AFP USA

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.

Palestinian director Basel Adra, who won an Oscar this year for co-directing a documentary on Israeli violence in the West Bank, sounded the alarm at the UN on Thursday, saying the situation was worsening despite the film’s success.Adra was invited to speak by the UN Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People at a screening of his film, “No Other Land.”The documentary chronicles the forced displacement of Palestinians by Israeli troops and settlers in Masafer Yatta — an area Israel declared a restricted military zone in the 1980s.”I wanted the world to know that we live in this land, that we exist, and to see what we face on daily basis, this brutal occupation,” Adra told the UN.The film depicts events like bulldozers demolishing houses and a school, as well as the provocations by Israeli settlers on Palestinian residents — including those which escalate to violence.After a prolonged legal battle, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in 2022 in favor of the Israeli army, allowing the expulsion of residents from eight villages in the region.”Even after winning the Oscar, we went back to the same reality,” Adra said, adding that the situation was “only changing from worse to worse.””Almost every day, there is settlers attacks on Masafer Yatta and all over communities across the West Bank,” Adra continued.Last week, Adra’s co-director and fellow Palestinian Hamdan Ballal reported he was attacked by Israeli settlers for winning the Oscar, saying he was detained by Israeli police for “hurling rocks” at which point he suffered a beating and “brutality.”Rights groups have said that since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza — a separate Palestinian territory — there has been a spike in attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.Occupied by Israel since 1967, the West Bank is home to around three million Palestinians, as well as nearly half a million Israelis who live in settlements that are illegal under international law.”No Other Land,” despite winning a prestigious Oscar, has struggled to find distribution in the United States, screening at only a handful of cinemas.

President Donald Trump’s administration may have acted in “bad faith” and violated a court order with its deportation last month of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador, a US judge said Thursday.District Judge James Boasberg has issued a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from using an obscure wartime law to carry out rapid deportations.The federal judge held a hearing in a Washington courtroom Thursday to determine whether the government had complied with his orders or should be held in contempt.Trump’s administration has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court’s order and allow for a resumption of the deportation flights under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA), which has only been used previously during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.In invoking the act, Trump said he was targeting transnational gangs he had declared foreign terrorist organizations, including the Venezuelan group Tren de Aragua.But attorneys for several of the deported Venezuelans have said that their clients were not Tren de Aragua members, had committed no crimes and were targeted largely on the basis of their tattoos.On March 15, Boasberg ordered a halt to deportation flights under the wartime act, as two planes were headed to El Salvador. He also ordered that the planes be turned around, but they were not.The Alien Enemies Act was invoked on March 14 but not made public until the next day — when the deportations were already well underway — and Boasberg said at the hearing that this was an indication the administration may have “acted in bad faith.””If you really believed everything you did that day was legal and would survive a court challenge, you wouldn’t have operated the way you did,” the judge told Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign.Boasberg peppered Ensign with questions as he sought to determine whether a contempt finding was warranted.The judge said the Justice Department was aware he had called a hearing for 5:00 pm on March 15 to consider a lawsuit filed by rights groups seeking to halt the deportations.”Why wouldn’t the prudent thing be to say — ‘Let’s slow down here and see what the judge has to say?'” Boasberg asked.Ensign replied that he was not privy to the “operational details” of the deportations.The Justice Department has said previously that the planes were already en route to El Salvador and in international airspace when the judge issued his written order asking that they be turned around.The Trump administration has used images of the alleged gang members being shackled and having their heads shaved in the Central American prison as proof it is serious about cracking down on illegal immigration.In its appeal to the Supreme Court, acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris described the case as a key test of presidential authority over the courts.

The Pentagon inspector general’s office will investigate Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of commercial messaging app Signal to discuss air strikes on Yemen, the watchdog said Thursday.President Donald Trump’s administration is facing a scandal over the accidental leak of a group chat by senior security officials on the strikes, which targeted Yemen’s Huthi rebels.The probe will evaluate the extent to which Hegseth and other defense personnel complied with “policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business,” said a memo from acting inspector general Steven Stebbins.They will also review “compliance with classification and records retention requirements,” it said.The investigation came in response to a request from the top two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, a Republican and a Democrat, the memo said.The Atlantic magazine revealed last week that its editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently included in the Signal chat in which officials including Hegseth and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz discussed the strikes.The magazine initially withheld the details the officials discussed, but later published them after the White House insisted that no classified information was shared and attacked Goldberg as a liar.- Strike timing, intelligence info -The chat included messages in which Hegseth revealed the timing of strikes hours before they happened and information on aircraft and missiles involved, while Waltz sent real-time intelligence on the aftermath of the military action.The White House and a string of officials involved in the chat — including Hegseth — have tried to downplay the story, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told journalists this week that “the case is closed.”A US judge ordered the Trump administration last week to preserve all Signal communication between March 11 and March 15.The dates cover the period between when Waltz set up the chat — and mistakenly added Goldberg — and the day of deadly US air strikes on the Iran-backed Huthis.The Atlantic said that Waltz had set some of the Signal messages to disappear after one week, and others after four, saying it raised questions about whether federal records law was violated.Trump has largely pinned the blame on Waltz, but has also dismissed calls by Democrats for top officials to resign and insisted instead on what he called the success of the raids on the Yemeni rebels.The Huthis began targeting shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden after the Gaza war began in 2023, claiming solidarity with Palestinians.Huthi attacks have prevented ships from passing through the Suez Canal, a vital route that normally carries about 12 percent of world shipping traffic, forcing many companies into a costly detour around southern Africa.The United States first began conducting strikes in response under the Biden administration, and US forces have continued to hammer the Huthis with near-daily air assaults since March 15.

