Donald Trump fired several US national security officials after a far-right conspiracy theorist questioned their loyalty in a White House meeting with the president, US media reported Thursday.Influencer Laura Loomer, who is known for claiming that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job, laid out her concerns to Trump on Wednesday, the New York Times said in a report followed up by other outlets.The reported purge comes as the National Security Council (NSC) faces scrutiny over a scandal in which a journalist was accidentally added to a chat on the Signal app in which officials discussed air strikes on Yemen.Six people from the NSC were sacked after the Loomer meeting, including three senior officials on the body which advises the president on top foreign policy matters from Ukraine to Gaza, the New York Times said.Loomer confirmed the meeting, but said on X that “out of respect for President Trump and the privacy of the Oval Office, I’m going to decline on divulging any details.”The activist later said she had presented “opposition research” to the Republican president.Asked about the report of the firings, Trump later told reporters: “We’re always going to let go of people — people we don’t like or people that take advantage of or people that may have loyalties to someone else.”Trump described Loomer as a “great patriot” but said she was “not at all” involved with the reported NSC firings.”She makes recommendations… and sometimes I listen to those recommendations,” he told reporters on Air Force One.NSC spokesman Brian Hughes told AFP the council “doesn’t comment on personnel matters.”The 31-year-old Loomer often flew with Trump on his campaign plane during the 2024 election.She sparked accusations of racism when she said on social media that Trump’s Democratic rival Kamala Harris — whose mother was of Indian descent — would make the White House “smell like curry” if she won.In recent days Loomer has repeatedly targeted national security official Alex Wong — who was reportedly not among those sacked — over the so-called “Signalgate” scandal that has rocked the White HouseShe baselessly suggested that he was responsible for accidentally adding Atlantic magazine journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat, even though National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has taken responsibility for the error.Trump has resisted calls to sack Waltz over the issue. Waltz was seen boarding Trump’s helicopter as the president left the White House for a trip to Florida on Thursday.But US media have reported that Waltz is considered by some in Trump’s orbit as too tied to neo-conservative policies, rather than Trump’s “America First” approach.

An original model of E.T., created for Steven Spielberg’s beloved film “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” did not find a buyer after being put up for auction, Sotheby’s auction house in New York said Thursday.The piece, a little over a meter high and which had been estimated to fetch between $600,000 and $900,000, comes from the collection of Italian special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi.The three-time Oscar winner — including one for “E.T.” — died in 2012 at the age of 86.”Rambaldi’s beloved ET model is an extraordinary piece of film history,” Sotheby’s vice chair Cassandra Hatton told AFP.”While it did not find a buyer during today’s auction, its significance remains undiminished.”The model offered for sale is one of three used by Spielberg for his 1982 film.In a statement before the auction, Hatton described the model as embodying “the artistry of an era before CGI (computer-generated imagery) took hold, a nostalgic and iconic piece of Hollywood history as captivating as the stories themselves.”Sotheby’s said that a separate E.T. sketch made by Rambaldi had sold Thursday for over $53,000, well above its top-end estimate of $18,000.In 2022, a metallic automaton representing E.T. and also used during the shooting of the successful film was sold for $2.56 million at an auction organized by the American house Julien’s.

Donald Trump’s tariffs have become a black and white issue on social media, where penguin memes have gone viral after he targeted an island inhabited by the flightless birds, but no people.One widely shared image on Thursday showed a penguin in place of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office during his recent row with the US president and Vice President JD Vance.Another meme showed US First Lady Melania Trump gazing up at an emperor penguin — in place of former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — while Trump looks askance.Trump’s announcement of worldwide tariffs on Wednesday certainly received an icy reception in many countries.But there has also been bafflement about why some of the most remote parts of the world have been targeted.A case in point: why would Trump slap 10 percent tariffs on all exports from the Heard and McDonald Islands, a barren sub-Antarctic Australian territory without a human population, but four different species of penguin? “The penguins have been ripping us off for years,” Anthony Scaramucci, who was Trump’s former communications chief for 11 days in his first term and is now a vocal critic, joked on X.”Donald Trump slapped tariffs on penguins and not on Putin,” posted US Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, referring to the fact that Russia was not on the US tariff list.The White House said sanctions on Russia over President Vladimir Putin’s war on meant that there was no “meaningful” trade on which to impose tariffs.Trump also caused puzzlement with his 29 percent tariff on Norfolk Island, a tiny Australian territory in the Pacific with a population of a little over 2,000 humans.”I’m not quite sure that Norfolk Island, with respect to it, is a trade competitor with the giant economy of the United States,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.Britain’s remote Falkland Islands — home to one million penguins, and most famous for a 1982 war fought by Britain to repel Argentinian invaders — was hit by 41 percent exports even though the UK only faces 10 percent.Trump’s tariffs have however been no laughing matter for global markets, with US stocks suffering their worst day since the Covid pandemic in 2020.

