President
Which US companies are pulling back on diversity initiatives?

A growing number of prominent companies have scaled back or set aside the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that much of corporate America endorsed following the protests that accompanied the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in 2020.
The changes have come in response to a campaign by conservative activists to target workplace programs in the courts and social media, and more recently, President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at upending DEI policies in both the federal government and private sector.
DEI policies typically are intended to root out systemic barriers to the advancement of historically marginalized groups in certain fields or roles. Critics argue that some education, government and business programs are discriminatory because they single out participants based on factors such as race, gender and sexual orientation. They have targeted corporate sponsorships, employee-led affinity groups, programs aimed at steering contracts to minority or women-owned businesses, and goals that some companies established for increasing minority representation in leadership ranks.
While hiring or promotion decisions based on race or gender is illegal under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in most circumstances, companies say they are not doing that. Instead, they say they aspire to diversify their workforce over time through policies like widening candidate pools for job openings.
These are some of the companies that have retreated from DEI:
Uber
After an conducting an internal investigation that found rampant sexual harassment issues within its corporate office under its founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick, Uber has been focused on overhauling its corporate culture since its current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi took over in 2017.
Those changes had included a ramped-up commitment to diversity and inclusion as part of a commitment that the ride-hailing service highlighted in a section of its annual report for 2023.
But Uber dropped its diversity and inclusion section from its 2024 annual report filed last month. And the word “diversity” doesn’t appear anywhere in its 135 pages.
Uber didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Salesforce
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff once was on a crusade to inspire other corporate leaders to become social activists in a drive to fix a “train wreck” of inequality, but he has since toned down that message while pledging to work with President Donald Trump “to drive American success and prosperity for all.”
Although Benioff personally has remained an outspoken supporter of LGBTQ+ rights, Salesforce is no longer touting its diversity program. After carving out a section of its annual report filed last year to declare, “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Equality is a core value at Salesforce,” the San Francisco excluded any discussion of diversity programs in its latest annual report filed March 5.
“While we don’t have representation goals, we remain committed to our value of equality,” Salesforce said in a statement.
Pepsi
PepsiCo confirmed that it’s ending some of its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, even as rival Coca-Cola voiced support for its own inclusion efforts.
In a memo sent to employees, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta said the company will no longer set goals for minority representation in its managerial roles or supplier base. The company will also align its sponsorships to events and groups that promote business growth, he said.
Laguarta wrote that inclusion remains important to PepsiCo, whose brands include Gatorade, Lay’s potato chips, Doritos, Mountain Dew as well as Pepsi. The Purchase, New York-based company’s chief diversity officer will transition to a broader role focused on employee engagement, leadership development and ensuring an inclusive culture, he said.
Goldman Sachs
Investment firm Goldman Sachs confirmed that it was dropping a requirement that forced IPO clients to include women and members of minority groups on their board of directors.
“As a result of legal developments related to board diversity requirements, we ended our formal board diversity policy,” said a Goldman Sachs spokesman in an email to The Associated Press. “We continue to believe that successful boards benefit from diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and we will encourage them to take this approach.”
Goldman Sachs said that it will still have a placement service that connects its clients with diverse candidates to serve on their boards.
Google rescinded a goal it had set in 2020 to increase representation of underrepresented groups among the company’s leadership team by 30% within five years. In a memo to employees, the company also said it was considering other changes in response to Trump’s executive order aimed at prohibiting federal contractors from conducting DEI practices that constitute “illegal discrimination.”
Google’s parent company Alphabet also signaled things were changing in its annual 10-K report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The report dropped a boilerplate sentence it has used since 2020 declaring that the company is “committed to making diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything we do and to growing a workforce that is representative of the users we serve.”
Target
The retailer said that changes to its “Belonging at the Bullseye” strategy would include ending a program it established to help Black employees build meaningful careers, improve the experience of Black shoppers and to promote Black-owned businesses following Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, where Target has its headquarters.
Target, which operates nearly 2,000 stores nationwide and employs more than 400,000 people, said it also would conclude the diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, goals it previously set in three-year cycles.
The goals included hiring and promoting more women and members of racial minority groups, and recruiting more diverse suppliers, including businesses owned by people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, veterans and people with disabilities.
Target also will no longer participate in surveys designed to gauge the effectiveness of its actions, including an annual index compiled by the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ+ rights organization. Target also said it would further evaluate corporate partnerships to ensure they’re connected directly to business objectives, but declined to share details.
Meta Platforms
The parent company of Facebook and Instagram said it was getting rid of its diversity, equity and inclusion program, which featured policies for hiring, training and picking vendors.
Like other companies that announced similar changes before Meta, the social media giant said it had been reviewing the program since the Supreme Court’s July 2023 ruling upending affirmative action in higher education.
