The White House is exuding confidence heading into Wednesday’s Supreme Court hearing that the justices will uphold President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff powers. But just in case, aides have a plan B. Aides have spent weeks strategizing how to reconstitute the president’s global tariff regime if the court rules that he exceeded his authority. They’re ready to fall back on a patchwork of other trade statutes to keep pressure on U.S. trading partners and preserve billions in tariff revenue, according to six current and former White House officials and others familiar with the administration’s thinking, some of whom were granted anonymity to share details of private conversations. “They’re aware there are a number of different statutes they can use to recoup the tariff authority,” said Everett Eissenstat, former deputy director of the White House’s National Economic Council during Trump’s first term. “There’s a lot of tools there that they could go to to make up that tariff revenue.” The contingency planning underscores how much is at stake for Trump, who has used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law designed for national emergencies, to impose tariffs on nearly every U.S. trading partner — the foundation of his second-term economic agenda. The justices will weigh whether the law gives the president broad power to impose economic restrictions — or whether Trump has stretched it beyond what Congress intended. If the court curtails that power, it could upend not only the White House’s “America First” trade strategy but also the global negotiations Trump has leveraged it to shape. “This is all about foreign policy. This isn’t 1789 where you can clearly delineate between trade policy, economic policy, national security policy and defense policy. These things are all completely interconnected,” said Alex Gray, who served as National Security Council chief of staff and deputy assistant to the president during the first Trump administration. “To diminish the tools he has to do that is really dangerous.” Behind the scenes, trade and legal advisers have modeled what a partial loss might look like — where the court upholds the use of the 1977 law in some circumstances but not others — and what other legal means might be available to achieve similar ends. However, those alternatives are slower, narrower and, in some cases, similarly vulnerable to legal challenge, leaving even White House allies to acknowledge the administration’s tariff strategy is on shakier ground than it is willing to publicly concede. Even a partial loss at the Supreme Court would make it much harder for the president to use tariffs as an all-purpose tool for extracting concessions on a number of issues, from muscling foreign companies to make investments in the U.S. to pressuring countries into reaching peace agreements. “There’s no other legal authority that will work as quickly or give the president the flexibility he wanted,” said one supporter of Trump’s tariff policies, who was part of a group that filed an amicus brief in support of his tariffs. “They seem very confident that they’re going to win. I don’t see why they’re confident at all. Two different courts that have ruled extremely harshly on this.” Still, White House aides are telegraphing confidence, convinced the justices won’t strip Trump of his favorite negotiating tool, and certain that even if they do, he has plenty of backup plans. “Frankly, there’s a little bit of bravado, like, they’re not going to knock these down,” one person close to the White House said. A White House official, granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the administration sees it as “a pretty clear case.” “We’re using a law that Congress passed, in which they gave the executive branch the authority to use tariffs to address national emergencies,” the official said. Aides concede that other tariff authorities are not a “one-for-one replacement” for the emergency law, though they confirmed they are pursuing them. In fact, the White House has already laid some of the policy groundwork under those authorities, such as the 1970s-vintage Section 301, which the U.S. used against China in Trump’s first term, or the Cold War-era Section 232, which allows tariffs on national-security grounds. The administration has launched more than a dozen 232 investigations into whether the import of goods like lumber, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and critical minerals from other countries impairs national security. Since January, Trump has used that authority to impose new tariffs on copper, aluminum, steel and autos. It has also opened a 301 investigation into Brazil’s trade practices, including digital services, ethanol tariffs and intellectual property protection. It’s a model officials say could be replicated against other countries if the court curtails IEEPA — and could be used to pressure countries into reaffirming the trade deals that they’ve already negotiated with the United States, or to accept the rates that Trump has unilaterally assigned them. But those tools come with challenges: Section 301 investigations can take months to complete, slowing Trump’s ability to impose tariffs unilaterally or tie them to unrelated goals like ending the war between Russia and Ukraine or stem the flow of fentanyl across the U.S. border. Section 232 offers broad discretion to impose tariffs on national-security grounds, but because the levies are sector-based, they are typically applied across a product category, limiting Trump’s ability to pressure individual countries. And imposing new duties on global industries like semiconductors or pharmaceuticals, as Trump has threatened, could upend recent agreements