Things Musk (and Trump) Did... 04-12-25 | Blog#42
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Yesterday's post
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Yesterday’s news worth repeating
Xi says China ‘not afraid’ as Beijing raises tariffs on US goods to 125% in latest escalation of trade war
Hong Kong (CNN) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said his nation is “not afraid,” in his first public comments on the escalating trade war with the United States, as Beijing raised tariffs on US goods to 125%.
The tariff hike is the latest in a tit-for-tat battle between the world’s two largest economies, after Trump raised tariffs on China to 145%. However, China has indicated it does not intend to go higher than 125%, saying it would be meaningless to engage in further escalation.
“The successive imposition of excessively high tariffs on China by the US has become nothing more than a numbers game, with no real economic significance,” a spokesperson for China’s Commerce Ministry said in a statement Friday.
“It merely further exposes the US practice of weaponizing tariffs as a tool of bullying and coercion, turning itself into a joke,” the spokesperson added.
The trade war between the world’s two economic superpowers has tanked international markets and fueled fears of a global recession. As other countries scrambled to negotiate with Trump, China has stood firm against what it calls “unilateral bullying” by the US.
Speaking to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Beijing on Friday before the announcement of the new levies, Xi said: “There are no winners in a trade war, and going against the world will only lead to self-isolation.”
“For over 70 years, China’s development has relied on self-reliance and hard work — never on handouts from others, and it is not afraid of any unjust suppression,” Xi was quoted as saying by state broadcaster CCTV.
The Chinese leader had remained publicly silent on the tariff war until now, but struck a defiant note in his first remarks – doubling down on messages of strength and resilience already broadcast by Chinese officials and state media.
“Regardless of how the external environment changes, China will remain confident, stay focused, and concentrate on managing its own affairs well,” Xi said according to CCTV.
On Wednesday, Trump moved to give the rest of the world, with the exception of China, a 90-day pause on his tariffs. Beijing appeared to take some credit for that decision on Friday.
“We have noticed that, under pressure from China and other parties, the US has temporarily postponed the imposition of high reciprocal tariffs on certain trading partners. This is merely a symbolic and minor step, but it does not change the fundamental nature of the US’s use of trade coercion to pursue its own interests,” the Commerce Ministry spokesperson said.
Continue reading at CNN.com
France 24: What if no one blinks?
Note from Rima: In the background, are the things JD Vance said last week about China.
China condemns JD Vance’s ‘peasants’ jibe
Beijing hammers US vice president as lacking “knowledge and respect” in escalating feud.
China on Tuesday branded U.S. Vice President JD Vance ignorant and disrespectful after he claimed that America was borrowing money from “Chinese peasants.”
Beijing “has made its position perfectly clear on its trade relations with the U.S.,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said during a press conference. “To hear words that lack knowledge and respect like those uttered by this vice president is both surprising and kind of lamentable,” he added.
Vance made the comments during an interview on Fox News last Thursday, while defending U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial tariff measures. In his remarks, he used the term “peasants” to refer to some Chinese people.
“I think it’s useful for all of us to take a step back and ask ourselves, what has the globalized economy gotten the United States of America?” Vance said.
“Fundamentally, it’s based on two principles, incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things other countries make for us … We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things that Chinese peasants manufacture,” he added.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Military contractors pitch unprecedented prison plan for detained immigrants
Erik Prince wants to cut a deal to skirt immigration laws and transport detainees from the US to El Salvador
Former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and a team of defense contractors are pitching the White House on a plan to vastly expand deportations to El Salvador — transporting thousands of immigrants from U.S. holding facilities to a sprawling maximum security prison in Central America.
The proposal, exclusively obtained by POLITICO, says it would target “criminal illegal aliens” and would attempt to skirt U.S. immigration laws by designating part of the prison — which has drawn accusations of violence and overcrowding from human rights groups — as American territory.
It’s unclear how seriously the White House is considering the plan by Prince, who has drawn scrutiny for his firm’s role in a deadly massacre in Iraq two decades ago. But it would give Prince’s group an unprecedented and potentially highly lucrative role in an expanded version of a transnational operation that has elicited its own web of controversies, in part because it has swept up immigrants who do not have criminal records in the United States.
Continue reading at Politico
CNN investigates the rise of extremism in the United States
Navarro sidesteps question on tariff pause decision, denies insider trading allegations
White House senior trade adviser Peter Navarro sidestepped a question about whether or not he was present for President Trump’s decision to enact a 90-day pause on country-specific tariffs during a heated Thursday interview with CNN’s Kasie Hunt.
“In a straightforward way, were you in the room with the president when he made this decision?” Hunt asked on CNN’s “The Arena”
“So — so that’s the wrong question to ask,” Navarro responded. “Was I part of the process?”
“Were — were you in the room?” Hunt responded, talking over Navarro.
“Hang on,” Navarro said.
“Were you in the room?” Hunt pressed again.
“It’s … you don’t understand how this works,” Navarro responded. “You don’t have to be in the room to …”
“Well, with President Trump you actually often do,” Hunt cut in.
Navarro responded that he does not ever “talk about — and I went to prison for this. I never talk about what happens in there,” adding, “What happens in the Oval stays …” before being drowned out by Hunt.
Continue reading at The Hill
The question about insider trading comes up in the clip below
Today's news
DOGE takes over federal grants website, wresting control of billions
A DOGE engineer removed users’ access to grants.gov, threatening to further slow the process of awarding thousands of federal grants per year.
U.S. DOGE Service employees have inserted themselves into the government’s long-established process to alert the public about potential federal grants and allow organizations to apply for funds, according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive situation.
The changes to the process — which will allow DOGE to review and approve proposed grant opportunities across the federal government — threaten to further delay or even halt billions of dollars that agencies usually make in federal awards, the people said. The moves come amid the Trump administration’s broader push to cut federal spending and crack down on grants that DOGE and other officials say conflict with White House priorities.
DOGE employees have made changes to grants.gov, a federal website that has traditionally served as a clearinghouse for more than $500 billion in annual awards and is used by thousands of outside organizations, the people said. Federal agencies including the Defense, State and Interior departments have historically have posted their grant opportunities directly to the site. Nonprofits, universities and local governments respond to these grant opportunities with applications to receive federal funding for activities that include cancer research, cybersecurity, highway construction and wastewater management.
But a DOGE engineer recently deleted many federal officials’ permissions to post grant opportunities, without informing them that their permissions had been removed, the people said. Now the responsibility of posting these grant opportunities is poised to rest with DOGE — and if its employees delay those postings or stop them altogether, “it could effectively shut down federal-grant making,” said one federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal operations.
Continue reading at the Washington Post
Democratic News Corner
Bernie Sanders is drawing big crowds. But progressives have a problem in California.
“It’s very obvious that we haven’t done enough,” said a senior organizer with the Working Families Party.
LOS ANGELES — Bernie Sanders drew a rapturous crowd in his return to California on Saturday. But for the progressive movement he inspired, the biggest state that Sanders won in 2020 today looks more like the wilderness than the promised land.
Efforts by progressives in California to enact single-payer healthcare and other sweeping policy priorities have fizzled. Prominent Democrats, from Gov. Gavin Newsom to an ambitious crop of big city mayors, have tacked to the center, and on Tuesday in Oakland, the progressive icon Barbara Lee is confronting an unexpectedly tight election for mayor against a more moderate Democrat.
“Bernie’s victory in California was huge,” said Mike Bonin, a progressive former Los Angeles city council member and incoming director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University Los Angeles. “But it hasn’t had a permanent impact on California politics.”
The sprawling crowd in Los Angeles on Saturday — Sanders put the number at 36,000, which he boasted was the largest he has ever drawn — delivered a potent display of the Vermont senator’s enduring popularity. But as he arrived here this weekend, to the site of arguably his biggest political triumph five years ago, it also laid bare the movement’s limitations.
In the nation’s blue bastion of California, the influence of progressivism during the Trump era has waned. Progressive priorities are being challenged not just by conservatives, but centrists who cast the left as contributing to problems around homelessness and crime. And Democrats in California now find themselves merely trying to hold onto gains they have made amid major threats to federal funding from President Donald Trump, an escalation of deportations and aggressive rhetoric on crime.
Scanning the throngs of supporters who packed Los Angeles’ Grand Park and spilled onto the steps of City Hall for the latest stop on Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Neel Sannappa, a senior organizer with the Working Families Party, urged Sanders to help to translate the outpouring of support into a more durable progressive movement in the state.
Continue reading at Politico
Newsom addresses featuring conservative voices on new podcast
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) addressed his decision to feature conservative populists on his new podcast “This is Gavin Newsom” in an interview with the New York Times amid recent blowback.
