Three Trump officials told Sophia Cai of Politico that DOGE staffers embedded in agencies across the government are expanding government cooperation with immigration officials, using the information they’re gleaning from government databases to facilitate deportation. On Tuesday, DOGE software engineer Aram Moghaddassi sent the first 6,300 names of individuals whose temporary legal status had just been canceled. On the list, which Moghaddassi said covered those on “the terror watch list” or with “F.B.I. criminal records,” were eight minors, including one 13-year-old.
The Social Security Administration worked with the administration to get those people to “self-deport” by adding them to the agency's “death master file.” That file is supposed to track people whose death means they should no longer receive benefits. Adding to it people the administration wants to erase is “financial murder,” former SSA commissioner Martin O’Malley told Alexandra Berzon, Hamed Aleaziz, Nicholas Nehamas, Ryan Mac, and Tara Siegel Bernard of the New York Times. Those people will not be able to use credit cards or banks.
On Tuesday, Acting Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Melanie Krause resigned after the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security agreed to share sensitive taxpayer data with immigration authorities. Undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes, in part to demonstrate their commitment to citizenship, and the government has promised immigrants that it would not use that information for immigration enforcement. Until now, the IRS has protected sensitive taxpayer information.
Rene Marsh and Marshall Cohen of CNN note that “[m]ultiple senior career IRS officials refused to sign the data-sharing agreement with DHS,” which will enable HHS officials to ask the IRS for names and addresses of people they suspect are undocumented, “because of grave concerns about its legality.” Ultimately, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signed the agreement with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
Krause was only one of several senior career officials leaving the IRS, raising concerns among those staying that there is no longer a “defense against the potential unlawful use of taxpayer data by the Trump administration.”
Makena Kelly of Wired reported today that for the past three days, DOGE staffers have been working with representatives from Palantir and career engineers from the IRS in a giant “hackathon.” Their goal is to build a system that will be able to access all IRS records, including names, addresses, job data, and Social Security numbers, that can then be compared with data from other agencies.
But the administration’s attempt to automate deportation is riddled with errors. Last night the government sent threatening emails to U.S. citizens, green card holders, and even a Canadian (in Canada) terminating “your parole” and giving them seven days to leave the U.S. One Massachusetts-born immigration lawyer asked on social media: “Does anyone know if you can get Italian citizenship through great-grandparents?”
April 10, 2025
Trump’s retreat
Eric Lee/The New York Times
When it comes to tariffs, President Trump is a creature of habit.
He first rolls out new levies with bluster. He claims they will solve a major problem: They’ll help stop fentanyl trafficking across the Mexican and Canadian borders. They’ll bring back manufacturing. They’ll rebalance trade. They’ll collect trillions in revenue.
Soon, the markets panic. Investors worry about the higher prices and lower economic growth that tariffs will cause. Stocks tank. Business leaders call the White House to complain — or, worse, vent publicly about Trump and his methods.
Then, the president rolls back his plans. We reached that final stage yesterday. Trump paused his so-called reciprocal tariffs on every nation but China for 90 days. The move leaves a universal 10 percent tariff on all other countries except Canada and Mexico, which face separate duties. But it undoes some of the most shocking tolls — 20 percent on the European Union, 24 percent on Japan, 46 percent on Vietnam.
Markets rallied at the news. The S&P 500, which had flirted with bear-market territory, shot up almost 10 percent. But stocks haven’t fully recovered from the chaotic “Liberation Day” announcement last week, and the United States remains in an open trade war with China, which faces a 125 percent penalty on its goods. And what happens when the pause ends? Today’s newsletter looks at the fallout from this latest tariff episode.
Unclear goals
The Port of Los Angeles. Maggie Shannon for The New York Times
From the start, the president has faced one key question about his plan: What’s the point?
On the campaign trail, Trump spoke about the need for tariffs to revitalize U.S. manufacturing, and JD Vance fantasized about once again making toasters in America. Trump also said the tolls would bring in tax revenue.
But neither of these goals — manufacturing and revenue — is achievable unless the tariffs remain in place. Manufacturers won’t shift production back to the United States if they think the incentive to do so will soon disappear.
