US President Donald Trump riding high after historic immigration Supreme Court victory, finalises rare earth minerals deal with China

Sky News AU

4 hours ago

US President Donald Trump has secured a litany of significant wins, including the Supreme Court limiting the power of judges to block presidential policies and expediating a rare earth export agreement with China as part of a finalised trade deal.
The Trump administration has been touting a string of recent accomplishments, including brokering a ceasefire deal between Israel and Iran after it struck three Iranian nuclear facilities in a targeted military operation known as Midnight Hammer.
The US President also managed to increase the defence contributions of NATO states, with members agreeing to bolster annual defence spending to five per cent of GDP by 2035.
The President's widely anticipated 'big, beautiful bill' is also progressing with haste, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune telling Senate Republicans he expected to see the legislative text of the budget reconciliation package on Friday evening.
The US Supreme Court handed President Trump a historic win on Friday by curbing the ability of judges to impede his policies nationwide, changing the balance between the federal judiciary and the executive branch.
The 6-3 ruling, authored by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, did not let Trump's directive restricting birthright citizenship go into effect immediately and directed lower courts that blocked it to reconsider the scope of their orders.
The ruling also did not address the legality of the policy, part of Trump's hardline approach toward immigration.
The Republican President lauded the ruling and said his administration could now try to move forward with numerous policies such as his birthright executive order that he said, 'have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis.'
Trump called the ruling a "monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law."
"We have so many of them. I have a whole list," Trump told reporters at the White House.
The court granted the administration's request to narrow the scope of three so-called "universal" injunctions issued by federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state that halted enforcement of his directive nationwide while litigation challenging the policy played out.
The court's conservative justices were in the majority and its liberal members dissented.
The ruling specified that Trump's executive order cannot take effect until 30 days after Friday's ruling.
The ruling raises the prospect of Trump's order eventually applying in some parts of the country.
More than 150,000 newborns would be denied citizenship annually under Trump's directive, according to the plaintiffs who challenged it, including the Democratic attorneys general of 22 states as well as immigrant rights advocates and pregnant immigrants.
The ruling was issued on the final day of decisions on cases argued before the Supreme Court during its nine-month term that began in October.
The court also issued rulings on Friday backing a Texas law regarding online pornography, letting parents opt children out of classes when storybooks when LGBT are read and preserving Obamacare's provision on health insurers covering preventive care among others.
The US President also abruptly cut off trade talks with Canada on Friday over its tax targeting U.S. technology firms, saying that it was a "blatant attack" and that he would set a new tariff rate on Canadian goods within the next week.
The move plunges US-Canada relations back into chaos after a period of relative calm that included a cordial G7 meeting in mid-June where Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed to wrap up a new economic agreement within 30 days.
It also came just hours after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent struck an upbeat tone on trade, touting progress had been made with China on reviving the flow of critical minerals for the U.S. manufacturing sector and in other key tariff negotiations.
During US-China trade talks in May in Geneva, Beijing committed to removing the measures imposed since April 2, but those critical materials were not moving as fast as agreed, Bessent said in an interview with Fox Business Network, so the US put countermeasures in place.
"I am confident now that we, as agreed, the magnets will flow," Bessent said. - With Reuters