Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ could add $2.4tn to national debt, nonpartisan analysis says – US politics live | US news

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Analysis: Germany on tenterhooks for Merz’s first official meeting with Trump

Kate Connolly

Germany’s new conservative leader, Friedrich Merz, is due in Washington tomorrow for his first official meeting with Donald Trump, putting political Berlin on tenterhooks like no other transatlantic encounter in living memory.

Discussions between the German chancellor and the US president will focus on Ukraine, the Middle East and trade policies. How well or badly the talks go – during a small group meeting, followed by a lunch and then, perhaps most nail-bitingly, a press conference in the Oval Office – may shape relations for decades to come, analysts say.

Having reportedly spoken by phone four times since Merz’s election win in February, swapped numbers and exchanged an undisclosed number of text messages, the two leaders are now on first-name terms.

But Merz knows the road to a normal friendship is thorny. The transatlantic relationship has been altered almost beyond recognition since Trump’s return to office, and the shock “sits very deep”, said Mariam Lau, a journalist and the author of a new in-depth portrayal of Merz. She went on:

It’s the equivalent of a medical emergency in political terms: the speed and degree to which the Merz government has had to react to the disintegration of the transatlantic alliance, one of its main foreign policy pillars, is like being forced to undergo dialysis or an organ transplantation.

Berlin has viewed as menacing and dangerous the unprecedented interference in German politics by leading members of the Trump administration – by his former adviser Elon Musk; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; and the vice-president, JD Vance, in particular. There is the lack of unity over how and even whether to punish Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine, there are tensions over defence spending levels, and there are diverging viewpoints over the Middle East, and over Trump’s looming tariffs.

Indeed nobody in Berlin is resting on their laurels. As to just how quickly leaders’ inaugural visits to the Oval Office can curdle, one only needs to recall Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s lions’ den encounter three months ago, or more recently the South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s. It has not gone unnoticed that Merz called the latter last Friday, reportedly to pick up a few Trump-whisperer tips.

Lau said Merz would have to “walk a tightrope between keeping an open dialogue with Trump and standing up to him, not giving into his whims”. And Merz is said to have been coached on an array of eventualities and is armed, rhetorically at least. Merz knows that keeping things brief, not interrupting, heaping praise and stressing the commonalities is the accepted playbook when dealing with Trump.

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Updated at 12.49 EDT

NOAA ‘fully staffed’ with forecasters and scientists, US commerce secretary says

Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick has told a Senate hearing that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is “fully staffed” with weather forecasters and scientists after concerns were raised about some offices losing 24-hour staffing ahead of hurricane season.

“We are fully staffed with forecasters and scientists. Under no circumstances am I going to let public safety or public forecasting be touched,” Lutnick told a Senate appropriations subcommittee overseeing NOAA, saying he got the National Weather Service (NWS) exempted from a federal hiring freeze.

NOAA, which includes the NWS, lost around 1,000 people or 10% of its workforce amid federal job layoffs in the first months of the second Trump administration, including 600 at the weather service. At least six NWS offices had stopped the routine twice-a-day weather balloon launches that collect data for weather models.

The US hurricane season officially began on Sunday and lasts through November. NOAA forecast last week that this year’s season is expected to bring as many as 10 hurricanes.

The agency had been scrambling to reassign staffers internally to fill gaps in understaffed offices over the last few months, sources told Reuters.

Lutnick told the committee that they are going to fill these positions and focus on cutting programs that he said were not part of NOAA’s mission, including “children’s books about climate anxiety”.

An internal memo seen by Reuters said that NOAA plans to hire 126 mission-critical positions at the National Weather Service including forecasters, radar technicians, hydrologists and physical scientists that will be advertised externally.

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Congress budget office sees economic output falling from Trump tariffs

US economic output will fall as a result of Donald Trump’s new tariffs on foreign goods that were in place as of 13 May, while also reducing federal budget deficits by $2.8tn over a decade, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has said.

