White House adviser confident tariff ruling will be overturned and says three trade deals nearly done
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett has said there are three trade deals nearly done and he expects more despite a court ruling blocking Donald Trump from imposing his sweeping tariff regime.
“There are many, many deals coming. And there were three that basically look like they’re done,” Hassett said in an interview with Fox Business Network.
Hassett dismissed a US court of international trade ruling yesterday that blocked most tariffs and found Trump had overstepped his authority as the work of “activist judges”. He said he was confident the administration would win on appeal.
The administration’s view is that numerous countries will open up their markets to American products in the next month or two, Hassett said.
“If there are little hiccups here or there because of decisions that activist judges make, then it shouldn’t just concern you at all, and it’s certainly not going to affect the negotiations,” Hassett said.
There were three deals ready for Trump’s review at the end of last week, Hassett said.
Key events
Elon Musk’s muted formal departure from the Trump administration last night was “an inglorious end to what had initially looked to be one of the most consequential White House appointments in generations”, writes Politico this morning.
As he unceremoniously slinked off out of the White House to nurse his business interests bruised by his chaotic foray into politics, Musk – who once called himself Trump’s “first buddy” – did not even have a formal conversation with the president before his “off-boarding” began, Reuters reported last night, citing a White House official who added that his exit was decided “at a senior staff level”. Ouch.
Here’s an extract from this morning’s Playbook giving a whistle-stop tour of Musk’s time in the White House.
Musk obliterated USAID over a single weekend and sent a wrecking ball through numerous other agencies – but while GOP hardliners were delighted by some of his activities, others were so poorly conceived they looked like sheer vandalism – and the damage will be felt for years to come. Many cuts were swiftly reversed, either by dawning reality or the courts.
Crucially, Musk failed on his own terms, getting nowhere near his much-vaunted $1tn savings target and making little impact on America’s debt and deficit crises. It seems likely Doge will be remembered more as a chaotic missed opportunity than as a transformation of the federal government, and it’s telling that Musk exits complaining about the “uphill battle” of reform. As the Playbook Podcast puts it this morning: “He came in with a chainsaw; he went out with a tweet.” It’s got to hurt.
And then there’s the politics. Polls showed Musk was a disaster with the public, including millions of Trump’s own fans. He was swiftly removed from view after his hubris helped blow up the GOP’s chances in a judicial election in Wisconsin. The final straw was the impact on his own business interests, with Tesla suffering a collapse in popularity among the rich coastal liberals at the core of its customer base. After bleak Q1 sales stats were made public, Musk began shuffling back to the day job. “I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,” he reflected this week.
128 DAYS later … We’ll always have the memories. Who can forget the chainsaw … the cheesehead … the gloating about wood chippers … the oddball presser with “Lil X” in tow … the Tesla sales show outside the White House … the “tech support” T-shirt … the “legion of babies” … “Big Balls”… all those despairing tweets from former lovers … and so much more.
White House adviser confident tariff ruling will be overturned and says three trade deals nearly done
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett has said there are three trade deals nearly done and he expects more despite a court ruling blocking Donald Trump from imposing his sweeping tariff regime.
“There are many, many deals coming. And there were three that basically look like they’re done,” Hassett said in an interview with Fox Business Network.
Hassett dismissed a US court of international trade ruling yesterday that blocked most tariffs and found Trump had overstepped his authority as the work of “activist judges”. He said he was confident the administration would win on appeal.
The administration’s view is that numerous countries will open up their markets to American products in the next month or two, Hassett said.
“If there are little hiccups here or there because of decisions that activist judges make, then it shouldn’t just concern you at all, and it’s certainly not going to affect the negotiations,” Hassett said.
There were three deals ready for Trump’s review at the end of last week, Hassett said.
Trump administration signals it may use administrative process against Harvard
The Trump administration has signaled that it might back off plans to immediately revoke Harvard University’s ability to enroll foreign students because of several concerns, including its alleged failure to police antisemitism on campus, and would instead employ a lengthier administrative process.
According to a court filing, Reuters reports, the Department of Homeland Security sent Harvard a notice of intent yesterday to withdraw the university’s certification under the federal Student and Exchange Visitor Program. Harvard has 30 days to respond.
The notice came ahead of a scheduled court hearing on whether to extend a temporary ban on the revocation announced by the Trump administration last week.
Here’s the clip of Donald Trump lashing out at a reporter who asked him about claims that he chickens out of tariffs.
“Wall Street analysts have coined a new term called the ‘TACO’ trade. They’re saying ‘Trump Always Chickens Out’ on your tariff threats,” the reporter asked.
Trump called it a “nasty question” and insisted that he wasn’t chickening out on tariffs, rather: “It’s called negotiation.”
David Smith
David Smith is the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief
Employees of Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) own lucrative stock in companies that stand to directly benefit from their work gutting federal agencies, Democratic senators have alleged.
The potential ethics violations merit an investigation by the justice department and other oversight bodies, urges a letter co-authored by senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Jack Reed of Rhode Island and obtained by the Guardian.
