China Calls Trump's Tariffs ‘Unilateral Bullying' and Vows Countermeasures
China has come out swinging against President Trump's tariffs and says it will take resolute measures in response. A Commerce Ministry statement Thursday said the tariffs 'violate international trade rules, severely infringe the legitimate rights of relevant parties and represent a typical act of unilateral bullying.'
Trump said Wednesday the U.S. would impose an additional 34% levy on Chinese goods, on top of the 20% tariff on China that Trump imposed earlier this year. Those add to tariffs on Chinese goods from the first Trump and Biden administrations.
China has already retaliated against the 20% tariff but with relatively modest measures. The ministry didn't specify what further steps were planned. China exported $439 billion in goods to the U.S. last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, meaning the new tariffs, if upheld, would force a significant reshaping of the Chinese economy.

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Boston Globe
11 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Justice Department's early moves on voting and elections signal a shift from its traditional role
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up David Becker, a former department attorney who worked on voting rights cases and now leads the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said the Justice Department's moves represent a departure from focusing on major violations of federal law. Advertisement 'This would be like the police department prioritizing jaywalking over murder investigations,' he said. A Justice Department spokesperson responded with 'no comment' to an emailed request for more information about the actions, including whether similar ones had been taken in any other states. Conservatives for years have called for an overhaul of the Justice Department in both personnel and priorities. President Trump also has criticized how elections are run, falsely blaming his 2020 loss on widespread fraud. Earlier this year, he signed an executive order seeking a sweeping overhaul of election operations — an authority the Constitution grants to the states and Congress. Advertisement After his win last November, Trump installed key allies at the Justice Department, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has made similar claims about the 2020 election. Multiple reviews in the presidential battleground states affirmed Democrat Joe Biden's win in 2020, Trump and his allies lost dozens of lawsuits, and even Trump's attorney general at the time said there was no evidence of widespread fraud. Justin Levitt, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the department's civil rights division, said most of the DOJ's actions appeared reasonable and focused on issues that had already been raised by conservative activists in those states. They also are the type that would be expected from a conservative administration, he said, with the exception of the Colorado request. He called that 'well out of bounds.' 'This administration has prioritized grievance, even perceived grievance when there is no basis in fact,' said Levitt, who also served as a senior policy adviser in the Biden administration. 'And it's dismaying, but not surprising, that the civil rights division would do the same.' The department's request to Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, asked for all records relating to last year's presidential election. Federal law requires those to be kept for 22 months. In the request, the department stated it had received a complaint alleging that Griswold's office was not in compliance with federal law relating to voter registration. The request also directs Griswold to preserve any records of the 2020 election that might still be in the state's possession. Advertisement Griswold, in an interview, called the request a 'fishing expedition' and said her office responded by providing state voting files. 'I'm not even sure they know what they are looking for,' Griswold said. 'They can request all the data they want, and it's not going to prove anything.' In North Carolina, where Republican lawmakers recently wrested control of the state election board from the Democratic governor, Justice Department lawyers filed a lawsuit accusing state election officials of failing to ensure that all voter records include identifying information, such as a driver's license. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who oversees the civil rights division, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit that accurate voter rolls are critical to ensuring elections are conducted 'fairly, accurately, and without fraud.' The previous board had acknowledged the issue and updated the state's voter registration form. The new board leadership has vowed to address it. In Wisconsin, which Trump won in 2016 and 2024 but lost in 2020, department lawyers recently sent a letter to the state election commission accusing it of not providing a complaint process for those raising concerns. This comes as Republican state lawmakers are pushing legislation to expand the ability to appeal decisions made by the six-member commission, which is equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. Republican lawmakers have long complained about commission decisions they perceive as benefiting Democrats. The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a law firm that frequently defends Republicans on election issues, supports both efforts, said Lucas Vebber, the firm's deputy counsel. 'It's ensuring that Wisconsinites are entitled to have their complaints heard and adjudicated,' he said. 'As something as important as our elections, it's vital to ensure that process is transparent and available to everyone.' Advertisement Representative Lee Snodgrass, a Democrat on the Wisconsin Legislature's elections committee, said state law needs some tightening around how election complaints are handled, but she's dubious about the motives of the Trump administration and conservative activists in the state. They are looking for ways 'to cast doubt on election integrity, so if they don't get the results they want, they can cry foul,' Snodgrass said. In Arizona, DOJ lawyers said the state was not clearly telling voter registration applicants to provide a driver's license if they have one and asked the state to conduct a review to identify any noncitizens. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, responded by saying Arizona requires those registering to vote in state and local elections to provide proof of citizenship and conducts checks using the state's motor vehicle records. In Oregon, Justice Department lawyers weighed in on an ongoing lawsuit filed by the conservative group Judicial Watch. It alleges the state has failed to comply with federal laws on maintaining voter lists and making these records available for public inspection. John Powers, a former Justice Department attorney who now serves as legal director for the Advancement Project, said he was concerned about the moves coupled with the Justice Department's staff departures and its withdrawal from voting rights cases. Powers said he hoped, with midterm elections next year, that the department would not pursue minor technical issues in a way that could undermine public confidence in elections. 'I would be lying if I said I wasn't concerned about what the future might hold,' he said. Advertisement


