Trump Desperately Begs Japan for His Weirdest Trade Deal Yet

Donald Trump is trying to squeeze American rice supplies into Japan without a trade negotiation.

In a Truth Social post Monday afternoon, the president claimed that the Japanese people and their government were “spoiled” because they wouldn’t buy American rice. He then promised to send them a “letter,” in which he would assert the current rate of trade between the two nations.

“To show people how spoiled Countries have become with respect to the United States of America, and I have great respect for Japan, they won’t take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage,” Trump wrote, casually insulting the nation with which America has one of its largest trading relationships. “In other words, we’ll just be sending them a letter, and we love having them as a Trading Partner for many years to come.”

Japan has been struggling with a rice crisis for the last couple of years. The grain, which is a foundational ingredient in Japanese cooking, first started slipping from supermarket shelves in 2023, when extreme heat waves led to low crop yields. Then, a possible “megaquake” warning last year inspired people to panic-buy the pantry essential. The ensuing shortage has seen rice prices more than double since the crisis began, reaching between 4,500 and 5,000 yen, according to government data.

But Trump’s threat is particularly ill-timed, leaving the U.S. president with little negotiating power on the matter: Japan’s national supermarket association reported last week that the shortage appears to be easing, with prices for a five-kilogram bag dropping below 4,000 yen for the first time in the last two months, finally reaching the target goal set by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

Rice has become a sticking point in U.S.-Japanese trade negotiations. In March, Trump pledged to impose a 24 percent “reciprocal” tariff on Japanese imports, with its automobile and metals industries facing a slightly higher rate at 25 percent. Since a 1993 World Trade Organization arrangement, Japan has imported 770,000 metric tons of rice each year without tariffs—approximately half of which comes from the U.S., Time reported.

Changing the arrangement in favor of U.S. goods will face enormous pressure from Japanese leadership: the Liberal Democratic Party, which has been in power almost continuously since it was founded in 1955, has staunchly opposed adding a special quota for American rice imports.

The plea followed an embarrassing flub for America’s relationship with its longtime ally on Sunday, when Trump seemingly forgot the name of Japan’s prime minister in an interview with Fox News, instead referring to Ishiba as “Mr. Japan.”

In the same interview, Trump said that the letters would serve as the “end of the trade deal,” suggesting that no negotiations will take place after the White House hits the mailbox. “We don’t have to meet. We understand, we have all the numbers,” he said.

It’s not the first time that Trump has offered to stamp out trade talks by issuing a string of letters. He made similar promises on May 16 and June 11, claiming both times that the letters would be issued in a handful of weeks, though that never came to fruition.

The two musicians comprising the U.K. punk-rap duo Bob Vylan have had their U.S. visas revoked for leading chants against the Israeli Defense Forces during their performance at the Glastonbury Festival over the weekend.

The group has been under fire since leading the festival crowd in the chant, “Death, death to the IDF” on Saturday.

On Monday morning, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Laundau took to X to announce that the State Department “has revoked the US visas for the members of the Bob Vylan band.”

Landau described the decision as a retaliation against Bob Vylan “in light of” the chants at Glastonbury, which he described as a “hateful tirade” where the group led “death chants.”

“Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country,” Laundau said.

The band, which has also been dropped by its talent agency, according to
The Hollywood Reporter, had upcoming tour dates scheduled in numerous U.S. cities.

Prior to the official announcement, the free speech advocacy group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, condemned reports that the State Department was looking into banning Bob Vylan for their expressive acts.

FIRE compared the then-planned ban to countries like Russia and China banning artists such as Selena Gomez and Katy Perry for speech that cuts against official state doctrine.

“Nations committed to free expression should not use their borders as a tool of censorship, as Russia and China have done with artists whose political expression they seek to silence,” FIRE posted. “Revoking visas from controversial musicians and artists doesn’t make our country freer or safer. But it may make it silent.”

This comes as the Trump administration pursues an aggressive campaign of revoking international students’ visas, including for political expression, such as pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Senator John Fetterman—known mostly for his basketball shorts, his disdain for participating at his fairly easy job, and his highly publicized mental health crisis—would rather be at the beach than in the Senate voting on Trump’s sweeping budget bill.

“Oh my God, I just wanna go home,” Fetterman said Monday in response to a question regarding when voting on the bill would end. “I’ve already … I’ve missed our entire trip to the beach, my family’s gonna be back before we … and again, I’m gonna vote ‘no,’ there’s no drama. The votes are gonna go. In fact the only interesting votes are gonna be on the margin, whether that’s [Susan] Collins, [Ron] Johnson, and those, but all the Democrats, we all know how that’s gonna go. And I think—I don’t think it’s really helpful to put people here till some ungodly hour.”

