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A combination of tact and tenacity is credited for Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s successful dealings with US counterpart Donald Trump, most recently convincing him to delay a sky-high import tariff meant to come into effect Friday.The pair are known to get along despite sitting on opposite sides of the political aisle, earning Mexico’s first woman president the epithet of “Trump whisperer.”At least three times now, the US president has granted Mexico tariff relief and Trump has described Sheinbaum as a “wonderful woman” to the envy of a host of other world leaders who have found exchanges with Trump can be tetchy.On Thursday, Trump agreed to delay by 90 days a 30 percent general tariff on imported Mexican goods, just hours before it was to take effect.It was the outcome of the ninth phone conversation between the two leaders since Trump returned to power in January with a strong rhetoric against undocumented migrants and fentanyl flowing from America’s southern neighbor.How did she do it? “With a cool head,” the president herself told reporters Friday.The 63-year-old physicist and dedicated leftist added that she avoids “confronting” the magnate, all the while insisting on Mexico’s sovereign rights in dealing with a man known to respect strong leaders.Sheinbaum has said that Mexicans should “never bow our heads” and Trump has acknowledged her mettle, remarking: “You’re tough” in one phone call, according to The New York Times. “Mexico represents a lot to the United States… they are aware of that,” Sheinbaum explained.- ‘Ability to convince’ -Thanks to the USMCA free trade agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada, nearly 85 percent of Mexican exports have been tariff-free.And while a 30 percent general tariff has been delayed, for now, Mexico’s vital automotive sector is the target of a 25 percent levy, albeit with discounts for parts manufactured in the United States.Its steel and aluminum sectors, like those of other countries, are subject to a 50 percent tariff.Mexico’s government nevertheless claims the latest delay as a victory. “Without being sycophantic, I can tell you that the way our president handles her conversations, her approach, the firmness with which she defends Mexico’s interests, her ability to convince President Trump, is very significant,” Secretary of Economy Marcelo Ebrard, who leads trade negotiations, told reporters Thursday.- Give and take -Sheinbaum seems also to have adopted a give and take approach, deploying thousands of border troops to assuage Trump’s concerns about migration and drug flows.The president insists she has “not yielded anything” in negotiations with Trump, and talks are ongoing between the neighbors for a security agreement to tackle the problem of fentanyl and drug trafficking.Sheinbaum has also raised the possibility of importing more US products to reset the trade balance.Some fear the Mexican leader is merely buying time.The latest tariff delay “does not solve the issue of uncertainty; we return to the starting point,” Diego Marroquin, a trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told AFP. 

Global markets reeled Friday after President Donald Trump’s tariffs barrage against nearly all US trading partners as governments looked down the barrel of a seven-day deadline before higher duties take effect.Trump announced late Thursday that dozens of economies, including the European Union, will face new tariff rates of between 10 and 41 percent.However, implementation will be on August 7 rather than Friday as previously announced, the White House said. This gives governments a window to rush to strike deals with Washington setting more favorable conditions.Neighboring Canada, one of the biggest US trade partners, was hit with 35 percent levies, up from 25 percent, effective Friday — but with wide-ranging, current exemptions remaining in place.The tariffs are a demonstration of raw economic power that Trump sees putting US exporters in a stronger position, while encouraging domestic manufacturing by keeping out foreign imports.But the muscular approach has raised fears of inflation and other economic fallout in the world’s biggest economy.Stock markets in Hong Kong, London and New York slumped as they digested the turmoil, while weak US employment data added to worries.Trump’s actions come as debate rages over how best to steer the US economy, with the Federal Reserve this week deciding to keep interest rates unchanged, despite massive political pressure from the White House to cut.Data Friday showed US job growth missing expectations for July, while unemployment ticked up to 4.2 percent from 4.1 percent.On Wall Street, the S&P 500 dropped 1.6 percent, while the Nasdaq tumbled 2.2 percent.