US and China to hold tariff talks in Switzerland this weekend, treasury chief says – as it happened

The Trump administration may deport migrants to Libya for the first time this week, three US officials tell Reuters.

The news agency reports that despite the US government’s condemnation of Libya’s harsh treatment of detainees, the US military could fly migrants to the North African country as soon as Wednesday.

Chris Krebs, the former director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency secured a top spot on Donald Trump’s enemies list on 12 November 2020 —by tweeting a link to a statement from government experts that called the presidential election Trump lost “the most secure in American history”.

Trump fired Krebs, by tweet, five days later, claiming that the election was marred by “massive improprieties and fraud”.

On Tuesday, Krebs returned to the social media platform that has since been sold to Trump’s donor Elon Musk and rebranded X to post a simple plea: “Make America normal again”.

Things have been far from normal for Krebs since he was singled out for investigation by Trump last month in a presidential memorandum headlined: “Addressing Risks from Chris Krebs and Government Censorship”.

The memorandum charged that Krebs had “falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, including by inappropriately and categorically dismissing widespread election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines.”

“We’re going to find out about this guy”, Trump said as he signed the memorandum, “because this guy’s a wise guy”.

Since then, Krebs has had his security clearance revoked and and his Global Entry pre-approval to enter the US canceled. A spokesperson for the homeland security department in which Krebs once held a senior role, told NBC News last week that Krebs was ineligible for Global Entry because he “is under active investigation by law enforcement agencies”.

Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, told the Fox host Laura Ingraham that he will meet with Chinese officials to look for a way out of the trade war Donald Trump started last month when he imposed massive tariffs.

“Laura, we haven’t had negotiations,” Bessent said. “The world has been coming to the US, and China has been the missing piece. I was going to be in Switzerland to negotiate with the Swiss. Turns out the Chinese team is traveling through Europe. And they will be in Switzerland, also. So, we will meet on Saturday and Sunday.”

“Look, we have shared interests,” Bessent continued. “This isn’t sustainable,” he added, referring to the effective halt in trade between the two largest economies in the world since Trump imposted a 145% tariff on goods from China. That level of tariff, Bessent said “is the equivalent of an embargo”.

“We don’t want to decouple. What we want is fair trade,” he said.

Bessent’s first statement, that there have been no negotiations with China directly contradicts a claim Trump made two weeks ago that there have been talks.

Asked by Jeff Mason of Reuters on 24 April if he could “clarify with whom the US is speaking with China? They’re saying it’s ‘fake news’ that trade talks are happening”, Trump replied: “Well, they had a meeting this morning.”

When Mason asked, “Who’s ‘they’?” Trump said: “I can’t tell you; it doesn’t matter who ‘they’ is. We may reveal it later, but they had meetings this morning. And we’ve been meeting with China. So I think you have, Jeff, as usual. I think have your reporting wrong.”

As Mason clarified that he “was saying what China said”, Trump abruptly ended the press availability.

US treasury secretary Scott Bessent and US trade representative Jamieson Greer will meet with their Chinese counterparts later this week in Switzerland, in what could be the first step to negotiating an end to the trade war between the world’s two largest economies over tariffs imposed by Donald Trump.

Bessent’s office said in a statement that he will travel to Switzerland on Thursday to discuss trade with the Swiss president, Karin Ketter-Sutter, and “will also meet with the lead representative on economic matters from the People’s Republic of China”.

According to a statement from Greer’s office, he will also “discuss negotiations about reciprocal trade” with the Swiss leader and “will also meet with his counterpart from the People’s Republic of China to discuss trade matters.”

Neither statement revealed the names of the Chinese officials expected to attend, but China’s vice premier He Lifeng is widely seen as China’s economic czar and chief trade negotiator.

Asked to comment on the renewed Israeli assault on Gaza, Donald Trump revealed that three more Israeli hostages have died in Gaza, meaning that just 21 of the hostages taken from Israel on October 7 2023 remain alive.

“Well, we’ve gone very slowly,” Trump said of efforts to end the conflict, “because we want to try and get as many hostages saved as possible, and we’ve done a good job in that regard.”

