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Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who was arrested by US immigration authorities earlier this month at his citizenship interview, expressed defiance Wednesday after a federal judge ordered his release on bail.Speaking outside a courthouse in Vermont, Mahdawi addressed US President Donald Trump and his government, which has moved to revoke foreign students’ visas over their involvement in pro-Palestinian protests.”I am not afraid of you,” Mahdawi said, and then joined the assembled crowd in chanting “no fear.””If there is no fear. What is it replaced with? Love, love is our way.”Mahdawi, 34, was arrested on April 14 as he was attending an interview to become a US citizen, according to court filings.A Palestinian born in the occupied West Bank, Mahdawi has been a legal US permanent resident since 2015, was set to graduate next month and planned to attend a Columbia master’s program this fall, court filings said.He is the co-founder of a Palestinian student group at Columbia alongside Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the movement who Trump has also been trying to expel since his March arrest.”What did they do to me? They arrested me. What’s the reason? Because I raised my voice and I said no to war, yes to peace,” Mahdawi said Wednesday.A judge had previously ordered Mahdawi not to be removed from Vermont, after immigration authorities quickly transferred other students detained under the Trump administration’s crackdown to other jurisdictions.Federal agents had attempted to fly Mahdawi to Louisiana on the day he was arrested, but they were late for the flight, according to court documents.- ‘McCarthyism’ -Khalil on the other hand was transferred to Louisiana shortly after his March 8 arrest, and an immigration judge there ruled earlier this month that he could be deported. His legal challenge remains ongoing.Mahdawi, in challenging his removal, has accused the Trump administration of violating his constitutional rights to free speech and due process, arguments Judge Geoffrey Crawford in Vermont found convincing.”Mahdawi has presented sufficient evidence that his speech was protected under the First Amendment,” Crawford said in his ruling.Crawford ordered Mahdawi’s release on bail while his broader challenge proceeds, requiring that he remain in Vermont and only travel to New York for “educational purposes or to meet with his lawyers or as otherwise ordered by the court.”Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have accused participants in campus protests across the country last year of supporting the Palestinian armed group Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the war in Gaza.Israel launched a punishing offensive in response, reducing most of the enclave to rubble and killing more than 52,000 people there, most of them civilians, according to data the UN considers reliable.Rubio has argued that a rarely used federal law grants him the authority to summarily revoke visas and deport migrants who pose threats to US “foreign policy.”Judge Crawford expressed skepticism that Rubio’s application of the law to campus protesters would not violate free speech protections.”Immigration detention cannot be motivated by a punitive purpose. Nor can it be motivated by the desire to deter others from speaking,” he said.Crawford likened the political climate induced by Trump’s crackdown to the anti-communist furor in the early 20th century and 1950s period of McCarthyism.Trump has launched an assault on US universities over the nationwide protests last year against Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war.The administration also claims that universities have failed to address anti-Semitism on campus, and has moved to freeze or revoke billions of dollars in federal funding from institutions including Columbia and Harvard.Legal challenges to the Trump administration’s actions, including Mahdawi’s case, may ultimately end up at the Supreme Court.

