Trump signs order for more tariffs on US partners to go into effect in 7 days

In a late-night social media post, the president took a dig at the Maine senator, a moderate Republican who has voted against some of his key priorities.

“Republicans, when in doubt, vote the exact opposite of Senator Susan Collins,” Trump said. “Generally speaking, you can’t go wrong. Thank you for your attention to this matter and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Collins is up for reelection in 2026 and is likely to face a tough campaign in the Democratic-leaning state.

She opposed Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill on taxes and border spending because of its anticipated impact on Medicaid and rural health care providers.

Collins also opposed the nomination of former Trump lawyer Emil Bove, who was confirmed as a lifetime appeals court judge this week.

As the Senate remains in a slog of confirmations, the president is again pushing for it to cancel lawmakers’ August breaks back home to install Trump’s key nominees.

Trump wrote on social media that the Senate needs to stay in session until the “entire Executive Calendar is CLEAR!!!” That’s the point at which all nominations submitted to the Senate will have been dealt with.

“We have to save our Country from the Lunatic Left,” the president’s Truth Social post read Thursday night. “Republicans, for the health and safety of the USA, DO YOUR JOB, and confirm All Nominees. They should NOT BE FORCED TO WAIT.

“Democrats have vowed to put up procedural fights against Trump nominees, but they can’t unilaterally stop their confirmations unless enough Republicans defect from the picks.

But for senators of both parties, the August recess remains sacred, and it’s unclear how much longer they will stay in Washington.

Lai Ching-te said Taiwan had yet to engage in final negotiations with the U.S. due to scheduling difficulties and he was hopeful the final tariff rate would be reduced even further after a final round of talks.

The Trump administration initially hit Taiwan with 32% tariffs but lowered it to 20% on Thursday.

Negotiations have included talks on working together on high-tech supply chains, Lai said in a statement. The U.S. is Taiwan’s most important export market and strategic ally, he added.

Hun Manet expressed his thanks to the U.S. president for the dropping of tariffs from 36% to 19%.

“This is good news for the people and economy of Cambodia to continue developing the country,” Hun Manet said.

In a post on his social media platform, Hun Manet said Trump had not only helped broker a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand forces after nearly a weeklong clash but also helped Cambodia’s economy by lowering tariffs.

Former President Joe Biden also accused the Trump administration administration of “doing its best to dismantle the Constitution” with the help of the Republican-controlled Congress and the Supreme Court.

“Our future is literally on the line,” Biden said in the speech to a National Bar Association convention in Chicago on the the 100th anniversary of the organization, which was founded to support Black lawyers at a time when they were excluded from the legal profession.

Biden celebrated the diversity of his judicial appointments and recounted his work on civil rights throughout a five-decade political career before turning to Trump.

“In our lives, the life of our nation, there are moments so stark that they divide all that came before from everything that follows,” Biden said. “Moments that force us to confront hard truths about ourselves, our institutions and democracy itself. We are, in my view, at such a moment in American history.”

Government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub said the U.S. agreed to reduce the tariff rate from 36% to 19%, the same as for a number of other Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines.

“It’s one of the major successes of Team Thailand in a win-win approach, to secure the country’s export base and economic security in a long run,” he said in a statement. He did not immediately say what was the latest offer Thailand made to the U.S.

The agreement came days after a ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia to halt the nearly weeklong clashes that killed at least 41 people. It was brokered with U.S. pressure as Trump said he would not move forward with trade agreements if the conflict continued.

One was sued by Colorado’s attorney general last week after his cooperation with the agents on a drug task force was revealed following the arrest of a Brazilian college student whose visa expired.
A second Mesa County Sheriff’s Office deputy and task force member was then found to have also shared information.

The two relayed the information in a Signal chat, according to sheriff’s office documents. They were placed on three and two weeks of unpaid leave, respectively, and both were removed from the task force.

The deputies told officials they thought they were operating according to longstanding procedure. However an internal investigation found that they both received and read two emails prior to the passage of a new law on limits on cooperation with immigration officials.

Their sheriff said task force members from other law enforcement agencies also shared information with immigration agents.

▶ Read more about the case

The man, a legal permanent resident who flew back to the U.S. after visiting family in South Korea, was detained by immigration authorities and held for more than a week at San Francisco International Airport. While there he slept in a chair and lived off concession food.

