New tariffs on 60 trading partners took effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on July 24, 2026, under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, the latest expansion of a tariff regime that has coincided with the highest inbound U.S. investment levels since 2021. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer took final action, at President Trump’s direction, imposing the tariffs on the 60 economies for their failure to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor.

Per the USTR’s fact sheet, trading partners that have committed to adopt and enforce forced-labor import bans face a 10% tariff, including Canada, Mexico, India, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Taiwan, while roughly 41 partners that have not adopted such prohibitions face a 12.5% rate. The fact sheet states the tariffs cover 99.4% of U.S. imports.

The new duties replace the temporary 10% global tariff Trump imposed under Section 122 after the Supreme Court struck down his global IEEPA tariffs on February 20, 2026. The forced-labor investigation began in March 2026, and USTR says the process included two rounds of public hearings and more than 2,100 public comments.

“The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century and rigorously enforces it. It’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same,” President Trump said. Separately, he signed proclamations imposing new 50% tariffs on some Canadian goods, set to take effect in approximately one month.

The tariff push comes against a backdrop of long-standing imbalance in the U.S.-EU trade relationship, one in which Europe benefits from favorable trade terms and from the security umbrella provided by the U.S. military, while EU officials frequently characterize American tariff policy as isolationist or unfair.

Under the deal reached in 2025, the EU removed duties on U.S. industrial goods and opened preferential access for certain U.S. seafood and farm products, while most EU exports to the United States now face a 15% tariff. EU compliance disputes have continued into 2026, with USTR opening a separate Section 301 investigation into Germany in June over pharmaceutical pricing practices.

The UAE, by contrast, used a July 2026 Washington visit to criticize the EU for stalling its own trade talks with Washington, while reaffirming its commitment to a $1.4 trillion, ten-year U.S. investment pledge.

Trump’s tariff actions against China have run on a separate track from the forced-labor duties, part of a broader effort to pressure Beijing economically. China remains subject to the fentanyl and reciprocal tariffs negotiated over the course of 2025 and 2026, and, as of mid-2026, a final comprehensive U.S.-China trade agreement remained unresolved despite multiple rounds of talks and a face-to-face meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping.

Even as the tariff regime has expanded, it has drawn a parallel wave of foreign investment commitments tied directly to it. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has committed an additional $100 billion to U.S. semiconductor production, bringing its total American investment to $265 billion, the largest foreign direct investment in U.S. history.

The commitment follows the U.S.-Taiwan trade and investment deal signed in January 2026 and will fund four additional facilities, bringing TSMC’s total U.S. footprint to 12 leading-edge semiconductor and packaging plants, primarily in Arizona. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the investment would create tens of thousands of American jobs.

The UAE’s $1.4 trillion pledge, first made in 2025, is advancing ahead of schedule across energy, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and technology. UAE investment vehicles MGX and Mubadala have driven the buildout, including MGX’s participation in multibillion-dollar funding rounds for Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI, and a $40 billion acquisition of AI infrastructure firm Aligned Data Centers through a BlackRock-led consortium.

The UAE ambassador to the U.S. said the country was “not hedging” and was “doubling down” on American technology, even amid the financial strain of the ongoing Iran war on Gulf state finances.

SoftBank pledged $100 billion for U.S. investment in December 2024. That commitment has since evolved into the Stargate Project, a joint venture with OpenAI, Oracle, and the UAE’s MGX fund to build AI infrastructure in the United States.

The project has expanded to nearly 7 gigawatts of planned capacity and more than $400 billion in investment commitments, with a target of reaching the full $500 billion, 10-gigawatt goal. SoftBank’s cumulative investment in OpenAI alone has reached $64.6 billion, including a $41 billion investment closed in December 2025.

Novartis remains on track with its $23 billion, five-year U.S. manufacturing and research investment first announced  in April 2025. The Swiss pharmaceutical company opened its seventh new facility in April 2026, a plant in Morrisville, North Carolina, for active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing. The expansion includes a $1.1 billion biomedical research hub in San Diego and new radioligand therapy manufacturing sites in Florida, Texas, and California, positioning Novartis to manufacture all of its advanced technology platforms domestically for the first time in company history.

Automakers have continued shifting production to the United States following the expiration of USMCA. Hyundai Motor Group raised its planned U.S. investment to $26 billion through 2028, up from an initial $21 billion pledge, including a new steel mill in Louisiana and expanded vehicle and robotics production.