Mexico’s economy returned to growth in the first quarter of 2025, avoiding a recession despite deep uncertainty over US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, official data showed Wednesday.Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2024, when Latin America’s second-largest economy had contracted for the first time in three years, national statistics agency INEGI reported.Year-on-year, GDP rose 0.6 percent in the first quarter, it said in a preliminary estimate.”Given the tariff situation and the uncertainty surrounding the global economy these past few months due to President Trump’s new policies, this is good news,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said.The positive growth means Mexico outpaced the US economy, which data released on Wednesday showed contracted in the first three months of the year.Mexico’s resilient performance, at least for now, eased fears of a recession, generally defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.Kimberley Sperrfechter, an economist at the Capital Economics consultancy firm, warned that the situation was not all rosy, however.”Growth was driven by a rebound in agriculture and the rest of the economy — and the manufacturing sector in particular — continued to struggle,” she wrote in a note. “The weakness in industry suggests that US tariffs on Mexico (threatened in February and in force in March) took a toll on the economy last quarter,” she added.Gabriela Siller, an economist with the financial group Banco BASE, said that there was a “marked economic slowdown” and the most likely outcome was zero growth in 2025, or a contraction if tariffs remain.- ‘Competitive advantage’ -Trump has announced various tariffs targeting Mexico, as well as several policy U-turns, as part of his global trade war.While he left Mexico off the list of nations facing his steep “reciprocal tariffs,” its carmakers as well as steel and aluminum exporters still face duties.Sheinbaum welcomed Trump’s announcement Tuesday of an easing of auto tariffs as a sign of “progress.”The new rules would give Mexico “an additional competitive advantage” due to its free trade agreement with the United States and Canada, she said.Vehicle tariffs would be reduced if some of the parts were produced in Mexico or Canada, not just the United States, an important change that “recognizes the value” of the trade deal, she said.Even so, the uncertain outlook means that Mexico’s central bank is likely to announce another half-percentage-point cut to its benchmark interest rate in May, Sperrfechter predicted.The International Monetary Fund has predicted that Mexico’s economy will shrink by 0.3 percent this year.Sheinbaum has said her outlook is more optimistic, because of her efforts to boost the economy and attract foreign investment.Her government has touted a series of major investments pledged by international companies in recent weeks, including e-commerce behemoth Amazon, its regional rival Mercado Libre, streaming giant Netflix and Spain’s biggest bank Santander.In theory, Mexico should be protected against US tariffs by the North American free trade agreement, which was renegotiated during Trump’s first term in office.The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which replaced the previous NAFTA accord on July 1, 2020, is due to be reviewed by July next year.Mexico replaced China in 2023 as the largest trading partner with the United States, which buys more than 80 percent of its exports.

President Donald Trump lashed out at his predecessor’s economic record Wednesday after US financial markets fell on the news that the American economy unexpectedly contracted in the first three months of the year.The gross domestic product of the world’s largest economy decreased at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the first quarter, after growing 2.4 percent in the final months of 2024, according to Wednesday’s estimate from the US Commerce Department.This was sharply below the market consensus estimate of 0.4 percent growth, according to Briefing.com, and marked the first quarterly contraction since 2022.All three major Wall Street indices fell at the open, with the Nasdaq sliding more than two percent before paring some losses in morning trading.”The downturn in real GDP in the first quarter reflected an upturn in imports, a deceleration in consumer spending, and a downturn in government spending,” the Commerce Department said in a statement. The surge in imports reflects businesses and consumers stockpiling foreign goods to get ahead of Trump’s sweeping tariffs, which went into effect earlier this month.”That’s Biden, that’s not Trump,” the US president said at the start of a cabinet meeting in Washington, referring to the poor GDP figures.Striking a more positive tone, he highlighted the “whopping” 22 percent rise in gross domestic investment during the first quarter. Annual economic growth stayed above two percent in every year of Biden’s presidency, reaching 2.8 percent in 2024. – ‘A blaring warning’ -In a statement published later Wednesday, the White House called GDP a “backward-looking indicator.””It’s no surprise the leftovers of Biden’s economic disaster have been a drag on economic growth,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.”But the underlying numbers tell the real story of the strong momentum President Trump is delivering.”The GDP figures were published on the 101st day since Trump returned to White House on January 20, along with fresh data showing a slowdown in the US Federal Reserve’s favored inflation gauge last month. Since returning to Washington, the president has announced several rounds of tariffs, laying out plans in March to impose sweeping levies on top trading partners from early April in a bid to reshape US trade relations. The introduction of tariffs sparked a selloff in financial markets, sending volatility surging to levels not seen since the Covid-19 pandemic.”Today’s GDP number shows Donald Trump is running America the same way he ran his business — straight into the ground,” top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said in a statement.”This decline in GDP is a blaring warning to everyone that Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans’ failed MAGA experiment is killing our economy,” he added.- ‘Greater risk of recession’ -Following the dramatic market movements in early April, the Trump administration announced a 90-day pause to the higher tariffs for dozens of countries to allow for trade talks, while maintaining a baseline 10 percent rate for most countries.It also announced sector-specific measures on steel, aluminum and automobiles and parts not made in the United States, and new sweeping tariffs totalling 145 percent on China.Beijing has responded with its own steep, targeted measures against US goods.Speaking at the cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Trump said China was getting “hammered” by the tariffs, and said he still hoped to make a deal with Beijing.”We’re talking to China, but their factories are closing all over China because we’re not taking their product,” he said. “We don’t want their product unless they’re going to be fair with us.” “The U.S. economy is at a greater risk of recession now than it was a month ago, but this 0.3 percent contraction in Q1 GDP is not the start of one,” economists at Wells Fargo wrote in an investor note. “It reflects instead the sudden change in trade policy that culminated in the biggest drag from net exports in data going back more than a half-century,” they said.

