Hundreds of protests against Trump and Musk sweep across US

After a week of unprecedented tariffs, stock market chaos and political upheaval, thousands of demonstrations are set to take place across the US today.

Opponents of President Donald Trump and his ‘number two’ man, billionaire Elon Musk, plan to rally across the US to protest government downsizing, the economy, human rights and other issues.

More than 1,200 Hands Off! demonstrations have been planned by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organisations, labor unions, LGBTQ+ advocates, veterans and fair elections activists.

The protests are getting underway now, with organisers saying: ‘“This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history.

‘Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies are orchestrating an all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic rights—enabled by Congress every step of the way.’

The protests are planned for the National Mall in Washington DC, state capitols and other locations in all 50 states. Trump, meanwhile, has continued to promote his policies as being in the best interest of the US.

But fierce opposition has been seen against the Trump administration’s moves to fire thousands of federal workers, close Social Security Administration field offices, effectively shutter entire agencies, deport immigrants, scale back protections for transgender people and cut federal funding for health programs.

Musk, one of the president’s advisers who owns Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, has played a key role in government downsizing as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.

Organisers say they hope Saturday’s demonstrations will be the largest since Trump returned to office in January.

This past week has been tumultuous after Trump announced a wide-ranging package of tariffs against more than a dozen countries.

The FTSE 100 plummeted on Friday on its worst day of trading since the start of the pandemic, while markets on Wall Street also tumbled.

After the tariffs announcement, London’s top stock market index shed 419.75 points, or 4.95%, to close at 8,054.98 on Friday, the biggest single-day decline since March 2020 when the index lost more than 600 points in one day.

The Dow Jones fell 5.5% on Friday as China matched Mr Trump’s tariff rate.

Stress levels were palpable at the New York Stock Exchange yesterday (Picture: Shutterstock)

But not every location targeted by the new tariffs has a government to watch on – or even human inhabitants.

A group of uninhabited islands near Antarctica, covered in glaciers and primarily home to seals and penguins, have been hit with a 10% tariff on goods.

Heard Island and the McDonald Islands, external Australian territories, don’t export anything anywhere, let alone to the US, and it’s thought humans haven’t even stepped foot there for nearly a decade.

There is a fishery in the territory, but there aren’t any buildings and no human habitation at all.

Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s former communications director turned critic, commented: ‘The penguins have been ripping us off for years.

‘For far too long, the penguins on the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands in the Antarctic have ripped off American taxpayers. That ends today.’

They alongside the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island and Norfolk Island – other ‘external territories’ which are part of Australia and not self-governing – have been listed separately to the mainland on Trump’s tariff list.