Trump Considers Killing His Own Trade Deal

Donald Trump is considering blowing up the USMCA free trade agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

Bloomberg reports that the president is asking staff why he shouldn’t withdraw from the agreement, which he signed during his first term as president, according to unnamed sources.

Interestingly, the U.S. trade representative, Jamieson Greer, told Fox Business on Tuesday that renewing the 2019 agreement was not in the country’s best interests, and that the Trump administration wanted to negotiate separately with Canada and Mexico.

“Generally speaking, these negotiations are going to proceed bilaterally and separately. The Mexicans are being quite pragmatic right now; we’ve had a lot of discussions with them. With the Canadians, it’s more challenging,” Greer said. 

Mexican Prime Minister Claudia Sheinbaum dismissed the idea of the U.S. withdrawing from the USMCA when asked about it during a press conference Wednesday.

“We don’t believe it, and it has never been said in the calls, because it is very important to them,” Sheinbaum said. 

Trump’s tariff uncertainty in 2025 has already made the USMCA shaky and undermined the deal in Mexico and Canada, and his antagonization of Canada by calling it the “fifty-first state” hasn’t helped either. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has embarked on an economic policy independent of the U.S., beginning talks with China, but he said Tuesday that he had a “positive” conversation with Trump that touched on the USMCA. He didn’t offer any details, though.  

Under the terms of the agreement, there has to be a mandatory review before it can be extended on July 1. Trump wants more concessions from Canada and Mexico for that to happen. If the U.S. decides to pull out of the deal, it would have to give six months’ notice. The decision would also put $2 trillion in goods and services in jeopardy.

American businesses wouldn’t take the news well, as much of the U.S. depends on trade with Canada and Mexico. But Trump has paid little attention to what actually hurts the economy, causing havoc in the markets with his whimsical tariffs and tanking job growth. It seems that he doesn’t care that messing up a deal he made seven years ago could have even worse consequences.

Attorney General Pam Bondi was unable to maintain her composure as GOP Representative and Epstein Files Transparency Act co-sponsor Thomas Massie pressed her over the Justice Department’s mistakes and complicity in obscuring the Epstein files.

“Behind me I have three documents … that are emblematic of the massive failure of the DOJ to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act,” Massie said at the House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday.

Massie walked Bondi through DOJ documents that identified Epstein’s victims, and redacted the co-conspirator status of Epstein confidant Les Wexner and other men in a 2019 FBI document.

“The title of this [file] is ‘child sex trafficking.’ ‘Co-conspirators,’ fully redacted. And by the way, Les Wexner is in this,” Massie said, revealing Wexner’s picture under the redaction. “Your deputy attorney general said, ‘Ooh, well he appears hundreds of times in the files.’ But he doesn’t appear in this file until I forced you to release it, where he’s listed as a ‘co-conspirator’—not to tax evasion, but to child sex trafficking.”

Massie then moved on to the FBI documents in which some survivors gave witness statements and identified their alleged abusers. The DOJ completely redacted the names, leaving the page entirely black.

“Are you able to track who in your organization made this massive failure, and released the victims’ names? Are you able to track who it was that obscured Les Wexner’s name as a co-conspirator in an FBI document?” Massie asked.

“I believe Wexner’s name was listed more than 4,000 times,” Bondi replied.

“Yeah, I already told you that. This is where he’s listed as a co-conspirator—”

“Can I finish my answer? Come on!” Bondi said. “We corrected that within 40 minutes. You’re acting like everybody’s trying to cover up Wexner’s name—”

“Reclaiming my time—”

“I’m gonna answer this question, this isn’t how this works,” Bondi claimed. “He’s a political joke and I need to give my answer on that! Within 40 minutes, Wexner’s name was added back—”

“Within 40 minutes of me catching you red-handed!” Massie replied.

“Red-handed?” Bondi said, laughing. “There was one redaction out of over—”

“Where he’s listed as a co-conspirator!”

“This guy has Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Bondi said. “You’re a failed politician.”

Massie then played a clip of FBI Director Kash Patel telling Congress there was “no credible information” that anyone besides Ghislaine Maxwell helped Jeffery Epstein traffic women and girls.

“Is that your position as well?” asked Massie.

“My position is: Any victim who comes forward, of course we would love to hear from them. 1-800-CALL-FBI.” Then she did what she’d been doing the entire hearing: deflect.

“Did you ask [former Attorney General] Merrick Garland that the last four years? Did you talk about Epstein the last—”

“Reclaming my time,” said Massie.

“You don’t get to reclaim time!” Bondi shouted.

