Trump announces 10 percent tariffs on all imports and higher rates on dozens of countries in major escalation of trade war. See a recap.

Associated Press

In the 22 days since Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to a notoriously violent prison in El Salvador, his young son has sought comfort in the scent of his missing father’s clothes.

“He shows me how much he missed Kilmar,” Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, said in court documents. “He has been finding Kilmar’s work shirts and smelling them, to smell Kilmar’s familiar scent.”

Abrego Garcia, 29, who worked as a sheet metal apprentice and was pursuing his journeyman license, was pulled over in an Ikea parking lot and arrested on March 12, with his 5-year-old son in the car.

An immigration judge in 2019 had granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador, where Abrego Garcia was likely to face persecution by local gangs. He had a legal work permit issued by the Department of Homeland Security, his lawyer said.

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New York Times

President Trump says he is outraged by the fact that the United States imports more goods than it sends to the rest of the world. What he rarely mentions, though, is that when it comes to services, the tables are turned.

Service sectors -- which include the finance, travel, engineering and medical industries and more -- make up the bulk of the U.S. economy. Exports of these services brought more than $1 trillion into the United States last year.

But that dominance also gives other countries some clout in negotiations -- including the ability to impose some pain on the U.S. economy as they look to retaliate against Trump’s tariffs on goods.

The European Union, for instance, could use tools designed to restrict services coming into the bloc as a cudgel.

The United States is the largest exporter of services in the world, and a large share of those services, from financial services to cloud computing, are delivered digitally. The country ran a trade surplus in services of nearly $300 billion last year.

Associated Press

The Senate passed a resolution Wednesday night that would thwart President Trump’s ability to impose tariffs on Canada, delivering a rare rebuke to the president just hours after he unveiled sweeping plans to clamp down on international trade.

The Senate resolution, passed by a 51-48 vote tally with four Republicans and all Democrats in support, would end Trump’s emergency declaration on fentanyl trafficking that underpins tariffs on Canada.

The Senate’s legislation has practically no chance of passing the Republican-controlled House and being signed by Trump, but it showed the limits of Republican support for Trump’s vision of remaking the US economy by restricting free trade.

Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, along with Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted for the resolution.

Jim Puzzanghera, Globe Staff

President Trump’s second term has been all about using executive authority to impose his will on immigrants, universities, and government agencies. But imposing his will on US consumers and manufacturers presents a much different — and more politically perilous — challenge.

In announcing sweeping new tariffs Wednesday, Trump is trying to reshape the US economy to encourage more domestic production.

“With today’s action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again, greater than ever before,” Trump said in a White House ceremony on what he dubbed “Liberation Day.”

Starting Thursday, the United States will levy significantly higher tariffs on imports, he declared, a minimum of 10 percent and in some cases higher based on what other countries charge on US products. Goods from the European Union will face a 20 percent tariff and Chinese goods will be hit with a 34 percent tariff. All foreign-made automobiles will be subject to a 25 percent tariff, he said.

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New York Times

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services in February, he promised “radical transparency” and declared that “both science and democracy flourish from the free and unimpeded flow of information.”

But when the Trump administration laid off thousands of employees Tuesday, the targets included the very people who communicated the health department’s work to Americans.

Some of those employees were press officers, but many worked behind the scenes -- on social media, newsletters, information campaigns and personal outreach -- to translate complicated scientific studies into accessible guidance.

Kennedy has said he wants to centralize communications within HHS, and in a video last week, he argued that the existence of “more than 100 communications offices” was an example of unacceptable bureaucracy. “I want to promise you now that we’re going to do more with less,” he said in the video.

Several laid-off employees argued that centralization would compromise the quality of information by sacrificing the subject-matter expertise of longtime communications employees in specific agencies.

New York Times

The State Department is seeking to quell a diplomatic tempest roiling Europe this week after US Embassies in several countries sent letters to foreign contractors instructing them to certify their compliance with President 6Trump’s policies aimed at unraveling diversity programs.

The letters, directed at companies in France, Spain, Denmark, Belgium and elsewhere that have contracts with the U.S. government, rankled European companies and officials, who are pushing back at what they described as a pressure campaign by the Trump administration to impose anti-diversity policies abroad.

Late Tuesday, the State Department tried to walk back the letters, saying the compliance requirement applies to companies only if they are “controlled by a U.S. employer” and employ U.S. citizens. That contradicted the details in the embassy letters, which said Trump’s DEI-quashing orders applied to all suppliers and contractors of the U.S. government, regardless of their nationality and the country in which they operate.

Larry Edelman Globe Columnist

President Trump went tough on tariffs. Much tougher than expected.

Clothes made in Vietnam, appliances made in Korea, almost everything made in China: they will become more expensive to bring into this country now that the president has detailed global tariffs rates for friends and foes alike.

Manufacturers overseas will have to decide whether to absorb the new tariffs or pass them on. Any US company that uses foreign-made parts in its products faces the same decision. So do retailers and supermarkets.

Trump also stuck with his previously announced decision to impose a 25 percent tariff on all foreign-made automobiles and parts.

That will boost the price of a new imported car by as much as $15,000, according to an estimate by Goldman Sachs. Cars built domestically with parts from overseas could see prices hiked by as much as $8,000.

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Sean P. Murphy Globe Staff

Almost all goods imported into the US are likely to become more expensive to consumers, thanks to new tariffs announced by President Trump on Wednesday. How much more expensive and how soon (and for how long) are the big unknowns.

