8 weird and troubling things Donald Trump did on day 15 back in the Oval Office

Donald Trump bottled it.

After walking everyone up the hill on his tariff trade war – at the last minute, he scrapped it, cancelling planned 25% import taxes on Mexico and Canada. And he didn’t even get much in return.

Meanwhile, America is starting to pay attention to the troubling activities of Elon Musk and his bully squad – but nobody in the White House seems to be entirely sure what the erratic tech billionaire’s job is, or under what authority he does it.

The President himself was exceptionally vague on that subject.

Meanwhile, Trump had a special visitor to the Oval Office.

Here’s all the most troubling things Donald Trump did on his 15th day back in the White House that you need to know today.

1. Displayed a replica of the World Cup. And this might be why…

Look behind Trump, on the display unit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.

Yep, it’s a replica of the World Cup.

At first glance, that might seem to be a weird thing to put display. He’s never expressed any love for the Beautiful Game. It wasn’t there last week. He hasn’t had a meeting from FIFA recently – not since FIFA President Gianni Infantino was at the Inauguration last week

Of course, Trump does famously love shiny gold things. And he’s quite fond of putting things in shot as a message to people who might be watching from afar.

And the US is co-hosting the World Cup next year – along with …Mexico and Canada.

Which leads us nicely on to…

2. He bottled his trade war with Mexico and Canada

The most significant thing that happened overnight was Trump backing off from his trade war – at least on the fronts against his two nearest neighbours, Canada and Mexico.

Mexico will be let off a 25% import tax because they promised to send 10,000 troops to stop people crossing the border into the US.

The awkward thing is they also sent 10,000 troops to stop people crossing the border into the US in 2021, when Joe Biden was President, and he didn’t have to threaten them with anything to do it.

Likewise, Canada’s “concessions” included a border security plan that had already been announced in December, and appointing a “fentanyl czar.”

Is it possible, then, that Trump saw how historically unpopular his plan was, and how screwed he was going to be the next time America went to Wal Mart to pick up some avocados, and scrambled to find anything he could to save face?

Either way, the 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico are “paused” for a month. China’s tariffs are still on, however. Seems Xi Jinping has less time for Donald’s nonsense.

3. Doubled the already false estimate of the number of condoms America is sending to Hamas

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump repeated the claim that America is directly funding the purchase of condoms for Hamas. But he doubled the amount America is spending on it.

Previously, he – and Elon Musk – claimed the US is spending £50 million on the programme. They aren’t.

You don’t even need inside information to know this isn’t true, just a calculator.

USAid, an agency that among many, many other things, distributes contraceptives to places where they are difficult and expensive to obtain, buys condoms for about 5c each.

That makes a billion condoms for the 1 million or so men (and male children) who live in Gaza. So about 1,000 each, which might seem ambitious to some.

In reality, USAID spent about $7 million on condoms last year, to distribute around 137m condoms. Worldwide.

And in the Oval Office last night, Trump upped the estimate to $100 million. Or 2,000 each. Ouch.

He added that Musk was finding other spending projects that were “frankly even more ridiculous”, which is a high bar.

4. Defended shutting down USAID

Trump defended Musk’s targeting of USAID, claiming it was wasteful and also that they found “probably fraud and abuse”.

Trump fired the Inspectors General – the people usually tasked with finding fraud and abuse in the US government – in his first week in office, so we suppose it’s good someone’s still looking for that kind of thing.

The White House issued a statement outlining some of the “wasteful spending” overseen by USAID – the agency which distributes US assistance and aid overseas that has been gutted, some would say illegally, by Elon Musk’s bully squad.

It lists a bunch of projects – some of which, granted are pretty hard to defend – linking most of them out to the same Daily Mail article by way of proof. Like a more malevolent Taxpayers Alliance press release.

What it didn’t include is any of the pretty vital work the agency does, which is absolutely in America’s interests, and which is now paused for 90 days while USAID gets subsumed into the State Department.

Things like using America’s soft power, influence and – yes – cash to counter Chinese influence around the world.

Or like funding Kurdish prison guards in Syria who were keeping more than 4,000 Islamic State fighters locked up – and guarding the many thousands of family members linked to IS in camps.

They also do boring stuff like feeding starving kids.

Oh, and something I mention for no reason at all, it played a huge part in bringing about the end of apartheid in South Africa, and supporting social, political and economic change in the country in the years since.

5. Nobody really knows what security clearance Elon Musk has

Asked what Elon Musk actually does and what his security clearance is, Karoline Leavitt, the Press Secretary, was not entirely forthcoming.

She confirmed he is a “special government employee” – but was super hazy on the details.

And she said she’d have to get back on what level of security he – and his bully boys, some of whom are literally teenagers – have.

Trump, in the Oval Office said Musk only has clearance to fire people who he thinks are “no good – and it’s only if we agree with him”.

6. Made everyone think they’d cancelled a genuinely useful and popular tax service because the team that made it was too “woke”

Another of Musk’s targets has been a tech team called 18F, which was behind Direct File – a genuinely popular service that saves American taxpayers a lot of money.

So, first of all, you need to know that in the US, employees have to calculate their own taxes. Here, employers do that for us through the PAYE system. America doesn’t do that. It’s weird.

And before Direct File, American taxpayers had to pay private services like TurboTax in order to file their tax returns every year – costing individuals about $170 a year.

In 2022, the US government rolled out the Direct File service in a number of states, which allowed Americans to file their tax returns online, directly with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Which seems like a mind-bogglingly obvious thing that should really have existed already, but never mind.

Anyway, because one of the team that built it was woke – meaning they had a relatively diverse workforce and had an inclusive workplace culture – Musk has seen it as a target.

This came to a head last night when Musk tweeted that it had been “deleted” – leading to confusion over whether Direct File was being “deleted too”.

At present, it still appears to be up and running.

But Musk has been retweeting people complaining that it’s some kind of far-left bid for (god forbid) the government to be in charge of filing people’s taxes, so who knows.

7. Took questions from the press…with Rupert Murdoch sitting in the corner

Trump spoke on camera to reporters in the Oval Office last night at length.

A number of things came up, like the setting up of a Sovereign Wealth Fund, and extorting Ukraine and letting Elon do basically whatever he wants.

But there was an elephant in the room. By which I mean a person with larger than average ears who is really old and has a long memory.

I’m talking about media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who for no adequately explained reason was sitting silently on a little chair at the side of the room throughout.

8. And wait – is he about to send US citizens to prison in El Salvador?

The other day Trump floated the idea of not only deporting undocumented people, but also American citizens who are repeat offenders.

The legality of this aside – and it’s almost certainly illegal – the practicalities have apparently been sorted.

We’ve been wondering for a few days why the Trump administration was so interested in El Salvador. The country’s President, Nayib Bukele, was high on Trump’s call list after taking office – much higher than Keir Starmer.

And Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited El Salvador yesterday in person. A weird early foreign trip, you might think.

But then Mr Bukele tweets this tempting offer: “We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system.

“We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee. The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.”

Salvadorian mega prisons are notoriously brutal.

In fact, the US State Department’s travel advisory for El Salvador includes a stern warning about “harsh” prison conditions, without access to due process.

It reads: “Overcrowding constitutes a serious threat to prisoners’ health and lives. In many facilities, provisions for sanitation, potable water, ventilation, temperature control, and lighting are inadequate or nonexistent.”

You can see the lawsuits piling up already.