Trump tariffs live updates: White House insists 90-day pause on tariffs was ‘his strategy all along’

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed President Donald Trump to temporarily remove Democratic members from two federal labor boards, suspending two judicial orders that had protected them from dismissal.

Chief Justice John Roberts, representing the court, halted the orders from two Washington-based federal judges that prevented Trump’s dismissal of Cathy Harris from the Merit Systems Protection Board and Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board before their terms expired.

The court’s action, known as an administrative stay, provides the nine justices with extra time to evaluate the Trump administration’s formal request to suspend the judges’ orders while the litigation over the firings proceeds.

Roberts told lawyers for Harris and Wilcox to file a response to the government’s request by April 15.

On Wednesday, Justice Department lawyers stated in a Supreme Court filing that the lower court rulings had created an “untenable” situation.

“The president should not be forced to delegate his executive power to agency heads who are demonstrably at odds with the administration’s policy objectives for a single day — much less for the months that it would likely take for the courts to resolve this litigation,” they wrote.

U.S. District Judges Rudolph Contreras and Beryl Howell upheld federal laws that protect officials in these roles from being dismissed without cause, rejecting Trump’s argument that the measures enacted by Congress infringe upon the authority granted to the president by the U.S. Constitution.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday declined to pause the rulings by the judges while the cases proceed after an earlier ruling by that court had permitted the removals.

Trump’s decision to remove Harris and Wilcox was part of his extensive restructuring and downsizing of the U.S. government, which included firing thousands of workers, dismantling federal agencies, appointing loyalists to key positions, and purging career officials.

With reporting from Reuters

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney calls Donald Trump’s pause on tariffs “a welcome reprieve for the global economy.”

Carney said in a statement: “The pause on reciprocal tariffs announced by President Trump is a welcome reprieve for the global economy.

“As President Trump and I have agreed, the U.S. President and the Canadian Prime Minister will commence negotiations on a new economic and security relationship immediately following the Federal election.

“As part of today’s announcement, the President has signalled that the U.S. will engage in bilateral negotiations with a number of other countries. This will likely result in a fundamental restructuring of the global trading system.

“In that context, Canada must also continue to deepen its relationships with trading partners that share our values, including the free and open exchange of goods, services, and ideas.

“This election is importantly about who can best fight for Canadian families, workers, and businesses at the negotiating tables with the United States and other potential partner countries. The stakes have never been higher.

“I am working hard to earn that responsibility to protect our country through this crisis and to build Canada strong.”

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington, D.C.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order targeting a former official in his first administration by stripping him of security clearances and ordering the Department of Justice to investigate his conduct, an unprecedented step that erodes decades of separation between the president and the exercise of criminal investigatory power by the federal government.

Trump’s order targets Miles Taylor, a veteran of multiple Republican administrations who served as chief of staff to then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.

Taylor infamously penned an anonymous New York Times op-ed — and later a book — describing efforts by Trump administration personnel to shield the government from Trump’s worst instincts.

Mike Johnson backed down on Wednesday and canceled plans to vote on a Republican budget resolution acting as the vessel for major parts of Donald Trump’s agenda.

The Republican speaker of the House set up votes Wednesday on a budget resolution authored by his peers in the Senate as the GOP moves on to the next step of the reconciliation process. But Johnson, who can suffer just three defections among his caucus for the vote to succeed, is still facing (according to various reports) more than a dozen likely or potential “no” votes from Republicans if the vote goes ahead.

John Bowden has the latest from Washington, D.C.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was “surprised” by the decision to bring her into the Oval Office today.

The presence of the Democratic governor and possible future presidential candidate confused many observers.

A Whitmer spokesperson said she was “surprised” that she was brought into the Oval Office during President Donald Trump’s news conference on Wednesday “without any notice of the subject matter.”

“Her presence is not an endorsement of the actions taken or statements made at that event,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Trump praised Whitmer during the encounter before signing orders directing the Justice Department to investigate two of his critics and targeting a law firm whose work he opposes.

The president said the move would revive an industry “that was abandoned despite the fact that it was the best, certainly the best in terms of power, real power.”

“I call it beautiful, clean coal,” he said. “We’re ending Joe Biden’s war on beautiful, clean coal, once and for all.”

But, environmentalists say increased coal-fired plants would harm Americans — and that the president’s terminology is egregiously inaccurate.

Billionaire Trump backer Bill Ackman was relentlessly mocked on X after suggesting that President Donald Trump’s trade policy reversal was “brilliantly executed.”

Gustaf Kilander has the story.

Here’s a couple of examples: