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US President Donald Trump signaled renewed trade tensions with China on Friday, arguing that Beijing had “violated” a deal to de-escalate tariffs, at a time when both sides appeared deadlocked in negotiations.Trump’s post on his Truth Social platform came hours after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that trade talks with China were “a bit stalled,” in an interview with broadcaster Fox News.The world’s two biggest economies had agreed this month to temporarily lower staggeringly high tariffs they had imposed on each other, in a pause to last 90 days, after talks between top officials in Geneva.But on Friday, Trump wrote that: “China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US,” without providing further details.Asked about the post on CNBC, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer took aim at Beijing for continuing to “slow down and choke off things like critical minerals.”He added that the United States’ trade deficit with China “continues to be enormous,” and that Washington was not seeing major shifts in Beijing’s behavior.”The Chinese are slow-rolling their compliance, which is completely unacceptable,” Greer said.On Thursday, Bessent suggested that Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping could get involved in the situation.Bessent said there could be a call between both leaders eventually, a characterization that Greer agreed with.US stock markets fell in early trading amid jitters about the China trade tensions.- Forthcoming deals? -Washington is also in “intensive talks” with other key trading partners, Greer told CNBC, saying he has meetings next week with counterparts from Malaysia, Vietnam and the European Union.The meetings come as he heads to Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development talks in Europe.”The negotiations are on track, and we do hope to have some deals in the next couple of weeks,” Greer said.But Trump’s tariff plans are facing legal challenges.A trade court ruled this week that the president overstepped his authority in tapping emergency economic powers to justify sweeping tariffs.It blocked the most wide-ranging levies since Trump returned to office, although this ruling has been put on hold for now as an appeals process is ongoing.The decision left intact, however, tariffs that Trump imposed on sector-specific imports such as steel and autos.Greer said it was important to get through the legal process so partners have a “better understanding of the landing zone.”Since Trump returned to the presidency in January, he has imposed sweeping tariffs on most US trading partners, with especially high rates on imports from China.New tit-for-tat levies from both sides reached three digits before the de-escalation this month, where Washington agreed to temporarily reduce its additional tariffs on Chinese imports from 145 percent to 30 percent.China, meanwhile, lowered its added duties from 125 percent to 10 percent.The US tariff level is higher as it also includes a 20 percent levy that the Trump administration recently imposed on Chinese goods over the country’s alleged role in the illicit drug trade — an issue that Beijing has pushed back against.The high US-China tariffs, while they were in place, forced much trade between both countries to grind to a halt, as businesses paused shipments to try and wait for both governments to reach an agreement to lower the levies.

Half the global population endured an additional month of extreme heat over the past year because of manmade climate change, a new study found Friday.The findings underscore how the continued burning of fossil fuels is harming health and well-being on every continent, with the effects especially under-recognized in developing countries, the authors said.”With every barrel of oil burned, every tonne of carbon dioxide released, and every fraction of a degree of warming, heat waves will affect more people,” said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London and co-author of the report.The analysis — conducted by scientists at World Weather Attribution, Climate Central, and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre — was released ahead of global Heat Action Day on June 2, which this year spotlights the dangers of heat exhaustion and heat stroke.To assess the influence of global warming, researchers analyzed the period from May 1, 2024 to May 1, 2025. They defined “extreme heat days” as those hotter than 90 percent of temperatures recorded at a given location between 1991 and 2020. Using a peer-reviewed modeling approach, they then compared the number of such days to a simulated world without human-caused warming.The results were stark: roughly four billion people — 49 percent of the global population — experienced at least 30 more days of extreme heat than they would have otherwise. The team identified 67 extreme heat events during the year and found the fingerprint of climate change on all of them.The Caribbean island of Aruba was the worst affected, recording 187 extreme heat days — 45 more than expected in a world without climate change.The study follows a year of unprecedented global temperatures. 2024 was the hottest year on record, surpassing 2023, while January 2025 marked the hottest January ever. On a five-year average, global temperatures are now 1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — and in 2024 alone, they exceeded 1.5C, the symbolic ceiling set by the Paris climate accord.The report also highlights a critical lack of data on heat-related health impacts in lower-income regions. While Europe recorded more than 61,000 heat-related deaths in the summer of 2022, comparable figures are sparse elsewhere, with many heat-related fatalities misattributed to underlying conditions such as heart or lung disease.The authors emphasized the need for early warning systems, public education, and heat action plans tailored to cities. Better building design — including shading and ventilation — and behavioral adjustments like avoiding strenuous activity during peak heat are also essential.Still, adaptation alone will not be enough. The only way to halt the rising severity and frequency of extreme heat, the authors warned, is to rapidly phase out fossil fuels.

