July 31, 2025, 12:09 p.m. ETMahmoud Abbas, center, president of the Palestinian Authority, the governing body that manages areas of the West Bank.Credit...Zain Jaafar/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Trump administration announced on Thursday that it would deny visas to Palestinian officials, who it said were “undermining the prospects for peace” with Israel.In an official statement, the State Department said that the action would apply to “members” of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority “officials.” The statement, which did not name specific individuals, said the groups were not in compliance with commitments they had made toward peace.The action cuts against a torrent of international outrage directed at Israel over dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza. France, Canada and Britain have all said in recent days that they may or will recognize an independent Palestinian state for the first time at the United Nations in September. President Trump has expressed concern about child malnutrition in Gaza and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, will travel to Israel today to discuss the situation.The practical effect of the visa bans may be limited. During his first term, in 2018, Mr. Trump ordered the closure of the Palestinian mission in Washington, and it has not reopened.The statement listed several ways that it said the Palestinian groups were undermining prospects for peace with Israel, charging that they had “internationalized” the conflict by seeking cases against Israel in the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. It also accused them of supporting terrorism through “incitement and glorification of violence” against Israel, including in school textbooks, and by providing support to the families of Palestinian terrorists.The P.L.O. is the internationally recognized diplomatic arm of the Palestinians, although it does not represent Gaza-based Hamas. The Palestinian Authority is the governing body that manages areas of the West Bank. The statement did not mention Hamas, but because the United States considers Hamas a terrorist organization, its members are already ineligible for visas.The Trump administration also refused to participate in a U.N. conference underway this week in support of a two-state solution, calling the meeting “unproductive” and a “publicity stunt.”July 31, 2025, 12:03 p.m. ETA port in Manzanillo, Mexico. President Trump extended the deadline to reach a trade deal between the United States and Mexico.Credit...Daniel Becerril/ReutersThe United States and Mexico agreed on Thursday to keep talking about a potential trade deal for 90 more days, averting the heavier tariffs President Trump had threated to impose on imports across the southern border starting on Friday.The news of the pause, announced by Mr. Trump and President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico on social media, came after the two leaders spoke by phone on Thursday morning. The agreement will keep in place the 25 percent tariff on all goods from Mexico not covered by an existing free-trade agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada. That rate had been set to rise to 30 percent on Friday, the deadline Mr. Trump has set for countries across the globe to strike deals or face import levies of as much as 50 percent.Mr. Trump imposed the 25 percent tariff on some Mexican goods in March, saying it was in response to the flow of the deadly opiate fentanyl across the border.“The complexities of a Deal with Mexico are somewhat different than other Nations because of both the problems, and assets, of the Border,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.Ms. Sheinbaum confirmed the pause on additional tariffs in her own social media post. She said the extension would be used to “build a long-term agreement through dialogue.”Mr. Trump said Mexico would continue to face 25 percent tariffs on cars and 50 percent tariffs on steel, aluminum and copper. Mexico has been lobbying to have those reduced or removed.July 31, 2025, 11:51 a.m. ETDeparting State Department workers outside the agency’s building in Washington this month.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York TimesThe Trump administration is paying about 154,000 employees not to work as a result of novel resignation incentives offered to federal workers since Inauguration Day, the government’s human resources arm said on Thursday.That estimate is the first comprehensive disclosure from the government about the scale of President Trump’s effort to downsize the federal work force.Still, the figure represents just a portion of the total number of workers who have left the federal government since the beginning of the Trump administration — only those who accepted an offer to resign early in exchange for many months of pay. It does not include the thousands of people who were laid off or fired.While the Trump administration has not made public a complete picture of the cuts, the work of Mr. Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency under Elon Musk amounts to the largest reduction to the federal work force in the modern era. The government employed roughly 2.3 million nonmilitary workers at the start of the year.A spokeswoman for the Office of Personnel Management said that as of June, about 154,000 employees had resigned or retired early with the promise of being paid through Sept. 30 or Dec. 31, depending on the offer. The Washington Post reported the figure earlier.The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that works to promote best practices in the federal government, had estimated the total number of departures — voluntary resignations, layoffs and firings — to be around 148,000 as of July.The organization relied on agency announcements, court filings and media reports to track the departures. It calculated the number of separations from the resignation incentive programs to be around 80,000, which is 74,000 less than the administration’s count. The disparity underscores how little information the administration has disclosed about the scale and scope of the separations.