The new tariffs raise the cost of businesses bringing products to market, and businesses almost certainly will pass along at least some of that extra cost to consumers.

Higher tariffs may also prompt more goods to be produced at home by both American and foreign companies. Trump said that will create “stronger competition and lower prices for consumers.”

Time will tell. In the meantime, here are some things for consumers to consider:

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By the Associated Press

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said strategic tariffs can be an effective tool for supporting US industries and protecting jobs, but they must be accompanied by policies that invest in manufacturing and promote workers’ right to organize.

“Unfortunately, the Trump administration’s attacks on trade union workers’ rights at home, gutting of the government agency that works to discourage the outsourcing of American jobs and efforts to erode critical investments in US manufacturing take us backward,” Shuler said in a statement. “We will continue to fight for trade policy that prioritizes the interests of working people without causing unnecessary economic pain for America’s working families.”

By the Associated Press

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that one of the purposes of the tariffs “is setting the stage for long-term economic growth”

“With our gigantic government spending, it was unsustainable,” Bessent said. “We have taken us off that trajectory, and we’re putting us back on a sound trajectory.”

When asked how countries like China, which will see a 54% total tariff rate on imports, should respond, Bessent said, “We’ll see what they do.”

“My advice to every country right now: Do not retaliate,” he said. “If you retaliate, there will be escalation.”

Trendlines

By Larry Edelman, Globe columnist

Trump went tough on tariffs. Much tougher than expected.

Clothes made in Vietnam, semiconductors made in Taiwan, electronics made in China: All will become more expensive to bring into this country now that the president has detailed global tariffs rates for friends and foes alike.

Manufacturers overseas will have to decide whether to absorb the new tariffs or pass them on. Any US company that uses foreign-made parts in its products faces the same decision. So do retailers and supermarkets.

READ MORE

By the Associated Press

A group of scientists and health groups are suing the National Institutes of Health, arguing that an “ideological purge” of research funding is illegal and threatens medical cures.

Since Trump took office, hundreds of NIH research grants have been abruptly canceled for science that mentions the words diversity, gender and vaccine hesitancy, as well as other politically charged topics.

That has led to grants being cut that fund studies of HIV prevention, violence prevention in children, pregnancy health disparities and Alzheimer’s disease, among others, according to the lawsuit.

The suit aims to restore the money and end the terminations, arguing they violate NIH’s usual science-based review process, specific orders from Congress to tackle health equity and disparities, and federal regulations.

The suit was filed by the American Public Health Association, unions representing scientists and some researchers who were stripped of grants. The Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment.

By the Associated Press

Mexico and Canada, excluded from the list of reciprocal tariffs due to the trilateral free trade agreement between the countries, may stand to gain by Trump’s announcement, said Gabriela Siller, economic analyst of the Mexican financial group Banco Base.

Mexico is still affected by a number of more limited tariffs on steel and aluminum and may be subject to tariffs down the line as the administration continues to put pressure on the country to control fentanyl production and migration.

But dodging broader measures by the Trump administration on Wednesday could give Mexico a competitive market edge “despite Trump’s protectionist rhetoric,” Siller said.

“It’s bad news for the world,” Siller said. “Still, it’s good news for Mexico ... Tariffs will surely lower what (these countries) sell to the United States. That opens up an opportunity in the market.”

By the Associated Press

Alfred Mai, the founder and CEO of ASM Games, a card game company in San Francisco that sources all of its items in China, called the new tariffs a “disaster for everyone — my business, American small businesses across the board, American consumers.”

He said the 34 percent tax on Chinese goods is occurring as he is about to place his big order for the fourth quarter, which accounts for 60 percent to 70 percent of his business.

“My only hope now is that they negotiate out of this before the first shipments come in to US ports for Christmas sales,” he said. “There’s no other action I can take at this point outside of hoping.”

Otherwise, Mai said he will be forced to raise prices or reduce quality.

By the Associated Press

The US imports about 80 percent of its seafood, most of which will now face much higher duties.

“Tariffs will raise the cost of seafood, making the healthiest animal protein on the planet less available and more expensive,” said Lisa Wallenda Picard, president and CEO of the National Fisheries Institute. “Meanwhile, the tariffs could threaten many of the 1.6 million American jobs that, according to the federal government, U.S. commercial seafood companies support.”

The leading sources of US seafood include Canada, Chile, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. India will now face tariffs of 26 percent, Trump said, while Vietnam has been hit with a 46 percent tariff.

By the Associated Press

Basic Fun CEO Jay Foreman, whose company is behind such classic toys as Tonka trucks, Lincoln Logs and Care Bears, has been working hard to come up with new ways to cut tariff-related costs like reducing packaging and eliminating batteries with the products.

But Trump’s announcement that he plans a 34% increase in tariffs on Chinese imports has solidified his decision to hike prices. Most of the company’s toys are made in China. He said the Tonka Mighty Dump Truck will go from $29.99 to $39.99 this holiday season, possibly even $45.

“There is no other way,” he said.

By the Associated Press

Michelle Korsmo, the president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association, said the tariffs come at an especially difficult time for the US restaurant industry, which has seen food costs rise 40 percent over the last five years.

Tariffs will further increase food, beverage and packaging costs and push up prices for diners, Korsmo said, adding that operators also worry about the continuing availability of fresh, imported ingredients.

“Restaurant operators source as many domestic ingredients as they can, but it’s simply not possible for US farmers and ranchers to produce the volumes needed to support consumer demand,” Korsmo said in a statement.

