FBI agents on Friday raided and searched the home of one of President Donald Trump’s most outspoken critics, his former national security adviser John Bolton.Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation entered Bolton’s home in the Washington suburb of Bethesda early in the morning, an AFP reporter said. A police car with flashing lights was stationed outside the house, while journalists and onlookers gathered in the leafy street.The director of the FBI, Kash Patel, posted on X: “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission.”According to The New York Times and other US media outlets, the search was ordered to determine whether Bolton had illegally shared or possessed classified information.Bolton served as Trump’s adviser in his first term and angered the administration with the publication of a highly critical book, “The Room Where it Happened.”Legal efforts to block release of the book for allegedly containing classified information were eventually dropped when Joe Biden replaced Trump in the presidency in 2021.Bolton has since become a highly visible and pugnacious critic of Trump, frequently appearing on television news shows and in print to condemn the man he has called “unfit to be president.”A longtime critic of Iran’s ruling powers, Bolton was a national security hawk and has received death threats from Iranians.The raid by the FBI comes seven months after Trump stripped him — and multiple other critics — of government security protections.Since returning to power in January, Trump has embarked on a campaign to punish political opponents or simply anyone not fitting his right-wing agenda.The onslaught has targeted private individuals like Bolton, senior civil servants, elite universities, law firms and opposition Democratic politicians.

At a wine shop in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, bottles sourced from Europe are becoming costlier to import — and soon, pricier for customers to buy, the owner says — thanks to a resident just down the road in the White House.President Donald Trump has slapped a 15-percent tariff on many goods coming from the European Union, as part of a deal the bloc negotiated to avoid even steeper levies.The continent’s important wine and spirits industry hoped to have a carveout, but details released Thursday showed no exemption to the double-digit duty.The new EU rate took effect this month, replacing a 10-percent levy Trump imposed in April on most trading partners. But even the lower tariff has forced importers to hike prices — and retailers are feeling the pinch.”Everybody’s redoing their price books at this point,” said Michael Warner, co-owner of wine boutique DCanter in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.He told AFP that price increases from importers and distributors became apparent around June, ranging from 10-15 percent.Over 80 percent of wine in Warner’s store is imported, with about two-thirds from Europe.Businesses may have stocked up to mitigate a price shock from Trump’s duties, but inventory is depleting.As the euro strengthened against the dollar this year too, Warner said many importers “are seeing a 20-percent swing in their costs.” “As more and more importers are increasing their costs, we see that there will be more and more price increases, certainly in the next coming months and going into the holiday season,” he said.- No ‘special treatment’ -EU negotiators have sought to exempt alcohol such as Irish whiskey and French champagne from Trump’s tariffs, but their efforts have been fruitless so far.The bloc’s trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic maintained Thursday that “these doors are not closed forever.”The French wine exporters federation said it was “hugely disappointed” in the outcome.The Italian Wines Union foresees potential losses of 317 million euros ($368 million) over the next 12 months.”We now need determined action to reintegrate our sectors among those that enjoy a totally open US market,” said Giacomo Ponti, president of Italy’s wine and spirits federation.A White House official told AFP this week that the Trump administration “did not agree to any special treatment of EU alcohol” as part of the tariff deal.US Wine Trade Alliance president Ben Aneff argues, however, that his country has “a huge economic surplus on the sale of wines from the EU.”The American wine industry generally operates in a tiered system, where foreign producers sell to importers, who then sell to distributors. They in turn sell to retailers and restaurants.”For every dollar we spend in the European Union on wine, we make $4.52,” Aneff said of the economic impact of the wine changing hands through the supply chain.He estimates the United States buys some $5.3 billion worth of wine annually from the EU: “But that makes us about $24 billion in the United States.”The industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in importing and distribution, alongside tens of thousands of independent wine retailers — who in turn sell to consumers.”There’s no guarantee there will be an exclusion but we do know it’s something that the administration is considering seriously,” Aneff said.- ‘Extraordinarily trying time’ -Harry Root, who operates a wine distribution and import company with his wife, said they have paid “more than $100,000 worth of tariffs already this year.””We made less than $400,000 last year, so this is already like a 25-percent tax on our business,” he said. His firm, Grassroots Wine, serves South Carolina and Alabama.The funds to pay tariffs, according to Root, come from business capital that otherwise would have gone to wine makers, including dozens in the United States.”It puts a big strain on our ability to support our American producers,” he said.US wine producers also rely on imported components ranging from bottles made in Asia to barrels from Europe — and tariffs raise those costs too.While Root has not laid off staff, he has delayed replacing workers who left — departing from ambitious growth plans at the start of the year to expand the business.”Once the tariffs really became a reality, we curtailed that,” he said, adding that the company has had to cut costs.”This is a really, extraordinarily trying time.”