Summary of today's news
Thanks for following along with us on this busy day of news.
Trump signed a series of new executive orders and memorandums, taking action on a range of issues including social security fraud, federal contracts and the import of critical minerals.
Earlier in the day we learned the Trump administration is “looking into” the legality of deporting American citizens to El Salvador if they commit violent crimes, a view the president reiterated in an interview on Fox News today.
The White House also said Harvard “should apologize for antisemitism on its campus” as Trump threatened to remove the university’s tax-exempt status. Trump said the school “should be taxed as a political entity” after it refused to cave in to pressure from his administration to adhere to a list of demands including banning face masks, closing its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and cooperating with federal immigration authorities. Trump responded by cutting $2.3bn in federal grants to the university. Barack Obama and Yale faculty members have praised Harvard for setting an example for other higher education institutions to reject federal overreach into its governance practices.
Here’s what else we’ve covered:
A federal judge ruled today that Trump could not bar the federal government from working with Susman Godfrey, the law firm that won a $787bn settlement from Fox News for a voting machine maker over lies aired about the 2020 election.
The Associated Press has still not been allowed in the White House press pool even after a judge overturned a ban from Trump blocking the news agency.
The justice department will have to prove it tried to comply with a federal judge’s order to facilitate the release of Kilmar Ábrego García from a Salvadorian prison, after the Trump administration claimed it was powerless to force the return of the accidentally deported refugee who had legally lived in the US for nearly 25 years.
In a memorandum, Trump increased pressure on fraud prosecutor programs to ensure undocumented immigrants aren’t receiving Social Security funds.
Former president Joe Biden dedicated his first major speech since leaving the White House to the importance of social security.
Following Biden’s speech on the importance of Social Security, a person running the Social Security Administration social media accounts posted a thread accusing the former president of lying.
Protesters repeatedly disrupted Marjorie Taylor Greene’s town hall in a deeply conservative corner of Georgia on Tuesday evening, but the rightwing congresswoman appeared unfazed and amused by the interruptions.
“Bye!” Greene said repeatedly as protesters were escorted out of the room by police.
As ever, Greene mounted an ardent defense of Donald Trump, touting to constituents his plans to cut taxes and downsize the federal government while parrying questions about whether his administration would slice safety net programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Police were kept busy, removing protesters who interrupted Greene as she spoke, including one who, after the congresswoman praised how the Trump administration was bringing the full weight of federal law enforcement against undocumented immigrants, yelled, “How about the KKK?”
“The protest is outside, thank you very much,” Greene said, as an officer led the woman away. A local broadcaster reported that at least three people were removed, with police using a taser on one person.
Greene is one of only a small number of House Republicans who are holding town halls during the ongoing two-week district work period for lawmakers. The party’s campaign arm has reportedly urged lawmakers not to hold the events, after several were met with constituents angry over Trump’s policies.
Updated
Social Security Administration accuses Biden of lying
Following Biden’s speech on the importance of Social Security, a person running the Social Security Administration social media accounts posted a thread accusing the former president of lying.
Biden warned on Tuesday that Trump has “taken a hatchet” to social security. “In fewer than 100 days, this new administration has done so much damage and so much destruction,” he said. “It’s kind of breathtaking.”
With five posts on the platform X, which is owned by Trump ally and billionaire Elon Musk, the agency fired back, claiming:
- President Trump has repeatedly promised to protect Social Security and ensure higher-take home pay for seniors by ending taxation on Social Security benefits.
- The SSA has not permanently closed any field offices and 50% of the technology department has not been laid off.
- SA is taking commonsense steps to transform how we serve the public - last month, we spent $16.5 million to modernize telephone services nationwide. We’re developing cutting-edge, AI-powered tools to streamline simple tasks.
- A SSA Inspector General report released while Joe Biden was President found $72 billion in improper payments from fiscal years 2015 through 2022.
- Over 2 million illegal aliens were assigned SSNs in fiscal year 2024 alone.
But the posts failed to mention the severe cuts outlined for the agency by the Trump administration. Dozens of offices will be closed this year due to actions by Musk’s “department of government efficiency,” the Associated Press reported in March.
There were plans to slash the SSA technology team by roughly half that were reported on in April, as part of Trump’s goal to drastically reduce the size of the federal government.
Trump’s SSA also announced a controversial plan this year that would punish senior beneficiaries when the government overpays, recouping the amount of the mistake by stopping payments entirely. The strategy could severely impact recipients.
The SSA has also canceled Social Security numbers lawfully obtained by immigrants in an effort to get them to forcibly return.
Updated
Biden defends social security in first major post-presidency speech
Former president Joe Biden dedicated his first major speech since leaving the White House to the importance of social security, as the Trump administration cuts staff and closes offices, Reuters reports.
Speaking to disability advocates in Chicago, Biden said: “Social Security is more than a government program. It’s a sacred promise we made as a nation.”
From Reuters:
The SSA pays out $1.4 trillion in benefits to 73 million elderly and disabled Americans annually. Trump repeatedly pledged during his election campaign not to touch Social Security benefits.
Updated
New executive orders
In a series of executive orders issued on Tuesday, Trump took actions on a range of issues including cracking down on social security fraud, federal contracts and the import of critical minerals. Here’s the gist:
Actions on prescription drugs: the president directed the health department to “take steps to significantly reduce drug prices” including “improvements” to Medicare’s negotiation program. But according to Reuters, the move could give the pharmaceutical industry what it’s long lobbied for: a delay on when medications are eligible for price negotiations.
Critical mineral imports: under this order, the secretary of commerce will launch an investigation into “vulnerabilities in supply chains, the economic impact of foreign market distortions, and potential trade remedies” for critical minerals relied on by US defense, infrastructure and technological advancement. The federal government listed 50 critical minerals important to national security and the economy in 2022. The order comes the day after China imposed restrictions on several minerals relied on heavily by the US military and potentially sets up more tariffs against China and other countries.
Environmental permits and federal office locations: two orders were focused on increasing efficiency. In a memorandum, Trump directed agencies to “make maximum use of technology”, expediting environmental review and permitting processes for infrastructure. In the other, he signed an EO to rescind actions issued by presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton that limited where federal agency facilities could be, and “allows federal agencies to select office space and facilities based on cost-effectiveness, mission suitability, and the needs of the American people”.
Privatizing federal products and services: in one EO, Trump directs agencies to rely on “commercially available products and services”, and requires waivers to be approved or denied in writing. “Federal agencies are wasting taxpayer dollars on non-commercial solutions that fail to leverage the efficiency and competitiveness of the private-sector marketplace,” the administration said in a fact sheet. In another, he streamlined Federal Acquisition Regulation (Far) to eliminate “barriers to doing business with the federal government”.
