Why Trump's tariffs are back

Richard Hall | July 23, 2026

Hello there! Today we have a great explainer on India’s “cockroach” movement, the youth-led protesters calling for reforms to the country’s education system. We’re also looking at the imminent return of Donald Trump’s tariff regime, and a new cosmic discovery.

Five Must-Reads

What Is the Youth-Led ‘Cockroach Movement’ Staging Mass Protests in India?
India’s youth-led “cockroach movement” was born just over two months ago as a satirical online campaign. But it has quickly swelled into a formidable real-world political force, bringing tens of thousands of protesters into the streets in the country’s capital in recent days to call for reforms to India’s troubled education system. —TIME

Angry Mobs Are Attacking Health Workers in Congo
Dozens of medical facilities and teams have been attacked in the Democratic Republic of Congo since the Ebola outbreak began. Health care workers tell TIME that the violence will undoubtedly raise the death rate. —TIME

Japanese PM Sets Off Debate About Work-Life Balance
Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi posted on social media about how little sleep she gets on the job, but it has drawn criticism from some who say she’s valorizing overwork. —TIME

Canada Cancels Joint Bridge Celebration With U.S. After Trump's Trade Threat
Canada has canceled a planned joint celebration with the U.S. to mark the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, citing the latest tariff threat made by President Donald Trump’s Administration. —TIME

Astronomers Discover the First Known Moon Outside our Solar System
A team of scientists in Chile have discovered astronomy’s first known exosatellite, or exomoon, orbiting an unusual body in the solar system just 71 light years away—next door by astronomical standards. The moon is huge, and it is orbiting a brown dwarf, a gassy object far too big to be a conventional planet. —TIME

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IN FOCUS

The Trump tariffs, Part Two

For more than a year, President Donald Trump has been engaged in a running battle with the courts over the global tariff regime that has dominated his economic agenda.

When the Supreme Court struck down his emergency levies in February, setting clear limits on a president’s ability to impose such import barriers without Congress, Trump introduced a 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. But that law sets a time limit of 150 days, and now, with that clock set to run out on July 24, the Administration is readying a new set of tariffs on dozens of countries.

Appearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, said the methods the White House was using to impose tariffs may be changing, “but the trade strategy has not.”

“We are committed to continuing to use tariffs and to negotiate deals to support the reindustrialization of our economy, protect American workers and increase their wages and shrink our trade deficit,” he told Congress.

To rebuild Trump’s tariff wall, trade officials are getting creative, testing a patchwork of older, less-tested statutes.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer testifies before the Senate Committee on Finance on July 22, 2026 in Washington, D.C. SAMUEL CORUM/ASSOCIATED PRESS

One of those methods is a mechanism that allows the government to impose tariffs on countries that have failed to curb trade in goods produced with forced labor. The U.S. Trade Representative's office has proposed tariffs of up to 12.5% on 60 countries, arguing that it creates unfair competition for U.S. workers—something that has rankled some U.S. allies.

Sarah Bianchi, formerly a top U.S. trade official in the Biden Administration and now chief strategist of international political affairs at the investment research firm Evercore ISI, tells TIME that Trump’s main goal hasn’t changed, only the method of getting there.

“His goal is to have a universal tariff… He's always kind of had that idea in his head,” she says. “And then there are other particular trading partners that they have more issues with—China, Vietnam, Brazil—where they kind of want to end up higher, in the high teens or beyond. And so they're really just trying to find a more legally durable way to do that.”

So what will a new round of tariffs look like for consumers, at a time when people are struggling with inflation and affordability is at the front of everyone’s mind?

"It's going to be passed on in some way, but probably not as dramatically as some of his opponents would suggest," she says.

Bianchi adds that Trump felt some vindication after the first round of tariffs, when inflation didn’t rise as high as his critics had suggested. But even if there is a cost for consumers, it likely won’t deter him.

“A million times I’ve been asked: ‘There's an affordability crisis, isn't he going to get rid of this?’ And I always say: tariffs trump affordability for Trump.”

"He believes that in Trump 1.0, too many people talked him out of this," Bianchi says. “He's just really committed to this, and he always comes back to tariffs. Always, every single time.”

ONE NUMBER

1,714

The Trump Administration’s withdrawal of U.S. funding for HIV services around the world has led to the closure of at least 1,714 HIV service sites, according to a new survey by the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR).

Public health facilities, mobile clinics, drop-in centers, and specialized HIV facilities were among the sites closed after payments to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, were delayed or halted.

“Almost no organizations were able to replace lost funding from other sources,” the report said.

SOURCE: amfAR

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A VIRAL MOMENT

Homer vs Hollywood

Emily Wilson, a classics professor from the University of Pennsylvania, was the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English, and her work is often credited with sparking a renewed interest in Homer’s epic poems.

This clip of her commenting on the Christopher Nolan Hollywood adaptation has gone viral in recent days. Particularly her comments on the portrayal of Odysseus.

"There's a tolerance for ambiguity in the world of The Odyssey which I don't think there exactly is in the world of Hollywood blockbuster action films," she said. "And I think that's one of the big challenges for Nolan that he has to make the protagonist a likable all-American hero."