Citing an internal memo sent to employees, news website Axios reported the Menlo Park, California-based tech giant said it would no longer have a team focused on diversity and inclusion and will instead “focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background.” The change means the company will also end its “diverse slate approach” to hiring, which involved considering a diverse pool of candidates for every open position.
Amazon
Amazon said it was halting some of its DEI programs, although it did not specify which ones. In a Dec. 16 memo to employees, Candi Castleberry, a senior human resources executive, said the company has been “winding down outdated programs and materials, and we’re aiming to complete that by the end of 2024.”
“We also know there will always be individuals or teams who continue to do well-intentioned things that don’t align with our company-wide approach, and we might not always see those right away. But we’ll keep at it,” she wrote.
Rather than “have individual groups build programs,” Castleberry said, Amazon is “focusing on programs with proven outcomes – and we also aim to foster a more truly inclusive culture.”
McDonald’s
McDonald’s said on Jan. 6 that it would retire specific goals for achieving diversity at senior leadership levels. It also planned to end a program that encouraged its suppliers to develop diversity training and to increase the number of minority group members represented within their own leadership ranks.
McDonald’s later said it was changing — but not eliminating — a scholarship program for Latino students after it was sued by a group that opposes affirmative action. The program will now be open to any student who can demonstrate an impact on the Latino community, the fast-food giant said. Applicants no longer need to have at least one Latino parent.
In an open letter to employees and franchisees, McDonald’s senior leadership team said it remained committed to inclusion and believes that having a diverse workforce is a competitive advantage. The company said it would continue to publicly report its demographic information and spending on diverse-owned suppliers.
Walmart
The world’s largest retailer confirmed in November that it would not be renewing a five-year commitment to a racial equity center set up in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd, and that it would stop participating in the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.
Walmart also said it will better monitor its third-party marketplace to make sure items sold there do not include products aimed at LGBTQ+ minors, including chest binders intended for transgender youth.
Additionally, the company will no longer consider race and gender as a litmus test to improve diversity when it offers supplier contracts and it won’t be gathering demographic data when determining financing eligibility for those grants.
Ford
CEO Jim Farley sent a memo to the automaker’s employees in August outlining changes to the company’s DEI policies, including a decision to stop taking part in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.
Ford, he wrote, had been looking at its policies for a year. The company doesn’t use hiring quotas or tie compensation to specific diversity goals but remains committed to “fostering a safe and inclusive workplace,” Farley said.
“We will continue to put our effort and resources into taking care of our customers, our team, and our communities versus publicly commenting on the many polarizing issues of the day,” the memo said.
Lowe’s
In August, Lowe’s executive leadership said the company began “reviewing” its programs following the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling and decided to combine its employee resource groups into one umbrella organization. Previously, the company had “individual groups representing diverse sections of our associate population.”
The retailer also will no longer participate in the HRC index, and will stop sponsoring and participating in events, such as festivals and parades, that are outside of its business areas.
Harley-Davidson
In a post on X in August, Harley-Davidson said the company would review all sponsorships and organizations it was affiliated with, and that all would have to be centrally approved. It said the company would focus exclusively on growing the sport of motorcycling and retaining its loyal riding community, in addition to supporting first responders, active military members and veterans.
The motorcycle maker said it would no longer participate in the ranking of workplace equality compiled by the HRC, and that its trainings would be related to the needs of the business and absent of socially motivated content.
Harley-Davidson also said it does not have hiring quotas and would no longer have supplier diversity spending goals.
Brown-Forman
The parent company of Jack Daniels also pulled out from participating in the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, among other changes. Its leaders sent an email to employees in August saying the company launched its diversity and inclusion strategy in 2019, but since then “the world has evolved, our business has changed, and the legal and external landscape has shifted dramatically.”
The company said it would remove its quantitative workforce and supplier diversity ambitions, ensure incentives and employee goals were tied to business performance, and review training programs for consistency with a revised strategy.
“Brown-Forman continues to foster an inclusive work environment where everyone is welcomed, respected, and able to bring their best self to work,” spokeswoman Elizabeth Conway said in an email.
John Deere
The farm equipment maker said in July that it would no longer sponsor “social or cultural awareness” events, and that it would audit all training materials “to ensure the absence of socially-motivated messages” in compliance with federal and local laws.
Moline, Illinois-based John Deere added “the existence of diversity quotas and pronoun identification have never been and are not company policy.” But it noted that it would still continue to “track and advance” the diversity of the company.
Tractor Supply
The retailer in June said it was ending an array of corporate diversity and climate efforts, a move that came after weeks of online conservative backlash against the rural retailer.
Tractor Supply said it would be eliminating all of its DEI roles while retiring current DEI goals. The company added that it would “stop sponsoring non-business activities” such as Pride festivals or voting campaigns — and no longer submit data for the HRC index.
