president donald trump deploys national guard california
"Presidents set precedents and this one is escalatory, incendiary, and could come back to haunt all Americans," Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said June 8.
Trump's order gives 2,000 soldiers the authority to protect federal property like office buildings but no power to arrest civilians, according to a spokesperson for U.S. Northern Command, which is directing the operation. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also has put an active-duty Marine unit on orders to prepare to deploy to California.
The 300 members of the California National Guard who deployed Sunday to three sites in Los Angeles appeared to face little in the way of organized opposition, according to a Defense official who was not authorized to speak publicly. Their presence was a performative show of force, the official said, as their authority is clearly restricted.
Most of the Guard soldiers are military police officers whose day jobs typically are in civilian law enforcement. They understand the need for restraint, the official said. If they see a protester vandalize federal property, a Social Security Administration office, for example, they can detain the suspect and turn them over to local police.
Trump's order fell short of invoking the Insurrection Act, an 18th century law that gives the president authority to use the military to enforce federal law, suppress a rebellion or protect a group's civil rights if the state does not do so. It was last invoked in 1992 during by President George HW Bush at the request of California's governor in response to riots after police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King had been acquitted.
Trump and Hegseth's unilateral action over Newsom's objection sets dangerous precedent, Reed said in a statement.
"It is crucial that decisions of this magnitude are made with transparency, restraint, and respect for constitutional balance," Reed said. "The President and Defense Secretary should immediately stand down these troops and Congress should reject this dangerous overreaction."
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Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Investment glass seems half full near mid-point of 2025
LONDON, June 10 (Reuters) - A consequence of U.S. President Donald Trump's global economic upheaval seems to be greater "home bias" in investing - going some way toward explaining the year's relative performance while seeming chaos sows stimulus around the world. Many of the half-year appraisals of Trump's often erratic trade and economic agenda attempt to cut through policy noise to suggest where the world will ultimately pan out. Larry Fink, boss of BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, opined last week about a "second draft of globalization", one positioned somewhere between the rejected inequities of unfettered global trade and capital and another alternative of stifling economic nationalism and capital curbs. The new middle ground can still enjoy open markets, Fink reckons, but they will likely be steered, prodded and tempted home to ensure household savings first benefit the country of those doing the saving. "People will fuel their country's economic growth and own a piece of it," Fink argued in an op-ed in the Financial Times. For Fink, this "re-globalization" aims "not just to generate prosperity but to aim it towards the people and places left behind the first time." Trump's attempted re-industrialization of America is a version of this idea. Using trade barriers, bilateralism, carrots and sticks, he seeks to kick-start U.S. manufacturing while accepting that lower trade deficits will also see lower overseas investment flows to U.S. markets and smaller government to boot. The political pitch is to create more well-paid factory jobs instead of super-wealthy asset owners. Easier said than done. But whatever one thinks about Trump's "America First" strategy, that formula seems to be working best overseas. Germany's dramatic fiscal reboot this year, which was catalyzed by both Trumpism and far-right populism at home, also speaks to the new globalization theme. Europe at large now appears to be prioritizing investment in its own industrial base, security, digital infrastructure and green technologies - hoping to unleash both under-utilized savings at home and attract capital from Wall Street. Britain is apeing these industrial and defence policy trends, while Japan is attempting to unlock its domestic pension savings too. Meanwhile, Chinese fiscal stimulus has also risen. So while trade war jitters abound, it sets up potentially synched fiscal boosts next year. TS Lombard's