Sept. 18 (UPI) — The fall semester has arrived with fewer international students on campuses in the United States.
NAFSA: National Association of International Educators estimates that the United States will lose $7 billion in revenue and produce about 60,000 fewer jobs due to a 15% drop in overall enrollment this academic year. Contributing to the enrollment decrease is a projected 30-40% decline in new international students.
The estimates are based on State Department and Student and Exchange Visitor Information System information, which is published monthly. There are a few factors contributing to the decline in international students and the primary drivers are related to U.S. visa and immigration policies.
Since its initial revocation of student visas, the Trump administration has begun restricting visas from 19 countries. In late May, the State Department paused student visa processing for three weeks, causing delays for students trying to come to the United States.
International Student and Scholar Services personnel told UPI that some international students were arriving late to campus due to issues with the visa application process over the summer.
Universities also advised international students to remain in the United States, rather than returning to their home countries during the summer.
Sarah Spreitzer, vice president and chief of staff of the American Council on Education, told UPI visa processing was paused during the peak time when the State Department would normally be processing applications.
More policy changes are being discussed that have Spreitzer concerned about U.S. higher education’s place in the world.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has proposed a new rule that would limit the duration of time visa holders, including international students, can remain in the United States. The proposal would require students to complete their academic program in no longer than four years.
“I’m worried that these are continuing to send messages to prospective international students that it’s going to be difficult to get here, when you’re in the United States there may not be certainty how long you’re going to have your visa and as a result I think we’re going to see drops in our international enrollment for this academic year,” Spreitzer said.
More clarity on how many international students and scholars are on campuses this fall will come in the Institute of International Education’s “Open Doors Report” in November. The report provides data on international students and American students studying abroad.
The Institute of International Education’s spring survey of high education institutions found that 87% of respondents from U.S. institutions expected visa barriers to lead to students not coming to the United States for academic credits. About 71% expected potential problems at ports of entry and 69% shared concerns about students’ visa statuses while they are in the United States.
About 35% of U.S. institutions experienced decreases in international student applications and 32% said the number of applications remained relatively the same.
Colleges and universities in the United States continue to seek international enrollees, despite challenges presented by federal policies.
Spreitzer said the response from American institutions echoes how they responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, international students faced questions about whether they should or could stay on U.S. campuses and if they left, whether they would be able to return to continue their studies.
“Our institutions responded by saying, ‘We want to help our international students,'” Spreitzer said. “Our institutions are doing a lot of the same things. So if a student has been admitted but for some reason their visa processing has been delayed or it’s just taking longer for their student visa to be processed, they’re telling them, ‘You can defer for a year or you could start your studies on a campus we have outside of the United States and then transfer into the U.S. institution.'”
Institutions are also working to keep research laboratories open after the federal government canceled more than $2 billion in grant funds and health research funding.
The efforts of academic institutions and education advocates continue in the face of regulatory barriers. Rather than risking beginning on a degree track in the United States that they may not be able to complete, some international students are looking elsewhere for opportunity.
Global competitors are stepping in to grant students those opportunities.
The United States’ position as a destination for higher education has become more fiercely challenged by the likes of Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom to name a few.
As of June, international higher education enrollees in Australia have increased by 12% since 2019, according to the Australian Government Department of Education.
In the first quarter of the year, student visa applications in the United Kingdom increased by 32% over quarter one in 2024, according to the Higher Education Policy Institute. In the 2023-2024 academic year, India surpassed China in sending the most students to the United Kingdom for the first time in more than a decade.
The Migration Policy Institute’s July report on international students says the costs of education in the United States, travel restrictions and increasing opportunities in other countries have caused fewer international students to choose to study in the United States in the past decade.
About 16% of the 6.9 million international students in the world attended U.S. institutions in the 2023-2024 academic year, down from 20% of 4.5 million students in 2013-2014.
“We’ve seen countries actually putting together programs and pots of funding to attract those researchers that either are in the U.S. right now and are nervous about staying or those researchers that are choosing not to come to the United States,” Spreitzer said.
“I know France, the [European Union], Denmark, they’ve all put together these programs encouraging people to apply. The messaging around it is ‘if you come here, we will make sure that your lab is going to be funded, that your research is going to be funded.'”
NEW YORK — In the days since the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, workers in a variety of industries have been fired for their comments on his death.
It’s hardly the first time workers have lost their jobs over things they say publicly — including in social media posts. In the U.S., laws can vary across states, but overall, there’s very few legal protections for employees who are punished for speech made in or out of private workplaces.
“Most people think they have a right to free speech … but that doesn’t necessarily apply in the workplace,” said Vanessa Matsis-McCready, associate general counsel and vice president of HR Services for Engage PEO. “Most employees in the private sector do not have any protections for that type of speech at work.”
Add to that the prevalence of social media, which has made it increasingly common to track employees’ conduct outside of work or for internet users to publish information about them with the intent of harming or harassing them.
Employers have leeway
Protections for workers vary from one state to the next. In New York, if an employee is participating in a weekend political protest, but not associating themselves with the organization that employs them, their employer cannot fire them for that activity when they return to work. But if that same employee is at a company event on a weekend and talks about their political viewpoints in a way that makes others feel unsafe or the target of discrimination or harassment, then they could face consequences at work, Matsis-McCready said.
Most of the U.S. defaults to “at-will” employment law — which essentially means employers can choose to hire and fire as they see fit, including over employees’ speech.
“The 1st Amendment does not apply in private workplaces to protect employees’ speech,” said Andrew Kragie, an attorney who specializes in employment and labor law at Maynard Nexsen. “It actually does protect employers’ right to make decisions about employees, based on employees’ speech.”
Kragie said there are “pockets of protection” around the U.S. under various state laws, such as statutes that forbid punishing workers for their political views. But the interpretation of how that gets enforced changes, he notes, making the waters murky.
Steven T. Collis, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin and faculty director of the school’s Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center, also points to some state laws that say employers can’t fire their workers for “legal off-duty conduct.” But there’s often an exception for conduct seen as disruptive to an employer’s business or reputation, which could be grounds to fire someone over public comments or social media posts.
“In this scenario, if somebody feels like one of their employees has done something that suggests they are glorifying or celebrating a murder, an employer might still be able to fire them even with one of those laws on the books,” Collis said.
For public employees, including school teachers, postal workers and elected officials, the process is a bit different. That’s because the 1st Amendment plays a unique role when the government is the employer, Collis explains — and the Supreme Court has ruled that if an employee is acting in a private capacity but speaking on a matter of public concern, they’re protected.
However, that has yet to stop the public sector from restricting speech in the aftermath of Kirk’s death. For instance, leaders at the Pentagon unveiled a “zero tolerance” policy for any posts or comments from troops deemed to be making light of or celebrating the killing of Kirk.
The policy, announced by the Defense Department’s top spokesman, Sean Parnell, on social media Thursday, came hours after numerous conservative military influencers and activists began forwarding posts they considered problematic to Parnell and his boss, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“It is unacceptable for military personnel and Department of War civilians to celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American,” Parnell wrote Thursday, referring to the Department of Defense by the name adopted recently by President Trump.
A surge of political debate
The ubiquity of social media is making it easier than ever to share opinions about politics and major news events as they’re unfolding. But posting on social media leaves a record, and in times of escalating political polarization, those declarations can be seen as damaging to the reputation of an individual or their employer.
“People don’t realize when they’re on social media, it is the town square,” said Amy Dufrane, chief executive of the Human Resource Certification Institute. “They’re not having a private conversation with the neighbor over the fence. They’re really broadcasting their views.”
Political debates are certainly not limited to social media and are increasingly making their way into the workplace as well.
“The gamification of the way we communicate in the workplace — Slack and Teams, chat and all these things — they’re very similar to how you might interact on Instagram or other social media, so I do think that makes it feel a little less formal and somebody might be more inclined to take a step and say, ‘Oh, I can’t believe this happened,’” Matsis-McCready said.
Many employers unprepared
In the tense, divided climate in the United States at the moment, many human resource professionals have expressed that they’re unprepared to address politically charged discussions in the workplace, according to the Human Resource Certification Institute. But those conversations are going to happen, so employers need to set policies about what is acceptable or unacceptable workplace conduct, Dufrane said.
“HR has got to really drill down and make sure that they’re super clear on their policies and practices and communicating to their employees on what are their responsibilities as an employee of the organization,” Dufrane said.
Many employers are reviewing their policies on political speech and providing training about what appropriate conduct looks like, both inside and outside the organization, she said. And the brutal nature of Kirk’s killing may have led some of them to react more strongly in the days since his death.
“Because of the violent nature of what some political discussion is now about, I think there is a real concern from employers that they want to keep the workplace safe and that they’re being extra vigilant about anything that could be viewed as a threat, which is their duty,” Matsis-McCreedy said.
Employees can also be seen as ambassadors of a company’s brand, and their political speech can dilute that brand and hurt its reputation, depending on what is being said and how it is being received. That is leading more companies to act on what employees are saying online, she said.
“Some of the individuals that had posted and their posts went viral, all of a sudden the phone lines of their employers were just nonstop calls complaining,” Matsis-McCready said.
Still, experts such as Collis don’t anticipate a significant change in how employers monitor their workers’ speech — noting that online activity has been in the spotlight for at least the last 15 years.
“Employers are already — and have been for a very long time — vetting employees based on what they’re posting on social media,” he said.
Bussewitz and Grantham-Philips write for the Associated Press. AP writer Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.
CBS News’ “Face the Nation” will no longer edit taped interviews after U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem complained about how her remarks were cut in her last appearance on the Washington-based program.
The news division said Friday that the Sunday show moderated by Margaret Brennan will only present interviews live or “live to tape” in which no edits are made. Exceptions will be made when classified national security information is inadvertently stated or language is used that violates Federal Communications Commission broadcast standards.
“In response to audience feedback over the past week, we have implemented a new policy for greater transparency in our interviews,” a CBS News representative said in a statement. “This extra measure means the television audience will see the full, unedited interview on CBS and we will continue our practice of posting full transcripts and the unedited video online.”
The representative declined to comment on the reason for the policy beyond the statement.
But the timing makes it clear that CBS News is reacting to Noem’s complaints following her Sunday appearance in which she discussed the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man wrongly deported to his native El Salvador. He was returned to the U.S., where he faces deportation efforts.
Noem wrote on X that “CBS shamefully edited the interview to whitewash the truth about this MS-13 gang member and the threat he poses to American public safety.”
The comments cut from the “Face the Nation” appearance were potentially defamatory. Noem said that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13 and that he solicited nude photos from minors.
“Even his fellow human traffickers told him to knock it off, he was so sick in what he was doing and how he was treating small children,” Noem said in the unedited version of the interview she posted on X.
The government has accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of MS-13, which he has denied. A court has described the evidence of his connection as “insufficient.”
