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      Trump threatens additional 50% tariffs on China over retaliatory levies

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      Donald Trump has threatened to impose an additional 50% tariff on imports from China on Wednesday unless the country rescinds its retaliatory tariffs on the United States by Tuesday.The news comes on the third day of catastrophic market falls around the globe since Trump announced his trade war last Wednesday with tariffs on the US’s trading partners.As part of that move the White House announced it would impose a 34% tariff on Chinese imports. In response, Beijing announced a 34% tariff on US imports.In a statement on Truth Social on Monday morning, the US president said that China enacted the retaliatory tariffs despite his “warning that any country that Retaliates against the U.S. by issuing additional Tariffs” would be “immediately met with new and substantially higher Tariffs, over and above those initially set”.“If China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th,” Trump wrote.“Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!” he added. “Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately.”China’s US embassy said on Monday it would not cave to pressure or threats over the additional 50% tariffs. “We have stressed more than once that pressuring or threatening China is not a right way to engage with us. China will firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” Liu Pengyu, an embassy spokesman, told Agence France-Presse.A senior White House official told ABC News that the increased tariffs on China would be on top of the 34% reciprocal tariff Trump announced last week and the 20% already in place.Trump’s new ultimatum to China marked the latest escalation from the White House and came as US stocks swung in and out of the red on Monday morning as a report circulated that Trump was going to pause the implementation of his sweeping tariffs for 90 days, but then was quickly dismissed by the White House as “fake news”.Not long after Trump threatened China with additional tariffs on Monday morning, he participated in a White House visit from the Los Angeles Dodgers to celebrate their World Series title. More

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      Rightwing group backed by Koch and Leo sues to stop Trump tariffs

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      A libertarian group backed by Leonard Leo and Charles Koch has mounted a legal challenge against Donald Trump’s tariff regime, in a sign of spreading rightwing opposition to a policy that has sent international markets plummeting.The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a suit against Trump’s imposition of import tariffs on exports from China, arguing that doing so under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – which the president has invoked to justify the duties on nearly all countries – is unlawful.The group’s actions echo support given by four Republican senators last week for a Democratic amendment calling for the reversal of 25% tariffs imposed on Canada.Last Wednesday’s amendment passed with the support of Mitch McConnell, the former Republican Senate majority leader, and his fellow GOP members Rand Paul, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who argued that tariffs on Canada would be economically harmful.The action from the alliance has the potential to be even more emblematic, given its backing from Koch, a billionaire industrialist, and Leo, a wealthy legal activist who advised Trump on the nomination of three conservative supreme court justices during his first presidency, which has given the court a 6-3 rightwing majority. The group received money from organisations affiliated with Leo and Koch in 2022.The alliance has tabled its action on behalf of Simplified, a Florida-based home goods company whose business is heavily reliant on imports from China. It argues that the president has exceeded his powers in invoking the IEEPA to justify tariffs.“This statute authorizes specific emergency actions like imposing sanctions or freezing assets to protect the United States from foreign threats,” the alliance said in a statement. “It does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. In its nearly 50-year history, no other president – including President Trump in his first term – has ever tried to use the IEEPA to impose tariffs.”The alliance also argues that power to impose tariffs lies not with a sitting president, but with Congress, and warns that those imposed by Trump could run afoul of US supreme court rulings.“His attempt to use the IEEPA this way not only violates the law as written, but it also invites application of the supreme court’s major questions doctrine, which tells courts not to discern policies of ‘vast economic and political significance’ in a law without explicit congressional authorization,” its statement said.Mark Chenoweth, the alliance’s president, said the court in Pensacola – where the suit has been filed – would have to observe this legal precedent.“Reading this law [IEEPA] broadly enough to uphold the China tariff would transfer core legislative power,” he said. “To avoid that non-delegation pitfall, the court must construe the statute consistent with nearly 50 years of unbroken practice and decide it does not permit tariff setting.”The suit argues that there is no connection between the fentanyl epidemic – which Trump has cited as a reason for invoking the emergency powers – and the tariffs.“The means of an across-the-board tariff does not fit the end of stopping an influx of opioids, and is in no sense ‘necessary’ to that stated purpose,” the complaint filed on behalf of Simplified argues.“In fact, President Trump’s own statements reveal the real reason for the China tariff, which is to reduce American trade deficits while raising federal revenue.”The legal case adds to rumbling disquiet on tariffs among some of Trump’s usually vocal supporters, including the billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.Paul, a senator from Kentucky who has been one of the most consistent congressional anti-tariff voices, told the Washington Post that other Capitol Hill Republicans shared his concern.“They all see the stock market, and they’re all worried about it,” Paul said. “But they are putting on a stiff upper lip to try to act as if nothing’s happening and hoping it goes away.”Speaking in support of last week’s Democratic amendment, sponsored by the Virginia senator Tim Kaine, Paul said: “I don’t care if the president is a Republican or a Democrat. I don’t want to live under emergency rule. I don’t want to live where my representatives cannot speak for me and have a check and balance on power.”Trump attacked Paul and the three other Republican senators who backed the amendment and suggested they were driven by “Trump derangement syndrome”.In another sign of Republican concern, the GOP senator from Iowa Chuck Grassley – along with a Washington Democrat, Maria Cantrell – introduced a bill that would limit Trump’s ability to impose or increase tariffs by requiring Congress to approve them within 60 days. The White House budget office said on Monday that Trump would veto the bill. More