Social security benefits in a memorandum, Trump increased pressure on fraud prosecutor programs to ensure undocumented immigrants aren’t receiving funds. “The Memorandum requires the SSA Inspector General to investigate earnings reports for individuals aged 100 or older with mismatched SSA records, to combat identity theft,” according to a fact sheet.
Updated
Judge says Trump officials have done 'nothing' to return wrongly deported man to US despite order
The justice department will have to prove it tried to comply with a federal judge’s order to facilitate the release of Kilmar Ábrego García from a Salvadorian prison, after the Trump administration claimed it was powerless to force the return of the accidentally deported refugee who had legally lived in the US for nearly 25 years.
In a hearing Tuesday, Judge Paula Xinis told DoJ officials to clear their schedules and begin preparing for possible depositions and a discovery process that will take about two weeks, the New York Times reports.
“To date nothing has been done,” Xinis said during the hearing. “Nothing.”
Xinis had ordered the administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Garcia’s return, and is now evaluating whether or not officials are in contempt of court for failing to comply. Garcia’s lawyers will be able to submit up to 15 questions, 15 document requests and depose up to six administration officials in an effort to examine what exactly has been done.
From the Guardian’s White House correspondent, Hugo Lowell:
The US district judge Paula Xinis refuted the administration’s claim that Trump’s news conference with the Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele complied with the court order to ‘facilitate’ the return of Kilmar Ábrego García.
Xinis also rejected the administration’s narrow immigration court reading of “facilitate” to mean officials only had to remove domestic barriers for Ábrego García, saying the plain meaning of the term meant they had to secure his release.”
Updated
The Associated Press has still not been allowed in the White House press pool even after a judge overturned a ban from Trump blocking the news agency, Washington Post media reporter Jeremy Barr said in social media posts. On Tuesday, a print journalist was given access to an event, but “re-joining the pool is still the priority”, he said.
The White House acknowledged the injunction against its ban in a letter Monday but continued to block reporters from events.
The AP was penalized by the president after the organization continued using the name Gulf of Mexico after Trump ordered the body of water be renamed to “Gulf of America.”
From Barr in the Washington Post:
Judge Trevor N. McFadden decided to lift the ban — which had been in place since Feb. 11 — while the AP’s lawsuit against the White House plays out, arguing in a scathing ruling that blocking the news organization’s journalists over a stylebook decision violated their constitutional rights.
He stayed his own ruling for five days to allow an appeal, meaning it expired Sunday. But on Monday, it was as if nothing had changed. The AP was not included in the limited pool of journalists covering the president, as it had been before the ban. And when AP journalists attempted to cover Trump’s Oval Office meeting with the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, they were rebuffed.”
Updated
A federal judge ruled today that Trump could not bar the federal government from working with Susman Godfrey, the law firm that won a $787bn settlement from Fox News for a voting machine maker over lies aired about the 2020 election.
“The framers of our constitution would see this as a shocking abuse of power,” district court Judge Loren AliKhan said as she issued a temporary restraining order blocking last week’s executive order from the president, according to the Associated Press:
Trump’s order cited the firm’s election work as a reason it was targeted. Several other firms that have been targeted by Trump entered into settlements, promising to provide hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free legal work for the president’s favored causes. Susman and at least three others have chosen to fight and all have so far won in court.”
Updated
Harvard University has retained two notable lawyers as it prepares to fight the Trump administration’s efforts to halt billions in federal funds.
The university sent a letter on Monday to the Trump administration saying it would not acquiesce to the administration’s demands. It was signed by William Burck, a managing partner at the firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and Robert Hur, a partner at the firm King & Spalding.
Hur, a former US attorney in Maryland, served as the special counsel that investigated Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents. While his final report cleared Biden of any wrongdoing, it contained devastating language describing Biden as “an elderly man with a poor memory”.
Burck and his firm have several connections to the Trump administration and allies.
Most recently, Burck reportedly helped broker a widely-criticized deal between Paul Weiss and the White House in which Paul Weiss agreed to provide $40m in pro-bono legal services. The agreement was widely seen as a capitulation to Trump and emboldened him to go after other law firms.
Burck has also represented Steve Bannon and was chosen by the Trump Organization in January to serve as its outside ethics counsel. He also helped lead confirmation efforts for treasury secretary Scott Bessent. He has also represented former White House counsel Don McGahn and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
He also served on the legal team of New York City mayor Eric Adams as he contested corruption charges that were ultimately dropped at the request of the Trump administration. Burck is said to have been involved in helping negotiate that outcome, according to the New York Times.
Updated
The day so far
The Trump administration is “looking into” the legality of deporting American citizens to El Salvador if they commit violent crimes. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “It’s a legal question the president is looking into … He would only consider this, if legal, for Americans who are the most violent, egregious, repeat offenders of crime who nobody in this room wants living in their communities.” Yesterday, Donald Trump reaffirmed that he is “all for” deporting naturalized American citizens to El Salvador “if they’re criminals”. Meanwhile at 4pm ET US district judge Paula Xinis will consider her next steps on what she called the Trump administration’s failure to update her on efforts to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who it illegally deported to El Salvador, in an extraordinary case that is quickly spiralling into the most significant stand-off so far between the White House and the judiciary.
Also today, Trump plans to sign a memorandum that the White House said would be aimed at stopping “ineligible aliens” from claiming Social Security benefits. Incidentally, former US president Joe Biden is expected to return to the national stage later today as he delivers his first major post-presidency speech focusing on how Social Security is being threatened by the policies of the Trump administration. Biden is expected to speak in Chicago around 5.45pm local time.
Earlier, the White House said Harvard “should apologize for antisemitism on its campus” as Trump threatened to remove the university’s tax-exempt status. Trump said the school “should be taxed as a political entity” after it refused to cave in to pressure from his administration to adhere to a list of demands including banning face masks, closing its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and cooperating with federal immigration authorities. Trump responded by cutting $2.3bn in federal grants to the university. Barack Obama and Yale faculty members have praised Harvard for setting an example for other higher education institutions to reject federal overreach into its governance practices.
Elsewhere:
The Trump administration is using personal data normally protected from dissemination to find undocumented immigrants where they work, study and live, often with the goal of removing them from their housing and the workforce, the Washington Post (paywall) reports.