“We are dealing with a pitch-black battlefield where there is enormous carnage growing every day, and there’s little penlights providing us some visibility in terms of what’s happening,” said Max Stier, the chief executive of the partnership. “And we need a floodlight.”The total number of departures is likely to change, with more layoffs planned and continued efforts underway in some pockets of the federal bureaucracy to rehire employees deemed essential to operations.In the early days of the administration, Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk, the president’s former job-cutting adviser, cast the resignation incentives as part of a larger initiative to rein in government spending and eliminate waste and inefficiency. But critics say paying more than 150,000 employees not to work for months runs contrary to that goal.Instead, Mr. Stier said, “this has been a waste-creation exercise.”The firings have drawn a range of court challenges, placing thousands of employees in employment limbo. Some have described anxiety around opening an email out of fear that it will be an electronic pink slip. Those who continue to work in the government have described their jobs as chaotic as they contend with spending freezes and new layers of approval that they say have made the government less efficient. In addition, the administration has been paying thousands of employees not to work.The Partnership for Public Service estimates that the Treasury Department, which includes the I.R.S., has lost 31,201 employees since the beginning of the administration, the largest total number compared with other departments.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times“From the start of this administration, they’ve tried to force us to quit and to intimidate us, and put us on leave inexplicably,” said Sheria Smith, 42, who worked as a civil rights lawyer at the Education Department.She is among more than 800 employees who are expected to be formally separated from the department on Friday. The labor union representing the workers estimates that the government has been spending more than $7 million a month for employees to stay home on administrative leave.And while hundreds of former education workers are expected to no longer receive paychecks as of Friday, the agency has not provided details about severance or health insurance coverage, said Ms. Smith, who also serves as the president of a local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents many of the Education Department workers affected by the terminations.The Partnership for Public Service estimates that nearly 2,100 employees have been fired or left the department. Ms. Smith said she could not corroborate that number because the agency has not provided the union with employment information.“The shroud of secrecy behind the administration’s dramatic cuts to the federal work force should concern every American and every taxpayer,” Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement. “The administration is going to great lengths to prevent the release of details on how many federal jobs are being eliminated and what impact these indiscriminate cuts will have on communities across the country.”In January, millions of federal employees were offered a buyout of sorts in an email with the subject line “Fork in the Road,” which many workers said they initially thought was a phishing attempt. There was very little information about the offer and no indication of which positions would be cut in future downsizing efforts. About 75,000 people took the first offer, the administration said. Some agencies chose to offer the incentive again in the spring, as a potentially more appealing option for employees who had been living under the threat of being fired for months.“It just got to be so much anxiety and stress and not an enjoyable place to work,” said Andrew Cabiness, 51, a longtime employee with the Internal Revenue Service who decided to take advantage of a resignation incentive. Mr. Cabiness, of Indiana, said the constant threat that he could be laid off weighed heavily on his choice. Like many former federal employees, he has struggled to find a new job. But he said he did not regret his decision to leave.The Partnership for Public Service estimates that the Treasury Department, which includes the I.R.S., has lost 31,201 employees since the beginning of the administration, the largest total compared with other departments.July 31, 2025, 11:04 a.m. ETVirginia Giuffre, center, outside a Manhattan court in 2019.Credit...Bebeto Matthews/Associated PressThe family of Virginia Giuffre, a woman who accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexually abusing her as a teenager, released a statement on Wednesday night expressing outrage about President Trump’s recent remarks about her, in which he confirmed an account that Mr. Epstein had hired her away from her job in the spa at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club in Florida.On Tuesday, while answering questions from reporters, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Epstein “stole” Ms. Giuffre from Mar-a-Lago while she was working there as a spa attendant. Ms. Giuffre has long maintained that Ghislaine Maxwell, Mr. Epstein’s longtime associate, met her at the club and recruited her to serve as a masseuse for Mr. Epstein, but Mr. Trump’s comments on Air Force One appeared to be the first time he had personally confirmed her story.Ms. Giuffre died by suicide in April, and her family’s statement said that Mr. Trump’s remarks raised questions about his knowledge of the crimes committed by Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell. Ms. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison term for exploiting and abusing underage women. Mr. Epstein died in jail while facing similar charges.“It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been ‘stolen’ from Mar-a-Lago,” the family said. “It makes us ask if he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions, especially given his statement two years later that his good friend Jeffrey ‘likes women on the younger side … no doubt about it.’ We and the public are asking for answers; survivors deserve this.”The family’s statement came just days after Ms. Maxwell and her lawyer met with Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general and one of Mr. Trump’s former defense lawyers, to discuss what she knew about the case. The extraordinary meeting between the Justice Department’s No. 2 official and a convicted sex trafficker took place amid a firestorm of criticism from some of Mr. Trump’s supporters who have been pressuring the president to release more information about the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Epstein.Ms. Giuffre’s family criticized the meeting, warning that Ms. Maxwell has a long history of lying about the case.“If our sister could speak today, she would be most angered by the fact that the government is listening to a known perjurer,” they said. “A woman who repeatedly lied under oath and will continue to do so as long as it benefits her position.”Mr. Trump’s remarks on Air Force One elaborated on his claim a day earlier that he had blacklisted Mr. Epstein from Mar-a-Lago because he had hired away some of Mr. Trump’s employees. White House aides had previously said that Mr. Trump barred Mr. Epstein from the club “for being a creep.”July 31, 2025, 10:29 a.m. ETPresident Trump said Thursday that the fastest way to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza would be for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages it is holding. His comment, made in a social media post, came hours after he said Canada’s decision to recognize Palestine as a state would make it “very hard” to agree a trade deal. Canada’s move, which comes after Britain and France also said they would recognize the state of Palestine under certain conditions, put further pressure on the Israeli government to halt a war that has put Gaza on the brink of famine.July 31, 2025, 9:08 a.m. ETDmitri Medvedev, Russia’s former president who now serves in a largely symbolic role, frequently wields nuclear threats against the West on social media.Credit...Ekaterina Shtukina/Sputnik, via ReutersIn a midnight social media post, President Trump called Dmitri A. Medvedev a “failed former President of Russia” who had better “watch his words.”Less than three hours later — morning by then in Moscow — Mr. Medvedev responded. He said Mr. Trump should picture the apocalyptic television series “The Walking Dead” and referred to the Soviet Union’s system for launching a last-ditch, automatic nuclear strike.“Russia is right about everything and will continue to go its own way,” said Mr. Medvedev’s post on the Telegram messaging app.It was the second time this summer that Mr. Trump and Mr. Medvedev, Russia’s head of state from 2008 to 2012, traded blows on social media.The exchanges have been striking not only for the verbal brinkmanship on display between the world’s nuclear superpowers, but also for the mismatched stature of the figures involved. While Mr. Trump commands the world’s most powerful military, Mr. Medvedev is widely seen as a social-media attack dog relegated to the periphery of President Vladimir V. Putin’s inner circle.The viciousness of the overnight exchange highlighted the volatility and opacity of a geopolitical relationship in which Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin set policy largely on their own. And it put on display the combustible mix that can occur when the Kremlin’s longstanding willingness to use nuclear threats meets Mr. Trump’s penchant for late-night diatribes on the internet. Hanging in the balance is the future of Ukraine, three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion.“In wars, traditionally diplomatic messaging is something that’s done with a lot of care and discipline,” said Michael Kimmage, a professor at Catholic University in Washington who specializes in the U.S.-Russia relationship. “The consequences of screwing up can be so huge.”Nuclear saber-rattling by Mr. Medvedev and by Mr. Putin himself was a common feature earlier in Russia’s invasion, as the Kremlin sought to deter the Biden administration from supporting Ukraine. Mr. Putin tamped down that rhetoric after Mr. Trump took office, hoping to take advantage of his Russia-friendly stance.But as Mr. Trump grew frustrated with Mr. Putin’s unwillingness to budge on Ukraine, the language from Moscow has begun to shift again. Mr. Putin himself has said nothing about Mr. Trump’s recent threats of new sanctions, and the Russian president’s spokesman has said little but acknowledged that the Kremlin is paying attention. Others, like Mr. Medvedev, have taken a harder line.President Trump has sparred with Medvedev on social media twice this summer.