- Political goals -Trump raised duties on around 70 economies, from a current 10 percent level imposed in April when he unleashed “reciprocal” tariffs citing unfair trade practices.The new, steeper levels listed in an executive order vary by trading partner. Any goods “transshipped” through other jurisdictions to avoid US duties would be hit with an additional 40 percent tariff, the order said.But Trump’s duties also have a distinctly political flavor, with the president using separate tariffs to pressure Brazil to drop the trial of his far-right ally, former president Jair Bolsonaro.He also warned of trade consequences for Canada, which faces a different set of duties, after Prime Minister Mark Carney announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September.In targeting Canada, the White House cited its failure to “cooperate in curbing the ongoing flood of fentanyl and other illicit drugs” — although Canada is not a major source of illegal narcotics.By contrast, Trump gave more time to Mexico, delaying for 90 days a threat to increase its tariffs from 25 percent to 30 percent.But exemptions remain for a wide range of Canadian and Mexican goods entering the United States under an existing North American trade pact.Carney said his government was “disappointed” with the latest rates hike but noted that with exclusions the US average tariff on Canadian goods remains one of the lowest among US trading partners.- ‘Tears up’ rule book -With questions hanging over the effectiveness of bilateral trade deals struck — including with the EU and Japan — the outcome of Trump’s overall plan remains uncertain.”No doubt about it — the executive order and related agreements concluded over the past few months tears up the trade rule book that has governed international trade since World War II,” said Wendy Cutler, senior vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.On Friday, Trump said he would consider distributing a tariff “dividend” to Americans.Notably excluded from Friday’s drama was China, which is in the midst of negotiations with the United States.Washington and Beijing at one point brought tit-for-tat tariffs to triple-digit levels, but have agreed to temporarily lower these duties and are working to extend their truce.Those who managed to strike deals with Washington to avert steeper threatened levies included Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea and the European Union.Among other tariff levels adjusted in Trump’s latest order, Switzerland now faces a higher 39 percent duty.

Faced with closed restrooms, vandalized facilities and lavatory deserts, New Yorkers and visitors to the city alike confront a host of hurdles to relieve themselves when out and about.In its latest efforts to combat this problem, the Big Apple has turned to a Portland-based company that designs modular public conveniences it claims are city-proof.The products, dubbed “Portland Loos,” are the brainchild of Madden Fabrication and have garnered something of a cult following around the versatile, kiosk-like facilities which the company says are far cheaper than traditional toilet buildings.Such public toilet pods have already been installed in 250 locations throughout the United States.New York has pledged to build 49 new public bathrooms by 2029 to combat the lack of toilets across the five boroughs.Currently, there are approximately 1,100 public conveniences for the megacity’s 8.4 million people, according to official estimates.   – ‘Simple but durable’ -The city will spend $150 million on building new restrooms and renovating 36 existing sites. At the $200,000 unit installed in the Bronx’s Joyce Kilmer park, two blocks from Yankee Stadium baseball park, bystanders eyed the new fixture with interest.One man accidentally activated the hand dryer, part of a sink fitting located on the outside of the booth.A spokesman for the company described the design as “simple but durable,” with the basin placed outside in order to keep people moving and avoid a “hotel effect.””Hell yeah, we haven’t had a bathroom in this area in forever,” said lifelong Bronx resident Carlos Lopez, describing discrepancies in public restroom access between lower-income and wealthier neighborhoods.For the five trial units ordered, New York insisted on a higher grade of stainless steel and other modifications to meet strict planning rules.Street photographer Elijah Dominique, who lives near the park, said public bathrooms were especially important for unhoused people.”We’ve got a lot of homeless people in this area,” Dominique said. “Those are the people who really need these bathrooms. It’s good for them — and for us too so that we’re not stepping in (waste) on the sidewalks. Nobody wants that.”

