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'Without us, there's no way they can survive': Trump defends new tariffs on Canada
In the Oval Office today, Donald Trump defended the new 50% tariffs on most Canadian goods.
“Canada has been very, very tough on us over the years, for many years, and no other president’s done anything about it,” Trump said. “In all fairness to them, they need us to survive. Without us, there’s no way they can survive.”
This week, the White House said that the new levies were because Canada has unfairly discriminated against American cars, alcohol and dairy products. The tariffs will go into effect in 30 days, leaving time for possible discussions between the two countries.
Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, said that he spoke with Trump earlier on Tuesday. “We agreed to intensify negotiations in the coming weeks, and the team and myself look forward to doing that,” Carney told reporters.
The tariffs will hit a wide range of products, the White House said, including wine, hockey sticks and cement. They also include goods previously protected from import taxes under the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement.
Trump told members of the press that the latest round of tariffs was not in response to the Canadian wildfire smoke that spread across North America last week, and the president railed against.
On Friday, Trump blasted Canada for its response to the persistent wildfires and the smoke that affected about 109 million people across the midwest, mid-Atlantic and north-east. “The cost is incalculable!” Trump raged on social media. “This is Willful Negligence, and becoming a yearly occurrence, costing the United States Billions of Dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying.”
However, the president told reporters on Tuesday that his administration is looking at those tariffs “separately”.
Key events
Trump administration halts more than $1bn in Medicaid funding to California and Minnesota
Melody Schreiber
The Trump administration has paused more than $1bn in Medicaid funding to California and Minnesota, citing “suspected fraud and noncompliance” – withholding of funding that follows a $243m pause in Medicaid payments to Minnesota earlier this year.
“If those states want that money, they need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate,” said Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Officials relied on AI to identify potential fraud, Kennedy said. “We used AI, advanced analytics, and other cutting-edge tools to identify suspicious activity and potential fraud.”
The pause includes more than $867m for California and about $200m for Minnesota.
In California, most of the suspected fraud was in in-home services, he said. Kennedy has several times singled out in-home care provision, which can be a lifeline for disabled individuals – rhetoric that has worried families and angered lawmakers.
Vice-President JD Vance threatened in March to withhold funding to states if they did not cooperate with a new fraud taskforce, headed by Vance and established by a White House executive order.
A US appeals court has overturned a ruling that ordered the Donald Trump administration to release pro-Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi from immigration detention.
The decision came from the 2nd US circuit court of appeals which found that the lower court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case concerning the 35-year old Palestinian green card holder.
“We conclude that the district court should not have reached this question,” US Circuit Judge Debra Ann Livingston wrote.
In response to the ruling, Michael Tan, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who argued on behalf of Mr. Mahdawi last year, said: “The government is claiming the unprecedented power to detain people for months or even years on end to censor their speech, with no ability to challenge their detention in court. This is as absurd as it is dangerous.”
We will continue to fight for our client and for his right to prompt judicial review,” Tan added.
Tuesday’s ruling follows a a decision earlier this year by an immigration judge who blocked the Trump administration from deporting Mahdawi, who secretary of state Marco Rubio has claimed “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
Mahdawi, a Columbia University student, was detained by federal agents in Vermont last year during his citizenship interview.
A software error in New Jersey’s motor vehicle system mistakenly registered about 6,600 people who identified themselves as non-US citizens to vote between June 2023 and June 2024, New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill said on Tuesday.
Sherrill said that individuals “answered ‘no’ when asked on a keypad whether they were a US citizen when applying for drivers’ licenses and identification cards, but through no fault of their own, the system registered them anyway.”
She added that the error occured under the previous administration and that she has since ordered the removal of any residents from voter rolls that were mistakenly added during that time period.
“Our preliminary analysis shows fewer than 400 individuals who were newly registered for the first time because of the error voted. They were registered as Democrats, Republicans and Unaffiliated voters and were scattered across the state,” Sherrill said.
She went on to say that she is “appalled by the reckless failures that allowed this to happen and the lack of transparency shown by those in charge at the time.”
“This failure didn’t occur under my watch, but accountability starts now. I am taking action to prevent anything like it from occurring in the future and make sure those responsible are held accountable,” she continued.
Kat Lay
No part of the United States’ anti-HIV programme has escaped unscathed from Donald Trump’s funding cuts, despite pledges from the administration to protect care that saved lives around the world, a new report has found.
