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      Trump’s very beautiful tariffs will fix America, masculinity and the family. It said so on Fox News | Arwa Mahdawi

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      There’s been a lot of doom-mongering about tariffs recently, hasn’t there? Oh no, my life savings are going to get wiped out and I’m never going to be able to retire! Oh no, grocery prices are going to triple! Oh no, it looks suspiciously as if Donald Trump has used ChatGPT to guide his fiscal policy and now we’re going to see another Great Depression! Moan, moan, moan.While it might be true that much of these predictions are coming from highly credentialed economists and people who tend to know what they’re talking about, I’d like to remind you that there are two sides to every story – and it’s always worth looking at both of them. You’ve already heard from voices who reckon Trump’s tariffs are misguided and dangerous. Now it’s time to focus on the people who support the president’s assessment that tariffs are a “very beautiful thing” that will usher in a new golden age.Where do we find such people? Fox News, of course. The place where up is down, left is right, and Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia if King Trump says that’s the case. As the stock market plunges, Fox News has wheeled out a bunch of pundits and anchors to explain how your savings getting obliterated is a good thing, actually.First, there’s Fox News host Jesse Watters, who is known for making thoughtful and nuanced statements such as: “When a man votes for a woman, he actually transitions into a woman”; and announcing that men shouldn’t eat soup in public because it isn’t “manly”. In a recent segment, Watters said that these tariffs – which will make life more expensive – are actually “going to make it easier for people to start families”. He added: “These tariffs are for the children.” I polled my own child, who is three, on this, and she would rather have an Elsa doll than a tariff, but what does she know, eh?While Watters believes the children are our future, and tariffs will help them lead the way, Free Press columnist Batya Ungar-Sargon reckons Trump’s economic policy is going to fix the “crisis of masculinity”. On Sunday, Ungar-Sargon told Fox News that the US had “shipped jobs that gave men who work with their hands for a living, and rely on brawn and physicality, off to other countries … and imported millions and millions of illegals to work in construction, manufacturing, landscaping, janitorial services – jobs that used to give men access to the American dream.”Ah yes, as the old adage goes: if you’ve got nothing intelligent to say, go on Fox News and demonise immigrants. There are in fact plenty of jobs available in the US that rely on “brawn and physicality”; the problem is many of them wreck your body and don’t pay a living wage. You know the workers who cut quartz slabs for kitchen countertops, for example? They’re predominantly young Latino men who are said to be suffering from lung disease because of the silica dust created by cutting said slabs. Meanwhile, construction workers are more likely to die of a drug overdose than those in any other occupation because the physical nature of the work results in an increased likelihood of injury and the subsequent prescription of addictive opioids. Romanticising these sorts of jobs – particularly when your own job consists of typing on a computer – does absolutely nothing to help men.As I said, it’s always important to look at both sides, even if one side of an argument appears completely demented. Still, I’m squinting very hard and I’m afraid that, despite Ungar-Sagon and Watters’s very persuasive arguments, I can’t see an upside to tariffs. Let’s say that more manufacturing jobs do open up in the US (a process that would take years). It seems unlikely Trump would fight for them to come with decent wages – he recently rescinded one of Joe Biden’s executive orders that raised the minimum wage for federal contractors. I’m not sure doing hard labour for a low salary gives you access to the American dream, unless your dream is going bankrupt from medical bills.But look at me: moan, moan, moan. You know what I’ve just realised my problem is? I think I need to watch more Fox News. And, if you’re feeling down about the state of the world, then you may need to, too. Now that Trump has started posturing over Iran, I can’t wait for Fox pundits to explain how accidentally inviting a nuclear war is going to be great, actually. Nothing like a little bit of radiation poisoning to fix the crisis of masculinity. More

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      in US Politics

      ‘What if we didn’t suck?’: the leftist influencer who wants to campaign for Congress differently

