Trump raises aluminum and steel tariffs
Donald Trump raised aluminum and steel tariffs to 25%, from a previous 10%, while signing a series of executive orders Monday.
The largest sources of US steel imports are Canada, Brazil and Mexico, followed by South Korea and Vietnam, according to government and American Iron and Steel Institute data.
By a large margin, Canada is the largest supplier of primary aluminum metal to the US, accounting for 79% of total imports in the first 11 months of 2024. Mexico is a major supplier of aluminum scrap and aluminum alloy.
Key events
Republican senator Susan Collins will back Robert F Kennedy Jr’s nomination as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, CNN reports.
Collins – famously a swing vote – had previously declined to say how she would vote on Kennedy’s nomination. However, after speaking with Kennedy about her “strong opposition” to “arbitrary” cuts to parts of the National Institutes of Health budget earlier today, Collins said Kennedy had promised to “re-examine” the cuts.
Her statement suggests that the former presidential candidate, who has no training in public health, may clear his confirmation vote before the Senate.
Donald Trump is expected to sign more executive orders in the Oval Office shortly, according to the White House. The president has signed dozens of such orders during his second term so far. During his first term, Trump signed 220 executive orders.
The US Agency for International Development has lost almost all ability to track $8.2bn in unspent humanitarian aid, a government watchdog said Monday.
The new administration’s rapid dismantling of USAid has left oversight of the humanitarian aid “largely nonoperational”, the inspector general’s office for USAid said. That includes the agency’s greatly reduced ability to ensure no aid falls into the hands of violent extremist groups or goes astray in conflict zones.
Donald Trump said he does not see JD Vance as his successor in a pre-taped interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. A preview for the interview – which is expected to air at 6pm ET today – shows the president declining to endorse Vance as a potential Republican nominee in 2028.
“I think you have a lot of very capable people. So far I think he’s doing a fantastic job. It’s too early, we’re just starting,” Trump said.
Sam Altman, OpenAI co-founder and CEO, has responded to an Elon Musk-backed offer to purchase the non-profit.
In a social media post Monday, Altman wrote, “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
Earlier today, a consortium of investors led by Musk and his AI company xAI, offered $97.4bn to purchase OpenAI. If such a deal went through, xAI could merge with OpenAI, raising potential antitrust questions. OpenAI was valued at $157bn in its latest funding round in October, cementing its status as one of the most valuable private companies in the world.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, said that “some serious people” from the Trump administration will visit Ukraine this week, though he did not specify who. Speaking during his weekly address from Kyiv on Monday, Zelenskyy added: “Our teams are also working on… [a] meeting between me and President Trump.”
Zelenskyy said he planned to meet JD Vance and other members of the Trump administration at the Munich Security Conference in Germany this week, where he expects to negotiate Ukraine’s security and financial needs with US and European allies.
Donald Trump fires head of government ethics office
The president has fired the director of the office of government ethics, according to the agency’s website. The office oversees ethics requirements and compliance for more than 140 agencies within the executive branch, including reviewing conflicts of interest and financial disclosures for federal employees.
A one-sentence statement on the group’s website read that it “has been notified that the President is removing David Huitema” and that it would revert to its acting director, Shelley K Finlayson.
Huitema had been confirmed in December for a five-year term.
Today so far
Thanks for joining our coverage of US politics, and the second Trump administration, so far today. Here are the top headlines we’ve been following this afternoon:
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A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must lift its broad federal funding freeze, which had thrown non-profit organizations, educational institutions and tribal nations in a panic over the uncertainty of their funding. Over the weekend, however, JD Vance signaled that the White House was considering ignoring court orders it disagreed with, potentially in a case such as its attempts to restrain spending authorized by Congress.
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The Internal Revenue Service has been asked by the US Department of Homeland Security to help crack down on immigration.
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A federal judge has prolonged his hold on Donald Trump’s offer of deferred resignations for millions of federal workers. The temporary restraining order will remain in place until the judge decides if he should indefinitely pause the offer’s deadline pending further court proceedings over the legality of the buyout program.
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The Trump administration confirmed to The Associated Press that it had taken USAid off the lease of the building, which it had occupied for decades
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Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Monday that would relax enforcement of a foreign corruption law in a move the White House claims would allow American companies to be more competitive, the Associated Press reports.
Donald Trump is expected to sign more executive orders this afternoon. Although press have not been invited, we’ll let you know as news emerges on their contents.
