Photos of 'Good Trouble' protests across the US, from Chicago to Mar-a-Lago
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
15 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
As Trump shows off his golf courses for Britain's leader, crisis in Gaza looms
EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) — President Donald Trump once suggested his golf course in Scotland 'furthers" the U.S.-U.K. relationship. Now he's getting the chance to prove it. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is meeting Monday with Trump at a golf property owned by the president's family near Turnberry in southwestern Scotland — then later traveling to Abderdeen, on the country's northeast coast, where there's another Trump golf course and a third is opening soon. During his first term in 2019, Trump posted of his Turnberry property, 'Very proud of perhaps the greatest golf course anywhere in the world. Also, furthers U.K. relationship!' Starmer is not a golfer, but toggling between Trump's Scottish courses shows the outsized influence the president puts on properties bearing his name — and on golf's ability to shape geopolitics. However, even as Trump may want to focus on showing off his golf properties, Starmer will try to center the conversation on more urgent global matters. He plans to urge Trump to press Israel to allow more aid into Gaza and attempt to end what Downing St. called 'the unspeakable suffering and starvation' in the territory, while pushing for a ceasefire in Israel's war with Hamas. Britain, along with France and Germany, has criticized Israel for 'withholding essential humanitarian assistance' as hunger spread in Gaza. Over the weekend, Starmer said Britain will take part in efforts led by Jordan to airdrop aid after Israel temporarily eased restrictions. But British Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds acknowledged Monday that only the U.S. has 'the leverage' to make a real difference in the conflict. Still, asked about the crisis in Gaza on Sunday night, Trump was largely dismissive — focused more on how he's not personally gotten credit for previous attempts to provide food aid. 'It's terrible. You really at least want to have somebody say, 'Thank you,'' Trump said. The president added, 'It makes you feel a little bad when you do that" without what he considered proper acknowledgement. Starmer is under pressure from his Labour Party lawmakers to follow France in recognizing a Palestinian state, a move both Israel and the U.S. have condemned. The British leader says the U.K. supports statehood for the Palestinians but that it must be 'part of a wider plan' for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Also on Monday's agenda, according to Starmer's office, are efforts to promote a possible peace deal to end fighting in Russia's war with Ukraine — particularly efforts at forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table in the next 50 days. Trump in the past sharply criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for also failing to express enough public gratitude toward U.S. support for his country, taking a similar tack he's now adopting when it comes to aid for Gaza. The president, though, has shifted away from that tone and more sharply criticized Putin and Russia in recent weeks. On Tuesday, Trump will be at the site of his new course near Aberdeen for an official ribbon-cutting. It opens to the public on Aug. 13 and tee times are already for sale — with the course betting that a presidential visit can help boost sales. Protesters have planned a demonstration in Balmedie, near Trump's existing Aberdeen golf course, after demonstrators took to the streets across Scotland on Saturday to decry the president's visit while he was golfing. Starmer and Trump are likely to find more common ground on trade issues. While China initially responded to Trump's tariff threats by retaliating with high import taxes of its own on U.S. goods, it has since begun negotiating to ease trade tensions. Starmer and his country have taken a far softer approach. He's gone out of his way to work with Trump, flattering the president repeatedly during a February visit to the White House, and teaming up to announce a joint trade framework on tariffs for some key products in May. Starmer and Trump then signed a trade agreement during the G7 summit in Canada that freed the U.K.'s aerospace sector from U.S. tariffs and used quotas to reduce them on auto-related industries from 25% to 10% while increasing the amount of U.S. beef it pledged to import. Discussions with Starmer follow a Trump meeting Sunday with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen at his Turnberry course. They announced a trade framework that will put 15% tariffs on most goods from both countries, though many major details remain pending. The president has for months railed against yawning U.S. trade deficits around the globe and sees tariffs as a way to try and close them in a hurry. But the U.S. ran an $11.4 billion trade surplus with Britain last year, meaning it exported more to the U.K. than it imported. Census Bureau figures this year indicate that the surplus could grow. There are still lingering U.S.-Britain trade issues that need fine-tuning. The deal framework from May said British steel would enter the U.S. duty-free, but it continues to face a 25% levy. U.K. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said Monday that 'negotiations have been going on on a daily basis' and 'there's a few issues to push a little bit further today,' though he downplayed expectations of a resolution. The leader of Scotland, meanwhile, said he will urge Trump to lift the current 10% tariff on Scotch whisky. First Minister John Swinney said the spirit's 'uniqueness' justified an exemption. Even as some trade details linger and both leaders grapple with increasingly difficult choices in Gaza and Ukraine, however, Starmer's staying on Trump's good side appears to be working — at least so far.
