One million women lost access to humanitarian support in past 18 months, UN report says | United Nations | The Guardian

One million women lost access to humanitarian support in past 18 months, UN report says

"‘Organizations that have kept women and girls alive through the world’s worst crises risk becoming another casualty of war’ a UN Women chief says

Anna Betts

A woman in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has been battling an Ebola outbreak.Photograph: Michel Lunanga/Getty Images

At least one million women and girls have lost access to humanitarian and other critical support over the past 18 months, according to a United Nations agency, after “the steepest annual decline” in foreign aid on record.

The report by UN Women, which focuses on advancing women’s rights, gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, found 84% of women’s organizations reported increased demand for their services since January 2025. That month, Donald Trump re-entered the White House and implemented sweeping cuts to US foreign aid.

According to the report, nearly nine in 10 organizations reported that they can no longer meet the current levels of need, and two in five organizations surveyed said they expect to shut down, either temporarily or permanently, within the next year.

The report is based on responses from 855 women-led and women’s rights organizations across 52 crisis- and conflict-affected countries.

“The women’s organizations at risk of being shut down are on the frontlines of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises,” said Sofia Calltorp, the chief of humanitarian action at UN Women. “In countries including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Haiti, they operate where international actors cannot and stay long after global attention has moved on.

“Every dollar withdrawn from women’s organizations is a dollar withdrawn from survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, displaced mothers, girls forced from school and communities struggling to survive.”

The report comes as humanitarian agencies worldwide continue to grapple with deep funding reductions. Over the last year and a half, many UN agencies have cut staff, reduced budgets and scaled back operations after drastic funding cuts in foreign aid assistance from the US, as well as reductions in foreign aid from other international donors including the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

Recent data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), cited in the report, found there had been a “historic decline in foreign aid” between 2024 and 2025. According to the OECD, the US alone drove three-quarters of the decline” with US foreign assistance falling by more than 50% in 2025 “compared to 2024”.

Since returning to office in 2025, the Trump administration has cut billions in US foreign aid and dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID). In May, the Associated Press reported that US support for UN humanitarian programs was currently at $3.8bn across 21 countries, which the outlet described as a “fraction of what the US has contributed in the past”.

In a statement to the Guardian, a senior White House administration official said that “the United States provides more foreign aid than any country in the world” and that “we’re going to do more than anyone in the world again this year, but we’re going to do it the right way: holistically and as part of an integrated foreign policy.”

Asked about the UN report and OECD data showing the US share in global decline in foreign aid, a senior Trump administration official described it as a “ridiculous insinuation”.

Foreign assistance is to be “delivered with more accountability, strategy and efficiency”, the official added. “It is imperative to remember that the American taxpayer was never meant to bear the full burden of taking care of every person on Earth – whether that be with food, medicine or otherwise.”

In the news release for the UN Women report on Friday, the agency said that the consequences of recent global funding cuts are “already visible”, noting that “half of women’s organizations have introduced waiting lists or are turning away women and girls in need.”

The report also found that 92% of organizations have seen rising levels of poverty among the women they serve, while 82% reported seeing more girls dropping out of school. In addition, the report warned that conflict-related sexual violence doubled in 2025, “just as the systems designed to protect survivors are collapsing”.

In their news release, UN Women called for “sustained investment in women’s organizations as indispensable first responders, defenders of women’s rights, and the foundation of peace and recovery”.

“Without immediate action, the organizations that have kept women and girls alive through the world’s worst crises risk becoming another casualty of war,” Calltorp said."

One million women lost access to humanitarian support in past 18 months, UN report says | United Nations | The Guardian

Trump accused of trying to ‘rig’ elections after firing federal commissioners | Donald Trump | The Guardian

Trump accused of trying to ‘rig’ elections after firing federal commissioners

"President’s dismemberment of Election Assistance Commission called a ‘brazen attempt’ to control elections

Joseph Gedeon in Washington and Rachel Leingang in Minneapolis

With no commissioners, the Election Assistance Commission cannot vote to take formal action to assist states in election administration. Photograph: Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

Donald Trump has been accused of trying to “rig” the upcoming US midterm electionsafter he fired the last three members of an independent federal commission.