The Brentwood, Tennessee-based company, which sells products ranging from farming equipment to pet supplies, also said that it would withdraw from its carbon emission goals to instead “focus on our land and water conservation efforts.”
The National Black Farmers Association called on Tractor Supply’s president and CEO to step down shortly after the company’s announcement.
President
The Only Question Trump Asks Himself: A Glimpse Into His Unorthodox Approach to Foreign Policy

John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and national security adviser to President Trump, criticized Trump for his unorthodox approach to foreign policy.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky is “a dictator without elections,” with only a 4 percent approval rating. The war in Ukraine is “madness” and “senseless.” Although it is true that Russia is currently “pounding” Ukraine, “probably anyone in that position would be doing that right now.” Kyiv is “more difficult, frankly, to deal with” than Moscow.
This Russian propaganda could be easily dismissed, were it not being verbalized by President Donald Trump. I was Trump’s national security adviser from 2018 to 2019; I know that his view on Putin has remained constant for years. In saying recently that dealing with Putin is easier than with Zelensky and that Putin would be “more generous than he has to be,” Trump has simply reprised the sentiments of his first term. In July 2018, when leaving the White House for a NATO summit (where he almost withdrew America from the alliance), then later appointments with Prime Minister Theresa May in England and Putin in Finland (where he seemed to back Putin over U.S. intelligence), Trump said that his meeting with Putin “may be the easiest of them all. Who would think?” Obviously, only Trump.
But now he has turned U.S. policy on the Russo-Ukraine war 180 degrees. Instead of aiding a victimized country with enormous agricultural, mineral, and industrial resources in the heart of Europe, bordering on key NATO allies, a region whose stability and prosperity have been vital to American national security for eight decades, Trump now sides with the invader. Ukrainians are fighting and dying for their freedom and independence, as near neighbors such as Poland’s Lech Walesa fully appreciate. For most Americans, “freedom” and “independence” resonate, but not for Trump.
He has gone well beyond rhetoric. In a nationally televised display, he clashed with Zelensky face-to-face in the Oval Office, ironically a very Wilsonian act: open covenants openly destroyed. Trump suspended U.S. military aid to Ukraine, including vital intelligence, to make Zelensky bend his knee. Even when Trump “threatened” Russia with sanctions and tariffs, the threat was hollow. Russia is already evading a broad array of poorly enforced sanctions, and could evade more. On tariffs, U.S. imports from Russia in 2024 were a mere $3 billion, down almost 90 percent from 2021’s level, before Russia’s invasion, and trivial compared with $4.1 trillion in total 2024 imports.
The Kremlin is delighted. Former President Dmitry Medvedev wrote on X: “If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have laughed out loud.”
This is serious, and may be fatal for both Kyiv and NATO. Trump has sought for years to debilitate or destroy the alliance. He doesn’t like it; he doesn’t understand it; he frowns on its Brussels headquarters building; and, worst of all, it was deeply involved in not only Ukraine but Afghanistan, which he didn’t like either. Trump may ultimately want to withdraw from NATO, but in the near term, he can do serious-enough damage simply to render the alliance unworkable. Recent reports that Trump is considering defending only those NATO allies meeting the agreed defense-spending targets mirrors prior suggestions from his aides. This approach is devastating for the alliance.
What explains Trump’s approach to Ukraine and disdain for NATO? Trump does not have a philosophy or a national-security grand strategy. He does not do “policy” as Washington understands that term. His approach is personal, transactional, ad hoc, episodic, centering on one question: What benefits Donald Trump? In international affairs, Trump has suggested repeatedly that if he has good personal relations with a foreign head of state, then America ought to have good relations with that country. While personal relations have their place, hard men such as Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un are not distracted by emotions. Trump thinks that Putin is his friend. Putin sees Trump as an easy mark, pliable and manipulable.
Trump says he trusts that Putin wants peace and will honor his commitments, despite massive contrary evidence. Notwithstanding considerable efforts, Zelensky has never escaped the “perfect” phone call precipitating Trump’s first impeachment. Of course, that call turned on Trump’s now-familiar extortionist threat to withhold security assistance to Ukraine if Zelensky did not produce Hillary Clinton’s server and investigate other supposed anti-Trump activity in Ukraine aimed at thwarting his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.
Photo: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump arrive for a group photo at the G20 Summit in Osaka on June 28, 2019. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty)
President
Supreme Court rejects Republican-led effort to halt climate change lawsuits in Democratic-led states

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a lawsuit from Republican attorneys general in 19 states aimed at blocking climate change suits against the oil and gas industry from Democratic-led states.
The justices acted on an unusual Republican effort to file suit in the Supreme Court over the Democratic states’ use of their own state courts to sue fossil fuel companies for deceiving the public about the risks of their products contributing to climate change.