US Federal Reserve governor Adriana Kugler is resigning from her position, the central bank said Friday, opening a vacancy that President Donald Trump can fill as he presses his campaign to drop interest rates.Kugler, who was nominated by former president Joe Biden in 2023, did not give a reason for stepping down from the Fed’s board.Her term was due to end in January 2026, but her departure — effective August 8 — gives Trump the chance to appoint someone new to the Fed sooner than anticipated, shaping its leadership.Trump said he was “very happy” about the upcoming vacancy, after Kugler submitted her letter of resignation to him.The personnel shift comes as the Fed faces intensifying pressure under Trump, who has repeatedly criticized the central bank’s chief Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates sooner.Trump said Friday on social media that “Powell should resign” just as Kugler did.The US president previously suggested that what he says is an overly costly renovation of the Fed’s headquarters could be a reason to oust Powell, before backing off the threat.Powell’s term as Fed chair ends in May 2026.Kugler did not attend the Fed’s two-day policy meeting this week due to a personal matter, and did not vote on its decision.In a mid-July speech, she made the case for holding rates at the current level for some time, citing inflationary pressures and relatively low unemployment levels.”It has been an honor of a lifetime to serve on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,” Kugler wrote in her resignation letter.Fed policymakers have approached further rate cuts with caution — since their last reduction in December — as they assess the impact of Trump’s wide-ranging and fluctuating tariffs on inflation.They expect to have a better gauge of the duties’ effects after data from the summer months, given that tariffs take time to filter through the economy.But Trump has pushed for interest rate reductions, and for the benchmark lending rate to be lowered by as much as three percentage points.Earlier on Friday, Trump touted the fact that two Fed governors voted against the central bank’s Wednesday decision to keep rates unchanged again.He said on social media: “STRONG DISSENTS ON FED BOARD. IT WILL ONLY GET STRONGER!”He also called Powell a “stubborn moron” and said the Fed’s board should “assume control” if Powell continued to support holding rates steady.Kugler is expected to return to Georgetown University as a professor this year, the Fed said.

President Donald Trump said Friday he has ordered the firing of a key economic official, accusing her of manipulating employment data for political reasons — without giving evidence — after a new report showed cracks in the US jobs market.US job growth missed expectations in July, Labor Department data showed, and revisions to hiring figures in recent months brought them to the weakest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic.Trump lashed out at the department’s Commissioner of Labor Statistics — Erika McEntarfer — after the report, writing on social media that the jobs numbers “were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.”In a separate post on his Truth Social platform, he charged that McEntarfer had “faked” jobs data to boost Democrats’ chances of victory in the recent presidential election.”McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months,” Trump said, referring to latest data for July.”Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative,” he added.But he insisted that the world’s biggest economy was “booming” under his leadership.The United States added 73,000 jobs last month, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.2 percent from 4.1 percent, said the Department of Labor earlier Friday.Hiring numbers for May were revised down from 144,000 to 19,000. The figure for June was shifted from 147,000 to 14,000.This was notably lower than job creation levels in recent years. During the pandemic, the economy lost jobs.The employment data points to challenges in the key labor market as companies took a cautious approach in hiring and investment while grappling with Trump’s sweeping — and rapidly changing — tariffs this year.The numbers also pile pressure on the central bank as it mulls the best time to cut interest rates.With tariff levels climbing since the start of the year, both on imports from various countries and on sector-specific products such as steel, aluminum and autos, many firms have faced higher business costs.Some are now passing them along to consumers.- ‘Gamechanger’ -“This is a gamechanger jobs report. The labor market is deteriorating quickly,” said Heather Long, chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union.She added in a note that of the growth in July, “75 percent of those jobs were in one sector: health care.””The economy needs certainty soon on tariffs,” Long said. “The longer this tariff whiplash lasts, the more likely this weak hiring environment turns into layoffs.”But it remains unclear when the dust will settle, with Trump ordering the reimposition of steeper tariffs on scores of economies late Thursday, which are set to take effect in a week.The president also raised tariffs on Canadian imports, although broad exemptions remain.Mortgage Bankers Association economist Joel Kan said that for now, “goods-producing industries saw contraction for the third straight month.””Service industries involved in trade also saw declines in job growth, potentially a result of the uncertain tariff environment, as businesses either put their activity on pause or pulled back altogether,” Kan added in a note.- ‘Overly cautious’ -A sharp weakening in the labor market could push the Federal Reserve toward slashing interest rates sooner to shore up the economy.On Friday, the two Fed officials who voted this week against the central bank’s decision to keep rates unchanged warned that standing pat risks further damaging the economy.Both Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman and Governor Christopher Waller argued that the inflationary effects of tariffs were temporary.They added in separate statements that the bank should focus on fortifying the economy to avert further weakening in the labor market.Putting off an interest rate cut “could result in a deterioration in the labor market and a further slowing in economic growth,” Bowman added.Waller said: “I believe that the wait and see approach is overly cautious.”