Reuters reports that in a letter to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and two other high-ranking Democrats, the CBO said the tariffs, which have been challenged in court cases, will raise the costs of consumer and capital goods.

“CBO estimates that, on net, real (inflation-adjusted) economic output in the United States will fall as a result,” the agency said.

“Inflation will increase by an annual average of 0.4 percentage points in 2025 and 2026, in CBO’s estimation, reducing the purchasing power of households and businesses,” the letter to Schumer and senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley stated.

Wyden is the senior Democrat on the Senate finance committee and Merkley is the ranking Democrat on the Senate budget committee. The three senators requested the CBO analysis on the impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs implemented between 6 January and 13 May through executive actions.

The CBO’s inflation estimates were compared to an economic outlook published by the CBO on 17 January.

The analysis was completed before two courts ruled that the tariffs exceeded the president’s authority to impose them. The administration has asked an appeals court to pause one of the rulings.

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Updated at 12.14 EDT

Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, said he tried to call Elon Musk on Tuesday night after the tech billionaire’s online outburst denouncing Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination”.

Johnson told reporters on Wednesday:

I called Elon last night and he didn’t answer. I hope to talk to him today.

He said he and Musk are “very friendly”, adding:

We’ve laughed about our differences on policy before. I’m not upset about this.

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Updated at 11.33 EDT

Trump pushes Congress to cut $9.4bn in funding for NPR, PBS and foreign aid

Adam Gabbatt

The Trump administration formally asked Congress to rescind $9.4bn in already approved funding from foreign aid and public broadcasters including NPR and PBS on Tuesday, seeking to enshrine spending cuts identified by Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge).

The process, known as rescission, is required by Donald Trump to retrieve money from programs and policies that have already received the funding.

A spokesperson for the White House office of management and budget told the Associated Press that $8.3bn was being cut from the state department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). NPR and PBS will also lose about $1.1bn in federal funding if Congress fulfills Trump’s request.

The targeting of public broadcasters fits with the Trump administration’s ongoing war on the US media. Trump signed an executive order in May cutting federal funding to NPR and PBS, and has launched multiple lawsuits against other news organizations.

The House and the Senate will now weigh whether to rescind the funding. On Tuesday Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, pledged to pass the cuts.

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Updated at 11.31 EDT

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he met with US secretary of state Marco Rubio in Washington DC.

In a series of posts on social media, Yermak said he and Rubio discussed the “situation on the front lines and the urgent need to strengthen support for Ukraine’s air defense.”

The pair also “exchanged views on the meetings with the Russians in Istanbul, the further course of negotiations, the upcoming prisoner exchange, and the importance of bringing back all hostages and children abducted by Russia,” he said, adding:

I emphasized that Ukraine has done everything possible to achieve peace and is ready for a ceasefire — but Russia refuses. That is why additional sanctions are necessary.

He and Rubio “agreed to coordinate our next steps,” Yermak said.

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The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has also projected an increase of 10.9m people without health insurance under Donald Trump’s big tax and spending cut bill.

That would include 1.4m people who are in the country without legal status in state-funding programs, Associated Press reports.

As we reported earlier, the House-passed version of the bill could add $2.4tn to the federal government’s $36.2tn debt, according to the CBO’s revised estimate on Wednesday.

The new CBO estimate takes into account late changes that were made to the bill as Republican leaders steered it to passage.

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Mexico will respond if there is no agreement with US on ‘unfair’ metals tariffs, says president

Mexico will announce measures next week if there is no agreement reached with the United States on the steel and aluminum tariffs announced, president Claudia Sheinbaum has said.

She also called the US announcement to raise the metals’ tariffs an “unfair measure” during her morning conference, and added that Mexico’s answer will not be “an eye for an eye”.

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Updated at 10.29 EDT

Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ will add $2.4tn to national debt, according to nonpartisan analysis

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has released a revised estimate of the cost of Donald Trump’s tax and spending cut bill passed by the House of Representatives, concluding it will add $2.4tn to the federal government’s $36.2tn debt.

