A lot of content will tell you it’s unbiased, but won’t show you the actual sources. Here they are.

Opening Note

Losing a legal fight doesn’t have to mean losing the fight. It can just mean switching which law does the work. That’s true of a president who lost a Supreme Court case over tariffs in February 2026 and still had every tariff standing by Friday, and it’s just as true of a nuclear deal announced one day and rewritten by social media post the next.

Overview

  • President Trump signed four tariff proclamations on Canada and aluminum on July 20, 2026, then his trade office added tariffs on 60 more countries on July 23, 2026, replacing the tariff tool the Supreme Court struck down in February 2026 (today’s Deep Reason).

  • The House passed three separate bills, government funding, a budget blueprint, and next year’s defense policy, in three days, each within single digits of failing.

  • President Trump signed a civil nuclear cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia on July 22, 2026, and added a new condition to it in a social media post the next day.

  • House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan asked the Justice Department to criminally prosecute former special counsel Jack Smith on July 22, 2026.

For the Record: Tariffs

On July 20, 2026, President Trump signed four tariff proclamations: three targeting Canadian cars, alcohol, and dairy, and a fourth on aluminum. Three days later, on July 23, 2026, his trade office finalized tariffs on 60 more countries over forced labor. All of it replaces a tool the Supreme Court took away five months earlier. In February 2026, the Court ruled in Learning Resources v. Trump that a 1977 sanctions law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), does not let a president impose tariffs at all, striking down the broad, nearly universal tariffs the administration had built on that law.

What changes: Canada now faces 50% duties on a broad basket of goods, from cement to hockey equipment. The tariffs rely on Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, a law that lets a president act on a finding that a country discriminates against U.S. commerce, without running a formal investigation first. Those tariffs take effect August 19, 2026. Separately, importers get a discounted 25% aluminum tariff, down from the standing 50% rate, if they commit to expanding U.S. smelting capacity. That discount uses the same national-security law, Section 232, that has governed steel and aluminum tariffs since 2018. And 60 countries, covering 99.4% of U.S. imports, now face 10% to 12.5% tariffs for failing to enforce bans on forced-labor goods, under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

What doesn’t change: the underlying goal. Both the Biden and Trump administrations have used tariffs to try to bring manufacturing back to the United States, and the current administration’s stated reasoning, laid out by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, is the same trade-deficit argument that has driven tariff policy under both parties for most of the last decade.

Supporters, including the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), say the forced-labor tariffs push 60 trading partners to match the only enforced ban on forced-labor imports in the world, a goal that isn’t seriously in dispute. Canada’s government disagrees on the Canada tariffs specifically. Prime Minister Mark Carney called them a breach of the North American trade pact known as USMCA and says Canada has offered “detailed and comprehensive proposals” to update it. Two economists, Alan Wm. Wolff of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and Georgetown’s Peter Harrell, argue the forced-labor tariffs are too broad to meet the law’s requirement that a tariff match the specific practice being punished.

Why it matters: Federal Reserve research on firms that actually pay these tariffs found that roughly 90% of the cost lands on U.S. companies and consumers through higher prices, not on foreign exporters. The administration’s answer is that manufacturers can avoid that cost by building in the U.S. instead of importing. Separately, customs collections are up 51% for the fiscal year, but $70 billion of that came back out in refunds after the Court’s ruling, in May and June alone.

The full breakdown, what the source actually says, who’s for it and against it, and what happens next, is in Deep Reason: How President Trump Rebuilt Tariff Power After Losing in Court.

Political Weather

What’s Loud: The House passed a stopgap funding bill (220-205) on July 21, 2026, a budget resolution unlocking $95 billion in reconciliation instructions (216-214) on July 22, 2026, and next year’s defense policy bill (216-212) the same day, three votes in three days.

What’s Missing: The Senate confirmed Benjamin Flowers to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on July 22, 2026, a lifetime judicial appointment that drew far less coverage than any of the House’s floor votes that same week.

What Matters: None of those three House margins left more than a handful of votes to spare, which means a small band of House Republicans now effectively decides what reaches the floor on routine funding as well as on marquee fights like reconciliation.

Worth Your Attention

A nuclear deal, rewritten by social media post. On July 22, 2026, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement, which Saudi Arabia’s Energy Ministry described as a deal to “diversify energy sources” and develop civilian nuclear technology. The next day, President Trump posted on Truth Social that the agreement “will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining” the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab states. That condition appeared nowhere in the deal Saudi Arabia had signed a day earlier. Agreements like this one fall under Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, a law that requires them to go before Congress for review. Lawmakers can block one with a joint resolution of disapproval before it takes effect.

A criminal referral that starts a process instead of ending one. On July 22, 2026, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan referred former special counsel Jack Smith to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, alleging Smith made “willfully and intentionally false statements” during a December 17, 2025, deposition. A congressional criminal referral is a request, not a charge. It carries no legal obligation, and the Justice Department decides independently whether to open a case at all.

Gov Math

60% of Americans disapprove of the 50% tariffs on Canadian goods, according to a July 22, 2026 YouGov poll of 9,695 U.S. adults, more than double the 25% who approve.

Watch List

July 25, 2026: Maine Democrats hold a nominating convention in Bangor to pick a new U.S. Senate candidate after Graham Platner’s campaign collapsed, with former state Senate President Troy Jackson the presumptive winner after his top rivals dropped out and endorsed him.

July 31, 2026: Four states face a deadline to respond to Department of Homeland Security letters asking them to review voter rolls for non-citizens.

Enjoyed this? Subscribe to Public Reason, it’s free, to get the next edition in your inbox.

Got a story we should be tracking, or something we got wrong? Reply to this email. We read every one.

Keep Reading