“Face the Nation,” which has been on the air since 1954, became the focal point in a legal battle between CBS News and President Trump last year. Trump sued CBS News for $20 billion, claiming the program deceptively edited a “60 Minutes” interview with his 2024 opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Face the Nation” ran a clip from the interview that differed from what appeared in the “60 Minutes” broadcast, which led Trump to claim that it was changed to aid Harris and damage his election chances.
Editing interviews for clarity and time restrictions of a broadcast is a common practice in TV news. While 1st Amendment experts said CBS News had done nothing wrong, parent company Paramount settled the case for $16 million to help clear the regulatory hurdles for its merger with Skydance Media. The merger was completed Aug. 7.
The policy change regarding live interviews will likely be seen as another capitulation to Trump administration, who has shown a willingness to use legal measures to punish or attempt to silence his critics in the media. It will also pose a challenge to “Face the Nation” producers who already operate in an environment where real-time fact checking can’t always keep up with the misinformation presented by guests on the program.
CBS News is expecting additional changes as Skydance is in serious talks to acquire the Free Press, the right-leaning web-based media company founded by former New York Times opinion writer Bari Weiss.
The deal is said to be nearing completion, according to people familiar with the discussions, and would include a prominent role for Weiss at CBS News, even though she has no experience in running a TV news organization.
Last fall, the state sued the southeastern Los Angeles County community alleging that Norwalk’s policy violated anti-discrimination, fair housing and numerous other state laws. Norwalk leaders had argued its shelter ban, which also blocked homeless housing developments, laundromats, payday lenders and other businesses that predominantly served the poor, was a necessary response to broken promises from other agencies to assist with the city’s homeless population.
“The Norwalk City Council’s failure to reverse this ban without a lawsuit, despite knowing it is unlawful, is inexcusable,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “No community should turn its back on its residents in need — especially while there are people in your community sleeping on the streets.”
The settlement, which needs judicial approval before taking effect, calls for Norwalk to repeal its ban at an upcoming City Council meeting, Bonta said in a release. In addition, the city will dedicate $250,000 toward the development of new affordable housing, formally acknowledge that the ban harmed fair housing efforts and accept increased state monitoring of its housing policies.
Bonta said that the legal action shows the state will not back down when local leaders attempt to block homeless housing.
“We are more than willing to work with any city or county that wants to do its part to solve our housing crisis,” Bonta said. “By that same token, if any city or county wants to test our resolve, today’s settlement is your answer.”
Norwalk officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Norwalk stood out compared to other communities that have found themselves in the state’s crosshairs in recent years. Many cities that have fought state housing policies, such as Beverly Hills and Coronado, are predominantly wealthy and white. By contrast, Norwalk is a Latino-majority, working- and middle-class city. Elected leaders in the city of 100,000 have said they’ve borne a disproportionate burden of addressing homelessness in the region.
Though the ban led to the cancellation of a planned shelter in Norwalk, city leaders contended that the policy largely was a negotiating tactic to ensure that the state and other agencies heard their concerns. Last year, the city said that even though the shelter ban remained on its books, it would not be enforced.
“This is not an act of defiance but rather an effort to pause, listen, and find common ground with the state,” city spokesperson Levy Sun said in a statement following a February court ruling that allowed the lawsuit to proceed.
Marc Seawright took pride in his job at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where he worked for more than eight years and most recently oversaw technology policy to support the agency’s mission of combating workplace harassment and discrimination.
But then President Trump began targeting transgender and nonbinary people within hours of returning to the White House by issuing a series of executive orders — including one declaring the existence of two unchangeable sexes. Seawright was ordered to develop technology to scrub any mention of LGBTQ+ identities from all EEOC outreach materials, which had been created to help employers understand their obligations under civil rights law.
Suddenly, his tech expertise “was being leveraged to perpetuate discrimination against people like me,” said Seawright, 41, who served as the EEOC’s director of information governance and strategy before he quit in June, citing a hostile work environment. “It became overwhelming. It felt insurmountable.”
A San Francisco-based Army veteran, Seawright is one of 10 transgender and gender nonconforming government employees across federal agencies who spoke with the Associated Press about their workplace experiences since Trump regained office, describing their fear, grief, frustration and distress working for an employer that rejects their identity — often with no clear path for recourse or support. Several requested anonymity for fear of retaliation; some, including Seawright, have filed formal discrimination complaints.
Since January, the Trump administration has reversed years of legal and policy gains for transgender Americans, including stripping government websites of “gender ideology” and reinstituting a ban on transgender service members in the military.
The White House and the EEOC declined to respond to allegations that the president’s policies created a hostile workplace for transgender federal employees. But his executive order, which defines sex as strictly male or female, states that its goal is to protect spaces designated for women and girls.
“Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being,” the order says.
Independent Women, a nonprofit that advocates for legislation defining sex as male and female, supports Trump’s executive order.
“Women’s rights can get erased if men can just self-identify to women’s spaces,” said the organization’s senior legal advisor Beth Parlato.
Brad Sears, senior scholar at UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, which researches policy impacting LGBTQ+ people, points to “a sweeping, government-wide initiative to really erase transgender people from public life,” including adults in the workplace.
“The federal workplace is increasingly an inhospitable place for the transgender employees who remain,” Sears said.
Compared with private sector workers, transgender federal employees are especially vulnerable because many ultimately answer to the president, said Olivia Hunt, director of federal policy at Advocates for Trans Equality, which seeks legal and political rights for transgender people in the United States.
“In the absence of an ability to impose their will directly on employers throughout the country, this administration is going to use the tools that they have to attack the trans people who are in close proximity to them, and that includes federal workers,” Hunt said.
Withrow visits armories across Illinois for her job, sometimes in remote areas. But Trump’s executive order directing agencies to take “appropriate action” to ensure that intimate spaces “are designated by sex and not identity” created a major hurdle for Withrow when her supervisors informed her that she was no longer allowed to use the women’s restroom at work.
“I don’t use men’s spaces because I don’t feel comfortable doing that,” the 34-year-old said.
At locations without single-occupancy options, a simple bathroom break can mean a 45-minute round trip to a nearby gas station or McDonald’s.
Represented by the ACLU, Withrow filed a class action complaint in May challenging the Trump administration’s policy on the basis of sex discrimination.
A spokesperson for the Illinois National Guard declined to comment on the pending lawsuit but said the agency is “committed to treating all of our employees with dignity and respect.” The Department of Defense also declined to comment, citing policy, but affirmed its commitment to enforcing relevant laws and implementing the gender executive order.
For Seawright at the EEOC, he feels like his skill set was being wielded against the agency’s mission, not to support it. Following Trump’s signing of his executive order, Acting EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, a Republican, quickly began reshaping policy and, among other things, removed the agency’s “pronoun app,” which allowed employees to display their pronouns in their profiles. It was a tool that was created — then dismantled — by Seawright.
He had spent two years developing the app to support a nonbinary employee at the agency.
“For it to be just kind of yanked away summarily with none of the thoughtfulness and planning that went into implementing the tool … that became really frustrating,” Seawright said.
His mental health suffered, and he requested extended personal leave shortly after he completed the project scrubbing references to gender identity. When he returned in late February, the situation continued to deteriorate.
He hired lawyers at Katz Banks Kumin and filed a formal discrimination complaint. In June, Seawright resigned, citing “significant distress, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, anger, and sadness” caused daily by Lucas’ “anti-transgender actions.”
Withrow, meanwhile, still works in her role while navigating similar challenges.
“I do feel as though there is at least an implied threat for trans folks in federal service,” she said. “We’ll just continue to meet the objectives and focus on the mission, and hope that that is enough proof that we belong.”
It’s probably safe to say that almost no one following the news believes that Donald Trump has a solid, defensible reason to fire Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, as he purported to do Monday, notwithstanding his assertion that she is guilty of “potentially criminal conduct.”
It’s not only that the charge she falsified information on mortgage applications is unproven, or that even on their face the accusations are thinner than onion-skin paper.
It’s that Trump has telegraphed his true objective loud and clear virtually from the inception of his current term: to destroy the Fed’s independence so he can force it to act in accordance with what he sees as his immediate political advantage, chiefly by cutting interest rates at a time when that would be economically irrational.
No one’s claiming that central bankers are going to be perfect at their jobs. What we’re saying is that they’re going to be better than the alternative.
— Peter Conti-Brown, Wharton School
He has pursued this objective in several ways. He has consistently denigrated the work of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, questioning why Powell was ever appointed (and forgetting that he was the president who appointed Powell).
He has carried on about the cost of a renovation of the Fed’s Washington headquarters building, even misrepresenting the cost and nature of the project, suggesting that it points to Powell’s managerial ineptitude.
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And now he’s trying to fire Cook, one of Powell’s supporters on the Fed board. Whether he can do so in the face of Cook’s refusal to go is unclear, and likely to be judged on by the Supreme Court.
That leads us to the principle of Federal Reserve independence and its critical importance for the health of the U.S. economy.
The Fed isn’t the only central bank that cherishes its independence. Most central banks in developed countries do too, although they solidified their status at different times — the Bank of England gaining operational independence over monetary policy in Britain only in 1997.
To be fair, the character of central bank independence has always been murky. “Central banks do not and should not operate in a vacuum,” Tobias Adrian and Ashraf Khan of the International Monetary Fund observed in 2019, acknowledging that “as public institutions, central banks should be held properly accountable to lawmakers and to society.”
Indeed, to paraphrase Finley Peter Dunne’s Mr. Dooley, throughout its own history the Fed, like the Supreme Court, has “followed the election returns.”
That is, it’s rare for the central bank to range too far from what the public expects from government economic management. In any event, the Fed is a creation of Congress, which could theoretically expand or narrow its monetary policy authority and structure its board to make it more responsive to partisan politics.
The consensus among economists is that doing so would be unwise. Political leaders who have made their central banks subservient to their own policies have almost invariably learned the consequences the hard way, as economists across the economic spectrum observe.
“If a legislature or executive can order the central bank to print money,” wrote Thomas L. Hogan of the conservative American Institute for Economic Research in 2020, “then the government can spend without limit …which can lead to hyperinflation and economic disaster as seen in countries such as Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and Argentina.”
That’s a lesson that economists began urging on Trump as he stepped up his attacks on the Fed. “No one’s claiming that central bankers are going to be perfect at their jobs,” Peter Conti-Brown of the Wharton School said recently. “What we’re saying is that they’re going to be better than the alternative. The alternative is setting interest rate policy from the Oval Office, according to the whims of whatever the president wants to see that day. That’s the main alternative to central banking. And that’s what’s under threat today.”
The United States also learned the value of an independent Fed the hard way. For more than three decades after its creation in 1913, the Fed was largely a handmaiden of the U.S. Treasury; the Treasury secretary and comptroller of the currency were ex officio members of its board, and the Treasury secretary presided over its meetings.
