TRADE WAR: President Trump reignited a trade war with Canada yesterday, signing an order to impose a 50 percent tariff on a range of Canadian goods, claiming that Canada has discriminated against the US in motor vehicles, dairy and alcohol.

  The tariffs to go into effect within 30 days apply to Canadian wine, hockey sticks, cement, dairy products, plywood, paper and furniture. In addition to being one of the most peaceful countries on Earth, Canada is America’s second largest trading partner after Mexico.

  While Trump’s arbitrary tariffs were shot down in the Supreme Court, the Canada tariffs will be imposed under an obscure provision of the Tariff Act of 1930 that allows the president to impose tariffs of up to 50 percent on imports from countries that discriminate against US commerce specifically, as compared to other countries.

  NY Times Columnist Thomas Edsall quotes an email regarding Trump from Michael Bailey, a political scientist at Georgetown University: “He makes rash, reckless decisions; at best, they are based on bar-stool theories of how the world works, and at worst, they are driven by corrupt motives. Since he ‘just knows’ he is right about how tariffs work, no evidence will sway him.”

  Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement that the tariffs on American goods were a response to the Trump’s earlier tariffs. “Canada, as is its right, has merely matched those measures,” he said.

THE WAR ROOM: The US and Iran traded attacks for the 10^th straight night as wider war is threatening. Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen say they will impose a blockade on Saudi Arabian ships passing through the Red Sea.

  During the Iran war Saudi Arabia has begun routing some of its oil through the Red Sea and if they are blocked or attacked that will certainly result in higher oil prices and a new front in the war.

  The Pentagon announced that the number of Americans injured in the past two weeks is 100, in addition to at least three killed. Furious about the deaths of US soldiers over the weekend, President Trump posted; “Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!” 

INFINITE SCROLL:

— President Trump installed a statue of Thomas Jefferson on the grounds of the White House Rose Garden that he ordered to be paved over. It’s the fifth statue he has had installed on the grounds. Trump is turning the Rose Garden into a statue garden, having previously installed George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and a sculpture called “Freedom’s Charge,” honoring Revolutionary War soldiers.

  Franklin, Hamilton, and “Freedom’s Charge” are on loan from Harlan Crow, a conservative political donor.

ON DEADLINE: The Trump Justice Department has sought the personal phone records of NY Times journalists and their relatives, including one reporter’s mother, in a hunt for the unidentified people who told the paper that the President’s new Qatar-donated Air Force One does not have all the required defensive technology. Trump was reported to be very angry about the leak, which has forced the jet to be taken out of service.

  The Justice Department revealed to Times lawyers last week that they had issued subpoenas for those records. The Times reports that the DOJ also sought information about calls and messages on the phones of two of the reporters’ spouses in an extraordinary effort to find the source for the story about the jet.

  All the subpoenas are on pause until a judge rules on The Times’s motion to quash.

  The jet is being taken out of service for at least a month for security upgrades.

JUST SAY NO: The 76-yearold Mexican drug kingpin known as “El Mayo” … Ismael Zambada García … was sentenced yesterday to life in prison. He had pleaded guilty in a Brookly federal court to sweeping drug charges knowing that the sentence would be life.

  Zambada García had been an associate of the notorious Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as “El Chapo.” Together they corrupted political officials while trafficking cocaine and heroin into the US, killing people who got in their way.

  Prosecutors had hoped Zambada García would give them information to help dissolve the drug networks, but he did not.

  In a prepared statement Zambada García expressed remorse saying he grew up in “an environment where violence and crime seemed normal.” 

REFLECTIONS: Repair work at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool might jeopardize the government’s case against the former Olympic canoeist accused of ripping up a piece of the pool’s new bottom, a DC Superior Court judge warned yesterday.

  David Hearn, 67, is set for trial in September. His lawyers filed a motion to dismiss charges because the government has not preserved evidence of the damage he’s accused of causing. Hearn has always said all he did was touch a piece of blue bottom coating that had floated up.

  President Trump has claimed that vandals slashed the pool bottom, but draining the pool revealed no such damage.

THE SPIN RACK: A federal judge yesterday temporarily blocked the $111 billion Paramount-Warner Bros. merger while she considers a lawsuit brought by 12 states arguing that that the deal violates antitrust laws. The merger would be one of the biggest media deals in history. — Newly appointed Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina ,named to complete the term of her late brother Lindsey, said she will run to succeed him for the next full term. She has no prior experience in politics. “I feel like I can do it,” she told Fox host Sean Hannity. “I feel an inner peace about it.”

BELOW THE FOLD: Following the 8^th season of “Love Island USA,” six of nine couple who found romance are still together, two are listed as “maybe” and one split. This news saves you from having to watch.