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      Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old progressive TikTok star, wants to do campaigns differently. So the very online candidate for a solid blue congressional seat in Illinois is channeling her energy into in-person events.The entry fee for her campaign’s kick-off event was a box of tampons or pads to be donated to The Period Collective, a Chicago-based non-profit that distributes free menstrual products to low-income communities in the area. The debut was such a success, she said, they filled her campaign manager’s SUV with donations. (“I want him to get pulled over so bad,” Abughazaleh quipped in a video for her YouTube series How to Run for Congress.) It’s part of her pledge to disrupt politics as usual and run a campaign that promotes mutual aid and community organizing rather than a candidate-centered “vanity project” that relies on expensive TV ads and “grifty” fundraising texts.“This is about trying a new type of campaign,” Abughazaleh said in an interview with the Guardian shortly after launching her campaign, with a video that asked: “What if we didn’t suck?”Abughazaleh’s campaign arrives at a moment when Democrats are furious with their party’s leadership and demanding change to a political status quo long dominated by septuagenarians and octogenarians. Despite a string of recent electoral gains, polls show the party is demoralized: their popularity is at an all-time low and, according to one survey, the overwhelming majority of Democratic voters say elderly leaders should pass the torch to the next generation of leaders. The party is also desperate to expand their presence – and influence – on social media where their carefully crafted messaging often falls flat.Her pitch seems to have struck a chord. In the week after Abughazaleh launched her campaign, she said it had raised more than $300,000 and received more than 1,000 volunteer sign-ups.“I am sick of waiting around for someone to do something,” she said, speaking via videoconference from her apartment in Chicago, where she has a set-up for recordings and interviews. “There is no mythical, perfect candidate that’s coming out of the woodwork to save us.”After Democrats’ devastating 2024 defeat, Abughazaleh has criticized what she describes as the party’s lack of a post-Trump vision and its attachment to political norms and bipartisanship that Republicans have long abandoned.“This is [the result of] just continually not listening to voters, not considering any other solutions, even if they might be different,” she said. “There’s a lot of talk about being a big tent, but it feels like they’re only extending that tent to the right, and they’re kicking the rest of us out.”Abughazaleh, who boasts more than 200,000 followers on TikTok, flatly rejects the view that Democrats’ losses are the result of the party becoming “too woke” or too supportive of trans rights and pro-Palestinian protests. A Texas native and the daughter of a Palestinian immigrant, Abughazaleh displays her keffiyeh – the black and white checkered headscarf that has long symbolized Palestinian rights – prominently in her campaign video. Last year, she was one of the more than 200 content creators credentialed to cover the Democratic national convention in Chicago, where pleas to include a Palestinian American speaker were dismissed.“The Democratic party ignored us during 2024,” she said. “I kept saying, like, talk to one Arab person to just show, like, some empathy on the issue of Gaza, which now we know impacted a lot of voters staying home.”Having worked as an extremism researcher at the liberal watchdog group Media Matters, she warns that authoritarian regimes often begin their power grab by cracking down on LGBTQ+ rights and implored Democrats not to be complicit in the Trump administration’s attacks on trans people.