Bloc’s options include retaliating with tariffs on US goods and services and forming closer ties with other countries
Donald Trump is getting ready to impose sweeping and immediate tariffs on all foreign goods, thereby unleashing a trade war and upending the multilateral trading system that the US helped to build after the second world war.
Here is how Europe might respond:
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: The administration’s sweeping tariffs have left markets bracing for volatility – but what impact will they have on an unsteady global economy?
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.
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.
Continue reading...President’s plans have rattled global stock markets and triggered heated rows with US’s largest trading partners
Donald Trump will announce his latest round of tariffs at the White House on Wednesday, threatening to unleash a global trade war on what he has dubbed “liberation day”.
Trump has rattled global stock markets, alarmed corporate executives and economists, and triggered heated rows with the US’s largest trading partners by announcing and delaying plans to impose tariffs on foreign imports several times since taking office.
Continue reading...Óscar Arias, 84, who won Nobel peace prize in 1987, said US president was behaving like ‘a Roman emperor’
Former Costa Rican president and Nobel winner Óscar Arias said on Tuesday that the US had revoked his visa to enter the country, weeks after he criticized Donald Trump on social media saying he was behaving like “a Roman emperor”.
Arias, 84, was president between 1986 and 1990 and again between 2006 and 2010. A self-declared pacifist, he won the 1987 Nobel peace prize for his role in brokering peace during the Central American conflicts of the 1980s.
Continue reading...Defence secretary’s trip to Asia shows the Trump administration is engaged with the region, but analysts warn Taipei to tread carefully
On Tuesday China’s military launched joint drills around Taiwan, sending ships, planes and some bizarre propaganda videos across the strait to both warn and punish Taiwan’s government over what Beijing calls “separatist activity”.
The purported provocation was recent assertiveness by Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, who in March designated China a “foreign hostile force” and announced 17 measures to counter its espionage and influence operations.
Continue reading...In speech that began Monday night, Democratic senator warns of ‘grave and urgent’ danger of Trump administration
Cory Booker, the Democratic US senator from New Jersey, has broken the record for longest speech ever by a lone senator – beating the record first established by Strom Thurmond, who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
Booker’s speech eventually ran to 25 hours and five minutes. Having begun at 7pm on Monday night, was not a filibuster but instead an effort to warn of what he called the “grave and urgent” danger that Donald Trump’s presidential administration poses to democracy and the American people.
Continue reading...Starmer said that a future trade deal with the US might lead to the UK getting some exemptions from the tariffs
Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, is giving evidence to the Treasury committee. There is a live feed here.
Hughes started by telling the committee that he wrote to the chancellor earlier this year to say that, when his five-year term ends later this year, he would like to have a second term in office.
We are of course negotiating an economic deal which will, I hope … mitigate the tariffs.
The US is our closest ally. Our defence, our security, our intelligence are bound up in a way that no two other countries are.
So it’s obviously in our national interest to have a close working relationship with the US, which we’ve had for decades, and I want to ensure we have for decades to come.
We are obviously working with the sectors most impacted at pace on that.
Nobody wants to see a trade war but I have to act in the national interests.
Continue reading...US climate agency upended as Doge efforts to slash federal government compromise email security
A sense of chaos has gripped the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), one of the world’s premier research agencies, with key staff hastily fired and then rehired, cuts to vital weather forecasting operations and even a new, unsecured server that led to staff being deluged by obscene spam emails.
Noaa is currently being upended by Donald Trump’s desire to slash the federal government workforce, with more than 1,000 people already fired or resigning from the agency and 1,000 more staffers are expected to be removed as the purge continues. In total, this represents around 20% of the Noaa’s workforce.
Continue reading...President promises to be ‘very kind’, but critics warn his strategy risks triggering chain reaction and global trade war. Plus, Nasa astronauts reject claims of neglect
Good morning.
As Donald Trump prepared to unveil a swathe of reciprocal tariffs, global markets braced themselves and some Republican senators voiced their opposition to a strategy that critics warn risks a global trade war, provoking retaliation by major trading partners such as China, Canada and the EU.
What do Europeans think of the plans? A large majority of western Europeans support retaliatory tariffs against the US, a survey has shown, if Trump introduces sweeping import duties for major trading partners as expected this week.
What did the memo say? The memo, reviewed by the Times, stated that “such elevated access to critical high-value asset systems is rare with respect to individual systems and no single [Department of Interior] official presently has access to all HR, payroll and credentialing systems”.
Continue reading...Survey shows between 56% and 79% across seven countries in favour if Trump introduces ‘Liberation Day’ levies
A large majority of western Europeans support retaliatory tariffs against the US, a survey has suggested, if Donald Trump introduces sweeping import duties for major trading partners as expected this week.
