Trump Trade Adviser Struggles to Explain Tariffs on Top U.S. Ally

Senator Mark Warner became exasperated Tuesday with Trump Trade Representative Jamieson Greer as he was unable to give a real answer as to why the president hit Australia—a key ally, with whom the U.S. has a trade surplus—with 10 percent tariffs on all imports.

“Australia is one of our strongest allies.… We have a free trade agreement with Australia. We don’t have tariffs,” Warner said. “We have a trade surplus with Australia.… With a trade surplus, with this strong relationship, Australia got hit with a 10 percent tariff as well?”

“Senator, Australia has the lowest rate available under the new program; they banned—”

“Ambassador, excuse me,” Warner interrupted. “There is a trade surplus. We already have a free trade agreement … so getting the least bad—why did they get whacked in the first place?”

“We’re addressing the $1.2 trillion deficit, the largest in human history, that President Biden left us with. We should be running up the score on Australia; they ban our beef, and they ban our pork—”

“Ambassador Greer, answer the question on Australia. We have a trade surplus with Australia; we have a free trade agreement. They’re an incredibly important national security partner. Why were they whacked with a tariff?”

“Senator, despite the agreement, they ban our beef, they ban our pork, they’re getting ready to impost measure—”

“But with your Greek letter formula, the fact that we have a trade surplus—”

“We have a global tariff on everyone,” Greer replied, continuing to evade the question. “We’re trying to address the $1.2 trillion deficit that Biden left us with, sir.”

“I think that answer.… Sir, you’re a much smarter person than that answer. The idea that we are gonna whack friend and foe alike, in particular friends … is both, I think, insulting to the Australians and it undermines our national security, and frankly makes us not a good partner going forward. The lack of trust from friends and allies based upon this ridiculous policy that goes into full effect at midnight tonight is extraordinary.

“A good day in hospice,” Warner continued. “I’m afraid if we keep these tariffs in effect, we’re looking like an economy that will be in hospice.”

The Supreme Court blocked an order Tuesday requiring the government to reinstate roughly 16,000 probationary federal employees ousted as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s massive government layoffs across six different agencies.

In a brief two-page order, the court found that the nine nonprofit organizations that had brought the case lacked standing to do so. The ruling is a temporary win for the Trump administration’s efforts to gut the federal workforce, and for DOGE, which recommended the sweeping layoffs.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the application, according to the order.

Last month, U.S. District Judge William Alsup in California ordered officials at the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Energy, Interior, Agriculture, and Treasury to “immediately” reinstate all fired probationary employees.

Alsup stated that the mid-February mass terminations were the result of an “unlawful” directive from the Office of Personnel Management, and torched the White House’s effort to claim that the decisions were based on supposed performance failures as “a gimmick.”

“It is sad, a sad day, when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Alsup said in a hearing ahead of his ruling.

Despite the high court’s ruling, the fight to reinstate the workers isn’t over yet.

Another judge, U.S. District Judge James Bredar in Maryland, issued a similar order to Alsup’s applying to workers fired from 12 departments: Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs.

Bredar’s ruling was on a case brought by a group of states with Democratic attorneys general, and wouldn’t be subject to the same standing issue as the case decided Tuesday.

This is the third time in two days that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s agenda. The court temporarily blocked an order Monday night requiring the government to return a man wrongly deported to El Salvador to the U.S. by midnight. In a controversial decision, the court also blocked an injunction stopping Trump’s deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

This story has been updated.

The Trump administration’s calculations justifying the most consequential tariff scheme of the last century are all wrong.

In an op-ed for The New York Times published Monday, economist Brent Neiman, whose research was used to justify the White House’s implementation of reciprocal tariffs, wrote that the White House fundamentally misunderstood his work.

“My first question, when the White House unveiled its tariff regime, was: How on earth did it calculate such huge rates?” Neiman wrote in the op-ed. “The next day it got personal.”

Shortly after the Trump administration announced its plan to implement tariffs of 10 percent or more on 90 countries—which it claims will eliminate the trade deficit but has only spurred global economic chaos—the Office of the United States Trade Representative published its methodology for the tariff calculations, citing a paper by Neiman and four other economists.

