President Donald Trump is engaging in a flurry of trade activity as the clock ticks down to his Aug. 1 deadline. At 12:01 a.m. ET Friday, new tariffs are scheduled to take effect on U.S. imports from dozens of other nations.
Additionally, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that Trump “at some point this afternoon or later this evening” will sign an order to impose more tariff rates starting at midnight.
Leavitt said countries that have not received a prior letter on tariffs from Trump or negotiated a trade framework will be notified of their likely tariff rates, either in the form of a letter or Trump’s executive order.
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Judge extends TPS expiration dates for 60,000 people from Central America and Nepal
The judge’s order affects about 7,000 people from Nepal along with 51,000 Hondurans and 3,000 Nicaraguans. The protections were set to expire Tuesday for the Nepalese people, and Sept. 8 for the Central Americans.
The Trump administration had moved to remove their temporary protected status, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem saying the government had determined that conditions in their home countries no longer warranted protections.
Temporary Protected Status prevents beneficiaries from being deported and allows them to work. The Trump administration has aggressively been seeking to end the protections and make more people eligible for removal.
U.S. District Judge Trina L. Thompson in San Francisco said plaintiffs had provided evidence that the government’s decision to end protections was racially motivated. She granted the request for an extension made by the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy group that says the terminations were unlawful.
What to know about Trump’s new tariffs
First of all they start on Aug. 7, not the Friday deadline that the president had set. The reason for this is the government needs time to harmonize the tariff rates, according to a senior official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.
The order applies to 68 countries and the 27-member European Union. Countries not listed in the order signed Thursday by Trump would face a baseline 10% tariff.
— Josh Boak
Trump signs order for new tariffs to go into effect in 7 days
The president has signed an executive order that would have new tariffs on a wide swath of U.S. trading partners to go into effect in seven days — the next step in his trade agenda that will test the global economy and alliances.
The order was issued shortly after 7 p.m. It came after a flurry of tariff-related activity in recent days, as the White House announced agreements with various nations and blocs ahead of Trump’s self-imposed Aug. 1 deadline.
Oregon attorney g
eneral sounds confident after hearing in lawsuit over tariffs
Dan Rayfield of Oregon, one of the states that filed suit, asserted that the judges “didn’t buy’’ the Trump administration’s arguments.
“You would definitely rather be in our shoes going forward,” Rayfield said.
He said Trump’s tariffs — which are paid by importers in the United States who often try to pass along the higher costs to their customers — amount to one of the largest tax increases in American history.
“This was done all by one human being sitting in the Oval Office,’’ Rayfield said.
Trump says he has been planning ballroom construction for some time
“They’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years, but there’s never been a president that was good at ballrooms,” the president told reporters. “I’m good at building things, and we’re going to build quickly and on time. It’ll be beautiful, top, top of the line.”
He said the ballroom would not interfere with the mansion itself.
“It’ll be near it but not touching it and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” he said. “It’s my favorite. It’s my favorite place. I love it.”
Trump said the ballroom will serve administrations to come: “I think it will be really beautiful.”
A look at colleges with federal money targeted by the Trump administration
Several elite colleges have made deals with the administration, offering concessions to the president's political agenda and financial payments to restore federal money that had been withheld.
Ivy League schools Columbia, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania reached agreements to resolve federal investigations. The Republican administration is pressing for more, citing the deal it negotiated with Columbia as a “road map” for other colleges.
There is a freeze on billions of dollars of research money for other colleges including Harvard, which has been negotiating with the White House even as it fights in court over the lost grants.
Like no other president, Trump has used the government’s control over federal research funding to push for changes in higher education, decrying elite colleges as places of extreme liberal ideology and antisemitism.
▶ Read more about universities pressured by the administration
Hawley says he had ‘good chat’ with Trump after dustup over stock trading bill
Josh Hawley is brushing off the president’s quip that he’s a “second-tier” senator after the Missouri Republican’s proposal to ban stock trading by members of Congress — and the president and vice president — won bipartisan approval to advance in a committee vote.
