Donald Trump Aims to Eliminate Union Rights for Numerous Government Agency Workers – Live Updates on US Politics

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asserted that the Trump administration would enhance military partnerships with the Philippines to strengthen deterrence against ‘threats from the communist Chinese’ and uphold freedom of navigation in the contested South China Sea.

Hegseth spoke on Friday during a meeting with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr in the Philippines, marking his first stop in his inaugural trip to Asia, reaffirming Washington’s ‘ironclad’ commitment to the region under Trump.

Prior to the visit, China labeled the United States a ‘predator’ and an unreliable ally, according to AP.

Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy focus has incited worries in Asia regarding the extent and depth of US commitment to the region.

Making the Philippines his initial destination in Asia, followed by Japan—both US treaty allies entangled in territorial disputes with China—was the strongest assurance yet from the US under Trump to sustain a security presence in the area.

Chris Stein

For congressional Democrats facing challenges and division, the revelation that President Trump’s national security team discussed plans to bomb Yemen on a publicly accessible messaging app in front of a journalist came at an opportune moment.

This leak has placed the White House and Republicans under scrutiny, igniting a stream of aggressive media coverage, and compelling top officials to publicly contort themselves to explain—or downplay—the incident.

Moreover, it has rallied the Democrats at a time when they seemed fractured in their approach to combat the radical agenda of the Trump administration, enabling some Republicans to express joint criticism with them. On Thursday, the leading Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee jointly requested the acting inspector general of the Defense Department to probe the leak.

“If accurate, this reporting raises significant questions about the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with individuals lacking proper clearance and who do not have a need to know,” wrote Republicans Roger Wicker and Democrat Jack Reed.

Donald Trump unveiled his plans to transform the Smithsonian Institution through an executive order issued on Thursday, aiming to redirect funding away from programs that propagate ‘divisive narratives’ and ‘improper ideology’.

The president emphasized that over the last decade, there has been a ‘concerted and widespread’ initiative to alter US history by replacing ‘objective facts’ with a ‘distorted narrative influenced by ideology rather than reality.’

He signed an executive order assigning JD Vance to oversee efforts to ‘eliminate improper ideology’ from the Smithsonian Institution, including its museums, educational and research institutions, as well as the National Zoo.

Trump’s directive explicitly mentions the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Women’s History Museum, which is currently under development.

The order stated, ‘Museums located in our Nation’s capital should serve as venues for education—rather than spaces for ideological indoctrination or narratives that distort our mutual history.’

Linda St Thomas, the chief spokesperson for the Smithsonian Institution, stated in an email late Thursday: ‘We have no comment for now.’

Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose, here to provide you with the latest updates throughout the morning.

We commence with reports that President Donald Trump has enacted an executive order restricting many federal workers from unionizing and mandating the government to cease any collective bargaining efforts.

A memo from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) refers to an order from Trump but also offers a fact sheet, outlining the rationale for such a decision, as reported by The Hill.

It states: “President Trump is taking steps to ensure that agencies essential to national security can carry out their missions without delay and safeguard the American citizenry.”

The Hill reported today:

The order specifically targets agencies deemed to have a national security function, although numerous departments lack clear connections to national security.

Alongside all agencies under the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of State, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, the order also encompasses the Treasury Department, Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the General Services Administration, among others.

In total, the OPM memo refers to 18 departments and includes various component agencies. The OPM memo instructs agencies to dissolve their collective bargaining agreements.

“Thus, those agencies and divisions are no longer obligated to collectively bargain with Federal unions,” states the OPM memo.

As the legal foundation for the unions’ prior recognition is no longer applicable, unions forfeit their status as ‘exclusively recognized’ labor organizations for agency employees.

The memo additionally instructs that “agencies should refrain from engaging in grievance procedures following the termination of their CBA [collective bargaining agreements].”

This decision has faced backlash from the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) in a communication to its members, asserting that the <a href=”https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration” data-component=”auto-linked-tag”>Trump administration</a> is “illegally stripping collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal employees.”

The AFGE elaborated:

Let’s be clear. National security is not the rationale for this action. This is retaliation against our union for advocating for AFGE members—an alert to every union: comply, or else.

AFGE will not back down. We are prepared to combat this. Legal actions are underway.

In other developments:

• Lawmakers have sent a bipartisan letter to the inspector general of the Pentagon seeking an investigation into the Signal group chat where the defense secretary discussed attack plans on a non-secure device.

• Concerned about potentially losing her position in the House, Donald Trump withdrew Representative Elise Stefanik’s nomination for UN Ambassador.

• Judge James Boasberg mandated that all relevant government agencies must retain the Signal group chat messages that are currently subject to litigation.

• In response to reports that 300 student visas have been rescinded, US secretary of state Marco Rubio remarked: “It might exceed 300 at this stage. We do this routinely. Whenever I identify one of these extremists, I revoke their visa.”

• Attorney general Pamela Jo Bondi directed the justice department’s civil rights division to ensure that four California universities—Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, and the University of California, Irvine—are not employing “illegal DEI policies” in their admissions procedures.

• Trump signed <a href=”https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-restores-truth-and-sanity-to-american-history/”>an executive order</a> which commands his vice-president, JD Vance, to eradicate “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from Smithsonian museums, education and research centers, and the National Zoo.

• A researcher from Russia employed at Harvard has been detained by ICE and faces deportation back to Russia, where she may face imprisonment for opposing the war in Ukraine.