Rory Green and Alexandros Xenofontos pointed out on Monday there could be strong fiscal stimuli in Europe, China and possibly the U.S. in 2026 - a trifecta that's only happened twice in 30 years, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. That possibility goes some way to explain why, despite all the market volatility and hype surrounding a U.S. cyclical slowdown, global stock markets are once again hitting record highs. It also explains why it's been a bad year for global sovereign bonds and the U.S. dollar - as stimulus requires more borrowing and foreign investors shed overweight U.S. holdings. Even though Wall Street stocks (.SPX), opens new tab are just about positive for the year, they are underperforming the likes of equity indexes in Germany (.GDAXI), opens new tab and Hong Kong (.HIS), opens new tab by 25%-40%. If even some of the estimated $7 trillion of European money that flowed into U.S. equities over the past dozen years were to be repatriated, markets would price such a move very quickly. And despite all the concern about the U.S. economic and political direction, American money is not rushing offshore. Mutual fund data shows net U.S. flows to global equity funds remain negative through this year. In fact, they're at their most negative in more than two years. Cash flowing to U.S. money market funds, meantime, has climbed back above $7 trillion again in the latest week, near the record high set in April. Does that data mean the ultimate outcome of Trump turning the world upside down could actually be positive? In an article for the Council on Foreign Relations' Foreign Affairs magazine titled"Tell Me How This Trade War Ends,", opens new tab Emily Kilcrease and Geoffrey Gertz reckon that despite all the Trump chaos, there is a "kernel of truth" in his insistence that the world trade system needs a re-set. They conclude there is no going back to a world where the U.S. championed ever freer trade. Neither is it inevitable that the world will retreat into outright protectionism, as long as Trump pushes other U.S. allies into a new, less-lopsided trading framework. "Trump's shock to the system may not be pretty. But it could open the way for a much better system," Kilcrease and Gertz wrote. "Trump has turned the United States into a revisionist power seeking to shatter what remains of the economic order. Thus far, his approach has been needlessly chaotic," they said. "But there is still an opportunity to wrest a positive outcome from the current tumult." At nearly the mid-point of the year, investors seem tempted by this "glass half full" view of 2025's disruption. The optimists are trying to see through the inevitable twists and turns ahead to focus on the possibility of a new, more positive equilibrium down the line. In truth, much remains murky and unknowable at this point. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Student loan quagmire frustrates borrowers - and alarms some Trump voters
June 10 (Reuters) - Kelly Belt, 33, a high school life-sciences teacher in Provo, Utah, is ready and willing to repay her student loans. But like 8 million other U.S. borrowers on an affordable repayment plan created by former President Joe Biden, she has not been able to for nearly a year. Federal courts halted parts of the Biden plan last spring and summer after Republican-led lawsuits and in February an appeals court blocked it altogether. But when Belt tried to switch to another plan in March - so she could resume payments - the Education Department had removed its online application portal. Even after the website was restored, it had technical problems that prevented Belt from switching to her preferred plan. Instead it offered Belt a third plan that would require her to make monthly payments of $608, more than triple her old rate of $198. The cost was more than she could afford on her public-school salary. President Donald Trump, who called Biden's efforts to alleviate crushing student loan debt "vile" on the campaign trail, is upending the system relied on by many of the 42.7 million Americans who borrowed money for their education and collectively owe more than $1.6 trillion in debt. Workforce cuts at the U.S. Department of Education, the ending of pandemic-era amnesty for defaulted borrowers, and the elimination of the most affordable repayment plans are impacting those with perfect repayment records like Belt as well as those delinquent in their payments who got amnesty during the pandemic but were required to start repaying their loans in May. Since Trump took office, thousands of complaints have poured in, according to internal data obtained by Reuters. The backlog of unprocessed applications for low-cost repayment