While the Republicans’ Senate majority makes the bill’s passing highly likely, some Democrats are still speaking out rather than longing for vacation. 

“If you are concerned about health care, which I suspect that everybody in the world is, this bill throws over 16 million people off the health insurance they have, according to the Congressional Budget Office, by cutting Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by over $1.1 trillion,” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said on Sunday night. “In other words, the top one percent [is] getting a $975 billion tax break, and that is coming directly by throwing 16 million people off of the health insurance they have.” 

But Fetterman has had a contentious relationship with the job he campaigned to do. That dynamic, combined with his mental health, extreme hatred of Palestinians, and his general rightward shift, only increase the questions surrounding his future as a Democratic senator, or as a senator at all.  

Donald Trump is threatening to withhold U.S. funding for Israel—unless the nation lets Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walk away from his corruption charges.

In a lengthy post on Truth Social Saturday, the U.S. president lamented that the Israeli leader should have to “be forced to sit in a courtroom all day long” while the country is simultaneously attacking Iran and Palestine.

“It is terrible what they are doing in Israel to Bibi Netanyahu. He is a War Hero, and a Prime Minister who did a fabulous job working with the United States to bring Great Success in getting rid of the dangerous Nuclear threat in Iran,” Trump wrote. “Importantly, he is right now in the process of negotiating a Deal with Hamas, which will include getting the Hostages back. How is it possible that the Prime Minister of Israel can be forced to sit in a Courtroom all day long, over NOTHING (Cigars, Bugs Bunny Doll, etc.).”

Netanyahu is accused of requesting and/or demanding regularly delivered expensive gifts from the world’s financial elite, including Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer, the latter of whom moved into a property bordering Mar-a-Lago in March that was believed to be previously owned by Trump.

“It is a POLITICAL WITCH HUNT, very similar to the Witch Hunt that I was forced to endure,” Trump continued. “This travesty of ‘Justice’ will interfere with both Iran and Hamas negotiations. In other words, it is INSANITY doing what the out-of-control prosecutors are doing to Bibi Netanyahu.”

“The United States of America spends Billions of Dollar a year, far more than on any other Nation, protecting and supporting Israel. We are not going to stand for this. We just had a Great Victory with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu at the helm—And this greatly tarnishes our Victory. LET BIBI GO, HE’S GOT A BIG JOB TO DO!” Trump said.

Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. The trial began the following year, and has split into three criminal cases. In 2021, amidst widespread protests against Netanyahu’s leadership over the corruption charges, the Israeli prime minister lost his seat to a new coalition government. He subsequently returned to power the following year, fronting the most far-right and religiously conservative government in the nation’s history.

By March, polling within the country suggested that the vast majority of Israelis “don’t trust” Netanyahu’s government—roughly 70 percent—including his own supporters.

But last week, the U.S. president got involved, apparently sympathizing with the unpopular leader by insisting that Bibi’s trial should be “CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY.”

Netanyahu appeared to appreciate the sentiment, thanking Trump at the time “for your moving support for me and your tremendous support for Israel.” But other Israeli politicians didn’t take kindly to the intervention: Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that Trump should not “intervene in a legal process of an independent state.”

Trump’s casual disregard for the rule of law should come as no surprise considering his own history facing the court system. Trump has been sued countless times, but has grabbed the national spotlight over the last few years when he was found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll, when he was convicted as a felon for falsifying records to hide hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, when he was ordered to pay out hundreds of millions for defrauding U.S. banks, and when he was charged and indicted in connection to two separate conspiracies to unroot the result of the 2020 presidential election. Those all dramatically came to a close when Trump was inaugurated on January 20.

Donald Trump’s administration is formally threatening to revoke all of Harvard University’s federal funding over allegations that the elite school violated Title VI.

The Department of Justice’s task force to combat antisemitism sent a formal notice to university President Alan Garber Monday alleging that “Harvard has been in some cases deliberately indifferent, and in others has been a willful participant in anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff.”

“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” the notice said. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”

In 2024, Harvard received $686 million federal grants, making the government the largest financial source for the school’s many research programs. One in five undergraduate students rely on grants intended for low-income students, according to Politico.

The notice alleged that the administration’s investigation had found that the majority of Jewish students on campus had reported experiencing a negative bias, and nearly a quarter felt unsafe.

The notice also cited the multiweek student encampment to oppose Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, as well as the “lax” discipline against the students who’d participated, wrongly equating pro-Palestinian speech with antisemitic activity.

The notice comes amid ongoing negotiations in a bitter legal battle between Harvard and the Trump administration over allegations of antisemitism. Earlier this month, Trump signaled that negotiations with the university were going well.