the administration has reached with trading partners, especially China, which negotiated a trade truce last week. “This detente may have weakened the president’s resolve to go forward with the 232s. We’re worse off than we were,” a second person close to the administration said. The U.S. has already promised to delay fees on Chinese vessels arriving at U.S. ports following the conclusion of a Section 301 investigation on China’s shipbuilding practices as a result of the Thursday meeting between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The U.S. also agreed to delay an investigation into China’s adherence to its trade deal from Trump’s first term. Section 122, meanwhile, allows only short-term tariffs of up to 15 percent and for no more than 150 days unless Congress acts to extend them — a narrow clause meant to address trade deficit emergencies. The authority could potentially serve as a bridge between an adverse court ruling and new duties Trump wants to put in place using other authorities. Then there’s Section 338 — a rarely used provision that’s been on the books for nearly a century. In theory, it could let Trump swiftly impose tariffs of up to 50 percent on any country, if he can explain how they are engaging in “unreasonable” or “discriminatory” actions that hurt U.S. commerce. Section 338 does not require a formal investigation before a president can impose tariffs, but would likely face similar legal challenges. Major trading partners are betting that Trump will find a way to reimpose tariffs, somehow. Two European diplomats, granted anonymity to discuss trade strategy, said the countries believe that the Supreme Court won’t strike down the global tariffs and, if it does, it won’t do much to shift the dynamic. “Our working assumption is that the court rulings won’t change anything,” a European official said, adding that they are still hoping the law is overturned. Some are convinced the only way to address the tariffs permanently is for the president to appeal to Congress, arguing that only lawmakers can decide how much unilateral power any White House should permanently wield over global commerce. That would be an uphill battle. At least four Republicans are openly opposed to the global tariffs — bucking Trump in a series of symbolic votes last week. And it’s unclear whether there’s appetite for a vote on Trump’s tariffs in the House, which has been shielded from weighing in on the tariffs until the end of January, after Republican leadership blocked votes on Trump’s national emergencies. “At the end of the day, all this comes back to Congress,” Eissenstat said. “Maybe Congress will step up its role post hearing, post ruling. We’ll see.”

President Donald Trump on Monday insisted the U.S. is going “full steam ahead” on a major nuclear-powered submarine pact, ending months of uncertainty over whether his administration would keep the alliance with Australia and the U.K. The Pentagon announced this summer that it was reviewing the deal, known as AUKUS, fueling angst in Canberra and London that the Trump administration might walk away from a rare agreement to expand production of nuclear submarines and partner on tech to ward off China. But Trump gave his support Monday at a White House meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, where leaders sought to reset the tone of the relationship after weeks of speculation about the pact’s future. “We’re just going now full steam ahead,” Trump said when asked about the deal. “They’re building magnificent holding pads for the submarines. It’s going to be expensive. You wouldn’t believe the level of complexity and how expensive it is.” Canberra has committed billions to develop submarine and naval shipbuilding facilities in western Australia, designed to host and maintain U.S. and U.K. nuclear-powered submarines while revving up construction of new ones. The new infrastructure would turn Australia into a hub for allies and their submarines in the region, all aimed as a bulwark against China. Navy Secretary John Phelan, at the meeting, said the plan is to “take the original AUKUS framework and improve it for all three parties, and make it better, clarify some of what was in the prior agreement.” Trump, who is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the coming weeks, said he views AUKUS as a deterrent against Beijing but not a step toward a confrontation. And he dismissed the idea of a conflict over Taiwan. “We’ll be just fine with China,” he said. “First of all, the United States is the strongest military power in the world by far.” Trump and Albanese also signed a deal for critical minerals and rare-earth elements, formalizing joint investments between the two countries to strengthen non-Chinese supply chains for materials crucial for defense and high-tech manufacturing. Officials negotiated it over the last few months, Trump said. Albanese described it as an AUD $8.5 billion pipeline, with joint contributions over the next six months. “Australia has had a view for some time — it’s similar to putting America first,” he said. “Our plan is called ‘A Future Made in Australia,’ which is about not just digging things up and exporting them, but making sure we have supply chains where our friends can benefit.” The mineral push comes amid increasing trade tensions between the U.S. and Beijing, which has tightened export controls on rare-earth elements and permanent magnets. Both are vital for defense and high-tech products. Trump reiterated his threat to levy hefty tariffs on China if it does not relent on the new trade restrictions. “They threatened us with rare earths, and I threatened them with tariffs,” he said. “We could stop the airplane parts, too. We build their airplanes.”