He’s the maverick medic who loved to confound the medical establishment with his brilliant, unorthodox diagnoses.But Dr Gregory House, the misanthropic genius who was the star of the long-running “House” television series, got an awful lot wrong himself, Croatian doctors claim.From a neurologist at work on the wrong end of a patient by performing a colonoscopy, or an MRI scan done by a physician who is clearly not a radiologist, Croatian researchers have pulled the American series up on its medical accuracy in a paper published this month. Denis Cerimagic, a professor at Dubrovnik University, and two fellow neurologists — all big fans of the series — listed 77 errors after analysing all 177 episodes of the show, which ran from 2004 to 2012.”We focused on the diagnoses of main cases, reality of clinical practice presentation and detection of medical errors,” Cerimagic told AFP. He and his peers — Goran Ivkic and Ervina Bilic — broke the mistakes down into five categories including misuses of medical terminology, misinformation and simple weirdness — something which the show’s anti-hero, played by British star Hugh Laurie, possessed in abundance.- That limp -They included the use of mercury thermometers — which had long given way to digital ones — the term heart attack and cardiac arrest being used interchangeably when they are not the same, and that vitamin B12 deficiency can be corrected with just one injection.Nor is there a universal chemotherapy for all types of malignant tumours, as one episode suggested.But arguably the biggest error of all is that Laurie — whose character’s genius for deduction comes from the misdiagnosis that left him with a limp and chronic pain — uses his cane on the wrong side.The stick should be carried on his unaffected side, Cerimagic said, though he understood why the actor had done it because “it’s more effective to see the pronounced limp on the screen”.Their research also found medical procedures being done by specialists who had no business being there, like an infectologist performing an autopsy.At times the series also stretched reality beyond breaking point, with the findings of complex laboratory tests done in just a few hours. And doctors rarely turn detective and take it upon themselves to enter patients’ homes to look for environmental causes of illnesses.Not to mention Dr House’s unethical behaviour — “Brain tumour, she’s gonna die” the paper quoted him as saying — and the character’s opiates addiction. The researchers say they may have missed other mistakes.”We are neurologists while other medical specialists would certainly establish additional errors,” Cerimagic added.- Medical errors -Whatever their criticisms, the researchers say that modern medical series are far better produced than in the past, thanks to medical advisors.It is not like some 20 years ago when you had doctors looking at X-rays upside down, the neurologist said.”Now only medical professionals can notice errors,” Cerimagic said.Despite its flaws, they thought the series could even be used to help train medical students.”The focus could be on recognising medical errors in the context of individual episodes, adopting the teamwork concept and a multidisciplinary approach in diagnosis and treatment,” Cerimagic said.He said he and his colleagues were taken aback by the response to their paper “House M.D.: Between reality and fiction” — which is not the first academic study to cast doubt on the good doctor and his methods.”The idea was to make a scientific paper interesting not only to doctors but also to people without specific medical knowledge.” 