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      Volatility grips global stock markets as Trump insists on tariff ‘medicine’

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      Extreme volatility plagued global stock markets on Monday, with Wall Street swinging in and out of the red as Donald Trump defied stark warnings that his global trade assault will wreak widespread economic damage, comparing new US tariffs to medicine.A renewed sell-off began in Asia, before hitting European equities and reaching the US. It was briefly reversed amid hopes of a reprieve, only for Trump to threaten China with more steep tariffs, intensifying pressure on the market.On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 dropped by as much as 4.1% – entering bear market territory after falling more than 20% from its most recent peak, in February – before launching an extraordinary reversal to turn positive.While markets were fleetingly boosted after Kevin Hassett, director of the White House national economic council, signaled that Trump was open to considering a 90-day pause on tariffs for all countries but China, the relief did not last long.After hours of turbulent trading, the S&P closed down 0.2%. The Dow Jones industrial average finished down 0.9%.“We’re not looking at that,” Trump told reporters, when asked about the prospect of a pause. Pressed on whether the tariffs set the stage for negotiations with countries, or were permanent, he replied: “Well, it can both be true. There can be permanent tariffs, and there can also be negotiations.”The FTSE 100 closed down 4.38% in London at 7,702.08 – the lowest close in more than a year – after the Nikkei 225 slumped 7.8% in Tokyo. Other major European also ended the day sharply lower, including Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC which both fell more than 4%.Trump, who has previously used market rallies as a barometer of his success, tried to brush off the sell-off this weekend. “I don’t want anything to go down,” the US president said on Sunday. “But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”He stood firm on Monday. “The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid!”As China prepares to retaliate, Trump threatened to further increase US tariffs on the country – an additional rate of 50% – if it hits back. All talks with Beijing over potential meetings have been “terminated”, he said.Major share indices have fallen dramatically since he unveiled his controversial plan to overhaul the US economy last week. The Trump administration imposed a blanket 10% tariff on imported goods this weekend, and is set to follow with higher tariffs on products from specific nations from Wednesday.While senior figures in corporate America have been reluctant to criticize Trump since his inauguration in January, a handful have started to sound the alarm in recent days.Larry Fink, CEO of the investment giant BlackRock, expressed concern on Monday over the threat of a downturn. “The economy is weakening as we speak,” he said at the Economic Club of New York, according to Bloomberg. “Most CEOs I talk to would say we are probably in a recession right now.”The JPMorgan Chase boss, Jamie Dimon, one of the most influential executives on Wall Street, warned that Trump’s tariff plan was “likely” to exacerbate inflation. “Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth,” he wrote in his annual letter to shareholders.Dimon added: “The quicker this issue is resolved, the better because some of the negative effects increase cumulatively over time and would be hard to reverse.”The billionaire fund manager Bill Ackman, who backed Trump’s campaign for the presidency, has also demanded the administration reconsider its plan. “We are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.Even Elon Musk, a close ally of Trump, currently leading the so-called “department of government efficiency” inside the government, appeared to break with the administration on the issue. Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, “ain’t built shit”, Musk wrote on X, which he owns, this weekend.Navarro, for his part, insisted in a television interview on Monday morning that the stock market would find a bottom. Less than hour later, when New York opened for trading, the search continued.The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite started the day down 4.3%, before switching in and out of the red. It ended the day broadly flat, up by 0.1%. The VIX “fear index” of volatility rose as high as 60 for the first time since August.Oil prices also came under pressure, with Brent and WTI benchmarks stooping to their lowest levels in four years, as growing economic tensions between Washington and Beijing stoked fears that a global downturn would challenge demand.Sir Richard Branson, co-founder of Virgin Group, argued the “predictable and preventable” market chaos would have “catastrophic” implications for people in the US and around the world, and claimed companies were already going bankrupt as a result of the weaker dollar and higher costs.“This is the moment to own up to a colossal mistake and change course,” Branson wrote on X. “Otherwise, America will face ruin for years to come.” More