As global financial markets plunge in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, Americans must also grapple with the potentially long-lasting impact of the move on household budgets.The tariffs — which are paid in the first instance by US importers — will likely push up the price of many household items in the United States and reduce consumers’ spending power. – Grocery store costs -The US imports a growing share of the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed each year, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).Many of the fresh goods come from Canada and Mexico, two countries not immediately affected by the tariffs announced Wednesday. But other goods will be hit by the stinging duties set to come into effect this month.For example, the United States imports large quantities of bananas from the Latin American countries of Guatemala, Ecuador and Costa Rica, which will all face a 10 percent tariff from April 5.Coffee — around 80 percent of which is imported, according to the USDA — is likely to see a price increase, given that top exporters Brazil and Colombia will also face the new baseline 10 percent rate.Olive oil and alcohol imports from Italy, Spain and Greece will be hit with a new 20 percent levy against the European Union from April 9. And Thai jasmine rice and Indian basmati rice will face tariffs of 36 percent and 26 percent respectively, while Indian shrimp — which the US imports large quantities of — will face the same 26 percent rate. – Electronics and cars -Consumer electronics are also set to be hit with steep tariffs this month, given how many of products are manufactured or assembled in India and China. Despite moves to expand its supply chain, Apple still makes the vast majority of its iPhones in China, through supplier Foxconn, where hardware exports will be hit with a tariff totaling 54 percent from April 9.Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that US buyers of high-end iPhones, who account for as much as 70 percent of sales, are “relatively more accepting of price increases.”On top of the measures announced Wednesday, the Trump administration has also rolled out a 25 percent tariff against vehicles not made in the United States — a step analysts have warned could add thousands to the cost of the average car. – Shoes, clothes -Shares of clothing and textile companies, which rely on cheap labor in countries including China and Vietnam, fell sharply Thursday, with Nike sinking more than 13 percent and Gap tanking more than 20 percent.The new tariffs announced Wednesday mean imports to the United States from China and Vietnam will be taxed at 54 percent and 46 percent respectively. Yale’s Budget Lab estimated the effect of recent tariffs, up to and including Wednesday’s announcement, would cause a 17 percent rise in the cost of clothing and textiles.The think tank calculated that the overall effect on prices of the tariffs announced so far was equivalent to an average per household consumer loss of $3,800.Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump insisted that tariffs would make the United States “very rich.””The operation is over,” he said, referring to the recent tariff announcement. “And now we let it settle in.”

President Donald Trump said his administration was “very close” to a deal to find a buyer for TikTok, which faces a US ban if not sold by its Chinese owner by the weekend.”We’re very close to a deal with a very good group of people,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding that it involved “multiple” investors but giving no further details.The hugely popular video-sharing app, which has over 170 million American users, is under threat from a US law that passed overwhelmingly last year and orders TikTok to split from its Chinese owner ByteDance or face a ban in the United States.Motivated by national security fears and widespread belief in Washington that TikTok is ultimately controlled by the Chinese government, the law took effect on January 19, one day before Trump’s inauguration.But the Republican president quickly announced a delay that has allowed it to continue to operate; that delay is set to expire on April 5.Trump has downplayed risks that TikTok is in danger of being banned in the United States, saying he remains confident of finding a buyer for the app’s US business.The US president also suggested TikTok could even be part of a broader deal with China to ease the stinging tariffs he imposed on Beijing as part of a worldwide blitz of levies.Asked Thursday if he was willing to make deals with countries on tariffs, he said: “As long as they are giving us something that is good. For instance with TikTok.”He added: “We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say we’ll approve a deal but will you do something on the tariffs. The tariffs give us great power to negotiate.”According to reports, the most likely solution would see existing US investors in ByteDance roll over their stakes into a new independent global TikTok company.Additional US investors, including Oracle and Blackstone, the private equity firm, would be brought on to reduce the proportion of Chinese investors.Much of TikTok’s US activity is already housed on Oracle servers, and the company’s chairman, Larry Ellison, is a longtime Trump ally.But uncertainty remains, particularly over what would happen to TikTok’s valuable algorithm. The New York Times suggested the new company could licence it from ByteDance.Amazon has also reportedly made a last-minute bid to buy TikTok.

