US politics live: Donald Trump threatens ‘all hell will break loose’ if Hamas doesn’t keep releasing hostages

While skating between questions about his new tariffs, Donald Trump found time to issue an ominous new threat.

Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of our live US politics coverage.

Australia has a greater stake than usual in today’s events, given Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s phone call with Donald Trump. The pair discussed yesterday’s announcement, from the US President, that he intends to impose whopping 25 per cent tariffs on America’s steel and aluminium imports – a move that would hit the Australian economy.

When Mr Trump imposed similar tariffs during his first presidency, Australia was one of several trading partners that secured an exemption. Mr Albanese hopes he can repeat that feat, though this time it might be harder.

After this morning’s phone call, he said an exemption was “under consideration”. About an hour later, however, Mr Trump signed executive orders imposing the tariffs in the Oval Office, and stressed that they would operate “without exemptions”.

Awkward.

The President has also further clarified his intentions regarding the Gaza Strip, both in the short term and the long term.

In said short term, he threatened that “all hell will break out” if Hamas fails to keep releasing its Israeli hostages, as previously promised.

In the longer term, Mr Trump has said in unambiguous terms that Gaza’s current Palestinian residents – all twoish million of them – should have no right to return once the rebuilding of Gaza is done.

I do mean unambiguous. Here is the exchange.

“Would the Palestinians have the right to return?” Fox News host Bret Baier asked during an interview with Mr Trump.

“No, they wouldn’t,” said the President.

His idea, here, is that the Palestinians be ejected into neighbouring Arab countries, probably Jordan and Egypt. Critics say this would constitute ethnic cleansing.

“We’ll build beautiful communities for the 1.9 million people,” Mr Trump said in his new remarks, to Baier.

“Could be five, six, could be two. But we’ll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is. In the meantime, I would own this.

“Think of it as a real estate development.”

Within the United States itself, legal tensions continue, particularly regarding Mr Trump’s efforts to halt reams of federal spending. A judge has now accused the Trump administration of ignoring his order that it temporarily unfreeze certain funds.

This question, of whether Mr Trump will openly defy the courts, has been lurking in the background throughout his first three weeks in power.

Read on for the latest updates.

Originally published as US politics live: Donald Trump threatens ‘all hell will break loose’ if Hamas doesn’t keep releasing hostages