Analysis: Trump combats ‘Taco' reputation as White House extends tariff deadline
But that deadline came and went today with the White House 88 trade deals short.
Trump has now given his
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Otago Daily Times
3 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Trump visits Texas flood zone, defends disaster response
US President Donald Trump defended the state and federal response to deadly flash flooding in Texas on Friday as he visited the stricken Hill Country region, where at least 120 people, including dozens of children, perished a week ago. During a roundtable discussion after touring Kerr County, the epicentre of the disaster, Trump praised both Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for their response, saying they both did an "incredible job." The Trump administration, as well as local and state officials, has faced mounting questions over whether more could have been done to protect and warn residents ahead of the flooding, which struck with astonishing speed in the pre-dawn hours on July 4, the US Independence Day holiday. Trump reacted with anger when a reporter said some families affected by the floods had expressed frustration that warnings did not go out sooner. "I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances," he said. "I don't know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that." Some critics have questioned whether the administration's spending cuts at the National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which coordinates the U.S. government's disaster response efforts, might have exacerbated the calamity. Trump officials have said that cuts had no impact on the NWS's ability to forecast the storms, despite some vacancies in local offices. But the president has largely sidestepped questions about his plans to shrink or abolish FEMA and reassign many of its key functions to state and local governments. "I'll tell you some other time," Trump said on Tuesday, when asked by a reporter about FEMA. Before the most recent flooding, Kerr County declined to install an early-warning system after failing to secure state money to cover the cost. Lawrence Walker, 67, and a nearly three-decade veteran resident of Kerrville, said the county and state had not spent enough on disaster prevention, including an early-warning system. Asked about the quality of the government response, he said, "It's been fine since the water was at 8 feet." The Texas state legislature will convene in a special session later this month to investigate the flooding and provide disaster relief funding. Abbott has dismissed questions about whether anyone was to blame, calling that the "word choice of losers". DOZENS STILL UNACCOUNTED FOR Search teams on Friday were still combing through muddy debris littering parts of the Hill Country in central Texas, looking for the dozens still listed as missing, but no survivors have been found since the day of the floods. Heavy rains sent a wall of water raging down the Guadalupe River early on July 4, causing the deadliest disaster of the Republican president's nearly six-month term in office. As sun poked through dark clouds on Friday morning, search crews in hard hats painstakingly walked inch-by-inch along the ruined banks of the river, marking damage and looking through wreckage. After the president arrived in Kerr County in the early afternoon, Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott drove to an area near the river, where Trump received a briefing from first responders amid debris left in the wake of the flood. The county is located in what is known as "flash flood alley," a region that has seen some of the country's deadliest floods. More than 30cm of rain fell in less than an hour on July 4. Flood gauges showed the river's height rose from about a foot to 34 feet (10.4 meters) in a matter of hours, cascading over its banks and sweeping away trees and structures in its path. Kerr County officials say more than 160 people remain unaccounted for, although experts say that the number of people reported missing in the wake of disasters is often inflated. The dead in the county include 67 adults and at least 36 children, many of whom were campers at the nearly century-old Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the river. Jon Moreno, 71, a longtime Kerrville resident whose property on high ground was spared, praised the government response - local and federal. He has heard the debate about what more could have been done - including sirens - but said he did not think it would have made much difference, given people's desire to build along the flood-prone riverbanks. "It's unavoidable," he said. "All those people along the river - I wouldn't want to live there ... It's too dangerous." At Stripes, a gas station in Kerrville, the building was tagged in large white letters, accusing "Trump's Big Beautiful Bill" of cutting "our emergency funding". The president's massive legislative package, which cut taxes and spending, won approval from the Republican-controlled Congress last week and was signed into law by Trump on the same day that the flooding hit Texas.
