Treasury secretary says White House will 'open negotiations' on trade with Japan
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said today that he would begin trade negotiations with Japan.
Bessent said Monday afternoon on X that he and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer would "open negotiations" with Japanese Prime Minister Shigero Ishiba and his Cabinet "to implement the President's vision for the new Golden Age of Global Trade."
Bessent linked to a post in which Trump said earlier in the day that he was hearing from "countries from all over the world" and that he had specifically spoken with Japan's prime minister, who was sending "a top team" to negotiate.
Ishiba said earlier today that he told Trump on the call that he was "deeply concerned" the U.S. tariffs "will reduce the investment capacity of Japanese companies.”
China tariffs would equal 104% if Trump follows through with latest threat
With Trump's latest threat of 50% duties on imports from China, the total new tariffs he imposed on goods imported into the United States from China would be as much as 104%.
It's the sum of the 50% plus two rounds of 10% tariffs Trump has already imposed in response to China's alleged inaction on curbing the flow of fentanyl, plus the 10% all-nations baseline tariff that kicked in Saturday and the 24% tit-for-tat tariff that would kick in Wednesday.
The 104% tariff does not include pre-existing tariffs on certain items that Trump imposed during his first term and the Biden administration largely kept or the 25% tariff Trump seeks to impose on nations doing business with Venezuela.
Trump threats veto of Senate bill to limit his power on tariffs
The White House is threatening to veto a bipartisan Senate bill that would limit Trump's power to impose tariffs, saying it would “severely constrain the President’s ability to use authorities long recognized by Congress and upheld by the courts to respond to national emergencies and foreign threats.”
The bill would require the president to notify Cabout of new tariffs within 48 hours of imposition while providing his reasons and an analysis of the impacts on U.S. consumers and businesses. Then Congress would have 60 days to approve it. If that didn’t happen, the tariffs would expire.
The legislation, called the Trade Review Act of 2025, was introduced by Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. It has picked up six more GOP co-sponsors: Jerry Moran, of Kansas; Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska; Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky; Thom Tillis, of North Carolina; Todd Young, of Indiana; and Susan Collins, of Maine.
“Tariffs are a critical component of that policy and this legislation runs contrary to those aims,” the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement today. “S. 1272 eliminates leverage over foreign trading partners, inhibits reshoring and supply chain resilience, fosters market uncertainty, and introduces procedural micromanagement that reduces the energy and dispatch required by the President to effectively guarantee the nation’s security. If passed, this bill would dangerously hamper the President’s authority and duty to determine our foreign policy and protect our national security.”
The veto threat means it would require two-thirds of the GOP-controlled House and Senate to enact the bill into law.
White House removes Netanyahu's news conference from the schedule
The White House has canceled a planned news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this afternoon, with Trump instead planning to take questions from reporters in the Oval Office.
The news conference in the East Room was scheduled to occur following a bilateral meeting between the two leaders. Now, a smaller group of reporters, known as the "pool" and assigned to cover the president's movements each day, will have an opportunity to ask questions.
It is typical for Trump to hold both an informal Q&A in the Oval Office and a formal news conference when world leaders visit.
Trump, greeting Netanyahu at the White House moments ago, ignored multiple questions from the pool about his sweeping new tariffs, the market turmoil that has followed his announcement and the war in Gaza. He told reporters yesterday that he expects to discuss trade and the situation in the Middle East with the Israeli leader.
Netanyahu arrives at White House
Netanyahu has arrived at the White House, where he was greeted outside by Trump. Trump ignored shouted questions from a reporter as the two men went inside.
Trump calls his tariffs a ‘beautiful thing to behold’ amid stock selloffs
Facing mounting pressure over the economy, Trump is not backing down, calling his global tariffs a “beautiful thing to behold” and arguing he’s fulfilling a campaign promise to bring back American jobs. It comes as he draws new backlash for spending days on the golf course as stock markets take a nosedive and 401(k)s plummet. NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez reports for TODAY.
Anxious Republicans seek more guidance from White House on Trump's tariffs
Some congressional Republicans are growing anxious about the markets and want more guidance from the White House about Trump’s long-term trade strategy.
During a House GOP conference call yesterday, Rep. Darrell Issa, of California, asked if lawmakers could receive a detailed briefing from the White House about Trump’s tariffs, according to two sources on the call.
Rep. French Hill, of Arkansas, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the Trump administration has been great to work with on a whole host of issues, but has been frustrated when it comes to how the White House has operated on tariffs, the sources said.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told members that he’d talk to Trump and vowed to arrange for someone in the administration to brief the conference, the sources said.
