Since Palestine Action (PA) was proscribed by the British government earlier this month, a series of protests have highlighted the injustice of that decision. In a democracy, we expect public opinion to prevail over — and shape — government policy. In Britain, 55 percent of people oppose Israel’s war on Gaza, a conflict only 15 percent of us support. Nearly half the population believes that Israel’s actions amount to genocide. Still, we supply weapons to Israel, including components for that country’s F-35 jets, a policy recently upheld by the High Court as lawful.

On 4 July, there were 29 arrests of campaigners holding placards that declared — in identical wording — their opposition to genocide and support for PA. One of those arrested was Sue Parfitt, an 83-year-old priest. Those held were then charged under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which, among other things, prohibits campaigners from ‘display[ing] an article’ that indicates their support for a proscribed group. The maximum sentence is six months in prison.

Further arrests under Section 13 were made the following weekend, as 42 people were held in London, 13 in Cardiff, 16 in Manchester, and one in Leeds. On this occasion, protestors were more eager to test the boundaries of what constitutes support under the Act: in Scotland, one campaigner was arrested for wearing a t-shirt which read, ‘Genocide in Palestine. Time to take action’, with the words ‘Palestine’ and ‘Action’ in a larger-sized font.

The next PA court case is due to be heard in the High Court next week. Those who support the organisation have good reason to believe they can win — either in the High Court or at a subsequent hearing.

One reason for optimism is that senior judges have associated themselves with free speech in recent decades. Under John Major’s government, and the liberal senior judiciary at that time (Lords Bingham, Hoffman, Lord Justice Brooke), a series of decisions showed respect for free speech, which is the ‘trump card which always wins’. After Brexit was passed, attempts were made to protect the rights established in the European Convention on Human Rights by relabelling the right to a fair trial and free speech as fundamental principles of our common law. Although that move has not been sustained, it was a genuine matter of consideration in the mid-2010s. More recently, several judges have associated themselves with the push to protect racist, transphobic, and far-right forms of expression. But this requires the courts to say that all speech should be free, and it is hard to sustain that claim without also protecting PA and other forms of pro-Palestinian speech.

Furthermore, at the two hearings which have so far considered PA’s proscription, judges have conceded that the decision to ban PA crosses lines previously uncrossed. At the first round of court proceedings, in the High Court on 4 July, Mr Justice Chamberlain accepted that PA had not participated in ‘violence against any person or endanger[ed] life or create[d] a risk to health or safety’. The problem for PA, Chamberlain pointed out, was that the legislation permitting the Home Secretary to proscribe organisations as terrorists goes far beyond the popular usage of the word ‘terrorist’ in ‘colloquial’ contexts. Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000, introduced by Tony Blair’s New Labour government in the aftermath of 9/11, permits ministers to ban groups who do not cause fear but merely take part in ‘serious damage to property’.

Chamberlain’s decision to refuse an injunction at the first hearing, while accepting that there might be a case for judicial review, sets up the central issue for the next hearing. Given the court’s acceptance that PA does not cause fear to anyone, is the decision to proscribe them a ‘disproportionate’ attack on their right to freedom of expression?

I have cited some reasons for optimism, but there is also a case for caution. The senior judiciary has moved to the right since Lady Hale stood down as President of the Supreme Court in 2020. Under Lord Reed, the judges have tried to limit political challenges, and that message has been taken up enthusiastically by the High Court. There are only around 100 High Court judges, and almost all of those who hear security cases have a long history of deciding in favour of the government.

The PA litigation occurs in the context of the increasing criminalisation of environmental protestors, the jailing of people for between four and five years for blocking the M25, the denial of historic defences which used to be available to campaigners using criminal damage as form of political expression, and Labour’s Crime and Policing Bill, with its provisions to limit masking on protests, climbing on memorials, and protests near places of worship. This government hates demonstrators of all sorts, and judges have never been our allies.

When the last injunction hearing relating to PA took place at the Court of Appeal on 4 July, the judges took a hostile view of those who were likely to face criminal charges because of the PA proscription. All that will be prohibited, the judges held, is the deliberate action of criminals. ‘If the harm envisaged is to occur, the claimant or others will have deliberately chosen to express their support for a proscribed organisation.’ Should the state throw the book at protesters, in other words, they deserve it. Whatever the identity of the judges who hear the next case, they can be confident that if they decide it in favour of the government, the Court of Appeal will not overturn their decision on appeal. That said, there are appeal stages above even that Court, and routes to take the case to the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights.