Elon Musk-led investor group offers $97bn to buy OpenAI
A group of investors led by Musk has offered $97.4bn to buy the non-profit that operates OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.
The consortium includes Musk’s AI firm X.AI, Baron Capital, Valor Management, Altreides Management, Vy Fund III, Emanuel Capital Management and Eight Partners VC. The funds would be used to purchase all assets of OpenAI, and further the non-profit’s “original charitable mission”.
Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman cofounded OpenAI as a non-profit in 2015 – but the two have been engaged in a months-long legal battle over the future of the organization as Altman has attempted to transition OpenAI into a for-profit company. Altman became chief executive of the company in 2019, after Musk left the company.
“If Sam Altman and the present OpenAI, Inc. Board of Directors are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation, it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it: control over the most transformative technology of our time,” said Marc Toberoff, the attorney representing the investors. “As the co-founder of OpenAI and the most innovative and successful tech industry leader in history, Musk is the person best positioned to protect and grow OpenAI’s technology.”
If such a deal goes through, Musk’s X.AI could merge with OpenAI, raising potential antitrust questions.
“At x.AI, we live by the values I was promised OpenAI would follow. We’ve made Grok open source, and we respect the rights of content creators,” said Musk. “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was. We will make sure that happens.”
Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Monday that would relax enforcement of a foreign corruption law. The White House claims the order will allow American companies to be more competitive, the Associated Press reports.
The executive order will direct the attorney general Pam Bondi to pause enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act – which prohibits American companies operating abroad from using bribery and other illegal methods – while she issues new guidance that “promotes American competitiveness and efficient use of federal law enforcement resources”, according to a White House fact sheet about the order obtained by the AP.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s dismantling of USAid continues, despite a court order that temporarily paused his plans to lay off thousands of employees.
The Associated Press reports that the aid agency has lost its lease at its Washington DC headquarters, while an unidentified official told employees who showed up today to “just go”. Here’s more:
The Trump administration confirmed to The Associated Press that it had taken USAID off the lease of the building, which it had occupied for decades.
USAID’s eviction from its headquarters marks the latest in the swift dismantling of the aid agency and its programs by President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk. Both have targeted agency spending that they call wasteful and accuse its work around the world of being out of line with Trump’s agenda.
A steady stream of agency staffers — dressed in business clothes or USAID sweatshirts or T-shirts — were told by a front desk officer Monday that he had a list of no more than 10 names of people allowed to enter the building. Tarps covered USAID’s interior signs.
A man who earlier identified himself as a USAID official took a harsher tone, telling staffers “just go” and “why are you here?”
USAID staff were denied entry to their offices to retrieve belongings and were told the lease had been turned over to the General Services Administration, which manages federal government buildings.
A GSA spokesperson confirmed that USAID had been removed from the lease and the building would be repurposed for other government uses.
Federal judge maintains hold on Trump’s employee resignation plan
A federal judge has prolonged his hold on Donald Trump’s offer of deferred resignations for millions of federal workers, Reuters reports.
The unheard-of offer that is billed as allowing federal workers to resign their jobs and continue getting paid until September was made by the Trump administration last month, and linked to Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency”. Labor unions sued over the program, and succeeded in getting a deadline for workers to accept paused.
Here’s more from Reuters on the latest ruling in the case:
The decision by U.S. District Judge George O’Toole in Boston prevents Trump’s administration from implementing the buyout plan for now, giving a temporary victory to labor unions that have sued to stop it entirely.
More than 2 million federal civilian employees had faced a midnight deadline to accept the proposal. It is unclear when O’Toole will rule on the unions’ request.
The buyout effort is part of a far-reaching plan by Republican President Donald Trump and his allies to reduce the size and rein in the actions of the federal bureaucracy. Trump, who returned to the presidency on January 20, has accused the federal workforce of undercutting his agenda during his first term in office, from 2017-2021.
Unions have urged their members not to accept the buyout offer – saying Trump’s administration cannot be trusted to honor it – but about 65,000 federal employees had signed up for the buyouts as of Friday, according to a White House official.
Reuters has been unable to independently verify that number, which does not include a breakdown of workers from each agency.
The offer promises to pay employees their regular salaries and benefits until October without requiring them to work, but that may not be ironclad. Current spending laws expire on March 14 and there is no guarantee that salaries would be funded beyond that point.
The White House has said employees could submit plans to leave through 11:59 p.m. ET Monday.
