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President’s chaotic trade war continues to unsettle financial markets as administration suffers further political setbacks in court
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Donald Trump will deliver a “law and order” address on Friday as he visits the Department of Justice, an agency he has stacked with allies and purged of people his administration considers disloyal.
As Trump’s trade war continues to unsettle financial markets, the president continues to suffer political setbacks in the courts.
Two federal judges ruled on Thursday that his administration must reinstate the thousands of probationary employees fired from multiple agencies by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Staff from the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Energy, Agriculture, Interior and other agencies must get their jobs back, California District Court Judge William Alsup ruled.
Hours later, U.S. District Judge James Bredar issued a similar ruling, ordering fired employees across 18 agencies to be reinstated for at least 14 days.
Meanwhile, Trump has appealed to the Supreme Court to let him enforce his executive order on birthright citizenship, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he will vote for the House Republicans’ new spending bill after all, reducing the chance of the government going into shutdown, and demonstrators swarmed Trump Tower in New York City to protest the immigration detention of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil.
Here’s the first social media outpouring from the president this morning, in which he blames Joe Biden for the state of the world:
The vice president was welcomed by a chorus of boos after he arrived at a Kennedy Center concert 25 minutes late last night.
Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance took their seats at the iconic performing arts venue in Washington, D.C., for the National Symphony Orchestra performance, featuring a program of all-Russian music.
The start of the concert was reportedly delayed as Vance’s motorcade pulled up, with audience members having to undergo full Secret Service security checks, inspiring animosity.
James Liddell has this report.
The president’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia was excluded from peace talks because the Kremlin complained that he was “too close” to Kyiv, it has been reported.
In November, Trump announced retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, 80, as one of the key players in ending the war.
But since the Republican returned to office in January, General Kellogg has been noticeably absent from talks between the U.S., Russia and Ukraine.
Tom Watling reports.
The president’s billionaire special adviser Elon Musk’s company Tesla has written to US trade representative Jamieson Greer to warn that the big man’s tariff war could expose the electric vehicle manufacturer to retaliatory tariffs from other countries and also impact other American auto manufacturers.
In an unsigned letter to Greer, Tesla said it “supports fair trade” but that the U.S. administration should ensure it did not “inadvertently harm U.S. companies”.
“As a U.S. manufacturer and exporter, Tesla encourages the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to consider the downstream impacts of certain proposed actions taken to address unfair trade practices,” Musk’s company wrote.
Tesla said it wants to avoid a similar impact to previous trade disputes that resulted in increased tariffs on electric vehicles imported into countries targeted by the U.S.
“U.S. exporters are inherently exposed to disproportionate impacts when other countries respond to US trade actions,” it continued.
“The assessment undertaken by USTR of potential actions to rectify unfair trade should also take into account exports from the United States.
“For example, past trade actions by the United States have resulted in immediate reactions by the targeted countries, including increased tariffs on electric vehicles imported into those countries.”
I’m old enough to remember when Trump was turning the White House into a Tesla showroom forecourt… on Tuesday.
The president’s insistence that America’s northern neighbor is not a real country bears a striking resemblance to Vladimir Putin’s in the run-up to his invasion of Ukraine, writes Richard Hall.
Donald Trump will deliver a “law and order” address on Friday as he visits the Department of Justice, an agency he has stacked with allies and purged of staff his administration considers disloyal.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios in a statement: “President Trump will visit the Department of Justice to give remarks on restoring law and order, removing violent criminals from our communities, and ending the weaponization of justice against Americans for their political leanings.”
The news of his upcoming visit was first revealed yesterday on X by Attorney General Pam Bondi, who will reportedly be in attendance alongside FBI Director Kash Patel:
Consumers around the world are looking for ways to boycott American products in response to the president’s unpopular trade war – and they are using apps to help them do it.
Politicians in badly affected countries are encouraging citizens to buy local in response to Trump’s tariff aggressions.
Canada, Mexico and China were the first in his firing line but now he has introduced 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium from anywhere in the world.
Government reactions have been mixed so far.
While the E.U. is introducing counter-tariffs on American goods including motorbikes, industrial goods and Kentucky bourbon, some countries like the U.K. have been more cautious in their response.
But consumers who want to find a way to fight back against Trump’s tactics are taking matters into their own hands.
Rachel Clun reports.
The president said he believes the U.S. will ultimately annex Greenland as he sat next to the head of NATO in the Oval Office on Thursday, though the Dutch politician took a more diplomatic approach to the issue.
“I think it’ll happen,” Trump told reporters, sitting next to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
“We need that for international security, not just national security,” the president said of the island.
Trump noted that he was sitting with Rutte, who he referred to as “a man that could be very instrumental” in such a transaction even though neither Denmark nor the Greenlandic population are interested in ceding the territory to the U.S.
Rutte, appearing slightly chagrined by the president’s remarks, replied: “When it comes to Greenland, joining or not joining the U.S., I would leave that outside… this discussion because I do not want to drag NATO into that.”
But the former Dutch prime minister quickly pivoted to praising Trump by stating that he was “totally right” about the need to maintain a security posture in “the high north and the Arctic.”
Andrew Feinberg reports.
The administration is taking the legal fight over birthright citizenship to the Supreme Court with a demand that justices limit the scope of multiple court rulings that have rejected his executive order that seeks to block children of certain immigrants from being citizens at birth.
Petitions to the nation’s high court on Thursday calls on the justices to limit three nationwide injunctions issued in courts across the country to apply only to the states that sued and won.
That move would allow the administration to begin implementing his executive order in other states, despite rulings from federal judges and appeals courts and arguments from legal scholars across the ideological spectrum that his attempt to unilaterally redefine the 14th Amendment is plainly unconstitutional.
Here’s the latest from Alex Woodward.
Demonstrators swarmed Trump Tower in New York City yesterday to protest the immigration detention of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, leading to multiple arrests.
Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident who is married to an American citizen and who hasn’t been charged with breaking any laws, was arrested outside of his apartment on Saturday and faces deportation.
The president has said Khalil’s arrest was the first “of many to come” and vowed on social media to deport students who he said engage in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
However, Khalil’s supporters say his arrest is an attack on free speech, and protests have been staged elsewhere in the Big Apple and around the country.
Hundreds also demonstrated on Wednesday outside of a Manhattan courthouse during a brief hearing on his case.
Mike Bedigan reports.
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