When Vladimir Putin sent at least 19 drones into Poland last week, the Russian president was delivering a message: He’s not planning to end his war against the West anytime soon. The Russian incursion into NATO airspace follows weeks of aerial attacks in Ukraine that killed dozens of civilians, damaged buildings housing the EU and British delegations and struck for the first time a government building in central Kyiv.  Far from being ready to strike a peace deal with Ukraine under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, Putin has pegged his political survival to a simmering conflict with the United States and its allies. “Putin is the president of war,” said Nikolai Petrov, a senior analyst at the London-based New Eurasian Strategies Center. “He has no interest in ending it.” Having fashioned himself as a wartime leader, going back to being a peacetime president would be tantamount to a demotion. “No matter what the conditions are, he cannot give up that role,” Petrov said.  As Putin’s full-scale assault on Ukraine drags toward its fourth year, the Russian president arguably has the most cause for optimism since the early days of the war when the Kremlin hoped to capture the country in a matter of days. With Ukrainian forces hamstrung by a lack of weapons and manpower, Russia has been grinding deeper into the country.  But Moscow’s progress has been slow — and costly. The Kremlin’s armed forces have suffered an estimated one million casualties and the conflict has taken its toll on the Russian economy, which threatens to tip into recession. And yet, politically, ending the conflict comes with risks. The Kremlin’s tight control over the media and the internet would likely allow it to sell a peace deal to most Russians as a victory. But that’s not who the Russian president will be worrying about. With Russia’s liberal opposition decimated, a small but vocal group of nationalists now presents the biggest threat to his rule, said Petrov. And he has promised them a grandiose victory, not only over Ukraine but over what the Kremlin calls “the collective West.” “There’s a desire among the hawkish part of the military-political establishment to destroy NATO,” Alexander Baunov, a former Russian diplomat now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, told DW’s Russian service. “To show NATO is worthless.” Since Putin met with Trump in Alaska last month in what the U.S. president had touted as a summit dedicated to striking a ceasefire, Moscow has ramped up its campaign of hybrid warfare against Europe, according to military analysts.  Before Wednesday’s incursion, Russian drones had repeatedly ventured into Polish airspace from neighboring Belarus, circling cities before turning back. In August, a Russian drone crashed some 100 kilometers southwest of Warsaw.  According to WELT, a sister publication of POLITICO in the Axel Springer Group, five of the drones that crossed into Poland were on a direct flight path toward a NATO base before being intercepted by Dutch Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets. In an opinion piece published two days before the drones crossed into Poland, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, accused Helsinki of planning an attack, threatening that any assault “could lead to the collapse of Finnish statehood — once and for all.”  Analysts noted the article’s rhetoric resembled the Kremlin’s talking points ahead of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow has also begun to shift vital industries, including shipbuilding, to the east of the country, away from its border with NATO, Petrov pointed out. On Friday, Russia began carrying out large-scale military exercises with Belarus, including just across the Polish border. The exercises are expected to conclude on Tuesday. “Whatever Putin achieves in Ukraine, the confrontation with the West will not end there; it will continue in various forms,” said Petrov. “Including militarily.” With actions like the incursion into Poland, Putin is issuing a warning to Trump and European leaders discussing providing security guarantees for Kyiv after a potential peace deal, said Kirill Rogov, founder of the think tank Re:Russia. “Putin showed that he can attack NATO countries today and they have no defense systems in place,” he said. Trump’s mixed signaling on his commitment to NATO and his unwillingness to stick to his own deadlines when it comes to imposing sanctions on Moscow give Putin the confidence that he can get away with it. For the Russian president, “it’s now or never,” Baunov added. Incursions like the one in Poland are intended to chip away at the Western military alliance’s commitment to collective defense, with small offensives that test NATO’s willingness to respond. The hope, said Baunov, is to reveal the military alliance as a toothless tiger. So far, the reaction from Washington has fed into those fears.  On Thursday, Trump echoed Moscow’s talking points, telling reporters that “it could have been a mistake.”  The Kremlin has dismissed accusations that the drones were a deliberate provocation. The Russian defense ministry said there “had been no plans to target facilities” in Poland.  Belarus, which served as a launchpad for some of the drones according to Polish officials, said the incursion could have been the result of a mishap due to “electronic jamming.” “This is typical Putin-style trolling and probing,” said Rogov. “He likes things to be ambivalent so that they can be interpreted either as deliberate or accidental.”

The U.K. will spend at least £3 billion on long-range weapons, housing facilities and arms factories as it seeks to revive its defense industry and gear up for a potential conflict with Russia. London will build six new munitions factories, restart shipbuilding for its navy and commit to new anti-missile defense shields as part of a major defense review to be published on Monday. It also reportedly is exploring buying American fighter jets capable of launching tactical nuclear weapons. British Defense Secretary John Healey said the new strategy is designed to send a “message to Moscow” as it continues to wage war in Ukraine. “This is Britain standing behind making our Armed Forces stronger but making our industrial base stronger, and this is part of our readiness to fight if required,” he added. “We are being directly threatened by states with advanced ­military forces, so we must be ready to fight and win,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in an opinion piece in the Sun ahead of the strategy’s publication. The wide-ranging military review comes amid a broader push in Europe to revitalize countries’ depleted defense sectors as top generals warn that Russia could launch a large-scale conflict on the continent by the end of the decade. In Brussels, the EU has announced a plan to unlock up to €800 billion in new military spending. At the same time, NATO allies are currently debating increasing their defense spending commitments to 5 percent of GDP ahead of the military alliance’s yearly summit later this month, partly in response to repeated criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump that countries are not stumping up enough cash. On Saturday, Healey vowed the U.K. would dedicate 3 percent of its economic output to defense by 2034, potentially translating to more than £10 billion in fresh spending each year. As part of its new strategy, Britain’s center-left Labour government will commit to spending £1.5 billion on urgent upgrades to military accommodation, support the procurement of 7,000 British-made long-range weapons and fork out £1.5 billion on “munitions and energetics factories” that it says will create 1,800 jobs across the country. It will also reportedly recommend setting up an underwater surveillance program to protect against threats to subsea critical infrastructure threats and bringing back a volunteer home guard to protect infrastructure like airports from drone or other unexpected attacks. The 130-page analysis, prepared by a team led by former NATO chief George Robertson, primarily focuses on the “immediate and pressing” danger posed by Russia, but is also expected to describe China as a “sophisticated and persistent challenge.”

