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China vowed on Tuesday to “fight to the end” against fresh tariffs of 50 percent threatened by US President Donald Trump, further aggravating a trade war that has already wiped trillions off global markets.Trump has upended the world economy with sweeping tariffs that have raised the spectre of an international recession, but has ruled out any pause in his aggressive trade policy despite a dramatic market sell-off.Beijing — Washington’s major economic rival but also a key trading partner — responded by announcing its own 34 percent duties on US goods to come into effect on Thursday, deepening a showdown between the world’s two largest economies. The swift retaliation from China sparked a fresh warning from Trump that he would impose additional levies if Beijing refused to stop pushing back against his barrage of tariffs — a move that would drive the overall levies on Chinese goods to 104 percent.”I have great respect for China but they can not do this,” Trump said in the White House.”We are going to have one shot at this… I’ll tell you what, it is an honour to do it.”China swiftly hit back, blasting what it called “blackmailing” by the US and vowing “countermeasures” if Washington imposes tariffs on top of the 34 percent extra that were due to come in force on Wednesday.”If the US insists on going its own way, China will fight it to the end,” a spokesperson for Beijing’s commerce ministry said on Tuesday.In a mounting war of words between Beijing and Washington, China’s foreign ministry also Tuesday condemned “ignorant and impolite” remarks by US Vice President JD Vance in which he complained the US had for too long borrowed money from “Chinese peasants”.The ministry said that “pressure, threats and blackmail are not the right way to deal with China”.Beijing urged Washington to instead “adopt an attitude of equality, respect and mutual benefit” if it wanted to engage in talks.- Market turmoil -A 10 percent “baseline” tariff on US imports from around the world took effect Saturday, and a slew of countries will be hit by higher duties from Wednesday, including the levy of 34 percent for Chinese goods as well as 20 percent for EU products.Trump’s tariffs have roiled global markets in the last days, with trillions of dollars wiped off combined stock market valuations in recent sessions. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng collapsed by 13.2 percent on Monday — its worst day since the Asian financial crisis — before paring back some of those losses on Tuesday.But stocks in Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam — a key export hub — sank on Tuesday, as they resumed trading after bank holidays.In financial powerhouse Singapore, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong told parliament his government was “very disappointed by the US move”.”These are not actions one does to a friend.”Trump doubled down Monday, saying he was “not looking” at any pause in tariff implementation.He also scrapped any meetings with China over tariffs, but said the United States was ready for talks with any country willing to negotiate.After equities took a hammering in Shanghai, China’s central bank issued a statement before trading resumed Tuesday to underline it was standing behind a sovereign fund as it buys up exchange traded funds to stabilise the market. With investors seeking any relief from the ruinous trade war, stocks in Tokyo leapt Tuesday after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested in an interview with Fox News that Japan would get “priority” in negotiations over the US tariffs “just because they came forward very quickly”.Scores of countries have sought talks, Bessent said, adding “through good negotiations, all we will do is see levels come down”.- ‘Don’t be Weak!’ -While meeting Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the first leader to lobby Trump in person over the levies, Trump said: “There can be permanent tariffs, and there can also be negotiations, because there are things that we need beyond tariffs.”EU trade ministers were in Luxembourg on Monday to discuss the bloc’s response, with Germany and France having advocated a tax targeting US tech giants.”We must not exclude any option on goods, on services,” said French Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin.The 27-nation bloc should “open the European toolbox, which is very comprehensive and can also be extremely aggressive”, he said.While markets continued its wild ride, Trump told Americans: “Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid!”.The 78-year-old Republican believes the tariffs will revive America’s lost manufacturing base by forcing foreign companies to relocate to the United States, rather than making goods abroad.But most economists question that and say his tariffs are arbitrary.JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned of coming inflation, adding “whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth”.burs-oho/hmn

