China and Canada retaliate after Trump tariffs take effect
Callum Jones
China and Canada unveiled retaliatory measures against the US after Donald Trump imposed his sweeping tariffs plan at midnight US time, despite warnings it could spark an escalating trade war.
US tariffs have come into force of 25% against goods from Canada and Mexico, the US’s two biggest trading partners, and 20% tariffs against China – doubling the levy on China from last month.
The duties will affect more than $918bn-worth (£722bn) of US imports from Canada and Mexico.
China on Tuesday said it would impose fresh tariffs on a range of agricultural imports from the US next week. Its finance ministry said additional 15% tariffs would be imposed on chicken, wheat, corn and cotton, with further 10% tariffs on sorghum, soya beans, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruits, vegetables and dairy products.
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said Ottawa would respond with immediate 25% tariffs on C$30bn-worth ($20.7bn) of US imports. He said previously that Canada would target US beer, wine, bourbon, home appliances and Florida orange juice.
Tariffs will be placed on another C$125bn ($86.2bn) of US goods if Trump’s tariffs were still in place in 21 days.
Key events
Trump threatens funding cuts, expulsions over ‘illegal protests’ at colleges
Donald Trump has threatened to cut off funding to universities that allow “illegal protests”, and expel or deport students involved.
Writing on Truth Social, the president said:
All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.
The threat comes after Republicans last year condemned pro-Palestinian protesters who held demonstrations on several college campuses nationwide over Joe Biden’s support for Israel, and Trump later signed an order that could lead to the deportation of foreign students involved. Here’s more on that:
Andrew Sparrow
JD Vance, the US vice-president, has claimed that he was not referring to Britain or France when he said that a minerals deal with the US, giving America an economic stake in Ukraine, would provide “a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that has not fought a war in 30 or 40 years”.
He posted this reponse to a post from the Italian journalist Antonello Guerrara saying he must have been referring to British and French peacekeepers.
This is absurdly dishonest.
I don’t even mention the UK or France in the clip, both of whom have fought bravely alongside the US over the last 20 years, and beyond.
And he added this.
But let’s be direct: there are many countries who are volunteering (privately or publicly) support who have neither the battlefield experience nor the military equipment to do anything meaningful.
Republican representative McKay Erickson walked through the halls of the Wyoming capitol with a Trump 2024 pin on the front of his suit jacket. Much of Erickson’s home district in Lincoln county falls under the jurisdiction of the Bridger Teton national forest and Grand Teton national park.
With that federal land comes federal workers. While it appears districts in Wyoming crucial to US energy dominance have been spared the brunt of the layoffs, McKay said his forest-heavy district has not been so fortunate. He’s hearing from his constituents about the layoffs, and he’s troubled about the implications for his district’s future.
“These people have a face to me,” Erickson said. “They have a face and a place in either Star Valley or Jackson that I know quite well.”
Erickson is a small-government conservative, laments bureaucracy and stands by his belief that there’s a need to “cut the fat” at the federal level. But in his district, he foresees a lack of trail maintenance hurting local outfitting companies, and understaffed parks with closed gates.
“This way is so indiscriminate, and it doesn’t really drill down on the real issue as to where those cuts need to be,” Erickson said. “I’m afraid that probably all we’re going to lose is services.”
Erickson’s district is in a bind that’s playing out across the American west.
Russia agrees to help Trump administration communicate with Iran – report
Russia has agreed to assist US president Donald Trump’s administration in communicating with Iran on various issues, including on Tehran’s nuclear programme and its support for regional anti-US proxies, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
The report, which was picked up by Russian state media, quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying that “Russia believes that the United States and Iran should resolve all problems through negotiations” and that Moscow “is ready to do everything in its power to achieve this.”
Trump last month restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran which includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran denies any such intention.
Russia has deepened its ties with the Islamic Republic since the start of the Ukraine war, and signed a strategic cooperation treaty with Iran in January.
Stocks tumbled Monday after Trump announces tariffs on Mexico and China
Coral Murphy Marcos
US vice-president JD Vance said that the best way to protect Ukraine from another Russian invasion is to guarantee the US has a financial interest in Ukraine’s future.
“If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine,” Vance said in the interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity which aired Monday night.
“That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years,” he said.
The interview aired the same day the White House reportedly announced it was pausing military aid to Ukraine and days after US President Donald Trump clashed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.
“What is the actual plan here? You can’t just fund the war forever. The American people won’t stand for that,” Vance said. This interview was recorded in advance, so it is unclear whether Vance was aware that the US would have paused aid by the time it aired.
Trump to lay out second-term vision in key address to Congress
Lauren Gambino
Donald Trump on Tuesday will deliver his first address to a joint session of Congress since reclaiming the presidency and promising a new “golden age” for America.
Before a chamber packed with members of Congress and their guests, the president will lay out his second-term vision after a radical start that has dramatically reshaped both domestic and foreign policy.
In just a few weeks since being sworn into office, Trump has empowered Elon Musk to dramatically downsize the federal workforce, threatened allies with tariffs and coddled longtime American foes. His administration has initiated sweeping mass layoffs of federal employees, mobilized officers from nearly every federal law enforcement agency and the US military to carry out his campaign promise of mass deportations, and rattled Europe with his pursuit of a peace deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine on terms preferential to Moscow.
New polling shows warning signs for Trump. More Americans held a negative view of Trump’s presidency so far than a positive one, a new CNN survey found. Meanwhile, a poll conducted by NPR/PBS News/Marist showed a majority of people in the US believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and say that the president has been “rushing to make changes without considering the impact”.
