Trump says he’ll slap 30% tariffs on Mexico, European Union on Aug. 1
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Puerto Ricans hope for change as Bad Bunny sings about the island’s turmoil and identity
Bad Bunny has elevated the global profile of the island, a U.S. territory, to new heights. The singer has promoted its traditional music, denouncing its gentrification and challenging its political status. Puerto Ricans are optimistic that Bad Bunny’s new album and his series of 30 concerts that began Friday means they’ll finally be heard.“They want to take the river away from me and also the beach; they want my neighborhood and the grandma to leave,” Bad Bunny sang on Friday as the crowd drowned out his voice, booing loudly.. “We’re going to fight for what belongs to us,’ said Carmen Lourdes López, the vice president of the La Perla Community Board Association, an impoverished community once known for being Puerto Rico’s biggest heroin distribution point. ‘They have always have always wanted to kick us out of here,’ said a 16th-century 16th century fort popular with tourists, which is perched on a hill with deep turquoise waters below.
The mostly older crowd flipped through the pages, seeking to understand more about Puerto Rico’s culture, the places, phrases and references in Bad Bunny’s music.
The singer has elevated the global profile of the island, a U.S. territory, to new heights, promoting its traditional music, denouncing its gentrification and challenging its political status.
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It was an unexpected opportunity for an island that for years has cried out about its territorial status , dwindling affordable housing, high cost of living, chronic power outages , medical exodus and fragile economy . Pleas for change have been largely pushed aside, but Puerto Ricans are optimistic that Bad Bunny’s new album and his series of 30 concerts that began Friday means they’ll finally be heard.
“He’s going to bring change, and there’s a young generation who’s going to back him,” said Luis Rosado, 57, who this week attended the dictionary launch at the urging of his son, who lives abroad.
‘They want my neighborhood’
Ten minutes before the first concert on Friday, a giant billboard on stage lit up with the words, “Puerto Rico is a colony since Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ the island during his second trip to the New World in 1493.”
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The crowd that filled the 18,000-capacity coliseum whooped.
“This album has sparked a conversation around the world about our situation as a colony,” said Andrea Figueroa, a 24-year-old professional athlete who said foreigners have started to ask her about Puerto Rico and its issues, something she hopes might lead to change.
Those born on the island of 3.2 million inhabitants are U.S. citizens but cannot vote in U.S. presidential elections, and they have one representative in Congress with limited voting powers.
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Figueroa said the album resonated with her because her father is one of thousands forced to leave the island in search of work as the economy crumbled. It’s a sentiment Bad Bunny sings about in “What happened to Hawaii,” with the lyric, “He didn’t want to go to Orlando, but the corrupt ones kicked him out.”
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The song taps into concern that the Puerto Rican identity is eroding amid an influx of people from the U.S. mainland, many of them attracted by a 2012 law that allows Americans to move to the island and pay no taxes on capital gains if they meet certain conditions.
Hundreds of Americans also snapped up properties in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria struck the island as a powerful Category 4 storm in 2017, forcing more than 100,000 people to leave.
“They want to take the river away from me and also the beach; they want my neighborhood and the grandma to leave,” Bad Bunny sang on Friday as the crowd drowned out his voice.
The artist spent half of Friday’s concert singing from the porch and roof of a traditional Puerto Rican home that served as a second stage, where he wonders about its fate aloud because it’s been rented: “Do good people live there? Is it an Airbnb?”
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The mostly young crowd booed loudly, flinching at their reality on an island where the housing price index increased by almost 60% from 2018 to 2024 and where short-term rentals have surged from some 1,000 in 2014 to more than 25,000 in 2023.
The song hit Carmen Lourdes López Rivera especially hard. She is the vice president of the Community Board Association of La Perla, an impoverished community once known for being Puerto Rico’s biggest heroin distribution point.
Investors with deep pockets have long sought to buy up the area, which is perched on a hill with deep turquoise waters lapping below a massive 16th-century fort popular with tourists.
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“They have always said they want to kick us out of here,” she said. “We’re going to fight for what belongs to us.”