“Democrats deciding that trans people are the reason they lost the election in 2024 – it’s ridiculous. It’s offensive, and frankly, they are contributing to Trump’s authoritarianism,” she said in a recent CNN interview that her campaign clipped and promoted. “A far bigger issue is that we aren’t giving people something to vote for.”Illinois’s ninth district, anchored in Chicago’s North Side and stretching west, is one of the most reliably blue congressional districts in the state and has been represented by Jan Schakowsky since 1999 – the year Abughazaleh was born. In the interview, Abughazaleh said her candidacy was not intended as a “referendum” on the 80-year-old Democrat who has not said yet whether she intends to seek re-election. Nor is it a leftwing challenge, she said, acknowledging Schakowsky’s progressive record.“This is about: we need to try something different,” Abughazaleh said, arguing that the party has lost touch with many of its voters, especially young people. “A lot of these people in Congress never had to go through school shooting drills at school. I did. A lot of them haven’t had to worry about insurance ever in their lives. I don’t have insurance. I use GoodRx as my insurance. These are things that are very common for young people and just not for most people in Congress.”In a statement, Schakowsky said she planned to make a decision on her re-election “soon” but she welcomed “new faces getting involved as we stand up against the Trump administration”.Abughazaleh’s candidacy has also piqued interest on the right. “Now, even longtime liberals are facing the wrath of their own movement,” Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Campaign said in a statement that claimed Democrats were so astray that they were now “eating their own”.Asked by a reporter whether Abughazaleh’s entry into the race was a worrying sign for Democratic incumbents, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, said at the time that he was unaware of her campaign and hailed Schakowsky as a “longstanding, stalwart progressive member”.But he also acknowledged that Democrats were confronting “a lot of energy, a lot of angst, a lot of anxiety” in response to Trump’s return to power.Sharing a clip of Jeffries’ response, Abughazaleh replied: “Nice to meet you, Hakeem! It’s time to get familiar.”Despite her desire to campaign differently, there are some old rules of politics that may be harder to break.Abughazaleh is a recent Chicago transplant who doesn’t technically live in the district, at least not yet, a status that has generated accusations of “carpetbagging”. Addressing the criticism in a YouTube video, Abughazaleh said she and her partner moved to the city abruptly last year and took the first furnished apartment they could find – a place “literally one bus stop” away from the ninth district. The move had nothing to do with her desire to run for office, a decision she said she made after Kamala Harris lost the election and she felt the urge to get involved. Abughazaleh said she intends to move in-district, but cited the cost of breaking her lease as part of the reason she hasn’t done so yet.Supporters also raised concerns about her pledge not to spend money on TV ads, which some argued would put her at a disadvantage in a competitive contest. She said her campaign would re-evaluate the policy.Before entering politics, Abughazaleh spent years monitoring Fox News and other rightwing media at Media Matters. She was laid off last year after legal battles with Musk sapped the progressive group of its resources, in a move that the Freedom of the Press Foundation warned at the time was a worrying example of “billionaires and pandering politicians abusing the legal system to retaliate against their critics”. Musk celebrated her job loss on X: “Karma is real.”In that sense, Abughazaleh can empathize with the tens of thousands of government employees who have lost their jobs as part of Musk’s chainsaw-approach to downsizing the federal workforce.“People are pissed off for good reason. They’re losing their jobs, they’re losing their healthcare, they’re losing the people in their community who are being deported without any due process. Of course, they’re mad, and we should be matching that with anger.”After watching Fox News nearly every day for four years, Abughazaleh said there were some lessons Democrats could learn from the right.“Throwing some metaphorical punches, not reacting to everything,” she said. “What if we didn’t just let them set the agenda all the time? What if we came out strong?” More