The Hill
13 minutes ago
- The Hill
Cotton on Trump ICE pause on select industries: ‘I don't think we should pull back on any kind of enforcement'
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Boston Globe
21 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Inside Trump's extraordinary turnaround on immigration raids
She wasn't the first person to try to get this message through to the president, nor was it the first time she had spoken to him about it. But the president was persuaded. Advertisement The next morning, he posted a message on his social media platform, Truth Social, that took an uncharacteristically softer tone toward the very immigrants he has spent much of his political career demonizing. Immigrants in the farming and hospitality industries are 'very good, long time workers,' he said. 'Changes are coming.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Some influential Trump donors who learned about the post began reaching out to people in the White House, urging Trump to include the restaurant sector in any directive to spare workers living in the country illegally from enforcement. Inside the West Wing, top White House officials were caught off guard — and furious at Rollins. Many of Trump's top aides, particularly Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff, have urged a hard-line approach, targeting all immigrants without legal status to fulfill the president's promise of the biggest deportation campaign in American history. Advertisement But the decision had been made. Later on Thursday, a senior official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Tatum King, sent an email to regional leaders at the agency informing them of new guidance. Agents were to 'hold on all worksite enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels.' It remains to be seen how effective the order will be and whether Trump will stick with his decision. Raids at other worksites, like the one in Los Angeles's garment industry that led to mass protests, are still allowed. On Friday, the day after Trump issued the new guidance, farmworkers were being rounded up in the fields of Oxnard, 50 miles north of Los Angeles, according to advocates. But the president's decision to shield farmers and the hospitality industry — a business he knows well from his years as an owner of luxury hotels — reveals the tension between his deportation efforts and concerns about maintaining crucial support in his political coalition. This account of Trump's retreat is based on interviews with 11 people, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions. 'President Trump has always stood up for our farmers, who were a major part of his November victory, by working to negotiate fairer trade deals and cut red tape,' Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. 'He will continue to strengthen our agricultural industry and boost exports while keeping his promise to enforce our immigration laws and remove the millions of unvetted illegals who flooded into the United States under Joe Biden.' Advertisement The scope of Trump's immigration crackdown has unsettled some Republicans as the raids on farms began disrupting operations. More than 40 percent of the nation's crop workers have no legal immigration status, the Agriculture Department has estimated. On Tuesday, federal agents started fanning out across California's vast agricultural area, from along the coast to the Central Valley. The raids spread chaos in Oxnard, which grows much of the nation's strawberries, as well as in Kern and Tulare counties, where vegetables, grapes and delicate fruit, like peaches, are starting to be harvested. Growers reported that 30 percent to 60 percent of workers stopped reporting to the fields in the days after the raids. Agricultural associations in California, Idaho, and elsewhere, whose members are typically Republicans, have been bombarding their Senate and congressional offices to voice concerns. 'We all need to focus on convicted criminal aliens,' Representative Tony Gonzalez, Republican of Texas, said on CNN this past week. 'If we focus there and we're not going after the milker of cows who's, you know, in 103-degree weather, going after that guy and we're going after the convicted criminal, I think we're on the right path.' Representative Glenn Thompson, Republican of Pennsylvania, the chair of the House Agriculture Committee, said ICE raids at farms were 'just wrong.' 'They need to knock it off,' he told reporters this past week. 'Let's go after the criminals and give us time to put processes in place so we don't disrupt the food supply chain.' During an agriculture committee hearing Wednesday, he pressed Rollins about what the administration was doing to ensure ICE raids were not 'impacting food security.' Advertisement Rollins said she had spoken about the issue to Trump on Tuesday in the Oval Office and Wednesday morning. 'This president's commitment to ensuring that all laws are followed remains paramount,' Rollins said. But she added that Trump understood 'the significant challenges' in finding the necessary farm labor. Trump has often made policy exceptions for farmers, a key base of support. In his first term, he provided farmers with billions of dollars in aid amid a trade war with China. He deemed agricultural laborers to be essential workers during the coronavirus pandemic. He even allowed their employers to provide them with letters to show law enforcement so they would not be deported. In his second term, Trump has weighed a new round of emergency relief to farmers this year because of Trump's tariffs. 'It's entirely predictable that Trump would backpedal on enforcement in the sectors he cares about — hospitality, where his own businesses operate, and agriculture, where his voters are over represented,' said Wayne Cornelius, a professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, who researched immigrant labor. This article originally appeared in