“Two weeks ago, I had 10 hostages come in and they thanked me profusely,” Trump continued. The Oval Office meeting was in fact two months ago, with eight former hostages.

The president then appeared to recount a conversation with the freed hostages about how many captives remained in Gaza.

“I said, ‘How many people are left?’” Trump said. “They said 59. I said, ‘Oh, wow, that’s more than I thought’. They said, ‘Well, only 24 are living.’”

“But now, it’s 21,” Trump added, without revealing the source of his information. “That was a week ago. Now it’s 21 are living.”

“I say 21, because, as of today, it’s 21. Three have died,” the president said.

Asked by a reporter in the Oval Office if he had any reaction to the Indian missile attack on Pakistan-controlled territory in Kashmir on Tuesday, the president of the United States wrongly claimed that the countries of India and Pakistan, which were created in 1947, have been fighting “for centuries”.

“No, it’s a shame,” Trump said. “They’ve been fighting for a long time, you know, they’ve been fighting for many, many decades. And centuries, actually, if you really think about it. No, I just hope it ends very quickly.”

The missile attacks follow the killing of 25 Indian tourists and one Nepalese national in Kashmir last month.

Two weeks ago, Trump offered the same incorrect response to questions about the tensions in Kashmir which revealed his lack of understanding about the history of the conflict there.

“They’ve had that fight for 1,000 years in Kashmir. Kashmir’s been going on for 1,000 years, probably longer than that,” Trump said. “Well, there have been tensions on that border for 1,500 years. So, you know. The same as it’s been.”

Trump was born in June of 1946, making him just over a year older than the conflict in Kashmir, which started after the partition of India in 1947.

Speaking at an Oval Office event to formally swear in Steve Witkoff as his diplomatic envoy, Trump just repeated his claim that he can simply set the terms of trade with other countries as a shopkeeper sets prices on goods, because “our country is the greatest store in the world”.

“I could announce 50 to 100 deals right now, because I’m the shopkeeper and I keep the store, and I know what countries are looking for, and I know what we’re looking for and I can just set those terms,” the president said, “and they can go shopping or they don’t have to go shopping, because everybody wants to shop here.”

At the White House event on the World Cup, Donald Trump was asked by a reporter what his position is on the fact that Russia is banned from taking part, as a result of its invasion of Ukraine.

“I didn’t know that,” Trump said, before turning to ask the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, seated beside him: “Is that right?”

“Yeah, it is right. They are banned for the time being from playing,” Infantino replied. “But we hope that something happens and peace will happen and Russia can be re-admitted.”

“Hey, that could be a good incentive, right?” Trump said. “We want to get them to stop.”

Russia has been barred from international soccer competition since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Since qualification for the 2026 World Cup is already under way, it seems likely that Russia, the hosts of the 2018 World Cup, would have to wait until the following tournament, in 2030, to take part.

Asked if he asked Trump to stop referring to Canada as the 51st US state, Carney replies: “Yes.” Asked when, he says: “Today.”

Carney declines to reveal how Trump responded to that.

Carney says he’s been clear with Trump that “Canada is not for sale and never will be for sale”.

Carney says he and Trump met today “as leaders of two independent sovereign nations” and had “very constructive discussions”.

He reiterates that the two countries are stronger “when we work together”.

Today, he says, “marked the end of the beginning of a process of the US and Canada redefining that relationship of working together”, adding the question is how they will cooperate in the future.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Donald Trump’s administration from firing workers and taking other steps to shut down federal agencies that fund museums and libraries, mediate labor disputes and support minority-owned businesses.

Reuters reports that US district judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, agreed with 21 mostly Democrat-led states that Trump’s March executive order directing that the agencies effectively be wiped out violated the US constitution.

“This executive order ... ignores the unshakable principles that Congress makes the law and appropriates funds, and the Executive implements the law Congress enacted and spends the funds Congress appropriated,” wrote McConnell.

The judge halted Trump’s order from being implemented at the US Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Minority Business Development Agency, and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service pending the outcome of the case.

McConnell did not order the agencies to take any specific steps. The judge told the states to consult with the Trump administration and submit a more detailed order for his approval.