The senators state:
We write regarding new reports that Doge employees at the treasury, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) have been engaged in the dismantling of these agencies while holding hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in private companies benefitting from these individuals’ efforts to eliminate key programs, staff, and policies.
Doge was launched in January with a mission to cut wasteful spending, slash federal regulations and improve government software and IT systems. It has about 79 appointed employees and 10 seconded from other agencies. Many are young software engineers who worked for Musk’s companies and have no prior government experience.
You can read the full story here:
As relations between Moscow and Washington deteriorate over the war in Ukraine, ties between the US and the new Syrian government are continuing to improve, ending more than a decade of diplomatic freeze.
The US’s new envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, was in Damascus on Thursday, where the American flag was hoisted outside of the long-shuttered ambassador’s residence in the Syrian capital.
“Tom understands there is great potential in working with Syria to stop Radicalism, improve Relations, and secure Peace in the Middle East,” Trump said, according to a post on the state department’s X account.
Washington hasn’t formally reopened its embassy in Damascus, which closed in 2012 after protests against the government of then president Bashar Assad, met by a brutal crackdown, spiraled into civil war.
But Barrack’s visit and the raising of the flag were a significant signal of warming relations, which has seen the US announce the lifting of crippling sanctions on Syria.
Assad was unseated in December in a lightning rebel takeover led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Islamist insurgent group who now leads Syria.
Sharaa, a former militant who fought against US forces in Iraq and had a $10m US bounty on his head until December 2024, has launched a charm offensive to portray himself as a reformed, modern politician who respects minority rights in his country.
Yesterday, US president Donald Trump appeared to set a two-week deadline for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to prove he was serious about wanting to end Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Despite mediation efforts, the Kremlin has dismissed the US’ 30 day unconditional ceasefire proposal and Trump seems to be losing patience with Putin, who he had been reluctant to criticise in the first few months of his return to office.
After Russia launched some of the heaviest attack on Ukraine to date, Trump was asked on Wednesday if he thought Putin wanted to end the war.
“I can’t tell you that, but I’ll let you know in about two weeks,” Trump told reporters.
Trump’s latest comments came after he called Putin “CRAZY” over the weekend following a mass Russian air attack on Kyiv, and warned that Moscow risked new sanctions over its continued drone and missile assaults.
Democrat launches investigation of Trump’s ‘meme coin dinner’ – report
The most senior Democrat on the House judiciary committee, Jamie Raskin, has reportedly launched an investigation into the private dinner that Donald Trump hosted for top investors in his meme coin, a novelty crypto token with no inherent value that has generated millions for the president and his family as buyers vie for access.
Here is an extract from the Washington Post’s story:
Rep. Jamie Raskin demanded Trump turn over the names of the guests who attended last week’s gala after pouring millions of dollars into the president’s crypto venture.
The Maryland congressman also pressed the president to disclose what steps he used to determine the source of the funds used to purchase the meme coin, citing concerns that some of the money could have come from foreign governments seeking to influence the White House.
“Publication of this list will also let the American people know who is putting tens of millions of dollars into our President’s pocket so we can start to figure out what — beyond virtually worthless memecoins — they are getting in exchange for all this money,” Raskin wrote in a letter, which was first reported by the Washington Post.
Ethics experts and Trump’s political opponents say the meme coin dinner was the starkest example to date of Trump’s willingness to blur the lines between his for-profit business interests and his office…
The White House has said the dinner poses no conflict of interest, because the president’s assets are in a blind trust managed by his sons.
A federal judge will consider on whether to further block the Trump administration from revoking Harvard university’s ability to enroll international students (see post at 10.38 for more details).
At a hearing in Boston, US district judge Allison Burroughs will weigh whether to extend a temporary order she issued last Friday that blocked the US department of homeland security from carrying out the revocation it issued a day earlier.
Harvard argues the Trump administration is retaliating against it for refusing to cede to its demands to control the school’s governance, curriculum and the “ideology” of its faculty and students.
The Trump team says Harvard’s hiring and admissions practices discriminate against conservatives and that it wants to safeguard civil rights and free speech.
Trump orders agencies to cut all federal ties with Harvard
Joseph Gedeon
Joseph Gedeon is a politics breaking news reporter based in Washington
The Donald Trump administration is set to order federal agencies to cancel all government contracts with Harvard University worth an estimated $100m.
A planned directive first seen by the New York Times set to circulate to agencies on Tuesday instructs officials to terminate existing deals and seek new suppliers, marking what the White House describes as a total break with Harvard after decades of collaboration.
The order comes by way of the General Service Administration (GSA) and affects contracts across nine federal departments, from health research to executive training programs.
Agencies must report back by early June on which agreements they plan to axe, according to the letter.
You can read the full story here:
While the Trump administration is targeting Chinese student’s visas, it continues to crackdown on universities it sees as not bending to its ideological will.
Trump has, for example, sought to pressure Harvard, the most prestigious of the American universities, into compliance on a range of issues.
These include tighter control over the university’s curriculum, information about foreign students and moves to curb protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza, which the Trump administration characterises as antisemitic.