Funding cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) have caused “severe and devastating” disruption globally, with thousands of staff laid off and many clinics closed, according to research being presented next week at the 26th International Aids Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It warns that changes in US policy risk reversing progress in the fight against HIV/Aids.
Organisations still in receipt of US funding are also changing what they do to comply with the Trump administration’s policies targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, reproductive rights and the provision of gender-affirming care, researchers found.
Elise Lankiewicz, from the Aids research foundation Amfar and co-lead author of its Pepfar Pulse report, said: “Disruption was incredibly widespread. No part of the programme really escaped unscathed – and that includes areas of the programme that this administration intended to protect.”
'Without us, there's no way they can survive': Trump defends new tariffs on Canada
In the Oval Office today, Donald Trump defended the new 50% tariffs on most Canadian goods.
“Canada has been very, very tough on us over the years, for many years, and no other president’s done anything about it,” Trump said. “In all fairness to them, they need us to survive. Without us, there’s no way they can survive.”
This week, the White House said that the new levies were because Canada has unfairly discriminated against American cars, alcohol and dairy products. The tariffs will go into effect in 30 days, leaving time for possible discussions between the two countries.
Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, said that he spoke with Trump earlier on Tuesday. “We agreed to intensify negotiations in the coming weeks, and the team and myself look forward to doing that,” Carney told reporters.
The tariffs will hit a wide range of products, the White House said, including wine, hockey sticks and cement. They also include goods previously protected from import taxes under the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement.
Trump told members of the press that the latest round of tariffs was not in response to the Canadian wildfire smoke that spread across North America last week, and the president railed against.
On Friday, Trump blasted Canada for its response to the persistent wildfires and the smoke that affected about 109 million people across the midwest, mid-Atlantic and north-east. “The cost is incalculable!” Trump raged on social media. “This is Willful Negligence, and becoming a yearly occurrence, costing the United States Billions of Dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying.”
However, the president told reporters on Tuesday that his administration is looking at those tariffs “separately”.
Trump, again offering mixed-messaging about the status of the Iran conflict, noted that the US has decimated Tehran’s military capabilities, but the conflict will not end soon.
“We have done damage that will take them 25 years to recover from. So, if we left tomorrow, we had a big success. But we’re not leaving tomorrow,” Trump said.
During his meeting with Joseph Aoun, Trump said Washington will “talk” with Beijing, after the president pushed misleading claims that China has interfered with US elections.
Last week, Trump delivered a televised address where he claimed that China obtained 220m voter records from the period of from 2020 to 2023. However, election experts note that voter data is some of the easiest to obtain because each state has a public voter file. Those can often be purchased, or even retrieved off the internet in some states. These files have existed since the beginning of voter registration in the US. The key allegation from the Trump administration that China could vote on behalf of people is false, according to experts.
“I think China is maybe a little bit different today than it was then,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday. “They do things and we do things to them. I’ll be honest, we do things to them too. It’s not a one-way street, but we’ll be talking to them.”
Trump claims Iranian leadership wants to meet 'desperately'
Trump repeated his claim that Tehran want to meet “desperately”, as strikes continue between the US and Iran.
As the fragile ceasefire collapsed this month, the president said that until Iran is “ready to meet in a meaningful way, we have no interest in even meeting”.
As he begins his meeting with Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, Trump said that the country has been “very mistreated country for a long period of time”.
Trump went on to say that Lebanon also has a “very importance place” in joining the Abraham Accords –the diplomatic agreements between Israel and several Arab states. Since the president returned to the White House, he’s expressed interest in expanding the Accords to include more countries.
“I think you’re going to see a lot of countries joining pretty soon,” Trump said today.
Trump has just welcomed Joseph Aoun, the president of Lebanon, to the White House. We’ll bring you the latest lines from their bilateral meeting.
Johnson faces scramble to pass key bills ahead of August recess
As we reported yesterday, House speaker Mike Johnson has an ambitious legislative to-do list before the lower chamber breaks for August recess at the end of this week.
As my colleague Chris Stein notes, there are four bills in particular that the top Republican hopes to pass. This includes a measure that would extend government funding until 4 December; legislation which would curb lawmakers’ ability to trade stocks while in office; a $1.5tn Pentagon funding bill for the next fiscal year; and a third reconciliation package that would guarantee more funding for the war in Iran, among other things.
Before any of this can happen, the Republican majority in the House would have to allow a procedural vote so that these key pieces of legislation can make their way to the floor for debate and, eventually, votes. It’s proving to be an uphill battle for Johnson, who is facing serious pushback from certain members of his own GOP conference.