A federal judge agreed to dismiss a gun charge against a man US attorney general Pam Bondi has called a leader of the MS-13 gang after prosecutors said the Trump administration wanted to deport rather than prosecute him, Reuters reports. US magistrate judge William Fitzpatrick put the order on hold until Friday to allow the man, Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, 24, to pursue other legal channels to contest what his lawyer warned could be an imminent removal to an El Salvador prison.
The Trump administration has exempted 47 companies from regulations to curb mercury and air toxics for their coal-fired power plants for two years, according to a list of facilities published by the Environmental Protection Agency. The exemptions list is the latest move by the administration to use executive or emergency orders to immediately shield polluting facilities from compliance with air and water standards tightened by the Biden administration as the EPA undertakes a lengthier process to roll back those rules.
Robert F Kennedy Jr is facing new demands to release almost $400m allocated by Congress to help low-income US families keep the air conditioning on this summer. The funds are under threat after the staff running a decades old program were fired – as part of the Trump administration’s so-called ‘efficiency’ drive.
Trump’s plans to expand infrastructure to produce artificial intelligence in the US could face years of delays with the Republican-controlled Texas statehouse poised to pass legislation that imposes regulatory hurdles on data centers.
That’s all from me, Lucy Campbell, for today. My colleague Gabrielle Canon is here to steer you through the rest of the day’s news, so stay tuned.
Updated
Trump exempts dozens of coal plants from mercury and air toxics limits
The Donald Trump administration has exempted 47 companies from regulations to curb mercury and air toxics for their coal-fired power plants for two years, according to a list of facilities published by the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday.
Reuters reports that the exemptions list is the latest move by the administration to use executive or emergency orders to immediately shield polluting facilities from compliance with air and water standards tightened by the Biden administration as the EPA undertakes a lengthier process to roll back those rules.
The Biden-era Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (MATS) is still in force after the supreme court in October declined to put the rules on hold after a group of mostly Republican states and industry groups led a legal challenge to suspend it.
But Trump issued a proclamation last week detailing that certain stationary sources subject to MATS are exempt from compliance in a bid to revive the coal industry and prolong the life of aging coal power plants.
Mercury is a potent neurotoxin the American Lung Association says could cause severe developmental harm. Mercury and other air toxics associated with coal burning raise the risk of asthma attacks, strokes, heart attacks and lung cancer.
The Biden-era rule required constant monitoring of emissions.
Updated
Judge to consider Trump administration's compliance with order over wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia
Later today, US district judge Paula Xinis will consider her next steps on what she called the Trump administration’s failure to update her on efforts to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who it illegally deported to El Salvador, in an extraordinary case critics say shows the administration may choose to defy unfavorable court orders.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was deported on 15 March despite an order protecting him from removal to El Salvador, is one of several that have sparked concerns that Donald Trump’s administration is willing to disregard the judiciary.
The hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, is due to begin at 4pm ET.
Asked about the case earlier, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration was complying with all court orders. “We’re very confident that every action taken by this administration is within the confines of the law,” she said.
Legal experts said Xinis at the hearing may ask the administration whether it told El Salvador president Nayib Bukele - who met Trump at the White House on Monday - not to release Abrego Garcia, which could amount to defiance of the court’s order to “facilitate” his return.
During the meeting with Bukele on Monday, secretary of state Marco Rubio said: “The foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the president of the United States, not by a court.” Trump called reporters asking whether the administration would seek the return of Abrego Garcia “sick people.”
Meanwhile, Bukele told reporters at the White House he did not have the power to return Abrego Garcia to the US. “The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” Bukele said, echoing the Trump administration’s claim that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, which Washington labels a terrorist organization.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have denied he is a gang member, saying the US has presented no credible evidence to support the claim.
US senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said in a statement on Monday that if Abrego Garcia was not home by “midweek,” he would travel to El Salvador to discuss his release. “Since the Trump administration appears to be ignoring these court mandates, we need to take additional action,” Van Hollen said.
Trump to sign memorandum aimed at stopping ineligible people from claiming Social Security benefits
Later today, Trump plans to sign a memorandum that the White House said would be aimed at stopping ineligible people from claiming Social Security benefits, Leavitt says.
Leavitt says:
The memorandum will direct the administration to ensure ineligible aliens are not receiving funds from the Social Security Act programs.
That’s it, the briefing is over.
Updated
Asked about Joe Biden’s upcoming speech focused on defending Social Security, Leavitt says:
President Trump is absolutely certain about protecting Social Security benefits for law-abiding, tax-paying, American citizens and seniors who have paid into this program. He will always protect this program.
Relief is being considered for farmers, who face lower prices and high inventories amid the trade war between the US and China.
Leavitt says:
Relief is being considered. The secretary of agriculture, I know, has spoken to the president about that, and again, it’s being considered.
Updated
Trump spoke with the sultan of Oman about the next round of Iran talks scheduled for Saturday in Oman, Leavitt says.
Trump’s bottom line in the talks is he wanted to use negotiations to ensure Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon, she says.
Trump and the Omani leader also discussed ongoing US operations against Yemen’s Houthis, she says.
'Harvard should apologize for antisemitism', says White House
Donald Trump wants to see Harvard apologize, Leavitt says when asked if the president is considering the possibility of removing the school’s tax-exempt status.
When it comes to Harvard, as I said, the president has been quite clear, they must follow federal law. He also wants to see Harvard apologize, and Harvard should apologize for the egregious antisemitism that took place on their college campus against Jewish American students.
Updated
Yesterday both Trump and Nayib Bukele said they wouldn’t act on the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was unlawfully deported to El Salvador.
Asked who is responsible for what happens to him, Leavitt repeats all the key claims of the Trump administration, none of which it has provided evidence for.
[Bukele] is not going to smuggle a foreign terrorist back into the United States of America as many in this room and in the Democrat party seemingly want him to do.
Abrego Garcia was a foreign terrorist. He is an MS-13 gang member. He was engaged in human trafficking. He illegally came into our country. And so deporting him back to El Salvador was always going to be the end result.
There is never going to be a world in which this is an individual who’s going to live a peaceful life in Maryland.
She adds:
I’m not sure what is so difficult about this for everyone in the media to understand. And it’s appalling that there has been so much time covering this … It’s truly striking to me.
Trump has not made a determination on raising the corporate tax rate to pay for other tax cuts, Leavitt says. “I don’t believe the president has made a determination on whether he supports it or not,” she says.
Leavitt says more than 15 trade deals have been put on the table and are actively being considered.
Trump 'looking into' the legality of deporting US citizens who commit violent crimes to El Salvador
Asked if deporting American citizens to central American prisons is legal or if it will require a change in the law, Leavit says:
It’s a legal question the president is looking into … He would only consider this, if legal, for Americans who are the most violent, egregious, repeat offenders of crime who nobody in this room wants living in their communities.
