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Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged Tuesday that some aid groups may have intentionally sabotaged projects to make a point after he froze most US assistance.Rubio, currently on a Latin America tour, doubled down on President Donald Trump’s 90-day suspension of assistance as reports emerge around the world of local aid groups curtailing or stopping life-saving aid.”I issued a blanket waiver that said, if this is life-saving programs, OK; if it’s providing food or medicine or anything that is saving lives and is immediate and urgent, you’re not included in the freeze,” Rubio told reporters in Costa Rica.”I don’t know how much more clear we can be than that,” he said.”I would say if some organization is receiving funds from the United States and does not know how to apply a waiver, then I have real questions about the competence of that organization, or I wonder whether they’re deliberately sabotaging it for purposes of making a political point,” said the former Republican senator.A day earlier, Rubio said he had been made acting head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk look at drastically scaling back aid and merging the organization under the State Department.Non-governmental groups say they have heard multiple cases of aid groups that have struggled to operate, mostly smaller organizations that provide targeted services such as health care or education and did not have reserves.Some schools have shuttered in Uganda, where USAID was backing a universal education program, and demining work has been disrupted in Cambodia, among other cases.- Targeted support to allies -Rubio announced that he was issuing new waivers to ensure the flow of assistance to Costa Rica, a major US partner on issues including migration and drug-trafficking.US assistance includes biometric work to stop smugglers, which Rubio pointed out as an example of concrete American help that benefits its own interests.”Under President Trump, we have a foreign policy in which we are strong in providing support to our allies,” Rubio said as he met Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves.The top US diplomat, on his third stop in his first trip, is a longtime China hawk who is also looking to push back on Beijing’s influence in the region.Costa Rica in 2007 switched recognition to China from Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing — a turning point as other Latin American countries followed suit.But US officials also see hope in the example of Costa Rica, whose relations with China have turned rockier in recent years.Chaves in 2023 effectively forbade Chinese tech titan Huawei from bidding for the nation’s 5G network due to Beijing’s refusal to sign an international agreement on cybercrime.”When you confront companies that are not secure, they’re backed by governments like the government of China that likes to threaten, that likes to sabotage, that likes to use economic coercion to punish you,” Rubio said.Costa Rica has been “very firm, and I think they deserve a lot of support in confronting that,” Rubio said.

US President Donald Trump is set to sign a fresh set of executive orders Tuesday amid reports that he will kick off his election campaign vow to gut the federal education department.Trump cannot abolish the department without the approval of Congress, which he is unlikely to get, but US media reported Tuesday that he would issue orders to effectively dismantle it from the inside.The White House confirmed Trump was due to sign the latest in a slew of executive orders since his assumption of power on January 20, but did not specify what they were.The reports come amid a wider blitz on the federal government led by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, that effectively shuttered the USAID humanitarian aid agency on Monday.Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) was already probing data at the education department, the Washington Post newspaper reported on Monday.The tech tycoon referenced the report on his social media network X, saying that while former US president and conservative icon Ronald Reagan had not honored his vow to abolish the department in the 1980s, “President @realDonaldTrump will succeed.”During the 2024 election campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to do away with the department if he won a second term in power, returning decisions on the subject to US states.The Republican billionaire has repeatedly said the department has too much spending power even as global metrics show the United States lagging far behind other countries in school standards.He has also criticized US schools for being too liberal. Last week, he signed several executive orders regarding hot-button topics in education — including race, gender, and college campus protests.Trump has nominated Linda McMahon — the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment — to lead the education department, in a move widely seen as signaling his intention to downgrade it.At the culmination of a staged feud, Trump once body-slammed her husband, legendary wrestling promoter Vince McMahon, and shaved his head in the middle of a wrestling ring on live television.

