Trump Cedes Ground to China as He Bans All Work on G20 Summit

The Trump administration is banning all government agencies from doing any work on the upcoming G20 conference, essentially pulling out of a forum of the world’s largest economies, according to two sources who spoke with The Washington Post.

President Trump appears to be following up on threats to boycott the conference, hosted by South Africa in Johannesburg this year, over his outlandish claims that the country is discriminating against white South Africans by taking away their land under a government expropriation law meant to undo years of racial inequality caused by apartheid.

A White House official referred the Post to Trump’s comments Monday accusing South Africa of carrying out a “genocide” against the country’s white citizens and saying that he would not attend the G20 unless the “situation is taken care of.”

“How could we be expected to go to South Africa for the very important G-20 Meeting when Land Confiscation and Genocide is the primary topic of conversation?” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post last month. “They are taking the land of white Farmers, and then killing them and their families.”

This week, the White House took the brazenly racist step of accepting white South Africans into the United States as refugees while freezing all other refugee admissions, including ending temporary protected status for refugees fleeing from Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover of the country.

The South African government, as well as many white South Africans themselves, have denied Trump’s accusations. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that the Trump administration has “got the wrong end of the stick here.”

“We’ll continue talking to them,” Ramaphosa said of U.S.–South African relations.

The G20 summit is scheduled to take place in November with the theme “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability,” which undoubtedly rankles Trump and the other conservatives in his administration, who have sought to purge such ideas from the U.S. government.

The move also cedes credibility and economic arguments to China at a conference the U.S. helped create, according to a third unnamed official who spoke to The Washington Post.

“It completely cedes the floor to China,” they said, noting that the Chinese government comes to such events with detailed plans. “Beijing is so organized at these multilateral engagements. This will guarantee they don’t have to face us, which basically leaves the Europeans to uphold Western values on their own.”

The U.S. president’s sudden about-face on Chinese tariffs didn’t happen because he thought it was a strong economic idea but rather because it would hurt “Trump’s people.”

Over the course of April, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and other senior aides impressed on Donald Trump that MAGA supporters across the country would be “in danger” if the tariffs didn’t decrease, reported The Washington Post Wednesday. That was enough of a window to allow Bessent to negotiate with the Chinese government.

“The key argument was that this was beginning to hurt Trump’s supporters—Trump’s people,” an unidentified source briefed on the talks told the Post. “It gave Susie a key window.”

Bessent announced early Monday that U.S. tariffs on China would temporarily decrease from 145 percent to 30 percent for the next 90 days. The suspension followed a multiday meeting in Geneva where Bessent and other U.S. officials met with their Chinese counterparts and temporarily put aside some of their differences. On the flip side, China said it would lower its import tariff on American products to 10 percent from 125 percent.

Both nations agreed to maintain a reciprocal tariff rate of 10 percent, according to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who called the arrangement a “deal.” The extra 20 percent on China is punishment for the country supposedly not doing enough to stop fentanyl from entering the U.S.

It was a stark reversal of what Trump had believed just days prior, when he posted on Truth Social that an “80 percent Tariff on China seems right!”

Markets have been in an anxious state of flux since Trump first announced his sweeping tariff plan, in early April. But not all of the tariffs have stuck around: Duties on Colombian trade, for instance, didn’t last more than a week, while other tariffs were rolled back in less than a day. And when it comes to America’s three biggest trading partners—China, Canada, and Mexico—the White House has reversed course more than half a dozen times.

That rapid change is happening because Trump is simultaneously attempting to fundamentally alter America’s international trade arrangements while trying to skirt any negative repercussions that could stem from the massive overhaul.

“The reason why the tariffs go up and come back down is businesses or markets are pressuring him to back off,” Dartmouth College economist Douglas Irwin told the Post. “The volatility is just reflecting the difficulty of achieving the objectives in a very short span of time.”

And that volatility is hurting the economy.