RNZ News
4 hours ago
- RNZ News
State Department begins firing of 1350 workers in Trump's shake-up of diplomatic corps
Supporters of fired US State Department workers hold signs outside the building in Washington as the workers leave for the last time. Photo: Saul Loeb / AFP By Humeyra Pamuk, Reuters The State Department has begun firing more than 1350 US-based employees as the administration of President Donald Trump presses ahead with an unprecedented overhaul of its diplomatic corps, a move critics say will undermine US ability to defend and promote US interests abroad. Friday's layoffs, which affect 1107 civil service and 246 foreign service officers based in the United States, come at a time when Washington is grappling with multiple crises on the world stage: Russia's war in Ukraine, the almost two-year-long Gaza conflict, and the Middle East on edge due to high tension between Israel and Iran. "The Department is streamlining domestic operations to focus on diplomatic priorities," an internal State Department notice that was sent to the workforce said. "Headcount reductions have been carefully tailored to affect non-core functions, duplicative or redundant offices, and offices where considerable efficiencies may be found," it added. The total reduction in the workforce would be almost 3000 including the voluntary departures, according to the notice and a senior State Department official, out of the 18,000 employees based in the United States. The move was the first step of a restructuring that Trump had sought to ensure US foreign policy was aligned with his "America First" agenda. Former diplomats and critics said the firing of foreign service officers risked America's ability to counter the growing assertiveness from adversaries such as China and Russia. "President Trump and Secretary of State [Marco] Rubio are once again making America less safe and less secure," Democratic senator Tim Kaine from Virginia said in a statement. "This is one of the most ridiculous decisions that could possibly be made at a time when China is increasing its diplomatic footprint around the world and establishing an overseas network of military and transportation bases, Russia is continuing its years-long brutal assault of a sovereign country, and the Middle East is careening from crisis to crisis," Kaine said. Dozens of State Department employees crowded the lobby of the agency's headquarters in Washington holding an impromptu "clap-out" for their colleagues who were fired. Dozens of people were crying, as they carried their belongings in boxes and hugged and bid farewell to friends and fellow workers. Outside, dozens of others were lined up continuing to clap and cheer for them with some holding banners that read, "Thank you America's diplomats". Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen attended the demonstration. Several offices were set up inside the building for employees who were being laid off to turn in their badges, laptops, telephones and other property owned by the agency. The offices were marked by posters that read "Transition Day Out Processing". One counter was labelled an "Outprocessing service center" with small bottles of water placed next to a box of tissue. Inside one office, cardboard boxes were visible. A five-page "separation checklist" that was sent to workers who were fired on Friday and seen by Reuters tells the employees that they would lose access to the building and their emails at 5pm local time (9am Saturday New Zealand time). Many members of a State Department office overseeing the US resettlement of Afghans who worked for the US government during the 20-year war have also been terminated as part of the overhaul. Trump in February ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to revamp the foreign service to ensure that the Republican president's foreign policy is "faithfully" implemented. He had also repeatedly pledged to "clean out the deep state" by firing bureaucrats that he deems disloyal. The shake-up was part of an unprecedented push by Trump to shrink the federal bureaucracy and cut what he said was wasteful spending of taxpayer money. His administration dismantled the US Agency for International Aid, Washington's premier aid arm that distributed billions of dollars of assistance worldwide, and folded it under the State Department. Rubio announced the plans for the State Department shake-up in April, saying the Department in its current form was "bloated, bureaucratic" and was not able to perform its mission "in this new era of great power competition". He envisioned a structure that he said would give back the power to regional bureaux and embassies and get rid of programmes and offices that did not align with America's core interests. That vision would see the elimination of the role of top official for civilian security, democracy, and human rights and the closure of some offices that monitored war crimes and conflicts around the world. The reorganisation had been expected to be largely concluded by 1 July but did not proceed as planned amid ongoing litigation, as the State Department waited for the US Supreme Court to weigh in on the Trump administration's bid to halt a judicial order blocking mass job cuts. On Tuesday, the court cleared the way for the Trump administration to pursue the job cuts and the sweeping downsizing of numerous agencies. Since then, The White House Counsel's Office and the Office of Personnel Management had been co-ordinating with federal agencies to ensure their plans comply with the law. - Reuters
RNZ News
5 hours ago
- RNZ News
Stock markets retreat as Trump ramps up trade-offensive
US President Donald Trump holds a chart titled 'Reciprocal Tariffs' during an event at the White House in April. Photo: AFP / Brendan Smialowski European and US stock markets retreated Friday as US President Donald Trump ramped up his trade offensive, threatening a 35-percent levy on Canada . Trump dampened earlier optimism by firing off more than 20 letters to governments outlining new tariffs if agreements are not reached by 1 August. Bitcoin meanwhile pushed on with its climb, reaching an all-time high above US$118,000. The dollar was higher against its main rivals, and oil prices gained. Wall Street's three main indices fell, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq retreating from records. But the pullback was relatively modest, implying that many investors are taking a wait-and-see approach to Trump's latest tariff broadsides. "We have yet to see new substantial tariffs actually be enforced," said Adam Sarhan of 50 Park Investments, describing investors as skeptical the biggest levies will actually be enacted. A note from Oxford Economics characterised Trump's moves as "more tariff theatrics", while allowing that the levy on Canada produced "jitters". In Europe, where investors were awaiting news of Trump's new tariff level targeting the European Union, the Paris stock market dropped 0.9 percent and Frankfurt 0.8 percent. "The fallout hasn't been more pronounced because the market still continues to view all of this as a point of negotiating leverage," said analyst Patrick O'Hare of Trump dialled up his trade war rhetoric Thursday, warning that Canada faced a 35-percent tax, while other countries would be handed blanket tariffs of up to 20 percent, from the current 10 percent. That came after he outlined plans to impose 50-percent tariffs on copper imports, while threatening 200-percent levies on pharmaceuticals, and hit Brazil with a new 50-percent charge. The moves are the latest by the White House in a campaign it said was aimed at ending decades of the United States being "ripped off". Trump's initial bombshell tariffs announcement in April sent markets into turmoil until he paused them for three months, and the latest measures have had less impact. London's FTSE 100 and the pound retreated after data showed the UK economy unexpectedly shrank in May - its second consecutive monthly decline. That followed a mixed session in Asia, where Hong Kong rose, Tokyo fell and Shanghai flattened by the close. Shares in BP jumped 3.4 percent in London after the energy giant said it expected to report higher oil and gas production for its second quarter. Levi Strauss & Co. shot up 11.3 percent after reporting higher profits on a 6.4 percent rise in revenues. The denim company scored especially solid growth in the Americas and Europe. - AFP
