aacj

July 8 2025

Tariff Deadline Extended; Texas Floods; Musk's America Party; Tech Funds AI Training; More Arms to Kyiv

Greg Loving

08 Jul 2025 • 8 min read

Texas National Guard service members assigned to Task Force Storm work in teams along the Guadalupe River bank conducting search and rescue operations and removing debris near Camp Mystic in Kerr County, Texas. @TXMilitary

Trump Extends Tariff Deadline, But Renews Threat to Hit 14 Nations

Texas Floods: Over 100 Dead, Dozens Missing in Kerr County Tragedy

Musk Forms 'America Party' in Bid to Disrupt Two-Party System; Trump Blasts It as 'Off the Rails'

Major Tech Firms Fund $23M AI Training Academy for U.S. Teachers

U.S. to Send More Arms to Kyiv; Crucial Patriot Missile Supply Unclear

1. Trump Extends Tariff Deadline, But Renews Threat to Hit 14 Nations

WASHINGTON – President Trump reignited his global trade war Monday, renewing his threat to hit partners with punishing tariffs even as he announced a three-week extension to negotiate deals. Trump signed an executive order extending the date when his so-called reciprocal tariffs would take effect, with a pause previously scheduled to expire at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. Additionally, Trump sent letters to a handful of nations outlining tariff rates they would pay if they didn’t strike trade deals with the U.S. by Aug. 1. Trump, on his Truth Social platform, posted letters to the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and others by Monday afternoon, informing them of the Aug. 1 date. In all, Trump sent letters to 14 nations. Earlier, Leavitt suggested just over a dozen nations would get letters but didn’t specify how the countries were chosen. More than 80 nations were subject to the tariffs, first announced April 2.

WSJ

2. Texas Floods: Over 100 Dead, Dozens Missing in Kerr County Tragedy

A. KERRVILLE, TX – More than 100 people have been confirmed dead in severe flooding in Central Texas as emergency workers continued to look for dozens who remained missing. In Kerr County, Camp Mystic said it was grieving the loss of 27 campers and counselors. Ten girls and one counselor were still unaccounted for on Monday, the fourth day of the search.

B. While local authorities dispatched rescue workers to the region, the Coast Guard and Texas National Guard quickly joined the mission, sending military support to flood-afflicted areas. Texan officials said Sunday night that the National Guard’s Black Hawk helicopters had rescued 361 people, with 159 more people recovered by ground. Coast Guard officials said on social media that they dispatched the distinctive orange and white MH-65 Dolphin helicopters, evacuating 15 people from Camp Mystic and assisting in the rescue of 230 more.

Washington Post

3. Musk Forms 'America Party' in Bid to Disrupt Two-Party System; Trump Blasts It as 'Off the Rails'

A. Launching a new national political party in the United States may be more difficult than sending a man to Mars. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who last year was the nation’s biggest known political donor, now says that he is trying to do both. But while the effort to achieve interplanetary travel has made slow progress for over 20 years, the past several decades of American politics are littered with abandoned attempts to disrupt the two-party system. It remains to be seen how serious Mr. Musk is about the new political project, and whether it will evolve from musings on his social-media platform to a fact of real life. While he declared on Saturday that “Today, the America Party is formed,” so far he has yet to register it with the Federal Election Commission. Mr. Musk has said the America Party would be a new entity and would have the goal of disrupting the two major parties’ hold on the federal government.

Editors note: you would have lost a lot of money betting against Musk over the past twenty years, but this won’t work.

B. President Trump assailed Elon Musk on Sunday night, describing him as “off the rails” after Mr. Musk said he was creating a new political party amid an ongoing rift with the president. “I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday evening. “He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States.” Mr. Musk’s effort to create a new political party, called the America Party, is the latest rupture in his relationship with Mr. Trump.

C. As Elon Musk confronts deepening business and political challenges in the U.S., he’s also facing trouble in his other most important market: China. Tesla’s most immediate challenge in China is its shrinking market share, even as the country’s EV market has mushroomed. In May, Tesla sold slightly fewer than 40,000 cars in China, down 30% from the same month a year earlier, while the overall market for new-energy vehicles—a category that includes full EVs and plug-in hybrids—rose 28%.

NYT; WSJ

4. Major Tech Firms Fund $23M AI Training Academy for U.S. Teachers

NEW YORK, July 8, 2025 – The tech industry’s campaign to embed artificial intelligence chatbots in classrooms is accelerating. The American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest U.S. teachers’ union, said on Tuesday that it would start an A.I. training hub for educators with $23 million in funding from three leading chatbot makers: Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic. The union said it planned to open the National Academy for A.I. Instruction in New York City, starting with hands-on workshops for teachers this fall on how to use A.I. tools for tasks like generating lesson plans.

NYT

5. U.S. to Send More Arms to Kyiv; Crucial Patriot Missile Supply Unclear

A Patriot air-defense system launcher in Ukraine last year. PHOTO: VALENTYN OGIRENKO/REUTERS

WASHINGTON – President Trump said Monday the U.S. would resume providing Ukraine with arms to help it withstand Russian attacks after months of trying without success to draw Moscow into negotiations on ending the war. “We have to, they have to be able to defend themselves,” Trump said of aiding Kyiv during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “They are getting hit very hard. Now they are getting hit very hard. We’re gonna have to send more weapons.” His comments were the strongest indication so far that Trump has come around to the idea of strengthening Kyiv’s defenses less than a week after it was disclosed that the Pentagon was withholding a shipment of arms earmarked for Ukraine. The pause in weapons shipments to Ukraine, reported last Tuesday, surprised other parts of the U.S. government, including the State Department and members of Congress, as well as Kyiv. After Trump and Putin’s phone conversation, Russia launched drones and missiles at Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in the largest single barrage so far in the war, the Ukrainian Air Force said. Patriot interceptors are especially sought-after by Ukraine, whose political and military leadership have lauded the antimissile system for its ability to counter Russian ballistic missiles. “They do want to have the antimissile missiles, as they call the Patriots, and we’re going to see if we can make some available,” Trump said last month. “They are very hard to get, we need them, too.” The U.S. has provided $66.9 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, according to a State Department fact sheet dated March 2025. The last major new arms package for Ukraine was on Dec. 30, during the Biden administration, and included some advanced weapons like munitions for air-defense systems, Stinger missiles and other weapons. The package was worth $1.22 billion. The Trump administration has continued to send previously-approved weapons shipments, with only a few interruptions.

Editors note: are they sending Patriot interceptors? That’s the key weapon and the article isn’t clear on this point. It's not a political question about whether to supply Patriot interceptors, it's a matter of physical manufacturing capability.

WSJ

July 8, 1853: Commodore Perry sails into Tokyo Bay

Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, representing the U.S. government, sails into Tokyo Bay, Japan, with a squadron of four vessels. For a time, Japanese officials refused to speak with Perry, but under threat of attack by the superior American ships they accepted letters from President Millard Fillmore, making the United States the first Western nation to establish relations with Japan since it had been declared closed to foreigners two centuries before. Only the Dutch and the Chinese were allowed to continue trade with Japan after 1639, but this trade was restricted and confined to the island of Dejima at Nagasaki. After giving Japan time to consider the establishment of external relations, Commodore Perry returned to Tokyo with nine ships in March 1854. On March 31, he signed the Treaty of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade and permitting the establishment of a U.S. consulate in Japan. In April 1860, the first Japanese diplomats to visit a foreign power in over 200 years reached Washington, D.C., and remained in the U.S. capital for several weeks, discussing expansion of trade with the United States. Treaties with other Western powers followed soon after, contributing to the collapse of the shogunate and ultimately the modernization of Japan.