Trump in his order directed that those agencies and four others be reduced “to the minimum presence and function required by law.”

A judge in Washington DC last week had separately blocked the museum and library agency from being shut down.

The White House and the office of Rhode Island attorney general Peter Neronha, which is leading the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

At the three agencies involved in Tuesday’s case, virtually all employees were placed on administrative leave shortly after Trump issued his executive order, according to court filings.

The states in their lawsuit filed in April say that because Congress created the agencies and set their funding levels, Trump had no power to order that their work be halted.

McConnell on Tuesday agreed. Federal law includes a mechanism for the president to return unneeded funding to Congress, the judge said, but Trump failed to follow that process.

Reuters reports that the head of Yemen’s Houthi supreme revolutionary committee, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, said the US halt of “aggression” against Yemen will be evaluated, according to a post on X.

He said the group would continue to support Gaza to end the war, indicating the ceasefire with the US did not include a halt of the group’s attacks on Israel.

The US supreme court has permitted Donald Trump’s administration to implement his ban on transgender personnel in the military while legal challenges proceed, Reuters reports.

In a decision that could trigger the discharge of thousands of current personnel, the court granted the justice department’s request to lift a federal judge’s nationwide order blocking the military from carrying out Trump’s prohibition on transgender service members while a legal challenge to the policy plays out.

Seattle-based US district judge Benjamin Settle found that Trump’s order likely violates the US constitution’s fifth amendment right to equal protection under the law.

Trump signed an executive order in January after returning to the presidency that reversed a policy implemented under Joe Biden that had allowed transgender troops to serve openly in the American armed forces. Trump’s directive cast the gender identity of transgender people as a lie and asserted that they are unable to satisfy the standards needed for service in the armed forces.

The Pentagon later issued guidance to implement the order, disqualifying from military service current troops and applicants with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria or who had undergone gender transition steps. The guidance allowed people to be considered for a waiver on a case-by-case basis if their service would directly support “war-fighting capabilities.”

Settle blocked Trump’s policy, calling it “unsupported, dramatic and facially unfair”, and saying that the administration had provided no evidence of any harm that had resulted from the inclusion of transgender people in the armed services. After Settle imposed a nationwide hold on the policy and a federal appeals court rejected the administration’s emergency plea, the justice department then turned to the supreme court.

The justice department told the supreme court that Settle had usurped the authority of the executive branch of government to determine who may serve in the armed forces. The judge’s injunction “cannot be squared with the substantial deference that the [department of defense’s] professional military judgments are owed”, the justice department said in a court filing.

Oman said it mediated a ceasefire deal between Yemen’s Houthis and the United States, according to Reuters, marking a major shift in the Iran-aligned group’s policy since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.

Neither side will target the other, including US vessels in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, Oman said in its statement. The statement made no mention of the Houthi attacks on Israel.

Donald Trump earlier alluded to an agreement having been reached when he announced that the US will stop its intense bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen “effective immediately” after almost two months, saying the rebels had told Washington they “don’t want to fight anymore” and would stop targeting US ships in the Middle East. “We will stop the bombings and they have capitulated,” Trump told reporters at his Oval Office meeting with Canadian PM Mark Carney, adding: “We will take their word.”

The Trump administration urged a US appeals court on Tuesday to allow immigration authorities to continue to detain students at Tufts University and Columbia University who were arrested after engaging in pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus, Reuters reports.

The US department of justice asked the New York-based 2nd US circuit court of appeals to pause lower-court orders requiring Tuft’s Rümeysa Öztürk to be transferred to Vermont for a bail hearing on Friday and allowing Columbia’s Mohsen Mahdawi to be released last week. Justice department attorney Drew Ensign said those orders by two judges in Vermont should never have been issued, as Congress has made clear that any challenges to the government’s decisions to deport someone must proceed in immigration court. He said:

The result is precisely what Congress took particular care to avoid: simultaneous proceedings in both immigration courts and district courts considering the same issues regarding the removal of aliens from the United States.