The trade war may be on hold, but in a Canadian border city where the unhindered flow of auto parts across the bridge to Detroit supports thousands of jobs, the future remains uncertain.When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that punishing US import tariffs threatened by President Donald Trump had been delayed a month, the line of cars waiting to enter Windsor, Ontario was stacked dozens deep. The build up was heavy for a Monday but not extraordinary, underscoring how lives and the economies in Windsor and Detroit have grown intertwined. Among those who had just driven across the suspension bridge connecting the cities was Ryan Martin, a 33-year-old automotive engineer, who lives in Canada but crosses daily to work in Michigan. “I’m relieved for now,” he told AFP through the rolled down window of his black pick-up truck, as he waited to clear Canadian customs.But, he added, “I think the damage is already done.”The relationship between the United States and Canada — a close alliance for well over a century that currently involves billions of dollars in daily cross border trade — “is not in a good spot,” said Martin. “Not as good as it should be.”- ‘Freaking out’ – Trump’s pledge to impose a blanket 25 percent tariff on all Canadian imports, which may resurface in a month, pushed national anxiety in Canada to rare heights. Canada announced retaliatory measures and economists warned the US levees could trigger a recession by mid-year. Trump has said tariffs were aimed at forcing Canada to counter the cross-border flow of migrants and the powerful and dangerous drug fentanyl.That argument provoked bewilderment among some Canadians, as Ottawa maintained that less than one percent of fentanyl and undocumented migrants in the United States cross through the northern border. In Windsor, Trump’s motivation for tariffs likely matters less than their potentially existential impact on the auto industry, which drives the local economy. “It’s massive,” said John D’Agnolo, who heads a local union representing Ford plant workers. Ford has been employing people in Windsor for more than 100 years and without auto jobs the city would be plunged into a “huge recession,” he said. When Trump signed the order on Saturday signalling tariffs would go into force, people believed “cross border trade, especially for the automotive sector, was heading to a dark place,” D’Agnolo said.Members of his union “were, quite frankly, freaking out.” D’Agnolo estimated that there are 30,000 individual parts in an average vehicle, some of which cross the US-Canada border multiple times through a manufacturing process that has developed over years to maximize efficiency. Workers at his plant, for example, make engines for Ford trucks assembled in the United States. A 25 percent tariff each time Canadian cargo headed into Michigan would cause car companies “a lot of pain,” he said. “It would be impossible.”For D’Agnolo, the 30-day pause was obviously welcome but has hardly settled minds in Windsor. “For now it’s relief, but it gives workers an eye opener,” he said. His message to union members is “you’re going to have to start saving some money, because we don’t know yet.”- ‘Four years of not knowing’ -Krysten Lawton, a health and safety trainer at the Ford plant, is a fourth generation auto worker and her children just joined the industry. “It’s kind of our bloodline,” the 52-year-old told AFP. Lawton said she exhaled deeply in relief when news of the tariff pause broke Monday but she was steeling herself for uncertainty which she expects to last throughout Trump’s second term. “I don’t think we’re going to feel safe for some time. I think it’s going to be four year of not knowing,” she said. Earlier in her career, she dealt more closely with Ford colleagues in Detroit — relations that were always cordial — and she voiced hope that US-Canada bonds could transcend any fraying caused by the tariff standoff. “This is just chaos…this is a drive to divide people and I hope that people are smarter than that,” she said. “We would love for North America to flourish… as a whole.”