Attorneys for Tae Heung “Will” Kim, a researcher at Texas A&M University, said Thursday they still don’t know why he was detained. Kim, 40, has lived in the U.S most of his life after arriving at age 5. He is now being held at an Arizona immigration detention facility, according to his lawyer.

Customs and Border Protection said any green card holder who has a drug offense can be detained. His attorneys say Kim was charged in 2011 with misdemeanor marijuana possession in Texas and fulfilled a community service requirement.

Trump has launched an unprecedented campaign of immigration enforcement that has pushed the limits of executive power.

▶ Read more about Kim’s case

The agreement was signed Thursday during a visit by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to the South American country.

It facilitates the exchange of information on suspected criminal offenders and risk assessments of cargo and travelers. Noem told reporters that the efforts are “crucial steps to improve security and ensure that migration is carried out within the framework of the law.”

The agreement comes as the Trump administration seeks to bolster regional cooperation in its clampdown against immigration and transnational criminal groups.

Noem signed a similar agreement with Chile the previous day.

After initially threatening the African nation of Lesotho with a 50% tariff, the country’s goods will now be taxed at 15%.

Taiwan will be tariffed at 20%, Pakistan at 19% and Israel, Iceland, Fiji, Ghana, Guyana and Ecuador among the countries with imported goods taxed at 15%.

The Pentagon said Thursday that it is ending the deployment of all but 250 Guard members who were sent to deal with protests over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered 1,350 National Guard members to leave this week. The rest will remain to protect federal personnel and property, according to a statement.

Roughly 4,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines were deployed to Los Angeles in early June. Half the Guard members were pulled back roughly two weeks ago, and the Marines were ordered to leave a few days later.

State and local officials objected to the presence of federal troops, saying they were unnecessary and inflamed tensions.

The presence of Guard troops in the city was mostly limited to two locations at federal buildings, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office and detention facility downtown. Some soldiers protected federal agents during immigration raids.

The judge’s order affects about 7,000 people from Nepal along with 51,000 Hondurans and 3,000 Nicaraguans. The protections were set to expire Tuesday for the Nepalese people, and Sept. 8 for the Central Americans.

The Trump administration had moved to remove their temporary protected status, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem saying the government had determined that conditions in their home countries no longer warranted protections.

Temporary Protected Status prevents beneficiaries from being deported and allows them to work. The Trump administration has aggressively been seeking to end the protections and make more people eligible for removal.

U.S. District Judge Trina L. Thompson in San Francisco said plaintiffs had provided evidence that the government’s decision to end protections was racially motivated. She granted the request for an extension made by the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy group that says the terminations were unlawful.

First of all they start on Aug. 7, not the Friday deadline that the president had set. The reason for this is the government needs time to harmonize the tariff rates, according to a senior official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.

The order applies to 68 countries and the 27-member European Union. Countries not listed in the order signed Thursday by Trump would face a baseline 10% tariff.

The president has signed an executive order that would have new tariffs on a wide swath of U.S. trading partners to go into effect in seven days — the next step in his trade agenda that will test the global economy and alliances.

The order was issued shortly after 7 p.m. It came after a flurry of tariff-related activity in recent days, as the White House announced agreements with various nations and blocs ahead of Trump’s self-imposed Aug. 1 deadline.

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Workers load a truck with recently harvested oranges at the Morro Alto farm, in Limeira, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, July 16, 2025, a week after President Donald Trump announced a tariff hike of 50% on Brazilian goods that include oranges. (AP Photo/Ettore Chiereguini)

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A worker welds at a steel manufacturing facility in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP)

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New cars are parked in a lot at the International Car Operators terminal in the Port of Zeebrugge, Belgium, Thursday, July 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

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A South Korean protester holds up a banner during a rally against U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs policy on South Korea, near the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, July 30, 2025. The signs at bottom read “We can’t give you a penny.” (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

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A sewing machine is covered by a sheet inside the empty Tzicc clothing factory following the threat of U.S.-imposed tariffs in Maseru, Lesotho, Tuesday, July 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

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Cargo containers line a shipping terminal at the Port of Oakland on Thursday, July 31, 2025, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

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While discussions with trading partners continue and a revamp of U.S. trade policy faces legal hurdles in federal court, the president’s Friday deadline is approaching for higher import tariffs on products from across the world.

▶ Click here for a photo gallery on trade curated by AP photo editors

Dan Rayfield of Oregon, one of the states that filed suit, asserted that the judges “didn’t buy’’ the Trump administration’s arguments.

“You would definitely rather be in our shoes going forward,” Rayfield said.