The Supreme Court typically hears only appeals, but the Constitution gives the court authority to hear original lawsuits states file against each other.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have allowed the lawsuit to proceed for now. The justices don’t have the discretion to reject the complaint at this stage, Thomas wrote in a dissent that did not deal with the merits of the claim.
The Republicans’ complaint, led by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, asserts that the Democratic states are trying to dictate national energy policy and will drive up the cost of energy across the country.
The Supreme Court also has so far turned away appeals by the energy companies seeking to get the justices involved in the issue.
The lawsuits filed by dozens of state and local governments allege that fossil fuel companies misled the public about how their products could contribute to the climate crisis. The lawsuits claim billions of dollars of damage from such things as severe storms, wildfires and rising sea levels.
The Republican action specifically sought to stop lawsuits brought by California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island.
Only the federal government can regulate interstate gas emissions, and states have no power to apply their own laws to a global atmosphere that reaches well beyond their borders.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.
President
Trump loves the Gilded Age and its tariffs. It was a great time for the rich but not for the many

WASHINGTON (AP) — In President Donald Trump’s idealized framing, the United States was at its zenith in the 1890s, when top hats and shirtwaists were fashionable and typhoid fever often killed more soldiers than combat.
It was the Gilded Age, a time of rapid population growth and transformation from an agricultural economy toward a sprawling industrial system, when poverty was widespread while barons of phenomenal wealth, like John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan, held tremendous sway over politicians who often helped boost their financial empires.
“We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. That’s when we were a tariff country. And then they went to an income tax concept,” Trump said days after taking office. “It’s fine. It’s OK. But it would have been very much better.”
The desire to recreate that era is fueled by Trump’s fondness for tariffs and his admiration for the nation’s 25th president, William McKinley, a Republican who was in office from 1897 until being assassinated in 1901.
Though Trump’s early implementation of tariffs has been inconsistent — with him imposing them, then pulling many back — he has been steadfast in endorsing the idea of 21st century protectionism. There have even been suggestions that higher import tariffs on the country’s foreign trading partners could eventually replace the federal income tax.
Experts on the era say Trump is idealizing a time rife with government and business corruption, social turmoil and inequality. They argue he’s also dramatically overestimating the role tariffs played in stimulating an economy that grew mostly due to factors other than the U.S. raising taxes on imported goods.
And Gilded Age policies, they maintain, have virtually nothing to do with how trade works in a globalized, modern economy.
“The most astonishing thing for historians is that nobody in the Gilded Age economy — except for the very rich — wanted to live in the Gilded Age economy,” said Richard White, a history professor emeritus at Stanford University.
Trump says high tariffs and low interest rates, like those the U.S. had after the Civil War, can hastily pay down today’s federal debt and fatten government coffers while boosting domestic manufacturers and enticing foreign producers to move to the U.S.
It’s not a new theme for him.
“I am a Tariff Man,” Trump declared in a 2018 online post. Campaigning for a second term last fall, Trump said of the McKinley era, “We were a very wealthy country, and we’re going to be doing that now.” Today, he says “tariff” is his favorite word and represents “a very powerful weapon that politicians haven’t used because they were either dishonest, stupid or paid off in some other form.”
The White House has rushed to raise tariffs on imports from China and on aluminum and steel made abroad while promising that import levies will soon increase on the European Union, as well as new, foreign-made cars, microchips and pharmaceuticals. Trump also increased tariffs on Canada and Mexico, though he later delayed most of them.
He has similar plans for potentially every country the U.S. does business with, saying broad “reciprocal” import taxes are coming April 2nd and will be consistent with levies other countries charge U.S. manufacturers to export their goods.
Dartmouth College economics professor Douglas Irwin said Trump advocating for modern tariffs by pointing to the 1890s is flawed.
“We did grow rapidly in the late 19th century,” he said. “But it’s a stretch to attribute it to tariffs.”
“The president is more accurate when he paints with a broader brush and says, ’Look, this entire period with fiscal surpluses we grew rapidly.’ That’s true of this 40-year period,” added Irwin, author of “Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy.”
“But, when you dig down to the details and say, ‘We raised tariffs in this instance,’ that’s where things go awry. Or the story doesn’t quite hold together as well,” Irwin said.
Was America really at its wealthiest from 1870 to 1913?
The Gilded Age featured extraordinary wealth for a small class of people that largely obscured rampant poverty for many other Americans. The name comes from a 1873 novel, co-written by Mark Twain, which satirized the greed and deceit of the era’s government and politicians.
Many contemporary leaders were openly influenced by the famed robber barons, builders of monopolies who stoked industrialization while shaping the way millions of other Americans lived and worked.
Rockefeller became the exemplar of the era when his Standard Oil empire made him the world’s first billionaire. Morgan was an investment banker and legendary financier of industrial interests. Cornelius Vanderbilt amassed a breathtaking fortune through shipping and railroads, while steel magnate Andrew Carnegie was also a dedicated philanthropist who argued the rich had a moral responsibility to use their wealth to better a deeply unequal society.
