Editorials from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and others

Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

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June 27 – The New York Times say the rising national debt is already troublesome

The rise of the federal debt over the past two decades has prompted countless warnings that the United States is approaching a fiscal reckoning, a day when the government won’t be able to drink all it wants from the fountain of easy money.

The more immediate danger is that the fountain keeps flowing.

The fear of a future crisis is distracting attention from the problems that the government’s dependence on debt is already causing. We, the people, are spending a staggering amount of money each year to borrow money. The interest payments on the federal debt now exceed the government’s spending on the military. They are roughly equal to the annual cost of Medicare. The sum is more than the government spends on anything except Social Security.

President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” would deepen this profligacy, repeating the mistakes of the 2017 legislation on which it is based. Once again, Republicans are proposing to reduce taxation. Once again, they are proposing to force the government to borrow more to pay its bills. Once again, federal spending on interest payments would rise – and money spent on interest is money that can’t be spent on other things.

The government is on pace to pay more than $1 trillion to its lenders this year. The House version of Mr. Trump’s bill, already approved by that chamber, would increase interest payments on the debt by an average of $55 billion a year over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The increase alone is enough money to fully repair every bridge in the United States. The Senate is still working on its bill, but early signs suggest it may cost even more than the House version.

Because the Trump administration and House Republicans have savaged the C.B.O.’s analysis, it is worth adding that Phillip Swagel, who heads the office, is a Republican reappointed at the behest of House Republicans just two years ago. At the time, they praised his ” objectivity and integrity.” The C.B.O.’s analysis closely resembles independent assessments by the Penn Wharton Budget Model, the Yale Budget Lab and the Tax Foundation.

The C.B.O. also published an evaluation of the bill based on the methods that Republicans prefer, taking into account not just the direct impact on the government’s finances but also the indirect effects on the broader economy. That dynamic analysis found that the bill would have an even worse impact. The C.B.O. predicted that the expansion of federal borrowing would drive up interest rates, doubling the increase in borrowing costs to more than $100 billion a year.

And for what? Americans are being asked to bear this burden for a bill that would deliver tax cuts primarily to the wealthiest Americans while slashing health care and other government services for lower-income families. The C.B.O. estimates that the legislation would reduce the incomes of the poorest American families by almost 4 percent, while increasing the incomes of the wealthiest American families by more than 2 percent. It’s Robin Hood in reverse: Republicans are proposing to take hundreds of billions from the poor to give it to the rich. And the tax cuts are so large that they will add to the debt and force future generations to pay the bills.

The federal debt is as old as the nation, and adding to it can be prudent. During a war or a recession, when the government mobilizes resources, it makes sense to borrow money so that the cost can be spread out over time. Today’s debt is large partly because both parties backed big spending during the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.

In earlier eras, however, policymakers recognized the need to reduce the debt after a crisis had passed. Over the three decades after World War II, the debt shrank from an amount roughly equal to the nation’s annual economic output to less than a quarter of it. In recent decades, however, the United States has expanded borrowing even during periods of peace and economic growth. If Mr. Trump’s bill passes, the C.B.O. estimates the debt will equal 124 percent of annual economic output by 2034. That would be the largest debt in the nation’s history.

The increases in the debt are especially dangerous because after a long period of unusually low interest rates, rates have risen in recent years, making each dollar of borrowing more expensive. In the last fiscal year, the government paid an average rate of 3.6 percent. That was the highest average rate since 2009, but it was still lower than the average annual rates in every year between 1970 and 2008, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

An expansion of federal borrowing is very likely to increase the upward pressure on interest rates. Mr. Trump’s hostility to America’s democratic tradition also creates interest-rate risk. Michael Klein, an economist at Tufts University, says the popularity of Treasury debt (and the low interest rates investors accept to hold it) has long been bolstered by confidence in the rule of law in the United States and in the long-term health of our economy. The Trump administration appears to be shaking that confidence, Mr. Klein and Charles Collyns concluded in a recent analysis.

In 2023, we criticized the Biden administration as well as congressional Republicans for failing to take meaningful steps to reduce the debt during a period of prosperity. But while both parties bear some responsibility, they do not bear equal responsibility.

Three times in the past half-century, Republicans have enacted large tax cuts that necessitated significant increases in federal borrowing. Each time they insisted the cuts would drive economic growth, even claiming that the expansion would be so large that the government would collect more tax revenue. Each time, they’ve been proved wrong.

Mr. Trump’s bill would be the fourth iteration of this failed experiment, and some Republicans are still retailing the same fantasies about the consequences. “This will reduce the deficit, not increase it,” Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate majority leader, said last week. That is simply false.

