The Latest: Trump signs $8.5 billion rare earths deal with Australian prime minister

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President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed an $8.5 billion rare earths deal, creating a pipeline for the critical resources as a potential counterpoint to China’s new export restrictions.

Beijing said it will require Chinese government approval for any exports of magnets that contain even trace amounts of rare earth materials that originated from China, or that were produced with Chinese technology. The U.S. Trade Representative said this gives China broad power over the global economy by controlling the tech supply chain, making Australia’s mining economy a key alternative for critical minerals sought by the U.S.

Meanwhile, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll finds Americans growing increasingly concerned about their ability to find a good job under Trump. It’s a potential warning sign for Republicans as a promised economic boom has given way to hiring freezes and elevated inflation.

The Latest:

Asked about maintaining the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, Trump said the U.S. will give the situation a “little chance” in hopes that there will be less violence.

Israeli forces on Sunday killed dozens in strikes in Gaza after it accused Hamas militants of killing two soldiers.

Trump said Hamas must behave or face consequences.

“They have to be good, and if they’re not good they’ll be eradicated,” he said.

The president warned, “If they keep doing it, then we’re going to go in and straighten it out, and it’ll happen very quickly and pretty violently.”

Trump said he wasn’t talking about U.S. boots on the ground, but some of the other countries that backed the ceasefire agreement.

Federal officials are in court in Chicago to take questions about the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the region, which has produced more than 1,000 arrests as well as complaints that agents are increasingly using combative tactics.

The hearing comes a few days after a judge ordered uniformed immigration agents to wear body cameras, if available, and turn them on when engaged in arrests, frisks and building searches or when being deployed to protests.

Each Border Patrol agent who is part of Operation Midway Blitz “now has a body-worn camera,” said Kyle Harvick, deputy incident commander with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis last week said she was a “little startled” after seeing TV images of street confrontations that involved tear gas and other tactics during the immigration sweep.

“The longer we loiter on a scene and subjects come, the situation gets more and more dangerous,” Harvick testified.

The president said he’s “doing a little bit of a tour” of the continent.

“I’ll be in Malaysia, I’ll be in Japan,” he said.

Trump previously committed to visiting South Korea, where he expects to meet with Xi.He also said he’ll visit China “fairly early next year.”

“They could still win it,” Trump said of Ukraine. “I don’t think they will. They could still win it. I never said they would win it. Anything can happen, you know war is a very strange thing.”

Trump on Friday called on Kyiv and Moscow to “stop where they are” and end their brutal war following a lengthy White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, another shift in his position on the war.

After meeting with Zelenskyy in New York on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly last month, Trump even said he believed the Ukrainians could win back all the the territory they had lost to Russia since Putin launched the February 2022 invasion. That was a dramatic shift for Trump, who during his 2024 and much of the early going of his presidency insisted that Kyiv would have to concede land lost to Russia to end the war.

“We want to enact a bipartisan spending agreement, but it actually has to make life better for the American people, not continue policies that are hurting everyday Americans,” Hakeem Jeffries said of Democrats’ stance in shutdown negotiations during an interview at the New York Economic Club.

Jeffries added that Republican claims that Democrats want to provide health care services to people in the U.S. illegally was “divorced from reality” and that Republicans “go-to refrain is waste, fraud and abuse, then you actually ask them to point out where’s the waste, fraud and abuse, and it’s crickets.”

He reiterated that Democrats’ message on affordability, health care and alleged corruption would be the party’s main messages heading into the 2026 midterm elections.Discussing the national debt, Jeffries said that “at minimum, divided government” was needed to reach a sustainable spending plan for the country.

The president says he’ll soon meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and that he expects “we’ll probably work out a very fair deal” with China.

“I think we’re going to work out something that’s good for both countries,” Trump said. Beijing has not announced any plan for Xi to travel to South Korea, where Trump says he plans to meet the Chinese president, though it’s not unusual for Beijing to make announcements closer to the date.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week spoke with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, and he’s said the two sides would meet in Malaysia later this week to help prepare for a leaders summit.

