| President Donald Trump’s last few days were spent making deals on everything from semiconductors to commercial airliners in the Middle East, along with driving into the region’s complicated — and shifting — politics. For the president, it’s all interconnected. “I’m using trade to settle scores, and to make peace,” Trump told Fox News, responding to a question about negotiating with Iran on its nuclear program. His response highlights just how much Trump views trade as essential to his broader agenda, foreign and domestic. And tariffs are his favorite tool for the job.  Trump boards Air Force One as leaves United Arab Emirates. Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images Europe While Trump once touted the prospect of lining up US trading partners to negotiate on the tariffs he imposed on April 2, then paused for three months, he’s giving his team a new task: setting tariff rates and informing other countries by letter what “they’ll be paying to do business in the United States.” That’s going to be happening over the next two to three weeks. There could still be an appeal process, Trump said, without elaborating. And there still may be negotiations with select trading partners. Still it raises doubts about whether all this can be settled by the time the 90-day pause runs out in July. “One-hundred-fifty countries want to make a deal,” he said today before leaving the United Arab Emirates. “But it’s not possible to meet the number of people that want to see us.” There’s some building domestic pressure for an end to what’s been a tariff roller coaster. American consumers have mostly been shielded from much tariff pain so far as businesses absorbed most of the hit from the duties that took effect last month. But the worry is there. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index fell to its second-lowest level on record. And Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, warned this week that tariff-related price increases are coming. Trump has given the job of detailing US trade conditions to other countries to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. So far, there have been agreements announced with China and the UK, though they are only broad frameworks with major details still to be worked out. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett teased earlier this week that the president was likely to announce a new trade pact upon his return to Washington. That would make three down and 147 to go. Other developments this week: - Chip concerns: The semiconductor deals for artificial intelligence projects that Trump struck while in the Middle East have some China hawks in his administration raising concerns that they put US national security and economic interests at risk, Bloomberg’s Mackenzie Hawkins and Jenny Leonard reported. As a result, some senior officials are seeking to slow down those deals over worries that the US hasn’t imposed sufficient guardrails to prevent American chips shipped to the Gulf from ultimately benefiting China, which has deep ties in the region, according to people familiar with the matter.
- Birthright challenge: Supreme Court justices signaled they are wary of letting Trump limit birthright citizenship by executive order as they heard oral arguments for the first time on one of the president’s initiatives to overhaul the government, my colleague Greg Stohr reported. But the justices also suggested they want to limit the ability of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions, the question at issue in the case. Trump administration lawyers argued the three federal judges who have blocked Trump’s order on birthright citizenship should have limited their orders to the parties involved in the lawsuits challenging it.
- Syria breakthrough: Trump’s meeting with new Syrian leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia this week may be one of the most significant outcomes of his trip to the Middle East. The US president said he’s ready to ease sanctions while saying Sharaa also must take actions, including getting rid of foreign fighters in Syria and agreeing to ties with Israel. Making good on those promises, though, presents a thorny challenge for Trump, Bloomberg’s Sam Dagher reported. Syria, which is technically still at war with Israel, has been under myriad US sanctions since its 1979 designation by Washington as a state sponsor of terrorism.
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