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      Here’s one key thing you should know about Trump’s shock to the world economy: it could work | James Meadway

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      It’s less than a week since Donald Trump’s sensational announcement that he was unilaterally ending the world’s trading system with the imposition of a 10% minimum tariff for trading with the US – and a very much higher rate for those countries unfortunate enough to have the US as a major export partner. Long-term allies such as Japan and South Korea have been hammered with tariffs of around 25%, while export-dependent poorer countries such as Vietnam, which sells about a third of its exports to the US, have been hit with tariffs in excess of 45%. A further round of global debt crises is possible as heavily indebted countries face the sudden loss of export earnings.Global stock markets have tumbled as panicked investors dump shares, and political condemnation has been near-universal. China has already retaliated with 34% tariffs, threatening an escalating trade war. Right now, it looks and feels like disastrous overreach by a uniquely erratic administration at the behest of a president with a terrifyingly limited grasp of how the modern economy works.Trump has talked about imposing tariffs on the world since he first rose to prominence in the 1980s, when his target was Japan. In a political career notable for its jack-knifes in policy and direction, tariffs – “the most beautiful word in the dictionary” – have been a constant. But this is about far more than his long-cherished whims. However inconsistent or even confused Trump may sometimes appear to be, those around him have a clear-eyed view of what they want to achieve.His Treasury secretary, hedgefund billionaire Scott Bessent, has spoken of a “global economic reordering” that he intends to shape to the benefit of the US’s elite. Trump’s new chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Stephen Miran, wrote a lengthy paper, A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System, shortly before his appointment. The latter is particularly ambitious – detailing how the US should use not only tariffs but also the threat of withdrawing its security support to compel its friends and allies to accept cuts in payments due from the Federal Reserve on their US Treasury bills. This would be a potentially massive loss to them, akin, in reality, to a US debt default. But it is tariffs that are the cutting edge of the plan – leveraging the US’s power as the world’s largest consumer and greatest debtor to compel other countries into a negotiation on terms.After decades winning in an international trading game it wrote and refereed the rules for, the US is now facing serious competition – primarily from China, but with Europe as an expensive irritant. The response of this administration is to kick over the table, and demand everyone starts again. What it ultimately wants is a cheaper dollar to revive US manufacturing and Chinese competition held off, all the while keeping the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. And the rest of the world will pay the price.There are precedents. In October 1979, Paul Volcker, newly appointed as chair of the Federal Reserve, drove up interest rates to a remarkable 13% in a bid to tackle inflation, later raising them to 17%. Soon the US was in recession. Millions lost their jobs over the next two years, notably in manufacturing, where soaring interest rates had driven up the value of the dollar, making US exports less affordable on the world market. After a light easing of interest rate hell by the Fed, Volcker applied a second dose of the medicine, driving interest rates up to 19% and forcing the economy back into a double-dip recession. Unemployment peaked at around 10% in late 1982.View image in fullscreenBut by mid-1983, inflation had come down to 2.5%. For the rest of the 1980s, the US economy boomed. The “Volcker shock” appeared to have worked. Volcker is today a folk hero among central bankers: Ben Bernanke, chair of the Federal Reserve during the 2008 crisis, praised Volcker’s “independence” and willingness to brazen out the political storm.More decisive than lower inflation, however, was the reshaping of the US economy Volcker’s interest-rate shock accelerated: with manufacturing in freefall, investment flooded into finance and property, firing up what became the great credit bubble of the 1990s and 2000s. The world economy was reordered around a US that acted as a giant sink for its output – swallowing exports from the rest of the world on seemingly limitless borrowing. China’s extraordinary boom was the flipside of US debt and deindustrialisation. The Volcker shock, more than any other single action, created the globalised world system that Trump is now bent on destroying.Few would have bet on Volcker’s world-shaping capacity at the time. The stock market response to the shock was immediate and unanimous. US shares plunged by a record 8% in the two days after his announcement. The S&P 500 lost 27% of its value before August 1982 – two years of grinding decline. Manufacturers and unions hated it, understandably: they were on the wrong side of an epochal reconfiguration of US capitalism. But they were not the only losers: rising interest rates in the US meant less developed countries had to spend more on servicing debts, just as recession squeezed their major export markets. The result was the so-called “third world” debt crisis, as heavily indebted countries across the global south plunged into spirals of economic decline and soaring indebtedness.Over the weekend, Bessent and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick were doing the media rounds, insisting that there would be no climbdown on the tariffs. Trump is not for turning on what is clearly for him a personal crusade. Already, countries such as Vietnam are promising to cut all their tariffs on US goods – a clear and brutal demonstration of the US’s continuing economic power. The administration has claimed 50 other countries have also asked to open negotiations. By the end of the week, expect Trump to be triumphantly announcing more such concessions from economies in the global south. His real target – China – will be a far tougher nut to crack, if it breaks at all.Perhaps the rolling market chaos will become too much. Perhaps the administration will blink first. There is no guarantee this extraordinary gamble will work, not even for those in the clique around Trump. But it would be a mistake to assume it cannot work – and however the pieces now land, they will not return to their old places.

