By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — After weeks of White House hype and public anxiety, President Donald Trump is set Wednesday to announce a barrage of self-described reciprocal tariffs on friend and foe alike.

The new tariffs, coming on what Trump has called “Liberation Day,” is a bid to boost U.S. manufacturing and punish other countries for what he has said are years of unfair trade practices. But by most economists’ assessments, the risky move threatens to plunge the economy into a downturn and mangle decades-old alliances.

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The White House is exuding confidence despite the political and financial gamble being undertaken.

“April 2, 2025, will go down as one of the most important days in modern American history,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at Tuesday’s briefing while adding that the new tariffs will take effect immediately.

The reciprocal tariffs Trump plans to announce follow similar recent announcements of 25% taxes on auto imports; levies against China, Canada and Mexico; and expanded tariffs on steel and aluminum. Trump has also put tariffs against countries that import oil from Venezuela and plans separate import taxes on pharmaceutical drugs, lumber, copper and computer chips.

None of the warning signs about a falling stock market or consumer sentiment turning morose have caused the administration to publicly second-guess its strategy.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has suggested that the new tariffs would raise $600 billion annually, which would be the largest tax increase since World War II. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told lawmakers that the tariffs would be capped and could be negotiated downward by other countries, according to the office of Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla. But the White House has yet to confirm policy details, despite Trump saying on Monday that he had made his decision.

Importers would likely pass along some of the cost of the taxes on to consumers. The Budget Lab at Yale University estimates that a 20% universal tariff would cost the average household an additional $3,400 to $4,200.

The Republican administration’s premise is that manufacturers will quickly increase domestic production and create new factory jobs — and the White House is expressing confidence that Trump’s approach is correct.

“They’re not going to be wrong,” Leavitt said. “It is going to work. And the president has a brilliant team of advisers who have been studying these issues for decades. And we are focused on restoring the golden age of America and making America a manufacturing superpower.”

The bold optimism has done little to reassure the public or allies who see the import taxes as a threat.

Based on the possibility of broad 20% tariffs that have been floated by some White House aides, most analyses see an economy tarnished by higher prices and stagnation. U.S. economic growth — as measured by gross domestic product — would be roughly a percentage point lower, and clothing, oil, automobiles, housing, groceries and even insurance would cost more, the Budget Lab analysis found.

Construction workers install a lumber roof at a new home build Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Laveen, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Trump would single-handedly be applying these tariffs, since he has ways of legally doing so without congressional approval. That makes it easy for Democratic lawmakers and policymakers to criticize the Republican administration, if the uncertainty expressed by businesses and declining consumer sentiment are, in fact, signs of trouble to come.

Heather Boushey, who served as a member of the Biden White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, noted that the less aggressive tariffs Trump imposed during his first term failed to stir the manufacturing renaissance he promised voters.

“We are not seeing indications of the boom that the president promised,” Boushey said. “It’s a failed strategy.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the tariffs were fundamentally a way for Trump to raise revenues in order to pay for his planned extensions of income tax cuts that disproportionately favor millionaires and billionaires.

“Almost everything they do, including tariffs, it seems to me, is aimed at getting those tax cuts for the wealthy,” Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor.

Even Republicans who trust Trump’s instincts have acknowledged that the tariffs could be disruptive to an economy with an otherwise healthy 4.1 % unemployment rate.

“We’ll see how it all develops,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. “It may be rocky in the beginning. But I think that this will make sense for Americans and help all Americans.”

Longtime trading partners are preparing their own countermeasures. Canada has already imposed some in response to the 25% tariffs that Trump tied to the trafficking of fentanyl. The European Union, in response to the steel and aluminum tariffs, put taxes on 26 billion euros’ worth ($28 billion) of U.S. goods, including on bourbon, which prompted Trump to threaten a 200% tariff on European alcohol.

Many allies feel they have been reluctantly drawn into a confrontation by Trump, who routinely says that friends and foes have essentially ripped off the United States with a mix of tariffs and other trade barriers.

The flip side, of course, is that Americans also have the incomes to choose to buy designer gowns by French fashion houses and autos from German manufacturers, whereas World Bank data show the EU has lower incomes per capita than the United States.

“Europe has not started this confrontation,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “We do not necessarily want to retaliate but, if it is necessary, we have a strong plan to retaliate and we will use it.”

Because Trump has hyped his tariffs without providing specifics, he has provided a deeper sense of uncertainty for the world, a sign that the economic slowdown could possibly extend beyond U.S. borders to other nations that would see one person to blame.