Hawley told Fox News late Wednesday that it’s “not the worst thing” he’s ever been called and that he and the president ”had a good chat,” clearing up confusion over the bill.
The misunderstanding, Hawley said, was that Trump would have to sell his Mar-a-Lago private club and other assets.
“Not the case at all,” Hawley said on “Jesse Watters Primetime.”
ICE says it has made over 1,000 tentative job offers
The agency responsible for carrying out Trump’s agenda of mass deportations announced that Thursday as it ramps up hiring following the passage of legislation giving ICE a massive infusion of cash.
Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the job offers were made after July 4, when when Trump signed into law a broad package of tax breaks and spending cuts that also included about $170 billion for border security and immigration enforcement over five years.
“Many of these offers were to ICE officers who retired under President Biden because they were frustrated that they were not allowed to do their jobs,” McLaughlin said.
The administration has been ramping up immigration-related arrests across the country, including in immigration courts, worksites, neighborhoods and elsewhere.
Trump ally Jeffrey Clark should be disbarred over 2020 election effort, disciplinary panel says
The former Justice Department official should be stripped of his law license, the D.C. Board of Professional Responsibility ruled Thursday. Its recommendation now goes to the D.C. Court of Appeals for a final decision.
Clark played a key role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election and clashed with Justice Department superiors who refused to back his false claims of fraud.
In the second Trump administration, he has been serving as acting head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a part of the Office of Management and Budget that is responsible for reviewing executive branch regulations.
OMB spokesperson Rachel Cauley said in a post on the social platform X that “this latest injustice is just another chapter in the Deep State’s ongoing assault on President Trump and those who stood beside him in defense of the truth.”
Trump denounces Russia’s latest missile and drone attack on Kyiv
“Russia, I think it’s disgusting what they’re doing,” the president said as he took questions after an executive order signing at the White House. “I think what Russia’s doing is very sad. A lot of Russians are dying.”
Trump said the U.S. plans to impose sanctions on Moscow but added, “I don’t know that sanctions bother him,” referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff plans to travel to Russia after his current stop in Israel, Trump said.
Trump disses Harris as she returns to spotlight
The president jabbed at his 2024 opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, after she announced this week that she would not run for governor of California.
“Well, she can’t speak. She can’t talk. She can’t do an interview,” Trump said when asked about Harris’s political future during an executive order signing at the White House.
“I wouldn’t call her a skilled politician.”
Trump also said Harris should have done more interviews during the campaign.
Harris is set to sit down with late-show host Stephen Colbert on Thursday night.
Trump pledges ‘no government dollars’ for ballroom renovation
The president said he and other private donors will pay for the ballroom renovations at the White House that his administration announced Thursday.
“No government dollars, no,” Trump said during an executive order signing at the White House.
He spoke of the benefits of adding a permanent, larger ballroom at the White House and added: “It’ll be a great legacy project.”
Federal judges detail rise in threats, ‘pizza doxings,’ as Trump ramps up criticism
In 2020, a disgruntled litigant posing as a deliveryman opened fire at the New Jersey home of District Judge Esther Salas, killing her 20-year-old son Daniel Anderl. Five years later, as President Donald Trump steps up hiscriticism of federal judges who have blocked some of his agenda, dozens of judges have had unsolicited pizzas delivered to their homes, often in Daniel Anderl’s name.
District Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. of Rhode Island, who stalled Trump’s initial round of across-the-board spending cuts, is among those who received pizzas in Anderl’s name. His courtroom also has been flooded by threatening calls, including one profanity-laced one that called for his assassination.
McConnell, Jr. played a recording of the call during an unusual discussion Thursday where multiple federal judges discussed threats they have received — a notable conversation because judges usually only speak publicly from the bench and through their rulings, and rarely if ever, about personal threats and attacks. Salas and others said the number of attacks has escalated in recent months.
▶ Read more about ‘pizza doxings’
Senate Republicans rally around former RNC chair’s bid for North Carolina Senate seat
“Michael Whatley has done an exceptional job leading the Republican National Committee through historic campaign successes, and I’m excited to endorse him in his bid to become North Carolina’s next U.S. Senator,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune wrote on social media.
