China’s Trump Strategy: Beijing Is Preparing to Take Advantage of Disruption
Layoffs hit contractors and small businesses as Trump cuts take effect: Health centers, after-school programs and independent-living facilities are among those announcing hiring freezes, furloughs and layoffs.
The White House’s wildly inaccurate claims about USAID spending: Eleven out of 12 claims about the agency’s work are misleading, wrong or lack context. - "Polls consistently reveal that Americans believe that it is about 25 percent of the federal budget — and that a majority believe it should be more like 10 percent. In reality, foreign aid is less than 1 percent of the budget.
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"About two-thirds of U.S. foreign assistance funds in fiscal year 2018 were obligated to U.S.-based entities, CRS said. For instance, food aid must be purchased in the United States and by law must be shipped on U.S. carriers. With the exception of some aid given to Israel, all military aid must be used to purchase U.S. military equipment and training — meaning foreign military aid in reality is a jobs program in the United States."
Recall of USAID’s global workforce causes havoc and distress: Employees stationed overseas are struggling to navigate the sudden upheaval, having received little clear information from the Trump administration. - "'You find yourself in a foreign country, in all likelihood a place you moved to despite the terrorism or security risks, and you’re being treated as if you’re somehow an enemy of the state,' one USAID official told The Washington Post. 'That’s not even the worst of it. You know that your career matters far less than the lives of those you were trying to help, and … a lot of them are going to die without American aid.'"
Ultra-efficient AI won’t solve data centers’ climate problem. This might.: Despite DeepSeek’s AI efficiency gains, data centers are still expected to gobble up huge amounts of U.S. electricity.
As Trump wages war against the federal bureaucracy, some workers fight back: Undergirding a fight formed in group texts and between cubicles is a conviction that nonpartisan civil servants provide a necessary check on Trump’s power.
Democrats, don’t save Trump from himself: Republicans have the votes. The minority party ought not give them a single one. - "Clearly, there is no hope of good-faith negotiation with Trump, or with Johnson. Republicans control the House, Senate and White House. Let them pass a 2025 spending bill on their own. Let them raise the debt ceiling on their own. Let them enact Trump’s entire agenda on their own. They have the votes. Democrats ought not give them a single one.
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"In truth, Democrats have almost no ability to stop Trump, but they do have the power, and the obligation, to stand in lockstep opposition to what the president is doing. Some of them might argue that the only way to protect certain programs, and the vulnerable people who need them, is to cut a deal with Trump and Republicans. But Trump has demonstrated abundantly that he will try to use unconstitutional means to kill off those programs regardless of what Congress does."
When the arsonist demands praise for his firefighting skills: Donald Trump is great at creating problems — and then pretending to fix them. - "Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum committed to station 10,000 Mexican troops along the border. Apparently, Trump was unaware that Mexico had already deployed 15,000 troops there, per Mexican defense ministry data, so he declared victory. Likewise, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to spend $1.3 billion on border investments, a commitment the Canadian government announced back in December. Trudeau also offered some meaningless gestures such as a “fentanyl czar” and '24/7 eyes on the border.'"
Don’t Make Small Talk. Think Big Talk.: Discover the rewards of discussing deep things.
The Spies Are Shown the Door: Trump has never understood how the CIA’s people work. But he might know how to make them quit.
Trump Is Inheriting an Environmental Disaster: PFAS could be the rare environmental issue that gets addressed this term. - "PFAS weren't a known concern when the Clean Water Act was created, nor were they on anyone's radar when the Safe Drinking Water Act came into force in 1974. By the '70s, however, 3M knew that a PFAS compound it had invented, and sold to DuPont to make Teflon, was accumulating in employees' blood."
Trump’s Assault on USAID Makes Project 2025 Look Like Child’s Play “I have never seen a government action have such an immediate impact.” - "'It's ridiculous," Andrew Natsios, a former USAID administrator, told me. He ran the organization for the first five years of the George W. Bush administration and describes himself as 'the most conservative administrator in the history of the agency.' Natsios has his share of problems with USAID, including his sense that its staff is often unresponsive to political leadership, a critique that Project 2025 echoes. But Natsios, who's now a professor at Texas A&M University, is aghast at the Trump administration's purge of USAID. (He began our conversation by comparing it to the Russian Revolution.) For days, he's been fielding calls from panicked contacts at the agency. 'They are not reviewing each project,' he said. 'They're eliminating entire bureaus, whole programs, simply deleting them without even looking at what they're doing.'"
