Trump raises tariffs on Canadian imports to 35% hours after criticizing Palestine stance
Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to increase tariffs on Canadian goods imported to the United States from 25% to 35%.
The new import tax rates goes into effect on Friday, according to a White House factsheet.
The White House cited what it called Trump’s power to impose tariffs in response to a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law, on the same day that the government asked a federal appeals court to overturn a trade court ruling that the law gave Trump no such power.
The White House claimed that Trump had increased tariffs on Canada because it had failed to act on “the public health crisis caused by fentanyl and illicit drugs flowing across the northern border into the United States”.
However, in the early hours of Thursday morning, Trump had posted on social media that he might not strike a deal with Canada on tariffs as punishment for its decision to recognize the state of Palestine. “Wow! Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them. Oh’ Canada!!!”
Several commentators suggested that Trump’s statement that he might use tariffs to influence another nation’s foreign policy could become part of the legal case before the appeals court that he was not, in fact, responding to any real emergency.
As the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported this month: “The latest data from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows an uptick in the amount of fentanyl seized near the American northern border with Canada – but the quantities intercepted remain a tiny fraction of what’s coming from Mexico.”
Key events
Legal board moves to disbar Jeffrey Clark, White House lawyer who supported Trump’s 2020 election lies
A legal review board in Washington recommended on Thursday that Jeffrey Clark, a lawyer who currently works in the White House Office of Management and Budget, should lose his licence to practise law over his role in Donald Trump’s effort to stay in office after losing the 2020 election.
The recommendation from the District of Columbia Bar’s board on professional responsibility has to be approved by DC court of appeals, but it also imposes an automatic suspension unless Clark can convince the court to block his punishment within 30 days.
Clarke was charged with “attempted dishonesty and attempted serious interference with the administration of justice” for offering, as a justice department official in late 2020, to send a letter to the state of Georgia saying that the department had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.”
As Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general at the time, and Richard Donoghue, his deputy, told the January 6 committee, after they told Clark that there was no such evidence, they learned that Trump was considering a plan to make Clark the acting attorney general and have him send the letter.
Around the same time, according to handwritten notes taken by Donoghue , Trump pressed Rosen to “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the [Republican] Congressmen.”
As the review board’s ruling explains, at an Oval office meeting on 3 January 2021, Clark argued to Trump that he should be appointed acting attorney general, and promised to “conduct nationwide investigations that would uncover outcome-determinative election issues in just a few days.”
When his superiors Rosen and Donoghue objected to what the called that “completely unrealistic” proposal, Trump suggested that he might as well “give it a shot”.
Rosen and Donoghue later testified that they then told Trump that if he made Clark attorney general, there would be mass resignations of justice department leadership, the White House counsel and other attorneys in that office.
In his testimony to the January 6 committee, Donoghue recalled that Trump’s White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, told the president “that letter that this guy wants to send, that letter is a murder-suicide pact. It’s going to damage everyone who touches it, and we should have nothing to do with that letter.”
Trump then abandoned the scheme to appoint Clark, saying it would not be worth “the breakage”.
Clark spent much of Thursday thanking supporters like Steve Bannon for denouncing the move to strip him of his ability to practise law.
Florida will fly official flags at half-staff on Friday in honor of the late wrestler Terry Bollea, better known as Hulk Hogan, the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis announced on Thursday.
DeSantis referred to Bollea as “a great Floridian”. The announcement made no mention of that fact that the wrestler, who spoke in support of Donald Trump at the 2024 Republican National Convention, had his contract terminated by World Wrestling Entertainment Inc in 2015, after audio was published of a racist tirade in which he used the n-word.
Trump won’t say if he agrees with Marjorie Taylor Greene that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza
At the end of a brief exchange with reporters following his announcement on the new sports and fitness council, Donald Trump was asked about Gaza by a reporter, specifically if he agrees with Marjorie Taylor Greene that “what is occurring there is a genocide”.
Trump dodged the question. “Oh its terrible what’s occurring there, yeah”, the president said.
He then repeated his complaint that “nobody said thank you” when the United States donated money to feed the people of Gaza, and his false claim that the recent donation of $30 million was $60 million.
The president also reiterated the Israeli talking point that the blame for hunger in Gaza lies with Hamas and not Israel, which has blocked humanitarian deliveries for months, and imposed a chaotic new system of distribution which has led to more then 1,000 Palestinians being killed by live fire from Israeli soldiers.
“We gave it to people that are in theory watching over it”, Trump said of the financial donation. “We wanted Israel to watch over it. Part of the problem is Hamas is taking the money and they’re taking the food.”
Aid groups have identified Israel’s blockade as the cause of the starvation in Gaza, and its decision to replace a functioning UN-run distribution system with a dysfunctional system run by Israel and private military contractors working for the newly created, US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Trump adds golfers, football players and a WWE star to president’s council on sports, fitness and nutrition
Donald Trump introduced new members of the president’s council on sports, fitness and nutrition on Thursday and announced that he was “officially restoring the presidential fitness test” at the White House on Thursday.
Trump was joined by several of the new council members, including the golfers Bryson DeChambeau and Annika Sörenstam, WWE wrestler Triple H, and current and former NFL players Harrison Butker, Nick Bosa and Lawrence Taylor.
When he introduced the WWE star Triple H as someone who has “been my friend for a long time”, Trump looked at the wrestler, who was standing next to him, and appeared not to recognize him, continuing to look around the room for him.
