The day so far
We are moving over to a dedicated live blog covering Trump’s address to the joint session of Congress
Here are the major developments we’ve covered so far today”:
Trump has upended the United States’ relationship with three of its top trading partners by following through on his campaign promise to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. Prime minister Justin Trudeau said the tariffs were “a very dumb thing to do” and announced Canada would impose retaliatory levies, while in Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would announce her nation’s response on Sunday. Trump defended the decision as necessary to restore domestic manufacturing, though his commerce secretary acknowledged they could drive prices higher in the short term. The president is expected to elaborate on the decision this evening, when he addresses the first joint session of Congress of his new term.
The commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, told Fox Business that discussions are ongoing with Canada and Mexico and he expcts Trump to announce an agreement to meet the two nations in “the middle” and settle the tariff battle as soon as Wednesday.
Elon Musk will brief House republicans tonight about criticism of Doge cuts, Bloomberg News and the Hill report.
In addition to the mass firings of federal workers, the Trump administration’s plan to slash the federal government apparently includes a real estate fire sale.
Democrats pounce amid reports that top House Republican campaigner asked members not to hold town halls
United Auto Workers backs tariffs, saying working with Trump to ‘end the free trade disaster’
The CEOs of two large US retailers, Target and Best Buy, said they expected prices to go up as a result of Trump’s trade war.
Ontario’s premier Doug Ford told the Wall Street Journal that he was imposing a 25% export tax on electricity sent to three US states, and might cut it off altogether if the tariffs linger.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was ready to sign the minerals deal Trump was demanding, and acknowledged his White House meeting last week “did not go the way it was supposed to”.
Representative Gregory Meeks, the ranking Democrat on the House foreign affairs committee, plans to introduce resolutions to terminate the national emergency declared by the president, which enabled him to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
As Elizabeth Goitein, expert on presidential emergency powers at the Brennan Center explains on X, “Trump declared national emergencies and invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act” which gave him legal cover “To get around the normal legal process for imposing tariffs on Canada & Mexico”.
This legal authority, Goitein notes, “is available only to address an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ to our ‘national security, foreign policy, or economy.’ So Trump declared that Canada… the country he has mocked as the 51st state… poses an unusual and extraordinary threat to our national security”.
But there is a provision of that law that gives any member of Congress the power to move to terminate the emergency, and because that motion is “privileged” it must get an up or down vote.
This is the provision Meeks says he will use to call for an end to Trump’s emergency declarations.
“Donald Trump is not a king. Presidents don’t get to invent emergencies to justify bad policies. Abusing emergency powers to wage an economic war on our closest allies isn’t leadership – it’s dangerous” Meeks said in a statement on Tuesday.
“I intend to introduce resolutions that will stop his tariffs from driving up the cost of living” Meeks added. “My resolutions, consistent with the Congressional authority under the National Emergency Act, terminate the President’s manufactured emergency to stop this abuse of power and protect American families from skyrocketing costs.”