Bomba, plena and a crested toad
The effect of Bad Bunny’s album and concerts is already being felt.
More than 35,000 hotel nights have been booked during the normally slow summer season, with the concerts expected to attract more than 600,000 visitors, generate more than $186 million and create more than 3,600 jobs, according to government officials.
Beyond that, Bad Bunny’s use of folkloric music like bomba and plena has revived interest in those musical traditions. Dozens of newcomers have requested classes and are seeking out teachers, said Jorge Gabriel López Olán, 28, an experienced drummer.
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“And it’s very necessary, isn’t it? To understand where we come from and where our music and culture come from,” he said.
On Friday, Bad Bunny fans sported long ruffled skirts traditionally worn to dance bomba, while others donned straw hats known as a “pava,” worn by “jíbaros,” Puerto Rican peasants. Musicians and dancers wore the same outfits on the main stage, which at one point even featured live chickens.
Interest has surged to the point where universities including Princeton and Yale have launched courses on Bad Bunny. Albert Laguna, a Yale professor, described Bad Bunny’s residence as a powerful move: “Instead of me going to the world, right, I’m going to start here.”
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There is even renewed interest in the Puerto Rican crested toad , the island’s sole indigenous toad species that is under threat and was featured in a video as part of Bad Bunny’s newest album.
Not even two weeks had passed since the album’s launch and people already were sending in pictures to confirm if they had spotted the crested toad, said Abel Vale Nieves with Citizens of the Karst, an environmental nonprofit.
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“It’s something we had not seen before,” he said, adding that the album presented Puerto Rico’s reality to the world: “A situation of complete disadvantage where we don’t have the right to a lot of things.”
“It creates interest in Puerto Rico’s historical situation, and I think it did so in a wonderful way,” he said, adding that the concerts will only boost visibility of the island’s issues. “It’s a beautiful opportunity.”
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Trump says he’ll slap 30% tariffs on Mexico, European Union on Aug. 1
President Donald Trump threatens to impose 30 percent tariffs on imports from Mexico and the European Union starting Aug. 1. Trump made the announcements with separate letters he posted on Truth Social to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Trump has spent the past several days sending letters to world leaders, alerting them to new tariffs the U.S. planned to impose on their goods. The European Commission, the E.U.’s executive body, has prepared a list of American products to hit with retaliatory tariffs if negotiations fail. American companies have complained that Trump’S on-again, off-again tariffs are damaging their bottom lines. The president has issued myriad tariff threats only to cancel or delay most of them soon after, the White House says. The E.u. says it is ready to continue negotiations but also indicated it would consider retaliatory steps if the talks fail to avert a spiraling trade war. But the European Commission is not ready to accept an ultimatum that Brussels unlikely to accept.
Trump’s announcements took aim at two of the United States’ largest trading partners and threatened to upend the global economy if he actually implements the new tariffs.
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Last year, U.S.-E.U. trade in goods totaled nearly $1 trillion. The U.S. and Mexico are linked in a North American trading zone under a trade agreement negotiated during Trump’s first term, with almost $840 billion in goods passing between them.
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High tariffs on Mexican goods would batter U.S. automakers that rely on factories south of the border for key parts and would impose higher prices on American consumers on everyday products such as tomatoes, avocados, watermelons and alcohol.
Trump has spent the past several days sending letters to world leaders, alerting them to new tariffs the United States planned to impose on their goods. Because there are still nearly three weeks before the duties go into effect, the announcements could be a negotiating move to gain leverage.
Tariffs are taxes that American importers pay to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to bring foreign products into the United States. The financial burden can ultimately be shared among the U.S. importer, foreign producer and consumers.
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So far this year, importers and foreign manufacturers have each swallowed about 40 percent of the tariffs’ costs while consumers have paid 20 percent in the form of higher prices, economists at Goldman Sachs said Friday in a note to clients.
Since returning to the White House in January, the president has issued myriad tariff threats only to cancel or delay most of them soon after. Business executives and foreign leaders say they have learned not to take every White House trade statement at face value.