By the Associated Press

Italy’s conservative Premier Giorgia Meloni said the introduction by the US of new tariffs against the European Union is a “wrong” measure that doesn’t favor either side.

“We will do everything we can to work towards an agreement with the United States, with the aim of avoiding a trade war that would inevitably weaken the West in favor of other global players,” Meloni said in Facebook post. “In any case, as always, we will act in the interest of Italy and its economy, also by discussing with other European partners.”

By the Associated Press

He said for the 60 percent in tariffs that South Africa was imposing on US goods, the US would apply a 30 percent reciprocal tariff on South African goods into the US These products include products such as textiles and agricultural goods like citrus fruits. He repeated his claim that there were “bad things happening in South Africa”.

“We’re paying them billions of dollars, and we’ve cut the funding because a lot of bad things are happening in South Africa,” he said.

Economist Miyelani Mkhabela said the 30 percent tariffs were directly linked to the Trump administration’s diplomatic fallout with South Africa.

“The United States has become unpredictable, unreliable, and oppressively destroying the African continent,” Mkhabela said.

South Africa’s trade and industry minister Parks Tau said South Africa would seek a meeting with US officials to discuss the latest developments.

By the Associated Press

Trump has signed an executive order that the White House said would close a “loophole” on small-ticket imported goods from China.

The action seeks to scrap exceptions that had shieled from tariffs imported goods from China worth less than $800.

This is legally known as the “de minimus” treatment. It suggests that the cost of what’s being imported was too low to merit a tariff.

Trump’s action means goods from China would no longer get the exception.

His new round of sweeping tariffs also seeks to end similar exceptions for imports from all countries, but only once the US government has the personnel to properly process such imports.

That means imported goods from most of the world worth less than $800 would eventually also lose their exceptions.

By the Associated Press

The makers of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese said the additional 20 percent tariff would raise to 35 percent duties on imports of the Italian hard cheese to the United States, its chief export market with a 22.5 percent share.

“Certainly the news does not make us happy, but Parmigiano Reggiano is a premium product and the increase in price does not automatically lead to a reduction in consumption,” Nicola Bertinelli, president of the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium, said in a statement.

He said they intend to negotiate in a bid to drop the additional tariff since Italian Parmigiano Reggiano — made exclusively with milk produced in a defined area of the Emilia Romagna region and aged for at least 12 months — is not in competition with US-made parmesan cheese. He called it “absurd” to hit a product like Parmigiano Reggiano to protect the American market.

By the Associated Press

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the government hoped to strike a trade deal to “mitigate the impact” of the 10% tariffs on British goods imposed by Trump.

The U.K. government has been negotiating with the US on a trade deal in hope of escaping import taxes.

Reynolds said “the US is our closest ally, so our approach is to remain calm and committed.”

British officials have said they will not immediately retaliate, an approach backed by the Confederation of British Industry, a major business group.

“U.K. firms need a measured and proportionate approach which avoids further escalation, the group’s CEO, Rain Newton-Smith, said. “Retaliation will only add to supply chain disruption, slow down investment, and stoke volatility in prices.”

Stock markets fall following Trump’s tariff announcement — 5:28 p.m.

By the Associated Press

The tariff levels announced by Trump are higher than many economists anticipated, causing stock markets to fall in after-hours trading.

“This is clearly worse news on tariffs than we had forecast,” said Michael Pearce, deputy chief US economist at Oxford Economics, a consulting firm.

Pearce said he will raise his forecast for inflation this year and reduce his expectation for growth in the wake of Trump. He was already forecasting inflation to top 3 percent later this year, from roughly 2.5 percent now.

Trump wraps up his tariff announcement speech — 5:02 p.m.

By the Associated Press

Trump has wrapped up his speech announcing sweeping tariffs on US trade partners after about 45 minutes.

“I think you’re going to remember today,” he said toward the end, predicting that the public might look back on his economic policies and conclude he was right. That’s despite many experts predicting his policies will mean major upheaval for the U.S. economy.

After his speech in the White House’s Rose Garden, Trump sat down a small desk erected for the occasion and signed two executive orders that helped cement the new tariff policies.

By the Associated Press

“We have a majority of seven, and seven’s, like, a lot, when we had it at one, right?” Trump said of the House majority during his Rose Garden event on tariffs.

Republicans will hold a 220-213 majority in the House after Tuesday’s two special election victories in Florida, giving them a 7-seat cushion.

A few weeks ago, the House Republican majority was down to just 218-215. That meant Republicans could afford to lose only a single vote when Democrats were unanimously opposed to legislation. That is likely the “one” that Trump was referring to, as the margin made it difficult for Republicans to pass any legislation.

By the Associated Press

Trump is calling his tariff policy “kind reciprocal,” saying he could’ve been much harsher on US trading partners.

The president said the tariff rates he’s imposing, steep as they are, don’t match the levies that some countries impose on US exporters. He’s calling the rates he chose the “discounted reciprocal tariff.”

By the Associated Press

Trump used his tariff speech to again champion the Gilded Age.

As he has repeatedly since starting his second term, Trump suggested that the US was at its wealthiest when it was a “tariff nation” between 1870 and 1913.

He added that “for reasons unknown to mankind,” the US went to income tax in 1913.

Trump suggested that the 1930s’ Great Depression was fueled by the US going to an income tax and away from tariffs.