The new assessment comes a day after Elon Musk blasted the bill as a “disgusting abomination”, emboldening GOP deficit hawks who have been pushing back against the measure.

An earlier CBO estimate predicted the bill, which passed through the House on 22 May by a single vote and with no Democratic support, would add around $3.8tn to Washington’s debt over the next decade.

The measure, now under consideration in the Senate, aims to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts while also achieving steep spending reductions to pay for them, largely – and highly controversially – on Medicaid.

The new CBO estimate takes into account late changes that were made to the bill as Republican leaders steered it to passage.

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Updated at 10.21 EDT

UAE seeks US trade deal to roll back Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs – Reuters

The United States and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to start negotiations for a potential bilateral trade agreement that could ease tariffs on the Gulf state’s steel and aluminum industry, four people familiar with the matter have told Reuters.

Emirati officials discussed the possibility of a trade agreement with US counterparts during Donald Trump’s two-day visit to Abu Dhabi last month, the sources said.

The Office of the US Trade Representative did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Neither did Emirati officials.

Like other nations, the UAE has been hit by Trump’s 10% baseline tariff on its exports to the US. But its steel and aluminum products have also been hit by a 25% tariff that the Trump administration is now doubling to 50%.

While the UAE is a major oil producer, its steel and aluminium products are significant non-oil exports. In 2024, the UAE was the second-largest steel and aluminium exporter to the US, accounting for 8% of total US consumption, data shows.

In Abu Dhabi, Emirati officials highlighted to American counterparts comprehensive trade deals that it had signed with other countries over the past three years, the sources said, to illustrate that the UAE was capable of moving quickly on trade talks.

The sources said that US officials had responded positively, although it was unclear when talks would start. Two of the sources said Washington was likely to negotiate a limited deal that would fall short of a comprehensive free trade pact.

The UAE is Washington’s biggest trade partner in the Middle East, according to the Gulf state’s foreign ministry. Bilateral trade in 2024 was valued at $34.4bn, according to US trade data, with the US enjoying a $19.4bn surplus.

The Gulf state, which is reliant on the US security umbrella, has pledged to invest $1.4tn in the US over the next decade. Its sovereign wealth funds, including Abu Dhabi’s $330bn Mubadala, are already big US investors, and Trump and his family have business interests in the UAE.

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Updated at 10.04 EDT

Republican allies close to the White House are privately arguing that Elon Musk’s bombshell attacks on the spending megabill stem from the fact that it harms the tech billionaire’s business interests, according to Politico.

“The West Wing is perplexed, unenthused, and disappointed” with Musk, who left the White House to attend to his ailing business empire, one White House official told the news outlet, which reports that a push is now underway among Republicans close to the White House to reframe Musk’s criticisms of the “big, beautiful bill” as self-serving.

“When businessmen criticize legislation, journalists don’t take them at their word, they look at how the legislation would impact their business interests,” said one Republican close to the White House. “They should be doing that in this case.”

Indeed Tesla benefitted from the Biden-era EV support package which included multiple federal tax credits, which the “big, beautiful bill” strips away, as was noted by House speaker Mike Johnson yesterday. He told reporters:

It’s not personal. I know that the EV mandate (is) very important to (Musk) — that’s going away, because the government should not be subsidizing these things as part of the Green New Deal … And I know that has an effect on his business, and I lament that.

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Updated at 09.47 EDT

Deadline arrives for ‘best offers’ from US trading partners to avoid tariffs

Today is the White House’s deadline for countries to submit their “best offers” in trade negotiations with the US in order to avoid being slapped with steep tariffs in July.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed yesterday that the Trump administration had sent letters to trading partners to push for offers by today as the deadline approached, underlining Trump’s use of tariffs as a negotiating tool.

