Trump threatens Harvard’s tax-exempt standing after college refuses to cave to administration’s calls for
Donald Trump has stated Harvard “ought to lose its tax exempt standing” and be taxed as a political entity after the Ivy League college rejected what it stated was an try at “authorities regulation” of the college.
In a publish on his Reality Social platform, Trump wrote:
Maybe Harvard ought to lose its Tax Exempt Standing and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it retains pushing political, ideological, and terrorist impressed/supporting “Illness?” Bear in mind, Tax Exempt Standing is completely contingent on appearing within the PUBLIC INTEREST!
Most universities, together with Harvard, are exempt from federal earnings taxes as a result of they’re categorised as providing a public good.
The most recent escalation comes after the Trump administration elected to cut $2bn of Harvard’s federal grants after the college refused to collapse to what the president has known as an effort to curb antisemitism on campus. Many educators, nonetheless, see the administration’s listing of calls for as a thinly veiled effort to extra broadly curb educational freedoms.
Former president Barack Obama praised Harvard for setting an instance for different increased training establishments to reject federal overreach into its governance practices.
Key occasions
The overwhelming majority of US non-public and public universities and faculties are tax-exempt entities due to their academic functions – functions together with instructing, analysis and public companies, that the federal authorities has lengthy acknowledged as elementary to fostering the productive and civic capacities of residents – and/or the truth that they’re state governmental entities. In flip, state governments normally grant tax-exempt standing to such organizations.
The federal tax code classifies tax-exempt faculties and universities and their foundations as public charities, which implies they’re not subject to tax on funding earnings, payout necessities, or different guidelines that apply to non-public foundations.
Listed here are the necessities from the IRS:
To be tax-exempt beneath part 501(c)(3) of the Inner Income Code, a corporation should be organized and operated solely for exempt purposes set forth in part 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings might inure to any non-public shareholder or particular person. As well as, it is probably not an action organization, i.e., it could not try to affect laws as a considerable a part of its actions and it could not take part in any marketing campaign exercise for or in opposition to political candidates.
Organizations described in part 501(c)(3) are generally known as charitable organizations. Organizations described in part 501(c)(3), apart from testing for public security organizations, are eligible to obtain tax-deductible contributions in accordance with Code part 170.
The group should not be organized or operated for the advantage of private interests, and no a part of a piece 501(c)(3) group’s web earnings might inure to the advantage of any non-public shareholder or particular person. If the group engages in an excess benefit transaction with an individual having substantial affect over the group, an excise tax could also be imposed on the particular person and any group managers agreeing to the transaction.
Part 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how a lot political and legislative (lobbying) actions they could conduct.
Trump threatens Harvard’s tax-exempt standing after college refuses to cave to administration’s calls for
Donald Trump has stated Harvard “ought to lose its tax exempt standing” and be taxed as a political entity after the Ivy League college rejected what it stated was an try at “authorities regulation” of the college.
In a publish on his Reality Social platform, Trump wrote:
Maybe Harvard ought to lose its Tax Exempt Standing and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it retains pushing political, ideological, and terrorist impressed/supporting “Illness?” Bear in mind, Tax Exempt Standing is completely contingent on appearing within the PUBLIC INTEREST!
Most universities, together with Harvard, are exempt from federal earnings taxes as a result of they’re categorised as providing a public good.
The most recent escalation comes after the Trump administration elected to cut $2bn of Harvard’s federal grants after the college refused to collapse to what the president has known as an effort to curb antisemitism on campus. Many educators, nonetheless, see the administration’s listing of calls for as a thinly veiled effort to extra broadly curb educational freedoms.
Former president Barack Obama praised Harvard for setting an instance for different increased training establishments to reject federal overreach into its governance practices.
As we stated earlier, former president Joe Biden will tackle a convention in Chicago simply earlier than 5pm native time with a speech on targeted on defending Social Safety.