Economists and historians say the US did grow between 1870 and 1913, but that was mostly due to immigration and was wracked by inequality.

By the Associated Press

Trump invited Brian Pannebecker, a retired autoworker who spoke at the Republican National Convention to speak briefly at his White House news conference on tariffs.

“My entire life I have watched plant after plant after plant close,” Pannebecker said.

Pannebecker, a Michigan resident, is the founder of Auto Workers for Trump. The influential union United Auto Workers endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 election but has backed Trump’s plans to boost tariffs on imported vehicles.

By the Associated Press

“It’s our declaration of economic independence,” Trump said in announcing the tariffs. “For years, hardworking American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense. But now it’s our turn to prosper.”

US financial markets have been unsettled in anticipation of Trump’s tariff announcement. Trump insists the moves will strengthen the US economy, even as many experts worry it could lead to higher prices for most American consumers.

By the Associated Press

Among those in attendance include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence.

There’s a fair amount of pageantry at the Rose Garden event, with the president walking out to a backdrop of numerous American flags.

By the Associated Press

The newest one concerns Milbank LLP, which the White House says will dedicate at least $100 million in pro bono legal services to causes the Trump administration supports.

The firm also agreed to take on clients without regard to political affiliation and to engage in merit-based hiring and promotion decisions.

Trump’s executive orders over the last month have injected turmoil into the legal community. They’ve threatened firms with the suspensions of attorneys’ security clearances as well as the termination of federal contracts and restrictions on building access for firm employees.

Some firms, like Milbank, have reached preemptive deals with the White House to avert an order. Others, including WilmerHale, Perkins Coie and Jenner & Block, have challenged them in court.

By the Associated Press

The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in late trading Wednesday, but only after careening between an earlier loss of 1.1 percent and a later gain of 1.1 percent. It’s had a pattern this week of opening with sharp drops only to finish the day higher.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 31 points, or 0.1 percent, with an hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3 percent higher. Both also veered from sharply lower in the morning to sharply higher in the afternoon and then doubled back.

Elon Musk’s Tesla helped knock the market around after initially falling more than 6 percent following a report that it delivered fewer electric vehicles in the first three months of the year than it did in last year’s first quarter.

By the Associated Press

In the 22 days since Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to a notoriously violent prison in El Salvador, his young autistic son has sought comfort in the scent of his missing father’s clothes.

“Although he cannot speak, he shows me how much he missed Kilmar,” Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, said in court documents. “He has been finding Kilmar’s work shirts and smelling them, to smell Kilmar’s familiar scent. He has been crying and acting out more than usual.”

Abrego Garcia, 29, was pulled over in an Ikea parking lot and arrested March 12, with his 5-year-old son in the car.

Trump’s administration acknowledged Monday that sending Abrego Garcia to his native El Salvador was an “administrative error.” An immigration judge in 2019 had granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador, where Abrego Garcia was likely to face persecution by local gangs.

By the Associated Press

Special government employee Calley Means, an adviser to the health secretary, defended Kennedy’s reorganization of the nation’s health department Wednesday, a day after thousands of federal health employees were laid off.

Means said the department has a “record of utter failure,” while speaking at a forum that brought together health industry insiders, lobbyists, and politicians.

His comments were sometimes met with hisses and shouts from the audience.

“Any business if you went into it with the metrics that HHS has overseen, with skyrocketing costs and worse and worse outcomes … you would of course fire a bunch of people,” Means said.

By the Associated Press

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel quickly conceded Tuesday as the first news outlets began calling the race.

As angry yells broke out at his watch party, Schimel doubled down. “No,” he responded. “You’ve got to accept the results.”

By acknowledging his loss quickly, Schimel curtailed the kind of explanation-seeking and digital digging that erupted online after Trump, a Republican, lost the 2020 presidential election, with citizen journalists falsely accusing innocent election workers and voters of fraud.

Schimel also avoided the impulses to which many in his party have defaulted in recent elections across the country, as they’ve dragged their feet to avoid accepting defeat.

By the Associated Press

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. offered no new details Wednesday about his massive restructuring of the US Department of Health and Human Services.Kennedy’s silence is prompting a bipartisan request for the health secretary to explain the cuts before a Senate committee next week.

As many as 10,000 notices were sent to scientists, senior leaders, doctors, inspectors and others across the department in an effort to cut a quarter of its workforce. The agency has offered no specifics, with the information instead coming largely from employees who have been dismissed.

“This overhaul is about realigning HHS with its core mission: to stop the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy said on social media, in his only comments addressing the layoffs so far. “It’s a win-win for taxpayers, and for every American we serve.”

The move, the department has said, is expected to save $1.8 billion from the agency’s $1.7 trillion annual budget — about one-tenth of 1 percent.

By the Associated Press

The Supreme Court appeared divided Wednesday over whether states should be able cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood — a case that comes amid a wider push from abortion opponents to defund the nation’s leading abortion provider.

Low-income patients who go to Planned Parenthood for things such as contraception, cancer screenings and pregnancy testing could see their care upended if the court sides with South Carolina leaders who say no public money should go to the organization.

The legal question before the court — whether Medicaid patients can continue to sue over the right to choose their own qualified provider — could have wider effects.

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By the Associated Press

Trump says executive orders targeting law firms are being issued in the name of national security, with the White House asserting that the firms don’t deserve access to sensitive US government information.

But the firms fear the orders are written so broadly as to potentially weaken national security by calling into question the status of security clearances of lawyers who, in addition to their legal practice, serve as military reservists and require their clearances to report to duty.

