Trump: 200 days in the White House, China tariffs delayed, Washington ‘militarized’, Epstein documents remain secret

Two hundred days in the White House now completed – the exact deadline was Sunday, August 10 – and Donald Trump still retains the ability to surprise and unsettle the U.S. media, offering new and unexpected news angles every day.

The variety of this morning’s headlines in the major U.S. outlets proves it, though all of them were overtaken in timeliness by the breaking news released at dawn by AP: “The U.S. and China, the two largest world economies, extend their trade truce by an additional 90 days, until November 9, easing mutual tensions.”

The truce was set to expire at one minute past midnight, i.e. 06:01 Italian time. If the deadline had not been extended, U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports, already high at 30%, would have skyrocketed to 145%; and, of course, China would have responded with similar countermeasures.

Trump: National Guard in Washington D.C., controversy and protests

The Washington Post leads – understandably – with the president-tycoon’s decision to send 800 members of the National Guard to the federal capital to keep public order under control and assist local police and other law enforcement in fighting violent crime and carjackings, dismantling homeless encampments, and hunting down undocumented immigrants.

In a press conference that became a marathon, Trump showed a series of charts according to which Washington’s crime rate is worse than that of numerous capitals around the world, including Baghdad, Panama City, Brasília, and Bogotá. “Our capital has been invaded by violent, bloodthirsty criminal gangs, by rampaging youth gangs, by drug-addled maniacs and the homeless – said the president-tycoon – … We will not allow this to happen again.”

According to official law enforcement statistics, crime in Washington has actually fallen in the last two years, reaching its lowest levels in thirty years.

Trump’s decision is part of a tightening on security that is expected to extend to other major cities, all Democrat-led, such as Chicago, Baltimore, and Atlanta; and it follows on what was seen in Los Angeles in June.

City authorities in the federal capital, led by Black Democratic mayor Muriel E. Bowser, contest the fact that Washington’s police is subordinated to the National Guard. The mayor calls the measure “destabilizing and unprecedented” and maintains that the head of the District of Columbia police will continue to do her job: “Commander Pamela Smith remains in her post with the 3,100 members of the Metropolitan Police Department under her orders.”

For the Washington Post, “Washington is not what Trump thinks.” The New York Times headlines ironically “Mayor Trump.” CNN explains what will change in the federal capital with the deployment of the National Guard. AP places the move in the context “of a new step in implementing Trump’s ‘Law & Order’ agenda and his crackdown on illegal immigration.”

Trump: employment, new head at the statistics office

After firing, last week, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics – appointed by his predecessor Joe Biden and blamed for having published negative data on the labor market – President Trump has appointed in her place E.J. Antoni, an economist from the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank critical of the Bureau’s work.

There is no evidence to support the accusations of data manipulation brought against Enrika McEntarfer. And now the reliability of the figures henceforth released by the Bureau will have to be evaluated. The matter is sensitive both politically and economically: The Wall Street Journal makes it its lead story.

Fox News, instead, continues its campaign against California Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, who was Trump’s chief accuser in the two impeachments brought by the House during his first term, both struck down in the Republican-majority Senate.

Trump: Epstein, judge denies release of documents

A New York judge has denied the Department of Justice authorization to publish sealed Grand Jury testimonies that indicted Ghislaine Maxwell, the former sexual partner and procurer of young prey for pedophile magnate Jeff Epstein, who committed suicide in prison in New York in 2019.

A Florida judge had already denied similar authorization in a case against Epstein held in that state. The Trump 2 Administration, which does not intend to publish – despite promises made during the election campaign – all the files related to the Epstein affair, is seeking at least partially to satisfy the curiosity of the MAGA public, which has built a whole series of conspiracy theories around the Epstein case.

Maxwell, serving twenty years in prison for sex trafficking and abuse of minors, has been contacted by the Department of Justice, with which she may negotiate sentence reductions or other concessions in exchange for revelations. There is, of course, the risk that, in exchange for leniency, Maxwell may say only what the Department of Justice wants to hear and keep quiet about what would be uncomfortable for the Trump 2 Administration.