He said Trump’s tariffs — which are paid by importers in the United States who often try to pass along the higher costs to their customers — amount to one of the largest tax increases in American history.

“This was done all by one human being sitting in the Oval Office,’’ Rayfield said.

“They’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years, but there’s never been a president that was good at ballrooms,” the president told reporters. “I’m good at building things, and we’re going to build quickly and on time. It’ll be beautiful, top, top of the line.”

He said the ballroom would not interfere with the mansion itself.

“It’ll be near it but not touching it and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” he said. “It’s my favorite. It’s my favorite place. I love it.”

Trump said the ballroom will serve administrations to come: “I think it will be really beautiful.”

Josh Hawley is brushing off the president’s quip that he’s a “second-tier” senator after the Missouri Republican’s proposal to ban stock trading by members of Congress — and the president and vice president — won bipartisan approval to advance in a committee vote.

Hawley told Fox News late Wednesday that it’s “not the worst thing” he’s ever been called and that he and the president ”had a good chat,” clearing up confusion over the bill.

The misunderstanding, Hawley said, was that Trump would have to sell his Mar-a-Lago private club and other assets.

“Not the case at all,” Hawley said on “Jesse Watters Primetime.”

Several elite colleges have made deals with the administration, offering concessions to the president’s political agenda and financial payments to restore federal money that had been withheld.

Ivy League schools Columbia, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania reached agreements to resolve federal investigations. The Republican administration is pressing for more, citing the deal it negotiated with Columbia as a “road map” for other colleges.

There is a freeze on billions of dollars of research money for other colleges including Harvard, which has been negotiating with the White House even as it fights in court over the lost grants.

Like no other president, Trump has used the government’s control over federal research funding to push for changes in higher education, decrying elite colleges as places of extreme liberal ideology and antisemitism.

▶ Read more about universities pressured by the administration

The agency responsible for carrying out Trump’s agenda of mass deportations announced that Thursday as it ramps up hiring following the passage of legislation giving ICE a massive infusion of cash.

Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the job offers were made after July 4, when when Trump signed into law a broad package of tax breaks and spending cuts that also included about $170 billion for border security and immigration enforcement over five years.

“Many of these offers were to ICE officers who retired under President Biden because they were frustrated that they were not allowed to do their jobs,” McLaughlin said.

The administration has been ramping up immigration-related arrests across the country, including in immigration courts, worksites, neighborhoods and elsewhere.

The former Justice Department official should be stripped of his law license, the D.C. Board of Professional Responsibility ruled Thursday. Its recommendation now goes to the D.C. Court of Appeals for a final decision.

Clark played a key role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election and clashed with Justice Department superiors who refused to back his false claims of fraud.

In the second Trump administration, he has been serving as acting head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a part of the Office of Management and Budget that is responsible for reviewing executive branch regulations.

OMB spokesperson Rachel Cauley said in a post on the social platform X that “this latest injustice is just another chapter in the Deep State’s ongoing assault on President Trump and those who stood beside him in defense of the truth.”

The president jabbed at his 2024 opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, after she announced this week that she would not run for governor of California.

“Well, she can’t speak. She can’t talk. She can’t do an interview,” Trump said when asked about Harris’s political future during an executive order signing at the White House.

“I wouldn’t call her a skilled politician.”

Trump also said Harris should have done more interviews during the campaign.

Harris is set to sit down with late-show host Stephen Colbert on Thursday night.

“Russia, I think it’s disgusting what they’re doing,” the president said as he took questions after an executive order signing at the White House. “I think what Russia’s doing is very sad. A lot of Russians are dying.”

Trump said the U.S. plans to impose sanctions on Moscow but added, “I don’t know that sanctions bother him,” referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Special envoy Steve Witkoff plans to travel to Russia after his current stop in Israel, Trump said.

The president said he and other private donors will pay for the ballroom renovations at the White House that his administration announced Thursday.

“No government dollars, no,” Trump said during an executive order signing at the White House.

He spoke of the benefits of adding a permanent, larger ballroom at the White House and added: “It’ll be a great legacy project.”

In 2020, a disgruntled litigant posing as a deliveryman opened fire at the New Jersey home of District Judge Esther Salas, killing her 20-year-old son Daniel Anderl. Five years later, as President Donald Trump steps up hiscriticism of federal judges who have blocked some of his agenda, dozens of judges have had unsolicited pizzas delivered to their homes, often in Daniel Anderl’s name.

District Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. of Rhode Island, who stalled Trump’s initial round of across-the-board spending cuts, is among those who received pizzas in Anderl’s name. His courtroom also has been flooded by threatening calls, including one profanity-laced one that called for his assassination.

McConnell, Jr. played a recording of the call during an unusual discussion Thursday where multiple federal judges discussed threats they have received — a notable conversation because judges usually only speak publicly from the bench and through their rulings, and rarely if ever, about personal threats and attacks. Salas and others said the number of attacks has escalated in recent months.

▶ Read more about ‘pizza doxings’

“Michael Whatley has done an exceptional job leading the Republican National Committee through historic campaign successes, and I’m excited to endorse him in his bid to become North Carolina’s next U.S. Senator,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune wrote on social media.

Whatley previously served as chair of the Republican National Committee and North Carolina Republican Party. He received warm endorsements from his would-be GOP colleagues on Capitol Hill, and promises of support from the party’s main Super PAC.

Cory Gardner, a former senator and chair of the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund, a Super PAC, said Whatley “was instrumental to re-electing President Trump” and that he thought Whatley was “will be an outstanding senator for North Carolina.”

Whatley faces what will likely be an intense and pricey Senate race against Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s former two-term Democratic governor. Democrats were blunt in response to news of Whatley’s announcement.

“Welcome to the race. You’re going to lose,” said Lauren French, a spokesperson for Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic-aligned Super PAC.

The president on Thursday lauded several athletes as he launched a new sports council aimed at improving America’s fitness.

Trump is signing an order to reestablish the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition. He will also reinstate the fitness test that was commonplace for decades for schoolchildren.

Among the athletes at the Roosevelt Room of the White House include pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau and Swedish golfer Annika Sorenstam.

“This is an important step in our mission to make America healthy again,” Trump said.

The Trump administration delayed funding for energy efficiency improvements at public schools in violation of federal law, according to a legal opinion Thursday from the Government Accountability Office.

Democrats seized on the finding as another sign the administration is illegally withholding billions of dollars previously approved by Congress.
It’s the fourth time in recent weeks the watchdog has found that the Trump administration was in violation of a 1974 law that lays out the procedures presidents must follow to reduce, delay, or eliminate funding approved by Congress.

Congress approved $500 million for the energy efficiency program, with $100 million to be made available from 2022 through 2026. The legal opinion finds that DOE has been fulfilling obligations made in previous years. But that was not the case for 2025 funds.

“Denying schools funding for energy efficiency upgrades that save them money isn’t just illegal, it’s stupid and harmful,” Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a press release. “And it’s time President Trump stop blocking this funding alongside all the other key investments he’s holding up.”

Campari Group CEO Simon Hunt says pending U.S. tariffs on European products isn’t the only challenge facing the global maker of premium spirits, wines and aperitifs like Aperol.

In addition to an expected 15% tariff, the weakening dollar is pushing up the price of imports. “This means the knock-on effect on consumer pricing is more substantial than simply the tariffs,’’ Hunt told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Still, the Campari Group — which counts Aperol, Campari, Courvoisier cognac and Glen Grant whiskey in its vast portfolio — estimates the expected tariffs will cost it 20 million euros this year and 35 million euros next year.

Hunt says his team has worked out multiple mitigation scenarios, but that until the tariffs are finalized it is too early to discuss which to employ, including whether or not to hike prices. As for shifting production, Campari already has a significant facility in Kentucky, where it produces Wild Turkey bourbon. But Hunt underlined that a number of the group’s brands “are driven by provenance. So if I take cognac, for example, I can’t make cognac in Kentucky. There’s no version of that that works.”

Hunt said the industry on both sides of the Atlantic is still hoping for carve-outs excluding spirits, wine and alcohol from the tariffs. “It’s in everyone’s interest, but that’s up to the White House and the EU to agree to,’’ he said.

Members of the 11-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington appeared unconvinced by the Trump administration’s insistence that the president could impose tariffs without congressional approval, and it hammered its invocation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to do so.

“IEEPA doesn’t even mention the word ‘tariffs’ anywhere,” Circuit Judge Jimmie Reyna said, in a sign of the panel’s incredulity to a government attorney’s arguments.

Brett Shumate, the attorney representing the Trump administration, acknowledged that “no president has ever read IEEPA this way” but contended it was nonetheless lawful.

▶ Read more about the challenge in federal court

CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of the surname of the attorney representing the Trump administration. His surname is Shumate, not Schumate.