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times“Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war,” Mr. Medvedev posted on X on Monday, in English, after Mr. Trump warned that he could impose new sanctions in as little as 10 days.Evoking the U.S. presidential campaign, in which Mr. Trump criticized President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as risking World War III, Mr. Medvedev added: “Don’t go down the Sleepy Joe road!”The use of Mr. Trump’s derogatory moniker for his predecessor reflects what some analysts believe to be the Kremlin’s bet that Mr. Trump’s core supporters will prevail on him to avoid escalating America’s conflict with Russia.Grigorii Golosov, a professor of political science at the European University in St. Petersburg, Russia, said there was something symbiotic about Mr. Trump and Mr. Medvedev fighting on social media. Mr. Medvedev, who had styled himself as a pro-Western liberal when he served as president more than a decade ago, has recast himself as an uncompromising soldier in Russia’s showdown with the West.But attacking Mr. Medvedev may also be useful to Mr. Trump, Mr. Golosov posited, by allowing him to show he’s getting tough on Russia without attacking Mr. Putin directly. In June, Mr. Trump attacked Mr. Medvedev for saying countries could send nuclear warheads to Iran, adding: “I guess that’s why Putin’s ‘THE BOSS.’”“Trump wants to criticize someone in Russia,” Mr. Golosov said, but is still hoping to make a deal with Mr. Putin over Ukraine. Mr. Medvedev, he added, “is the perfect target.”Mr. Medvedev is active on social media in a way that Mr. Putin and most other senior Russian officials are not. Mr. Medvedev set up a Twitter account in 2010 on a visit to Silicon Valley, when he was president and positioning himself as a tech-forward, reformist leader.Long a loyal ally of Mr. Putin, Mr. Medvedev ceded the presidency back to him in 2012. Mr. Putin removed Mr. Medvedev from the prime minister post in a government reshuffle in 2020 and gave him the largely symbolic role of vice chairman of the Russian Security Council.After Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, Mr. Medvedev accelerated his reinvention as a far-right hawk, often threatening nuclear apocalypse more explicitly than did Mr. Putin and his spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov.Analysts of Russian politics say that Mr. Medvedev’s reinvention came in part out of necessity because his past reputation as a liberal made him vulnerable amid the wartime power struggles within the ruling elite. But his social-media hostility is almost certainly blessed by the Kremlin, analysts say, because it amplifies the threat of Russia’s nuclear arsenal and helped Mr. Putin style himself as a relative moderate.July 31, 2025, 8:48 a.m. ETTreasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview on CNBC that he believed “we have the makings of a deal” on trade with China, but that a few technical details still needed to be worked out. Any agreement is expected to lead to a 90-day extension of the two countries’ trade truce, which is set to expire Aug. 12.July 31, 2025, 7:53 a.m. ETSteve Witkoff’s visit to Israel on Thursday is the first time he is known to have visited the country in months. Credit...Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesSteve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy, was holding talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on Thursday, his first known visit to the country in months, as global outrage intensifies over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.Mr. Witkoff was set to visit an aid distribution site in Gaza operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to an Israeli official and a person familiar with the details who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the trip publicly.His visit comes as the Gaza health ministry said 111 Palestinians had died in the territory over the past 24 hours, including 91 people who were seeking aid. The circumstances of the deaths was unclear. The ministry, which is managed by Hamas, does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures.Mr. Witkoff, the Trump administration’s lead negotiator in the cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas, met with Mr. Netanyahu at his office in Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon, hours after the families of Israeli hostages had protested outside and called for a cease-fire.Israel and the United States pulled back last week from negotiations to try to agree another truce and to secure the release of hostages.On Thursday, Mr. Trump called for Hamas to release the captives. “The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!” he wrote on social media. The comments were a shift in tone from remarks earlier in the week, when he implied that Israel bore primary responsibility for improving humanitarian conditions in the territory.Mr. Witkoff’s visit comes as Palestinians in Gaza are facing a hunger crisis, with a U.N.