Yesterday, Trump reaffirmed that he is “all for” deporting naturalized American citizens to El Salvador “if they’re criminals”.
Updated
Leavitt says on Harvard:
A lot of Americans are wondering why their tax dollars are going to these universities when they’re not only indoctrinating our nation’s students but also allowing such egregious, illegal behavior to occur.
Updated
On Harvard, Leavitt claims that Harvard has allowed antisemitism on its campus, breaking federal law, and therefore should not get federal funding.
Last week the government’s antisemitism taskforce accused the university of having “failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment”.
The Trump administration demanded that Harvard ban face masks and close its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which it says teach students and staff “to make snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes”. The administration also demanded that Harvard cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
When Harvard refused to comply with the list of demands, Trump cut $2.3bn in federal grants to the university.
Updated
Leavitt calls Kilmar Abrego Garcia (without evidence) “an “MS-13 gang member, Salvadorian, illegal alien criminal who was hiding in Maryland” and attacks the media coverage of the case “despicable” and “sensationalized”.
In fact, Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland legally and had a work permit. He was unlawfully deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador in March, despite a court order that he not be sent there. Last week the supreme court unanimously ordered the administration to “facilitate” his release, but yesterday, the Trump administration misrepresented that decision, using tortured readings of the order to justify taking no actions to secure his release.
Updated
White House press briefing
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is due to begin speaking to reporters soon. I’ll bring you all the key lines here.
Voters in Oakland will elect a new mayor today in a race that many residents view as a battle between a hometown hero and Big Tech money.
Barbara Lee, who represented Oakland in Congress for a quarter-century and is known internationally for her lonely stand against the use of military force in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, faces a strong challenge from former city councilman Loren Taylor.
While Lee has won the backing of local leaders – including nearly every member of the city council, former mayors of the city and labor unions, her opponent is drawing outside support from a coalition of independent groups backed by wealthy tech executives that have worked to elect more moderate Democrats in blue cities across the Bay Area. The effort has had success helping to elect tech-friendly mayors in San Francisco and San Jose and funding successful recall efforts against progressive leaders, including the former Oakland mayor Sheng Thao. Thao was recently indicted on federal bribery charges; she denies wrongdoing.
“The tech bros, the oligarchy, crypto bros, all of that stuff that we’re starting to see here – it came from San Francisco politics,” said Pamela Drake, a longtime activist and progressive political commentator who is supporting Lee.
Drake said she feared a “tech takeover” of the city’s politics. “That is what we see as a real threat,” she said, “that it is no longer going to be Oaklanders deciding what we want done.”
She pointed to a pro-Taylor committee that received tens of thousands of dollars from Max Hodak, who co-founded Neuralink with Elon Musk, who is leading the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle large swaths of the federal workforce. Hodak split with Musk several years ago.
In an interview, Taylor, who narrowly lost the 2022 mayor’s race to Thao, called the claim that his campaign was driven by outside money “inaccurate” and emphasized his fundraising strength among grassroots Oakland-based donors.
‘Shock to the system’: farmers hit by Trump’s tariffs and cuts say they need another bailout
Farmers across the US say they could face financial ruin – unless there is a huge taxpayer-funded bail out to compensate for losses generated by Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts and chaotic tariffs.
Rural counties rallied behind Trump last year, averaging 78% support in farming-dependent counties, but anxiety is mounting among the agricultural base. The climate crisis-fueled extreme weather is compounded by the US president’s looming trade war and the administration targeting popular federal programs and staff, leaving farmers reeling and resigned to needing another bailout.
Travis Johnson, who lost more than 1,000 acres of cotton, sorghum and corn after a year’s rain fell within 48 hours in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) in southern Texas last month, turning parched fields into lakes, said:
There’s a lot of uncertainty around and I hate to be used as a bargaining chip. I am definitely worried.
RGV farmers sell sorghum, wheat, corn and vegetables to Mexico among other crops, while buying fertilizer and equipment – and relying on Mexican farmhands for cheap labor. Johnson added:
We’ve already had two years of absolute disaster with falling prices and weather patterns … no farmer wants this but without a bailout this could be devastating and a lot more people could go under.
The Trump administration has issued widespread cuts to oversubscribed and chronically underfunded federal climate and conservation schemes designed to reduce costs and greenhouse gases, and improve yields and environmental health.
Trump is also shuttering local food programs which provide farmers with stable domestic markets like public school districts and food banks, helping make farms more resilient to global economic shocks. The USAID, which purchased about $2bn every year in agricultural products particularly wheat, sorghum and lentils for humanitarian aid programs, has been dismantled.
The loss in federal programs alone would have been tough to cope with, but then came the trade chaos. Trump’s tariff announcements began when most farmers already had spring crops in the ground – or at the very least had prepared the land and purchased inputs such as seeds and pesticides, making it impossible to switch to crops that could potentially find a market domestically.
Consensus is growing among experts that the turmoil represents an opportunity for rival agriculture economies – and disaster for US farmers. Ben Murray, senior researcher with the consumer advocacy group Food and Water Watch, said:
Without a bailout, we can only imagine how bad this will be for farmers and what an opportunity for Brazil – and this is all being done for a tax cut for the wealthy.
Updated
Judge drops case against man Pam Bondi called MS-13 leader and allows time to challenge deportation to El Salvador
A federal judge agreed on Tuesday to dismiss a gun charge against a man US attorney general Pam Bondi has called a leader of the MS-13 gang after prosecutors said the Trump administration wanted to deport rather than prosecute him, Reuters reports.
US magistrate judge William Fitzpatrick put the order on hold until Friday to allow the man, Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, 24, to pursue other legal channels to contest what his lawyer warned could be an imminent removal to an El Salvador prison.
Fitzpatrick said the criminal case was not the proper forum to decide issues related to his deportation and noted that he had limited authority to question the decision by prosecutors to drop the charge.
“I cannot and will not go in and second guess decisions that are uniquely prosecutorial in nature,” Fitzpatrick said during a hearing in Alexandria, Virginia.
Villatoro Santos, a Salvadoran man living illegally in Virginia, was charged last month with illegal possession of a firearm after an FBI SWAT team raided his home. During a news conference, Bondi called him one of the top three leaders of MS-13 in the US and touted his arrest as part of Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrant gangs.
In a criminal complaint, an immigration agent said law enforcement “observed indicia of MS-13 association” and seized four guns and ammunition during a search of Villatoro Santos’ room, but made no reference to his alleged leadership in the gang. He was not charged with any gang-related activity.