It’s an example of the sweeping and sometimes unintended consequences of White House efforts to reshape civil society, with those affected in some instances not necessarily being the ones who were top of mind when the Trump administration announced the actions.

A White House spokesman pointed to the provision of the order saying the clearances are to be suspended “pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest.”

By the Associated Press

Amazon has put in a bid to buy TikTok — an 11th hour pitch that comes as a US ban on the platform is set to take effect Saturday, a Trump administration official said Wednesday.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the Amazon bid was made in an offer letter addressed to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

The New York Times first reported on the bid earlier Wednesday.

On Inauguration Day, Trump gave the platform a reprieve, barreling past a law that was passed by Congress and upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court that said the ban was necessary for national security.

Under the law, TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance is required to sell the platform to an approved buyer or take it offline in the US.

Trump has suggested he could further extend the pause on the ban, but he has also said he expects a deal to be struck by Saturday.

By the Associated Press

After a few months of shaking up Washington with DOGE, Trump has made it clear that he’s ready to move on.

Trump has been praising Elon Musk’s work but suggesting that he’ll be going back to running his companies. In addition, he told reporters that DOGE “will end.”

The White House has not set a timeline for Musk’s exit, and DOGE was never supposed to be a permanent part of the government. However, it appears to be winding down faster than originally anticipated.

Musk recently told Fox News that he hopes to accomplish his cost cutting goals in the near future.

By the Associated Press

Jeffries suggested Democrats’ performance in Tuesday’s elections was the latest sign of the party’s strength in a series of 2025 elections.

He cited Democrats’ strength in special elections in Iowa and Pennsylvania earlier this year, before focusing on the liberal candidate’s victory in last night’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

“It wasn’t even close,” Jeffries said at a news conference. “They got wiped out in Wisconsin.”

“Despite the effort by some to project this notion that House Democrats, Senate Democrats, the Democratic Party is cowering — we’re not cowering,” Jeffries said. “We’re beating them over and over and over again.”

By Washington Post

When the acting head of the Social Security Administration ordered the termination of two data collection contracts with Maine in late February, a senior official on his leadership team warned him that the move would increase fraud.

That didn’t matter, the agency chief responded. It was more important to punish Maine’s Democratic governor Janet Mills.

Mills was “disrespectful” and “unprofessional” during an event with President Donald Trump, wrote Leland Dudek in a Feb. 27 email viewed by The Washington Post. While canceling the contracts meant that “improper payments will go up,” Dudek wrote, it would also deny federal funds to a “petulant child.”

The move to cut a key service for new parents and a system that allows quick reporting of deaths - later reversed - was one of a series of measures targeting Maine taken by federal agencies following a brief but pointed exchange between Trump and Mills during a National Governors Association event at the White House on Feb. 21.

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By the Associated Press

The sanctions include people, firms and ships from Russia, Turkey and other nations who are accused of working in coordination with sanctioned Houthi finance official Sa’id al-Jamal.

The Treasury Department says the network has procured tens of millions of dollars’ worth of commodities from Russia, including weapons and sensitive goods, as well as stolen Ukrainian grain, for shipment to Houthi-controlled Yemen. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also identified eight digital asset wallets used by the Houthis to transfer funds.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday’s action “underscores our commitment to degrading the Houthis’ ability to threaten the region through their destabilizing activities.”

The Treasury Department announcement includes the deletion of Karina Yurevna Rotenberg from the sanctions list. Rotenberg, also known as Karina Gapchuk Fox, is the wife of Russian oligarch Boris Rotenberg — a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

By the Associated Press

Jeffries told reporters that Trump’s rollout of new tariffs would increase prices and ultimately drive the United States into a recession.

Trump is calling today “Liberation Day,” arguing the new tariffs would free the country from unfair trade practices.

“This is not Liberation Day,” Jeffries, a Democrat, said. “It’s Recession Day in the United States of America.”

“That’s what the Trump tariffs are going to do: Crash the economy, which has been happening since January 20 of this year,” he continued.

By the Associated Press

US District Judge James Bredar in Baltimore issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday night that protects those workers while the lawsuit continues.

“Only states have sued here, and only to vindicate their interests as states,” Bredar wrote. “They are not proxies for the workers.”

The order requires the 18 agencies originally named in the lawsuit to follow the law in conducting any future reductions in force. Bredar has now added the Defense Department and the Office of Personnel Management to that number.

Judge Bredar previously found the firings amount to a large-scale reduction subject to specific rules, including giving advance notice to states affected by the layoffs.

By the Associated Press

Senate Republicans are facing pressure from Trump to oppose the Democratic resolution that would nullify the presidential emergency on fentanyl he’s using to implement tariffs on Canada.

Just hours before Trump was set to announce his plan for “reciprocal tariffs” on China, Mexico and Canada — his so-called “Liberation Day” — the Senate was expected to vote on a resolution that offers Republicans an off-ramp to the import taxes on Canada. It’s a significant test for Republican loyalty to Trump’s vision of remaking the US economy by clamping down on free trade. Many economists are warning the plan could force an economic contraction and GOP senators are already watching with unease.

The votes of at least four Republicans — Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Rand Paul of Kentucky — were in doubt ahead of the vote.

By the Associated Press

Speaking at a news conference, DeSantis said the results Tuesday evening went exactly as he predicted for Republican Florida state Sen. Fine — that “he would win but underperform” in the District 6 special election.