-backed food security group warning this week that “famine” was unfolding across the territory. The food crisis has become especially acute after Israel cut off all food supplies to the enclave between March and May. Israel has said without evidence that Hamas was routinely stealing U.N. aid supplies.The crisis has been exacerbated by Israel’s decision, backed by the Trump administration, to introduce a new aid-distribution system led by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private American organization. It has given out food at a only a few sites in Gaza in areas that are controlled by the Israeli military. But amid chaotic scenes at the sites, hundreds of people have been killed while seeking food, according to the Gaza health ministry. In many cases, Israeli soldiers have been accused of firing on crowds. The Israeli military said that it had fired warning shots into the air.In recent weeks, dozens of people have died from starvation, including children, according to the Gaza health officials. The worsening conditions in the territory have prompted a growing wave of international outrage toward at Israel. Canada said on Wednesday that it would recognize a Palestinian state, following similar moves by Britain and France in the past week. All three countries are longstanding allies of Israel.The war began after a Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and saw roughly 250 people taken as hostages into Gaza. In response, Israel launched a sweeping military campaign that has killed more than 60,000 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.Israel pulled out of a U.S.-brokered cease-fire in March and resumed its attacks on Gaza after accusing Hamas of refusing to release the hostages. About 50 hostages are believed to be held in Gaza, though Israeli officials say some are presumed to have been killed.On Thursday, a group of mothers and family members of the hostages held a protest outside the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem to call on Mr. Netanyahu to reach a deal to bring the remaining captives home.In recent weeks, international organizations have become increasingly alarmed about the spread of hunger in Gaza.Outrage inside Israel over the scale of the crisis has also been growing.Separately, in a letter sent to the government and military, 16 Israeli law professors warned that the death and suffering of Gaza’s civilian population “amounts to violations of the gravest offenses under international law and constitutes a serious moral stain on the army, the government, and Israeli society as a whole.”July 31, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ETSeaPort Manatee near Tampa, Fla. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will hear arguments in a tariff case on Thursday.Credit...Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesThe Justice Department scrambled on Thursday to defend the legality of President Trump’s sweeping tariffs, just one day before he is set to expand his highly contested global trade war with new duties on America’s closest trading partnersThe arguments in a federal appeals court underscored the financial stakes for U.S. importers — and the legal risks for the White House — as the Trump administration prepares to impose higher rates and implement new trade deals without the explicit approval of Congress.The legal saga began this spring when a group of businesses and a coalition of states each sued the Trump administration on grounds that the president had vastly overstepped his authorities in the design of some of his steepest tariffs. A federal trade court agreed, determining in May that Mr. Trump did not have “unbounded” powers to impose duties as he saw fit.The trade court ordered the White House to unwind those taxes on imports. But the Justice Department quickly appealed and soon secured a temporary halt to the mandate, allowing the president’s tariffs to remain in place. Lawyers for the Trump administration had argued that an abrupt end to the president’s policies would have sowed chaos and undermined its negotiations to broker more favorable trade agreements around the world.The administration has since forged ahead with its plan to impose steep new tariffs on dozens of countries on Friday. The threat of significant duties helped Mr. Trump broker preliminary trade agreements with several other countries, including the European Union and Japan, both of which face tariffs of 15 percent on their exports to America.But the underlying legal questions surrounding his strategy — and the extent to which the president can wage a limitless trade war — remain for the courts to determine. The hearing on Thursday, convened by a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, marks a key step in what will surely be a fight that lands at the Supreme Court.Brett A. Shumate, an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, opened oral arguments on Thursday by stressing that “Congress has long given the president broad discretion” to confront national emergencies, including the nation’s trade imbalances.But Mr. Shumate at times faced an icy reception from some of the appellate judges. They repeatedly pressed him over Mr. Trump’s attempts to subject much of the world’s exports to steep duties using an economic emergency law that does not explicitly mention the word tariff.Still, Mr. Shumate maintained that the law allows the president “to take extraordinary action,” while arguing that the courts could not second guess Mr. Trump over his declarations of a national emergency.In the end, the courts could uphold or strike down not only Mr. Trump’s tariffs but possibly his trade deals, which in many cases would reduce, but not eliminate, the levies he has imposed on major trading partners.Neal K. Katyal, the former solicitor general who argued Thursday on behalf of businesses that initiated the tariff lawsuit, said Mr. Trump had asserted a “breathtaking claim to power that no president has asserted in 200 years.”For now, the legal uncertainty casts a long shadow over Mr. Trump as he prepares to drastically expand the use of tariffs on America’s trading partners. Some of the president’s forthcoming duties have been suspended and revised repeatedly since April, when he first promised them on “Liberation Day,” but Mr. Trump has steadfastly refused this week to postpone his deadline again.