Trump’s 50 Percent Tariffs on Steel, Aluminum Take Effect; Rubio Condemns CCP’s Tiananmen Square Massacre

President Donald Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum went into effect on June 4, after midnight, following through on last week’s announcement at a U.S. Steel facility. Enacted through an executive order signed on Monday, the measure doubles the previous 25 percent rate with the intention of boosting domestic production. Meanwhile, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Chinese leader Xi Jinping was “extremely hard to make a deal with,” after aides said Trump is expected to have a trade negotiations call with Xi this week.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP's) “brutal crackdown” of the June 4, 1989, student protests in Tiananmen Square, in a social media post ahead of the anniversary. “We remember the Chinese Communist Party’s brutal crackdown 36 years ago in Tiananmen Square and commemorate the courage of the innocent people killed and imprisoned that day. Freedom, democracy, and self-rule are human principles the CCP cannot erase,” he wrote on X.