Latest news with #Congressional
International Business Times
5 hours ago
- Business
- International Business Times
Trump Terminates Talks with Canada Over Tax on US Tech Companies and Threatens It to Get Ready for the Consequences Within Seven Days
Trump announced that he is halting trade negotiations with Canada due to its decision to move forward with a tax targeting tech companies and added that Canada would face the consequences of this action within "seven days." In a Truth Social post, Trump slammed the move, referring to the tech tax as " a direct and blatant attack on our country." "Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period," Trump said in his post. Drawing Trump's Ire The Canadian government plans to implement the tax starting Monday. The digital services tax will impose a 3 percent charge on revenue earned from Canadian users by major companies such as Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber, and Airbnb. The tax will be applied retroactively, resulting in U.S. firms owing $2 billion by the end of the month. Speaking to reporters, the President said that "Canada has been a very difficult country to deal with over the years." However, he voiced certainty that Ottawa would eventually back off, saying, "We have all the cards. We have all - every single one." "We do a lot of business with Canada, but relatively little they do most of their businesses with us," he added. "Economically we have such power over Canada, I'd rather not use it." Throughout trade talks with various nations, Trump has criticized digital services taxes, labeling them as "non-tariff trade barriers." No Sympathy for Canada's Actions Canada and the United States have been in discussions on easing a range of high tariffs that Trump had previously placed on Canadian goods. The president accused Ottawa for "copying the European Union" with what he described as an "egregious" tax. Several countries are currently negotiating with the U.S. ahead of a July 9 deadline, after which Trump's hiked tariffs are set to be reinstated. However, Canada and Mexico are not part of those ongoing discussions. Earlier this year, Trump introduced tariffs on neighboring countries, including Canada and Mexico, in response to issues related to fentanyl trafficking and immigration. Negotiations with these nations are taking place separately from other trade talks. The president visited Canada earlier this month for the annual G7 summit but left ahead of schedule, citing developments concerning Iran. On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that several nations are expected to suspend their digital services taxes targeting U.S. tech giants, in return for Congressional Republicans agreeing to block a proposed "retaliatory tax" on foreign investors included in Trump's major legislative package. However, he did not specify which countries were part of this arrangement.
Time of India
6 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
US retirement age hits 67 by 2026: Early retirees to lose up to 30% in benefits- what it means for social security income
Representative image T he full retirement age (FRA) for Social Security benefits in the United States will increase to 67 starting in 2026, affecting millions of Americans planning their retirement. Those opting to retire early at age 62 could see up to a 30 per cent reduction in monthly benefits. The change stems from reforms signed into law by former President Ronald Reagan in 1983 to address long-term financial challenges facing the Social Security system. The original Social Security Act, introduced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, initially set the retirement age at 65. The FRA has been rising gradually since 1991, increasing by two months per year. It reached 66 in 1996 and will reach 67 in 2026 for individuals turning 65 that year and beyond. Why the retirement age is increasing When the social security act was created, life expectancy in the US was just 61. By 1983, it had risen to over 74, and today it stands at 79. At the same time, the number of workers supporting each retiree has dropped, from 8.6 in 1955 to 2.8 in 2013, placing greater pressure on the system. The 1983 amendment was designed to address these demographic shifts and extend the program's solvency. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like ¡Todo a tu favor con Orange! Orange Undo Many Americans claim benefits at age 62 due to financial need, health issues, or concerns about future cuts. However, doing so results in permanently reduced monthly payments. According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), claiming benefits at 62 can result in up to a 30 per cent decrease, while delaying retirement until age 70 can significantly increase monthly payouts. A recent report from the Social Security Board of Trustees warns that the Social Security Trust Funds will have enough revenue to pay full benefits only until 2034. After that, without Congressional action, only 81 per cent of scheduled benefits would be payable. This could reduce the average monthly cheque from $1,976 to about $1,600. In 2024, trust fund reserves fell by $67 billion to $2.72 trillion, as program costs continued to exceed income. The funds have been running a deficit since 2010, raising concerns about the long-term sustainability of social security. Stay informed with the latest business news, updates on bank holidays and public holidays . AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
UPI
16 hours ago
- UPI
Canadian national awaiting deportation dies in Miami detention center
A car passes the Krome Service Processing Center's front gate during the Congressional oversight fact-finding mission on detained immigrants at Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, Fla., on Monday. Migrants also are housed at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami, where a Canadian national died Monday. Photo by Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA-EFE June 27 (UPI) -- Canadian officials are "urgently seeking more information" after one of their citizens died while in a detention center in Miami pending deporation after being convicted of a felony in 2023. Johnny Noviello, 49, was pronounced deceased by the Miami Fire Rescue Department at 1:36 p.m. Monday at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Wednesday in a news release. The cause of death is still under investigation. The detention center, which houses individuals awaiting trial or serving sentences for federal crimes, in February was contracted to hold immigration detainees in four units. Daniel Leising, a lawyer who represented Noviello in the 2023 racketeering case, told the Miami Herald he was told by family members that Noviello had epilepsy and was on seizure medication. Noviello is the 10th person to die in ICE custody during fiscal year 2025, which runs from October, according to the agency's data. There have been four deaths in Florida since then. Medical staff administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation and automated external defibrillator shock. Noviello was pronounced dead by the Miami Fire Rescue Department about half an hour after he was found. "Canadian consular officials are urgently seeking more information from US officials," Foreign Minister Anita Anand posted Thursday on X. "I offer my sincere condolences to the family. In order to respect the family's privacy, further details will not be provided at this time." Noviello was 10 years old when he moved from Canada to Daytona Beach, Fla., and gained legal visa status on Jan. 2, 1988. He became a legal permanent resident on Ovt 24, 1991. In 2017, he and his father were arrested and charged with selling drugs out of their auto shop. On Oct. 23, 2023, he was convicted of the charges including racketeering and drug trafficking in Volusia County in Florida, ICE said. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison. He served about four months in county jail, was released on community control for a year and then placed on probation in February. Noviello had no prior charges and had not violated his probation. The federal government can revoke green cards and deport them for committing certain crimes, including drug trafficking and other serious felonies. On May 15, he was arrested at an ICE probation office, was issued a notice to appear and charged with "removability" because of the controlled substance-related conviction, according to ICE. The Canadian consulate was notified of the man's death, as was Congress, nongovernmental organization stakeholders and the media. "ICE remains committed to ensuring that all those in its custody reside in safe, secure, and humane environments," ICE said in a news release. "Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay. "At no time during detention is a detained illegal alien denied emergent care." Leising said his client "was just working, nothing out of the ordinary, no violations, nothing else. There was nothing on my mind that would've created any circumstance where Johnny Noviello would have been a danger to anyone."
The Hill
18 hours ago
- Business
- The Hill
Senate Republicans move to slash CFPB funding by half, risking hundreds of job cuts
NEW YORK (AP) — Senate Republicans have moved to cut the funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by roughly half, as part of President Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill,' which is likely to lead to hundreds of job cuts at the nation's financial watchdog agency. It would be a major blow to the CFPB, which was created after the 2008 financial crisis to police potential bad actors in the financial services industry, and it would be a win for the GOP, who have largely wanted to make the CFPB go away since its creation. The CFPB is funded through the Federal Reserve, not the Congressional appropriations process. But in the latest version of the bill to come out of the Senate Banking Committee, the CFPB's funding would be cut from 12% of the Federal Reserve's profits to 6.5% of the central bank's profits. The CFPB requests its annual budget from the Fed every year, effectively as a line of credit from the central bank. It has never needed the entire 12% of the Fed's profits, but it has come close in previous years to using much of what the Fed would allocate to it. For example, last year the CFPB requested $762.9 million from the Fed, which was close to the transfer cap of $785.4 million. But cutting the transfer cap by roughly half would mean the CFPB would have to cut its budget significantly or seek to supplement its budget from Congress through the traditional appropriations process, a goal that Republicans have been seeking for years. 'The committee's language decreases the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) funding cap without affecting the statutory functions of the Bureau,' said Sen. Tim Scott, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Under President Biden, the bureau was a potent regulator that often gave banks and other financial services companies headaches on a regular basis. The previous director, Rohit Chopra, used the bureau to look into a broader array of financial services beyond the banks, investigating bad practices at credit card companies, payday lenders, buy now, pay later companies and other financial technology firms. The bureau has returned billions of dollars to consumers since its creation through its enforcement actions. But since President Trump came into office, the bureau has been effectively inoperable. Russell Vought, the President's budget director, is currently the acting director of the Bureau and has stopped all enforcement and supervision work, the bureau is not writing new rules or regulations and employees are being told not to communicate with banks or outside parties. Employees are logging in once or twice a day to check emails, but there is little supervisory or enforcement work happening at the bureau. Even emails to the CFPB's press office go unanswered. While the bureau's operations tend to grow and narrow in scope depending on who is in the White House, the current administration seems to want the CFPB entirely eliminated. Under President Trump's first term, the CFPB was still doing enforcement actions and supervisory work, most notably fining Wells Fargo $1 billion for its scandalous sales practices. Even the bureau's most controversial case, involving allegations of discrimination against Black homeowners known as the Townstone Financial case, was started under President Trump's previous CFPB director, Kathy Kraninger. Even Elon Musk, before he left the Trump White House, expressed his opinions about the CFPB by tweeting: ' CFPB RIP.' House Republicans held a hearing on Wednesday attacking Chopra's work, calling the former director and his appointees out-of-control bureaucrats who targeted small businesses vindictively. The CEO of a company labeled by the GOP as a small business — but was basically a chain of check cashing and payday lending shops — testified that she spent years having to go back and forth with the CFPB over its operations. Democrats have vigorously defended the CFPB since its creation, saying that financial services companies need to be closely watched after what happened during the last financial crisis and the fact that many technology companies are moving into banking-like services. The Senate Republicans' move comes after their original proposal to cut the CFPB's budget to zero was ruled in violation of Senate rules by the Senate Parliamentarian. Congressional Republicans are using a process known as 'reconciliation' to pass this bill, which only requires a 51-vote majority in the Senate to pass. This new proposal did pass Parliamentarian muster, but Senate Democrats are expected to fight to remove the provision on the floor. 'Donald Trump and Republicans tried to shut down the CFPB by gutting its entire operating budget to (zero),' said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, and also the original proposer of the CFPB nearly 20 years ago. 'Now, Senate Republicans will bring to the floor a proposal that slashes the agency's available budget so they can hand out more tax breaks for billionaires and billionaire corporations.'
