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      The Guardian view on Starmer’s choices: time to be bold | Editorial

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      In his speech to the Labour party conference in 2005, Tony Blair used a seasonal analogy to make the case for embracing disruptive but inevitable change. “I hear people say we have to stop and debate globalisation,” Mr Blair told delegates. “You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer.”Twenty years on, to quote the billionaire US hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, it is the threat of a self-inflicted “economic nuclear winter” that haunts the global economy. Donald Trump’s imposition of swingeing US tariffs has unleashed mayhem on stock markets across the world, upending assumptions governing the world trade order since Bretton Woods. As Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, said at the weekend: “Globalisation as we’ve known it for the last couple of decades has come to an end.”What that means for the Labour government he serves and for Britain is both fraught with consequence and, to a significant degree, beyond Whitehall’s control. Second-guessing Mr Trump’s ultimate intentions – and the political and economic risks that he is willing to take, as consumers suffer the consequences of a trade war – is a futile exercise. But as the White House seeks to bully, intimidate and coerce its way to a new settlement between the US and the rest of the world, the risk of a global recession is clear.What Sir Keir Starmer described on Monday as a “new era” will require strategic boldness from an habitually cautious prime minister. Sir Keir should, for example, now go further and faster to reset relations with the EU, the UK’s biggest trading partner by far. That may involve an uneasy balancing act if EU countries decide to retaliate against Mr Trump, as the government seeks a trade deal with the White House and related tariff mitigation. But the alternative is unsplendid and impotent isolation, and a future “special relationship” with the US that approximates ever more closely to vassal status.Domestically, a reset is also required. Speaking in the West Midlands, Sir Keir announced modest measures to assist the UK car industry, hammered by 25% tariffs on exports at a time when it is also dealing with the pressures of the green transition. The prime minister described this as a “downpayment” on future support. But supply-side plans to relax electric vehicle targets for manufacturers send the wrong environmental message, when what is needed are radical measures to turbocharge consumer demand.The problem, paradoxically for a prime minister who defines himself as a pragmatist, is ideology. As the UK faces potentially huge economic headwinds, Labour’s industrial strategy will need to be bigger, more interventionist and less constrained by the redundant economic orthodoxies to which it continues to pay obeisance. Aspirations to drive significant growth through a combination of budgetary conservatism and deregulation were already looking doomed prior to Mr Trump’s act of sabotage last week. Following “liberation day”, Sir Keir’s ongoing insistence that the government will stubbornly persist with its fiscal rules begins to look like an act of national self-harm.Mr Blair’s old message on globalisation, addressed to post-industrial regions suffering the effects of unleashed market forces, used to be to adapt or face the consequences. As Mr Trump gambles on the fate of the world economy, making up the rules as he goes along, Labour will need to do precisely that, and at pace.

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      Labour: changes to EV rules will have ‘negligible’ impact on UK emissions

