Washington skipped the tariff bill. Now China may have to pay it.

Today: a $67 billion solar fight, a judge awaiting sentencing for blocking ICE, Trump scrapping the Iran deal, Europe facing troop pressure, and the Pentagon admitting expensive drones are dying too fast.

On July 9, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, making citizenship, due process, and equal protection part of the Constitution.

Government power only works when it is bound by law.

Sen. Jon Husted says Chinese solar companies piled up $67 billion in unpaid US tariffs after a Biden-era moratorium paused certain duties on solar imports. A federal court has now ruled that moratorium illegal, putting the back bill back in play. The fight centers on Chinese-linked solar supply chains that routed products through trade channels while US manufacturers were told to compete against subsidized imports under rules Washington refused to enforce. Husted is pushing a payback effort to collect the duties that were not charged.

This is the part the green-energy lobby wants buried. Tariffs are not decoration. They are supposed to punish cheating, protect American workers, and stop China from gaming US markets with state-backed production. When the Biden team paused enforcement, it did not make the law disappear. It shifted the cost onto American manufacturers and created a giant retroactive mess for importers who acted like the pause was permanent. If courts let presidents ignore tariff law whenever the politics get hard, Congress becomes a prop and trade enforcement becomes optional.

What to watch next: how the Trump administration calculates the final bill, names the importers, and decides how aggressively to collect.

Former Wisconsin judge Hanna Dugan was convicted in federal court in December after prosecutors said she obstructed an immigration arrest inside a courthouse. The case grew out of President Trump's push to carry out lawful ICE arrests at courthouses. The defense called it a courthouse management dispute. The point is bigger: judges do not get veto power over federal law because they dislike the policy.

President Trump says the June 17 memorandum with Iran is effectively dead after Tehran's side violated the deal through new strikes. The agreement promised an end to military operations, sanctions relief, nuclear limits, and open shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump blasted Iranian leaders as "scum" and "cuckoo" after the reported violations. The media will obsess over the language. You should watch the enforcement.

Trump told Europe that US troop protection is not a blank check. He tied possible pullbacks to a "very good deal" involving US control of Greenland and European support tied to the war in Iran. The remarks came aboard Air Force One. The old arrangement was simple: America pays, Europe complains. Trump is forcing allies to face the cost of US protection.

The Supreme Court gave Trump more authority to remove certain federal officials, weakening protections Congress had built around parts of the bureaucracy. In a separate case, the court limited presidential power to impose tariffs without clear statutory backing. Trump gains more control over agency leadership, but the justices are also warning presidents not to treat tariffs like taxes imposed by decree. Accountability wins when voters can trace power to elected officials.

The Pentagon is hunting for cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iranian air defenses reportedly destroyed about $1 billion in MQ-9 Reaper-class aircraft. Defense leaders want attritable systems: cheap enough to lose, useful enough to strike. Expensive drones look great in budget charts until modern air defenses turn them into trophies. The procurement fight starts now, because the old model protects big programs while the battlefield demands mass production.

US rare earth miners are shipping much of their output to Japan and South Korea because America still lacks enough separation, refining, and magnet production. Trump has backed mining and supply-chain projects to cut China risk, but ore alone does not win the race. The money sits downstream, where raw material becomes magnets for drones, missiles, EVs, and jet engines. If US companies do not sign offtake deals, the supply chain stays overseas.

Republican campaign groups are tying swing-state Democrats to Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner, casting him as a symbol of Democratic candidate problems in 2026. This is not just a Maine story. GOP operatives want House and Senate Democrats answering questions about endorsements, donors, and judgment instead of talking kitchen-table issues. One bad nominee can become a national anchor if voters connect the pattern. Expect Platner's name to travel fast.

Andrew Giuliani, Executive Director of the White House Task Force for the World Cup, pushed back on Iran's complaints over visas and travel logistics. He said coordination worked smoothly for teams, staff, and fans during the group stage. Iran tried to turn tournament movement into a political attack on the United States. The White House answer is simple: operations worked, and hostile regimes do not get to define border performance.

The Federalist reports that a Wisconsin election-law loophole could allow absentee ballot choices to be linked back to individual voters through paperwork, storage, and records practices. That is not a clerical footnote. The secret ballot protects you from pressure, retaliation, and intimidation. Wisconsin is decided by tiny margins, so even edge-case privacy failures matter. If the report is accurate, lawmakers need to close the secret-ballot gap before activists exploit it.

I keep coming back to the same point today: enforcement is policy. Tariff law, immigration law, election law, defense contracts, and foreign deals all collapse when officials decide rules are optional. You do not get accountability from slogans. You get it when names, numbers, courts, and consequences stay in public view.

I'll keep tracking the money, the names, and the laws they tried to bend. Forward this to one person who needs to read it.

Stay free,

Brett Lee
Editor, Project Liberty
projectlibertyus.com

Follow: @projectlibertyus | @real_brett_lee