The court case is likely to involve a clash between two competing principles. One is the idea that the law should have integrity, be consistent, and protect the rights that it is supposed to guard. If those concepts are heard and engaged with, PA should win. The other perspective is that the law, as many legal academics have argued, has a sophisticated veneer and the rights of minorities are heard, but ignored. In the words of one commentator, Morton Horowitz, the law ‘creates formal equality but it promotes substantive inequality by creating a consciousness that radically separates law from politics, means from ends, processes from outcomes. By promoting procedural justice it enables the shrewd, the calculating, and the wealthy to manipulate its forms to their own advantage.’ Horowitz was portraying the law as an agent of capital, but in cases like that of PA — which are about the boundaries of state power — the courts most often protect the decisions of ministers.

Given that the state has proscribed PA by law, its members have no choice but to fight on that terrain. Whichever side wins, this will not be the end of the matter. If PA loses, as mentioned, they have the right of appeal. If the government does, it might appeal or rerun the litigation by proscribing greater authority, such as adding PA to the proscribed list through a statute rather than secondary legislation. (A model here might be the long-running refusal of the courts to accept laws preventing local government from boycotting unjust states; decisions which previous governments have accepted with singular bad grace.)

Activists would be wise to assume that the issue will not be finally resolved next week. Rather, it will be something that continues to be before the courts, in one form or another, for as long as Yvette Cooper remains Home Secretary.

The co-founder of pro-Palestinian activist group Palestine Action can launch a court bid to overturn the UK government’s decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws, a judge ruled Wednesday.

The government earlier this month banned the group days after activists broke into an air force base in southern England.

Prosecutors have said they caused an estimated £7 million ($9.3 million) of damage to two aircraft at the base.

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Being a member or supporting the group is now a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Co-founder Huda Ammori asked a judge to allow her to launch a High Court challenge over the ban, calling it an attack on free speech.

And judge Martin Chamberlain on Wednesday ruled that it was “reasonably arguable” that the ban amounted to a “disproportionate interference” of Ammori’s right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

He also said the claim that the government was “in breach of natural justice” by failing to consult the group beforehand was also “reasonably arguable”.

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Police have arrested over 100 people in London and other cities for supporting Palestine Action during protests over the government’s decision to ban the activist group.

Since the Palestine Action ban kicked in on July 5, police have warned that expressing support for the group was now a crime, after a last-ditch High Court challenge failed to stop its proscription becoming law.

jwp/har/jxb

In April, the Irish-language rap trio Kneecap performed two sets at Coachella, the California music festival attended by 250,000 people. As is commonplace at the group’s shows, Kneecap displayed a message stating: “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” and the words “Fuck Israel. Free Palestine”. Mo Chara, one of the group’s members, told the audience: “The Palestinians have nowhere to go. It’s their fucking home and they’re bombing them from the skies. If you’re not calling it a genocide, what the fuck are you calling it?”

Within a week, Kneecap’s US booking agent had dropped them, Fox News had likened the statements to “Nazi Germany”, a handful of summer shows had been cancelled, and two videos from 2023 and 2024 had resurfaced of the group on stage saying: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory,” and “Up Hezbollah, up Hamas”. The former statement attracted criticism from the families of murdered MPs Jo Cox and David Amess, leading the band to apologise – “we never intended to cause you hurt” – and to reject “any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP or individual”. While saying “we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah”, they also described the recirculation of the videos as a “smear campaign” against them, with the footage “deliberately taken out of all context”.

British counter-terrorism police announced they were investigating the band over alleged pro-terrorist sentiment expressed in the video, and later charged Mo Chara with terror offences for allegedly brandishing the flag of Hezbollah – which in the UK is a proscribed terrorist organisation – after someone from the crowd handed it to him during a November 2024 London show. In response, artists including Massive Attack, Paul Weller and Primal Scream signed a letter advocating for free speech and alleging that Kneecap were victims of a “campaign of intimidation”.

Two months after Coachella, and as they prepare for a Glastonbury festival appearance that has been criticised by among others, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the leader of the Commons, Lucy Powell, the band say they are unfazed by the uproar. “Maybe visas get revoked, you’re not allowed in America again, it’s not ideal – but Jesus Christ, there’s people being bombed from the fucking skies, and people being starved to death,” says Mo Chara, AKA Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh. “We’re in the process [of applying for new visas], hopefully it works. But if it doesn’t, I can go about my day without having to worry about my next meal or my family being bombed. Visa revoked, I can get over.”

View image in fullscreen Mo Chara (Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh) leaving Westminster magistrates court on 18 June. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Getty Images

Do the band regret what’s depicted in either of the widely circulated videos? “It’s a joke. I’m a character. Shit is thrown on stage all the time. If I’m supposed to know every fucking thing that’s thrown on stage” – in this case a Hezbollah flag – “I’d be in Mensa, Jesus Christ,” says Ó hAnnaidh. “I don’t know every proscribed organisation – I’ve got enough shit to worry about up there. I’m thinking about my next lyric, my next joke, the next drop of a beat.”