Trump’s extraordinary move to paralyze the US Election Assistance Commission (EAC) wipes out the only federal agency devoted solely to election administration months before the US midterm elections.

Critics, including senior Democrats, vowed to fight back against the Trump administration’s efforts to increase the federal government’s involvement in elections. Trump continues to push the Save America Act, a rightwing makeover of elections that would impose new restrictions on voting.

Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP civil rights organization, said: “Donald Trump knows that in November voters will reject everything he stands for. The economy is devastating, he’s starting endless wars resulting in Americans dying, and his paramilitary ICE police force is terrorizing our communities. Trump is terrified of the sacred power we all hold as voters, and that’s why he wants to rig this election.

“Mr President, your plan will fail miserably. If you think the American people will allow fascism, you are gravely mistaken. The NAACP will do everything in our power to send people to the polls and make their voices heard.”

Chuck Schumer, the Democratic US Senate minority leader, said the move followed Trump’s own suggestion that Republicans should “take over the voting” and called the dismissals a “brazen attempt” to grab control of elections “before a single ballot is cast”.

“Firing every remaining member of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission months before the midterms is a brazen attempt to seize control of our elections before a single vote is cast,” Schumer wrote on social media. “He is gutting the independent agency that certifies voting systems and helps election officials run secure elections.”

He added: “Senate Democrats will fight this power grab at every turn. The American people – not Donald Trump – will decide the 2026 election.”

The commission’s two Democrats, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland, were told by email on Thursday that they were terminated effective immediately, according to people familiar with the matter. Its sole remaining Republican, Christy McCormick, was pushed to resign rather than fired outright, while a fourth seat had already sat empty since Republican Donald Palmer left earlier this year for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank.

The White House has argued the president has the authority to remove officials not fully aligned with securing elections and cited a recent supreme court ruling expanding his power to fire heads of independent agencies. That ruling’s reach into bipartisan bodies such as the EAC remains untested, election law scholars say, since the US Congress deliberately built the commission around an even partisan split.

Other Democrats have since piled on. Senator Mark Warner, of Virginia, said the purge “should concern every American … that demands an immediate explanation”, while Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, accused the administration of manufacturing chaos for election officials nationwide.

Created under the Help America Vote Act after the disputed 2000 election, the EAC does not run elections itself. It distributes federal election security grants, maintains the national mail voter registration form, certifies voting machines against federal standards, and advises state and local officials. With no commissioners left, it cannot vote to take any formal action.

Breaking News US

That leaves the agency unable to update voting standards or the federal registration form, potentially freezing changes the administration has pushed for, including a citizenship documentation requirement already blocked in part by courts. Replacements would again need Senate confirmation, a process that could drag well past the midterms.

Hovland, one of the ousted commissioners, told NBC News the agency had served as a clearinghouse helping cash-strapped states share best practices, and warned that losing it risks real administrative mistakes as the midterms approach.

“When you’re asking more and more of people without giving them the necessary resources, you know, mistakes happen,” he said. “It feels much more like a death-of-1,000-cuts situation than there’s one particular thing that you’re concerned about.”

Cisco Aguilar, the Democratic secretary of state in Nevada and chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said in a statement that the firings were “incredibly irresponsible”.

“The EAC plays a critical role in supporting state and local election officials, and it will again fall on secretaries of state and other election administrators to fill the gap,” Aguilar said. “From cutting funding for cybersecurity to launching baseless investigations, this pattern of behavior from the Trump administration makes it harder for our election officials to do their work and does nothing to make elections more secure.”

Trump accused of trying to ‘rig’ elections after firing federal commissioners | Donald Trump | The Guardian

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Washington records world’s worst air quality for a city after 850,000 Fourth of July fireworks | Washington DC | The Guardian

Washington records world’s worst air quality for a city after 850,000 Fourth of July fireworks

"Hourly concentrations of particulate matter rose to 6.7 times their pre-fireworks levels, according to an analysis

Dharna Noor

Fireworks burst in Washington DC to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. Photograph: J David Ake/Getty Images

Washington DC residents breathed in “unhealthy” air for hours after a 40-minute Independence Day fireworks show over the National Mall on Saturday night, with the country’s capital briefly recording the worst air quality of any major city in the world.