Elon Musk’s claim that his job in Washington is “mostly done” may calm Tesla shareholders — but his departure could sap the Department of Government Efficiency of its disruptive energy even as it continues to make major cuts to the federal workforce. In an effort to reassure rattled Tesla shareholders after a bruising first-quarter earnings call, Musk told investors this week that his around-the-clock involvement in DOGE will soon be scaled back to just a day or two per week. The message to the markets was clear: Musk is refocusing on his companies. But his public exit from Washington also leaves DOGE without a clear driver, potentially defanging a group that spent the first 100 days of Trump’s second term tearing through agencies with nearly unlimited momentum. Without Musk’s constant hovering around President Donald Trump, DOGE may not have the same firepower it once did and agency heads could now have more authority to run their agencies and implement cost-cutting efforts at their own speed. For months, Musk’s physical presence at the White House and attendance at Cabinet meetings served as both sword and shield — giving cover to DOGE staffers, intimidating holdouts, and demanding that the operation move forward at a breakneck speed. “It is rare to have a Cabinet-level secretary pushing for you operationally and politically,” said a Trump official, who, like others in this report, was granted anonymity to speak freely. And for a long time, a lot of people in the White House weren’t sure how to talk to Musk when DOGE took drastic actions like demanding the “five things” emails from federal employees justifying their jobs or moving to make cuts so deep that they could hurt Trump politically, such as reductions to the Social Security Administration’s operations or firing veterans. White House officials felt that only Trump could say no to Musk. “How do you tell the world’s richest man to stop and get in line?” a different White House official said last month. But when Musk takes a step back, the same reluctance to counter the billionaire tech mogul will not extend to DOGE staff, many of whom are now embedded across agencies and serve at the pleasure of agency heads. Already, senior White House officials have taken steps to curb DOGE’s reach, leading the charge to get Musk to drop his goal of cutting $1 trillion to only $150 billion for fear of cutting too close to the bone. In terms of day to day operations, insiders say Musk’s reduced involvement won’t dramatically alter how DOGE operates at least on paper. “This won’t be a big change from the current situation,” one senior Trump administration official close to the effort said, “because Musk is doing a lot already and [DOGE staff] already try to catch him at specific times.” The operation that Musk has built has now burrowed into nearly every corner of the executive branch, with most DOGE staffers serving at agencies as political appointees without a time limit on their employment. Others are based out of the General Services Administration, now a DOGE nerve center led by software entrepreneur and Musk ally Stephen Ehikian, continuing a quiet but steady purge of small, independent agencies. (Just this week, it began shutting down the 300-person Millenium Challenge Corporation.) Musk’s lieutenants, Antonio Gracias and Steve Davis, remain involved in leading the initiative, giving pointers to DOGE staff embedded across agencies as they continue to help execute the reductions in force, an ongoing months-long process. DOGE’s original mandate — reduce waste and fraud — has since extended far beyond simply cost-cutting. DOGE has been heavily involved in other Trump administration priorities, like immigration data collection for mass deportation planning, Trump’s shipbuilding agenda, and even the implementation of $5 million per piece “Gold Card” visas, according to five people familiar with DOGE’s movements. Still, Musk’s public pullback will come as relief to some Cabinet officials who have had tensions with the billionaire and DOGE around the personnel cuts. Indeed, senior administration officials were not surprised by Musk’s announcement on the Tesla call. One, who is a big fan of Musk, said it’s become increasingly clear in recent days that the tech tycoon is souring on Washington. His frustration with the lack of control is palpable, the person said — as he’s used to getting his way and making the final calls with his businesses. Instead, Musk has seen his influence waning and has been brought to heel by other Cabinet secretaries and people in the White House in recent months, as the insistence on coordinating their efforts has slowed his break-neck speed. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrangled control back from DOGE last week by firing DOGE staffer Gavin Kliger and installing a new IRS commissioner last week. IRS firings which were expected to begin last week and go out on a biweekly basis still have not materialized. That most recent run-in with Bessent in the White House, first reported by Axios, has only seemed to make him more Washington wary, the senior officials mentioned above added. At the Department of Defense, Secretary Pete Hegseth has publicly praised DOGE’s work but expressed unease privately about early plans to potentially cut tens of thousands of civilian personnel, one person familiar with the private conversations said. DOGE staffers have been in the building for weeks and have set up shop in the Navy’s offices, where they’re taking a new look at the service’s troubled shipbuilding efforts and preparing recommendations for what new programs the service should cut and which it should keep developing, according to a second official. A spokesperson for the Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy struck a defiant tone earlier this month during a visit to the FAA Tech Center in New Jersey: “When I think of DOGE cutting things, I don’t know about that elsewhere, but we actually build things here,” he said. “You can’t cut your way to a new road. You can’t cut your way to a new bridge. You can’t cut your way into a new air traffic control system.” Even as Musk promises to scale back his involvement, there are no signs that he’ll completely disengage. Far from it — White House officials say he and Trump have such a strong personal friendship that he’s expected to be in Washington at least once a week. At his other companies, he had a habit of requesting and attending weekly meetings for ongoing projects, weighing in with his ideas and granular feedback. He attended weekly brainstorming sessions for Tesla’s Optimus robot and received weekly updates on America PAC’s voter contact metrics during the presidential campaign. “I think I’ll continue to spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the president would like me to do and as long as it is useful,” Musk said on the earnings call.

LONDON — Britain’s government is scrambling to save the country’s last functioning blast furnace steel site — and 3,000 jobs in Labour’s industrial heartlands. Lawmakers will on Saturday debate emergency legislation that would give the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, the power to keep the blast furnaces running as the government tries to find a buyer to co-invest in the steelmaker. The dramatic intervention — interrupting parliament’s easter recess — follows a tense standoff with Chinese owner Jingye, British Steel’s parent company. It had threatened to shut its operations in Scunthorpe, a northern English industrial town, resisting an offer to stock the site with the raw materials needed to keep the site —  the sole remaining source of virgin steel in Britain — running. Jingye says the two blast furnaces are “no longer financially sustainable,” and has cited six-figure daily financial losses from keeping them open. A statement from Downing Street Friday afternoon said the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill — set to be rushed through parliament in a single day of emergency sitting — will give government “the power to direct steel companies in England, which we will use to protect the Scunthorpe site.” No. 10 added: “It enables the U.K. government to preserve capability and ensure public safety. It also ensures all options remain viable for the future of the plant and the livelihoods it supports.” Effectively, the government is stepping in to keep Scunthorpe plant running, and making clear it will purchase the raw materials it needs to do so. It does not mean the government is nationalizing the firm, although that is still a possible outcome, and one being pushed for by Labour’s political opponents — including Nigel Farage. THE TRUMP FACTOR Ministers were already under pressure to protect the sector after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a 25 percent levy on steel imports. Taking control of the site will be seen as a sign that the U.K. is stepping up to protect its workers after Prime Minister Keir Starmer described Trump’s trade war as marking the end of the globalization era, and vowed to demonstrate the value of active government. But given the site’s Chinese ownership, the move could also play well with the White House. The U.S. has made no secret of its antagonism towards China, and Trump’s America First investment policy explicitly warns firms against getting too close to Beijing.  “There’s no doubt that taking British Steel back into British hands from Chinese ownership will be received favorably by the Trump administration, not least of all because the U.K. makes several steel components for the U.S. defense industry,” said Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) U.K. Foreign Policy Lead Sophia Gaston. Ministers insist that the deal is unrelated to tariff negotiations, but it could give the U.K. a stronger argument to say it should be exempt from U.S. levies, said Sam Hogg, Founder of British Diplomacy Tracker. “Trump has talked about reviving the U.S. shipbuilding sector,” he said. “British Steel produces steel that could be used in that revival. Obviously, there’s tariffs in place right now, but as part of that negotiating strategy, you could say we’ve nationalized, we want to export to help you rebuild your fleets, which is a clear win-win for both of us.” Although British Steel doesn’t directly supply to defense (like ships and aerospace), it’s critical to wider infrastructure and resilience, including hangars for aircraft and buildings on military bases. REFORM ON THE MARCH With local elections fast approaching, an emboldened Reform UK — led by Nigel Farage — has meanwhile seized the moment to paint itself as the party of betrayed blue-collar towns, calling for the full nationalization of the firm. Farage and his Reform UK deputy Richard Tice descended on the embattled Scunthorpe site this week, donning black boiler suits and snapping pictures with steelworkers — a meticulously choreographed show of solidarity to undermine Labour’s traditional