New York is defined by its iconic yellow taxis, stretching down Manhattan’s long avenues as far as the eye can see.But a challenge that may not occur to the average rider is how the drivers of cabs and ride hailing services like Uber and Lyft, who work as much as 12 hours a day, can take a comfort break.Currently drivers are forced to hunt for an ever-dwindling number of parking spaces for somewhere to stop before they can go inside to relieve themselves.Taxi driver representatives are now pushing to be given special placards that would allow them to stop briefly in spots that would otherwise be off limits, like bus lanes.”Drivers are being tortured by not being able to stop and use the restroom when they need to,” said Fernando Mateo of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, which is leading the campaign and represents 30,000 drivers, most of whom work for ride-hailing services.”We have worked hard to get barber shops, restaurants and small businesses to allow taxi drivers to go use the bathroom, but when they come back out, within minutes, they get a ticket. And now the tickets are being issued by automation.”Local media report that, in desperation, some drivers have been forced to relieve themselves besides their cars, opening them up to public urination penalties.”If they get caught relieving themselves next to their car, then it’s called indecent exposure, and at that point you could lose your license,” Fernando said.   “So what we’re asking the city is to issue (drivers) a permit that when they are using a bathroom, they would place it on their windshield, and they have 10 minutes to do what they have to do and come back out.” Yellow cab driver Dorjee Nangyal, 49, said he would welcome the ability to stop without risking a ticket which could wipe out an entire day’s profit.”The police give you a ticket, you have to stay in the car. If I go to the toilet, I’ll get a ticket. I’ve had a ticket too many times,” said Nangyal from his taxi as he waited for fares outside Manhattan’s Grand Central station.A spokesman for the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), Jason Kersten, said “access to restrooms for TLC drivers is fundamental to humane working conditions, and an important issue that we take seriously.””We are constantly seeking ways to expand bathroom access for TLC drivers within our limited public space, including working with our partners at the Department of Transport to identify spots for new taxi and for-hire vehicle relief stands.” 

Two US biotech companies say the Food and Drug Administration has cleared them to conduct clinical trials of their gene-edited pig kidneys for human transplants.United Therapeutics along with another company, eGenesis, have been working since 2021 on experiments implanting pig kidneys into humans: initially brain-dead patients and more recently living recipients. Advocates hope the approach will help address the severe organ shortage. More than 100,000 people in the United States are awaiting transplants, including over 90,000 in need of kidneys.United Therapeutics’s approval, announced Monday, allows the company to advance its technology toward a licensed product if the trial succeeds.The study authorization was hailed as a “significant step forward in our relentless mission to expand the availability of transplantable organs,” by Leigh Peterson, the company’s executive vice president.The trial will initially enroll six patients with end-stage renal disease before expanding to as many as 50, United Therapeutics said in a statement. The first transplant is expected in mid-2025.Meanwhile, rival eGenesis said it had received FDA approval in December for a separate three-patient kidney study.”The study will evaluate patients with kidney failure who are listed for a transplant but who face a low probability of receiving a deceased donor offer within a five-year timeframe,” the company said.Xenotransplantation — transplanting organs from one species to another — has been a tantalizing yet elusive goal for science. Early experiments in primates faltered, but advances in gene editing and immune system management have brought the field closer to reality.Pigs have emerged as ideal donors: they grow quickly, produce large litters, and are already part of the human food supply.United Therapeutics said trial patients would be monitored for life, assessing survival rates, kidney function, and the risk of zoonotic infections — diseases that jump from animals to humans.Currently, there is only one living human recipient of a pig organ: Towana Looney, a 53-year-old from Alabama who received a United Therapeutics kidney on November 25, 2024.She is also the longest-surviving recipient, having lived with a pig kidney for 71 days as of Tuesday. David Bennett of Maryland received a pig heart in 2022 and survived 60 days.

Mexico began Tuesday the 10,000-strong border troop deployment it had promised US President Donald Trump in exchange for delaying a 25-percent tariff on exported goods, President Claudia Sheinbaum said.”The deployment has already started,” she told reporters a day after announcing a last-minute deal with Trump to tighten measures against illegal migration and cross-border smuggling of the drug fentanyl.Trump on Saturday announced sweeping measures against the United States’s three biggest trading partners: Canada, China and Mexico.Its immediate neighbors were to pay an export tariff of 25 percent, the president announced, and China an additional 10 percent on top of existing duties.Canada and Mexico announced reciprocal levies before both countries’ presidents managed to strike a deal with Trump Monday that saw him delay the tariffs by a month.Markets had slumped Monday after the weekend threats sparked fears of a global trade war.Sheinbaum said Tuesday troops had been taken from parts of the country that “do not have as much of a security problem.”More than 450,000 people have been murdered countrywide since Mexico launched a major offensive against drug cartels in 2006.The US border deployment “does not leave the rest of the country without security,” the president insisted.