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      Labour’s changes to electric vehicle (EV) rules in response to Donald Trump’s tariffs will have a negligible impact on emissions, the transport secretary has said.Keir Starmer has confirmed plans to boost manufacturers, including reinstating the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.But regulations around manufacturing targets on electric cars and vans will also be altered, to help companies in the transition, and new hybrids will be on the market for a further five years.Heidi Alexander said the taxes on imports announced by the US president last week, which spurred reciprocal action by some affected countries, “are bad news for the global economy, because it’s bad for global demand, it’s bad for prices and it’s bad for consumers”.Speaking on BBC Breakfast about the impact on carbon emissions of the government’s changes to electric vehicle rules, she said: “The changes we are making have been very carefully calibrated so as not to have a big impact upon the carbon emissions savings that are baked into this policy. In fact, the impact on carbon emissions as a result of these changes is negligible.”Under the measures, luxury supercar companies such as Aston Martin and McLaren will be allowed to keep producing petrol cars beyond 2030 because they manufacture only a small number of vehicles a year. New hybrids and plug-in hybrid cars will be allowed to be sold until 2035. Petrol and diesel vans will be able to be sold until 2035, as well as all hybrid models.Alexander said the government had “struck the right balance” between protecting British businesses and cutting carbon emissions.Asked whether the retention of a 2030 target for the phasing out of all pure petrol and diesel cars would restrict free markets at a time when the car industry was on its knees, she said: “It is an opportunity for the car industry to remain at the cutting edge of the transition to EVs, but it’s right that we’re pragmatic.“It’s right that we are looking at how we can be flexible in the way in which car manufacturers make this transition, because we want cheaper EVs to be available for consumers. We want people to be able to benefit from those lower running costs as well.“And so it’s important that, as a government, we do everything that we can – not only to support British businesses and manufacturing to grow the economy, but also to cut those carbon emissions, and I think we’ve struck the right balance in the package that we’re announcing today.”Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if Starmer was prepared to use the relationship he has built with Trump to ask him to change course, she said: “Obviously when the prime minister has discussions internationally with allies he will be honest about what is in the best interests of the British people.”Challenged that the EV measures were planned before the announcement of the tariffs and were a tweak to policy rather than dramatic change, she told Today: “These are significant changes to the car industry. You are right to say we started the consultation on Christmas Eve and that we closed the consultation in the middle of February.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionShe said Trump’s imposition of tariffs meant the UK government had to look at its EV plans with “renewed urgency”.The Green party MP Siân Berry said: “The government is wrong to apply the brakes on the sale of EV cars. This is just the latest in a series of boosts the Labour government has given fossil fuel industries. We’ve also seen the green light being given to airport expansion and a new road tunnel under the Thames. This suggests Labour is weakening its climate commitments, and its health-related policy goals because all these moves will have a detrimental impact on air quality.“Slowing down the move away from fossil-fuelled transport makes no economic sense either, since green sectors of the economy are growing three times faster than the overall UK economy.”Colin Walker, the head of transport at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said: “In weakening the mandate elsewhere by extending flexibilities and allowing the sale of standard hybrids between 2030 and 2035, the government risks reducing the competition it has stimulated between manufacturers, meaning prices for families seeking an EV might not fall as fast, and sales could slow.“The growth of the secondhand EV market, where most of us buy our cars, would in turn be stunted, leaving millions of families stuck in petrol and hybrid cars paying a petrol premium of hundreds, and even thousands, of pounds a year.” More

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      The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s tariff ultimatum: tribute for access to America’s empire | Editorial

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      When Donald Trump stood before union auto workers in the Rose Garden he declared “Liberation Day”, promising to stand up for Main Street. Whether that pledge will be fulfilled is moot. He will declare victory either way. What the US president offered was not just an economic programme, but an imperial one.Mr Trump’s logic, if it exists, lies in the 397-page report on “foreign trade barriers” he brandished on Wednesday. Its message is brutally simple: you may sell your goods to Walmart shoppers, but only if you let US cloud services hoover up your data, US media flood your screens and US tech monopolies operate on their terms – not yours. TikTok is the test case for Trump’s platform nationalism: only US firms may mine data, reap profits and rule the digital empire.A one-week ultimatum and a fabricated national emergency lay bare the theatrics driving Mr Trump’s agenda. The US president’s proposed tariffs and economic nationalism are not about correcting trade imbalances; they are about coercing others into accepting American economic dominance – without requiring the US to sacrifice its domestic advantage.The US continues to run goods deficits not because it “borrows” from abroad, but because the rest of the world willingly exchanges real goods for dollars it cannot issue. Mr Trump demands tribute for that privilege: control over digital infrastructure, forced access for hi-tech rentiers and suppression of rival technologies. The realpolitik is that you can sell to American consumers – but only if you buy into American rules, platforms and financial dependencies. Though Mr Trump’s foreign policy is transactional, its domestic effect will probably be transformative – and not in a good way. Tariffs raise prices for everyone, especially the poor, while shielding local producers from competition. Meanwhile, as Mr Trump made clear, the revenues are earmarked not for public investment or industrial policy, but for tax cuts that benefit the wealthy. In this regime, tariffs redistribute upward: the poor pay more, so billionaires pay less.This is not so much anti-globalist as post-globalist. It seeks not withdrawal from the world, but a world that submits to new terms. The US empire still earns – but now demands more and spends less. Foreign aid is slashed and multilateral rules are replaced by bilateral bargains struck at speed. If allies want to trade, they must also license Google Cloud services, buy Boeing jets and resist Chinese influence. Trade, technology and security are bundled into a single, rent-seeking foreign policy.Markets, however, are less convinced – and their continued crashing reflects not just recession fears, but a dawning recognition that this model is not a one-quarter adjustment. It is a paradigm shift. The pain, even Mr Trump concedes, may be real. But for him, pain is purgative. It disciplines labour, justifies austerity and remakes the economy in the image of the deal.China’s retaliatory tariffs raise the prospect of a dangerous trade war. But Beijing is signalling that if it can’t win in the US-led system, it will build its own. For other major economies, including the UK, the task is not to replicate American leverage, but to reduce dependence on it – by deepening regional integration, investing in technological autonomy and limiting exposure to US-controlled chokepoints in finance, tech and defence. Resistance may provoke retaliation, but submission ensures subordination. In the long run, strategic cooperation – not bilateral concession – is the only durable answer to tariff imperialism. More