Auto giant Stellantis said Thursday it was pausing production at some plants in Canada and Mexico, a major disruption for the sector on the day US President Donald Trump’s auto tariffs came into force.The announcement from Stellantis — which owns Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge, among other major brands — impacts thousands of workers who have faced fear and uncertainty amid Trump’s efforts to force companies to make more vehicles in the United States.”Stellantis continues to assess the effects of the recently announced US tariffs on imported vehicles,” a company statement said.”Immediate actions we must take include temporarily pausing production at some of our Canadian and Mexican assembly plants,” it added.Vehicle production in North America is highly integrated and the full impact of Trump’s 25 percent levy on foreign-made vehicles and parts, which came into effect on Thursday, remains unclear.Individual parts can cross the US-Canada border several times during the assembly process.Trump’s tariffs will apply only to a vehicle’s non-American components and adhering to the policy could cause headaches at the border.Stellantis said it would “continue to engage with the US administration” on the new policies.The company confirmed the Chrysler plant in the Canadian city of Windsor, across a river from US auto capital Detroit, will pause production from April 7 to 21.The factory, which employs around 4,000 people and is one of three Stellantis has in Canada, manufactures the Chrysler Pacifica minivan and the electric version of the Dodge Charger.Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday he stood “in solidarity with those workers in Windsor and all those hurt by President Trump’s tariffs.”Carney said Canada would retaliate by imposing a 25 percent tariff on all autos imported from the United States that are not compliant with an existing North American free trade deal — roughly 10 percent of all vehicles shipped from the United States to Canada, or about 67,000 vehicles annually.- ‘Everybody’s uncertain’ -Windsor has been on edge since Trump first announced his plans for auto sector tariffs.US auto companies have employed people in the city for more than a century and the industry is vital to the local economy.Detroit and Windsor are connected by a suspension bridge and tunnel, with people crossing back and forth daily.Outside the Stellantis plant on Thursday, 58-year-old auto worker David Lumley told AFP Trump was making “a big mistake.””We’re all intertwined,” he said.A two-week production pause was manageable, he said, but warned: “We don’t know what’s going to happen after the two weeks,” raising concern Windsor’s auto industry could ultimately shut down.”This Donald Trump, you don’t know what he’s going to do,” Lumley said.Trump has publicly told auto companies that to avoid tariffs they need to build plants in the United States and employ American workers.Industry experts note North American production chains have developed to maximize efficiency and unwinding those links to relocate jobs to the United States would take years, if not decades.On a break outside the Windsor plant, Philip Sauve rejected Trump’s suggestion that he had taken a job which rightfully belongs to an American.”I feel like these jobs have been ours for a long time and I don’t really feel like we’ve taken anything from them,” he told AFP.Trump and Carney spoke last week and agreed Washington and Ottawa should discuss the broader future of bilateral trade after Canada’s April 28 election.”You feel nervous and you don’t know what the future’s going to be like,” Sauve said.He told AFP his job “provided a good situation at home… Food on the table and a house and a pretty good life so far and I would like to continue that.”burs-amp-bs/jhb

The trade uncertainty fueled by recent tariffs will likely raise the risks of higher inflation and slower growth, and pose challenges for Federal Reserve policy, a senior banking official said Thursday.As the US central bank, the Fed has a dual mandate to tackle inflation and unemployment, and faces the unenviable task of charting a path through the uncertainty thrown up by President Donald Trump’s tariff announcement on Wednesday, which has roiled financial markets.Inflation remains stuck above the Fed’s long-term target of two percent, while growth has been solid and unemployment has hugged close to record lows. Against this backdrop, and the looming threat of additional tariffs, it paused rate cuts in recent months.Speaking in Pennsylvania on Thursday, Federal Reserve board of governors member Lisa Cook said her baseline forecast still expects growth to slow “moderately” this year, with an uptick in inflation and a stalled inflation fight, “in part because of tariffs and other policy changes.”While it is possible that the disruption from tariffs could be minimal, Cook said in prepared remarks that she placed “more weight on scenarios where risks are skewed to the upside for inflation and to the downside for growth.””Such scenarios, with higher initial inflation and slower growth, could pose challenges for monetary policy,” she added, alluding to the challenges that the Fed would face, seeking to lower inflation without then sparking a spike in the unemployment rate. Cook said she was also closely monitoring whether a short-term spike in inflation could spark “more widespread” price increases. “Tariffs on steel and aluminum have already raised prices for those manufacturing inputs,” she said. “As those cost increases work their way through the manufacturing process, they could boost prices of a range of goods over time.”Using the motor vehicle industry as an example, Cook noted that the combined effect of steel and aluminum tariffs and auto levies could affect the price of new cars, feeding through into higher prices for used vehicles. “And, as seen in recent years, higher prices for motor vehicles could, with a lag, raise costs for related services, such as rentals, insurance, and car repair,” she said. “Amid growing uncertainty and risks to both sides of our dual mandate, I believe it will be appropriate to maintain the policy rate at its current level while continuing to vigilantly monitor developments that could change the outlook,” she added.