President Donald Trump on Friday floated cutting tariffs on China to 80% ahead of a weekend meeting as he looks to de-escalate the trade war.
Top U.S. officials are set to meet with a high-level Chinese delegation this weekend in Switzerland in the first major talks between the two nations since Trump sparked a trade war with stiff tariffs on imports.
Here's the latest:
US and Iran will hold a fourth round of nuclear talks this weekend in Oman, US official says
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private diplomatic contacts, said Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, plans to travel to Muscat for direct and indirect talks with Iranian officials mediated by the Omani government.
Three previous rounds of such discussions, held in Muscat and Rome, have yet to produce an agreement although both sides have said the talks have been productive.
— Matthew Lee
After flirting with raising the tax rate for the wealthiest, Trump is backing off — sort of
He noted on social media Friday morning that hiking taxes on anyone, even the rich, could stir a political backlash, although he didn’t completely discourage Republican lawmakers from pursuing that option as they write their massive tax package.
“The problem with even a ‘TINY’ tax increase for the RICH, which I and all others would graciously accept in order to help the lower and middle income workers, is that the Radical Left Democrat Lunatics would go around screaming, ‘Read my lips,’” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.
The president is referring to an infamous quote by George H.W. Bush during the 1988 presidential campaign, when he pledged not to implement any new taxes as president.
Trump has mused about a higher rate for millionaires for months and revived his request in private talks this week.
Trump will formally nominate Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as federal prosecutor for Washington
That’s according a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity Friday to disclose plans not yet made public.
Trump announced on social media Thursday that he’s appointing Pirro to be interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Nominating her for the job on a more permanent basis makes her subject to Senate confirmation.
Trump picked Pirro after pulling his nomination of conservative activist Ed Martin Jr., who’s been acting U.S. Attorney since January. Trump withdrew Martin from consideration after a key Republican senator said he couldn’t support Martin for the job due to his defense of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Pirro has significantly more courtroom experience than Martin, who’d never worked as a prosecutor or tried a case. She was elected as a judge and a district attorney in New York’s Westchester County years before joining Fox News.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who publicly opposed Martin’s nomination, expressed support for Pirro’s selection on social media.
— Seung Min Kim
Senator blasts Trump action on grant program to improve online access
Sen. Patty Murray, the sponsor of legislation aimed at helping more Americans have access to affordable high-speed internet, is blasting Trump’s announcement that he was ending the program.
Trump said on Truth Social: “No more woke handouts based on race!”
Murray, a Democrat from Washington state, said in a statement that her legislation, the Digital Equity Act, passed as part of a bipartisan infrastructure package during Joe Biden’s presidency. It was designed to close the digital divide in America.
She says funding went to “help red and blue communities” with money going to school districts, libraries and workforce training programs, among other things.
“It’s about making sure seniors can get online and equipping every student in every classroom with the tools they need to succeed, whether that’s a hotspot to take home or a laptop,” Murray said.
She said the funding “will be illegally blocked because the President doesn’t like the word equity.”
Rights groups sue to free Venezuelans deported from the US and held in El Salvador
International human rights organizations filed the lawsuit Friday with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asking that the commission order El Salvador’s government to release the Venezuelans deported from the United States and held in a maximum-security prison.
In March, the U.S. government deported more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants alleged to have ties to the Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador, paying the Salvadoran government to imprison them.
Since then, they’ve had no access to lawyers or ability to communicate with their families. Neither the U.S. nor Salvadoran governments have said how the men could eventually regain their freedom.
“These individuals have been stripped from their families and subject to a state-sponsored enforced disappearance regime, effectively, completely against the law,” said Bella Mosselmans, director of the Global Strategic Litigation Council, which helped bring the suit. “We’re hoping that this case might help put pressure on El Salvador to put basic guardrails in place.”
▶ Read more about the deported Venezuelans being held in El Salvador
Fishermen battling with changing oceans chart new course after Trump’s push to deregulate
Virginia Olsen has pulled lobsters from Maine’s chilly Atlantic waters for decades while watching threats to the state’s lifeblood industry mount.
Trade imbalances with Canada, tight regulations on fisheries and offshore wind farms towering like skyscrapers on open water pose three of those threats, said Olsen, part of the fifth generation in her family to make a living in the lobster trade.
That’s why she was encouraged last month when President Trump signed an executive order that promises to restore American fisheries to their former glory. The order promises to shred fishing regulations, and Olsen said that will allow fishermen to do what they do best — fish.
That will make a huge difference in communities like her home of Stonington, the busiest lobster fishing port in the country, Olsen said.
▶ Read more about Trump and the fishing industry
Trump’s Friday schedule, according to the White House
The first thing on the president’s public schedule for Friday is at 4 p.m., when he will sign executive orders.
At 1 p.m., Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will hold a press briefing.
Wall Street drifts higher as it counts down to a highly anticipated US-China meeting on trade
U.S. stocks are drifting higher Friday as Wall Street heads toward the end of an unusually quiet week.
The S&P 500 was up 0.4% in early trading and on track to erase what had been a small loss for the week. This may be the first week in seven where the index at the heart of many 401(k) accounts moves by less than 1.5%, after getting rocked first by fears about Trump’s trade war and then by hopes that he’ll relent on some of his tariffs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 127 points, or 0.3%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.7% higher.
