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      Radical DeSantis plan for Doge-style cuts in Florida opposed by own party

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      Radical plans by Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, to overhaul the state’s financial machinery have hit turbulent waters, with party leaders pushing back on his Doge-style efficiency taskforce, and economists dismissing a proposal to abolish property taxes as essentially unworkable.DeSantis touted his handling of the economy in his “state of the state” speech at the opening of Florida’s spring legislative session on Tuesday, during which he insisted: “We must continue to be a friend to the taxpayer.”It came a week after he formally announced the creation of a state department of government efficiency (Doge) to replicate the controversial federal operation helmed by Elon Musk.Reporting to the governor, its purported mission is to eliminate wasteful spending by rooting through various state boards and commissions, and auditing local government and university budgets.Despite Florida having cash reserves of $14.6bn, and the lowest number of government employees per capita of any state, by DeSantis’s own concession, he said he still wanted to cut 740 full-time jobs. DeSantis also said he wanted to, potentially, get up to 900 more associated positions “off the books” by scrapping 70 “redundant” entities such as advisory bodies.Democrats were quick to point out that Florida already has a voter-approved government efficiency taskforce, which was set up in 2006 with an almost identical mandate. DeSantis’s new efficiency team, they asserted, was itself an example of unnecessary spending, and a performative exercise of jumping on the Doge bandwagon to align himself with Donald Trump’s slash-and-burn approach to various taxpayer-funded federal agencies.“Republicans have been in total control of Florida’s government for nearly 30 years, and he wants to talk about government waste?” Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic party, said in a statement.“Ron has consistently passed the largest state budgets in Florida’s history, illegally spent millions of taxpayer dollars to run political campaigns, and just allocated $250m to fund his political stunt on immigration. Don’t lecture us on wasting taxpayer dollars.”Another level of perceived resistance came on Tuesday from an unexpected source: the leaders of both of Florida’s Republican-dominated legislative chambers.“Let’s focus on what matters. Let’s pass actual reforms rather than symbolic gestures,” Daniel Perez, the Florida house speaker, told members following DeSantis’s address.“Let’s repeal government programs instead of reshuffling them. Let’s swing for the fences and not just try to get on base.”Perez has previously noted that DeSantis, a self-styled fiscal conservative, benefited from a 70% budget increase for the executive office of the governor over his six years in office.He and the senate president, Ben Albritton, clashed with DeSantis in January over the governor’s demand for a special legislative session to advance his immigration agenda. The parties came together to eventually pass a mutually acceptable hardline bill, but observers say tensions remain.In remarks to the senate, Albritton, a member of the existing efficiency taskforce, said he was proud that Florida already “has a great framework for accountability”, and that he and other lawmakers had made a substantive number of recommendations “to improve flexibility [and] simplify processes”.“The fact is we are a state and nation of laws that should be created by elected officials accountable to the people who elected them, not appointed professional staff,” he said.Some observers noted that, after forcefully pushing both his Doge measure, and the related but unprecedented pitch to replace Florida’s $40bn-a-year property tax structure with an as yet unspecified alternative, DeSantis was relatively quiet about them during his Tallahassee address on Tuesday.He said “taxpayers need relief” from high property taxes, which he said made owners in effect tenants of the government, and that lawmakers were working on a proposal for “constitutional protections for Florida property owners” to place before voters in the 2026 election.“DeSantis’s latest scheme to eliminate property taxes threatens the very services that keep our communities safe and functioning. These taxes fund schools, fire departments, police, trash pickup, and safety on our roads and in our water, among other essential services,” said Jared Nordlund, Florida director of the civil rights and advocacy group UnidosUS.“Eliminating them will drive local governments into financial ruin, allowing the state to seize more control, a blatant attack on home rule and local democracy.“By the way, where was the update on his much-hyped Doge initiative? Just weeks ago, DeSantis promised a major push on this program, yet there was not a single mention. Was it just another empty headline grab? Floridians deserve answers, not political theater.”DeSantis’s office did not respond to a request for comment.On Thursday, the Floridian reported that Republican state representative Ryan Chamberlin was working on legislation to eliminate property taxes.The non-partisan Tax Foundation, meanwhile, questioned the advantage to Florida, which has no state income tax, of abolishing the traditional system by which state and local governments raise money.“The property tax is a relatively economically efficient tax. It corresponds better than most taxes to the benefits that people receive by paying it,” said Jared Walczak, the group’s vice-president of state projects.“The value of your home is not a perfect proxy for the value of local services you receive, but it is a far better approximation than you would get with, say, an income tax where sometimes you’re getting an inverse relationship between payment and benefits.“Most economists say property tax is a fairly good tax and therefore efforts to eliminate it are misguided. If Florida really had the revenue to eliminate the property tax, there are so many better things the state could do. If they don’t have that capacity, they would have to raise another tax or potentially dramatically reduce spending, and that could just be a very bad trade off.” More