“If our Country was not able to protect itself by using TARIFFS AGAINST TARIFFS, WE WOULD BE ‘DEAD,’ WITH NO CHANCE OF SURVIVAL OR SUCCESS,” Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Thursday, referring to the lawsuits as “America’s big case.”Generally, it is Congress, not the president, that has the power to impose tariffs, except in limited cases outlined by law. That includes the power to issue tariffs for national security purposes, which Mr. Trump has done with his duties on imported cars and steel, and with his new threats to tax pharmaceuticals and semiconductor imports.But Mr. Trump has sought to apply some of the most painful duties in a novel way, by tapping the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law known as IEEPA that no president has ever used to impose tariffs. Congress explicitly enacted that law to rein in the president’s authority over trade, though Mr. Trump and his aides claim that it affords them sweeping powers to impose tariffs anyway.To justify his strategy, Mr. Trump has cited an evolving set of crises he must contain, including the flow of fentanyl into the United States and the country’s persistent trade deficit with other nations.Tariffs are taxes applied to foreign goods, and their financial impact could fall hardest on American businesses and consumers. In recent weeks, major businesses including Stanley Black & Decker and Tesla have warned investors about the potential hit they may face from the president’s duties while others, like Adidas, have said they might need to raise prices as a result.The rising costs have prompted some affected companies — from an auto parts manufacturer in Detroit to an educational toy company in Illinois — to file a series of legal challenges against Mr. Trump in a bid to halt his trade policies.The legal uncertainty casts a shadow on President Trump’s trade war, which is set to enter a new phase on Friday.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesThe widening roster of lawsuits underscores how some businesses have been “hammered” financially, said Andrew Morris, a senior litigation counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a legal group with past ties to the billionaire industrialist Charles Koch. The organization is representing plaintiffs in two other tariff lawsuits, one of which was filed in Texas earlier this month.Some of those fights are in their earliest stages, or they have been paused until the appeals court can determine the fate of the key tariff cases that the Trump administration lost back in the spring.“It’s hitting us as consumers, it’s destabilizing our business and it’s weakening our economy all at the same time, and they’re doing it on the backs of us,” said Dan Rayfield, the Democratic attorney general of Oregon, before arguments began. He is leading a coalition of 12 states in a lawsuit alleging that the tariffs are illegal and have hurt their budgets.The states’ case has been consolidated on appeal with the similarly successful lawsuit brought by the Liberty Justice Center on behalf of businesses including VOS Selections, a wine importer in New York.Benjamin Gutman, the solicitor general for Oregon, told the appeals court on Thursday that the president has other powers at his disposal that allow him to apply tariffs to address issues including nation’s trade deficit. Each of those laws, however, limits the size and scope of the duties that Mr. Trump could pursue.“The president can negotiate deals,” said Jeffrey Schwab, the interim litigation director for the Liberty Justice Center. “He’s just got to get congressional approval.”Even before oral arguments began, the legal battle had already attracted significant attention, illustrating the stakes for the economy as Mr. Trump looks to reconfigure the global trading order on a claim of sweeping presidential power.A wide array of economists — including Jason Furman and N. Gregory Mankiw, who served under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively — banded together to tell the court that Mr. Trump had wrongly cited the trade deficit as an emergency warranting his novel use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, known as IEEPA.The America First Policy Institute, a group that Mr. Trump’s allies created, took the opposite view, warning that a ruling against the president would “eviscerate” his foreign policy and “deprive America of hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue.”Business lobbying groups also intervened, pleading with judges to strike down the heart of the president’s trade war. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce joined the Consumer Technology Association, whose board includes executives from major tech companies, in arguing that the president’s tariffs are “increasing their costs, undermining their ability to plan for the future and in some cases threatening their very existence.”