The White House on Friday afternoon announced that President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs will go into effect almost immediately, starting at 12:01 AM Saturday. The tariffs — 25% on all goods from Canada and Mexico, and 10% on all goods from China — are being described as “draconian” and unnecessary. They sparked an immediate market selloff and are expected to cause prices to spike on common and essential items such as gas, groceries, beer, and even sneakers.

“If enacted,” writes Steven Greenhouse at The Guardian, “tariffs will increase inflation, slow economic growth, and result in US consumers footing the bill.”

Columbia University economics professor Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize winner in economic sciences, told The Guardian: “Virtually all economists think that the impact of the tariffs will be very bad for America and for the world.”

“They will almost surely be inflationary,” he added.

Gas prices are expected to jump as much as 70 cents per gallon, according to ABC News, which reports that a “seasonal price hike set to take effect within weeks” could mean consumers will be paying up to $1.00 more per gallon.

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“U.S. consumers grappling with soaring prices for beef and eggs will face even higher costs for meat, vegetables and fruit if President Donald Trump imposes tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports, economists and food industry executives said,” Reuters reported. “Consumers have struggled with high inflation since the COVID-19 pandemic and voted for Trump in part due to discontent with higher prices. Trump pledged to bring down costs for ordinary Americans.”

Washington Post economic columnist Heather Long said, “Trump’s trade war is here. Trump says today he will ‘absolutely’ be imposing tariffs on Europe soon, too.”

Earlier on Friday, Long noted that it “would truly be crazy for President Trump to slap a 25% tariff on ALL Canadian and Mexican imports. It would cost American families ~$800/year It would spike gas prices (which only last week Trump said were a ‘national emergency’ and needed to come down). US refineries *need* heavy crude from Canada & Mexico and currently imports ~4 million barrels a day. It would harm US manufacturing, esp. the auto industry.”

“The worst part?” she added: “Trump can get what he wants on the border without having to do this draconian step.”

Other experts say Americans could see annual cost increases of $1250.

Joey Politano, who writes about economics on Substack, mocked Trump’s tariff plans as “incredibly dumb.”

I can’t believe they’re not even exempting Canadian oil lmao. This is incredibly dumb. https://t.co/oADITdsqjI

— Joey Politano 🏳️‍🌈 (@JosephPolitano) January 31, 2025

Trump explained that the tariffs announced Friday are just the start.

TRUMP: “Eventually we’re going to put tariffs on chips, we’re going to put tariffs on oil & gas…I think around the 18th of Feb. …we’re going to be putting tariffs on steel & aluminum & ultimately copper. Copper will take a little bit longer. And that’ll happen pretty quickly” pic.twitter.com/tSaYGZFD5n

— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) January 31, 2025

Some experts say Trump’s tariffs could also violate his own USMCA trade agreement, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, which is a revised version of NAFTA.

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“Tariffs at those levels and at that scope would effectively destroy the agreement that Trump himself negotiated and always brags about,’’ Scott Lincicome, a trade analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, told the Associated Press.

There’s also another issue.

“The tariffs would also invite retaliation,” the AP also reported. “Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, has already vowed to counterpunch by pulling American alcohol off store shelves in the Canadian province – no idle threat; Canada is the world’s No. 2 market for America’s distilled spirits (behind the 27-nation European Union).”

Former Canadian Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland, running to become Canada’s prime minister, appeared to agree, and blasted Trump’s tariffs.

“I would publish a retaliation list,” said Freeland in a video (below). Noting that Canada is the United States’ “single biggest expert market — by a long shot,” Freeland said her country has “huge leverage” over the U.S.

“If Donald Trump slaps 25% tariffs on Canadian goods, we must hit back—dollar for dollar—starting with 100% tariffs on all Tesla vehicles and U.S. wine, beer, and spirits. We must protect Canadian workers and businesses.”

If Donald Trump slaps 25% tariffs on Canadian goods, we must hit back—dollar for dollar—starting with 100% tariffs on all Tesla vehicles and U.S. wine, beer, and spirits. We must protect Canadian workers and businesses. https://t.co/OX0nImM39w pic.twitter.com/FWFwWdbQ9X

— Chrystia Freeland (@cafreeland) January 31, 2025

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared unwilling to directly answer questions about Trump’s tariffs, instead attacking the media and insisting Trump has a broad economic plan with which he will implement tariffs, cut inflation, cut taxes, and expand oil production, all, apparently, while not negatively impacting Americans’ wallets.