Honda moved production of its next-generation Civic Hybrid from Guanajuato, Mexico, to Greensburg, Indiana, and Ohio, citing tariffs directly as the reason. Stellantis announced a $13 billion U.S. investment in October 2025 to expand plants in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. Toyota is shifting Tacoma production from Mexico to a $3.6 billion expansion of its San Antonio, Texas plant, a move Trump credited to his tariff policy, after the administration declined to renew USMCA in July 2026.

While the trillion-dollar pledge totals remain disputed and often unreconciled with the White House’s own published lists, confirmed inflows during the period already exceed three of Biden’s four years and are, based on early 2026 data, on pace to surpass even Biden’s peak year.

By the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s measure of actual new foreign direct investment, which tracks expenditures by foreign investors to acquire, establish, or expand U.S. businesses rather than pledges, 2025 totaled $232.2 billion, a 49.5% increase over 2024 and higher than any full Biden year except 2021, when FDI reached $333.6 billion.

Federal Reserve data shows FDI transactions running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $434.8 billion in the first quarter of 2026, a pace that, if sustained, would exceed 2021’s total.

The media would have the public believe that President Trump’s tariff regime was a failure. The reality is that while actual cash flows have been lower than the pledged amounts, those cash flows have been substantial, putting the United States on a course for record foreign direct investment (FDI).

The post Trump’s Forced Labor Tariffs and the Surge in U.S. Investment appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

A Secret Service agent was arrested and charged with five felonies in connection with a near-fatal hazing incident.

Three men, including a Secret Service agent, were arrested in Miami for severely beating fraternity pledges.

The men beat the pledges with paddles and canes. The college and fraternity have not been identified.

The SS Agent, identified as 29-year-old Marquez Christopher Pinder, was charged with attempted manslaughter with a deadly weapon, hazing with a deadly weapon and other charges.

CBS News reported:

Three men have been arrested and charged in connection with alleged fraternity hazing that left victims hospitalized, Miami-Dade authorities said.

Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz and Sweetwater Police Chief Sergio Diez identified the suspects as 29-year-old Marquez Christopher Pinder, 26-year-old Jared Lamar James and 29-year-old Elijah Delano Dyous.

Investigators said the alleged hazing involved prolonged and repeated beatings with canes and paddles. According to prosecutors, the victims were beaten after they failed to correctly answer questions about the fraternity.

The incidents allegedly began April 1 at an apartment in the 400 block of Southwest 183rd Street in unincorporated Miami-Dade County.

Pinder, James and Dyous face various counts of attempted manslaughter with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon causing great bodily harm and hazing with a deadly weapon, according to the state attorney’s office.

WATCH:

Last month, RealClearPolitics reporter Susan Crabtree reported that a Secret Service Agent was under criminal investigation for a role in a fraternity hazing/paddling incident that was so severe that it sent a pledge to the hospital with kidney damage.

“The fraternity members who allegedly performed the paddling in the hazing incident are affiliated with Kappa Alpha Psi, a prominent historically black fraternity,” Susan Crabtree reported.

Pinder was booked in a Miami jail on Sunday.

BREAKING: Secret Service Agent Marquez Pinder was arrested and charged today with five felonies in a near-fatal hazing incident that took place in April, according to court documents.

In June, I exclusively reported that a Secret Service agent was put on administrative… https://t.co/Ee6rahbcfe pic.twitter.com/KnwGEBAxn9

— Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) July 27, 2026

The post Secret Service Agent Arrested, Charged with Five Felonies in Near-Fatal Hazing Incident appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The Trump Administration Has Faced Over 900 Lawsuits Challenging President Trump’s Executive Actions, with Most in Districts Full of Obama and Biden Judges.

The Record: Lawsuits and Rulings Against the Administration

The volume and speed of the legal assault of this Tramp Administration were extraordinary from the outset. By February 20, 2025 — less than one month after inauguration — reporting based on the Just Security tracker documented that 75 lawsuits challenging the new administration’s executive actions had already been filed. These early cases concentrated on birthright citizenship, immigration enforcement, personnel, and DOGE-related actions, and gender-related policies. The pattern reflected a coordinated effort to bog down the administration with litigation and prevent the implementation of the agenda the American people had just endorsed. The same public tracker that cataloged the cases notably omitted systematic identification of the appointing presidents of the judges issuing the early blocks.

Major public litigation trackers, most notably Just Security’s ongoing Litigation Tracker, have since documented well over 800 lawsuits involving the Trump Administration — approaching or exceeding 906 cases as of today.  On final merits rulings from district courts, a New York Times analysis of public data has shown plaintiffs winning the large majority of decided cases. When preliminary rulings are included, district judges ruled in favor of the Trump agenda only about 25 percent of the time in 2025.