“I’m glad you’re asking about Merrick Garland, because this is bigger than Watergate. This goes over four administrations. You don’t have to go back to Biden. Let’s go back to Obama, let’s go back to George Bush,” Massie said. “This cover-up spans decades, and you are responsible for this portion of it!”

Bondi tried to interrupt and filibuster, but to no avail—although Massie’s time ended shortly after.

Of course, Bondi never answered the question regarding her position on “no credible evidence” of co-conspirators. She didn’t answer any of Massie’s questions at all. Instead, she called the Republican representative a hypocrite because he voted against some AI porn bill—something no one was even talking about.

For the entirety of this exchange, Bondi pushed a claim about Wexner that is facetious at best. Of course we know that Wexner was in the files thousands of times. But the first document (dated 2019) that listed Wexner as a sex trafficking co-conspirator was redacted by the Bondi DOJ in the file release—weeks after Patel said under oath that there was no evidence of any other co-conspirators.

Instead of doing anything remotely appropriate for the Office of the Attorney General, Bondi was confrontational, temperamental, and absolutely useless. She didn’t offer any straight answers as to why Wexner’s co-conspirator status was redacted, or why Patel said what he said. It’s obvious that was her plan the whole time.

Attorney General Pam Bondi once again relied on a cheat sheet of personal attacks against Democratic lawmakers in order to dodge questions during a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday.

As Democratic lawmakers posed tough questions about Donald Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, two women perched in the audience behind Bondi referred to a massive white binder and then passed notes forward instructing her which page of her own “burn book on Democrats” to turn to, Migrant Insider’s Pablo Manriquez reported on X.

Bondi’s pathetic reliance on her burn book was perhaps most clear during her humiliating interaction with California Representative Ted Lieu—and may have caused her to lie under oath.

Lieu asked Bondi point-blank if Trump had ever attended one of Epstein’s parties with underage girls. There was a long pause as the two women hurriedly skimmed through their binders.

“This is so ridiculous,” Bondi finally stammered. “And they are trying to deflect from all the great things Donald Trump has done. There is NO EVIDENCE that Donald Trump has committed a crime; everyone knows that!”

“I believe you just lied under oath,” Lieu replied, pointing out that there was “ample evidence” to suggest Trump had committed a crime in the Epstein files released by the Department of Justice. Ironically, that’s precisely the kind of mistake Bondi could’ve avoided had she actually been referring to real notes and not a collection of prewritten comebacks that could get her a good “gotcha moment.”

“Don’t you EVER accuse me of a crime,” Bondi threatened.

Lieu referred to a tip to the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center, which contained allegations that Trump and Epstein had both sexually assaulted a woman, who was later killed. “You need to interview this witness immediately,” Lieu said.

“You have not held a single man accountable. Shame on you; if you had any decency you would resign right after this hearing concludes,” he added angrily.

“May I respond?” Bondi asked Chairman Jim Jordan, flipping through the large white binder in front of her. Lieu pointed out that he hadn’t actually asked a question. Not to worry, Bondi wasn’t actually planning to provide any answers.

“He doesn’t want to talk about the horrific crime in California,” she cried. “He does not want to talk about crime in his state!”

Jordan quickly moved on.

Bondi continued her embarrassing display as she levied personal attacks against other Democratic lawmakers. When Representative Zoe Lofgren pressed Bondi on the FBI’s redaction of Trump’s name in the Epstein files and the agency’s failure to collaborate with local law enforcement on investigations into the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Bondi flew off the handle.

“I find it interesting that she keeps going after President Trump, the greatest president in American history. And if they could maintain their composure, this isn’t a circus, this is a hearing,” Bondi said, appearing much more upset than Lofgren. She then complained that Lofgren hadn’t said how much money she took from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and never posted criticism of Joe Biden on social media.

“There was no question asked,” Lofgren said.

When Representative Jamie Raskin asked whether she’d be willing to make a joint-task force to investigate crimes, Bondi pouted with her arms crossed before ranting about a completely separate “sextortion” case in Raskin’s district.

Representative Ted Lieu accused Attorney General Pam Bondi of lying under oath Wednesday, catching the Trump official in a bind after she claimed no evidence existed of young girls at parties attended by the president.

The California lawmaker highlighted that, under Bondi’s direction per a July 2025 memo, the Justice Department had “not uncovered evidence” that warranted investigations against “uncharged third parties.”

He then referred to recently released images of ex-Prince Andrew, depicting the disgraced British royal on all fours, towering over one of Epstein’s victims.