In a drought-hit Mexican border region at the center of growing competition with the United States for water, conservationists are working to bring a once-dying river delta back to life.On a stretch of the Colorado River, which on the Mexican side of the frontier is mostly a dry riverbed, native cottonwood and willow trees have been planted in place of invasive shrubs.It is the fruit of two decades of work by environmentalists along the lower part of the river from the US-Mexican border to the upper estuary of the Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortez.”If we give a little water and care to certain sections of the river, we can recover environments that had already been completely lost,” said Enrique Villegas, director of the Colorado River Delta program at the Sonoran Institute, a US-Mexican civil society group.The Colorado starts in the Rocky Mountains and winds its way through the southwestern United States, feeding cities and farmland along the way.By the time it crosses into Mexico most of its water has already been consumed.What is left is diverted to supply border cities like Tijuana and to irrigate agricultural land.It means Tijuana and nearby areas are at the mercy of how much snow falls in the Rockies, said Marco Antonio Samaniego, an expert at the Autonomous University of Baja California. “We don’t live off what rains in Tijuana. We live off what snows in those mountains,” he said, adding that several years of below-average precipitation had reduced reservoir levels in the United States.Growing competition for resources sparked a recent diplomatic row when the United States refused Mexico’s request for water due to shortfalls in sharing by its southern neighbor under a decades-old treaty.”The basis of all the problems,” Villegas said, is that “there is more water distributed among all the users of the Colorado River than actually exists.”- Wildlife returns -Over the years, dams and diversions reduced the river to a trickle and turned a delta that once teemed with birds and other wildlife into a dying ecosystem. So conservationists secured land as well as irrigation permits, cleared invasive shrubs and planted thousands of native trees.In 2014, water was allowed to surge down the Colorado River through a dam at the border for the first time in years to encourage the natural germination of native species.”After years of this type of work, we now have a forest of poplars and willows on 260 hectares (642 acres) on a stretch of the Colorado River. Fauna has returned. Many birds have returned,” Villegas said.The rejuvenation has also brought back another native — the beaver — a species that had largely disappeared from sight in the area, Villegas said.”On the one hand, it’s a biological indicator that if you give nature a habitat then it returns and begins to reproduce. But they’re also knocking down trees that we planted,” he said.At Laguna Grande, a lush oasis surrounded by dusty fields that is a centerpiece of the restoration project, coots and other birds swim contentedly in wetlands while herons startled by visitors clumsily take flight.Nearby, on land, underground hoses feed water to trees sprouting from the dusty ground.The Colorado River Delta is an important rest point for migratory birds including the yellow-breasted chat, vermilion flycatcher and endangered yellow-billed cuckoo, according to conservationists. The wetlands and forest of Laguna Grande contrast starkly with parched agricultural land nearby where farmers such as Cayetano Cisneros are facing increasingly tough conditions.”Years ago, we sowed maize, we sowed cotton, we sowed everything, and we didn’t suffer because of water,” the 72-year-old said on his dusty ranch.These days, “the Colorado River no longer carries water,” he said. “The environment is changing a lot.”If more of the delta and other such areas are to be nursed back to health, people must change their use of water, conservationists note.”We can all improve our awareness of water consumption,” Villegas said.”This drought is just a warning.”