The U.S. secretary of state and Russian foreign minister spoke by phone on Monday to discuss next steps toward ending the Russia-Ukraine war, following conversations last week between presidents Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Both of their ministries issued similar vague statements that the conversation built on understandings reached by Trump and Putin in their Oct. 16 call.

After that, Trump said he expected to meet with Putin in the coming weeks and that Rubio would meet a high-level Russian delegation, presumably led by Lavrov, this week. Neither the U.S. or Russian statements mentioned when either of those meetings might happen or where.

The Russian statement described Rubio-Lavrov call as “constructive” while the U.S. statement said that Rubio had “emphasized the importance of upcoming engagements as an opportunity for Moscow and Washington to collaborate on advancing a durable resolution of the Russia-Ukraine war.”

The former vice president says the Democrats are right to take a stand for saving the health care of the American people, particularly as they see how Trump’s budget law will increase their premiums next year.

“Nov. 1, people are going to really start feeling it in a very painful way,” Harris told the Associated Press in an interview during her book tour.

“When you talk about who’s responsible for this predicament, understand that the Republicans control the House, they control the Senate, they control the White House. They are in charge. And they are responsible for the shutdown.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright says furloughs have begun at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency tasked with overseeing the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

In a social media post Monday, Wright said the agency is furloughing federal employees “due to the Schumer shutdown,″ a reference to the government shutdown that began Oct. 1.

Wright said he is visiting the Nevada National Security Site Monday and will “ask Nevada’s leaders to help us end this shutdown.”

The NNSA has said it could furlough up to 1,400 workers as a result of a funding lapse from the shutdown. Nearly 400 federal workers would remain on the job, along with NNSA contractors. The agency, a semi-autonomous branch of the Department of Energy, also works secure nuclear materials around the world.

Trump and Albanese both said they hoped to get “a lot” done during their meeting.

Asked for his message to the people of Australia, Trump said, “We love them.”

Both leaders are now inside the White House preparing to appear before members of the U.S. and Australian press corps.

The Republican House speaker says it’s time to make progress on government funding talks now that demonstrators have had their march against Trump.

Johnson said the shutdown now on its 20th day has been about Chuck Schumer’s survival, accusing the Senate minority leader of trying to appease the left and show he is fighting the Trump agenda.

“Now that Democrats have had their protests and publicity stunts, I just pray that they come to their senses and end this shutdown and reopen the government this week,” Johnson said.

The House has not held votes since it passed a short-term funding bill on September 19th. Johnson says the House has done its job and now it’s up to the Senate to act.

Colombia has recalled its ambassador to the United States amid an increasingly angry back-and-forth between Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

Colombia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said Monday that Amb. Daniel García-Peña Jaramillo was already in Bogota.

Tensions increased Sunday when Trump called Petro “an illegal drug leader” and “a lunatic” after Petro had accused the U.S. government of killing a Colombian citizen in a Sept. 16 strike on a boat the U.S. said was allegedly carrying drugs. Petro said one of those aboard was a fisherman named Alejandro Carranza and that his boat was malfunctioning when hit.

American naval ships, fighter jets and drones are deployed in the region for what the administration has described as an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

“The United States has invaded our national territory, fired a missile to kill a humble fisherman, and destroyed his family, his children,” Petro wrote on his social media.

Metal shrapnel from an exploding artillery shell hit and damaged a California Highway Patrol vehicle as personnel at a U.S. Marine Corps base fired live rounds over a highway — against the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom — during weekend exercises observed by Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, state authorities said Sunday. No one was injured.

GOP Rep. Darrell Issa had called it “a spiteful publicity stunt” when Newsom strongly objected to the firing of munitions over Interstate 5 for safety reasons and ordered the highway closed between Los Angeles and San Diego during the drills. A spokesperson for Vance, William Martin, had issued a statement accusing Newsom of misleading the public about the safety risk.

The Supreme Court said on Monday that it will consider whether people who regularly smoke marijuana can legally own guns, the latest firearm case to come before the court since its 2022 decision expanding gun rights.

