Trump posts more tariff letters, with highest rate at 40%
Donald Trump has posted more tariff letters addressing a number of countries on his Truth Social platform.
They include:
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Tunisia will face a 25% tariff on goods imported to the US.
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Indonesia – 32%
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Bangladesh and Serbia – 35%
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Bosnia – 30%
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Cambodia and Thailand – 36%
The latest round of letters brings the total number on Monday to 14. Earlier in the day, Trump announced the following tariff rates:
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25% US tariffs on goods from Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Kazakhstan
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30% US tariffs on South Africa
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40% US tariffs on Laos and Myanmar
Myanmar and Laos have so far been worst hit. The south-east Asian nation of Laos, a country heavily bombed by the US during the cold war, has a poverty rate of 18.3%, according to the ADB. Myanmar is still reeling from a devastating earthquake and years of civil war following a 2021 military coup.
Key events
Trump signs executive order pushing tariff deadline to 1 August
Donald Trump has set new 25% tariffs on Japan and South Korea, as well as new tariff rates on a dozen other countries, including Bangladesh and South Africa. The announcement was made via a post on Truth social that included letters sent to the nations’ leaders.
He also signed an executive order on Monday extending a 90-day pause for a slate of so-called “reciprocal” tariffs first introduced in April – in effect pushing back the deadline of trade talks back to 1 August.
Read the details of Trump’s most recent moves here.
The Trump administration will deport Kilmar Ábrego García if he is released from custody, a Justice Department attorney said in court this morning, according to the New York Times.
The Maryland father, who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March, is currently detained on smuggling charges the Trump administration filed after he was returned to the United States.
Ábrego García’s lawyers have asked the Federal District Court hearing the smuggling case to keep him in custody so that the federal government does not deport Ábrego García before the criminal case is concluded.
California has rejected the Trump administration’s guidelines on transgender athletes, education secretary Linda McMahon said in a social media post.
Since taking office in January, Donald Trump has directed his Education Department to enforce Title IX, a civil rights law preventing sex discrimination, to prevent transgender athletes from competing on teams that align with their gender identity. In June, the Education Department found that California had violated civil rights law by allowing transgender girls to compete on girls sports teams.
In her post, McMahon included email screenshots showing that the California Department of Education and Interscholastic Federation had opted not to comply with the Trump administration proposal, which would have required the state to apologize to athletes who had lost competitions to trans athletes.
In a screenshot of an email, California Education Department general counsel Len Garfinkel wrote that the state “respectfully disagrees” with the Trump Administration’s analysis.
Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass confronted immigration agents after US Customs and Border Patrol conducted a raid on the city’s MacArthur Park today, she said in a social media post.
“The SECOND I heard about this, I went to the park to speak to the person in charge to tell them it needed to end NOW. Absolutely outrageous,” Bass wrote in the post.
On Monday morning, heavily armed immigration officials swept MacArthur Park, located in the city’s Westlake neighborhood, on horseback and aboard armored vehicles.
Bass, who was scheduled to attend a news conference with California governor Gavin Newsom, diverted to the park, where she confronted customs officials. The mayor’s show of force against immigration agents comes after weeks of mounting tension between Los Angeles residents and customs officials.
Emma Graham-Harrison
Meanwhile, Israel’s defence minister has laid out plans to force all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp on the ruins of Rafah, in a scheme which legal experts and academics described as a blueprint for crimes against humanity.
Israel Katz said he has ordered Israel’s military to prepare for establishing a camp, which he called a “humanitarian city”, on the ruins of the city of Rafah, Haaretz newspaper reported.
Palestinians would go through “security screening” before entering, and once inside would not be allowed to leave, Katz said at a briefing for Israeli journalists.
Israeli forces would control the perimeter of the site and initially “move” 600,000 Palestinians into the area, Katz said, mostly people currently displaced in the al-Mawasi area.
Eventually the entire population of Gaza would be housed there, and Israel aims to implement “the emigration plan, which will happen”, Haaretz quoted him saying.
Trump posts more tariff letters, with highest rate at 40%
Donald Trump has posted more tariff letters addressing a number of countries on his Truth Social platform.
They include:
-
Tunisia will face a 25% tariff on goods imported to the US.
-
Indonesia – 32%
-
Bangladesh and Serbia – 35%
-
Bosnia – 30%
-
Cambodia and Thailand – 36%
The latest round of letters brings the total number on Monday to 14. Earlier in the day, Trump announced the following tariff rates:
-
25% US tariffs on goods from Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Kazakhstan
-
30% US tariffs on South Africa
-
40% US tariffs on Laos and Myanmar
Myanmar and Laos have so far been worst hit. The south-east Asian nation of Laos, a country heavily bombed by the US during the cold war, has a poverty rate of 18.3%, according to the ADB. Myanmar is still reeling from a devastating earthquake and years of civil war following a 2021 military coup.
Away from tariffs, Donald Trump is hosting the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the White House later today.
The visit comes as indirect talks between Israel and Hamas over a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza continued for a second day on Monday.
Trump has increased pressure for a deal in Gaza in recent weeks and raised the possibility that a ceasefire could be declared in a matter of hours or days.
