The Latest: Disney sues Trump's FCC over broadcast license challenge
Disney sued the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday, saying freedom of speech is threatened by the Trump administration’s retaliation over Jimmy Kimmel ’s satire. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has said the country should have a “trusted, respected news media, and we’re not there.”
The U.S. and Canada are negotiating ahead of Trump’s midnight deadline to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian products starting Wednesday. The fate of the Gaza ceasefire remains unclear after Jared Kushner left a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with no firm Israeli commitment to the latest U.S.-proposed plan. And Trump’s pivot away from South Korea is raising broader concerns about U.S. security interests in Asia and elsewhere.
The Latest:
Disney’s suit filed Tuesday against the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission alleges a violation of its First Amendment rights.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr defended the agency’s early review of eight ABC local broadcast licenses well before they expire, saying Friday that broadcasters have a duty to “operate in the public interest” and the FCC is merely trying to restore that standard.
Carr has said the country should have a “trusted, respected news media, and we’re not there.”
ABC has accused the agency of a brazen attempt to chill its constitutionally protected free speech — and by extension, that of every media outlet in the country.
After the Supreme Court ruled the president overstepped his authority by imposing double-digit import taxes on almost every country on earth as a national emergency, Trump last month imposed new import taxes of 10% to 12.5% on 59 countries and the European Union — which together account for 99% of U.S. imports, accusing them of allowing forced labor.
And to whack Canada, he invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to impose 50% tariffs, starting Wednesday.
These so-called Smoot-Hawley tariffs are notorious among economists and historians for limiting world commerce and making the Great Depression worse. Never before used, Section 338 allows for import taxes on products from countries that have discriminated against U.S. businesses.
Trump claimed Canada discriminates against U.S. exports of autos, alcohol and cheese.
Syrian state TV said eight Israeli airstrikes hit the runway of the Abu Duhur air base early Tuesday, causing damage without inflicting any casualties.
U.S. Ambassador Tom Barrack posted on X that Washington is “deeply concerned that the confirmed Israeli airstrikes” constitute “an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability.”
There was no comment from the Israeli military on the attack and Turkish officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said foreign fighters used to stay at the base before they were recently asked to leave, and that Turkey, a main backer of Syria’s government, has been rehabilitating the base after the Syrian conflict left nearly half a million people dead.
A projectile has hit a ship sailing out of the Strait of Hormuz , according to the British military’s UK Maritime Trade Operations center, causing “a crew casualty” but no environmental damage.
Iranian threats to shipping effectively closed the strait after Israel and the U.S. started the war nearly six months ago.
An Iranian official said Tuesday that the waterway will remain closed until the U.S. meets Tehran’s conditions, which include ending a U.S. blockade on Iranian shipping, “releasing frozen assets, lifting oil sanctions (and) ending threats and military operations on all fronts.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Trump in a telephone call to continue to seek a diplomatic solution to the conflict with Iran.
The call came late Monday as the 60-day negotiating period to find a peace deal between the United States and Iran was expiring, with no word of an extension and both sides seemingly as far apart as they were at the start.
“President Erdogan said it is important to make maximum use of diplomacy amid tensions between Iran and the United States,” according to a statement from the Turkish presidential communications office.
The deal that Trump signed at Versailles in June set an ambitious 60-day deadline for ending the war with Iran and reaching an accord on its nuclear program.
The deadline was Monday, and the two sides are further apart than they were then.
Talks, such as they are, have focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and lifting a U.S. blockade on Iran, both of which were supposed to have happened under the interim deal. There has been no sign of any compromise on the strait, or that detailed nuclear talks have even begun.
The U.S., meanwhile, has no good options for getting out of the war it started alongside Israel.
Acceding to Iran’s latest demands would mean giving it control over a critical international waterway that carried a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas before the war — and would be tantamount to admitting defeat. Escalating the deeply unpopular war would further draw down U.S. supplies of advanced missile interceptors, jolt the world economy, and drive up gas prices ahead of U.S. congressional elections.
So both sides have dug in, hoping the other will blink first. So far, neither has.
Trump on Sunday ordered the U.S. military to downsize the 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, which began Monday as scheduled. It wasn’t known which parts of the training were being scaled back.
His announcement baffled many in South Korea, which has been closely allied with the U.S. for decades and where national security is a top priority due to threats from nuclear-armed North Korea.
Trump explained his decision by citing South Korea’s refusal to join his war against Iran and pointing to what he said was his good relationship with North Korea’s reclusive dictator, a transactional and personal approach to foreign policy that has defined the Republican’s presidency.
“There is no American interest that I can see in this,” said Dan Fried, an assistant secretary of state for European affairs in the George W. Bush administration. “On all levels it makes no sense. It undermines the South Koreans, undermines the Japanese, frightens the Taiwanese, unnerves NATO and emboldens the Chinese, not to mention the North Koreans.”
A marathon meeting Monday between U.S. negotiator Jared Kushner and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left the fate of the Gaza ceasefire unclear, with officials signaling moderate optimism but offering no concrete commitment by Israel to the latest U.S.-proposed plan.
Hamas has already agreed to the proposal. American negotiators appeared to acquiesce to Israeli demands that Hamas disarmament must come before any reconstruction of the devastated Palestinian enclave. They did not publicly signal that Israel had made any commitments to withdraw from the 60% of Gaza that Israeli troops currently occupy.
That’s a major sticking point in the plan and one that Hamas had pressed negotiators to compel Israel to fulfill prior to the meeting. The talks came days after Netanyahu rejected the 15-point, U.S.-backed road map to move the ceasefire deal forward, saying there would be no withdrawal without disarmament.
A day earlier, Kushner met for two hours with Hamas’ leader in Egypt.
The United States and Canada have wrangled for decades over trade, poking each other interminably over sore spots like Canadian softwood lumber imports and U.S. access to Canada’s protected dairy market.
President Donald Trump’s belligerent approach to dealing with Canada marks an extraordinary departure from the traditionally cooperative relationship between the two countries. Trump has hit Canadian goods with tariffs — in a push to bring manufacturing back to the United States — and has repeatedly made inflammatory comments about turning Canada into America’s 51st state.
Tension could hit new heights at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday if Trump goes ahead with his plan to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian products, ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors.
As the deadline approaches, the two countries are seeking a truce that would avoid the new round of tariffs.
″We are negotiating,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters Monday, speaking in French. “The negotiations are very intense and delicate. This is not the time to talk about negotiations in public.”
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