Time Magazine
16 minutes ago
- Time Magazine
The Chaotic, Fantastical World of Donald Trump's Tariffs
President Donald Trump has vociferously portrayed import tariffs as an instrument of economic policy for rewriting the global trade script in favor of the United States. The sales pitch is alluring: tariffs as a tool to negotiate better terms and extract concessions from trading partners, boost government revenues, eliminate trade deficits, and revive manufacturing jobs on American soil. As is well understood by economists, a country's trade policy, which includes tariffs, is not an important determinant of its balance of trade. Any country's trade surplus or deficit is determined by its macroeconomic conditions, as reflected in the gap between what that country saves and what it invests. The core drivers of trade deficit or trade surplus are fiscal and monetary policies: the government's decisions on taxation and public spending and those by a central bank to influence the money supply and credit conditions. Moreover, import tariffs won't generate the revenues Trump promises as the U.S. negotiates numerous bilateral trade deals. And Trump's pitch of bringing back manufacturing jobs for American workers is wishful thinking. If manufacturing revives in the U.S., those jobs will go to robots; the firms won't be hiring American workers, whose high wages they can't afford. The seductive rhetoric of Trump tariffs hides a combination of contradictions, wishful thinking, and superficial understanding of economics, which sells America a mirage and threatens to weaken the stability of the global trading system. The fault with the numbers Combining economic nationalism with his flair for the dramatic, President Trump christened April 2 as 'Liberation Day' and announced 'reciprocal tariffs' on imports from virtually all countries. The tariff hikes were calculated to eliminate the U.S. trade deficit with each country by reducing its imports by an amount equaling America's current bilateral trade deficit with that country. Then, a 50% discount was applied on the calculated tariffs and the 'reciprocal tariffs' were announced. And a base rate of 10% was put in place to ensure taxation on imports from every country. The tariffs imposed by the U.S. were hardly reciprocal: 46% on Vietnam, whose own average import tariff is 9%; 32% on Taiwan, whose own import tariffs on average are barely 2%; 26% on India, with an average import tariff of 12%; and 25% on South Korea, whose import tariffs average 8%. Foreign exporters alone don't pay for tariffs. The Trump Administration significantly underestimated the impact these tariffs would have on American consumers. The administration's calculations incorrectly assume that American consumers of imports—including American producers who use imported inputs—bear only 25% of the cost of tariffs. But most high-quality studies show that nearly all the cost of tariffs is passed on to these consumers and businesses. If that faulty assumption were corrected, the 'reciprocal tariffs' would have been half their proclaimed rates and much less costly for America's trading partners, its own consumers and import-using producers. Equally important, the Trump Administration overstated the benefits of its tariffs and underestimated their economic costs by neglecting the role of exchange rates and the nature of global supply chains. An increase in tariffs induces exchange rate movements that at least partially offset the effects of the tariffs on the trade balance. American industries rely on global supply chains, and imported inputs are necessary for the production of American exports. Import barriers also act as export barriers and higher import tariffs hobble the competitiveness of American corporations in global markets. Moreover, the Trump Administration has been inconsistent with its stated objective of using tariffs to eliminate their bilateral trade deficits. The administration announced a baseline 'Liberation Day' tariff of 10% even on countries—Australia and Brazil, for instance—with whom the U.S. has a trade surplus. The U.S. generally has a surplus in service trade with many countries but the administration seems to have disregarded it. One of the most important American service exports is higher education but the Trump Administration in this case has displayed blatant disregard for trade balance with its multi-pronged attack on universities and its hostility to international students. Read More: Trump's War on Education Is Driving Academics Like Me to Europe Rattling the global economy Unsurprisingly, the Trump 'reciprocal tariffs' had an immediate negative impact on global stock markets and the U.S. bond market and forced a 90-day pause in their implementation. The administration announced that during these 90 days, the U.S. will be clinching 90 trade deals. The deadline for finalizing bilateral trade deals was extended from early July to August but the likelihood of concluding even a small fraction of the Trump Administration's target of 90 deals by then is remote. Trade deals have been finalized with the United Kingdom in June, with the Philippines and Japan in July. Framework deals with China and Vietnam have been agreed upon, and a mini-deal with India is expected soon. The Trump tariffs shocked the emerging economies, which have benefitted considerably from free trade and globalization over past three or