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      Digested week: The world spins on as I cope with Mum’s loss

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      MondayGrief is an unnerving companion. Continually nudging me off centre. Even though the world appears much as it did before my mum, Rosemary, died, everything feels slightly out of kilter. Not quite right. Not as I remembered it. Sometimes, I even have to double-check the chair is where I thought it was. The physical merges into the metaphysical. Most of the time I feel OK. Tell myself that it was the right time for her time to die and that no one can feel cheated at 101. That it is a blessing she is no longer subject to the terrors of her dementia. That she is at peace. I just get on with my work and spend time with family and friends.At other times, I feel overwhelmed with sadness. Struggling to come to terms with the finality. Unable to quite believe that the only time I will see my mum again is in my dreams. Consumed with regrets for the things I was never able to say, before and after the Alzheimer’s took hold. In the meantime, we get on with the death admin, of which there is surprisingly little. My sisters have registered her death and organised the small cremation service but there is no house to pack up and sell. We did all that years ago when she moved into the care home.Everything my mum owned was tucked away in the single room of the home where she lived. Just a few chairs and a small bookcase, some clothes and old photo albums. I felt in something of a daze as we went through my mum’s belongings. Now I regret some of the decisions I made. I found a small folder of random letters I had sent her, mostly ones I had written to her as a child. I found them too painful to re-read so I chose to throw them away. I wish I had hung on to them. As a mark of respect, both to her and to my younger self.TuesdayThere have been an increasing number of articles written warning Britons not to visit the US. I don’t feel as if I have a choice in this. My daughter lives in Minneapolis and I want to be able to visit her over the next four years. Or longer, if Donald Trump somehow manages to tear up the constitution and award himself a third term. As things stand, I have no idea if I have any reason to be worried. I’m certainly not about to stop making fun of the Sun-Bed King or commenting on his influence on global politics. I can imagine border security have more important things to do than prevent a Guardian journalist going on holiday to visit his family.But maybe I’m being naive. After all, even the UK government is going out of its way not to rock the boat. Keir Starmer has been desperate not to do anything to upset The Donald, even when the US administration was about to impose tariffs. He doesn’t even fight back when JD Vance and Marco Rubio suggests the UK is stifling free speech. The irony. Rachel Reeves has gone further still. In her spring statement last week, she couldn’t even bring herself to mention Trump by name. In her section on “global headwinds”, she was happy to call out Vladimir Putin. But the section on tariffs was rather garbled, with no references to Trump in person; nor are any other members of the cabinet prepared to do so. Trump is He Who Must Not Be Named. For the time being, then, I will just carry on as normal. I’m due to renew my ESTA in a few months’ time so we’ll see how that goes. One step at a time.WednesdayI have a feeling the four Beatles biopics that director Sam Mendes announced in Los Angeles this week may not be for me. One, maybe, out of curiosity. But four, each devoted to one member of the band, seems like overkill. It’s not as if the music is going to change much from film to film, though I guess Mendes will have prepared separate soundtracks, and the bottom line is I can’t see myself sitting through a film dedicated to Ringo.I’m just not a Beatles obsessive. I was well drilled by my eldest sister, Veronica. Back in 1964, when I was eight years old, she told me there was a choice to make. You were either a Beatles fan or a Rolling Stones fan and there was no crossing the divide. Veronica was a Stones girl through and through. She bought all their LPs and singles and was allowed out to see the band play at Longleat. My dad was a curate in nearby Westbury and the gig was a short drive away. I pleaded with