DeSantis represented District 6 from 2013 to 2018, under some different boundaries before redistricting. Before the election, DeSantis said President Trump got “bad advice” to endorse Fine, when speaking in an interview to a radio host.

“Just the way he conducts himself, he’s somebody that repels people,” DeSantis said Wednesday morning.

Analysis

By James Pindell, Globe Staff

Democrats overperformed in three very different elections on Tuesday — a swing state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin and two deep-red congressional seats in Florida. But more striking than the wins themselves was how they won: by embracing a populist message that cast Elon Musk as the face of a conservative billionaire class trying to hijack American democracy.

It wasn’t subtle. In Wisconsin, where the progressive candidate for the (technically nonpartisan) state Supreme Court won by 10 points — the largest Democratic statewide win in decades – Musk became the central character of the campaign. He poured $20 million into the race, a quarter of all spending, then flew in on the presidential jet to headline his own event, donning a cheesehead onstage and handing out million-dollar checks to voters.

READ MORE

By the Associated Press

It comes as her government has sought “preferential treatment” by the Trump administration because of a free trade agreement between the two nations and Canada.

Sheinbaum said she would wait to take action Thursday when it was clear how Trump’s announcement would affect Mexico, and that her government was constantly in contact with his administration.

“It’s not a question of if you impose tariffs on me, I’m going to impose tariffs on you,” she said in a news briefing Wednesday. “Our interest is in strengthening the Mexican economy.”

While Trump has already imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, economic forecasters have warned that broader 25% tariffs could thrust Mexico’s economy into a recession.

By the Associated Press

She stressed that it would harm both sides and would have “heavy” consequences for the Italian economy.

“I remain convinced that we must work to avoid in all possible ways a trade war that would not benefit anyone, neither the United States nor Europe,” Meloni said at a public event celebrating Italian food and agricultural products.

Meloni added, however, that her view “does not exclude, if necessary, having to also imagine adequate responses to defend our productions,” in reference to a possible European response to President Trump’s much-awaited announcement on new trade tariffs, expected later Wednesday.

Meloni recalled that Italian food and agricultural products are widely exported in Europe and globally, with the US representing the second wider market, with exports up 17 percent in 2024.

By the Associated Press

After TikTok was banned in the US earlier this year, Trump gave the platform a reprieve, barreling past a law that was passed in Congress and upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court that said the ban was necessary for national security.

The Republican president’s executive orders have spurred more than 130 lawsuits in the little more than two months he has been in office, but this one barely generated a peep. None of those suits challenges his temporary block of the 2024 law that banned the popular social video app after the deadline passed for it to be sold by ByteDance, its China-based parent company.

Few of the 431 members of the House of Representatives and the Senate who voted for the law have complained.

Despite a bipartisan consensus about the risk to national security posed by TikTok’s ties to China, “it’s as if nothing ever happened,” said Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute.

By the Associated Press

The S&P 500 was 0.7 percent lower in early trading Wednesday morning, but it’s had a pattern this week of opening with sharp losses only to finish the day higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 240 points, or 0.6 percent, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.9 percent lower.

Tesla helped pulled the market lower after it said it delivered fewer electric vehicles in the first three months of the year than it did in last year’s first quarter. Its stock fell 4.7 percent to extend its loss for the year so far to nearly 37 percent. Tesla, one of Wall Street’s most influential stocks, has faced growing backlash due to anger about CEO Elon Musk’s leading the US government’s efforts to cut spending.

By the Associated Press

The president is hosting a morning meeting with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee to discuss a framework for his big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts.

The Senate is hoping to launch all-night voting later this week on the blueprint but deep differences between House and Senate Republicans over the details of the plan remain.

By the Associated Press

The Republican stands to win big if state officials award one of three available gaming licenses to Bally’s Corp., which wants to open a casino at a city-owned golf course that used to be run by Trump’s company.

In 2023, Bally’s paid Trump $60 million for the rights to operate the public 18-hole course on the Bronx shoreline, near where the East River meets the Long Island Sound.

The gaming company promptly took down the massive “Trump Links” sign that was, at one time, all but impossible to miss for drivers going the Whitestone Bridge, and renamed the course Bally’s Golf Links at Ferry Point.

But under a little-noticed side deal, Bally’s promised to pay Trump another $115 million if Bally’s were to get a license to open a casino on site.

By the Associated Press

Some of the preschool centers had to close or furlough staff earlier this year because of glitches with a funding website. Now scores of government employees who help administer Head Start have been put on leave.

Preschool operators say they’ve received no communication from the Office of Head Start and don’t know who to turn to if they have questions about grants.

Head Start is federally funded but run by schools and nonprofits. It serves more than half a million low-income children.

By the Associated Press

Tesla sales declined in the first three months of the year, another sign that Musk’s once high-flying electric car company is struggling to attract buyers.

The drop of 13 percent is likely due to combination of factors, including its aging lineup, competition from rivals and a backlash from Musk’s embrace of right wing politics. It also is a warning that the company’s first-quarter earnings report later this month could disappoint investors.

Tesla reported deliveries of 336,681 globally in the January to March quarter. The figure was down from sales of 387,000 in the same period a year ago. The decline came despite deep discounts, zero financing and other incentives.

Analysts polled by FactSet expected much higher deliveries of 408,000.

By the Associated Press

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is traveling to Greenland on Wednesday for a three-day trip aimed at building trust and cooperation with Greenlandic officials.