Overall, the U.S. economy grew rapidly between 1870 and 1913, though there were dips and recessions, too.
Some historians call it the second industrial revolution because of major increases in manufacturing and factory output. New industries like steel, electricity and petrochemicals boomed, as did sectors including construction and machinery.
But White said those years were marked by erratic economic growth, and those upturns were mostly fueled by millions of immigrants joining the U.S. workforce. Indeed, the number of U.S. residents jumped from 38.5 million-plus in 1870 to more than 106 million by 1920.
Another factor was the seizing of land from Native Americans during U.S. expansion west. That meant exploiting natural resources along the way — including gold, silver, timber, grazing and farmland, as well as coal, copper and oil, especially after the discovery of the Spindletop geyser in Texas in 1901.
Average wages rose, but so did inequality, with almost no social safety net. Working conditions were often so abhorrent, meanwhile, that the labor movement began gaining strength, as did progressive politicians clamoring for breaking up monopolies.
“This is the height of antimonopoly, political turmoil, the rise of labor in the United States,” said White, author of “The Republic for Which it Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896.” “And the reason was, people did not regard this as a particularly healthy economy.”
In fact, despite the growth, standards of living fell, including life expectancy and key health indicators, White said.
Could tariffs replace the federal income tax?
The modern federal income tax came into fruition with the ratification of 16th Amendment in 1913, ending the 43-year era when Trump says the country was wealthiest. He has not expressly detailed plans to end a national income tax since retaking the White House, and he can’t do so without an act of Congress and upending the federal budget in almost incalculable ways.
In fiscal year 2024, the federal government collected about $4 trillion in individual income tax and tax withholdings, according to the Treasury Department, compared with customs duties accounting for around $76.4 billion.
But the president nonetheless signed a Day 1 executive order calling for the creation of the External Revenue Service to “collect tariffs, duties, and other foreign trade-related revenues.” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested Trump’s goal there was “to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay.”
Republican strategist Karl Rove, author of “The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters,” has defended the notion of low, reciprocal tariffs on U.S. foreign trading partners.
But Rove also says that tariffs can’t realistically replace a federal income tax. He noted in a February op-ed that from 1863 to 1913 tariffs brought in nearly half the U.S. government’s revenue but last year they accounted for less than 2% of federal revenue.
Why does Trump so revere McKinley?
In his inaugural address, Trump called McKinley a “great president” and “natural business man,” who he said “made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.” Hours later, he signed an executive order overturning an Obama administration directive and renaming America’s tallest peak Mount McKinley.
But today’s economy is immeasurably different than in McKinley’s time.
Global communication is now virtually instantaneous. Back then, communication was cumbersome and products were often fully assembled before being exported. Shipping could take months. Today’s goods often contain raw material components or parts that need to be assembled that are sourced all over the world and then built in places different from where they are ultimately sold.
The disruption of such carefully calibrated, multinational logistical systems by the coronavirus pandemic was a key reason why everything from leather couches to flooring to microchips for new cars suddenly became scarce. And that helped feed record inflation beginning in 2021 that continues to dog the U.S. economy today.
Robert W. Merry, author of “President McKinley: Architect of the American Century,” said McKinley was the leading voice on tariffs at a time when they dominated policy discussions because they were the federal government’s chief source of revenue, given that no income tax existed.
But Trump differs with McKinley in using tariffs as a “bludgeon to get other countries to do our bidding on efforts that have nothing to do with revenue, or economic matters or trade.” The president has done that with Canada and Mexico, using tariff threats to try to force those countries to take harder lines against drug smuggling and illegal immigration.
“Nobody would have even considered such a thing in McKinley’s day,” Merry said.
McKinley champions the Tariff Act of 1890
McKinley grew up in Canton, in northeast Ohio, son of an iron foundries owner who was especially sensitive to overseas competition. He won a seat in Congress representing a steel-producing district and so promoted tariffs that one humor magazine used a cartoon on its cover to unflatteringly dub him the “Napoleon of Protectionism.”
As chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, McKinley championed the Tariff Act of 1890, which set the then-highest import tax in U.S. history, raising taxes to 49.5% on 1,500-plus items — everything from glass to tin plates to cayenne pepper. The results were quickly poor for the economy and for Republicans.
“It led to an increase in prices, a kind of inflation, even before the bill took effect,” Merry said. “The argument was, it was carte blanche for retailers and industrialists who basically jacked up their prices unnecessarily.”
Americans dealt Republicans landslide congressional defeats during the 1890 midterms, voting scores of incumbents out of office — including McKinley. The tariff fallout also helped Grover Cleveland win the White House for Democrats in 1892, after he lost his reelection the previous cycle.
