Good morning and welcome to White House Watch. In today’s edition we look at:
Donald Trump and his top officials have tried to argue that last week’s Supreme Court ruling that struck down the core of his trade agenda is no big deal.
But the White House is facing a messy reality. First, it is bracing for the impact of more than 900 lawsuits filed against the emergency tariffs, which could now force the government to refund billions of dollars to injured importers.
“We are going to fight tooth and nail to ensure that this money is returned quickly, without any wiggle room or reservations,” Neal Katyal, the lawyer who argued against Trump’s tariffs before the Supreme Court on behalf of US companies, told Stefania Palma in an interview. He set up a task force on Tuesday to seek refunds for the tariffs he helped invalidate.
The government initially responded by casting doubt on whether Americans would get their money back. But recently the company has moved to signal that it will not oppose refunds if they are approved by the lower courts.
“In some ways it’s standard practice,” Jamieson Greer, the U.S. Trade Representative, told Lauren Fedor on Capitol Hill after Trump’s State of the Union address.
“Companies will go, and if they think they have a claim for reimbursement, they will go to court, and the courts will decide the time, place and manner of these kinds of things,” he said.
The refunds aren’t the only tariff issues facing the president. He has also left many U.S. trading partners in the dark about what tariffs they will charge in the future. Trump has now imposed a 10 percent tariff on global imports, which came into effect on Tuesday, under a different statute, and will last 150 days.
But Trump has also threatened to increase that rate to 15 percent, and every diplomat in Washington is trying to avoid being hit by that higher levy. “[Trading partners] I want to understand it clearly and have more clarity, and we’re working to get to that point,” Greer said after the speech, but on Wednesday morning, speaking to Fox Business Network, he remained hazy.
“Now we have the 10 percent rate. For some it will go up to 15 percent, and then it could go higher for others, and I think it will be in line with the types of rates that we’ve seen,” Greer said. “We want continuity.”
The latest headlines
What we hear
Donald Trump’s State of the Union address was the longest in recent history, lasting almost two hours.
There were many highlights: the performance of the U.S. men’s ice hockey team that had just won the Winter Olympic tournament in Italy, the president’s open clash with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and his attempt to defend his record on immigration and the economy before a skeptical audience.
But it was Trump’s comments on Iran, sandwiched between a massive US military buildup in the Middle East and important talks in Geneva today, that had the most impact. The president didn’t reveal much about his plans, but he did provide the first glimpses of how Washington might justify an attack.
After launching attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities last June and declaring them “obliterated,” Trump now claims Tehran is rebuilding its program with “sinister” ambitions. Meanwhile, he lashed out at Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, saying they “could threaten Europe and our bases abroad, and they are building missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.”
Tehran responded to Trump’s bluster with its own ominous warning, saying it would retaliate against any US attack, signaling that a much more dangerous escalation could be in store compared to last June’s brief conflict. On Wednesday afternoon, however, Marco Rubio made an even more detailed attempt to defend the possible need for a US attack on Iran, citing the Islamic Republic’s unwillingness to make any concessions.
The US Secretary of State said Iran “refuses to talk to us or anyone else about the ballistic missiles, and that is a big problem.” And on uranium enrichment, Rubio said Iran is “trying to get to the point where they can eventually do this,” according to Steff Chávez’s reporting.
“They don’t need to enrich themselves to have nuclear power. By the way, they don’t need nuclear power, they have plenty of natural gas,” Rubio said.
When asked if Thursday was the last chance for diplomacy, Rubio did not suggest it was a “make-or-break” meeting. “I don’t think diplomacy is ever off the table,” he said, adding that Trump’s “preference” was to “make progress on the diplomatic front.”
“I wouldn’t characterize tomorrow [Thursday] as something other than. . . a series of conversations,” Rubio said.
Viewpoints
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Silicon Valley billionaires are spending a lot of money writing America’s AI rules, Joe Miller and George Hammond report.
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“Long live the anti-Trump trade,” writes market columnist Katie Martin.
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Lloyd Blankfein’s memoir provides an incisive insider’s guide, including how he led Goldman Sachs through the financial crisis, writes John Gapper.
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Alan Beattie declares it is “payback time for Trump’s trade fiasco”. Sign up for his weekly trade secrets briefing to learn more about international trade and globalization (premium subscribers only).
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How has New York City dealt with a deep freeze this winter? Oliver Roeder looks at the data behind the historic cold spell.