      James Meadway is the host of the podcast Macrodose More

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      in UK Politics

      Trump tariffs live: US stocks plunge on opening as EU ‘finalising’ plan to hit back in trade war

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      Starmer vows UK won’t be cowed by Trump’s tariffsUS stocks have plunged on opening today as markets plummeted across the globe and the EU warned it is “finalising” plans to hit back in Donald Trump’s global trade war.After the US president announced his sweeping tariffs last week, Wall Street is sinking again, with the S&P 500 down 3.8 per cent in early trading on Monday, coming off its worst week since Covid-19 began crashing the global economy in March 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,200 points, and the Nasdaq composite was 4 per cent lower.EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic said the bloc’s list of countermeasures is being finalised tonight, with a view to them being implemented on 15 April if struggling negotiations with the US fail.The panicked mood was felt across Europe, with the UK’s FTSE 100 index plunging to a one-year low on Monday, while Germany’s Dax index recorded a drop of around 6.5 per cent.Asian markets also tumbled, as Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed more than 13 per cent in morning trade.The US president said overnight on Monday that he did not want global markets to fall, but also that he was not concerned about the major sell-off, adding: “Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”The impact of the tariffs prompted major banks to hike the probability of a global recession. JP Morgan raised its odds for a US and global recession to 60 per cent up from 40 per cent before the tariff rollout. Other major banks including Goldman and Barclays also warned of higher risks.White House describes reports Trump is considering 90-day pause in tariffs as ‘fake news’The White House has described reports that Donald Trump is considering a 90-day pause in tariffs as “fake news”.Tara Cobham7 April 2025 15:47EU warns it is finalising its list of countermeasures tonightThe EU has warned it is finalising its list of countermeasures tonight.EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic said: “When it comes to the volume of counter measures, when it comes to steel, aluminium and derivatives, we are finalising the list tonight.”Tara Cobham7 April 2025 15:44Farage calls Trump’s tariffs ‘excessive’Nigel Farage has called Donald Trump’s tariffs a “bit excessive”.”I think it’s a bit excessive. Yes, I really do,” he told the PA news agency.”Although he promised he’d do it in the run-up to the American election.”So you can’t say he’s breaking his promises, but I think the impact of it – my own view, is the impact of it has been bigger than he could have predicted.”He said he speaks to Mr Trump “far less” now than he did during his first term as US president.Nigel Farage has called Donald Trump’s tariffs a ‘bit excessive’Tara Cobham7 April 2025 15:42EU’s countermeasures on US tariffs to start next week if negotiations fail, warns bloc’s trade commissionerEU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic has said that the EU’s own countermeasures on US tariffs would start next week if negotiations fail.Sefcovic said on Monday that if negotiations failed to yield an agreement, the EU’s own countermeasures on US tariffs, which will start on 15 April, could not be delayed.He said EU negotiators had not seen engagement that would lead to a mutually acceptable solution, after US President Donald Trump’s administration announced last week a sweeping round of tariffs for most imported goods.He added on Monday that the European Union would not change its VAT system, which he described as an important source of income for member states.US president Donald Trump’s administration has said that VAT – value-added taxes – are an additional trade barrier.Tara Cobham7 April 2025 15:40Stocks turn positive on Wall Street in sudden reversalStocks have turned positive on Wall Street in a sudden reversal and the Dow Jones index has jumped 300 points, erasing a loss of 1,700.Tara Cobham7 April 2025 15:29Netanyahu to seek tariff relief in talks with TrumpIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will seek to limit the sting of tariffs imposed on his country when he meets US President Donald Trump on Monday, a visit likely to be closely watched by world leaders as global markets spiral downward.Netanyahu will be the first foreign leader to meet face-to-face with Trump since he announced a sweeping tariff policy last Wednesday.Under the new policy, Israeli goods face a 17 per cent US tariff. The United States is Israel’s closest ally and largest single trading partner.During midday talks in the Oval Office, the two leaders are also expected to discuss the 18-month-old war in Gaza and the fate of hostages taken from Israel and still held in the Palestinian enclave.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will seek to limit the sting of tariffs imposed on his country when he meets US President Donald Trump on Monday More