Frederiksen announced plans for her visit after US Vice President JD Vance visited a US air base in Greenland last week and accused Denmark of underinvesting in the territory.

Greenland is a mineral-rich, strategically critical island that’s becoming more accessible because of climate change. Trump has said the landmass is critical to US security. It’s geographically part of North America, but is a semiautonomous territory belonging to the Kingdom of Denmark.

Frederiksen is due to meet the incoming Greenlandic leader, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, after an election last month that produced a new government. She’s also to meet with the future Naalakkersuisut, the Cabinet, in a visit due to last through Friday.

By the Associated Press

President Trump will hold a meeting Wednesday with aides about possible investors who could buy a stake in TikTok, a deal that could potentially stop the social media site from being banned in the United States.

The details of the meeting were confirmed by a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

There has been uncertainty about the popular video app after a law took effect on Jan. 19 requiring its China-based parent, ByteDance, to divest its ownership because of national security concerns. After taking office, Trump gave TikTok a 75-day reprieve by signing an executive order that delayed until April 5 the enforcement of the law requiring a sale or effectively imposing a ban.

Among the possible investors are the software company Oracle and the investment firm Blackstone.

Likely to attend the Oval Office meeting with Trump on Wednesday are Vice President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

By the Associated Press

President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is expected to meet at the White House with a top adviser to Russian leader Vladimir Putin to discuss plans for a Ukraine ceasefire.

A US official said says Witkoff, who’s traveled several times to Moscow for talks with Putin, plans to see Kirill Dmitriev. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting hasn’t been officially announced.

Dmitriev runs Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and has been a key interlocutor in discussions between the Trump administration and the Kremlin on numerous issues, including the Ukraine war and the release of American detainees in Russia.

The official said the Treasury Department had to temporarily suspend US sanctions on Dmitriev so he could legally travel to the United States.

By the Associated Press

Democratic Senator Cory Booker ended his record-setting speech the same way he began it, more than 25 hours earlier: by invoking the words of his mentor, the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis.

“He endured beatings savagely on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, at lunch counters, on freedom rides. He said he had to do something. He would not normalize a moment like this,” Booker said of Lewis’ work as a young activist during the Civil Rights movement. “He would not just go along with business as usual.”

A break from “business as usual” was what Booker had in mind as he performed a feat of political endurance, holding the Senate floor for 25 hours and 5 minutes while delivering a wide-ranging critique of Trump and his policies.

In doing so, Booker broke the record for longest Senate floor speech, a mark that had belonged for decades to Strom Thurmond, the avowed segregationist from South Carolina who filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

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By the Associated Press

According to the White House, at 4 p.m., President Trump will participate in the “Make America Wealthy Again” event in the Rose Garden. This is when he’s expected to announce his so-called reciprocal tariffs.

By the Associated Press

The Trump administration has halted dozens of research grants at Princeton University, the latest Ivy League school to see its federal money threatened in a pressure campaign targeting the nation’s top universities.

Princeton was notified this week that several dozen federal grants are being suspended by agencies including the Department of Energy, NASA and the Defense Department, according to a campus message sent Tuesday by Christopher Eisgruber, the university’s president.

Eisgruber said the rationale was not fully clear but that Princeton will comply with the law. The school is among dozens facing federal investigations into antisemitism following a wave of pro-Palestinian protests last year.

“We are committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and we will cooperate with the government in combating antisemitism,” Eisgruber wrote. “Princeton will also vigorously defend academic freedom and the due process rights of this University.”

By the Associated Press

President Trump says his tariff announcements slated for Wednesday will amount to a “Liberation Day” for the US. But American businesses and financial markets are unlikely to be freed from the uncertainty generated by his often stop-and-go trade policy.

Some big questions will be resolved when Trump announces what are expected to be reciprocal tariffs, and companies will have a greater sense of how many countries will be affected and how high the duties will be.

But more tariffs are in the pipeline and could target specific industries such as pharmaceuticals, copper and lumber. And the United States may reach deals with other countries that could alter the reciprocal tariffs. There will also be countless details that could take months to resolve to determine precisely which imports will be hit with taxes.

As a result, few analysts expect Wednesday’s announcement to bring the certainty that many businesses — and Wall Street investors — crave.

By the Associated Press

A trio of elections on Tuesday provided early warning signs to Republicans and President Trump at the beginning of an ambitious term, as Democrats rallied against his efforts to slash the federal government and the outsize role being played by billionaire Elon Musk.

In the marquee race for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat, the conservative judge endorsed by Trump and backed by Musk and his groups to the tune of $21 million lost by a significant margin in a state Trump won in November. And while Florida Republicans held two of the most pro-Trump House districts in the country, both candidates also underperformed Trump’s November margins.

The elections — the first major contests since Trump’s return to power — were seen as an early measure of voter sentiment as Trump works with unprecedented speed to dramatically upend the federal government, clashing with the courts and seeking revenge as he tests the bounds of presidential power.

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By the Associated Press

President Trump was foreshadowing his upcoming announcement of so-called reciprocal tariffs on both friends and foes of the United States.

He calls it “liberation day” to free the US from what he has says are years of unfair trade practices.

Most economists say it’s a risky move that could plunge the US economy into a downturn and upset decades of alliances.

Trump posted about “liberation day” early Wednesday on his social media platform.

He’s scheduled the announcement for 4 p.m. ET in the White House Rose Garden.