McKinley rebounded, though. He was elected Ohio governor and eventually won the presidency in 1896 on a campaign slogan Trump has repeated: “I am a tariff man standing on a tariff platform.” His campaign also got boosts from big donations by major industrialists like Rockefeller, who were strongly opposed to McKinley’s populist Democratic opponent, William Jennings Bryan.
Just as in McKinley’s time, today’s business titans have worked to ingratiate themselves to Trump. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was among the technology leaders who traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, was already a fixture, before Inauguration Day.
Meta, Google and Microsoft joined other major firms donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, while Amazon Prime Video is set to distribute a documentary about first lady Melania Trump. Some business interests are hoping Trump will usher in a new era of antitrust, in which the government does less to block highly profitable corporate consolidation.
What was the ‘great tariff commission’?
Ignoring some of the political problems tariffs created for Republicans in his favored era, Trump instead has focused on repeating how import taxes after the Civil War helped the U.S. pay off debts it incurred during the fighting — and eventually achieve government budget surpluses.
From 1866 to 1893, the U.S. ran nearly three straight decades of budget surpluses, fueled largely by tariffs and high domestic taxes on things like alcohol and tobacco, as well as the sale of federal lands. Paying down debt helped lower interest rates.
Trump has even begun trumpeting what he calls the “great tariff commission of 1887,” which the president says was tasked with helping the government spend all those surpluses.
Irwin said there was a tariff commission, but it was actually convened five years earlier in 1882. It also recommended reducing tariffs, which Congress didn’t do.
“It’s hard to say it was a political success. It’s hard to say it was an economic success,” Irwin said. “Because we spent a lot of the 1890s with double digit unemployment.”
That’s because federal budget surpluses eventually began to effectively decrease the U.S. money supply and cause deflation. Meanwhile, higher tariffs increased the cost of living for many Americans, which, coupled with a financial crisis in Great Britain, helped trigger the Panic of 1893.
That resulted in railroad bankruptcies, a stock market crash and a crushing recession in which unemployment reached 25% nationally. Then-President Cleveland’s lack of solutions was a key factor in voters turning on him and the Democrats and toward McKinley three years later.
McKinley also differed with Trump on key issues
Trump has used his opening weeks back in office to champion U.S. expansionism in ways unseen in the modern era.
He’s refused to rule out U.S. military forces seizing back control of the Panama Canal and suggested buying Greenland from Denmark, making Canada the 51st state and even working with Israel to put American developers in charge of turning the Gaza Strip into a seaside “Riviera.”
There are echoes of McKinley there, because, as president, he moved to expand the reach of the U.S. The Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico became American territories as part of the treaty that ended the Spanish-American War in December 1898.
But the comparison is not so easy. McKinley was also skeptical of U.S. expansionism, even writing himself a note at the start of the war and carrying it as a reminder, Merry said.
“While we are conducting war, and until its conclusion, we must keep all we get,” the note said. “When the war is over, we must keep what we want.”
Shortly after winning reelection in 1900, meanwhile, McKinley began rethinking tariffs, as a stronger and still-growing U.S. manufacturing base made him more appreciative of foreign markets.
“McKinley began to see that, if we were going to be able to sell our goods overseas — as we were going to need to do because we would have more goods than we’d have a market for — we were going to have to accept goods as well,” Merry said.
He said that McKinley gave a speech in Buffalo, New York, outlining “this concept of reciprocity, which was: I’m prepared to bring down tariffs. Even me. Even William McKinley.”
“That was his first big initiative after being reelected,” Merry said.
In that speech on Sept. 5, 1901, McKinley said, “A policy of goodwill and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals. Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with the spirit of the times. Measures of retaliation are not.”
Trump is now promising that similar, reciprocal tariffs will take effect next month. But actually successfully pulling that off will be another difference from McKinley, who never got the chance.
The day after his Buffalo speech, McKinley was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. He died on Sept. 14, 1901.
President
A look at the history of Greenland, from Viking raiders to Donald Trump

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — Greenland is having a moment in the international spotlight as U.S. President Donald Trump maneuvers to gain control of the mineral-rich Arctic territory that most people know only as a huge icy island at the top of the world.
But Greenland, named by Viking adventurer Erik the Red to attract settlers, has a history of human habitation that stretches back more than 4,000 years.
The self-governing region of Denmark has been home to native peoples who crossed the Arctic from what is now Canada, Norse settlers, Lutheran missionaries and U.S. military personnel who used it as a base from which to protect the United States from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Now a warming climate and renewed competition for Arctic resources promise an economic boom for the world’s largest island, which is home to some 56,000 people, most from Inuit backgrounds.
Here are some of the milestones of Greenland’s history.
Circa 2,500 B.C.
The first humans arrive in northern Greenland from what is now Canada after the narrow strait separating the island from North America froze over. This was to be the first of six waves of immigration that brought Inuit peoples to Greenland.