That version of the Fed proved unequal to managing macroeconomic policy as the Great Depression deepened. It had few powers with which to set policy, especially with Franklin Roosevelt taking the reins of economic policy in his own hands.
FDR unilaterally took the U.S. off the gold standard in 1933. He would set the price of gold every morning with aides at his bedside, prompting the British economic sage John Maynard Keynes to complain directly to Roosevelt that “the recent gyrations of the dollar” looked to him “like a gold standard on the booze.”
Roosevelt eventually gave up on manipulating the price of gold and consequently the value of the dollar. He also recognized that the nation needed a firmer, professional hand on the monetary faucet. The solution came from the progressive-minded Utah banker Marriner Eccles, whom FDR tasked with remaking the Fed.
Eccles is almost entirely unknown to the public, but he’s revered among economic policy wonks — which explains why his name is on the Fed headquarters building. After FDR appointed him to head the Federal Reserve Board, Eccles oversaw the drafting of the Banking Act of 1935, which centralized monetary policy in the Fed board and gave it new powers to manage the money supply. Eccles remained the board’s chairman until 1948 and remained a board member until 1951.
Despite those reforms, however, the Fed remained tied to political imperatives, chiefly the financing of America’s fiscal needs during World War II, policies firmly under the control of the Treasury. “We are not masters in our own house,” one Fed bank governor lamented.
That began to change in 1950, when the process of paying for war expenses had triggered an inflationary spiral. The consumer price index rose by 17.6% in 1946-47 and another 9.5% the following fiscal year, thanks in part by the end of wartime price controls and the “pegging” of long-term treasury bond rates at 2.5%.
The onset of the Korean War in 1950 threatened more inflation. President Truman insisted on leaving the peg at 2.5% in order to limit the cost of government spending on the new war. Eccles and others on the Fed board feared, however, that keeping the rate from rising above 2.5% would require the Fed to keep buying T-bonds, which pumped more dollars into the money supply and fueled inflation. The Fed wanted to allow rates to rise, which was anathema to the White House.
This concern placed the Fed in open conflict with Truman and his Treasury secretary, his crony John Wesley Snyder. The Fed and Snyder engaged in increasingly acrimonious meetings, after one of which the White House issued a communique that falsely stated that the Fed had agreed to follow the administration’s demands. The Fed then issued its own statement, directly contradicting Truman’s.
Truman maintained publicly that keeping rates low was crucial for the fight against communism. “I hope the Board will … not allow the bottom to drop from under our securities,” Truman said, referring to the decline of treasury prices if the board let rates rise. “If that happens, that is exactly what Mr. Stalin wants.” Eccles, for his part, told Congress that if the Fed were forced to maintain the 2.5% peg, that would make the Fed itself “an engine of inflation.”
The war of words continued, until Assistant Treasury Secretary William McChesney Martin took over negotiations with the Fed from Snyder, who was recovering from surgery. Martin broke the logjam. The result was the Treasury-Fed Accord of March 4, 1951, a landmark document in Federal Reserve history. The accord gave the Fed full rein to manage short-term interest rates in return for its keeping long-term rates within the peg until the end of that year.
Truman appointed Martin as Fed chairman a few weeks later; some saw the appointment as a Treasury takeover, but Martin proved to be a firm advocate of Fed independence. The accord, as explained by Robert L. Hetzel of the Richmond Fed and Ralph Leach, who personally witnessed the 1951 negotiations, “marked the start of the modern Federal Reserve System” and established the central bank’s “dual mandate” of promoting stable prices and maximizing employment.
That doesn’t mean that the Fed rigorously honored its hard-won independence. Fed Chairman Arthur Burns acceded to Richard Nixon’s urging to keep rates low in advance of the 1972 presidential election. It was a disastrous misstep. Inflation soared, especially during the Arab oil embargo, peaking at nearly 15% in 1980.
It fell to Paul Volcker, who became chairman in 1979, to use the Fed’s authority to slay the inflationary beast. Volcker drove the Fed’s key rate nearly to 20%, provoking a recession and a sharp rise in unemployment. But the inflation rate fell back to 3.8% by 1983 and as low as 1.1% in 1986. Volckeer’s actions arguably set the stage for Ronald Reagan’s defeat of Jimmy Carter in 1980, but arguably he could not have taken the stringent measures needed to bring inflation down if he bowed to Carter’s electoral needs.
Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke set forth the perils of political influence on the Fed in 2020, warning that central banks subjected to political pressure might “overstimulate the economy to achieve short-term … gains.” Those may be “popular at first, and thus helpful in an election campaign, but they are not sustainable and soon evaporate, leaving behind only inflationary pressures that worsen the economy’s longer-term prospects.”
That’s the prospect facing the U.S. as Trump keeps trying to erode the Fed’s independence, insisting on a rate cut no matter the overall economic environment. As it happens, he may get the rate cut he desires, but only because his tariff and immigration policies are sapping America’s economic strength, producing a slump that warrants a reduction.
Where will we go from here? Powell’s term as Fed chair expires next May. He has been admirably protective of the bank’s independence while in office, but it’s a safe bet that his Trump-appointed successor won’t be so solicitous. Harder times for the Fed, and the economy, may lurk over the horizon.
The international oil market is grappling with a persistent oversupply, driving sustained downward pressure on prices. By 2025, global energy systems are operating with significant overcapacity. OPEC+, aiming to regain market share, agreed in July to raise output by 548,000 barrels per day (bpd) in August, exceeding expectations, with a similar increase possible in September.
This aggressive move has intensified oversupply risks. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects global oil production in 2025 will reach 104.9 million bpd, outpacing demand at 103.8 million bpd. OPEC+ is phasing out production cuts, while non-OPEC+ supply is set to grow by 1.4 million bpd. Meanwhile, weak demand growth, especially in China and the U.S., has prompted the IEA to downgrade its 2025 demand forecast to 720,000 bpd. Despite geopolitical tensions, including Middle East conflicts, the structural oversupply remains dominant. Global inventories have risen steadily since February, with a sharp 93-million-barrel increase in May alone. Concurrently, U.S.-China trade tensions, fueled by Trump-era tariffs, have further clouded demand outlooks.
In this context, Trump has urged China to buy “plenty” of U.S. oil. While bilateral oil trade has continued despite tensions, it has been inconsistent. China’s imports of U.S. crude rose 81% in 2023 to 286,000 bpd. However, in 2024, amid escalating tensions and increased imports from Russia and Malaysia, U.S. crude shipments to China fell 53% to 217,000 bpd. From May to July 2024, China made no U.S. oil purchases, the longest pause since 2018, contributing to the lowest U.S. crude exports in over two years.
China, the world’s largest net energy importer, imported over 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent in 2024. It has adopted a defensive strategy, stockpiling reserves at low prices to manage cost and hedge against supply chain risks. This price-sensitive approach has become institutionalized, supporting both energy security and bargaining power.
However, this strategy is rooted in commercial logic rather than broader geopolitical planning. Despite energy security’s centrality to national interests, strategic implementation often lacks alignment.
Russia has emerged as China’s top oil supplier, accounting for 19% of 2023 imports. Yet, as China absorbs cheap oil globally, U.S. shale producers are losing ground due to high costs and limited export access, now a survival concern for the industry.
Meanwhile, major U.S. oil companies are under pressure. In 2024, profits of the top five oil giants fell significantly, with firms like Chevron slashing 15% to 20% of its workforce. This has weakened the traditional energy sector, a key Republican stronghold, thereby undermining Trump’s “energy dominance” strategy.
Facing a difficult midterm election, Trump has shifted focus toward China. On June 25, he signaled a possible easing of Iranian sanctions to allow oil exports to China while simultaneously urging China to resume large-scale U.S. oil purchases. This contradiction reflects a deeper conflict: oil majors’ long-term green transition vs. Trump’s short-term revival of fossil fuels. Stable export markets like China are vital for U.S. shale survival.
Trump’s policy balancing act between low oil prices and oil industry interests highlights China’s opportunity. His political vulnerability offers China a strategic opening to ease trade tensions and gain leverage through “oil diplomacy”.
For China, increased oil trade with the U.S. offers multiple strategic advantages:
Diplomatic Leverage: Responding to Trump’s call aligns with his style and offers a diplomatic gesture, not just economic cooperation.
Cost-Benefit Balance: While U.S. oil may be more expensive, it carries political value. In contrast, Russian oil may seem cheaper but could come with geopolitical costs, especially given Russia’s unpredictable behavior.
Deeper Engagement: Expanding cooperation with U.S. energy firms, many tied to Republican interests, could stabilize bilateral relations and open additional diplomatic channels.
Reserve Strategy: By expanding strategic reserves, China can manage higher purchase prices and potentially resell at favorable rates. U.S. light crude, with its higher quality, justifies a price premium.
State-to-State Negotiation: Positioning the oil trade as a government-level transaction rather than purely commercial can help secure favorable terms. Trump’s direct involvement could lead to better pricing and increased political capital.
Overall, strengthening oil trade with the U.S. serves as a practical adjustment in China’s energy and foreign policy. It helps counterbalance dependence on Russian energy, mitigates strategic vulnerabilities, and positions China more flexibly in global geopolitics. Engaging in “oil diplomacy” with the U.S. at this moment could enhance China’s strategic posture and create new leverage amid shifting global dynamics.
The T visa, an underutilized lifeline for immigrant survivors of human trafficking, is experiencing a sharp rise in applications, despite increasing processing times and deportation risks.
Also known as T nonimmigrant status, the visa allows people who have experienced severe forms of human trafficking to remain in the country for up to four years if they are helpful to law enforcement in the investigation and prosecution of their trafficker. Approved applicants can work in the U.S., are eligible for certain state and federal benefits, and can apply for a green card after three years on the visa (or earlier if the criminal case is closed).
Julie Dahlstrom, founder and director of the Human Trafficking Clinic at Boston University, said increased awareness of the visa and the courts’ expanding definitions of trafficking may have contributed to the increase, along with mounting barriers to other pathways for immigrant relief.
Congress created the T visa in 2000 as part of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, intending to bolster law enforcement agencies’ capabilities to prosecute human trafficking crimes while offering protections to survivors. The same law also established the U visa, which provides legal status for victims who have suffered substantial abuse as a result of serious crimes including trafficking, domestic violence and sexual assault. U visa applicants must also be willing to assist law enforcement in their investigation of these crimes.
“Many [applicants] are eligible for the U visa as well, but they’re taking now over 20 years for an individual to get access … so I think that has influenced lawyers and survivors, if they are eligible for the T visa … to go ahead and also file T visa applications,” Dahlstrom said. “Especially under the Trump administration, we’ve seen more barriers to asylum access, special immigrant juvenile status access, so I expect we’ll continue to see that move.”