The highly emitting display, which the president called “spectacular”, came as the Trump administration rolls back an unprecedented number of pollution controls.

Hourly concentrations of particulate matter rose to 6.7 times their pre-fireworks levels, according to a Tuesday analysis from the company Clarity Movement based on its network of 26 air quality sensors throughout the city in partnership with the local department of energy and environment. Every one of those sensors reached air quality levels which the Environmental Protection Agency deems “unhealthy for sensitive groups” during the event, the researchers found, with some recording even worse levels of emissions.

Levels of particulate matter peaked at 4am on Sunday, approximately five hours after the display concluded, according to the new analysis. It remained elevated for approximately five hours after reaching its peak, the authors found, with city officials issuing a Code Red alert.

Smoke hangs in the air as the Independence Day fireworks launch over Washington. Photograph: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

“Outdoor air quality is unhealthy for seniors, kids, people with medical conditions,” the alert said. “General public may experience health issues. Limit time outside.”

The south-west region of DC experienced the highest pollution levels, the report’s authors found, probably because of its proximity to one of the fireworks launch sites in West Potomac park, as well as overnight meteorological conditions that trapped smoke over the area.

That highly polluted air probably drifted into Arlington, Virginia, said David Lu, CEO and co-founder of Clarity Movement.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have sensors there to confirm it,” he said. “That’s exactly why expanding real-time air quality monitoring matters. Without comprehensive coverage, communities can be exposed to significant pollution events that go undetected.”

The air quality across the city could have been even worse in the aftermath of the display if it were not for thunderstorms that struck the city on Sunday evening.

Smoke hangs in the air as the Independence Day fireworks launch over Washington. Photograph: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

“Despite the scale of the fireworks display, the city’s air quality avoided a worst-case scenario thanks to favorable weather conditions and the timing of the event,” said Lu.

The Fourth of July fireworks show, organized by the Trump-backed non-profit Freedom 250, began at 11pm on Saturday evening. It involved more than 850,000 fireworks launched from 10 sites across the capital, the organizers said. (A typical Independence Day show in DC involves just 17,000 shells.)

Trump on social media called the show “the Most Spectacular Fireworks Show I have ever seen, and I’ve seen them all”.

The fanfare came as the region was baking under an extreme heatwave, which brought triple-digit temperatures to the city hours earlier. For a time after the fireworks show, the city recorded the worst air quality of any major city in the world, according to AirNow, the Environmental Protection Agency website that reports air quality measurements from its monitoring stations.

Asked to comment, a White House spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, said: “It was the largest and greatest firework display in the history of our country to properly celebrate America’s 250th birthday! Every year, fireworks on the Fourth of July cause short-term spikes in air quality across the United States, including Washington, DC. This was not unique to the 250th fireworks celebrations in our nation’s capital.”

The Guardian has contacted Freedom 250 for comment.

Americans shoot nearly 300m lb of fireworks into the atmosphere every year, according to the American Lung Association, letting off lung-harming gases such as sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

The Trump administration has, since re-entering office, engaged in a wide-ranging assault on pollution controls, exempting polluting facilities from emissions regulations, boosting coal power, and halting the consideration of the value of lives saved when restricting fine particulate matter and ozone. On 4 July, the president also pardoned nine individuals convicted of violations related to the Clean Air Act, including people found to have tampered with emissions control equipment in cars or selling parts to bypass air pollution standards."

Washington records world’s worst air quality for a city after 850,000 Fourth of July fireworks | Washington DC | The Guardian

 

Why Ghana Rejected Ramaphosa's Planned State Visit

​

“Ghana rejected South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s planned state visit due to rising xenophobic attacks against African migrants in South Africa. The decision underscores Ghana’s priority to protect its citizens abroad, with around 1,000 Ghanaians already repatriated and another 900 registered to return home. The postponement highlights the delicate balance between maintaining bilateral relations and addressing domestic concerns about citizen safety.

​

Ghana rejected a planned visit by South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa over rising xenophobic attacks and concerns for its citizens.