He urged the court to allow the administration to avoid moving Öztürk from the Louisiana detention facility she is being held in and to allow immigration authorities to swiftly take Mahdawi back into custody. But lawyers for Öztürk and Mahdawi countered that their lawsuits were not about the government’s ability to seek their deportation but instead were focused on claims they were unlawfully detained for making constitutionally protected statements critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Öztürk’s lawyers say she is being punished for co-authoring an opinion piece in Tufts’ student newspaper that criticized the school’s response to calls by students to divest from companies linked to Israel and to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide”.

“Rümeysa Öztürk’s case is unprecedented and shocking,” said Esha Bhandari, her lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union. “She has been held behind bars for six weeks while her health deteriorates for writing an op-ed.”

Members of the three-judge panel appeared to struggle with whether immigration law stripped the courts of jurisdiction over the students’ claims, with US circuit judge Susan Carney calling the issue “difficult to untangle”. But she spoke critically of how Öztürk was arrested in the first place, saying she was “seized in Somerville on the streets by an unmarked vehicle and seized by people who are not in uniform and who are masked and hooded”.

US circuit judge Barrington Parker questioned whether under the administration’s view of the law someone like Öztürk would be able to even challenge their detention if they believed they were being held due to a case of mistaken identity. He asked:

How would she be able to challenge that without having to wait months and months in removal proceedings?

In a meeting that got pretty tense towards the end, Donald Trump dug in his heels on his tariff policy, insisting there was nothing Canadian PM Mark Carney could say to make him change his mind and lift tariffs imposed on Canada. Trump insisted the US doesn’t want cars and steel from Canada “because we’re making our own”.

Carney was firm on his “Canada will never be for sale” message emphasizing Canada’s sovereignty, which propelled him to electoral victory last week, to which Trump quipped “never say never” – Carney then mouthed “never” to reporters. Trump repeated during the meeting his interest in making Canada the 51st US state, saying “it would be a wonderful marriage”, and later adding: “Time will tell.”

For the most part, the tone of the meeting was friendly. Trump said that he wants “friendship” with Canada, which he called “a very special place” and said he has “a lot of respect for Canadians”, while Carney called Trump “a transformational president” and said the two countries are stronger when they work together.

Trump said that the United State-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), inked during his first term in office and set to expire next year, may be renegotiated. However, he said he’s not exactly looking to extend the free trade agreement. Trump said he’d consider a renegotiation of the trade deal but questions “if it’s even necessary”, to which Carney followed up: “It is a basis for a broader negotiation. Some things about it are going to have to change.”

Away from relations with Canada, Trump said that Beijing’s economy is “suffering greatly” because of tariffs that he has brought in. China wants to negotiate a trade deal to end the tariffs, he said, adding that “we will be meeting with them at the right time”.

The US president also said that ahead of his Middle East trip he will have a “very, very big” announcement to make, “either Thursday or Friday or Monday” and that it will be “as big as it gets”. He says it will be “one of the most important announcements that have been made in many years about a certain subject”.

Also on the Middle East, Trump said the US will stop bombing the Houthis in Yemen “effectively immediately”. He told reporters: “They don’t want to fight, and we will honor that, and we will stop the bombings.”

Trump says “this is a very friendly conversation” with Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney but that the US wants to make its own cars.

“We don’t really want cars from Canada,” Trump says. “We don’t want steel from Canada because we’re making out own steel.”

Asked if there is anything Carney can say to him that would make him lift the tariffs on Canada, Trump replies: “No.”

Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney says “some places are never for sale” after Donald Trump says he is still interested in making Canada the 51st state of the United States.

Carney tells reporters:

As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale.

The White House and Buckingham Palace aren’t, Carney says, and Canada is “not for sale, it won’t be for sale, ever.”

“Never say never,” Trump quips.

Carney smiles and mouths “never, never, never”.

Trump says he wants “friendship” with Canada. “We’re gonna be friends with Canada, regardless of anything,” he tells reporters.

He says he has “a lot of respect” for the Canadians and that it is a “very special place”.

He says he stands by his comments to make Canada the 51st state of the United States, although he says “it takes two to tango”. He adds:

It would really be a wonderful marriage.

Trump says he will have a “very, very big” announcement to make, “either Thursday or Friday or Monday” and that it will be “as big as it gets”.