USCIS updated the T visa rules in August 2024 with a process called called bona fide determination that gave survivors earlier access to benefits while their application is pending approval. It also granted them deferred action, which places individuals on a lower priority for removal proceedings.
Erika Gonzalez, training and technical assistance managing attorney from the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking, explained that although early access to benefits had existed in the federal statute, it was never implemented because applications were processing fast enough to not need it.
“They have updated the [bona fide determination] process to now have a formal process to engage with, and it does parallel with the sharp increases in filing,” Gonzalez said.
As T visa applications rose, so too did approvals. Last year, the number of approvals broke 3,000 for the first time though it still fell short of the 5,000 cap.
Processing times for T visas have also increased, jumping from a median of 5.9 months in 2014 to 19.9 months this fiscal year.
Denial rates for T visas, meanwhile, have fluctuated.
“We were seeing increased denial rates under the prior Trump administration and then improved rates under Biden,” Dahlstrom said.
Denials can leave T visa applicants vulnerable to deportation. In 2018, USCIS began allowing removal proceedings if an application was rejected with a notice to appear (NTA).
According to a 2022 report co-written by Dahlstrom, which obtained USCIS data through Freedom of Information Act litigation, USCIS issued a total of 236 NTAs to denied T visa applicants from 2019 to 2021. President Biden rescinded this policy with a January 2021 executive order, but last February, USCIS published new guidance once more expanding the circumstances where the agency could issue NTAs.
These policies, alongside escalated coordination between law enforcement and other agencies, have heightened fear among survivors applying for the T visa, Dahlstrom explained.
“We are seeing in real time the results of including requirements around law enforcement engagement, especially when there’s greater cooperation with ICE and greater concerns about deportation,” Dahlstrom said. “These programs are being politicized and, in some ways, weaponized if you’re denied and you’re placed in proceedings.”
Since February’s policy update, at least one person has self-deported after Immigration and Customs Enforcement denied her stay despite her pending T visa application.
So far in the fiscal year 2025, USCIS has approved 1,035 T-visas and rejected 693, which surpasses the number rejected in each of the last four years.
“It’s too early to tell what we’re going to see, but if we continue to see these numbers, it’s both going to mean a rise in denials and very few cases adjudicated amidst more and more applications being filed, which is really troubling,” Dahlstrom said. “These are statutorily protected programs, but what they can do is really slow them down, make them ineffective just in the way that they’re processing applications.”
If a major hurricane approaches Central Florida this season, Maria knows it’s dangerous to stay inside her wooden, trailer-like home. In past storms, she evacuated to her sister’s sturdier house. If she couldn’t get there, a shelter set up at the local high school served as a refuge if needed.
But with accelerating detentions and deportations of immigrants across her community of Apopka, 20 miles northwest of Orlando, Maria, an agricultural worker from Mexico without permanent U.S. legal status, doesn’t know if those options are safe. All risk encountering immigration enforcement agents.
“They can go where they want,” said Maria, 50, who insisted the Associated Press not use her last name for fear of detention. “There is no limit.”
Natural disasters have long posed singular risks for people in the United States without permanent legal status. But with the arrival of peak Atlantic hurricane season, immigrants and their advocates say President Donald Trump’s robust immigration enforcement agenda has increased the danger.
Places considered neutral spaces by immigrants such as schools, hospitals and emergency management agencies are now suspect, and advocates say agreements by local law enforcement to collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement make them more vulnerable and compel a choice between being physically safe and avoiding detention.
“Am I going to risk the storm or risk endangering my family at the shelter?” said Dominique O’Connor, an organizer at the Farmworker Association of Florida. “You’re going to meet enforcement either way.”
For O’Connor and for many immigrants, it’s about storms. But people without permanent legal status could face these decisions anywhere that extreme heat, wildfires or other severe weather could necessitate evacuating, getting supplies or even seeking medical care.
Federal and state agencies have said little on whether immigration enforcement would be suspended in a disaster. It wouldn’t make much difference to Maria: “With all we’ve lived, we’ve lost trust.”
New policies deepen concerns
Efforts by Trump’s Republican administration to exponentially expand immigration enforcement capacity mean many of the agencies active in disaster response are increasingly entangled in immigration enforcement.
Since January, hundreds of law enforcement agencies have signed 287(g) agreements, allowing them to perform certain immigration enforcement actions. Most of the agreements are in hurricane-prone Florida and Texas.
Florida’s Division of Emergency Management oversees building the state’s new detention facilities, like the one called “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Everglades. Federal Emergency Management Agency funds are being used to build additional detention centers around the country, and the Department of Homeland Security temporarily reassigned some FEMA staff to assist ICE.
The National Guard, often seen passing out food and water after disasters, has been activated to support U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations and help at detention centers.
These dual roles can make for an intimidating scene during a disaster. After floods in July, more than 2,100 personnel from 20 state agencies aided the far-reaching response effort in Central Texas, along with CBP officers. Police controlled entry into hard-hit areas. Texas Department of Public Safety and private security officers staffed entrances to disaster recovery centers set up by FEMA.
That unsettled even families with permanent legal status, said Rae Cardenas, executive director of Doyle Community Center in Kerrville, Texas. Cardenas helped coordinate with the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio to replace documents for people who lived behind police checkpoints.
“Some families are afraid to go get their mail because their legal documents were washed away,” Cardenas said.
In Florida, these policies could make people unwilling to drive evacuation roads. Traffic stops are a frequent tool of detention, and Florida passed a law in February criminalizing entry into the state by those without legal status, though a judge temporarily blocked it.
There may be fewer places to evacuate now that public shelters, often guarded by police or requiring ID to enter, are no longer considered “protected areas” by DHS. The agency in January rescinded a policy of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, to avoid enforcement in places like schools, medical facilities and emergency response sites.
The fears extend even into disaster recovery. On top of meeting law enforcement at FEMA recovery centers, mixed-status households that qualify for help from the agency might hesitate to apply for fear of their information being accessed by other agencies, said Esmeralda Ledezma, communications associate with the Houston-based nonprofit Woori Juntos. “Even if you have the right to federal aid, you’re afraid to be punished for it,” Ledezma said.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an email that CBP had not issued any guidance “because there have been no natural disasters affecting border enforcement.” She did not address what directions were given during CBP’s activation in the Texas floods or whether ICE would be active during a disaster.
Florida’s Division of Emergency Management did not respond to questions related to its policies toward people without legal status. Texas’ Division of Emergency Management referred The Associated Press to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s office, which did not respond.
Building local resilience is a priority
In spite of the crackdown, local officials in some hurricane-prone areas are expanding outreach to immigrant populations. “We are trying to move forward with business as usual,” said Gracia Fernandez, language access coordinator for Alachua County in Central Florida.
The county launched a program last year to translate and distribute emergency communications in Spanish, Haitian Creole and other languages. Now staffers want to spread the word that county shelters won’t require IDs, but since they’re public spaces, Fernandez acknowledged there’s not much they can do if ICE comes.
“There is still a risk,” she said. “But we will try our best to help people feel safe.”
As immigrant communities are pushed deeper into the shadows, more responsibility falls on nonprofits, and communities themselves, to keep each other safe.
Hope Community Center in Apopka has pushed local officials to commit to not requiring IDs at shelters and sandbag distribution points. During an evacuation, the facility becomes an alternative shelter and a command center, from which staffers translate and send out emergency communications in multiple languages. For those who won’t leave their homes, staffers do door-to-door wellness checks, delivering food and water.
“It’s a very grassroots, underground operation,” said Felipe Sousa Lazaballet, the center’s executive director.
Preparing the community is challenging when it’s consumed by the daily crises wrought by detentions and deportations, Sousa Lazaballet said.
“All of us are in triage mode,” he said. “Every day there is an emergency, so the community is not necessarily thinking about hurricane season yet. That’s why we have to have a plan.”
The world’s largest diaspora of international adoptees comes from South Korea. Among them are mixed-race children who were forcibly sent for adoption due to the country’s racist laws. One Black adoptee’s search for a home reflects hard truths about the past of hundreds of thousands of international adoptees.
This is a story from the archives. This originally aired on September 25, 2024. None of the dates, titles or other references from that time have been changed.
Greece has suspended processing of asylum applications from people arriving by sea from North Africa since July.
More than 120 refugees and migrants have been intercepted off the island of Crete, according to Greek authorities, the latest in a series of arrivals of people making perilous journeys to Europe from North Africa despite a suspension of asylum claims and a concerted push for tougher detention rules.
Two boats, carrying 58 and 68 people and believed to have departed from Libya, were stopped on Monday, and their passengers were placed under guard at temporary shelters. More than 100 other refugees and migrants arrived on Crete over the weekend after strong winds eased.
Greece’s conservative government last month suspended all asylum claims for migrants arriving by sea from North Africa, a move it argued helped deter crossings that peaked in July at more than 2,500 in a single week.
The ban passed in parliament amid a surge in asylum seekers reaching Crete and after talks with Libya’s Benghazi-based government to stem the flow were cancelled acrimoniously in July.
It also marked a further hardening of Greece’s stance towards refugees and migrants under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s government, which has built a fence at its northern land borders and boosted sea patrols since it came to power in 2019.
The government remains at odds with regional authorities in Crete over a plan to build a permanent transit facility on the island. It is preparing draft legislation that would mandate imprisonment for people whose asylum claims are denied and require ankle monitors during a 30-day compliance period before deportation.
Earlier this month, at least 26 people died after two boats sank off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.
That disaster, also involving people travelling from Libya, was the latest to befall refugees and migrants making the perilous Mediterranean crossing from Africa to Europe.
Rights groups and United Nations agencies have also documented systematic abuse against refugees and migrants in Libya, including torture, rape and extortion. In February, Libyan authorities uncovered nearly 50 bodies from two mass graves in the country’s southeastern desert, in the latest horror involving people seeking to make it to Europe through the North African country.
Since the beginning of this year, 675 people have died in the central Mediterranean while trying to make the crossing, Filippo Ungaro, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Italy, recently said.
McALLEN, Texas — A federal judge ruled Friday to deny the Trump administration’s request to end a policy in place for nearly three decades that is meant to protect immigrant children in federal custody.
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles issued her ruling a week after holding a hearing with the federal government and legal advocates representing immigrant children in custody.
Gee called last week’s hearing “deja vu” after reminding the court of the federal government’s attempt to terminate the Flores settlement agreement in 2019 under the first Trump administration. She repeated the sentiment in Friday’s order.
“There is nothing new under the sun regarding the facts or the law. The Court therefore could deny Defendants’ motion on that basis alone,” Gee wrote, referring to the government’s appeal to a law it argued kept the court from enforcing the agreement.