Hamas demands an Israeli withdrawal, while Netanyahu insists on Hamas disarming. The meeting between Trump and Netanyahu could give new urgency to the US ceasefire proposal, but whether it leads to a deal that ends the war is unclear.
“The utmost priority for the president right now in the Middle East is to end the war in Gaza and to return all of the hostages,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters hours before the two leaders meet for a private dinner.
Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blasted the top Democrat in the Senate Chuck Schumer for questioning the federal response to the Texas floods.
Here’s more about what Schumer is asking. According to his office, the Senate minority leader has asked the Commerce Department’s acting inspector general Duane Townsend “to immediately to open an investigation into the scope, breadth, and ramifications of whether staffing shortages at key local National Weather Service (NWS) stations contributed to the catastrophic loss of life and property during the deadly flooding.”
The full letter is here.
Three-week reprieve from tariffs little comfort for European Union
Lisa O’Carroll
There was cold comfort for the EU on Monday night as it emerged the bloc has only been given a three-week reprieve from the United States’s threatened 50% tariffs.
Revealing the details of negotiations for the first time, the Irish deputy prime minister Simon Harris said he expects the status quo and its temporary pause on punitive tariffs to be extended until 1 August. That would be in line with an executive order the White House said Donald Trump will soon sign.
Even then it was time to reach what he called “an agreement in principle” on a “framework agreement”. It is not clear whether the car industry will be spared the 25% hike in tariffs as part of that framework agreement, an elementary aspect of Germany’s demands for a quick deal.
Ireland, Germany and Italy are the members of the bloc that export more to the US than import but Ireland is considered most vulnerable per capita because of the numbers employed by pharmaceutical companies, many of them US multinationals.
Harris conceded that some of tariff would be permanent during Trump’s regime, likely to be 10% and there was as yet no sign of any stay on sectoral tariffs including pharma, currently threatened by a “section 232 investigation”.
Harris said:
I want to be clear that while it is likely there will be some form of tariffs going forward, their imposition even at a lower rate is bad for consumers, jobs, economic growth and investment. We have consistently called for zero-for-zero tariffs in as many areas as possible and I know the EU has advocated this course of action.
Uncertainty continues around the outcomes of the existing 232 investigations including on Pharma. This is obviously an area of significant concern to Ireland. However, my hope is that in the coming days and weeks both sides can work intensively and constructively to bring about an agreement.
This post has been updated to say that the comments came from Irish deputy prime minister Simon Harris, not taoiseach Micheál Martin.
Mike Johnson to meet Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson will meet with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu tomorrow, his office confirmed.
The meeting will take place at the Capitol, where only the Senate is in session this week, after congressional Republicans last week pulled multiple all-nighters to pass Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act in time for his signature last Friday.
Most Republicans in Congress are supportive of Israel’s defense, though some questioned the wisdom of supporting its hostilities with Iran. Netanyahu’s visit to Washington will begin this evening when he stops by the White House to have dinner with Trump.
Trump posts letters for Malaysia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Laos and Myanmar
Lauren Aratani
Trump has been posting more letters to world leaders on Truth Social, announcing new tariffs set to kick in from August.
These include:
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25% US tariffs on goods from Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Kazakhstan
-
30% US tariffs on South Africa
-
40% US tariffs on Laos and Myanmar
More letters are expected over the next few hours.
A formal US government review concluded that Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide, contradicting conspiracy theories that hold otherwise. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Edward Helmore:
A review of files held by the US government on the financier Jeffrey Epstein has said there is no secret client list to be released, and confirmed his August 2019 death by suicide while in federal custody, both of which contradict conspiracy theories.
A memo said that a Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) review of the files – which has for years been teased as a treasure trove of information about a larger network of wrongdoing – concluded that no further charges are expected, as investigators “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties”.
The justice department also released hours of footage taken from Manhattan’s metropolitan correctional center, showing that no one entered or left the area where Epstein was held during, before or after the time medical examiners concluded he took his life.
“As part of our commitment to transparency, the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted an exhaustive review of investigative holdings relating to Jeffrey Epstein,” the DOJ said.
Here’s more on the brewing controversy over whether there was enough warning of the Texas flash floods from the Guardian’s Edward Helmore, who is in Kerrville, Texas:
As Texas marshals a formidable response to the flash floods that have already killed dozens, questions are now being posed about warnings that were given on Thursday and early Friday about the severity of the approaching storm and the coordination between local officials and the National Weather Service.
New flood alerts were issued for Texas “hill country” on Sunday, prompting rescue services to suspend the search for missing people, including at least 11 from Camp Mystic, the summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River hard hit by Friday’s flash flood.
At an early evening press briefing, Kerr county authorities said they were suspending the search and evacuating first responders from the river valley. They confirmed that 68 had died there, including 28 children. Not all have been identified, with officials still examining the bodies of 18 adults and 10 children.
Extraordinary tales of resilience have also emerged alongside videos of the destruction and loss that are circulating on social media. On Sunday, a video was posted on X of girls from Camp Mystic being evacuated from the camp and singing the hymns Pass It On and Amazing Grace as they crossed a bridge over the still torrential Guadalupe River.
