(Headline USA) U.S. inflation declined last month as the cost of gas, airline fares, and hotel rooms fell, a sign that price growth was cooling even as President Donald Trump ramped up his tariff threats.
Consumer prices rose just 2.4% in March from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Thursday, down from 2.8% in February. That is the lowest inflation figure since September.
Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 2.8% compared with a year ago, down from 3.1% in February. That is the smallest increase in core prices in nearly four years. Economists closely watch core prices because they are considered a better guide to where inflation is headed.
The report shows that inflation is mostly cooling. Yet Trump’s huge tariffs on China and 10% universal duty are likely to push up prices in the coming months, economists say. The higher import taxes will likely weigh on the economy’s growth as well.
On a monthly basis, prices actually fell 0.1% in March, the first monthly drop in nearly five years. Core prices rose just 0.1% in March from February.
Used car prices dropped 0.7% from February to March, the government said. The cost of auto insurance fell 0.8%, welcome relief for car owners, though insurance costs are still up 7.5% compared with a year ago.
One reason prices fell was sharp drops in travel-related costs, including air fares, which slipped 5.3% just from February to March. Hotel room prices dropped 3.5%. Visits to the United States from overseas fell nearly 12% last month, according to government data.
The cost of groceries, however, jumped 0.5% last month, the report showed, as egg prices leapt 5.9% to a new record average price of $6.23 a dozen. Clothing prices rose 0.4%, though they have increased little in the past year.
Trump had imposed sweeping tariffs on nearly 60 nations last week, which sent financial markets into a tailspin and caused sharp drops in business and consumer sentiment. Yet on Wednesday he paused those duties for 90 days. He kept a steep 125% tariff on all imports from China and 25% duties on steel, aluminum, imported cars, and many goods from China and Mexico.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) In the wake of the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing, the FBI launched a massive manhunt for a mystery accomplice to Timothy McVeigh known as “John Doe 2”—only to later claim that he never existed, and that McVeigh acted largely alone.
Nearly 30 years later, an attorney in Utah named Jesse Trentadue is still working to unearth the truth of the matter through his ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for surveillance footage of the blast—footage that, according to FBI and Secret Service records, shows McVeigh with another unidentified subject. Since McVeigh’s other accomplice, Terry Nichols, was confirmed to have been in Kansas on April 19, John Doe 2’s identify remains a subject of debate. Credible researchers have made the case that he may have been an undercover informant, or even an agent.
Trentadue’s nearly 17-year-old FOIA lawsuit hasn’t received much attention over the last decade, largely because it’s been litigated behind closed doors, with gag orders on all parties. That’s because a special master is continuing to investigate stunning allegations that the FBI intimidated an undercover informant involved in the case.
With the OKC bombing anniversary next week, Trentadue recently moved to unseal the deposition he took of the FBI informant—a retired Marine named John Matthews, who purportedly saw McVeigh months before the bombing. However, one of the top officials in the Justice Department, Principal Acting Assistant Attorney General Yaakov Roth, is opposing his motion, according to a letter Trentadue wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi—a copy of which was obtained by this reporter.
“Mr. Roth appeared in that case in his official capacity and heads the Department of Justice’s vehement opposition to unsealing Matthews’ deposition,” Trentadue told Bondi in his March 26 letter.
“Why is the Department of Justice fighting so hard to prevent the unsealing of that deposition when it is contrary to everything the current administration has publicly stated about exposing and cleaning up the FBI lawlessness?”
It’s unclear what the contents of Matthews’ deposition are. Trentadue said he wasn’t allowed to comment on the matter due to the court-imposed gag order.
🚨NEW: A Utah attorney suing for surveillance footage of the OKC bombing recently moved to unseal an FBI informant's deposition about the matter.
HOWEVER, the motion is opposed by Trump's DOJ — specifically one of the top officials, Principal Acting Assistant Attorney General… pic.twitter.com/lSUABGVE7h
Judging by Matthews’ past public disclosures, his testimony likely reveals new information about some of the darkest scandals in the FBI’s history—including its coverup of the others involved in the OKC bombing, which killed at least 168 people, including 19 children, in what remains the deadliest domestic terrorism attack in American history.