The administration’s record appears somewhat better, however, if you look more broadly at the number of times Mr. Trump’s policies have been halted. Out of 509 active cases, the administration’s policies have been halted 149 times — about 30 percent of the time.”

Appeals courts treated the administration more favorably overall — closer to 51 percent in its favor in 2025 in available analyses — with a significant portion of that support coming from judges appointed by President Trump during his first term.

Peter Baker’s January 11, 2026, post stated it cleanly:

The higher the court, the likelier Trump was to win rulings in 2025:

District courts: 25%
Appeals courts: 51%
Supreme Court: 88% pic.twitter.com/y71IMxXxl1

— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) January 11, 2026

After the Supreme Court’s June 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA limiting nationwide injunctions, challengers increasingly turned to class-action certification to achieve similar practical breadth of relief. Congressional Research Service reports have catalogued dozens of nationwide or universal injunctions issued in the early months of the second term.

Where the Cases Are Filed — and Who Sits on Those Courts

A review of a representative sample of 126 case listings drawn from the Just Security tracker performed by this author reveals a striking geographic concentration. Nearly half of the cases in the sample — approximately 44 percent — were filed in a single court: the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Roughly two-thirds of the sampled cases were filed in just four districts: the District of Columbia, the District of Maryland, the District of Massachusetts, and the District of Minnesota. Maryland, Massachusetts, and Minnesota together accounted for about 23 percent of the sample.

This concentration is not accidental. Plaintiffs — particularly advocacy organizations and Democratic-led state attorneys general — have systematically chosen venues they regard as most favorable. The result is a practical form of forum shopping that allows a small number of district courts, and the judges who sit on them, to exercise outsized influence over national policy.

The composition of the active judges on these four key courts further illuminates the pattern. In the District of Columbia, of the 15 active Article III judges, approximately 11 were appointed by Democratic presidents (Barack Obama or Joe Biden) and only four by Republican presidents. In the District of Maryland, the imbalance is even more pronounced: roughly nine of the ten active judges were appointed by Democratic presidents, with only one appointed by a Republican. The District of Massachusetts has a significant contingent of Obama and Biden appointees, including recent additions such as Judge Brian E. Murphy (Biden), who, along with Judge Patti B. Saris (Clinton), issued the July 2026 administrative stays on Temporary Protected Status terminations that DHS counsel characterized as open defiance of the Supreme Court. The District of Minnesota is more historically mixed, yet still contains a substantial number of Democratic appointees among its active judges.

None of this proves that every ruling issued by these judges is partisan. It does, however, explain why plaintiffs concentrate their cases in these particular districts and why the pattern of early, aggressive temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions has been so consistent.

When the courts that receive the largest share of challenges to a Republican administration’s policies are themselves staffed predominantly by judges appointed by Democratic presidents, the appearance of a one-sided judicial resistance becomes difficult to dismiss.

Who Appointed the Judges?

Analyses of the judges who issued the most consequential adverse rulings reveal a clear and politically skewed pattern. In one mid-2025 review of lower-court judges who blocked Trump administration actions, the large majority were appointed by Democratic presidents — especially Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Key findings from that mid-2025 review:

• Of 61 lower-court judges who had ruled against Trump administration actions (as of early June 2025), 49 were appointed by Democrats.
• Breakdown of the Democratic appointees: – Obama: 21 – Biden: 19 – Clinton: 9 – Carter: 1
• Republican appointees: 12 (including 5 appointed by Trump himself).

That produces the “large majority” / roughly 3-to-1 ratio of Democratic-appointed judges among those who issued blocking rulings.

This does not mean every Democratic-appointed judge rules against the administration in every case, nor that every Republican-appointed judge rules for it. It does mean the pattern of resistance is heavily concentrated among judges selected by the political opponents of the current administration.

Concrete examples have included Biden-appointed judges ordering the restoration of DEI funding; an Obama-appointed judge issuing orders that exposed DOGE employees to public identification; multiple injunctions against immigration enforcement measures, personnel actions, and core executive orders; and Clinton- and Obama-appointed judges issuing orders that appear to defy or circumvent recent Supreme Court guidance.

Many of these injunctions were later stayed, narrowed, or reversed at the appellate level or by the Supreme Court — but only after the administration had been forced to pause or reverse course, and only after lower courts had established dangerous precedents. As Stephen Miller observed, under the logic now being applied by some district judges, a single judge in one district could attempt to enjoin troop movements overseas. Judges have no constitutional authority to administer the executive branch or to nullify the results of a national election.