Droves of financial and economic experts have insisted that tariffs on other nations will only serve to harm America and its markets, making products more expensive stateside and making American consumers less likely to spend their money (something that Trump doesn’t seem to have any problem with, actually). The Harvard Kennedy Business School even floated in April that America’s trade deficit basically doesn’t matter, writing that “Americans earn more from, or earn just about as much from, their total investments abroad as foreigners earn in the United States.”

MAGA is freaking out because the House Republicans’ X account posted in Spanish.

“House Republicans believe in every American’s potential to thrive by embracing the power of work,” the post reads, before repeating the message in Spanish. “Los Republicanos en la Cámara creemos en que cada ciudadano americano tiene el potencial de prosperar y beneficiarse de las oportunidades de trabajo.”

Within minutes, X exploded with comments slamming the GOP account. Many users pointed to Donald Trump’s recent executive order that made English the official language of the United States and ended a Clinton-era mandate that requires federal agencies to provide language assistance to non–English speakers.

“Why is the House GOP tweeting in Spanish? This is America. We speak English here,” MAGA influencer Laura Loomer wrote. “President Trump has literally signed English language executive orders. What the hell is the GOP doing?”

Representative Brandon Gill, who has filed articles of impeachment against a judge who tried to block Trump’s unlawful deportation efforts, slammed his own party’s post. “Is this a joke, @HouseGOP? We’re in America. We represent Americans,” he wrote. “We don’t pander in foreign languages. Speak English.”

One post apparently wasn’t enough for the 31-year-old xenophobic lawmaker. “‘Press 2 for English’ is a losing message, @HouseGOP,” he posted minutes later.

Others called for the swift firing of whoever was responsible for the post.

“Whoever is operating this account should be fired immediately,” wrote Auron McIntyre, host of the far-right news site The Blaze.

“I have it on good authority that it is being run by Gus Walz, the son of Gov. Tim Walz,” Dane Scalise, a county commissioner in North Carolina responded sarcastically to McIntyre.

The post is a rare display of bilingualism from Trump’s Republican Party, which dismantled the White House’s official Spanish language website almost immediately upon taking office.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem got slammed by a Democratic lawmaker Wednesday for “playing dress-up” while breaking immigration laws to conduct Donald Trump’s deportations.

During a hearing before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Rhode Island Representative Seth Magaziner took Noem to task for removing U.S. citizens and documented immigrants as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping deportation efforts.

“During your confirmation hearing, you said that your focus would be on deporting immigrants who have been convicted of crimes, and those who have received removal orders. But that is not what you have been doing,” Magaziner said. “Instead you have been deporting children with cancer, children who are U.S. citizens, a gay makeup artist who committed no crime and didn’t even enter the country illegally.

“You have been sloppy; your department has been sloppy. And instead of focusing on real criminals, you have allowed innocent children to be deported while you fly around the country playing dress-up for the cameras,” Magaziner continued.

“Instead of enforcing the laws, you have repeatedly broken them. You need to change course immediately, before more innocent people are hurt on your watch.”

Magaziner was referring to a mother in Louisiana who was deported to Honduras in April alongside her 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son, the latter of whom had been diagnosed with cancer. Attorneys for that woman and another mother who was removed with her 2-year-old have contended that their clients did not wish for their children to be removed from the United States.

Earlier in his questioning, Magaziner asked Noem to explain why Immigration and Customs Enforcement had removed the 4-year-old diagnosed with cancer, despite the mother’s wishes. “What evidence do you have to support your claim that she did consent?” Magaziner asked.

Noem, who has denied that the Trump administration has removed any U.S. citizens (it has deported at least 12) insisted that DHS had followed protocol, but failed to provide proof. “We will get that to you, sir, I don’t have it with me,” Noem said.

“Please do. I understand, it’s hard to keep them all straight because you’ve deported multiple U.S. citizen children, but I’m asking specifically about the 4-year-old with cancer who was deported on April 25,” Magaziner said.