Some of Trump’s allies have built a different case for tariffs: that they are a negotiating tactic, one that gets other countries to remove their own trade barriers against the United States. But this implies that the tariffs are fleeting and will vanish when Trump lands new trade deals.
In other words, the stated goals contradict each other.
Trump’s announcement yesterday muddled things further. On one hand, Trump and his cabinet said that the pause would give them time to complete new trade deals, suggesting that they were a negotiating tactic. On the other hand, Trump is keeping the 10 percent universal tariffs. Are they now permanent? The administration hasn’t provided a clear answer.
If the intention was hard to parse, so were the methods. “Only an hour or so ago, Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, stood in front of the White House and said that the reversal on tariffs was the president’s strategy ‘all along,’” my colleague Ben Casselman wrote yesterday. “Now Trump himself is saying that he made the decision in response to the market turmoil.”
One reason for the mixed message is disagreement within the administration. [Behind the scenes, senior members of Mr. Trump’s team had feared a financial panic that could spiral out of control and potentially devastate the economy. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others on the president’s team, including Vice President JD Vance, had been pushing for a more structured approach to the trade conflict that would focus on isolating China as the worst actor while still sending a broader message that Mr. Trump was serious about cracking down on trade imbalances.]
Over the weekend, Bessent pressed Trump to use the tariffs to get concessions. (He said the president “is the most deft negotiator there is,” according to an inside look at White House deliberations that my colleagues published yesterday.) Trump refused, believing the market pain was “short-term.” He changed his mind after the bond market faltered.
What’s next
Once the pause ends in 90 days, we could go through another round of economic chaos. That kind of uncertainty has rattled markets throughout Trump’s second term, and it will likely continue as long as the tariff threat looms.
It’s easy to forget, but Trump’s original idea on the campaign trail — the one that alarmed economists to begin with — was a universal 10 percent tariff. Now he has it. That levy is still one of the largest tax hikes since World War II. It will lead to higher prices and slower growth, and poorer Americans will disproportionately pay for it. The United States will suffer more from the ensuing trade war than any other major economy besides Mexico, experts estimate.
Trump has undone some of the expected damage by abandoning his plan, for now. But America still taxes trade much more than it did before Trump’s presidency — and that will continue to roil the world’s economy.
More on tariffs
China makes lots of the clothing Americans buy, as well as toys and electronics. Here’s a guide to how the tariffs could affect prices.
Ratings at Fox Business and CNBC have soared.
Canada expects to raise billions from retaliatory tariffs, and it has promised to use the money to help companies under threat from the U.S.
Trump’s auto tariff hasn’t changed. People in the English town of Solihull, where Jaguar Land Rover employs thousands, are stressed.
Trump spared Russia from tariffs. But falling oil prices could hurt its economy even more. Plunge in Oil Prices Threatens Russia’s Vast Spending on Ukraine War The lower revenues, a result in part of President Trump’s trade war, could prove more damaging to the Russian economy than the penalties the United States and its allies have already imposed.
China makes lots of the clothing Americans buy, as well as toys and electronics. Here’s a guide to how the tariffs could affect prices.
Ratings at Fox Business and CNBC have soared.
Canada expects to raise billions from retaliatory tariffs, and it has promised to use the money to help companies under threat from the U.S.
Trump’s auto tariff hasn’t changed. People in the English town of Solihull, where Jaguar Land Rover employs thousands, are stressed.
Trump spared Russia from tariffs. But falling oil prices could hurt its economy even more. Plunge in Oil Prices Threatens Russia’s Vast Spending on Ukraine War The lower revenues, a result in part of President Trump’s trade war, could prove more damaging to the Russian economy than the penalties the United States and its allies have already imposed.
A Leadership Crisis Compounds the Decline of the Palestinian Cause
RAMALLAH, West Bank—The Palestinians’ national cause has reached its lowest ebb in nearly 80 years, and there is no one to turn it around.