However, Politico reports, not all Democrats are too enthused by Biden’s return to the nationwide stage. One former Biden donor and bundler stated the speeches are “effective” as a result of “that’s what you anticipate a former president to do, however I don’t anticipate crowds of Democrats wanting him as a focus of the nationwide dialog.”
And an individual who labored intently with the Biden marketing campaign has advised the outlet:
It takes a particular stage of chutzpah as the person most accountable for reelecting Donald Trump to determine it’s your voice that’s lacking on this second. The nation can be higher served if he rode off into the sundown.
RFK Jr urged to launch almost $400m allotted to assist households fight warmth
Nina Lakhani
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of well being and human companies, is going through new calls for to launch virtually $400m allotted by Congress to assist low-income US households maintain the air con on this summer season.
The funds are beneath risk after the employees operating a many years outdated program had been fired – as a part of the Trump administration’s so-called ‘effectivity’ drive.
States and tribal nations are nonetheless ready for funding allotted by Congress for the Low Revenue House Energy Help Program (LIHEAP) – a chronically underfunded bipartisan program that helped round 6 million households carry on prime of power payments final yr.
The cash is caught in limbo after the Trump administration this month eradicated the division of power help (DEA) – the workplace throughout the Division of Well being and Human Companies (HHS) that oversees the four-decade outdated program – and fired the whole employees.
Strain is now rising on Kennedy to reinstate the employees and assure that the power support be distributed to the states – in compliance with the administration’s constitutional obligation to abide with congressional appropriations.
An estimated one in six households are behind on their power payments, in response to NEADA, which implies hundreds of thousands of households may very well be prone to utilities shutting off energy in what’s anticipated to be one other record-breaking sizzling summer season.
Amid a protracted price of dwelling disaster, one in 4 households had been unable to maintain up with power payments final yr, in response to the Census Bureau.
Within the northern chilly states, LIHEAP helped maintain the warmth on for greater than 43,000 households in Michigan and 26,000 Vermonters. However within the short-term it’s largely southern states the place residents are probably to endure first, particularly as lethal warmth waves improve because of international heating.
In Arizona, simply over 37,000 residents certified for LIHEAP help final yr. In Phoenix, the US’s hottest main metropolis, residents endured a document 113 consecutive days at or over 100F. Even with LIHEAP, virtually one in four heat deaths in Maricopa county, the place Phoenix is positioned, occurred indoors. A big proportion didn’t have electrical energy and/or a functioning air con unit.
Doge amassing federal knowledge to take away undocumented migrants from housing and work – report
The Trump administration is utilizing private knowledge usually shielded from dissemination to search out undocumented immigrants the place they work, research and stay, typically with the purpose of eradicating them from their housing and the workforce, the Washington Post (paywall) reports.
The Publish reviews that on the Division of Housing and City Development, officers are engaged on a rule that may ban mixed-status households (the place some members of the family have authorized standing and others don’t) from public housing, in response to a number of staffers who spoke on the situation of anonymity out of worry of retribution. Associates from the so-called “division of presidency effectivity” (Doge) are additionally trying to kick out current mixed-status households, vowing to make sure that undocumented immigrants don’t profit from public packages, even when they stay with residents or different eligible members of the family.
The push extends throughout businesses: Final week, the Social Safety Administration moved to classify more than 6,000 living immigrants as dead, canceling their social safety numbers and successfully wiping out their capability to work or obtain advantages in an effort to get them to depart the nation. Federal tax and immigration enforcement officers not too long ago reached a deal to share confidential tax knowledge for folks suspected of being within the US illegally.
The result’s an unprecedented effort to make use of authorities knowledge to assist the administration’s immigration insurance policies. The Publish notes that that features info folks have reported about themselves for years whereas paying taxes or making use of for housing — believing that info wouldn’t be used in opposition to them for immigration functions. Authorized specialists say the information sharing is a breach of privateness guidelines that assist guarantee belief in authorities packages and companies.
Tanya Broder, senior counsel for well being and financial justice coverage on the left-leaning Nationwide Immigration Regulation Heart, advised the Publish.