Reporter: If those tariffs do increases prices, will the administration reverse them?

Leavitt: That’s a hypothetical question. The President is intent on ensuring that he effectively implements tariffs while cutting inflation and costs for the American people.. pic.twitter.com/SI8A85l0xG

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 31, 2025

Former U.S. Treasury senior spokesperson Megan Bates-Apper, responded to Leavitt’s above remarks: “The @WhiteHouse is already dodging questions on whether they will keep prices low for Americans. This isn’t exactly a gotcha…”

Anthony Scaramucci, the former Trump White House Director of Communications and a financier who owns the investment firm SkyBridge Capital, commented, “And on the 11th day Trump gave everyone a tax increase.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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Image via Reuters

As the nation grieves the 67 lives lost in Wednesday night’s tragic mid-air collision just outside of Reagan Washington National Airport, new details are emerging about the factors that may have contributed to the first major commercial airline disaster since 2009. A Democratic senator has suggested that President Donald Trump’s actions may have played a role in the catastrophe, accusing him of fostering “deliberate chaos” and implying that his swift attempt to blame minorities could be signaling a “cover-up.”

“What he is saying is that the only people who are competent to run anything in this country are white men,” U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) claimed of President Trump in a CNN interview on Friday (video below). “That’s what he’s saying.”

“He’s saying that because the FAA has hired women and Black people, that our nation’s safety is at risk. It’s kind of incredible that a president of the United States can say that. But let’s examine why he’s saying it. Why did he come out so quickly to try to attack women and Black people for ruining the FAA?” the Connecticut Democrat asked, referring to the Federal Aviation Administration.

“He did that because he is very vulnerable. He has some big questions to answer because the FAA has been in chaos, in crisis since he took over. Elon Musk, his co-president, forced out the FAA administrator, so for the last week, we have been leaderless at the FAA. We have had no one in charge of the FAA.”

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“Trump fired upon taking office the entire FAA Safety Advisory Board,” Murphy explained. “He spent the last week trying to push federal employees out the door, including people at the FAA, trying to bully them into accepting offers to resign. And so we got reports that the control tower was not normal on the night of the crash.”

“Well, that stands to reason, because the FAA has been in meltdown since Trump took over. He knows that he would have to answer for that, so instead of actually explaining why he left the FAA leaderless and without any direction, in chaos, he’s blaming Black people and blaming women who work at the FAA, without any evidence,” Murphy stated.

“Of course, he has no evidence that that’s true, because it’s not true, and, you know, who knows, let’s see what the real reason is here, but this could be a cover up,” Senator Murphy charged.

He went on to say that “what I know is not true, is that DEI and efforts to hire women or Black people or Latinos at the FAA had anything to do with that crash.”

“So, I just want the president to be held accountable for the fact that all of our federal agencies right now are a mess. Every day we are receiving calls from employees at our federal agencies, including the agencies that protect us, saying that everybody is in crisis, that they are looking over their shoulder, wondering whether they are going to be fired, wondering whether the programs that they are running are going to be cut off, and at some point he has to be held to account for the deliberate chaos that he is creating in a federal agencies.”

Citing information from a government report, The Washington Post on Thursday reported that “two people were handling the jobs of four among other colleagues inside National’s control tower at the time of the collision. The control tower staffing levels, the report concludes, were ‘not normal’ for the time of day or the amount of air traffic over D.C., where an average of more than 100 helicopters a day zip around and underneath arriving and departing airline flights.”

Trump fired the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA,) and, gutted the entire Aviation Security Advisory Committee, which was formed “in 1989 after a terrorist attack on Pan Am flight 103.” It “provides advice to the TSA administrator on aviation security matters, including the development, refinement, and implementation of policies, programs, rulemaking, and security directives pertaining to aviation security,” according to its website.

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The Daily Beast reported that the head of the Federal Aviation Administration “stepped down on Jan. 20, months after Elon Musk demanded that he quit.”

