Trump: ‘Canada has been ripping off the United States for many, many years’
The resumption of US-Canada trade talks does not seem to be on the horizon. During a press conference with US travel executives, Trump was asked if negotiations would resume.
“Canada has been ripping off the United States for many, many years, for decades, many decades,” Trump said, adding shortly thereafter, “It’s a very unfair deal. They charge tremendous tariffs to our farmers. They take advantage of our farmers. They take advantage of our tourists. They take advantage of airlines.”
The collapse of discussions resulted in Trump imposing 50% tariffs on $20bn in Canadian goods and Canada threatening retaliatory tariffs starting 8 September.
Key events
Summary
We’re wrapping up our live coverage for the day. Here are today’s key developments in US politics:
-
A US judge blocked Donald Trump’s latest effort to restrict birthright citizenship. Deborah Boardman issued a preliminary injunction, preventing the administration from enforcing the president’s new executive order, which he signed after the US Supreme Court rejected a previous effort.
-
House Democrats rejected a constitutional amendment proposed by Republicans to ensure the size of the supreme court is permanently capped at nine justices. The proposal, a Republican effort to make the supreme court a campaign issue ahead of the November midterms, failed 212-206.
-
House Democratic lawmakers introduced a war powers resolution seeking to stop the Trump administration’s boat strikes. Gregory W Meeks, Adam Smith, Jim Himes and Bennie G Thompson said people have been killed “without due process” in attacks never authorized by Congress.
-
Senator Richard Blumenthal pushed back against a statement from the US Postal Service about its new system to screen millions of mail-in ballots for the upcoming midterm elections. “‘Just trust us’ is not acceptable,” he said.
-
Donald Trump celebrated the news that Apple had fulfilled his request to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America” for Maps app users in the US following an executive order that came amid rising trade tensions between the US and Canada.
-
The Pentagon introduced guidelines for the mandatory new testosterone deficiency screening required for service members age 30 and older, a policy introduced by Pete Hegseth last month.
-
Donald Trump – claiming that the US has control over the strait of Hormuz despite escalating conflict with Iran and extensive evidence to the contrary – has floated the idea of naming the critical waterway “TRUMP STRAIT”.
Democratic lawmakers in the House introduced a war powers resolution on Wednesday seeking to stop the Trump administration’s boat strikes.
The US military has killed at least 227 people in 68 strikes in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific since last year as part of a campaign against what it describes as “narcoterrorists” to stop the flow of drugs into the US.
The UN and other humanitarian groups have said the attacks are extrajudicial killings.
Lawmakers Gregory W Meeks, Adam Smith, Jim Himes and and Bennie G Thompson, the group that introduced the resolution, said in a statement that people have been killed “without due process or a credible national-security justification”. Congress has never authorized the attacks, the group wrote.
“A year later, the administration has little to show for this lawless campaign except a mounting body count, a massive price tag, and a stain on the American conscience,” the lawmakers said.
“Time and again, this administration has refused to use the military responsibly or consult with Congress, even though the American people have made clear they do not want their tax dollars being spent on more endless military campaigns. It’s time for this failed campaign to end.”
The Pentagon has introduced guidelines for the mandatory new testosterone deficiency screening required for service members age 30 and older, a policy introduced by Pete Hegseth last month.
The defense secretary announced the mandate in July, stating that the program would “[ensure] you have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best”.
The guidance will go into effect immediately and require testosterone blood tests for men 30 and older. The guidance does not require the tests for younger men or women of any age, though Reuters reports it calls for screening of symptoms, including disrupted menstrual cycles, that are linked to hormonal dysregulation.
Doctors have questioned the scientific basis for the policy.
Senator Richard Blumenthal has pushed back against a statement from the US Postal Service about its new system to screen millions of mail-in ballots for the upcoming midterm elections.
This week it emerged a whistleblower told Congress that the system was hastily thrown together and that a single glitch in scanning could result in whole ballot batches being turned away. Blumenthal said the system, which came after Donald Trump’s executive order tightening federal control over mail-in voting, was “perilously rushed and potentially unlawful”.
In response, the postal service said it was “carefully reviewing the concerns”, but that it had spent months developing the federal ballot mail portal and it was done “in a manner consistent with court orders”.