Kofi Oppong Kyekyeku

South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa. Photo via Polity.org.za.

Ghana’s decision to decline a proposed state visit by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa marks one of the clearest diplomatic signals yet that the recent wave of xenophobic violence in South Africa has moved beyond a consular issue into a matter of bilateral concern.

Although officials insist relations between Ghana and South Africa remain cordial, the postponement of a high-profile presidential visit underscores the extent to which the safety of Ghanaian nationals has become a foreign policy priority.

According to diplomatic sources cited by the Daily Graphic, the planned August visit was turned down after weeks of anti-foreigner violence in parts of South Africa forced the repatriation of around 1,000 Ghanaians, while another 900 have reportedly registered to return home.

The situation has placed Ghana’s government under growing pressure to demonstrate that it is taking decisive steps to protect its citizens abroad.

Security Concerns Take Centre Stage

Sources familiar with the discussions said Ghana’s decision was driven by more than diplomatic symbolism. Officials were reportedly concerned about the welfare of Ghanaians still living in South Africa, as well as the broader security implications surrounding a visit by President Ramaphosa while emotions remain high.

Government sources indicated that welcoming the South African leader during an ongoing wave of attacks against African migrants could be interpreted as overlooking the experiences of affected Ghanaians. There were also concerns that public anger could create an uncomfortable atmosphere or even pose security risks during such a visit.

The message appears to be that meaningful action to protect foreign nationals must come before ceremonial engagements at the highest political level.

Death of Ghanaian Deepens Diplomatic Dispute

The diplomatic tension intensified following the death of a Ghanaian national in South Africa at the end of June.

Initial reports from Ghana linked the killing to the anti-immigrant demonstrations that peaked on June 30, prompting strong official reactions and public concern.

South Africa has, however, firmly rejected that account.

Authorities in South Africa maintain that the victim was shot on June 29 during what they describe as an extortion-related incident at a barbershop in Nyanga, Cape Town. According to South African officials, the killing had no connection to the xenophobic protests.

The disagreement over the circumstances of the death has evolved into a diplomatic dispute, with South Africa’s Ministry of Justice reportedly describing Ghana’s official characterization of the incident as “factually incorrect.”

Such public disagreement between two governments is unusual and reflects the sensitivity surrounding migration, public safety and diplomatic accountability.

Balancing Diplomacy With Domestic Expectations

Ghana now faces the delicate task of protecting bilateral relations while responding to domestic expectations that the government should stand firmly behind its citizens overseas.

The reported repatriation figures have heightened public concern, particularly given the longstanding economic and cultural links between Ghana and South Africa. Thousands of Ghanaians have built businesses, careers and families in South Africa over the years, making any deterioration in security a matter of national interest.

By declining the state visit rather than suspending broader diplomatic engagement, Ghana appears to be signaling that its concerns are focused on current conditions rather than the overall relationship between the two countries.

Diplomatic sources indicate that Ghana has urged South African authorities to take concrete measures to curb the attacks and provide credible assurances regarding the safety of Ghanaian nationals before discussions on a presidential visit resume.

Broader Implications for Africa

The development also raises wider questions about the African Union’s long-standing vision of continental integration and the free movement of people.

Xenophobic violence has periodically strained relations between South Africa and several African countries over the past two decades. Each outbreak has reignited debates about migrant protection, economic inequality and the responsibilities of governments to safeguard foreign nationals living within their borders.

The latest decision demonstrates that the welfare of Ghanaian citizens abroad can directly influence high-level diplomatic engagements.

Despite the current tensions, both Ghanaian and South African sources insist the relationship between the two countries remains fundamentally strong. Trade, investment and cooperation continue across multiple sectors, suggesting neither government is seeking a prolonged diplomatic confrontation.

For now, however, the postponement of President Ramaphosa’s proposed visit serves as a reminder that diplomatic goodwill can be tested when the safety of citizens becomes a pressing national concern. Until confidence is restored and stronger guarantees are provided for Ghanaians living in South Africa, Ghana appears determined to place citizen protection ahead of ceremonial diplomacy.”

