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US President Donald Trump speaks as he attends a “Summer Soiree” held on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, on June 4, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Trump issues sweeping travel ban, BoC holds rates steady, US funds “self-deportations,” and more...
12: US President Donald Trump has banned visitors to the US from 12 countries: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Another seven countries will face greater restrictions. The ban, which Trump based on national security grounds, takes effect on Monday.
2.75: The Bank of Canada held its key interest rate steady for the second time in a row, leaving it at 2.75% amid uncertainty about the extent and effect of US tariff increases. The bank said it may still cut rates later this year if the economy continues to struggle.
20: US intelligence believes Ukraine’s expansive drone attack on Russian airfields last weekend struck just 20 planes, destroying 10 – half the numbers claimed by Kyiv. Still, the damage was significant and Russia will respond “very strongly,” according to Trump, who spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.
$250 million: The US State Department has earmarked $250 million to cover travel expenses for migrants without legal status who chose to “self-deport.” The money has been repurposed from funds previously used to aid refugees.
31: Oilers forward Leon Draisatl scored with 31 seconds left in the first extra period, to give Edmonton a comeback win in game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals against the defending champ Florida Panthers. As many of our readers will be (painfully) aware, a Canadian team hasn’t won the cup since 1993.
US President Donald Trump meets with China's President Xi Jinping at the start of their bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 29, 2019.
What We’re Watching: Trump-Xi phone call, Netanyahu’s coalition cracks apart, & More
Trump speaks with Xi
US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping spoke Thursday for the first time since the former returned to office, as a recent pause in their trade war looked set to fall apart. Both sides recently stepped back from mutual triple-digit tariffs, but Beijing has drawn fire from Trump for restricting the export of rare earths minerals used by the US auto and tech industries. No breakthroughs were announced but Trump described the call as “very positive” and said a summit is in the works.
Netanyahu’s coalition set for divorce
In what could spell the end for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, two ultra-Orthodox parties that form part of the governing coalition are reportedly set to back the Knesset’s dissolution, in protest against a potential new law that would fine religious university students who skip military service. The dissolution vote will take place on June 11. If United Torah Judaism and Shas, the two dissenting parties, join the opposition in voting to dissolve the government, there will be elections again in Israel.
US institutes new travel ban
Trump on Wednesday barred foreign nationals from 12 countries from entering the United States – including Afghanistan and Haiti – and placed partial restrictions on seven others. The ban is set to take effect on Monday 12:01 EST. The US president linked the new restrictions to Sunday’s terror attack in Colorado against a group of people who were marching in solidarity for the Israeli hostages in Gaza. Trump implemented a similar travel ban during his first term, one that the Supreme Court upheld in 2018.Is America a friend you can trust?
On his first day as president, Joe Biden signed a remarkable series of executive orders. Boom! The US rejoins the Paris Climate Accord. Bang! The United States rejoins the World Health Organization. Pow! No more ban on immigration from many Muslim-majority countries. Biden's press secretary reminded reporters later in the day that all these orders merely begin complex processes that take time, but the impact is still dramatic.
If you lead a country allied with the US, or you're simply hoping for some specific commitment or clear and credible statement of purpose from the US government, you might feel a little dizzy today. The sight of an American president (Barack Obama) signing his name, of the next president (Donald Trump) erasing that name from the same legislation/bill, and then the following president (Biden) signing it back into law again will raise deep concerns over the long-term reliability of the world's still-most-powerful nation.
In short, we wrote yesterday about what other countries want from America. Today, we look at what they should fear from the US… or at least from its polarized domestic politics. Solutions to many of today's global problems demand long-term commitments. As other governments plan, they want to know what to expect from the United States. They want to know what return they can expect on their own investments. They want to have confidence that Washington will prove a reliable partner.
Transfers of power in Washington aren't new, but deep fundamental disagreements over US leadership are. Democrats and Republicans have alternated presidential power in the US for 160 years, but Donald Trump challenged an eight-decade consensus on the basics of America's role in the world on a scale we haven't seen in living memory. Joe Biden is now president, and he's got the pen to prove it, but his need to resort to executive orders reminds us of how little cooperation he can expect from Congress, where his party holds the narrowest of majorities.
More to the point, remember that Trump won more than 74 million votes in the 2020 election. The best measure of the narrowness of defeat is not the popular vote margin of seven million but the 44,000 votes that separated Biden from Trump in three crucial states. Trump himself may not return to the White House, but the defiant go-it-alone foreign policy he branded as "America First" has inspired tens of millions of Americans and may well return. Perhaps in 2024.
So, if you lead another government, are you ready to bet on sustainable US commitments to protect Asian allies from dominance by China, contain Iran's nuclear ambitions, help manage humanitarian emergencies, take consequential action to defend human rights, honor the terms of trade agreements, reduce carbon emissions, lend to COVID-devastated economies, or invest in the future of NATO?
As former German ambassador to the US Wolfgang Ischinger recently told GZERO Media, Europeans leaders better be asking themselves this question: "Do we want to make our lives, our future, dependent on what … 50,000, or 60 or 80,000 voters in Georgia or Arizona may wish to do four years from now?"
Bottom line: How, world leaders rightly wonder, can they have confidence that today's US commitments are sound long-term bets? That's a big problem not only for the United States — but for its allies and potential partners.