Ghislaine Maxwell, the accomplice of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been moved from a prison in Florida to a minimum security facility in Texas, the Bureau of Prisons said Friday, triggering an angry reaction from some of their victims.No reason was given for Maxwell’s transfer but it comes a week after a top Justice Department official met with her to ask questions about Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial for allegedly sex trafficking underage girls.”We can confirm Ghislaine Maxwell is in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan in Bryan, Texas,” a Bureau of Prisons spokesman said.Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, interviewed Maxwell for two days at a Florida courthouse last week in a highly unusual meeting between a convicted felon and high-ranking Justice official.Blanche has declined so far to say what was discussed but Maxwell’s lawyer, David Markus, said she answered every question she was asked.Maxwell has offered to testify before Congress about Epstein if given immunity and has also reportedly been seeking a pardon from Trump, a one-time close friend of Epstein.She had been subpoenaed to give a deposition to the House Oversight Committee on August 11, but Politico reported Friday it had been postponed indefinitely.The former British socialite is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted in 2021 of recruiting underage girls for Epstein.Two women who said they were sexually abused by Epstein and Maxwell and the family of another accuser who recently committed suicide condemned the prison transfer.”It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received,” Annie and Maria Farmer and the family of Virginia Giuffre said in a statement Friday.”Ghislaine Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children on multiple occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency,” they said.”Yet, without any notification to the Maxwell victims, the government overnight has moved Maxwell to a minimum security luxury prison in Texas,” they said. “This move smacks of a cover-up. The victims deserve better.”- ‘Cover-up in real time’ -Tim Hogan, a senior Democratic National Committee advisor, also denounced what he alleged was a “government cover-up in real time.””Donald Trump’s FBI, run by loyalist Kash Patel, redacted Trump’s name from the Epstein files — which have still not been released,” Hogan said.”While Trump and his administration try to cover up the heinous crimes included in those files, they’re simultaneously doing favors for convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.”Trump is facing mounting demands from Democrats and many of his conspiracy-minded Make America Great Again supporters to be more transparent about the case of the wealthy and well-connected Epstein.Trump’s supporters have been obsessed with the Epstein case for years and have been up in arms since the FBI and Justice Department said last month that Epstein had committed suicide while in jail, did not blackmail any prominent figures, and did not keep a “client list.”The president raised further questions this week as he told reporters he fell out with Epstein after the financier “stole” female employees from the spa at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.One of those girls was Giuffre, who accused Epstein of using her as a sex slave and committed suicide at her home in Australia in April.Giuffre’s family issued a statement this week appealing to Trump not to consider pardoning Maxwell, who they called a “monster who deserves to rot in prison for the rest of her life.”

France said Friday it could not seize $9.7 million worth of women’s contraception products that the United States plans to destroy, after media reports suggested the stockpile would be incinerated in the country.The contraceptives were purchased by the US foreign aid agency USAID under former president Joe Biden to be provided to women in some of the world’s poorest countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.But Donald Trump’s administration, which has dismantled USAID since Trump succeeded Biden in January, confirmed last month it intends to destroy the contraceptives being stored in a warehouse in the Belgian city of Geel.According to several media reports, the unexpired products were to be incinerated in France at the end of July by a company that specialises in destroying medical waste.France’s government has come under pressure to save the contraceptives, with women’s rights groups calling the US decision “insane”.But the health ministry told AFP that “unfortunately there is no legal basis” for French or even European health authorities to intervene to recover the stockpile.”Since contraceptives are not drugs of major therapeutic interest, and in this case we are not facing a supply shortage, we have no means to requisition the stocks,” it added.The ministry also said it had no information on where the contraceptives would be destroyed.- Where are they?  -It remains unclear where the contraceptives currently are — or even if they have already been destroyed.French women’s rights group Family Planning told AFP on Thursday they had been informed that the boxes had started being moved out of the Belgian warehouse 36 hours earlier.”We do not know where these trucks are now — or whether they have arrived in France,” the group’s head Sarah Durocher said, calling on incineration companies to “oppose this insane decision”.Exactly which company could be responsible for incinerating the products has also not been revealed.French company Veolia, which had been rumoured as a contender, confirmed to AFP that it has a contract with the US firm Chemonics, USAID’s logistics provider. However the company emphasised that the contract only covers “expired products, which is not the case for the stockpile” in Belgium.The products, which include IUDs, implants and birth control pills, are reportedly up to five years away from expiring.Belgium’s foreign ministry told AFP earlier this week that it “is exploring all possible avenues to prevent the destruction of these products, including temporary relocation solutions”.