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      Corporate America won’t stop Trump’s tariffs. Here’s why | Alex Bronzini-Vender

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      Few historical analogies exist for Donald Trump’s newly announced tariffs. The investment bank Evercore estimates that the so-called “liberation day” announcement has raised the weighted average US tariff to 29% – its highest rate since 1900. To call it a generational action would be an understatement; my grandmother was born in 1939.These tariffs, if they remain in place, will raise prices, eliminate jobs and shrink retirements. No one will pay for them more dearly than American workers. Yet a shock to capitalism inevitably raises the question of whether, and how, capitalists will respond. Faced with Trump’s tariffs, what will the US’s business class do?Some commentators have hoped that, once the effects of Trump’s economic misrule become apparent, executives will finally turn on the Maga movement. But the answer, as during Trump’s previous tariff scares, is likely to disappoint. The Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, and International Dairy Foods Association have each issued strongly worded statements against Trump’s trade action. Others are likely forthcoming. But those words are unlikely to become meaningful action, for it is simply not in the business lobby’s nature to fight the Republican party.Unlike much of the developed world, the US lacks a single, representative organization for big business. Barring extraordinary initiative by political actors, or moments of deep and protracted crisis, unified and cross-sectoral corporate lobbies rarely appear in American history. The National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce began as initiatives of presidents William McKinley and William Howard Taft, respectively; the Business Roundtable, founded through a merger of two union-busting business groups in 1972, stands as a rare business lobby organized by business itself.If these organizations have a difficult time coming together, they have an even harder time sticking together. The roundtable and the chamber experienced their greatest momentum during the economic turbulence of the 1970s: at last, their managers were able to unite the otherwise fractious American business community under the banner of fighting organized labor and its New-Dealer allies within the Democratic party. But by the middle of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, those enemies had been vanquished – and the chamber and roundtable hemorrhaged membership in turn.Business organizations never regained the command of American capitalism they had won in the late 70s and early 80s. The Chamber of Commerce has maintained stature only by becoming, essentially, an all-purposes lobbying firm. Its primary function is to receive contributions from industries attempting to obscure their hand in pushing politically unpopular causes: tobacco seeking to shield itself from liability, the auto industry seeking to relax safety standards, the health insurance sector seeking to stall healthcare reform, etc.Though the chamber and roundtable briefly stepped into more activist roles during the disruptions of the Tea Party, their success was, at best, mixed. At once, they found themselves dueling against the oil, gas and utilities sectors, each of whom fervently backed rightwing insurgents. By 2014, they had largely eliminated the Tea Party’s beachhead in Congress. Even so, they failed to repel the advance of Trump during the 2016 primaries; nor did they manage to sap the influence of the Freedom Caucus, today a king-making group among House Republicans.Though business organizations managed to significantly shape Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, they notably failed to shape his administration’s 2018 trade war. Rather than mount a united front against Trump’s tariff regime, nearly 4,000 firms attempted to individually lobby the office of Robert Lighthizer for individual exemptions for their imports of interest. This, the political scientist Jack Zhang explains, had the ironic effect of overwhelming the United States trade representative’s office, and crowding out most lobbyists: few ultimately received exemptions, while the rest continued paying the cost of high tariffs.That period’s patterns are telling: American business, given the weakness of its coordinating institutions, is essentially incapable of coordinating significant challenges to the Republican party’s governance. A previous generation of corporate leadership might have met a shock of Wednesday’s magnitude with a coordinated response felt at all levels of American society – whether through lobbying efforts in Washington or advertisements in local newspapers. But American business is too disunited to mount similar campaigns today. “The pursuit of individual self-interests,” as Zhang noted in 2020, “left none to defend the public goods associated with a free and open market between the US and China.”That phenomenon is a persistent feature of the Trump era. The chamber’s boycott of campaign contributions to the Republican party after the January 6 insurrection lasted little more than two months. And the agricultural lobby, once a powerful pro-immigration voice on Capitol Hill, has all but abandoned its public advocacy for immigrants: organizing on the issue, where it exists, is done through quiet lobbying behind closed doors. If history is any guide, then, there will be no meaningful corporate break with the Republican party.“We are living through the nightmare edition of ‘Great Men Make History’,” wrote the leftwing theorist Mike Davis shortly before his death in 2022. “Unlike the high Cold war when politburos, parliaments, presidential cabinets and general staffs to some extent countervailed megalomania at the top, there are few safety switches between today’s maximum leaders and Armageddon.”Our moment, as Davis observed, is the apogee of a long-brewing structural crisis of American liberalism, where even the mechanisms that once aligned state policy with corporate interests have fundamentally broken down. Whether among executives, lobbyists or university trustees, an elite-led backlash to the Trump administration – on trade, immigration, the rule of law or anything else – is not forthcoming. Only an organized working class, then, can resist Trump.

