Obama condemns Trump’s $2.3bn Harvard funding freeze as ‘unlawful and ham-handed’ – US politics reside

Trump officers step up defiance over man wrongly deported to El Salvador

Hugo Lowell

Hugo Lowell is a reporter within the Washington bureau of the Guardian protecting Donald Trump and the Justice Division

The Trump administration on Monday misrepresented a US supreme courtroom choice that compelled it to return a person wrongly deported to El Salvador, utilizing tortured readings of the order to justify taking no actions to safe his launch.

The supreme courtroom final week unanimously ordered the administration to “facilitate” the discharge of Kilmar Abrego García, who was imagined to have been protected against deportation to El Salvador no matter whether or not he was a member of the MS-13 gang.

However at an Oval Workplace assembly between Trump and El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, Trump deferred to officers who gave extraordinary readings of the supreme courtroom order and claimed the US was powerless to return Abrego García to US soil.

“The ruling solely stated that if this individual at El Salvador’s sole discretion was sent back to our country, we could deport him a second time,” stated Trump’s coverage chief Stephen Miller, about an order that, actually, upheld a decrease courtroom’s directive to return Abrego García…

The remarks on the Oval Workplace assembly marked an escalation within the Trump administration’s makes an attempt to say uncertainty with courtroom orders to keep away from having to take actions it dislikes. In Abrego García’s case, officers appeared to fabricate uncertainty in significantly blatant style.

And the truth that the US is paying El Salvador to detain deportees it sends to the infamous Cecot jail undercut the notion that the administration lacked the ability to return Abrego García into US custody.

The case began when Abrego García was detained by police in 2019 in Maryland, exterior a Residence Depot, with a number of different males, and requested a couple of homicide. He denied information of against the law and repeatedly denied that he was a part of a gang.

Abrego García was subsequently put in immigration proceedings, the place officers argued they believed he was a part of the MS-13 gang in New York primarily based on his Chicago Bulls gear and on the phrase of a confidential informant.

The case went earlier than a US immigration decide, who prompt that Abrego García could possibly be a member of MS-13 and agreed to a deportation order however shielded him from being despatched to El Salvador as a result of he was prone to face persecution there by a neighborhood gang.

The Trump administration didn’t attraction towards that call, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has since stated in a courtroom submitting that Abrego García’s deportation to El Salvador was an “administrative error”. The supreme courtroom additionally known as his removing unlawful.

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One in all China’s lead officers overseeing Hong Kong has condemned punitive US tariffs on China as “shameless” and attacked American “hillbillies” amid a seamless commerce struggle between Beijing and Washington that has induced turmoil in world markets.

Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Work Workplace, stated Hong Kong has by no means levied taxes on imports and that the US loved a $272 bn commerce surplus within the metropolis over the previous decade.

US President Donald Trump has elevated the levies imposed on China to 145%, whereas Beijing has set a retaliatory 125 % toll on American imports – a transfer not adopted by Hong Kong.

Imposing tariffs on town is “hegemonic and shameless in the extreme”, and exhibits that the US doesn’t need Hong Kong to thrive, Baolong stated in a pre-recorded speech at an occasion to mark the tenth iteration of China’s annual nationwide safety training day.

He stated the US “is the greatest culprit in undermining Hong Kong’s human rights, freedom, rule of law, prosperity and stability.”

“It is not after our tariffs – it wants to take our lives,” Baolong was quoted as saying.

He added that the sweeping US tariffs wouldn’t shake the dedication of Beijing and Hong Kong governments and that “victory must belong to the great Chinese people”.

“Let those American ’hillbillies’ wail before the 5,000-year-old civilisation of the Chinese nation” he stated, including that anybody searching for to convey China into poverty was an “enemy”.

The officers reference could possibly be to Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance’s bestselling 2016 memoir primarily based on recollections of a unstable childhood in Middletown, Ohio, which turned a political lightning rod within the 2024 presidential race when the Ohio senator was Donald Trump’s operating mate.

Vance provoked anger in Beijing earlier this month when he referred to “Chinese peasants” in an interview defending Trump’s tariffs. Chatting with Fox Information, Vance requested: “What has the globalist economy gotten the United States of America? And the answer is, fundamentally, it’s based on two principles – incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things that other countries make for us.

“To make it a little more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.”

Hong Kong is a former British colony that turned a particular administrative area of China in 1997. In concept, it’s ruled underneath a system often called “one country, two systems”, a constitutional association that promised Hong Kong a excessive diploma of autonomy and rights protections.

However it’s broadly seen to have reneged on the deal, crushing pro-democracy protests and imposing a nationwide safety legislation in 2020 – concentrating on secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with international forces – which has in impact silenced opposition voices amongst Hong Kong’s once-vibrant civil society.

Hong Kong is topic to the excessive US tariffs imposed on China as it’s not thought-about a separate buying and selling entity by Washington so means isn’t entitled to beneficial buying and selling phrases anymore. Trump ended Hong Kong’s preferential commerce standing following China’s safety crackdown on Hong Kong in 2020.

As my colleague Martin Belam stories in our UK politics reside weblog, JD Vance has stated the US is optimistic it might probably negotiate a “great” commerce take care of the UK.