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered US immigration authorities to release a Palestinian student detained at a citizenship interview earlier this month over his role in Columbia University’s Gaza war protests.Mohsen Mahdawi, who was slated for deportation, struck a defiant tone outside a courthouse in the northeastern state of Vermont.”I am not afraid of you,” he said, addressing US President Donald Trump, whose government has led a crackdown on immigration, including targeting pro-Palestinian protesters in the country on visas.”If there is no fear. What is it replaced with? Love, love is our way.”Mahdawi was arrested on April 14 as he was attending an interview to become a US citizen, his lawyers said in a court filing.A Palestinian born in the occupied West Bank, Mahdawi has been a legal US permanent resident since 2015, was set to graduate next month and planned to attend a Columbia master’s program this fall, the court filing said.He is the co-founder of a Palestinian student group at Columbia alongside Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the movement who Trump has also been trying to expel since his March arrest.”What did they do to me? They arrested me. What’s the reason? Because I raised my voice and I said no to war, yes to peace,” Mahdawi said Wednesday.A judge had previously ordered Mahdawi not to be removed from Vermont, after immigration authorities quickly transferred other students detained under the Trump administration’s crackdown to other jurisdictions.In addition to challenging his removal, Mahdawi has accused the Trump administration of violating the US Constitution with its targeting of student activists.Trump has launched an assault on US universities over the nationwide protests last year against Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war, which has seen most of the enclave reduced to rubble and more than 52,000 Palestinians killed.Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have accused the protesters of supporting the Palestinian armed group Hamas, whose October 7, 2023, attack on Israel sparked the war.The administration also claims that universities have failed to address anti-Semitism on campus.

The US economy unexpectedly contracted in the first three months of the year, according to fresh data published Wednesday, due largely to a surge in imports as businesses and consumers stockpiled ahead of the introduction of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.The gross domestic product of the world’s largest economy decreased at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the first quarter, after growing 2.4 percent in the final months of 2024, according to an estimate from the US Commerce Department.Wednesday’s data was sharply below the market consensus estimate of 0.4 percent growth, according to Briefing.com.”The downturn in real GDP in the first quarter reflected an upturn in imports, a deceleration in consumer spending, and a downturn in government spending,” the Commerce Department said in a statement. US financial markets reacted negatively to the news, with all three major indices opening sharply lower on Wall Street.- Trump denies tariff link -In a social media post, Trump blamed his predecessor Joe Biden for the bad economic news. “This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” the US president wrote in a post to his Truth Social account. “Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang.'””This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS,” he said. “When the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!” he added. The figures were published on the 101st day since Trump’s return to office on January 20. In that time, he has announced several rounds of tariffs, laying out plans in March to impose sweeping levies on top trading partners from early April in a bid to reset US trade relations. The introduction of tariffs sparked a selloff in financial markets, sending volatility surging to levels not seen since the Covid-19 pandemic and spooking investors.”Usually, government policy doesn’t change that much, particularly not in the first 100 days of a presidency,” George Washington University economics professor Tara Sinclair told AFP before the data was published. “But this one’s different.””I think it’s pretty clear that there were dramatic policy changes that are directly weakening the economy,” she said. “100 days into his presidency, Donald Trump’s red-light, green-light tariffs are shrinking our economy, with businesses stockpiling imports in anticipation of tariff doomsday,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a statement after the GDP data was published. Following April’s dramatic market movement, the Trump administration announced a 90-day pause to the higher tariffs for dozens of countries to allow for trade talks, while maintaining a baseline 10 percent rate for most countries.It also announced sector-specific measures on steel, aluminum and automobiles and parts not made in the United States, and new sweeping tariffs totalling 145 percent on China.Beijing responded with its own steep, targeted duties against US goods. – ‘Direct response’ to Trump -The US economy grew 2.8 percent last year, according to the Commerce Department, and most analysts had expected growth to cool slightly this year. But since Trump’s return to office, and the introduction of new tariffs, many analysts have sharply cut their growth outlook.  