US President Donald Trump celebrated a temporary legal win as a court preserved his aggressive tariffs, triggering mixed reactions Friday across jittery financial markets.The short-term relief will allow the appeals process to proceed after the US Court of International Trade barred most of the tariffs announced since Trump took office, ruling on Wednesday that he had overstepped his authority.Welcoming the latest twist in legal skirmishes over his trade policies, Trump lashed out at the Manhattan-based trade court, calling it “horrible” and saying its blockade should be “quickly and decisively” reversed for good.Asian shares fell on Friday, reversing a rally across world markets the previous day, as the judicial wrangling around Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs fanned uncertainty.Paris, London and Frankfurt were all in the green as EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said following a call with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that the bloc was “fully invested” in reaching a deal with the United States.Sefcovic could meet his US trade counterparts in Paris next week on the sidelines of a Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ministerial meeting, an EU official said.US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that trade talks with China — the hardest hit by the tariffs — were “a bit stalled” and Trump might need to speak to President Xi Jinping in order to iron out tariffs between the world’s two biggest economies.”I think that given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity, that this is going to require both leaders to weigh in with each other,” Bessent told Fox News after the ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, known as an administrative stay.Washington and Beijing agreed this month to pause reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, a surprise de-escalation in their bitter trade war following talks between top officials in Geneva.Asked about Bessent’s comments at a regular news conference on Friday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said Beijing had “stated its position on the tariffs issue many times” in an apparent reference to the Asian manufacturing giant’s fury at the levies. Trump has moved to reconfigure US trade ties with the world since returning to the presidency in January, using levies to force foreign governments to the negotiating table.However, the stop-start tariff rollout on both allies and adversaries has roiled markets and snarled supply chains.The White House had been given 10 days to halt affected tariffs before Thursday’s decision from the appeals court.The Trump administration called the block “blatantly wrong,” expressing confidence that the decision would be overturned on appeal.White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the judges “brazenly abused their judicial power to usurp the authority of President Trump.”Leavitt said the Supreme Court “must put an end” to the tariff challenge, while stressing that Trump had other legal means to impose levies.A separate ruling by a federal district judge in the US capital found some Trump levies unlawful as well, giving the administration 14 days to appeal.- ‘Hiccups’ -Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told Fox Business that “hiccups” sparked by the decisions of “activist judges” would not affect talks with trading partners, adding that three deals were close to finalization.Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro told reporters after the appellate stay that the administration had earlier received “plenty of phone calls from countries” who said they would continue to “negotiate in good faith,” without identifying those nations.Trump’s import levies are aimed partly at punishing economies that sell more to the United States than they buy.The president has argued that trade deficits and the threat posed by drug smuggling constituted a “national emergency” that justified the widespread tariffs — a notion the Court of International Trade ruled against.Trump unveiled sweeping duties on nearly all trading partners in April at a baseline 10 percent, plus steeper levies on dozens of economies including China and the European Union that have since been paused.The US trade court’s ruling quashed those blanket duties, along with others that Trump imposed on Canada, Mexico and China separately using emergency powers.However, it left intact 25 percent duties on imported autos, steel and aluminum.Beijing — which was hit by additional 145 percent tariffs before they were temporarily reduced to make space for negotiations — reacted to the trade court decision by saying Washington should scrap the levies.”China urges the United States to heed the rational voices from the international community and domestic stakeholders and fully cancel the wrongful unilateral tariff measures,” said commerce ministry spokeswoman He Yongqian.The trade court was ruling in two separate cases, brought by businesses and a coalition of state governments, arguing that the president had violated Congress’s power of the purse.burs-ft/cms/tc