In an interview with on-line outlet Unherd, the US vice chairman instructed Sohrab Ahmari:

We’re definitely working very arduous with Keir Starmer’s authorities. The president actually loves the UK. He cherished the queen. He admires and loves the king. It’s a essential relationship. And he’s a businessman and has a lot of necessary enterprise relationships in [the UK].

However I feel it’s a lot deeper than that. There’s an actual cultural affinity. And naturally, essentially America is an Anglo nation. I feel there’s an excellent likelihood that, sure, we’ll come to an ideal settlement that’s in one of the best curiosity of each nations.

In contrast to China, Britain was spared essentially the most punitive therapy in Trump’s preliminary tariff announcement on 2 April, however British imports within the US nonetheless incur a ten% cost whereas its metal and automobile sectors incur a price of 25%.

The UK authorities has been hopeful of a deal to exempt the UK from Trump’s tariffs.

The UK’s chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will intention to proceed negotiations for an financial take care of the US later this month when she travels to Washington to attend the Worldwide Financial Fund’s spring conferences with different finance ministers. You’ll be able to learn extra about Vance’s feedback immediately on this article by my colleague Rachel Corridor.

South Korea has introduced plans to take a position an extra $4.9bn within the nation’s semiconductor business, citing “growing uncertainty” over US tariffs.

“An aggressive fiscal investment plan has been devised to help local firms navigate mounting challenges in the global semiconductor race,” the finance ministry stated.

“To foster a dynamic, private sector-led ecosystem for semiconductor innovation and growth, the government will increase its investment in the sector from 26 trillion won ($18.2bn) to 33 trillion won,” the ministry added.

Semiconductors are tiny chips that energy nearly all the things, together with computer systems, cellphones and vehicles. They’re central to the worldwide financial system. The UK, the US, Europe and China rely closely on Taiwan for semiconductors.

However South Korea – Asia’s fourth largest financial system – can be a significant exporter to the US and considerations concerning the semiconductor sector have hit the Seoul-listed shares of the world’s largest reminiscence chip maker Samsung, and largest reminiscence chip provider SK Hynix.

The assertion of additional funding from South Korea’s finance ministry comes after the Trump administration launched investigations into imports of prescribed drugs and semiconductors on nationwide safety grounds.

These industries – up to now exempt from the ten% US import prices that started on 5 April – could face tariffs after the probes are full.

US President Donald Trump has directed the US commerce division to conduct a three-week investigation into the imports, throughout which period public feedback on the problem shall be heard earlier than a choice is made.

Trump stated on Sunday he can be saying a tariff price on imported semiconductors over the subsequent week, including that there can be flexibility with some firms within the sector.

On 2 April, Trump introduced sweeping tariffs on world buying and selling companions, together with the 25 % on South Korean items, earlier than backtracking and suspending their implementation for 90 days.

Even so, “duties targeting specific sectors such as semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, remain on the horizon”, finance minister Choi Sang-mok stated throughout a gathering.

“This grace period offers a crucial window to strengthen the competitiveness of South Korean companies amid intensifying global trade tensions,” he added.

Good morning and welcome to our US politics weblog.

Former US president Barack Obama has condemned the training division for freezing $2.3bn in federal funds to Harvard College after the elite faculty rejected an inventory of calls for from the White Home.

In a few of his most vocal criticism of this Trump administration, Obama praised Harvard, the nation’s oldest college, for setting an instance for different larger training establishments to reject federal overreach into its governance practices.

He wrote in a put up on X:

Harvard has set an instance for different higher-ed establishments – rejecting an illegal and ham-handed try to stifle educational freedom, whereas taking concrete steps to ensure all college students at Harvard can profit from an surroundings of mental inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope different establishments comply with swimsuit.

His feedback got here after Harvard determined to struggle the White Home’s calls for that it crack down on alleged antisemitism and civil rights violations. It’s the first main US college to defy stress from the White Home to alter its insurance policies.

In a letter to Harvard on Friday, the administration known as for broad authorities and management reforms, a requirement that Harvard institute what it calls “merit-based” admissions and hiring insurance policies in addition to conduct an audit of the examine physique, college and management on their views about range.

The calls for, that are an replace from an earlier letter, additionally name for a ban on face masks, which appeared to focus on pro-Palestinian protesters; shut its range, fairness and inclusion packages, which it says train college students and employees “to make snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes”; and pressured the college to cease recognizing or funding “any student group or club that endorses or promotes criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment”.

The administration additionally demanded that Harvard cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

Harvard’s president stated in a letter that the college wouldn’t adjust to the Trump administration’s calls for to dismantle its range programming and to restrict pupil protests in change for its federal funding.

“No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Alan Garber, the college president, wrote, including that Harvard had taken in depth reforms to handle antisemitism.

The division of training introduced in March that it had opened an investigation into 60 faculties and universities for alleged “anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination”. It got here after protests towards Israel’s struggle on Gaza had been placed on throughout campuses final 12 months, demonstrations that many Republicans framed as antisemitic.

Harvard’s response to the White Home’s calls for was in sharp distinction to the method taken by Columbia College, the epicentre of final 12 months’s protests towards Israel’s assault on Gaza.

The Trump administration minimize $400m in grants to the non-public New York faculty, accusing it of failing to guard Jewish college students from harassment. The college caved in to calls for and responded by agreeing to reform pupil disciplinary procedures and hiring 36 officers to broaden its safety staff.

Stick with us all through the day as we’ve extra response to this story and lots of others.