Imports have a negative effect on growth, and counteract the positive effects of exports in the GDP calculations. “This spike in imports, that’s coming directly from people trying to get ahead of tariffs,” said Sinclair from George Washington University. “And that is in direct response to the policies of this president.”The drop in imports was “partly offset by increases in investment, consumer spending, and exports,” the Commerce Department said.The effects of tariffs on growth and inflation are a “quandary” for the Federal Reserve as it attempts to maintain stable prices and maximum sustainable employment, MBA chief economist Mike Fratantoni wrote in a note to clients shared with AFP. “We expect that the Fed will hold rates steady at its meeting next week and will indicate that it will continue to hold at this level until it becomes clear whether a recession or inflation is the bigger risk,” he said.

Germany’s Mercedes-Benz and US-European group Stellantis, whose brands include Jeep, Peugeot and Fiat, joined other automakers Wednesday in suspending their annual financial guidance because of uncertainty over US tariffs.The announcements came even as US President Donald Trump moved Tuesday to soften the blow from the 25-percent tariffs that he imposed on car imports earlier this month.”Stellantis appreciates the tariff relief measures decided by President Trump,” its board chairman John Elkann said in a statement.”While we further assess the impact of the tariff policies on our North American operations, we look forward to our continued collaboration with the US administration to strengthen a competitive American auto industry and stimulate exports,” he added.Stellantis, a 14-brand behemoth that includes Ram trucks, Dodge, Maserati and Opel, reported a 14-percent drop in its first-quarter sales to 35.8 billion euros ($40.7 billion).Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest automakers, reported big drops in their net profits over the same January-March period — before the US tariffs kicked in.While Volkswagen maintained its financial outlook, Mercedes and Stellantis suspended theirs, a day after similar moves by US auto giant General Motors and Sweden’s Volvo Cars.Stellantis said it was “suspending its 2025 financial guidance… due to evolving tariff policies, as well as the difficulty predicting possible impacts on market volumes and the competitive landscape”.Mercedes cited “volatility with regard to tariff policies” that meant business development could not be reliably forecast.Mercedes’s net profit plunged almost 43 percent in the first three months of the year to 1.73 billion euros.Finance chief Harald Wilhelm said Mercedes was nevertheless in a strong position thanks to what he said was a strong position in profitable, top-end vehicles.”This, combined with a healthy balance sheet provides a solid foundation to navigate our company through a period of geopolitical uncertainties,” he said.- Aston Martin limits US exports -Before the tariffs, European automakers were already facing slowing sales of electric cars and stiff competition from local rivals in the key Chinese market.Volkswagen, a 10-brand group that includes Audi, Skoda and Porsche, said its net profit fell 40.6 percent to 2.19 billion euros.For the rest of the year, the carmaker said that it expected business “towards the lower end” of its guidance, citing challenges including increased competition, more stringent emissions regulations and trade tensions.Speaking on a call for analysts and investors, Volkswagen’s finance chief Arno Antlitz said it was “too early to say” if Volkswagen would step up manufacturing in the United States to circumvent any tariffs.Volkswagen expects a profit margin of 5.5 to 6.5 percent for the coming year, but its guidance does not take into account changeable American tariffs.”It’s highly difficult to give a projection for the full year,” Antlitz said.In Britain, luxury carmaker Aston Martin Lagonda announced that it was limiting shipments to the United States, but it maintained its annual guidance as it reported a 13-percent drop in first-quarter revenue.Besides a 25-percent tariff on finished imported cars, the industry has also been affected by Trump’s 25-percent tariff on steel and aluminium.Automakers are also set to face new tariffs on foreign auto parts expected to take effect on May 3.Trump’s new policy means that a company would not face both a 25-percent levy for an imported vehicle and 25-percent on steel or aluminium; the importer would pay the higher of the two levies, but not both, a US Commerce Department official said.The other change is that companies that import parts for vehicles assembled in the United States would be able to offset 3.75 percent of a vehicle’s list price in the first year and 2.5 percent in the second year.burs-lth/js