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Numerous American companies have complained that Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs are damaging their bottom lines. Small businesses have been especially hard hit, fearing that the added costs will hurt their ability to remain competitive and profitable, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
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The uncertainty has been compounded by legal challenges to Trump’s claim of a “national emergency” authorizing his widespread tariffs. A federal appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments on July 31 in a case that could render invalid all of the tariffs Trump imposed beginning April 2.
In May, the federal Court of International Trade ruled that the president had exceeded his authority by unilaterally imposing “emergency” tariffs. The administration immediately appealed and a final decision is likely later this year.
Von der Leyen said Saturday that the E.U. was ready to continue negotiations but also indicated it would consider retaliatory steps. The European Commission, the E.U.’s executive body, has prepared a list of American products to hit with retaliatory tariffs if negotiations fail.
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“Imposing 30 percent tariffs on E.U. exports would disrupt essential transatlantic supply chains, to the detriment of businesses, consumers and patients on both sides of the Atlantic,” she said.
The letter is a curveball for European officials who spent weeks making calls to the White House and traveling to Washington to put together a deal that would bring some tariff relief and avert a spiraling trade war.
E.U. officials had largely expected in recent days to be spared one of Trump’s Truth Social posts. The bloc had reluctantly acquiesced to a skeletal deal that would keep a baseline of 10 percent U.S. tariffs on most goods, and leave a resolution of thorny trade disputes to further negotiation.
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Brussels and Washington were drawing up an “agreement in principle” that would include exemptions from U.S. tariffs for key industries such as alcohol and aircraft, and the two sides engaged in talks to reduce a 25 percent U.S. levy on cars.
The E.U. was also ready to pledge to buy more U.S. goods, notably weapons and liquefied natural gas. But Trump’s letter contained an ultimatum that Brussels is unlikely to accept.
“The European Union will allow complete, open Market Access to the United States, with no Tariff being charged to us, in an attempt to reduce the large Trade Deficit,” the president wrote.
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Trump has complained about the E.U.’s 10 percent tariff on imported automobiles. But the bloc’s average tariff is 2.8 percent, not much different than the 2.2 percent average charged by the U.S., according to the World Trade Organization.
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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has positioned herself as a Trump whisperer in Europe, offered hope that a tit-for-tat could be averted.
“It would make no sense to trigger a trade war between the two sides of the Atlantic,” her office said in a statement. “It is now essential to remain focused on the negotiations, avoiding polarization that would make reaching an agreement more difficult.”
In his letter to the Mexican president, Trump demanded that Mexico eliminate cross-border shipments of illicit drugs.
Trump imposed tariffs on Mexican goods earlier this year, citing concerns over trafficking in fentanyl and illegal migration. The Mexican government responded by deploying troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and stepping up cooperation with American law enforcement.
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“BUT, what Mexico has done, is not enough. Mexico still has not stopped the Cartels who are trying to turn all of North America into a Narco-Trafficking Playground. Obviously, I cannot let that happen!” Trump wrote.
The letters Trump dispatched to more than two dozen countries in recent days were all nearly identical, complete with random capitalizations, typos and other errors. The notification to von der Leyen, for example, referred to the European Union as “a country.” The E.U. is a governing bloc that joins 27 separate nations.
On April 2, Trump announced steep tariffs on more than 60 nations in a bid for more balanced trade or what he called “reciprocity.” The United States buys far more from the rest of the world than other nations buy from American businesses, leading to a $1.2 trillion trade deficit last year.
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On Saturday, Mexico noted that it has been in active discussions with the U.S. to make sure they have an agreement in place to avoid tariffs being imposed on Aug. 1. “In other words, Mexico is already in negotiations,” the country said in a statement.
Mexicans have been baffled at Trump’s jabs at Sheinbaum over fentanyl trafficking. She has reversed a policy of “hugs not bullets” adopted by her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She has sent thousands of troops to the border, ramped up arrests of cartel members and transferred 29 drug bosses to the United States.