Turkey on Friday proposed hosting a summit with the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and the United States as it strives to broker an elusive deal to end Russia’s three-year invasion — an invitation swiftly dismissed by the Kremlin.Moscow said it was sending a team of negotiators to Istanbul for a second round of direct talks with Ukraine on Monday — though Kyiv has yet to confirm if it will attend.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has fostered warm relations with both Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin, has become a key mediator amid Donald Trump’s push for a deal to end the over three-year war.”We sincerely think that it is possible to cap the first and second direct Istanbul talks with a meeting between Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky, under the direction of Mr. Erdogan,” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said during a visit to Kyiv.The Kremlin pushed back against the idea of a face-to-face meeting involving Putin and Zelensky.”First, results must be achieved through direct negotiations between the two countries,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.Fidan met Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga in Kyiv and was due to meet Zelensky later in the day.He held talks with Putin in Moscow earlier this week. Ukraine has said it is open to further negotiations, but has not confirmed it will be in Istanbul on Monday.At talks in Istanbul on May 16 — the first in over three years — the sides agree to swap documents outlining possible roadmaps to peace.The Kremlin repeated Friday that it would hand over its version at the talks on Monday, but Kyiv is pressuring Moscow to send a copy in advance.- ‘Disregard for diplomacy’ -Ukraine has for more than two months been urging Russia to agree to a full, unconditional and immediate 30-day ceasefire — an idea first proposed by Trump.Putin has repeatedly rejected those calls, despite pressure from Washington and Europe, while the Russian army has intensified its advances in eastern Ukraine.  He has said that a ceasefire is possible as a result of negotiations, but that talks should focus on the “root causes” of the war.Moscow typically uses that language to refer to a mix of sweeping demands that have at times included limiting Ukraine’s military, banning it from joining NATO, massive territorial concessions and the toppling of Zelensky.Kyiv and the West have rejected those calls and cast Russia’s assault as nothing but an imperial-style land grab.Russia’s invasion in February 2022 triggered the biggest European conflict since World War II.Tens of thousands have been killed, swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine destroyed and millions forced to flee their homes.Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated at both Zelensky and Putin for not having struck a deal yet.At a UN Security Council meeting Thursday a US diplomat reaffirmed that Washington could pull back from peace efforts if it does not see progress soon.Despite the sides having held their first peace talks in more than three years, there has been little sign of movement towards a possible compromise agreement.At the talks earlier in May, Ukraine said Russia threatened to accelerate its ground offensive into new regions and made a host of maximalist demands, including that Kyiv cede territory still under its control.Along with its European allies, Ukraine has been ramping up pressure on Trump to hit Moscow with fresh sanctions — a step he has so far not taken.”Talks of pauses in pressure or easing of sanctions are perceived in Moscow as a political victory –- and only encourage further attacks and continued disregard for diplomacy,” Zelensky said Friday on social media.Russia has meanwhile been pressing its advance on the battlefield, with its forces on Friday claiming to have captured another village in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

US President Donald Trump celebrated a temporary reprieve for his aggressive tariff strategy on Thursday, with an appeals court preserving his sweeping import duties on China and other trading partners — for now.The short-term relief will allow the appeals process to proceed after the US Court of International Trade barred most of the tariffs announced since Trump took office, ruling on Wednesday that he had overstepped his authority.Welcoming the latest twist in his legal skirmishes over his trade policies, Trump lashed out at the Manhattan-based trade court, calling it “horrible” and saying its blockade should be “quickly and decisively” reversed for good.US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said trade talks were “a bit stalled” and suggested Trump get involved personally with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in order to iron out tariffs between the world’s two biggest economies.”I think that given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity, that this is going to require both leaders to weigh in with each other,” Bessent told Fox News after the ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, known as an administrative stay.Washington and Beijing agreed this month to pause reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, a surprise de-escalation in their bitter trade war following talks between top officials in Geneva.Trump has moved to reconfigure US trade ties with the world since returning to the presidency in January, using levies to force foreign governments to the negotiating table.However, the stop-start tariff rollout on both allies and adversaries has roiled markets and snarled supply chains.The White House had been given 10 days to halt affected tariffs before Thursday’s decision from the appeals court.The Trump administration called the block “blatantly wrong,” expressing confidence that the decision would be overturned on appeal.White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the judges “brazenly abused their judicial power to usurp the authority of President Trump.”Leavitt said the Supreme Court “must put an end” to the tariff challenge, while stressing that Trump had other legal means to impose levies.A separate ruling by a federal district judge in the US capital found some Trump levies unlawful as well, giving the administration 14 days to appeal.