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      in US Politics

      There are 1,000 grotesque memes of JD Vance – and they’re all more likable than the real thing | Marina Hyde

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      You may well be aware that Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for a face that is worthy of being slapped. Even so, how has this not been internationalised? Or at the very least Americanised, where its dictionary definition would presumably be adorned by a picture of the face of US vice-president JD Vance – already faultlessly playing the role of worst American at your hotel. You can immediately picture him at breakfast, can’t you? Every single other guest on the terrace with their shoulders up round their ears, just thinking: “Where is he now? How unbearable is he being NOW?” Next, imagine breakfast lasting four years.I say the Backpfeifengesicht definition would be accompanied by JD Vance’s face … but then again, what is the face of JD Vance? The internet is awash with people suffering an acute case of not being able to remember it any more, having seen so many hideous comic distortions of Vance that those meme versions are not simply the only results on the first page of your own mental Google search, but stretch deep beyond the second and into the third. Somewhere on page four, where you might as well publish the nuclear codes or pictures of Taylor Swift giving cocaine to babies, is an unmodified snap of what JD Vance actually looks like. Or at least what he looks like with eyeliner.Before you get there – and you don’t, really – your synaptic filing systems throw up every variety of Photoshopped Vancefake: swollen manboy, face wearing a Minion suit, a bearded egg … I’m hoping that sooner or later, an American news outlet will accidentally use a modified photo, because even the picture editor has forgotten what the vice-president looks like, and then we can have one of those massively self-regarding legacy media-blow-ups, where the entire staff has to resign after a remorseless investigation by the executive editor reveals Vance isn’t actually a big purple grape. “This is a stain on our newspaper’s history. A big purple stain.”Vance is more meme than man, now, and it is, of course, something of a consolation that he is so extremely online that he can’t help but have noticed this. The VP is like a one-man government troll-feeding programme – please don’t cut him, Elon! – which is probably why people have become so heroically committed to taking the piss. The probability of the vice-president seeing you insulting him is basically one.Just as previous holders of his office like Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon once did, Vance spent a notable amount of this week both denying he suggested Britain and France were random countries that hadn’t fought a war in 40 years, and replying to random X posters called things like “Jeff Computers” to counter the suggestion that he wasn’t loved and feted on his recent skiing holiday.View image in fullscreenOver on this side of the Atlantic, it must be said that the latter vignette in particular serves as a helpful reminder of the cultural differences between our great nations – and indeed between our great anti-elitists. British politicians would rather admit they’d sexually harassed an intern than gone skiing. (You can, of course, do both – and many do.) If a British cabinet minister were to sally forth on to social media like Vance did, and honk that actually, he had a great time on the ski slopes, it would probably be the end of him. Let’s face it, our rightwing politicians still make time twice a week to do a drive-by on “latte drinkers”, seemingly unaware that the only thing left in most high streets, and quite a lot of people’s lives, is a hot milky drink at a Costa. Yet in our country, would-be populists treat having the temerity to order a coffee like it’s Marie Antoinette skiing past a workhouse – which is a useful illustration of why we don’t have growth, and why our many political failures speak to near-empty rooms at conservative conferences in the US.Anyway: Vance. On or off skis – and I would prefer him to sod offski – the vice-president can be judged successful in his deliberately adopted mission to become mesmerisingly awful. On British army talkboards this week, I spent some very enjoyable time watching veterans of the US’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan offer their thoughts on JD, who I believe was some kind of military journalist for about 15 minutes. Though that wasn’t quite how they put it, naturally. Real soldiers can be hilariously creative with their insults, while Vance is drawn towards the artless, perhaps most neatly embodied in his decision to whine at Volodymyr Zelenskyy: “Did you even say thank you?”Then again, while I’m sure that the memes will keep us warm in the event of an unscheduled nuclear winter, it must be said that other forms of digital manipulation are passing notably without the comment they used to, even until very recently. So perhaps the moral slippage has not been entirely one-sided.I noticed this week that people who only a couple of years ago were hand-wringing about the horror AI deepfakes could wreak upon democracy were now cheerfully sharing synthetic scenes of Zelenskyy slapping Donald Trump in the Oval Office, or Trump crying like a baby, or some other eerie piece of fakery that felt qualitatively different from a still of a lollipop-wielding kiddie Vance. I think people used to think this stuff was bad and corrosive and potentially politically dangerous? Maybe they still do – or maybe only when the other side do it.

      Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      in US Politics

      If Britain must rearm, how to pay for it? Stiffen the sinews; summon up the taxes | Polly Toynbee

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      “A new era is upon us.” Ursula von der Leyen was not holding back. This is a world turned upside down, changed beyond recognition. Leaders across Europe are echoing the alarm sent out by the European Commission president, and rippling across the continent, Canada and elsewhere: that we face a “clear and present danger on a scale that none of us has seen in our adult lifetime”. She has proposed a plan that would offer €800bn (£660bn) for immediate rearming, with a European sky shield to protect Ukraine.The hooligan Russian asset in the White House has changed everything so profoundly that it is hard to keep track. The US, whose coat-tails we clung to, whose culture we revelled in, whose cleverness dazzled and stupidity confounded, is now the enemy. The shock feels viscerally personal because American culture is deep in our veins at all ages, from Sesame Street to Marvel, from Philip Roth to Philip Glass, the Oscars to Silicon Valley, like it or not. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we obediently followed their blunders, and 642 British soldiers died, as Keir Starmer adroitly reminded JD Vance in parliament. Our glamorous friend has turned fiend. How do we cauterise that off us? Or reconfigure the map of the world in terms of friends and foes?Former UK ambassadors to Washington ruminated over this “seismic” shift, which has shaken every norm from their Foreign Office days. “This is not a blip in the relationship, something fundamental is going on,” one old knight warned a Lords select committee, while another cautioned that the US giving up on Europe in favour of Russia was likely a “current reality”. Sir David Manning pinpointed Britain’s specific anguish at this moment, the downside of the so-called special relationship: as Europe galvanises to rearm, unlike our continental neighbours, we depend on the US for our defence.With every new shock wave, Britain feels this trauma in its marrow. Yet there is hesitancy in government about addressing the nation with a call to arms, as French president Emmanuel Macron has done, warning: “the innocence of these 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall is over.”Look at the remarkable response of Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, lifetime financial conservative and fiscal dogmatist, as he grasps the severity of the times: he will reverse all his previous fiscal policies and his nation’s usual dread over borrowing, breaking their “basic law” with a huge €500bn loosening of debt rules to rearm. This amounts to “one of the most historic paradigm shifts in German postwar history”, according to Deutsche Bank. German borrowing costs shot up, but so have predictions of German growth from a sluggish 0.8% to 2%, with investors sending industrial stocks soaring. But note this: in his fiscal sea change, rearming will not be accompanied by any cuts to German social spending.How about Britain? Our government has announced no change to fiscal policy. Living within our self-imposed straitjacket, our rearming will be paid for by cuts to aid, benefits and most departments, as Rachel Reeves this week sends her plans to the Office for Budget Responsibility to prove the books are balanced. Yet the promises the government has made are impossible to keep: no more borrowing, no more tax rises and no return to austerity. These are terrible choices – the aid cut already breaks a manifesto pledge – destroying trust whichever way Labour turns. But which is the least bad?A copy of Duncan Grant’s portrait of John Maynard Keynes hangs by my desk, a reminder to reach for his 1940 prescription How to Pay for the War, a book that spelled out the necessary financial sacrifices of the time. Emergency action needed then was draconian, rapidly increasing production while drastically reducing consumption, introducing rationing and diverting everything to the war effort. In comparison, what’s needed in this new emergency is a pinprick, to raise the 3% of GDP for defence spending that Starmer is aiming for. Take just this one measure: in a disgraceful (and failed) act of crude election bribery, Jeremy Hunt cut 4p off employees’ national insurance. Restoring that would cover the cost of this extra defence spending alone, says Ben Zaranko of the Institute for Fiscal Studies; so would 2p more on income tax for all.Labour’s Treasury team winces at the very thought of any further tax rises, after the walloping Reeves got for the £40bn tax rise in October’s budget. They are jumpy: remember Liz Truss’s mini-budget, maxi-catastrophe, they say. Look how even small tax changes such as the farmers’ inheritance tax can create a storm; some policies make absolute sense in economic and fairness terms, but crash politically. Besides, tax rises that cut people’s spending money risk stunting growth, they say – but then so do cuts to public spending. Borrow more? That adds to the mammoth £100bn a year we spend servicing existing debt, they say. But we are now on the hunt for the least-worst option – and Britain still pays less tax than similar countries.Starmer has risen to the needs of the hour. But he has yet to address his citizens on what rearming means, and what it requires of them. We like to think of ourselves as warlike, and at the ready. We are good at displays of national pride and national parades, with a four-day celebration planned for the 80th anniversary of VE day in May. But tax and financial sacrifice were essential parts of that victory. The alternative – miserable cuts to benefits for the weakest, and stripping yet more from threadbare stricken public services – is the worst of all the bad options. In our finest hour, Britain shed its traditional tax-phobia. If ever there was a moment to stiffen the sinews and summon up the taxes, it is now: for the defence of the realm.

      Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist More

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      in US Politics

      Trump exempts many Canadian goods from tariffs after giving same delay to Mexico – US politics live

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      Donald Trump has signed an executive order that will temporarily exempt Canadian goods covered by a continental free trade agreement from his tariff plan.Goods imported to the United States under the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement will be exempted from Trump’s 25% tariffs for one month, according to the order Turmp just signed in the Oval Office, which will also do the same for goods from Mexico.However the president said he was still ready to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on both Canada and Mexico next month, which could further disrupt trade relations across the continent.“During this interim period between now and April 2, this makes it much more favorable for our American car manufacturers,” Trump said.As he signed executive orders in the Oval Office this afternoon, including his on-again, off-again tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Trump was asked by Peter Doocy of Fox News about the sharp decline in the stock market since he started his trade war.Trump said that he blamed “globalists”, a term that is often used as code for Jews by antisemites.“What’s your thought about why the markets are so spooked? Do you think they don’t like the tariffs, or do they not like the uncertainty with some of the changes and the carve-outs?” Doocy asked.“Well a lot of them are globalist countries and companies that won’t be doing as well because we’re taking back things that have been taken from us many years ago”, Trump replied. “We’ve been treated very unfairly as a country. We protect everybody; we do everything for all these countries”, he added, “we just weren’t treated right; we were ripped off.”The term “Globalist” is an entry in the Anti-Defamation League’s glossary of extremism and hate. According to the ADL:
      White supremacists and other antisemites frequently use the term as an antisemitic dog whistle, wielding it as a codeword for Jews or as a pejorative term for people whose interests in international commerce or finance ostensibly make them disloyal to the country in which they live, or who are willing to undermine the financial security of their neighbors in order to benefit transnational interests. …
      Antigovernment extremists also use the term globalist, usually without the antisemitic connotations, in references to conspiracy theories about the “New World Order.”
      Trump’s claim that the United States is foolish for providing military protection to allies is one of his oldest and most consistent beliefs. In 1987, as he reportedly weighed a run for the presidency, Trump paid to publish an open letter to the American people as a full page ad in the New York Times in which he claim that US military allies and trade rivals were scamming the US and, as a result, “The world is laughing at America’s politicians”.At the end of the press availability, Trump reiterated the comment when he was asked again about the plunging value of stocks that make up a large share of many Americans retirement plans.“I think it’s globalists that see how rich our country is going to be, and they don’t like it”, he said. “They’ve been ripping off this country for years and now– and they’re going to do great, everyone’s going to do great, but we can’t let this continue to happen to America”.US district judge Beryl Howell ruled on Thursday that Donald Trump’s firing of a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board was illegal and ordered that she be reinstated to her post.The decision restores a quorum of three members at the labor board, which had been paralyzed and unable to decide cases involving private-sector employers after Trump removed Gwynne Wilcox in January.As our colleague Michael Sainato reports, Wilcox was the first member of the NLRN to be removed by a US president since the board’s inception in 1935.The framers of the US constitution, the judge wrote in the ruling, “made clear that no one in our system of government was meant to be king – the President included – and not just in name only”.Read the full story here:In an escalation of his pressure campaign, Donald Trump said the US will not fight for Nato allies who don’t spend enough on their own defense.“I think it’s common sense,” the president said. “They don’t pay, I’m not going to defend them.”He went on to accuse Nato allies of not being willing to defend the United States, if the roles were reversed:
      If the United States was in trouble, and we called them, we said we got a problem, France, we got a problem, couple of others, I won’t mention –you think they’re going to come and protect us? They’re supposed to, I’m not so sure.
      It’s worth noting that after the September 11 attacks, Nato allies rallied to the US’s defense and participated in the invasion of Afghanistan, remaining in the country for two decades.All that said, Trump reiterated that he did not intend to leave Nato:
      I view Nato as potentially good, but again … it’s very unfair what’s been happening.
      Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he will “probably” extend TikTok’s deadline to find a US buyer or face a ban.On the day he took office, the president gave the popular social media app a 75-day exemption from a law Congress passed that was intended to force its China-based owned to divest. Speaking to reporters, Trump said that if necessary, he was willing to allow TikTok to continue operating while the search for a buyer continues.“We have a lot of interest in TikTok. China is going to play a role, so hopefully China will approve of the deal,” Trump said.He declined to say how long of an extension he would be willing to give.Donald Trump also confirmed that cabinet secretaries and agency heads will take the lead in determining where to make cuts in the federal workforce, with Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” in a supporting role.“I don’t want to see a big cut where a lot of good people are cut. I want the cabinet members to keep the good people and the people that aren’t doing a good job, that are unreliable, don’t show up to work, etc, those people can be cut,” Trump said.“We’re going to be watching them, and Elon and the group are going to be watching them and if they can cut, it’s better,” Trump said. “And if they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting.”It was confirmation that Trump was cutting back on the mandate he had given Musk to dramatically downsize the federal government.Donald Trump has signed an executive order that will temporarily exempt Canadian goods covered by a continental free trade agreement from his tariff plan.Goods imported to the United States under the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement will be exempted from Trump’s 25% tariffs for one month, according to the order Turmp just signed in the Oval Office, which will also do the same for goods from Mexico.However the president said he was still ready to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on both Canada and Mexico next month, which could further disrupt trade relations across the continent.“During this interim period between now and April 2, this makes it much more favorable for our American car manufacturers,” Trump said.Most Democrats opposed censuring congressman Al Green, who heckled Donald Trump during his speech to a joint session of Congress and was thrown out of the House chamber for it.But 10 Democrats went along with the Republican-backed resolution, with several explaining that they felt they had no option if they want to hold their opponents to account in the future. Here’s Connecticut’s Jim Himes, encapsulating the sentiment:
      Years ago, I voted to hold Joe Wilson accountable for yelling ‘you lie’ at Barack Obama. Today, I voted to censure Al Green for a larger disruption. Unlike Republicans, I believe that rules, accountability and civility should not be torched. And certainly not just because the other side does so. If we cannot act with the principle and seriousness our nation deserves, our government will continue to devolve into a MAGA cesspool.
      Perennially endangered Washington congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez said it was a matter of respect:
      Today, I voted to censure a fellow member of Congress. When you knowingly break House rules, as Rep. Green did, it shouldn’t be surprising to face consequences. Congress should respect the co-equal office of the Presidency, regardless of who holds the job, do our constitutional duty, and stop with the theatrics at these events.
      Pennsylvania’s Chrissy Houlahan says she thinks many more people in the chamber should be censured, and told House speaker Mike Johnson as much:
      I did indeed have a heated conversation with Speaker Johnson on the House floor after I voted yes to censure my colleague. I called Speaker Johnson out on his and his party’s hypocrisy and reminded him of the many instances in which Republicans have blatantly broken the rules of conduct without consequence. He told me if he punished each instance, he’d have to censure half the House. I suggested he do just that. Rules are rules.
      There appears to be more to Donald Trump’s meeting with cabinet secretaries than he let on. Politico reports that the president told them that they are in charge of hiring and firings at their agencies, not Elon Musk.The president’s message came after signs of tensions between his secretaries and Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) flared. Doge was linked to an email sent to federal workers demanding details of their work that many agencies told their employees not to respond to, while some Republican lawmakers have said it should be up to agency heads to decide who to hire and fire.Here’s more on the meeting, from Politico:
      President Donald Trump convened his Cabinet in person on Thursday to deliver a message: You’re in charge of your departments, not Elon Musk.
      According to two administration officials, Trump told top members of his administration that Musk was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy. Musk was also in the room.
      The meeting followed a series of mass firings and threats to government workers from the billionaire Tesla founder, who helms the Department of Government Efficiency, that created broad uncertainty across the federal government and its workforce.
      …
      The president’s message represents the first significant move to narrow Musk’s mandate. According to Trump’s new guidance, DOGE and its staff should play an advisory role — but Cabinet secretaries should make final decisions on personnel, policy and the pacing of implementation.
      Musk joined the conversation and indicated he was on board with Trump’s directive. According to one person familiar with the meeting, Musk acknowledged that DOGE had made some missteps — a message he shared earlier this week with members of Congress.