Yet Trump, emboldened by his return to power, has shown no signs of changing course, even as backlash brews.
China and Canada retaliate after Trump tariffs take effect
Callum Jones
China and Canada unveiled retaliatory measures against the US after Donald Trump imposed his sweeping tariffs plan at midnight US time, despite warnings it could spark an escalating trade war.
US tariffs have come into force of 25% against goods from Canada and Mexico, the US’s two biggest trading partners, and 20% tariffs against China – doubling the levy on China from last month.
The duties will affect more than $918bn-worth (£722bn) of US imports from Canada and Mexico.
China on Tuesday said it would impose fresh tariffs on a range of agricultural imports from the US next week. Its finance ministry said additional 15% tariffs would be imposed on chicken, wheat, corn and cotton, with further 10% tariffs on sorghum, soya beans, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruits, vegetables and dairy products.
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said Ottawa would respond with immediate 25% tariffs on C$30bn-worth ($20.7bn) of US imports. He said previously that Canada would target US beer, wine, bourbon, home appliances and Florida orange juice.
Tariffs will be placed on another C$125bn ($86.2bn) of US goods if Trump’s tariffs were still in place in 21 days.
Some US government workers with top security clearances fired in mass layoffs overseen by Elon Musk in recent weeks were not given standard exit briefings and advised on what to do if approached by foreign adversaries, four sources told Reuters.
The lack of so-called “read outs” for workers with clearances dismissed by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in February could raise security risks as they dealt with secret information on everything from managing nuclear weapons to protecting the power grid from influence by adversaries and ensuring the safety of US international development staffers, former security officials said.
Dismissed employees with top-secret clearances are normally given a final security briefing reminding them of non-disclosure agreements they signed when they got the clearance, Reuters reported.
They would also sign forms acknowledging that disclosing any kind of classified information is illegal and turn in their laptops, said the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Two sources with top security clearances dismissed by DOGE, one at the Department of Energy and one former senior official at the US Agency for International Development, told Reuters they were not debriefed.
Another worker still at the DOE, said several of the 28 workers fired on Feb. 14 at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nation’s nuclear arsenal, had clearances and were not debriefed. The fourth source is a person familiar with the situation at USAID.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news over the next few hours.
We start with news that president Donald Trump will stand before a joint session of Congress today to give an accounting of his turbulent first weeks in office as a divided nation struggles to keep pace.
It will be the latest milestone in Trump’s total takeover of the nation’s capital where the Republican-led House and Senate have done little to restrain the president as he and his allies work to slash the size of the federal government and remake America’s place in the world, AP reported.
The White House said Trump’s theme would be the “renewal of the American dream,” and he was expected to lay out his achievements since returning to the White House, as well as appeal to Congress to provide more money to finance his aggressive immigration crackdown.
“It’s an opportunity for president Trump, as only he can, to lay out the last month of record-setting, record-breaking, unprecedented achievements and accomplishments,” said senior adviser Stephen Miller.
Democrats, many of whom stayed away from Trump’s inauguration in January, were largely brushing aside calls for boycotts as they struggle to come up with an effective counter to the president.
Instead, they chose to highlight the impact of Trump’s actions by inviting fired federal workers as guests, including a disabled veteran from Arizona, a health worker from Maryland and a forestry employee who worked on wildfire prevention in California.
They also invited guests who would be harmed by steep federal budget cuts to Medicaid and other programs.
In other news:
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The Trump administration has suspended delivery of all US military aid to Ukraine, blocking billions in crucial shipments as the White House piles pressure on Ukraine to sue for peace with Vladimir Putin. The decision affects deliveries of ammunition, vehicles, and other equipment including shipments agreed to when Joe Biden was president. It comes after a dramatic blow-up in the White House on Friday during which Donald Trump told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he was “gambling with” a third world war. The Ukrainian president was told to come back “when he is ready for peace”.
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US vice-president JD Vance said that the best way to protect Ukraine from another Russian invasion is to guarantee the US has a financial interest in Ukraine’s future. “If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine,” Vance said in the interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity which aired Monday night.
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China and Canada unveiled retaliatory measures against the US after Trump imposed his sweeping tariffs plan at midnight US time, despite warnings it could spark an escalating trade war. US tariffs have come into force of 25% against goods from Canada and Mexico, the US’s two biggest trading partners, and 20% tariffs against China – doubling the levy on China from last month. The duties will affect more than $918bn-worth (£722bn) of US imports from Canada and Mexico.
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The US health department told employees on Monday they could apply for early retirement over the next 10 days and should respond to a request for information on their accomplishments of the past week, according to emails seen by Reuters. Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who oversees the so-called “department of government efficiency”, are spearheading an unprecedented effort to shrink the federal bureaucracy, including through job cuts.
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The US Senate has confirmed Linda McMahon as the nation’s next education secretary, entrusting the former wrestling executive with a department marked for dismantling by Donald Trump. The 76-year-old billionaire businesswoman and longtime Trump ally was approved 51-45, reflecting deep divisions over her qualifications and the administration’s education agenda. McMahon, who previously led the small business administration during Trump’s first term, now faces the paradoxical task of running an agency while simultaneously working toward its potential elimination.
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Two alleged leaders of a criminal organization suspected of smuggling 20,000 people without permanent legal residency into the US from Guatemala have been arrested in Los Angeles, federal prosecutors said on Monday. Eduardo Domingo Renoj-Matul, known as “Turko”, and his lieutenant, Cristobal Mejia-Chaj, were taken into custody Friday and have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges related to smuggling migrants across the border over five years, the US attorney’s office said. A federal judge ordered the men, who themselves are in the country illegally, jailed without bond until their trial in April.
