“Russia has gathered 50,000 troops, including some of its most battle-hardened forces, on Ukraine’s northern border for an imminent offensive,” the Times of London reports.

Paul Krugman: “Presumably the Trumpists will try to undo this judgment, one way or another — exploiting other loopholes in the law, maybe trying to bully the Court into submission, maybe just defying the Court altogether. But this is a huge political defeat, and Trump has nobody to blame except his own overreach.”

“You can bet that trade negotiators around the world are snickering, and maybe celebrating with TACOs for lunch.”

President Trump said he envisions a nuclear deal with Iran that would allow the destruction of “whatever we want” in the country including labs, a version of an inspections regime that is likely to be rejected by Tehran, Bloomberg reports.

Trump briefly outlined his vision of a deal that is “very strong, where we can go in with inspectors. We can take whatever we want. We can blow up whatever we want. But nobody getting killed.”

“An obscure federal court blew up the cornerstone of President Trump’s economic agenda last night, unleashing more chaos on the global economy and all but wiping out his negotiating leverage with trading partners,” Axios reports.

“At least for now, it turns out the legal system — not the bond market, nor weak economic indicators — is the biggest restraint on Trump’s trade agenda.”

CNN: “Since at least the end of April, President Donald Trump has been telling reporters he will decide what to do in Ukraine in two weeks, using the timeframe over and over to suggest he is close to a final assessment on how to proceed.”

“It is not a new tactic. Trump has been setting two-week deadlines since at least the start of his first term in 2017 — for policy plans, long-awaited decisions or unspecified major announcements. Many never arrived.”

The New York Times notes that after “four months of empty threats against Mr. Putin, it remained to be seen whether Mr. Trump’s latest harsh comments were an indicator of a new aggressive phase against Russia or another fakeout.”

ProPublica: “American diplomats in at least two countries have recently delivered internal reports to Washington that reflect a grim new reality taking hold abroad: The Trump administration’s sudden withdrawal of foreign aid is bringing about the violence and chaos that many had warned would come.”

“A panel of federal judges on Wednesday blocked President Trump from imposing some of his steepest tariffs on China and other U.S. trading partners, finding in two cases that he vastly overstepped his ability to issue those expansive duties under federal law,” the New York Times reports.

“The ruling, by the U.S. Court of International Trade, delivered an early yet significant setback to Mr. Trump in his campaign to strike a series of agreements that reorient the nation’s trading relationships, setting up a legal fight that could soon reach the Supreme Court.”

Wall Street Journal: “Congress typically holds responsibility over tariffs but has delegated many powers to the president over decades. When he imposed the levies in April, Trump said the ongoing U.S. trade deficit had created a national emergency that has hobbled the economy and posed an unusual and extraordinary threat.”

Paul Krugman: “The thing is, it has been obvious all along that Trump’s use of the 1977 International Economic Emergency Powers Act to justify Smoot-Hawley level tariffs was a massive abuse of power. I mean, since when are 4 percent unemployment and 2.5 percent inflation an emergency justifying the reversal of 90 years of policy? But I guess I just assumed that things like that didn’t matter anymore.”