The Gaza Strip is in ruins. Many residents might leave or be pushed out following the war sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Palestinian territory in the West Bank is divided by ever-expanding Israeli settlements. Middle East countries have been building ties with Israel, and allies such as Iran and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah were battered by Israeli attacks last year.
Palestinians, meanwhile, are fighting with each other, caught between violent groups such as Hamas and the secular nationalist party Fatah, which governs parts of the West Bank and is widely seen as corrupt and ineffective.
No third force has been able to break that duopoly. No new generation is emerging in either party to offer a fresh vision or strategy.
Opinion polling has been difficult and intermittent during the war, but in a survey last fall by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a think tank in Ramallah, 35% of Gazans said they supported Hamas. In the West Bank, Fatah, which dominates the Palestinian Authority, fared even worse, with support reaching just 18%.
One thing many Palestinians agree on is how much internal divisions have weakened them in the unequal struggle with Israel.
The dream of Palestinian statehood was already gathering dust in the years before the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks that killed 1,200, left 251 as hostages and sparked a year and a half of war. The failure of the peace process under the 1990s Oslo Accords left the Palestinian Authority as little more than a junior partner in Israel’s continuing occupation of the West Bank, rather than a steppingstone to independence.
Around 2010, the majority of both Palestinians and Israelis stopped believing in the two-state solution—dividing the land to end the century-old conflict. Meanwhile Israel was building friendly relations with several Arab countries, bypassing the Palestinians.
Hamas hoped the Oct. 7 attack would revive the Palestinian cause while putting itself at the head. For many months afterward, around 70% of Palestinians approved of the attack, mainly because it put the Palestinian issue back in the global spotlight, according to several surveys by the PCPSR.
But public opinion turned, especially in Gaza, as the war brought far more pain than gain. Just over half of respondents still approved of the Oct. 7 attack as of last fall, including 39% in Gaza.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 50,000 people, according to local health authorities, who don’t say how many were combatants. Much of the enclave lies in ruins, and the bulk of its population of more than two million people has been displaced multiple times.
While the exact death toll remains uncertain, there is little doubt more Palestinian civilians and fighters have been killed in Gaza than in any previous round of fighting in the century-old conflict, including the 1948 war that saw the foundation of Israel and the flight or expulsion of around 750,000 Palestinians from their homes.
With Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah faring badly in fighting with Israel last year, and Sunni Arab governments acting only as diplomatic mediators, it is the Palestinians rather than Israel who are growing more isolated in the Middle East.
“October 7 is a turning point in the history of the conflict—the last nail in the coffin of a two-state solution based on 1967 borders,” said Hussein Ibish, a scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “Palestinians can see the end of their national project coming, and Hamas just made it more plausible.”
Fatah supporters have also grown disillusioned with party leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is also president of the Palestinian Authority. The 89-year-old veteran of the Palestinian struggle was once seen as a more moderate successor to the longtime national figurehead Yasser Arafat. But he’s now widely seen as merely clinging to office after blocking elections for nearly 20 years. Between 80% and 90% of Palestinians want him to resign, the PCPSR’s surveys have found.
Among the limited political alternatives on offer, some surveys say the left-wing leader who enjoys the most support, and could beat Abbas and other unloved leaders of Fatah and Hamas in a head-to-head presidential election is Marwan Barghouti, who has been in an Israeli jail since 2002 for his role in the violent Second Intifada. But Israel’s government is steadfastly opposed to releasing him.
Thousands of working people in New York City live in shelters, unable to afford apartments despite holding down decent-paying jobs.
April 9, 2025
The Latest From Trump Land
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| The Supreme Court. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times |
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Trump’s global tariffs took effect. Includes104% Tariff on China.
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| Workers in Guangzhou, China. Qilai Shen for The New York Times |
President Trump’s global tariffs took effect this morning. They hit nearly all U.S. allies and raised import taxes on Chinese goods to at least 104 percent. Stocks slumped in Asia and Europe in response. Investors are worried about a global recession. (Read the latest news here.)
China has retaliated with its own tariffs, set to take effect at midday, and the European Union is preparing a response. Many world leaders are trying to negotiate. Trump said 70 governments had approached the U.S., and many have scheduled phone calls and sent delegations to Washington. The administration is expected to begin talks with Japan and South Korea.
Still confused by the tariffs? These charts will answer all your questions.
- Elon Musk called Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks” as tensions between the two exploded.
- Trump wants to eliminate trade deficits with every U.S. trading partner. Many economists say that doesn’t make sense.
- The global trading system is another example of the Trump administration tearing something apart, only to reveal that it has no plan to replace it, David Sanger writes.
What rights do migrants [Or Americans] have?
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| In Maiquetía, Venezuela. Cristian Hernandez/Associated Press |
Immigrants’ rights
This week, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump to deport planeloads of Venezuelan migrants. Trump called the ruling a victory, but it came with a catch: The administration’s rationale can still be challenged, and it must ensure that would-be deportees have their day in court. “All nine members of the court agree that judicial review is available,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in his concurrence.
Of all Trump’s actions so far, few have alarmed democracy scholars more than his mass deportations of migrants without a hearing. Why? Experts see a precedent that could undermine the liberties of all Americans.
Your right to due process — your day in court — underpins all of your other rights. If a prosecutor wants to deny you freedom and lock you up, she has to make her case. If a police officer illegally violates your privacy and searches your house to try to prove a crime, a trial can verify if he gathered the evidence legitimately. If Congress passes a law that lets officials arrest you for your political speech or religious beliefs, a court challenge can get the statute overturned.
It turns out that some of the Venezuelan migrants who were packed into planes and shipped to a prison in El Salvador may not be the gang members who officials say they are. That fact could have come out in hearings. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain why our constitutional system depends on due process — and what might happen without it.
Getting heard
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| A state-provided image of Venezuelan migrants in El Salvador. Agence France-Presse, via El Salvador's Presidency Press |
Trump and his allies argue that his deportations last month targeted criminal migrants — specifically, Venezuelans who were not citizens and were part of a gang, Tren de Aragua. But his administration never had to prove those claims in court. A judge never checked the government’s work.
And the government made mistakes. Officials rounded up migrants based on their clothes and tattoos, arguing they were proof of gang membership. A judge would bring skepticism to such claims. Several migrants say the government got it wrong with its crude approach.
One migrant says his tattoo is a crown that merely honors the soccer team Real Madrid. Another, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, had protected legal status. The administration acknowledged it shouldn’t have deported him immediately, and a lower court ordered his return. The Supreme Court has put that order on hold for now.
These cases show the importance of due process. Governments mess up. Sometimes, officials act maliciously and abuse their power. The Constitution has an answer to those problems: A defendant’s day in court forces the state to prove that its actions are justifiable and lawful.
The administration has also made several other unprecedented immigration moves, such as revoking the visas of nearly 300 students without a clear explanation. So far, these cases are following some measure of due process; the students can challenge the decision before they’re deported. But if officials start to ship these students home without a hearing, that would clearly break with the Constitution.
A lack of due process presents a slippery slope: If government officials can say anything, true or not, to justify their actions — as they did with the Venezuelan migrants — what stops them from doing that to an American citizen? If they never have to prove someone is actually who they say he is, they can claim anything and act with impunity against anyone.
Trump’s deportations set a precedent that his opponents could abuse once they’re back in power. Republicans have benefited in recent elections from growing support among Latino voters, including Venezuelans. A Democratic president could cite Trump’s actions to deport so-called MAGAzuelans, claiming they’re also criminals with Tren de Aragua and in the country illegally, all without a court hearing.
Even some of Trump’s backers worry about the slipshod deportations. The podcaster Joe Rogan warned on his show, “You’ve got to get scared that people who are not criminals are getting, like, lassoed up and deported and sent to, like, El Salvador prisons.”
The legal arguments
The Trump administration argues that it has the power to ignore due process in these cases. It says the influx of unauthorized immigrants into the United States is an invasion, meaning these migrants are effectively alien enemies. Officials say that the president has special wartime powers, such as those outlined in the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to detain and deport people without trial. They also say that noncitizens, especially those in the country illegally, don’t have the same rights as Americans.