      Trump stressed that he wants to keep good people in government and not eject capable federal workers en masse, according to one of the officials. It is unclear whether the new guidance will result in laid off workers getting rehired.
      The timing of the meeting was influenced by recent comments from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who said on CNN Tuesday that Cabinet secretaries should retain the full power to hire and fire, according to one official. The official said Trump has been flooded with similar concerns from other lawmakers and Cabinet secretaries.
      Donald Trump restated his support for Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency”, and vowed to continue helping him cut down federal agencies.The president’s comments came as judges nationwide consider challenges to Trump and Musk’s moves, including their attempts to shutter USAid. Yesterday, the supreme court ruled that the Trump administration must abide by a judge’s order for the aid agency to pay $2b to its partners, a sign that the conservative-dominated court may not be entirely onboard with the unorthodox downsizing campaign.“DOGE has been an incredible success, and now that we have my Cabinet in place, I have instructed the Secretaries and Leadership to work with DOGE on Cost Cutting measures and Staffing,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.He continued:
      We just had a meeting with most of the Secretaries, Elon, and others, and it was a very positive one. It’s very important that we cut levels down to where they should be, but it’s also important to keep the best and most productive people. We’re going to have these meetings every two weeks until that aspect of this very necessary job is done. The relationships between everybody in that room are extraordinary. They all want to get to the exact same place, which is, simply, to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
      Doge continues to face substantial, though not necessarily durable, pushback as it spreads its campaign across the federal government:The Republican-majority US House Judiciary Committee has reportedly issued a subpoena to tech company Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google.Reuters is reporting that the committee is seeking the company’s internal communications as well as those with third parties and government officials during Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.A day after the supreme court denied a request from the Trump administration to continue freezing nearly $2bn in foreign aid, US foreign aid contractors and grant recipients are set to go before a federal judge today to try to restore the halted funding.The hearing is scheduled to take place in Washington today at 2 pm ET.When Donald Trump took office on 20 January, he ordered a 90-day freeze on all US foreign assistance, while his administration reviewed whether aid was consistent with his “America first” foreign policy, temporarily ending thousands of programs worldwide.Several aid organisations that had received grants or contracts with the US government sued the administration, and a US District judge ordered that the funding be temporarily restored.But, the Trump administration then filed an emergency request with the supreme court and Chief Justice Roberts initially paused the deadline to allow the court more time to review the request and hear from both sides.Until this week, when the supreme court rejected the administration’s bid to continue freezing nearly $2bn in foreign aid, leaving in place the ruling from the district judge, which ordered the administration to unfreeze the nearly $2bn in aid, for work already completed by the organizations and that had been approved by Congress.Tim Walz, Minnesota governor and 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, said in an announcement today that he wants fired federal workers to consider jobs in his state.“In Minnesota, we value the experience and expertise of federal workers, even if Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE do not,” Walz said in a statement. “Government workers provide services each of us relies on — from park rangers to firefighters to medical personnel who care for our veterans. If the Trump administration turned you away, Minnesota wants you.”Walz said that fired federal workers in his state can visit Minnesota’s careers website for resources to help with their job searches and to apply for unemployment benefits. He also said it will include resources for fired veterans.There are around 18,000 federal employees in Minnesota.Fox News’ senior White House correspondent is reporting that a meeting between Ukraine and the US is scheduled to take place on Tuesday next week.“Rubio, Witkoff, Waltz headed to Riyadh on Tuesday to meet with Ukrainians, including Yermak” Jacqui Heinrich posted on X today.Follow along in our Ukraine live blog here:Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that “virtually all” of Mexico’s trade with the US is under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, known as USMCA, which will be exempt from tariffs until 2 April. “Practically all the trade we have with the United States is within the Mexico, United States, Canada Agreement” Sheinbaum said at a news conference on Thursday, as reported by CNN. “There is a part that has to do with rules of origin, but everything is practically within the trade agreement.” More

