Donald Trump updates: World on edge as reciprocal tariffs deadline looms

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For more on US politics, read our explainer on how Harvard University has become the newest target in the crackdown on pro-Palestine protests, here.

Watch our analysis of what Signalgate tells us about the Trump administration, here.

And check out our Inside Story episode looking at US-Iran tensions, here.

This live page will soon be closing. Here are some of today’s developments:

• More US air strikes were reported in Yemen as the Pentagon surged air support to the Middle East.
• The White House has remained steadfast on Trump’s plan to announce sweeping reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday.
• A US Democrat has been speaking on the Senate floor for nearly an entire day in an impassioned condemnation of Trump’s agenda.
• Both parties were hoping for a strong showing in elections in Wisconsin and Florida, in polls widely being viewed as early referendums on Trump’s second term.
• The US Department of Health and Human Services began mass firings as part of a Trump administration effort to reorganise the agency.

The university’s president, President Christopher Eisgruber, says the Ivy League school received notifications that grants to the college were being suspended by government agencies, including the Department of Energy, NASA and the Defense Department.

Eisgruber said the rationale behind the move was not immediately clear. It comes as the Trump administration has also targeted federal funding to Columbia and Harvard universities over their handling of pro-Palestine protests.

The administration has regularly equated the student protests with anti-Semitism. Critics say the charge has been used to silence support for Palestine as Israeli atrocities in Gaza continue.

“We are committed to fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination, and we will cooperate with the government in combating anti-Semitism,” Eisbgruber said in the message.

Bill Cassidy and Bernie Sanders, the top legislators on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, have jointly invited Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to testify in front of the panel on April 10.

The hearing will provide lawmakers from both major parties a chance to grill Kennedy over his efforts to reorganise the department and sack thousands of workers.

Cassidy is a Republican. Sanders is a progressive independent who caucuses with the Democrats.

A group of bipartisan senators have introduced a bill to further impose sanctions on Russia if talks on ending the Russia-Ukraine war do not proceed in good faith.

The move comes after Trump also floated additional sanctions on Russia. Moscow had agreed to a temporary pause on energy infrastructure strikes in March without committing to a full ceasefire proposal pushed by the US.

“The sanctions against Russia require tariffs on countries who purchase Russian oil, gas, uranium and other products. They are hard hitting for a reason,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote in a joint statement.

“The dominating view in the United States Senate is that Russia is the aggressor, and that this horrific war and Putin’s aggression must end now and be deterred in the future.”

With 25 Republicans and 25 Democrats as sponsors, the legislation underscores the deep bipartisan support for Kyiv among US lawmakers.

Ukraine policy has put Trump at odds with some members of his party, with the president suggesting in February that Kyiv was responsible for Russia’s invasion.

The latest bout of violence occurred in the town of Mirebalais, where gangs freed more than 500 inmates in attacks on a police station and a prison over the weekend.

At least 100,000 residents of the area have been forced to flee, a local official told the AFP news agency. Meanwhile, Fritz Alphonse Jean, the president of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, said on Monday that the country was in a “war situation” with already high rates of violence spiking since February.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration has moved to roll back a special status that allows Haitians to remain in the US legally, leaving hundreds of thousands of Haitians vulnerable as early as August.

Yesterday, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from ending special protections for Venezuelans, sparking hopes for a similar ruling for Haitians.

The US Department of State has announced that Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, is its new senior adviser for Africa.

Boulos, who is Lebanese American, also serves as White House adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.

The State Department said Boulos will accompany Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Corina Sanders on a trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda starting Thursday.

“During the trip, Senior Advisor Boulos and the team will meet with heads of state and business leaders to advance efforts for durable peace in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and to promote US private sector investment in the region,” it said.

A federal judge has ruled that Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil’s challenge to his immigration arrest can proceed in the northeastern state of New Jersey, instead of the southern state of Louisiana, where he is currently being held.

The location of the case is significant, as any appeals in the Palestinian US permanent resident’s case will be heard by the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals instead of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 3rd US Circuit Court is split 6-6 between judges appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents, while the 5th US Circuit Court is considered the most conservative in the country.

Khalil’s lawyers have charged that he is being illegally held for his constitutionally-protected political views and speech. The Trump administration has maintained that the State Department has wide discretion to deport permanent residents.

The ruling said that the case could remain in New Jersey because the legal challenge was filed while Khalil was briefly held in a detention centre in the state. Khalil’s lawyers have said he was transferred to Louisiana to deliberately separate him from his supporters and legal team.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered “the deployment of additional squadrons and other air assets” to the Middle East, where the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier will remain, according to the Pentagon.

Another aircraft carrier, part of the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group, will also relocate to the region.

The increased air assets will support US “defensive” capabilities, the Pentagon said. The shift comes as the US continues to strike Houthi positions and tension between Washington and Tehran intensify.