Bondi’s office did not respond to messages seeking comment on the matter. Roth also did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Who is John Matthews, and What Does He Know?
Matthews, a retired Marine who infiltrated the right-wing underground in the 1990s as a paid operative, never intended to become a whistleblower. He had been out of the game for over a decade, and only went public after he saw that the bureau burned him by not redacting his name in documents that were being released.
“All those years I’ve been a good boy and kept my mouth shut,” Matthews told Newsweek in 2011. “Then you release my name? What kind of shit is that?”
Initially, Matthews attempted to tell his story through the press.
Buttressed by his credibility—the FBI gave him a plaque for his service, and documents corroborated much of what he said—Matthews told a Newsweek all about an undercover operation to infiltrate right-wing groups called “Patriot Conspiracy,” or PATCON for short.
According to Matthews, PATCON entailed numerous undercover FBI agents and informants posing as neo-Nazis. Those undercover operatives fomented numerous crimes, including illegal gunwalking to plotting an attack on a nuclear plant in Alabama, according to Matthews. Perhaps Matthews’ most jolting claim was that he saw McVeigh in 1994 with a German national named Andy Strassmeir—who an ATF informant later saw casing the Murrah Building in early 1995.
But when Newsweek published its article about Matthews on Nov. 11, 2011, he was dismayed to find his most damning disclosures unreported.
That’s when Matthews turned to Trentadue, who was preparing for his upcoming trial in his FOIA lawsuit for the OKC bombing surveillance footage—the only FOIA case, to this writer’s knowledge, that’s ever gone to trial.
Trentadue’s Trial
Trentadue had filed his lawsuit in 2008, and the FBI swore to a judge that footage never existed. Typically, such a declaration is all it takes for a judge to dismiss a FOIA lawsuit. But in Trentadue’s case, the Utah attorney had already separately obtained investigatory records from the Secret Service, which conducted its own investigation into the bombing.
The Secret Service documents showed that the John Doe 2 surveillance footage indeed exists.
“Security videotapes from the area [around the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building] show the truck detonation three minutes and six seconds after the suspects exited the truck,” the Secret Service document states.
Trentadue also showed the judge FBI records and contemporaneous news reports about an agent who allegedly tried selling the surveillance footage to NBC News. According to the leaked October 1995 FBI memo, an attorney representing an FBI agent in Los Angeles had contacted the NBC show “Dateline,” offering to sell surveillance footage for more than $1 million.
“It was represented that the video tape would contain lapse photography of the arrival and then departure of a UPS truck. Then a Ryder truck pulls up and a male resembling Timothy McVey [sic] is seen exiting the driver’s side of the Ryder truck and then walking away,” the FBI memo says. “Next, a second male is seen exiting the passenger side of the Ryder truck and walking to the back of the truck. The second male then walks away in the same direction as the first male.”
Having been caught in an apparent lie about the surveillance footage and the existence of John Doe 2, the FBI was forced to go to trial. Trentadue’s trial happened in Utah over a four-day period from July 28 to July 31, 2014.
Wanting to show that the FBI was hiding records about others involved in the bombing, Trentadue was going to have Matthews testify about his encounters with known associates of McVeigh. Trentadue also wanted to press Matthews on his inside knowledge of scandals ranging from the 1993 Waco massacre all the way to the Obama-era Fast & Furious gun-walking disaster.
Aftermath of the OKC bombing. PHOTO: FBI
Matthews’ testimony was supposed to put the finishing touches of Trentadue’s case that other unidentified accomplices indeed were involved in the bombing, and that the FBI was hiding records about them. Specifically, Matthews was going to talk about his time with Andreas Strassmeir, an infamous figure from the 1990s militia scene who was accused by an ATF informant of casing federal buildings in late 1994 and early 1995.
“Prior to the Oklahoma City Bombing [Matthews] had seen Timothy McVeigh and a German National by the name of Andreas Strassmeir at a militia training facility near San Saba, Texas,” Trentadue later said in a sworn declaration.