They’re booing the American national anthem, canceling holidays in the United States, and boycotting American products: Canadians are responding to US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats with anger and patriotic spending.”What Donald Trump is doing to Canada, I find it completely disgusting,” says Huguette Beaudoin.Wandering the aisles of a Montreal supermarket, the 80-year-old stops to look closely at the label on a box of onion soup to determine whether it was made in the United States.For her, like many others, buying American products is now out of the question — even if it means going without certain items. “We have to react,” she says.Trump, who roared back into the White House this month, had announced sweeping tariffs of 25 percent on Canadian imports to begin Tuesday, accusing Ottawa of not doing enough on illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling.Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday said the US levies would be paused for 30 days after he promised Trump he would tighten the border with the United States, appoint a “Fentanyl Czar” and crack down on money laundering. But he had initially announced retaliatory tariffs, urged Canadians to buy local and consider vacationing within Canada instead of the United States.His comments appear to have been taken to heart, with several people in multiple cities who spoke to AFP before the pause was announced saying they would do just that. Pamela Tennant, who lives in Ontario, had been planning a trip to South Carolina in March but changed her mind, annoyed by the American president’s attacks — including his oft-repeated threat to make Canada the 51st US state.”I’m afraid that Americans will end up believing what Trump says,” she told AFP. “He considers us a bad neighbor. He tells the whole world that we are bad people and that we have taken advantage of them,” but it is “all lies.”- Boos -On social media, lists of American products to boycott began circulating widely. Several provinces — including Ontario, which sells almost Can$1 billion worth of US booze annually through its government-run retail stores and to 18,000 local restaurants and bars — said they would immediately stop selling American beer, wine and spirits in protest.”We didn’t start this fight, but we’re going to win this fight,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Monday.The boycott will have an effect on American producers and companies, but Canada remains “a relatively small market” for them, and so it will be “above all symbolic,” commented Julien Frederic Martin, an economics professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM).On the other hand, Canadian tourists choosing to go elsewhere “could have a significant economic effect” for American states such as Maine, Florida, California and Arizona, according to Lorn Sheehan, a professor who specializes in tourism at Dalhousie University.The United States is the top vacation destination for Canadians and, in 2023, more than 25 million trips were made to the United States for work, leisure or shopping.Canadian sports fans have also expressed their anger, booing the US national anthem at a Toronto Raptors’ home NBA game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday.Boos were also heard during “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a National Hockey League game on Saturday between the Minnesota Wild and the Ottawa Senators.”There has always been a latent anti-Americanism in Canada but, with Trump, it has soared,” said Guy Lachapelle, a professor at Concordia University.The current boycott, he added, is directed “not so much against the United States, but more towards the American president.”

The gates at a Johannesburg LGBTQ clinic called OUT have been closed for more than a week and HIV prevention and treatment services suspended for its 6,000 clients.The lights are also off at the University of the Witwatersrand’s HIV project, a leader in the provision of services to sex workers in South Africa, a country with one of the largest HIV-positive populations in the world.They are among the several South African HIV/AIDS healthcare providers that have been confused, angry and scrambling for survival since US President Donald Trump issued a 90-day freeze last week on Washington’s foreign aid.”Short-term, I hope that some money can flow so that medium- and long- term, we can make other plans,” said Dawie Nel, the director at OUT, whose Engage Men’s Health clinic in Johannesburg has a note fixed to the gate that announces it is “temporarily closed”.South Africa is one of the largest recipients of funds from the US HIV/AIDS response programme called PEPFAR, a project launched in 2003 and now paused by the funding freeze.PEPFAR accounts for 17 percent of the country’s HIV budget, ensuring some 5.5 million people receive anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment, according to the health ministry.”The US is a totally unreliable partner,” said Nel. “The system is very volatile and chaotic.”OUT’s services identify around four to five cases of HIV a day along with other sexually transmitted diseases, he said.It had been banking on $2 million in US funds to continue until September to provide its 2,000 clients with HIV treatment and another 4,000 clients with the preventative drug PrEP.