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Donald Trump's unhinged North Dakota speech showed a man in steep decline

 

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Air Force Detains Officer Who Called for Trump’s Impeachment at Capitol - The New York Times

Air Force Detains Officer Who Called for Trump’s Impeachment at Capitol

(A necessary act of civil disobedience)

"Maj. Jason Watson, who was in uniform, was arrested during a protest that followed a news conference on Wednesday.

July 3, 2026

Maj. Jason Watson of the U.S. Air Force was arrested after calling for the impeachment, conviction and removal of President Trump during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.  Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP

An active-duty officer was placed into Air Force custody after he was arrested in uniform on Wednesday after an event in which he called for the impeachment, conviction and removal of President Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

The U.S. Capitol Police arrested the officer, Maj. Jason Watson, who identified himself as an active-duty service member, on the Capitol steps.

He was attending a news conference organized by the Removal Coalition, a grass-roots activist group. Representative Al Green, Democrat of Texas, who has filed articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump at least six times, also attended the event.

During his speech, Major Watson, who said he was not a member of the Democratic Party, accused the president and vice president of violating both the Constitution and their oaths of office.

“Congress remains unconvinced of the urgency and necessity for them to honor their oath,” he said, “so we must persuade them, with our unrelenting, uncompromising civil resistance.”

Major Watson ended his speech, in which he criticized the Trump administration’s immigration policies as well as its actions in Venezuela and Iran, by calling on Americans “to peacefully exercise your First Amendment rights.”

After the news conference, he stood on the Capitol steps holding a sign with the words “Impeach,” “Convict” and “Remove” stacked one atop the other. Shortly afterward, he was arrested on suspicion of “crowding, obstructing and incommoding,” the U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement on Friday.

“It is generally against the law for the public to demonstrate on the House steps unless they are with a member of Congress,” the police said. The statement noted that Major Watson had been “escorted to the House steps by a member of Congress” and that after the member left, “our officers gave the man lawful orders to stop the illegal demonstration.”

Jessica Denson, the founder of the Removal Coalition, said in an interview on Friday that the D.C. attorney general’s office elected not to prosecute Major Watson for his protest, but that he was “taken directly into custody by the Air Force yesterday.”

“He is being detained in an Air Force base as we speak and is currently under a military gag order,” she said.

Christopher J. Mutimer, a lawyer for Major Watson, said it was a “beautiful irony” that an active-duty Air Force major in full uniform had been arrested on the steps of the Capitol just before the July 4 holiday.

“Major Watson took a courageous, nonviolent stand to defend the Constitution against an unlawful war in Iran only to be detained at the foot of our nation’s capitol,” Mr. Mutimer said in a phone interview.

Mr. Mutimer said his client has not been criminally charged but was under investigation for several violations of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice. Major Watson is currently at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington and is not allowed to leave the base, his lawyer said.

The Defense Department directed questions about the arrest to the Air Force, which did not respond to email or telephone inquiries.

Troy E. Meink, the Air Force secretary, said in a statement on social media on Thursday that he was “aware of recent reports involving an Air Force officer protesting at the United States Capitol.”

“I expect every Airman and Guardian to comply with all laws and policies governing personal conduct, political participation, and the wear of the uniform,” he said.

Service members are prohibited from using “contemptuous words” against the president, vice president, Congress and other top officials under Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which states that “any commissioned officer” who does so “shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

Military members are also banned from wearing their uniforms while participating in political activities, like rallies, according to the Department of Defense Standards of Conduct Office.

Ms. Denson said Major Watson reached out to her in February with the intention of making a statement that would “not fall flat and that had a major impact and did not make his sacrifice in vain to convey an explicit message of impeachment, conviction and removal from an active duty member.”

Working with Major Watson over several months, Ms. Denson said, she brought Mr. Green, a representative of Texas who recently lost a primary election, to sponsor the event because a sitting member of Congress must host a news conference that is held at the Capitol and that her group purposely hid the major’s involvement until Wednesday.

“We wanted to protect him and make sure that he was able to make that message and clearly get it out to the masses before he could be stopped,” she said.

In a video statement posted after Major Watson’s arrest, Mr. Green said he was at the Capitol “to witness a major in the United States military bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.”

Mark Walker contributed reporting and Georgia Gee contributed research.