The US president appears likely to unleash a range of tariffs, varying from country to country, on Wednesday, which he has called Liberation Day. He also said last week that a 25% levy on cars shipped to the US would come into force the next day.
Continue reading...Administration accuses university of failing to protect students and plans to look into federal grants and contracts
The Trump administration announced a review on Monday of $9bn in federal contracts and grants at Harvard University over allegations that it failed to address issues of antisemitism on campus.
The multi-agency joint task force to combat antisemitism said it will review the more than $255.6m in contracts between Harvard University, its affiliates and the federal government, according to a joint statement from the education department, the health department and the General Services Administration. The statement also says the review will include the more than $8.7bn in multi-year grant commitments to Harvard University and its affiliates.
Continue reading...Members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine warned Americans of ‘real danger in this moment’
More than 1,900 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine signed an open letter warning Americans about the “danger” of the Trump administration’s attacks on science.
The letter comes amid the administration’s relentless assault on US scientific institutions which has included threats to private universities, federal grant cancelations and ideological funding reviews, mass government layoffs, resignations and censorship.
Continue reading...President issues full pardon to veteran Thomas Caldwell and commutes Jason Galanis’s 14-year prison sentence
Donald Trump has issued a full pardon to another person involved with the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol and commuted the sentence of a former business associate of Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s scandal-plagued son.
Thomas Caldwell, 69, of Berryville, Virginia, has been granted a pardon for his alleged role in the Capitol attack following a series of pardons Trump has given out to those involved with or present during the events on 6 January 2021.
Continue reading...Newly sworn in Jens-Frederik Nielsen says ‘Trump says that the United States is getting Greenland. Let me be clear: the United States won’t get that’
The US will not get Greenland, its new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, has said in response to Donald Trump’s latest statements that he wants to take control of the vast Arctic country.
“President Trump says that the United States is getting Greenland. Let me be clear: the United States won’t get that. We do not belong to anyone else. We determine our own future,” Nielsen said.
Continue reading...In interview Trump said he wasn’t joking when he alluded to a purported loophole for a third term as president
Donald Trump has said there are “methods” – if not “plans” – to circumvent the constitutional limit preventing US presidents from serving three terms.
In an interview aired Sunday on NBC, Trump was asked about his trying to stay in office beyond his second presidency, a specter he has repeatedly raised while sometimes claiming he is just joking.
Continue reading...Atlantic editor says Trump adviser’s defense for accidentally adding him to war plans chat was implausible
Atlantic magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg has dismissed the explanation offered by national security adviser Mike Waltz for how he was included in a Trump administration group text chat about – and in advance of – the recent bombing of Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Goldberg said Waltz’s theory that his contact was “sucked in” to his phone via “somebody else’s contact” was implausible.
Continue reading...Leaders call on federal authorities to explain actions after University of Minnesota student detained on Thursday
Officials in Minnesota were seeking answers in the case of a University of Minnesota graduate student who was being detained by US immigration authorities for unknown reasons.
University leadership said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detained the student on Thursday at an off-campus residence. Officials said the school was not given advance notice about the detention and did not share information with federal authorities. The student’s name and nationality have not been released.
Continue reading...Owner of Ogilvy and Grey agencies follows other multinationals in dropping or downplaying DEI policies since Trump’s election
The British advertising giant WPP has become the latest company to cut the phrase “diversity, equity and inclusion” from its annual report as the policies come under attack from the Trump administration.
The agency, which counts the US as by far its largest market, boasts the storied “Madison Avenue” agencies J Walter Thompson, Ogilvy and Grey among its top brands.
Continue reading...WHCA says it was dropping Amber Ruffin’s performance so the event’s ‘focus is not on the politics of division’
Comedy is off the menu at the annual White House correspondents’ dinner, a once convivial get-together for reporters to meet with federal governments officials that has become too fraught for light-heartedness amid the second Donald Trump presidency.
The dinner, scheduled for 26 April, is organized by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), and it typically features a post-meal comedic interlude where a comedian sets to work on the powerful. Beginning with Calvin Coolidge in 1924, every president has attended at least one WHCA dinner – except for Trump.
Continue reading...US president says his Russian counterpart’s questioning of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s credibility could delay ceasefire
Donald Trump has said he is “pissed off” with Vladimir Putin over his approach to a ceasefire in Ukraine and threatened to levy tariffs on Moscow’s oil exports if the Russian leader does not agree to a truce within a month.
The US president indicated he would levy a 25% or 50% tariff that would affect countries buying Russian oil in a telephone interview with NBC News, during which he also threatened to bomb Iran and did not rule out using force in Greenland.
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