Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers resigned from his teaching post at Harvard University over his links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Ivy League institution said on Wednesday.Summers, who ran the US Treasury under former president Bill Clinton, was revealed in the Epstein files released by the Department of Justice to have had extensive exchanges with the now deceased financier.Clinton will testify before a congressional committee on Epstein on Friday while his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, will appear Thursday.”Harvard Kennedy School Dean Jeremy Weinstein has accepted Professor Lawrence H. Summers’ resignation from his leadership position as co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government,” the university said in a statement, noting the move was linked to the Epstein case.”Professor Summers has announced that he will retire from his academic and faculty appointments at Harvard at the end of this academic year and will remain on leave until that time.”In a previous video clip that went viral, Summers, who taught government at the prestigious university’s Kennedy School, expressed regret to his students over his ties to Epstein. – ‘Statement of regret’ -“You will have seen my statement of regret expressing my shame with respect to what I did in communication with Mr Epstein,” he said.In November 2025, Summers said he was “stepping back” from public commitments after Congress released emails showing close communication between him and Epstein.”I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr Epstein,” Summers said at the time in a statement to US media.Summers also previously resigned from the board of the OpenAI foundation over the disclosures.The mere mention of someone’s name in the Epstein files does not, in itself, imply any wrongdoing by that person. However, the documents made public show at the very least connections between Epstein or his circle and certain public figures who have often downplayed — or even denied — the existence of such ties.Epstein cultivated a global network of powerful politicians, business executives, academics and celebrities — many of whom have been tainted by their association with him.He had made $9.1 million in donations to Harvard University between 1998 and 2008, the institution said.A number of prominent Americans — from the Clintons to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates — have had their reputations damaged by their friendships with Epstein, but no one other than Epstein’s ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell has faced legal consequences in the United States.

The IMF on Wednesday called on the United States to work with trading partners and find ways to mutually ease trade curbs, as it issued a review of the world’s biggest economy.The International Monetary Fund’s findings covered the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency, in which he unleashed wide-ranging tariffs on allies and competitors alike as he sought to shrink the US trade deficit and boost domestic manufacturing.But his on-again, off-again tariffs have roiled supply chains and financial markets.During the year, the Trump administration also sought to lower reliance on unauthorized immigrant workers and reduce the federal government’s role in the economy, the IMF noted.But the fund said Wednesday that Washington should work constructively with partners “to address concerns over unfair trade practices and agree on a coordinated reduction in trade restrictions and industrial policy distortions that have negative cross-border effects.””Where trade and investment measures (including tariffs and export controls) are put in place for national security reasons, such policies should be applied narrowly,” it urged.IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva told journalists that the report was prepared before the Supreme Court struck down many of Trump’s tariffs last Friday, adding that it would digest this development.Since the ruling, Trump has tapped a different law to impose a new 10-percent global tariff, which he also threatened to hike to 15 percent.Georgieva met with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell before the report’s release.She noted that the fund shares the Trump administration’s concern about the size of the US trade and current account deficit. She added that the country’s current account gap is “too big.”- ‘Stability risk’ -The continuing rise in public debt also “remains a major issue” to keep in mind, Georgieva said.The IMF said that “while the risk of sovereign stress in the US is low, the upward path for the public debt-GDP ratio and increasing levels of short-term debt-GDP represent a growing stability risk to the US and global economy.”Overall, the fund projects US GDP growth to come in at 2.6 percent in 2026, picking up from 2.2 percent last year.While the economy is “buoyant,” the IMF warned that “uncertainty around trade policies could represent a larger-than- expected drag on activity.”It noted in the concluding statement of its “Article IV” consultation that the country saw “continued strong productivity growth even though the government shutdown took a bite out of activity in the fourth quarter.”The IMF last issued US-related policy suggestions in 2024.At that time, it raised concern over growing trade restrictions under then-president Joe Biden’s administration, urging officials to unwind obstacles to free trade.The fund in 2024 also pushed for a reversal in the rise in public debt, noting that officials could raise taxes among other reforms.