Last year, the Biden administration required coal- and oil-burning power plants to greatly reduce emissions of toxic chemicals including mercury, which can harm babies’ brains and cause heart disease in adults.

Now, the Trump administration is offering companies an extraordinary out: Send an email, and they might be given permission by President Trump to bypass the new restrictions, as well as other major clean-air rules.

The Environmental Protection Agency this week said it was invoking an obscure section of the Clean Air Act that enables the president to temporarily exempt industrial facilities from new rules if the technology required to meet those rules isn’t available, or if it’s in the interest of national security.

In its notice to companies, the agency provided a template for companies to use to get approvals, including what to write in the email’s subject line. Then “the president will make a decision on the merits,” said the notice, issued by the E.P.A. on Monday.

Joseph Goffman, former executive director of Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Program who served as E.P.A. assistant administrator for air pollution under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said he feared the President Trump was “setting up a rubber stamp process” that would allow companies to avoid a long list of rules on air pollution.

Normally, the agency would lay down more specific criteria for exemptions to a rule, he said. He also said that Congress had clearly intended for Clean Air Act exemptions to come with conditions that would ensure at least some pollution limits.

“Because none of that is present, it strongly suggests that the decisions will be at best ad hoc,” Mr. Goffman said. “That’s in defiance of Congress’s intent, in defiance of the public health needs of the communities that are affected, and in defiance of the E.P.A.’s past practices.”

Molly Vaseliou, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., pushed back against that view, saying nowhere in the law was there an explicit requirement for such conditions. “This type of ‘legal analysis’ seems consistent with people who were responsible” for interpretations of laws the Supreme Court has struck down,” she said in an email.

The latest policy allows for companies to apply for exemptions of up to two years, the maximum allowed under the Clean Air Act, from numerous new restrictions on emissions of toxic chemicals like mercury and arsenic, as well as ethylene oxide, a colorless gas that is widely used to sterilize medical devices and is also a carcinogen.

Mr. Zeldin, a former member of Congress from New York, has also said he would allow coal-burning power plants to apply for exemptions from a new rule that requires them to address the health risks of coal ash, a toxic substance created by burning coal to produce electricity.

The agency has said it intends to ultimately rewrite many of these same rules, an arduous process that is expected to take time. So the E.P.A. appears to be pursuing “a two-step process where it says it’s going to take the next few years to roll back the rules,” but in the meantime avoid companies having to meet any of them, said James Pew, director of clean air practice at the environmental group Earthjustice.

“It’s hard to imagine how these exemptions could be lawful,” Mr. Pew said. For all of the new rules, for example, the Biden administration had already identified alternative technology that was available and affordable. The idea that the ability to pollute was in the national interest was also hard to buy, he said.

As of Thursday, it was unclear whether the agency had started to receive exemption applications, whether any had been granted, and if or how they would be disclosed. Companies must apply for exemptions by the end of the month, the E.P.A. said.

The National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, and the American Chemistry Council, which represent major regulated industries, did not immediately respond to comment.

South Korea’s largest wildfires on record blazed through the country’s southeast for a seventh day, with firefighters, soldiers and heritage workers racing to evacuate people and save ancient treasures from the encroaching flames.

At least 37,000 people were evacuated from their homes as the fires, which have left 27 people dead, spread in the dry and windy weather. The fires had burned over 88,000 acres of land, the biggest on record in South Korea, according to the Interior Ministry. The largest blaze in Euiseong County was only about halfway contained on Thursday.

Rescue crews were also focusing on saving as many relics and heritage buildings as possible after two 1,000-year-old Buddhist temples burned to the ground. Around two dozen buildings, trees, statues and other things with national heritage status have been lost to the flames so far, according to the Korea Heritage Service, the government body responsible for the conservation of national treasures and sites.

A statue of a seated Buddha from the early 9th century that was reduced to ashes. And the base and branches of a 400-year-old tree considered the guardian of a local village was charred in the flames.

The heritage service said it deployed around 750 people across the region to protect or remove what still remains. The southeastern region is home to a large proportion of the more than 4,000 items on the country’s national heritage list.

In the city of Andong, firefighters and officials worked to protect UNESCO Heritage sites as the inferno threatened to spread to those locations. In the 600-year-old Hahoe folk village, firefighters hosed buildings as helicopters dropped buckets of water from above. Workers relocated signage from the Byeongsanseowon Confucian Academy, a tourist attraction.