Villatoro Santos’ case is one of several in which Trump administration officials have publicly labeled immigrant detainees gang leaders and terrorists without backing up those claims with evidence in court.
Less than two weeks after Villatoro Santos was arrested, prosecutors moved to drop the charge and Bondi said he would face removal proceedings. A federal prosecutor, John Blanchard, told the judge on Tuesday that he did not know what would happen to Villatoro Santos once the charge was dropped.
A lawyer for Villatoro Santos asked the judge to delay ruling on the motion, warning of a risk that Villatoro Santos would be sent to El Salvador without the ability to challenge his deportation. The Trump administration has sent hundreds of migrants it has alleged are members of MS-13 and other transnational gangs to a prison in El Salvador without a court process.
The lawyer, Muhammad Elsayed, said the Trump administration had made a “high-profile spectacle” of the case and sought assurances that Villatoro Santos would have an opportunity to defend himself in immigration court.
“This was clearly a political decision,” Elsayed said of the decision to drop the criminal case.
Updated
Donald Trump has described American farmers as being on the “frontline” in his escalating trade war with China while pledging to protect them.
Trump, in a Truth Social post, wrote:
Our farmers are GREAT, but because of their GREATNESS, they are always put on the Front Line with our adversaries, such as China, whenever there is a Trade negotiation or, in this case, a Trade War.
He accused China of being “brutal” to US farmers during his first term in office but that a “great trade deal was made”.
“The USA will PROTECT OUR FARMERS!!!” he added.
Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said he has not yet heard back from the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, about his request to visit the country to meet with his constituent Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.
“If I don’t hear from him, and Abrego Garcia is not quickly returned, I do intend to go to El Salvador this week to show solidarity with his family,” Van Hollen told CNN.
I also hope to visit this notorious prison to see Abrego Garcia to let him know his family and friends are very worried about him, as am I.
At a meeting with Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, Bukele said he would not order the return of Abrego Garcia, calling the question “preposterous”.
The Trump administration is looking at closing 30 embassies and consulates overseas as part of an overhaul of the US government’s diplomatic footprint, according to multiple reports.
A State Department document obtained by Punchbowl News and CNN outlines a plan to shutter 10 embassies and 17 consulates, including in Eritrea, Luxembourg, South Sudan and Malta, and folding them into embassies in nearby countries.
The proposed consulate closures include Edinburgh, five in France, two in Germany and Florence, Italy.
It comes as the Trump administration is reportedly pushing to cut the State Department’s budget by nearly half.
A watchdog group on Monday sued the Trump administration over its decision to remove a public tracker of how the government spends funds appropriated by Congress.
The director of the office of management and budget (OMB), Russell Vought, has sought to justify taking down the tracker, telling Congress in March that the tool “requires the disclosure of sensitive, predecisional and deliberative information”. “Such disclosures have a chilling effect on the deliberations within the executive branch,” he added.
But the lawsuit, filed on behalf of the non-profit group Protect Democracy in US district court in Washington DC, says that federal law requires the OMB to publicly post apportionment documents.
The suit says:
Congress mandated prompt transparency for apportionments to prevent abuses of power and strengthen Congress’s and the public’s oversight of the spending process.
Absent this transparency, the president and OMB may abuse their authority over the apportionment of federal funds without public or congressional scrutiny or accountability.
The vast majority of US private and public universities and colleges are tax-exempt entities because of their educational purposes – purposes including teaching, research and public services, that the federal government has long recognized as fundamental to fostering the productive and civic capacities of citizens – and/or the fact that they are state governmental entities. In turn, state governments usually grant tax-exempt status to such organizations.
The federal tax code classifies tax-exempt colleges and universities and their foundations as public charities, which means they’re not subject to tax on investment income, payout requirements, or other rules that apply to private foundations.
Here are the requirements from the IRS:
To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.
Organizations described in section 501(c)(3) are commonly referred to as charitable organizations. Organizations described in section 501(c)(3), other than testing for public safety organizations, are eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions in accordance with Code section 170.
The organization must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization’s net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. If the organization engages in an excess benefit transaction with a person having substantial influence over the organization, an excise tax may be imposed on the person and any organization managers agreeing to the transaction.
Section 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct.
Updated
Trump threatens Harvard's tax-exempt status after university refuses to cave to administration's demands
Donald Trump has said Harvard “should lose its tax exempt status” and be taxed as a political entity after the Ivy League school rejected what it said was an attempt at “government regulation” of the university.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote:
Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting “Sickness?” Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!
Most universities, including Harvard, are exempt from federal income taxes because they are classified as providing a public good.
The latest escalation comes after the Trump administration elected to cut $2bn of Harvard’s federal grants after the university refused to cave in to what the president has called an effort to curb antisemitism on campus. Many educators, however, see the administration’s list of demands as a thinly veiled effort to more broadly curb academic freedoms.
Former president Barack Obama praised Harvard for setting an example for other higher education institutions to reject federal overreach into its governance practices.
Updated
As we said earlier, former president Joe Biden will address a conference in Chicago just before 5pm local time with a speech on focused on defending Social Security.
But, Politico reports, not all Democrats are too enthused by Biden’s return to the national stage. One former Biden donor and bundler said the speeches are “fine” because “that’s what you expect a former president to do, but I don’t anticipate crowds of Democrats wanting him as a focal point of the national conversation.”
And a person who worked closely with the Biden campaign has told the outlet:
It takes a special level of chutzpah as the man most responsible for reelecting Donald Trump to decide it’s your voice that is missing in this moment. The country would be better served if he rode off into the sunset.
Updated
RFK Jr urged to release nearly $400m allocated to help families combat heat
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of health and human services, is facing new demands to release almost $400m allocated by Congress to help low-income US families keep the air conditioning on this summer.
The funds are under threat after the staff running a decades old program were fired – as part of the Trump administration’s so-called ‘efficiency’ drive.
States and tribal nations are still waiting for funding allocated by Congress for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) – a chronically underfunded bipartisan program that helped around 6 million households keep on top of energy bills last year.
The money is stuck in limbo after the Trump administration this month eliminated the division of energy assistance (DEA) – the office within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that oversees the four-decade old program – and fired the entire staff.
Pressure is now growing on Kennedy to reinstate the staff and guarantee that the energy aid be distributed to the states – in compliance with the administration’s constitutional obligation to abide with congressional appropriations.
An estimated one in six households are behind on their energy bills, according to NEADA, which means millions of families could be at risk of utilities shutting off power in what’s expected to be another record-breaking hot summer.