“According to Mr. Matthews, he had reported the McVeigh–Strassmeir [sighting] to the FBI, and was told by the FBI that the Bureau was already aware of that fact, which indicated to Mr. Matthews that others within the FBI were monitoring McVeigh on the [run-up] to the attack on the Murrah Building.”
Matthews Goes Missing
The reason Matthews’ purported sighting was recounted in a sworn declaration, and not from his trial testimony, is because he changed his mind about taking the stand. On day three of the trial, Roger Charles—a private investigator who worked on McVeigh’s defense team before helping Trentadue with his litigation—said he received a phone call from Matthews, who relayed to him that he had been threatened by the bureau.
“John Matthews said that he had been told by the FBI to ‘stand down.’ John Matthews also said that he had been told by the FBI to take a vacation so that he could not be subpoenaed,” Charles said in his Aug. 7, 2014, sworn declaration to the court. “He likewise said that the ‘Bureau’ had made it very clear to him that if he did testify, it could result in the loss of his Veteran’s health coverage, and Veteran’s disability pension.”
Trentadue filed a similar declaration.
“During that conversation, Mr. Matthews related to me the events leading up to his refusal to testify, including the name of the FBI agent who had contacted him, Adam Quirk,” Trentadue said in his declaration.
The FBI denied Charles’s and Trentadue’s allegations of witness tampering. The bureau showed Judge Waddoups an Aug. 2, 2014, email from Matthews to both parties in the FOIA dispute. In there, Matthews said he declined to testify based on the advice of his former handler, retired FBI agent Don Jarrett.
“Like we both agree, I had nothing to do with the Oklahoma City bombing or the tapes. I did not want to testify and I did not want to get caught in a crossfire with both sides,” Matthews wrote. “If I took a trip, no one could find me to give a subpoena to. Don told me we should inform the FBI in Salt Lake City and let them know what I was going to do.”
In his email, Matthews confirmed that he spoke with Trentadue and Charles.
“I told them that I was not going to testify. That Agent Adam Quirk was supposed to [have] told the court,” he wrote, emphasizing in all capital letters: “NO ONE FROM THE FBI OR DOJ HAS MADE ANY THREATS TO ME OR MY FAMILY.”
Matthews’ assurances did not convince Judge Waddoups, who launched an investigation into the matter.
“The current record at least permits a reasonable inference of wrongdoing by Defendant or its agents in influencing Mr. Matthews not to testify,” Judge Waddoups said in an April 2015 decision, ordering a separate magistrate judge—a “special master”—to investigate the witness tampering allegations.
Almost exactly a decade later, and the special master has yet to issue his report and recommendations.
Meanwhile, Matthews is nowhere to be found. Trentadue said he doesn’t even know if Matthews, a Vietnam veteran who suffered from the effects of Agent Orange, is still alive.
While declining to comment on the proceedings, Trentadue did say the DOJ and FBI have fought him “tooth and nail” every step of the way.
Trentadue said he expected a coverup from previous administrations. After all, former Attorney General Merrick Garland helped prosecute McVeigh, and was involved in suppressing info about John Doe 2—Garland argued during McVeigh’s April 27, 1995, preliminary hearing that “it doesn’t matter whether there were two or 100 people in that truck, as long as there was somebody representing Mr. McVeigh there.”
“The only person on trial at this hearing is Mr. McVeigh. It doesn’t matter whether there were two or 100 people in that truck, as long as there was somebody representing Mr. McVeigh there."
Even though the Trump administration promised more transparency, Deputy AG Roth’s move to keep Matthews’ declaration sealed is just the latest move by the U.S. government to keep the truth hidden, Trentadue said.
Sean Dunagan, a senior investigator for transparency group Judicial Watch, has told this reporter that he’s surprised the case has even gotten this far.
“We’re one of the largest FOIA litigants in this country, and we’ve never been involved in anything that involves that degree of alleged misconduct by the [FBI]. It’s astounding,” Dunagan told this reporter in 2022.