“For the record, that family was also not given access to legal counsel before they were deported, even though their lawyer was in the same building at the time,” Magaziner noted.

Magaziner referred to ICE’s directive on detained parents, which states that “parents and legal guardians should have the ability to make alternative care arrangements prior to their arrest or detention.”

“ICE must afford parents the opportunity to consult with legal counsel,” Magaziner said.

“So, did the ICE agents working on this case, who deported this 4-year-old with cancer, of their own volition fail to follow ICE policies, or were they directed to by your office or anyone else in DHS leadership?” the Rhode Island Democrat asked.

“Sir, this mother chose to keep her child with her—” Noem began to answer before she was interrupted.

“You have not produced any evidence to say so, but I’m asking again, have you directed—have you directed DHS officers to ignore this policy?” Magaziner said.

Noem claimed that the Trump administration was attempting to keep families together, unlike the previous administration, which separated families “over and over.” The Biden administration repeatedly separated families at the border, including roughly 300 children in 2024 and another 300 in 2023. Over the course of the first Trump administration, immigration authorities separated more than 4,000 migrant children from their families.

The Trump administration just became so much more Orwellian.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command,” George Orwell wrote in his cautionary tale about totalitarianism, 1984.

On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem took that command a step further, refusing to even acknowledge a doctored photo depicting alleged gang tattoos on Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s knuckles, which the White House has repeatedly used to justify his deportation.

In a heated back-and-forth with Representative Eric Swalwell during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing, Noem repeatedly swerved away from answering direct questions about the photo, which was displayed on a massive poster board behind the California lawmaker.

Asked several times whether the photo was “doctored or not doctored,” Noem eventually said that she did not “have any knowledge of that photo you’re pointing to.”

But because she apparently refused to look at the image—which, in Swalwell’s photo, was held up by President Donald Trump—Swalwell decided to have one of his aides bring the image to her.

“My question is—the numbers and the letters: MS-13—can you look at the photo, please,” Swalwell said.

“Are you saying Abrego Garcia is not a wife beater? Is not a criminal? Is not a human trafficker?” asked Noem.

“It’s so telling that you won’t look at the photo,” said Swalwell. “Can you look to the right at the photo in front of you?”

“I have seen this photo as you held it behind you,” said Noem.

“The letters M-S and the numbers 13, are those doctored or not?” pressed Swalwell.

“You don’t want to talk about the facts? The importance of our national security?” tossed back Noem.

“Madame Secretary, this is not a hard question. Are those doctored or not? Is that actually on his hand or not?” Swalwell said.

Noem then said it was “unbelievable” to her that Swalwell was so focused on the photo, reiterating that she “did not have any knowledge” of it.

“OK, so it’s been hanging out there for four weeks,” Swalwell said, referring to Trump’s Truth Social page. “You are one of the chief law enforcement officials in the country. What have you done to investigate whether the president misrepresented the reason that this person has been detained? Have you done anything to try and figure out whether that was doctored or not?”

But Noem did not have an answer for that question. Instead, she repeated accusations that Abrego Garcia—who the Trump administration admitted had been deported as an “administrative error”—was a wife beater and a criminal.

“I’m a former prosecutor. I have put people away for life sentences who are gang members. I don’t need to wear costumes to show how tough I am,” Swalwell said, before yielding back his time. “What makes me different from you is when I put those people away, I did it with the weight of the law behind me.”

Abrego Garcia entered the United States illegally more than a decade ago, but he was allowed to remain in the U.S. and evade deportation back to El Salvador when an immigration judge ruled in October 2019 that a return to his home country could expose him to violence or persecution from a local gang, Barrio 18. Abrego Garcia was never charged with a crime, and the only alleged tie between the construction worker and MS-13 stemmed from a 2019 report by a since-fired Maryland police officer. The report also did not definitively link Abrego Garcia to the gang.

