WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump says German Chancellor Angela Merkel does not speak for the US on North Korea.
Merkel has said of Trump’s provocative warnings to the communist nation that “escalating the rhetoric is the wrong answer.”
Trump on Friday replied: “Let her speak for Germany,” adding, “She’s certainly not referring to the United States.”
The US president’s warnings that Pyongyang will “regret” any threats or action against the US are a break with the diplomatic language of his predecessors. But Trump said Friday that millions of Americans support their president “sticking up” for the US and its allies.
President Donald Trump says his critics are only complaining about his tough rhetoric on North Korea “because it’s me.”
He says days of grave threats to the communist country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, would be welcomed as “a great statement” if “somebody else” uttered them.
Trump adds that millions of Americans support his words because “finally we have a president that’s sticking up for our nation and frankly sticking up for our friends and our allies.”
President Donald Trump says North Korea’s leader will “regret it fast” if he threatens or acts against Guam, or any other US territory or ally.
Trump says tens of millions of Americans support his tough position on North Korea’s nuclear threat.
Following days of grave threats to North Korea, Trump directed his latest warning Friday directly to the communist country’s leader, Kim Jong Un.
An escalating exchange of provocative rhetoric between the United States and North Korea is alarming international leaders. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, estimated the risk of a military conflict between the US and North Korea as “very high,” and said Moscow is deeply concerned.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel declined to say whether Germany would stand with the US in case of a military conflict with North Korea. She called on the UN Security Council to continue to address the issue.
Japan has started deploying land-based Patriot interceptors after North Korea threatened to send ballistic missiles flying over western Japan and landing near Guam.
Meanwhile, American and South Korean officials said they would move forward with large-scale military exercises later this month that North Korea claims are a rehearsal for war.
A Democratic congressman is urging House Speaker Paul Ryan to reconvene the House from its summer recess to consider legislation prohibiting a pre-emptive nuclear strike against North Korea.
Rep. David Cicilline (sihs-ihl-EE’-nee) of Rhode Island, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, says that in light of President Donald Trump’s “reckless words” threatening North Korea, the House should immediately take up legislation barring a pre-emptive nuclear strike without prior congressional authorization.
Cicilline said Trump “has made a dangerous situation even worse by recklessly asserting that the United States is ‘locked and loaded’ to bring ‘fire and fury’ to North Korea.”
Cicilline said Trump’s bellicose language against North Korea has raised alarms around the world, adding that “if the president will not defuse this situation, then Congress must.”
Japan has started deploying land-based Patriot interceptors after North Korea threatened to send ballistic missiles flying over western Japan and landing near Guam.
The Defense Ministry said Friday the PAC-3 surface-to-air interceptors are being deployed at four locations: Hiroshima, Kochi, Shimane and Ehime.
The deployment is largely aimed at responding to the risk of falling fragments while missiles fly over the region.
The four PAC-3 systems are brought from eastern Japan, as its missile defense is largely centered around Tokyo. They are expected to arrive in the designated sites early Saturday.
The ministry did not confirm whether Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera has already issued an order to shoot down incoming missiles.
Russia’s foreign minister says the risk of a military conflict between the US and North Korea is “very high.”
Sergey Lavrov said Friday that Russia is strongly worried about escalating rhetoric coming from Pyongyang and Washington. He added that “when it comes close to fight, the one who is stronger and wiser should be the first to step back from the brink.”
Asked how Moscow would act in case of a military conflict between the US and the North, Lavrov answered it would do everything it could to prevent the worst-case scenario.
Lavrov said Russia doesn’t accept the North’s nuclear weapons bid and pointed at a proposal by China and Russia under which Pyongyang would freeze its nuclear and missile tests while the US and South Korea would halt their military drills.
Despite tensions and talk of war, life on the streets of the North Korean capital Pyongyang remains calm.
There are no air raid drills or cars in camouflage netting as was the case during previous crises. State-run media ensures that the population gets the North Korean side of the story, but doesn’t convey any sense of international concern about the situation.
North Koreans have lived for decades with the state media message that war is imminent, the US is to blame and their country is ready to defend itself.
At a park in central Pyongyang Friday evening, young people practiced volleyball and grandparents and parents watched children on climbing frames and swings.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she doesn’t see a military solution to rising tensions between the United States and North Korea and called for a de-escalation of the rhetoric.
Asked Friday about US President Donald Trump’s latest statements, Merkel declined to say whether Germany would stand with the US in case of a military conflict with North Korea. She said, “I don’t see a military solution and I don’t think it’s called for.”