“If IEEPA can be used to adjust tariffs, there’s absolutely no limitations as to what could be done,” said Neil Bradley, the executive vice president of the chamber. “And that’s a grant of tariff authority we don’t think Congress ever intended.”July 31, 2025, 1:48 a.m. ETSui-Lee WeeReporting from Phnom Penh, CambodiaThai flags displayed in a Bangkok mall on Wednesday. Thailand and Cambodia have been rushing to avert steep tariffs from the United States.Credit...Lauren DeCicca/Getty ImagesThe United States has reached trade agreements with Thailand and Cambodia, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Wednesday night, after President Trump had threatened to end talks with the two nations if they did not agree to a cease-fire to halt their military conflict.Mr. Lutnick did not provide details of the new tariff rate. In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, he said: “And you know what we did today? We made trade deals with Cambodia and Thailand.” He did not elaborate.A senior Cambodian official involved in the negotiations, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he had not been informed of a deal yet. Thailand’s finance minister, Pichai Chunhavajira, said on Thursday that the country expected to hear within 24 hours.The American commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, center, in Turnberry, Scotland, on Sunday.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York TimesThailand and Cambodia were both facing a potential tariff rate of 36 percent on their goods to the United States, which is one of the largest export markets for both countries. They have been rushing to avert the steep tariffs before a deadline on Friday, especially after the neighboring Philippines and Indonesia secured rates of 19 percent, and Vietnam 20 percent.The senior Cambodian official involved in the negotiations said Cambodia would be pleased if the rate were lower than those of its regional competitors. The official said that Prime Minister Hun Manet had asked Mr. Trump for “a good tariff so we can rebuild our economy because Cambodia had been at war for decades and only obtained peace in 1998.”Mr. Trump “acknowledged and understood,” the official said, citing information from Mr. Hun Manet.As part of the deal, Cambodia has offered to improve market access to American goods and to buy Boeing planes, according to the official.A family in Cambodia returning home from a temporary shelter. The country has been involved in a military conflict with Thailand.Credit...Heng Sinith/Associated PressMr. Pichai, the Thai finance minister, said negotiators had proposed to the Trump administration “conditions acceptable to Thailand, with the goal of protecting the country’s best interests.”On Saturday, President Trump said he told the leaders of both Thailand and Cambodia that he would stop negotiating with them on trade if they both did not agree to a cease-fire. After a truce was reached in Malaysia on Monday, Mr. Trump called the leaders of both countries and told his trade team to restart talks.But, days later, there were still questions hanging over the cease-fire.Cambodia’s defense ministry said on Thursday that the body of a slain Cambodian soldier who was killed in Thailand a day after the cease-fire was reached had been returned to Cambodia. It said the Thai Army had not released 20 other soldiers who were captured on Tuesday.It was not clear whether Tuesday’s violence and the aftermath were a minor flare-up or one that could derail the cease-fire.The fighting occurred on Tuesday after both sides gathered for a photo to mark the cease-fire, according to Chan Sopheaktra, a Cambodian military commander in the border area where Cambodian soldiers were captured.Thailand’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment about the dead soldier. But it said that Cambodian soldiers had “encroached upon Thai territory to launch armed attacks,” which prompted the Thai forces to fire in self-defense. These soldiers are facing a charge of illegally entering Thailand, Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a Thai military official, told reporters.Several Cambodian soldiers who had been wounded surrendered to the Thai Army and were taken into custody, Thailand’s foreign ministry said. It added that the soldiers had been “provided with the necessary care.”On Thursday, Thailand’s army said the site of a planned meeting between the two countries’ defense ministers that was supposed to take place in Cambodia next Monday to discuss how to enact the cease-fire would be shifted to Malaysia. Cambodian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In a letter that was circulated by Thai media outlets, Thailand’s acting defense minister had asked his Cambodian counterpart for a “neutral location” and for the meeting to be held over three days, from Aug. 4 to 7, because “of the number and gravity of issues to be addressed.” Thailand’s army confirmed the contents of the letter.Sun Narin contributed reporting from Siem Reap Province, Cambodia, and Kittiphum Sringammuang contributed reporting from Bangkok.July 31, 2025, 1:42 a.m. ETPrime Minister Mark Carney of Canada had said on Wednesday that Canada would recognize Palestine as a state if the Palestinian Authority commits to certain conditions.Credit...Dave Chan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPresident Trump said early Thursday that it would be “very hard” to make a trade deal with Canada after its prime minister said he planned to recognize Palestine as a state. It was Mr. Trump’s latest threat against an ally on the eve of a deadline to impose tariffs.Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada had said on Wednesday that Canada would recognize Palestine as a state if the Palestinian Authority committed to certain conditions, including holding elections.