The conservative US Supreme Court will weigh a case on Wednesday challenging the ban on using public money to fund religious charter schools.Nearly all 50 states already allow charter schools, which are privately managed but publicly funded.But the Catholic Church in Oklahoma is vying to open the nation’s first publicly funded religious charter school, Saint Isidore of Seville.Named in homage to the patron saint of the internet, a 7th century Spanish bishop, plaintiffs say the school would promote “parental choice, individual liberty, educational diversity, and student achievement.””Excluding religious groups from Oklahoma’s charter school program denies these opportunities and causes real harm,” plaintiffs add.If the Supreme Court sides with the Catholic Church, taxpayer funding for religious education could see a huge uptick.The separation between church and state is a bedrock principle of the US government, rooted in the First Amendment of the Constitution. The separation has been upheld in many Supreme Court decisions.In the case before the court, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the creation of the school violates both US and state constitutions. “A ruling for petitioners would eliminate the buffer this Court has long enforced between religious instruction and public schools, including in areas where charter schools are the only or default public school option,” the Oklahoma Attorney General has argued.Six of nine judges on the conservative-majority Supreme Court have demonstrated support for extending religion into public spaces, particularly schools.However, Justice Amy Coney Barrett has recused herself from this case, possibly because of connections to jurists advocating for the creation of contracted religious schools.In 2022, the Supreme Court compelled the northeastern state of Maine to include religious schools in a system of public subsidies, saying their exclusion amounted to discrimination against religion.The conservative majority also, in the same year, invalidated the dismissal of an American football coach in the Seattle area who prayed on the field.The plaintiffs are represented by religious legal advocates Alliance Defending Freedom, who are expected to argue that the prohibition on funding schools will inhibit the First Amendment right to free worship.Nationally, there were more than 3.7 million students enrolled in 8,150 charter schools during the 2022-2023 school year, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

Since returning to the White House, Donald Trump has ushered in sweeping changes to international geopolitics and US government administration with little regard for norms that have constrained predecessors.But there has been one source of restraint on a president determined to push the limits of US governance: financial markets.The stock market’s response to Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement was “probably the most influential force to date” in tempering Trump’s policies, said Terrence Guay, professor of international business at Pennsylvania State University.In just two days, Wall Street equities shredded some $6 trillion in value as the S&P 500 suffered its worst session since the darkest days of Covid-19 in 2020.”The market does tend to be … kind of like a seismograph. It reacts to the slightest little tremor,” said Steven Kyle, professor of applied economics at Cornell University.A week after Trump’s announcement of reciprocal tariffs threw markets into turmoil, the Republican suddenly scaled back his plan’s most draconian elements for every country except China. The pivot sent stocks skyrocketing.Last week, market watchers perceived another significant Trump retreat after another round of scary market action. The gyrations came after the president combined an ever-worsening tit-for-tat trade war with China with threats to oust Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.The White House quickly shifted its tone on China and Trump reassured the public that he won’t fire Powell.”Markets ‘punished’ his policies and he must have realized,” along with his advisors, “that trade wars are not that easy to win,” said Petros Mavroidis, a professor at Columbia Law School and a former member of the World Trade Organization.”I am sure he doesn’t want to be known as the president who led to a stock market crash,” Guay added.- Bond market angst -But if “Wall Street sent the loudest signal, it wasn’t the only signal,” said University of Richmond finance professor Art Durnev.Even more than the stock market, “the bond market is a stronger force and this is the primary driver” of Trump’s shift, Durnev said.Like gold or the Swiss franc, US Treasury bonds have traditionally been seen as a refuge for investors during times of duress in financial markets, or in the real economy.But demand for US Treasury bonds — a bedrock during the 2008 financial crisis and other perilous moments — has been shaken in recent weeks as Trump’s aggressive policies have pushed yields higher in a sign of flagging demand for American issues.Trump himself acknowledged the import of the bond market gyrations, saying investors were getting “a little bit yippy.” That word means nervous.The bond market “also had a big impact,” Guay said. “Many investors have pulled their money out of the US.”Besides Trump’s ambitious attempts to overhaul international trade, analysts have tied bond market volatility to worries that planned tax cuts could worsen the US deficit.Then there is Powell, whom Trump also criticized in his first presidential term.  The most recent round of Treasury market panic followed Trump’s social media post on April 21 branding Powell a “major loser” for not cutting interest rates.But by the following day, Trump had pulled back, saying he had “no intention of firing” Powell.The combination of these factors means investors are beginning to realize that “the US may not be, under this administration, the stable environment we’ve seen for decades,” Guay said.