The California Democrat said recent guests, including Charlie Kirk, co-founder of the right-wing advocacy organization, Turning Point USA, Steve Bannon, host of the War Room podcast and commentator Michael Savage, have captured America’s attention — including his 13-year-old son.
Newsom said the teenager raved about his father’s interview with Kirk prior to the taping.
“‘What time? What time is Charlie going to be here?’” Newsom said his son repeatedly asked the day before the segment, according to the Times.
“And I’m like, ‘Dude, you’re in school tomorrow,’” the lawmaker said of his response.
However, the enthusiasm and excitement marked a huge stake in the Democrats’ judgment of conservative figures with a widespread working-class fanbase.
“This issue of young men and what’s happened to our party is deeply on my mind and will be deeply part of my podcast,” Newsom told the Times.
He noted that he will also aim to explore “the things that we’re uncomfortable exploring.”
The California governor said while the country progresses towards inclusive politics, many demographics feel left behind.
“There’s a crisis of men and masculinity in this country,” Newsom said.
Continue reading at The Hill
Buttigieg says left won’t have its own Joe Rogan: ‘That’s not how it works’
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Democrats shouldn’t look for their version of podcaster Joe Rogan and instead should find other meaningful ways to connect with voters.
The former White House official touted his visions for the future of the party’s appeal during a recent appearance on “The Weekly Show with John Stewart.”
“My party’s all up in arms about who’s our Joe Rogan. We’re not going to have a Joe Rogan of the left. That’s not how it works,” he said.
Rogan has developed a platform as a conversationalist and influencer through frequent freeform interviews promoted across social platforms.
The former UFC commentator has 19.4 million subscribers on YouTube, 19.8 million followers on Instagram and over 15 million on X.
Many have credited Rogan for helping President Trump reclaim the White House after his interview with the podcaster reached over 30 million in three days.
Continue reading at The Hill
Democrats dislike the ‘chaos’ of Trump’s trade war but are OK with some tariffs
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are quick to say that President Donald Trump’s tariffs are horrible, awful, terrible. But Democrats are also stressing that they are not inherently anti-tariff.
What Trump’s political opponents say they really dislike is the “chaos” he has unleashed.
“Tariffs are an important tool in our economic toolbox,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. “Trump is creating chaos, and that chaos undercuts our economy and our families, both in the short term and the long term. ... He’s just created a worldwide hurricane, and that’s not good for anyone.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said Democrats have a consensus around “a unified concept, which is targeted tariffs can work, across the board tariffs are bad.”
“The right targeting is in the eye of the beholder, but nobody on our side thinks zero tariffs ever,” Kaine said.
The Democrats’ message is meant to convey that they are reasonable, focused on capable governance and attuned to financial market distress. It’s a pitch toward swing voters who would like to see more manufacturing yet are uncomfortable with the consequences of Trump’s approach to tariffs. The risk is that it also is a nuanced argument at a time when pithy critiques travel faster and spread wider on social media than do measured policy analyses.
Continue reading at the AP
Clyburn says Harris was ‘ill served’ by 2024 campaign
Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Friday touted former Vice President Harris’s tenacity while challenging President Trump in last year’s election, while suggesting she was “ill-served” by her campaign.
Clyburn, in an appearance on CNN’s “NewsCentral,” was asked for his prediction of Harris’s political future by host Kate Boulduan. The Palmetto State lawmaker seemingly sidestepped the question.
“I am not going to advise her as to what she should do or should not do. I will say this, I think that she is a tremendous talent. I think she ran a great campaign,” Clyburn told CNN’s Kate Bolduan. “I think she was ill-served in that campaign by people who should have listened to some of us who saw and felt things.”
“She was a great candidate, and I think she will make a great candidate in the future, whatever she decides to run for,” he continued. “But I’m not going to give any advice as to whether or not she should or should not.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Crockett: ‘Beyond wild’ no one is questioning Trump mental acuity
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) railed against President Trump late Thursday, questioning his mental fitness amid economic turmoil kickstarted by his aggressive tariff agenda.
“The fact that no one is questioning his mental acuity or fitness to serve is beyond wild to me,” she told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in an interview, referencing the president’s attacks on former President Biden during the 2024 presidential campaign.
“Like the fact that they sat around, called Joe Biden ‘Sleepy Joe Biden,’ and as I said before, at least you could sleep at night because you didn’t have to worry about your 401(k) disappearing overnight,” she added.
Her criticism comes after the stock market took a dramatic dip earlier this month after Trump announced sweeping tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners. Although the market saw gains after the president walked back some reciprocal tariffs, consumer sentiment is still low.
Continue reading at The Hill
Democrats rail against Apple after Trump unveils electronic tariff exemption
Democrats slammed the Trump administration for allegedly favoring sector-specific companies by giving them the ability to bypass the fallout from new trade policy with a Saturday exemption of electronics from “reciprocal” tariffs imposed on countries across the globe, including China.
Smartphones, computers, routers and semiconductor chips were all excluded from the president’s heightened taxes, leaving room for companies like Apple, which has a host of plants in China, to escape an uptick in price costs for consumers amid the onset of new tariffs.
“Apple CEO Tim Cook donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration. Looks like he’s getting a big return on his investment,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in a Saturday post after learning of the news.
Cook donated $1 million to President Trump’s inaugural fund, as did Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The Apple CEO also met with the Republican candidate at Mar-a-Lago a month prior to his return to the White House showing signs of a budding relationship between the two.
Continue reading at The Hill
New image shows Whitmer hiding face at surprise Trump photo-op
A new photo of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D-Mich.) surprise visit to the Oval Office emerged in a Saturday New York Times report showcasing the lawmaker covering her face while President Trump spoke to the press.
The Michigan Democrat said she was unexpectedly whisked into the room for the president’s order signing on Wednesday ahead of a scheduled closed door meeting. The two were set to discuss tariffs and opportunities to invest in Michigan’s defense assets, including the Selfridge Air National Guard Base.
“The governor was surprised that she was brought into the Oval Office during President Trump’s press conference without any notice of the subject matter,” Whitmer’s spokesperson told NewsNation, The Hill’s sister outlet, earlier this week.
“Her presence is not an endorsement of the actions taken or statements made at that event,” her office added.
Whitmer, in the Wednesday photo captured by Times photographer Eric Lee, can be seen standing under portraits of Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson in the Oval Office with two blue folders shielding her face.
Continue reading at The Hill
Democrats’ newest villain is a power player you’ve never heard of
PJM is well known among energy wonks as the organization that oversees the power market and electric grid in 13 states and Washington.
Customers across a fifth of the country are about to see dramatically higher utility bills thanks in part to PJM, the little-known organization of technocrats that manages the electric grid in 13 states and Washington.
Now blue state officials spooked by voter backlash to rising power prices are trying to turn it into a political punching bag.
Governors and legislative Democrats in Annapolis, Harrisburg and Trenton can’t stop bashing PJM, which has the usually mundane task of keeping the lights on by ensuring there is enough power available across the region.
State Sen. Bob Smith, the head of a New Jersey committee that oversees energy policy, has warned that people are looking to tar and feather whoever they think is responsible for bills that are about to jump by $25 a month in the Garden State.
Democrats there and in other states have made it their goal to make sure voters think PJM is to blame for their pain. While there is also some blame being thrown at President Donald Trump, who is hostile to clean energy projects blue states were counting on for power, Democrats are clearly hoping to elevate PJM, which few people have ever heard of, into villain status.
During a recent call-in show, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy got one question about rising bills and immediately launched into an attack on PJM.
“We’re going to be driving this hard,” he said.
While PJM has taken heat before, the current wave of recrimination is perhaps the most intense in its history. It began last summer when PJM held an auction to buy power for customers across the region. Wholesale power prices skyrocketed, increasing tenfold. This will translate to major rate hikes starting in June – of 35 percent for some customers in the region.
Continue reading at Politico
National Security
Nothing to see here, yet
Economics
Trump suggests possible exceptions to US tariffs
“There could be a couple of exceptions for obvious reasons, but I would say 10 percent is a floor,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Amid global market turmoil, U.S. President Trump on Friday hinted at possible exemptions to his tariff regime that he could offer some countries, stressing that 10 percent was the baseline.
“There could be a couple of exceptions for obvious reasons, but I would say 10 percent is a floor,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way to Florida. He didn't elaborate on what the "obvious reasons" were.
Trump’s comments came after his trade policies sent stock markets gyrating in recent days. The president put higher tariffs on dozens of countries, only to delay them hours later by 90 days after seeing financial markets convulse in fear that the new import duties could harm the global economy.
Saying the U.S. was in "great shape," Trump emphasized the success of his trade policies, explaining that he brought down the tariffs to 10 percent because he "wanted to be fair to other people, other countries."