plans has risen from 1,494,792 on February 4 to 1,985,726 on April 30, according to Education Department data. The Trump administration cut the Department of Education staff by 50% in March, vastly reducing its capacity to assist borrowers like Belt, according to six current or former department officials and student borrower advocates interviewed by Reuters. They say the changes are making it difficult for student loan borrowers to access affordable repayment plans just as the Trump administration is starting to crack down on borrowers who can't afford theirs. A Department of Education spokesperson blamed the Biden administration for the application backlog but acknowledged that the Trump administration had not started processing applications until three months after inauguration. The spokesperson did not comment on the number of complaints or the technical errors that prevented Belt from switching plans. In May, the Trump administration ended a pandemic-era program that allowed 5 million other borrowers who had defaulted on their loans to pause payments for five years. Those bills started coming due again in May; those who default face having their wages garnished. Trump is pushing to eliminate the most affordable loan repayment plans as part of the massive "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" now before the U.S. Senate. The Department of Education spokesperson said the bill would "simplify" the repayment process and hold "institutions financially accountable for defaulted student loans." In the meantime, Belt says she's struggled to sign up for a new plan via the department website or by calling the federal student aid help center where she has "been unable to get a hold of a person to help me navigate my options." The department has disbanded a support team that formerly reviewed and helped solve borrower complaints and removed a complaint button that used to appear prominently on every page of the department's student loan website, according to a current department official. Even so, through a harder-to-find "feedback" button, the agency has received 8,400 complaints about income-driven repayment plans since February 1, of which nearly half mention the plan Belt is now on, the official said. After she was unable to apply online, Belt mailed in a paper application for her preferred plan, but it might take months to process. Meanwhile, by the time her application is processed, her preferred plan could be outlawed by the tax-and-spending bill now before the Senate. Belt's predicament alarms her mother-in-law, Lesa Sandberg, one of 20 Trump voters Reuters is periodically interviewing about his administration's policies. Sandberg, who has been "on the Trump train" for a decade, said the administration is betraying its deal with borrowers like Belt by leaving them either unable to pay down their debt or stuck in unaffordable plans. Belt said she could have sought a more lucrative job, but she chose to teach at a public school in part because she was counting on affordable income-driven repayment options. "They make choices in their careers, based on having that loan program available, and now they don't. It's just wrong," Sandberg said. Sandberg says she still supports shuttering the Education Department because she favors state control over education. But she is disappointed that the administration has pursued that goal without allowing borrowers like her daughter-in-law to keep paying off their loans. "It doesn't look to me like there was a plan," Sandberg said. "I don't understand why people aren't inundating their representatives or even the White House with, 'what the heck are you going to do?'" 'I WISH I COULD REWIND THAT VOTE' Sandberg isn't the only Trump voter disappointed by how his administration is making student loan repayment more complicated. Tammy Sabens, 64, a grandmother in Kentucky, borrowed $25,000 in the 2000s to go back to school for a nursing degree. Today, accrued interest has left her with a nearly $52,000 balance, leaving her unable to retire despite a doctor's recommendation that she do so for her health. Sabens voted for Trump in November because she "didn't want our economy to turn into a socialist economy, which seemed to be the way it was heading under Biden," she said. But she, like Belt, was dismayed when the federal portal for changing repayment plans went down for a month, preventing her from adjusting her monthly payment to reflect her current income. Instead, she had to enter the same limbo as Belt, unable to make progress toward repaying her loan. "Boy, I wish I could rewind that vote," Sabens said of the ballot she cast for Trump. "I can't sleep at night worrying about all this stuff."