In the most recent attempt, the government argued it had made substantial changes since the agreement was formalized in 1997, creating standards and policies governing the custody of immigrant children that conform to legislation and the agreement.
Gee acknowledged that the government made some improved conditions of confinement, but wrote, “These improvements are direct evidence that the FSA is serving its intended purpose, but to suggest that the agreement should be abandoned because some progress has been made is nonsensical.”
Attorneys representing the federal government told the court the agreement gets in the way of their efforts to expand detention space for families, even though President Trump’s tax and spending bill provided billions to build new immigration facilities.
Tiberius Davis, one of the government attorneys, said the bill gives the government authority to hold families in detention indefinitely. “But currently under the Flores settlement agreement, that’s essentially void,” he said last week.
The Flores agreement, named for a teenage plaintiff, was the result of more than a decade of litigation between attorneys representing the rights of migrant children and the U.S. government over widespread allegations of mistreatment in the 1980s.
The agreement set standards for how licensed shelters must provide food, water, adult supervision, emergency medical services, toilets, sinks, temperature control and ventilation. It also limited how long U.S. Customs and Border Protection could detain child immigrants to 72 hours. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services then takes custody of the children.
The Biden administration successfully pushed to partially end the agreement last year. Gee ruled that special court supervision may end when Health and Human Services takes custody, but she carved out exceptions for certain types of facilities for children with more acute needs.
In arguing against the Trump administration’s effort to completely end the agreement, advocates said the government was holding children beyond the time limits. In May, CBP held 46 children for more than a week, including six children held for over two weeks and four children held for 19 days, according to data revealed in a court filing. In March and April, CPB reported that it had 213 children in custody for more than 72 hours. That included 14 children, including toddlers, who were held for over 20 days in April.
The federal government is looking to expand its immigration detention space, including by building more centers like one in Florida dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” where a lawsuit alleges detainees’ constitutional rights are being violated.
Gee still has not ruled on the request by legal advocates for the immigrant children to expand independent monitoring of the treatment of children held in U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities. Currently, the agreement allows for third-party inspections at facilities in the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley regions, but plaintiffs submitted evidence showing long detention times at border facilities that violate the agreement’s terms.
WASHINGTON — After styling himself for decades as a dealmaker, President Trump is showing some receipts in his second term of ceasefires and peace agreements brokered on his watch. But the president faces extraordinary challenges in his latest push to negotiate ends to the world’s two bloodiest conflicts.
Stakes could not be higher in Ukraine, where nearly a million Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in pursuit of Vladimir Putin’s war of conquest, according to independent analysts. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers add to the catastrophic casualty toll. Trump’s struggle to get both sides to a negotiating table, let alone to secure a ceasefire, has grown into a fixation for Trump, prompting rare rebukes of Putin from the U.S. president.
And in the Gaza Strip, an alliance that has withstood scathing international criticism over Israel’s conduct of its war against Hamas has begun to show strain. Trump still supports the fundamental mission of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to destroy the militant group and secure the release of Israeli hostages in its possession. But mounting evidence of mass starvation in Gaza has begun to fray the relationship, reportedly resulting in a shouting match in their most recent call.
Breakthroughs in the two conflicts have evaded Trump, despite his efforts to fashion himself into the “peacemaker-in-chief” and floating his own nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
In Turnberry, Scotland, last month, Trump claimed that six wars had been stopped or thwarted under his watch since he returned to office in January. “I’m averaging about a war a month,” he said at the time.
He has, in fact, secured a string of tangible successes on the international stage, overseeing a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda; hosting a peace ceremony between Armenia and Azerbeijan; brokering a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand, and imposing an end to a 12-day war between Israel and Iran after engaging U.S. forces directly in the conflict.
Olivier Nduhungirehe, Rwanda’s foreign minister, from left, U.S. Vice President JD Vance, President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Democratic Republic of the Congo foreign minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner in the Oval Office of the White House on June 27. The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda agreed to a U.S.-backed peace deal meant to end years of deadly conflict and promote development in Congo’s volatile eastern region.
“We’ve only been here for six months. The world was on fire. We took care of just about every fire — and we’re working on another one,” he said, “with Russia, Ukraine.”
Trump also takes credit for lowering tensions between Serbia and Kosovo, and for brokering a ceasefire between two nuclear states, India and Pakistan, a claim the latter supports but the former denies.
“Wars usually last five to 10 years,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, chair in defense and strategy at the Brookings Institution. “Trump is tactically clever, but no magician. If he actually gets three of these five conflicts to end, that’s an incredible track record.
“In each case, he may exaggerate his own role,” O’Hanlon said, but “that’s OK — I welcome the effort and contribution, even if others deserve credit, too.”
One-on-one with Putin
Well past his campaign promise of ending Russia’s war with Ukraine “within 24 hours” of taking office, Trump has tried pressuring both sides to come to the negotiating table, starting with the Ukrainians. “You don’t have the cards,” Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an infamous Oval Office meeting in February, chastising him to prepare to make painful concessions to end the war.
But in June, at a NATO summit in the Netherlands, Trump’s years-long geniality with Putin underwent a shift. He began criticizing Russia’s leader as responsible for the ongoing conflict, accusing Putin of throwing “meaningless … bull—” at him and his team.
“I’m not happy with Putin, I can tell you that much right now,” Trump said, approving new weapons for Ukraine, a remarkable policy shift long advocated by the Europeans.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and King of Malaysia Sultan Ibrahim walk during a welcoming ceremony at the Grand Kremlin Palace on Wednesday in Moscow. Malaysian King Sultan Ibrahim is on an official visit to Russia.
(Getty Images)
The Trump administration set Friday as a deadline for Putin to demonstrate his commitment to a ceasefire, or otherwise face a new round of crushing secondary sanctions — financial tools that would punish Russia’s trading partners for continuing business with Moscow.
Those plans were put on hold after Trump announced he would meet with Putin in Alaska next week, a high-stakes meeting that will exclude Zelensky.
“The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska. Further details to follow,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Friday. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Meeting Putin one-on-one — the first meeting between a U.S. and Russian president in four years, and the first between Putin and any Western leader since he launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — in and of itself could be seen as a reward for a Russian leader seeking to regain international legitimacy, experts said.
In this June 28, 2019, file photo, President Trump, right, meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan.
(Susan Walsh/Associated Press)
Worse still, Putin, a former KGB officer, could approach the meeting as an opportunity to manipulate the American president.
“Putin has refused to abandon his ultimate objectives in Ukraine — he is determined to supplant the Zelensky government in Kyiv with a pro-Russian regime,” said Kyle Balzer, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “He wants ironclad guarantees that Ukraine will never gain admittance to NATO. So there is currently no agreement to be had with Russia, except agreeing to surrender to Putin’s demands. Neither Ukraine nor Europe are interested in doing so.
“Put simply, Putin likely believes that he can wear down the current administration,” Balzer added. “Threatening Russia with punitive acts like sanctions, and then pulling back when the time comes to do so, has only emboldened Putin to strive for ultimate victory in Ukraine.”
A European official told The Times that, while the U.S. government had pushed for Zelensky to join the initial meeting, a response from Kyiv — noting that any territorial concession to Russia in negotiations would have to be approved in a ballot referendum by the Ukrainian people — scuttled the initial plan.
The Trump administration is prepared to endorse the bulk of Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory, including the eastern region of Donbas and the Crimean peninsula, at the upcoming summit, Bloomberg reported. On Friday, Trump called the issue of territory “complicated.”
“We’re gonna get some back,” he said. “There will be some swapping of territories.”
Michael Williams, an international relations professor at Syracuse University, said that Trump has advocated for a ceasefire in Ukraine “at the expense of other strategic priorities such as stability in Europe and punishment of Russia through increased aid to Ukraine.”
Such an approach, Williams said, “would perhaps force the Kremlin to end the war, and further afield, would signal to other potential aggressors, such as China, that violations of international law will be met with a painful response.”
Gaza
At Friday’s peace ceremony, Trump told reporters he was considering a proposal to relocate Palestinian refugees to Somalia and its breakaway region, Somaliland, once Israel ends hostilities against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“We are working on that right now,” Trump said.
It was just the latest instance of Trump floating the resettlement of Palestinians displaced during the two-year war there, which has destroyed more than 90% of the structures throughout the strip and essentially displaced its entire population of 2 million people. The Hamas-run Health Ministry reports that more than 60,000 civilians and militants have died in the conflict.
Hamas, recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and others, has refused to concede the war, stating it would disarm only once a Palestinian state is established. The group continues to hold roughly 50 Israeli hostages, some dead and some alive, among 251 taken during its attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which also killed about 1,200 people.
Protesters gather in a demonstration organized by the families of the Israeli hostages taken captive in the Gaza Strip since October 2023 calling for action to secure their release outside the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv on Saturday.
(Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)
Israel’s Cabinet voted this week to approve a plan to take over Gaza City in the north of the strip and, eventually, the rest of the territory, a deeply unpopular strategy in the Israeli military and among the Israeli public. Netanyahu on Friday rejected the notion that Israel planned to permanently occupy Gaza.
Despite applying private pressure on Netanyahu, Trump’s strategy has largely fallen in line with that of his predecessor, Joe Biden, whose team supported Israel’s right to defend itself while working toward a peace deal that, at its core, would exchange the remaining hostages for a cessation of hostilities.
The talks have stalled, one U.S. official said, primarily blaming Hamas over its demands.
“In Gaza, there is a fundamental structural imbalance of dealing with a terrorist organization that may be immune to traditional forms of pressure — military, economic or otherwise — and that may even have a warped, perverse set of priorities in which the suffering of its own people is viewed as a political asset because it tarnishes the reputation of the other party, Israel,” said Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “So Trump really only has leverage over one party — his ally, Israel — which he has been reluctant to wield, reasonably so.”
In Ukraine, too, Trump holds leverage he has been unwilling, thus far, to bring to bear.
“There, Trump has leverage over both parties but appears reluctant to wield it on one of them — Russia,” Satloff said.
But Trump suggested Friday that threatened sanctions on India over its purchase of Russian oil, and his agreement with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to secure greater security spending from European members, “had an impact” on Moscow’s negotiating position.
“I think my instinct really tells me that we have a shot at it,” Trump said. “I think we’re getting very close.”
Can companies realistically pivot their manufacturing based on policy winds, or is this strategy more complicated than policymakers suggest?
As trade tensions escalate under US President Donald Trump, the reshoring narrative is becoming more complicated. While companies across virtually all industries once embraced the idea of bringing manufacturing closer to home—driven by pandemic-era lessons and shifting geopolitical alliances—a new wave of tariffs, market instability, and lingering cost concerns is muddying the waters.
“We know of a number of clients who paused their reshoring plans due to the speed of change for the tariff landscape in the second quarter of this year,” says Jonathan Todd, a partner at the Cleveland-based business law firm Benesch.