Global temperatures hovered at historic highs in March, Europe’s climate monitor said on Tuesday, prolonging an extraordinary heat streak that has tested scientific expectations.In Europe, it was the hottest March ever recorded by a significant margin, said the Copernicus Climate Change Service, driving rainfall extremes across a continent warming faster than any other.The world meanwhile saw the second-hottest March in the Copernicus dataset, sustaining a near-unbroken spell of record or near-record-breaking temperatures that has persisted since July 2023.Since then, virtually every month has been at least 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than it was before the industrial revolution when humanity began burning massive amounts of coal, oil and gas. March was 1.6C (2.9F) above pre-industrial times, prolonging an anomaly so extreme that scientists are still trying to fully explain it.”That we’re still at 1.6C above preindustrial is indeed remarkable,” said Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London. “We’re very firmly in the grip of human-caused climate change,” she told AFP.- Contrasting extremes – Scientists warn that every fraction of a degree of global warming increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, heavy rainfall and droughts.Climate change is not just about rising temperatures but the knock-on effect of all that extra heat being trapped in the atmosphere and seas by greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane.Warmer seas mean higher evaporation and greater moisture in the atmosphere, causing heavier deluges and feeding energy into cyclones, but also affecting global rainfall patterns.March in Europe was 0.26C (0.47F) above the previous hottest record for the month set in 2014, Copernicus said.It was also “a month with contrasting rainfall extremes” across the continent, said Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which runs the Copernicus climate monitor. Some parts of Europe experienced their “driest March on record and others their wettest” for about half a century, Burgess said.Elsewhere in March, scientists said that climate change intensified an extreme heatwave across Central Asia and fuelled conditions for extreme rainfall which killed 16 people in Argentina.- Persistent heat -The spectacular surge in global heat pushed 2023 and then 2024 to become the hottest years on record.Last year was also the first full calendar year to exceed 1.5C: the safer warming limit agreed by most nations under the Paris climate accord.This represented a temporary, not permanent breach, of this longer-term target, but scientists have warned that the goal of keeping temperatures below that threshold is slipping further out of reach.Scientists had expected that the extraordinary heat spell would subside after a warming El Nino event peaked in early 2024, and conditions gradually shifted to a cooling La Nina phase.But global temperatures have remained stubbornly high, sparking debate among scientists about what other factors could be driving warming to the top end of expectations.The European Union monitor uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its climate calculations.Its records go back to 1940, but other sources of climate data — such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons — allow scientists to expand their conclusions using evidence from much further in the past.Scientists say the current period is likely the warmest the Earth has been for the last 125,000 years.

In the halls of US universities and research labs, one question has become increasingly common as President Donald Trump tightens his grip on the field: whether to move abroad.”Everybody is talking about it,” JP Flores, a doctoral student in genetics at the University of North Carolina, told AFP.The discussion was thrust into the spotlight after Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley, a specialist in fascism, announced he was taking a new post in Canada over the Trump administration’s “authoritarian” bent.”I made the decision when Columbia folded,” he told CBS News. “I made it in a split second.”Columbia University, which the Trump administration has threatened with major funding cuts, said it agreed to take steps to rein in pro-Palestinian protests, among other actions.”It is not the time to cower and fear,” said Stanley, who added there was “absolutely no doubt that the United States is an authoritarian country.”With similar threats lodged by Trump against other universities, many researchers are worried about the future of academic freedom in the United States.Coupled with the administration’s broad cuts to federal funding, some fear the country’s research field, once viewed as the envy of the world, may be losing its luster.More than 75 percent of scientists are now considering departing the country over Trump’s policies, according to a survey of over 1,600 people published in late March by the journal Nature.”The trend was particularly pronounced among early-career researchers,” the journal said.- ‘Surreal’ – “People are just so scared,” Daniella Fodera, a Columbia PhD student whose research grant was cancelled, told AFP.Amid the uncertainty, several academic institutions in recent weeks have announced a hiring freeze and a reduction in the number of graduate student positions.”That’s definitely messing up the academic pipeline,” said Fodera, a biomechanics student.Karen Sfanos, head of a research lab at Johns Hopkins University, said: “It’s kind of a surreal time for scientists because we just don’t know what’s going to happen with funding.””There’s not a lot of clarity, and things are changing day by day,” she said, noting it is hitting the “youngest generation” relatively hard.Fodera, who studies uterine fibroids — benign tumors affecting many women — said she has begun to “actively look at positions in Europe and abroad for continuing my post-doctoral training.”- ‘Generational loss’ -With mounting concerns among US researchers, several European and Canadian universities have launched initiatives to attract some of the talent, though they may not need to try too hard.”I know researchers already that have dual citizenship, or who have family in Canada, in France, in Germany, are saying, ‘I think I’m going to go live in Germany for the next, you know, five years and do research there,'” said Gwen Nichols.The physician, a senior leader at a blood cancer research group, warned the possible exodus could make the United States “lose our dominance as the biopharmaceutical innovation leader of the world.””We’ll see the problem 10 years from now, when we don’t have the innovation we need,” she added.Genetics researcher Flores agreed, saying “it has become quite clear that there’s gonna be a major brain drain here in American research.”One young climate researcher, who requested to remain anonymous, said she had started the process of attaining EU citizenship and that colleagues in Europe “have all been extremely sympathetic to the situation.”But she noted that those with limited resources, like many recent graduates, would be the least likely to be taken on by European institutions and may decide to drop out of science altogether.”This is a generational loss for science across all disciplines,” she warned.