Amid a protracted cost of living crisis, one in four households were unable to keep up with energy bills last year, according to the Census Bureau.
In the northern cold states, LIHEAP helped keep the heat on for more than 43,000 households in Michigan and 26,000 Vermonters. But in the short-term it is mostly southern states where residents are most likely to suffer first, especially as deadly heat waves increase due to global heating.
In Arizona, just over 37,000 residents qualified for LIHEAP assistance last year. In Phoenix, the US’s hottest major city, residents endured a record 113 consecutive days at or over 100F. Even with LIHEAP, almost one in four heat deaths in Maricopa county, where Phoenix is located, happened indoors. A significant proportion did not have electricity and/or a functioning air conditioning unit.
Updated
Doge collecting federal data to remove undocumented migrants from housing and work - report
The Trump administration is using personal data normally protected from dissemination to find undocumented immigrants where they work, study and live, often with the goal of removing them from their housing and the workforce, the Washington Post (paywall) reports.
The Post reports that at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, officials are working on a rule that would ban mixed-status households (where some family members have legal status and others don’t) from public housing, according to multiple staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution. Affiliates from the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) are also looking to kick out existing mixed-status households, vowing to ensure that undocumented immigrants do not benefit from public programs, even if they live with citizens or other eligible family members.
The push extends across agencies: Last week, the Social Security Administration moved to classify more than 6,000 living immigrants as dead, canceling their social security numbers and effectively wiping out their ability to work or receive benefits in an effort to get them to leave the country. Federal tax and immigration enforcement officials recently reached a deal to share confidential tax data for people suspected of being in the US illegally.
The result is an unprecedented effort to use government data to support the administration’s immigration policies. The Post notes that that includes information people have reported about themselves for years while paying taxes or applying for housing — believing that information would not be used against them for immigration purposes. Legal experts say the data sharing is a breach of privacy rules that help ensure trust in government programs and services.
Tanya Broder, senior counsel for health and economic justice policy at the left-leaning National Immigration Law Center, told the Post.
It’s not only about one subgroup of people, it’s really about all of us. Everyone cares about their privacy. Nobody wants their health-care information or tax information broadcast and used to go after us.
The White House did not reply to a request for comment. In response to questions, a DHS official said: “The government is finally doing what it should have all along: sharing information across the federal government to solve problems.”
“Information sharing across agencies is essential to identify who is in our country, including violent criminals, determine what public safety and terror threats may exist, scrub these individuals from voter rolls, as well as identify what public benefits these aliens are using at taxpayer expense,” the department’s assistant secretary for public affairs said.
Trump donors eye potential bonanza if US succeeds with Greenland land-grab
Some of Donald Trump’s biggest campaign donors and investors, who collectively have hundreds of millions of dollars in financial ties to the US president, are positioned to potentially profit from any American takeover of Greenland, raising even more ethical questions around Trump’s controversial pursuit of the Arctic territory.
The administration is in part aiming to secure rare minerals that are essential for the US tech industry and national security, and to potentially reopen oil and gas exploration: “This is about critical minerals, this is about natural resources,” Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, recently said.
A Guardian analysis of campaign finance records and corporate filings show US tech moguls who invested in mining companies operating in Greenland, fossil fuel executives and crypto tycoons with their own set of plans for the country collectively gave at least $243m to the president’s 2024 campaign.
Meanwhile institutional investors bankrolling Greenland mining interests also amassed $314m worth of shares in Trump Media, most just ahead of the election.
“There’s a closed loop among these investors, billionaires, Trump and the crypto projects,” said Emily DiVito, a senior adviser for economic policy with the Groundwork Collaborative economic thinktank. Greenland is an example of that in action, she added.
“These donations are investments, and they were made with particular outcomes in mind, and even if they weren’t stated at the time, the money changed hands,” DiVito said.
Updated
Joe Biden to deliver his first major post-presidency speech
Former US President Joe Biden is expected to return to the national stage later today as he delivers his first major post-presidency speech.
The 82-year-old Democrat, who reluctantly dropped out of the presidential race last year amid concerns about his cognitive functioning, will talk about how social security is being threatened by the policies of the Trump administration.
The speech will be made to the national conference of Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD), in Chicago.
“As bipartisan leaders have long agreed, Americans who retire after paying into Social Security their whole lives deserve the vital support and caring services they receive,” Rachel Buck, executive director of the ACRD, said.
“We are thrilled the president will be joining us to discuss how we can work together for a stable and successful future for Social Security.”
Biden has largely avoided speaking publicly since leaving the White House in January, despite being frequently named by Trump as the cause of many of the country’s problems – both home and abroad – over the last three months.
Biden previously spoke at a National High Schools Model United Nations event last month, but it was not open to journalists.
Trump has dramatically slashed the size of the government workforce, including thousands of employees at the Social Security Administration (SSA).
Along with a planned layoff of 7,000 workers and controversial plans to impose tighter identity-proofing measures for recipients, the SSA has been sued over a decision to allow Elon Musk’s so-called department of government efficiency to access individuals’ social security numbers and other personally identifiable information.
Social security recipients, meanwhile, have complained about long call wait times as the agency’s “my social security” benefits portal has seen an increase in outages.
Individuals who receive supplemental security income, including disabled seniors and low-income adults and children, also reported receiving a notice that said they were “not receiving benefits”.
Updated
Trump’s AI infrastructure plans could face delays due to Texas Republicans
Hugo Lowell is a reporter in the Washington bureau of the Guardian covering Donald Trump and the Justice Department
Donald Trump’s plans to expand infrastructure to produce artificial intelligence in the US could face years of delays with the Republican-controlled Texas statehouse poised to pass legislation that imposes regulatory hurdles on data centers.
The Trump administration earlier this year announced that a joint venture called Stargate would construct a total of 20 data centers to provide computing power for AI as part of an effort to help the US compete against China for leadership of the technology and spur investors to pursue AI projects.
The companies behind Stargate – OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and MGX, an investor backed by the United Arab Emirates, which together have pledged up to $500bn – chose Texas, with its loose regulation and pre-existing energy infrastructure for the first data center.
But the construction of future data centers to support Trump’s AI agenda faces headwinds as a result of the Texas legislation SB6, which introduces new regulatory measures including a six-month review process in addition to the existing 6-18 month evaluation period with the goal of protecting its own power grid in the face of storms.
The effects of the proposed bill are two-pronged: the regulatory measures could result in a maximum 24-month approval process, while the requirement to pay additional fees to the Texas grid operator and install backup generators would dramatically raise construction costs.