Ray Sparnaay, general manager of JE Fixture & Tool, a Canadian tool and die business that sits across the Detroit River, said the uncertainty has crushed his company’s ability to make plans.

“There’s going to be tariffs implemented. We just don’t know at this point,” he said Monday. “That’s one of the biggest problems we’ve had probably the last — well, since November — is the uncertainty. It’s basically slowed all of our quoting processes, business that we hope to secure has been stalled.”

Leavitt is among three administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First and Fifth Amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

Associated Press reporters Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Mike Householder in Oldcastle, Ontario, contributed to this report.

By JILL COLVIN, Associated Press

A trio of elections on Tuesday provided early warning signs to Republicans and President Donald Trump at the beginning of an ambitious term, as Democrats rallied against his efforts to slash the federal government and the outsize role being played by billionaire Elon Musk.

In the marquee race for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat, the conservative judge endorsed by Trump and backed by Musk and his groups to the tune of $21 million lost by a significant margin in a state Trump won in November. And while Florida Republicans held two of the most pro-Trump House districts in the country, both candidates also underperformed Trump’s November margins.

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The elections — the first major contests since Trump’s return to power — were seen as an early measure of voter sentiment as Trump works with unprecedented speed to dramatically upend the federal government, clashing with the courts and seeking revenge as he tests the bounds of presidential power.

The party that loses the presidency in November typically picks up seats in the next midterm elections, and Tuesday’s results provided hope for Democrats — who have faced a barrage of internal and external criticism about their response to Trump — that they can follow that trend.

Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and podcaster whose group worked alongside Musk to boost conservative Brad Schimel in Wisconsin, argued Tuesday’s Supreme Court loss underscored a fundamental challenge for Republicans, particularly in races where Trump is not on the ballot.

“We did a lot in Wisconsin, but we fell short. We must realize and appreciate that we are the LOW PROP party now,” he said, referring to low-propensity voters who don’t regularly cast ballots. “The party has been remade. Special elections and off-cycle elections will continue to be a problem without a change of strategy.”

Major shifts in Wisconsin

Trump won Wisconsin in November by 0.8 percentage points, or fewer than 30,000 votes. In the first major test since he took office, the perennial battleground state shifted significantly to the left.

Sauk County, northwest of the state capital of Madison, is a state bellwether. Trump won it in November by 626 votes. Sauk shifted 14 points in the direction of Judge Susan Crawford, the liberal favorite backed by national Democrats and billionaire donors like George Soros.

Besides strong turnout in Democratic-heavy areas, Crawford did measurably better in the suburban Milwaukee counties that Republicans rely on to run up their margins statewide.

Crawford won Kenosha and Racine counties, both of which went for Trump over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. She was on pace to win by 9 percentage points.

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford speaks during her election night party after winning the election Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Kayla Wolf)

In interviews with more than 20 voters in Waunakee, a politically mixed town north of Madison, several Democrats suggested without prompting that their vote was as much if not more of a repudiation of Trump’s first months in office as it was a decision on the direction of the state high court.

“This is our chance to say no,” said Linda Grassl, a retired OB-GYN registered nurse, after voting at the Waunakee Public Library corridor Tuesday.

Others disliked the richest man in the world playing such a prominent role.

“I don’t like Elon Musk spending money for an election he should have no involvement in,” said Antonio Gray, a 38-year-old Milwaukee security guard. “They should let the voters vote for who they want to vote for instead of inserting themselves like they have.”

Republicans warn against drawing national conclusions

Former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said that part of the challenge for Republicans had been “trying to connect the dots” to turn the state Supreme Court race into one about Trump — a difficult task in a state judicial race.

“If you’re somebody who showed up for Trump because you feel forgotten, you don’t typically show up to vote in” these kinds of elections, he said, imagining voters asking themselves: “What does this have to do with Trump?”

Still, Walker cautioned against reading the tea leaves too closely.

“I’d be a little bit careful about reading too much into what happens nationally,” he said.

Trump had better luck in Florida, where Republican Randy Fine won his special election in the 6th District to replace Mike Waltz, who stepped down to serve as Trump’s national security adviser. But Fine beat his Democratic challenger, Josh Weil, by 14 percentage points less than five months after Waltz won the district by 33.

Republican candidate Randy Fine, right, walks past signs supporting President Donald Trump before meeting with supporters after the special election for U.S. House District 6 was called in his favor, Tuesday, April 1, 2025 in Ormond Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

“This is the functional equivalent of Republicans running a competitive race in the district that is represented by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries beforehand, invoking a liberal favorite whom Trump often denigrates. “Kamala Harris won that district by 30 points. Do you think a Republican would even be competitive in that district in New York, currently held by Alex? Of course, not.”