“It’s very good for Jesse that his case is not being litigated in D.C. If this case were litigated in D.C., it would have been closed years ago. Judges in D.C. have a lot more deference to agencies, particularly when it comes to classification of law enforcement records.”
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
(Headline USA) President Donald Trump has long complained about restrictions that limit water flow for showerheads, making it harder for him to wash his “beautiful hair.”
In his first term, Trump directed that restrictions on showerheads be loosened, an action that former President Joe Biden reversed.
Now Trump is going to let the water flow — again.
An executive order he signed Wednesday calls for an immediate end to water conservation standards that restrict the number of gallons per minute that flow through showerheads and other appliances such as dishwashers, washing machines and toilets.
“I like to take a nice shower, take care of my beautiful hair,” Trump said Wednesday as he signed an executive order at the White House. “I have to stand in the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. Comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.”
“What you do is you end up washing your hands five times longer, so it’s the same water,” he added. “And we’re going to open it up so that people can live.”
The order directs Energy Secretary Chris Wright to immediately rescind what Trump called the “overly complicated federal rule” that redefined the word showerhead under the last two Democratic presidents.
Biden and former President Barack Obama both imposed restrictions on water flow from showerheads and other appliances. The standards were intended to make dishwashers, showerheads, refrigerators, laundry machines and toilets use less energy and water.
But the regulations “turned a basic household item into a bureaucratic nightmare,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “No longer will showerheads be weak and worthless.”
(Thérèse Boudreaux, The Center Square) Republicans in the House narrowly cleared a procedural hurdle to tee up a final vote on the Senate’s amended budget.
The House passed the first version of the budget in February, which extended President Donald Trump’s tax cuts for ten years, and then sent it to the Senate.
The Senate then passed a similar version, with the notable difference of making President Donald Trump’s tax cuts permanent, but changed the accounting of the spending so that costs much less on paper.
Unlike the House’s original budget resolution, which had priced a 10-year extension of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts at $3.8 trillion, the Senate’s budget framework assumes the extension will cost nothing.
By adopting a current policy baseline, which treats renewing the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as a continuation of current law rather than new policy, Senate Republicans drastically reduced the amount of spending cuts they’d need to make in order to offset the plan.
Three Republicans broke with the party in a 216-215 vote that set the stage for the House to adopt the Senate’s amended budget resolution. If enough Republicans vote in favor of final passage, the chambers can finally move forward in the next step of the budget reconciliation process to fulfill President Donald Trump’s tax, border, and energy agenda.
The next step will involve combining the House and Senate bills, which means agreeing on where the specific cuts will be made to help pay for the tax cuts.
The trio of Republican holdouts — Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., and Mike Turner, R-Ohio — are concerned that the Senate-amended budget resolution will explode the deficit. Turner, however, says he will vote yes on final passage.
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, called the Senate’s amendment “unserious and disappointing.”
“It is critical that the reconciliation bill be guided by the House’s resolution framework. Otherwise, we risk adding trillions of dollars to the debt,” Arrington said prior to the vote. “As we unlock the reconciliation process, we must hold fast to the principles established in the House’s budget resolution.”
Outside fiscal organizations like the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget say the actual cost of the Senate’s resolution hovers around $5.8 trillion.
Fiscal hawk Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, voted to move the resolution forward but said he “cannot support the current Senate Budget plan,” because while the House’s blueprint is “arguably budget neutral,” the Senate’s “math does not add up.”
Democrats, all of whom voted no, are concerned primarily about potential cuts to entitlement programs like Medicaid.
“The reckless Republican budget scheme will slash nutritional assistance for working families and make the largest cut to Medicaid in history, all so they can give massive tax breaks to billionaire donors like Elon Musk,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stated.
But House Rules Committee Chair Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., called Democrats’ claims about program cuts “lies.”
“This is more than a budget. It’s a blueprint to take our country back,” Foxx said. “We’re done playing defense. It’s time to lead, fight, and win, all for the American people.”
