Trump administration deportations continue as members of Congress say Afghan man seized after green card appointment – US politics live

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Trump administration not in a rush to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday told Bloomberg TV in an interview that the Trump administration was not in a rush to nominate a new Federal Reserve Chair to replace Jerome Powell.

After years of heated attacks on Powell, the Trump administration has begun suggesting recent costly renovations at the central bank’s Washington DC buildings could justify firing Powell.

Donald Trump’s antipathy for Powell stems mainly from the central bank boss’s refusal to lower interest rates – something the president has repeatedly called for.

Bessent said he continues to have regular meetings with Powell and that Powell had not told him whether he would leave his board seat.

For a full explainer on whether Trump could fire Powell, read here:

US President Donald Trump has created a lot of leverage on trade with his letters on tariff rates, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg Television in an interview on Wednesday.

“President Trump is creating this leverage by saying: if you don’t want to negotiate with me, I’ve sent you a letter with a high rate. Have at the high rate or come and negotiate in better fashion,” Bessent said.

US Treasury Secretary Bessent attends USA National Day at Osaka Expo 2025 Photograph: Soichiro Koriyama/EPA

The European Commission plans to submit counter-tariffs on €93bn ($109bn) of US goods for approval to EU members, while its trade chief will hold talks with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

The Commission said on Wednesday its primary focus was to achieve a negotiated outcome with the United States to avert 30% US tariffs that US President Donald Trump has said he will impose on the 27-nation bloc on 1 August.

European Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič will speak with Lutnick on Wednesday afternoon, the Commission said, before Commission officials brief EU ambassadors on the state of play.

The Commission said it would in parallel press on with potential countermeasures. It said it would merge its two sets of possible tariffs of €21bn and €72bn into a single list.

US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick testifies before a House Appropriations Committee in Washington Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

A German court on Wednesday acquitted a satirist who was charged with having approved of an assassination attempt against Donald Trump during last year’s US election campaign in a social media post and disturbed the public peace.

In a quickly deleted post under his alias “El Hotzo” on X in July last year, Sebastian Hotz drew a parallel between Trump and “the last bus” and wrote “unfortunately just missed.” In a follow-up post, he wrote: “I find it absolutely fantastic when fascists die.”

A gunman opened fire at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, while Trump was campaigning for president last July, grazing Trump’s ear and killing one of his supporters in the crowd. Trump went on to win the White House in November.

Judge Andrea Wilms said in her ruling that Hotz’s post was satire that should go unpunished, even if the comments may have been tasteless. She argued that no one would feel called upon to commit acts of violence by “such clearly satirical utterances,” according to a court statement.

Comedian and satirist Sebastian Hotz, alias El Hotzo, attends the trial against him at Tiergarten district court, where the public prosecutor’s office accuses him of rewarding and condoning criminal acts, after a year ago the 29-year-old made controversial comments on Platform X about the assassination attempt on then US presidential candidate Trump, in Berlin, Wednesday, July 23, 2025. Photograph: Bernd von Jutrczenka/AP

The US Federal Reserve’s independence is under threat from mounting political interference, according to a clear majority of economists polled by Reuters, although no one expects a July interest rate cut despite a recent divergence in views among policymakers.

President Donald Trump has made it almost a daily routine to personally attack Fed Chair Jerome Powell over the central bank’s stance of holding rates due to tariff-related risks of higher inflation. A recent jump in inflation suggests businesses are now passing some of the tariffs onto consumers.

Most Federal Market Open Committee members favor holding rates steady, but a few, including Governor Chris Waller and Trump appointee Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, have recently advocated a reduction as soon as July 30.

Powell’s term is set to expire in May 2026. Waller last week said he would accept the job as the bank’s head if he was offered it by Trump.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell chats during a break at the Federal Reserve's Integrated Review of the Capital Framework for Large Banks Conference in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 22, 2025. Photograph: Ken Cedeno/Reuters

Representatives from China and the United States will meet next week in the Swedish capital Stockholm to try and hammer out a deal before an August 12 deadline agreed in May.

China said it will send its vice premier to US trade talks next week to secure its own agreement after US President Donald Trump announced a “massive” trade deal with Japan.

In an attempt to slash his country’s colossal trade deficit, the US president has vowed to hit dozens of countries with punitive “reciprocal” tariffs if they do not hammer out a pact with Washington by August 1.

As the clock ticks down, China said Wednesday it will seek to “strengthen cooperation” with Washington at the talks, and confirmed vice premier He Lifeng would attend.

Trump to outline blueprint to win the AI race

The Trump administration is set to release a new artificial intelligence blueprint on Wednesday that aims to relax American rules governing the industry at the center of a technological arms race between economic rivals the US and China.

President Donald Trump will mark the plan’s release with a speech outlining the importance of winning an AI race that is increasingly seen as a defining feature of 21st-century geopolitics, with both China and the US investing heavily in the industry to secure economic and military superiority.

According to a summary seen by Reuters, the plan calls for the export of US AI technology abroad and a crackdown on state laws deemed too restrictive to let it flourish, a marked departure from former President Joe Biden’s “high fence” approach that limited global access to coveted AI chips.

Top administration officials such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House National Economic Adviser Kevin Hassett are also expected to join the event titled “Winning the AI Race,” organized by White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks and his co-hosts on the “All-In” podcast, according to an event schedule reviewed by Reuters.

Donald Trump Reception with Republican of Congress in Washington, District of Columbia, United States - 22 Jul 2025
Photograph: Yuri Gripas/UPI/Shutterstock

Afghan man moving to US seized by immigration agents after green card application appointment

The Trump administration is continuing its deportations policy, which has been described as “human trafficking disguised as a deportation deal” by the largest opposition party in Eswatini. Civil society and opposition groups expressed outrage after the US deported five men to the country. You can read our full story here.

Attorneys and members of Congress have also told how an Afghan man who moved to America after working for the US military in his home country was seized by armed, masked immigration agents, put in a van and taken out of state. Identified only as Zia by members of Congress and his attorney out of concern for his safety and that of his family, the man had worked as an interpreter for the military during the war in Afghanistan. He was in the United States legally and was arrested after an appointment in Connecticut related to his application for a green card.

In other news:

• Bryan Kohberger, 30, a former criminal-justice doctoral student, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole or appeal under a deal with prosecutors that spared him the death penalty in return for his guilty plea to four counts of first-degree murder. The proceedings today in a county courtroom in Boise, the state capital, also will afford family members the chance to directly address Kohberger through the presentation of victim impact statements.

• China’s foreign ministry said Washington’s decision – to pull the US out of what Donald Trump called the “woke” and “divisive” UN culture and education agency Unesco – was “not the behaviour expected of a responsible major country”, and expressed China’s staunch support of Unesco’s work, its spokesperson told reporters during a press briefing on Wednesday.

• European shares climbed more than 1% on Wednesday, led by automobile stocks, after US President Trump revived hopes for a trade deal with the European Union after an agreement with Japan.

• US-funded contraceptives worth nearly $10m (£7.39m) are being sent to France from Belgium to be incinerated, after Washington rejected offers from the United Nations and family planning organisations to buy or ship the supplies to poor nations, two sources told Reuters.

• The US embassy in the Philippines has said the US has announced PHP3billion (£39m) in foreign assistance for the country.

• The dollar struggled on Wednesday, while the yen was choppy after Trump announced a trade deal with Japan, bolstering optimism for more agreements ahead of an impending tariff deadline. The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against major peers, was at 97.48 after a three-day decline, hovering near its lowest level since 10 July. The gauge has lost 6.6% since Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement on 2 April.