When asked about the trade war with China, Trump called Chinese President Xi Jinping “a very good leader, a very smart leader," adding that "something positive is going to come.”
Beijing on Friday raised tariffs on all U.S. goods to 125 percent, echoing a move by the White House that increased duties on Chinese imports to the same level, in addition to an existing 20 percent levy.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Trump’s China tariffs swing a sledgehammer at importers and cheap goods
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rick Woldenberg thought he had come up with a sure-fire plan to protect his Chicago-area educational toy company from President Donald Trump’s massive new taxes on Chinese imports.
“When he announced a 20% tariff, I made a plan to survive 40%, and I thought I was being very clever,” said Woldenberg, CEO of Learning Resources, a third-generation family business that has been manufacturing in China for four decades. “I had worked out that for a very modest price increase, we could withstand 40% tariffs, which was an unthinkable increase in costs.”
His worst-case scenario wasn’t worst-case enough. Not even close.
The American president quickly upped the ante with China, raising the levy to 54% to offset what he said were China’s unfair trade practices. Then, enraged when China retaliated with tariffs of its own, he upped the levies to a staggering 145%.
Woldenberg reckons that will push Learning Resource’s tariff bill from $2.3 million last year to $100.2 million in 2025. “I wish I had $100 million,” he said. “Honest to God, no exaggeration: It feels like the end of days.”
Continue reading at the AP
‘Not going to support that guy’: Canadians freeze visits to the U.S. over Trump
Tourism from the north tanks amid annexation talk, tariff whiplash and border stops
NEW YORK — Marketers for top U.S. destinations are trumpeting a reminder to Canadians amid a dive in tourism: You’re welcome here regardless of who’s president. But some northern neighbors predict their deep freeze on spending in America could last as long as Donald Trump is in office.
Tour buses to New York City are being canceled. Cross-border day trips for shopping are thinning out. And travel agencies are seeing a steep drop-off, too.
Among them, the Vancouver-based Travel Group reports future bookings are down 90 percent; Travac Tours, based in Ottawa, has canceled all its tours to the United States through July; and Maple Leaf Tours, headquartered in Kingston, Ontario, has seen its business plummet 70 to 80 percent.
“It was always such a happy time whether we were going to Myrtle Beach or Florida or Boston or the Cape,” Maple Leaf Tours founder Kristine Geary said in an interview. “And now it’s anxiety and apprehension and nerves. It’s ‘will I be safe?’ And it’s hesitation. Some people are saying, ‘I’m not going to support that guy.’”
Businesses in both the U.S. and Canada are bracing for even bleaker months ahead.
Travel from Canada is expected to plummet 20 percent this year, costing the United States $3.4 billion in lost revenue relative to last year, analytics firm Tourism Economics projects. In New York’s North Country, which shares hundreds of miles of border with Canada, 66 percent of businesses are already experiencing a dip in Canadian bookings for the year, a recent survey found.
Continue reading at Politico
The global financial order is shaking beneath our feet
The last ten days have thrown into doubt the role of the United States at the core of the global economic and financial system.
The big picture: After generations in which the U.S. dollar and its government securities have been the world's bedrock safe haven assets, global investors woke up this week to the possibility that they are not particularly safe, and not at all a haven.
Zoom out: The kinds of shifts in the global trade order and financial markets that usually play out over years were compressed into days since President Trump announced "reciprocal tariffs" on April 2.
People will write books about April 2025 the way they have about July 1944, August 1971 or September 2008.
It's the curious way bond and currency markets have interacted that gives the most alarm about the trajectory of global confidence in the U.S.-centric financial order — which has prevailed since the end of World War II.
State of play: In a week that risky assets sold off, so did U.S. Treasury bonds and the U.S. dollar.
This is not normal. In past episodes of extreme tumult, like September 2008 and the early days of the pandemic in 2020, the dollar rallied as global investors sought safety.
By the numbers: The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note closed the week at 4.5%, up half a percent from a week earlier. That level is not worrying (rates were higher as recently as January) but the speed and direction of travel are.
Meanwhile, the dollar index — the dollar's value versus six other major currencies — is down 9.3% since mid-January.
Between the lines: It suggests that erratic leadership, ballooning fiscal deficits, and rapidly eroding diplomatic ties are making global investors wary of being too exposed to the United States.
Continue reading at Axios
Yellen slams Trump tariff agenda as ‘worst self-inflicted policy wound’
“This is the worst self-inflicted policy wound I’ve ever seen in my career inflicted on our economy,” she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in an interview. “The Trump tariff plans are doing immense damage to our economy.”
“You can see that in the stock market, in the impact of these tariffs are expected to have on American households,” she added.
When asked how Wall Street and the economy could recover amid a volatile market sparked by Trump’s tariffs — which the president put on a 90-day hold amid negotiations, with the exception of China — Yellen didn’t appear optimistic. She specifically pointed to anxieties rising around bonds as an example.
“Well, I think that could take a long time to rebuild. Dollar assets have long been regarded as the safest in the world, especially U.S. treasury bonds and bills,” Yellen, “And what we saw this week was a sharp increase. One of the biggest increases on record over the space of a week in long term Treasury yields — almost 50 basis points. And at the same time a decline in the value of the dollar,” Yellen, who previously served as chair of the Federal Reserve, explained. “They form the core of the whole global financial system.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Trump exempts phones, computers from his reciprocal tariffs
The move could be a win for tech companies like Apple that were facing potential price hikes.
President Donald Trump is exempting smartphones, some computers and more electronics from his global reciprocal tariffs after a tumultuous week in the markets due to the president’s global trade war.
A guidance published by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection late Friday exempted these consumer electronics — many of which are manufactured in China — from Trump’s back-and-forth tariff escalation with China and the 10 percent global tariff. The machines used to make semiconductors will also be exempt.
The White House and CPB did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump has, however, signaled that he is considering sectoral tariffs for some goods.
Continue reading at Politico
Forget tariffs — Beijing is already choking off US exports on the sly
China juices trade war with nontariff barriers targeting MAGA-friendly U.S. export sectors.
Beijing is showing the Trump administration that tariffs aren’t the only weapon in a trade war.
Long before President Donald Trump fired the opening shots of a new U.S.-China trade war from the White House Rose Garden last week, Beijing had been working to perfect its stealth campaign blocking key U.S. agriculture and energy exports. The Chinese government over the past four months has halted or significantly curtailed direct exports of major U.S. commodities including beef, poultry and liquified natural gas through an array of bureaucratic blocks and tricky third-party sales deals.
The so-called nontariff barriers to trade are even stickier than the escalating tariffs rippling across the global economy, analysts said. All together, the moves are an escalation of the curbs China has been honing since its bans on genetically modified foods a decade ago. And they provide Beijing added firepower in the ongoing U.S.-China trade war by targeting exports from Trump-friendly, deep-red states — think Iowa and Nebraska — with restrictions immune to possible workarounds for tariff barriers.
“A tariff, you can just pay it, and things just get more costly,” said Ben Lilliston, director of rural strategies and climate change at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. “But this is a full restriction on your ability to send product to that country.”
The Chinese government knows where it can pinch U.S. exporters hardest. It has already declined to renew export licenses for hundreds of meatpacking plants, alleged that some U.S. chicken products contain unwanted drugs and stopped importing U.S. natural gas. Those industry targets also happen to be some of the president’s most ardent political supporters.
Such tactics underscore the dexterity of Beijing’s response to rising U.S.-China trade tensions — and its years of preparation for a new trade war. What began as an additional 50 percent tariff that raised levies on Chinese imports to north of 104 percent Wednesday turned into a 145 percent tariff level a little over 12 hours later. That second increase came after Beijing upped its own tariffs on U.S. goods to a total levy of 84 percent. Beijing’s counter-tariff reprisal pushed levies on U.S. imports to 125 percent Friday.
Continue reading at Politico
Fareed Zakaria for added context
Trump exempts phones, computers from his reciprocal tariffs
The move could be a win for tech companies like Apple that were facing potential price hikes.
President Donald Trump is exempting smartphones, computers and more electronics from his global reciprocal tariffs after a tumultuous week in the markets due to his global trade war.
A guidance published by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection late Friday exempted these consumer electronics — many are manufactured in China — from Trump’s back-and-forth tariff escalation with China and the 10 percent global tariff. Machines used to make semiconductors will also be exempt.
While these electronics won’t be subject to the escalating tariff rate Trump levied this week in a back-and-forth with China, these goods still could be hit with a significant duty if made there.
White House senior adviser Stephen Miller posted on X that these products are still “subject to the tariff under the original [declaration] on China of 20 percent,” a likely reference to Trump’s separate order that he put in place due to what he called an “illicit drug crisis.”