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Trump also blames years of chronic trade deficits for hollowing out U.S. manufacturing. Most mainstream economists say Americans benefit from trade in the form of lower prices and greater product availability. Manufacturing employment in the U.S. has steadily declined since 1979 largely because of automation, those economists say.
Financial markets recoiled from the president’s early-April announcement with stocks sinking by 12 percent in less than a week and yields on Treasury securities rising by the largest amount since 1982.
The president retreated, pausing his tariffs for 90 days to allow for negotiations. That hiatus expired Wednesday, to be replaced by a flurry of new tariff announcements and a new self-imposed deadline of Aug. 1 for any negotiated deals.
After the White House teased “90 deals in 90 days,” Trump has agreed on the outlines of two deals with the United Kingdom and Vietnam, and has announced a truce in a tariff war with China.
On Thursday, he threatened to impose a 35 percent tariff on Canada starting Aug. 1. He also announced last week a 50 percent tariff on goods from Brazil.
Mary Beth Sheridan contributed to this report.
El Chapo’s son Ovidio Guzmán López pleads guilty to U.S. drug charges
Ovidio Guzmán López, 35, was captured in Mexico and extradited to the United States in 2023. Prosecutors have accused him and three of his brothers of taking over their father’s role in the Sinaloa cartel. He pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy and knowingly engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. He also admitted to organizing the smuggling of large shipments of drugs including cocaine, heroin and fentanyl into the U.S. He could avoid a mandatory life sentence for one of the charges, but the government said it would not request a lower sentence than the mandatory minimum of 10 years’ imprisonment for the second charge. The final decision for any part of the deal rests with the sentencing judge, and a date for sentencing has not been set. The plea deal was announced by the Department of Justice, which said it is “committed to dismantling the Cartel’s entire fentanyl infrastructure’’ The Mexican president criticized the deal, saying that there was a “lack of coherence” in U.s. policy.
Under the plea deal announced by the Department of Justice, Guzmán López pleaded guilty to two counts of drug conspiracy and two counts of knowingly engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.
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He also admitted to organizing the smuggling of large shipments of drugs including cocaine, heroin and fentanyl into the United States, as well as his and his associates’ involvement in violence against law enforcement officials, civilians and rival drug traffickers.
The Justice Department, prosecutors from three U.S. districts as well as several law enforcement agencies worked to secure the plea agreement, which resolves the charges Guzmán López faced in Illinois and New York, according to the statement.
“Today’s guilty plea is another major step toward holding the Sinaloa Cartel and its leaders accountable for their role in fueling the fentanyl epidemic that has plagued so many Americans,” Jay Clayton, the interim United States attorney for New York’s Southern District, said in the DOJ statement. “We remain committed to dismantling the Cartel’s entire fentanyl infrastructure and ensuring that the Chapitos and their violent organization can no longer flood our communities with this poison.”
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Attorney Jeffrey Lichtman, who represents Guzmán López and one of his brothers, declined to comment on whether the plea agreement was a good deal before sentencing took place, the Associated Press reported.
Lichtman did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Saturday.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum criticized the deal in a news conference Friday, saying that there was a “lack of coherence” in U.S. policy, by declaring cartels to be terrorist organizations while also entering into plea deals with their leaders.
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According to the plea deal, the government will inform the sentencing judge of the level of Guzmán López’s cooperation with authorities, and he could avoid a mandatory life sentence for one of the charges. However, the government said it would not request a lower sentence than the mandatory minimum of 10 years’ imprisonment for the second charge and noted that the final decision for any part of the deal rests with the sentencing judge.
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A date for sentencing has not been set.
Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Law School and former assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, told the Associated Press that Guzmán López’s guilty plea may have “saved other family members.”
“In this way, he has some control over who he’s cooperating against and what the world will know about that cooperation,” she said, adding that the plea deal was a “big step” for the U.S. government. “The best way for them to take out the cartel is to find out about its operations from an insider, and that’s what they get from his cooperation.”