At first glance, Mexico got off lightly from Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs blitz.The US president has repeatedly threatened the United States’ top trading partner with punishing tariffs over illegal migration and drug smuggling.So it was a surprise when he left Mexico off the list of nations on which he imposed levies ranging from 10 to 50 percent.The relief in Mexico, which has a free-trade deal with the United States and Canada, was tempered by concern over the 25-percent levies Trump slapped on foreign-made imported vehicles.That includes some of the three million vehicles the Latin American country sends north across the border each year.AFP looks at how Mexico, whose President Claudia Sheinbaum has been walking a diplomatic tightrope with Trump, fared generally:- The good – Mexico avoided the 10-percent blanket tariffs imposed by Trump on several Latin American countries, including ones with staunchly pro-Trump governments such as Argentina and El Salvador.For the moment at least, some Mexican exports to the United States remain tariff-free.Analysts at BBVA bank said the fact that Mexico faced a lower level of relative protectionism “could give it advantages in accessing the US market and, therefore, attracting investment.”They said it could act as an incentive for nearshoring — companies moving their operations to Mexico from other countries to use it as a tariff-free or low-tariff port of entry to the United States.”It would simply be more profitable or less expensive to export these goods from Mexico than from countries with higher tariffs,” BBVA said.During Trump’s first presidency from 2017-2021, scores of Chinese companies relocated their production to northern Mexico to avoid tariffs — a bone of contention for the Republican leader.- The bad -Parts of Mexico’s vital automotive industry are reeling after being hit with 25 percent tariffs, which come a month after Trump imposed levies on other goods from Mexico and Canada not covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement (USMCA) trade deal.Mexico’s steel and aluminum exports to the United States have, since March, also been subject to 25 percent tariffs.”We shouldn’t be subject to these tariffs simply because the USMCA agreement provides otherwise,” Juan Francisco Torres-Landa, a partner at consulting firm Hogan Lovells in Mexico City, told AFP.The automotive tariffs are particularly painful for Mexico.In recent years, several major automakers including Ford, General Motors, BMW, and Audi have outsourced part of their production to Mexico because of its tariff-free access to the United States.Under Trump’s new rules, US vehicle parts will not face tariffs. But manufacturers say that with automotive components crossing the US-Mexico border multiple times during the assembly process, it is nearly impossible to ascertain which are American.Torres-Landa called the provision “gibberish.” “A car must have about 10,000 parts; tracking them to see what you pay (tariffs) for and what you don’t pay for is a very complex equation,” he said.A day after the tariffs were announced, the shockwaves are still being felt.Stellantis (born out of the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Renault) said it would immediately pause production at some of its Mexican and Canadian plants.Volkswagen, meanwhile, indicated it would halt rail shipments of vehicles made in Mexico to the United States, Automotive News said.The Mexican government said Thursday that over the next 40 days it will attempt to negotiate “the best conditions” with the Trump administration for the automotive, steel, and aluminum industries.- The unknown -The uncertainty caused by Trump’s repeated threats of steep tariffs has already caused a slowdown in manufacturing activity.While the Mexican government has forecast economic growth of about 1.5 percent this year, analysts surveyed by the central bank said this week they expected it to come in much lower, at 0.5 percent.In the country’s northern industrial borderlands, home to thousands of factories built to serve the US market, Mexicans fear mass layoffs.”I think difficult times are coming,” trucker Omar Zepeda told AFP in the border city of Tijuana this week.