The White House threatened to bar foreign students from Harvard in April, after the university refused to cave into pressure to alter its admissions, teaching and recruitment policies. The US education department froze about $3bn $2.3bn in federal funds to Harvard, something the university is challenging in court.
Since April, the administration has also attempted to ban the university from enrolling foreign students – a move temporarily blocked by federal courts.
US’s move to start revoking Chinese student visas is discriminatory, Beijing says
Beijing has angrily responded to the US’s plan to revoke visas from Chinese students, in what is seen as another effort by the Trump administration to restrict foreign students’ entry to American schools over claims they may somehow threaten domestic security.
“The US has unreasonably cancelled Chinese students’ visas under the pretext of ideology and national rights,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning said.
“China firmly opposes this and has lodged representations with the US.”
She added:
Such a politicised and discriminatory action lays bare the US lie that it upholds the so-called freedom and openness.
China is the second-largest country of origin for international students in the US, behind only India. In the 2023-2024 school year, more than 270,000 international students were from China, making up roughly a quarter of all foreign students in the US.
It is not clear how many of the Chinese students studying in the US could be affected by the latest move, which comes amid the ongoing trade war between Beijing and Washington.
US will ‘aggressively’ revoke visas of Chinese students, secretary of state says
The Trump administration has said it will “aggressively” revoke visas of Chinese students, one of the largest sources of revenue for American universities, in the latest attack on US higher education.
The announcement by secretary of state Marco Rubio came after China criticised his department’s decision a day earlier to suspend visa appointments for students worldwide at least temporarily…
The US will “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist party or studying in critical fields,” Rubio said in a statement.
“We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong,” he said.
You can read the full story here:
Elon Musk leaving role in the Trump administration
Now some news away from the tariff court ruling.
Elon Musk is leaving his role in the Trump administration as a “special advisor” to the president after spearheading a tumultuous drive to shrink the size of the US government as part of the department of government efficiency.
Musk’s term in his role was due to expire this month, but the world’s richest man’s announcement that he was getting back to business follows a rash of social media posts and interviews, in which Musk criticised Trump’s tax spending bill.
“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk wrote on X.
“The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
The billionaire had for weeks been signalling his intent to spend less time in Washington and more on his businesses, Tesla, SpaceX and xAI. It’s a drastic turnaround for Musk, who plowed $200m into Trump’s campaign and dedicated most of the last year to promoting Trump and far-right ideology online, as Nick Robins-Early writes.
The White House has 10 days to complete the process of trying to halt the tariffs, which were imposed to reverse the US’s massive and longstanding trade deficits, although most of these levies are currently suspended anyway.
Any legal challenge to the ruling will have to be heard at the US court of appeals for the federal circuit in Washington DC, and ultimately the US supreme court.
Over the last few months, Trump has introduced a confusing and evolving slate of tariffs against specific countries – such as China – and industries that the president says are negatively impacting America’s trade.
Many of his harshest tariffs have been paused, however, and some exemptions have been made as countries around the world have launched charm offensives to try to curry favour with the US president.
What has the global market reaction been like?
Financial markets, on the whole, have cheered the ruling. The US dollar rallied following the court’s order, surging against currencies such as the euro, yen and the Swiss franc in particular. Wall Street futures rose and equities across Asia also rose.
The UK’s FTSE 100 blue chip index has ticked up 0.1%, while the German Dax rallied 0.9%. France’s CAC 40 has risen 1%. Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs, in contrast, shook global financial markets and caused massive uncertainty.
You can read the latest market reaction in our business live blog.
What was actually said in the federal court ruling?
Here is what the three-judge panel at the New York-based court of international trade said when it blocked Donald Trump from imposing sweeping global tariffs on imports.
“The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs,” the court wrote, referring to the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act that Trump cited to justify the tariffs.
“The court does not pass upon the wisdom or likely effectiveness of the president’s use of tariffs as leverage. That use is impermissible not because it is unwise or ineffective, but because (federal law) does not allow it,” the panel said in the decision.
The court also blocked a different set of levies the Trump administration imposed on China, Mexico and Canada, for what the White House said was in response to the unacceptable flow of immigrants and synthetic opioids across the US border.
Trump administration appeals US trade court tariff ruling as aide labels it a ‘judicial coup’
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics and the second Trump administration.
The main news this morning is that a Manhattan-based court has blocked the president’s sweeping tariffs on global imports from coming into effect – a huge blow to an integral pillar of his plan for economic growth.
The US court of international trade said yesterday that Trump lacked the authority to use the emergency economic powers legislation that he cited when he unveiled additional taxes on foreign-made goods on what he called “liberation day” last month.
Tariffs usually require the approval of Congress – but the US president argued he had power to act because it was a “national emergency”.
The Trump White House filed an appeal against the judgment minutes after it was handed down.
“President Trump pledged to put America first, and the administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American greatness,” Trump’s spokesperson Kush Desai said.
Trump’s powerful deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, reacted to the federal court ruling by posting on X that “the judicial coup is out of control”.
We will have more reaction to the ruling from court of international trade in New York and other US politics stories throughout the day so stick with us.