The US Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a victory on Monday by lifting a lower court order barring the deportation of undocumented Venezuelan migrants using an obscure wartime law.But the nation’s top court also said that migrants subject to deportation under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act must be given an opportunity to legally challenge their removal.The 5-4 decision by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court will allow the Trump administration to resume deportations for now that had been blocked by a federal district court judge.Trump invoked the AEA, which has only previously been used during wartime, to round up alleged Venezuelan gang members and summarily deport them to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador.Attorneys for several of the deported Venezuelans have said that their clients were not members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, had committed no crimes and were targeted largely on the basis of their tattoos.The Republican president, who campaigned on a pledge to expel millions of undocumented migrants, welcomed the top court’s ruling in a post on Truth Social.”The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself,” Trump said. “A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”District Judge James Boasberg issued temporary restraining orders barring further flights of deportees under the AEA after planeloads of Venezuelan migrants were sent to El Salvador on March 15.The Supreme Court lifted Boasberg’s orders but mostly on technical grounds related to venue — that the group of Venezuelan migrants who sued to prevent their removal are in Texas while the case before Boasberg was brought in Washington.”The detainees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the District of Columbia,” the justices said, leaving the door open to possible further challenges to the legality of using the AEA to be heard in lower courts.- ‘Important victory’ -At the same time, the Supreme Court made it clear that migrants subject to deportation under the AEA, which has only been used during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, are entitled to some form of due process.”AEA detainees must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act,” the court said.”Detainees subject to removal orders under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal,” it said. “The only question is which court will resolve that challenge.”Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed suit against the deportations, said the Supreme Court’s ruling that deportees were entitled to due process was an “important victory.”Chief Justice John Roberts and four other conservative justices voted to lift the district court order’s temporarily barring the deportations using the AEA while the three liberal justices and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, dissented.”The President of the United States has invoked a centuries-old wartime statute to whisk people away to a notoriously brutal, foreign-run prison,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said. “For lovers of liberty, this should be quite concerning.”Justice Sonia Sotomayor, another liberal, said “the Government’s conduct in this litigation poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law. We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this.”The Trump administration has used images of the alleged Tren de Aragua gang members being shackled and having their heads shaved in the Central American prison as proof that it is serious about cracking down on illegal immigration.