Trump has also signaled that he is considering issuing sectoral tariffs for some goods — including semiconductors, which are vital for a slew of electronics.
The exception could still be a win for tech companies like Apple that were facing potential price hikes amid manufacturing costs that would skyrocket under Trump’s tariff plans. The exclusions come as Silicon Valley’s tech giants have cozied up to Trump, looking to make inroads with his administration.
Continue reading at Politico
Phones, computers exempted from Trump's 125% China tariffs
Smartphones and computers will be exempted from the 125% import levies President Trump imposed on China.
Why it matters: The exemption is a win for companies like Apple that manufacture most of their products in China.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced the exemptions in a bulletin posted late Friday night.
The White House released Trump's accompanying memorandum clarifying the tariff exemptions on Saturday.
The tariffs exemptions apply retroactively to April 5.
"President Trump has made it clear America cannot rely on China to manufacture critical technologies such as semiconductors, chips, smartphones, and laptops. That's why the President has secured trillions of dollars in U.S. investments from the largest tech companies in the world, including Apple, TSMC, and Nvidia," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Saturday.
Driving the news: Trump announced sweeping tariffs last week that shocked markets globally.
However, he almost immediately backed down as the levies threatened to spark a global recession, leaving in place 10% tariffs on most countries but increasing levies on imports from China to 125%.
Without the exemptions announced Friday, Trump's tariff's threatened to send prices for consumer electronics skyrocketing.
Continue reading at Axios
Apple has few incentives to start making iPhones in US, despite Trump’s trade war with China
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has been predicting its barrage of tariffs targeting China will push Apple into manufacturing the iPhone in the United States for the first time.
But that’s an unlikely scenario even with U.S tariffs now standing at 145% on products made in China — the country where Apple has manufactured most of its iPhones since the first model hit the market 18 years ago.
The disincentives for Apple shifting its production domestically include a complex supply chain that it began building in China during the 1990s. It would take several years and cost billions of dollars to build new plants in the U.S., and then confront Apple with economic forces that could triple the price of an iPhone, threatening to torpedo sales of its marquee product.
They might get a reprieve. The Trump administration said late Friday it was excluding electronics, including smartphones, from the current reciprocal tariffs. But it still could levy new or different tariffs on electronics at a later date.
“The concept of making iPhones in the U.S. is a non-starter,” asserted Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, reflecting a widely held view in the investment community that tracks Apple’s every move. He estimated that the current $1,000 price tag for an iPhone made in China, or India, would soar to more than $3,000 if production shifted to the U.S. And he believes that moving production domestically likely couldn’t be done until, at the earliest, 2028. “Price points would move so dramatically, it’s hard to comprehend.”
Continue reading at the AP
Breton urges EU to flex its muscles on trade
The market volatility caused by Trump’s back and forth on tariffs shows the U.S. “is not in a strong position,” the former EU commissioner tells Le Soir.
The European Union must start acting like the global power it already is, as the bloc confronts the shifting trade policies of U.S. President Donald Trump, says former EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton.
“Europe must be at the level of what it represents: a power on the scale of the United States and China,” Breton told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir in an interview published Saturday.
Breton, who has attacked European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for "questionable governance" in the past, called on her to take the lead as trade is an exclusively EU competence.
"The European Commission represents 450 million citizens," Breton said, adding that it was up to the Commission chief "to assert that weight by leading the negotiations in Washington."
Confronted with an aggressive trade agenda from the United States under Trump, Breton insists that Europe cannot afford hesitation. It is a time for unity and central leadership if the EU is to be taken seriously on the global stage, he said.
According to Breton, the bloc's decision to pause retaliatory measures against the U.S. on Thursday, after Trump delayed his announced tariffs, should be seen as an opportunity to act strategically.
"This pause must not be seen as a sign of weakness," Breton said. "Our territorial integrity — I’m thinking of Greenland — and our democratic integrity — I’m thinking of our digital regulation laws — are non-negotiable," he said.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Thierry Breton’s Wikipedia entry
Health and Science News
HHS officials did not know how many people have been fired
Department of Health and Human Services officials during a closed-door briefing could not give a full accounting of the number of people who have been fired from the agency, a Democratic aide for the House Energy and Commerce Committee said Friday.
HHS officials insisted to committee staff that the agency’s massive staffing cuts had been performed “with a scalpel” and “with nuance” but they did not have any numbers of who had been laid off, the aide told reporters.
“There did not seem to be a function level understanding of who had been terminated,” they added.
The briefing was held because members from both parties have indicated they were caught off guard by the sudden decision to cut as many as 10,000 workers from the health agency and have been asking for answers about the full scope of the effort.
Democrats on the committee are demanding HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. answer their questions in person at a hearing. They are concerned the agency’s core functions are being put at risk by the sweeping layoffs.
A Democratic aide on Friday said Kennedy may testify by June about the agency’s budget proposal, but they were told by HHS officials he would not be able to answer questions about the staffing reductions for 60 days, due to an Office of Personnel Management (OPM) statute.
Continue reading at The Hill
US measles cases surpass 700 with outbreaks in six states. Here’s what to know
U.S. measles cases topped 700 as of Friday, capping a week in which Indiana joined five others states with active outbreaks, Texas grew by another 60 cases and a third measles-related death was made public.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed in a televised Cabinet meeting Thursday that measles cases were plateauing nationally, but the virus continues to spread mostly in people who are unvaccinated and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention redeployed a team to West Texas.
The U.S. has more than double the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024, and Texas is reporting the majority of them with 541.
Texas’ cases include two unvaccinated elementary school-aged children who died from measles-related illnesses near the epicenter of the outbreak in rural West Texas, which led Kennedy to visit the community Sunday. The third person who died was an adult in New Mexico who was not vaccinated.
Continue reading at the AP
WHO pandemic agreement within striking distance
Still to be signed off on is contentious language governing the sharing of technology for pandemic-related products such as drugs, vaccines and therapeutics.
The WHO members have reached an agreement "in principle" over how to tackle future pandemics after three years of discussions, the co-chair of the negotiating body told Agence France-Presse on Saturday.
According to the latest draft of the proposed pact, obtained by POLITICO, most of the text is now agreed.
Still to be signed off on is contentious language governing the sharing of technology for pandemic-related products such as drugs, vaccines and therapeutics.
Developing countries have pushed for strong language that will ensure they are able to scale up production in their own regions, rather than waiting in line for critical technologies.
But developed countries, including members of the European Union, have insisted throughout that any tech transfer from pharma companies must be on “voluntary and mutually agreed terms.”
Under the latest proposed fix, still subject to final confirmation, the sharing of technology should be “willingly undertaken and on mutually agreed terms.”
The deal is due to go to the WHO’s annual assembly for final approval next month.
Continue reading at Politico Europe
Foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Central Europe leads to animal culls and border closures
LEVÉL, Hungary (AP) — Authorities in several countries in Central Europe are working to contain an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among cattle populations that has caused widespread border closures and required the killing of thousands of animals.
The outbreak was first detected on a cattle farm in northwestern Hungary in early March, and animals on three farms in neighboring Slovakia tested positive for the highly transmissible virus two weeks later.
Since then, animals from an additional three farms in Hungary and another three in Slovakia have tested positive for the virus, the first outbreak of the disease in either country in more than half a century.
[…]
Foot-and-mouth disease primarily affects cloven-hooved animals like cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and deer, and results in fevers and blisters in the mouth and hooves. The virus spreads through contact between animals, or on surfaces like clothing, skin and vehicles, or on the wind. It poses little danger to humans.
On Friday, authorities in Hungary continued to conduct operations aimed at stopping the spread of the disease and disinfecting affected farms and vehicles in the area. Mats doused in a powerful disinfectant were placed at the entrances and exits of towns and villages across the region to eliminate virus molecules that may cling to tires — though many of those mats quickly went dry and were swept partially off the road by passing vehicles.
Continue reading at the AP
RFK Jr. wants to target chronic disease in US tribes. A key program to do that was gutted
CHANDLER, Ariz. (AP) — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent time in tribal communities in Arizona and New Mexico this week highlighting ways they are trying to prevent chronic disease among Native Americans and Alaska Natives, something he has said is one of his top priorities.
But Kennedy didn’t appear to publicly address a Native health program using traditional medicine and foods to tackle disproportionate rates of conditions like diabetes and liver disease. The program, called Healthy Tribes, was gutted in this month’s federal health layoffs.
Some Native leaders say they are having trouble grasping the dissonance between Kennedy’s words and his actions. With little information, they wonder if Healthy Tribes is part of the Trump administration’s push to end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. There also is confusion about what and who is left at the 11-year-old program, which was part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under Kennedy’s agency, and doled out $32.5 million a year.
