Japan PM and Trump meet on sidelines of G7 amid tariff concerns
Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba met with President Trump on the sidelines of the G7 meeting on Monday to discuss import auto tariffs Washington imposed on Japan, Reuters is reporting.
Tokyo is urging Washington to drop the tariffs because they threaten to slow Japan’s economy, the Japanese government said.
Ishiba wants Trump to end the 25% auto tariff he imposed on Japanese cars and a 24% reciprocal tariff paused until July 9.
Key events
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he ordered the deployment of additional defensive capabilities to the Middle East over the weekend “to enhance our defensive posture in the region,” according to a statement he posted on X on Monday. He did not disclose what military capabilities he sent to the region.
“Protecting U.S. forces is our top priority and these deployments are intended to enhance our defensive posture in the region,” Hegseth posted.
Senate Finance Committee unveiled proposed changes to Trump’s tax-cut and spending bill
The Republican-run Senate Finance Committee published a modified text of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that proposes Medicaid reforms and a new federal deduction for state and local taxes.
The proposed changes will now be debated by Senate Republicans.
Among the proposed changes are:
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An end to the $7,500 tax credit on new electric vehicles 180 days after the law is enacted. And an end to the $4,000 used-vehicle EV tax credit 90 days after the law is passed.
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A full phase-out of solar and wind energy tax credits by 2028, but an extension of the incentive for Trump administration-favored hydropower, nuclear and geothermal energy to 2036.
Minnesota senator Ann Rest says she is “so grateful” for the work of law enforcement after learning that the shooting suspect, Vance Boelter, was allegedly parked outside her home before going to former Rep. Melissa Hortman’s home.
“I have been made aware that the shooting suspect was parked near my home early Saturday morning,” Rest said in a statement. “I am so grateful for the heroic work of the New Hope Police Department and its officers. Their quick action saved my life.
I am also thankful for the work of state and local law enforcement to apprehend the suspect before he could take any more lives.
While I am thankful the suspect has been apprehended, I grieve for the loss of Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, and I am praying for the recovery of John and Yvette Hoffman.”
At the G7 summit, Trump said a new economic deal with Canada was possible but that he wanted tariffs to be a part of it, according to Reuters.
“I have a tariff concept. [Canadian Prime Minister] Mark [Carney] has a different concept … we’re going to see if we can get to the bottom of it,” Trump said when meeting Carney on the sidelines of a G7 summit in Alberta. “I’m a tariff person.”
Canada is the top supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States and currently faces tariffs imposed by Trump on both metals as well as on auto exports.
“We are in the middle of a discussion – we are not at the end of the discussion. Our position is that we should have no tariffs on Canadian exports to the United States,” Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to Washington, told reporters after Carney met Trump.
“We will continue to talk until we find a deal that is the best deal we can achieve for Canada,” Hillman said.
Japan PM and Trump meet on sidelines of G7 amid tariff concerns
Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba met with President Trump on the sidelines of the G7 meeting on Monday to discuss import auto tariffs Washington imposed on Japan, Reuters is reporting.
Tokyo is urging Washington to drop the tariffs because they threaten to slow Japan’s economy, the Japanese government said.
Ishiba wants Trump to end the 25% auto tariff he imposed on Japanese cars and a 24% reciprocal tariff paused until July 9.
Trump has fired a Democratic commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the agency that is in charge of Nuclear safety, according to the AP.
Christopher Hanson wrote in a statement that he was fired without cause “contrary to existing law and longstanding precedent regarding removal of independent agency appointees.”
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told the AP that “all organizations are more effective when leaders are rowing in the same direction” and that the Republican president reserves the right to “remove employees within his own executive branch.”
Hanson’s term was due to end in 2029. He was originally nominated to be the head of the NRC by Trump in 2020 and was appointed chair by President Biden in 2021. After Trump was inaugurated the second time, Hanson was replaced as chair by the president’s newest pick, David Wright, a Republican member of the NRC. Hanson had remained on the NRC as a commissioner.
European leaders at G7 trying to bring Iran back to negotiating table
Patrick Wintour and Peter Walker in Banff
European leaders at the G7 summit in Canada are trying to engineer an Iranian return to the negotiating table using Gulf leaders as intermediaries.
But Iran is demanding a joint ceasefire with Israel, while Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is resisting the move, and Donald Trump praised the Israeli campaign, suggesting he did not yet believe it was time to relieve the pressure on Iran.
The US is considered by Iran to be critical to putting pressure on Israel, but the US president wants indications that Iran will back down on wanting to maintain the right to enrich uranium. He is willing to continue to use the Israeli assault as a bargaining chip if necessary.