That could lead tech companies to scale back planned construction of data centers in the state, according to equity analysts.
You can read the full story here:
Iran expected to resist US plan to move uranium stockpile to third country
In some foreign policy news, Iran is expected to resist a US proposal to transfer its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to a third country – such as Russia – as part of Washington’s attempt to rein in Tehran’s civil nuclear programme.
The issue, among the key stumbling blocks to a future agreement, was raised in the initial, largely indirect, talks held in Muscat, Oman, between Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Trump repeatedly has threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear program if a deal isn’t reached. Iranian officials increasingly warn that they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.
Here is an extract from a story on the high-stakes nuclear talks by the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour:
Iran is arguing the stockpile, amassed over the past four years, should remain in Iran under the strict supervision of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. Tehran sees this as a precaution, or a form of insurance in case a future US administration withdraws from the agreement, as Donald Trump did in 2018 when he rejected the 2015 deal brokered by Barack Obama.
Tehran says that if the stockpile was to leave Iran and the US pulled out of the deal, it would have to start from scratch in enriching uranium to higher purity – effectively punishing Iran for a breach committed by Washington.
Updated
Meanwhile, more than 370 alumni of Georgetown University joined 65 current students there in signing on to a letter opposing immigration authorities’ detention of Dr Badar Khan Suri, a senior postdoctoral fellow.
Immigration officials revoked his J-1 student visa, alleging his father-in-law was an adviser to Hamas officials more than a decade ago – and claiming he was “deportable” because of his posts on social media in support of Palestine.
The cases are the latest in a string of Ice arrests instigated by the Trump administration targeting students who oppose Israel’s war in Gaza and scholars present in the US on visas or green cards.
Judges orders Trump administration not to deport Palestinian green card holder arrested at citizenship interview
A judge in Vermont has ordered the Trump administration not to deport a Columbia University student who was arrested upon arriving for an interview for his US citizenship petition.
District Judge William Sessions ordered Donald Trump and other senior officials not to remove Mohsen Mahdawi from the US or take him out of the state of Vermont.
Mahdawi, a green card holder who is due to graduate next month, had helped organise protests at Columbia University opposing Israel’s assault on Gaza. He was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank and moved to the US in 2014.
His attorney Luna Droubi said “the Trump administration detained Mohsen Mahdawi in direct retaliation for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinians and because of his identity as a Palestinian”, adding that “his detention is an attempt to silence those who speak out against the atrocities in Gaza. It is also unconstitutional”.
In court documents, Mahdawi’s attorneys state that he is a lawful permanent resident of the US, currently on the path to naturalization, and has held a green card for the past 10 years.
As my colleague Anna Betts reports in this story, Mahdawi plans to return to Columbia University as he has been accepted into a master’s program at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, which will begin this fall, according to court documents.
Vermont lawmakers Bernie Sanders, Peter Welch and Becca Balint have issued a statement calling for his immediate release: “This is immoral, inhumane, and illegal. Mr. Mahdawi, a legal resident of the United States, must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention.”
His circumstances are similar to those of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers in New York on 8 March and transferred to a detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, where he has been detained for over a month.
A US immigration judge ruled on Friday that, despite being a legal US resident, Syrian-born Khalil, who participated in pro-Palestinian protests, is eligible to be deported from America.
Khalil isn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. The government has said noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country for expressing views that the administration considers to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas”.
Khalil’s lawyers have challenged the legality of his detention, saying the Trump administration is trying to deport him for an activity that is protected by the first amendment.
Updated
Trump officials step up defiance over man wrongly deported to El Salvador
Hugo Lowell is a reporter in the Washington bureau of the Guardian covering Donald Trump and the Justice Department
The Trump administration on Monday misrepresented a US supreme court decision that compelled it to return a man wrongly deported to El Salvador, using tortured readings of the order to justify taking no actions to secure his release.
The supreme court last week unanimously ordered the administration to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Abrego García, who was supposed to have been protected from deportation to El Salvador regardless of whether he was a member of the MS-13 gang.
But at an Oval Office meeting between Trump and El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, Trump deferred to officials who gave extraordinary readings of the supreme court order and claimed the US was powerless to return Abrego García to US soil.
“The ruling solely stated that if this individual at El Salvador’s sole discretion was sent back to our country, we could deport him a second time,” said Trump’s policy chief Stephen Miller, about an order that, in fact, upheld a lower court’s directive to return Abrego García…
The remarks at the Oval Office meeting marked an escalation in the Trump administration’s attempts to claim uncertainty with court orders to avoid having to take actions it dislikes. In Abrego García’s case, officials appeared to manufacture uncertainty in particularly blatant fashion.
And the fact that the US is paying El Salvador to detain deportees it sends to the notorious Cecot prison undercut the notion that the administration lacked the power to return Abrego García into US custody.
The case started when Abrego García was detained by police in 2019 in Maryland, outside a Home Depot, with several other men, and asked about a murder. He denied knowledge of a crime and repeatedly denied that he was part of a gang.
Abrego García was subsequently put in immigration proceedings, where officials argued they believed he was part of the MS-13 gang in New York based on his Chicago Bulls gear and on the word of a confidential informant.
The case went before a US immigration judge, who suggested that Abrego García could be a member of MS-13 and agreed to a deportation order but shielded him from being sent to El Salvador because he was likely to face persecution there by a local gang.
The Trump administration did not appeal against that decision, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has since said in a court filing that Abrego García’s deportation to El Salvador was an “administrative error”. The supreme court also called his removal illegal.
You can read the full story here:
China’s top Hong Kong official warns US 'hillbillies' over 'shameless' tariffs
One of China’s lead officials overseeing Hong Kong has condemned punitive US tariffs on China as “shameless” and attacked American “hillbillies” amid a continuing trade war between Beijing and Washington that has caused turmoil in global markets.
Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office, said Hong Kong has never levied taxes on imports and that the US enjoyed a $272 bn trade surplus in the city over the past decade.
US President Donald Trump has increased the levies imposed on China to 145%, while Beijing has set a retaliatory 125 percent toll on American imports - a move not followed by Hong Kong.
Imposing tariffs on the city is “hegemonic and shameless in the extreme”, and shows that the US does not want Hong Kong to thrive, Baolong said in a pre-recorded speech at an event to mark the 10th iteration of China’s annual national security education day.
He said the US “is the greatest culprit in undermining Hong Kong’s human rights, freedom, rule of law, prosperity and stability.”
“It is not after our tariffs - it wants to take our lives,” Baolong was quoted as saying.
