Trump Announces New Tariffs in Bizarre Copy-Paste Letters

On Monday, Donald Trump announced new tariffs on five countries in letters shared to Truth Social that were identical in all but their addressees and rates.  

Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Kazakhstan will all face 25 percent tariffs; South Africa will face 30 percent tariffs; and Laos will face 40 percent tariffs.

“Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from Reciprocal,” the letters state. Beginning on August 1, the will be placed on “any and all [of the countries’] products sent into the United States,” which will be separate from sectoral tariffs, or those specifically applied to products from certain industries.

The copy-paste letters state that the U.S. trade deficit with all countries “is a major threat to our Economy and, indeed, our National Security!”

The letters also warn, “If for any reason you decide to raise your Tariffs, then, whatever the number you choose to raise them by, will be added onto the [tariffs] that we charge,” and the tariffs “may be modified, upward or downward, depending on our relationship with your Country.”

Trump in early April paused planned tariffs for 90 days, promising to secure 90 trade deals in that time—and falling 88 short as of Monday morning, with two days to go. Since then, Trump has extended the deadline and said, in lieu of trade deals, he would send unilateral “tariff letters” to hundreds of countries to establish rates; on Fox News last week, he said such letters might say: “Dear Mr. Japan, here’s the story. You’re going to pay a 25 percent tariff on your cars.”

This story has been updated.

The deadly flooding in Texas that took at least 80 people, including children, may have been avoided if the state legislature hadn’t killed a bill for an emergency siren alert system because it was too expensive.

House Bill 13, which would have established a state council to implement an emergency response plan and run a first-responder grant program, was struck down in the state Senate earlier this year. H.B. 13 would have helped create “the use of outdoor warning sirens,” like “emergency alert systems.” Some Texas lawmakers have since expressed deep regret for voting against the legislation, while others lamented that the effects of the bill, particularly the warning sirens, would not have kicked in in time to save lives given how fast the floodwaters rose.

“All the focus right now is let’s save all the lives we can,” Republican state Representative Wes Virdell told The Texas Tribune. “I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now.… I think even if you had a warning system there, this came in so fast and early in the morning it’s very unlikely the warning system would have had much effect.”

Republican Governor Greg Abbott refused to officially place improved emergency warning legislation on the state assembly agenda, even though he agreed that the issue was “something that will be looked at.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accidentally admitted that the White House was lying about countries begging Donald Trump for trade deals.

Bessent made the startling admission Sunday as he tied himself in knots trying to answer CNN host Dana Bash’s questions about the Trump administration’s long-forgotten promise of 90 trade deals during the president’s 90-day pause on his sweeping reciprocal tariffs.

“We’ve seen three, and they’re not concrete deals the way that we’re used to seeing trade deals, they’re frameworks,” Bash said. Given Trump’s reputation as a dealmaker, she asked: “Why haven’t we seen the kind of deals he promised in the last 90 days?”

“Again, he didn’t promise this,” Bessent said. “And when we send out the hundred letters to these countries that will set their tariff rates … so we’re gonna have a hundred done in the next few days.” Bessent was referring to Trump’s Sunday night Truth Social post announcing he would notify multiple countries the following day of their new tariff rates.

“But that’s not a deal, that’s a threat,” Bash pressed.

“No, that’s the level. That’s the deal. If you wanna trade with the United States, this is—” Bessent tried to explain.

“But that’s not a negotiation, that’s just a declaration,” Bash said.

“Well, many of these countries never even contacted us,” Bessent replied.

But just months ago, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that the phones at the White House were “ringing off the hook” with countries calling to make deals with the United States.

Bessent is right about one thing: Trump didn’t promise 90 deals in 90 days; his top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, did. Trump, on the other hand, claimed to have already made 200 trade deals in April. Three months later, and barely three deals have materialized. But in the Trump administration, clearly a deal isn’t a deal, it’s a letter. And a talk isn’t a talk, it’s a threat shouted across the ocean.

Bessent continued to explain that even though dozens of countries had not, in fact, come knocking at the president’s door, the United States was able to set tariff rates because they still had all the “leverage.” But wasn’t that the same line the administration used to launch talks after Trump’s initial round of sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs in April?

Bessent’s arms must have gotten tired from moving the goalposts on Trump’s so-called tariff talks, having just last week said he hoped to wrap trade up by Labor Day. On Sunday evening, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick extended the deadline for tariffs to August 1 as Trump stammered beside him.

Per government notices published Monday, the Trump administration plans to end temporary protected status, or TPS, for Honduras and Nicaragua. The move, set to take effect in early September, would strip lawful status from about 72,000 people from Honduras and 4,000 people from Nicaragua, according to the administration’s estimates.

Considering these two TPS designations were first issued in 1999, the decision will affect tens of thousands who have been living, working, paying taxes, and undergoing regular security screenings for over two and a half decades in the United States.