Aimee Ortiz covers breaking news and other topics for The Times."

Air Force Detains Officer Who Called for Trump’s Impeachment at Capitol - The New York Times

 

Trump Administration Rolls Back Dozens of Gun Regulations

​

“The Trump administration is rolling back over three dozen firearms regulations, including ending the gun show loophole and loosening oversight of private weapons transactions. Critics argue these changes weaken public safety, while proponents claim they restore regulations to pre-Biden levels. The administration’s approach has sparked debate over the balance between gun rights and public safety.

​

Critics say the administration is weakening public safety. Proponents say regulations would be where they were before President Joseph R. Biden took office.

July 5, 2026, 5:01 a.m. ET

A gun show in Phoenix last January. New rules include ending the so-called gun show loophole, which required background checks for guns shows and certain private sales.Paul Ratje for The New York Times

The Trump administration is scrapping more than three dozen firearms regulations, abandoning a crackdown on illegal sales, restoring gun rights to some people with mental illness and loosening oversight of private weapons transactions.

The drastic retrenchment at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the federal agency responsible for enforcing the nation’s gun laws, was not entirely unexpected: President Trump campaigned as a champion of gun rights.

In the view of critics and even some A.T.F. veterans, the agency, in closely mirroring the demands made by gun owners and manufacturers to lighten their regulatory burden, is enacting changes at the expense of public safety. The moves, they worry, come as the bureau has already been weakened, with hundreds of its officials diverted to immigration enforcement.

Proponents of the changes point out that some of the reversals would return regulations to what they were only a few years ago, before President Joseph R. Biden took office. After a series of deadly mass shootings, Mr. Biden signed into law gun control measures, ending nearly three decades of gridlock over whether and how to regulate firearms.

The divisiveness illustrates the complicated landscape for gun policy.

“With the Biden regulations that we got and put in place, we advanced the ball,” said Kris Brown, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, one of the country’s biggest gun control organizations.

But the Trump administration’s approach “takes us back 100 years,” she said. “It’s really decimating A.T.F.’s ability to regulate this industry.”

A White House official said the administration’s policies reflected Mr. Trump’s commitment to ensuring that Americans could exercise their Second Amendment rights, accusing the Biden administration of bypassing Congress and using the regulatory process to restrict gun rights.

Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry’s trade association, said the changes were meant to clarify gun regulations.

“We want clarity to know how we’re going to be able to conduct business,” he said, “to be able to produce and to be able to sell firearms in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern our industry.”

Already, the administration has done away with major policies, including a zero-tolerance approach toward gun dealers who repeatedly broke the law. The more than three dozen rules that it has moved to eliminate would raise the legal threshold for revoking a dealer’s license; extend gun rights to buyers who had faced restrictions because of mental illness or inability to manage their own finances; and end extra scrutiny of stabilizing braces, gun accessories that have been used in mass shootings to lethal effect.

The administration is now targeting gun regulations that Democrats have passed at the state and local levels. It has challenged bans on semiautomatic rifles in Colorado, the District of Columbia and Virginia. On Wednesday, it sued California for its restrictions on the sale of Glock and Glock-style handguns, and Virginia for limits on the sale of semiautomatic rifles, hours after both laws went into effect.

Since his first run for office, Mr. Trump has positioned himself as an ardent supporter of gun rights. In the run-up to the 2024 election, he vowed to be “the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House.” Days after being inaugurated, he signed an executive order instructing the attorney general to scrutinize what he described as “ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens.”

By May 2025, the A.T.F. had overturned its “zero-tolerance” policy, which had empowered its inspectors to revoke the licenses of federal gun dealers who were known to have broken the law. Pam Bondi, then the attorney general, said it had “unfairly targeted law-abiding gun owners and created an undue burden.” The policy increased the chances that dealers who had falsified business records, skipped background checks or otherwise sold guns to people prohibited from owning them would face consequences. The agency ultimately revoked more than 600 licenses. But critics say that the new standards seriously curb the agency’s ability to do so.