“These two photos staring you in the face are evidence of a crime and are more than enough evidence to predicate an investigation against former Prince Andrew,” Lieu said. “So I ask you, Attorney General Pam Bondi, why did you shut down this investigation last July and why have you not prosecuted former Prince Andrew?”

Bondi skirted the question, opting instead to bring up her Biden-era predecessor, former Attorney General Merrick Garland, who Lieu agreed had “dropped the ball” in investigating the Epstein files. As Bondi shouted into the microphone, Lieu changed the topic to Donald Trump, playing a clip of Trump and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein together at a party.

“Like former Prince Andrew, Donald Trump attended various parties with Jeffrey Epstein,” Lieu said. “I want to know were there any underage girls at that party or any party with Jeffrey Epstein?”

But Bondi was speechless, shaking her head.

Eventually, she spoke: “This is so ridiculous. And that they are trying to deflect from all the great things Donald Trump has done.”

“There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime, everyone knows that,” Bondi insisted, raising her voice about how Trump has led the most “transparent” administration to date.

Lieu’s next move put Bondi in check.

“I’m going to put up another document from a witness who called the FBI’s National Threat Operation Center, because I believe you just lied under oath,” Lieu said.

“Don’t you ever accuse me of a crime,” Bondi snapped.

“It’s all on video tape. You said there’s no evidence of a crime, I’m showing you a witness statement who called in to the FBI,” Lieu said, citing the testimony of a limo driver who allegedly overheard Trump in 1995 telling someone named “Jeffrey” on his cell phone about “abusing some girl.”

That same driver told the FBI that he knew a woman who claimed to be abused by Epstein, though she “later had her head blown off” in an instance that investigating police said could not have been suicide.

“No one at the Department of Justice interviewed this witness. You need to interview this witness immediately,” Lieu said.

In reaction, Bondi turned to the massive white binder in front of her, picked up a page, and accused Lieu of focusing on the Epstein files in order to deflect from crime in his district.

Attorney General Pam Bondi crashed out during a hearing with the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, and began ranting about how great the stock market is doing in order to try and deflect questions over whether she was investigating any of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s potential co-conspirators.

Democratic Representative Jerry Nadler referenced “concrete evidence of disgusting criminality revealed in the Epstein files” and asked Bondi point-blank, “How many of Epstein’s co-conspirators have you indicted? How many perpetrators are you even investigating?”

Bondi tried to avoid the question, after which Nadler asked again how many of Epstein’s co-conspirators Bondi had indicted. This angered Bondi, who started shouting over Nadler, saying, “I am going to answer the question the way I want to answer the question!”

Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, then tried to head off Bondi’s attempts to drown out Nadler. Nadler pointed out that the number was zero, which Bondi didn’t acknowledge. Then, Bondi brought up the performance of the Dow Jones and Nasdaq indexes.

“The DOW is over 50,000 dollars. I don’t know why you’re laughing,” Bondi said angrily, as some members of the committee clearly saw through her attempt to distract. “You’re a great stock trader, as I hear, Raskin.

“The S&P at almost 7,000, and the Nasdaq smashing records. Americans’ 401(k)s and retirement savings are booming. That’s what we should be talking about. We should be talking about making Americans safe,” Bondi said, but then she was heckled. “What does the Dow have to do with anything, that’s what they just asked? Are you kidding?”

It’s quite clear that Bondi wasn’t prepared to answer questions about what the Justice Department is doing in response to the Epstein files that it released late last month. Her attempt to invoke the stock market, of all things, was laughable not just to Democrats but anyone watching the hearing. Bondi is out of her depth as attorney general, and that the Trump administration has no answer to how it’s handling anything related to Jeffrey Epstein.

It’s official: The jobless boom of Donald Trump’s first year back in office was even worse than we originally thought.

A jobs report published Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics contained significant downward revisions for the already weak job growth numbers in 2025. Last year, the labor market added only 181,000 jobs total.

Previous estimations had suggested that 584,000 jobs were created in 2025.

Earlier this week, Donald Trump’s economic adviser Peter Navarro suggested that these kinds of dismal job numbers weren’t a fluke at all. In fact, they were the new normal. But even he underestimated just how bad things had gotten.

“We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like. When we were letting in two million illegal aliens, they’re coming in, coming in, we had to produce 200,000 jobs a month for a steady state,” Navarro said Tuesday, adding that “50,000 a month is going to be more like what we need.”

While roughly 50,000 a month would’ve been in line with the initial projections of 584,000 new jobs, the average number of jobs being created per month is clearly much lower—only about 15,000 new jobs per month, on average.