The Supreme Court ordered the executive branch to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S., but the White House has since contested that ruling, arguing that Abrego Garcia “will never live” in America again.

Trump himself appears confused about Abrego Garcia’s connection to Latin American gangs. The president entered into a terse exchange with ABC News in late April when he insisted that the doctored photo of Abrego Garcia’s knuckles was real.

Experts say the photo was obviously photoshopped.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is once again refusing to divulge his views on vaccination, and, with no trace of self-awareness, saying that people shouldn’t seek medical advice from him.

Kennedy made the remarks at a House budget hearing Wednesday, in response to questions from Democratic Representative Mark Pocan, who sought Kennedy’s opinion given HHS’s role in providing health recommendations to the public.

“If you had a child today, would you vaccinate that child for measles?” Pocan asked Kennedy. His response was not encouraging.

“For measles? Um, probably for measles. What I would say is that my opinions about vaccines are irrelevant,” Kennedy said, adding that Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the head of the National Institutes of Health, would be better suited to answer questions about vaccinations, despite Bhattacharya having his own controversial medical views.

“I don’t want to seem like I’m being evasive,” Kennedy continued, speaking over Pocan’s attempt to clarify his question. “I don’t think people should be taking advice, medical advice, from me.”

Kennedy then refused to answer Pocan’s questions on whether he would give his kids vaccines for chicken pox or polio, repeating that he didn’t “want to be giving advice,” despite the polio vaccine being so effective that the disease has been nearly eradicated around the world.

It’s a surprising, if not laughable, admission from a health influencer who shared exercise videos while running for president under the mission to “Make America Healthy Again” and now heads the country’s main public health agency. Kennedy has so far mishandled a measles outbreak, touting medical quacks while he continues to spread misinformation himself. If Kennedy doesn’t want to be responsible for offering medical advice, perhaps he should find a different job.

Donald Trump is trying to justify being gifted a brand-new private jet from Qatar because Air Force One is a “much less impressive” plane than the ones dictators use. 

The president is being slammed after reports surfaced Sunday that he planned to accept a $400 million “flying palace” from the Qatari royal family. If the plane, which is a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet, is in fact given to Trump, it would be one of the largest gifts from a foreign government to a U.S. government in history. 

Speaking to Fox News’s Sean Hannity from Air Force One on Tuesday, Trump argued that Air Force One is “almost 40 years old” and nowhere near as cool as the planes used by monarchs in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.

“This is like a totally different plane. It’s much smaller, it’s much less impressive—as impressive as it is. We are the United States of America. I believe that we should have the most impressive plane,” Trump said. 

“Some people say, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t accept gifts for the country,’” he continued. “My attitude is, why wouldn’t I accept a gift? We’re giving to everybody else, why wouldn’t I accept a gift?”

But the plane is much more of a personal gift to Trump himself than to the people of the United States, whose tax-paying dollars could end up funding the president’s “free” gift. 

In a press conference Monday, Trump told reporters the plane would be a temporary replacement for Air Force One and would go directly to his personal library once he leaves office. It’s an admission that clearly violates a 1966 law preventing presidents from keeping personal gifts worth more than $480 (they can accept gifts worth more but cannot keep them after leaving office).  

“A gift you use for four years and then deposit in your library is still a gift,” Representative Jamie Raskin wrote on X. 

In other words, accepting the jet is pretty blatant corruption.

The Donald Trump effect struck in Nebraska Tuesday night as Democrats snatched another public office away from Republicans by tying them to the president’s disastrous agenda.  

The people of Omaha elected John Ewing Jr. to be the city’s first Black mayor, in a surprising defeat for Jean Stothert, the city’s three-term Republican mayor who outraised Ewing by nearly double, according to The Washington Post. 

Although the seat itself is nonpartisan, Ewing’s campaign was able to channel the voters’ negative feelings about Trump’s wild first few months in office into a victory over his opponent, who had supported the president’s run in 2024.