French, German and British foreign ministers were due collectively to speak to the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in an attempt to see if Iran would meet the US demand to end all uranium enrichment in the country, previously a red line for Tehran.
Asked if he had received any messages from Iran suggesting that it wanted to de-escalate the conflict, Trump hinted that he had: “They want to talk.”
The US president said that Iran was not winning its conflict with Israel and should re-enter negotiations “before it’s too late”.
“They have to make a deal, and it’s painful for both parties, but I’d say Iran is not winning this war, and they should talk, and they should talk immediately, before it’s too late,” Trump told reporters at the summit.
He added: “If Iran wants to negotiate, now is the time.”
Araghchi appealed to Trump to break with Netanyahu, telling the US president he was being played by an Israeli leader who was determined to scuttle a deal that Iran and the US were on the verge of sealing. He said:
By all indications, the purpose of Netanyahu’s criminal attack on Iran – killing hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children – is to scuttle a deal between Iran and the US, which we were on the right path to achieve. He is playing yet another American president, and ever more American taxpayers, for absolute fools.
If President Trump is genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential. Israel must halt its aggression, and absent a total cessation of military aggression against us, our responses will continue. It takes one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netanyahu. That may pave the way for a return to diplomacy.
Starmer says US-UK trade deal to be completed ‘very soon’
Further to my earlier post, Britain and the United States should finalize “very soon” the implementation of a trade deal agreed last month, Keir Starmer has said ahead of a meeting with Donald Trump in Canada.
On the sidelines of the G7 summit, Starmer told reporters:
I’m certainly seeing President Trump today, and I’m going to discuss with him our trade deal.
I’m very pleased that we made that trade deal, and we’re in the final stages now of implementation, and I expect that to be completed very soon.
The UK was the first country to agree a framework deal for lower tariffs from Trump, with the US reducing tariffs on imports of UK cars, aluminium and steel, and Britain agreeing to lower tariffs on US beef and ethanol.
But implementation of the deal has been delayed while details were being hammered out. The proclamation readied by the White House will set an effective date in coming weeks, a source told Reuters.
On steel and aluminum, the US agreed to lower the 25% tariffs on imports from Britain to zero, subject to setting a quota for British steel imports that must meet supply chain requirements.
Britain had avoided tariffs of up to 50% on steel and aluminum that the US imposed on other countries earlier this month, but could face elevated tariffs from 9 July unless a deal to implement the tariff reduction is reached.
US seeks dismissal of Naval Academy case after ending race-conscious admissions
The US justice department has asked a federal appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit challenging race-conscious admissions at the US Naval Academy after the elite military school said it changed its policy under Donald Trump.
The Naval Academy, located in Annapolis, Maryland, disclosed in March that it was no longer considering race or ethnicity in its admissions decisions following directives from Trump and defense secretary Pete Hegseth.
The justice department and an anti-affirmative action group that had sued the academy, jointly told the court today that the policy change rendered the legal dispute moot.
“This Department is committed to ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity throughout the federal government,” attorney general Pam Bondi said in a statement.
The filing, in the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit, also asks the court to vacate a federal judge’s ruling last year finding that the prior race-conscious policy was legal.
The Biden administration defended affirmative action at the Naval Academy after the US supreme court exempted US military academies from its 2023 ruling barring consideration of race in college admissions.
The Naval Academy had long relied on its prior policy to raise its enrollment of Black, Hispanic and other minorities.
US conservatives and the Trump administration have argued that such policies disadvantage white and certain other applicants and do not improve military readiness.
Trump to sign proclamation formalizing US-UK trade deal in coming days – Reuters
Reuters is reporting that Donald Trump is expected to sign a proclamation finalizing a US-UK trade deal in the coming days, citing sources who say the proclamation will cover autos, beef, ethanol and steel. We’ll bring you more detail on this as we get it.
The trading framework was agreed in early May and earlier this month we reported that Keir Starmer hoped it would come into effect “in the coming weeks”.
House speaker Mike Johnson postpones trip to Israel
US House speaker Mike Johnson said he has postponed his planned 22 June trip to Israel to address its parliament, as an escalating battle between Israel and Iran has raised fears of a broader conflict.
“Due to the complex situation currently unfolding in Iran and Israel, [Knesset] Speaker [Amir] Ohana and I have made the decision to postpone the special session of the Knesset. We look forward to rescheduling the address in the near future and send our prayers to the people of Israel and the Middle East,” Johnson said in a statement.