Donald Trump promised Tuesday that he is just getting started as he marked the radical and vengeful beginning of a presidency that has shaken the world and destabilized the United States.Basking in the adulation of cheering supporters in Michigan, the 78-year-old touted the “most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country,” even as polls show Americans becoming disenchanted with the economic and political tumult.Trump said he missed the campaign trail, and launched with visible relish into a speech that often sounded more like that of a candidate than a head of state.Joe Biden is “sleepy,” the media is “fake,” judges who oppose him are “communist,” Democratic opponents are “radical left,” and friendly countries have “abused us more so than foe on trade,” Trump said, listing targets of his ire.The president promised to conclude deals on trade, but provided little in the way of details.And — to chants of “USA! USA!” — he showed a video of migrants in handcuffs and shackles being taken from a plane, transported by bus and filmed on their knees as their heads were shaved, illustrating his controversial deportation policy.- ‘We’ve done everything’ -Trump has shaken up the United States like few presidents before him. His billionaire backer Elon Musk has led dramatic cutbacks of the federal workforce, and the president himself has reshaped relations with the world by unveiling sweeping tariffs, berating allies and eliminating much foreign aid.Polls show that the honeymoon period that Americans historically accord presidents at the start of their terms has evaporated for Trump, who has angrily dismissed the results, but has tacitly acknowledged that he must moderate some policies as stock market turmoil takes a toll.He also recently backtracked on threats to fire Jerome Powell — who has warned that Trump’s tariffs would likely reignite inflation — but still criticized the Federal Reserve chairman Tuesday as “not really doing a good job.”After a 2017-2021 term in which some aides sought to rein him in, Trump has surrounded himself this time with unabashed loyalists — and told reporters he was on track to accomplish all of his second-term goals.”I think either we’ve done everything, or it’s in the process of being done,” Trump said before heading to his rally.In the grand entrance hallway of the White House, Trump has removed a portrait of Barack Obama, the United States’ first Black president, to make way for a painting of himself surviving an assassination attempt.He has used threats of cutting off government access and contracts to pressure law firms whose partners once were involved in cases against him, and he has frozen billions of dollars in funding for universities — hotbeds of criticism against the administration.- Stretching limits -Unlike most presidents, Trump has focused more on energizing his base than broadening his appeal — and many supporters are still with him.”He’s amazing. Everybody’s worried about tariffs. We don’t care — look at everything else that’s coming together too,” said Donna Fitzsimons, a 65-year-old merchandise seller at the Michigan rally venue ahead of Trump’s appearance.”People don’t realize it takes time to get where you need to go.”The rival Democratic Party has seized on economic anxieties although it has also struggled in polling.”Trump is to blame for the fact that life is more expensive, it’s harder to retire, and a ‘Trump recession’ is at our doorstep,” the Democratic National Committee said, calling the 100 days a “colossal failure.”Even with Congress narrowly in Republican hands, Trump has tested the limits of presidential power by signing more than 140 executive orders, many of which have faced court scrutiny.He has sought to end birthright citizenship — which is guaranteed by the US Constitution — and Musk has summarily axed billions of dollars appropriated by Congress.Asked in an ABC interview broadcast Tuesday about Americans who are concerned he is seizing too much power, Trump said: “I would hate them to think that. I’m doing one thing: I’m making America great again.”Trump has shown signs of impatience. He promised on the campaign trail to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours, but Russia has rebuffed a broad ceasefire offer.The US president nonetheless indicated to ABC that he is holding out hope, saying “I think he does” when asked if his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin wants peace.