The expected increase in the debt is particularly absurd because the government would borrow much of the money from the same people who got the biggest tax cuts from the bill. Roughly half of the government’s debt typically is sold to American investors, and those investors are disproportionately affluent. When the government borrows from them rather than raising taxes, it is getting the same money from the same people on less favorable terms. Instead of taxing the rich, the government pays them interest.

Bringing the debt under control will require two things above all else: The government needs to raise taxes, especially on the wealthy, and it needs to make long-term changes in Social Security and Medicare, the major drivers of spending growth. The Republican Party controls both houses of Congress and the White House. Mr. Trump and his allies have the power to deliver a fiscally responsible plan. Instead, they are playing make-believe.

A small number of Senate Republicans have expressed reservations about this situation. Senator Rick Scott of Florida has said the projected growth in the debt is “fiscal insanity,” and Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has called it “unacceptable.” They’re right about that much. The refusal to confront America’s fiscal problems has a price, and it is rising rapidly.

ONLINE: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/opinion/trump-budget-big-beautiful-bill.html

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June 29 – The Washington Post justices must take ownership of their own injunction rulings

A case the Supreme Court decided on Friday stemmed from President Donald Trump’s attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship, but the ruling’s implications go beyond even this big issue: The justices curbed the power of lower court judges to block illegal presidential actions, even as the sitting president tries to do things that are plainly unconstitutional. Now they need to own the consequences of their ruling. More than ever, they must be willing to act with speed and force when the president attempts to violate Americans’ rights.

The ruling inhibits federal district court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions, blocking the president from taking a certain action anywhere while the courts consider its legality. Practically speaking, the ruling means that – pending further judicial process – some Americans born to undocumented parents might see their country of citizenship deny them the legal recognition the Constitution guarantees them, and risk being deported.

The bigger picture, though, is that the justices have now reserved to themselves alone the ability to issue nationwide injunctions. This will make it easier for the president and his executive branch officials to violate even black-letter constitutional rights as the country waits for the high court to tell them to stop.

Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted that people could still get nationwide relief from district courts by filing class-action lawsuits, in which a class of people similarly harmed by a policy can seek a broad ruling against government overreach – a ruling that would apply to everyone who qualified for inclusion in the class. But class action litigation is hard. Certifying a class in court takes time and requires plaintiffs to overcome significant procedural hurdles. In fact, the Supreme Court in recent decades has made it more difficult to obtain certification.

Justice Samuel A. Alito in a concurring opinion even warned judges against seeing Friday’s decision as an “invitation to certify nationwide classes without scrupulous adherence” to the rules. “Otherwise,” he wrote, “the universal injunction will return from the grave under the guise of ‘nationwide class relief,’ and today’s decision will be of little more than minor academic interest.”

The court based its decision on concerns that federal judges have overstepped their authority when issuing nationwide injunctions. That concern is reasonable. Courts should reserve nationwide injunctions for only extreme cases, yet, in the past few decades, the number of nationwide rulings from district courts has risen exponentially. Partisan attorneys general and legal activists have engaged in brazen “forum shopping,” in which they file suit in areas where they are most likely to succeed. In some instances, they have gamed the system so that individual judges friendly to their cause oversee their cases. That has made it increasingly difficult for presidents of both parties to pursue their legitimate agendas, Barrett noted.

Congress should have fixed this problem by making it harder for plaintiffs to judge-shop. Lawmakers could have required judges in a district to be randomly assigned to cases, for example. They also could have curbed federal district courts’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions except in extraordinary circumstances, such as when a government official deliberately ignores settled law. Likewise, following Friday’s ruling, Congress could re-empower federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions within tight limits.

These sorts of reforms are still worth lawmakers’ time, as they would offer district court judges a narrow opportunity to curb true miscarriages of justice while combating abuse of such authority. No doubt, congressional Republicans today would resist such legislation. But they should consider how they would feel if the next Democratic president were as eager to test legal lines as Trump is.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court must raise its vigilance, halting severe abridgment of American liberties promptly and forcefully. The justices have now placed this responsibility upon themselves alone. They cannot act as though they have changed nothing.

ONLINE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/29/supreme-court-injunctions-birthright-citizenship-trump/

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June 29 – The Wall Street Journal says Donald Trump put his presidency at risk

A common feature of Donald Trump ‘s two terms as President is that he can’t stand political prosperity. When events are going in his direction, he has an uncanny habit of handing his opponents a sword.

The latest example came Sunday after GOP leaders dragged several holdouts across the line to vote aye and start debate over the Senate version of the budget reconciliation bill. The vote was 51-49, but Mr. Trump couldn’t leave victory alone.

Instead he unloaded on the two GOP dissenters, Rand Paul of Kentucky and especially Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Mr. Trump dumped three different Truth Social posts on Mr. Tillis, calling him a sellout, a “talker and complainer” and various other insults.