This is the latest escalation in Trump’s monthslong petty war with the Ivy League institution after the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in federal grants in April and threatened to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status. Earlier this month, the president’s efforts to see Harvard banned from accepting international students failed in court.

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a Republican-led case that could upend campaign finance law and allow national party committees to spend even more on elections.

Right now, political parties can spend an unlimited amount on a candidate individually, but are limited in their “coordinated spending”—renting out venues, hiring consultants, or paying for travel. This case, introduced by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee along with then-Senator JD Vance and former Representative Steve Cabot, seeks to overturn that coordinated spending limit.

If ruled in the GOP’s favor, this would be another massive blow to the effort to keep money out of politics. The country’s wealthiest have flaunted their ability to essentially buy elections, or have at least attempted to, for some time now. This most current effort is particularly shameless, given that the high court already upheld the same restrictions in a 2001 ruling. Now it may be repealed with the court’s 6–3 conservative majority.

“The court’s reasoning upholding these party spending limits has been undermined by more recent court campaign finance cases,” UCLA School of Law election expert Rick Hasen told NBC News. “The status quo—where outside groups like super PACs can raise unlimited sums but political parties face much more severe limitations—may create worse conditions in terms of empowering unaccountable groups and increasing negative ads.”

The case is set to be heard in the fall or early 2026.

Even the Iranians are surprised by how little damage Donald Trump’s bombs apparently did.

An intercepted communication between Iranian officials indicated that the nuclear facility airstrike had not achieved the level of damage touted by the Trump administration, reported The Washington Post, which spoke with four sources familiar with the classified material.

The president’s attack, conducted earlier this month without the express approval of Congress, damaged facilities in Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan. Trump celebrated that the attack had “completely and totally obliterated” the three sites in the immediate aftermath, but intelligence assessments have suggested otherwise.

A battle damage assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm determined that the missile barrage only set Iran’s nuclear program back by a few months, rather than the “years” that Trump had advertised.

As with the Pentagon assessment, the White House did not dispute that the Iranian call had taken place, but fervently rejected its findings.

“It’s shameful that The Washington Post is helping people commit felonies by publishing out-of-context leaks,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “The notion that unnamed Iranian officials know what happened under hundreds of feet of rubble is nonsense. Their nuclear weapons program is over.”

Whether the sites had been hit by 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs was not in doubt, but the exact extent of the damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear program has been heavily debated since the attack took place.

One Trump administration official brushed off the leaked call details, telling the Post that the Iranians were “wrong” because “we’ve destroyed their metal conversion facility.”

Senior U.S. intelligence officials warned that intercepted phone calls can only relay some information as they lack critical context.

“A single phone call between unnamed Iranians is not the same as an intelligence assessment, which takes into account a body of evidence, with multiple sources and methods,” one official told the Post.

Before the attacks took place, Iran had argued that it was seeking uranium for peaceful purposes, such as expanding its nuclear energy program. The nation has undergone years of nuclear site inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and as of two weeks ago was allowing IAEA inspectors to remain in the country, according to the United Nations entity.

Trump has been irate over the coverage of the bombings, insisting that journalists who reported on the Pentagon leak should be fired. Last week, Leavitt took that to a new level, using two minutes out of the White House press briefing to singularly lambast CNN reporter Natasha Bertand.

Under Donald Trump, the Department of Justice is looking to ramp up denaturalization, or the revocation of citizenship, in order to fulfil its mass-deportation immigration agenda.

A June 11 memo from Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate listed “prioritizing denaturalization” as a key administration directive for the civil division of the DOJ under Trump.

The DOJ’s civil division will now “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence.” These include those “who pose a potential danger to national security,” those who engaged in fraud, and those who acquired citizenship through “material misrepresentations,” as well as “any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue.”

This would mark a notable departure from current norms.

Political scientist Patrick Weil estimates that, between 1907 and 1967, over 22,000 Americans were denaturalized—including, infamously, for political reasons during the first and second red scares. Denaturalization then fell out of use considerably, with only about 11 cases occurring each year from 1990 to 2017.

Denaturalization efforts were expanded under Obama, and increased further under the first Trump administration—which realized, as journalist Rafia Zakaria wrote in The Nation, that civil denaturalization cases have a lower burden of proof than criminal cases and no statute of limitations, making them easier targets.

The June 11 directive recalls Trump aide Stephen Miller’s October 2023 vow that the “denaturalization project” will be “turbocharged” in 2025, as well as Trump’s own statements in support of deporting naturalized citizens and even “homegrown criminals.”

