Economists say levies of between 10% and 50% have dramatically added to the risk of a worldwide downturn
Global financial markets have been plunged into turmoil as Donald Trump’s escalating trade war knocked trillions of dollars off the value of the world’s biggest companies and heightened fears of a US recession.
As world leaders reacted to the US president’s “liberation day” tariff policies demolishing the international trading order, about $2.5tn (£1.9tn) was wiped off Wall Street and share prices in other financial centres across the globe.
The US president’s announcement has caused market chaos and threatens a trade war and US recession
Donald Trump’s announcement of a long slate of new tariffs on the US’s trading partners has caused chaos in global markets and threatens a global trade war and US recession.
Long trailed on his election campaign, Trump’s plans were even more sweeping than many had predicted: a baseline 10% tariff on all imports and higher tariffs for key trading partners, including China and the EU.
Defense chief and others discussed US military operations on messaging app that included journalist
The inspector general of the Department of Defense (DoD) is launching an investigation into Pentagon secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive information about military operations in Yemen.
The investigation, announced on Thursday, follows a bipartisan request from the Senate armed services committee after allegations emerged that highly precise – and most likely classified – intelligence about impending US airstrikes in Yemen, including strike timing and aircraft models, had been shared in a Signal group chat that included a journalist.
The Democrat delivered the longest Senate speech in history. We asked urologists one pressing question about it
On Monday evening, Cory Booker, a Democratic senator for New Jersey, took the floor to denounce the harm he believes Donald Trump and his administration have inflicted on the United States. “Our country is in crisis,” he said, decrying the economic chaos, mass layoffs and tyrannical acts of the administration’s first 71 days. He stopped speaking 25 hours and five minutes later, making it the longest Senate speech in history.
Many praised Booker for the rousing political act. Some were also impressed by a particular physical feat: namely, he seemingly didn’t pee once the whole time. (A rep for Booker confirmed to TMZ that he did not wear a diaper during his speech.)
Discovery in Altadena months after fires brings deaths in Eaton fire up to 18, while 12 people killed in Palisades fire
Months after wildfires tore through Los Angeles communities, officials announced this week they had discovered another set of human remains, bringing the death toll in the disaster up to 30.
Investigators were dispatched to Altadena on Wednesday to investigate possible human remains in the community, which was hit hard by the Eaton fire in January. The special operations response team confirmed that the remains were human, the Los Angeles county medical examiner’s office said in a statement.
The US president has expelled his own country from the rules-based global trade system that America itself created
For the world’s already embattled trading system, it is as though an asteroid has crashed into the planet, devastating everyone and everything that previously existed there. But there is this important difference. If an asteroid struck the Earth, the impact would at least have been caused by ungovernable cosmic forces. The assault on world trade, by contrast, is a completely deliberate act of choice, taken by one man and one nation.
Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on every country in the world is a monstrous and momentous act of folly. Unilateral and unjustified, it was expressed on Wednesday in indefensible language in which Mr Trump described US allies as “cheaters” and “scavengers” who “looted”, “raped” and “pillaged” the US. Many of the calculations on which Mr Trump doled out his punishments are perverse, not least the exclusion of Russia from the condemned list. The tariffs mean prices are certain to rise in sector after sector, in the US and elsewhere, fuelling inflation and perhaps recession. Mr Trump will presumably respond as he did when asked about foreign cars becoming more expensive: “I couldn’t care less.”
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Starmer will try to calm the situation and focus on May’s local elections, but one thing is clear: our ties with Europe are more crucial than ever
Nobody wins a trade war. You can lose it by greater or lesser degrees: you may be one of the luckier casualties. But that’s about as good as it gets. So, while there will have been initial relief in Downing Street on Wednesday night, a feeling even that Keir Starmer’s placating of Donald Trump looks vindicated, what followed was no victory lap.
How could it be, after that grotesquely swaggering show trial the president staged in the White House garden, all the better to jazz up an economic assault on what were once his country’s allies? Come on down, Britain, escaping with just the minimum 10% tariff on its exports to the US and no drive-by insults! Better than Taiwan (32% plus a lecture about how the US used to build all the semiconductors once), Vietnam (“They like me, I like them” but still a brutal 46%), the EU (“very very tough traders” and lucky to get away with 20%) or poor Lesotho, still reeling from the overnight collapse of US aid and now whacked by a 50% tariff. But even lucky Britain still emerged with a 25% duty on cars that the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) estimates could cost 25,000 jobs, plus the grim realisation that this may be just the beginning of a long unravelling. Globalisation is dead, protectionism is back, and all to satisfy one man’s delusions that life was better in the 1800s before income tax was invented.
Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
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Rosie Sandri says her ‘hands were tied’ after slew of criticism, including death threats, led to her resignation
A trans teacher at a Texas high school has resigned after becoming the target of conservative backlash and online attacks.
Rosie Sandri came out as a trans woman about seven months ago. Her colleagues at Red Oak high school and the Red Oak independent school district were very supportive, she recalled to NBC News.
US president had sued over denied allegations he took part in ‘perverted’ sex acts but UK case was thrown out last year
Donald Trump has been ordered by a judge in England to pay more than £620,000 in legal costs after unsuccessfully suing a company over denied allegations he took part in “perverted” sex acts.
The US president brought a data protection claim against Orbis Business Intelligence, a consultancy founded by a former MI6 officer, Christopher Steele, in 2022.
Von der Leyen calls tariffs ‘a major blow to world economy’ while calling for last-ditch negotiations
European leaders have condemned Donald Trump’s tariffs as “fundamentally wrong” and creating an “immense difficulty for Europe”, while appealing for last-ditch negotiations to avert an all-out trade war.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Trump’s decision to impose tariffs was “brutal and unfounded” and appeared to call for a suspension of French investment in the US until the tariffs were clarified.
Rainfall near Memphis, Tennessee, is expected to exceed 12in over the next three days
A prolific tornado outbreak will give way to a rare and widespread flooding threat across the midwest and southern US this week, stressing the nation’s short-staffed weather forecasting and disaster response efforts.
Los Angeles children suffered traumatic disruptions to their education and social lives from the wildfires
The Eaton fire that devastated Altadena in early January burned down Juan Carlos Perez’s family home and the school where his younger daughter attended sixth grade.
Losing both anchors at once, Perez said, has been traumatizing for the 12-year-old. As the family moved from hotel to Airbnb, his daughter has become increasingly withdrawn and too anxious to return to school, asking to finish the semester online. The only time she interacted with friends was during soccer practice, Perez said, but that routine was suspended last month when the family moved this month to a friend’s house in Connecticut.
US stock markets tumbled on Thursday as investors parsed the sweeping change in global trading following Donald Trump’s announcement of a barrage of tariffs on the country’s trading partners.
All three major US index funds were down as trading started on Thursday morning. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fund was down 4.5%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow dropped 3.4% and 2.7% at opening, respectively. Apple and Nvidia, two of the US’s largest companies by market value, had lost a combined $470bn in value by midday.
Police say man landed on island in attempt to meet the Sentinelese people – a tribe untouched by the industrial world
Indian police said on Thursday they had arrested a US tourist who sneaked on to a highly restricted island carrying a coconut and a can of Diet Coke to a tribe untouched by the industrial world.
Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, 24, set foot on the restricted territory of North Sentinel – part of India’s Andaman Islands – in an attempt to meet the Sentinelese people, who are believed to number only about 150.
Donald Trump has introduced eye-watering tariffs on countries around the world. Will they ‘make America wealthy again’? Richard Partington reports
Donald Trump is on a mission to ‘make America wealthy again’. Speaking outside the White House, he said for too long the country had been ‘looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike’. Now that would come to an end, he said, as he slapped eye-watering tariffs on countries around the world.
The Guardian’s senior economics correspondent, Richard Partington, explains why Trump has taken such action and how it could affect the global economy. ‘It could come at huge costs to consumers,’ he says, as markets around the world react with confusion. With prices in the US also likely to rise, will voters soon rue what the president has called ‘liberation day’?
Donald Trump fired six national security council staffers after an unusual meeting in the Oval Office where the far-right activist Laura Loomer presented opposition research against a number of staffers that she said showed they were disloyal to the US president, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The firings included three staffers who had been brought on by national security adviser Mike Waltz – an extraordinary situation where Loomer appeared to have more sway over NSC personnel than the official in charge of running the agency. It also undercut Waltz’s position to have his allies axed from under him.
Vice-president makes remark after reports that president told cabinet members billionaire will be stepping back
JD Vance said on Thursday that Elon Musk would remain a “friend and an adviser” to the vice-president and Donald Trump after he leaves his current role with the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge).
In recent days, several news outlets, including Politico, reported that Trump had told members of his cabinet that the tech billionaire, who holds the position of “special government employee”, would soon be stepping back from his role in the administration, and would take on a supporting role and return to the private sector.
Tonight, I rise with the intention of getting in some good trouble. I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.
Former officials question the reason for a Doge engineer’s access to the Unaccompanied Alien Children portal
A member of Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency” gained access to a government system that contains the personal data of unaccompanied immigrant children, according to a recent court filing.
The database, called the Unaccompanied Alien Children portal (UAC), contains extremely detailed information about thousands of minors who enter the United States alone, including individual children’s mental health and therapy records, as well as immigration records, photos and addresses of their family members.