(Morgan Sweeney, The Center Square) As the U.S. and China escalate their tariff rates in an all-out trade war, two congressional committees held a joint hearing Wednesday on the problem of the Chinese Community Party’s influence on American investment and possible solutions.
The Chinese Communist Party is embedded in Chinese business to the extent that the assets of any American who has tried to do business in China, invests in the stock market, international index funds or mutual funds, or who has a 401K or pension invested in international index funds is at risk, according to TV personality and businessman Kevin O’Leary. O’Leary was called as an expert witness at the hearing.
The hearing was hosted by a House select committee that focuses on “strategic competition” between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party and the Senate Special Committee on Aging, as the party’s involvement in the Chinese economy and financial scams stands to disproportionately impact older Americans, according to committee members.
“The [Chinese] government has chosen to be America’s enemy. Unfortunately, that’s not a problem that only our military intelligence community has to worry about,” said Sen. Rick Scott, R-FL, chairman of the aging committee. “ If you have your retirement invested in anything that is controlled by or under the jurisdiction of the Chinese Communist Party, you are at risk of losing every dollar, and this could happen overnight.”
The senator went on to say that “there is no real private industry in China,” a point that was emphasized multiple times throughout the hearing by both committee members and the called witnesses.
O’Leary, an investor on the business reality TV show Shark Tank and the U.K.’s Dragon’s Den, said that China allows something called a “golden share,” which essentially de-privatizes private businesses. Any entity that purchases a golden share in a Chinese business – a small share, typically 1% – acquires disproportionate control of that company. A golden share can secure its owner a position on the company’s board or a certain level of authority over company decisions.
The Chinese government buys these shares in companies it wants to influence, so that the Chinese Communist Party is deeply involved in companies that may appear private “on paper,” according to O’Leary.
In addition, the Chinese government doesn’t “play by the rules” of the World Trade Organization, even though it has been a member since 2001, according to O’Leary. This poses a real risk to Americans’ savings, according to Rep. John Moolenaar, R-MI.
“The CCP’s opaque regulatory regime, its disregard for the rule of law and its willingness to use financial tools for political gain present ongoing and significant dangers to American savings,” Moolenaar said.
O’Leary said that the Chinese Communist Party implements policies that disadvantage other countries in the Chinese economy but uses other countries’ legal systems against them to gain the upper hand in economic competition.
The party has passed “various laws in the realm of cyber security, espionage, intelligence and beyond and other mechanisms to control its corporations, industries and business partnerships, all to the detriment of U.S. investors,” O’Leary said.
The Chinese government doesn’t allow other countries to own shares of Chinese companies, for instance, while the U.S. “has given China preferential treatment for over a decade through its own special memorandum of understanding that governs accounting standards and oversight,” according to O’Leary.
“If we can’t own stocks in their country, they should not be allowed to own stocks in the U.S. Unless businesses can operate in China with the same freedoms that Chinese businesses have here, we should not let their businesses operate in the U.S.,” O’Leary said.
“Make no mistake, I want to do business in China, as do millions of other investors and companies, but we want a reciprocal ecosystem in place that is transparent,” he continued, saying the U.S. should leave China’s marketplace until its government implements significant reforms.
President and CEO of the American Securities Association Chris Iacovella said that even though China seemingly transitioned from a state-run to a free market economy decades ago, that’s not really what happened. Instead, China has “penetrated [American] capital markets” to build wealth and power. As a partial remedy, Iacovella said Congress should enact a ban against Chinese companies that engage in unlawful behavior from American markets.
“We have companies on the commerce list, on the DOD list, on the human rights list. These companies should not have access to our capital markets. They should not have access to anybody to be able to do business in this country,” Iacovella said.
A third expert witness called by the committee members was Brady Finta, founder of the National Elder Fraud Justice Coordination Center.
“I believe the scale of fraud against America’s elders has grown to epidemic proportions, and it’s time that we as a country treat it as such,” Finta told the committee members.
Finta worked to combat elder fraud in a previous position with the FBI but said the scale of the problem was so great, he and his team were able to address less than 1% of scams reported to them, even though only a fraction of people report the crimes committed against them.