And the “dead Tory” comments? “Why should I regret it? It was a joke – we’re playing characters, it’s satirical, it’s a fucking joke. And that’s not the point,” he says. “The point is, that wasn’t an issue until we said ‘Free Palestine’ at Coachella. That stuff happened 18 months ago, and nobody batted an eyelid. Everybody agreed it was a fucking joke, even people that may have been in the room that didn’t agree – it’s a laugh, we’re all having a bit of craic. The point is, and the context is, it all [resurfaced] because of Coachella. That’s what we should be questioning, not whether I regret things.”

Kneecap’s opponents, he says, “went and combed through eight years of a career … they’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel”. He says that they then “took those videos out of context. If you believe that what a satirical band who play characters on stage do is more outrageous than the murdering of innocent Palestinians, then you need to give your head a fucking wobble.”

To suggest that parts of Kneecap’s performance are satire and others aren’t is a tricky and potentially confusing line to walk. But Ó hAnnaidh argues the band don’t risk undermining their activism by blurring these lines. “It’s not our job to tell people what’s a joke and what’s not. Our job is: we make music as a band. We are going to have political messaging in our songs – it’s not for us to dissect it for other people. Take what you want from it, but we’re not going to change in that way.”

Kneecap have granted only one interview prior to their Glastonbury performance, and over the course of an hour-long video call – Ó hAnnaidh, and DJ Próvai, AKA JJ Ó Dochartaigh, speaking from Lurgan, and Móglaí Bap, AKA Naoise Ó Cairealláin, from his home in Belfast – all stay staunchly on message. The controversy surrounding them, they reiterate, is not the story – Gaza is. “We’re a distraction, to take away [attention] from what’s happening in Palestine, especially for our generation of people who are always on our phones,” says Ó Cairealláin. “It’s all being livestreamed – you can never say you didn’t know what’s happening in Palestine, and that’s why they want to bog us down and go through old videos. Over 100 people were killed in the last four days – that’s the real story.” He alleges that the US and the UK “are complicit in this genocide” on the grounds that each country has sent military supplies to Israel, and that Israel’s supporters are targeting the band because they want to move the news “away from the arms support”.

View image in fullscreen Kneecap at the Bowery Ballroom in New York, October 2023. Photograph: Rolling Stone/Getty Images

Kneecap say that resistance is in their blood. Ó hAnnaidh and Ó Cairealláin are from west Belfast, while Ó Dochartaigh is from Derry; rapping in Irish is a way, they say, to reclaim a sense of Irish identity that the British attempted to stamp out. While they satirically self-identify as “Republican hoods” and “Fenian cunts” in their cartoonish, lewd music, their message is less republican than it is anticolonial and anti-sectarian. Kneecap advocate for peace between unionists and republicans – “the people on the ‘other side’ aren’t our enemy … we’re all working-class”, Ó hAnnaidh told the Face last year – and train their fury towards the 800 years of British rule in Ireland.

Because of this, as well as their frequent references to drugs, the group have been criticised by unionist and republican advocates alike, as well as by Kemi Badenoch last year, who, when serving as UK business secretary, tried to block Kneecap from receiving a government-funded Music Export Growth Scheme grant because they “oppose the United Kingdom”. Kneecap won a subsequent discrimination lawsuit against the British government, and donated the grant money to Protestant and Catholic youth organisations in Northern Ireland. This week, the band released The Recap, a furious, gloating diss track aimed at Badenoch, in which they describe the grant money as reparations.

The Recap – Kneecap

It was around the time Kneecap sued the government that they caught the attention of Hasan Piker, a streamer and political commentator who the New York Times recently termed “a Joe Rogan of the left” due to his enormous platform and influence (he is one of the most viewed streamers on Twitch). He describes Kneecap to me as “uncompromising and unyielding in their commitment to anti-imperialism”. After it was announced that Kneecap’s second Coachella set wouldn’t be livestreamed, he offered to stream the show on his Twitch channel, which has more than 2.9m followers. “I’m always impressed when I see anyone in the western world share this kind of sentiment,” he says. “At no point did I feel like they were fearful or anything like that … their advocacy is about putting humanity first.”

Kneecap’s rise has been steady since they debuted in 2017, and was bolstered by last year’s release of a self-titled Bafta-winning comedy film about their origins, starring Michael Fassbender and the group themselves. Politics aside, the music itself is a riot: bawdy and whip-smart, animated by ferocious beats, deftly slipping between trenchant political commentary and dazed odes to the joys of substance use.