The big event for the week is likely coming Saturday, when trading will be closed in financial markets. That’s when high-level U.S. and Chinese officials will be meeting in Switzerland for their first talks since Trump launched an escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
▶ Read more about the financial markets
New York Mayor Eric Adams says he’ll meet with Trump on Friday to discuss city’s ‘priorities’
Adams provided few other details about the meeting in Washington, which comes a month after a federal judge approved a U.S. Justice Department request to dismiss the criminal corruption case against the mayor.
Adams was accused last year by former President Joe Biden’s administration of accepting illegal campaign contributions and travel discounts from a Turkish official and others, in exchange for helping Turkey open a diplomatic building without passing fire inspections, among other things. He pleaded not guilty and a trial was set for April.
But Trump’s Justice Department moved to drop the charges so Adams could assist with the president’s immigration agenda.
Danish leader says ‘you cannot spy against an ally’ after reports of US gathering intel on Greenland
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told The Associated Press “you cannot spy against an ally” after reports that the United States has stepped up intelligence gathering on Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory coveted by Trump.
Frederiksen’s comments Friday are the latest in the spat between Denmark, Greenland and the United States because Trump seeks to annex the strategic Arctic island. Denmark and Greenland insist the mineral-rich island is not for sale, while Trump hasn’t ruled out taking it by military force even though Denmark is a NATO ally.
The Danish prime minister spoke to the AP the day after Denmark summoned the top American diplomat in the country for an explanation following a Wall Street Journal report which said several high-ranking officials under the U.S. director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had directed intelligence agency heads to learn more about Greenland’s independence movement and sentiment about U.S. resource extraction there.
▶ Read more about reports of U.S. spying in Greenland
Trump is failing to give ‘critically needed leadership’ in Gaza, Democrats say
The Trump administration is failing to provide “critically needed leadership” to end the growing crisis in Gaza after the collapse of a ceasefire there, the senior Senate Democrats say in their joint letter to Trump.
The Associated Press obtained the letter Thursday night.
The Democrats argued that a new proposal that would U.S. security contractors in a dramatic overhaul of future aid to Gaza was “not viable.” And an Israeli proposal for long-term control within Gaza would only take matters farther away from Trump’s goals for a permanent resolution to the Israeli-Hamas conflict and for improved Israeli security, the Democratic senators said.
Leading Senate Democrats urge Trump to push Israel to let aid back into Gaza
And the two dozen leading Senate Democrats also urged the president to push Israel to forgo any permanent Israeli reoccupation of Gaza.
Senators made the appeal in a letter sent Thursday night to the White House, ahead of Trump’s Middle East trip next week. Aid groups also expect a global monitor to release an update next week detailing the worsening food crisis in Gaza amid Israeli aid restrictions.
Senior Democrats among those signing include Sens. Chris Coons, Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Jeanne Shaheen, Cory Booker, Tim Kaine, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen.
Trump fires Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden
Trump abruptly fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on Thursday as the White House continues to purge the federal government of those perceived to oppose the president and his agenda.
Hayden was notified in an email late Thursday from the White House’s Presidential Personnel Office, according to an email obtained by The Associated Press. Confirmed by the Senate to the job in 2016, Hayden was the first woman and the first African American to be librarian of Congress.
Hayden, whose 10-year term was set to expire next year, had come under backlash from a conservative advocacy group that had vowed to root out those standing in the way of Trump’s agenda. The group, American Accountability Foundation, accused her and other library leaders of promoting children’s books with “radical” content and literary material authored by Trump opponents.
▶ Read more about Carla Hayden
Up to 1,000 transgender troops are being moved out of the military in new Pentagon order
The Pentagon will immediately begin moving as many as 1,000 openly identifying transgender service members out of the military and give others 30 days to self-identify under a new directive issued Thursday.
Buoyed by Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump administration to enforce a ban on transgender individuals in the military, the Defense Department will begin going through medical records to identify others who haven’t come forward.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who issued the latest memo, made his views clear after the court’s decision.
“No More Trans @ DoD,” Hegseth wrote in a post on X. Earlier in the day, before the court acted, Hegseth said that his department is leaving wokeness and weakness behind.
“No more pronouns,” he told a special operations forces conference in Tampa. “No more dudes in dresses. We’re done with that s---.”
▶ Read more about the new Pentagon order
Trump says he is naming Fox News host and former judge Jeanine Pirro as top federal prosecutor in DC
Trump said Thursday that he is naming Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, a former county prosecutor and elected judge, to be the top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital after abandoning his first pick for the job.
Pirro, who joined Fox News in 2006, cohosts the network’s show “The Five” on weekday evenings. She was elected as a judge in New York’s Westchester County Court in 1990 before serving three terms as the county’s elected district attorney.
Trump tapped Pirro to at least temporarily lead the nation’s largest U.S. Attorney’s office after pulling his nomination of conservative activist Ed Martin Jr. for the position earlier Thursday. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he was naming Pirro as the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., but didn’t indicate whether he would nominate her for the Senate-confirmed position on a more permanent basis.
Trump withdrew Martin from consideration after a key Republican senator said he could not support Martin for the job due to his defense of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
▶ Read more about Judge Jeanine Pirro
Trump floats cutting China tariffs to 80% ahead of meeting as he looks to deescalate trade war
Trump on Friday floated cutting tariffs on China to 80% ahead of a weekend meeting as he looks to de-escalate the trade war.
Top U.S. officials are set to meet with a high-level Chinese delegation this weekend in Switzerland in the first major talks between the two nations since Trump sparked a trade war with stiff tariffs on imports.
▶ Read more about Trump’s consideration to cut China tariffs
