Trump warns Americans that tariffs may cause ‘pain’– US politics live | US news

Meta’s chief executive, the tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, has grown increasingly close to Donald Trump since he won the 2024 election, including visiting him at Mar-a-Lago and celebrating with him at his inauguration.

Meanwhile, media personalities associated with some high-profile criticism of Trump or his Republican allies have started to leave the scene, including NBC’s former Meet the Press host Chuck Todd and CNN’s Jim Acosta, who was one of the most famous Trump-critical journalists on American television but who left his network after his show was shunted to a midnight slot.

“He’s dictating the news on his terms,” said Michael LaRosa, spokesperson for the former first lady Jill Biden. “He’s become America’s assignment editor.”

Other examples that have roiled American media are racking up. The Washington Post, owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, endorsed Trump’s pick for attorney general, election denier Pam Bondi, calling her “qualified” and “serious”. Before the election, it killed an endorsement of Kamala Harris. At the same time, Amazon recently paid the first lady, Melania Trump, a staggering $40m for the rights to a documentary about her life.

Meanwhile, at the Los Angeles Times, the billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong recently killed an editorial criticizing Trump’s cabinet picks and has granted significant editorial influence to Trump cheerleader Scott Jennings.

In a tumultuous first two weeks back in power in the White House, Donald Trump has targeted many familiar enemies, including one of his most passionate obsessions: the US media, whom he has frequently dubbed “enemies of the people”.

Trump’s new federal communications chair, Brendan Carr, is reported to have ordered an investigation into the sponsorship practices of taxpayer-supported NPR and PBS member stations – a media network long hated by conservatives who accuse it of a liberal slant.

At the same time, and just as concerning for some media watchers, core segments of the US media landscape – via the wealthy billionaires and gigantic corporations that own them – have seemingly caved under Trump’s pressure or apparently sought to curry favor with the new administration.

On Thursday, the New York Times reported that CBS News parent Paramount is in talks to settle a $10bn claim that it deceptively edited a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Paramount is currently concluding an asset sale of its Hollywood studio business.

The news of Paramount’s decision – which has reportedly caused deep upset in the CBS newsroom – comes after ABC News agreed to pay $15m to Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit over inaccurate comments by anchor George Stephanopoulos that Trump had been found civilly liable for rape.

It also follows the move by social media giant Meta to pay $25m to settle a first amendment protections claim for “impermissible censorship” when it bounced Trump from Facebook and Instagram in 2021. About $22m of that fee will be a donation to Trump’s presidential library.

Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, said her government will provide more details on the retaliatory tariffs she ordered on US goods on Monday.

Sheinbaum, in a statement on Sunday, she will announce details on her government’s “Plan B” as she insisted that Mexico “doesn’t want confrontation”.

“Problems are not addressed by imposing tariffs, but with talks and dialogue,” she said.

Canada’s department of finance has published a list of Americans products imported into Canada that it will target with a 25% retaliatory tariff starting Ton uesday.

The move comes in response to Donald Trump’s executive order on Saturday imposing a blanket 25% tariff on all Canadian goods imported into the US and 10% levies on Canadian energy.

The list shows products that will be hit in the first round of retaliatory tariffs by Canada starting Tuesday, and mounts to 30bn Canadian dollars’ worth of goods (about $20bn).

The impacted products include tobacco, produce, household appliances, firearms and military gear.

Canada is also preparing for a second, broader round of retaliatory tariffs in 21 days that will target another $86bn worth of US imports.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio told Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, in talks on Sunday that Donald Trump has determined that China’s influence threatens the Panama canal and that immediate changes were needed or the Trump administration would take “measures necessary” to do so.

The state department, in a summary of the meeting, said Rubio had informed Mulino that Trump believed the current situation at the canal was “unacceptable and that absent immediate changes, it would require the United States to take measures necessary to protect its rights” under a US treaty with Panama.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has held talks in Panama with its president, José Raúl Mulino, as protesters marched in opposition to Donald Trump’s demand for ownership of the Panama canal to be returned to the United States.

Since Trump began talking about “taking back” the Panama canal over a month ago, Panamanian officials have looked to Rubio to understand the nature of the president’s threats and the possible concessions they can make to firm up the relationship with the US.

America’s top diplomat is touring Central America and the Caribbean on his first foray in the post as he seeks to refocus US diplomacy on the western hemisphere – in part to recruit help in stemming migration toward the US southern border.

A day after Trump announced he was imposing major tariffs on Canada and Mexico, prompting retaliation from those countries, Rubio was perhaps taking a less confrontational and more diplomatic approach.

He was pictured cordially greeting Panama’s foreign minister, though neither he nor Mulino spoke publicly at their meeting. Rubio is also scheduled to tour an energy facility and the canal during his visit.

The Trump administration has revoked temporary protected status (TPS) for more than 300,000 Venezuelans in the US, the New York Times reports.

The federal TPS program allows for people to temporarily stay in the US if they cannot return safely to their home country. It is available for people fleeing ongoing armed conflict, environmental disasters, or extraordinary and temporary conditions.

