Tuesday Briefing: El Salvador Won’t Return Deportee

El Salvador refused to return a U.S. deportee

At a White House meeting with President Trump, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said yesterday that he would not return a man who was wrongly deported from the U.S. and sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

“Of course I’m not going to do it,” Bukele said when reporters asked if he was willing to help return the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. The deportation case is at the heart of a legal battle that has gone to the Supreme Court. Here’s what else to know.

Bukele said returning Abrego Garcia would be like smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.” As the Salvadoran president spoke in the Oval Office, Trump smiled in approval.

Background: The Trump administration has said that the deportation was an “administrative error,” and has been ordered by the Supreme Court to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return. But Trump has defied the order.

Quotable: “This meeting is one of the starkest examples of a foreign leader fawning over and placating Trump during a visit to the Oval Office,” said Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House reporter for The Times.

More on Trump

• Harvard said it rejected policy changes requested by the Trump administration, setting up a showdown with the White House.

• Trump signaled that he would soon announce tariffs on imported computer chips and pharmaceuticals, while suggesting he might also relax ones on auto parts.

• Government agencies are facing a deadline to present plans for another round of mass firings.

• Trump’s tariffs on China could lead to a troubling prospect for Europe: The dumping of cheap Chinese products in the continent could undermine local industries.

• The British government cut some tariffs and announced new financing for exporters to help protect businesses from the turmoil.

Zuckerberg took the stand in landmark Meta antitrust trial

Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, took the witness stand yesterday on the first day of a landmark antitrust trial that could dismantle his company.

The U.S. government has accused Meta of illegally creating a monopoly by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp when they were tiny start-ups. The trial poses the most consequential threat yet to Zuckerberg’s business empire.

In a packed courthouse in Washington, Zuckerberg responded by describing the social media market as much larger than how the government was defining it. Meta, he said, is involved in “the general idea of entertainment and learning about the world and discovering what’s going on.”

What’s next: During the eight-week trial, the government and Meta are expected to tell competing versions of Meta’s 20-year growth story. If the judge rules against Meta, Zuckerberg may be forced to sell Instagram and WhatsApp. This could alter a long pattern in Silicon Valley of Big Tech companies snapping up younger rivals.

In an essay published just before his arrival, Xi called on other countries to join China in defending stability, free trade and “an open and cooperative international environment.”

While the Chinese leader will be welcomed during his tour, Vietnam and its neighbors are also trying to appease Trump to get tariffs lowered, which may make them resistant to making bold pro-China pronouncements.

MORE TOP NEWS

• Ukraine: Trump called Russia’s missile attack on the city of Sumy, which killed at least 35 people, “a mistake” and a “horrible thing.”

• Syria: The civil war drove a wedge between the residents of the ancient town of Maaloula, where two-thirds are Christian and one-third Muslim.

• Gabon: Brice Oligui Nguema won the presidential election, cementing his hold on power after he staged a coup in 2023.

• U.S.: An arson attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s home raised fears about threats to U.S. politicians.

• Ecuador: The incumbent, Daniel Noboa, won re-election as president. His opponent, the handpicked successor of former President Rafael Correa, contested the results.

• Canada: Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta, his riled Canadians by speaking admiringly of Trump.

• Dominican Republic: The city of Haina lost 25 people in the roof collapse at the Jet Set nightclub, including community leaders and cultural heroes.

• Cuba: The Trump administration has begun to pull the U.S. visas of foreign officials in countries that pay the Cuban government for doctors and nurses.

• Hungary: Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s party passed a constitutional amendment stating that all Hungarians are either male or female.

• Health: Scientists transplanted a frozen kidney into a pig. To do it, they had to figure out how to thaw it from the inside.

• Entertainment: HBO started announcing the cast of its Harry Potter series, including John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore.

Sports

• Soccer: It’s now official: This is the worst Manchester United team in Premier League history.

• Basketball: At the W.N.B.A draft, the college star Paige Bueckers is expected to be selected first.

• F1: Lando Norris will need to silence the doubters if he is to become a world champion.

MORNING READ

Amanda Hess, one of our critics at large, writes that the effort may have fallen short. “If the flight proves anything, it is that women are now free to enjoy capitalism’s most decadent spoils alongside the world’s wealthiest men,” she wrote.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

• Zombie drama: Season 2 of “The Last of Us” returned with more emotional bonding and postapocalyptic action.

• Sketch fallout: Aimee Lou Wood, a star of “The White Lotus,” criticized “S.N.L.” for a sketch that mocked her smile.

• Ancient fraud: A 1,900-year-old manuscript contains trial notes on an intricate tax-evasion scheme.

• Puddle pants: Floor-length pant hems are everywhere now. Here are tips to avoid making them tricky to wear.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Remembering Mario Vargas Llosa

The Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, who died on Sunday at 89, was the last surviving member of the Boom movement of socially conscious Latin American writers that included Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Fuentes, among others.

He was the world’s savviest and most accomplished political novelist, our book critic Dwight Garner writes. His political novels are morally complex and meticulously observed, but life’s absurdity sneaks into them. Read Dwight’s appreciation here.

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