my mum to be allowed to go as well, but was firmly put in my place.My first ever gig would have to wait a month or so. The Hollies were scheduled to also play Longleat and by now my mum had been ground down. I was in. Sadly, I had to make do with Heinz and the Wild Boys because the Hollies cancelled. But, from the age of eight I, too, was a Stones fan. The Beatles were the safe choice. The Stones had an air of danger. I lived out a parallel life to my middle-class childhood through Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It never occurred to me they would be still going 60 years later and that the Stones and the Beatles would both become about as establishment as you can get.View image in fullscreenThursdayOne of the less-reported knock-on effects of Labour’s landslide victory last July has been on select committees. In theory, these are where ministers and officials are held to account. Far more so than in parliament, where questions are so easily left unanswered. When I first started political sketch writing, there were three standout committees. There was the home affairs committee, where Theresa May was time and again put under scrutiny as home secretary, and the public accounts committee. Heaven forbid anyone tried to pull the wool over the eyes of its chair, Margaret Hodge. But best of all was the Treasury committee under the forensic Andrew Tyrie, aided and abetted by his attack dogs, Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting. It was always box office, no more so than when Dominic Cummings was completely exposed as a fraud. Chancellors used to be genuinely anxious before an appearance, unsure if their budgets were about to unravel in real time.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThis is no longer the case. Because Labour have such a massive majority, they get to take the lion’s share of the places on every committee. And, inevitably, many of the committee members are also new MPs. Men and women who don’t quite know yet how the system works; who are reluctant to properly interrogate senior ministers from their own party.A case in point was the chancellor’s appearance before the Treasury committee to answer questions on her spring statement this week. The last person Reeves would have wanted to face was her former self, because then she would have been forced to defend her benefits cuts and say what she would do if her fiscal headroom again went awol. But Reeves had no such worries. All the Labour MPs asked tame question – “Have you thought about this?” “Yes, I have” – and the two Tories were more spaniel than rottweiler. Rachel went into the hearing with a smile on her face. She came out laughing. You couldn’t blame her.FridayNext Tuesday is my mum’s cremation. It will be a small affair with just my sisters and me, partners, and Anna and Robbie. For the music, we have chosen two piano pieces that my mum used to play: a Schubert Impromptu and Chopin’s Raindrop prelude. As her wicker basket leaves the chapel, Richard Strauss’s Morgen! will be playing: a beautiful song she loved and passed on to us. There will be tears.We are planning a bigger service to inter her ashes next to my dad some time in May, though we’re not sure how many people to expect. Mum outlived almost all her family and friends, though maybe a few of the younger generation will come. It’s a tough time, made worse by the illness of my dog, Herbert Hound. We had hoped to have him around for the summer at least, but he is fading fast and I fear his life is measured in weeks at best.He spends most of his time asleep, hardly eats and has trouble weeing. The only upside is that he doesn’t appear to be in any pain. It feels as if Herbie is looking at us in a different way. Distant, yet strangely intimate. As if he knows his time is short. One of the few consolations in all this loss has been you, the readers. Over the past two weeks, I have received so many kind emails from strangers. Too many to reply to them all, but greatly appreciated, nonetheless. I thank you all. It has also been wonderful to meet so many of you at events I have been doing round the country. I have three more upcoming. At the Marine Theatre in Lyme Regis on Good Friday, the Bloomsbury Theatre in London on 24 April and at the Norwich Arts Centre on 1 May. Please do come. I would love the chance to talk to you and thank you in person. More