But it’s their anticolonial stance that has secured them legions of fans in places such as Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia, where they played to 10,000 fans at a free gig in Melbourne earlier this year. That stance is also why the band advocate so fiercely for Palestine, which they say they have been doing since they began making music. “Eight-hundred years of colonialism, it obviously does things to people up to the point where I don’t think the Irish people are willing to stand on the sidelines any more. The Irish people aren’t willing to let something like a genocide pass by without comment,” says Ó hAnnaidh, and in general, Irish artists – Kneecap, as well as peers such as Lankum, Fontaines DC and Sprints – have been more vocal about the Palestinian cause than British or American acts. “If we lose a few quid, we lose a bit of clout in a certain space, we don’t care – we know we’re doing the right thing, we know we’re on the right side of history.”

Israel has been carrying out a full-scale military campaign on occupied Gaza for almost two years, an onslaught triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed. The UN has found Israel’s military actions to be consistent with genocide, while Amnesty International and others have claimed Israel has shown an “intent to destroy” the Palestinian people. At least 56,000 Palestinians are now missing or dead, with studies at Yale and other universities suggesting the official tolls are being underestimated. (In July 2024, the Lancet medical journal estimated the true death toll at that point could be more than 186,000.) But away from Kneecap and other outspoken artists, across the creative industries as a whole relatively few have spoken about Gaza in such stark terms.

“The genocide in Palestine is a big reason we’re getting such big crowds at our gigs, because we are willing to put that message out there,” says Ó hAnnaidh. “Mainstream media has been trying to suppress that idea about the struggle in Palestine. People are looking at us as, I don’t know, a beacon of hope in some way – that this message will not be suppressed. The music is one thing, but the message is a big part of why we’re getting across.”

As working-class, early-career musicians, Kneecap have a lot more to lose by speaking out than more prominent artists, but Ó Cairealláin says this is beside the point. “You can get kind of bogged down talking about the people who aren’t talking enough or doing enough, but for us, it’s about talking about Palestine instead of pointing fingers,” he says. “There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of bands out there who could do a lot more, but hopefully just spreading awareness and being vocal and being unafraid will encourage them.”

View image in fullscreen Kneecap. Photograph: Peadar Ó Goill

Ó Dochartaigh adds: “We just want to stop people being murdered. There’s people starving to death, people being bombed every day. That’s the stuff we need to talk about, not fucking artists.”

There’s no doubt that Kneecap’s fearlessness when it comes to speaking about Palestine is a key part of their appeal for many: during a headline set at London’s Wide Awake festival last month, days after Ó hAnnaidh was charged for support of a terror organisation, an estimated 22,000 people chanted along with their calls of “free, free Palestine”. And thousands showed up to their Coachella sets – which the band allege is why so many pro-Israel groups were quick to push back on them, despite the fact that they had been displaying pro-Palestine messages for such a long time.

“We knew exactly that this was going to happen, maybe not to the extreme [level] that it has, but we knew that the Israeli lobbyists and the American government weren’t going to stand by idly while we spoke to thousands of young Americans who agree with us,” says Ó hAnnaidh. “They don’t want us coming to the American festivals, because they don’t want videos of young Americans chanting ‘free Palestine’ [even though] that is the actual belief in America. They just want to suppress it.”

The support for the message, says Ó Dochartaigh is “all genders, all religions, all colours, all creeds. Everybody knows what’s happening is wrong. You can’t even try to deny it now – Israel’s government is just acting with impunity and getting away with it. Us speaking out is a small detail – it’s the world’s governments that need to do something about it.”

Last week, Ó hAnnaidh made an appearance at Westminster magistrates court, during which he was unconditionally bailed with a hearing set for 20 August. Kneecap’s defence team, which includes criminal defence lawyer Gareth Peirce, who represented the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four, has argued that the charge against Ó hAnnaidh was made after the six-month period in which such a terrorism offence would fall under the court’s jurisdiction.

Hundreds of protesters – including Paul Weller – gathered at the entrance to the court, holding aloft Palestine flags and signs that said “Free Mo Chara”; a van, emblazoned with the slogan “More Blacks, More Dogs, More Irish, Mo Chara,” circled the block periodically. Rob and Kathleen, an older couple from Hayling Island, had shown up to “defend free speech, to support people who protest about genocide in Gaza,” said Rob. “We’re also here to support young people,” Kathleen added. “Old people have made a real mess of this world, and we are very sorry, and hopefully young people can get us out of this mess.”

When asked by the BBC on Wednesday about Kneecap’s appearance at Glastonbury, festival organiser Emily Eavis said “we remain a platform for many, many artists … everyone is welcome here”. But there is still considerable opposition to their Saturday afternoon set. Earlier this week, Starmer said it wasn’t “appropriate” for the band to perform at the festival, while Badenoch said the BBC “should not be rewarding extremism” by televising the band’s set. (A BBC spokesperson told the Guardian that “whilst the BBC doesn’t ban artists, our plans will ensure that our programming will meet our editorial guidelines”.)