I won’t tell you on what, but it’s very positive.

He says it will be “one of the most important announcements that have been made in many years about a certain subject”.

Donald Trump has greeted Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, at the White House.

The pair shook hands and smiled for the cameras before heading inside. They did not answer questions from reporters on a US-Canada trade deal.

Donald Trump has posted on his Truth Social platform to say that he is looking forward to meeting with Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney.

Trump says he “very much want[s] to work with him, but cannot understand one simple TRUTH — Why is America subsidizing Canada by $200 Billion Dollars a year, in addition to giving them FREE Military Protection, and many other things?”

We don’t need their Cars, we don’t need their Energy, we don’t need their Lumber, we don’t need ANYTHING they have, other than their friendship, which hopefully we will always maintain. They, on the other hand, need EVERYTHING from us!

He says Carney will be arriving shortly at the White House and that “most likely, my only question of consequence”.

Treasury secretary Scott Bessent told lawmakers that some countries could strike new trade deals with the United States as soon as this week.

“I would think that, perhaps as early as this week, we will be announcing trade deals with some of our largest trading partners. They have come to us with very good offers,” the secretary told a House appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday morning.

The Trump administration is looking to negotiate deals with dozens of countries ahead of a 9 July deadline, after which reciprocal tariffs the president unveiled last month, then paused for 90 days, will go back into effect. Many economists worry the levies, which are meant to be equal to whatever barriers the trading partners impose on US imports, will send prices spiking in the United States and disrupt trade globally.

In his testimony to Congress, Bessent defended the president’s approach to tariffing major trading partners, saying: “In negotiating with some of them, they may not like the tariff wall that president Trump has put up, but they have them. So if tariffs are so bad, why do they like them?”

A judge has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return to the US of a second man it improperly deported, in a case with parallels to that of Kilmar Ábrego García, Politico reports.

Politico has identified the man as Daniel Lozano-Camargo, a 20-year-old Venezuelan who was living in Houston and running a car detailing business until 15 March, when the Trump administration declared him an “alien enemy” and swiftly deported him to an El Salvador prison along with hundreds of other men, including Ábrego García.

Unlike Ábrego García, Lozano-Camargo was “expelled under the Trump administration’s legally questionable invocation of the Alien Enemies Act”. Here’s more from Politico:

Like many of the Venezuelans expelled under the 18th century wartime law, he contends he came to the US to escape persecution in his home country. And also like many of the other deportees, his family members believe he was accused of being a Venezuelan gang member primarily because of his tattoos.

Crucially, Lozano-Camargo was covered by a 2024 legal settlement that barred immigration authorities from deporting him while his request for asylum was pending. US district judge Stephanie Gallagher, the Trump-appointed judge who approved that settlement, ruled last month that Lozano-Camargo’s deportation violated the agreement.

Gallagher ordered the administration to “facilitate” Lozano-Camargo’s return but, as with Ábrego García, the administration is resisting. In a court filing released on Monday, the justice department called Lozano-Camargo a member of “a violent terrorist gang” and said that disqualifies him from asylum in the US. […]

Gallagher’s ruling marked the second time that courts have declared that the Trump administration violated pre-existing court orders by deporting people to a notorious El Salvador prison in March. […] US district judge Paula Xinis ruled that the administration had disobeyed a 2019 immigration court order barring the government from deporting Ábrego García to El Salvador because he faced a risk of violence there. The supreme court upheld Xinis’ order directing the Trump administration to facilitate his return and made clear that his deportation was illegal.

Gallagher is set to hold a hearing on the issue today in her Baltimore courtroom.

The White House on Monday removed the vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, the latest in a series of dismissals by Donald Trump from independent US government agencies, sources told Reuters.

Alvin Brown, a Democrat who was the first-ever African American elected mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, was designated as vice chair last December by then president Joe Biden after he joined the five-member board in March 2024. Brown did not immediately return a Reuters email seeking comment. A White House official confirmed the departure.

The US trade deficit widened to a record high in March as businesses boosted imports of goods ahead of tariffs, which dragged gross domestic product into negative terrain in the first quarter for the first time in three years, Reuters reports.