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      Global markets in turmoil as Trump tariffs wipe $2.5tn off Wall Street

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      Global financial markets have been plunged into turmoil as Donald Trump’s escalating trade war knocked trillions of dollars off the value of the world’s biggest companies and heightened fears of a US recession.As world leaders reacted to the US president’s “liberation day” tariff policies demolishing the international trading order, about $2.5tn (£1.9tn) was wiped off Wall Street and share prices in other financial centres across the globe.Experts said Trump’s sweeping border taxes of between 10% and 50% on the US’s traditional allies and enemies alike had dramatically added to the risk of a steep global downturn and a recession in the world’s biggest economy.World leaders from Brussels to Beijing rounded on Trump. China condemned “unilateral bullying” practices and the EU said it was drawing up countermeasures.While Trump timed his Wednesday evening Rose Garden address to avoid live tickers of crashing stock markets, that fate arrived when Asian exchanges opened hours later.Drawing comparisons with the market crashes at the height of the coronavirus pandemic and the 2008 financial collapse, the sell-off swept the globe, sending exchanges plunging in Asia and Europe. The UK’s FTSE 100 index of blue-chip companies closed the day down 133 points, or 1.5%, to 8,474 after suffering its worst day since August.All three main US stock markets were down at the end of trading in their worst day since June 2020, during the Covid pandemic. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 5.97%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow dropped 4.8% and 3.9%, respectively. Apple and Nvidia, two of the US’s largest companies by market value, lost a combined $470bn in value by midday.Libby Cantrill, the head of US public policy at Pimco, one of the world’s largest bond fund managers, said investors were growing increasingly concerned as Trump appeared to be unwilling to soften his stance in the face of market turmoil, although hope remained that he would ultimately strike deals with US trading partners.“There is likely a limit to how much pain he and his administration are willing to endure in order to rebalance the economy, but when that is or what that looks like remains to be seen,” she said.“For now, we should assume that his pain tolerance is pretty high and that tariffs stick around for a while.”The US dollar hit a six-month low, falling 2.2% on Thursday morning, amid a growing loss of confidence in a currency previously considered the safest in the world for most of the past century.Warning clients to beware a “dollar confidence crisis”, George Saravelos, the head of foreign exchange research at Deutsche Bank, said: “The safe-haven properties of the dollar are being eroded.”The heaviest falls in share prices on Thursday were reserved for US companies with complex international supply chains stretching into the countries that Trump is targeting with billions of dollars in fresh border taxes.Apple, which makes most of its iPhones, tablets and other devices for the US market in China, was down 9.5% at close of trading, and there were steep declines for other large multinationals including Microsoft, Nvidia, Dell and HP.Commodities fell sharply, including a 7% plunge in oil prices, reflecting growing concerns over the global economic outlook.Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump said: “I think it’s going very well. It was an operation like when a patient gets operated on and it’s a big thing. I said this would be exactly the way it is … We’ve never seen anything like it. The markets are going to boom. The stock is going to boom. The country is going to boom.”Trump later said: “Every country is calling us. That’s the beauty of what we do. If we would have asked these countries to do us a favour they would have said no. Now they will do anything for us.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOver the last nearly 24 hours, Trump has faced widespread backlash from US lawmakers and global leaders over his tariffs plan, with the senior Republican senator Mitch McConnell calling it “bad policy” while Canada – a traditional American ally – called the tariffs “unjustified” and “unwanted”.Tariffs will fall heavily on some of the world’s poorest countries, with nations in south-east Asia, including Myanmar, among the most affected.Cambodia, where about one in five of the population live below the poverty line, was the worst-hit country in the region with a tariff rate of 49%. Vietnam faces 46% tariffs and Myanmar, reeling from a devastating earthquake and years of civil war after a 2021 military coup, was hit with 44%.Analysts warned that garment and sports shoe makers, which rely heavily on production in south-east Asia, face rising costs, which will push up prices for consumers around the globe. The share prices of Nike, Adidas and Puma all fell steeply.Analysts said Trump’s measures would raise the average tariff, or border tax, charged by the US to the highest level since 1933, in a development that threatened to sink the US into recession while increasing living costs for consumers.Trump’s plans involve imposing a 10% tariff on all US trading partners from just after midnight on 5 April, before additional higher tariffs of up to 50% are imposed on countries including China, Vietnam and the EU.The non-partisan Tax Foundation thinktank said it estimated the plan would represent a “$1.8tn tax hike” for US consumers, which would cause imports to fall by more than a quarter, or $900bn, in 2025.While the measures will hit the US hard, researchers at the consultancy Oxford Economics said they could sink global economic growth to the lowest annual rate since the 2008 financial crisis, barring the height of the Covid pandemic.Countries scrambled to assess the fallout and whether to retaliate. The UK, which was hit with the lowest level of 10% tariffs, suggested it may retaliate even as it tries to strike a deal with Washington.It published a 417-page list of US products on which it could impose tariffs, including meat, fish and dairy products, whiskey and rum, clothing, motorcycles and musical instruments.The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, told MPs that ministers were still pursuing an economic deal with the US as the priority but “we do reserve the right to take any action we deem necessary if a deal is not secured”.The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Trump’s decision to impose tariffs of 20% on EU goods was “brutal and unfounded”, while Germany’s outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, called it “fundamentally wrong”.Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the “protectionist” tariffs ran “contrary to the interests of millions of citizens on this side of the Atlantic and in the US”.The EU is thought to be preparing retaliatory tariffs on US consumer and industrial goods – likely to include emblematic products such as orange juice, blue jeans and Harley-Davidson motorbikes – to be announced in mid-April, in response to steel and aluminium tariffs previously announced by Trump. 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      UK won’t engage in ‘kneejerk’ response to Trump tariffs, says minister

