Trump issues tariff letters to six more countries
But before he meets with west African leaders, Donald Trump is now announcing more trade notices to several countries on Truth Social.
The US president is posting copies of separate letters addressed to Brunei, the Philippines, Iraq, Algeria, Moldova and Libya. Each country’s letter has its own tariff rate:
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30% on Algeria
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25% on Brunei
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30% on Iraq
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30% on Libya
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25% on Moldova
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20% on the Philippines
Key events
US agriculture secretary says Medicaid recipients can replace deported farm workers
Joseph Gedeon
The US agriculture secretary has suggested that increased automation and forcing Medicaid recipients to work could replace the migrant farm workers being swept up in Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, despite years of evidence and policy failures that those kinds of measures are not substitutes for the immigrant labor force underpinning American agriculture.
Speaking at a news conference with Republican governors on Tuesday, Brooke Rollins said the administration would rely on “automation, also some reform within the current governing structure”, and pointed to “34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program” as potential workers.
“There’s been a lot of noise in the last few days and a lot of questions about where the president stands and his vision for farm labor,” Rollins said. “There are plenty of workers in America”.
Trump signed legislation Friday creating the first federally mandated work requirements for Medicaid recipients, set to take effect by the end of 2026. Medicaid is a healthcare safety net program that currently covers pregnant women, mothers, young children and the disabled, with 40 states having expanded coverage to working poor families earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level.
However, agricultural experts and economists have repeatedly warned that neither automation nor welfare reforms can realistically replace the migrant workforce that dominates American farming.
According to USDA data, more than half of US farm workers are undocumented immigrants, and just under 70% are foreign-born.
And a March report from the Urban Institute found that most Medicaid recipients are either already working, exempt or face some sort of instability.
More on Trump’s latest tariff notices set to take effect on 1 August
Callum Jones
Donald Trump had been scheduled to hike tariffs on dozens of countries today. But earlier this week he announced a delay to 1 August and has started announcing new rates that countries would face unless they strike a deal with the White House.
After announcing plans on Monday for US tariffs of up to 40% on goods imported from 14 countries, including Bangladesh, Japan and South Korea, Trump wrote to the leaders of a further six countries on Wednesday.
“These Tariffs may be modified, upward or downward, depending on our relationship with your Country,” Trump wrote.
A string of delays and rate changes have frustrated businesses in the US and around the world.
The latest Truth Social social media posts come after Trump vowed to issue trade announcements pertaining to “a minimum of 7 Countries” today. It appears he might be one short of his stated goal, but more announcements may come later in the day.
Trump issues tariff letters to six more countries
But before he meets with west African leaders, Donald Trump is now announcing more trade notices to several countries on Truth Social.
The US president is posting copies of separate letters addressed to Brunei, the Philippines, Iraq, Algeria, Moldova and Libya. Each country’s letter has its own tariff rate:
-
30% on Algeria
-
25% on Brunei
-
30% on Iraq
-
30% on Libya
-
25% on Moldova
-
20% on the Philippines
Trump to host west African leaders after region grapples with sweeping US aid cuts
Donald Trump will host five west African leaders at the White House for a lunch meeting on Wednesday after his administration took significant steps to reshape the US’s relationship with Africa.
The meeting will include leaders from Liberia, Senegal, Gabon, Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau. It comes after sweeping US aid cuts and the dismantling of USAID, a federal agency that provided civilian foreign aid and development assistance.
Wednesday’s lunch should include discussions about economic development, security and democracy, according to the Associated Press. The Trump administration has said it wants to shift from aid to partnerships with nations that can help themselves.
In other political news, the Associated Press (AP) reports that Edward DiPrete, a former Republican governor of Rhode Island who was later jailed for corruption, died on his 91st birthday, his former chief of staff said.
DiPrete, a Republican, served as the state’s 70th governor from January 1985 until January 1991. But later he became the first and only former Rhode Island governor to go to prison after pleading guilty to bribery, extortion and racketeering charges from his time as the state’s chief executive, according to the AP. He served one year in prison.
After his 1999 release, DiPrete said he hoped Rhode Islanders would still remember his accomplishments as governor.
“I hope historians 25 years from now will say that was a good period in time from a person who did make some mistakes, no question, and did some things he paid dearly for,” he told the AP at the time.