Time Magazine
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Time Magazine
Trump and Bondi Say Supreme Court Ruling Will Unblock Agenda
President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters Friday that the Supreme Court's decision limiting nationwide court injunctions—which took the legs out of what has been one of the few checks on Trump's executive authority—will enable the Trump Administration to enact its policies more quickly. The ruling from the high court's conservative majority curtailed lower courts' power to block Trump's policies nationwide, largely wiping away a bulwark that has prevented some of the President's most aggressive actions from going into effect. 'Thanks to this decision we can now promptly file to proceed with numerous polices that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis,' Trump said during a press conference at the White House following the ruling. 'These judges have attempted to dictate the law for the entire nation,' he added, calling the federal judges who have stood in his way 'absolutely crazy, radical left judges.' For months, federal courts have slowed Trump's efforts to expand the use of presidential authority in order to eliminate federal agencies, slash the federal workforce, speed up deportations, and redefine who gets American citizenship at birth. The judicial pushback has been a rare source of restraint on the President's agenda from within the government, as Republicans in control of both the House and Senate have not defended Congressional authority over federal funding. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned Friday that the Supreme Court decision is a 'terrifying step toward authoritarianism' and 'a grave danger to our democracy.' Among the initiatives Trump will try to push forward now that the obstacle of nationwide injunctions has been removed is his directive to deny citizenship to people born inside the U.S., he said. Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office attempting to redefine who should be recognized as a U.S. citizen at birth, challenging a precedent that has been settled law since 1898. Trump's order was blocked nationwide by district court rulings. But the Supreme Court ruled Friday that such court injunctions would only apply in the part of the country where they originated, which could lead to citizenship being granted differently depending where in the U.S. someone is born. The Supreme Court will consider in October the broader question of whether Trump has the authority to redefine the 127-year-old interpretation of citizenship established by the court itself. In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which states that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States' are citizens of the country, guaranteed the citizenship of a Chinese-American cook named Wong Kim Ark. After a trip to China, immigration officials tried to deny Wong entry back into the U.S. under the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese nationals from migrating to the U.S. at the time. But the court confirmed in a 6-to-2 decision that Wong was a citizen by birth, setting a precedent that birthright citizenship in the U.S. is universal. Trump wants to unwind that precedent. The 14th Amendment was ratified in the wake of the Civil War to clarify who had citizenship rights and equal protection under U.S. law. Trump said the constitutional amendment wasn't designed to broadly define citizenship by birth and instead was 'meant for the babies of slaves.' Birthright citizenship 'wasn't meant for people trying to scam the system and come into the country on a vacation,' Trump said at the White House on Friday. Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the Supreme Court decision against nationwide injunctions will give federal authorities a freer hand to deport people suspected of being gang members. Courts have repeatedly ruled that the Trump Administration has overstepped its authority by deporting people without first presenting evidence to a court that they are public safety threats. "You should all feel safer now that President Trump can deport all of these gangs, and not one district court judge can think they're an emperor over this administration, his executive powers and why the people of the United States elected him,' Bondi said. In March, the Trump Administration deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador more than 230 Venezuelans from the U.S. that it said were members of a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua. But the Administration has not shown evidence to a court or the public that all of those men were gang members or posed a threat to public safety that merits their being imprisoned in another country. On Friday, Bondi said similar arrests have been carried out much more broadly: The Trump Administration, she said, had arrested 2,711 people it says are Tren de Aragua gang members. The Supreme Court's decision to hem in the lower courts may allow Trump to expand his immigration crackdown with even fewer checks on his power.