When Trump invited Taylor to speak, the former New York Giant linebacker said that he was glad to serve, although he was not sure why he was chosen or “what we’re supposed to be doing.”
During his first term in office, in 2017, the New Yorker reported that Trump was largely against exercise. “Other than golf, he considers exercise misguided, arguing that a person, like a battery, is born with a finite amount of energy”, the Washington correspondent Evan Osnos wrote at the time.
Trump administration refers Harvard to DOJ over antisemitism allegations
Reuters reports the administration has sent a letter to Harvard University informing the university it has referred been referred to the Department of Justice, to address the allegations of antisemitic discrimination.
In the letter from the HHS’ director of the Office of Civil Rights – Paula Stannard –writes that the office “has no choice but to refer the matter to DOJ” after Harvard “has chosen scorched-earth litigation against the Federal government.”
Stannard was referring to the university’s lawsuit after the administration attempted to freeze more than $2bn in research funding.
New aid plan to be approved after Witkoff Gaza visit on Friday
Immediately after the Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Ambassador Mike Huckabee travel to Gaza on Friday they will brief the president and approve a plan for aid and food distribution in the region, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters today.
This comes after an extensive meeting that Witkoff and Huckabee had with Israeli prime minister Netanyahu today.
Taking a step back, starvation in Gaza is the worst it’s been since the beginning of the conflict. And at least 91 people have been killed, and 600 wounded, while waiting for aid in the last 24 hours, according to the Gaza Health ministry.
On Truth Social Trump has published letters that he’s sent to 17 pharmaceutical executives, setting a 60-day deadline for them to bring down drug prices for Americans.
In the letters – sent to execs at AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, and Johnson & Johnson among others – Trump threatened to “deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices.”
This comes after Trump signed his “most favoured nation” executive order back in May, which ties the cost of drug prices to the lowest price offered to any other developed foreign country.
New York mourns police officer killed in Midtown shooting
A funeral for Didarul Islam – the NYPD police officer shot and killed three days ago at an office building in Midtown Manhattan – saw thousands of mourners line the streets as his coffin arrived at Parkchester Jame Masjid, a mosque in the Bronx.
Below are some pictures of the procession and the tributes:
A recap of the day so far
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Today’s White House press briefing wrapped a short while ago, and press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Ambassador Mike Huckabee had a “very productive” conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The pair will travel to Gaza tomorrow to assess the worsening humanitarian and starvation crisis.
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The White House doubled down on the president’s displeasure in recognising Palestinian statehood – a promise made by the UK, France and Canada if Israel is unable to agree to a ceasefire. The White House said that the president considers statehood as ultimately ‘rewarding Hamas’.
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As Trump’s 1 August tariff deadline looms, he has issued a 90-day extension for Mexico to try to reach a deal. Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum characterised her call with the president as “very good” in a post on X. The country would have faced 35% tariffs from tomorrow without the extension.
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Karoline Leavitt clarified that the reciprocal tariffs will take effect at midnight tonight. But added she wouldn’t rule out any deals that could be cut before then.
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Democrats, however, have lambasted the president’s latest trade deals – including the 15% tariff on South Korean imports. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said earlier today that “15% is far from a victory, because it is American families who are ones who are going to have to pay for it in the end.”
Palestinian statehood would be ‘rewarding Hamas’, says White House
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt notes, emphatically, that the president disagrees with the leaders of the UK, France, and Canada and their decision to recognise Palestinian statehood if Israel fails to agree to a ceasefire in the coming months.
“He feels as though that’s rewarding Hamas at a time where Hamas is the true impediment to a cease fire into the release of all of the hostages,” she said.
It was only yesterday that Donald Trump called Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri a “second-tier senator.” This came after Hawley’s legislation that bans lawmakers, the president and vice-president from stock trading was advanced by a key committee.
Today, press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirms that the president has spoken with Senator Hawley, but was evasive about his thoughts on the specifics of the legislation. “As for the mechanics of the legislation, how it will move forward, the White House continues to be in discussions with our friends on Capitol Hill,” she said.
Leavitt clarified that the reciprocal tariffs will take effect at midnight tonight. But added she didn’t rule out any deals that could be cut before then.
“I do know foreign leaders are ringing his phone realizing this deadline is a real thing for them tomorrow when they’re bringing offers to the table,” she said.
Leavitt concludes her opening remarks by telling the press that the construction of a new White House ballroom is set to begin. It will total 90,000 square feet and hold up to 650 seats.
Leavitt adds that tomorrow Witkoff and Ambassador Mike Huckabee will be traveling into Gaza to “inspect the current distribution sites and secure a plan to deliver more food.” Leavitt adds that the officials will and meet with local Gazans to hear “first-hand about this dire situation on the ground.”
Leavitt tells the press that Witkoff and Ambassador Huckabee had “a very productive meeting with prime minister Netanyahu and other officials today in Israel on the topic of delivering much needed food and aid to Gaza.”
Leavitt kicks off White House press briefing
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has begun her briefing. She opens offering the administration’s condolences to the family of New York police officer Didarul Islam – who was killed this week in a Midtown Manhattan shooting.
Today, Mr Islam’s funeral is taking place in New York, with NYPD officers and city officials in attendance. Mayor Eric Adams delivered an address at the service.
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