What started as a strategic conversation quickly became tactical. CEOs and CFOs, once confident in their playbooks, were now focused on managing cost volatility and nervous about making the wrong move.
“There’s cautious optimism among clients, but most remain in a wait-and-see posture.”
Jonathan Todd, partner at Benesch
Earlier this year, Benesch began hearing a familiar refrain from manufacturers: Plans were underway to ramp up US production.
Many had already started shifting supply chains during and after Trump’s first term, favoring nearshoring and “friendshoring” strategies that prioritized geographic and political proximity. At the time, Canada and Mexico overtook China as top US trading partners, recalls Todd.
“The reshoring theme of this administration was in part a further development out of that exercise in shifting global supply chains,” Todd says.
But The Optimism Didn’t Last
For some, that sentiment changed with the April 2 announcement of “reciprocal tariffs,” which “targeted some of those friendshoring countries to which supply chains moved,” Todd explains. Trump announced a universal tariff, starting at 10%, on all imports, along with higher tariffs on countries like China and Vietnam with large trade deficits. Aimed at countering what the administration called unfair trade practices, the move sparked global market turmoil, triggering stock drops and fears of a global recession.
As a result, reshoring is back in the spotlight for both an unpredictable US and an extra-cautious Europe, which responded with its own homegrown manufacturing renaissance. Some firms—on both continents—are forging ahead, seeing opportunity in the volatility. Others, spooked by fickle policy and thin margins, are holding back or doubling down on existing overseas relationships. The result is a reshoring push that is uneven, reactive, and far from guaranteed.
‘None Of These Is Written In Stone’
After Trump’s April 2 so-called “Liberation Day” announcement, tariffs on Chinese imports surged—some as high as 145%—and China retaliated with duties of up to 125% on US goods. Confusion reigned.
One of those caught in the policy crossfire was Lee Evans Lee, founder and CEO of Texas-based fashion brand Mrs Momma Bear.
Lee Evans Lee, Founder and CEO, Mrs Momma Bear
“I’m in a really exciting growth period,” Lee tells Global Finance. “So now you throw tariffs on top of that?”
In lower-margin industries like apparel, smaller firms rely on offshore production and point to high labor costs, domestic talent gaps, entrenched supply chain dependencies, and partnership loyalties—particularly in China—as reshoring deal-breakers. The economics of it simply don’t work.
As the tariff spat with China escalated, Lee huddled with her manufacturing partner Lever Style, which is based in Hong Kong. In addition to Mrs Momma Bear, this fashion supply chain firm works with some of the world’s biggest brands, including Hugo Boss, Ralph Lauren, and Uniqlo. As she recalls, one colleague held up the day’s newspaper with the bold headline on Trump’s tariff threat.
“Throw it away,” Lee told her colleague. “None of this is written in stone. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not changing any of the orders I’ve placed.”
Sticking with her existing supply chain was a risk—but one Lee was willing to take. “We don’t know what the markets are going to do,” she said. “But when everyone else pulls back, that might be our advantage. We’ve got a superior product—ultrahigh quality—and we’re standing firm on that.”
Her instincts were right. The administration ultimately pulled back: Trump retreated on the harshest tariff threats. Today, US duties on Chinese goods remain elevated at a combined 55%—a 30% blanket tariff plus the prior 25% on specific product categories.
Still, the whiplash left its mark. “A lot of people reacted to [tariffs] with fear,” says Lee.
When Tariffs Open Doors
But not every company is taking a defensive stance. Some, like KULR Technology Group, see the disruption as an opening to scale. Just days after Trump unveiled the sweeping tariffs, KULR announced a strategic partnership to distribute products from Berlin-based German Bionic, which specializes in advanced robotics and wearable exoskeletons used by logistics companies, health care providers, and construction workers.
The collaboration marks San Diego–based KULR’s expansion into a fast-growing sector: According to market research firm Spherical Insights, wearable robotics are estimated to become a $41.5 billion market by 2033. The stakes are high, considering German Bionic already serves a diverse global customer base, including Dachser Intelligent Logistics, GXO, Nuremberg Airport, Canadian Tire, UK electronics retailer Currys, and Berlin’s Charité Hospital.
Key to the partnership is German Bionic’s manufacturer, Taiwan-based electronics giant Wistron Corporation, a major supplier to companies like Nvidia. With ongoing expansion in Dallas, and existing facilities in San Jose, California, Wistron’s North American footprint could help sidestep trade friction as KULR scales production for the US market.
“[Wistron’s] medical group is focused on building exoskeleton products,” states KULR Technology Group CEO and co-founder Michael Mo. “That’s a perfect partner for us.”
As Mo sees it, that production could very well move to one of Wistron’s facilities in North America when the US market picks up.
“They already have the production line here,” Mo notes. “Sure, labor is more expensive; but when you work out the economics—yes, huge opportunities.”
Mo also sees long-term potential in defense applications. With units like Marine Corps logistics groups handling everything from ammunition to rations manually, the exoskeleton’s core strength—lifting and moving heavy loads—could be a natural fit. Having a domestic supply chain in place, he adds, would make the product even more appealing to US military clients.
“There’s a huge opportunity to serve the military with a technology like this,” Mo suggests.
In Europe, A Different Approach
While reshoring in the US is often driven by political messaging and tariff volatility, Europe is pursuing a more coordinated and policy-driven path. From the UK to Italy to Brussels, governments are rolling out strategic incentives to bring manufacturing back home—not just in response to trade friction, but as part of a long-term industrial policy reset.
In the UK alone, companies are expected to invest up to $650 billion in reshoring and nearshoring over the next three years, according to Capgemini, with projections of over 300,000 new jobs by 2025.
Italy, meanwhile, is offering decade-long tax breaks for firms relocating production to Italy from outside the EU. A report by Confindustria (the General Confederation of Italian Industry) found that 21% of firms that have adopted offshore production have already brought it back, with another 12% planning to do so in the next five years. And the EU is backing sector-specific initiatives—such as the European Chips Act and REPowerEU—to reduce dependency on other nations and boost capacity in semiconductors, green tech, and automation.
“Europe is looking for closer ties to get around the volatility,” says Andrew Husby, a senior economist at BNP Paribas. “What that’s likely to mean is a period of higher inflation over the near term.”
David Roche, Strategist, Quantum Strategy
Still, Europe’s reshoring strategy appears more deliberate—and potentially more durable. By contrast, US efforts are more fragmented, often swayed by election cycles and reactive policy shifts. High energy costs, labor shortages, and regulatory inconsistency continue to blunt American momentum.
“It’s not going to work for several reasons,” warns David Roche, strategist at Singapore-based research firm Quantum Strategy. “Trying to substitute US labor for foreign labor is just not economical. And tariffs—even if they settle at current levels—will keep harming growth, productivity, and the cost of making things in the United States.”
Uncertainty over future trade deals isn’t helping either, Roche adds. “There has to be a deal. It has to be signed.”
During Trump’s first term, the initial levies on steel and aluminum sparked a global backlash. “Trade wars are good, and easy to win,” Trump argued via tweet in 2018.
Apparently, “easy” is a relative term. Few trade deals have materialized ahead of Trump’s shifting deadlines (the latest set for August 1). Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines have agreements in place. Framework talks are also ongoing with the UK—where the US already ran an $11.9 billion trade surplus as of the end of 2024—and with China, which remains unresolved.
“Ultimately the [Covid-19] pandemic shed light on global supply chain fragility,” Husby says. “Companies have been aware it can benefit them to make sure supply chains are more aligned with where the end-market demand is.” In other words, manufacturers began shifting production closer to major consumer markets like the US, fueling interest in nearshoring to places like Mexico. “But what the new rounds of tariffs are doing,” Husby explains, “is injecting quite a bit more uncertainty into that.”
Indeed, many US companies remain on the fence about altering their manufacturing footprints. 3M, for example, is considering moving some production stateside. The Minnesota-based maker of Post-it notes and Scotch tape currently imports around $850 million in goods from Canada and Mexico.
Another Minnesota-based firm, Polaris, which relies on a Mexican facility and is known for its off-road vehicles, is considering a possible surcharge on its products rather than relocation. CEO Michael Speetzen, however, cautioned in March that reshoring is “not free, and it’s not easy,” adding that long-term tariff clarity would be needed before any firm commitment.
Foreign manufacturers are weighing similar moves. Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are considering expanding their existing appliance-production facilities in South Carolina and Tennessee, respectively, by moving operations there from their Mexican factories. Hyundai Steel has confirmed its plan to build a new plant in Louisiana, and Volkswagen is exploring shifting some Audi and Porsche production to the US for the first time. Nissan has even warned it may move its Sentra production from Mexico to its existing factories in Mississippi.
One company already making reshoring official is Apple. In February, the iPhone maker announced that a new manufacturing facility in Houston was part of a broader $500 billion commitment to bring production back to American soil.
But we’ve heard this story before.
Over a decade ago, during the Obama administration, Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled a $100 million “Made in the USA” Mac Pro factory in Austin, Texas. By 2019, production had quietly shifted back to China, with Apple citing the need for a cost-efficient, highly skilled workforce and more-robust infrastructure.
Skeptics expect a similar scenario for Apple’s Houston plant, which the California-based tech giant boasts “will create thousands of jobs,” without specifying the actual number.
That’s “not a lot and seems high for the size of the facility,” according to Harry Moser, president of the Reshoring Initiative, a group that tracks manufacturing returns to the US.
This latest Apple initiative is also the exception, he adds, not the trend.
Reshoring Momentum Wavers
According to the Reshoring Initiative’s June annual report, Asian companies are choosing to invest in US manufacturing more than companies from any other region. The top three countries in 2025 in terms of jobs are listed as South Korea, China, and Germany. But the motivations for reshoring are shifting fast.
Tariffs have emerged as a major driver, according to the report, cited in 454% more cases in 2025 than in 2024, as companies react to the new trade environment. Meanwhile, the influence of government incentives is fading, down 49% year over year as many pandemic-era subsidies phase out.
A more persistent challenge is the workforce. While US manufacturing apprenticeships have grown 83% over the past decade, the skilled-labor pipeline remains too narrow to support long-term reshoring at scale.
The outlook for the remainder of 2025 is mixed. Many large reshoring projects remain in limbo, contingent on clearer signals from Washington.
“There’s no question that some companies are delaying their [reshoring] decisions because of the tariffs—there’s a huge backlog,” observes Moser. The Reshoring Initiative, he says, is tracking 20-30 major announcements—billion-dollar, even $10 billion projects—in a variety of industries, including pharma and automotive.
But read between the lines, Moser adds: “They’re saying, ‘We’re going to do these things when it’s clear that the tariffs will last for an extended period of time.’”