Some committee members believed the CCP was either directly involved with international crime rings that perpetuate such scams, or at minimum, doesn’t actively deter them.
Finta suggested now is the time for a “whole of society response.” Separately, neither local, state nor federal law enforcement has the bandwidth to sustain a response that matches the magnitude of the problem. But if they joined together in elder justice task forces across the country and even partnered with the private sector, which has access to much of the data that is exploited, they could wage a much stronger fight, according to Finta.
“[Where] local and state resources can be used to support larger federal and international investigations, the effect of that is much greater than the individual investigations by local law enforcement,” Finta said.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) On the eve of last November’s Election Day, the Biden-controlled Justice Department announced that it foiled a white supremacist terrorist attack on a Tennessee energy facility—a case that involved the use of at least five undercover informants and agents.
According to the DOJ, Skyler Philippi was planning to destroy a Tennessee energy facility—”but the FBI had already compromised his plot.”
Philippi tells another story. In a letter from jail to U.S. Judge William Campbell Jr., Phillipi said that the undercover FBI agents got him drunk on the night they were going to carry out their so-called plot.
“Undercover FBI agents got me intoxicated prior to the alleged attempt. They also financed and aided in the alleged attempt. I, being under the influence, was not of sound or rational mind at the time of the alleged attempt,” he said in a letter docketed with the federal court on Wednesday.
“Also, prior to the attempt (roughly 20 to 30 minutes before the attempt) the undercover FBI agents brought me to a bar/brewery in West Nashville, I cannot recall the name.”
NEW: The man accused (the day before Election Day) of a white supremacist plot to blow up a substation just told his judge that undercover FBI agents took him to a nearby brewery and got him drunk before they went to carry out their plans. They also financed and aided in the… https://t.co/PPnV7Li5zBpic.twitter.com/221dOnuwvQ
Philippi further complained that his lawyer is anti-Trump and pro-Antifa. He said that his attorney, David Baker, is pressuring him into taking a plea deal, and that he’d rather have a public defender named Stephanie Ritchie represent him instead.
Philippi is scheduled to have a status hearing on April 25.
His allegations against the FBI are reminiscent to what took place in the 2020 alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—a case where at least 12 undercover agents and informants were found to have heavily influenced the plot. In that case, undercover informants would also get their targets drunk and stoned before recording them talking about Whitmer.
In the Philippi case, the DOJ’s own documents also show that undercover informants and agents pushed Philippi towards terrorism.
According to the DOJ’s complaint, Philippi had been talking to an FBI informant online earlier this year about committing a mass shooting at a YMCA in Columbia, Tennessee. Instead of arresting him for that, the FBI informant introduced Philippi to another informant, who was located physically closer to him.
That FBI informant, in turn, introduced Phillippi to an undercover agent in August. During an in-person meeting, the defendant allegedly told the agent about his “manifesto,” which outlined desires to attack “high tax cities or industrial areas to let the kikes lose money.” During that conversation, he also allegedly told the agent about his previous affiliation with the Atomwaffen Division—a neo-Nazi terrorist group infiltrated by the FBI years ago.
On Sept. 28, the FBI introduced Philippi to yet another undercover agent. After the meeting, the undercover agents drove him to a substation to plot the attack, according to the complaint.
A few weeks later, Philippi told the undercover agents he wanted to participate in a “Nordic ritual”—something that’s often popular with neo-Nazi groups such as the Atomwaffen. Philippi said he never participated in such a ritual before, but “the UCEs told PHILIPPI they had previously participated in a Nordic ritual and offered to help set it up.”
As Philippi’s supposed plot progressed, he told the agents he was having trouble building the drone to use as a bomber. According to the criminal complaint, the FBI agents then gave him a drone to use.
Philippi is pictured test-flying the drone in the FBI’s criminal complaint. Afterwards, “PHILIPPI and the UCEs returned to the hotel and began preparing for the attack,” the complaint states.