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      US suspends aid to South Africa after Trump order

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      The state department has ordered an immediate pause on most US foreign assistance to South Africa, according to a cable seen by the Guardian, officially implementing a contentious executive order by Donald Trump.The directive, issued on Thursday, implements Executive Order 14204 targeting what the administration called “egregious actions” by South Africa. It orders all state department entities to immediately suspend aid disbursements, with minimal exceptions.“To effectively implement EO 14204, all bureaus, offices and missions shall pause all obligations and/or dispersion of aid or assistance to South Africa,” reads the cable, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio.The cable follows the 7 February order, amid a broader reassessment of US foreign aid which paused certain foreign assistance pending review.The order specifically cites “unjust racial discrimination” against white Afrikaners – descendants of Dutch colonizers who implemented the segregationist regime that denied basic rights to the Black majority until 1994.The South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, a Trump super-ally who heads the administration’s government efficiency team and has condemned his homeland for “openly racist policies”, is widely seen as influencing the administration’s stance toward a country where white South Africans, just 7% of the population, still disproportionately control most wealth and land.According to the cable, Rubio has delegated authority to Pete Marocco, a Trump loyalist who presided over the administration’s evisceration of foreign aid programs at USAid and the state department, to determine whether specific aid programs should continue. The guidance emphasizes there is “a very high bar for such requests”.Only Pepfar, the US global HIV/Aids program that provides life-saving treatment to millions of South Africans, will proceed without additional review, according to the cable. All other assistance programs require special permission, even those that had received prior exceptions under the January foreign aid pause.This is the latest sign of escalating tensions between the two generally friendly nations, starting when President Trump accused South Africa of using its new land law to discriminate against white citizens – claims the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, rejected as misinformation.The bill in question controversially permits government acquisition of private land without compensation in certain circumstances, though its supporters say such seizures would be rare and subject to judicial review.Trump has also criticized South Africa’s leading role in its genocide case against Israel at the international court of justice, while also offering refugee status to wealthy white Afrikaners who wanted to relocate to the United States, further incensing the country.The aid freeze also follows South Africa’s recent announcement that it is preparing a new trade proposal for the Trump administration, as officials anticipate the possible end of the African Growth and Opportunity Act – which has allowed billions in duty-free exports to the United States.Earlier on Thursday, South Africa issued a statement acknowledging the US withdrawal from the Just Energy Transition Partnership (Jetp), which has canceled previously funded climate projects following Trump’s revocation of international climate finance initiatives.The state department did not respond to a request for comment. More