Merkel called on the UN Security Council to continue to address the issue. She says Germany would work to find diplomatic solutions with the countries involved, the US and China in particular, but also South Korea.
She added: “I think escalating the rhetoric is the wrong answer.”
Earlier this week, Trump said the US would slam the North with “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it provoked America again.
President Donald Trump is warning of military action “should North Korea act unwisely.”
Trump tweeted: “Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!“
North Korea has announced a detailed plan to launch a salvo of ballistic missiles toward the US Pacific territory of Guam, a major military hub and home to US bombers. If carried out, it would be its most provocative missile launch to date.
Trump said this week the US would unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea if it continued to threaten the US
Trump says Merkel doesn’t speak for US on NKorea
Trump says Merkel doesn’t speak for US on NKorea
Macron says France and Britain will ‘save Europe’ as he starts a state visit to the UK
- Macron’s three-day trip, at the invitation of King Charles III, is the first state visit to the UK by a European Union head of state since Brexit
LONDON: French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday urged Britain to stick close to its neighbors despite its exit from the European Union, saying France and the UK will “save Europe” by standing for democracy, law and international order in a dangerous world.
On a state visit that mixed royal pageantry with tough political talks on Ukraine and migration, Macron said Europe must strengthen its economy and defenses and reduce its dependence “on both the US and China.”
Macron’s three-day trip, at the invitation of King Charles III, is the first state visit to the UK by a European Union head of state since Brexit, and a symbol of the UK government’s desire to reset relations with the bloc after Britain acrimoniously left the EU in 2020.
Macron addressed members of both houses of Britain’s Parliament packed into the building’s ornate Royal Gallery. He said the two countries represent “a world order based on law, justice and respect for territorial integrity, an order that is today being attacked on a daily basis.”
“The United Kingdom and France must once again show the world that our alliance can make all the difference,” Macron said, adding that “we will save Europe by our example and our solidarity.”
He said that even though Britain has left the EU, “the United Kingdom cannot stay on the sidelines. Because defense and security, competitiveness, democracy — the very core of our identity — are connected across Europe as a continent.”
Pomp and politics
The French president and his wife, Brigitte Macron, were treated to the full force of British ceremonial charm, a far cry from the chilly relations of 2022, when then-Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said that the “jury is out” on whether Macron was a friend or a foe.
The Macrons were greeted at London’s RAF Northolt air base by Prince William and his wife Catherine — wearing a dress by French design house Christian Dior — before being met by King Charles and Queen Camilla in Windsor, west of London. They were driven to the almost 1,000-year-old royal residence of Windsor Castle in horse-drawn carriages, through streets bedecked in Union Jacks and French tricolor flags.
The king and queen hosted a banquet for the Macrons at Windsor Castle on Tuesday evening, with 160 guests including politicians, diplomats and celebrities such as Mick Jagger and Elton John. They were served summer vegetables, chicken with asparagus and iced blackcurrant parfait, along with Champagne and a gin-infused cocktail called L’entente, after the “entente cordiale” struck between Britain and France in 1904.
As monarch, Charles is expected to be above politics, but he spoke about the support Britain and France give Ukraine “in defense of our shared values,” noted the challenge of “irregular migration across the English Channel” and said the two countries face “complex threats, emanating from multiple directions.
“As friends and as allies, we face them together,” Charles said.
New tactics to stop boats
Politics will take center stage on Wednesday, when Macron sits down for talks with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on migration, defense and investment — including a 12.5 percent stake by French energy firm EDF in a new nuclear power plant planned for eastern England.
Macron also came bearing a tantalizing cultural gift: an agreement to send the Bayeux Tapestry to Britain for the first time in more than 900 years. The 70-meter (230-foot) tapestry showing the Norman conquest of England in 1066 will go on display at the British Museum from September 2026 to July 2027.
At talks Wednesday and a UK-France summit on Thursday, Macron and Starmer will discuss ways to stop migrants from crossing the English Channel in small boats and try to advance plans for a post-ceasefire security force for Ukraine, despite apparent US indifference to the idea and Russia’s refusal to halt the onslaught on its neighbor.
Britain receives fewer asylum-seekers than Mediterranean European countries, but thousands of migrants each year use northern France as a launching point to reach the UK, either by stowing away in trucks or — after a clampdown on that route — in small boats across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
The UK has struck a series of deals with France over the years to increase patrols of beaches and share intelligence in an attempt to disrupt the smuggling gangs.