While the government has successfully evacuated tens of thousands of residents across at least eight cities and counties, thousands of others have stayed behind. Many remained to protect their homes, businesses, livestock and pets. Local residents pleaded with firefighters to put out fires near their houses or restaurants.

One Andong resident said he and his wife were at home when their house caught fire. They had tried, but failed, to stop the fire by dousing it with water and were forced to evacuate. But they wanted to stay close to their house to protect their 22 cows, which survived, so they have been sleeping inside their car since Tuesday.

Earlier this week, strong winds kept helicopters and drones grounded, officials said. One pilot died when a helicopter crashed while fighting the fire, though officials have not disclosed the cause. Smoke and smog decreased road and air visibility, making driving and flying near impossible. The Interior Ministry said a lawn mower had started the first of the fires on Friday.

Conditions had improved by Thursday, and over 100 helicopters were deployed to the missions, according to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters. At least one U.S. military helicopter joined the effort, the government said.

Emergency workers and residents are hoping the weather may turn in their favor, with light rain forecast for Thursday by the country’s meteorological agency. Government officials said this would do little to help put out the fires but could weaken the further spread of the flames.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition enacted legislation on Thursday morning that handed politicians more control over picking judges, part of a contentious effort to overhaul the Israeli judiciary that roiled the country before the war with Hamas.

Israel’s 120-seat Parliament, known as the Knesset, passed two laws after an hourslong overnight debate in a vote mostly boycotted by the opposition. The legislation revamps the committee that picks judges, including Supreme Court justices, in a way that critics say will politicize the bench.

The law marked the resumption of a two-year effort by Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition to expand its control over other branches of government. Before the Hamas-led attack in October 2023 ignited the war in Gaza, Mr. Netanyahu had attempted similar legislation in the face of mass protests. He suspended the push to preserve wartime unity.

Now, Mr. Netanyahu has returned to the judicial overhaul, along with simultaneous efforts to weaken other state watchdogs. He is trying to fire both the attorney general and the head of the domestic intelligence service.

The laws that passed on Thursday were less far-reaching than the coalition’s initial proposals. But they nonetheless threatened to reignite the uproar that swept the country before the war, even as Israel and Hamas are engaging in a new fighting in Gaza.

Crowds of protesters rallied outside the Knesset in Jerusalem on Wednesday to demonstrate against the legislation, waving Israeli flags. But in a sign of how the war has split the priorities of Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents, many showed up carrying signs calling for the government to reach an immediate deal with Hamas to free the hostages in Gaza.

Inside the Parliament building, Mr. Netanyahu gave a fiery address in which he contended that his government’s policies would serve as a long-needed corrective to an unelected “deep state,” echoing rhetoric used by President Donald J. Trump.

President Trump said in a middle-of-the-night social media post early Thursday that he would come after the European Union and Canada if they banded together to “do economic harm” to America, opening a new front in the unfolding trade war.

“If the European Union works with Canada in order to do economic harm to the USA, large scale Tariffs, far larger than currently planned, will be placed on them both in order to protect the best friend that each of those two countries has ever had!” Mr. Trump wrote.

Mr. Trump’s post creates a new problem for the European Union, which is already trying to respond to his tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and potentially a broader array of goods and services.

The United States is by far Europe’s most important trading partner, and the prospect of worse trading conditions has left the European Union scrambling to negotiate. But the Trump administration has showed little appetite to strike a deal so far.

“In the end, as it is said, one hand cannot clap,” Maros Sefcovic, the trade commissioner for the European Union, has said.

That has left Europeans seeking to strike new alliances and deepen existing trading relationships. And concerns about President Trump’s shifting stance on military support have driven partners like the European Union and Canada closer together. Canada is already working toward providing industrial support for Europe’s rearmament push.

European Commission officials did not immediately comment on Mr. Trump’s post.

President Trump’s unexpected plan to impose a 25 percent tariff on cars and car parts being imported into the United States will not only disrupt supply chains. It will also fuel anger, alienation — and pressure to retaliate — among American allies across the globe.

Many of the countries most affected by the new levies, such as South Korea, Japan, Germany, Mexico and Canada, are already reeling from the Trump team’s wanton disregard for free trade deals already signed, and erratic threats to long-established security relationships.

Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada said on Wednesday that Trump’s move was “a direct attack.” Other leaders reacted in muted terms, hinting that they were still considering how to respond, with another round of tariffs expected in early April.

“We need to consider what’s best for Japan’s national interest,” Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan told Parliament on Thursday. “We’re putting all options on the table in considering the most effective response.”