The Environmental Protection Agency is delaying implementation of a Biden-era rule aimed at restricting planet-warming methane emissions from oil and gas drilling. The agency says the 18-month delay will allow energy companies time meet new inspection requirements and other provisions of the 2024 rule.

The Biden administration rule targeted the U.S. oil and natural gas industry for contributing to global warming. The Trump administration has sought to reverse those policies in pursuit of what officials call U.S. “energy dominance.”

On Tuesday the EPA proposed revoking a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. The rule would rescind a 2009 declaration that determined carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.

Here are some of the highlights from a final report about the COVID-19 pandemic issued Thursday by the Government Accountability Office:

The federal government provided about $4.65 trillion for response and recovery efforts through six different bills. Almost all that money has been spent.

The full extent of fraud within the relief programs will never be known with certainty, but estimates indicate hundreds of billions of dollars in fraudulent payments were disbursed.

Fraud-related charges have been brought against at least 3,205 defendants. Of those, 2,331 defendants have been convicted as of the end of March.
About 18% of adults in the U.S. aged 18 and older had experienced long COVID, and about 5% were currently experiencing it at the time of a Census Bureau survey conducted last year.

Public health impacts have continued. For example, about 450 deaths were reported in March 2025.

Congress had required GAO to report regularly on the pandemic’s impact as part of the CARES Act passed in the first months of the outbreak.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday said a new children’s savings program President Donald Trump signed into law through the One Big Beautiful Bill “will help supplement, not substitute Social Security.”

Leavitt made the statement after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a forum hosted by Breitbart News, Wednesday, said that the new investment accounts open “a back door for privatizing Social Security.”

Hours after the interview the Trump administration said it was committed to protecting Social Security.

And on Thursday on CNBC, Bessent said the Trump accounts will serve as an “incredible supplement” to Social Security and “not a replacement.”

Democrats and Social Security advocates have launched attacks at Bessent and the White House for his statements.

Mike Donilon, the top Biden aide who is testifying before House investigators Thursday, defended the former president’s ability to serve as commander-in-chief.

“What I saw, day in and day out, was a leader who was deeply engaged and in command on critical issues, both at home and abroad,” Donilon told the Oversight committee in his opening statement, according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press.

Donilon continued in his opening remarks that “every president ages over the four years of a presidency and President Biden did as well, but he also continued to grow stronger and wiser as a leader as a result of being tested by some of the most difficult challenges any President has ever faced.”

The aide, known as Biden’s chief strategist who worked with him for more than four decades, said he believed Biden was the best person to be president from his first day in office and the last.

Donilon is among a coterie of former aides who are appearing before the House committee as part of its investigation into Biden’s competency for office. Another former top Biden aide, Steve Ricchetti, appeared before the committee earlier this week.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump “at some point this afternoon or later this evening” will sign an order to impose new tariff rates starting midnight on Friday.

Leavitt said at Thursday’s news briefing said that countries that have not received a prior letter on tariffs from Trump or negotiated a trade framework will be notified of their likely tariff rates, either in the form of a letter or Trump’s executive order.

Leavitt did not say what the baseline tariff rate would be under the order.

Trump has said for months that he will build a ballroom at the White House, citing lack of space to hold major functions.

The 90,000-square-foot space will be located where the East Wing currently sits and would be able to seat 650 people.

The East Wing currently is home to several offices, including the first lady’s. Those offices would be relocated during construction.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at her briefing Thursday that the president and other donors have committed to raising approximately $200 million to build the ballroom.

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, and Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, will inspect food distribution centers in Gaza on Friday, the White House said.

The visit comes amid concerns about the growing food crisis among Palestinians there.

On Thursday, Trump said that he would extend trade talks with Mexico by 90 days, as his 25% tariff rates on many goods from the country remain in place. Mexico had previously faced the prospect of a 30% tariff from Trump set to start Friday, something the country now gets to stave off for the next three months.

The announcement arrived after a call with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum — with Trump noting in a post on Truth Social that the conversation with Sheinbaum was “very successful in that, more and more, we are getting to know and understand each other.” He also said that autos would face 25% tariffs — but copper, aluminum and steel would still be taxed at 50%.

Sheinbaum later applauded the latest delay in Trump’s threatened tariffs. She said that it was a “good agreement” and that the two leaders had continued to “negotiate and work as equals.” Any good covered under the USMCA trade pact would also remain tariff free, she added.

