Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he will raise US tariffs on Canada by 10% in retaliation for an anti-tariff advertisement sponsored by the Ontario government, which has further strained one of the world’s largest trade partnerships.
The statement, posted on Trump’s Truth Social account, came after several days of public disputes over the ad, which referenced Ronald Reagan’s support for free trade and provoked the US president’s anger.
Trump and Canadian prime minister Mark Carney will both attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Malaysia on Sunday, but Trump told reporters traveling with him that he had no intention of meeting Carney there.
Trump raises tariffs on Canada by 10% in retaliation for anti-tariff TV ad
Ontario premier Doug Ford on Friday said the province would suspend its US ad campaign on Monday, after discussions with prime minister Mark Carney, in an effort to reopen trade negotiations.
The ad, which was paid for by the government of the Canadian province of Ontario, uses excerpts of a 1987 speech where Reagan says “trade barriers hurt every American worker”.
Trump says he is open to meeting Kim Jong-un as he embarks on whirlwind Asia tour
Donald Trump has set off for a tour of Asia where he is expected to take part in high-stakes trade talks with China’s leader, Xi Jinping – telling reporters he was also open to a meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.
Trump, who left Washington on Friday night, is set for a five-day trip to Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, his first visit to the region since taking office in January. He is due to arrive in Malaysia on Sunday morning local time.
RFK Jr to urge Americans to eat more saturated fats, alarming health experts
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health and human services (HHS) secretary, is planning to issue guidance encouraging Americans to eat more saturated fats, contradicting decades of dietary recommendations and alarming experts.
Kennedy has indicated that new dietary guidelines will “stress the need to eat saturated fats of dairy, of good meat, of fresh meat and vegetables … When we release those, it will give everybody the rationale for driving it into our schools,” according to recent reporting in the Hill.
Ronald Krauss, a professor of paediatrics and medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who has researched saturated fats extensively, found that saturated fats may be less harmful than previously thought, but said if “[Kennedy] is actually going to go out and say we should be eating more saturated fat, I think that’s really the wrong message”.
Trump backer identified as donor of $130m for US troop pay during shutdown
A reclusive billionaire, anti-tax crusader and major financial backer of Donald Trump has been named as the anonymous private donor who gave $130m to the government to help pay US troops during the federal shutdown that is now in its fourth week, according to the New York Times.
Timothy Mellon, heir to the gilded age industrialist and former treasury secretary Andrew Mellon, is the secret donor whom Trump has described as a “friend”, “great American” and “patriot” but has refused to name, the Times reported on Saturday, citing two anonymous sources familiar with the arrangement.
Hispanics’ support of Trump plunges since he started second term
Donald Trump’s standing with Hispanic adults has dropped notably since he took office at the start of the year, according to a new poll.
Polling by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that 25% of Hispanic adults now hold a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of Trump, down sharply from 44% in an AP-NORC poll conducted just before he began his second term.
Hispanic adults also expressed less confidence in Trump’s management of the economy and immigration, two key issues that once bolstered his support during last year’s campaign. Overall approval of his job performance has also fallen, with 41% approving of Trump’s handling of the presidency in March, compared with just 27% this month.
Hispanic voters played a crucial role in helping Trump win the presidency for the second time; nearly half of Hispanic voters backed him in 2024.
What else happened today:
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Donald Trump’s intense military buildup targeting the regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela is stretching the president’s America First commitment to breaking point, as the White House strikes a bellicose posture that seems to mock Trump’s self-proclaimed “president of peace” image.
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Australia must “step up to prevent catastrophic and preventable loss of life” after US funding cuts to national and global health programs and institutions, a former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.
Catching up? Here’s what happened Friday 24 October.