Trump’s critics disagree. The constitutional amendments that enshrine due process rights apply to “persons,” not just citizens. Tellingly, current Supreme Court justices have voiced regret for Japanese internment during World War II, which detained people without due process.
And, generally, migrants have the right to challenge their removal in court, as my colleagues Albert Sun and Miriam Jordan explained.
The Supreme Court’s ruling this week suggests that the justices agree with Trump’s critics — that migrants, even people here illegally, have due process rights. That finding, however, is preliminary. The justices will likely issue a full decision after deportees challenge the law and appellate judges examine the issue. The court’s verdict could set the boundaries of everyone’s due process rights.
Markets Fall Again. Trump Imposes 104% Tariff on China. Even Billionaire Republicans incl Musk are Getting Restive
Stocks were up early today as traders put their hopes in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s suggestion that the Trump administration was open to negotiations for lowering Trump’s proposed tariffs. But then U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said there would not be exemptions from the tariffs for individual products or companies, and President Donald J. Trump said he was going forward with 104% tariffs on China, effective at 12:01 am on Wednesday.
Markets fell again. By the end of the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen by another 320 points, or 0.8%, a 52-week low. The S&P 500 fell 1.6% and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.2%.
Rob Copeland, Maureen Farrell, and Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times reported today that over the weekend, Wall Street billionaires tried desperately and unsuccessfully to change Trump’s mind on tariffs. This week they have begun to go public, calling out what they call the “stupidity” of the new measures. These industry leaders, the reporters write, did not expect Trump to place such high tariffs on so many products and are shocked to find themselves outside the corridors of power where the tariff decisions have been made.
Elon Musk is one of the people Trump is ignoring to side with Peter Navarro, his senior counselor for trade and manufacturing. Navarro went to prison for refusing to answer a congressional subpoena for information regarding Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Since Musk poured $290 million into getting Trump elected in 2024 and then burst into the news with his “Department of Government Efficiency,” he has seemed to be in control of the administration. But he has stolen the limelight from Trump, and it appears Trump’s patience with him might be wearing thin.
Elizabeth Dwoskin, Faiz Siddiqui, Pranshu Verma, and Trisha Thadani of the Washington Post reported today that Musk was among those who worked over the weekend to get Trump to end his new tariffs. When Musk failed to change the president’s mind, he took to social media to attack Navarro personally, saying the trade advisor is “truly a moron,” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.”
Asked about the public fight between two of Trump’s advisors—two of the most powerful men in the world—White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “Boys will be boys.”
Business interests hard hit by the proposed tariffs are less inclined to dismiss the men in the administration as madcap kids. They are certainly not letting Musk shift the blame for the economic crisis off Trump and onto Navarro. The right-wing New Civil Liberties Alliance, which is backed by billionaire Republican donor Charles Koch, has filed a lawsuit claiming that Trump’s tariffs against China are not permitted under the law. It argues that the president’s claim that he can impose sweeping tariffs by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) is misguided. It notes that the Constitution gives to Congress, not the president, the power to levy tariffs.
With Trump’s extraordinary tariffs now threatening the global economy, some of those who once cheered on his dictatorial impulses are now recalling the checks and balances they were previously willing to undermine.
Today the editors of the right-wing National Review urged Congress to take back the power it has ceded to Trump, calling it “preposterous that a single person could enjoy this much power over…the global economy.” They decried the ”raw chaos” of the last week that has made it impossible for any business to plan for the future.
“What has happened since last Thursday is hard to fathom,” they write. “Based on an ever-shifting series of rationales, characterized by an embarrassing methodology, and punctuated with an extraordinary arrogance toward the country’s constitutional order, the Trump administration has alienated our global allies, discombobulated our domestic businesses, decimated our capital markets, and increased the likelihood of serious recession.” While this should worry all Americans, they write, Republicans in particular should remember that in less than two years, they “will be judged in large part on whether the president who shares their brand has done a good job.”
