration officials said that Lame, who is a Unicef goodwill ambassador and has a following of more than 162 million on TikTok, “has since departed the US”. He had been granted a voluntary departure, allowing him to avoid having a deportation order – which could have resulted in him being barred from the US for up to a decade – on his record.Bo Loudon, an 18-year-old who describes himself as a “pro-Trump influencer” on his website, claimed he had been the one to flag Lame’s case to officials.“I discovered that he was an illegal,” Loudon, who has also claimed to be the best friend of Trump’s son Barron, wrote on social media. “And I personally took action to have him deported.”Loudon repeated the claim in other posts, saying he had worked with immigration officials and the Department of Homeland Security to have Lame removed.According to the US visa waiver program, Italian citizens are allowed to travel to the US for business or tourism for stays of up to 90 days without a visa.Lame entered the US on 30 April, Ice said. A spokesperson from Ice told the Guardian that the information “provided is all the information we have available”.Lame did not reply to a request for comment from the Guardian, nor has he publicly commented on the incident.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLame, 25, began posting on TikTok after he lost his job working in a factory in Chivasso, a suburb of Turin, in the early days of the pandemic. He began racking up millions of followers, who revelled in his often-silent videos that offer humorous takedowns of online absurdity, alongside his trademark facial expressions.In 2022, he became the most followed creator on TikTok, catapulting him to international fame and landing him marketing deals with companies and a spot at events such as last month’s Met Gala in New York City.Lame, who was born in Senegal but has lived in Italy since he was a year old, was granted Italian citizenship in August 2022. More

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      Majority of Canadians dislike US in face of trade policy and sovereignty threats

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      A majority of Canadians hold unfavourable views towards the US, their closest ally, as frustration over trade policy and threats to Canada’s sovereignty persist.Canada’s growing dislike of its closest trading partner mirrors a shared skepticism in other G7 countries, according to a new poll that finds that Americans like their allies far more than those nations approve of the US.The results come as Canadians maintain boycotts of American goods and avoid travel to the US in response to tariffs imposed by Donald Trump’s administration. But the results of the survey also show the challenge for Mark Carney as the Canadian prime minister seeks to ease tensions between the two economically entwined nations.According to the newly released study from the Pew Research Center, a majority of Americans see the other G7 countries favourably. More than seven in 10 have positive views of Japan (77%), Canada (74%), Italy (74%) and the UK (70%).Those finds come as leaders from those nations prepare to meet in the Canadian province of Alberta later this week for the G7 summit.But those feelings of goodwill are not reciprocated.Populations in all of the G7 countries hold more skeptical views towards the US, with the largest decrease in favorability toward the US among G7 countries coming from Canada. Only one-third of Canadians (34%) think positively of their southern neighbour today, compared with 54% last year.Sixty-four percent of Canadians now hold unfavourable views of the US, and nearly 40% say they hold very unfavourable views of their neighbour, up from 15% who felt that way last year.Canadian wariness towards the US is also reflected in new travel data from Statistics Canada, which found return trips by air fell nearly 25% in May 2025 compared with the same month in 2024. Canadian-resident return trips by automobile dropped by nearly 40% – the fifth consecutive month of year-over-year declines.Carney crafted his successful federal election campaign around a patriotic defiance against Trump’s threats to the nation’s sovereignty. Carney also used his first post-election press conference to once again quash any idea Canada was interested in becoming the 51st US state, a proposal repeatedly floated by Trump.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA positive meeting between the two leaders at the White House in May buoyed hopes among business leaders and diplomats the pair could break the impasse over tariffs. Those fears were dashed after Trump doubled tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.Earlier this week, Carney announced Canada would spend far more on its defence budget – a key ask of Trump – while at the same time underscoring his government’s pledge to reduce reliance on the US.“We stood shoulder to shoulder with the Americans throughout the cold war and in the decades that followed, as the United States played a dominant role on the world stage,” he said. “Today, that dominance is a thing of the past.” More