The trade gap jumped 14% to a record $140.5bn from a revised $123.2bn in February, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) said on Tuesday.

Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, including raising duties on Chinese imports to a staggering 145%, fuelled a rush by businesses to bring in merchandise to avoid higher costs. While reciprocal tariffs with most trade partners were suspended for 90 days, duties on Chinese goods came into effect in early April, triggering a trade war with Beijing.

Imports vaulted 4.4% to an all-time high $419bn in March. Goods imports soared 5.4% to a record $346.8bn. Exports climbed 0.2% to $278.5bn, also a record high. Exports of goods increased 0.7% to $183.2bn.

The government reported last week that the trade deficit cut a record 4.83 percentage points from GDP last quarter, resulting in the economy contracting at a 0.3% annualized rate, the first decline since the first quarter of 2022.

Economists expect the flood of imports to ebb by May, which could help GDP to rebound in the second quarter. They, however, caution that the lift from subsiding imports could be offset by a drop in exports as other nations boycott American goods and travel. There has been a decrease in visitors to the US, especially from Canada, in protest over the punitive tariffs as well as an immigration crackdown that has seen travellers detained and deported.

The European Union plans to hit about €100bn ($113.26bn) worth of US goods with additional tariffs if trade talks fail to deliver a satisfactory result for the bloc, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

The proposed retaliatory measures will be shared with member states as early as Wednesday and consultations will last for a month before the list is finalized, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Donald Trump’s tariffs policy will trigger a “price shock” and possible shortages, and lead to public pressure on him to change his approach, the former vice-president Mike Pence has said.

In one of his most wide-ranging critiques yet on the policies of the president he used to serve, Pence, speaking to CNN, derided the White House’s “wavering” support for Ukraine and declared – in direct contradiction of repeated assurances from Trump – that President Vladimir Putin of Russia “doesn’t want peace”.

Pence’s comments came in an interview after receiving the John F Kennedy Profile in Courage award in recognition of his refusal to bow to pressure from Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election when he presided over Congress’s certification of the results on 6 January 2021.

The vice-president’s determination to carry out his constitutional role and certify Joe Biden’s victory presaged an attack on the US Capitol by a violent mob, who chanted “hang Mike Pence”, as the vice-president was spirited to safety by security personnel.

Pence told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Trump’s decision to pardon about 1,600 convicted rioters after he returned to office in January “sent the wrong message”.

“I was deeply disappointed to see President Trump pardon people that engaged in violence against law enforcement officers that day,” he said.

The Trump administration last week cancelled the first bargaining session scheduled with the US Food and Drug Administration’s largest workers’ union since its ability to represent government staff was temporarily restored by a federal court, according to one of the union’s bosses.

Donald Trump in March signed an executive order that excluded agencies from collective bargaining obligations that he said “have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work”.

The order applied to the FDA, as well as agencies under the justice, state, defense, treasury and veterans affairs departments, Reuters reports.

Senior US district judge Paul Friedman on 25 April issued an injunction to block the executive order from being implemented, pending the outcome of a lawsuit by the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents about 160,000 federal employees including as many as 9,000 FDA staff.

The US Department of Education informed Harvard University on Monday that it was ending billions of dollars in research grants and other aid unless the school accedes to a list of demands from the Trump administration that would effectively cede control of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university to the government.

The news was delivered to Dr Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a deeply partisan letter from Linda McMahon, the education secretary, which she also posted on social media.

“This letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek grants from the federal government, since none will be provided,” McMahon wrote.

The main reason for the crackdown on Harvard is the school’s rejection of a long list of demands from the Trump administration’s antisemitism taskforce, prompted by campus protests against Israel’s brutal military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. McMahon also accuses the university of “a systematic pattern of violating federal law”.

As Garber explained in a message to the Harvard community last month, the university decided to sue the federal government only after the Trump administration froze $2.2bn in funding, threatened to freeze an additional $1bn in grants, “initiated numerous investigations of Harvard’s operations, threatened the education of international students, and announced that it is considering a revocation of Harvard’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status”.

The government’s “sweeping and intrusive demands would impose unprecedented and improper control over the university”, Garber wrote.