And, earlier in the month, a leak exposed a letter sent to the organisers of Glastonbury in which a number of music industry heavyweights ask the festival to “question the wisdom of continuing to have [Kneecap] on the lineup”. The letter was signed by top agents from major live music agencies.​ That the letter wasn’t published publicly is a form of vindication for the trio, says Ó Cairealláin.

“The fact that the letter was leaked changes things,” adds Ó hAnnaidh. “And I hope that these people regret it. I think they’re already starting to.”

Kneecap play Glastonbury’s West Holts stage at 4pm on Saturday.

Signage is seen outside of the law firm Jenner & Block LLP in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 30, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab

Summary

Companies Judge rules Trump executive order violated U.S. Constitution

Targeting firm over its causes and clients is ‘doubly violative’

Another judge earlier barred similar order against Perkins Coie

May 23 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge in Washington on Friday overturned President Donald Trump ‘s executive order targeting law firm Jenner & Block, dealing another setback to his administration’s crackdown on prominent firms that represented Trump’s political adversaries or employed lawyers who investigated him in the past.

Trump’s order had suspended security clearances for Jenner’s lawyers and restricted their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work.

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U.S. District Judge John Bates, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, ruled , opens new tab that the directive violated core rights under the U.S. Constitution, mirroring a May 2 ruling that struck down a similar executive order against law firm Perkins Coie.

Trump’s order, Bates wrote, “makes no bones about why it chose its target: it picked Jenner because of the causes Jenner champions, the clients Jenner represents, and a lawyer Jenner once employed.” “Going after law firms in this way is doubly violative of the Constitution,” the judge said, finding it infringed Jenner’s rights to free speech and sought to “chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers.”

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement that granting security clearances is “a sensitive judgment call entrusted to the president.” Fields in a separate statement criticized Jenner for representing Harvard University in a lawsuit filed Friday challenging the administration’s decision to revoke the school’s ability to enroll foreign students.

“Jenner & Block’s persistent efforts to undermine the administration, promote antisemitism and radicalism, and represent un-American interests further validate the president’s decision to sever ties with them from the federal government,” Fields said.

Jenner & Block in a statement said it was “pleased with the court’s decision to decisively strike down an unconstitutional attack on our clients’ right to have zealous, independent counsel and our firm’s right to represent our clients fully and without compromise.”

Trump’s order against Jenner accused the firm of engaging in what it described as partisan “lawfare” and taking on cases that undermined U.S. interests.

It referred to the firm’s past employment of Andrew Weissmann, a top federal prosecutor involved in former U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that detailed Russian contacts with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Trump has called the Russia investigation a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.”

The order also attacked Jenner’s internal diversity policies and its work providing free legal services on matters including transgender rights and protections for immigrants.

Two other firms – WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey – have sued the administration to permanently overturn executive orders he issued against them. Judges are expected to rule soon in those cases, after issuing decisions temporarily blocking Trump’s orders.

Nine law firms, including Paul Weiss, Milbank, Simpson Thacher and Skadden Arps, have pledged nearly $1 billion in free legal services to causes the White House supports and made other concessions to avoid being targeted by Trump.

The Justice Department has defended Trump’s executive orders against Jenner and other law firms as consistent with the broad reach of presidential authority. It can appeal Bates’ order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Reporting by David Thomas in Chicago and Mike Scarcella in Washington; Editing by David Bario, Cynthia Osterman and Alistair Bell

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Law-abiding migrants sent to foreign prisons. Sweeping tariffs disrupting global markets. Students detained for protest. Violent insurrectionists pardoned. Tens of thousands of federal workers fired. The supreme court ignored.

The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term have shocked the United States and the world. On the eve of his inauguration, Trump promised the “most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history”, and what followed has been a whirlwind pace of extreme policies and actions that have reshaped the federal government and the US’s role in the world.

Let’s look at what he has achieved and destroyed.

Shattering alliances

View image in fullscreen A person writes a slogan on a portrait of Donald Trump in Tehran on 10 February. Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

The end of the postwar order

Trump’s first 100 days has been marked by arguably the biggest shake-up in US foreign policy since 1945. He has feuded with Nato and turned on Ukraine, slapped tariffs on US allies around the globe, ignored international institutions and publicly admired dictators from Vladimir Putin to El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele.

‘The EU was invented to screw us over’

Trump has called European allies “freeloaders” who have relied on the US to pay for their defense and said he would not defend allies who didn’t meet a spending threshold of 2% of GDP. He has accused European allies of conspiring to “screw over” the US by forming the European Union. “The west as we knew it no longer exists,” the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said.