It is a part of a broader bid across government to enact changes in line with the president’s directive. The Veterans Affairs Department in February removed the requirement that veterans who require a fiduciary to manage their benefits be prohibited from buying firearms, and veterans who were previously reported to the F.B.I. were being removed from its list. The Health and Human Services Department slashed funding for research into gun violence prevention. The U.S. Postal Service has proposed allowing people to ship handguns in the mail, upending a nearly century-old law.

The Postal Service has proposed allowing people to ship handguns in the mail, upending a nearly century-old law.Paul Ratje for The New York Times

In realigning the Justice Department’s priorities to bolster Mr. Trump’s agenda, the agency said in December that it would balance defending the right to own a gun with ensuring the public’s safety.

But when the A.T.F. announced in April nearly three dozen changes, the administration’s own analyses acknowledged the pitfalls to public safety.

The A.T.F.’s director, Rob Cekada, defended the agency’s approach. In a statement, he said that it reflected an effort to be as explicit as possible about “the full range of costs and benefits, including even remote scenarios.”

“This was an honest attempt to fully and transparently inform the public and is exactly the kind of analysis the comment period exists to test,” he said. 

In unveiling more changes on Friday, including eliminating fingerprinting requirements for certain firearms applications, Mr. Cekada again asserted that the agency was committed to public safety, pointing to a news release that heralded how its shift in priorities had led to the seizure of nearly 50,000 firearms and the handling of nearly 950,000 gun trace requests. Still, the data is far from a complete picture because it does not reflect all the policies the Trump administration has rolled back and because many of its proposals have yet to go into effect.

Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, in announcing the proposals in April, said that the moves struck a careful balance between the interests of the gun industry and gun owners, as well as public safety. “For too long, regulations were written without any real understanding of how firearms businesses operate, how lawful gun owners actually handle their firearms or what truly improves public safety,” he said.

One proposed change allowing more people with a history of mental illness to have a gun would mean that the public safety risk could range from minimal to considerably greater, “up to and including potential mass casualty events,”according to a cost analysis by the agency. For instance, people involuntarily committed to a mental health institution would still be barred from owning a gun, whereas those who voluntarily enter those facilities would not. The rule also seeks to extend the Veterans Affairs Department’s policy to ensure that all Americans unable to manage their financial affairs, not just veterans, are not automatically prohibited from buying a gun.

In the analysis of another proposal, seeking to undo a Biden-era rule intensifying scrutiny of the use of stabilizing braces, the agency acknowledged that the gun accessory to create “dangerous, easily concealed weapons would pose an increased public safety problem.”

The agency is also proposing a higher bar to revoke a federal gun dealer’s license, instead requiring evidence that the dealer knew that it was violating the law. The agency said in its analysis that it expected the number of federal firearms licenses it revoked to drop “considerably” both under the new rule and “shifting enforcement priorities.”

Another rule would end the so-called gun show loophole, which required background checks for gun shows and certain private sales as a way to crack down on straw purchasers, or people who illegally buy guns on behalf of another.

A bump stock installed on an AR-15 rifle.Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Critics warned of the potential consequences. The rapid changes under the Trump administration flew in the face of its vow to be tough on crime, they said, crediting the Biden-era measures for helping to bring down the murder rate after coronavirus pandemic highs, though experts have suggested that a number of factors could have contributed to the drop.

“These guns are going to start to percolate back out into the community over the next couple of years,” said Marianna Mitchem, a former A.T.F. official who now advises Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit advocacy group founded by Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York.

She added, “I sadly expect that we will see an increase in violent crime.”

Even as the proposals have yet to take effect, some supporters of gun rights are pushing for the regulations to be loosened even further.

Erich Pratt, the senior vice president of Gun Owners of America, one of the country’s largest gun advocacy groups, said it was not enough to simply revert to regulatory standards on the books before the Biden administration.

His group, for instance, opposes the Justice Department’s approach to a 2022 rule directing federal licensed gun dealers to hold on to records indefinitely, reducing the amount of time that gun dealers have to keep records of sales. It has argued that the administration should eliminate the requirement altogether.

“The A.T.F. proposals are a mixed bag,” he said, adding, “Gun owners would expect better from our Republican Justice Department.”

Aishvarya Kavi works in the Washington bureau of The Times, helping to cover a variety of political and national news.“