Live Updates: Trump Could Announce More Tariffs On Major Trading Partners Today
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The president is meeting with the king and the crown prince of Jordan amid his proposal for the U.S. to take control of the Gaza Strip.
President Donald Trump is expected to impose reciprocal tariffs as soon as today. Francis Chung / Bloomberg / Getty Images
Trump is expected to meet today with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah at the White House.
The president will hold bilateral meetings and have lunch with the leaders, which will be closed to the press. A joint press conference, which is customary when foreign leaders meet with the president at the White House, is not scheduled.
The meeting comes as Trump has expanded on his plans for the Gaza Strip, stating in an interview that aired yesterday that he would build a permanent home for Palestinian refugees outside of Gaza. He suggested he would make deals with Jordan and Egypt to build places for them to live in those countries, while the U.S. would take control of Gaza.
Officials from the two Middle Eastern countries have repeatedly refused to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza. Trump, however, said yesterday that he would consider withholding U.S. aid to Egypt and Jordan if they do not agree to his plan.
Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is running for governor of New Mexico, looking to be the first Native American woman to be elected governor of a state.
Haaland launched her campaign this morning in an online video after hinting at an announcement for the last few days.
Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham isn’t running for re-election, as state law bars governors from seeking a third consecutive term, making Haaland the front-runner on the Democratic side.
“Billions of Dollars of FRAUD, WASTE, AND ABUSE, has already been found in the investigation of our incompetently run Government,” Trump wrote on Truth Social about DOGE, which is not an official agency.
“Now certain activists and highly political judges want us to slow down, or stop,” he wrote. “Losing this momentum will be very detrimental to finding the TRUTH, which is turning out to be a disaster for those involved in running our Government. Much left to find. No Excuses!!!”
Trump officials have dismissed these court rulings, provoking fears that the administration could eventually ignore these judicial decisions.
The arm of the Democratic Party focused on state legislative races announced its initial target map for the upcoming election cycle today, identifying 10 states where they will seek to combat President Donald Trump’s agenda and prepare for the next redistricting cycle at the end of the decade.
In plans shared first with NBC News, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) will target the state Houses in Virginia and Pennsylvania, where Democrats have one-seat majorities, as well as both chambers of the state Legislature in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Alaska.
The legislatures in those four states are narrowly divided. Minnesota’s House is expected to be tied following a special election next month, while Democrats have a one-seat majority in the state Senate. In Michigan, Democrats hold a one-seat majority in the state Senate while Republicans have a three-seat majority in the state House.
During the AI Action Summit in Paris, Vice President JD Vance told world leaders that the U.S. would be "the gold standard" in AI technology, adding that the emerging technology will make Americans "more productive, more prosperous and more free.”
Pope Francis criticized Trump's mass deportation policy in a letter to U.S. bishops yesterday and pleaded with people not to give into "narratives that discriminate."
"The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness," he wrote in the letter.
Francis said that the "true common good is prompted" when people welcome and protect the "most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable."
"I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters," he wrote.
The FBI says it has discovered more records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and will release them.
In 2020, the FBI began storing and electronically inventorying closed case files from field offices across the country at a central records complex, the agency said in a statement. That resulted in a more comprehensive records inventory that, along with technological advances to automate the record-keeping processes, allowed the bureau to more quickly search and locate records.
The FBI conducted a new records search after Trump’s executive order seeking the declassification of the assassination files of JFK, as well as Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., resulting in about "2400 newly inventoried and digitized records that were previously unrecognized as related to the JFK assassination case file," the agency said.
"The FBI has made the appropriate notifications of the newly discovered documents and is working to transfer them to the National Archives and Records Administration for inclusion in the ongoing declassification process,” it said.
Trump signed an executive order last night pausing enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids companies in the U.S. from bribing foreign officials.
In a fact sheet, the White House said “overenforcement” of the law, which was enacted in 1977, made American companies less competitive and that Trump was ordering “revised, reasonable enforcement guidelines.”
“It’s going to mean a lot more business for America,” Trump said as he signed the order in the Oval Office.
Gary Kalman, executive director of the U.S. office of anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, said in a statement that Trump’s executive order “diminishes — and could pave the way for completely eliminating — the crown jewel in the U.S.’s fight against global corruption,” Reuters reported.
Trump says he has spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping since his inauguration, though neither the U.S. nor China has reported any calls between the two leaders during that period.
Asked in a Fox News interview whether he had spoken with Xi since the Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump said, “Yeah, and I’ve talked to him, and I talked to his people too. His people come in all the time,” without specifying when a call had taken place or what was discussed.
Asked about Trump’s comments at a regular briefing in Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Xi and Trump had a scheduled phone call Jan. 17, before the inauguration, and that China had “issued a relevant press release.”
Trump said last week that he was in “no rush” to speak with Xi amid fears of a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. Beijing announced tariffs of 10% to 15% on some U.S. products last week, minutes after a 10% U.S. tariff on all Chinese goods imports went into effect.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” the president of the European Commission said, warning that they would bring a tough response from the 27-nation European Union.
“I deeply regret the U.S. decision to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. “Tariffs are taxes — bad for business, worse for consumers.”
“Unjustified tariffs on the E.U. will not go unanswered — they will trigger firm and proportionate countermeasures,” she continued.
“The E.U. will act to safeguard its economic interests. We will protect our workers, businesses and consumers.”