Later that night, he and the undercover agents left their hotel to carry out the attack—stopping at a bar first, according to Philippi.
“Law-enforcement agents arrested PHILIPPI while he was preparing the drone and the explosives from the back of the vehicle,” the criminal complaint states.
Philippi is charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted destruction of an energy facility. He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
(Brett Rowland, The Center Square) President Donald Trump continued ahead Wednesday with his on-again, off-again tariffs, with his latest tariff suspension sending U.S. markets soaring.
Trump announced Wednesday afternoon on his Truth Social app that he would pause the majority of the reciprocal tariffs he announced last week on “Liberation Day,” the April 2 start of the implementation of the tariffs only to reverse course and put everything on pause.
Stocks jumped on the news with the Dow Jones gaining nearly 6% Wednesday after sharp losses during the previous week.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it was all part of the plan.
“We saw the successful negotiating strategy that President Trump implemented a week ago today. It has brought more than 75 countries forward to negotiate,” Bessent said Wednesday. “It took great courage for him to stay the course until this moment.”
Trump’s pause includes all the tariffs that went into effect at midnight, except the additional levies on China. Trump has targeted the world’s second-largest economy in a tariff war that China has said it will “fight to the end.”
While many other nations called Trump’s trade team seeking deals to avoid reciprocal tariffs, China showed no signs of backing down.
“The U.S. threat to escalate tariffs is doubly erroneous, once again exposing its extortionist nature. China firmly rejects such actions,” China’s commerce ministry said Tuesday. “Should the U.S. persist in this reckless course, China will respond resolutely until the end.”
Trump’s decision to suspend tariffs came after tough questions from Republicans, including U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.
“I just don’t know what his goal is right now,” Kennedy said earlier in the day after comparing Trump to a dog chasing a car and catching it.
“President Trump has been a Rottweiler here, but now he’s the Rottweiler who has caught the car,” Kennedy said. “That’s the moment we are in now. My question is: What is he going to do with the car?”
Trump has made big, bold promises about his tariffs. He has said tariffs will make the U.S. “rich as hell,” bring back manufacturing jobs lost to lower-wage countries in decades past and shift the tax burden away from U.S. families. He’s also promised to help working Americans with his tariffs.
On Tuesday, Trump wrote “I’m proud to be the President for the workers, not the outsourcers; the President who stands up for Main Street, not Wall Street; who protects the middle class, not the political class; and who defends America, not trade cheaters all over the globe.”
Public Citizen, a progressive consumer rights advocacy group, said Trump’s latest suspension of tariffs showed he doesn’t support the workers who elected him.
“Who’s left out of his megalomaniacal game? The workers he claimed to support,” said Melinda St. Louis, global trade watch director at Public Citizen. “All he has shown is that he’ll cave to Wall Street’s handwringing and prioritize his own power over real people’s plight.”
(Headline USA) FBI Director Kash Patel was quietly removed weeks ago as the acting chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and has been replaced with the Army secretary, three people familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear why Patel was replaced by Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll to lead the Justice Department agency that’s responsible for enforcing the nation’s gun laws. One person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel move, said Patel was removed at the end of February, just days after he was sworn in.
But that was never publicly announced. Patel remains on the agency’s website and was identified as the acting director in an April 7 press release. Senior ATF leaders were only informed Wednesday of the change, according to another person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the move.
So the Pentagon is now running a domestic law enforcement agency? Am I understanding this correctly? https://t.co/QcLXZptl9G
Driscoll will remain secretary of the Army, according to a defense official. Driscoll, 38, of North Carolina, had served as an adviser to Vice President JD Vance, whom he met when both were attending Yale Law School. He served in the Army for less than four years and left at the rank of first lieutenant.
He ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for a North Carolina congressional seat in 2020, getting about 8% of the vote in a crowded field of candidates.
Patel was named acting ATF director in an unusual arrangement in February just days after he was sworn in to lead the FBI, putting him in charge of two separate and sprawling Justice Department agencies.