- ‘Left behind’ -Around 14 percent of South Africans, around 8.45 million people, were HIV positive in 2022, according to government statistics, one of the highest rates in the world.After a slow response to its AIDS crisis that cost more than 2.5 million lives, the country today has one of the world’s biggest HIV treatment programmes.”The PEPFAR-fund freeze will take South Africa and the world back in terms of the gains we have made in our response to HIV,” the Treatment Action Campaign’s Anele Yawa said in a statement.”People are going to be left behind in terms of prevention, treatment and care.”Since the freeze was announced, a waiver for humanitarian aid, including life-saving treatments, has been issued but many organisations are unclear whether it applies to them.The Wits University’s Reproductive Health and HIV Institute has posted on its Facebook page that its Key Population Programme clinics for sex workers and transgender people were “closed until further notice”.The implications of the USAID stop order were being reviewed “and mitigation plans are being developed and deployed”, Wits Health Sciences dean Shabir Madhi said in a statement.- ‘Undue suffering’ -South Africa’s government has vowed to make up the difference in HIV funding by reallocating budgets for “key priorities”.But what those priorities should even be “is difficult to say unless we have a more informed decision from the Americans”, Munya Saruchera, director of the African Centre for Inclusive Health Management at Stellenbosch University, told AFP.The country may however be able to leverage its presidency of the G20 this year to “lead the Africa bloc into collective discussions with Western countries” to secure resources, he said.The retreat in foreign aid spending by the United States, the world’s largest foreign aid donor, “creates opportunities for other countries like China”, said Craig Lasher, senior policy fellow for health advocacy group Population Action International.But prolonged delays in filling funding gaps will pose “undue suffering” to health service workers and the communities they support, Lasher said. “The longer they last, the more difficult it will be to rebuild the programmes,” he warned. 

China has made good on its threats to retaliate in the escalating trade war with the United States, imposing tariffs on American imports of energy, cars and machinery parts. That came just minutes after a 10 percent tariff hike on Chinese goods, announced by US President Donald Trump on Saturday, came into effect.Here’s the state of play in the rocky US-China trade relationship:- How much trade is at stake? -Trade between China and the United States, the world’s two largest economies, is vast, totalling more than $530 billion in 2024.Sales of Chinese goods to the United States over the same period totalled more than $400 billion, second only to Mexico.China is the dominant supplier of goods from electronics and electrical machinery to textiles and clothing, according to the Peterson Institute of International Economics (PIIE). But a yawning trade imbalance — $270.4 billion last year — has long raised hackles in Washington.So has China’s vast state support for its industries, sparking accusations of dumping, as well as its perceived mistreatment of US firms operating in its territory.China’s economy remains heavily reliant on exports to drive growth despite official efforts to raise domestic consumption, making its leaders reluctant to change the status quo.- What happened during Trump’s first term? -Trump stormed into the White House for his first term in 2016 vowing to get even with China, launching a trade war that imposed significant tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods.China responded with retaliatory tariffs on US products that particularly affected American farmers.Key US demands were greater access to China’s markets, broad reform of a business playing field that heavily favours Chinese firms, and a loosening of heavy state control by Beijing.After long, fraught negotiations the two sides agreed what became known as the “phase one” trade deal — a ceasefire in the nearly two-year trade war.Beijing agreed under that agreement to import $200 billion worth of US goods, including $32 billion in farm products and seafood.However, in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic and a US recession, analysts say Beijing fell well short of that commitment.”In the end, China bought only 58 percent of the US exports it had committed to purchase under the agreement, not even enough to reach its import levels from before the trade war,” the PIIE’s Chad P Brown wrote.