“Let’s say no to the chaos and elect a mayor who will actually get things done,” said one ad run by Ewing’s campaign. 

Stothert got in trouble for using the same anti-trans Republican playbook that Trump employed in his campaign. One controversial mailer distributed by a PAC on behalf of her campaign claimed that “Ewing stands with radicals who want to allow boys in girls’ sports.”

But Ewing said he’d made no such statement. “Nobody’s ever brought that question up. So I believe it’s a made-up issue by Jean Stothert and the Republican Party,” Ewing said, and his campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter to Stothert for the misleading attack. 

Ewing’s campaign was then able to use his opponent’s attack to mock her focus on such a nonissue. “Jean is focused on potties. John is focused on fixing potholes,” read one ad. 

Stothert’s campaign stood by the mailer, saying that it referred to groups that had lent their support to Ewing. During a press event last week, Stothert tried to defend herself, comparing the ads from the two campaigns.

“I would bring it back to, ‘Why is John Ewing trying to relate me to Donald Trump and saying the city is in chaos?’” Stothert said. “Donald Trump has not called me and asked me for advice.”

Stothert has tried to distance herself from the Trump administration, which she initially supported. During an appearance on the daily podcast Omapod earlier this month, she said, “I can honestly say as a Republican, I don’t like everything [Trump’s] doing and decisions he’s making. I wish he’d slow down on a lot of these decisions he’s making. I don’t advise the president.”

This election indicated that Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district, which handily backed Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election, is emerging as one of the most contested battlegrounds for control of the U.S. House in the coming midterms. Republican Representative Don Bacon’s term will be up, and he will be forced to decide whether he will run for reelection in a district that includes the “Blue Dot” of Omaha. 

Michigan Representative Shri Thanedar pushed earlier this week for a vote on his articles of impeachment, causing an unwelcome stir among Democratic leadership, who were very much not on board with the rogue effort to oust President Donald Trump.

Thanedar took to the House floor Tuesday to recognize his seven articles as privileged, giving Republican leadership two days to commence a vote on the symbolic gesture.

“It’s never the wrong time to stand up for our Constitution,” Thanedar wrote on X Tuesday, calling on his colleagues to “take action.” But liberal lawmakers disagree with forcing the impeachment process.

“People are pissed,” a senior House Democrat told Axios, on the condition of anonymity in order to share their uncensored private reactions. “He’s really just doing it for himself.”

A second House Democrat referred to Thanedar as a “dumbshit.”

“This is the dumbest fucking thing,” a third unidentified House Democrat said, calling Thanedar’s limelight-grabbing actions “utterly selfish behavior.”

Thanedar’s articles accuse Trump of obstruction of justice, bribery and corruption, and tyrannical overreach. But despite Trump’s recent actions, Democrats have no power to actually advance the articles forward.

They’re also cynical about coming down hard on the president when the Republican-dominated system that is allowing Trump to advance his agenda is still actively doing his bidding. Other Democrats were concerned that Thanedar’s uncoordinated impeachment effort would take pressure off of Republican-driven tax cuts.

“We need to focus on reconciliation,” Representative Brad Schneider, the chair of the New Democrat Coalition, told Axios. “One hundred percent of our energy is on dealing with this.”

The whole impeachment crusade has been a wash since Thanedar announced it last week, seemingly without speaking to the teams of his alleged co-sponsors. The announcement also coincided with a bit of bad news for the Michigan lawmaker: He will face intraparty competition from state Representative Donavan McKinney in the midterms for his House seat.

In an apparent vote of no confidence on Thanedar, McKinney has already received support from the progressive PAC Justice Democrats, as well as Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib, who endorsed McKinney Monday.

Still, Thanedar is refusing to back down from the articles, insisting that he won’t withdraw them unless “someone can convince me that many of my articles are incorrect.

“The rest of the members have to look into their own conscience and make a decision: is this impeachable conduct or not?” Thanedar told Axios.