“This letter was simply to remind these countries that the deadline is approaching and the president expects good deals, and we are on track for that,” she told reporters.

Reuters first reported on the office of the US trade representative’s letter seeking to accelerate unwieldy talks with multiple partners ahead of the Trump administration’s self-imposed deadline in under five weeks.

Those negotiations kicked off on 9 April when he paused his so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs for 90 days until 8 July amid stock, bond and currency markets turmoil over the sweeping levies.

While over the last few months Trump and his administration officials have boasted about the number of countries reaching out to discuss trading arrangements and have even claimed that several agreements are close to being over the line, they have also admitted that talks have been slow-moving and they don’t have the capacity to negotiate (hugely complex) trade deals with so many countries at once.

The US has so far only reached a framework agreement with the UK, and an agreement with China that both countries are now accusing each other of reneging on.

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Updated at 12.19 EDT

Trump officials delayed – and redacted part of – farm trade report over deficit forecast – Politico

Trump administration officials delayed and redacted a government forecast because it predicts an increase in the nation’s trade deficit in farm goods later this year, two people familiar with the matter have told Politico, in a story that could raise questions about potential political interference in government reports that present “politically inconvenient” data.

Here’s an extract from Politico’s story:

The numbers run counter to Donald Trump’s messaging that his economic policies, including tariffs, will reduce US trade imbalances. The politically inconvenient data prompted administration officials to block publication of the written analysis normally attached to the report because they disliked what it said about the deficit.

The highly unusual rollout could raise questions about potential political meddling with government reports that have traditionally been trusted for decades.

“Objectivity is really key here and the public depends on it,” said Joe Glauber, a former USDA chief economist. “To lose that trust would be terrible.”

A USDA spokesperson blamed the delay on an internal review.

“The report was hung up in internal clearance process and was not finalized in time for its typical deadline,” said USDA spokesperson Alec Varsamis in a statement. “Given this report is not statutory as with many other reports USDA does, the Department is undergoing a review of all of its non-statutory reports, including this one, to determine next steps.”

It’s not clear when or if the written analysis portion will be released.

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Trump calls again on Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates

Donald Trump has – once again – called on Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, to lower interest rates, noting that payroll processing firm ADP reported that job creation slowed in May.

In the post on his Truth Social platform, he said that Powell – who in the past he has called a “major loser” – is “unbelievable”.

ADP NUMBER OUT!!! “Too Late” Powell must now LOWER THE RATE. He is unbelievable!!! Europe has lowered NINE TIMES!

ADP’s report showed private payrolls ticked up by only 37,000 in May – far below the Dow Jones forecast for 110,000 – and mark the lowest monthly reading from ADP since March 2023.

At a meeting with Trump at the White House last week, Powell had pushed back against the president’s demands, telling him “that the path of policy will depend entirely on incoming economic information and what that means for the outlook,” according to an unusually blunt statement issued by the central bank.

Trump, who has attacked Powell repeatedly over the Fed’s decision to not lower interest rates, recently said he has no intention of trying to fire Powell. But the possibility of a firing has unsettled financial markets that bank on an independent Fed’s ability to do its job without political interference.

Earlier this month, Powell kept interest rates on hold and cautioned that the president’s tariff regime was likely to raise prices, weaken growth and increase unemployment in the US if maintained.

The statement went on to say that Powell maintained that the Fed “will set monetary policy, as required by law, to support maximum employment and stable prices and will make those decisions based solely on careful, objective, and non-political analysis”.

The full statement read:

At the President’s invitation, Chair Powell met with the President today at the White House to discuss economic developments including for growth, employment, and inflation.

Chair Powell did not discuss his expectations for monetary policy, except to stress that the path of policy will depend entirely on incoming economic information and what that means for the outlook.

Finally, Chair Powell said that he and his colleagues on the FOMC will set monetary policy, as required by law, to support maximum employment and stable prices and will make those decisions based solely on careful, objective, and non-political analysis.

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Updated at 09.22 EDT