WASHINGTON — For all of President Trump’s promises of an economic “golden age,” a spate of weak indicators last week told a potentially worrisome story as the effects of his policies are coming into focus.
Job gains are dwindling. Inflation is ticking upward. Growth has slowed compared with last year.
More than six months into his term, Trump’s blitz of tariff hikes and his new tax-and-spending bill have remodeled America’s trading, manufacturing, energy and tax systems to his liking. He’s eager to take credit for any perceived wins and is hunting for someone else to blame if the financial situation starts to totter.
But as of now, this is not the boom the Republican president promised, and his ability to blame his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, for any economic challenges has faded as the world economy hangs on his every word and social media post.
When Friday’s monthly jobs report turned out to be decidedly bleak, Trump ignored the warnings in the data and fired the head of the agency that produces the report.
“Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes,” Trump said on his social media platform, without offering evidence for his claim. “The Economy is BOOMING.”
It’s possible that the disappointing numbers are growing pains from the rapid transformation caused by Trump and that stronger growth will return — or they may be a preview of even more disruption to come.
A political gamble
Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs, executive actions, spending cuts and tax code changes carry significant political risk if he is unable to deliver middle-class prosperity. The effects of his new tariffs are still several months away from rippling through the economy, right as many Trump allies in Congress will be campaigning in the midterm elections.
“Considering how early we are in his term, Trump’s had an unusually big impact on the economy already,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist at Firehouse Strategies. “The full inflationary impact of the tariffs won’t be felt until 2026. Unfortunately for Republicans, that’s also an election year.”
The White House portrayed the blitz of trade frameworks leading up to Trump’s tariff announcement Thursday as proof of his negotiating prowess. The European Union, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and other nations that the White House declined to name agreed that the U.S. could increase its tariffs on their goods without doing the same to American products. Trump simply set rates on other countries that lacked settlements.
The costs of those tariffs — taxes paid on imports to the U.S. — will be most felt by American consumers in the form of higher prices, but to what extent remains uncertain.
“For the White House and their allies, a key part of managing the expectations and politics of the Trump economy is maintaining vigilance when it comes to public perceptions,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist.
Just 38% of adults approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to a July poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. That’s down from the end of Trump’s first term when half of adults approved of his economic leadership.
The White House paints a rosier image, casting the economy as emerging from a period of uncertainty after Trump’s restructuring and repeating the economic gains seen in his first term before the pandemic struck.
“President Trump is implementing the very same policy mix of deregulation, fairer trade, and pro-growth tax cuts at an even bigger scale — as these policies take effect, the best is yet to come,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said.
Hints of trouble
The economic numbers over the last week show the difficulties that Trump might face if the numbers continue on their current path:
— Friday’s jobs report showed that U.S. employers have shed 37,000 manufacturing jobs since Trump’s tariff launch in April, undermining prior White House claims of a factory revival.
— Net hiring has plummeted over the last three months with job gains of just 73,000 in July, 14,000 in June and 19,000 in May — a combined 258,000 jobs lower than previously indicated. On average last year, the economy added 168,000 jobs a month.
— A Thursday inflation report showed that prices have risen 2.6% over the year that ended in June, an increase in the personal consumption expenditures price index from 2.2% in April. Prices of heavily imported items, such as appliances, furniture and toys and games, jumped from May to June.
— On Wednesday, a report on gross domestic product — the broadest measure of the U.S. economy — showed that it grew at an annual rate of less than 1.3% during the first half of the year, down sharply from 2.8% growth last year.
“The economy’s just kind of slogging forward,” said Guy Berger, senior fellow at the Burning Glass Institute, which studies employment trends. “Yes, the unemployment rate’s not going up, but we’re adding very few jobs. The economy’s been growing very slowly. It just looks like a ‘meh’ economy is continuing.”
Attacks on the Fed
Trump has sought to pin the blame for any economic troubles on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, saying the Fed should cut its benchmark interest rates — even though doing so could generate more inflation.
Trump has publicly backed two Fed governors, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, for voting for rate cuts at Wednesday’s meeting. But their logic is not what the president wants to hear: They were worried, in part, about a slowing job market.
But this is a major economic gamble being undertaken by Trump and those pushing for lower rates under the belief that mortgages will also become more affordable as a result and boost homebuying activity.
His tariff policy has changed repeatedly over the last six months, with the latest import tax numbers serving as a substitute for what the president announced in April, which provoked a stock market sell-off. It might not be a simple one-time adjustment as some Fed board members and Trump administration officials argue.
‘Universal tariffs’
Of course, Trump can’t say no one warned him about the possible consequences of his economic policies.
Biden, then the outgoing president, did just that in a speech in December at the Brookings Institution, saying the cost of the tariffs would eventually hit American workers and businesses.
“He seems determined to impose steep, universal tariffs on all imported goods brought into this country on the mistaken belief that foreign countries will bear the cost of those tariffs rather than the American consumer,” Biden said. “I believe this approach is a major mistake.”
If you’re still looking for someone to blame for Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection, don’t just look at the usual suspects — the MAGA die-hards, the QAnon crowd or your uncle screaming at Fox News. Consider the bros at your local gym’s squat rack, the Discord server or the gaming lounge who suddenly swung right — or, better yet, consider blaming the Democrats who decided those guys didn’t matter. Yeah, nice work, geniuses.
Recent focus groups conducted by the centrist Democratic group Third Way, with the polling firm HIT Strategies, show that many young men feel criticized, overlooked and talked down to by a party they see as hostile to their values and concerns. This echoes similar feedback from last fall, when young male voters told pollsters that the Democratic Party “has somehow become the anti-male party.”
If you’re wondering why this siege mentality hasn’t softened, it may be because the condescension and antagonism persist — especially among progressive elites whose statements are often conflated with the Democratic Party.
July alone offered a plethora of examples. And lest you think this is from the fever swamps of the internet, consider a few selections from the New York Times.
First, we got “The Boy Crisis Is Overblown,” which shrugs off boys’ educational struggles, instead suggesting that boys expect others (women) to pick up the slack, both at home and in school. Then came “The Trouble With Wanting Men,” a literary masterclass on how dating men amounts to unpaid emotional labor. And to round it out, “Why Women Are Weary of ‘Mankeeping,’” which blames men for … being human? Having different priorities than their girlfriends and wives?
See a pattern?
None of these pieces are entirely wrong. Boys and men are only human, and there are good guys and bad guys. But if you’re a dude just trying to stay afloat in a rapidly changing world, you might get the impression that the cultural left, which (let’s be honest) constitutes the Democratic Party’s base of energy and pressure, isn’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat.
And if you’re a guy, what do you do with all of that criticism? You check out. You find a podcast. You listen to some YouTuber explain how protein cured his depression and why you should never trust a woman who owns more than one NPR tote bag.
You exercise your greatest act of middle-finger rebellion: You vote for Trump!
Now, you might say, “Is it really fair to blame the entire Democratic Party for what a few writers say?” No! But politics isn’t about fairness. It’s about vibes, and the vibe right now is that progressive culture has morphed into the HR department from hell. Heck, even Sydney Sweeney in an American Eagle ad was too much for the online pitchfork crowd. What’s next? Canceling golden retrievers?
The problem for the Democratic Party is that once you’re branded a “woke scold,” it’s hard to pivot, no matter what you say.
Look at President Biden. He was called “Genocide Joe” for supporting Israel, yet still got blamed for pro-Palestinian campus protests — proof that stereotypes are sticky, and perception, not policy, drives voter sentiment.
But here’s the irony: Democrats have an opportunity to turn things around — and if their friends weren’t so busy writing gender theory op-eds, they might notice there’s an opening to do just that.
Thanks to issues ranging from tariffs to immigration roundups to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, some of these podcast bros have started mocking Trump. Meanwhile, “South Park” skewered him for threatening lawsuits to intimidate or silence his critics, which is an impressive about-face considering he used to score points by criticizing cancel culture.
“While some of these young men are still drawn to Trump and the Republican Party,” Third Way’s focus groups found, “most are persuadable swing voters who dislike significant aspects of Trump’s actions so far in his second term.”
But it’s gonna take more than President Obama podcasting about “what’s right with young men.” It’s gonna take modern leaders — men and women — who have the guts to stand up to their own tribe and say, “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t treat half the population like defective appliances.”
Want their votes? Talk to them like they’re human. Stop acting like masculinity is a war crime. Nominate a presidential candidate who lifts and can go on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Offer some real policies that don’t sound like they were cooked up in a gender studies seminar at Bryn Mawr.
Until then? Don’t be shocked if a whole generation of guys hears one more lecture about toxic masculinity … and decides to vote for the most toxic guy in the room.
US envoy Steve Witkoff to visit aid distribution sites in Gaza to assess ‘dire situation on the ground’: White House
United States President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, will travel to Gaza to inspect aid distribution as pressure mounts on Israel over its starvation policy in the war-torn Palestinian territory.
Witkoff will travel to Gaza on Friday with US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, to inspect aid distribution as condemnation of Israel grows over famine in Gaza and reports that more than 1,000 desperately hungry Palestinians have been killed since May at food distribution sites operated by the notorious US- and Israeli-backed GHF.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday that Witkoff would visit “distribution sites and secure a plan to deliver more food and meet with local Gazans to hear firsthand about this dire situation on the ground”.
“The special envoy and the ambassador will brief the president immediately after their visit to approve a final plan for food and aid distribution into the region,” Leavitt said.
The visit by the top US envoy comes a day after more than 50 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across the territory and health officials reported the deaths of two more children from starvation, adding to the Gaza Health Ministry’s confirmed death toll of 154 people who have died from “famine and malnutrition” – including 89 children – in recent weeks.
Witkoff met with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shortly after his arrival in the country on Thursday, the Israeli leader’s office said.
Earlier this week, President Trump contradicted Netanyahu’s insistence that reports of hunger in Gaza were untrue, with the US leader saying the enclave was experiencing “real starvation”.
The United Nations and independent experts had warned for months that starvation was taking hold in Gaza due to the Israeli military blockade on humanitarian relief, and this week, they said that “famine is now unfolding”.
Angered by Israel’s denial of aid and ongoing attacks on Gaza’s population, the United Kingdom, Canada and Portugal this week became the latest Western governments to announce plans to recognise a Palestinian state.
Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron said that France will recognise Palestine at the UN General Assembly in September, following Spain, Norway and Ireland’s lead.
Some 142 countries out of the 193 members of the UN currently recognise or plan to recognise a Palestinian state.
Following a meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Thursday, Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said “the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is beyond imagination”.
“Here, the Israeli government must act quickly, safely and effectively to provide humanitarian and medical aid to prevent mass starvation from becoming a reality,” he said.
“I have the impression that this has been understood today.”