Meanwhile, many across the nation have been shocked and aghast over Trump’s responses to the deadly collision of a regional commercial aircraft and an Army helicopter. While the White House issued a boilerplate statement two hours after the incident on Wednesday evening, Trump’s first personal remarks came via a social media post in which he appeared to blame the helicopter and the control tower for the crash.

But the shock continued Thursday, when, during a 35-minute press briefing, President Trump baselessly blamed the hiring practices of his two Democratic predecessors, suggesting FAA controllers might been minorities and not competent, to which Senator Murphy alluded. Trump also falsely suggested the Biden administration hired people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities to be air traffic control operators—the people responsible for ensuring collisions do not happen.

Trump doubled down Thursday afternoon, signing a presidential memo again strongly suggesting diversity hiring practices were linked to the tragic collision.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Chris Murphy: “What he is saying is that the only people who are competent to run anything in this country are white men … why did he come out so quickly to attack women and Black people for ruining the FAA? He did that bc he is very vulnerable. He has some big questions to… pic.twitter.com/YhBSh0zjGp

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 31, 2025

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Image via Reuters

Dr. Jerome Adams, the Surgeon General during President Donald Trump’s first administration, is sounding the alarm on his former boss’s actions and disease outbreaks in the U.S. and around the world.

Adams, now a Purdue University professor and the Executive Director of the Center for Community Health Enhancement and Learning, pointed to news reports on the rapidly spreading bird flu, which has killed at least one person in the U.S., a tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas, and an Ebola outbreak in Uganda.

“Bird flu spreading like crazy in US, and now in UK,” he wrote on Friday. “Largest tuberculosis outbreak in decades… IN KANSAS! Ebola in Uganda.”

He then blasted President Donald Trump’s decision to temporarily suspend all external communications from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including warnings and advisories—a block that has no stated end date—and immediately sever all ties with the World Health Organization.

“Regardless of how you feel about ‘public health,’ or ‘Fauci,’ it’s a real bad time to have blocked public communications from CDC, and work with WHO…” he added.

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Back in November, after Trump made highly controversial nominations for U.S. public health roles, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Adams issued a warning.

“Republicans must understand,” he said, that “they’re gonna own any and all preventable outbreaks / harm moving forward.”

According to Scientific American, “Bird flu continues to spread among commercial and backyard poultry. As of January 23, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that there were 98 infected flocks within the past 30 days, with more than 15 million birds affected. Avian influenza is so contagious and deadly in poultry that the entire flock is culled as soon as the presence of the virus is confirmed. Since the bird flu outbreak began in February 2022, more than 140 million birds have been infected or proactively culled.”

A USDA map shows bird flu has been detected in mammals in nearly every state in the country. The University of Minnesota reports bird flu outbreaks “in poultry in 11 states,” and in “cows in California.”

“In events that could worsen egg shortages, more [egg] layer farm outbreaks were reported in Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, and Washington state, totaling at least 1.5 million birds. The virus also struck turkey farms in Minnesota and Ohio, as well as broiler farms in Arkansas and Missouri,” the University’s Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy also reported. “The virus also turned up in backyard flocks in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and California.”

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The Kansas tuberculosis outbreak, according to the CDC, is one of the largest in U.S. history, the Associated Press reported.

Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, on his Substack declared Friday as “day 11 of President Trump’s full-throttle attack on the US public health.” He added that this is the “second week of government censorship” for the CDC’s medical journals.

“Included in the censored studies are manuscripts that ‘reveal whether veterinarians who treat cattle have been unknowingly infected by the bird flu virus. Another report documents cases in which people carrying the virus might have infected their pet cats.’ These have the potential to be highly important reports,” Dr. Faust wrote. “Keeping them from the public eye is unethical, to say nothing of the nauseating policy that the Trump Administration has pursued: a gag order on public health publications ‘until it has been reviewed and approved by a presidential appointee.’ I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence from the United States of America.”

He added: “Last week President Trump not only announced that the US would withdraw from the WHO, but also directed an immediate stop-work order, and a halt to all foreign aid and related communications. This means that CDC and other US officials cannot help Uganda respond to an Ebola outbreak that was reported today. The WHO has committed $1 million in aid already.”

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Image: Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour, via Wikimedia Commons