Senate committee advances Trump’s pick for CDC director with party-line vote
A Senate committee advanced Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC), Susan Monarez, bringing her one step closer to final confirmation, The Associated Press (AP) reported.
The health committee voted 12-11, along party lines with Democrats in opposition, to poise Monarez to become the first CDC director to pass through Senate confirmation following a 2023 law, according to the AP. She was named acting director in January and then tapped as the nominee in March after Trump abruptly withdrew his first choice, David Weldon.
Prior to the CDC, Monarez was largely known for her government roles in health technology and biosecurity.
The committee’s action comes after months of turmoil at the CDC due to no leader at the helm of the agency tasked with tracking diseases and responding to health threats. The CDC has also been hit by widespread staff cuts, resignations and controversy over longstanding vaccine policies upended by health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
“Unfortunately, Dr. Monarez — who has served as Trump’s acting CDC director — has done nothing to stand in the way” of Kennedy’s actions, senator Bernie Sanders said Wednesday.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the former White House physician for Joe Biden, refused to answer questions from a Republican-led House committee that is investigating the former president’s health in while in office, The Associated Press reports.
O’Connor invoked the fifth amendment and doctor-client privilege on Wednesday while appearing before the House oversight committee, according to the doctor’s attorneys.
Republicans are conducting an investigation into Biden’s actions in office, questioning whether the former president’s use of an autopen may have been invalid. Biden has strongly denied that he wasn’t in a clear state of mind at any point while in office, calling the accusations “ridiculous and false.”
Los Angeles joins ACLU lawsuit against Trump’s immigration raids
The city of Los Angeles and other southern California municipalities are joining a lawsuit against Donald Trump’s administration aimed at halting immigration raids that have spread panic among immigrant communities and sparked widespread protests.
The lawsuit, filed last week by the American Civil Liberties Union, accuses federal agents of using unlawful police tactics such as racial profiling to meet immigration arrest quotas set by the administration.
The legal action by Los Angeles marks its first formal effort to halt the raids after the administration sued the city in June for limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
“These unconstitutional roundups and raids cannot be allowed to continue,” Los Angeles city attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto told reporters last night, flanked by officials from municipalities joining the lawsuit including Los Angeles County, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Culver City, Pico Rivera, Montebello, Monterey Park and West Hollywood.
Trump infamously called national guard troops and US marines into Los Angeles in June in response to protests against the immigration raids, marking an extraordinary use of military force to support civilian police operations within the US.
Troops have continued to work alongside federal agents, with national guard forces on Monday sweeping through MacArthur Park near downtown Los Angeles in an operation criticized by the city’s mayor Karen Bass.
According to the ACLU lawsuit, federal immigration authorities have carried out illegal actions in southern California that include warrantless arrests by masked, anonymous agents and denying legal counsel to people held in a “dungeon-like” facility.
Trump administration sues California over transgender athletes in schools
The US justice department has sued California over state policies allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ school sports, alleging that allowing them to do so violates federal anti-discrimination laws.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, claims that California’s policies violate Title IX, which affords legal protection against sex discrimination.
“This Department of Justice will continue its fight to protect equal opportunities for women and girls in sports,” attorney general Pam Bondi said in a statement.
Trump says US interest rate is at least 3 points too high
Donald Trump has yet again called on the Federal Reserve to lower the federal benchmark interest rate by at least 3 percentage points, renewing his call for the US central bank to lower rates to help reduce the cost to service the nation’s debt.
He wrote on his Truth Social platform:
Our Fed Rate is AT LEAST 3 Points too high. “Too Late” is costing the U.S. 360 Billion Dollars a Point, PER YEAR, in refinancing costs. No Inflation, COMPANIES POURING INTO AMERICA. “The hottest Country in the World!” LOWER THE RATE!!!
He attacked Fed chair Jerome Powell not by name but by referring to him only as “Too Late”. In a post half an hour before the one above, Trump wrote:
ANYBODY BUT “TOO LATE.”
Trump has repeatedly attacked and called on Powell to lower interest rates, calling him everything from a “major loser” to a “numbskull” to “an average mentally person” (sigh), to which the Fed has said it takes independent economic decisions.
Trump has called for Powell to resign several times. He wrote on Truth Social last Wednesday: “‘Too Late’ should resign immediately!!!”