Tribal leaders and health officials told The Associated Press that cuts to the Healthy Tribes program are another violation of the federal government’s legal obligation, or trust responsibility, to tribal nations under treaties, law and other acts. That includes funding for health care through the Indian Health Service, as well as education and public safety for citizens of the 574 federally recognized tribes.
Continue reading at the AP
“Slow Pay, Low Pay or No Pay”
Reporting Highlights
Shortchanged: Blue Cross Louisiana OK’d mastectomies and breast reconstructions for women with cancer but refused to pay a hospital’s full bills. For some claims, it paid nothing.
Exceptions: Blue Cross denied payments for thousands of procedures involved in breast reconstruction. But it approved special deals for treatment for executives’ wives.
Verdict: A jury found Blue Cross liable for fraud and awarded the hospital $421 million. The insurance company denied wrongdoing and has appealed.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
On a late afternoon in November 2017, Witney Arch told her 1-1/2-year-old son to stop playing and come inside. Upset, he grabbed her right breast when she picked him up. She experienced a shock of pain but did not think it was anything serious. A week later, however, the ache had not subsided. After trips to several doctors, a biopsy revealed that Arch had early-stage breast cancer. Her surgeon told her that it was likely invasive and aggressive.
By the end of January, she had made two critical decisions. She would get a double mastectomy. And she wanted her operation at the Center for Restorative Breast Surgery in New Orleans, a medical facility renowned for its highly specialized approach to breast cancer care and reconstruction. The two surgeons who founded it had pioneered techniques that used a woman’s own body tissue to form new breasts post mastectomy. The idea of a natural restoration appealed to Arch. “I don’t judge anybody for getting implants, especially if you’ve had cancer,” she said. “But I felt like I was taking something foreign out of my body, cancer, and I did not want to put something foreign back in.”
Arch was a 42-year-old preschool teacher for her church, with four young children, living in a suburb of New Orleans. The 1-1/2-year-old had been born with Sturge-Weber syndrome, a rare neurological disorder. Caring for him consumed her life. By nature upbeat and optimistic, Arch felt blessed that her son’s act of defiance had led to an early diagnosis. “We’re going to pray about this and we’re going to figure it out,” she told her husband.
Arch asked her insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, for approval to go to the center for her care, and the company granted it, a process known as prior authorization. Then, a week or so before her surgery, Arch was wrangling child care and meal plans when she got a call from the insurer. The representative on the line was trying to persuade her to have the surgery elsewhere. She urged Arch to seek a hospital that, unlike the center, was in network and charged less. “Do you realize how much this is going to cost?” Arch remembered the agent asking. Arch did not need more stress, but here it was — from her own health plan. “I feel very comfortable with my decision,” she replied. “My doctor teaches other doctors around the world how to do this.” Over the next year, Arch underwent five operations to rid herself of cancer and reconstruct her breasts.
Continue reading at ProPublica
Polling- Surveys
More than 22% of Americans don’t earn enough to be middle class: Do you?
Amid rising costs and economic uncertainty, it can be difficult to tell whether your paycheck is still putting you in the middle class. New data shows just how much a household needs to earn to be within that threshold — and how many aren’t earning enough.
The definition of “middle class” can vary, but many use Pew Research’s: two-thirds to double the median household income within a certain area. Nationally, personal finance site SmartAsset recently found that range to be roughly $49,500 and $148,500 in household income. That’s up from $49,271 to $147,828 last year.
At that threshold, however, more than 30% of Americans may not earn enough to be considered middle class.
An estimated 32% of American households have an income at or below $49,999, according to the 2023 American Community Survey, the most recently available data set from the U.S. Census Bureau. About 22% of American households earn $34,999 or less.
Meanwhile, about 21.5% of American households earn at least $150,000.
Continue reading at The Hill
What we know about veterans who work for the federal government
As of September 2024, more than 700,000 veterans worked in various federal departments and agencies – making up nearly a quarter of the federal government’s entire civilian workforce. By comparison, veterans account for just 5% of all employed Americans.
Though veterans are, at least in some cases, more protected than other federal workers from layoffs, some veterans already have lost their jobs in the Trump administration’s efforts to slash federal payrolls.
Here’s a look at some facts and figures about the federal government’s veteran workers – who they are, what they do and where they work. Most of our analysis is based on the Office of Personnel Management’s FedScope data portal, which contains data on nearly all executive-branch civilian employees (about 2.3 million as of September 2024, the most recent month available). Note that FedScope doesn’t include U.S. Postal Service workers, congressional staffers, employees of various intelligence agencies, or presidential appointees who require Senate confirmation.
How many federal workers are veterans?
The federal government employed about 713,000 veterans at the end of fiscal 2024. That includes 642,652 at the executive-branch agencies covered in FedScope and more than 70,000 at the Postal Service.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total federal employment in September 2024 (including the Postal Service) was 3,009,000, meaning veterans made up about 24% of all federal workers. These figures don’t include the roughly 1.3 million active-duty military personnel, who aren’t typically considered “employees.”
The Postal Service doesn’t disclose detailed demographic information about its workers, veterans or otherwise, so the rest of this analysis focuses on data from FedScope, which does.
Continue reading at Pew Research Center
How Americans view trade between the U.S. and China, Canada and Mexico
Americans offer mixed views when asked whether trade between the United States and its top three international trading partners – China, Canada and Mexico – does more to benefit the U.S. or the other countries, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
The survey of 3,605 U.S. adults, conducted March 24-30, comes as President Donald Trump imposes higher tariffs on imports from all three countries. It was fielded before Trump’s April 2 announcement detailing sweeping new tariffs on China and other nations.
Americans are most skeptical about U.S. trade with China: 10% say it benefits the U.S. more than China, while 46% take the opposite view. A quarter say the U.S. and China benefit equally from their trade relationship.
When it comes to trade between the U.S. and Canada, 10% of Americans say it benefits the U.S. more than Canada, while 26% say Canada benefits more than the U.S. The largest share (44%) say the U.S. and Canada benefit equally from their trade relationship.
When asked about trade with Mexico, 16% of Americans say it benefits the U.S. more than Mexico, while 29% say the reverse. Roughly a third (34%) say both countries benefit equally.
For each of the U.S. trading partners asked about in the survey, around one-in-six Americans say they are not sure whether the U.S. or the other country benefits more, or whether both countries benefit equally.
Continue reading at Pew Research Center
The Courts
Inside the DOGE immigration task force
The taskforce, led by Musk confidante Antonio Gracias, is providing the technical infrastructure for a sweeping set of actions aimed at revoking parole and terminating visas.
DOGE’s bread and butter has been slashing headcounts but it is now wielding its influence deep inside the nation’s immigration system — an initiative led by one of Elon Musk’s closest friends, three Trump administration officials granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics told POLITICO.
Antonio Gracias, a Musk confidante whose history with the billionaire goes back more than 20 years, is quietly heading up a specialized DOGE immigration task force that’s embedded engineers and staffers across nearly every nook of the Department of Homeland Security, two of the people said. The task force is also working with DOGE operatives stationed at other agencies like the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, which house sensitive data on undocumented immigrants.
With Musk’s trusted friend and fixer at the helm, the task force marks a significant expansion of DOGE’s portfolio — from primarily working on agency-wide layoffs to executing the president’s most hardline immigration policies. It’s also a test for how far DOGE’s reach can extend.
Key DOGE engineers now embedded at DHS include Kyle Schutt, Edward Coristine, (aka “Big Balls”) and Mark Elez, according to their government email addresses. At least two others, Aram Moghaddassi and Payton Rehling also have access to DHS data, as DOGE fingerprints are spread throughout DHS, including Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure and Security Agency.
They are providing the technical infrastructure for a sweeping set of actions aimed at revoking parole, terminating visas, and later on, reengineering the asylum adjudication process, according to the officials.
Continue reading at Politico
Who are some of the people mentioned in this article?
Forbes profile:
Antonio Gracias
Real Time Net Worth $2.2B
$24M (1.10%)
From the Editor
Antonio Gracias is the founder and CEO of Chicago-based growth equity firm Valor Equity Partners, which has $16 billion in gross assets.
In 1995, Gracias was in law school at the University of Chicago when he founded Valor's predecessor, MG Capital.
A major Musk loyalist, Gracias met Musk through a mutual friend around 2000; Valor became one of Tesla's first institutional investors in 2005.
Gracias also appears in this NPR article
How DOGE may have improperly used Social Security data to push voter fraud narratives
The staffer, Antonio Gracias, made the claims as part of larger misleading statements about the SSA's enumeration-beyond-entry, or EBE program, which streamlines the process for granting Social Security cards to certain categories of eligible immigrants.