- ‘Hiccups’ -Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told Fox Business that “hiccups” sparked by the decisions of “activist judges” would not affect talks with trading partners, adding that three deals were close to finalization.Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro told reporters after the appellate stay that the administration had earlier received “plenty of phone calls from countries” who said they would continue to “negotiate in good faith,” without identifying those nations.Trump’s import levies are aimed partly at punishing economies that sell more to the United States than they buy.The president has argued that trade deficits and the threat posed by drug smuggling constituted a “national emergency” that justified the widespread tariffs — a notion the Court of International Trade ruled against.Trump unveiled sweeping duties on nearly all trading partners in April at a baseline 10 percent, plus steeper levies on dozens of economies including China and the European Union that have since been paused.The US trade court’s ruling quashed those blanket duties, along with others that Trump imposed on Canada, Mexico and China separately using emergency powers.However, it left intact 25 percent duties on imported autos, steel and aluminum.Beijing — which was hit by additional 145 percent tariffs before they were temporarily reduced to make space for negotiations — reacted to the trade court decision by saying Washington should scrap the levies.”China urges the United States to heed the rational voices from the international community and domestic stakeholders and fully cancel the wrongful unilateral tariff measures,” said commerce ministry spokeswoman He Yongqian.The trade court was ruling in two separate cases, brought by businesses and a coalition of state governments, arguing that the president had violated Congress’s power of the purse.The judges said the cases rested on whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) delegates such powers to the president “in the form of authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world.”The judges stated that any interpretation of the IEEPA that “delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional.”Analysts at London-based research group Capital Economics said the case may end up with the Supreme Court but would likely not mark the end of the tariff war.burs-ft/cms/pbt

A second former assistant to Sean “Diddy” Combs testified Thursday in the music mogul’s federal trial, alledging he committed acts of violence against her and others, including sexual assault.Appearing under the pseudonym Mia to protect her identity, the assistant addressed jurors on the stand in the federal trial of the once-famed rapper, producer and entrepreneur who faces racketeering and sex trafficking charges that could put him in prison for life.Combs’s case revolves around his relationship with his former girlfriend, singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, who earlier in the trial detailed years of alleged abuse and coercive, drug-fueled sex marathons known as “freak-offs.”- ‘He’s going to kill me’ -Mia said she was close to the “Diddy-Cassie” couple and recalled several episodes of violence.She sounded breathless at times as she told the court about seeing Ventura with “busted lips,” “bruises” and “a black eye.”Combs would tell Mia to “go take care of her,” referring to Ventura, adding that “we were not allowed” to go out until her injuries healed enough to conceal.The prosecutors asked Mia about an incident during a holiday trip she took with the couple in 2012.One night, she said she was woken up by Ventura running into her room, “screaming for help.”She recalled Ventura had said: “He’s gonna kill me,” referring to Combs.”We started pushing furniture in front of the door,” Mia said, describing how Combs was “screaming and banging” on the other side.The former assistant, like previous witnesses, said hotel rooms would be prepared for the “freak-offs” and she would be responsible for the clean-up.Working for the hip-hop mogul could be exciting, she said, but was often degrading.”He treated me sometimes like his best friend, a working partner, sometimes I was a worthless piece of crap,” Mia said.- ‘I just froze’ -She also accused Combs of violent acts against her.”He has thrown things at me. He has thrown me against the wall. He has thrown me into a pool. He has thrown an ice bucket on my head. He has slammed my arm into a door,” she said.”He has also sexually assaulted me.” She said Combs subjected her to “sporadic” instances of sexual violence, including at the artist’s 40th birthday party at the Plaza Hotel in New York and his private residence in Los Angeles.”I just froze, I didn’t react, terrified and confused,” Mia said about one of the assaults.”He was the boss or the king, very powerful person,” she said.”This is years and years before social media, Me Too, or any sort of example where someone had stood up successfully to someone in power such as him,” she added.Mia said the rapper held sway over the police, describing how she herself was pulled over one day in LA for speeding.But when she called Combs and handed the phone to the female officer, “she started laughing and saying like ‘oh my God, Puff Daddy, I love you,’… and then she let me go.”Mia’s testimony is scheduled to continue on Friday.