Circa A.D. 985
The Norse explorer Erik the Red arrives in Greenland with a fleet of Viking ships, according to the medieval Icelandic sagas. The Norsemen established two settlements that had a peak population of 2,500-5,000 but disappeared around 1450 for unknown reasons.
1200
The Thule people, the final wave of Inuit migration to Greenland, arrive from what is now Alaska. These people spread throughout Greenland and are the ancestors of the Indigenous people who make up about 90% of the country’s population.
1721
Lutheran missionary Hans Egede arrives in Greenland to search for the lost Norse settlements. Finding no survivors, he builds a new settlement at Kangeq, near modern day Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, and begins efforts to convert the Indigenous people to Christianity. This marks the start of Denmark’s modern colonization of Greenland.
1814
With the dissolution of the Kingdom of Denmark and Norway, Greenland formally becomes a Danish colony. Danish authorities develop a policy of isolating Greenland from the outside world. Trade is controlled by a state-owned monopoly.
1854-1987
Invittuut in southwestern Greenland is the world’s only commercial source of cryolite, a mineral used in the production of aluminum. The mine produced 3.7 million tons of cryolite during its history, with most of it shipped to the U.S. Output peaked during World War II amid increased demand for aluminum to build military aircraft. The mine closed after it was depleted and manufacturers switched to synthetic cryolite.
1917
U.S. government recognizes Denmark’s right to the whole of Greenland. This recognition was part of an agreement between the two countries under which the U.S. acquired the Danish Virgin Islands for $25 million in gold.
1941-1945
U.S. occupies Greenland because of concerns that Nazi Germany could use the island as a base for attacks on North America. The occupation was carried out under an agreement with Denmark’s government in exile, which recognized Danish sovereignty over Greenland.
1946
U.S. President Harry Truman’s government offers to buy Greenland as part of an effort to secure military bases on the island because of “the extreme importance of Greenland to the defense of the United States.” Denmark rejects the sale of Greenland, but signs a long-term base agreement.
1953
Greenland ceases to be a Danish colony and becomes a county of Denmark because of a constitutional amendment. Real decision-making power, however, remains with the Ministry of Greenland in Copenhagen.
1979
Demands for Greenlanders to have more control over their own affairs culminates in the Home Rule Act, which establishes the Greenlandic parliament and gives local authorities control over issues such as education, health and fisheries. The legislation was approved by the Danish parliament and ratified by 70% of local voters.
2009
Greenland becomes a self-governing country within the Kingdom of Denmark. The Self-Government Act, which was approved by more than 75% of Greenland voters and ratified by the Danish parliament, recognizes Greenland’s right to independence when requested by local voters. Denmark retains control of defense and foreign affairs.
2019
Trump sparks a diplomatic spat with Denmark after making his first offer to buy Greenland. Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredericksen rejects the idea, saying, “Greenland is not for sale. Greenland is not Danish. Greenland belongs to Greenland. I strongly hope that this is not meant seriously.” Trump quickly cancels a planned trip to Copenhagen.
2025
During a speech to a joint session of U.S. Congress, Trump says the United States needs Greenland for national security reasons. “I think we’re going to get it,” he says. “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”
President
What makes Greenland a strategic prize at a time of rising tensions? And why now?

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — When U.S. President Donald Trump first suggested buying Greenland in 2019, people thought it was just a joke. No one is laughing now.
Trump’s interest in Greenland, restated vigorously soon after he returned to the White House in January, comes as part of an aggressively “America First” foreign policy platform that includes demands for Ukraine to hand over mineral rights in exchange for continued military aid, threats to take control of the Panama Canal, and suggestions that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state.
Why Greenland?
Increasing international tensions, global warming and the changing world economy have put Greenland at the heart of the debate over global trade and security, and Trump wants to make sure that the U.S. controls this mineral-rich country that guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.
Who does Greenland belong to?
Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a long-time U.S. ally that has rejected Trump’s overtures. Denmark has also recognized Greenland’s right to independence at a time of its choosing.
Amid concerns about foreign interference and demands that Greenlanders must control their own destiny, the island’s prime minister called an early parliamentary election for Tuesday.
The world’s largest island, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people who until now have been largely ignored by the rest of the world.
Why are other countries interested in Greenland?
Climate change is thinning the Arctic ice, promising to create a northwest passage for international trade and reigniting the competition with Russia, China and other countries over access to the region’s mineral resources.
“Let us be clear: we are soon entering the Arctic Century, and its most defining feature will be Greenland’s meteoric rise, sustained prominence and ubiquitous influence,’’ said Dwayne Menezes, managing director of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative.
Varying shades of blue rivers meander through the Greenland ice cap in this aerial photograph from August 2005. (AP Photo/John McConnico, file)
“Greenland — located on the crossroads between North America, Europe and Asia, and with enormous resource potential — will only become more strategically important, with all powers great and small seeking to pay court to it. One is quite keen to go a step further and buy it.”