Gracias said in an April 2 appearance on Fox and Friends that "5-plus million" noncitizens who "came to the country as illegals" received Social Security numbers "through an automatic system" and proceeded to "get into our benefit systems."
"And just because we were curious, we then looked to see if they were on the voter rolls. And we found in a handful of cooperative states that there were thousands of them on the voter rolls and that many of them had voted," Gracias said.
State-level audits of voter data have found few examples of noncitizens voting, which is a federal crime punishable with prison and deportation.
Later that week, Gracias furthered his claims on a podcast. "I think this was a move to import voters," he said, echoing a conspiracy theory that Donald Trump and Musk elevated during the 2024 campaign season and Republican lawmakers are invoking to push for stricter voting policies.
Continue reading at NPR
New law firm files suit against Trump over executive order
Susman Godfrey, which helped deliver Dominion Voting Systems a multimillion dollar settlement against Fox News, is suing President Trump over his recent order meant to punish the major law firm.
The firm is suing the administration, arguing that Trump is in violation of the Constitution after he issued the Wednesday executive order seeking to ban its attorneys from accessing government buildings, representing parties that have cases with the government and viewing documents.
“Unless the Judiciary acts with resolve—now—to repudiate this blatantly unconstitutional Executive Order and the others like it, a dangerous and perhaps irreversible precedent will be set,” attorneys representing Susman Godfrey said in a Friday lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
“If President Trump’s Executive Orders are allowed to stand, future presidents will face no constraint when they seek to retaliate against a different set of perceived foes. What for two centuries has been beyond the pale will become the new normal,” lawyers from Munger, Tolles & Olson’s, who are representing Susman Godfrey, said in the filing.
The Hill has reached out to White House for comment.
Continue reading at The Hill
The Trump administration’s conflicting messages to the public and the courts
Government lawyers paint a very different picture in court filings from the one Trump and his allies do on TV and social media.
One group of people is hearing a different message from the Trump administration than most Americans: the nation’s judges. The disparities have emerged across a range of lawsuits and issues amid President Donald Trump’s aggressive political agenda.
“You’re saying one thing in public. You’re saying a different thing in court,” Judge Ana Reyes, a Joe Biden appointee, told Justice Department lawyers last month in a case over the administration’s policy aiming to bar transgender members from the military. She added: “The court is not going to be gaslit.”
In court, lawyers and administration officials often try to minimize the impact of the administration’s most controversial actions and paint them as firmly within legal bounds. Their careful, sworn statements are a sharp contrast with Trump’s unfettered public messaging as he pushes the limits of executive power.
But those measured court statements aren’t what most people see. Trump has the mouthpiece of the presidency and millions of followers online, and his top aides routinely tout his policies on television. And Trump has publicly bashed judges who have ruled against him and suggested the judiciary should not have authority over a range of policy issues.
The White House defended its approach.
“The president and his administration are united in delivering on the promises he made on the campaign trail,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement. “From deporting illegal criminal migrants at record speed to working toward world peace, protecting American sovereignty through bold tariff moves, and more, every member of the administration is committed to achieving these historic accomplishments despite lawsuits and rulings from activist judges.”
Here’s a look at how the Trump administration’s rhetoric has contrasted with its court arguments.
Continue reading at Politico
Law firms pledge almost $1 billion in free work to Trump
Chart: Value of pro bono services provided to Trump, by firm As of April 11, 2025
America's most prestigious law firms have agreed to provide almost $1 billion worth of legal work to President Trump — and that total will likely grow.
Trump announced deals with 5 firms Friday. He's now gotten the giants of Big Law to pledge a combined $940 million in pro bono legal work for conservative causes.
Zoom in: Trump began this process by signing executive orders targeting firms that had employed or represented his critics.
The first firm to cut a deal — Paul, Weiss — argued that $40 million in pro bono work was a small price to pay compared to the money, clients and even top talent it could have lost if it chose to fight.
As more firms have capitulated, Trump has been able to extract significantly bigger concessions using significantly less leverage, even from firms with which he had no personal grievance.
Four of yesterday's agreements came from firms that were placed under investigation for their internal diversity policies — a less severe threat than Trump's early tactic of revoking lawyers' security clearances.
Continue reading at Axios
Note from Rima: See yesterday’s The Courts section for relevant news on the new firms.
Homan defends admin on mistaken deportation: ‘I think we made the right decision’
During an interview Friday on Newsmax, Homan doubled down on the move, saying, “I think we made the right decision.”
“The aliens are to blame when they enter this country illegally, which is a crime. He’s an MS-13 gang member, according to our intelligence and even that of the intelligence of El Salvador,” Homan told host Chris Salcedo. “He was given withholding and removal from El Salvador because of fear of gang violence.”
“Listen. the Supreme Court said we’ll facilitate. We’ll facilitate,” he continued. “However, we’ve got to remember, he’s an El Salvadoran national and in [the] custody of the El Salvadoran government. So, you know, we’ll facilitate what we can, but I think we made the right decision.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Judge relaxes ban on DOGE access to sensitive US Treasury information
A federal judge ruled at least one DOGE worker can have access if he goes through training and submits disclosures.
A New York judge has relaxed a ban she’d put on Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency preventing it from accessing sensitive Treasury Department information related to millions of Americans.
Judge Jeannette A. Vargas said in a written opinion late Friday that one DOGE worker, Ryan Wunderly, can access sensitive payment and data systems if he completes training that Treasury employees typically go through before given such access and submits a financial disclosure report.
The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by 19 Democratic state attorneys general who sued over privacy issues amid DOGE’s assertion that it was working to modernize Treasury payment systems.
The lawsuit contended that Musk’s ‘DOGE’ team was composed of “political appointees” who should not have access to Treasury records handled by “civil servants” specially trained in protecting such sensitive information as Social Security and bank account numbers.
Vargas said Wunderly will be able to access payment records, payment systems and any other Treasury Department data systems containing personally identifiable information and confidential financial information of payees.
Vargas put the ban in place two months ago.
Continue reading at Politico
Harvard University professors sue Trump administration to block review of nearly $9 billion in federal funds
CNN —
The Harvard faculty chapter of the American Association of University Professors, along with the national organization, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its demanded policy changes while reviewing nearly $9 billion in federal funding.
The lawsuit was filed Friday in conjunction with a request from the professors for an immediate temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration from cutting off Harvard University’s federal funding, according to the filings.
The university received a letter from a federal task force earlier this month outlining policy demands tied to nearly $9 billion in federal funding, a university spokesperson confirmed to CNN. Among the demands outlined in the letter are the elimination of Harvard’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs and a ban on masks at campus protests, The Harvard Crimson, a student-run newspaper, and other outlets reported.
The review is the latest effort of a federal task force to combat antisemitism on college campuses after a spate of high-profile incidents around the country in response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
“This case involves an unprecedented threat from the Trump administration to withhold nearly nine billion dollars in federal funding to one of our nation’s leading universities unless it accedes to changes that fundamentally compromise the university’s independence and the free speech rights of its faculty and students,” the lawsuit states.
Continue reading at CNN.com
Anti-DEI-Whitewashing
California defies Trump order to certify that all school districts have eliminated DEI
California has refused to follow a Trump order to certify that school districts have eliminated all diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
State education officials said “there is nothing in state or federal law that outlaws” DEI.
Under Trump, the U.S.Department of Education said DEI programs are a form of race-based discrimination.
California on Friday defied a Trump administration order to certify that the state’s 1,000 school districts have ended all diversity, equity and inclusion programs despite federal threats to cut billions of dollars in education funding if the state does not comply.
The U.S. Department of Education has given states until April 24 to collect certifications from every school district in the nation — confirming that all DEI efforts have been eliminated, as it contends such programs are a form of race-based discrimination and violate civil rights laws.
In a letter to school district superintendents Friday, the California Department of Education, or CDE, defended the legality of DEI efforts.
“There is nothing in state or federal law ... that outlaws the broad concepts of ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ or ‘inclusion,’” wrote Chief Deputy Supt. David Schapira in the letter to school districts, county education offices and charter schools.
CDE also sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education about the decision not to comply — and said the federal request was vague.
Continue reading at the Los Angeles Times
K-12 schools face major Trump test on DEI demand
Highlighting an already stark divide on the issue, states including New York and Minnesota are telling the federal government they will not sign off on any such certification, while several red states are already collecting signatures from their districts.
The issue poses the first major test for states and local districts bucking the education agenda of President Trump, who has shown willing aggression in going after colleges and universities he thinks are out of line.