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A new Monroe doctrine?

As Trump has retreated from Europe, he has increasingly thrown the US’s weight around the western hemisphere. He said Canada should become the 51st state, threatened to annex Greenland, and proposed in his inaugural speech that the US “take back” the Panama canal. Some have compared his foreign policy to that of James Monroe, the former president who in 1823 declared a US sphere of influence in North and South America.

View image in fullscreen Donald Trump holds up a tariff chart outside the White House on 2 April. Photograph: Michael Brochstein/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Tariffs and China

Trump’s haphazard imposition of tariffs has angered US allies from Europe to Asia, where longtime trade partners such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have scrambled to try to negotiate new deals to protect their economies from severe shocks. China’s Xi Jinping has toured south-east Asia, seeking to promote Beijing as the world’s protector of rules-based trade and calling on countries to “jointly oppose unilateral bullying”.

View image in fullscreen Elon Musk speaks at campaign event of the far-right Alternative for Germany party in Halle, Germany, on 25 January. Photograph: Karina Hessland/Reuters

JD Vance, Elon Musk and the court of Trump

If Trump has seemed transactional toward Europe, then his top advisers have appeared downright hostile. JD Vance made waves in Munich when he portrayed European leaders as ideological tyrants and accused them of “running in fear of your own voters”. Musk has backed far-right movements from the UK’s Reform to Germany’s AfD.

Attacking rule of law

Pardoning January 6 protesters

Trump issued more than 1,500 pardons or commutations to people convicted in connection to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

View image in fullscreen Trump supporters face off against police on 6 January 2021 in Washington.

‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’

– Trump in a February post on X, underscoring that he believes he can justify breaking the law

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Defying court orders

In March, the Trump administration ignored an order from the US district judge James Boasberg to turn around a plane headed to El Salvador containing people alleged to be gang members. It was a staggering act of defiance.

View image in fullscreen Elon Musk at the White House on 24 March.

Threatening judges

Trump and allies have threatened judges who have ruled against them. “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!,” Trump said in an 18 March post on Truth Social. Elon Musk, a top Trump adviser, has also called for impeaching judges and supported Republicans who champion doing so.

View image in fullscreen Protesters demonstrate outside the New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP on 1 April.

Attacking lawyers

Trump has used executive orders to punish law firms connected to rivals or that have taken on causes averse to his administration. Several firms have settled with Trump to avoid being punished. Others have successfully sued the administration.

Trade

wars

View image in fullscreen A participant holds a sign during a Hands Off! protest in downtown Toronto, Canada, on 5 April.

Threats

Trump did not wait to return to the White House before threatening China, Canada and Mexico with sweeping tariffs. These would be implemented on the first day of his second term, he declared. This was the first of many times Trump would attempt to use the threat of an economic assault to force countries to bend to his will.

View image in fullscreen Empty shelves display with signs ‘Buy Canadian Instead’ in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on 2 February.

Delays

For Canada and Mexico, the supposed deadline for threatened tariffs shifted from January, to February, to March. When tariffs were imposed, it was barely 48 hours before all goods covered by a previous trilateral trade deal were spared. Companies caught in the crossfire struggled to keep up.

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‘Liberation’

Trump and his aides sought to bill 2 April 2025 – the day he presented sweeping tariffs on much of the world, including China – as “liberation day”. The plan lasted all of a week before it was watered down. All of the countries in the administration’s sights except China now face a blanket tariff of 10%, rather than the higher rates, after a global market sell-off and warnings of recession.

Markets crashing

A line chart showing the S&P 500 declining Guardian graphic. Source: Yahoo Finance. Note: data from 21 January to 25 April.

View image in fullscreen A man transports boxes in Dongguan, China’s southern Guangdong province, on 18 February.

Trade war

While Trump has repeatedly pulled back from the brink of all-out economic war with most countries, China is the exception. When Beijing retaliated against US tariffs, Trump hiked them further – leaving the world’s two largest economies spiraling into a tit-for-tat dispute. US tariffs on Chinese goods stand at 145%.

View image in fullscreen A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on 21 April.

Confusion ​

Amid mounting concern over the impact of Trump’s volatile trade strategy on the economy, and the risk of recession, businesses of all sizes are attempting to grab a moving target. “Nobody knows what’s coming next,” John Cochrane, an economist at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, observed recently.

Government ‘efficiency’

View image in fullscreen Elon Musk attends a cabinet meeting at the White House on 10 April. Photograph: Abaca/Rex/Shutterstock

Musk ushered into government

On day one, Trump signed an executive order creating the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) – a novel initiative chaired by Elon Musk. In the weeks that followed, Doge staff, many of whom are former employees at Musk’s companies and lack government experience, embedded themselves in federal agencies large and small, directing sudden and disruptive cuts to programs and payrolls.