The post EXCLUSIVE: The Trump Administration Has Faced Over 900 Lawsuits – Most in Districts Full of Obama or Biden Appointed Judges appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

On Saturday a suspect believed to be tied to Berlin’s “Islamist scene” plowed through the Berlin Gay Pride Parade killing at least one person and injuring 16 others. The Berlin Christopher Street Parade is one of the largest annual LGBT events in Europe.

The killer rammed his car into revelers at the annual Christopher Street Day celebration.

The Sun reported that the suspect then left the vehicle with a bladed weapon and attacked people in the park near the end of the parade route.

According to Bild.de, the man, was known to be a member of the Islamist scene. He is believed to be Abdul Ballout, 21. Police admitted Abdul Ballout was linked to Islamist groups and was on the authorities’ radar.

Ballout was killed on Sunday when Berlin police surrounded a garden plot before moving in and killed the Islamist who drove through the gay pride parade on Saturday.

According to Bild.de the terrorist attacked police with a “bladed weapon” before he was killed at 6:34 PM German Time.

This is not the first deadly Islamist attack in Germany.

In 2016 Islamic extremists murdered 22 people in Germany in seven different attacks.

Now there is a map of all of the rapes, homicides, assaults, terror attacks, swimming pool assaults, robberies by migrants to Germany in 2016.

Purple balloons: Sexual assaults
Pink balloons: Rape and attempted rape
Red balloons: Robbery and theft
Green balloons: Riots and intimidation
Blue balloons: Criminal assault
Red flames: Arson
Yellow triangle: Terrorist attacks
Black balloons: Homicide and attempted homicide
Green rectangle: Sexual assaults in public swimming pools

Democrats want to bring that to the United States.

Following the brutal murder by Islamist Abdul Ballout, mourners held a Berlin memorial on Sunday.

One crazy liberal woman (translated from German) told the crowd when she heard about the Islamist attack she hoped that the killer was a “white Christian person.”

Crazy Liberal Woman: “When I heard the news that a car had plowed into the CSD (Christian Street Parade) — a man in a car — and what was also shocking to me was that the first thing I thought was, “I hope it’s not some foreigner; I hope it’s a white Christian person,” but it wasn’t. And that’s where intersectionality comes into play again. We don’t all fight the same battles, but we’re there for each other in moments like these. And then it’s beautiful.”

Yes, sooo beautiful.
What a complete brainwashed lunatic.

Via Drew Pavlou:

Vigil for the victims of the Berlin Pride parade attack.

Leftist says that when she heard about the attack she had hoped the attacker was not Muslim but instead a white Christian man.

Crazy. Just utterly nuts. pic.twitter.com/KKPtmJmqIv

— Drew Pavlou (@DrewPavlou) July 26, 2026

That’s not all…
The organizers of the gay pride parade said they hoped that the Islamist attack will not be politicized.

Tell me you’re a dhimmi without telling me you’re a dhimmi.
It appears Germany, like Great Britain has already been conquered by Islam.

Via Andy Ngo:

Organizers of the Berlin Pride that was targeted in a deadly attack by a Muslim Arab man read off a speech saying that the Islamic terror incident shouldn’t be politicised.

The problem is with cowards like this.

They want to stand in the way of those who seek to address…

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) July 26, 2026

The post Crazy Liberal Women in Germany Admits She Hoped that Islamist Killer at Berlin Gay Pride Parade was “White Christian Person” – Organizers Hope the Islamist Attack Will Not Be Politicized appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

After publicly acknowledging that he has no authority to carry out his promise to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is now urging New Yorkers to protest Netanyahu ahead of his expected visit to the city in September for the UN General Assembly.

Mamdani made the comment during a City Hall press conference on July 22, telling reporters, “If anyone feels a level of frustration or opposition, protest is something that we will always respect.” A spokesperson for Mamdani declined to say whether the mayor himself plans to protest Netanyahu’s arrival.

The remarks followed a video Mamdani released the night before in which he admitted that he did not have the authority to arrest Netanyahu. During his 2025 mayoral campaign, however, Mamdani had pledged to order the NYPD to enforce the International Criminal Court arrest warrant himself. In the recording, he called Netanyahu “the architect of a horrific genocide” and a “war criminal,” and urged the federal government to enforce the ICC warrant against him. The video has been viewed nearly 90 million times.