“No free man wants to be at the mercy of a king,” they write.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) told the Senate yesterday: “I don’t care if the president is a Republican or a Democrat. I don’t want to live under emergency rule. I don’t want to live where my representatives cannot speak for me and have a check and balance on power.”
Adam Cancryn and Myah Ward reported in Politico today that Republican leaders are worried about Trump’s voters abandoning him as prices go up and their savings and jobs disappear. After all, voters elected Trump at least in part because he promised to lower inflation and spur the economy. “It’s a question of what the pain threshold is for the American people and the Republican voters,” one of Trump’s economic advisors told the reporters. “We’ve all lost a lot of money.”
MAGA influencers have begun to talk of the tariffs as a way to make the United States “manly” again, by bringing old-time manufacturing and mining back to the U.S. Writer Rotimi Adeoye today noted MAGA’s glorification of physical labor as a sort of moral purification. Adeoye points out how MAGA performs an identity that fetishizes “rural life, manual labor, and a kind of fake rugged masculinity.” That image—and the tradwife image that complements it—recalls an imagined American past. In reality, the 1960s manufacturing economy MAGA influencers appear to be celebrating depended on high rates of unionization and taxation, and on government investing heavily in infrastructure, including healthcare and education.
Adeoye notes that Trump is marketing the image of a world in which ordinary workers had a shot at prosperity, but his tariffs will not bring that world back.
Now Trump is demonstrating his power over the global economy, rejecting the conviction of past American leaders that true power and prosperity rest in cooperation. Trump has always seen power as a zero-sum game in which for one party to win, others must lose, so he appears incapable of understanding that global trade does not mean the U.S. is getting “ripped off.” Now he appears unconcerned that other countries could work together against the U.S. and seems to assume they will have to do what he says.
We’ll see.
For his part, Trump appears to be enjoying that he is now undoubtedly the center of attention. Asked to make “dinner remarks” at the National Republican Congressional Committee tonight, he spoke for close to two hours. Discussing the tariffs, he delivered a story with the “sir” marker that indicates the story is false: “These countries are calling us up. Kissing my ass,” he told the audience. “They are dying to make a deal. “Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, sir. And then I’ll see some rebel Republican, you know, some guy that wants to grandstand, saying: ‘I think that Congress should take over negotiations.’ Let me tell you: you don’t negotiate like I negotiate.”
Markets fell again. By the end of the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen by another 320 points, or 0.8%, a 52-week low. The S&P 500 fell 1.6% and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.2%.
Rob Copeland, Maureen Farrell, and Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times reported today that over the weekend, Wall Street billionaires tried desperately and unsuccessfully to change Trump’s mind on tariffs. This week they have begun to go public, calling out what they call the “stupidity” of the new measures. These industry leaders, the reporters write, did not expect Trump to place such high tariffs on so many products and are shocked to find themselves outside the corridors of power where the tariff decisions have been made.
Elon Musk is one of the people Trump is ignoring to side with Peter Navarro, his senior counselor for trade and manufacturing. Navarro went to prison for refusing to answer a congressional subpoena for information regarding Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Since Musk poured $290 million into getting Trump elected in 2024 and then burst into the news with his “Department of Government Efficiency,” he has seemed to be in control of the administration. But he has stolen the limelight from Trump, and it appears Trump’s patience with him might be wearing thin.
Elizabeth Dwoskin, Faiz Siddiqui, Pranshu Verma, and Trisha Thadani of the Washington Post reported today that Musk was among those who worked over the weekend to get Trump to end his new tariffs. When Musk failed to change the president’s mind, he took to social media to attack Navarro personally, saying the trade advisor is “truly a moron,” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.”
Asked about the public fight between two of Trump’s advisors—two of the most powerful men in the world—White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “Boys will be boys.”
Business interests hard hit by the proposed tariffs are less inclined to dismiss the men in the administration as madcap kids. They are certainly not letting Musk shift the blame for the economic crisis off Trump and onto Navarro. The right-wing New Civil Liberties Alliance, which is backed by billionaire Republican donor Charles Koch, has filed a lawsuit claiming that Trump’s tariffs against China are not permitted under the law. It argues that the president’s claim that he can impose sweeping tariffs by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) is misguided. It notes that the Constitution gives to Congress, not the president, the power to levy tariffs.
