US to stop collecting Trump tariffs ruled illegal by supreme court | First Thing
Dollar slumps and gold rises as authorities say they will halt levies linked to emergency powers but give no word on refunds. Plus, meet some of the people suing the president over civil liberties
Good morning.
Donald Trump’s administration has said it will stop collecting tariffs the supreme court ruled were illegal as they were imposed using emergency powers, as investors attempted to digest the US president’s latest volley of replacement levies.
The dollar slumped 0.4% against a basket of other currencies this morning after the US Customs and Border Protection agency said it would deactivate all tariff codes associated with International Emergency Economic Powers Act related orders as of Tuesday at midnight.
The top US trade negotiator, Jamieson Greer, said on Sunday that the Trump administration was set to persist with its tariffs policy. “The policy hasn’t changed. The legal tools that implement that may change but the policy hasn’t changed,” he said, arguing that it gives US business “a lot of leverage” in world trade.
What’s happening with the stock markets after the news? Gold jumped 0.6% to $5,135 an ounce, its highest level since the end of January, as investors flocked to the safe haven asset, while bitcoin dropped as much as 4.8% to $64,300 before recovering some ground, at $65,734. Futures tracking the US S&P 500 stock market slipped 0.5% on Monday morning.
This a developing story. Follow the live blog here.
Secret Service fatally shoots armed man who breached Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence
The Secret Service shot and killed an armed intruder who breached the perimeter of Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s Florida residence and private club in Palm Beach, early on Sunday.
Although the president often spends weekends at the oceanfront resort, he was at the White House in Washington during this incident, as was the first lady, Melania Trump.
At a press conference, Ric Bradshaw, the sheriff of Palm Beach county, said two Secret Service agents and one of his deputies were alerted that a person was within an inner perimeter.
Who was the intruder? Bradshaw did not immediately identify the intruder. However, the Associated Press reported that the man killed had been identified by investigators as 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin, citing a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation.
Violence erupts after Mexican security forces kill drug cartel boss ‘El Mencho’
One of the world’s most wanted drug traffickers, the Mexican cartel boss known as “El Mencho”, has been killed by security forces, Mexico’s defence ministry has confirmed. The operation set off a wave of violence, with torched cars and gunmen blocking highways in more than half a dozen states.
The drug lord, whose real name is Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, was killed on Sunday in the western state of Jalisco along with at least six alleged accomplices, the ministry said.
Who was El Mencho? The drug lord was the co-founder and leader of a gang that in recent years had become the country’s most powerful criminal organisation, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
In other news …
A Guardian analysis of government records has found that the vast majority – 77% – of people who entered deportation proceedings for the first time in 2025 had no criminal conviction, exposing a stark gap between the Trump administration’s rhetoric and reality.
The New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has ordered a citywide travel ban for all but emergency travel, as the north-eastern US was preparing for an intense winter storm that is forecast to reach blizzard strength and bring major disruption.
Donald Trump has told Netflix to remove the Democratic foreign policy expert Susan Rice from its board or “face the consequences”, while the streaming platform is locked in an extraordinary corporate battle to take control of Warner Bros Discovery.
Stat of the day: USA stun Canada in overtime to win first Olympic men’s ice hockey gold since 1980
The United States claimed their third Olympic men’s hockey title – and first since the Miracle on Ice team of 1980 – with a thrilling 2-1 overtime win over Canada in Sunday’s gold medal game at the Milano Cortina Games.
Building power: ‘Trump, I’m not afraid of you’ – meet some of the people suing the president
Donald Trump’s second term has been marked by a rollback of civil liberties. But many Americans have been using the courts to fight back. More than a hundred lawsuits were filed against the Trump administration. As our reporters explore efforts to preserve civil liberties in the US, Briana Ellis-Gibbs spoke to some of those who are fighting back.
Don’t miss this: Swearing, Marty Supreme … and Prince William: Bafta’s 12 biggest snubs and surprises
This year’s Baftas were a chaotic mix of wild praise and inadvertent insults as the best actor prize was won by an unknown – and one of the nominees seemingly slurred from a man in the stalls. Meanwhile, Marty Supreme, the freewheeling comedy starring Timothée Chalamet, made Bafta history when it became only the third film ever to go home empty-handed despite scoring 11 nominations.
… or this: ‘We watched 9/11 from the rooftop, blasting the music out’ – how The Disintegration Loops became a requiem for the attacks
It is an epic piece of music that literally falls apart – and it perfectly captured the end-of-days chaos after the tragedy. The composer William Basinski and the musician Anohni recall its febrile birth in New York’s avant garde scene.
Climate check: ‘Reimagining matter’ – Nobel laureate invents machine that harvests water from dry air
A Nobel laureate’s environmentally friendly invention that provides clean water if central supplies are knocked out by a hurricane or drought could be a life saver for vulnerable islands, its founder says. The invention, by the chemist Prof Omar Yaghi can extract moisture from the air and harvest water even in arid and desert conditions.
Last Thing: The tragedy of Punch the monkey – why do mother animals abandon their offspring?
A baby monkey in Japan has captured hearts around the world after videos of him being bullied by other monkeys and rejected by his mother went viral last week. Punch, a Japanese macaque, was born last July at Ichikawa zoo. He has drawn international attention after zookeepers gave him a stuffed orangutan toy.
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