The tariffs, which threaten both American and foreign carmakers, increase the likelihood of a global trade war. A chain reaction of economic nationalism with tariffs and other measures — perhaps adding costs for finance and services — could suppress economic growth globally, spread inflation, and add rancor to already testy negotiations with Washington about security.

The Trump White House has made clear that it will use every tool of American power, including its military support and consumer market, to extract what Mr. Trump sees as a better deal for Americans. Economists argue that the potential benefit of more auto factory jobs could take years to show up in the United States, and they may coincide with losses in other industries. But for countries that have spent decades trusting America and tying their economies and defense plans to Washington’s promises, this feels like a moment of reversal.

American influence, long built on pronouncements about values and the shared riches of free trade, has hardened into what many analysts describe as “all stick, no carrot.” In the Trump team’s thinking, critics argue, American gains require pain for others — friends included.

“Everything is a status competition or a dominance competition,” said Andrew Kydd, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin who incorporates psychology into studies of international relations. “I think this is characteristic of extremists of all stripes — everything is about exploitation and domination, and to think otherwise is to be blind or naïve.”

As a result, he added, other countries “have to take seriously the articulated goals, however alarming.” That includes threats to seize Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, plus demands for economic submission to tariffs that weaken the economies of allies.

The pressure to resist has already become a stunning addition to Canadian politics. On Wednesday, Mr. Carney’s campaign brought him to the bridge at the border with Detroit over which $300 million worth of auto parts cross daily. He unveiled a series of promises for the auto industry including a 2 billion Canadian dollar ($1.4 billion) fund to reshape it for a future without the United States.

“We will defend our workers, we will defend our companies, we will defend our country, and we will defend it together,” he said.

In Asia, officials had hoped for softer tariff treatment based on factories already being built in the United States at great expense. “We invest in America, employ people, and pay the highest wages,” Mr. Ishiba said.

And yet, at a moment when economic and military threats seem to be converging for Japan, analysts said that his hands are tied: Because inflation is rising with a weakened Japanese yen, Japan simply cannot afford a trade spat that drives up consumer prices even further. Nor is battling the tariffs even Mr. Ishiba’s top priority.

With a more militarized China on Japan’s doorstep, sending armed ships to assert its claims to disputed islands in recent days, the prime minister is most keen to get a clear commitment from Mr. Trump to defend Japan’s security. (U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is scheduled to arrive in Tokyo this week.)

So far, the Trump administration has sent conflicting signals to America’s largest Asian ally. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reaffirmed support for Japan, the president himself has publicly questioned the two nations’ security alliance.

“We are very much constrained at this moment,” said Ken Jimbo, a professor of international politics and security at Keio University.

South Korea finds itself in a similar position: It has deepened its diplomatic and military dependence on the United States in recent years, as anti-Chinese sentiment rose among its people, and to strengthen deterrence against North Korea.

South Koreans’ fundamental trust in the alliance will survive the latest tariffs, in part because the penalties didn’t target South Korea only but also hit competitors, said Park Won-gon, an expert in South Korea-U.S. relations at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

But cars are one of South Korea’s biggest export items, totaling $71 billion last year, and the United States was the destination for nearly half. The government called for a meeting with the car industry on Thursday to discuss a response to Trump’s tariffs.

On news portals from the left and right, many Koreans expressed outraged that they were landing just a few days after Hyundai Motor, a South Korean conglomerate, said it would invest $21 billion to expand manufacturing in the United States.

William Choong, a senior fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said that for many Asian allies, it feels like the United States is a police commander “that sticks his Glock down the back of the junior cop — i.e. regional countries — and starts shaking him down for cash and other valuables.”

European officials and analysts have been flirting with similar sentiments. The White House’s about face on Ukraine, pressuring for peace while letting Russia win concessions, has spurred a panic over security. After the leak of a private chat among White House officials that called Europe “pathetic,” fury has risen, and the pressure to respond has been intensifying.

Europe is already facing the added expense of a military buildup. Automotive tariffs could squeeze an industry that has been struggling, especially in Germany.

European Union officials said recently that they would place new tariffs on many American goods — from lingerie to soy products — by mid-April. More potent measures could follow. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said Wednesday that the European Union would “continue to seek negotiated solutions, while safeguarding its economic interests.”

Ian Austen contributed reporting from Windsor, Ontario; Choe Sang-Hun from Seoul; Martin Fackler from Tokyo; Emiliano Rodríguez Mega from Mexico City, Mexico; Jeanna Smialek from Brussels, and Melissa Eddy from Berlin.