Trump’s administration asked the justices to revive a case against a Texas man charged with a felony because he allegedly had a gun in his home and acknowledged being a regular pot user. The Republican administration favors Second Amendment rights, but government attorneys argued that this ban is a justifiable restriction.

The man’s attorneys argue that the broadly written law puts millions of people at risk of technical violations since at least 20% of Americans have tried pot, according to government health data. About half of states legalized recreational marijuana, but it’s still illegal under federal law.

▶ Read more about the Trump administration’s case against marijuana users

The “No Kings” demonstrations that drew crowds to large cities and hundreds of smaller public spaces across the United States is giving protesters hope that resistance is growing to President Donald Trump’s authoritarian rule.

Trump’s Republican Party disparaged the demonstrations as “Hate America” rallies, but the crowds were joyful and full of red-white-and-blue costumes, featuring marching bands, demonstrators in inflatable costumes and huge banners with the U.S. Constitution’s “We The People” preamble that people could sign.

People carrying signs with slogans such as “Nothing is more patriotic than protesting” and “Resist Fascism.” It was the third mass mobilization since Trump’s return to the White House.

“Big rallies like this give confidence to people who have been sitting on the sidelines but are ready to speak up,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy said in an interview with The Associated Press.

▶ See images of this latest round of “No Kings” rallies

President Donald Trump is hosting Australian Prime Minster Anthony Albanese at the White House. The prime minister’s office says their focus will be trade and defense. Up for discussion is AUKUS, a security pact with Australia, the U.S. and the United Kingdom that was signed during the Biden administration.

“Australia and the United States have stood shoulder-to-shoulder in every major conflict for over a century,” Albanese said ahead of the meeting. Australia’s ministers overseeing resources and industry and science are joining him.

The president will have Senate Republicans over for lunch at the newly-renovated Rose Garden patio on Tuesday.

Trump has been fond of hosting aides, lawmakers and other allies at the Rose Garden, which has been paved over, for events.

When the Senate is in session, GOP senators meet every Tuesday (as well as Wednesdays and Thursdays) for lunch to strategize about the week ahead.

The gathering was first reported by Punchbowl News. The lunch was confirmed by a person granted anonymity to speak about plans not yet made public.

— By Seung Min Kim

Americans are growing increasingly concerned about their ability to find a good job under Trump, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll finds. It's a potential warning sign for Republicans as a promised economic boom has given way to hiring freezes and elevated inflation.

High prices for groceries, housing and health care persist as a fear for many households, while rising electricity bills and the cost of gas at the pump are also sources of anxiety, according to the survey. Some 47% of U.S. adults are “not very” or “not at all confident” they could find a good job if they wanted to, an increase from 37% when the question was last asked in October 2023. And more than half say the cost of groceries is a “major” source of financial stress.

Read more from the AP-NORC poll

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his reportedly tense meeting with Trump on Friday was “positive” — even though he did not secure the Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine — and emphasized what he said is continued American interest in economic deals with Kyiv.

In comments embargoed until Monday morning, Zelenskyy said Trump reneged on the possibility of sending the long-range missiles to Ukraine, which would have been a major boost for Kyiv, following his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin hours before the White House meeting.

“In my opinion, he does not want an escalation with the Russians until he meets with them,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Sunday.

According to Zelenskyy, Trump said during their meeting that Putin’s maximalist demand — that Ukraine cede the entirety of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions — was unchanged. Zelenskyy said Trump ultimately supported a freeze along the current front line, so his overall message “is positive” for Ukraine.

Read more about Trump, Russia and Ukraine

China likes to condemn the United States for extending its arm too far beyond its borders to make demands on non-American companies. But when it sought to hit back at the U.S. interests this month, Beijing did exactly the same.

In expanding export rules on rare earths, Beijing for the first time announced it will require foreign firms to obtain approval from the Chinese government to export magnets containing even tiny amounts of China-originated rare earth materials or produced with Chinese technology.

That means a South Korean smartphone maker must ask for Beijing’s permission to sell the devices to Australia if the phones contain China-originated rare earth materials, said Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative. “This rule gives China control over basically the entire global economy in the technology supply chain,” he said.

Read more about China now using US trade war tactics