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Guzmán López’s father was the head of the powerful Sinaloa cartel who became known for his dramatic escapes from two maximum security prisons in Mexico. He was recaptured in 2016 and extradited to the United States the following year and is now serving a life sentence.
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In 2019, Mexican authorities briefly detained Guzmán López in the city of Culiacán but were forced to release him in a bungled operation that saw members of the Sinaloa cartel turn the city into an urban war zone — to the embarrassment of the Mexican government. The Mexican military eventually captured Guzmán López in 2023, ahead of a visit by then-President Joe Biden; he was extradited to the United States the same year.
One of his brothers, Joaquín Guzmán López, was taken into U.S. custody alongside another of the cartel’s top leaders in June last year, after they boarded a private plane that landed in Texas. Joaquín Guzmán López has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges filed in Illinois.
Iran says 5 inmates at Evin prison were killed in Israel’s airstrike on Tehran
Israeli airstrike on Iran’s capital last month killed five inmates at Evin prison. Spokesman for Iran’s judiciary didn’t name the victims or give any further details. Iranian authorities last month put the death toll from the air strike at 71. But Iranian media later raised that number to 80 including staff, soldiers, inmates.
The judiciary’s own news website, Mizanonline quoted spokesman Asghar Jahangir as saying only that “small number” of inmates were killed. He added that an “insignificant number of inmates” had also escaped and that authorities would soon bring them back into custody.
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Jahangir said no one serving time at Evin prison for working with Israel’s spy agency Mossad was injured in the attack.
Iranian authorities last month put the death toll from the air strike at 71. But Iranian media later raised that number to 80 including staff, soldiers, inmates and visiting family members.
It’s unclear why Israel targeted the prison. The Israeli Defense Ministry had said on the day of the airstrikes that 50 aircraft dropped 100 munitions on military targets “based on high-quality and accurate intelligence from the Intelligence Branch.”
The New York-based Center for Human Rights had criticized Israel for striking the prison – seen as a symbol of repression of any opposition – saying it violated the principle of distinction between civilian and military targets.
Trump’s sudden shifts make his policies baffling to countries trying to negotiate lower tariffs
President Donald Trump is doubling down on his trade wars. He is threatening to raise taxes on many goods from Canada, hike his universal tariff on imports. He also is punishing Brazil for prosecuting his friend, the country’s former president. Former U.S. trade negotiator Wendy Cutler says the moves “underscore the growing unpredictability, incoherence and assertiveness’’ of his trade policies. The European Union and Mexico are two of the United States’ biggest trade partners, at 30% and 20% each, respectively, on imports from the U.K. and Mexico. The United States runs trade deficits with dozens of countries with which it runs a trade deficit, but Trump suspended the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days to give countries a chance to negotiate. The administration promised “90 deals in 90 days’’ but got only two – with the United Kingdom and Vietnam – before the deadline ran out Wednesday. The White House says it’ll impose levies ranging from 20% on the Philippines to the 50%.
On Saturday, Trump announced more tariffs still, this time on two of the United States’ biggest trade partners: the European Union and Mexico , at 30% each.
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Former U.S. trade negotiator Wendy Cutler said that Trump’s recent moves “underscore the growing unpredictability, incoherence and assertiveness’’ of his trade policies.
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“It’s hard for trading partners to know where they stand with Trump on any given day and what more may be coming their way when least expected,’’ said Cutler, now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute.
On Thursday, the president escalated a conflict he started with America’s second-biggest trading partner and longstanding ally, raising the tariff — effectively a tax — on many Canadian imports to 35% effective Aug. 1.
The sudden announcement, revealed in a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, came despite Carney’s push to reach a trade deal with the United States by July 21. And it followed a big concession by Canada: On June 29, it had agreed to drop a digital services tax that Trump considered unfair to U.S. tech giants.
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Canada is far from the only target. In an interview Thursday with NBC News Trump suggested that he plans to raise his “baseline’’ tariff on most imports from an already-high 10% to as much as 20%. Trump sees the baseline tariffs as a way to finance the budget-busting tax cuts in the “One Big Beautiful Bill’’ he signed into law July 4.
