Trump Backs Off Most of His Dumb Tariffs—but What’s Left Is Still Bad

Donald Trump has placed a 90-day pause on most of his reciprocal tariffs, despite repeatedly insisting that no such pause would take place. 

“Based on the fact that more than 75 Countries have called Representatives of the United States, including the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and the USTR, to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to Trade, Trade Barriers, Tariffs, Currency Manipulation, and Non Monetary Tariffs, and that these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States, I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.

Trump refused to stop his trade war with China, however, declaring in the same announcement that tariffs on the country would rise even more, to 125 percent. 

“Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately. At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” Trump wrote in the same Truth Social post.

While the 10 percent tariffs on remaining countries is a significant reduction, by the measure of just a few months ago, it’s still quite extreme.

Trump’s decision to renege on his aggressive “Liberation Day” tariffs was almost immediately met with allegations of caving at best and market manipulation at worst.  

“Wow. Trump just caved on the sweeping across-the-board tariffs, issuing a 90-day pause,” wrote Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett. “All of that chaos, trillions of dollars evaporated—for nothing at all.”

“[Trump] has put our economy in disarray and near collapse. We have small businesses and Americans who are concerned about their well-being…. We have people that are planning to send their kids to college this fall, people who are retiring whose benefits have declined,” Representative Steven Horsford asked Trump Trade Representative Jamieson Greer at a hearing mere minutes after Trump tweeted out the news. “Is this market manipulation?”

“No,” said Greer.

“Why not? If it was always the plan, how is this not market manipulation? 

“It’s not market manipulation,” Greer insisted again. 

“So if it’s not market manipulation, what is it? Who’s benefiting? What billionaire just got richer? And all the while, there aren’t even any Republicans left in this hearing.” 

This story has been updated.

Lawyers for a man mistakenly deported to El Salvador slammed the Department of Justice for trying to claim that the foreign country could have its own reasons for keeping him in prison.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was one of many alleged gang members that the Trump administration deported to El Salvador in mid-March, after invoking the Alien Enemies Act and denying detainees’ due process. The government later admitted that Abrego Garcia, who has no criminal record, was included on the flight manifest due to an “administrative error,” and had been subject to a protective order shielding him from deportation to El Salvador because he faced a legitimate threat of persecution there.

The Supreme Court on Monday halted a judge’s order to immediately retrieve Abrego Garcia. The government has continued to claim it cannot retrieve Abrego Garcia, who is among those incarcerated in El Slavador’s notorious mega-prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, for a plethora of reasons. In a filing Monday, the DOJ claimed one more, alleging that El Salvador’s government “may have its own compelling reasons to detain” Abrego Garcia, and “has its own legal rationales for detaining members of … foreign terrorist groups like MS-13”—which the U.S. government has yet to actually demonstrate that Abrego Garcia is.

But, in an eight-page filing Wednesday, lawyers for Abrego Garcia shot down the DOJ’s attempt to “ominously” introduce a flimsy excuse for leaving him there.

“These vague speculations are forfeited because they were never previously asserted and, in any event, devoid of factual support,” the lawyers wrote.

“There is no actual evidence that any nation has a criminal charge against Abrego Garcia. The only evidence is that he has never been charged or convicted of a crime in any country. And, of course, Abrego Garcia has not even lived in El Salvador since 2011—some 14 years ago—when he was 16 years old, rendering the Government’s claim implausible,” the lawyers wrote. “If the Government has evidence as to Abrego Garcia, it should say so. It refuses.

“The Government’s retreat to innuendo cannot bear the weight of the extraordinary relief it seeks: to perpetuate an unlawful incarceration that the United States itself engineered,” the lawyers added.

The U.S. economy is cratering, the White House has fractured some of the country’s longest-standing global alliances, and foreign nations are marking the end of American economic dominance. But speaking at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner on Tuesday night, Donald Trump was apparently more interested in using the intraparty platform to slander and roast his first-term enemies than address or assuage concerns over America’s debilitating problems.