By Emma Platoff and Sam Brodey, Globe Staff

Over the last 10 years, Jeremy Lewin has looked like a man in search of a political identity.

As he ascended through Ivy League institutions and elite law firms, Lewin, now 28, veered from one end of the political spectrum to the other, seesawing rapidly without obvious explanation. In college, law school, and his early career, Lewin took a number of stances that would seem to be irreconcilable. He joined the Dartmouth College Republicans and Harvard Law School’s chapter of the conservative Federalist Society, only to proudly label himself “Team Joe” in the 2020 presidential election, and even help his mentor, the well-known liberal law professor Laurence Tribe, advise the congressional Democrats impeaching Donald Trump.

And then, just days after Trump was inaugurated this year, Lewin took on the most consequential identity yet: He joined the Department of Government Efficiency, the Elon Musk-led and Trump-blessed project to remake — and shrink — the federal government. In March, Lewin was elevated to deputy administrator of the US Agency for International Development — a neophyte appointed to effectively turn out the lights at an agency that distributed billions of dollars of aid around the world.

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By the Associated Press

Judge Susan Crawford preserved liberals’ narrow majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court Tuesday by defeating conservative Brad Schimel, but in a way the real loser of the election was billionaire Elon Musk.

Musk and his affiliated groups sunk at least $21 million into the normally low-profile race and paid three individual voters $1 million each for signing a petition in an effort to goose turnout in the pivotal battleground state contest. That made the race the first major test of the political impact of Musk, whose prominence in President Trump’s administration has skyrocketed with his chaotic cost-cutting initiative that has slashed federal agencies.

Crawford and the Democrats who backed her made Musk the focus of their arguments for holding the seat, contending he was “buying” the election, which set records for the costliest judicial race in history.

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By the Associated Press

A trio of elections Tuesday provided early warning signs to Republicans and President Trump at the beginning of an ambitious term, as Democrats rallied against his efforts to slash the federal government and the outsized role being played by billionaire Elon Musk.

In the marquee race for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat, the conservative judge endorsed by Trump and backed by Musk and his groups to the tune of $21 million lost by a significant margin in a state the president won in November. And while Florida Republicans held two of the most pro-Trump House districts in the country, both candidates also significantly underperformed Trump’s November margins.

The elections — the first major contests since Trump’s return to power — were seen as an early measure of voter sentiment as Trump works with unprecedented speed to dramatically upend the federal government, clashing with the courts and seeking revenge as he tests the bounds of presidential power.

READ MORE

By the Associated Press

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio travels this week to a gathering of top diplomats from NATO countries and is sure to find allies that are alarmed, angered and confused by the Trump administration’s desire to reestablish ties with Russia and its escalating rhetorical attacks on longtime transatlantic partners.

Allies are deeply concerned by President Trump’s readiness to draw closer to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who sees NATO as a threat, amid a US effort to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine. Recent White House comments and insults directed at NATO allies Canada and Denmark — as well as the military alliance itself — have only increased the angst, especially as new US tariffs are taking effect against friends and foes alike.

Rubio arrives in Brussels on Thursday for two days of meetings with his NATO counterparts and European officials, and he can expect to be confronted with questions about the future US role in the alliance.

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By the Associated Press

A federal judge in California on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to temporarily restore legal aid to tens of thousands of migrant children who are in the United States without a parent or guardian.

The Republican administration on March 21 terminated a contract with the Acacia Center for Justice, which provides legal services for unaccompanied migrant children under 18 through a network of legal aid groups that subcontract with the center. Eleven subcontractor groups sued, saying that 26,000 children were at risk of losing their attorneys; Acacia is not a plaintiff.

Those groups argued that the government has an obligation under a 2008 anti-trafficking law to provide vulnerable children with legal counsel.

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By the Associated Press

Senate Republicans said they are pushing ahead on President Trump’s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts this week, even though they’re punting some of the most difficult decisions — including the costs and how to pay for the multitrillion-dollar package — until later.

The Senate GOP’s budget framework would be the companion to the House Republicans’ $4.5 trillion tax cuts package that also calls for slashing some $2 trillion from health care and other programs. If the Senate can move the blueprint forward, it edges Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill closer to a compromise setting the stage for a final product in the weeks ahead.

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By the Associated Press

After weeks of White House hype and public anxiety, President Trump is set Wednesday to announce a barrage of self-described “reciprocal” tariffs on friend and foe alike.

The new tariffs — coming on what Trump has called “Liberation Day” — is a bid to boost US manufacturing and punish other countries for what he has said are years of unfair trade practices. But by most economists’ assessments, the risky move threatens to plunge the economy into a downturn and mangle decades-old alliances.

The White House is exuding confidence despite the political and financial gamble being undertaken.

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By The New York Times

Elon Musk’s money can buy him love from Republicans, but not, it turns out, a Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

A campaign awash in more than $25 million in spending by the world’s richest man and groups tied to him ended up much like the other elections of the first months of President Trump’s second term: with a surge of energy from Democratic Wisconsin voters that overwhelmed whatever turnout Republicans could manage in response.

On the same night that Judge Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate, was delivering a thumping to Judge Brad Schimel, the Trump-backed conservative, Democrats saw a silver lining in losses in two special congressional elections in Florida. In both races, they were able to cut sharply into the much wider Republican victory margins from November.

In all, the night’s results demonstrated what Democratic officials have been saying in recent weeks: that their voters are fired up to fight back against a Trump administration set on tearing down large chunks of the federal government.

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