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      The UK government will not engage in a “kneejerk” response to any tariffs imposed by Donald Trump, as it warned there would be a “difficult period” ahead in trade relations with the US and called for calm.The US president is to announce his latest round of tariffs on Wednesday – which he has called “liberation day” – sparking concerns over a global trade war.The prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will face questions from MPs in parliament before the anticipated new tariffs that could derail their economic plans.Speaking before the announcement, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, said the government had been “working through every eventuality”.“We do recognise this is likely to be a very challenging period,” she told BBC Breakfast. “We still have negotiations under way with our US counterparts about securing an economic deal, but we will always act in the national interest and the interest of the British people.”Phillipson said the government would “always act in the national interest and the interest of the British people”, adding: “I think what they want, and what business and industry wants, is to for us to maintain a calm and quite pragmatic approach during this time and not engage in a kneejerk response, because the last thing that anybody would want is a trade war with the US.”Since taking office, Trump has rattled global stock markets and caused consternation among business leaders by announcing and then delaying plans to impose tariffs on foreign imports.The threats have soured US relations with its largest trading partners. Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has called them “unjustified” and said his country would react robustly. The European Union has said it has a “strong plan” to retaliate.Asked whether the UK government would consider abandoning its fiscal rules in the event of exceptional trade circumstances, Phillipson said “fiscal rules do matter”.“They matter because we have to demonstrate that we have a clear sense about how we manage the public finances,” she told Sky News.“I think your viewers will have seen in recent years with the Liz Truss government, what happens when you have a government that doesn’t have a grip on the public finances and isn’t prepared to make choices about priorities. Our fiscal rules are important, and they do matter.”Speaking about the government’s announcement of up to 4,000 new childcare places in new or expanded school-based nurseries, Phillipson said it was the “first step” towards achieving the 100,000 places promised by Labour last year.“We know the difference that early years education makes to children’s life chances, and also your viewers will know how important it is that they can access childcare places,” she said. More

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      Wednesday briefing: What the latest wave of tariffs mean for the US, UK, Europe – and you

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      Good morning. According to Donald Trump, it’s “liberation day”: the advent of a new trade order in which Americans reap the benefit of massive tariffs on imports, and the rest of the world picks up the tab.Unsurprisingly, the United States’ trading partners tend to take a very different view. And they are doing everything they can to avoid being passive targets for the White House’s carnivorous vision of American exceptionalism.Trump will announce his plans at 4pm Eastern Time (9pm UK) in the White House’s Rose Garden – but it is still not clear whether a flat rate will be applied globally, or if the charge will vary by country instead. Even at the last minute, countries including the UK are hoping that they might win exceptions; political leaders, and financial markets, are on edge.For today’s newsletter, Guardian correspondents explain what the tariffs mean around the world – and when you can expect to feel the impact in your pocket. Here are the headlines.Five big stories

      Israel-Gaza war | Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced a major expansion of the military operation in Gaza on Wednesday, saying large areas of the enclave would be seized and added to the security zones of Israel. Follow the latest here.

      Israel-Gaza war | Some of the bodies of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, killed by Israeli forces and buried in a mass grave in Gaza, were found with their hands or legs tied and had gunshot wounds to the head and chest, according to two eyewitnesses. The accounts add to evidence pointing to a potentially serious war crime on 23 March.

      UK news | More than 20 women have contacted police to say they fear they may have been attacked by the serial rapist Zhenhao Zou, with detectives fearing there may be even more victims to come. Zou, 28, was convicted last month of raping three women in London and seven in China between 2019 and 2024.

      US politics | Cory Booker, the Democratic US senator from New Jersey, has broken the record for longest speech ever by a lone senator by spending 25 hours and five minutes inveighing against Donald Trump in the chamber. Booker’s speech was intended to highlight the “grave and urgent” danger that Trump poses to democracy.