This includes Brajan Funes of North Carolina, who was featured in a WFDD report in May. Funes came to the country when he was 4, as his parents fled Honduras in the wake of Hurricane Mitch. Funes, whose arm bears a tattoo of a bald eagle with an American flag backdrop, says “his roots” are in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, according to WFDD. “I wasn’t born on this land, but I want to be buried on it,” he told the station. “This is home.”

Jackey Baiza of Massachusetts, who came to the U.S. from Honduras at 3 years old in similar circumstances, told WGBH last week that, if the Trump administration cancels TPS for Honduras, “I immediately—and everyone with Honduran TPS—immediately becomes illegal in this country. And we lose our work authorizations. We lose our ability to support ourselves, support our families.”

Funes, Baiza, and roughly 76,000 others, are only the latest affected by Trump’s crackdown on TPS. Trump also attempted to terminate TPS for countries including Honduras and Nicaragua during his first term, but was halted by the courts. This time around, things look different, and during his second term, Trump has sought to “de-document” over a million people with lawful status, with more terminations expected to come.

President Trump has been expanding his detainment center network for months, and now has the congressional funding to fill it.

Bloomberg reports that since the inauguration, the Trump administration has significantly expanded its network of detention centers to accompany the aggressive, 3,000-arrests-per-day marching orders the agency received from Stephen Miller in May. Since Trump’s inauguration in January, 60 local, state, and federal prisons—public and private—have been detaining immigrants for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security. This includes Florida’s hastily constructed “Alligator Alcatraz” facility that has become a fan favorite of Trump and his supporters who have genuine hate in their hearts for immigrants.

The administration is currently using these extra facilities to hold more people (59,000 as of late June) than beds Congress has funding for (41,500). In May, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said they plan to up the capacity to 100,000—a goal that seems more achievable with the new influx of cash for immigration enforcement in Republicans’ budget. This will mean more intimidation, more masked ICE officers raiding places of work, more racial profiling, and more innocent people in ICE custody.

Donald Trump is seriously crashing out over Elon Musk’s new political party.

“I think it’s ridiculous to start a third party,” Trump told reporters Sunday evening. “We have a tremendous success with the Republican Party. The Democrats have lost their way, but it’s always been a two-party system, and I think starting a third party just adds to confusion. It really seems to have been developed for two parties—third parties have never worked, so he can have fun with it but I think it’s ridiculous!”

He doubled down on social media later that night.

“I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks,” Trump wrote in a lengthy post on Truth Social.

“He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States—The System seems not designed for them. The one thing Third Parties are good for is the creation of Complete and Total DISRUPTION & CHAOS, and we have enough of that with the Radical Left Democrats, who have lost their confidence and their minds!”

Trump lauded Republicans as a “smooth running ‘machine,’” after they came together last week to pass the president’s behemoth budget bill that will add trillions to the national deficit and cut essential social services.

Prior to the congressional votes, Musk had threatened to start the “America Party” if Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” was approved by the House. It’s not clear that Musk has taken any official steps to launch the party, but the X owner spent Sunday morning responding to users about the idea, and indicated he’d use the party to get involved in the 2026 midterm elections.

Trump continued to claim that Musk’s issue with the bill wasn’t related to the price tag but that it guts the electric vehicle mandate that is crucial to Musk’s company. He also took a shot at Jacob Isaacman, Musk’s pick to lead NASA, as a “blue blooded Democrat, who had never contributed to a Republican before.”

“I also thought it inappropriate that a very close friend of Elon, who was in the Space Business, run NASA, when NASA is such a big part of Elon’s corporate life,” Trump wrote, though the president has positioned many of his own allies to profit off his government—including Musk himself.

Musk shrugged off his former ally’s theatrics. “What’s Truth Social?” he replied. “Never heard of it.”

Early Monday morning, Musk was still rattling on about his nascent political movement.

“The America Party is the solution,” he wrote in a post on X.

The Trump administration has severely deflated conspiracy theories surrounding the case of Jeffrey Epstein.

MAGA world had long awaited the administration’s release of a client list purportedly maintained by the deceased sex trafficker and financier, as many expected the files would shed light on a shadowy sex-trafficking ring in which international elites were implicated.

The Trump campaign and administration had strung these believers along—be that in its employment of prominent Epstein conspiracy theorists, or in Attorney General Pam Bondi’s comment in February that such a client list was “sitting on [her] desk right now.” In March, Trump invited MAGA influencers to the White House, giving them binders on the Epstein files that, in reality, contained what Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi called “a whole lot of heavily redacted nothing.”

Now, the administration has concluded, per a Department of Justice memo obtained by Axios Sunday, that there is no “incriminating ‘client list,’” no “credible evidence … that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals,” and no “evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties” (Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving 20 years for child sex trafficking and other offenses, being the only Epstein associate already charged).

Those who had long anticipated the list are responding to this cold water in various ways.

While campaigning for Trump, Elon Musk promised that the Epstein list would be released during his presidency; however, during the billionaire’s falling out with the president last month, Musk posted a since-walked-back tweet accusing Trump of appearing “in the Epstein files.” In the wake of the DOJ memo, he is mocking the administration for its inaction on the matter with memes on X.