“That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them,” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform shortly after midnight on Thursday.The president had set a deadline of Aug. 1 for countries to finish negotiating trade deals with his administration; otherwise, he said, tariffs of up to 50 percent would be imposed on the products they send to the United States. Come Friday, exports from Canada, the United States’ second-largest trading partner, would bear a 35 percent tariff.Since taking office in January, Mr. Trump has often pressured allies to change policies by floating higher tariffs or hindering trade negotiations. Recently, his threat to pull out of trade talks with Cambodia and Thailand seemed to contribute to a quick cease-fire agreement after a five-day conflict between the countries. And on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he would put a 25 percent tariff on India’s goods, citing its purchases of oil and military equipment from Russia.Earlier this year, he threatened Canada with tariffs if it did not act to curb fentanyl trafficking through its border with the United States, which is minimal.Canada’s announcement followed a similar move last week by President Emmanuel Macron of France to recognize Palestine. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday that Britain would recognize Palestine if Israel did not reach a cease-fire agreement on the war in Gaza by September. Mr. Trump has dismissed Mr. Macron’s announcement, saying it “doesn’t carry any weight.”July 30, 2025, 9:03 p.m. ETPresident Trump on Wednesday at the White House with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., left, and Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York TimesPresident Trump on Wednesday announced the development of a health care records system that he said would allow Americans to more easily and broadly share their personal health information with health care providers.“Today the dream of easily transportable, electronic medical records finally becomes a reality,” Mr. Trump said at a White House event that included the leaders of dozens of technology companies.The administration is working with some of the largest American companies on the record-keeping system, including Google, Amazon, Apple and OpenAI. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will oversee the effort.Many health care providers already allow patients to upload their medical information and schedule appointments through phone apps and online portals.Mr. Trump and top federal health officials said the information-sharing program would be an effective replacement for a system that often involves arduous and redundant paperwork that patients fill out when visiting different providers.The system, which aims in part to help Americans with diabetes and obesity, would also include artificial intelligence assistants to help Americans monitor symptoms and navigate health care options.But the effort to push Americans to upload sensitive medical information to a more centralized system also raised questions about how the Trump administration would ensure privacy. Mr. Trump appeared aware of those concerns on Wednesday.“The system will be entirely opt-in, and there will be no centralized government-run database, which everyone is always concerned about,” Mr. Trump said. “People are very, very concerned about personal records. They want to keep them very quiet, and that’s their choice.”“It will be absolutely quiet,” Mr. Trump added.But some privacy and technology experts said the program, while admirable, would still rely on voluntary participation. The announcement, they added, did not offer much detail about how patients would be able to access their medical histories in ways that would keep those records private.Easy availability of health records can run afoul of laws that protect privacy, including the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.“It’s not something that can be done overnight without changing existing regulations and resolving the tension with existing laws,” said Peter K. Jackson, a cybersecurity and privacy lawyer at the Los Angeles firm Greenberg Glusker.Others said that previous efforts by the federal government to pressure technology companies into adopting these kinds of standards had not been successful. They generally “have proven to be ineffective,” said David Holtzman, a privacy and technology expert and the retired founder of HITprivacy, a consulting firm. He also noted that much of the system Mr. Trump announced on Wednesday was already in place.What is also unclear, Mr. Holzman said, is whether a patient uploading information to a commercial app would be protected. While the technology firms that work directly with insurance companies and providers fall under the federal privacy laws, the makers of third-party apps that are not affiliated with a health provider or insurer do not fall under these laws if someone voluntarily shares private medical information.The Trump administration has already moved aggressively to access the personal information of Americans. Mr. Trump made the announcement on Wednesday alongside Amy Gleason, a former health care executive and the current acting administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency, which has sought vast amounts of personal data while gutting the federal bureaucracy.If patients opt into the system, Ms. Gleason said, they will be able to use QR codes to transfer their medical and insurance information to providers and doctors. An artificial intelligence assistant would then help the patients assess information they receive from doctors.Ms. Gleason said the system would “not replace doctors,” but would “fill in the gap between visits.”