Last week Powell confirmed that the central bank would likely have already cut interest rates this year had it not been for the economic shock caused by Trump’s tariff policies.
He told a central banking conference in Portugal:
In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs and essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs.
In response, Trump personally attacked Powell once again during his tour of the highly controversial new detention facility in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”. Asked if he intended to announce his pick for the next Fed chair, Trump said:
Anybody would be better than Jay Powell. He’s costing us a fortune because he keeps the rate way up.
EU on standby for announcement of deal with Trump as early as tonight
Lisa O’Carroll
The EU is on standby standby for an announcement of a deal with Donald Trump tonight or tomorrow night, reports my colleage Lisa O’Carroll from Brussels.
The draft agreement in principle, which ran to just three pages on Monday night when shared with ambassadors, is expected to involve headline pacts on cars, medical devices and possibly steel. It will also include an acceptance in the EU of a new baseline tariff on almost all exports of 10%, five times the pre-Trump average.
While a 10% tariff will involve pain for all member states, EU capitals say it will suffice, at the moment, to get a deal which can prove a starting point for all other trade issues.
Initially the EU was hard-balling, assuming it could best the UK’s thin deal, because of its economic might. Now it accepts a bare bones deal is the best it will get, despite objections from prominent MEPs on the European parliamentary trade committee who say they will fight the 10% import duty.
Italian MEP Brando Benefei says accepting the deal will “paralyse” the EU and show Trump he has won, enabling him to come back to “double” the tariff at a later stage.
Last night Trump said the EU was just 48 hours away from a “letter” on tariffs, but it is understood this is now not the case.
“The EU does not expect to receive a letter the same way that South Korea and Japan over the last few days, the deal is going to be different,” said Olof Gill, official trade spokesperson for the
European Commission.
Trump administration to subpoena Harvard for information on foreign students
The Trump administration has escalated its feud with Harvard University, saying the Department of Homeland Security planned to issue subpoenas for information about alleged misconduct by foreign students.
The Departments of Education and of Health and Human Services also said in a statement they had notified the school’s accreditor that it had violated federal law by not addressing alleged harassment of Jewish students. That could result in the loss of Harvard’s accreditation, making students ineligible for federal financial assistance.
The homeland security department’s administrative subpoenas are in response to the university denying requests for information regarding its student visitor and exchange program certification.
“We tried to do things the easy way with Harvard. Now, through their refusal to cooperate, we have to do things the hard way,” assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the statement.
Harvard officials were not immediately available for comment.
The administration has said it is trying to force change at Harvard and other top-level universities across the US, contending they have become bastions of leftist thought and antisemitism.
EU hopes to ‘soon finalise our work’ on ‘foundational framework’ for US tariffs deal, trade chief tells lawmakers
Jakub Krupa
EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told the lawmakers in the European parliament that the bloc “has made good progress” in trade talks with the US as their negotiations “intensified considerably” in the last few days.
We have made good progress on the text of the joint statement or agreement in principle, and I hope we can soon finalise our work.
If you recall what I said earlier about “a deal” potentially meaning many things to the Trump administration, Šefčovič on the other hand is very clear that the agreement that is being finalised is, in his view, is a “foundational framework” that will “pave the way for future fully fledged EU-US trade agreement”.
I hope to reach a satisfactory results, potentially even in the coming days.
The agreement in principle we are striving to finalise is not the end, but rather the start of the new beginning.
It would provide a framework upon which we can continue to build defining the exact parameters of the later agreement.
In other words, I see it as a foundational framework that paves the way for future fully fledged EU-US trade agreement.
Trump to potentially visit his Scottish golf courses in coming weeks – Sky News
Plans are being drawn up for Donald Trump to potentially visit his golf courses in Scotland in the coming weeks, Sky News reports, likely at the end of July or beginning of August.
Police Scotland confirmed to Sky News it was preparing for a “potential visit … later this month”. Senior sources told Sky News the trip could last “more than a couple of days”.
His son, Eric Trump, previously said his father would attend the official opening of a new golf course in Aberdeenshire this summer. The family also owns owns the Turnberry resort in Ayrshire.
The trip would mark Trump’s first visit to Scotland since he won the election in November. His last visit as president in 2018 sparked a security operation with thousands protesting in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and beyond.
Police Scotland’s assistant chief constable Emma Bond told Sky News: “Planning is under way for a potential visit to Scotland later this month by the president of the United States.