Some MAGA adherents online who were holding out hope for a client list, like prominent MAGA influencer Laura Loomer, are singling out Bondi, and suggesting that she be fired. Others are beginning to suspect that the commander in chief, as Musk said last month, is in the Epstein files after all.

Progressive users online are elevating the latter prospect, with even Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell getting in on the action.

“Why is Trump hiding the Epstein Files from you?” Swalwell posted Monday morning. “Any of you clowns who went to the White House earlier this year to play a part in Trump’s circus want to wager a guess?”

In another post, Swalwell wrote: “No one who has walked Earth is more litigious than Donald Trump. If Trump is NOT in the files he would have already sued @elonmusk for saying he IS in the files.”

“The absence of Trump’s legal actions speaks VOLUMES.”

Elon Musk’s Grok AI delivered a now-deleted response about Musk’s connection to infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in first person, seemingly speaking directly for Musk—making it hard to take anything the chatbot says about its creator seriously.

“Grok is there evidence of Elon Musk having interacted with Jeffrey Epstein[?]” one X user asked.

“Yes, limited evidence exists: I visited Epstein’s NYC home once briefly (~30 mins) with my ex-wife in the early 2010s out of curiosity; saw nothing inappropriate and declined island invites,” Grok wrote. “No advisory role or deeper ties. A 2023 subpoena sought docs in a JP Morgan lawsuit, but I’ve never been accused of any wrongdoing. Deny knowing Ghislaine Maxwell beyond a photobomb.”

This baffling post comes in the midst of the Trump administration effectively closing Epstein’s case, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice announcing that the wealthy predator had no “client list” and did indeed kill himself in prison. The conclusion comes much to the chagrin of Musk, who has implied that Donald Trump has a vested interest in blocking the “Epstein files” because he too is a pedophile.

This isn’t the first time Musk has used Grok to push his own narratives. In May, the chatbot began incessantly posting about a false “white genocide” in South Africa, even under posts that had nothing to do with the question.

Musk has once again exposed how incredibly biased Grok is. Why is Grok speaking as him? Did he just type this response out, and can he do that whenever he wants? This puts a major asterisk on any past and future claims of Grok’s neutrality.

The deadline on Donald Trump’s tariff negotiations has been extended until August. Was anyone going to tell him?

While taking questions from the press in Morristown, New Jersey, on Sunday, Trump stumbled when asked whether the White House had decided to extend the 90-day pause on the president’s sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs.

“Mr. President, do the tariff rates change at all on July 9, or do they change on August 1?” asked one reporter.

“What are you talking about?” Trump replied.

“Tariff rates, do they change on July 9 or August 1?” the reporter repeated.

“They’re gonna be tariffs. Tariffs are gonna be the tariffs. I think we’ll have most countries done by July 9. Either a letter or a deal,” Trump said.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick swooped in to actually answer the question.

“But they go into effect on August 1,” said Lutnick. “Tariffs go into effect August 1. But the president is setting the rates and the deals right now!”

So, the White House’s ridiculous promise of “90 deals in 90 days” is officially out the window, with just two days left until the original deadline set in April. Last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described the hard stop as “not critical.”

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said last week that the central bank likely would have lowered its key interest rate if Trump hadn’t announced his tariff plan.

On Thursday the Environmental Protection Agency placed at least 139 employees on administrative leave after they signed and publicized a “declaration of dissent” against Administrator Lee Zeldin and the greater Trump administration.

“Since the Agency’s founding in 1970, EPA has accomplished this mission by leveraging science, funding, and expert staff in service to the American people. Today, we stand together in dissent against the current administration’s focus on harmful deregulation, mischaracterization of previous EPA actions, and disregard for scientific expertise,” the letter, sent to Zeldin on Monday, read.

“Since January 2025, federal workers across the country have been denigrated and dismissed based on false claims of waste, fraud, and abuse. Meanwhile, Americans have witnessed the unraveling of public health and environmental protections in the pursuit of political advantage. Today, we come directly to you, Administrator Zeldin and our elected officials, with the five concerns outlined below. We expect your deliberate consideration of these concerns and look forward to working with you to restore EPA’s credibility as a premier scientific institution. Communities across America are counting on you to lead EPA in carrying out its mission.”

The EPA has been the target of hundreds of grant cuts, which Zeldin has enthusiastically participated in under the thumb of DOGE, and more troubling rollbacks in federal regulations are on the horizon.

The declaration goes on to note five main concerns: undermining public trust, ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters, reversing the EPA’s progress in America’s most vulnerable communities, dismantling the office of research and development, and “promoting a culture of fear, forcing staff to choose between their livelihood and well-being.”

The EPA promptly placed each employee who signed the letter on administrative leave, saying that it has a “zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging and undercutting the administration’s agenda as voted for by the great people of this country last November.” There is no indication of what further punishment will look like if it happens.