In his three weeks in office, Donald Trump has signed executive orders that appear to fly in the face of the constitution and federal law.
The New York Times reports that legal scholars believe the president has put the United States on the road to a constitutional crisis – or perhaps already created one:
There is no universally accepted definition of a constitutional crisis, but legal scholars agree about some of its characteristics. It is generally the product of presidential defiance of laws and judicial rulings. It is not binary: It is a slope, not a switch. It can be cumulative, and once one starts, it can get much worse.
It can also be obvious, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley.
“We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,” he said on Friday. “There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.”
His ticked off examples of what he called President Trump’s lawless conduct: revoking birthright citizenship, freezing federal spending, shutting down an agency, removing leaders of other agencies, firing government employees subject to civil service protections and threatening to deport people based on their political views.
That is a partial list, Professor Chemerinsky said, and it grows by the day. “Systematic unconstitutional and illegal acts create a constitutional crisis,” he said.
The distinctive feature of the current situation, several legal scholars said, is its chaotic flood of activity that collectively amounts to a radically new conception of presidential power. But the volume and speed of those actions may overwhelm and thus thwart sober and measured judicial consideration.
It will take some time, though perhaps only weeks, for a challenge to one of Mr. Trump’s actions to reach the Supreme Court. So far he has not openly flouted lower court rulings temporarily halting some of his initiatives, and it remains to be seen whether he would defy a ruling against him by the justices.
“It’s an open question whether the administration will be as contemptuous of courts as it has been of Congress and the Constitution,” said Kate Shaw, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “At least so far, it hasn’t been.”
JD Vance suggests Trump administration may not comply with court orders
The Trump administration has been ordered to lift its freeze on federal funding – but will it?
Over the weekend, JD Vance signaled that the White House was considering ignoring court orders it disagreed with, potentially in a case such as its attempts to restrain spending authorized by Congress. Vance wrote on X:
If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.
If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal.
Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.
It remains to be seen if the White House will follow through on Vance’s threat.
The Internal Revenue Service has been asked by the US Department of Homeland Security to help crack down on immigration.
A memo sent on Friday obtained by the New York Times revealed homeland security secretary Kristi Noem asked treasury secretary Scott Bessent to deputize IRS agents to help with nationwide immigration enforcement efforts, including by auditing employers believed to have hired unauthorized migrants and human trafficking investigations.
Trump administration ordered to comply with court order lifting federal funding freeze
The Trump administration must lift its broad federal funding freeze, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered on Monday.
“The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the Court found, likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country,” the order says.
The order comes after Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and DC said the Trump administration violated another judge’s earlier ruling which temporarily blocked the freezing of federal grants, loans, and other financial assistance. These attorneys general said despite the ruling, some funds remain frozen.
Trump’s proposed freeze has put groups including non-profit organizations, educational institutions and tribal nations in a panic over the uncertainty of their funding.
Lauren Gambino
When organizers announced a “Nobody Elected Elon” protest at the treasury department’s headquarters in Washington – in response to the revelation that Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) had accessed sensitive taxpayer data – not a single Democratic lawmaker had agreed to attend.
But as public outrage mounted over Donald Trump’s brazen assault on the federal government, the speaking list grew. In the end, more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress including Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, spoke at the event, which drew hundreds of protesters outside on a frigid Tuesday last week. In speech after speech, they pledged to do everything in their power to block Trump from carrying out his rightwing agenda.
“We might have a few less seats in Congress,” Maxwell Frost, a representative from Florida, thundered into the microphone. “But we’re not going to be the minority. We’re going to be the opposition.”
The day so far
Donald Trump’s assault on Washington DC’s institutions continues, with employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau being told today by a Project 2025 architect who now works in the White House not to come to the office, or otherwise do their jobs. The president has also said he’ll be announcing a round of new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports at some point, the prospect of which has raised fresh concerns of market havoc and unpredictable retaliatory measures. In Congress, House Democrats have put together a “rapid response task force” to counter the administration, while Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would use spending negotiations as leverage against Trump’s policies. Meanwhile, five former Treasury secretaries warned that Elon Musk’s meddling in the department’s payment system could have regrettable consequences.
Here’s what else has been going on today:
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Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, told Pentagon leaders not to take on recruits with gender dysphoria, and banned gender-affirming care for service members.
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A third federal judge struck down Trump’s attempt to ban birthright citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
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Democratic attorneys general from 22 states sued over a Trump administration policy that could drastically curb funding for medical research.