“I am on the reservation, so pretty much … I mean, everything that we do is DEI,” said a principal in a Republican-led state who oversees a school that is 95 percent Native American, and who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
“We don’t really have a plan for it,” the principal added regarding the certification letter. “In talking to some of my other district administrators, it’s kind of an attitude of, ‘We’ll see what happens when it gets sorted out in the courts’ […] ‘we’ll worry about it when the time comes,’ ‘it’s really not going to be what everybody thinks.’ It is just kind of a lot of disbelief, which is really frustrating.”
The April 3 letter was sent to state officials and districts to certify the institutions are in “compliance with their antidiscrimination obligations,” including ridding themselves of DEI programs, which Trump hates and has sought to eliminate through executive action.
Continue reading at The Hill
General News
World’s cartoonists on this week’s events
Drawing the top stories around the globe.
State tells employees to report on one another for ‘anti-Christian bias’
“It’s very ‘Handmaid’s Tale’-esque,” one official said.
The Trump administration has ordered State Department employees to report on any instances of coworkers displaying “anti-Christian bias” as part of its effort to implement a sweeping new executive order on supporting employees of Christian faith working in the federal government.
The department, according to a copy of an internal cable obtained by POLITICO, will work with an administration-wide task force to collect information “involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration” and will collect examples of anti-Christian bias through anonymous employee report forms.
The cable was sent out to embassies around the world under Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s name. The instructions also were released in a department-wide notice.
The document says the task force, which was established by the executive order, will meet around April 22 to discuss its initial findings.
The cable encourages State Department employees to report on one another through a tip form that can be anonymous. “Reports should be as detailed as possible, including names, dates, locations (e.g. post or domestic office where the incident occurred,” the cable reads.
Continue reading at Politico
GOP frustrations with conservatives rise after budget fight
Frustrations are bubbling up among House Republicans after the conference — by the skin of its teeth — overcame internal disputes to adopt a framework for President Trump’s legislative agenda, a troubling sign for the group as it heads into the next, more difficult, step in achieving the president’s domestic policy priorities.
The rocky week leading up to the budget resolution’s adoption — with fiscal hawks withholding support as they pushed for commitments on spending cuts, forcing leaders to postpone a scheduled vote on the budget blueprint until the hard-liners acquiesced — left a bad taste in the mouth of Republicans in the other parts of the conference who worry that the high target for cuts could lead to slashes to Medicaid.
One moderate House Republican, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said members are “annoyed with the attention this small group gets.”
“These guys get all the attention, meanwhile the people who actually have vulnerable situations in terms of races, you know, we take tough votes,” the lawmaker added.
Continue reading at The Hill
Law firms pledge almost $1 billion in free work to Trump
Driving the news: White House envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Oman Friday night after holding talks in Russia with President Vladimir Putin.
The Iranian delegation, headed by foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, arrived on Saturday morning.
The White House said on Friday the talks will be direct, but when they started it was not the case.
Baqaei said the talks will be held at a location designated by the Omani hosts, with representatives of Iran and the U.S. seated in separate rooms.
"The parties will convey their views and positions to each other through the Omani Foreign Minister," he stressed.
Axios reported that the White House had seriously considered an Iranian proposal for indirect nuclear talks.
A source with knowledge of the issue told Axios that if the initial engagements on Saturday are positive, direct talks between Witkoff and Araghchi could be held later in the day or on Sunday.
What they are saying: "Our goal is to reach a just and respectful agreement and on equal footing. If the other side also comes from a similar approach, then this will be an opportunity for an initial understanding, which will lead to the path to negotiations," Araghchi said Saturday ahead of the talks.
Continue reading at Axios
Envoys from Iran and the US arrive in Oman for first round of talks over Tehran’s nuclear program
MUSCAT, Oman (AP) — Envoys from Iran and the United States arrived Saturday in Oman ahead of the first talks over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
No overall agreement is immediately likely, but the stakes of the negotiations couldn’t be higher for these two nations closing in on half a century of enmity. 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.
Flight-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed a private jet from Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg, Russia, arrived in Oman on Saturday morning. U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff had just met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday there.
Continue reading at the AP
Note from Rima: Who is Steve Witkoff? This three week old article highlights some of the issues associated with Witkoff’s nomination to the position he now holds.
Trump’s foreign envoy touts Kremlin talking points, in interview that will alarm Europe
CNN —
US President Donald Trump’s foreign envoy praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, struggled to recall the names of four occupied Ukrainian regions, and echoed a swath of Kremlin talking points in a remarkable podcast interview that will alarm officials in Kyiv and the West.
In a long interview with podcast host Tucker Carlson, Witkoff – who revealed Russia’s President Putin had commissioned a portrait of Trump and sent it to him – said the administration was making progress “that no one thought was possible” with Russia, but that issues of four captured territories still need ironing out and posed the biggest obstacle to resolving the conflict.
The four mainland regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – were illegally annexed during Russia’s full-scale invasion and Kyiv vehemently opposes giving them up, but Witkoff on several occasions implied that Russia had a right to capture the land.
The Kremlin has since staged referenda on joining Russia in those regions, which were widely dismissed as a sham by the international community, but which Witkoff claimed was evidence of their desire to split from Ukraine.
“They’re Russian-speaking,” Witkoff said of the four eastern regions. “There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule.”
Continue reading at CNN.com
The missing Black demonstrators in anti-Trump protests
Nearly five years after fueling the largest protest movement in American history, Black activism stands at a generational, emotional and strategic crossroads.
Why it matters: Many of the Black Americans who flooded the streets in 2020 have stepped back from the renewed anti-Trump protests — torn between the urgency of the moment and the spiritual toll of relentless, often fruitless resistance.
The stakes are huge: President Trump's second-term agenda is openly hostile to DEI, police reform, and the civil rights protections that have underpinned racial progress for the last half-century.
But prominent Black activists tell Axios that rest does not equal retreat, and that the movement is evolving — in leadership, tone and tactics — for the long fight ahead.
Driving the news: Photos from last weekend's "Hands Off!" demonstrations — where millions protested DOGE cuts, immigration raids and mass federal layoffs — show a striking shift from 2020.
Most participants were older and white, as seen at rallies across the country and confirmed to Axios — a stark contrast to the multiracial, Black-led protests launched in the wake of George Floyd's murder.
Campus protests over Trump's immigration crackdown have drawn primarily white, Latino, and Asian American students, with Black participants largely absent from the front lines.
In Washington, D.C., Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House was quietly dismantled last month after funding threats from Republicans — a symbolic setback in what once was the epicenter of 2020's racial reckoning.
Continue reading at Axios
The US Is Turning a Blind Eye to Crypto Crimes
Under the Trump administration, federal authorities are declining to charge crypto firms with a range of offenses, raising questions about which rules apply—and who will enforce them.
Since President Donald Trump took office, US authorities have increasingly abdicated responsibility for policing crypto-related offenses. Attorneys and lawmakers fear the resulting enforcement vacuum could be used to violate rules with impunity.
While running for office, Trump repeatedly declared himself a champion of bitcoin, and members of his family have become thoroughly entangled with the crypto industry. Over the past few months, his administration has set about unravelling Biden-era crypto enforcement policies thread-by-thread, defanging the civil enforcement division that previously targeted the crypto industry and pardoning crypto executives who had pleaded guilty under the previous regime. Now, the Department of Justice is retreating from crypto enforcement as well.
On Monday evening, in a letter addressed to all DOJ employees, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche announced that the agency would deprioritize certain criminal prosecutions against crypto businesses, including failures to prevent money laundering and obtain money transmission licenses. As part of the change, the DOJ will disband its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), a unit that specializes in investigating crypto-related criminality.
Continue reading at Wired
Palantir Is Helping DOGE With a Massive IRS Data Project
For the past three days, DOGE and a handful of Palantir representatives, along with dozens of career IRS engineers, have been collaborating to build a “mega API,” WIRED has learned.
Palantir, the software company cofounded by Peter Thiel, is part of an effort by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to build a new “mega API” for accessing Internal Revenue Service records, IRS sources tell WIRED.
For the past three days, DOGE and a handful of Palantir representatives, along with dozens of career IRS engineers, have been collaborating to build a single API layer above all IRS databases at an event previously characterized to WIRED as a “hackathon,” sources tell WIRED. Palantir representatives have been onsite at the event this week, a source with direct knowledge tells WIRED.
APIs are application programming interfaces, which enable different applications to exchange data and could be used to move IRS data to the cloud and access it there. DOGE has expressed an interest in the API project possibly touching all IRS data, which includes taxpayer names, addresses, social security numbers, tax returns, and employment data. The IRS API layer could also allow someone to compare IRS data against interoperable datasets from other agencies.