four decades. China, India and Vietnam have experienced phenomenal annual economic growth—six to 10%—and lifted hundreds of millions of their citizens above the poverty line. They are bound to resist barriers on their products entering the massive American market. Economic nationalism and domestic politics impose important constraints on every country. Major economies like China and India have been negotiating trade deals with the U.S. and so far they have strongly resisted being bullied into accepting all of Trump Administration's demands. In fact, they have been quite aggressive in their negotiations with the U.S. and ready to retaliate. Beijing responded to Trump's 145% tariff rate with a 125% tariff rate of its own. After that dangerous escalation in their trade war, the U.S. and China agreed to a temporary truce in May. China reduced its tariffs on American imports from 125% to 10% and the U.S. reciprocated by reducing its tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 55%. In late June, Washington and Beijing arrived at a framework agreement to make their temporary truce more permanent. The U.S. has relaxed restrictions on visas for Chinese students. Beijing has adopted a system of licenses to somewhat ease rare-earth export controls and Washington has lifted some controls on technology-related exports. India is a strategic ally but that doesn't make it a pushover as it negotiates a trade deal with the United States. The considerable political power Indian farmers wield has led New Delhi to refuse the American demand for complete access to the country's agricultural and dairy markets. Washington complained at the World Trade Organization (WTO) of India's protectionism, objecting to its veterinary certification requirements for dairy products coming in. India proposed imposing retaliatory tariffs—that comply with WTO rules—in response to the high steel, aluminum and auto-parts tariffs by the U.S. An interim mini-deal between India and the U.S. is expected to be completed by August to avoid India being slapped with the 'Liberation Day' tariffs. The deal is expected to incorporate the straightforward parts: a reduction in U.S. import tariffs on Indian textiles and apparel from 26% to 10%; Indian tariff reductions on U.S. grown nuts and some fruits. And some reductions on the automotive sector. The trickier questions of food grains and major dairy products are expected to be left out for now. The mini-deal will likely be transformed into a more comprehensive one by late fall. A framework deal with Vietnam, a much smaller country and a strategic partner, has been much more asymmetric than in the case of India and China. The Trump Administration agreed to a reduction in the 'Liberation Day' tariff rate of 46% on Vietnam to a base rate of 20% but it insisted on a 40% tariff rate on transshipped products, aimed mainly at Chinese companies trying to dodge the high American tariffs on China's exports to the U.S. However, it needs to be recognized that in this age of global supply chains a manufacturing hub like Vietnam is likely to be processing inputs imported from other countries. Since 2001, the U.S. and Vietnam had a bilateral trade agreement of very low tariffs, and the new framework deal requires Vietnam to continue with imposing zero tariffs on American exports. The Trump deal imposes substantial costs on Vietnam, one third of whose GDP comes from exports to the United States. Read More: American Health Care Will Suffer Under Trump's Tariffs America, the unreliable Nobody knows what Trump will do tomorrow. The Trump tariffs are creating uncertainty for the American and the global economy. Companies need stability in economic policy to decide on the location and quantum of their investments, on the scale of hiring workers, on building new production capacities, and supply chains. The uncertainty adversely affects output and employment in America and the rest of the world. Most countries negotiating trade deals with the U.S. are aware of Trump's proclivity for reneging on agreements. In his first term, President Trump signed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement and had the highest praise for it. Trump began his second term by reneging on that deal and announcing high tariffs on Canada and Mexico—offering the rationale of growing fentanyl supply and illegal immigration to the U.S. from both countries, a justification especially flimsy in the Canadian case. Recently, Trump threatened to impose an additional 10% tariff on BRICS countries for their alleged efforts to create an alternative to the U.S. dollar in international transactions. And the U.S. president later also threatened a 50% tariff on imports from Brazil to try to stop the prosecution of his friend and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Such threats are illegal under American and WTO laws. Given this uncertain state of affairs, the Liberation Day tariffs might ultimately steer emerging economies toward working on negotiating additional trade agreements with other major economies, in order to ensure a large enough market for their products. By erecting these extremely high tariff barriers and undermining and weakening the WTO, the Trump Administration has seriously damaged the world trading system. Consequently, it might end up pushing the rest of the world away and sowing the seeds of American own isolation and irrelevance.