Once a vibrant centre of Palestinian life, much of Gaza has been pulverised by Israeli bombardments and more than 60,000 Palestinians killed, and almost 150,000 wounded, since October 2023, after the Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed an estimated 1,139 people.
MAGA has a problem, in the form of Donald Trump. Put simply: MAGA wants to define what MAGA (or “America first”) means, and Donald Trump wants it to mean whatever he says at any given moment.
I should offer a little definitional clarity and political nuance. Make America Great Again means different things to different people. The Trump coalition is not monolithic, it contains factions that do not necessarily consider themselves to be MAGA. But as shorthand, MAGA is an identifiably distinct bloc on the right, and it’s the dominant faction in the broader GOP coalition. Its internal diversity notwithstanding, it still has a worldview or ideology. And the MAGA faithful are increasingly frustrated by the fact that Trump doesn’t always share, or prioritize, that ideology.
They believed that if you could just “let Trump be Trump” he would follow their conception of MAGA. In Ronald Reagan’s first term, many movement conservatives were frustrated by what they perceived as the Gipper’s drift toward centrism. They blamed moderates in the administration. “Let Reagan be Reagan” became a rallying cry on the right.
“It’s a piece of conventional wisdom on the new American right that Donald Trump struggled in his first term because he hired the wrong people — old-think Bush Republicans, figures like Rex Tillerson and Steven Mnuchin, who didn’t have a populist bone in their bodies,” the news website Semafor’s Ben Smith offers in an astute analysis.
As a result, Smith continues, “Trump’s most passionate supporters weren’t going to make that mistake again. They created initiatives like American Moment, Project 2025, and others aimed at grooming and credentialing a cadre of MAGA appointees. When Trump took office, the America Firsters moved en masse into the Department of Defense. Big Tech avengers seized the antitrust apparatus. Conspiracy-minded podcasters took over the FBI.
“And yet — just as Trump often ignored his conventional advisers in the first term, he’s stunned loyalists by sweeping aside this carefully assembled apparat in 2025.”
Trump said as much to the Atlantic magazine last month: “I think I’m the one that decides” what “America first” means.
“It turns out that personnel isn’t policy,” the executive director of the American Conservative, Curt Mills, “glumly” told Smith. The idea that “personnel is policy” is another Reagan-era mantra; put Reaganites in important positions and you’ll get Reaganite policies. Putting Trumpists in powerful positions doesn’t yield the same results.
Immigration hawks have been panicking over the president’s suggestion that farm and hotel workers should be excluded from his deportation schemes. As Trump told Fox News, “I’m on both sides of the thing.” Foreign policy “restrainers” were beclowned by his support of Israel’s strikes on Iran and his apparent about-face on helping Ukraine.
On China, Trump’s been a hawk as promised, except when he hasn’t, allowing NVIDIA to sell chips to China, and ignoring the law by refusing to sell or shutter TikTok.
Then there’s the Jeffrey Epstein fiasco, which has bedeviled Trump for weeks. It’s intensity and durability can best be explained by the fact that it divides those who define Trumpism as loyalty to Trump and those who believe that loyalty would be, must be rewarded by a cleansing of corrupt globalist elite — or something.
In short, there is no “Trumpism” that is an analogue to Reaganism. Reaganism is a philosophical approach. What defines Trump’s reign is better understood as a psychological phenomenon both as an explanation of his behavior and of his fans’ cultish and performative loyalty. To the extent Trump has a philosophy it is to follow his instincts, which are most powerfully informed first by his own ego but also the dramaturgy of professional wrestling, reality TV and Norman Vincent Peale’s prosperity gospel.
He’s said many times that he considers unpredictability a virtue in itself, which by definition means he is going to disappoint anyone who expects philosophical coherence. When Trump was a bull in a China shop, the people most excited by the sound of breaking vases and dishware assumed there was a broader method to the madness. But now the same people are learning that Trump won’t be saddled by his fans any more than he is by norms.
This was always going to be the case (as I noted in 2017), but what adds to MAGA’s frustration is that anyone can see and copy the bull-handling techniques that are most likely to work. Compliment him, call him “daddy,” celebrate his genius and expertise, and you too can manipulate him with at least moderate success.
Perhaps most significant, it’s becoming clear that a movement defined by loyalty to a mercurial personality is bound to split apart once that personality leaves the stage — if not sooner.
The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.
Ideas expressed in the piece
The author contends that MAGA faces a fundamental problem with Donald Trump himself, as the movement seeks to define what “America First” means while Trump insists it means whatever he declares at any given moment. This creates an inherent tension between ideological consistency and Trump’s mercurial leadership style.
The piece argues that MAGA faithful have grown increasingly frustrated with Trump’s failure to consistently share or prioritize their worldview, despite their belief that allowing Trump to “be Trump” would naturally align with their conception of the movement. This frustration stems from Trump’s tendency to disappoint supporters across various policy areas including immigration, foreign policy, and China relations.
The author maintains that the Reagan-era principle of “personnel is policy” fails to apply to Trump, as placing committed Trumpists in powerful positions does not guarantee the implementation of coherent MAGA policies. Instead, Trump often ignores or sidelines his carefully selected advisers just as he did with conventional Republicans in his first term.
The analysis suggests that there is no coherent “Trumpism” philosophy comparable to Reaganism, describing Trump’s approach as fundamentally psychological rather than philosophical. The author characterizes Trump’s governing style as driven primarily by ego and influenced by professional wrestling, reality TV, and prosperity gospel theatrics.
The piece concludes that any movement defined by loyalty to a mercurial personality is destined to fracture once that personality exits the political stage, if not sooner, as Trump’s unpredictability prevents the philosophical coherence necessary for lasting political movements.
Different views on the topic
Contrary perspectives suggest that Trump has successfully consolidated control over the Republican Party, with his MAGA movement having effectively routed the GOP establishment and become the new institutional power structure[1]. This view emphasizes Trump’s political dominance rather than internal fractures or ideological inconsistencies.
Some observers argue that Trump’s influence within his own coalition remains strong, noting that his ability to intimidate reporters and maintain loyalty from supporters, social media influencers, and Fox News hosts demonstrates continued political power[2]. This perspective suggests that apparent divisions may be temporary rather than signs of fundamental weakness.
Alternative viewpoints acknowledge tensions within the MAGA coalition but frame them as natural political evolution rather than fatal flaws, suggesting that political movements often experience internal debates and realignments without necessarily fracturing[1]. These perspectives emphasize Trump’s track record of successfully navigating previous challenges to his leadership.
A travel expert has advised people heading off on holiday to use a handy tool to check their luggage amid Ryanair’s plans to pay staff to check for oversized bags
16:16, 29 Jul 2025Updated 16:21, 29 Jul 2025
Ryanair’s baggage policy update has sparked a warning by a travel expert
Holidaymakers worried about being stung by hefty excess baggage fees at the airport have been advised to carry out a vital check using two “trustworthy” items. A travel expert issued the guidance following news that Ryanair is thinking about increasing bonuses for staff who catch passengers with overweight bags.
The subject of extra fees has been a sore spot for money-conscious travellers in recent years given different airlines have different allowances. And recent comments by Michael O’Leary, the airline’s CEO, will do little to calm the nerves of those flying off on their summer holidays.
To avoid getting stung by such fees, Paul Stewart, the founder of travel company MyBaggage, suggested people check their luggage’s weight at home using two simple items instead of using the facilities at the airport.
“Investing in a trustworthy luggage scale and measuring tape is the best course of action,” he said. “Check your bags at home rather than at the airport. In order to account for scale differences between your home scale and the airline’s equipment, I always advise packing a little under the weight limit.”
The travel guru added: “If at all possible, opt for soft-sided luggage rather than hard cases because the former are more accommodating if you have to fit them into sizers. Consider wearing your heaviest shoes and jacket while travelling rather than packing them, and pack your heaviest items in your carry-on rather than checked luggage.”
Luggage scales can be bought for as little as £5.99 on Amazon and avoid the risk of being fined £70.
Michael O’Leary said he was open to boosting bonuses of staff who catch more oversized bags(Image: Eduardo Parra/Europa Press via Getty Images)
In addition to weighing your luggage at home, Paul also suggested the time-honoured tradition of reading up each airline’s policies as they can vary between carriers and routes, reports Bristol Live. He said: “Document the size and weight of your luggage at home as proof in case of any disagreements.”
Stewart’s advice came after O’Leary discussed the possibility of improving incentives for staff in an attempt to relieve the pressure of excess baggage on his airline.
In an interview with RTE’s Morning Ireland, the low-cost carrier’s CEO said: “We are happy to incentivise our [staff] with a share of those excess baggage fees, which we think will decline over the coming year or two. It is about €1.50 [£1.30] per bag – and we’re thinking of increasing it, so we eliminate it.”
Ryanair has different baggage requirements depending on size(Image: BrasilNut1 via Getty Images)
At present, airline employees earn around £1.30 per item for flagging oversized bags, which is capped at £70 per month.
“We’re flying largely full flights, about half the passengers can bring two bags and the other half can only bring one – because that’s all that fits in the plane. We’re already struggling with that amount of baggage,” he shared.
Ryanair current permits each traveller to take one small personal item aboard, which must slot beneath the seat, weigh no more than 10kg and conform to measurements of 40cm x 20cm x 25cm.
Passengers who opt for the priority boarding service at additional expense can bring the same sized item, plus a 10kg case (55cm x 40cm x 20cm), which goes in the overhead compartment. This upgrade also grants flyers first access to the aircraft via the priority boarding lane at departure gates.
If crew members determine a traveller’s luggage fails to comply with its rules, passengers could be fined £70.
However, the Ryanair CEO’s bonus comments alarmed Stewart, who argued this strategy was merely “the tip of the iceberg” and feared other budget carriers would soon jump on the bandwagon.
“When airline management implements bonuses for spotting baggage abuses, staff enforcement will obviously become more stringent,” he said. “As for Ryanair, I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. Once other low-cost airlines realise the potential for profit, they will most likely follow suit.
“Instead of giving passengers the benefit of the doubt, staff are now actively seeking out reasons to impose fees, and the definition of ‘suitable baggage’ is getting more and more restrictive. Travellers must now pack and measure much more precisely as a result of this change.”
President Trump signs major trade deal with Japan, and Tokyo pledges to invest in the United States.
President Donald Trump promised to shake up global trade – and he says that is now paying off.
The United States has signed an investment deal with Japan, worth more than half a trillion dollars.
That follows Washington’s new trade agreements with the Philippines and Indonesia – all touted as wins by the administration from Trump’s policy of applying pressure through tariffs.
But are these short-term gains that could mask longer-term risks?
And who is winning – and who is losing?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Tomohiko Taniguchi – Special adviser at the Fujitsu Future Studies Centre
Eric Ham – Political analyst
Nathalie Tocci – Director of Instituto Affari Internazionali