Justice Department officials have been considering a plan to combine the ATF and the Drug Enforcement Administration into a single agency. The two agencies often work together, along with the FBI, but are both led by separate directors and are tasked with distinctly different missions.
The plan is designed to “achieve efficiencies in resources, case deconfliction, and regulatory efforts,” according to a recent memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Along with being accused of trying to assassinate President Donald Trump last September, Ryan Routh also faces charges of illegally possessing a firearm as a felon, and for possessing a rifle with an obliterated serial number.
However, Routh’s attorneys want those charges dismissed on Second Amendment grounds.
In a motion filed Monday, Routh’s attorneys argue that firearms regulations must be “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” And according to Routh’s attorneys, before 1961 there is no historical precedent in America for prohibiting firearms possession.
“As scholars and historians have long pointed out, ‘no colonial or state law in eighteenth century America formally restricted’—much less prohibited, permanently and under pain of criminal punishment—’the ability of felons to own firearms,’” the attorneys argued. “Indeed, as militia members, they were not simply permitted to possess arms; they were actually required to purchase and possess arms for militia service.”
Routh’s motion may sound like a stretch to some, but last year an illegal immigrant successfully made similar arguments to successfully dismiss a charge for possessing a firearm while in the country illegally in June 2020.
In that case, the immigrant’s judge applied a centuries-old case precedent about rules barring former British loyalists from possessing weapons. There, a court eventually ruled that only “untrustworthy” or “dangerous” former British loyalists should be barred from owning firearms in America.
“Thus, to the extent the exception shows that some British loyalists were permitted to carry firearms despite the general prohibition, the Court interprets this history as supporting an individualized assessment for [illegal immigrants],” the judge said in her decision when she dismissed the charge.
Unlike the illegal immigrant, Routh is facing more severe charges than just felony firearms possession. He faces life in prison for trying to kill Trump.
Routh’s next court hearing is April 15, and his trial is scheduled for September.
His Monday motion to dismiss was one of a flurry of court filings made that day. Read about the others here and here.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) The Trump administration is considering launching drone strikes against cartels in Mexico in an effort to stem the flow of fentanyl and other drugs through the southern border, NBC News reported on Tuesday.
The report, which cited multiple former and current US officials, said the discussions were still in the early stages, but the administration has taken steps toward taking military action against cartels, including designating them as “terrorist organizations” and stepping up CIA drone flights over Mexico.
The report said that the Trump administration would prefer to launch drone strikes against cartels in cooperation with the Mexican government but is not ruling out launching unilateral military action, which would significantly rupture US-Mexico relations.
In response to the report, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected the idea of any unilateral US action. “We reject any form of intervention or interference. That’s been very clear, Mexico coordinates and collaborates, but does not subordinate itself. There is no interference, nor will there be,” Sheinbaum said.
The Mexican leader added, “While this idea hasn’t been formally proposed, we’ve made it clear that it wouldn’t address the root of the issue. What truly works is ongoing attention to root causes, arrests driven by intelligence and investigation, coordination, and zero tolerance for impunity. We categorically reject any such actions, and we don’t believe they will happen. There is a strong, ongoing dialogue on security and many other matters.”
The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had threatened Mexican military officials that the US could take unilateral military action in Mexico. The report said Hegseth threatened action “if Mexico didn’t deal with the collusion between the country’s government and drug cartels.”
While the Trump administration wants to reduce the flow of fentanyl, opponents of turning the drug war into a hot war have warned it’s unlikely to have that effect. Daniel DePetris, a fellow at Defense Priorities, pointed out in a post on X that if the demand for fentanyl still exists in the US, then cartels or other criminal organizations would still be willing to manufacture the drug and smuggle it across the US border.
“If demand for the drug is still high, the cartels—or independent criminal syndicates—will have a financial incentive to continue manufacturing, even if it comes at the risk of death (these guys are already risking death by being in a cartel). There is a lot of money to be made,” DePetris said.
Military action against the cartels also comes with a risk of bringing a hot war to US territory since the organizations are known to have a presence inside the US and also possess advanced weapons that could even be fired across the US-Mexico border.
