*By Justin Chermol & Megan Pratz*
After Iran's Revolutionary Guard seized a foreign tanker accused of smuggling oil through the Strait of Hormuz Thursday morning, President Trump announced a Navy ship has shot down an Iranian drone.
"The \[USS\] Boxer took defensive action against an Iranian drone," Trump said in a flag presentation ceremony at the White House with Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands.
"The drone was immediately destroyed," Trump added.
Those escalations have made officials, including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) nervous about potential U.S. military action in the Middle East, as Tehran and Washington continue to [spar over the strait](https://cheddar.com/media/iran-escalations-will-likely-wipe-out-recent-decline-in-gas-prices), one of the most important passageways for oil shipping in the world.
"Iran has about .55 percent of global GDP, we're at 24 percent, China is at 15 percent, the entire Middle East is at 3.5 percent, it's just not in our strategic interest to spend trillions of dollars on another war that could be better spent on broadband here, on education, on infrastructure," Khanna told Cheddar Thursday.
Last week, Khanna and Rep. Matt Gaetz's (R-Fla.) bipartisan amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act in order to prohibit funds from being used with a war against Iran passed 251-170. Khanna called the amendment's sweeping victory in the House "historic", adding: "It will really show that our nation has learned its lesson."
It will now move on to the Senate, where he hopes it will be added to the defense funding bill.
"This amendment affirms what President Trump knows and believes: unfocused, unconstitutional, unending wars in the Middle East make America weaker, not stronger," Gaetz [said in a statement](https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/release-rep-khanna-and-rep-gaetz-introduce-bipartisan-amendment-prohibit-funds).
In May of last year, President Trump announced the U.S. exit from the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal. Trump has called the deal, brokered by President Obama, the "worst deal ever."
Khanna says, were it up to him, he would immediately get back into the agreement: "That's what helped prevent Iran from going nuclear," he said, adding: "Even Secretary Mattis and General Dunford all said that Iran was complying with that."
U.S. and Chinese officials say a trade deal between the world’s two largest economies is drawing closer. The sides have reached an initial consensus for President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to aim to finalize during their high-stakes meeting Thursday in South Korea. Any agreement would be a relief to international markets. Trump's treasury secretary says discussions with China yielded preliminary agreements to stop the precursor chemicals for fentanyl from coming into the United States. Scott Bessent also says Beijing would make “substantial” purchases of soybean and other agricultural products while putting off export controls on rare earth elements needed for advanced technologies.
A new poll finds most U.S. adults are worried about health care becoming more expensive.
The White House budget office says mass firings of federal workers have started in an attempt to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.
President Donald Trump says “there seems to be no reason” to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as part of an upcoming trip to South Korea after China restricted exports of rare earths needed for American industry. The Republican president suggested Friday he was looking at a “massive increase” of import taxes on Chinese products in response to Xi’s moves. Trump says one of the policies the U.S. is calculating is "a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States." A monthslong calm on Wall Street was shattered, with U.S. stocks falling on the news. The Chinese Embassy in Washington hasn't responded to an Associated Press request for comment.
Most members of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate setting committee supported further reductions to its key interest rate this year, minutes from last month’s meeting showed.
From Wall Street trading floors to the Federal Reserve to economists sipping coffee in their home offices, the first Friday morning of the month typically brings a quiet hush around 8:30 a.m. eastern, as everyone awaits the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report.
The Supreme Court is allowing Lisa Cook to remain as a Federal Reserve governor for now.
Rep. John Moolenaar has requested an urgent briefing from the White House after Trump supported a deal giving Americans a majority stake in TikTok.
A new report finds the Department of Government Efficiency’s remaking of the federal workforce has battered the Washington job market and put more households in the metropolitan area in financial distress.
A new poll finds U.S. adults are more likely than they were a year ago to think immigrants in the country legally benefit the economy. That comes as President Donald Trump's administration imposes new restrictions targeting legal pathways into the country. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey finds Americans are more likely than they were in March 2024 to say it’s a “major benefit” that people who come to the U.S. legally contribute to the economy and help American companies get the expertise of skilled workers. At the same time, perceptions of illegal immigration haven’t shifted meaningfully. Americans still see fewer benefits from people who come to the U.S. illegally.
