New tariffs on imported solar panels and modules and on washing machines, announced by the Trump administration on January 22, will come into effect on February 7. The tariffs are among the first unilateral trade restrictions imposed by the administration as part of a broader protectionist strategy that treats “unfair trade…
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A History of the Trump Administration’s Sanctions
February 3rd, 2017: The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on 25 individuals and companies allegedly connected to either Iran’s ballistic missile program or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quods Force. This move was in response to recent ballistic missile testing. January 4th, 2018: The Trump…
Reversing Obama-Era Regulation That Combats Housing Segregation
The Trump administration is trying to eliminate the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule started by President Obama. The AFFH is a legal requirement that federal agencies and federal grantees further the purposes of the Fair Housing Act. Specifically, this means asking communities that receive Department of Housing…
Department of Defense Issues National Defense Strategy
Last Friday, January 19th, the US Department of Defense published a summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS). The full document, which is classified, was written in conjunction with the National Security Strategy Report of last December. This is a result of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act which…
White House Proposal for Dreamer Path to Citizenship Comes with Some Caveats
On Thursday, January 25, The Washington Post reported that the White House is proposing a path to citizenship for an estimated 1.8 million Dreamers (DACA recipients). In exchange for sparing young undocumented immigrants the hardships of deportation, the proposal calls for a $25 billion trust fund for a border wall and additional…
Budget Process Gets Politicized and Government Shuts Down
A 69-hour US government shutdown ended early this week with passage of a short-term spending bill that funds federal operations through February 8. This is the fourth temporary funding measure Congress has passed since it failed to meet an October 1 deadline last year for the FY2018 budget. On January 20…
MoneyGram, AT&T Deals Blocked as US Talks Tough on Chinese Investment
Citing potential “malicious actors” and national security risks, early in the new year the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) rejected Alibaba Group Holding affiliate Ant Financial’s $1.2b bid to purchase MoneyGram International, a Dallas-based money transfer company. With the deal derailed after a year…
The House of Representatives Vote on Extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Proposed Privacy Protections For Americans
On January 11, 2018, the House of Representatives voted on two bills regarding warrantless surveillance programs in the United States. S.139, popularly known as the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 was approved by the House by a vote of 256 – 164. That bill reauthorizes FISA for an additional six years and does…
Federal Judge Blocks DACA Phaseout
On Tuesday, January 9, US District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to terminate DACA. Alsup quoted the President himself in his 49-page court order. The quote came from Twitter of course, which Trump had composed less than two weeks following the Department of Homeland…
Trump Administration Ends TPS for 200,000 Salvadorans
On Monday, January 8, the Trump administration announced that it would be ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for some 200,000 Salvadorans living in the United States. This decision comes just weeks after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ended the TPS program for recipients from Nicaragua and Haiti. Those from…