Jimmy Patronis, the state’s chief financial officer, fended off a challenge from Democrat Gay Valimont to win the northwest Florida seat vacated by Matt Gaetz but also underperformed Gaetz’s last margin of victory.

The pair of wins gave Republicans a 220-213 margin in the House of Representatives, when concerns about a thin GOP majority led Trump to pull the nomination of New York Rep. Elise Stefanik to be United Nations ambassador.

For voters in both districts, the clear draw was Trump.

Teresa Horton, 72, didn’t know much at all about Tuesday’s election — but said she didn’t need to.

“I don’t even know these people that are on there,” she said of her ballot. “I just went with my ticket.”

Brenda Ray, 75, a retired nurse, said she didn’t know a lot about Patronis, either, but cast her ballot for him because she believes he’ll “vote with our president.”

“That’s all we’re looking for,” she said.

Both Patronis and Fine were badly outraised by their Democratic challengers. Michael Whatley, chairman of the Republican National Committee, argued that what was a GOP concern before Tuesday night had been a sign of the party’s strength.

“The American people sent a clear message tonight: they want elected officials who will advance President Trump’s America First agenda, and their votes can’t be bought by national Democrats,” he said in a statement.

Associated Press writers Stephany Matat in Daytona Beach, Fla.; Kate Payne in Pensacola, Fla.; Christine Fernando in Milwaukee; Mark Vancleave in Eau Claire, Wis.; Tom Beaumont in Waunakee, Wis.; and Matt Brown in Washington contributed to this report.

By SARAH PARVINI and MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — After TikTok was banned in the United States earlier this year, President Donald Trump gave the platform a reprieve, barreling past a law that was passed in Congress and upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court that said the ban was necessary for national security.

The Republican president’s executive orders have spurred more than 130 lawsuits in the little more than two months he has been in office, but this one barely generated a peep. None of those suits challenges his temporary block of the 2024 law that banned the popular social video app after the deadline passed for it to be sold by ByteDance, its China-based parent company.

Few of the 431 members of the House of Representatives and the Senate who voted for the law have complained.

Despite a bipartisan consensus about the risk to national security posed by TikTok’s ties to China, “it’s as if nothing ever happened,” said Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute.

TikTok has stayed online, delighting 170 million users in the U.S.

TikTok continues to function, much to the delight of its 170 million users in the U.S., and the tech giants Apple, Google and Oracle have been persuaded to continue to offer and support the app, on the promise that Trump’s Justice Department would not use the law to seek potentially steep fines against them.

Trump declared he was suspending the law for 75 days, though no provision of the rule would appear to allow for that, to give ByteDance a fresh chance to find a U.S. buyer. The president has suggested he could extend the pause, but he has since said he expects a deal by Saturday, when the reprieve expires. He is meeting Wednesday with aides about possible suitors for TikTok. Oracle and the investment firm Blackstone are among the potential investors.

FILE – A visitor passes the TikTok exhibition stands at the Gamescom computer gaming fair in Cologne, Germany, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)

Trump’s action followed a fast-tracked free-speech challenge by TikTok and its users that ended with a unanimous Supreme Court ruling days before Trump’s inauguration, in which the justices held that national security concerns overcame their usual receptivity to First Amendment claims.

The court’s opinions dealt at length with the potential for China to harvest vast quantities of TikTok users’ data that could allow it to track the locations of federal employees and contractors.

“The record before us establishes that TikTok mines data both from TikTok users and about millions of others who do not consent to share their information,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a brief separate opinion. “According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, TikTok can access ‘any data’ stored in a consenting user’s ‘contact list’ — including names, photos, and other personal information about unconsenting third parties.”

TikTok, which has headquarters in Singapore and Los Angeles, has said it prioritizes user safety, and China’s Foreign Ministry has said China’s government has never and will not ask companies to “collect or provide data, information or intelligence” held in foreign countries.

Trump was against TikTok before he was for it

The day after the ruling, TikTok went dark for U.S. users, but it came back online after Trump vowed to stall the ban.

The president’s position has evolved over time. During his first term, he used an executive order to try to ban TikTok on national security grounds. But federal courts blocked it. His administration then tried to negotiate a sale of the platform, but it failed.

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Trump changed his tune during his 2024 campaign and said he would “save TikTok,” then credited the platform with helping him win more young voters. He issued the 75-day pause on the first day of his second term.