One day before the video was released, President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”

Irrespective of critics claiming the opposite, U.S. support for Israel, including protection for visiting Israeli leaders, reflects a longstanding bipartisan feature of American foreign policy that predates and extends beyond any single administration. It has been sustained across both Republican and Democratic presidencies since Israel’s founding.

Furthermore, foreign policy authority, including how the federal government treats a visiting head of state, rests constitutionally with the president and the executive branch, not with city government.

Mamdani’s continued calls regarding Netanyahu have prompted criticism from Jewish organizations and from far-right U.S. politicians. The UJA-Federation of New York said in a statement, “New Yorkers elected a mayor to lead this city, not to make Israel the centerpiece of your political grandstanding,” accusing Mamdani of antisemitism.

The comments reflect a consistent pattern in Mamdani’s public record that goes beyond criticism of specific Israeli government policies to questioning the legitimacy of the Israeli state itself. As a state assemblyman in May 2021, Mamdani led a rally where participants chanted “BDS, BDS” and criticized officials’ “incomprehensible fealty to the Israeli state.”

At an October 8, 2023, Times Square rally, two days after the Hamas attack on Israel, local members of the Democratic Socialists of America, Mamdani’s own party, celebrated Hamas. Mamdani condemned the rally two days later, telling Politico that his support for Palestinian liberation “should never be confused for a celebration of the loss of civilian life.” He has also declined to affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, called Israel an “apartheid state,” and declined to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada.”

In April 2024, Mamdani wrote on social media that Columbia University students arrested at the campus “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” were arrested “for the crime of peacefully protesting against genocide.” The encampment, which Columbia’s president cited in calling in the NYPD to clear it, has been extensively documented as including antisemitic conduct.

The Anti-Defamation League recorded chants including “we don’t want no Zionists here,” and protesters telling Jewish students to “go back to Poland.” The Times of Israel reported that protesters blocked campus access to those they perceived as “Zionists,” violating the rights of Jewish students. The publication also reported that Jewish students faced near-daily chants of “Globalize the Intifada” and, on one occasion, students chanting in support of “10,000 October 7ths.”

Twenty-one members of Congress, led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Dan Goldman, wrote that the “from the river to the sea” chants used at the encampment constituted a call to eliminate Israel and all Jews within its borders. They also argued that Columbia’s shift to hybrid classes tacitly acknowledged a hostile environment for Jewish students and appeared to violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born Palestinian and lead organizer with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, became a lawful permanent resident in November 2024 through marriage to a U.S. citizen. In March 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that Khalil’s activities, including organizing Columbia’s protest encampment, carried “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act. ICE arrested him at his Columbia-owned apartment on that basis.

Mamdani, then a mayoral candidate, called the arrest “a blatant assault on the First Amendment and a sign of advancing authoritarianism under Trump,” and later that month tried to push past security to confront then-border czar Tom Homan at the New York State Capitol in Albany, shouting “Do you believe in the First Amendment?” and “How many more New Yorkers will you detain?” Homan did not respond beyond what Mamdani later described as a “smirk.” Mamdani separately hosted Khalil for an iftar dinner.

Mamdani was introduced at a Staten Island mosque event by organizer Abdullah Akl, who has a documented record of chanting “Strike, strike Tel Aviv, Abu Obeida, our beloved” in 2024 and calling for Palestine “from the river to sea” at a December 2023 convention.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, a Queens synagogue, on the night of January 8, 2026, chanting “Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here” during a protest of a synagogue event promoting real estate investment in Israel and the West Bank.

By noon the next day, as the video spread widely, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and several other city and state officials had already condemned the chants, while Mamdani’s office remained silent. He issued a statement Friday evening calling the rhetoric “wrong and have no place in our city,” without naming Hamas, then followed up about an hour later on X, “Chants in support of a terrorist organization have no place in our city,” after facing criticism for the omission. Critics noted the roughly 24-hour delay was slower than both Hochul’s response and that of his predecessor, Eric Adams.

Under the 1947 Headquarters Agreement, the United States is obligated to ensure the functioning of the UN headquarters district and to provide accredited delegations with the privileges and immunities required under the agreement. The U.S. Mission to the United Nations says it is committed to protecting UN Headquarters, accredited missions, and the diplomatic community, coordinating with the NYPD, the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, the Secret Service, and the FBI.

A 1951 State Department legal memorandum addressing a similar dispute involving picketing outside the Soviet mission found that the U.S. obligation to protect foreign delegations from demonstrations was governed by Section 15 of the Headquarters Agreement. That provision entitles delegations to the same privileges and immunities the United States generally accords to diplomatic envoys.

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