It has all had only a limited impact. About 37,000 people were detected crossing the English Channel in small boats in 2024, and more than 20,000 people made the crossing in the first six months of 2025, up by about 50 percent from the same period last year. Dozens of people have died trying to cross.
British officials have been pushing for French police to intervene more forcefully to stop the boats, and welcomed the sight of officers slashing rubber dinghies with knives in recent days.
France is also considering a UK proposal for a “one-in, one-out” deal that would see France take back some migrants who reached Britain, in return for the UK accepting some of those in France.
Macron said the leaders would try “to fix today what is a burden for our two countries.”
“France and the UK have a shared responsibility to address irregular migration with humanity, solidarity and fairness,” he said.
Keeping Ukraine in focus
Starmer and Macron have worked closely together to rally support for Ukraine, though they have taken contrasting approaches to US President Donald Trump, with Macron more willing to challenge the American president than the emollient Starmer.
Britain and France have led efforts to form an international peacekeeping force for Ukraine to reinforce a future ceasefire with European troops and equipment and US security guarantees.
Trump has shown little enthusiasm for the idea, however, and a ceasefire remains elusive. British officials say the “coalition of the willing” idea is alive and well, with Macron and Starmer due to join an international videoconference on Thursday to discuss planning for the force.
Macron said the coalition was a sign that “Europeans will never abandon Ukraine – never.”
Trump considers taking over D.C. government, chides New York
- Trump said his administration had a good relationship with Bowser, he had less complimentary words for Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who won the race to be the Democratic Party’s nominee in New York’s November mayoral election
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday his administration was considering taking over governance of Washington, D.C., and suggested he could take similar action in New York because of his distaste for the leading candidate for mayor there.
Trump has made a similar threat regarding Washington before, but has not followed through even as he criticized crime rates and bashed other institutions there.
The president, speaking during a cabinet meeting at the White House, said his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was in close touch with Mayor Muriel Bowser, who favors making the city a US state.
“We have tremendous power at the White House to run places when we have to. We could run D.C. I mean, we’re ... looking at D.C.,” Trump said. “Susie Wiles is working very closely with the mayor.”
Bowser’s office declined to comment.
The District of Columbia was established in 1790 with land from neighboring Virginia and Maryland. Congress has control of its budget, but voters elect a mayor and city council, thanks to a law known as the Home Rule Act. For Trump to take over the city, Congress likely would have to pass a law revoking that act, which Trump would have to sign.
Becoming the 51st state would give Washington’s roughly 700,000 residents voting representation in Congress. Democrats support that plan, while Republicans, who are reluctant to hand Democrats any politically safe seats in the House of Representatives and Senate, oppose it.
Trump suggested his administration would run the city better with an appointed leader than the democratically elected government.
“We would run it so good, it would be run so proper. We’d get the best person to run it,” he said. “The crime would be down to a minimum, would be much less. And you know we’re thinking about doing it, to be honest with you.”
While Trump said his administration had a good relationship with Bowser, he had less complimentary words for Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who won the race to be the Democratic Party’s nominee in New York’s November mayoral election.
Trump described Mamdani as a “disaster.” A representative for Mamdani did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
“We’re going to straighten out New York... Maybe we’re going to have to straighten it out from Washington,” Trump said. “We’re going to do something for New York. I can’t tell you what yet, but we’re going to make New York great again also.”
Travelers no longer have to remove their shoes during security screenings at US airports
- All passengers between the ages of 12 and 75 were required to remove their shoes, which were scanned along with carry-on luggage
WASHINGTON: Travelers racing to catch a flight at US airports no longer are required to remove their shoes during security screenings, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Tuesday.
Noem said the end of the ritual put in place almost 20 years ago was effective nationwide effective immediately. She said a pilot program showed the Transportation Security Administration had the equipment needed to keep airports and aircraft safe while allowing people to keep their shoes on.
“TSA will no longer require travelers to remove their shoes when they go through security checkpoints,” Noem said.
While shoe removal no longer is standard procedure, some travelers still may be asked to take off their footwear “if we think additional layers of screening are necessary,” she added.
Security screening sans shoes became a requirement in 2006, several years after “shoe bomber” Richard Reid’s failed attempt to take down a flight from Paris to Miami in late 2001.
All passengers between the ages of 12 and 75 were required to remove their shoes, which were scanned along with carry-on luggage.
The travel newsletter Gate Access was first to report that the security screening change would happen soon.