The law allows for one 90-day reprieve, but only if there’s a deal on the table and a formal notification to Congress.

Trump’s actions so far violate the law, said Alan Rozenshtein, an associate law professor at the University of Minnesota. “The law does not permit the sort of ‘extension’ that Donald Trump has announced,” Rozenshtein said.

But both he and Kreps acknowledged a court challenge or other pushback is unlikely.

“Who’s the constituency? You have 170 million Americans using the app, and they’re pretty happy to see this continue to be available to them,” Kreps said.

It also might be hard for someone to establish the legal right, or standing, to sue, Rozenshtein said. A plaintiff would have to be able to show harm from the delay in enforcing the law, he said.

More importantly, he said, the TikTok executive order was an early “example of the Trump administration not caring about the rule of law.”

While Trump has directed the Justice Department not to seek fines from the tech companies, they still are taking a legal gamble, according to Democratic lawmakers who oppose the TikTok ban but also criticize Trump for his actions. A future administration might have its own reasons to pursue legal claims against Apple, Google and Oracle, they wrote Trump in a letter last week.

Companies could face hundreds of billions of dollars in legal liability for facilitating TikTok’s operations since the law’s effective date of Jan. 19, Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Ed Markey of Massachusetts wrote.

Tech companies initially lacked clear guidance

The companies themselves acknowledged their legally uncertain situation in their initial response to Trump’s order. Oracle continued to provide cloud services to TikTok, the senators said, but “Apple and Google, however, initially came to a different decision and refused to reinstate TikTok in their app stores.”

The companies changed course only after receiving written assurance from the Justice Department.

The Democrats have called for amending the law to extend the deadline for a sale to October. Other opponents of the TikTok ban support a full repeal.

Among the few supporters of the ban to speak out is Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Michigan, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

But rather than take on Trump, Moolenaar has focused his criticism on ByteDance and its ties the Chinese Communist Party. “If ByteDance stays involved in any way, the deal is illegal — plain and simple,” Moolenaar said in remarks to a TikTok event on Capitol Hill last week.

Several potential bidders have stepped forward.

Perplexity AI presented ByteDance in January with a merger proposal that would combine Perplexity’s business with TikTok’s U.S. operations.

Another possibility is a consortium organized by billionaire businessman Frank McCourt, which recently recruited Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian as a strategic adviser. Investors in the consortium previously said they offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash for TikTok’s U.S. platform. They had planned to redesign the popular app with blockchain technology they said would provide users with more control over their online data.

FILE – Alexis Ohanian poses for photos on the red carpet at the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Annual Salute to Women in Sports, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File)

Jesse Tinsley, the founder of the payroll firm Employer.com, had also organized a consortium, which included the CEO of the video game platform Roblox, and offered ByteDance more than $30 billion for TikTok.

Parvini reported from Los Angeles.

Some years back, I fired off a forgettable social media post referencing the “three co-equal branches” of government. A friend — a smart journalist steeped in American political history — responded with a gentle correction reminding me that Congress was the “supreme branch,” befitting its Article I status in the United States Constitution.

Turns out we were both wrong, albeit for slightly different reasons.

Since the turn of the century, Congress has increasingly functioned as a quasi-parliament rather than as an independent branch of government – the legislative branch, to be precise. Rather than jealously guarding the distinct powers granted to them under the Constitution, members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, both Democrat and Republican, willingly, almost gleefully, cede authority to the executive branch whenever their party controls the White House.

Principle? Nah, just partisan preference

This phenomenon long predates President Donald Trump’s second term and the current, compliant GOP majorities on Capitol Hill, although, to be clear, it certainly extends to both (more on that in a moment.) Are there exceptions? Sure. But on this matter, exceptions prove the rule, explained Yuval Levin, director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, DC.

“The president’s party in Congress just functions as the president’s party in Congress, rather than part of the separate, legislative branch,” Levin said in a telephone interview. “The opposition party functions as the anti-president’s party in Congress, and they don’t really work with each other in a way that’s separate from the president’s agenda.”

In other words, the only time lawmakers take issue with a president infringing on their constitutional prerogatives, if not outright usurping them, is when it’s the other party’s guy doing the infringing and usurping. Not very “supreme.” Not very “co-equal,” either. Perhaps “the subordinate branch” is a better way to describe Congress. (The judicial branch — Article III — is, like presidents, not at all shy about exercising constitutional power.)