Blumenthal said on Wednesday that “absolutely nothing” in the statement “denies or contradicts the deeply disturbing details of the whistleblower’s disclosure”.
“Most importantly, it does nothing to directly address the fears of voters that USPS will refuse to deliver their ballots based on the output of a shoddy computer system they started building four months ago,” he said. “‘Just trust us’ is not acceptable.”
Congressman James Comer said the US Department of Justice is investigating Ilhan Omar and her “entire family”.
In an interview with the rightwing podcaster Benny Johnson, the chair of the House oversight committee referenced a “discrepancy” on a financial disclosure form and said the Minnesota congresswoman was seeking “earmarks for things that would have benefited the Somali community that have already been identified in committing fraud in Minnesota”.
Omar has long been the subject of attacks and criticism from the politicians on the right, including JD Vance, who have accused the representative of immigration fraud, among other accusations. The Democrat has also frequently faced xenophobic attacks from Donald Trump.
Earlier this year a man sprayed her with vinegar as while was speaking at an event. She told the Guardian in December 2025 that she faced no death threats during Joe Biden’s presidency, but that changed when Trump returned to office.
“Now they are back up, and so there is a clear correlation between [Trump’s] presidency and the political violence that we see and the political danger that a lot of members of Congress and electeds feel across the country,” she said at the time.
US judge blocks Trump’s newest order limiting birthright citizenship
A US judge has blocked Donald Trump’s latest effort to restrict birthright citizenship.
Deborah Boardman issued a preliminary injunction, preventing the Trump administration from enforcing the president’s new executive order, which he signed after the US Supreme Court rejected a previous effort.
The new order targets so-called “birth tourism”, and seeks to make children of people who work for foreign governments and those classified as an “alien enemy”, among other groups, ineligible for automatic citizenship.
Boardman said the order was “almost certainly unconstitutional”.
“This Court must, once again, preliminarily enjoin enforcement of the President’s most recent attempt to strip the right to citizenship from them,” she wrote.
Patagonia, the outdoor clothing and gear company, has joined a lawsuit challenging Donald Trump’s decision to significantly reduce the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, removing protections from nearly 3m acres.
In July, the president approved the reduction of the sites by 90%, clearing the way to open the land to oil and gas companies. He argued in his proclamations that doing so would allow lands to be “put to a higher-priority use” and that they contained critical minerals important to “ resource independence …[and] national security”.
Patagonia said it was joining the lawsuit to put a stop to what it described as illegal orders that “betray Tribal sovereignty”.
“We will not stand idly by while anti-public lands crusaders attempt to exploit these lands for their extractive-industry friends or disrespect tribal nations,” Ryan Gellert, the company’s CEO, said in a statement.
Read more:
House Democrats rejected a constitutional amendment proposed by Republicans to ensure the size of the supreme court is permanently capped at nine justices. It failed 212-206.
As Reuters pointed out, the proposal was part of a Republican effort to make the supreme court a campaign issue ahead of the November midterms. The GOP was quick to seize on the issue with the National Republican Congressional Committee claiming in a statement that House Democrats “want to pack the Supreme Court with liberal justices so they can follow through on their radical socialist agenda”.
“Give House Democrats an ounce of power, and they’ll use every bit of it to fundamentally transform America into an unrecognizable socialist hellscape,” spokesperson Mike Marinella said.
Congressman Jamie Raskin argued Republicans were seeking to “cement their stacked and packed MAGA Supreme Court majority into the Constitution and strip away yet another basic power the Framers gave to Congress”.
“After sycophantically surrendering to Donald Trump our war powers, spending powers, tariff powers, and powers over federal buildings, to name a few, now they want to give up a power we have had since the Republic was founded: the power to decide how many Justices will be on the Supreme Court.”
DSA of LA endorses Nithya Raman in mayoral race against Karen Bass
Nithya Raman, the progressive Los Angeles city councillor challenging Mayor Karen Bass, has received an endorsement from the city’s chapter Democratic Socialists of America.
The Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday that the organization endorsed Raman after more than 60% of voters in an online election among chapter members backed her for mayor.
The decision came after significant debate given her relationship with the chapter – she has long been a DSA member but the organization censured her in 2024 for pursuing an endorsement from a Democrats for Israel group. The DSA LA endorsement is expected to boost Raman’s campaign, as the organization has a significant volunteer base.