With Trump’s extraordinary tariffs now threatening the global economy, some of those who once cheered on his dictatorial impulses are now recalling the checks and balances they were previously willing to undermine.
Today the editors of the right-wing National Review urged Congress to take back the power it has ceded to Trump, calling it “preposterous that a single person could enjoy this much power over…the global economy.” They decried the ”raw chaos” of the last week that has made it impossible for any business to plan for the future.
“What has happened since last Thursday is hard to fathom,” they write. “Based on an ever-shifting series of rationales, characterized by an embarrassing methodology, and punctuated with an extraordinary arrogance toward the country’s constitutional order, the Trump administration has alienated our global allies, discombobulated our domestic businesses, decimated our capital markets, and increased the likelihood of serious recession.” While this should worry all Americans, they write, Republicans in particular should remember that in less than two years, they “will be judged in large part on whether the president who shares their brand has done a good job.”
“No free man wants to be at the mercy of a king,” they write.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) told the Senate yesterday: “I don’t care if the president is a Republican or a Democrat. I don’t want to live under emergency rule. I don’t want to live where my representatives cannot speak for me and have a check and balance on power.”
Adam Cancryn and Myah Ward reported in Politico today that Republican leaders are worried about Trump’s voters abandoning him as prices go up and their savings and jobs disappear. After all, voters elected Trump at least in part because he promised to lower inflation and spur the economy. “It’s a question of what the pain threshold is for the American people and the Republican voters,” one of Trump’s economic advisors told the reporters. “We’ve all lost a lot of money.”
MAGA influencers have begun to talk of the tariffs as a way to make the United States “manly” again, by bringing old-time manufacturing and mining back to the U.S. Writer Rotimi Adeoye today noted MAGA’s glorification of physical labor as a sort of moral purification. Adeoye points out how MAGA performs an identity that fetishizes “rural life, manual labor, and a kind of fake rugged masculinity.” That image—and the tradwife image that complements it—recalls an imagined American past. In reality, the 1960s manufacturing economy MAGA influencers appear to be celebrating depended on high rates of unionization and taxation, and on government investing heavily in infrastructure, including healthcare and education.
Adeoye notes that Trump is marketing the image of a world in which ordinary workers had a shot at prosperity, but his tariffs will not bring that world back.
Now Trump is demonstrating his power over the global economy, rejecting the conviction of past American leaders that true power and prosperity rest in cooperation. Trump has always seen power as a zero-sum game in which for one party to win, others must lose, so he appears incapable of understanding that global trade does not mean the U.S. is getting “ripped off.” Now he appears unconcerned that other countries could work together against the U.S. and seems to assume they will have to do what he says.
We’ll see.
For his part, Trump appears to be enjoying that he is now undoubtedly the center of attention. Asked to make “dinner remarks” at the National Republican Congressional Committee tonight, he spoke for close to two hours. Discussing the tariffs, he delivered a story with the “sir” marker that indicates the story is false: “These countries are calling us up. Kissing my ass,” he told the audience. “They are dying to make a deal. “Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, sir. And then I’ll see some rebel Republican, you know, some guy that wants to grandstand, saying: ‘I think that Congress should take over negotiations.’ Let me tell you: you don’t negotiate like I negotiate.”
April 8, 2025
Latest on Immigration Incl Supreme Court Rulings
In El Salvador. Pool photo by Alex Brandon
The Supreme Court said that the Trump administration could continue using a wartime powers act to deport Venezuelan migrants, for now.
The ruling, however, did not address the merits of the case. Rather, the justices said that the migrants’ lawyers had filed their lawsuit in the wrong court.
The Supreme Court also paused a lower court’s order that had required the U.S. to bring back a Maryland resident whom it had mistakenly deported.
Trump called Judge James Boasberg, who is overseeing the challenge to his deportation flights, a “Radical Left Lunatic.” His reputation and his appointment by George W. Bush suggest otherwise. Read about him.
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