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      in US Politics

      ‘Little agency that could’ cheered for act of resistance against Trump and Musk

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      Members of Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) unit were barred from entering a small, independent federal agency promoting economic development in Africa on Wednesday after a tense standoff with federal staff they had been sent to fire.Workers at the US African Development Foundation (USADF), which Donald Trump has ordered to be closed, refused to allow Doge operatives to enter after they arrived at its Washington headquarters on Wednesday afternoon. But the Doge team returned on Thursday, accompanied by agents with the US Marshals Service, and Peter Marocco, the acting director of the now-shuttered US Agency for International Development, according to a government official familiar with the situation. This time, they were able to gain access to the building, the official said, and no staff were present.Scores of legal challenges have been lodged against the sweeping project to upend the government bureaucracy, producing a spate of court rulings declaring the halting of aid illegal and ordering the reinstatement of fired federal workers.In Wednesday’s episode, workers instructed a security guard at USADF’s headquarters to deny the Doge team access when they arrived with Marocco. Trump is trying to install him in a similar role at USADF.Staff cited a letter sent by the agency’s chair, Ward Brehm, who was not present at the time, to a Doge subordinate the previous day making clear that his team would not be allowed to access the agency’s offices in his absence.“In my absence, I have specifically instructed the staff of USADF to adhere to our rules and procedure of not allowing any meetings of this type without my presence,” he wrote, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by the Guardian.Brehm also declined to cooperate with Marocco unless he was officially appointed to the agency’s board.“I will look forward to working with Mr Marocco after such time that he is nominated for a seat on the board and his nomination is confirmed by the Senate,” Brehm wrote.“Until these legal requirements are met, Mr Marocco does not hold any position or office with USADF, and he may not speak or act on the foundation’s behalf.”About 30 workers were in the building when Marocco arrived with a Doge team – described as young men wearing backpacks – intent on carrying out firings based on an executive order issued by Trump on 19 February, the Washington Post reported.The standoff, led by one of the smallest government agencies, with only about 50 employees, has been cheered by government officials as a mighty act of resistance against Trump and Musk’s war on the federal bureaucracy.“This is the little agency that could,” the official said.Trump’s order declared USADF and three other agencies – the Presidio Trust, the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) and the United States Institute of Peace – as “unnecessary” and subject to elimination.Wednesday’s standoff followed a similar exchange at the IAF’s headquarters earlier this week.The workers’ defiant stand comes after Democrats publicly condemned the attempted dismantling of the agency as illegal.“Any attempt to unilaterally dismantle the USADF through executive action violates the law and exceeds the constitutional limits of executive authority,” Democratic members of the House of Representatives’ foreign affairs committee wrote in a 24 February letter to Trump.Democrats have argued that Doge lacks the authority to eliminate an independent entity created by Congress, and that attempts to install Marocco as the acting chair of USADF and IAF are unlawful.The official familiar with the situation said that unlike other federal agencies such as USAid, USADF is a “congressionally chartered corporation” operated by a board of directors whose members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.“It’s expressed in the statute that you can’t dissolve ADF except by an act of Congress,” the official said. “The president [of ADF] doesn’t take orders from anyone except for the board. The president [of ADF] isn’t even authorized to take orders from the president of the United States.”The agency, created by Congress in 1980 to support small businesses and grassroots organisations serving marginalised communities in Africa, has long enjoyed broad bipartisan support. Between 2019 and 2023, it handed out grants worth about $141m to 1,050 community enterprises serving 6.2 million people. More

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      Cheap goods ‘not essence of American dream’, Trump official says amid tariff price fears

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      Buying cheap products is “not the essence of the American dream”, Donald Trump’s top economic official has declared, amid warnings that the US president’s trade wars risk increasing prices.The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, defended the new administration’s aggressive trade strategy on Thursday, two days after it imposed sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico and hiked duties on China.Top retail CEOs have cautioned the move would swiftly lead to higher prices for US consumers. Trump, too, has acknowledged there would be “a little disturbance” as a result.During an appearance at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, Bessent conceded there could be what he referred to as “a one-time price adjustment” as a result of Trump’s tariffs.“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,” he said. The American dream was “the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility, economic security”, he added. “For too long, designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this.”It comes a few days after Bessent said he was “laser-focused” on high prices in the US. At the weekend, he announced the treasury would recruit an “affordability czar” to help address the issue.“I think President Trump said that he’ll own the economy in six or 12 months, but I can tell you that we are working to get these prices down every day,” Bessent told Face the Nation on CBS.The US president has already watered down key parts of this week’s US trade onslaught, suspending tariffs on Mexico and Canada for carmakers on Wednesday, before temporarily halting tariffs on many other goods from the two countries on Thursday.Trump has repeatedly pledged to rapidly bring down prices for consumers, and declared during a joint address to Congress on Tuesday evening that he was “fighting every day” to “make America affordable again”. More