Raman beat out reality TV personality Spencer Pratt to advance to the November election against her former political ally Bass.
Donald Trump celebrated the news that Apple had fulfilled his request to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America” for Maps app users in the US following an executive order that came amid rising trade tensions between the US and Canada.
“Apple Maps has just announced that it has changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, so now that very important change of names, between Google Maps and Apple Maps, is complete, ratified, and binding,” Trump said in a post online on Wednesday afternoon.
It’s unclear what the president meant by “ratified” and “binding”.
Read more on Apple’s decision here:
Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva has slammed new border wall construction near Quitobaquito Springs on the Tohono O’odham Nation’s ancestral lands.
“This morning, bulldozers are tearing through protected lands to make way for Trump’s second border wall — just 0.7 miles east of Quitobaquito Springs and getting closer,” Grijalva said in a statement, which included a link to video apparently showing this construction. “This is tribal land. It does not belong to Trump.”
Grijalva said that authorities and private contractors had gone onto sovereign tribal lands despite objections from the Tohono O’odham Nation.
“This level of disrespect is shameful and will go down as a stain on our nation’s history and its treatment of Indigenous Peoples,” Grijalva’s statement also said. “This isn’t just about a wall.
“It’s about erasing people, cultures, and bulldozing over tribal sovereignty.”
Department of Homeland Security secretary Markwayne Mullin said he was on a plane that made an emergency landing.
Mullin’s disclosure was in an X post on Wednesday that shared another account’s description of this incident.
“A Coast Guard aircraft has landed safely at DCA after declaring an emergency in the air C101 had lost its right engine mid-flight and diverted to Reagan Airport for an immediate landing. All 14 members on board have landed safely,” @TheDMVLive posted just before 2 pm local time.
Just over an hour later, Mullin posted: “The United States Coast Guard pilots made the single engine landing feel routine. No panic, just straight professionalism. After we landed, the pilots told me that was a first for them! We could not have been in better hands.”
The Trump administration rejected New York’s request for help related to a major snowstorm that caused $168m in damage, governor Kathy Hochul said.
“Another day, another denial of critical federal assistance for New York by the Trump Administration,” Hochul said in a statement Wednesday. “Just one day after calling out President Trump and Secretary Mullin for continuing to withhold $87 million in counterterrorism funding, my Administration was informed today that FEMA has officially denied our appeal for a Major Disaster Declaration following the February blizzard that caused more than $168 million in damages and placed a serious financial burden on communities across New York City, Long Island and the Mid-Hudson.”
“This storm met every FEMA threshold for federal assistance, yet the Trump Administration continues to play political games and betray every New Yorker who believes that the federal government is there to protect and support them,” Hochul also said. “By refusing to intervene and grant our request, President Trump has told every New Yorker who weathered this major storm and the first responders, utility crews and emergency management staff who worked tirelessly to keep our communities safe that you do not matter to him.”
“But let’s be clear, Republican members of Congress across New York are also enabling this neglect,” Hochul also said. “Their continued silence and refusal to break with the President is a direct betrayal of the communities they were elected to serve.”
“It is past time these members of congress demand that the President grant this disaster declaration and deliver every dollar of relief their constituents are owed.”
The Guardian has reached out to The White House and FEMA for comment.
Trump: ‘happy about’ Harry and Meghan returning to UK, says he ‘was not a fan’
President Trump has weighed in on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s move to Britain, saying at a press conference that: “I’m happy about it”.
“I was not a fan,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s query, during a question-and-answer session following a press conference with travel executives. “I had a very good relationship with the Queen, really good. I got to know her very well. A really good relationship with King Charles – I knew him as Prince Charles and King Charles. I’ve known him for a long time.”
Trump, describing Charles as a “great, great guy,” said he thought Prince Harry and Meghan Markle “treated the royal family with great disrespect.”
“I didn’t like it,” he also said, adding, “ If I were the royal family, I would not have taken them back.”
The couple’s move back to England comes six years after they left for the US. The King is reportedly looking forward to spending more time with them in a personal capacity, but Harry and Meghan will remain private individuals as they previously gave up their official royal duties.
