Donald Trump updates: President signs off on 25% steel, aluminium tariffs

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• President Trump unveiled a new suite of executive orders on Monday, including imposing 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminium imports into the US.
• But Trump agreed to consider a tariff exemption on Australian steel and aluminium imports after a telephone call with Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
• Another executive order saw Trump pause enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, designed to prevent US citizens from bribing foreign leaders to advance their aims.
• Trump has told Hamas to release the remaining captives in Gaza by noon Saturday or he will “let hell break out”, after the Palestinian group announced it was suspending doing so due to repeated Israeli ceasefire violations.
• The US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) inspector general has warned that USAID materials are “susceptible to diversion to terrorist organizations” due to the Trump administration’s cuts.
• Tulsi Gabbard has moved a step closer to being the next director of US National Intelligence after the Senate advanced her nomination to a final vote later this week.

Hong Kong’s chief secretary, Eric Chan, said that a complaint would be sent over US tariffs to the World Trade Organization (WTO), claiming the US has completely ignored the city’s status as a separate customs territory from China.

“This is absolutely inconsistent with the WTO rules. Of course, they have totally disregarded Hong Kong is a separate customs territory,” said Chan, Hong Kong’s number two official. “We will file a complaint to the WTO regarding this unreasonable arrangement,” he said.

Chan was responding to a US decision to impose 10 percent tariffs on goods from Hong Kong as Trump targets Chinese imports.

Last week, the US Postal Service suspended all inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong, then reversed that decision soon afterwards. The move caused chaos and confusion among retailers and express shipping firms.

“All I can say is the policies are mercurial,” Chan said.

Complying with an executive order by Trump, the search engine changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America” for those using its Maps platform inside the US.

Google wrote in a blog post on Monday that users outside the US will continue to see both the original and new name for the Gulf of Mexico, as is the case for other disputed locations.

“People using Maps in the US will see ‘Gulf of America’, and people in Mexico will see ‘Gulf of Mexico’. Everyone else will see both names,” Google wrote.

Google said the change aligns with its policy of complying with official US government geographic designations through the Geographic Names Information System.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has suggested renaming the US “Mexican America”, in reference to one-third of her country being seized by the US in 1848.

After taking office, Trump signed executive orders not only changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico but also reverting the name of Denali, America’s highest peak, to its former moniker, Mount McKinley.

In 2015, then-president US Barack Obama officially recognised the Alaska mountain as Denali, the name used by Alaska’s Indigenous people for centuries.

Trump has claimed that Tehran is “scared” because the country’s air defences have been badly damaged by Israel’s recent attacks, leaving them more willing to come to the table and negotiate over their nuclear programme.

“I think they are nervous, I think they are scared,” Trump told Fox News. “I think we’re gonna make a deal in Iran.”

“I’d much rather see a deal with Iran where we can do a deal, supervise, check it, inspect it and then blow it up or just make sure there’s no nuclear,” Trump said, adding that he prefers Israel doesn’t “bomb the hell out of them”.

“I’d much rather do a deal that’s a deal that’s not going to hurt them, and I think they want it too,” he added.

US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson has ordered that the head of a federal agency dedicated to protecting whistleblowers be reinstated, while a court fight continues over his removal by President Trump.

In a court order issued late on Monday, the judge said that Hampton Dellinger must be allowed to serve as head of the US’s Office of Special Counsel through to midnight on Thursday while she considers Dellinger’s request for a temporary restraining order to keep him in his job.

In the ruling, the judge said the Trump administration cannot deny Dellinger “access to the resources or materials of that office or recognise the authority of any other person as Special Counsel”.

Dellinger filed a lawsuit earlier on Monday claiming that he was illegally removed as the head of the Office of Special Counsel, which is responsible for protecting the federal workforce from illegal personnel actions, such as retaliation for whistleblowing.

Also on Monday, the US Office of Government Ethics posted on its website that Trump had removed its director, David Huitema.

As we reported earlier, Trump has issued Hamas with an ultimatum to release the remaining Israeli captives in Gaza, after the Palestinian group announced it was indefinitely suspending doing so due to repeated violations of the ceasefire agreement.

If all remaining captives are not freed by Saturday at noon, Trump said he would propose cancelling the Israel-Hamas truce and “let hell break out”, the Reuters news agency reports.

“As far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 o’clock [10am GMT], I think it’s an appropriate time. I would say, cancel it [the ceasefire] and all bets are off and let hell break out. I’d say they ought to be returned by 12 o’clock on Saturday,” Trump said.

“We want ’em all back,” he added, calling for their release en masse, instead of a few at a time.