Whatley previously served as chair of the Republican National Committee and North Carolina Republican Party. He received warm endorsements from his would-be GOP colleagues on Capitol Hill, and promises of support from the party’s main Super PAC.
Cory Gardner, a former senator and chair of the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund, a Super PAC, said Whatley “was instrumental to re-electing President Trump” and that he thought Whatley was “will be an outstanding senator for North Carolina.”
Whatley faces what will likely be an intense and pricey Senate race against Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s former two-term Democratic governor. Democrats were blunt in response to news of Whatley’s announcement.
“Welcome to the race. You’re going to lose,” said Lauren French, a spokesperson for Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic-aligned Super PAC.
Trump kicks off sports event
The president on Thursday lauded several athletes as he launched a new sports council aimed at improving America’s fitness.
Trump is signing an order to reestablish the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition. He will also reinstate the fitness test that was commonplace for decades for schoolchildren.
Among the athletes at the Roosevelt Room of the White House include pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau and Swedish golfer Annika Sorenstam.
“This is an important step in our mission to make America healthy again,” Trump said.
Watchdog finds Trump administration illegally delayed school funds
The Trump administration delayed funding for energy efficiency improvements at public schools in violation of federal law, according to a legal opinion Thursday from the Government Accountability Office.
Democrats seized on the finding as another sign the administration is illegally withholding billions of dollars previously approved by Congress.
It’s the fourth time in recent weeks the watchdog has found that the Trump administration was in violation of a 1974 law that lays out the procedures presidents must follow to reduce, delay, or eliminate funding approved by Congress.
Congress approved $500 million for the energy efficiency program, with $100 million to be made available from 2022 through 2026. The legal opinion finds that DOE has been fulfilling obligations made in previous years. But that was not the case for 2025 funds.
“Denying schools funding for energy efficiency upgrades that save them money isn’t just illegal, it’s stupid and harmful,” Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a press release. “And it’s time President Trump stop blocking this funding alongside all the other key investments he’s holding up.”
EPA delays methane emission rule for oil and gas drilling
The Environmental Protection Agency is delaying implementation of a Biden-era rule aimed at restricting planet-warming methane emissions from oil and gas drilling. The agency says the 18-month delay will allow energy companies time meet new inspection requirements and other provisions of the 2024 rule.
The Biden administration rule targeted the U.S. oil and natural gas industry for contributing to global warming. The Trump administration has sought to reverse those policies in pursuit of what officials call U.S. “energy dominance.”
On Tuesday the EPA proposed revoking a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. The rule would rescind a 2009 declaration that determined carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.
GAO issues final report documenting federal response to COVID-19 pandemic
Here are some of the highlights from a final report about the COVID-19 pandemic issued Thursday by the Government Accountability Office:
The federal government provided about $4.65 trillion for response and recovery efforts through six different bills. Almost all that money has been spent.
The full extent of fraud within the relief programs will never be known with certainty, but estimates indicate hundreds of billions of dollars in fraudulent payments were disbursed.
Fraud-related charges have been brought against at least 3,205 defendants. Of those, 2,331 defendants have been convicted as of the end of March.
About 18% of adults in the U.S. aged 18 and older had experienced long COVID, and about 5% were currently experiencing it at the time of a Census Bureau survey conducted last year.
Public health impacts have continued. For example, about 450 deaths were reported in March 2025.
Congress had required GAO to report regularly on the pandemic’s impact as part of the CARES Act passed in the first months of the outbreak.
White House walks back Treasury Secretary’s statements on SSA privatization
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday said a new children’s savings program President Donald Trump signed into law through the One Big Beautiful Bill “will help supplement, not substitute Social Security.”
Leavitt made the statement after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a forum hosted by Breitbart News, Wednesday, said that the new investment accounts open “a back door for privatizing Social Security.”
Hours after the interview the Trump administration said it was committed to protecting Social Security.
And on Thursday on CNBC, Bessent said the Trump accounts will serve as an “incredible supplement” to Social Security and “not a replacement.”
Democrats and Social Security advocates have launched attacks at Bessent and the White House for his statements.
The Associated Press
