Trump prepares fresh tariffs on dozens of countries, FT reports
President Donald Trump is poised to unleash fresh tariffs on dozens of countries as soon as this week, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, with his temporary 10% global tariff scheduled to expire on Friday.
The FT said the most immediate new duties are expected to be on a par with the 10% tariffs currently in place, but the administration was also working on other investigations that could grant it the legal authority to propose higher duties.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
Key events
Alice Speri
The president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque said he was subjected to “dehumanizing” treatment during more than 80 days in federal immigration custody – treatment that reminded him of the time he spent in Israeli military prisons in occupied Palestine nearly four decades ago.
“It all brought back old memories of things that happened to me when I was tried in Palestine,” said Salah Sarsour in his first interview since being released last month. “The humiliation, the treatment by guards, the way they talk to people, the way they try to put people down.” He said he lost more than 30lb while in immigration detention.
Sarsour, who was born in the West Bank and has been a US permanent resident for nearly three decades, was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March and released after a federal judge found he had probably been detained in retaliation of his advocacy for Palestinian rights – a likelihood the judge said would render his detention unlawful.
The Trump administration is continuing to seek his deportation and Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, personally signed off on a memo last year describing Sarsour as deportable, because “his actions undermine US foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world”.
Trump prepares fresh tariffs on dozens of countries, FT reports
President Donald Trump is poised to unleash fresh tariffs on dozens of countries as soon as this week, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, with his temporary 10% global tariff scheduled to expire on Friday.
The FT said the most immediate new duties are expected to be on a par with the 10% tariffs currently in place, but the administration was also working on other investigations that could grant it the legal authority to propose higher duties.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
Lebanon’s Aoun to meet Trump as pressure builds to disarm Hezbollah
Lebanese president Joseph Aoun was to meet with his US counterpart Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday, as Beirut’s military moved into an area of the south under a deal with Israel to disarm Hezbollah.
Lebanon is under pressure to prove that it can and will disarm the Iran-backed militant group, which Israel has set as a precondition for ending its occupation in southern Lebanon.
The so-called “pilot zones” where the Lebanese army is deploying under the deal with Israel are primarily located just outside territory Israeli forces invaded after Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the Middle East war in March.
Robert Tait
Democrats have seized on the deaths of three US troops killed in Iranian strikes to urge Donald Trump to urgently reverse his resumption of the war with Iran amid widespread anxiety over climbing casualties.
Even as US forces launched a 10th consecutive wave of attacks against Iranian targets, concern over the deaths of American service personnel threatened to complicate moves to escalate the conflict, which has reignited after he last week walked away from a memorandum of understanding agreed with Iran in June.
The Pentagon released the names of two soldiers killed in a strike on Muwaffaq Salti air base in Jordan on Friday. They were First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Private Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas.
A third member of the armed forces was killed in northern Iraq on Saturday in what US Central Command called a “controlled detonation” of unexploded ordnance. The remains of a possible fourth dead service member were found over the weekend in Jordan.
Canada ready to ‘intensify’ US trade talks as Trump orders new tariffs
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney has said that Ottawa is ready to deepen trade talks with the United States, after US president Donald Trump ordered fresh tariffs targeting Canada.
“This is the latest in a series of unilateral US trade actions that began with the US imposing a series of tariffs in direct violation of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement,” Carney said of Trump’s plan for 50% duties on many Canadian products.
He added that Canada has made proposals to resolve disputes as Washington transformed its trade ties, and is “ready to intensify those discussions.”
Trump’s tariffs will hit a wide range of products, the White House said, including wine, hockey sticks and cement. They also include goods previously protected from import taxes under the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement.
The new tariffs will exclude energy products, fish, critical minerals and potash. They also exclude products already subject to tariffs aimed at protecting national security, such as steel and aluminum.
The White House said the tariffs will go into effect in 30 days, leaving time for possible negotiations between the two countries. Trump signed three proclamations to launch the tariffs under Section 338 of the 1930 Trade Act. Several Democratic lawmakers last year proposed repealing the section because they said Trump could use it to destabilize the economy.
A White House fact sheet claims Trump is “taking action to hold Canada accountable for its continued discrimination against and unreasonable and unequal treatment of U.S. commerce that has burdened and disadvantaged hardworking Americans”.
Trump claims in the proclamations that Canada discriminates against American automobiles, alcohol and cheese relative to other nations, but his argument rests in large part on retaliatory actions taken by Canada after the US president imposed tariffs on Canada under the pretext that it should do more to stop fentanyl smuggling into the US.
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In other developments:
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Canadians across the political spectrum united in anger at Trump. “If these tariffs proceed, Canada should respond tariff for tariff, dollar for dollar,” Ontario premier Doug Ford said. Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, called the tariffs a “direct violation” of the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement Trump negotiated. Canada’s Conservatives called the tariffs “another unacceptable and unjustified attack on Canadian workers and our businesses,” adding: “Canadians are not a punching bag.” The leader of Canada’s New Democrats called them “the latest economic grenade thrown over the border by an out of control President who has lost touch with reality.”
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Ilya Somin, a professor of law at George Mason University who helped file the successful challenge to Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs, points out, the president’s new 50% tariffs on Canadian imports “are based on Section 338 of the notorious 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff legislation, which severely exacerbated the Great Depression.”
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Nancy Mace, a Republican congresswoman from South Carolina, announced on Monday that she is not entering the race to replace the late senator Lindsey Graham in the snap Republican primary next month.