      Cinema | Val Kilmer, the actor best known for his roles in Top Gun, Batman Forever and The Doors, has died at the age of 65. His daughter Mercedes told the New York Times that the cause of death was pneumonia.
      In depth: Concessions, retaliation, ‘friendshoring’ – and a new mood of volatilityView image in fullscreenOn Monday, Donald Trump told reporters that he had “settled” on a tariff plan – but according to CNN, White House officials were still presenting him with options on Tuesday. And White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that he was “always up” for a phone call or negotiation with foreign leaders hoping to plead their case.That suggests the satisfaction Trump takes in the power he is able to exert through the United States’ economic might. And whereas in his first term he appeared sensitive to the markets giving his economic policies the thumbs down, he seems genuinely more bullish this time around. Even on the question of whether consumers will pay more, he has so far stuck to the line that the cost will be worth it in the end.“I couldn’t care less if they raise prices, because people are going to start buying American-made cars,” he said of tariffs on foreign cars on Sunday. And last month, of the tariffs on Canada and Mexico, he said: “We may have, short term, a little pain. People understand that.”Here’s what that stance means around the world.UK | What is Downing Street’s strategy?View image in fullscreenLast night, Pippa Crerar, Heather Stewart and Richard Partington reported that the UK is ready to offer a significant reduction in its digital services tax, a 2% levy on UK revenues that applies to big American tech firms including Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, eBay, and Apple.But while business secretary Jonathan Reynolds has insisted that the UK is in “the best possible position of any country to reach an agreement”, Downing Street acknowledges that it is unlikely to get a deal before tariffs come in on a global scale.“They’ve been aiming at an exemption ever since Trump was inaugurated,” Pippa, the Guardian’s political editor, said – one key reason that Peter Mandelson, a trade expert, was appointed as US ambassador. “Trump has talked about ‘being nice’ to countries that ‘haven’t made a fortune’ out of the US – they hope that’s aimed at us.”“They remain hopeful he’ll row back quickly because they say a trade deal is ready to go,” she added. “Despite what they say, the trade deal is as much or more about avoiding tariffs as having a brilliant economic relationship. So it’s a defensive move.”As well as the digital services tax, Trump appears to view VAT as unfair. “I just don’t see how they could change that,” Pippa said. “It’s paid by all companies, not just US ones. And there’s some anger within Labour that the US is trying to interfere with domestic taxation systems.”That speaks to some of the risks of caving to Trump’s demands. “They’re always thinking of the politics of it,” Pippa said. “But they believe that it’s worth a few bad headlines back home about sucking up to Trump to avoid the potential damage of a full blown trade war with the US which could cost our economy billions.”Markets | What kind of impact are we seeing?“We’ve had plenty of volatility already this year, partly because many analysts were complacent about how disruptive Trump would be,” said Graeme Wearden, who runs the Guardian’s daily business liveblog.“Several Wall Street firms have already cut their end-of-year forecasts for the US stock market in recent weeks, which shows that some of the recent drama is being priced in. But, having seen the US president announce tariffs against Mexico and Canada, and then delay them, investors probably won’t assume the Rose Garden announcement will be the end of the story.”MCSI’s index of global stocks showed a 4.5% fall in March, the biggest decline since September 2022. But that impact has not been evenly distributed. “There’s been a clear rotation out of US stocks this year, and into Europe,” Graeme said. “While the S&P 500 index of US shares is down 4.5% during 2025, the pan-European Stoxx 600 has jumped 6%.” The FTSE 100 has enjoyed its best quarter since 2022 as traders have looked for alternatives to US firms.If you’re looking for other signs that this is a nervous moment, the Cboe Volatility Index (Wall Street’s “fear gauge”), has climbed by a third in the last week – and is up 50% on a year ago. That is “a sign that investors expect volatile times”, Graeme said. But he added: “It was three times higher during the 2008 financial crisis, showing that a) investors aren’t in a full-blown panic, and b) there’s room for more volatility.”World | How are other countries responding?The UK is not the only country to seek carve-outs from Trump’s threatened universal tariffs: Japan, for example, has tried to persuade the US its manufacturers should be exempted from the 25% car tariff, and South Korea has sought an exemption from steel and aluminium exports.But the wider pattern is of major economic counterparts seeking to respond in kind. “Certainly the EU is expected to retaliate, and we’ve already seen Canada, for instance, hit back,” said economics editor Heather Stewart. “They’re most likely to try and pick up on specific products that hit the US without screwing up their own supply chains too much … Retaliation will tend to make the economic impact of tariffs worse; but politically, it’s understandable that countries want to look tough.”The other major plank of the global response has been an acceleration in moves towards “friendshoring” – the strategy of reorienting trade policies towards trusted allies with a more reliable approach. China, Japan and South Korea are holding talks over a new free trade deal, for example.“It was already happening to some extent,” Heather said, partly because of “renewed awareness of extended supply chains that came with Covid and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But I would definitely expect more deals that exclude the US.”Cost of living | When am I going to start feeling the impact?It’s still too early for the specific costs attached to tariffs to be felt in a major way by consumers – but “the price impact could already be beginning”, economics correspondent Richard Partington said. “Some economists reckon firms will raise their prices under the cover of tariffs, with the assumption that consumers think prices will rise – even if tariffs on those goods are never actually introduced.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhile that is hard to quantify, there is evidence from the US during Trump’s first term – when the cost of clothes dryers went up because of a tariff on imported washing machines – that it is a plausible path. Something similar might happen in the UK on goods sold from the US using components sourced from overseas, Richard said – but it’s also possible that “trade reallocation”, where countries send exports that might have gone to the US to other trading partners, could lead to price cuts.Consumers will be affected in other ways that are less direct – but no less real. There has been a marked impact on consumer confidence surveys, Richard said, and businesses are holding back on their spending plans. “The potential UK impact has been best spelled out so far by the OBR,” Richard said. “In the worst case scenario of global trade disputes escalating to include 20 percentage point rises in tariffs between the USA and the rest of the world, this could reduce UK GDP by a peak of 1%.”That would wipe out all of Rachel Reeves’ storied fiscal headroom by the fifth year of forecasts, making tax rises in the autumn inevitable. Uncertainty is another intangible but consequential factor, he added – “like a slow puncture on the global and UK economy”. You can keep juddering on – but it’s anybody’s guess when you’ll suddenly veer off the road.What else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen

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      SportView image in fullscreenFootball | Bukayo Saka scored the decisive goal in Arenal’s 2-1 win against Fulham seven minutes after coming off the bench on his return from injury. In the night’s other Premier League matches, Nottingham Forest beat Manchester United 1-0 and Wolves beat West Ham 1-0.Cricket | Charlotte Edwards has been named as the new England women’s head coach. The former England captain put her hat in the ring in February, when changes were expected after a disastrous tour of Australia last winter in which England lost the Ashes by 16 points to nil.Rugby | There remains a “high degree of uncertainty” over whether tens of millions of pounds paid to rugby union clubs and other sports teams during the Covid-19 pandemic will ever be repaid, a House of Commons committee has warned. The committee said that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has been “overly optimistic” about loans worth £474m.The front pagesView image in fullscreen“PM offers US tech firms tax cut in return for lower Trump tariffs” says the Guardian’s splash headline, while the Telegraph’s version is “Starmer’s 11th-hour bid to halt trade war”. It’s “Trump trade madness” and “CARnage” on the front of the Mirror while the Times has “Firms told to brace for impact of Trump tariffs”. The Daily Mail finds reason to be cheerful: “Trump’s tariffs threaten crisis for Reeves” and the Express runs with “Don’t provoke new trade war that ‘makes UK poorer’,” saying Kemi Badenoch doesn’t want Starmer to retaliate. In the i they’ve gone with “UK told to ‘prepare for the worst’ as Trump begins his global trade war”. In times like these, trust the Financial Times with your money: “Investors flock to gold as fears mount on eve of Trump tariff announcement”. “Student rapist: 23 more victims” is the top story in the Metro.Today in FocusView image in fullscreenCould Marine Le Pen’s guilty verdict help fuel the far right?The parliamentary leader of France’s far-right National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, has been banned from public office for five years for embezzlement, ruining her chance of a presidential run. Angelique Chrisafis reportsCartoon of the day | Pete SongiView image in fullscreenThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badView image in fullscreenJoy Ebaide, a Nigerian solo traveller, has embarked on many journeys across Africa, which all came with their own challenges. A heart-stopping encounter with a black mamba while riding her motorbike in Tanzania was terrifying, but it did not put her off travelling. Instead, it fuelled her desire to keep exploring. Ebaide embarked on a five-month solo journey from Mombasa to Lagos in 2024, riding a Tekken 250cc motorbike across Africa’s rugged terrains. Her travels, shared on social media, not only highlight the fun experiences but also shed light on the challenges faced by those with “weaker” passports.Ebaide is not alone in her pursuit of adventure despite these obstacles. Alma Asinobi, after facing visa refusals, set out to break a world record for visiting all seven continents. “The trip itself is a victory. Because historically, travelling as a black woman has an additional layer of complexity … I just want more women to know that you can do things, and it’s OK whether it works or not: just do things,” she says.Bored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

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