      Alex Bronzini-Vender is a writer living in New York More

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      Senior Trump officials give conflicting lines on tariffs after markets turmoil

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      Senior officials within Donald Trump’s administration gave conflicting messages on Sunday about the US president’s global tariffs that have caused a meltdown in stock markets, prompted warnings of a world recession and provoked rare expressions of dissent from within his Republican party.Cabinet members fanned out across Sunday’s political talk shows armed with talking points on Trump’s 10% across-the-board tariff on almost all US imports, with higher rates targeted at about 60 countries. If the intention was to calm nerves with a clear statement of intent, then it backfired as top officials gave starkly contrasting signals.Howard Lutnick, the billionaire commerce secretary, struck an aggressive note on CBS News’s Face the Nation in which he portrayed the tariffs as here to stay. Asked whether there was a chance that tariffs would be postponed to allow countries to negotiate a deal with Washington, he replied: “There is no postponing – they are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks, that is sort of obvious.”Lutnick added that Trump intended to “reset global trade”.“The president has made it crystal, crystal clear,” he said.However, two other cabinet members gave the opposite take, suggesting that negotiations with individual countries were very much on the cards. Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, told Meet the Press on NBC News that Trump had “created maximum leverage for himself, and more than 50 countries have approached the administration about lowering their non-tariff trade barriers, lowering their tariffs, stopping currency manipulation”.The agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, echoed Bessent by flagging up possible talks. “We’ve got 50 countries that are burning the phone lines into the White House,” she told CNN’s State of the Union.The scale of Trump’s tariffs have sent shockwaves around the world, catching US investors as well as top Republican politicians by surprise. In just two days last week, more than $6tn was wiped off Wall Street’s market value.Trump told US consumers in a post on his Truth Social network to “hang tough, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic”. Yet as he spent the weekend golfing at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, his unprecedented tax increase goaded senior Republicans to speak out, in a vanishingly rare display of criticism of their leader.Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, denounced the tariffs as the “largest peacetime tax hike in US history”. Thom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina, said: “Anyone who says there may be a little bit of pain before we get things right needs to talk to farmers who are one crop away from bankruptcy.”Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas, warned of a “bloodbath” for Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections should the tariffs force the US into recession.Democrats are detecting opportunity in such unusual challenges to Trump from within his own party. Adam Schiff, the Democratic senator from California, floated on Meet the Press what sounded like a draft campaign strategy for the midterms.“If we head into a recession, it will be the Trump recession,” he said. Of Trump, Schiff also said: “He’s wrecking our economy.”Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota who ran as the Democrats’ vice-presidential candidate in last November’s defeat to Trump, called the tariffs “really, really terrifying” on State of the Union. He warned that if you punish dependable trading partners like Mexico and Canada, “they don’t come back overnight.”As the tariffs kick in, analysts are increasingly pointing to the chances of a recession, which is normally assessed as being two consecutive quarters of falling GDP. The head of economic research at JP Morgan, Bruce Kasman, has raised the probability of global recession to 60%, a figure that he included in a memo titled There Will Be Blood.Larry Summers, the US treasury secretary during Bill Clinton’s presidency, called the tariffs the “biggest self-inflicted wound we’ve put on our economy in history”. Speaking on ABC News’s This Week, he gave his own estimate of the total loss to US consumers at $30tn – equivalent to doubling petrol prices at the pump.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump’s cabinet members attempted to use rhetorical devices as a way of assuaging rattled investors and consumers. Rollins said the markets weren’t crashing – they were “adjusting”.Asked what he would say to Americans close to retirement who had just watched their lifetime savings drop significantly in recent days, Bessent called that a “false narrative”.“Americans who want to retire right now, they don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations of what’s happening,” Bessent said.Bessent’s answer was coloured, perhaps, by his own net worth, which has been put at more than $521m.There were moments of the surreal in the exchanges between Trump’s top officials and the political show hosts. Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper why 10% tariffs had been placed on Heard Island and McDonald Islands, which are populated by penguins near Antarctica but no humans, Rollins said: “I mean, come on, whatever. Listen, the people that are leading this are serious, intentional, patriotic – the smartest people I’ve ever worked with.”Tapper then pushed back on the agriculture secretary’s justification for the 20% “reciprocal” tariffs that have been imposed on EU goods sold to the US. Rollins said that Honduras bought more pork from the US than the entire European Union.Tapper pointed out that the EU had tight restrictions on hormone use in livestock production. The EU banned use of synthetic hormones in 1981, and blocked imports of animals that had been treated in that way.Rollins then accused the EU of using “fake science” to prohibit US products. “That’s just absolute bull,” she said. “We produce the safest, the most secure, the best food in the world.” More