‘The separation of parties has overwhelmed the separation of powers’

That the legislative branch ended up here is partly a product of moves congressional Democrats made beginning in the 1970s, and that congressional Republicans continued in the 1990s, both under divided government — with one party controlling Congress and the other the White House — to strip influential policy committees of their muscle and concentrate political power in the hands of party leaders. In the House of Representatives, this resulted in the consolidation of power with the speaker, and in the Senate, with the majority leader. Rank-and-file lawmakers were effectively neutered. Ironically, this was done to thwart executive power.

“Congress ended up, because it was centralized, becoming just a player in our presidential politics,” Levin said. Representatives and senators understand themselves, first and foremost, either as critics or supporters of the president.

Levin continued: “The separation of parties has overwhelmed the separation of powers.”

With Trump stretching the bounds of executive authority, there is a renewed focus on just how uninterested in exercising power members of Congress appear to be.

The 45th and 47th president is busy dismantling or partially disassembling government agencies created by congressional statute. And yes, Trump is threatening to ignore the “power of the purse” reserved specifically for the legislative branch, through a process known as impoundment, under which he would simply refuse to spend money as authorized under the law by the House of Representatives and the Senate. Buried in his blizzard of executive orders are yet more power grabs at the expense of Congress.

But Trump is hardly the first president to push the limits of his Article II prerogatives, nor are today’s congressional Republicans unique in their readiness to acquiesce.

Biden did it, Obama did it, Bush did it …

Democrat Joe Biden did it; recall his unconstitutional student-loan forgiveness program. Democrat Barack Obama did it; recall his “pen and phone” decision to grant permanent residency to certain illegal immigrants. Republican George W. Bush did it; recall signing statements declaring he would not enforce aspects of legislation he opposed. And not once did Democrats (in the case of Biden and Obama) or Republicans (in the case of Bush) do anything about it. Indeed, they largely cheered them the on, as is the case in some instances so far, a little more than two months into Trump’s second presidency.

Another manifestation of this trend: Congress regularly has trouble agreeing to government spending packages and typically passes legislation that leaves the details up to bureaucrats and rule makers in executive branch agencies, allowing elected representatives to avoid tough decisions and political responsibility in the event of voter backlash.

Yet another sign: the number of White House vetoes has plummeted over the years. Before this recent trend of congressional acquiescence, Republican President Ronald Reagan issued 78 vetoes in his eight years in office. As the trend gathered steam, Democratic President Bill Clinton vetoed 37 bills in his two terms. But two-term presidents Bush and Obama each vetoed just 12. There was a slight uptick of vetoes issued by Trump during his first term (10) and by Biden (13), but nothing approaching the Reagan era.

Now, we’re more like Europe

This synergy of the executive and the legislative is a feature of the parliamentary governments common across Europe and in countries like Canada, Israel and Japan. But it is entirely antithetical to the system of checks and balances — with ruthless competition for power among the executive, legislative and judicial branches — undergirding the constitutional order designed by the American Founders. At least, it’s supposed to be.

“In a parliamentary system, the executive comes from and is part of the legislative branch—no separation of powers and little checks and balances. It is essentially rule by party,” Jeff Brauer, a political science professor who teaches comparative government at Keystone College, a private university near Scranton, Pennsylvania, said. “Undoubtedly, over the past couple of decades, the US government has been acting more and more like a parliamentary system.”

Congress’ ongoing abdication of power isn’t likely to end anytime soon.

Brauer points out that voters “probably don’t understand the intricacies or differences that set the US system apart from parliamentary systems — and perhaps don’t care.” Like their representatives and senators, they want congressional pushback against presidents they oppose. But they seem to prefer submission in the case of presidents they support. In fact, it’s this preference that discourages Democrats and Republicans from telling president of their own party “no” when he overreaches.

Polarized bases, subservient Congress

Possibly, an extended period of divided government might change matters. Possibly, even, disillusionment in Congress — which apparently exists, Tom Reynolds, a Republican former member of the House of Representatives from Buffalo, New York, told me. “I talk to members all the time and I see the frustration,” he said. Yet the challenge in getting the legislative branch to reclaim its power, as Brauer noted, is that lawmakers are reacting to the perceived will of the voters.

That’s something Reynolds, who retired from Congress in 2009 and now works in government relations, understands well. He was his party’s campaign chief, serving as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee in the 2004 and 2006 election cycles. “What has added to this (problem of a subservient legislative branch) is a very polarized base of both parties.”

David M. Drucker is columnist covering politics and policy. He is also a senior writer for The Dispatch and the author of “In Trump’s Shadow: The Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP.”