Gabriela Siller, economic analysis director for Banco Base in Mexico, said the delay in the new tariffs was “positive,” but means that sectors already dealing with import taxes will continue to suffer.

Moody’s Analytics Director Alfredo Coutiño said Mexico doesn’t need postponements, but rather “resolution of the problem.” The decision “wins time, but it prolongs the agony and uncertainty,” he said.

▶ Read more about the U.S. and Mexico’s new 90-day negotiation period

The European Union is working on the assumption that the U.S. will impose a 15% tariff on most EU exports on Friday, even though the two sides have yet to complete a key document clarifying how the agreement will operate.

Under a political agreement reached last weekend, Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the 15% duties would be imposed on around two-thirds of EU goods. But as of Thursday the two sides were still working on a joint statement that would lay out the terms of their understanding, EU commission spokesman Olof Gill said.

Carve outs were agreed for a range of “strategic” goods like aircraft and aircraft parts, certain chemicals, some drug generics or natural resources. Gill said that “it is also our clear understanding that the U.S. will implement the exemptions to the 15% ceiling.”

“The U.S. has made these commitments. Now it’s up to the US to implement them. The ball is in their court,” Gill said. He added that negotiations on additional exemptions to the new tariff regime continue.

A light drizzle off the North Sea washed tens of thousands of cars ready to load on a giant cargo ship — all with a brand new increase in price thanks to American tariffs rolling out worldwide.

Belgium’s coastline is one of the chokepoints of the global trade in automobiles — brought by trains and trucks from the factories of Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, and BMW and others to ship to customers overseas in the United Kingdom, Asia, the Middle East, South America and North America.

The port of Zeebrugge exports about 1.8 million cars every year from Europe around the world. And at just one terminal run by Internation Car Operators, about 70,000 cars sat waiting on teams of drivers in white gloves to drive them into a massive container ship shaped like a shoe box. When Trump initially announced global tariffs on cars, manufacturers scrambled to get their vehicles to customers before the tariff deadline. But following an agreement between Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the uncertainty is giving way to business-as-usual — just with a heftier price tag for consumers.

The auto industry in Europe celebrated the deal, but cautioned that more negotiations are needed — noting that higher tariffs from the US on European cars will continue to negatively impact the industry.

Luxury sportscar maker Ferrari said Thursday that it was awaiting confirmation of tariffs on European imports to the U.S. before scaling back a price surcharge imposed in April.

Ferrari, which last year sold some 4,000 cars in the Americas, raised prices by 10% on imports to the United States after April 2, except for the Ferrari 296, SF90 and Roma model families. CEO Benedetto Vigna said that until there is an executive order lowering tariffs on imported cars, Ferrari will maintain the higher prices.

“It’s very difficult to judge, because the order intake depends very much on the cars that we have available for order, and since we are close to the end of the life cycles of several of our models and others are sold out, we can’t really measure the overall sentiment,’’ CFO Antonio Picca Piccon added.

French skincare company Yon-Ka is warning of job freezes, scaled-back investment, and rising prices after the U.S. and EU struck a trade deal that will see 15% tariffs imposed on most European goods entering the American market.

“The U.S. market is our first client”, said Alexis Wolkowinski, President of Yon-Ka, in an interview at the company’s headquarters outside Paris. “We are strong in the U.S., but because we are strong, it’s impacted us more than anything else. So yes, it’s very, very difficult for us to have to support this tax.”

Roughly 25% of Yon-Ka’s global turnover comes from the United States, Wolkowinski said. With the added burden of a weaker dollar against the euro, the tariff adds further pressure on margins.

A modest price increase of 3–4% is likely in the coming months — far from enough to offset the added costs. “We’ll have to bear a lot of these costs on our shoulders,” he added.

A visit by U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to Texas on Thursday allowed him and fellow Democrats to vent their anger over a Republican plan for redrawing the state’s congressional districts more in their favor.

It also highlighted the lack of options Democrats have for preventing it.

Jeffries held a news conference at the Texas Capitol with Democrats in Congress and the Republican-dominated Legislature. Republicans have unveiled a plan designed to create five more winnable seats for the GOP, which President Donald Trump is pushing ahead of the 2026 elections.

“It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment, and all options should be on the table to protect the people of Texas,” Jeffries said.

But none of the Democrats provided any details about how they plan to stop Republicans from passing their proposed map. Jeffries said he is letting Texas Democrats decide how to try to thwart the GOP’s plans.