Members of Congress will also get a chance to publicly question a key Trump official about tariffs this week. U.S trade representative Jamieson Greer is scheduled testify before a Senate committee on Tuesday and a House panel Wednesday. Greer also held a private call for members of the House Ways and Means Committee last Friday, according to a GOP aide.
Still, many Republican lawmakers — who will face their constituents starting next week for a two-week recess break — feel like they have received little direction from the White House about Trump’s endgame on tariffs and have been frustrated by some of the mixed messaging coming out of the administration.
Johnson counseled members during Sunday’s conference call to trust the tariff process and stand by Trump’s trade policy, arguing he helped deliver a strong economy during his first term, according to the sources on the call.
But there are some signs of anxiety even among GOP leaders. Johnson has argued, both in a letter to his colleagues over the weekend and on the conference call, that they need to quickly coalesce around a budget resolution to unlock Trump’s legislative agenda because of the market turmoil.
Trump orders new review of Japanese steelmaker's bid for U.S. Steel
Trump ordered a new review of a Japanese steelmaker’s $15 billion proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel, raising hopes that the deal could be revived after former President Joe Biden blocked it in January on national security grounds.
Biden’s order prohibiting the acquisition by Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest steelmaker, gave Trump the right to review the decision. In a White House memo today, Trump directed the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which examines foreign investments for national security risks, to review the proposal within 45 days “to assist me in determining whether further action in this matter may be appropriate.”
Both Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel have sued CFIUS over the blocking of the deal, saying it did not receive fair consideration as Biden sought support in his re-election campaign from the United Steelworkers union in the swing state of Pennsylvania, where U.S. Steel is based. Trump had also expressed opposition to the deal.
The share price of U.S. Steel up rose more than 13% after news of the deadline extension, Reuters reported.
DOJ asks Supreme Court to act in case of mistakenly deported man
The Justice Department today asked the Supreme Court to stay a judge's ruling ordering it to bring back to the U.S. a man it acknowledges it mistakenly sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
In an emergency application to the high court, the DOJ argued U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis' directive that Kilmar Abrego Garcia be returned by midnight tonight "unprecedented and indefensible” and "patently unlawful."
“The United States’ negotiations with a foreign sovereign should not be put on a judicially mandated clock, least of all when matters of foreign terrorism and national security are at stake,” they write.
The government acknowledged in court last week that Garcia, whom it alleges without providing evidence is a member of the gang MS-13, should not have been sent to El Salvador because of a 2019 order from an immigration judge explicitly barring him from being deported there.
An attorney for the Justice Department said at a hearing Friday that he could not explain why Garcia, who has no criminal record in the U.S. or his native El Salvador, was taken into custody in the first place, saying, "The government made a choice here to produce no evidence."
Asked by the judge why the administration couldn’t ask El Salvador to return Garcia, the attorney, Enez Reuveni, said he’d asked the same thing, “I have not yet received an answer that I find satisfactory,” he added.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi placed Reuveni on administrative leave over the weekend.
The administration had also asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stay Xinis' order, which rejected the request earlier today.
Senate hearing with potential testimony from RFK Jr. on HHS layoffs postponed
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is postponing a hearing it hoped would feature Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s testimony after thousands of health agency workers were fired, a spokesperson for the committee's chair, Bill Cassidy, R-La., said today.
Last week, Cassidy and committee ranking member Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., wrote a letter to Kennedy inviting him to publicly testify about the mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services last Tuesday. But the committee is required to give public notice of a hearing at least seven days in advance, meaning it would have needed to release an official notice last Thursday, a Cassidy spokesperson, Ty Bofferding, said.
Kennedy’s team has confirmed that it received the invitation to testify, Bofferding said, but hasn’t provided an official response on whether the health secretary would do so at some point.
Both sides are working to find a date for testimony that would work. Bofferding did not respond to a request for comment on when the new hearing date might be. Cassidy has said that Kennedy agreed to come before the health committee “on a quarterly basis.”
The update comes after Texas health officials reported over the weekend that a second child had died in a fast-growing measles outbreak that has infected nearly 500 people in the state since January.
Kennedy said Sunday on X that he was in Gaines County, the epicenter of the outbreak, to meet with families in the community. He also met with the families of the children who died.
"The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” he said in the post, although he did not encourage people to get vaccinated.
In response to Kennedy's post, Cassidy said on X: “Completely agree and encourage all parents to make sure their children are vaccinated against measles.”