Democratic governors hit back at Trump order blocking state climate policies
In a joint statement, the Democratic governors of New York and New Mexico, Kathy Hochul and Michelle Lujan Grisham, who co-chair the US Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of 24 state governors committed to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, responded to the order targeting state authority.
The federal government cannot unilaterally strip states’ independent constitutional authority.
We are a nation of states – and laws – and we will not be deterred. We will keep advancing solutions to the climate crisis that safeguard Americans’ fundamental right to clean air and water, create good-paying jobs, grow the clean energy economy, and make our future healthier and safer.
Key events
In order to pass the budget blueprint today as he seems to think he can, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, will need to persuade fiscal hawk GOP holdouts who seem quite firm on voting against it.
For now, representatives Eric Burlison of Missouri, Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Tim Burchett of Tennessee, have all said they’ll vote no.
Roy said:
Stop making up math. Stop lying to the American people that you can just magically put something on a board and say, ‘Oh, it all pays for itself.’ It doesn’t.
Norman said:
Congress has failed to address the cancerous spending in this country for TOO LONG!!
The Senate budget proposal includes a meager $4 billion in cuts, not even close to the nearly $1 TRILLION we spend on interest on the debt alone.
It’s time for Republicans to be serious about reining in our deficits and rightsizing government.
The White House has confirmed Donald Trump’s statement announcing a 125% tariff on China and a 90-day pause and lowered 10% tariff for other countries, effective immediately.
The White House’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Trump had raised tariffs against China because “when you punch at the United States of America, President Trump is going to punch back harder.”
She also said the US will continue with tailor-made negotiations and that tariff level will be brought down to a universal 10% during negotiations.
Trump budget blueprint vote is on and will pass, says Mike Johnson as he scrambles to rally holdouts ahead of House vote
The House speaker, Mike Johnson, said that a House vote on the Senate’s budget blueprint will proceed later in today, as planned, and that GOP leaders will ultimately secure enough Republican votes needed to pass it, the Hill reports.
Johnson told reporters in the Capitol:
I believe we will – eventually we will. I think it’s gonna pass today.
Senate Republicans have designed the budget resolution to enact Trump’s domestic agenda – including expanded tax cuts, more oil drilling and a crackdown on immigration – into law.
But, as the Hill writes, “the GOP critics have favored a House-passed version of the budget, which mandates much steeper spending cuts than the Senate’s plan, and want greater assurances that they won’t get jammed with the upper chamber’s lower numbers later in the debate. The pushback has created a huge challenge for Johnson and his leadership team, who are scrambling ahead of Wednesday’s vote to rally the holdouts behind the bill.”
It would take only four Republican defections for the resolution to fail. Johnson said of conservative House colleagues with reservations (whom he is trying to convince that Senate Republicans are committed to major spending cuts):
Their concerns are real. They really want to have true budget cuts and to change the debt trajectory that the country is on.
Sometimes there’s a lack of trust in these institutions between the two chambers. But I’m trying to assure my colleagues that we have it on good faith with the Senate that they’re committed to this as we are, and that we can protect essential programs – and cut unnecessary fraud, waste, abuse and other savings in the government – that will make it work better for everybody.
The vote is scheduled for 5.30pm ET.
US to keep 10% baseline tariffs on most countries including Mexico and Canada, says treasury secretary
Léonie Chao-Fong
The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has been speaking to reporters outside the White House after Donald Trump announced he authorised a 90-day pause on tariffs on most countries and a China tariff raise to 125%.
Bessent said countries who did not retaliate against the US tariff announcement last week will be “rewarded”.
“Do not retaliate, and you will be rewarded,” he said. He noted that the tariff rate on Chinese goods has been raised “due to their insistence on escalation”.
Mexico and Canada are included in the 10% baseline tariffs, he said.
WTO says trade between the US and China could fall by as much as 80%
The World Trade Organization on Wednesday estimated that US-China trade tensions could cut the trade of goods between two economies by as much as 80%.
“This tit-for-tat approach between the world’s two largest economies, which together account for roughly 3% of global trade, carries wider implications that could severely damage the global economic outlook,” it said.
Dividing the global economy into two blocs in this way could lead to a long-term reduction in global real GDP by nearly 7%, the statement added.
Trump announces 90-day pause on tariffs except for China, which he raises to 125%
Donald Trump has backed down on tariffs on most countries for 90 days, applying instead a 10% tariff, effective immediately.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote:
I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately.
In a post making no mention of several days of market meltdown, rising US inflation fears and fears of a global recession resulting from his tariff policies, Trump said his decision was “based on the fact that more than 75 Countries have called … [his administration] … to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to Trade, Trade Barriers, Tariffs, Currency Manipulation, and Non Monetary Tariffs, and that these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form”.