It’s not solely about one subgroup of individuals, it’s actually about all of us. Everybody cares about their privateness. No one desires their health-care info or tax info broadcast and used to go after us.
The White Home didn’t reply to a request for remark. In response to questions, a DHS official stated: “The federal government is lastly doing what it ought to have all alongside: sharing info throughout the federal authorities to resolve issues.”
“Info sharing throughout businesses is crucial to establish who’s in our nation, together with violent criminals, decide what public security and terror threats might exist, scrub these people from voter rolls, in addition to establish what public advantages these aliens are utilizing at taxpayer expense,” the division’s assistant secretary for public affairs stated.
Trump donors eye potential bonanza if US succeeds with Greenland land-grab
Tom Perkins
A few of Donald Trump’s greatest marketing campaign donors and buyers, who collectively have a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in monetary ties to the US president, are positioned to probably revenue from any American takeover of Greenland, elevating much more moral questions round Trump’s controversial pursuit of the Arctic territory.
The administration is partly aiming to safe uncommon minerals which can be important for the US tech trade and nationwide safety, and to probably reopen oil and gasoline exploration: “That is about essential minerals, that is about pure sources,” Trump’s nationwide safety adviser, Mike Waltz, not too long ago stated.
A Guardian evaluation of marketing campaign finance information and company filings present US tech moguls who invested in mining corporations working in Greenland, fossil gas executives and crypto tycoons with their very own set of plans for the nation collectively gave not less than $243m to the president’s 2024 marketing campaign.
In the meantime institutional buyers bankrolling Greenland mining pursuits additionally amassed $314m value of shares in Trump Media, most simply forward of the election.
“There’s a closed loop amongst these buyers, billionaires, Trump and the crypto tasks,” stated Emily DiVito, a senior adviser for financial coverage with the Groundwork Collaborative financial thinktank. Greenland is an instance of that in motion, she added.
“These donations are investments, and so they had been made with explicit outcomes in thoughts, and even when they weren’t acknowledged on the time, the cash modified fingers,” DiVito stated.
Joe Biden to ship his first main post-presidency speech
Former US President Joe Biden is predicted to return to the nationwide stage later at the moment as he delivers his first main post-presidency speech.
The 82-year-old Democrat, who reluctantly dropped out of the presidential race last year amid concerns about his cognitive functioning, will discuss how social safety is being threatened by the insurance policies of the Trump administration.
The speech can be made to the nationwide convention of Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD), in Chicago.
“As bipartisan leaders have lengthy agreed, People who retire after paying into Social Safety their complete lives deserve the very important assist and caring companies they obtain,” Rachel Buck, government director of the ACRD, stated.
“We’re thrilled the president can be becoming a member of us to debate how we will work collectively for a steady and profitable future for Social Safety.”
Biden has largely averted talking publicly since leaving the White Home in January, regardless of being often named by Trump as the reason for lots of the nation’s issues – each house and overseas – during the last three months.
Biden beforehand spoke at a Nationwide Excessive Faculties Mannequin United Nations occasion final month, but it surely was not open to journalists.
Trump has dramatically slashed the dimensions of the federal government workforce, together with 1000’s of workers on the Social Safety Administration (SSA).
Together with a deliberate layoff of seven,000 employees and controversial plans to impose tighter identity-proofing measures for recipients, the SSA has been sued over a choice to permit Elon Musk’s so-called division of presidency effectivity to entry people’ social safety numbers and different personally identifiable info.
Social safety recipients, in the meantime, have complained about lengthy name wait instances because the company’s “my social safety” advantages portal has seen a rise in outages.
People who obtain supplemental safety earnings, together with disabled seniors and low-income adults and youngsters, additionally reported receiving a discover that stated they had been “not receiving advantages”.