Federal workers targeted

The Trump administration moved to dramatically shrink the federal workforce, first by proposing buyouts. About 75,000 employees opted to leave, as did thousands more in the weeks that followed. But the numbers were fewer than the White House hoped, so cabinet secretaries fired tens of thousands more, while Trump approved the termination of about 25,000 employees on their probationary periods. The supreme court refused to hear a challenge to the latter firings in April.

View image in fullscreen People hold a ‘clap out’ in support of fired USAID staff in Washington DC on 27 February. Photograph: Ting Shen/AFP via Getty Images

Agencies shuttered, perhaps illegally

Trump moved to dismantle USAID, which has administered Washington’s foreign aid agenda for more than six decades, and fold it into the state department. He also directed the education secretary, Linda McMahon, to oversee the closure of her department. The offensives against these and other agencies quickly wound up in the courts.

View image in fullscreen People protest against Elon Musk and his ‘department of government efficiency’ at a Tesla showroom in New York on 22 March. Photograph: Gina M Randazzo/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Doge rattles Trump’s cabinet

Doge has left few corners of the federal government untouched. But reports have emerged that Musk’s initiative is grating some of Trump’s newly confirmed cabinet secretaries, who see him as unhelpfully disrupting their departments. In March, Trump reportedly stopped Musk from seeing the defense department’s secret plans for a potential war with China during his visit to the Pentagon, noting that the Tesla boss had extensive business interests in China.

Musk takes a stand in Wisconsin – and loses

Musk was a major financial supporter of Trump’s campaign to return to the presidency. But his foray into the race for a Wisconsin supreme court seat in April was not as successful. Although he spent about $20m supporting the former Republican attorney general Brad Schimel, voters instead choose the Democratic-backed Susan Crawford, preserving the 4-3 liberal majority on the state’s highest court.

Information war

View image in fullscreen Dana White, Donald Trump and Elon Musk attend a UFC event in Miami, Florida, on 12 April. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Flooding the zone

Trump has been everywhere all the time, dominating the “attention economy” like no other public figure. He takes questions from reporters far more often than his predecessor Joe Biden. He posts frequently on his Truth Social platform. He has attended the Super Bowl, Ultimate Fighting Championship and other sporting events.

Sidelining the ‘lamestream’ media

The White House banned the Associated Press from events in the Oval Office and Air Force One over the news agency’s refusal to obey Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The AP sued over access to presidential events and won a court ruling, though it was unclear if and when the White House would put it into effect.

View image in fullscreen The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.

Platforming Maga media

The White House took over deciding which outlets are allowed to take part in the press pool, a group that acts as the eyes and ears of the media covering the president up close, and included more fringe outlets. Rightwing journalists also became more prominent at press briefings.

View image in fullscreen Steve Herman, chief national correspondent at Voice of America, speaks outside federal court in New York on 24 March. Photograph: Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Challenging state funding

More than 1,300 Voice of America journalists, producers and assistants were placed on leave, crippling a broadcaster that was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operates in almost 50 languages. Grants to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia were terminated. A judge recently ordered the restoration of Voice of America’s operations, but the administration is likely to appeal.

Executive orders

Trump increasingly relies on executive orders

Trump has signed 141 executive orders in his first 100 days, including 36 in his first week in office. His use of the presidential pen is unprecedented in modern US history. Below are the number of executive orders presidents signed in their first 100 days.

View image in fullscreen US soldiers stand near the border fence with Mexico in Douglas, Arizona, on 3 April. Photograph: David Swanson/AFP/Getty Images

‘Invasion’ at the border

Trump’s day one border emergency declaration deployed 1,500 active-duty troops alongside 2,500 national guard members to the southern border. Framing migration as an “invasion”, the order militarized immigration enforcement and redirected defense resources to border control, raising serious legal and humanitarian concerns about the use of the military for domestic enforcement.

View image in fullscreen The Capitol at dusk in Washington DC. Photograph: Drew Angerer/AFP/Getty Images

‘Deep state’ purge

The reinstated “Schedule F” executive order has stripped tens of thousands of federal employees of civil service protections, allowing the administration to fire career officials deemed disloyal.

View image in fullscreen People protest in support of Mahmoud Khalil in San Francisco, California, on 14 April. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Pro-Palestinian targets

A week after the Columbia graduate and green card holder Mahmoud Khalil was detained in March, Trump signed an order called “Securing American Values” to target visa holders who have participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. The order directs immigration agencies to authorize visa revocations of demonstrators linked to organizations accused of hate speech, and detain and expedite deportations for those involved in activity the administration deems antisemitic.

View image in fullscreen Donald Trump signs executive orders on 20 January.