16 minutes ago
First to ABC: DNC ramps up anti-redistricting efforts in Texas with calls to 'persuadable' GOP voters
The national Democratic Party is ramping up its offensive against potential mid-decade redistricting in Texas with a new organizing effort launching Monday, according to plans shared first with ABC News. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) says it will deploy 30,000 volunteers to make calls to "persuadable Republican Texas voters" in Republican-held districts to discuss the push by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas state legislators -- and rubber-stamped by President Donald Trump -- to consider redrawing Texas' congressional map, which the DNC claims in a statement is an attempt to "rig the Texas maps at the behest of Donald Trump." The group will also have volunteer organizers contact state representatives, share public comments, and organize both in person and virtually. This endeavor from the Democrats comes as Texas lawmakers convene for a special legislative session called by Abbott, who set an agenda that included considering congressional district redistricting "in light of constitutional concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice." In a letter earlier this month, the Department of Justice told Texas that four majority-minority districts represented by Democrats needed to be redrawn, arguing they were "unconstitutional racial gerrymanders." The Texas legislature is also set to tackle flood relief after the devastating flash flooding that killed more than 130 people earlier this month, taxes, and standardized testing during the session, which can last a maximum of 30 days. Trump told reporters recently he wants his party to pick up five seats if Texas redraws its congressional map, and has suggested that other Republican-led states could follow suit. Democrats claim that the efforts to redistrict is meant to give Republicans an advantage ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The DNC says it has already sent text messages to recruit Texans to go to field hearings and to share stories through public comments about how redrawing the districts could impact them. DNC Chair Ken Martin traveled to the state last week to strategize with state leaders. "The DNC is all hands on deck to hold Donald Trump and Greg Abbott accountable for their scheme to use the tragic Texas floods as cover to redraw the Texas maps in a last-ditch effort to save the Republican majority," Martin told ABC News in a statement. "Republicans know that the only way they hold onto the majority is by rigging the system but it won't work. Democrats will hold Republicans across the country accountable for their vote to rip away health care and food access and that starts with organizing from the ground up," he added. Texas state Rep. Gene Wu, the Texas Democratic House Caucus Leader, wrote in a statement thanking the DNC shared with ABC News, "Their new initiative to contact persuadable Republican voters across the state and deploy organizers directly against Republican state reps is exactly the type of partnership Texas Democrats need." Monday's effort comes ahead of the third in a series of field hearings about redistricting being held in different areas of Texas, and as some Democratic governors including California Gov. Gavin Newsom say they are keeping options open for possibly redrawing their state's own Congressional districts, but many would face logistical and legal hurdles to redraw their maps mid-cycle. In a statement earlier this month responding to Democratic claims about the redistricting effort, Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, wrote, "While partisan activists focus solely on political issues, Governor Abbott is dedicated to delivering results on issues important to Texans, such as flood relief, property tax cuts, and the elimination of the STAAR [standardized] test. The Governor looks forward to the legislature addressing these topics, along with other critical issues, during this special session." The Texas Republican Party, meanwhile, has praised the inclusion of redistricting in the special session as "an essential step to preserving GOP control in Congress and advancing the President Trump's America First agenda."