The following are some of the factors that are driving U.S. interest in Greenland.
Arctic competition
Following the Cold War, the Arctic was largely an area of international cooperation. But climate change, the hunt for scarce resources and increasing international tensions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are once again driving competition in the region.
Strategic importance
Greenland sits off the northeastern coast of Canada, with more than two-thirds of its territory lying within the Arctic Circle. That has made it crucial to the defense of North America since World War II, when the U.S. occupied Greenland to ensure that it didn’t fall into the hands of Nazi Germany and to protect crucial North Atlantic shipping lanes.
The U.S. has retained bases in Greenland since the war, and the Pituffik Space Base, formerly Thule Air Force Base, supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO. Greenland also guards part of what is known as the GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom) Gap, where NATO monitors Russian naval movements in the North Atlantic.
Natural resources
Greenland has large deposits of so-called rare earth minerals that are needed to make everything from computers and smartphones to the batteries, solar and wind technologies that will power the transition away from fossil fuels. The U.S. Geological Survey has also identified potential offshore deposits of oil and natural gas.
Greenlanders are keen to develop the resources, but they have enacted strict rules to protect the environment. There are also questions about the feasibility of extracting Greenland’s mineral wealth because of the region’s harsh climate.
Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, Friday, March 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
Climate change
Greenland’s retreating ice cap is exposing the country’s mineral wealth and melting sea ice is opening up the once-mythical Northwest Passage through the Arctic.
Greenland sits strategically along two potential routes through the Arctic, which would reduce shipping times between the North Atlantic and Pacific and bypass the bottlenecks of the Suez and Panama canals. While the routes aren’t likely to be commercially viable for many years, they are attracting attention.
Chinese interest
In 2018, China declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in an effort to gain more influence in the region. China has also announced plans to build a “Polar Silk Road” as part of its global Belt and Road Initiative, which has created economic links with countries around the world.
Large Icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland, Aug. 16, 2019. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
Then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected China’s move, saying: “Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?” A Chinese-backed rare earth mining project in Greenland stalled after the local government banned uranium mining in 2021.
Independence
The legislation that extended self-government to Greenland in 2009 also recognized the country’s right to independence under international law. Opinion polls show a majority of Greenlanders favor independence, though they differ on exactly when that should occur. The potential for independence raises questions about outside interference in Greenland that could threaten U.S. interests in the country.
President
North Korea fires several ballistic missiles after the US and South Korea began military drills

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired several ballistic missiles into the sea Monday, South Korea’s military said, hours after South Korean and U.S. troops kicked off their large annual combined drills, which the North views as an invasion rehearsal.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile firings, North Korea’s fifth missile launch event this year, were detected from the North’s southwestern Hwanghae province. It called the weapons close-range but didn’t say how far they flew. The military said South Korea bolstered its surveillance posture and is closely coordinating with the United States.
Earlier Monday, the South Korean and U.S. militaries began their annual Freedom Shield command post exercise, their first major combined training of President Donald Trump’s second term. The allies have already been engaging in diverse field training exercises in connection with the Freedom Shield training.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry warned Monday the latest training risks triggering “physical conflict” on the Korean Peninsula. It called the drills an “aggressive and confrontational war rehearsal” and reiterated leader Kim Jong Un’s stated goals for a “radical growth” of his nuclear force to counter what he claims as growing threats posed by the U.S. and its Asian allies.
This year’s training came after the South Korean and U.S. militaries paused live-fire training while Seoul investigates how its fighter jets mistakenly bombed a civilian area during a warm-up drill last week.
About 30 people were injured, two of them seriously, when two South Korean KF-16 fighter jets mistakenly fired eight MK-82 bombs on a civilian area in Pocheon, a town near the North Korean border, on Thursday. The bombing occurred while South Korean and U.S. forces were engaging in a live-fire drill ahead of the Freedom Shield exercise.
The initial assessment from the South Korean air force was that one of the KF-16 pilots entered the wrong coordinates and failed to visually verify the target before proceeding with the bombing. The second pilot had the correct coordinates but focused only on maintaining flight formation and dropped the bombs on the first pilot’s instructions without recognizing the target was wrong, according to the content of the latest briefing provided to The Associated Press.
Gen. Lee Youngsu, chief of staff of the South Korean air force, bowed and apologized Monday over the injuries and property damage caused by the bombing, which he said “should have never happened and must never happen again.”
Both the South Korean and U.S. militaries have halted all live-fire exercises in South Korea following the mistake. South Korean military officials say live-fire training will resume after they complete the investigation of the bombing and form preventative steps.
The South Korean air force earlier suspended the training flights of all its planes too but lifted the steps on Monday, except aircraft affiliated with the unit the two KF-16s belong to.
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