“Secretary Hegseth continues to make clear that, should Iran or its proxies threaten American personnel and interests in the region, the United States will take decisive action to defend our people,” the statement said.

The Danish Foreign Ministry says top diplomat Lars Lokke Rasmussen is hoping to meet with the US secretary of state on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels this week.

In a statement, the ministry said “work is in progress” for the one-on-one, which would come as the Trump administration has continually pushed to take control of the semiautonomous Danish territory of Greenland.

Trump again said the US will “get” Greenland during an interview this week. US Vice President JD Vance also visited the island over the weekend.

Despite the tensions, the Danish Foreign Ministry did not mention Greenland in its statement. Instead, it said the two diplomats would likely discuss “the situation in Ukraine and the security of Europe”.

Senator Ruben Gallego is taking aim at reported plans to cut the workforce of the US Department of Veterans Affairs by 80,000 workers.

Gallego said he will block the confirmation of any top officials for the department until the Trump administration backs off the plan.

While Republicans maintain a majority in the Senate, Democrats can put holds on the process and delay it.

Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou Castro has been reporting from Jena, Louisiana, where Columbia University student and US permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil has been held since being arrested by immigration agents in March.

“He has been here now for about three weeks, and he has not been charged,” Castro reported. “Typically, that would be illegal in the United States, but that’s not the case when you are in the immigration deportation system.”

“We are thousands of kilometres from where he was arrested in New York City,” she added. “His lawyers say this is partially by design in order to isolate him away from his community of supporters and away from his attorneys themselves.”

Castro said Khalil is pursuing two separate legal cases. One focuses on stopping his deportation, and the other is arguing his rights have been violated by the federal government.

Calls for investigations have continued after it was revealed that Trump administration officials discussed sensitive military information on a Signal group chat – and apparently inadvertently included a reporter.

That comes despite the White House’s statement yesterday that it considers the case “closed”. Neither National Security Advisor Mike Waltz nor Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have faced public punishment over the controversy.

Al Jazeera’s Bottom Line examines the ongoing fallout from so-called “Signalgate”, and what it tells us about the Trump administration.

Watch the episode below.

US attacks on Yemen are becoming increasingly a daily occurrence as Trump promises to destroy the Houthis.

Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV reported that US strikes targeted the port city of Hodeidah and the northwestern governorate of Saada today.

Mark Carney has had a “productive call” with the Mexican president, the Canadian prime minister’s office says, and the two leaders have agreed to deepen cooperation between their countries.

The Canadian statement describing the call did not mention Trump or his trade policies explicitly as both nations face another increase in US tariffs.

But it said Carney and Sheinbaum discussed the “challenging times ahead” and “the importance of safeguarding North American competitiveness while respecting the sovereignty of each nation”.

“Prime Minister Carney also highlighted his plan to fight unjustified trade actions against Canada, protect Canadian workers and businesses, and build Canada’s economy, including through increased trade between Canada and Mexico,” Carney’s office said.

Here are the latest updates from today:

• The White House says there will be little wiggle room for trade partners seeking to avoid wide-ranging tariffs to be announced on Wednesday.
• Democrats have introduced legislation in the US Senate aimed at blocking President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada.
• Voters in Wisconsin and Florida are going to the polls in a state Supreme Court election and special congressional elections, respectively.
• The Trump administration says US strikes on Yemen are “defensive” and do not require congressional approval.
• Widespread firings have begun at the Department of Health and Human Services as part of Trump’s efforts to slash the federal government’s workforce.

We’ve heard all the terms: This is a barometer, a litmus test, a bellwether as to how the Trump administration is doing in a key swing state like Wisconsin.

Trump only won the state by less than 1 percentage point in the last election. Joe Biden won it by about the same margin in 2020.

So this is key for looking at where things stand, how actual voters are looking at the Trump agenda, the flurry of executive orders and billionaire Elon Musk taking a chainsaw gleefully to the federal government and potentially firing hundreds of thousands of federal employees.

This is a test of Musk’s strategy moving forward as well. He’s the world’s richest man. He can spend freely in electoral elections up and down the country over the next several years to ensure that only Trump loyalists win.

The question is, is that still going to work? Or will it backfire?

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says there will be no “eye for an eye” approach as the country braces for new US tariffs this week.

The leader of the US’s biggest trading partner spoke on the eve of Trump’s expected announcement of “reciprocal” tariffs after he imposed 25 percent levies on imported cars and car parts.

Mexico has previously promised a “comprehensive response” to Trump’s tariffs while sticking to a strategy of prioritising dialogue.

Sheinbaum said today: “We do not believe in an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, because that always leads to a bad situation.”

She added: “Of course, measures are taken [in Mexico] because measures are taken on the other side, but the dialogue must continue.”

Trump has said he will unveil a raft of “reciprocal tariffs” on Wednesday on what he has called “Liberation Day” for the US.