The end result was a hodgepodge of some of Trump’s greatest hits, begging the question if Trump is attempting to redirect conservative attention toward the rhetoric that got his base jazzed to support him in the first place. The subjects of his insults included President Joe Biden, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and several liberal lawmakers who’ve dared to speak out against the president’s agenda.

Imploring Republicans to recenter their focus on winning their respective midterm elections, Trump warned that Democrats would “try to reverse all of the progress that we’ve made” should they retake the House in 2026.

“The House will be run by the same band of radicals and lunatics,” Trump said, shouting out House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Pelosi, and “weird” Al Green, the last of whom offered the only disruptive protest during Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress last month.

“He’s a weird dude,” the president continued. “He should have been treated very badly for the way he behaved that night.”

Six months after he won the election, Trump also took time away from his speech to ask the crowd if they’d rather he refer to Biden as “Crooked Joe” or “Sleepy Joe.” After equally muted applause for both options, Trump laughed.

“That’s my problem, it’s like the same—they both work, they both work beautifully,” Trump said.

Trump also devoted some of the night to speaking about California Senator Adam Schiff, whom Trump has previously referred to as the “enemy from within” for serving as the lead prosecutor in the first impeachment trial against him.

“Adam Schifty Schiff—can you believe this guy? He’s got the smallest neck I’ve ever seen,” the president said. “And the biggest head. We call him Watermelon Head.”

“I’d say how can that big fat face stand on a neck that looked like this finger? How can it? It’s the weirdest thing. It’s a mystery, nobody can understand it,” Trump continued, deriding Schiff as one of the “most dishonest human beings” he’d ever seen.

“How we can allow people like that to run in office is a shame,” the orange-coded convicted felon added. “He was in charge of the witch hunt. He was in charge of the fake witch hunt with Russia, Russia, Russia.”

The lawyers tasked with defending the Trump administration at the Supreme Court are fleeing in droves.

The Washington Post reports that half of the attorneys in the Office of the Solicitor General in the Department of Justice are either leaving their jobs or preparing to do so, for reasons including disagreements with directives handed down from the White House. Now at least eight of the office’s 16-member staff are leaving, dealing a blow to its credibility.

Earlier this week, Attorney General Pam Bondi suspended attorney Erez Reuveni from the department after he admitted to a federal judge that his government clients didn’t provide him vital information in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the government mistakenly deported to El Salvador.

“He was put on administrative leave by Todd Blanche on Saturday. And I firmly said on Day 1, I issued a memo that you are to vigorously advocate on behalf of the United States,” Bondi told Fox News on Sunday. “Our client in this matter was Homeland Security—is Homeland Security. He did not argue. He shouldn’t have taken the case. He shouldn’t have argued it, if that’s what he was going to do. He’s on administrative leave now.”

Such actions have alienated some members of the solicitor general’s office, which is traditionally nonpartisan, according to the Post, except for its top two positions. In the past, its hires have come from politically diverse backgrounds to broaden legal perspectives.

“The question is, who is left?” Georgetown University law professor Steve Vladeck said to the Post. “Who is going to argue against positions that might be good for team Trump but are inconsistent with the standards of the office—and potentially the long-term interests of the government?”

That remains to be seen as the Trump administration is repeatedly challenged successfully in court, leading to many appeals to the Supreme Court. The departure of top lawyers likely isn’t going to attract a similar caliber of hires to the office, leading to weaker arguments for the administration’s cases before the high court. But, considering the conservative bent on the court today, how much will that matter?

A new poll from Economist/YouGov released Wednesday shows that Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped from +5 to -29 points among voters under 30 since his inauguration, a 34-point tumble. Trump also fell eight points with millennials and four points with boomers, but gained a point with Gen X.

Trump’s dramatic drop in favorability with Gen Z—after enjoying fairly positive standing with them during the election season—underscores the immediate negative reactions that policies like his trade war has elicited. Confidence in the future of this country and the future of one’s own personal security is quickly eroding under Trump’s leadership. The president has given the next generation absolutely nothing to look forward to besides increased prices, market instability, and ICE crackdowns on pro-Palestine activity. It seems that even the young crypto bros who were just in it for the tax cuts have turned on the president.

The future is bleak right now. Trump’s approval rating among Gen Zers is simply reflecting that.