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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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      in US Politics

      Trump threatens additional 50% tariffs on China over retaliatory levies

      by

      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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      in US Politics

      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

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      in US Politics

      Rightwing group backed by Koch and Leo sues to stop Trump tariffs

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      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.The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a suit against Trump’s imposition of import tariffs on exports from China, arguing that doing so under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – which the president has invoked to justify the duties on nearly all countries – is unlawful.The group’s actions echo support given by four Republican senators last week for a Democratic amendment calling for the reversal of 25% tariffs imposed on Canada.Last Wednesday’s amendment passed with the support of Mitch McConnell, the former Republican Senate majority leader, and his fellow GOP members Rand Paul, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who argued that tariffs on Canada would be economically harmful.The action from the alliance has the potential to be even more emblematic, given its backing from Koch, a billionaire industrialist, and Leo, a wealthy legal activist who advised Trump on the nomination of three conservative supreme court justices during his first presidency, which has given the court a 6-3 rightwing majority. The group received money from organisations affiliated with Leo and Koch in 2022.The alliance has tabled its action on behalf of Simplified, a Florida-based home goods company whose business is heavily reliant on imports from China. It argues that the president has exceeded his powers in invoking the IEEPA to justify tariffs.“This statute authorizes specific emergency actions like imposing sanctions or freezing assets to protect the United States from foreign threats,” the alliance said in a statement. “It does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. In its nearly 50-year history, no other president – including President Trump in his first term – has ever tried to use the IEEPA to impose tariffs.”The alliance also argues that power to impose tariffs lies not with a sitting president, but with Congress, and warns that those imposed by Trump could run afoul of US supreme court rulings.“His attempt to use the IEEPA this way not only violates the law as written, but it also invites application of the supreme court’s major questions doctrine, which tells courts not to discern policies of ‘vast economic and political significance’ in a law without explicit congressional authorization,” its statement said.Mark Chenoweth, the alliance’s president, said the court in Pensacola – where the suit has been filed – would have to observe this legal precedent.“Reading this law [IEEPA] broadly enough to uphold the China tariff would transfer core legislative power,” he said. “To avoid that non-delegation pitfall, the court must construe the statute consistent with nearly 50 years of unbroken practice and decide it does not permit tariff setting.”The suit argues that there is no connection between the fentanyl epidemic – which Trump has cited as a reason for invoking the emergency powers – and the tariffs.“The means of an across-the-board tariff does not fit the end of stopping an influx of opioids, and is in no sense ‘necessary’ to that stated purpose,” the complaint filed on behalf of Simplified argues.“In fact, President Trump’s own statements reveal the real reason for the China tariff, which is to reduce American trade deficits while raising federal revenue.”The legal case adds to rumbling disquiet on tariffs among some of Trump’s usually vocal supporters, including the billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.Paul, a senator from Kentucky who has been one of the most consistent congressional anti-tariff voices, told the Washington Post that other Capitol Hill Republicans shared his concern.“They all see the stock market, and they’re all worried about it,” Paul said. “But they are putting on a stiff upper lip to try to act as if nothing’s happening and hoping it goes away.”Speaking in support of last week’s Democratic amendment, sponsored by the Virginia senator Tim Kaine, Paul said: “I don’t care if the president is a Republican or a Democrat. I don’t want to live under emergency rule. I don’t want to live where my representatives cannot speak for me and have a check and balance on power.”Trump attacked Paul and the three other Republican senators who backed the amendment and suggested they were driven by “Trump derangement syndrome”.In another sign of Republican concern, the GOP senator from Iowa Chuck Grassley – along with a Washington Democrat, Maria Cantrell – introduced a bill that would limit Trump’s ability to impose or increase tariffs by requiring Congress to approve them within 60 days. The White House budget office said on Monday that Trump would veto the bill. More

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      in US Politics

      Here’s one key thing you should know about Trump’s shock to the world economy: it could work | James Meadway