Trump also said he would be raising tariffs on China to 125%, also effective immediately, for the “lack of respect that China has shown to the world’s markets”.
Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately. At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.
It is not immediately clear whether any other nations besides China will face tariffs above the 10%.
Trump White House to appeal ruling on Associated Press access restrictions
The Trump administration intends to appeal a judge’s ruling lifting access restrictions on the Associated Press, a court filing seen by Reuters on Wednesday showed.
The US district judge Trevor McFadden ordered the White House to restore full access to the Associated Press to presidential events, after the news agency was punished for its decision to continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage.
The order from McFadden, an appointee of Donald Trump, requires the White House to allow the AP’s journalists to access the Oval Office, Air Force One and events held at the White House.
“Under the First Amendment, if the government opens its doors to some journalists – be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere – it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints,” McFadden wrote in his decision. “The Constitution requires no less.”
Majority of US Senate backs Huckabee as Israel ambassador
Reuters reports that a majority of the Senate has backed the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel, installing a staunch pro-Israel conservative in the high-profile post as Israel rages on with its war on Gaza and relations complicated by US tariffs.
As voting continued, the tally was 52 to 44 in favor of confirming Huckabee, largely along party lines, with Republicans all backing Donald Trump’s nominee and almost every Democrat voting against him.
Senator introduces conflict of interest bill aimed at Elon Musk
Nick Robins-Early
A Democratic senator has introduced a bill that would prohibit awarding government contracts and grants to companies owned by special government employees, taking aim at Elon Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla CEO.
The bill, authored by Jeanne Shaheen, the longtime Democratic New Hampshire senator, is an attempt to prevent conflicts of interest and was crafted in response to Musk’s role in the White House, where Donald Trump has designated him a special government employee, according to a Senate aide. Special government employees, which also include many members of Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), serve a limit of 130 days and are exempt from some financial disclosure rules.
Shaheen told the Guardian:
Those who step up to serve our country should do so because they want to contribute to the betterment of our nation – not because they stand to benefit from their public service at the expense of taxpayers.
Democrats and ethics watchdog groups have frequently objected to Musk’s numerous conflicts as he serves as the de facto head of Doge and a senior adviser to the president. Musk’s companies, most notably SpaceX and the satellite communications service Starlink, have extensive and expanding ties with government agencies as well as contracts worth billions of dollars.
As Musk and his team have rapidly moved to dismantle entire federal agencies and cut government services in recent months, former government employees have also warned that the world’s richest person is laying groundwork for his own private companies to further entrench themselves.
And beyond his contracts with the government, the billionaire’s companies, such as Tesla and Neuralink, are involved in a wide range of regulatory battles and investigations with agencies that Doge and the Trump administration have targeted for cuts.
Federal judges in New York and Texas block deportation of five Venezuelans
Federal judges in New York and Texas have taken legal action to block the government from deporting five Venezuelans under a rarely invoked law that gives the president the power to imprison and deport non-citizens in times of war.
The five men were identified by the government as belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang, a claim their lawyers dispute. Three are being detained in a facility in Texas while another two are being held in a facility in Orange county, New York, the Associated Press reports.
One man in Texas is HIV positive and fears lacking access to medical care if deported.
The men were identified as gang members by physical attributes using the “Alien Enemy Validation Guide”, in which an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agent tallies points by relying on tattoos, hand gestures, symbols, logos, graffiti and manner of dress, according to the ACLU. Experts who study the gang have told the ACLU the method is not reliable.
The ACLU had requested a temporary restraining order to keep their petitioners in the US and for the judge to declare the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act, which the Trump administration is invoking, unlawful.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has warned a US recession seems increasingly likely as Donald Trump’s tariffs rattle financial markets.
Stocks and bonds plummeted in morning trading, with stock futures dropping and bond yields rising as concerns over economic stability continue to grow.
Dimon, speaking on Fox Business, said a 2,000-point drop in the Dow “feeds on itself”, leading people to feel the pinch in their 401(k)s and pensions, prompting them to cut back.
Dimon said on Fox Business’s Mornings With Maria show:
I think probably [a recession is] a likely outcome, because markets, I mean, when you see a 2,000-point decline [in the Dow Jones industrial average], it sort of feeds on itself, doesn’t it.
“It makes you feel like you’re losing money in your 401(k), you’re losing money in your pension. You’ve got to cut back,” he added.
With the trade war showing no signs of easing, recession fears are mounting on Wall Street as the uncertainty deepens.