Economist Paul Krugman told The New Republic earlier Wednesday that job growth since Trump implemented his tariff policy in April “is basically nil.”

“Most economists think that we had no job growth in 2025, or close enough, within measurement error,” he said. “And it may be getting worse.”

Navarro’s remarks revealed that the Trump administration doesn’t actually care if undocumented immigrants are good for the economy because nothing is more important than the president’s ethno-nationalist reengineering of the country.

That’s not the only Trump policy priority that’s hurting the economy: The federal workforce saw a significant cut of 324,000 jobs in 2025, according to the new data. And while manufacturing saw a gain of 5,000 jobs in January, it’s still 83,000 jobs short of where the industry was a year prior, painting a poor picture of Trump’s so-called “Golden Age” for American manufacturing.

The new data suggested that the jobs market may have started to recover slightly in January, with the creation of 130,000 new jobs. While the unemployment rate dropped to 4.3 percent, it still remained elevated from where it sat a year earlier.

Heather Long, the chief economist for Navy Federal Credit Union, has dubbed the current jobs trend as a “hiring recession” or “jobless boom.”

“It’s a scenario that is picture perfect for Wall Street, but tough for many on Main Street,” Long wrote on Substack. While some economic growth was still being spurred by AI jobs, a lack of hiring positions had caused Americans to feel “stuck and anxious.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi refused Wednesday to face the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking empire after her department inappropriately revealed several of their identities in the latest document release.

Seated before members of the House Judiciary Committee, Bondi dodged and deflected attempts by Democrats to recognize the victims seated directly behind her.

“The Epstein Files Transparency Act required your Department of Justice to disclose the perpetrators connected with Epstein’s criminal activities and to redact the information of survivors to protect their identities,” Washington Representative Pramila Jayapal said. “Let me show you what actually happened.”

Referring to a large poster board behind her displaying some of the emails released by the DOJ, Jayapal highlighted that Bondi’s agency had actually done the opposite of what was required. In addition to concealing the identities of Epstein’s associates, the department failed to shield the identities of some 32 victims, “along with numerous files that disclose not only the names, emails, and addresses of survivors, but also nude photographs and even the identities of Jane Does who had been protected for decades until your department released their names.”

Jayapal noted that, for some of the victims, the DOJ’s release was the first time that their families had heard that they were trafficked by Epstein.

“For the survivors in the room, if you are willing, please stand,” Jayapal urged. “And if you are willing, please raise your hands if you have still not been able to meet with the DOJ.”

All of the victims present raised their hands.

“Attorney General Bondi. You apologized to the survivors in your opening statement for what they went through at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein. Will you turn to them now and apologize for what your Department of Justice has put them through with the absolutely unacceptable release of the Epstein files and their information?” Jayapal pressed.

But Bondi would not. Instead, she decided to bring up former Attorney General Merrick Garland, though it was not clear why she did so.

“This is not about anybody that came before you, it is about you taking responsibility for your Department of Justice and the harm that it has done to the survivors right behind you,” Jayapal said, her voice beginning to break.

Bondi mentioned Garland again, but Jayapal insisted she answer the question.

“I’m not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics,” Bondi sneered.

FBI Director Kash Patel has once again prematurely announced a major update in a criminal investigation, only to have to walk it back hours later. 

Police detained and questioned a person of interest on Tuesday night regarding the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, who was taken from her Arizona home over a week ago. New security camera footage released by the FBI  shows masked men on the front porch of Guthrie’s home the night she disappeared, but she still remains missing.

On Tuesday, Patel went on Fox News with Sean Hannity and touted the FBI’s “brilliant” relationship with private-sector companies that allowed them to make “substantial progress in these last 36 [to] 48 hours. 

“And I do believe we are looking at people who, as we say, are persons of interest,” he continued. At least one of those “persons” appears to be a completely innocent man.

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department, supported by Patel’s FBI, detained a man who identified himself as Carlos at a traffic stop in Tucson on Tuesday. He was released the same day, and later spoke to reporters outside his home, profusely proclaiming his innocence. 

“[It was] terrifying. Something I didn’t do … I felt like I was being kidnapped bro. They didn’t tell me anything at the beginning,” Carlos said, visibly shaken as his voice wavered. He said he was followed, detained at random, and questioned about his “whereabouts” and personal information by police. He was “held against his will” and says he wasn’t read his Miranda rights until two hours into his detainment.

“Are you ever up in Tucson?” a reporter asked Carlos. 

“I work in Tucson … GLS, deliver packages,” he replied. 

“Do you think you might have delivered a package to Nancy Guthrie’s house?” 

“I don’t know, might’ve been a possibility.”