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      in UK Politics

      Trump tariffs live: Starmer warns ‘world as we knew it has gone’ – while EU readies retaliatory measures

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      Starmer ‘unhappy’ about Trump tariffs, according to ministerSir Keir Starmer has said the “world as we knew it has gone” after US president Donald Trump slapped sweeping tariffs on dozens of trading partners including the UK.Sir Keir has said that his government stands “ready to use industrial policy to help shelter British business from the storm.”It comes after the US president put a 10 per cent tariff on all UK goods exports to America, including a 25 per cent tariff on all British carmakers.Labour minister Darren Jones said that a trade war was in “no-one’s interests” and said that globalisation as we’ve known it has come to an end. However Reuters has reported that the EU is considering retaliatory tariffs on $28 billion worth of US imports. A list of US goods that could be slapped with tariffs will reportedly be presented to EU countries late on Monday. Meanwhile Jaguar Land Rover said it was suspending shipments to the US while it considers how to mitigate the cost of Mr Trump’s tariffs.Taiwan’s president offers zero tariffs as basis for US negotiations Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te has offered zero tariffs as the basis for talks with the US, pledging to remove trade barriers rather than imposing reciprocal measures and saying Taiwanese companies will raise their US investments. President Donald Trump announced across-the-board import tariffs on Wednesday, with much higher duties for dozens of trading partners, including Taiwan, which runs a large trade surplus with the U.S. and faces a 32 per cent duty on its products.The US tariffs, however, do not apply to semiconductors, a major Taiwanese export.In a video message released by his office after meeting executives from small and medium-sized companies at his residence, Taiwan’s president said given Taiwan’s dependence on trade the economy would inevitably have a hard time dealing with the tariffs, but that he thought the impact could be minimised.”Tariff negotiations can start with ‘zero tariffs’ between Taiwan and the United States, with reference to the U.S.-Canada-Mexico free trade agreement,” Lai said.Taiwan’s cabinet is considering what large-scale agricultural, industrial and energy purchases to make from the United States, while the defence ministry has already put forward its weapons purchase plans, he added.”All purchases will be actively pursued,” Lai said.Holly Bancroft6 April 2025 15:44India does not plan to retaliate against US tariffs – reports India does not plan to retaliate against US president Donald Trump’s 26 per cent tariff on imports from the Asian nation, an Indian government official has told Reuters. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration has looked into a clause of Trump’s tariff order that offers a possible reprieve for trading partners who “take significant steps to remedy non-reciprocal trade arrangements”, said the official, who declined to be named as the details of the talks are confidential.Reuters reported last month that New Delhi is open to cutting tariffs on U.S. imports worth $23 billion.( More