- How did things change under Biden? -Joe Biden, whose presidency was bookended by Trump’s two terms in office, did not roll back the increases imposed by the Republican but took a more targeted approach when it came to tariff hikes.Under Biden, Washington expanded efforts to curb exports of state-of-the-art chips to China, part of a broader effort to prevent sensitive US technologies being used in Beijing’s military arsenal.His administration also used tariffs to take aim at what it called China’s “industrial overcapacity” — fears the country’s industrial subsidies for green energy, cars and batteries could flood global markets with cheap goods.Biden ordered tariffs last May on $18 billion worth of imports from China, accusing Beijing of “cheating” rather than competing.Under the hikes, tariffs on electric vehicles quadrupled to 100 percent, while the tariff for semiconductors surged from 25 percent to 50 percent.- What happens next? – Beijing’s new tariffs will come into effect on Monday.Tariffs of 15 percent will be imposed on imports of coal and liquefied natural gas from the United States.Crude oil, agricultural machinery, big-engined vehicles and pickup trucks face 10 percent duties.China is a major market for US energy exports and, according to Beijing customs data, imports of oil, coal and LNG totalled more than $7 billion last year.By following through with the levies, Trump has shown tariff threats were serious and not an opening gambit in negotiations.The mercurial magnate has also tied tariffs to the fate of Chinese-owned social media app TikTok — warning of retaliation if a deal cannot be struck to sell it.Trump has ordered an in-depth review of Chinese trade practices, the results of which are due by April 1.Analysts say that could serve as a “catalyst” for even more tariffs on Chinese imports.However, the strong riposte has left little doubt that Beijing will push back against measures it has long viewed as unfair.China said on Tuesday it had filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over the “malicious” levies, although that is unlikely to bring change in the short term.Separately, its State Administration for Market Regulation announced a probe into US tech giant Google over violations of anti-monopoly laws.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will meet President Donald Trump on a visit to the United States this week, top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Tuesday.”If circumstances permit, he will visit the United States from February 6-8 and hold (his) first face-to-face Japan-US summit meeting with President Trump in Washington DC,” Hayashi said.”Through this visit we hope to build a strong relationship of trust with the new US administration and take the US-Japan alliance to new heights,” he added.The Nikkei business daily reported that Ishiba wants to discuss increasing imports of US shale gas with Trump — chiming with the president’s pledge to “drill, baby, drill”.Ishiba is also expected to discuss a bid by Nippon Steel to buy US Steel blocked by previous president Joe Biden, according to public broadcaster NHK.Citing national security concerns, Biden blocked Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion acquisition of US Steel last month, a highly unusual move that irked officials in Tokyo.Ishiba intends to ask Trump to visit Japan at the earliest opportunity, local media reported.Ishiba held a brief telephone call in November with then-president-elect Trump, and had reportedly unsuccessfully sought to meet with him before his inauguration in January.However, Trump in December hosted Akie Abe — the widow of Japan’s assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe — for a private dinner with Melania Trump at their Florida residence.Last week, Ishiba stressed the importance of close ties with the United States for regional stability.”As the balance of power in the region undergoes a historic change, we must deepen Japan-US cooperation further, in a concrete manner,” Ishiba told parliament.Tokyo must also “continue to secure the US commitment to the region, to avoid a power vacuum leading to regional instability”, he added in a policy speech.His comments underscored jitters over China’s military build-up in the Asia-Pacific and Trump’s “America First” policies, which may include demanding that allies such as Japan shoulder a larger proportion of defence costs.Japan and the US are key defence allies and each other’s top foreign investors.Also in December — ahead of Ishiba — Masayoshi Son, head of Japanese tech investor SoftBank, stood beside Trump to announce a $100 billion investment in the United States.Son also attended Trump’s inauguration, followed by an announcement that SoftBank would lead a $500 billion project called Stargate to build AI infrastructure in the United States along with cloud giant Oracle and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.Then on Monday evening, Son and OpenAI chief Sam Altman met Ishiba, and discussed extending “Stargate into Japan”, Son told reporters afterwards.”We want to create the cutting-edge AI infrastructure — what I mean by that is the world’s biggest, cutting-edge AI data centres,” Son said, without giving further details.