Carlos, answering questions in both English and Spanish, later stated that he had no idea who Guthrie even was, and that he didn’t watch the Today show.

“I hope they get the suspect. Because I’m not it. And they better do their job and find the suspect that did it so they can clear my name. And I’m done. Look at what I’m putting my family through,” he continued. “Not just them, but my parents in Tucson.”

Detaining and interrogating a random person before throwing them out the door has become a pattern for the Patel FBI in high-profile investigations. 

Last September, Patel came under fire from the left and right for his premature social media post the day Charlie Kirk was shot, declaring that “the subject for the horrific shooting” was in custody—a claim almost immediately contradicted by local officials. Patel later backtracked, and the manhunt ensued for another 27-plus hours before the suspect, Tyler Robinson, was turned in by a family member. 

And in December, the FBI director wrote a long post boasting about the bureau’s efforts to detain another person of interest in the Brown University shooting that killed two and wounded nine. Blunders like these are only magnified under a bureau now left to the whims of Patel, who insists on force and bravado that does not match his success rate.

Gregory Bovino praised the agent who shot Chicago resident and U.S. citizen Marimar Martinez five times in an October email newly released by federal prosecutors Tuesday.

Bovino, who was leading Border Patrol at the time, wrote, “In light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!” to Charles Exum, who shot Martinez, and other federal agents in the city.

The government had assembled text messages from Exum as part of evidence in an attempt to prosecute Martinez, a U.S. citizen and teacher’s assistant. Exum had screenshot the email and sent it in a text to a family member. Prosecutors ended up dropping their case against Martinez after her attorneys raised questions about the mishandling of evidence.

On the day of the shooting, Exum texted his fellow agents that “she was trying to run me over.” Other text messages from Exum’s phone show praise from his fellow agents, with one of them calling him “a legend among agents.”

Exum also claimed in his text messages that Bovino passed along congratulations from high-ranking members of the executive branch. A member of a group text asked Exum, “Are they supportive?”

Exum replied, “Big time. Everyone has been including Chief Bovino, Chief Banks, Sec Noem and El Jefe himself … according to Bovino.”

That would seem to indicate that President Trump supported an agent who bragged, “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys,” after shooting a U.S. citizen. Bovino has already lost his job due to his conduct in Minneapolis following his supervision of violence in Chicago. Will any other federal agents—and the people in the White House who gave them such extraordinary power—face any consequences?

At the eleventh hour, a trio of Republicans decided the president’s tariff program is worth questioning.

Representatives Thomas Massie, Kevin Kiley, and Don Bacon voted alongside Democrats late Tuesday, rejecting a rule that would have blocked future efforts by Congress to challenge economic tariffs enacted by the White House. The final vote was 217–214.

Their sudden position change came hours after Donald Trump casually admitted—or perhaps boasted—to Fox News that his global levies were motivated by power and retribution.

“You know, I had an incident with a very nice country, Switzerland,” Trump said. “They were paying no tariffs when sending stuff over here like nobody could believe, and we had a $42 billion deficit and we weren’t taking anything.”

“So I put on a 30 percent tariff, which is very low. Still we were having a big deficit, but it was after,” he continued.

Trump then said he received an “emergency” phone call with Swiss leader Karin Keller-Sutter, a member of the country’s seven-member Federal Council and chief of the country’s Department of Finance. Trump, however, mistakenly referred to her as the country’s prime minister.

“She was very aggressive but nice, but very aggressive. She said, ‘Sir, we are a small country. We can’t do this. We can’t do this.’ I couldn’t get her off the phone,” Trump told Fox. “I said, ‘You may be a small country, but we have a $42 billion deficit with you.’”

“And I didn’t really like the way she talked to us and so instead of giving her a reduction, I raised it to 39 percent,” Trump said.

“But I realized: You know Switzerland, you think of it as ultra-chic, ultra-perfect. They’re not. They are only that because we allow them to rip us off and make all this money,” he added.

The tiny Republican coalition’s revolt signals that the House is not so willing to hand over the country’s purse strings to the executive branch, even if 214 conservative lawmakers voted in favor of doing so.

The opening gives Democrats the opportunity to challenge and officially disapprove of Trump’s economic agenda. That includes the chance to force a vote “as soon as this week” on a resolution that would object to his 25 percent levy on Canadian products.

Bacon, one of the three conservatives to side with Democrats on the issue, in part seemed motivated by Trump’s recent dealings with America’s northern neighbor.

“We have a trade agreement with them, and I don’t like how the White House has treated our neighbor and ally,” Bacon told Politico Monday.