He added that the sweeping US tariffs would not shake the determination of Beijing and Hong Kong governments and that “victory must belong to the great Chinese people”.
“Let those American ’hillbillies’ wail before the 5,000-year-old civilisation of the Chinese nation” he said, adding that anyone seeking to bring China into poverty was an “enemy”.
The officials reference could be to Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance’s bestselling 2016 memoir based on recollections of a volatile childhood in Middletown, Ohio, which became a political lightning rod in the 2024 presidential race when the Ohio senator was Donald Trump’s running mate.
Vance provoked anger in Beijing earlier this month when he referred to “Chinese peasants” in an interview defending Trump’s tariffs. Speaking to Fox News, Vance asked: “What has the globalist economy gotten the United States of America? And the answer is, fundamentally, it’s based on two principles – incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things that other countries make for us.
“To make it a little more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.”
Hong Kong is a former British colony that became a special administrative region of China in 1997. In theory, it is governed under a system known as “one country, two systems”, a constitutional arrangement that promised Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy and rights protections.
But it is widely seen to have reneged on the deal, crushing pro-democracy protests and imposing a national security law in 2020 – targeting secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces – which has in effect silenced opposition voices among Hong Kong’s once-vibrant civil society.
Hong Kong is subject to the high US tariffs imposed on China as it is no longer considered a separate trading entity by Washington so means is not entitled to favourable trading terms anymore. Trump ended Hong Kong’s preferential trade status following China’s security crackdown on Hong Kong in 2020.
Updated
JD Vance says US hopeful of ‘great’ trade deal with UK
As my colleague Martin Belam reports in our UK politics live blog, JD Vance has said the US is optimistic it can negotiate a “great” trade deal with the UK.
In an interview with online outlet Unherd, the US vice president told Sohrab Ahmari:
We’re certainly working very hard with Keir Starmer’s government. The president really loves the UK. He loved the queen. He admires and loves the king. It is a very important relationship. And he’s a businessman and has a number of important business relationships in [the UK].
But I think it’s much deeper than that. There’s a real cultural affinity. And of course, fundamentally America is an Anglo country. I think there’s a good chance that, yes, we’ll come to a great agreement that’s in the best interest of both countries.
Unlike China, Britain was spared the most punitive treatment in Trump’s initial tariff announcement on 2 April, but British imports in the US still incur a 10% charge while its steel and car sectors incur a rate of 25%.
The UK government has been hopeful of a deal to exempt the UK from Trump’s tariffs.
The UK’s chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will aim to continue negotiations for an economic deal with the US later this month when she travels to Washington to attend the International Monetary Fund’s spring meetings with other finance ministers. You can read more about Vance’s comments today in this article by my colleague Rachel Hall.
Updated
South Korea plans extra $4.9bn help for microchips after US begins 'national security' probe into semiconductor industry
South Korea has announced plans to invest an additional $4.9bn in the country’s semiconductor industry, citing “growing uncertainty” over US tariffs.
“An aggressive fiscal investment plan has been devised to help local firms navigate mounting challenges in the global semiconductor race,” the finance ministry said.
“To foster a dynamic, private sector-led ecosystem for semiconductor innovation and growth, the government will increase its investment in the sector from 26 trillion won ($18.2bn) to 33 trillion won,” the ministry added.
Semiconductors are tiny chips that power just about everything, including computers, mobile phones and cars. They are central to the global economy. The UK, the US, Europe and China rely heavily on Taiwan for semiconductors.
But South Korea – Asia’s fourth largest economy – is also a major exporter to the US and concerns about the semiconductor sector have hit the Seoul-listed shares of the world’s largest memory chip maker Samsung, and largest memory chip supplier SK Hynix.
The statement of extra investment from South Korea’s finance ministry comes after the Trump administration launched investigations into imports of pharmaceuticals and semiconductors on national security grounds.
These industries - so far exempt from the 10% US import charges that began on 5 April - may face tariffs after the probes are complete.
US President Donald Trump has directed the US commerce department to conduct a three-week investigation into the imports, during which time public comments on the issue will be heard before a decision is made.
Trump said on Sunday he would be announcing a tariff rate on imported semiconductors over the next week, adding that there would be flexibility with some companies in the sector.
On 2 April, Trump announced sweeping tariffs on global trading partners, including the 25 percent on South Korean goods, before backtracking and suspending their implementation for 90 days.
Even so, “duties targeting specific sectors such as semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, remain on the horizon”, finance minister Choi Sang-mok said during a meeting.
“This grace period offers a crucial window to strengthen the competitiveness of South Korean companies amid intensifying global trade tensions,” he added.
Updated
Obama urges other universities to defy federal attempts to 'stifle academic freedom' after Harvard funding freeze
Good morning and welcome to our US politics blog.
Former US president Barack Obama has condemned the education department for freezing $2.3bn in federal funds to Harvard University after the elite college rejected a list of demands from the White House.
In some of his most vocal criticism of this Trump administration, Obama praised Harvard, the country’s oldest university, for setting an example for other higher education institutions to reject federal overreach into its governance practices.
Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope other institutions follow suit.
His comments came after Harvard decided to fight the White House’s demands that it crack down on alleged antisemitism and civil rights violations. It is the first major US university to defy pressure from the White House to change its policies.
In a letter to Harvard on Friday, the administration called for broad government and leadership reforms, a requirement that Harvard institute what it calls “merit-based” admissions and hiring policies as well as conduct an audit of the study body, faculty and leadership on their views about diversity.
The demands, which are an update from an earlier letter, also call for a ban on face masks, which appeared to target pro-Palestinian protesters; close its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which it says teach students and staff “to make snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes”; and pressured the university to stop recognizing or funding “any student group or club that endorses or promotes criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment”.
The administration also demanded that Harvard cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
Harvard’s president said in a letter that the university would not comply with the Trump administration’s demands to dismantle its diversity programming and to limit student protests in exchange for its federal funding.
“No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Alan Garber, the university president, wrote, adding that Harvard had taken extensive reforms to address antisemitism.
The department of education announced in March that it had opened an investigation into 60 colleges and universities for alleged “anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination”. It came after protests against Israel’s war on Gaza were put on across campuses last year, demonstrations that many Republicans framed as antisemitic.
Harvard’s response to the White House’s demands was in sharp contrast to the approach taken by Columbia University, the epicentre of last year’s protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The Trump administration cut $400m in grants to the private New York school, accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment. The school caved in to demands and responded by agreeing to reform student disciplinary procedures and hiring 36 officers to expand its security team.
Stay with us throughout the day as we have more reaction to this story and many others.