It was Christmas Eve when multiple new Instagram followers slid into Jorell Melendez-Badillo’s DMs, all with the same question: would the historian be interested in collaborating with Bad Bunny?”My heart dropped,” he told AFP. “I immediately said yes.”Bad Bunny, one of the globe’s biggest stars, was preparing to release his sixth studio album, “Debi Tirar Mas Fotos” — “I Should’ve Taken More Photos” — a love letter to his home Puerto Rico.And the reggaeton artist born Benito Martinez Ocasio wanted Melendez-Badillo — who had recently published the book “Puerto Rico: A National History,” a study of the island’s colonial history and its political movements — to consult on the visualizers the megastar would release with his new tracks.The release date was January 5 — less than two weeks after Melendez-Badillo was brought in.”I had promised my partner, my kid, my therapist, that I was going to leave my computer behind,” he laughed, saying at the time they were vacationing in Portugal. But when Bad Bunny calls, you answer.Melendez-Badillo said he first spoke with a producer who explained the album’s concept: an affirmation of Puerto Rican identity and culture in relation to continued colonialism and displacement (The Caribbean archipelago has been a US territory since 1898, following centuries of Spanish colonial rule.)The project “centers marginalized people,” Melendez-Badillo said. “Benito was really interested in, for example, highlighting the history of surveillance and repression in Puerto Rico.”The University of Wisconsin-Madison professor wrote 74 pages of notes by hand, eventually typing them up and turning them in by New Year’s Day, having communicated with Bad Bunny over voice notes transmitted by associates of the artist.The slides accompanying Bad Bunny’s infectious, wildly popular new songs that feature salsa and percussive plena are power-point style and text-heavy, but still an accessible crash course.To date, the visualizer for the smash lead single “Nuevayol” has received some 58 million views — it’s centered on the creation of the first Puerto Rican flag — and there are 16 more visualizers beyond that, with views on sites like YouTube totaling in the hundreds of millions.”As academics, your books are only read by your students,” he laughed. “A few colleagues write reviews.”And while he aims to “bring history out of the ivory tower,” Melendez-Badillo said “never in my life did I think it was going to be at this magnitude.”- ‘Complexity of Puerto Ricanness’ -Melendez-Badillo said he’s received snapshots from clubs where his visualizers are projected: “They’re drinking and dancing, and there’s like, freaking history in the background. It’s surreal.”It’s also a vital teaching tool, the professor said.Bad Bunny’s album has highlighted how little Puerto Rican history is taught in the island’s public schools, many of which have shuttered in recent years in the wake of a crippling debt crisis and devastating hurricanes.His visualizers are Spanish only: they’re educational for anyone, but ultimately, they speak to Puerto Ricans.”He was interested in these histories being read by people in the projects and the working class neighborhoods,” Melendez-Badillo said.Bad Bunny’s no stranger to politics: he’s been a vocal participant in Puerto Rican elections and movements.The artist also weighed in this past US presidential election, supporting Democrat Kamala Harris after a speaker at a Donald Trump rally disparaged his homeland.Bad Bunny has made multiple short films that illuminate issues in Puerto Rico including endemic power outages, tax laws benefiting foreigners, and displacement, both physical and cultural.”We’ve seen Benito grow in the spotlight,” the professor said. “He is more aware of being a political subject and of using his platform to amplify those conversations.”The history lessons in “Debi Tirar Mas Fotos” extend to its celebration of traditional Puerto Rican sounds and rhythms.And it’s brought positive visibility to a place too often viewed through a lens of suffering in moments of disaster.Those media cycles rarely “allow for Puerto Ricans to speak for themselves,” Melendez-Badillo said. “It reproduces these very problematic colonial tropes.”With the new album, Bad Bunny flips that narrative.”It’s forcing people to reckon with the complexity of Puerto Ricanness” with nuance, Melendez-Badillo said.And, crucially, it’s eminently danceable, he added with a smile: “The perreo songs are my favorite.”

US President Donald Trump said Monday that he will undergo his “long scheduled Annual Physical Examination” on Friday at a military hospital near Washington. “I have never felt better, but nevertheless, these things must be done!” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.Trump, 78, is a prolific golfer who abstains from alcohol and cigarettes, but he is known to indulge in fast food and famously enjoys his steaks well-done.His earlier physical exams at Walter Reed Medical Center raised questions about the specifics of his health data and about the transparency of results.A physical during his first term, in 2018, suggested the president should aim to lose 10 to 15 pounds but was generally in “excellent health.” His doctor said there were no signs of “any cognitive issues,” and that with a healthier diet, he could “live to be 200 years old.”A year later, an exam found the 6-foot-3 (1.9 meter) Trump weighed 243 pounds (110 kilograms), up seven pounds since shortly before taking office, making him technically obese. It said he was taking medication to treat high cholesterol.In 2020, he told Fox News that he aced a test for cognitive impairment by repeating the phrase “person, woman, man, camera, TV.”  During Trump’s presidential campaign in 2015, his doctor, Harold Bornstein, released a letter saying the candidate’s blood pressure was “astonishingly excellent” and that if elected, “Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”Bornstein later told CNN that Trump himself “dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter.”