From a delicate 13th-century clay figure to self-portraits by photographer Samuel Fosso, New York’s Metropolitan Museum reopens its African art collection on Saturday, exploring the “complexity” of the past and looking to the present. After a four-year renovation with a $70 million price tag, the reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing comes amid heated debate over the representation of cultural diversity in Western museums and the return of works to their countries of origin.The reopening should be “an opportunity to recognize that the achievements of artists in this part of the world (sub-Saharan Africa) are equal to those of other major world traditions,” Alisa LaGamma, the Met’s curator for African art, told AFP.In a spacious gallery bathed in light, visitors are greeted by a monumental Dogon sculpture — “a heroic figure, likely a priest,” LaGamma explained.Next to it sits a clay sculpture of a curled body from the ancient city of Djenne-Djenno, in present-day Mali, which is believed to be one of the oldest pieces in the collection, dating back to the 13th century.- ‘Complex history’ -The exhibit does not present the works of sub-Saharan Africa as a single unit, but in chapters to better distinguish between the various cultures.”We don’t want people to oversimplify their understanding of an incredibly complex history,” LaGamma said.”There are over 170 different cultures represented among the 500 works of African art on display,” she pointed out.”That gives you a sense of how many different stories there are to tell in this presentation.”The museum wing, which also displays arts of Oceania and the “ancient Americas” — prior to European colonization — opened in 1982 after former Republican vice president and philanthropist Nelson Rockefeller donated his monumental collection. It is named for his son.”This is a collection that was formed essentially following independence in a lot of what were new nations across sub-Saharan Africa,” LaGamma said.”It doesn’t have necessarily the heavy weight of a collection that was formed under colonialism,” she said, hinting at the pressure faced by many museums to respond to questions about the origins of works on display. – ‘African Spirits’ -A third of the works shown here were newly acquired. The museum was thus able to benefit from a donation of thousands of photographs from the renowned Arthur Walther collection.Among the vast trove of pieces donated is a 2008 series of self-portraits entitled “African Spirits” by Fosso, a Cameroonian-Nigerian photographer.Among Africa’s leading photographers, Fosso poses as major figures in African independence and civil rights struggles, from Congolese independence leader and first prime minister Patrice Lumumba, to Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X.Through around a dozen films directed by Ethiopian-American artist Sosena Solomon, visitors can also explore iconic cultural sites across the continent, like Tsodilo rock paintings in Botswana, the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela and Tigray in Ethiopia, and the tombs of Buganda kings at Kasubi in Uganda.”In an art museum like this, it is important that rock paintings should be reflected,” said Phillip Segadika, chief curator for archeology and monuments at Botswana’s national museum, in residence at the Met to participate in the project.”It tells us that what we are seeing today, whether it’s in European art, medieval art, whatever — it has a history, it also has an antiquity.”

President Donald Trump made no pretense at hiding his irritation this week when he was asked by a reporter about “TACO” — an acronym that has been gaining traction among Wall Street traders who believe that “Trump Always Chickens Out.” The so-called “TACO Theory” was coined by Robert Armstrong, a Financial Times writer seeking to underline the US president’s tendency to backtrack on policies when they start to roil the markets. Investors have come to realize that the US administration “does not have a very high tolerance for market and economic pressure and will be quick to back off when tariffs cause pain,” the journalist concluded.”This is the TACO Theory: Trump Always Chickens Out.”Armstrong was writing earlier this month, after stocks had just rebounded sharply on Trump’s announcement of a pause in massive tariffs imposed on the rest of the world by the Republican leader. Worsening the whiplash, Trump announced last week that tariffs of 50 percent on imports from the European Union would come into force on June 1 — but two days later declared a pause until July 9. – ‘It’s called negotiation’ -At the heart of Trump’s flip-flops is an acute sensitivity for the ups and downs of market trading that he honed as a brash New York property developer and business magnate in the 1980s. During his first term in office, a sharp reaction on Wall Street could sometimes be the only way to change the billionaire’s mind. Beyond the columns of the Financial Times, the “TACO Theory” is having a viral moment, and has entered the lexicon of investors who see it as more than just a snarky in-joke, according to analysts. “TACO trading strategy gets attention again,” blared the headline on a podcast released Monday by John Hardy, head of macroeconomic strategy at Danish investment bank Saxo.  The phrase eventually found its way back to the 78-year-old president, who furiously denied on Wednesday that he was backing down in the face of stock market turmoil. “I chicken out? I’ve never heard that… don’t ever say what you said, that’s a nasty question,” the mercurial tycoon thundered, rounding in the journalist who had asked for his take on the expression. Far from caving, Trump said he was merely engaging in the high-stakes cut and thrust of international dealmaking, he snarled — adding, with a sardonic edge: “It’s called negotiation.”For Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers, the TACO Theory is a “nonpolitical way of the markets calling the administration’s bluff.”- Reaction -Sam Burns, an analyst at Mill Street Research, told AFP he has noticed a new equanimity in Wall Street’s reaction to each new tariff announcement, with traders’ responses initially “much larger and more direct.”Where they once convulsed markets, Trump’s tariff talk now tends to be viewed as “easily reversible or not reliable,” said Burns, and investors are accordingly more willing to ignore the instinct to act rashly.This new calm was evident among traders at the New York Stock Exchange who held steady in the face of Trump’s EU tariff threats, and again when they did not overreact to successive court rulings blocking and then temporarily reinstating most of the tariffs. But Hardy, the Saxo analyst, warns that the vagaries of Trump’s day-to-day announcements should not distract from the protectionist bent of his broader political outlook. “Trump might ‘chicken out’ at times,” Hardy wrote in a recent commentary on Saxo’s website.”But the underlying policy moves are for real, and a deadly serious shift in US economic statecraft and industrial policy that is a response to massive instabilities that have been growing for years.”