“But it got it wrong. Very wrong. I disagree fundamentally with the government’s trade policy and approach,” Neiman wrote. “But even taking it at face value, our findings suggest the calculated tariffs should be dramatically smaller—perhaps one-fourth as large.”

So if the White House had done the math right, and wanted its absurd trade plan to actually work, 20 percent tariffs should have been … 5 percent.

That wasn’t the only mistake, Neiman pointed out. The Trade Office claimed its reciprocal tariff calculations would eliminate trade deficits with each American trading partner. Neiman concluded that is not a “reasonable goal.”

“Trade imbalances between two countries can emerge for many reasons that have nothing to do with protectionism.… There are some reasonable arguments in favor of reducing the overall trade deficit, such as to reduce risks from our debt. But these arguments don’t apply country by country,” Neiman wrote, further exposing the White House’s lack of reasoning.

Even if all trade deficits are eliminated (which Neiman points out is basically impossible), reciprocal tariffs still won’t work.

“The administration’s tariff formula assumes that a tariff placed on one country won’t affect imports from any others and ignores any implications for exports,” Neiman said. “These assumptions may work for an action against one small trade partner, but not for the broad salvo announced last week.”

Neiman went on to decimate pretty much every justification the Trump administration has provided for tariff implementation, including its selective picking and choosing of his research results to support its claims.

“As a result of these and other methodological choices, Wednesday’s reciprocal tariffs will bring average tariff rates to their highest level in over 100 years. I would strongly prefer that the policy and methodology be scrapped entirely. But barring that, the administration should divide its results by four.” Neiman concluded, a grim reminder of the economic chaos yet to come.

The Trump administration is thinking about bombing Mexico.

Former and current U.S. military officials who spoke with NBC News said that communication between the White House, the Defense Department, and intelligence officials have included discussion of drone strikes on cartels and their networks in Mexico. No final decision has been made, but the report is still alarming.

The CIA and U.S. military have been conducting more surveillance flights over Mexico in the wake of President Trump last month designating drug cartels in the country as foreign terrorist organizations. While the flights have been approved by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, the unilateral hostilities that the U.S, seems to be preparing for are not. This is set to make an already shaky relationship between the two allies even more unstable.

“We’re taking nothing off the table. Nothing,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in February when asked about military strikes in Mexico.

“There is no doubt if there were unilateral action inside Mexico, this would put the bilateral relationship into a nosedive,” former Mexican ambassador to the United States Arturo Sarukhán told NBC News. “It would be put in a tailspin, as it would represent a violation of international law and an act of war.”

Sheinbaum herself came out in staunch opposition to this very kind of activity from Trump back in February when the administration released the cartel terrorism designation.

“The people of Mexico, under no circumstances will accept interventions, interference or any other act from abroad that is harmful to the integrity, independence and sovereignty of the nation,” she said. “What we want to make clear with this designation is that we do not negotiate sovereignty, this can’t be an opportunity by the United States to invade our sovereignty…. They can call [cartels] whatever they decide, but with Mexico it is collaboration and coordination, never subordination, no interference and even less invasion.”

Donald Trump’s quest to slash the federal government appears to end with the Pentagon.

The president announced Monday that he wants the Department of Defense to have a $1 trillion budget, its highest ever, saying that “we have great things happening with our military.

“We also essentially approved a budget which is in the facility—you’ll like to hear this—of a trillion dollars, $1 trillion, and nobody’s seen anything like it. We have to build our military and we’re very cost conscious. But the military is something that we have to build, and we have to be strong, because you got a lot of bad forces out there now,” Trump said.

With the help of fellow fascism enthusiast Elon Musk, Trump has gutted key government agencies, firing several thousand federal workers and attempting to eliminate the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Department of Education.

Regarding the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had originally told DOD and military leaders in February to plan to cut 8 percent of the defense budget for each of the next five years. It seems that idea was doomed early on, especially considering Musk’s SpaceX contracts are being spared.

Musk will be making a killing from upcoming defense contracts to work on new rocket launchpads and rocket-booster landing zones, as well as Trump’s fantastical “Golden Dome” missile defense system. That idea will cost a whopping $2.5 trillion and isn’t necessary by any means. It looks like Trump will continue to keep the DOD bloated even though it has never passed an audit.