Continue reading at Wired
Mexico to send water to Texas amid Trump tariff threats
Mexico will facilitate an “immediate” delivery of water to farmers in Texas to help shore up resources amid President Trump’s tariff threats, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced on Friday.
“For Texas farmers who are requesting water, there will be an immediate delivery of a certain number of millions of cubic meters that can be provided according to the water availability in the Rio Grande,” Sheinbaum told reporters on Friday.
The U.S. and Mexico have been tangled in dispute regarding a 1944 treaty that stipulates that Mexico City send 1.75 million acre-feet of water to the U.S. from the Rio Grande River every five years. In return, the U.S. sends 1.5 million acre-feet of water every year to Mexico from the Colorado River.
Mexico missed the latest deadline, sparking tension between the North American neighbors. Trump on Thursday threatened to slap additional tariffs and potential sanctions on Mexico if the delivery of the water was not completed, stating the delay is “hurting South Texas Farmers very badly.”
“I will make sure Mexico doesn’t violate our Treaties, and doesn’t hurt our Texas Farmers,” the president said. “Just last month, I halted water shipments to Tijuana until Mexico complies with the 1944 Water Treaty.”
Continue reading at The Hill
Musk goes where no other Trump adviser can: publicly disagreeing with the president
The Trump adviser appears uninhibited in sharing his opinions — and that seems to be just fine with the president.
President Donald Trump is notorious for selecting advisers who closely follow his command — and firing those who don’t. But Elon Musk seems to be the exception to that rule.
Musk has gotten increasingly bold in his open dissent in the past week on matters ranging from Trump’s political messaging to the president’s other advisers. And he has made a habit of getting out in front of the president, both before and after he joined the White House.
Democrats have tried to drive a wedge between the pair, mockingly referring to Musk as “President Elon” in a bid to try to anger the president who famously hates sharing the spotlight.
But by all accounts, Trump — who was notorious for firing officials at the drop of a hat under his previous administration — has remained happy with Musk, despite his fellow billionaire drawing a disproportionate amount of attention compared to other senior White House aides, and even members of the president’s Cabinet.
Spokespeople for the White House and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday about the pair’s relationship. But Trump has laughed off the co-president needling, saying in a joint interview with Musk on Fox News in February that “it’s just so obvious. They’re so bad at it.”
In fact, the president has continued to praise his adviser, even as he says he will leave soon. At a Cabinet meeting Thursday, Trump extolled Musk and his DOGE team, saying: “Your people are fantastic. Hopefully they will stay around for the long haul, we’d like to keep as many as we can.”
With no messaging from Trump otherwise, Musk has continued making known his opinions on administration affairs. Here are five times that Musk has gone well beyond any other presidential adviser:
Tariff tussle
Musk has taken aim at Trump’s trade counselor, Peter Navarro, one of the public faces of the administration’s signature aggressive tariff policies.
Continue reading at Politico
Note from Rima: “In fact, the president has continued to praise his adviser, even as he says he will leave soon.”
Musk put out a quarter billion dollars in cold hard cash to get Trump elected, showing us all that not even a president, when in someone else’s debt, can bluntly repudiate his lord and liege. That said, make no mistake, when Trump says he’ll leave soon, he means he’s working on freeing himself from the yoke of the shadow president.
Pierre Poilievre’s Biggest Selling Point Is Now a Huge Liability
The Canadian Conservative leader soared because of a media strategy that sounded a lot like Donald Trump. That’s no longer helping him.
Pierre Poilievre was asking Elon Musk for help. In April 2023, the Canadian Conservative Leader sent a letter to Twitter’s headquarters requesting that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation be labeled as “government-funded media.”
Poilievre has made defunding the CBC — Canada’s public broadcaster that receives 65 to 70 percent of its funding from the government though it operates autonomously — a major plank of his campaign. When Musk granted his request, Poilievre blasted it out on his socials: “BREAKING: CBC officially exposed as ‘government-funded media’. Now people know that it is Trudeau propaganda, not news. Sign here to save $1 billion & defund the CBC.”
The aggressive attack was part of a political strategy that’s built for the social media age: Play offense, don’t back down, communicate directly and frequently to your audience and produce some viral hits. It’s also an example of the ways that he’s used traditional media as a natural foil in his quest to become prime minister. With some Canada-specific tweaks, the broad strategy nevertheless is reminiscent of Donald Trump’s brash, unyielding attacks on America’s mainstream media.
For years, the strategy worked. Poilievre got an outsized amount of earned media attention. He went viral frequently in both Canada and globally, often for his clashes with the press. In particular, he delighted conservative influencers in the United States who were unaccustomed to looking north for inspiration — but who seemed to recognize a kindred spirit. By January, Poilievre’s dogged attacks, combined with some serious fatigue and frustration with then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, had helped the Conservatives build an almost 25-point lead over the Liberals.
But in the last three months, Liberals have surged past Conservatives in the polls, and the reversal is due in large part to Canadians’ sudden revulsion over Trump’s relentless economic and rhetorical attacks on their nation. Now, Poilievre finds himself sprinting away from any association with the MAGA movement and his legion of American conservative fans. But while he has tried to define policy differences between himself and Trump ahead of the April 28 election, he has held fast to his confrontational anti-elite media style. It’s been an awkward recalibration that so far hasn’t reversed the polling slippage. The same attitude that engendered Poilievre’s ascent is now contributing to the dimming of his electoral prospects.
Continue reading at Politico Magazine
Trump administration says man mistakenly deported to El Salvador is ‘alive and secure’ in first update
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the White House to document reports on the status of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Friday in an effort to determine if the administration is complying with her order to bring the deported man back to U.S. soil. He is currently being detained in the country’s maximum security CECOT prison.
“He is alive and secure in that facility. He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador,” Michael Kozack, a senior bureau official at the State Department, wrote in a Saturday filing.
He said the information was based on official reporting from the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador.
Lawyers representing Abrego Garcia have proposed the federal government be held in contempt for prolonging efforts to have their client returned.
Continue reading at The Hill
Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of failing to pause strikes after US envoy leaves Moscow
Moscow and Kyiv agreed in principle last month to implement a limited, 30-day ceasefire but soon each issued conflicting statements.
Russia and Ukraine’s top diplomats on Saturday used a high-level conference in Turkey to once again trade accusations of violating a tentative U.S.-brokered deal to pause strikes on energy infrastructure, underscoring the challenges of negotiating an end to the 3-year-old war.
The two foreign ministers spoke at separate events at the annual Antalya Diplomacy Forum, a day after U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met with with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss peace prospects. Ukraine’s European allies on Friday promised billions of dollars to help Kyiv keep fighting Russia’s invasion.
While Moscow and Kyiv both agreed in principle last month to implement a limited, 30-day ceasefire, they issued conflicting statements soon after their separate talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia. They differed on the start time of halting strikes, and alleged near-immediate breaches by the other side.
“The Ukrainians have been attacking us from the very beginning, every passing day, maybe with two or three exceptions,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, adding that Moscow would provide the U.S., Turkey and international bodies with a list of Kyiv’s attacks during the past three weeks.
A representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry separately told state media Saturday that Moscow has been sharing intelligence with the U.S. regarding more than 60 supposed breaches of the deal by Kyiv.
Lavrov on Saturday insisted Russia had stuck to the terms of the deal.
Continue reading at Politico
Witkoff spoke briefly with Iranian counterpart amid Trump’s nuclear pressure campaign
The early conversations between the U.S. and Iran are the first publicly known talks since Trump took office.
Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s pointman for negotiations across the globe, briefly spoke directly with Iranian leaders Saturday, as the two countries said negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program would continue next week.
Saturday’s brief face-to-face encounter between Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was the first known direct contact between the U.S. and Iran since Trump took office in January. The session is the start of a high-stakes process that could see Trump and Iran shelve ratcheting up tensions over Iran’s nuclear program — or risk wider regional war should the talks fail.
The pair spoke for two and a half hours in what are known as indirect talks, during which Oman acted as a mediator and shuttled between the parties.
The White House in a statement reiterated comments Witkoff had delivered to NBC News earlier in the afternoon that “the discussions were very positive and constructive,” and noted that Witkoff’s “direct communication” with Araghchi “was a step forward in achieving a mutually beneficial outcome.”
The statement also confirmed that both sides had agreed to resume talks next Saturday.
Continue reading at Politico
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That work wardrobe you need? Fuhget it for the next four years | Blog#42
If you’re a white collar worker, one of the costs of working is having to maintain a work-appropriate wardrobe, and pencilling in time at your favorite department store at your local upscale mall. No matter what kind of work you do, if you have children, you pencil in a trip to the local mall to buy children’s clothing, with time at their favorite restaurant for a burger and dessert.