He also all but promised to support a Republican opponent in the GOP primary for Senate in 2026, when Mr. Tillis’s term ends. “Numerous people have come forward wanting to run in the Primary against ‘Senator Thom’ Tillis,” Mr. Trump said on Truth Social. “I will be meeting with them over the coming weeks, looking for someone who will properly represent the Great People of North Carolina.”

Mr. Tillis promptly said he won’t run for re-election. Even if Mr. Tillis had already been contemplating retirement, his withdrawal opens a seat that is another pickup opportunity for Democrats next year.

The GOP has a 53-47 majority now, but Susan Collins always has a tough race in Maine if she decides to run again. Democrats are targeting Joni Ernst in Iowa. In the suicide-isn’t-painless department, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is challenging GOP incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. Mr. Paxton may be the only Republican who could lose in Texas given his record harassing business with lawsuits, impeachment, and other embarrassments.

The GOP pickup opportunities are few, so with Mr. Tillis’s departure the Senate is in play for 2026. Oh, and on Saturday GOP Rep. Don Bacon said he won’t run for re-election in his swing Omaha seat. That’s a likely gain for Democrats in the House.

Messrs. Tillis and Bacon didn’t help themselves by echoing Democratic attacks against the GOP’s very modest Medicaid changes. But then Mr. Trump and GOP leaders haven’t helped them or the party by failing to make the moral and fiscal case for those reforms.

GOP legislative reforms will have no chance if Democrats take the House in 2026. And if they also take the Senate, forget about confirming another Supreme Court nominee. The Trump Presidency will be dead in the water.

ONLINE: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-puts-the-senate-in-play-in-2026-83b84ecd?mod=editorials_article_pos2

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June 29 – The Guardian says “green growth” and militarism have merged into a single policy frame

It’s an irony that the minerals needed to save the planet may help destroy it. Rare earth elements, the mineral backbones of wind turbines and electric vehicles, are now the prize in a geopolitical arms race. The trade agreement between Washington and Beijing restores rare earth shipments from China to the US, which had been suspended in retaliation against Donald Trump’s tariffs. Behind the bluster, there has been a realisation in Washington that these are critical inputs for the US. They are needed not just by American icons such as Ford and Boeing but for its fighter jets, missile guidance systems and satellite communications.

This understanding suggests that Washington will scale back some of its countermeasures once Beijing resumes delivery of rare earths. The paradox is that to reduce its dependence on China, the US must depend on Beijing a little longer. This is not yet decoupling; it’s deferment. That, however, may not last. Mr Trump has signed an executive order to boost production of critical minerals, which encourages the faster granting of permits for mining and processing projects. He eyes Ukraine and Greenland’s subterranean riches to break dependence on China.

The west became so reliant on a single geopolitical rival for such materials – materials it once extracted and refined domestically before shuttering operations – due to cost and environmental concerns. China, for its part, has come to dominate global rare earth processing. It has used that market power before – notably against Japan in 2010. It’s hard not to think that it was strategic complacency that led to the west relying so heavily on China for key minerals.

This month’s Nato summit has seen the west push to reindustrialise via rearming itself. This is also reawakening long-dormant extractive ambitions in the global north. Canada, flush with critical mineral deposits, says its planned mining resurgence will be a new foundation for alliance solidarity. This month the EU called for strategic reserves of rare earths “to prevent supply chain disruptions and economic blackmail from China” – highlighting their importance not just for electric vehicles but for defence and aerospace industries. “Resilience” means digging deeper at home and controlling extraction abroad.

The same minerals we need for net zero are being justified in terms of zero-sum rivalry. It is uncomfortable that “green growth” and militarism have merged into a single policy frame, collapsing the distinction between ecological transition and arms buildup. A magnet for an electric car is also a magnet for a hypersonic missile. And meanwhile, the human and ecological toll continues to rise – largely out of sight and out of sync with the idea of environmental sustainability.

A Guardian dispatch last week from Baotou, China’s rare earth capital, found evidence of toxic ponds, poisoned soil and demolished “cancer villages” – the hidden cost of our digital and electric age. Framing this as an inconvenient necessity risks repeating past mistakes. For mineral-rich nations, the surge in global demand brings opportunity. But as a UN report this year noted, without strong institutions and safeguards, it risks a familiar fate: corruption, conflict and environmental ruin.

Today’s scramble for critical minerals must not see the promises of responsible sourcing give way to a familiar logic – extract first, moralise later.

ONLINE: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/29/the-guardian-view-on-donald-trumps-china-deal-rare-earths-pave-the-green-road-to-militarisation

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June 30 – The Boston Globe says Trump should capitalize on the opportunity negotiate a meaningful nuclear deal with Iran

The Trump administration’s stunning decision to drop 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities has touched off an intense debate over the extent of the damage and raised critical questions about the country’s remaining capacity to build a nuclear weapon.