The writer behind Robert De Niro classics “Raging Bull” and “Taxi Driver” is being sued by his former assistant for sexual harassment and assault.Paul Schrader has been accused by the unnamed 26-year-old of grabbing and kissing her while they were at the Cannes Film Festival last year.A lawsuit filed in New York last week says after she escaped his clutches, the woman — given the pseudonym Jane Doe in the suit — was summoned to his hotel room three days later where Schrader exposed himself.”Since Defendant Schrader’s brutal attack on Ms. Doe, exposure of his genitals to her, and his countless other acts of sexual harassment, she has suffered, inter alia, nightmares, extreme anxiety, and trauma, and has withdrawn almost completely from her former life,” the suit says.The legal filing claims Schrader, 78, fired his assistant in September.”Two days later, in full acknowledgment of his unlawful and predatory behavior, he wrote in an email to her…’If I have become a Harvey Weinstein in your mind then of course you have no choice but to put me in the rear view mirror,'” the lawsuit says.Weinstein, 73, was the Hollywood power player whose decades-long sexual predation sparked the “Me Too” movement, leading to convictions that are under appeal. The former Miramax co-founder is serving a 16-year prison sentence in California after rape convictions in New York were overturned in 2024.Jane Doe’s suit says Schrader initially agreed to an undisclosed financial settlement over the allegations, but later backed out.The motion seeks to enforce the terms of the agreement and demands reimbursement for legal fees and costs.Schrader’s lawyer, Philip Kessler, told AFP on Monday that they would contest the lawsuit.He said Schrader had not signed an agreement, which meant it was null and void.”He reflected on paying as much money as the agreement required him to pay, had he signed it, and he reached the conclusion that it was not in his interest to do that,” Kessler said.Kessler said the underlying harassment allegations “are seriously inaccurate, very misleading and fundamentally untrue.””He kissed her twice in almost three and a half years and… it was only at the time of the second kiss that she indicated displeasure, and he never attempted to kiss her again,” Kessler added.”He will also say that he never attempted to have sex with her, and he will also say that he never exposed himself to her.”Schrader was in Cannes to promote his film “Oh, Canada,” starring Richard Gere, Uma Thurman and Jacob Elordi.AFP has reached out to Cannes organizers for comment.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned Monday that US President Donald Trump’s tariffs will likely lift inflation, describing himself as “very cautious” in light of the rising recession risk.”Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth,” Dimon said in his annual letter to shareholders.Dimon, an influential figure in markets as the longest serving CEO of a major Wall Street firm, said the US economy had been steady “for years” but was “already weakening” even before Trump’s watershed tariff announcement last Wednesday.”There are many uncertainties surrounding the new tariff policy: the potential retaliatory actions, including on services, by other countries, the effect on confidence, the impact on investments and capital flows, the effect on corporate profits and the possible effect on the US dollar,” Dimon wrote.”In the short run, I see this as one large additional straw on the camel’s back,” said Dimon, adding “my most serious concern is how this will affect America’s long-term economic alliances.”JPMorgan analysts published a note Friday expecting US GDP to contract this year “under the weight of the tariffs.” They also recently raised their risk of global recession to 60 percent.Separately, Goldman Sachs said Sunday that if most of Trump’s April 9 tariffs take effect, these charges — alongside likely sectoral duties — could tip their forecast to a recession.US and global equities have been in free fall since Trump announced sweeping tariffs last week in a move the president touted as “Liberation Day” from international trade rules he argues have harmed the country.Dimon described Trump’s tariffs as one of several factors that could boost inflation, along with continued high fiscal deficits, “the remilitarization of the world” and major investments supporting infrastructure and the green economy.”While inflation has come down, most of what I see in the future is inflationary,” said Dimon, who backs the need for reducing the US deficit.”These large deficits are not sustainable –- I do not know whether it will cause a real problem in six months or six years –- the sooner we deal with it, the better,” Dimon said.