Birthright citizenship attack

Trump’s unconstitutional day one executive order aimed to end automatic citizenship for babies born on US soil to undocumented immigrants or those on temporary visas – directly challenging the 14th amendment’s guarantee that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” are citizens. The order remains blocked by courts pending litigation.

View image in fullscreen People protest in support of USAID in Washington DC on 5 February. Photograph: Andrew Leyden/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Global aid freeze

The administration’s foreign aid freeze has halted thousands of humanitarian and development programs worldwide. The executive order targeting USAID has disrupted even life-saving health initiatives like HIV treatment in Africa, even though the administration says they have not been affected.

Fortress America

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Refugee admission suspended

Trump has suspended all refugee resettlement into the United States, leaving tens of thousands of people in an overseas limbo. The indefinite pause on the resettlement program has made it nearly impossible for refugees fleeing war and violence to seek safe haven in the US. The order is subject to ongoing legal action.

Arrests ramp up

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) arrests in February outstripped not just the same period under Biden but even the figures from Trump’s first term.

A line chart showing the number of Ice arrests during the second Trump administration pacing above both Trump’s first administration and Biden’s. Guardian graphic. Source: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement

View image in fullscreen A police officer stands guard at the Cecot mega-prison, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on 4 April. Photograph: José Cabezas/Reuters

Alien Enemies Act

The Trump administration used an 18th-century wartime law to deport scores of Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they are being held in a draconian mega-prison known as Cecot. Trump’s use of the law faces legal challenges. Onboard one of the deportation flights was a Maryland father with protected legal status mistakenly deported in what the administration called an “administrative error”. The supreme court has ordered the US to “facilitate” his return.

View image in fullscreen Signs calling for the release of Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi are posted on a gate at Columbia University in New York on 21 April. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Free speech crackdown

In an extraordinary crackdown on free speech, the Trump administration has tracked down and detained international students involved in pro-Palestinian protests, among them Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate and lawful permanent resident.

View image in fullscreen Superintendent Alberto Carvalho of Los Angeles unified school district speaks on 22 November 2024. Photograph: Sarah Reingewirtz/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images

Schools and churches no longer out of bounds

The Trump administration now allows immigration authorities to make arrests in schools, healthcare facilities and places of worship. But on 7 April, federal agents were denied entry to two Los Angeles area elementary schools after they alleged the children entered the US without documentation.

Opposition and protest

View image in fullscreen People protest against the Trump administration in Los Angeles on 5 April. Photograph: Étienne Laurent/AFP via Getty Images

Protesters take to the streets

After a slower start than Trump’s first term, protests have erupted across the country, including in small towns in Republican areas, standing up against his overreach. Established groups have joined together with a decentralized protest movement around broad messages against oligarchy and dismantling democracy.

View image in fullscreen A member of the Seattle fire department inspects a burned Tesla Cybertruck at a Tesla lot on 10 March. Photograph: Lindsey Wasson/AP

Musk is targeted

Elon Musk proved a potent target for the opposition, given his prominent role leading Doge as it slashed through the federal government. As Doge cut through agency after agency, people turned up outside federal offices in opposition. “Tesla Takedown” protests at local dealerships went after his publicly traded company, tanking the stock.

View image in fullscreen Cory Booker speaks Tucson, Arizona, on 13 April. Photograph: Rebecca Noble/Reuters

Democrats take a stand

After a bruising electoral loss, Democratic officials struggled to find their voices as an effective resistance to an emboldened Trump, but some have found a footing. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez launched an anti-oligarchy tour, drawing huge crowds. Some Democrats, including Congressman Al Green, disrupted a joint session of Congress. Cory Booker gave a record-breaking 25-hour speech on the Senate floor. Meanwhile, the party announced a new effort to funnel money into critical state races.

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Lawsuits put brake on Trump agenda

A strategy that worked well in the first Trump term remained a major plank of the opposition: endless lawsuits. A coalition of Democratic attorneys general have brought handfuls of suits, often successful, to stop his actions. Outside groups have filed lawsuits over his unconstitutional plans. But his administration is defying court orders in some instances, a sign that the courts alone won’t be enough to stop him.

Trump’s approval rating flipped from positive to negative

Line chart that shows a trend of Donald Trump’s job approval rating flipping from positive at the beginning of his term to a negative rating by the end of his 100 days. Guardian graphic. Source: Silver Bulletin. Note: data as of 27 April.

Trump’s first 100 days were largely designed to make a statement, and they achieved that goal. But it’s clear that within this time period there have been consequences to the executive orders, policy making and budget cuts that could continue to spiral out of the president’s control.

The impacts will crystallize in the lives of the American public, and abroad, in the more than 1,300 days to come.