Trump’s AI infrastructure plans might face delays because of Texas Republicans
Hugo Lowell
Hugo Lowell is a reporter within the Washington bureau of the Guardian protecting Donald Trump and the Justice Division
Donald Trump’s plans to broaden infrastructure to supply synthetic intelligence within the US might face years of delays with the Republican-controlled Texas statehouse poised to cross laws that imposes regulatory hurdles on knowledge facilities.
The Trump administration earlier this yr announced that a joint venture called Stargate would assemble a complete of 20 knowledge facilities to offer computing energy for AI as a part of an effort to assist the US compete in opposition to China for management of the expertise and spur buyers to pursue AI tasks.
The businesses behind Stargate – OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and MGX, an investor backed by the United Arab Emirates, which collectively have pledged as much as $500bn – selected Texas, with its free regulation and pre-existing power infrastructure for the primary knowledge middle.
However the building of future knowledge facilities to assist Trump’s AI agenda faces headwinds because of the Texas laws SB6, which introduces new regulatory measures together with a six-month evaluation course of along with the present 6-18 month analysis interval with the purpose of defending its personal energy grid within the face of storms.
The results of the proposed invoice are two-pronged: the regulatory measures might lead to a most 24-month approval course of, whereas the requirement to pay extra charges to the Texas grid operator and set up backup mills would dramatically increase building prices.
That would lead tech corporations to reduce deliberate building of information facilities within the state, in response to fairness analysts.
You possibly can learn the total story right here:
Iran anticipated to withstand US plan to maneuver uranium stockpile to 3rd nation
In some international coverage information, Iran is predicted to resist a US proposal to switch its stockpile of extremely enriched uranium to a 3rd nation – reminiscent of Russia – as a part of Washington’s try to rein in Tehran’s civil nuclear programme.
The problem, among the many key hindrances to a future settlement, was raised within the preliminary, largely oblique, talks held in Muscat, Oman, between Iran’s international minister, Abbas Araghchi, and Donald Trump’s particular envoy Steve Witkoff.
Trump repeatedly has threatened to unleash airstrikes focusing on Iran’s nuclear program if a deal isn’t reached. Iranian officers more and more warn that they might pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to close weapons-grade ranges.
Right here is an extract from a story on the high-stakes nuclear talks by the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour:
Iran is arguing the stockpile, amassed over the previous 4 years, ought to stay in Iran beneath the strict supervision of the UN’s Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company. Tehran sees this as a precaution, or a type of insurance coverage in case a future US administration withdraws from the settlement, as Donald Trump did in 2018 when he rejected the 2015 deal brokered by Barack Obama.
Tehran says that if the stockpile was to depart Iran and the US pulled out of the deal, it must begin from scratch in enriching uranium to increased purity – successfully punishing Iran for a breach dedicated by Washington.
In the meantime, greater than 370 alumni of Georgetown College joined 65 present college students there in signing on to a letter opposing immigration authorities’ detention of Dr Badar Khan Suri, a senior postdoctoral fellow.
Immigration officers revoked his J-1 pupil visa, alleging his father-in-law was an adviser to Hamas officers greater than a decade in the past – and claiming he was “deportable” due to his posts on social media in assist of Palestine.
The circumstances are the newest in a string of Ice arrests instigated by the Trump administration focusing on college students who oppose Israel’s struggle in Gaza and students current within the US on visas or inexperienced playing cards.
Judges orders Trump administration to not deport Palestinian inexperienced card holder arrested at citizenship interview
A decide in Vermont has ordered the Trump administration to not deport a Columbia College pupil who was arrested upon arriving for an interview for his US citizenship petition.
District Choose William Periods ordered Donald Trump and different senior officers to not take away Mohsen Mahdawi from the US or take him out of the state of Vermont.
Mahdawi, a inexperienced card holder who is because of graduate subsequent month, had helped organise protests at Columbia College opposing Israel’s assault on Gaza. He was born in a refugee camp within the West Financial institution and moved to the US in 2014.