French president Emmanuel Macron spoke at length with Donald Trump on tariffs and the crises in the Middle East and Ukraine, a French presidential official told Reuters.
The official did not give further details on the meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the G7 summit.
American Bar Association sues to block Trump administration’s ‘deliberate intimidation’ of law firms
The American Bar Association has sued the Trump administration, seeking an order that would bar the White House from pursuing what the ABA called a campaign of intimidation against major law firms.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington DC, said the administration violated the US Constitution in a series of executive orders targeting law firms over their past clients and lawyers they hired.
“There has never been a more urgent time for the ABA to defend its members, our profession and the rule of law itself,” the group’s president, William Bay, said in a statement.
The ABA, with about 150,000 paying members, is the country’s largest voluntary association for lawyers.
A White House spokesperson had no immediate comment.
Four law firms have separately sued the administration over Donald Trump’s orders, which stripped their lawyers of security clearances and restricted their access to government officials and federal contracting work.
Four different judges in Washington have sided with the firms and temporarily or permanently barred Trump’s orders against them.
One of the firms that sued and won a preliminary victory, Susman Godfrey, is representing the ABA in Monday’s lawsuit.
Despite Trump’s court losses, nine law firms have struck deals with the president, pledging nearly $1bn in free legal services on mutually agreed legal issues with the White House in order to stave off similar executive orders.
The ABA said in its lawsuit that Trump’s actions had made it difficult to find law firms willing to represent it in litigation adverse to the federal government, including a case it sought to join challenging the administration’s immigration policies.
The ABA said Trump had formed a “deliberate policy designed to intimidate and coerce law firms and lawyers to refrain from challenging the President or his Administration in court”.
Minnesota shooting suspect had more than 45 names of elected officials, prosecutors say
Reuters reports that prosecutors said notebooks recovered from Boelter’s car, as well as the home where he had been staying, showed that he had meticulously planned the attacks for some time.
He had the names and, in some cases, home addresses for more than 45 elected officials – “mostly or all Democrats” – according to an affidavit from an FBI agent. Boelter’s notes indicated he had used a variety of people-finding websites to track down addresses.
In one notebook, Boelter noted that the Hortmans had two children and included details about their house, writing: “Big house off golf course 2 ways in to watch from one spot,” the affidavit said.
Hours after the shootings, with police searching for him, Boelter met an individual at a bus stop in Minneapolis and offered to buy his electric bicycle, according to prosecutors. After the two went to the person’s house, Boelter instead offered to buy his Buick.
Investigators on Sunday found the Buick in rural Sibley county, near his listed home address about an hour’s drive southwest of Minneapolis. Inside the car, officers found a handwritten letter to the FBI, in which Boelter gave his name and admitted to committing the shootings, according to the affidavit.
More than 20 Swat teams combed the area, aided by surveillance aircraft, officials said. Boelter, who was armed, crawled from a wooded area and surrendered to police in a field with no shots fired.
The killing was the latest in a series of high-profile episodes of political violence across the country, including a 2022 attack on former Democratic US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband at their home, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump last year and an arson attack at Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro’s house in April.
Minnesota governor Tim Walz said after Boelter’s arrest:
This cannot be the norm. It cannot be the way that we deal with our political differences.
The Minnesota attacks began around 2am on Saturday, when a gunman wearing a police-style tactical vest knocked on the Hoffmans’ door in Champlin, announced himself as a police officer and then shot the couple multiple times inside, according to prosecutors. He was driving an SUV outfitted with police-style lights and a fake license plate that read “POLICE.”
Boelter then traveled to the home of another state lawmaker in Maple Grove, where he rang the doorbell at 2.24am, Thompson said. The official was not home at the time.
Boelter also visited the home of a legislator in New Hope, prosecutors said. A New Hope officer – dispatched to the house to conduct a wellness check after police learned of the Hoffman shooting – took Boelter, who was parked outside, to be another police officer and pulled up next to him.
“He just sat there and stared straight ahead,” Thompson said of Boelter. The responding officer went to the door to wait for additional officers, and Boelter had left by the time they arrived, prosecutors said.
Shortly after, police went to the Hortmans’ house in Brooklyn Park as a precaution. The arriving officers saw the suspect shoot Mark Hortman through an open door around 3.35am and exchanged fire with him before he fled on foot out the back door, according to prosecutors. Melissa Hortman was already dead inside.
When police searched Boelter’s SUV after the shootings, they discovered three AK-47 assault rifles, a 9mm handgun, a gold police-style badge and the target list, according to authorities.