Trump cautioned, however, that Israel may want to override him on the issue and he may speak with Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Trump’s suspension of US foreign assistance has forced health programmes all over the world to stop or curtail operations, denying lifesaving medicine to patients, including for HIV prevention, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

“Despite the State Department’s claims about resuming some ‘life-saving humanitarian assistance,’ many programmes remain paused due to massive staffing disruptions and inconsistent and unclear guidance,” HRW’s head of advocacy, John Sifton, said in a statement.

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio needs to take urgent action to ensure suspended services are restored as quickly as possible and adopt safer and more humane methods for reviewing current funding,” Sifton said.

“The State Department also needs to bring back thousands of federal employees and contractors who implemented and administered the funding of PEPFAR [the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief] and other vital and lifesaving projects,” he said.

As we have been reporting, China has imposed new retaliatory tariffs on US goods in response to President Trump’s levies on Chinese coal, gas, crude oil and vehicles imported into the US.

Beijing has also filed a World Trade Organization lawsuit against the US, sanctioned US firms, imposed restrictions on rare earth exports, and is probing Google. In return, Washington plans more tariffs and tighter rules on Chinese imports.

The dispute, driven by the trade deficit and concerns around the flow of fentanyl into the US, signals what could be a prolonged economic confrontation between the powerhouses.

Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu reports from Beijing:

As we previously reported, the Trump administration has paused the enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) under an executive order signed on Monday.

In response to the move, Gary Kalman, executive director of the anticorruption watchdog Transparency International US, said Trump’s order “diminishes – and could pave the way for completely eliminating – the crown jewel in the US’s fight against global corruption”.

The FCPA was designed to prevent US citizens from bribing foreign leaders to advance their own aims.

But the White House claimed the law made US companies less competitive abroad and created an uneven playing field. Trump’s directive now calls for “revised, reasonable enforcement guidelines”.

“It’s going to mean a lot more business for America,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump has confirmed earlier reports that he agreed to consider a tariff exemption on Australian steel and aluminium imports after a telephone call with Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Trump said the US’s trade surplus with Australia was one of the reasons he was considering an exemption from the tariffs.

“We actually have a surplus,” Trump told reporters.

“It’s one of the only countries which we do. And I told [Albanese] that that’s something that we’ll give great consideration to,” he said.

We reported earlier that Albanese had made the case to Trump for Australia’s exemption from tariffs as it was “in the interests of both of our countries”.

Albanese also raised the AUKUS defence agreement with the US and UK, which was struck with former President Joe Biden’s administration and involves Australia acquiring a fleet of submarines powered by US nuclear technology.

“Our steel and aluminium are both key inputs for the US-Australia defence industries in both of our countries,” Albanese said.

Albanese’s phone call on Tuesday was his second with Trump since the president was elected.

Gabbard has moved a step closer to being the next director of US national intelligence after the Senate advanced her nomination to a final vote planned for later this week.

A former Democratic congresswoman, Gabbard is one of Trump’s most contentious nominees, given her past comments sympathetic to Edward Snowden and Russia. She had also met with Syria’s now-deposed leader Bashar al-Assad in 2017, and said she was sceptical that al-Assad’s regime had used chemical weapons.

The Senate could hold its final vote on confirming Gabbard as soon as Wednesday, following a 52-46 procedural vote on Monday to end debate on her nomination, which fell along party lines.

The Senate Intelligence Committee last week recommended Gabbard’s nomination for consideration by the full Senate by a narrow 9-8 vote, also along party lines.

Her past praise of Snowden drew particularly harsh questions during her Senate nomination hearing. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, fled to Russia after he was charged with revealing classified information about surveillance programmes.

Gabbard said that while Snowden broke laws, he also revealed important facts about surveillance programmes she believes are unconstitutional.

She has repeatedly echoed Russian propaganda used to justify Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Chanting, “Fork you, Elon” and holding up signs that read, “Stop the billionaire grift”, Democrats rallied in front of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Monday to try to fend off the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the office.

Senator Elizabeth Warren was among the lawmakers who spoke to the crowd. As a law professor, she had helped lay the groundwork for the eventual creation of the CFPB in 2011, after the US housing crisis shone a light on mismanagement in the financial industry.

“The CFPB is the cop on the beat, and that cop is the one that caught the crooks and, so far, has made them give back $21bn,” she told supporters, referring to the amount of money that consumers have received as a result of the bureau’s efforts.

“That cop is the one that put that $21bn right back into the hands of the American people who got cheated.”

The CFPB is one of several departments and agencies in the Trump administration’s crosshairs, including USAID and the Department of Education.