turf, and a surprising play for a party of the right. “The U.K.’s steel industry is broken. Reform UK will fix it,” Farage declared. With local elections due to take place on May 1, Farage and Tice were joined by Andrea Jenkyns, the party’s candidate for Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire. “The campaigning is resonating hugely,” Tice told POLITICO. “They are so grateful that I stood up in the Commons [to say] we’ve got to take it to public ownership. They’ve been despairing about the Tories for years, they’re despairing about Labour, and it’s their livelihoods.” Reform UK are making the Scunthorpe a key part of their campaign. The party had set out its own plan to “save” British Steel, including nationalizing Jingye’s business, investing £200 million in refurbishing two blast furnaces, and creating a “strategic long-term business plan.” While Labour is often seen as the party of national ownership, Tice said “there’s a certain irony in business people from the right of politics saying to socialists you’ve got to nationalize this strategically important national asset.” Disillusioned voters might change their vote. Jobs are on the line — and so are votes in seats Labour can’t afford to lose.  “I know how important steel is. It’s part of the story of our country,” Starmer said in a televised statement on Friday night. Emilio Casalicchio contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump’s pick for deputy Defense secretary declined to say Russia invaded Ukraine when pressed Tuesday by senators and defended massive Pentagon firings — a sign he’s unlikely to challenge the dramatic changes underway at the department. Stephen Feinberg, a Trump donor and billionaire investor, told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing that he didn’t want to “speak out of turn” and undermine the president’s negotiations. The hearing for the Pentagon’s No. 2 offered a stunning split screen. Democrats pushed Feinberg on Trump’s controversial purge of top military officials, a reshuffle of the next military budget proposal and the layoffs of thousands of civilian employees. Republicans sidestepped the developments, instead asking low-key questions about accelerating innovation and expanding shipbuilding. “This was a Russian invasion of Ukraine, and at the highest levels of our government right now, we have folks who won’t speak the truth,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said. “It is important that we not let these things just pass by unremarked upon.” Feinberg’s reluctance to acknowledge Russia as the aggressor in the three-year war occurred amid Trump’s recent criticisms of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and discussions with Russia about peace talks that exclude Kyiv. He’s the latest administration ally to avoid questions about the war’s perpetrator. “I’m not privy to the details of the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, what the sensitivities are, what the president’s trying to accomplish — so I’d be afraid to speak out of turn and undermine that,” Feinberg said. “I do have confidence that the president is very skillful at this, and he’ll find the right way to help the United States.” The CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee, also defended the administration’s plans for a dramatic culling of thousands of Pentagon employees. “We have more than 900,000 civilian employees, so while every person counts and is, of course very important, there’s going to be some change,” he said, adding that job cuts would likely stem from voluntary retirements and exits. Feinberg said he would devise a “concrete, specific, granular plan.” Senate Armed Services ranking member Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and other Democrats argued indiscriminate cuts would undercut national security and cripple the military. “When you’ve run companies, have you ever walked in and fired thousands of people without any analysis of the cost of benefits?” Reed asked. Feinberg didn’t answer directly but framed the move as an efficiency effort. “In these kinds of reorganizations, there’s always turnover, and without turnover, you can’t become an efficient organization,” he said. Republicans largely avoided the layoffs, except for Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who commended the Trump team’s willingness to “make hard cuts” and take on the national debt. Democrats pushed Feinberg to weigh in on the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s involvement at the Pentagon. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) solicited Feinberg’s pledge to protect classified information at the Defense Department in the wake of DOGE’s apparent access to sensitive personal data from other federal agencies. On this, he agreed. “We have to follow the laws, and you can’t allow classified data that is not legal to be in other people’s hands,” he said. “We’ll make sure that transfer, if it happens, is done by the appropriate ways.” Democrats also asked Feinberg to reconcile Hegseth’s directive to cut 8 percent from the Pentagon budget with congressional efforts to increase defense spending by $150 billion. “I don’t think the cuts haven’t been determined, so I think there’s a chance to make them correctly,” he said. Feinberg said that — with an eye on China — he planned to tackle ammunition shortages, prioritize hypersonic weapons, enlarge the Pentagon’s venture capital arm and expand its adoption of autonomous vehicles.