His legal professional Luna Droubi stated “the Trump administration detained Mohsen Mahdawi in direct retaliation for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinians and due to his identification as a Palestinian”, including that “his detention is an try to silence those that communicate out in opposition to the atrocities in Gaza. Additionally it is unconstitutional”.
In courtroom paperwork, Mahdawi’s attorneys state that he’s a lawful everlasting resident of the US, at present on the trail to naturalization, and has held a inexperienced card for the previous 10 years.
As my colleague Anna Betts reports in this story, Mahdawi plans to return to Columbia College as he has been accepted right into a grasp’s program at Columbia’s Faculty of Worldwide and Public Affairs, which is able to start this fall, in response to courtroom paperwork.
Vermont lawmakers Bernie Sanders, Peter Welch and Becca Balint have issued an announcement calling for his immediate release: “That is immoral, inhumane, and unlawful. Mr. Mahdawi, a authorized resident of the US, should be afforded due course of beneath the legislation and instantly launched from detention.”
His circumstances are much like these of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist and Columbia College graduate who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers in New York on 8 March and transferred to a detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, the place he has been detained for over a month.
A US immigration decide dominated on Friday that, regardless of being a authorized US resident, Syrian-born Khalil, who participated in pro-Palestinian protests, is eligible to be deported from America.
Khalil isn’t accused of breaking any legal guidelines through the protests at Columbia. The federal government has stated noncitizens who take part in such demonstrations must be expelled from the nation for expressing views that the administration considers to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas”.
Khalil’s legal professionals have challenged the legality of his detention, saying the Trump administration is attempting to deport him for an exercise that’s protected by the primary modification.
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 shielded from 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 acknowledged that if this particular person at El Salvador’s sole discretion was despatched again to our nation, we might deport him a second time,” stated Trump’s coverage chief Stephen Miller, about an order that, the truth is, 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 assert 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, outdoors a House Depot, with a number of different males, and requested a few homicide. He denied information of a criminal offense 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 advised that Abrego García may very well 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 more likely to face persecution there by an area gang.
The Trump administration didn’t enchantment in opposition to 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.
You possibly can learn the total story right here:
China’s prime Hong Kong official warns US ‘hillbillies’ over ‘shameless’ tariffs
One among China’s lead officers overseeing Hong Kong has condemned punitive US tariffs on China as “shameless” and attacked American “hillbillies” amid a unbroken commerce struggle between Beijing and Washington that has caused turmoil in global 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 p.c toll on American imports – a transfer not adopted by Hong Kong.
Imposing tariffs on the town is “hegemonic and shameless within the excessive”, and reveals 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 best wrongdoer in undermining Hong Kong’s human rights, freedom, rule of legislation, prosperity and stability.”
“It’s not after our tariffs – it desires 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 should belong to the nice Chinese language folks”.
“Let these American ’hillbillies’ wail earlier than the 5,000-year-old civilisation of the Chinese language nation” he stated, including that anybody in search of to convey China into poverty was an “enemy”.
The officers reference may very well be to Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance’s bestselling 2016 memoir primarily based on recollections of a risky 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 language peasants” in an interview defending Trump’s tariffs. Chatting with Fox News, Vance requested: “What has the globalist economic system gotten the US of America? And the reply is, basically, it’s primarily based on two rules – incurring an enormous quantity of debt to purchase issues that different international locations make for us.
“To make it a bit of extra crystal clear, we borrow cash from Chinese language peasants to purchase the issues these Chinese language peasants manufacture.”
Hong Kong is a former British colony that turned a particular administrative area of China in 1997. In concept, it’s ruled beneath a system generally known as “one nation, two techniques”, a constitutional association that promised Hong Kong a excessive diploma of autonomy and rights protections.
However it’s extensively seen to have reneged on the deal, crushing pro-democracy protests and imposing a national security law in 2020 – focusing 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 shouldn’t be 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.
JD Vance says US hopeful of ‘nice’ commerce take care of UK
As my colleague Martin Belam reviews in our UK politics live blog, JD Vance has stated the US is optimistic it may negotiate a “nice” commerce take care of the UK.