Elon Musk stormed into US politics as President Donald Trump’s chainsaw-brandishing sidekick. Four turbulent months later it’s the tech tycoon himself on the chopping block.Trump hailed Musk as “terrific” as he announced that they would hold a joint press conference on Friday as the South African-born magnate leaves the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).”This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way,” Trump said on his Truth Social network on Thursday.But the warm words could not hide the open frustrations that Musk, the world’s richest man, had expressed in recent weeks about his controversial cost-cutting role for the world’s most powerful man.Once a fixture at the Republican president’s side, dressed in t-shirts and MAGA baseball caps, Musk had shown growing disillusionment with the obstacles faced by DOGE even as it cut a brutal swath through the US bureaucracy.He leaves far short of his original goal of saving $2 trillion dollars, with The Atlantic magazine calculating he saved just one thousandth of that, despite tens of thousands of people losing their jobs.Instead he will focus on his Space X and Tesla businesses, as well as his goal of colonizing Mars.- Rocket-like rise -It was all very different at first, as the 53-year-old Musk rose through Trump’s orbit as rapidly as one of his rockets — though they have been known to blow up now and again. Musk was the biggest donor to Trump’s 2024 election campaign and the pair bonded over right-wing politics and a desire to root out what they believed was a wasteful “deep state.”DOGE was jokingly named after a “memecoin,” but it was no joke. Young tech wizards who slept in the White House complex shuttered whole government departments. Foreign countries found their aid cut off.A shades-wearing Musk brandished a chainsaw at a conservative event, boasting of how easy it was to save money, and separately made what appeared to be a Nazi salute. Soon the man critics dubbed the “co-president” was constantly at Trump’s side.The tycoon appeared with his young son X on his shoulders during his first press conference in the Oval Office. He attended cabinet meetings. He and Trump rode on Air Force One and Marine One together. They watched cage fights together.Many wondered how long two such big egos could coexist.But Trump himself remained publicly loyal to the man he called a “genius.”One day, the president even turned the White House into a pop-up Tesla dealership after protesters targeted Musk’s electric car business.- ‘Got into fights’ -Yet the socially awkward tech magnate also struggled to get a grip on the realities of US politics.The beginning of the end “started (in) mid-March when there were several meetings in the Oval Office and in the cabinet room where basically Elon Musk got into fights,” Elaine Kamarck of the Brookings Institution told AFP.One shouting match with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent could reportedly be heard throughout the West Wing. Musk publicly called Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro “dumber than a sack of bricks.” Nor did Musk’s autocratic style and Silicon Valley creed of “move fast and break things” work well in Washington.The impact on Musk’s businesses also began to hit home. A series of Space X launches ended in fiery failures, while Tesla shareholders fumed.Musk started musing about stepping back, saying that “DOGE is a way of life, like Buddhism” that would carry on without him.Finally, Musk showed the first signs of distance from Trump himself, saying he was “disappointed” in Trump’s recent mega spending bill. Musk also said he would pull back from spending time on politics.The end came, appropriately, in a post by Musk on Wednesday on the X network, which he bought and then turned into a megaphone for his right-wing politics.But Musk’s departure might not be the end of the story, said Kamarck.”I think they genuinely like each other and I think Musk has a lot of money that he can contribute to campaigns if he is so moved. I think there will be a continued relation,” she said.