TheChek News Flow

US president escalates trade war by doubling levies on all exporters except the UK

US tariffs of 50 per cent on steel and aluminium have come into force on Wednesday, a day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order escalating his global trade war.

The new tariffs took effect at midnight on Wednesday, doubling the 25 per cent levies on the sectors that the president had introduced in March.

Duties on UK steel and aluminium will remain at 25 per cent — a carve-out for London after it signed a trade deal with Washington last month.

Trump said on Tuesday that the tariffs were necessary to prevent dumping by foreign producers that would “threaten to impair the national security”.

“The increased tariffs will more effectively counter foreign countries that continue to offload low-priced, excess steel and aluminium in the US market and thereby undercut the competitiveness of the United States steel and aluminium industries,” Trump wrote in the order late on Tuesday.

The additional duties intensify the US president’s bid to reshape international commerce even as much of his trade agenda remains in legal limbo. A court ruled last week that he lacked the authority cited when he imposed his most sweeping “liberation day” tariffs on April 2.

The ruling — which has since been paused by an appeals court — did not affect sector-specific levies, such as those on steel and aluminium, which Trump introduced using a different authority.

Trump indicated he could yet hit London with the higher rate if his commerce secretary Howard Lutnick “determines that the United Kingdom has not complied with relevant aspects” of the agreement after a July 9 deadline.

The president announced his plan to double the tariffs during a rally at a Pennsylvania steel mill last week, promising to erect a “fence” around the domestic metals industry that would in effect lock out foreign producers.

“That means that nobody’s going to be able to steal your industry,” he told a jubilant crowd of steel workers on Friday.

“At 25 per cent, they can sort of get over that fence. At 50 per cent they can no longer get over the fence.”

The policy drew swift condemnation from Canada, the largest supplier of steel and aluminium to the US, where the industry warned in recent days of “mass disruption” and “catastrophic” job losses.

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A film that will portray the chaotic time at OpenAI, when co-founder and CEO Sam Altman was fired and rehired within a span of just five days, is reportedly in the works.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie is titled “Artificial,” and it’s in development at Amazon MGM Studios.

While details aren’t finalized, sources told THR that Luca Guadagnino, known for “Call Me by Your Name” and “Challengers,” is in talks to direct. The studio is considering Andrew Garfield to portray Altman, Monica Barbaro (“A Complete Unknown) as former CTO Mira Murati, and Yura Borisov (“Anora”) for the part of Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder who urged for Altman’s removal.

Additionally, “Saturday Night Live” writer Simon Rich reportedly wrote the screenplay, suggesting the film will likely incorporate comedic aspects. An OpenAI comedy movie feels fitting since the realm of AI has its own ridiculousness, and the events that took place two years ago were nothing short of absurd.

In November 2023, Sam Altman was dismissed from the AI company and resigned from both his position as CEO and his role on the board. The rationale was that the board no longer trusted Altman to lead effectively. However, just five days later, after numerous discussions and negotiations, an agreement was reached, resulting in Altman’s reinstatement.

No matter who is cast in this movie, it’ll be fascinating to see how “Artificial” portrays the drama and what the overall reception will be among general audiences, especially considering the increasing prevalence of AI tools like ChatGPT.

The American homeland is also vulnerable to drone and missile attacks

By now Americans know about Ukraine’s remarkable drone strike on Sunday that damaged as many as 40 aircraft deep inside Russia as strategic bombers sat like ducks in a row on military bases. One urgent lesson beyond that conflict is that the U.S. homeland is far more vulnerable than most Americans realize.

The details about Ukraine’s daring operation are few, but Kyiv managed to sneak cheap drones across the border and use them to destroy costly Russian military assets. The bang for Ukraine’s buck was considerable. You don’t have to be a fan of thrillers to imagine a similar scenario in the United States.

“Could those have been B-2s at the hands of Iranian drones flying out of containers, let alone Chinese?” military analyst Fred Kagan asked this week. The U.S. strategic bomber fleet is small (about one-third the size it was in the Cold War) and concentrated at a handful of bases. See the aerial photo flying across social media of B-52 bombers lined up at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The story is similar for fighters and capital assets like aircraft carriers.

One lesson is that President Trump’s planned Golden Dome missile-defense shield isn’t the boondoggle it’s portrayed to be in the press. The headlines are preoccupied with space-based interceptors. But the U.S. is exposed to many threats besides ballistic missiles—from drones and spy blimps to cruise missiles launched off submarines.

The bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission warned in 2023 that the U.S. needs better integrated air and missile defenses against “coercive attacks” from Russia and China, and such an attack could come from conventional weapons. In a crisis over the Taiwan Strait, Xi Jinping might threaten the Commander in Chief: Stay out of the Western Pacific or you never know what might happen to your pricey F-22s in Alaska.

That’s one reason the U.S. needs a layered missile shield that exploits new technology and existing systems like the Patriot. Israel’s recent success shooting down drones with lasers shows that innovative and affluent societies can meet new threats. President Trump deserves credit for elevating missile defense as a presidential priority.

But the U.S. has lost some basic muscle memory since the Cold War on living in a dangerous world. A prescient report this year from Thomas Shugart and Timothy Walton at the Hudson Institute warned about highly vulnerable U.S. airfields, especially in the Western Pacific.

For the new B-21 bomber, the Air Force is looking at shelters “akin to sunshades,” Messrs. Shugart and Walton write, that could leave the aircraft “exposed to threats, including lethal” unmanned aerial vehicles. “Not building approximately $30 million” hardened aircraft shelters “for over-$600 million B-21 bombers is an unwise decision that could endanger the US’s ability to strike globally,” they write.

Such shelters always end up being a low budget priority compared with airplanes and missiles, and the message here is that defense spending can’t stay at 3% of the economy and provide the security Americans expect. The bill moving through Congress puts up $25 billion for Golden Dome. But a national air defense won’t be built by a one-time cash infusion, and the Administration is ducking a sustained defense buildup to mollify its fiscal hawks.

Americans are accustomed to wars fought far from home by a force of volunteers, but everyone in the U.S. will be on the front lines of the next conflict. Political leaders could be doing much more to educate the country about this vulnerability, rather than boasting that the U.S. military is the best it has ever been. It isn’t.

Ukraine did the U.S. a favor by destroying bombers of a U.S. adversary—and sending America a wake up call about its own complacency.