Travelers previously were able to skirt the requirement if they participated in the TSA PreCheck program, which costs around $80 for five years. The program allows airline passengers to get through the screening process without removing shoes, belts or light jackets, and without having to take their laptops and bagged toiletries out.
The TSA began in 2001 when President George W. Bush signed legislation for its creation two months after the 9/11 attacks. The agency included federal airport screeners that replaced the private companies airlines had used to handle security.
Over the years the TSA has continued to look for ways to enhance its security measures, including testing facial recognition technology and implementing Real ID requirements.
One of the most prominent friction points for travelers is the TSA at screening checkpoints. President Donald Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy asked the public in an April social media post what would make travel more seamless.
The following day, Duffy posted on X that, “It’s clear that TSA is the #1 travel complaint. That falls under the Department of Homeland Security. I’ll discuss this with @Sec_Noem.”
Trump fired TSA Administrator David Pekoske in January in the middle of a second five-year term, though he was appointed by Trump during his first term in the White House. Pekoske was reappointed by President Joe Biden.
No reason was given for Pekoske’s departure. The administrator position remains vacant, according to the TSA website.
Trump’s previous tariff push terrified the world economy. He’s betting this time is different
- With Trump’s 90-day tariff negotiation period ending, he has so far sent letters to 14 countries that place taxes on imported goods ranging from 25 percent to 40 percent
WASHINGTON: When President Donald Trump last rolled out tariffs this high, financial markets quaked, consumer confidence crashed and his popularity plunged.
Only three months later, he’s betting this time is different.
In his new round of tariffs being announced this week, Trump is essentially tethering the entire world economy to his instinctual belief that import taxes will deliver factory jobs and stronger growth in the US, rather than the inflation and slowdown predicted by many economists.
On Tuesday, he told his Cabinet that past presidents who hadn’t aggressively deployed tariffs were “stupid.” Ever the salesman, Trump added that it was “too time-consuming” to try to negotiate trade deals with the rest of the world, so it was just easier to send them letters, as he’s doing this week, that list the tariff rates on their goods.
The letters marked a change from his self-proclaimed April 2 “Liberation Day” event at the White House, where he had posterboards with the rates displayed, a choice that led to a brief market meltdown and the 90-day negotiating period with baseline 10 percent tariffs that will end Wednesday. Trump, instead, chose to send form letters with random capitalizations and punctuation and other formatting issues.
“It’s a better way,” Trump said of his letters. “It’s a more powerful way. And we send them a letter. You read the letter. I think it was well crafted. And, mostly it’s just a little number in there: You’ll pay 25 percent, 35 percent. We have some of at 60, 70.”
When Trump said those words, he had yet to issue a letter with a tariff rate higher than 40 percent, which he levied Monday on Laos and Myanmar. He plans to put 25 percent tariffs on Japan and South Korea, two major trading partners and allies deemed crucial for curbing China’s economic influence. Leaders of the 14 countries tariffed so far hope to negotiate over the next three weeks before the higher rates are charged on imports.
“I would say that every case I’m treating them better than they treated us over the years,” Trump said.
Three possible outcomes
His approach is at odds with how major trade agreements have been produced over the last half-century, detailed sessions that could sometimes take years to solve complex differences between nations.
There are three possible outcomes to this political and economic wager, each of which could drastically reshape international affairs and Trump’s legacy.
Trump could prove most economic experts wrong and the tariffs could deliver growth as promised. Or he could retreat again on tariffs before their Aug. 1 start in a repeat of the “Trump Always Chickens Out” phenomenon, also known as TACO. Or he could damage the economy in ways that could boomerang against the communities that helped return him to the White House last year, as well as hurt countries that are put at a financial disadvantage by the tariffs.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, said Trump’s letters had “extended his tariff purgatory for another month,” essentially freezing in place the US economy as CEOs, foreign leaders and consumers are unclear of Trump’s actual strategy on foreign trade.
“The TACO negotiating tactic pioneered by Trump is making his threats less and less credible and reducing our trading partners’ willingness to even meet us halfway,” Wyden said. “There’s no sign that he’s any closer to striking durable trade deals that would actually help American workers and businesses.”
So far, the stock and bond markets are relatively calm, with the S&P 500 stock index essentially flat Tuesday after a Monday decline. Trump is coming off a legislative win with his multitrillion-dollar income tax cuts. And he’s confidently levying tariffs at levels that previously rocked global markets, buoyed by the fact that inflation has eased so far instead of accelerating as many economists and Democratic rivals had warned.
“By floating tariffs as high as 40 percent to even 100 percent, the administration has ‘normalized’ the 25 percent tariff hikes — yet this is still one of the most aggressive and disruptive tariff moves in modern history,” said Wendong Zhang, an economist at Cornell University. “This gradual unveiling, paradoxically, risks normalizing what would otherwise be considered exceptionally large tariff hikes.”
Others simply see Trump as a source of nonstop chaos, with the letters and their somewhat random tariff rates showing the absence of a genuine policy process inside his administration.
“It’s really just a validation that this policy is all over the place, that they’re running this by the seat of their pants, that there is no real strategy,” said Desmond Lachman, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank.
Questions about how much money tariffs will generate
With Trump’s 90-day tariff negotiation period ending, he has so far sent letters to 14 countries that place taxes on imported goods ranging from 25 percent to 40 percent. He said he would sign an order Tuesday to place 50 percent tariffs on copper and said at the Cabinet meeting that at some point pharmaceutical drugs could face tariffs of as much as 200 percent. All of that is on top of his existing 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum, 25 percent tariffs on autos and his separate import taxes on Canada, Mexico and China.
“The obvious inference is that markets for now are somewhat skeptical that Trump will go through with it, or alternatively they think compromises will be reached,” said Ben May, a director of global economic research at the consultancy Oxford Economics. “That’s probably the key element.”
May said the tariffs are likely to reduce the growth in US household incomes, but not cause those incomes to shrink outright.
Trump has said his tariffs would close US trade imbalances, though it’s unclear why he would target nations such as Tunisia that do relatively little trade with America. Administration officials say trillions of dollars in tariff revenues over the next decade would help offset the revenue losses from the continuation and expansion of his 2017 tax cuts that were signed into law Friday.
The federal government has collected $98.2 billion in tariff revenues so far this year, more than double what it collected last year, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
At Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the tariff revenues could be “well over $300 billion by the end of the year.” Bessent added that “we don’t agree” with the Congressional Budget Office estimate that tariffs would bring in $2.8 trillion over 10 years, “which we think is probably low.”
The governments of Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and South Africa have each said they hope for further negotiations on tariffs with Trump, though it’s unclear how that’s possible as Trump has said it would be too “complicated” to hold all those meetings.
Instead on Tuesday, Trump posted on social media that the tariffs would be charged as scheduled starting Aug. 1.
“There has been no change to this date, and there will be no change,” Trump said on Truth Social. “No extensions will be granted. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Supreme Court clears the way for Trump’s plans to downsize the federal workforce
- The high court action continued a remarkable winning streak for Trump, who the justices have allowed to move forward with significant parts of his plan to remake the federal government
WASHINGTON: The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s plans to downsize the federal workforce despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs.
The justices overrode lower court orders that temporarily froze the cuts, which have been led by the Department of Government Efficiency.
The court said in an unsigned order that no specific cuts were in front of the justices, only an executive order issued by Trump and an administration directive for agencies to undertake job reductions.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only dissenting vote, accusing her colleagues of a “demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.”
Jackson warned of enormous real-world consequences. “This executive action promises mass employee terminations, widespread cancelation of federal programs and services, and the dismantling of much of the Federal Government as Congress has created it,” she wrote.
The high court action continued a remarkable winning streak for Trump, who the justices have allowed to move forward with significant parts of his plan to remake the federal government. The Supreme Court’s intervention so far has been on the frequent emergency appeals the Justice Department has filed objecting to lower-court rulings as improperly intruding on presidential authority.
The Republican president has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate for the work, and he tapped billionaire ally Elon Musk to lead the charge through DOGE. Musk recently left his role.
Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programs or have been placed on leave. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go.
In May, US District Judge Susan Illston found that Trump’s administration needs congressional approval to make sizable reductions to the federal workforce. By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block Illston’s order, finding that the downsizing could have broader effects, including on the nation’s food-safety system and health care for veterans.
Illston directed numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president’s workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management. Illston was nominated by former Democratic President Bill Clinton.
The labor unions and nonprofit groups that sued over the downsizing offered the justices several examples of what would happen if it were allowed to take effect, including cuts of 40 percent to 50 percent at several agencies. Baltimore, Chicago and San Francisco were among cities that also sued.
Among the agencies affected by the order are the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Labor, the Interior, State, the Treasury and Veterans Affairs. It also applies to the National Science Foundation, Small Business Association, Social Security Administration and Environmental Protection Agency.
The case now continues in Illston’s court.