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Trump tax bill squeeze on clean power could raise energy bills
June 10 - President Trump's tax bill passed by the House of Representatives on May 22 is set to slow the country's clean energy expansion by accelerating the expiry of key tax credits introduced under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and making them harder to access. The bill, which is now being debated by the Senate, shortens the window for developers to start and complete new clean energy projects in order to qualify for a production tax credit (PTC) or an investment tax credit (ITC). Developers would have to begin construction within 60 days of the bill's enactment and the project must become operational before the end of 2028 in order to access the tax credits. The inflation act stipulated these tax credits would be available until at least 2032. Solar and battery storage activity soared on the back of falling costs and tax credits but President Trump's rollback of clean energy support and prioritisation of fossil fuels will curb activity in the coming years, industry experts warn. "Requiring a range of advanced energy projects to commence construction within 60 days of enactment, along with moving up the 'placed in service' deadline to 2028, will pull the rug out from a host of projects in active development and effectively end use of the ITC & PTC going forward," Advanced Energy United, an association supporting low carbon power and transport, said in a statement. CHART: US planned power generation installs in 2025 If approved, the bill could see a surge in clean energy investments in the short-term as developers rush to meet new construction deadlines, followed by a "big drop," Gautam Jain, Senior Research Scholar, Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, told Reuters Events. Approval of the bill would see a lot of projects trying to start construction within 60 days, John Powers, Schneider Electric's VP for Cleantech and Renewables, said. For companies with renewable energy or carbon reduction targets, 'it's the time to be proactive in the market,' Powers noted. Join hundreds of senior executives across energy, industry and finance at Reuters Events Global Energy Transition 2025. Beyond the short-term bump, the bill would "have an adverse impact on deployment," Jain warned. In the long run, this would likely lead to "higher electricity costs for consumers," he said, since the levelised cost of solar and other clean power sources have dropped significantly over the last 10 to 15 years and are often lower than the cost of gas-fired power. Import worries Trump's cutbacks to clean energy support and higher import tariffs and have created major uncertainty for developers and manufacturers. Clean power developer RWE has introduced higher requirements for future investments in the U.S. since the start of the year, a spokesperson told Reuters Events. RWE owns and operates over 10 GW of US clean power capacity and has over 4 GW under construction. "In addition to a stable incentive framework, all necessary federal permits must be in place, all relevant tariff risks mitigated and projects must have secured offtake at the time of the investment decision," the spokesperson said. "Only if these conditions are met will further investments be possible, given the uncertain policy environment.' CHART: Levelised cost of US utility-scale solar Developers are concerned about another restriction in Trump's tax bill that would prevent developers and manufacturers from gaining tax credits if they source components from foreign entities of concern (FEOC). This includes China, a key global supplier of components for solar, wind and battery storage. The bill has slowed the expansion of U.S. clean energy manufacturing as suppliers await clarity before making investments in new factories. Developers and manufacturers are already facing higher costs due to hikes in import tariffs imposed by President Trump. Developers had feared the bill would also restrict the transferability of tax credits, a mechanism which has expanded financing sources for small and mid-size developers, but following a last-minute change this was left intact for the life cycle of the tax credits. The bill also reflected more kindly on nuclear power developers by giving them a later deadline of breaking ground by the end of 2028 in order to qualify for tax credits. Trump wants to accelerate a new wave of nuclear plant construction and on May 23 he ordered the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to streamline regulations and fast-track new licenses for reactors. In March, the DOE reissued a tender for $900 million of federal funding towards light water reactor (LWR) SMR technology (Gen III+), removing a requirement for community engagement. Senate scrutiny Trump has said he wants Senate approval and a final bill on his desk by July 4 but many Republican Senators have seen benefits from the tax credits in their states and the bill may be adapted and sent back to the House. The Senate tends to be a moderating force in comparison to the House, David A. Sausen, partner at Arnold and Porter, noted. 'I think there's some hope that some of the more extreme measures here will be dialed back,' he told Reuters Events. For exclusive insights on the energy transition, sign up to our newsletter. The clean energy sector has called for less drastic changes to the tax credits along with greater clarity on the foreign entity measures, which could take time. The foreign entity rules would take effect on January 1, 2026, under the current bill. 'I'm getting a lot of concern from clients that it's going to be very difficult to interpret these (foreign entity) rules,' Sausen said. The current language of the rules is "fundamentally unworkable," Advanced Energy United said. The foreign entity rules must be clarified and should not deter manufacturing investment, Schneider Electric's Chief Policy Officer Jeannie Salo told Reuters Events. 'Let's remember the underlying goals of the want a tax policy to bring down the deficit, of course, but they want a tax policy that's going to attract more manufacturing and investment into the United States," Salo said. "We need to make sure that there aren't provisions in the bill that inadvertently disrupt that goal.'