A culture clash is headed for Washington that will pit the risk-embracing, fast-first nature of Silicon Valley against the lumbering bureaucracy of the country’s largest federal agency. Donald Trump has already tapped billionaire finance executives to be Navy secretary and the Pentagon’s No. 2, and startup world successes are in the running for other Pentagon posts. If they all make it, the long-frustrated kings of the Valley who bristle at the doddering pace of Pentagon decision-making could force real change in the building — and benefit themselves while trying. They’ll be tasked with building weapons faster, fixing a broken shipbuilding system and matching China’s tech prowess. And while every new administration tries to clean up the Pentagon, this crew of outsiders has animated the tech sector. “A lot of us are hoping there’s a revolution coming,” Joe Lonsdale, founder of software company Palantir and startup investor said at a recent defense forum, “where we hold the bureaucracy accountable, where we shock the bureaucracy.” The Trump team has worked to fill the Pentagon with picks such as Stephen Feinberg, a wealthy investor with no experience inside the building, as deputy secretary of Defense. Palantir’s chief technology officer, Shyam Sankar, is being considered for the Pentagon’s top research and engineering job, as POLITICO first reported. Trae Stephens, co-founder and chair of Anduril Industries, is also in the mix for a high-ranking job at the Pentagon. The executives all have investments and stakes in multiple companies working with the Pentagon and will need to determine how they detangle a web of potential conflicts of interest — such as Anduril’s drone development or Palantir’s software platforms the Pentagon is helping fund. Several other serial investors with deep interests in defense companies — such as SpaceX’s Elon Musk and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen — are close to Trump and playing a role in putting the new administration together. Many in the Valley cheered Trump’s picks, especially those frustrated that the Pentagon hasn’t more fully adopted their tech despite years of conversations and pledges of more cooperation. “I’m hoping the new administration realizes that they have a blank slate and that we’re in a crisis,” said Steve Blank, an entrepreneur who was one of the pioneers of the Silicon Valley tech explosion in the 1980s. “If you want to respond to a crisis, you can’t keep appointing the same people you did 10 years ago, you can’t have the same organizations you had 10 years ago, and you can’t have the same processes.” But any significant changes to how the Pentagon does business won’t come at the commercial tech industry’s breakneck pace. This is especially true of a sprawling bureaucracy built on institutional practice. “They’re going to have to learn how to speak the same language, and even that will take some time,” said one entrepreneur who has had success in getting small contracts with the Pentagon and, like others, was granted anonymity to avoid blowback from the incoming administration. The tension between the startups and the institution was on display recently at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California. The annual event, once a gathering of Republican lawmakers and defense industry executives, has over the past two years been dominated by startup investors looking to elbow their way into defense contracting with drones, lasers, software solutions and other new weapons developed outside of the traditional government-controlled process. Sen. Deb Fischer, (R-Neb.), a top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, offered a warning to the newcomers. “When you look at any kind of efficiencies or cuts to any government program or any government spending, each and every one of us, each and every one of you, needs to propose a program that you personally benefit from that you’d be willing to cut.” Others also questioned whether the “break things” mentality of Silicon Valley can work in an organization with 3 million employees and layers of process. “The hardest problem by far will be, can they redirect enough money with enough flexibility into next generation programs to move the needle,” one tech executive said. “That’s like number one.” Several billionaires with Trump’s ear have already called for the F-35 fighter jet and Abrams tank to face the chopping block in favor of drones. Such a move would upend tens of billions of dollars in contracts not only in the U.S., but with dozens of close allies. Many generals and other Pentagon leaders aren’t bristling at change. But they’re still cautious about moving too fast to alter weapons that, despite their flaws, are effective on the battlefield. “Warfare is always a human endeavor,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said at the Reagan forum. “My own belief is that the future is really about the most effective human-machine teaming.” And many legacy weapons systems, while expensive, have proven that they work against the Russian army in Ukraine, or in shooting down ballistic missiles and drones built by Russia, Iran and North Korea. “There are a number of tech leaders who say, ‘If I parachute inside of these buildings, I can break things loose,’” said Klon Kitchen, managing director at Beacon Global Strategies, a national security advisory firm. “This will be the closest Washington and the Valley have been latched up to this point.” Even outspoken billionaires already working with the Pentagon such as Musk — at least so far — have had limited success. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. “The U.S. government wants it all, big programs, little programs,” Kitchen said. “What the Valley wants is a customer who can actually buy stuff.”