US GDP figures for the first quarter are expected to show a sharp drop-off in growth — and possibly even a recession — reflecting a surge in imports before President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs came into effect.”It’s going to be a pretty dramatic slowdown from the fourth quarter,” Moody’s Analytics economist Matt Colyar told AFP. The gross domestic product data for the quarter will be published on Wednesday, the 101st day since Trump’s return to office on January 20. In that time, he has announced several rounds of tariffs, laying out plans in March to impose sweeping levies on top trading partners from early April in a bid to reset US trade relations. The introduction of those tariffs sparked a selloff in financial markets, sending volatility surging to levels not seen since the Covid-19 pandemic and spooking investors.”Usually, government policy doesn’t change that much, particularly not in the first 100 days of a presidency,” George Washington University economics professor Tara Sinclair told AFP. “But this one’s different.””I think it’s pretty clear that there were dramatic policy changes that are directly weakening the economy,” she said. Following April’s dramatic market movement, the Trump administration announced a 90-day pause to the higher tariffs for dozens of countries to allow for trade talks, while maintaining a baseline 10 percent rate for most countries, sector-specific measures, and new sweeping tariffs totalling 145 percent on China. – Rising recession risk -The US economy grew 2.8 percent last year, according to the Commerce Department. Heading into the new year, analysts had widely expected growth to cool, but to remain at around two percent in 2025. Since Trump’s return to office, and the introduction of new tariffs, many analysts have sharply cut their growth outlook. Some economists — including those at Wall Street titans Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley — now predict an economic contraction in the first quarter. But even if the economy does not contract for the first quarter — which ended before Trump’s sweeping tariffs came into effect — the scale of the slowdown analysts expect would nevertheless be significant.”Our expectation is kind of shockingly on the higher side, and we’re at 0.5 percent,” said Colyar from Moody’s Analytics.The market consensus estimate is for annualized GDP growth of 0.4 percent for the first quarter, according to Briefing.com — a marked change from the 2.4 percent annualized rate seen in the final quarter of 2024. If the economy cools as expected, it will be largely down to a surge in imports, as consumers and businesses scrambled to buy what they needed before the tariffs kicked in, analysts told AFP.”This spike in imports, that’s coming directly from people trying to get ahead of tariffs,” said Sinclair from George Washington University. “And that is in direct response to the policies of this president.”Beyond the effects of tariffs, the GDP data is likely to paint a “very complicated story,” Belinda Roman, associate professor of economics at St Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, said in an interview. Roman pointed to better-than-expected employment figures, which suggest that “clearly there’s something else changing that we’re not seeing just yet” in the data. “I think there might be a small contraction,” she said. “That may be offset by the fact that we’ve seen what I think is a very interesting increase in employment,” she said. “I think we’ll start to see in second quarter and third quarter more negative impacts, because it’s it takes it a while,” she said. “It doesn’t happen immediately.”