Those tariff threats came after his extraordinary decision Wednesday to impose a 50% import tax on Brazil mainly because he didn’t like the way it was treating former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing trial for trying to overturn his electoral defeat in 2022.
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In his letter to current Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Trump also incorrectly claimed that Brazilian trade barriers had caused “unsustainable Trade Deficits against the United States.’’ In fact, U.S. exports to Brazil have exceeded imports for 18 straight years, including a $29 billion surplus last year.
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For some, Trump’s action against Brazil indicates he’s trying to exert influence over more than trade.
“Trump seems to view tariffs as an instrument to influence not just other countries’ trade and economic policies but even their domestic legal and political matters,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University.
Trump’s faith in the economic superpowers of tariffs is unshaken even though they so far have proven largely ineffective in bullying other countries to cut deals.
On April 2, Trump announced the 10% baseline tariffs and larger “reciprocal’’ tariffs – up to 50% — on dozens of countries with which the United States runs trade deficits. But responding to a rout in global financial markets, he quickly suspended the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days to give countries a chance to negotiate.
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The administration promised “90 deals in 90 days’’ but got only two – with the United Kingdom and Vietnam — before the deadline ran out Wednesday.
Rather than reinstituting the reciprocal tariffs, Trump sent letters to 23 countries saying he’ll impose levies ranging from 20% on the Philippines to the 50% on Brazil Aug. 1 if they couldn’t reach an agreement.
Chad Bown, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, was not surprised that Trump needed more time to press U.S. trading partners to do more to open their markets to U.S. exports — though another three weeks is unlikely to be enough time to reach substantive agreements.
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“For each of these countries, they have their own domestic challenges about what they can and can’t offer,’’ he said. “There’s a reason why that market access hasn’t been granted before … they have domestic political constituencies that argue to keep protection in place. And those just aren’t problems that can easily be solved in a matter of weeks.’’
Malaysia, for instance, has “specific red lines’’ it will not cross, Trade Minister Zafrul Aziz said Wednesday, including U.S. demands involving government contracts, halal certification, medical standards and a digital tax.
But Malaysia has pledged to buy 30 Boeing planes and offered other concessions involving semiconductors and technology. “It has to be fair,” he said. “If the deal does not benefit Malaysia, we should not have a deal.’’
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Still, the United States’ $30 trillion economy and free-spending consumers give Trump considerable leverage, especially over countries that depend on trade. “These countries need the United States,’’ said Matthew Goodman, director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Center for Geoeconomic Studies. “They need our market.’’
Thailand, facing the threat of a 36% Trump tariff Aug. 1, is continuing to push for a deal and has offered to open its market to more U.S. farm, energy and industrial products.
Trump said Vietnam gave U.S. companies duty-free access to its market while agreeing to a 20% U.S. tariff on its exports — though details of the deal have not been released. “The Vietnam deal was fantastic,’’ Stephen Miran, chair of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, crowed last Sunday on ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.’’ “It’s extremely one-sided.’’
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Other countries “can’t afford to walk away,’’ said Goodman, former director for international economics on the National Security Council. “But they’re going to be increasingly unhappy and resistant to the most over-the-top requests.’’
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Sometimes there’s a backlash against U.S. bullying. Carney’s Liberal party, for example, won a come-from-behind election victory in April because he stood up to Trump’s pressure.
And countries are beginning to look for alternatives to economic reliance on the United States. Canada is negotiating a trade pact with Southeast Asian countries, some of which are also moving closer to China.
Foreign governments might also simply hope to outlast Trump, who has shown a willingness to declare victory after signing “framework’’ agreements such as one with China that leave the toughest issues for future negotiations.
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“For Trump, the squeeze is more important than the juice,” said William Reinsch, a former U.S. trade official now at the Center of Strategic and International Studies. “What’s important to him is winning – the public, visible appearance of winning. And what he wins is less important.
“So the trick for these countries becomes: ‘How do we let him win in a way that allows us to make the least damaging concessions?’”
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