President Trump himself has predictably and perhaps hyperbolically declared that Iran’s nuclear weapons program has been completely destroyed. A very preliminary and possibly unreliable assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence agency almost immediately contradicted him, arguing that the nuclear program may have been set back by only a few months.

But more recently, a parade of authoritative voices have asserted that the damage was indeed significant. These include Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency; David Albright, an independent nuclear weapons expert who has worked with the IAEA; and Iran’s own foreign minister, who late last week said the country’s nuclear program had sustained “significant and serious” damage.

Gathering and interpreting intelligence is always a slow and complicated process, akin to discerning the elephant’s size by touching one patch of its hide. Many touches will be needed before the true scope of the damage is accurately understood.

But that debate should not distract from a more important truth. Whatever the actual damage turns out to be, many experts believe that Iran almost certainly still retains the knowhow and raw materials to someday build a bomb – whether it is months or years from now. The world should be united in opposing that dangerous scenario. The question is how.

Hawkish Israeli and American opponents of the Iranian regime seem to believe that toppling that regime is the only way to end its nuclear ambitions for good. But despite its military power, the United States could not possibly ensure that overthrowing Tehran’s theocracy would lead to a peaceful Iran. Violent, destabilizing chaos or an even more hawkish regime seem equally, if not more likely, scenarios.

The best answer, then, is diplomacy. Focused, clear-eyed, determined diplomacy. And that diplomacy could begin soon if Iranian and US negotiators return to the bargaining table in the coming weeks, as Trump officials have predicted. Iranian officials have yet to confirm those talks.

As president, Trump, for all his talk of loving the art of the deal, has shown little appetite or skill at the art form. But if he truly wants to be known as a peacemaker – and not someone who simply brokers short-term cease-fires – this is his opportunity.

The administration has already made clear that it thinks a long-term denuclearization pact should include these elements: an end to Iran’s uranium enrichment activities; restrictions on its ballistic missile production; and an end to its financing of terrorist proxies, namely Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. In exchange, sanctions that have throttled Iran’s economy would be lifted, and Western investment in the country could resume.

Tehran desperately wants sanctions lifted or at least eased. But it has drawn a red line regarding enrichment, which it maintains is necessary for nonmilitary purposes like fueling nuclear power plants. This is not a credible position, however, because the Iranians were clearly enriching uranium far beyond what was needed for civilian purposes. Convincing the regime’s negotiators to yield on this point has been and will continue to be difficult.

What matters is that the administration resume those negotiations, and soon. Many experts and Trump critics argue that Iran, rather than being chastened by the recent attacks, may now hasten to build a bomb to ensure that Israel and the United States refrain from trying to obliterate the regime.

A first step to Iran’s restarting of its weapons program would be for it to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which authorizes the IAEA to inspect its nuclear facilities. The Iranian Parliament has passed a resolution along these lines, though the country’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has yet to implement it.

But it is also possible that the regime, for all its defensive bluster, feels its back is to the wall and would be open to new talks. Israeli military action over the past year has decimated Iran’s two main proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, rendering Tehran a far less potent threat to the region. The Israel Defense Forces’ astonishingly effective assassinations of top Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists have also surely shaken the mullahs’ confidence.

By design or sheer blind luck, then, Trump may have a real window of opportunity to force Iran’s hand. He should not squander it by trying to maintain that no deal is needed because Iran’s nuclear program is completely gone. In the past, he has expressed both a desire for a denuclearization deal and disparaged the value of such a deal. His advisers must make sure that he does not confuse political rhetoric with reality.

The terrible irony of all this is that Trump now finds himself in the position of negotiating a deal that might wind up looking suspiciously like the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – the 2015 Obama-era pact that Trump withdrew from in 2018. That deal restricted Iran’s enrichment program, established an enhanced program of international inspections, and established tough sanctions for noncompliance.

Trump derided JCPOA as weak in part because most of its provisions were to sunset in 10 to 15 years. But after Trump withdrew from the pact, Iran accelerated its enrichment program, bringing it closer to a bomb. Trump would do well if he can reach a deal that is stronger and longer lasting than the JCPOA. But let’s not kid ourselves: If he simply attains something akin to JCPOA II, that would be a good thing for world peace.

If talks with Iran resume, there will inevitably be much noise from hawks and doves, Republicans and Democrats, about the utility of diplomacy. But like the debate over damage assessments, that talk shouldn’t be a distraction from the real goal: keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon now, in a few years, and forever.

The hard part has just begun. For better or worse, Donald Trump is the man who must make a deal happen. Will he have the focus and stamina to reach a real, meaningful agreement? History would suggest no. But we should all be hoping that he can.

ONLINE: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/30/opinion/iran-nuclear-deal-trump/