Last week, Trump adviser Elon Musk posted on social media: “CFPB RIP.” He and other conservatives have accused the bureau of overreach and punishing financial services companies.

But critics accuse Trump and Musk of a conflict of interest – and scaling back necessary oversight on businesses.

“Donald Trump ran his campaign on lowering costs for working families. Now, he and his co-president, Elon Musk, have tried to shut down the agency that has delivered $21bn to hardworking families – $21bn to people who got cheated. And Trump and Musk wanna just take that agency away,” Warren said.

CFPB was recently ordered to stop work, and its headquarters are closed for the week.

“They have said just to stand by and let the Wall Street boys take your money. Well, we are here to fight back. We want our financial cops back on the beat.”

President Trump has cut vital financial assistance to South Africa over the past week, including support for critical HIV treatment programmes.

Trump has cited a law he said allows the South African government to seize farmland from white farmers, as well as the country’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, as justification for his decision.

South African-born billionaire adviser to Trump, Elon Musk, has also accused the country of what he calls “openly racist” land ownership laws.

What role is Musk playing in Trump’s decision?

Watch below:

We have been reporting on Trump’s threats to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on any country with trade policies he sees as unequal.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump doubled down on that threat, saying he would announce a “very sophisticated plan” for reciprocal tariffs, likely on Monday or Tuesday.

“It’s not fair that other countries have taken advantage of us for so many years, and now all of a sudden, we’re not allowed to have tariffs,” Trump told Fox News.

Trump’s comments came as he unveiled a new suite of executive orders on Monday, including imposing 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminium imports into the US.

Trump said he was also looking at tariffs on cars, semiconductor chips and pharmaceuticals.

“I don’t mind,” Trump said when asked about the possibility of countries retaliating.

The Justice Department, part of the executive branch, has directed federal prosecutors to drop their case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Adams has served as mayor since 2022. But his administration has come under fire for corruption.

Those accusations came to a head in September when federal prosecutors charged Adams with five criminal counts, including wire fraud, bribery and the solicitation of a foreign national for improper campaign contributions.

Adams “provided favourable treatment in exchange for the illicit benefits he received”, prosecutors wrote in their indictment. In one instance, Adams was accused of pressuring fire officials to fast-track safety clearances for a building sought by Turkish officials for their consulate.

Since the indictment, Adams, a tough-on-crime centrist Democrat, has appeared to inch closer to Trump. In November, shortly after Trump’s election, Adams also agreed to cooperate with the new administration on immigration issues. And before Trump’s inauguration in January, Adams visited the president-elect in Florida.

In Monday’s directive, Trump officials framed Adams as a victim of a weaponised justice system — a frequent accusation Trump has made.

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, President Trump confirmed for the first time that he has spoken to the Chinese leader since taking office on January 20.

“Yeah, I have talked to him,” Trump told the US network.

Last week, Trump said he was in no hurry to speak to Xi amid an escalating trade war between the two economic powerhouses, sparked by 10 percent tariffs Trump’s administration imposed on  all Chinese imports to the US at the start of February.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he spoke with Trump, and the US president is considering an exemption for Australia on steel tariffs.

“On tariffs, we discussed Australia’s position when it comes to tariffs, particularly with regards to steel and aluminium,” Albanese said after a phone call with Trump, during which he pushed for Australia to be excluded from 25 percent levies.

“The US president agreed that an exemption was under consideration in the interests of both of our countries,” Albanese said.

A minor player in steel export markets globally, Albanese said Australia accounted for about 1 percent of US steel imports and 2 percent of aluminium.

Albanese also said he emphasised that the US had a trade surplus with Australia, exporting twice as much as it imported from his country.

Calling the former Illinois governor a “very fine person”, Trump issued a full pardon to former Democrat Rod Blagojevich on Monday.

Blagojevich had appeared on Trump’s reality TV series The Celebrity Apprentice while facing prosecution in 2010 on corruption charges, including soliciting bribes.

Among other things, Blagojevich had been recorded in 2008 appearing to seek favours in exchange for Barack Obama’s Senate seat, which the president had to vacate to enter the White House.

The Illinois governor has long proclaimed his innocence, and has remained close with Trump since his Celebrity Apprentice series. Trump commuted Blagojevich’s 14-year prison sentence in 2020, during his first term, though he did not issue a presidential pardon at that time.

On Monday, however, Trump compared his legal woes with Blagojevich’s. In 2023, Trump became the first president to face criminal indictment, and he was convicted in May of charges of falsifying business records.

“I’ve watched him. He was set up by a lot of bad people, some of the same people I had to deal with,” Trump said on Monday.