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are so far taking the same side in the strike by East and Gulf Coast longshoremen — speaking up for the American workers against the foreign-owned shipping companies that control ports in the U.S. The fact that major political leaders from both parties are taking aim at the European- and Asian-based shipping companies represents an early political victory for the dockworkers. Their union has portrayed the strike that began this week as a necessary step to get better wages from exploitative conglomerates that bring goods in and out of the country. The messaging is also just the latest sign that both parties see the support of blue-collar workers as crucial to the outcome of November’s elections. “American workers should be able to negotiate for better wages, especially since the shipping companies are mostly foreign flag vessels, including the largest consortium ONE,” Trump said in a statement on Tuesday evening. The Singapore-based ONE is the sixth-largest shipping company in the world. Striking dockworkers are enjoying the confluence of a labor-friendly Democratic White House and a GOP nominee trying to court union voters weeks before an election. Trump’s support for this strike contrasts with his suggestion in August, during an interview on X with Elon Musk, that striking employees should be fired. Harris also sounded a message sympathetic to the port workers on Wednesday, despite the risk that an extended strike could trigger price spikes and commodity shortages that would imperil her chances of defeating Trump. The vice president said the strike by the International Longshoremen’s Association is “about fairness,” and also emphasized the shippers’ outside-the-U.S. locale. “Foreign-owned shipping companies have made record profits and executive compensation has grown,” she said in a statement. “The Longshoremen, who play a vital role transporting essential goods across America, deserve a fair share of these record profits.” Harris also dismissed Trump’s pro-union rhetoric as an “empty promise.” President Joe Biden has similarly criticized shipping companies for not sharing enough of their recent record profits with workers, and said his administration is monitoring “any price gouging activity that benefits foreign ocean carriers” during the strike. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat whose state is home to the largest port on the East Coast, put the issue more starkly. He said the strike is “foreign owned operators on the one hand and American workers on the other hand.” The United States Maritime Alliance, the trade group that represents the shipping industry at the bargaining table, pushed back against the criticism, saying its diverse membership includes foreign-owned companies that have American subsidiaries, as well as port facility operators and associations that are based in the U.S. “Our members employ more than 35,000 Americans within their direct organizations, and play a vital role in supporting economic activity across the country,” the alliance, known as USMX, said in a statement. The foreign companies are convenient political foils for all sides, including the union, which is demanding raises of 60 percent or more over the next six years for workers who already do well by blue-collar standards. (Dockworkers in New York and New Jersey can make over $250,000 a year.) Shortages during the pandemic put supply-chain issues on America’s radar screen. Both parties have sought to boost American self-reliance and manufacturing, with Trump and Biden notably both agreeing that the U.S. needs to cut its reliance on Chinese goods. But the shipping industry is a vital link to world markets that remains in the hands of foreign companies. Since the 1980s, almost all American ocean carriers have been sold to foreign companies or gone out of business. As a result, the U.S., which has its roots as a collection of maritime colonies centuries ago, has lost its place as a maritime leader over the past several decades. Some of the companies that operate these ships, known as ocean carriers, may carry familiar logos on the sides of shipping containers. Many — like Maersk, CMA CGM, Evergreen and Hapag-Lloyd — are based in countries friendly to the U.S., but some are not. COSCO is a state-owned Chinese enterprise, which makes it an even bigger target given the anti-China sentiment coursing through Congress in both parties. Rep. Mike Waltz, a Florida Republican, singled out COSCO in a social media post about the strike and warned of Chinese influence over American ports. Of the more than 40,000 cargo ships in the world, fewer than 200 are based in the U.S. The business is also heavily concentrated because the largest companies — all foreign owned — control the lion’s share of the market. Even Sea-Land, an American company that is credited for inventing the now-ubiquitous cargo container 70 years ago, was sold to Denmark-based Maersk in 1999. The head of the striking dockworkers union, ILA President Harold Daggett, used to work for Sea-Land and speaks fondly of the company, while blasting Maersk for making record profits, doling out executive bonuses and attempting to replace his members with robots. “If it was up to them, they would like to see everybody lose their jobs,” Daggett said in a recent video statement. While all the major shipping lines are foreign-owned, other companies operate port facilities, known as terminals. Some of those are purely American companies, including Port Newark Container Terminal, which is based in New Jersey, and Red Hook Terminals, which has facilities in New York, New Jersey and Texas. But Maersk also owns one of the largest terminal operators, APM Terminals, which Daggett has been particularly critical of because his members work at terminals. In Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Maersk has already built a “fully automated” terminal. As part of the contract negotiations, Daggett wants to protect workers from such automation. At times, the foreign ownership issues have drawn legal and lawmakers’ scrutiny. In 2016, Tyson Foods, the American food giant, urged the federal government to take a closer look at alliances among the shipping companies. In 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that federal investigators “crashed a meeting of the world’s 20 biggest container-shipping operators and gave subpoenas to top executives at several companies as part of a probe on price fixing.” The investigation was closed without charges. Not only does the U.S. have few cargo ships, but the country cannot easily build more ships even if it wanted to. This issue has long worried Congress because the American shipbuilding industry is, in the words of the Congressional Research Service, “globally uncompetitive.” New attention on foreign ownership amid the strike could put pressure on the Biden administration to take action against Chinese cargo ships as part of a probe into Beijing’s state-backed shipbuilding industry, which has enabled the country’s industry to quickly dominate the shipbuilding and maritime sector. The probe was requested by a coalition of labor unions, which proposed a port fee on Chinese-made ships that could be used to fund a subsidy to revitalize U.S. shipbuilding. Ari Hawkins, Nick Niedzwiadek, Holly Otterbein, Josh Sisco and Sam Sutton contributed to this report.