Government documents obtained by the outlet read:

After reviewing country conditions and considering whether permitting Venezuelan nationals covered by the 2023 designation is contrary to the national interest of the United States, in consultation with the appropriate U.S. government agencies, the secretary of homeland security has determined that Venezuela no longer continues to meet the conditions for the 2023 designation.

The termination means that those under TPS from Venezuela who received the protections in 2023 will lose their temporary status 60 days after the government publishes the termination notice, according to the Times.

It also increases the number of people without any formal immigration status in the US.

Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has been given access to the federal payment system, exposing the sensitive personal data of millions of Americans as well as details of public contractors who compete directly with Musk’s own businesses, an influential US senator has confirmed.

Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator from Oregon and the ranking member of the Senate finance committee, posted on Bluesky that sources had confirmed to him that the Treasury’s highly-sensitive database had been opened up to the tech billionaire and his team.

Donald Trump’s new treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, had granted the billionaire’s Doge team “full access to this system”.

Wyden added that the data bonanza included “social security and medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors … All of it.”

Confirmation of the arrangement suggests that Musk, the world’s richest person, now has entry to one of the most sensitive US government databases. The system controls more than $6tn of federal cash flow each year, with millions of Americans depending on it for social security and medicare benefits, federal salaries and more.

The Trump administration has placed two senior security officials at the US Agency for International Development (USaid) on leave after they refused to allow officials from Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency (Doge) to access systems at the agency, according to multiple reports.

Members of Doge reportedly tried to access the USAid headquarters in Washington DC and were stopped as they tried to access the aid agency’s classified information, which includes intelligence reports.

The Doge personnel demanded to be let in and threatened to call US marshals to be allowed access, CNN reports.

The personnel lacked high-enough security clearance to access that information, so two USAid officials, John Vorhees and deputy Brian McGill, were legally obligated to deny access, Associated Press reports.

It comes a day after Doge carried out a similar operation at the treasury department, gaining access to sensitive information, including the social security and Medicare customer payment systems.

About 60 senior USAid staff were put on leave last week after they were accused of attempting to circumvent Donald Trump’s executive order on foreign aid.

Critics warn that a new executive order from Donald Trump’s administration purporting to “combat antisemitism”, and a corresponding fact sheet suggesting deporting international students who protest Israel, could chill political speech on campuses.

The fact sheet released before Trump signed the order on Wednesday quoted the president as saying:

To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.

Although the executive order itself does not call directly for deportations, the idea of cracking down on student protesters involved with pro-Palestine efforts became a Trump 2024 campaign promise and a prominent talking point on the right in the US. Republicans have broadly sought to portray protests against Israel’s offensive in Gaza as expressions of support for Hamas, and have called to punish universities that don’t quash them.

The approach dovetails closely with Project Esther, a rightwing blueprint to target the pro-Palestinian movement, along with other calls from the right. Days after Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack that sparked Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza, Marco Rubio – then a US senator, now the secretary of state – urged former secretary of state Antony Blinken to revoke the visas of students who protested Israel.

Read the full story here:

Some US business leaders have reacted neutrally to Donald Trump’s tariffs that the Budget Lab at Yale University estimates would cost the average American household $1,000 to $1,200 in annual purchasing power.

Gregory Daco, chief economist at the tax and consulting firm EY, calculates the tariffs would increase inflation, currently running at 2.9%, by 0.4% and cut US GDP by 1.5% this year.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, the world’s largest bank, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that tariff threats can be used effectively to “bring people to the table” to negotiate more favorable trade terms.

Tariffs are “an economic tool” or “an economic weapon”, depending on how they’re used, Dimon remarked to CNBC.

I would put in perspective: If it’s a little inflationary, but it’s good for national security, so be it. I mean, get over it.

William Reinsch, a former US trade official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said many companies had stocked up on imported goods ahead of time to avoid the tariffs and would be able to draw on existing inventories.

That may be an effective strategy for non-perishable goods, like construction materials, but less so for perishable goods that are not afforded the ability to stockpile.

“You don’t stockpile avocados,’’ Reinsch said. “You don’t stockpile cut flowers. You don’t stockpile bananas.’’

US business leaders are offering a mixed reaction to steep trade tariffs that Donald Trump’s administration has imposed on Canada, Mexico and China.

Larry Summers, treasury secretary under President Clinton, called the impending tariffs “a self-inflicted supply shock.

“It means less supply because we’re taxing foreign suppliers. And that will mean higher prices and lower quantities,” Summers told CNN.

This is a self-inflicted wound to the American economy. I’d expect inflation over the next three or four months to be higher as a consequence, because the price level has to go up when you put a levy on goods that people are buying.

Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the US, told ABC’s This Week that Trump’s tariff move “is disrupting to an incredibly successful trading relationship.”

“We’re really disappointed and we’re hopeful that they don’t come into effect on Tuesday,” Hillman added. “We’re ready to continue to talk to the Trump administration about that.”

Hillman said Canada was eager to build on its trading relationship with the US but acknowledged “it’s hard to maintain that sense of common purpose and moving forward if we get into this kind of a dynamic on tariffs.”