US President Donald Trump on Monday threatened fresh tariffs of 50 percent on China and ruled out any pause in his aggressive new global trade policy, despite a dramatic market sell-off.Trump upended the world economy last week with sweeping tariffs that have raised fears of an international recession and triggered criticism even from within his own Republican Party.As the trade war escalates, Beijing — Washington’s major economic rival — unveiled its own 34 percent duties on US goods to come into effect on Thursday.The US president chastised China for ignoring his warning that targeted countries should not to retaliate.He said that if Beijing did not immediately back down the United States would impose additional 50 percent tariffs on China from Friday.”I have great respect for China but they can not do this,” Trump said in the White House. “We are going to have one shot at this… I’ll tell you what, it is an honor to do it.”With the incoming 34 percent rate and new 50 percent threat, the total extra tariffs on China this year could rise to 104 percent, the White House told AFP.- China responds -Beijing hit back, saying in a statement from its US embassy that “pressuring or threatening China is not a right way to engage.”Stock markets and oil prices collapsed further, as trading floors across the world endured waves of selling after last week’s sharp losses.Wall Street stocks finished lower following a volatile session, with both the Dow and S&P 500 ending down.But Hong Kong collapsed by 13.2 percent Monday, its worst day in nearly three decades.Trillions of dollars have been wiped off combined stock market valuations in recent sessions. Tokyo closed down by almost eight percent. Frankfurt fell as much as 10 percent in early trading before paring back losses.Trump doubled down again on Monday, saying he was “not looking” at any pause in tariff implementation.He also scrapped any meetings with China over tariffs, but said the United States was ready for talks with any country willing to negotiate.”There can be permanent tariffs, and there can also be negotiations, because there are things that we need beyond tariffs,” Trump said while meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the first leader to lobby him in person over the levies.A 10 percent “baseline” tariff on US imports from around the world took effect Saturday, and a slew of countries will be hit by higher duties from Wednesday, including the levy of 34 percent for Chinese goods as well as 20 percent for EU products.Scores of countries have sought talks, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News, adding “through good negotiations, all we will do is see levels come down.”EU trade ministers were in Luxembourg on Monday to discuss the bloc’s response, with Germany and France having advocated a tax targeting US tech giants.”We must not exclude any option on goods, on services,” said French Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin.The 27-nation bloc should “open the European toolbox, which is very comprehensive and can also be extremely aggressive,” he said.But signs of divergence emerged from Ireland, whose low corporate tax rate has attracted US tech and pharmaceutical companies.Targeting services “would be an extraordinary escalation,” said Irish Trade Minister Simon Harris.- Inflation? Recession? -Bitcoin tumbled, while the dollar rebounded after sharp losses last week.”Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid!” Trump urged Americans minutes before Wall Street opened. “Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”The 78-year-old Republican believes that the tariffs will revive America’s lost manufacturing base by forcing foreign companies to relocate to the United States, rather than making goods abroad.But most economists question his theory and say his tariffs are arbitrary.JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned of coming inflation, adding “whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth.”US Senator Ted Cruz — a staunch Trump loyalist — expressed widespread concern among Republican lawmakers over the impact on ordinary voters.He warned of a jobs crunch and rising prices, saying a recession would mean a “bloodbath” for Republicans in mid-term elections next year.