In an interview with online outlet Unherd, the US vice chairman advised Sohrab Ahmari:
We’re definitely working very arduous with Keir Starmer’s authorities. The president actually loves the UK. He beloved the queen. He admires and loves the king. It’s a crucial relationship. And he’s a businessman and has a variety of essential enterprise relationships in [the UK].
However I feel it’s a lot deeper than that. There’s an actual cultural affinity. And naturally, basically America is an Anglo nation. I feel there’s probability that, sure, we’ll come to an important settlement that’s in the perfect curiosity of each international locations.
In contrast to China, Britain was spared essentially the most punitive remedy in Trump’s initial tariff announcement on 2 April, however British imports within the US nonetheless incur a ten% cost whereas its metal and automobile sectors incur a charge 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 goal 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 possibly can learn extra about Vance’s feedback at the moment in this article by my colleague Rachel Corridor.
South Korea plans further $4.9bn assist for microchips after US begins ‘nationwide safety’ probe into semiconductor trade
South Korea has introduced plans to speculate an extra $4.9bn within the nation’s semiconductor trade, citing “rising uncertainty” over US tariffs.
“An aggressive fiscal funding plan has been devised to assist native corporations navigate mounting challenges within the international semiconductor race,” the finance ministry stated.
“To foster a dynamic, non-public sector-led ecosystem for semiconductor innovation and development, the federal government will improve its funding within the sector from 26 trillion gained ($18.2bn) to 33 trillion gained,” the ministry added.
Semiconductors are tiny chips that energy nearly the whole lot, together with computer systems, cellphones and automobiles. They’re central to the worldwide economic system. The UK, the US, Europe and China rely heavily on Taiwan for semiconductors.
However South Korea – Asia’s fourth largest economic system – can also 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 prescription drugs and semiconductors on nationwide safety grounds.
These industries – to this point exempt from the ten% US import prices that started on 5 April – might 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 era public feedback on the problem can be heard earlier than a choice is made.
Trump stated on Sunday he can be asserting a tariff charge on imported semiconductors over the subsequent week, including that there can be flexibility with some corporations within the sector.
On 2 April, Trump introduced sweeping tariffs on international buying and selling companions, together with the 25 p.c on South Korean items, earlier than backtracking and suspending their implementation for 90 days.
Even so, “duties focusing on particular sectors reminiscent of semiconductors and prescription drugs, stay on the horizon”, finance minister Choi Sang-mok stated throughout a gathering.
“This grace interval provides an important window to strengthen the competitiveness of South Korean corporations amid intensifying international commerce tensions,” he added.
Obama urges different universities to defy federal makes an attempt to ‘stifle educational freedom’ after Harvard funding freeze
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 University after the elite faculty rejected a listing 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 increased training establishments to reject federal overreach into its governance practices.
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 go well with.
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 research physique, college and management on their views about variety.
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 variety, fairness and inclusion packages, which it says educate college students and employees “to make snap judgments about one another primarily based on crude race and identification stereotypes”; and pressured the college to cease recognizing or funding “any pupil group or membership that endorses or promotes prison exercise, unlawful violence, or unlawful 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 variety programming and to restrict pupil protests in alternate for its federal funding.
“No authorities – no matter which occasion is in energy – ought to dictate what non-public universities can educate, whom they’ll admit and rent, and which areas of research and inquiry they’ll pursue,” Alan Garber, the college president, wrote, including that Harvard had taken in depth reforms to deal with 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 in opposition to Israel’s struggle on Gaza had been placed on throughout campuses final yr, 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 yr’s protests in opposition to Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The Trump administration reduce $400m in grants to the non-public New York college, accusing it of failing to guard Jewish college students from harassment. The school caved in to demands and responded by agreeing to reform pupil disciplinary procedures and hiring 36 officers to broaden its safety crew.
Stick with us all through the day as we’ve got extra response to this story and lots of others.