- ‘Senseless’ -The US decision has provoked an outcry in France.”Can France accept to become the executor of a senseless policy imposed by the US?” said an opinion piece by five NGOs in the French newspaper Le Monde on Friday.Among the signatories was MSI Reproductive Choices, one of several organisations that have offered to purchase and repackage the contraceptives at no cost to the US government. All offers have been rejected.Last week, Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen pointed to the Trump administration’s stated goal of reducing government waste, saying the contraceptives plan “is the epitome of waste, fraud and abuse”.Shaheen and Democratic Senator Brian Schatz have introduced a bill aiming to prevent further US aid being wasted.A US State Department spokesperson told AFP earlier this week that the destruction of the products would cost $167,000 and “no HIV medications or condoms are being destroyed”.The spokesperson also pointed to a policy, reinstated by Trump earlier this year, which prohibits providing aid to non-governmental organisations that promote or perform abortions.The NGO Doctors Without Borders, which has slammed the US plan as “unconscionable”, has pointed to reports that there is another warehouse with USAID-purchased contraceptives in the United Arab Emirates.A study published in The Lancet medical journal in June estimated that more than 14 million of the world’s most vulnerable people could die as a result of the USAID cuts.Last month, the US also incinerated nearly 500 metric tons of high-nutrition biscuits that had been meant to keep malnourished children in Afghanistan and Pakistan alive.

NASA and SpaceX launched a four-member crew to the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday for the latest research expedition to the orbiting laboratory.American astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov lifted off at 11:43 am aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule mounted on a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.The capsule, named Endeavour, has previously flown four NASA missions as well as a private mission.The Crew-11 mission marks the 11th crew rotation mission to the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which was created to succeed the Space Shuttle era by partnering with private industry.As part of their six-month stay, the Crew-11 astronauts will simulate Moon landing scenarios that could be encountered near the lunar South Pole under the United States-led Artemis program.Using handheld controllers and multiple display screens, they will test how shifts in gravity affect astronauts’ ability to pilot spacecraft, including future lunar landers.Continuously inhabited since 2000, the ISS functions as a vital testbed for research that supports deeper space exploration — including eventual missions to Mars.Among Crew-11’s more colorful cargo items are Armenian pomegranate seeds, which will be compared to a control batch kept on Earth to study how microgravity influences crop growth.The ISS is set to be de-commissioned after 2030, with its orbit gradually lowered until it breaks up in the atmosphere over a remote part of the Pacific Ocean called Point Nemo, a spacecraft graveyard.Dmitry Bakanov, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos has been holding talks with NASA’s acting administrator Sean Duffy this week about the station’s future.When US-Russia relations nosedived at the start of the Ukraine war, Russia threatened to pull out of ISS cooperation early. But on Thursday, Bakanov confirmed Russia remained committed to de-orbiting in 2030. 

Russia fired a record number of drones at Ukraine in July, an AFP analysis showed Friday, intensifying its deadly bombardment of the country despite US pressure to stop the war.Russian attacks have killed hundreds of Ukrainian civilians since June.A combined missile and drone attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early Thursday killed 31 people, including five children, said rescuers.Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has consistently rejected calls for a ceasefire, said Friday that he wanted peace but that his demands for ending the nearly three-and-a-half year invasion were “unchanged”.Those demands include that Ukraine withdraw from territory it already controls and drop its NATO ambitions forever.”The main thing is to eradicate the causes that gave rise to this crisis,” Putin told reporters alongside Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.”We need a lasting and stable peace on solid foundations that would satisfy both Russia and Ukraine, and would ensure the security of both countries,” Putin said.- Flowers for the children -In Kyiv, residents held a day of mourning for the 31 killed on Thursday, most of whom were in a nine-storey apartment block torn open by a missile.AFP journalists at the scene on Friday saw rescue workers pulling bodies from the debris.Iryna Drozd, a 28-year-old mother-of-three, was laying flowers at the site to commemorate the five children killed.The youngest, whose lifeless body was found early Friday, was two years old.”These are flowers because children died. We brought flowers because we have children. Our children live across the street from here,” she told AFP.