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Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- President Donald Trump on Monday put a one-month hold on the 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada that had been set to go into effect overnight. Trump said the pauses followed preliminary steps by both countries to thwart the flow of fentanyl into the United States, including Mexico’s planned deployment of 10,000 troops to the U.S. border to crack down on drug trafficking. Meanwhile, a 10 percent blanket duty on all Chinese goods took effect as scheduled just after midnight, as Beijing announced plans to impose a 15 percent counter-tariff on U.S. coal and liquefied natural gas imports beginning on February 10.
- Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed Monday that he was “rapidly shutting down” some payments to federal contractors, seeming to confirm reports over the weekend that his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team had gained access to sensitive Treasury Department data. David A. Lebryk, a senior official at Treasury, retired on Friday after he apparently attempted to deny Musk’s representatives access to the department’s federal payment system, which is used to disburse trillions of dollars each year and contains the personal information of millions of Americans. Unions representing federal workers filed a lawsuit Monday against Treasury and its head, Scott Bessent, in an effort to prevent the department from sharing the confidential data with DOGE.
- Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said Sunday that his country would not renew its participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative—a global investment program and one of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s flagship foreign policy enterprises—after the deal expires in one to two years. The announcement followed Secretary Marco Rubio’s visit to Panama over the weekend, during which he conveyed that the U.S. expects the country to “take measures necessary” to end what President Donald Trump views as China’s undue influence over the Panama Canal. Rubio on Monday praised Panama’s decision to end its involvement in the Chinese initiative as “a great step forward.”
- The Department of Homeland Security on Monday revoked Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans living in the U.S., putting 350,000 immigrants—many of whom fled the authoritarian regime of President Nicolás Maduro—at risk of deportation. The move reversed the Biden administration’s decision last month to renew the protections for 18 months. In a memo announcing the change, the department said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had “determined it is contrary to the national interest to permit the covered Venezuelan nationals to remain temporarily in the United States.”
- A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on Monday blocking the Office of Management and Budget’s attempted freeze on the disbursement of federal grants, loans, and other financial assistance. The order came as an earlier administrative stay preventing the White House directive from taking effect expired at 5 p.m. on Monday. The Trump administration’s move could run afoul of the Constitution “by interfering with Congress’s appropriation of federal funds,” Judge Loren AliKhan wrote in the 30-page opinion, adding that the executive’s effort “attempted to wrest the power of the purse away from the only branch of government entitled to wield it.”
- The Senate voted 59-38 Monday to confirm Chris Wright to lead the Department of Energy, with eight Democrats joining Republicans in support of his bid. Wright, the CEO of fracking company Liberty Energy, will be responsible for shepherding the Trump administration’s ambitious initiative to boost domestic energy production.
We can end smoking faster.

U.S. Aid and USAID in Peril

In 2017, President Donald Trump tried to cut funding for the State Department and the Agency for International Development (USAID), proposing a 28 percent reduction as part of his first budget proposal. A Republican-controlled Congress summarily rejected Trump’s requested cuts—deeming international aid too important to U.S. foreign policy and humanitarian relief efforts—and Capitol Hill lawmakers continued to do so for each appropriations cycle of the first Trump administration.
Two weeks into his second term, Trump has leaned on executive action to carry out an apparent gutting of U.S. foreign aid. He signed an executive order on his first day in office freezing funding disbursements for all foreign aid programs for 90 days. The State Department followed up on the order with a stop-work directive on all new foreign aid grants. And now, Trump seems content to bypass Congress as the administration considers whether to shutter USAID—an agency originally created by an executive order in 1961 but codified by Congress in 1998—entirely.
The future of American foreign aid seems up for grabs as Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) push to end USAID while …
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Worth Your Time
- In a deeply reported piece for the New Yorker, Dexter Filkins looked into the U.S. military’s efforts to overcome one of its greatest recruiting crises since the draft was scrapped more than 50 years ago. “At the end of the Second World War, the American military had twelve million active-duty members. It now has 1.3 million—even though the population has more than doubled, and women are now eligible for armed service. ‘The U.S. military has been shrinking for thirty years,’ Lawrence Wilkerson, a former senior State Department official who leads a task force on the challenges facing the armed services, said. “But its global commitments haven’t changed,’” Filkins wrote. “To attract recruits, the Pentagon has loosened dozens of strictures. The maximum age has been raised—to as high as forty-one, in the Navy—and pilot programs have been instituted to make it easier for people with a history of asthma or A.D.H.D. to join up. The Army has eased its policies on soldiers’ appearances and struck down rules that forbade tattoos on the neck and hands; tattoos associated with gangs or extremist groups are still prohibited. … Pentagon officials are also considering allowing in recruits who have tested positive for marijuana.”
Presented Without Comment
Complex: Joe Biden Signs With Hollywood Talent Agency CAA Following His Term in Office
In the Zeitgeist
Has technology gone too far, or just far enough? A YouTuber recently posted an AI-generated version of The Beatles’ Rubber Soul as a Motown album and it’s pretty convincing, to say the least.
Toeing the Company Line
- In the newsletters: Nick Catoggio wondered (🔒) why Americans aren’t rejecting Donald Trump’s power grabs and Kevin Williamson wrote about (🔒) peak oil, Malthusian catastrophe, and other conspiracy theories.
- On the podcasts: Erin Hawley joins Sarah Isgur and David French on today’s Advisory Opinions to discuss the latest upheavals in the federal government.
- On the site: Kevin warns that political extremes are uniting against the center, Mike Warren reports on Elon Musk’s efforts to reshape the government, and Michael McFaul argues that Trump is undermining America’s ability to compete with China.
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