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      It’s less than a week since Donald Trump’s sensational announcement that he was unilaterally ending the world’s trading system with the imposition of a 10% minimum tariff for trading with the US – and a very much higher rate for those countries unfortunate enough to have the US as a major export partner. Long-term allies such as Japan and South Korea have been hammered with tariffs of around 25%, while export-dependent poorer countries such as Vietnam, which sells about a third of its exports to the US, have been hit with tariffs in excess of 45%. A further round of global debt crises is possible as heavily indebted countries face the sudden loss of export earnings.Global stock markets have tumbled as panicked investors dump shares, and political condemnation has been near-universal. China has already retaliated with 34% tariffs, threatening an escalating trade war. Right now, it looks and feels like disastrous overreach by a uniquely erratic administration at the behest of a president with a terrifyingly limited grasp of how the modern economy works.Trump has talked about imposing tariffs on the world since he first rose to prominence in the 1980s, when his target was Japan. In a political career notable for its jack-knifes in policy and direction, tariffs – “the most beautiful word in the dictionary” – have been a constant. But this is about far more than his long-cherished whims. However inconsistent or even confused Trump may sometimes appear to be, those around him have a clear-eyed view of what they want to achieve.His Treasury secretary, hedgefund billionaire Scott Bessent, has spoken of a “global economic reordering” that he intends to shape to the benefit of the US’s elite. Trump’s new chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Stephen Miran, wrote a lengthy paper, A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System, shortly before his appointment. The latter is particularly ambitious – detailing how the US should use not only tariffs but also the threat of withdrawing its security support to compel its friends and allies to accept cuts in payments due from the Federal Reserve on their US Treasury bills. This would be a potentially massive loss to them, akin, in reality, to a US debt default. But it is tariffs that are the cutting edge of the plan – leveraging the US’s power as the world’s largest consumer and greatest debtor to compel other countries into a negotiation on terms.After decades winning in an international trading game it wrote and refereed the rules for, the US is now facing serious competition – primarily from China, but with Europe as an expensive irritant. The response of this administration is to kick over the table, and demand everyone starts again. What it ultimately wants is a cheaper dollar to revive US manufacturing and Chinese competition held off, all the while keeping the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. And the rest of the world will pay the price.There are precedents. In October 1979, Paul Volcker, newly appointed as chair of the Federal Reserve, drove up interest rates to a remarkable 13% in a bid to tackle inflation, later raising them to 17%. Soon the US was in recession. Millions lost their jobs over the next two years, notably in manufacturing, where soaring interest rates had driven up the value of the dollar, making US exports less affordable on the world market. After a light easing of interest rate hell by the Fed, Volcker applied a second dose of the medicine, driving interest rates up to 19% and forcing the economy back into a double-dip recession. Unemployment peaked at around 10% in late 1982.View image in fullscreenBut by mid-1983, inflation had come down to 2.5%. For the rest of the 1980s, the US economy boomed. The “Volcker shock” appeared to have worked. Volcker is today a folk hero among central bankers: Ben Bernanke, chair of the Federal Reserve during the 2008 crisis, praised Volcker’s “independence” and willingness to brazen out the political storm.More decisive than lower inflation, however, was the reshaping of the US economy Volcker’s interest-rate shock accelerated: with manufacturing in freefall, investment flooded into finance and property, firing up what became the great credit bubble of the 1990s and 2000s. The world economy was reordered around a US that acted as a giant sink for its output – swallowing exports from the rest of the world on seemingly limitless borrowing. China’s extraordinary boom was the flipside of US debt and deindustrialisation. The Volcker shock, more than any other single action, created the globalised world system that Trump is now bent on destroying.Few would have bet on Volcker’s world-shaping capacity at the time. The stock market response to the shock was immediate and unanimous. US shares plunged by a record 8% in the two days after his announcement. The S&P 500 lost 27% of its value before August 1982 – two years of grinding decline. Manufacturers and unions hated it, understandably: they were on the wrong side of an epochal reconfiguration of US capitalism. But they were not the only losers: rising interest rates in the US meant less developed countries had to spend more on servicing debts, just as recession squeezed their major export markets. The result was the so-called “third world” debt crisis, as heavily indebted countries across the global south plunged into spirals of economic decline and soaring indebtedness.Over the weekend, Bessent and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick were doing the media rounds, insisting that there would be no climbdown on the tariffs. Trump is not for turning on what is clearly for him a personal crusade. Already, countries such as Vietnam are promising to cut all their tariffs on US goods – a clear and brutal demonstration of the US’s continuing economic power. The administration has claimed 50 other countries have also asked to open negotiations. By the end of the week, expect Trump to be triumphantly announcing more such concessions from economies in the global south. His real target – China – will be a far tougher nut to crack, if it breaks at all.Perhaps the rolling market chaos will become too much. Perhaps the administration will blink first. There is no guarantee this extraordinary gamble will work, not even for those in the clique around Trump. But it would be a mistake to assume it cannot work – and however the pieces now land, they will not return to their old places.

      James Meadway is the host of the podcast Macrodose More