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who announced rescue operations had ended on Friday, said later that only Putin could end the war and renewed his call for a meeting between the two leaders.”The United States has proposed this. Ukraine has supported it. What is needed is Russia’s readiness,” he wrote on X.- ‘We can wait’ -Putin made no mention of a possible meeting with Zelensky in his comments to reporters Friday, and suggested Kyiv was not ready for further negotiations.”We can wait if the Ukrainian leadership believes that now is not the time,” he said.He said Russian troops were advancing “along the entire front line”, and that Moscow had started mass producing “Oreshnik” — a nuclear-capable, hypersonic missile that Moscow first fired on Ukraine last year.The Kremlin has consistently rejected a ceasefire in Ukraine, saying in July it saw no immediate diplomatic way out of its nearly three-and-a-half year invasion.US President Donald Trump on Thursday condemned Russia’s actions in Ukraine, suggesting that new sanctions against Moscow were coming.”Russia — I think it’s disgusting what they’re doing. I think it’s disgusting,” Trump told journalists.Trump also said he would send his special envoy Steve Witkoff, currently in Israel, to visit Russia next.On Tuesday, the US leader issued a 10-day ultimatum for Moscow to halt its invasion, now in its fourth year, or face sanctions.- ‘Depraved’ -EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas described Thursday’s attacks as “depraved” on Friday and posted a picture of the bloc’s flag at half mast.”More weapons for Ukraine and tougher sanctions on Russia are the fastest way to end the war. Getting more air defenses to Ukraine fast is our priority,” she added in a post.Zelensky has been appealing to allies for more air defence systems and on Friday, Germany said it would soon start delivering two more US-made Patriot launchers to Ukraine.Germany has already delivered three Patriot systems to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The US employment market is showing weakness as companies grappled with President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, government data showed Friday, while two central bank officials warned on labor risks in the world’s biggest economy.US job growth missed expectations in July, the data showed, and revisions to hiring figures in recent months brought them to the weakest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic.The employment data points to cracks in the key jobs market as companies took a cautious approach in hiring and investment and puts pressure on the central bank as it mulls the best time to cut interest rates.The world’s biggest economy added 73,000 jobs last month, while hiring numbers were revised significantly lower for May and June, the Labor Department said.The jobless rate nudged up from 4.1 percent to 4.2 percent.Experts have warned that private sector firms appear to be in a wait-and-see mode due to heightened uncertainty over Trump’s rapidly changing trade policy.With tariff levels climbing since the start of the year, both on imports from various countries and on sector-specific products such as steel, aluminum and autos, many firms have faced higher business costs.Some are now passing them along partially to consumers.On Friday, the Department of Labor said hiring numbers for May were revised down from 144,000 to 19,000. The figure for June was shifted from 147,000 to 14,000.This was notably lower than job creation levels in recent years. During the pandemic, the economy lost jobs.Average hourly learnings rose by 0.3 percent to $36.44 in July, the Labor Department said.It added that employment continued rising in health care and in social assistance, while the federal government continued shedding jobs.- ‘Gamechanger’ -“This is a gamechanger jobs report. The labor market is deteriorating quickly,” said Heather Long, chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union.She added in a note that of the growth in July, “75 percent of those jobs were in one sector: healthcare.”The US economy has added an average of just 35,000 jobs per month since May, data showed.”The economy needs certainty soon on tariffs,” Long said. “The longer this tariff whiplash lasts, the more likely this weak hiring environment turns into layoffs.”But it remains unclear when the dust will settle, with Trump ordering the reimposition of steeper tariffs on scores of economies late Thursday that are set to take effect in a week.Trump also raised tariffs on Canadian imports, while maintaining existing exemptions.Joel Kan, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, said that for now, “goods-producing industries saw contraction for the third straight month.””Service industries involved in trade also saw declines in job growth, potentially a result of the uncertain tariff environment, as businesses either put their activity on pause or pulled back altogether,” Kan added in a note.- ‘Overly cautious’ -A sharp weakening in the labor market could push the Federal Reserve toward slashing interest rates sooner to shore up the economy.On Friday, the two Fed officials who voted this week against the central bank’s decision to keep rates unchanged warned that standing pat risks further damaging the economy.Both Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman and Governor Christopher Waller argued that the inflationary effects of tariffs were temporary.They added in separate statements that the bank should focus on fortifying the economy to avert further weakening in the labor market.Putting off an interest rate cut “could result in a deterioration in the labor market and a further slowing in economic growth,” Bowman added.Waller said: “I believe that the wait and see approach is overly cautious.”