The news comes as threats of denaturalization have become a common cudgel on the MAGA right, whose adherents—from media personalities to lawmakers—have increasingly called for the denaturalization and deportation of their ideological opponents, such as Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, Representative Ilhan Omar, and journalist Mehdi Hasan. It also comes as the Trump administration has conflated pro-Palestinian activism with support for terrorism.

Elon Musk threw himself back into the federal fray over the weekend, drawing more attention to the conservative opposition to the president’s tax extension bill.

Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” would extend his 2017 tax cuts for millionaires and corporations at a cost to critical social programs such as Medicaid. On Saturday, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Senate legislation would increase the deficit by more than $3.9 trillion over the next 10 years.

After Democrats forced a full read-through of the 1,018-page text on Saturday (which took approximately 16 hours), Senate Republicans initiated a “vote-a-rama,” in which lawmakers can propose an unlimited number of amendments as they vote back-to-back on the legislation. But by Monday, it wasn’t clear that the upper chamber actually had the support of the nation in moving to pass the bill—CNN data chief Harry Enten analyzed five recent polls that cumulatively indicated the bill is historically unpopular, with 49 percent of the country believing it will hurt their families as opposed to the 23 percent who think it will help them.

And despite publicly stitching up his feud with the president several weeks ago, Musk was right there with the majority of the American public in resisting the bill.

“Polls show that this bill is political suicide for the Republican Party,” Musk posted Saturday, sharing polling from polling firm the Tarrance Group suggesting that 58 percent of all registered voters in the country agreed with his previous assessment that the bill is “pork-filled.”

Musk also retweeted a statement from North American Building Trades Union President Sean McGarvey, who torched Trump’s bill as “a massive insult” to American construction workers, and underscored that “critical infrastructure projects essential to that future are being sacrificed at the altar of ideology.”

“We are especially outraged because all of this, all of these job losses for hardworking Americans, is being done for one reason only: to make room for more tax breaks for the wealthiest corporations and individuals in America,” McGarvey wrote.

The multibillionaire Musk went head-to-head with Trump earlier this month, when he threatened to change the tune of his Republican contributions and instead use his enormous wealth to influence the country to “fire all politicians who betrayed the American people.”

Republicans plan to offset the expensive tax cut by slashing some $880 billion from Medicaid. But Musk’s issue with Trump’s plan has little to do with its slashing of programs aimed at supporting and uplifting the most vulnerable Americans—instead, he’s condemned the bill on the basis that it would effectively undo his work atop the Department of Government Efficiency, which was tasked with paring down government spending.

Musk was Trump’s top financial backer in the 2024 election, spending at least $250 million in the final months of the president’s campaign after Trump was shot in July. Musk had also promised to funnel funds toward other Republicans, declaring in the wake of the November election that his super PACs would “play a significant role in primaries.” In the following months, Musk threatened to use his money to fund primary challengers to Trump’s agenda and go after Democrats, and that he would be preparing “for the midterms and any intermediate elections, as well as looking at elections at the district attorney level.”

Trump’s centerpiece legislation currently faces a self-imposed July 4 deadline.

Senate Republicans are dropping to new lows to sidestep the filibuster and pass Donald Trump’s behemoth budget bill.

In an effort to more painlessly pass Trump’s wildly unpopular tax and spending bill, Republicans are pushing for a creative accounting method that uses a “current policy” baseline, which would prevent a filibuster and allow the bill to pass with 51 votes instead of 60.

Ironically, many Democrats have sought for years to eliminate the filibuster, a move Republicans opposed. In November, Republican Senate leadership swore they’d keep the filibuster in place.

To use a “current policy” baseline assumes the continuation of existing policy such as Trump’s 2017 tax plan, which is set to expire at the end of the year. The more typical “current law” baseline, which was used to pass the House’s version of the bill, assumes that Trump’s 2017 tax plan would expire in the next 10 years.

By using “current policy” rather than “current law,” Republican lawmakers can pretend that the bill’s exorbitant estimated costs are far lower than they actually are. A new estimate from the Congressional Budget Office found that the bill would add nearly $4 trillion to the national deficit through 2034, and continue to grow the deficit afterward, in violation of the Senate’s Byrd Rule. Republicans using “current policy” have claimed that the bill would only add $500 billion to the national deficit and doesn’t break any rules that would prevent it from being passed.

Although Democrats sought a meeting with the Senate parliamentarian to oppose the use of such a blatant gimmick, Republicans refused to hold a bipartisan meeting, arguing that it was up to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, who had opted to use “current policy.”

A “current policy” baseline has never been used for a budget reconciliation bill—and if allowed, could be used by the Democrats should they reclaim the majority next year.

“There is no filibuster if the Senate R’s do this and when Dems take power there is no reason why we should not use reconciliation to pass immigration reform,” wrote Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego on X Sunday.