| ➔ INTERNATIONAL: The president’s reliance on sanctions as a national security and trade tool expanded this week, but with limited evidence of concessions by those targeted for punishment. Iran: Trump began his day Tuesday with a statement that renewed U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran “are the most biting sanctions ever imposed.” In a tweet, the president said companies doing business with Iran are now shut out of the U.S. marketplace. > On the other side of that squeeze play is the European Union, which lobbed a threat of its own. European firms that halt their business with Iran because of the U.S. sanctions may face sanctions imposed by the EU, officials said (NBC News). > On Tuesday, German car and truck manufacturer Daimler, parent of Mercedes-Benz, said the company abandoned expansion plans in Iran because of the Trump administration’s sanctions (Reuters). > Many U.S. companies that began doing business in Iran after economic sanctions were lifted as part of a nuclear pact signed with Tehran in 2015 reversed course and pulled out by June and July, anticipating that sanctions would be the policy of the Trump administration. China: The Hill: The Trump administration on Tuesday released a list of approximately $16 billion worth of imports from China that will be subject to 25 percent in additional tariffs, the U.S. Trade Representative announced. The new levies follow tariffs imposed by the United States July 6 on $34 billion of imports from China. The administration’s vow to slap more tariffs on China’s goods in two weeks escalated an ongoing trade war (Bloomberg). North Korea: Trump national security adviser John Bolton said on Tuesday that North Korea has not taken steps to wind down its nuclear weapons program, as it indicated it would during a June summit with Kim Jong Un. “The United States has lived up to the Singapore declaration. It’s just North Korea that has not taken the steps we feel are necessary to denuclearize,” Bolton said during an interview with Fox News Channel (The Washington Post). Bolton said the U.S. is pushing Pyongyang: “We’re going to continue to apply maximum pressure to North Korea until they denuclearize, just as we are to Iran.” ➔ WASHINGTON ROUNDUP: People: House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is sitting for exit interviews with the news media this summer as he winds up his Capitol Hill career. New York Times magazine profiler Mark Leibovich reports on a conservative congressman who defends why he came to Congress, and explains why Trump came as such a shock. “I can look myself in the mirror at the end of the day and say I avoided that tragedy, I avoided that tragedy, I avoided that tragedy. … I advanced this goal, I advanced this goal, I advanced this goal.” – Ryan A less flattering profile of a government official appears in Forbes, describing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (and his business pattern of “grifting”). Pentagon braces for outer space: Following Trump’s direction, the Pentagon is expected to deliver to Congress plans for the Defense Department’s concept of a Space Force, but likely without calling on the legislative branch to create a sixth military service (ABC News). Current and former U.S. officials are divided about the need for a Space Force, even as they acknowledge the national security and communications rationales. “We need to address space as a developing war fighting domain," Defense Secretary James Mattis told ABC News. Defense One reported on a draft of the Pentagon’s plans a week ago. The proposals call for the creation of a new combatant command, a new joint agency for satellite purchases, and a new war fighting community that pulls in space operators from all service branches. Immigration: CNN confirmed a report by NBC News on Tuesday that the White House wants new rules, geared to stand up in court, that would penalize migrants seeking citizenship and legal status if they have tapped certain federal benefits programs … The New York Times reports how the administration’s plan to punish immigrants for using welfare, even if weeks away from an official unveiling, could deliver a political benefit: improved GOP election prospects. > Separately, the American Civil Liberties Union announced on Tuesday it will bring suit against Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the administration for denying asylum protections to some immigrants who came the United States fleeing domestic violence and gang brutality in their home countries. “These policies undermine the fundamental human rights of women and violate decades of settled asylum law,” the organization asserts (The Hill). Tech & Media: Lawyers for a group of journalists and researchers asked Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg to change the company’s restrictions limiting how research can be conducted on the site. They want Facebook to create a news-gathering exception to its bans on creating inauthentic accounts and on using automated tools that scrape public data about users for use in large-scale analysis (The New York Times). > Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) defended the decision announced Monday by tech companies including Facebook to delete some content created by conspiracy enthusiast Alex Jones and posted to his Infowars site, arguing the decision differs from government censorship. (Background: Jones famously denies that the Sandy Hook school shootings of 2012 ever took place, when in fact, 20 children and six adults were killed in the state the senator represents.) 
© Twitter > In the U.K. on Tuesday, Instagram reinstated the account of Tommy Robinson, a far-right activist whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. Robinson, recently released from prison, complained that Instagram, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing service, censored his account because of his views. The company said Robinson’s account was deleted in error (The Guardian). > Facebook wants users’ private banking and financial data (The Washington Post). > Forty-three percent of Republicans surveyed in a new Ipsos poll said Trump should have the authority to shut down the news media. Almost a third of Americans (29 percent) say “the news media [are] the enemy of the people,” offering support for a false statement often voiced by the president as his opinion (The Hill). Federal security clearances: The president may soon sign an executive order to transfer the government’s security clearance program from the Office of Personnel Management to the Pentagon. The transfer is one of several reform ideas the administration proposed as part of its plan, unveiled this year, to reorganize federal agencies and streamline operations (Federal News Radio). West Wing: Wall Street Journal columnist Gerald F. Seib reports that Trump wants to be his own White House chief of staff, even if John Kelly keeps that role into 2019 or beyond. The president has now surrounded himself with aides and advisers of his generation, gender and similar end-of-career status for a reason, Seib writes: They let “Trump be Trump.” | 