“While official confirmation has not yet been made, it is important that we prepare in advance for what would be a significant policing operation.”
EU optimistic deal can be reached before Trump’s tariff deadline
Lisa O’Carroll
Sources in the European Union, which Donald Trump said could expect a letter regarding its tariff deal in the next 48 hours, said they believed a framework agreement would be reached this week. The agreement is expected to include headline tariff arrangements for a limited number of sectors including cars, steel and medical devices.
The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, told the Bundestag today: “I am cautiously optimistic that we can succeed in reaching an agreement with the US in the next few days, by the end of the month at the latest.”
Merz said he was in “close contact” with the US government, Trump and the European Commission, and hoped to secure a deal as quickly as possible that linked “mutual trade between the US and the European Union with the lowest possible tariffs”.
Diplomats in Brussels say the EU’s need to restore calm in the wider transatlantic relationship and keep the US tied into the bloc’s defence and security is also driving the desire for a quick deal.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, told MEPs today it was ready for contingencies in the event of a collapse in talks.
“We stick to our principles, we defend our interests, we continue to work in good faith, and we get ready for all scenarios,” she told the European parliament.
Copper prices in US hit record high after Trump announces 50% tariff
Lauren Almeida
Copper prices hit a record high in the US after Donald Trump’s announcement yesterday that he would impose a 50% tariff on the industrial metal, in the latest escalation of his trade war.
Trump said before a cabinet meeting on Tuesday: “Today we’re doing copper,” proposing a 50% tariff rate for imports. He also threatened to impose a 200% border tax on pharmaceuticals but in a year or a year and a half’s time.
The comments added to the confusion around the president’s ever-changing tariffs after he sent letters on Monday setting rates of up to 40% for more than a dozen countries but coming into effect from 1 August rather than a previously reported 9 July date.
Hours after saying his latest deadline for a new wave of steep duties was “not 100% firm”, Trump wrote on social media that “no extensions” would be granted beyond the August deadline.
In another post on his Truth Social site on Tuesday night, he also promised to release tariff details for a further seven countries on Wednesday morning. Trump added that details on more would be revealed in the afternoon.
Copper futures in the US jumped by more than 10% to $5.682 (£4.18) a pound on the tariff threat overnight, hitting an all-time high. The metal has since been pared back to $5.662.
Conversely, prices elsewhere in the world fell amid fears that Trump’s threatened levy could reduce US appetite for the metal and hit demand globally. On the London Metal Exchange, copper prices fell by as much as 2.4% at the open, before easing to change hands at $9,653 a tonne.
It’s been 90 days since Donald Trump’s “original tariff bonanza”, notes Politico, and today – 9 July – was supposed to mark “the deadline by which time 90-or-so new trade deals were to be agreed; or else punishing new tariffs would kick in.” But after much confusion and flip-flopping yesterday, that deadline has been pushed back once more, this time to 1 August, giving the administration more time to get deals done.
But “a deal” can mean many things, Politico highlights. “The trade framework with the UK was a ‘deal’. The vague handshake with Vietnam last week was a ‘deal’. The detente with China was a ‘deal’. ‘A letter means a deal,’ Trump said, helpfully, during his Cabinet meeting yesterday. ‘The deals are mostly my deal to them.’” So it will be interesting to see where on this spectrum the nature of trading terms Trump is going to unveil today will fall.
More trade announcements expected as Trump defends tariffs
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics today.
Donald Trump said there would be more trade-related announcements this morning after defending his tariffs on Truth Social.
In a post on Tuesday evening, the president said:
We will be releasing a minimum of 7 Countries having to do with trade, tomorrow morning, with an additional number of Countries being released in the afternoon. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
That post came shortly after he wrote that “Tariffs have had ZERO IMPACT on Inflation” and – yet again – called for Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell to cut interest rates.
On Tuesday, Trump vowed to escalate his trade wars, my colleague Callum Jones reported, threatening US tariffs of up to 200% on foreign drugs and 50% on copper amid widespread confusion around his shifting plans.
An example of Trump’s shifting plans: shortly after saying his latest deadline for a new tariffs was “not 100% firm” yesterday, he declared “no extensions will be granted” beyond 1 August.
Stick with us today as we bring you the latest lines on the Trump administration, tariffs, and everything else in US politics.