In the aftermath of the disastrous debate against Donald Trump that ultimately ended his political career, Joe Biden skipped a White House meeting with the congressional Progressive caucus in favor of a Camp David photoshoot with the fashion photographer Annie Leibovitz, a new book says.
“You need to cancel that,” Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff and debate prep leader, told the president, as he advocated securing the endorsement of the group of powerful progressive politicians perhaps key to his remaining the Democratic nominee.
Conformity and fear of party leadership are impairing Democrats’ ability to fight Trump and drive a progressive agenda
Joe Biden’s insistence on running for re-election was certainly disastrous. It kept credible contenders out of the Democratic presidential primaries and prevented the selection of a nominee who had gained momentum in the winnowing process. Even after his stunningly feeble debate performance on 27 June last year, Biden took several weeks before finally opting out of the race. That left Kamala Harris a mere 107 days between the launch of her campaign and election day.
Ample evidence shows that the Biden team was riddled with obstinate denial and misrepresentation aimed at the public. But tales of tragic egomania in high places can take us only so far. What’s essential is to scrutinize how – and why – the Democratic party, its leaders and its prominent supporters enabled Biden and his inner circle to get away with such momentous stonewalling for so long.
Waving a big chart as a prop in the White House Rose Garden, Donald Trump suggested his new tariff plan was simple: “Reciprocal – that means they do it to us, and we do it to them. Very simple. Can’t get simpler than that.”
Perhaps a bit too simple. The method used to calculate the most important numbers in international trade, politics and economics has left some of the world’s leading experts shocked.
Goods trade deficit: $291.9bn
Total goods imports: $438.9bn
Those figures divided = 0.67, or 67%
And halved = 34%
Reciprocal tariffs are calculated as the tariff rate necessary to balance bilateral trade deficits between the US and each of our trading partners. This calculation assumes that persistent trade deficits are due to a combination of tariff and non-tariff factors that prevent trade from balancing.
Mette Frederiksen, who met island’s new and outgoing PMs, says she wants to cooperate with Trump on Arctic security
The Danish prime minister has put on a show of unity with Greenlandic leaders in her first visit to the Arctic island since Donald Trump’s renewed threats to acquire the territory, telling the US: “You cannot annex another country.”
Speaking onboard an inspection ship in front of a military helicopter, alongside Greenland’s new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, and its outgoing prime minister, Múte B Egede, Mette Frederiksen switched from Danish to English to address the diplomatic standoff with the Trump administration.
I bought it to be part of a greener future, but that was before Musk proved so awful. I’d sell it now, but prices have dropped
After our children left home, my wife and I decided to treat ourselves and buy a new car for a driving holiday in Europe. We’d been driving a family estate car for years, loading it up with kids and making trips to and from universities, but we wanted something for ourselves.
As a surprise, she booked a test drive for the Tesla Model S for my birthday. It was unlike any car I’d been in before. I thought “Wow, this is amazing.” It felt like the future: a computer on wheels that was constantly updating with new features. I can’t say I feel that way now – and many people seem to share that view. Tesla sales figures declined by 13% in the first few months of this year. Others feel even more uneasy: more than 200 demonstrations happened last weekend outside company facilities around the world to protest against Elon Musk and the wrecking ball he has taken to the federal government.
Maga is coming after the House of Mouse with a cynical attack on its diversity policies. Disney can – and should – fight back
I remember the moment I truly recognized the power Disney has to move young hearts and minds.
It was when I attended a sneak preview of Disney’s adaptation of the Chinese legend of Mulan, about a young woman who disguises herself as a man and takes up her wounded father’s sword to defend her nation.
White House approves Tennessee’s state of emergency request as further fatalities expected to be confirmed
Violent storms and tornadoes have torn across the US south and midwest, killing at least seven people and downing power lines and trees, smashing homes and upturning cars across multiple states.
The outbreak of storms and tornadoes has resulted in at least seven deaths in Tennessee and Missouri, with further fatalities expected to be confirmed. One of the victims has been named: a 68-year-old man named Garry Moore who was a fire chief in Cape Girardeau county, Missouri. At least a dozen injuries have also been reported from the storms.
Energy Transfer, a top backer of US president, has received requests to power even more energy-guzzling data centers
Oil and gas barons who donated millions of dollars to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign are on the cusp of cashing in on the administration’s support for energy-guzzling data centers – and a slew of unprecedented environmental rollbacks.
Energy Transfer, the oil and gas transport company behind the Dakota Access pipeline, has received requests to power 70 new data centers – a 75% rise since Trump took office, according to a new investigation by the advocacy non-profit Oil Change International (OCI) and the Guardian.
Maintaining seed diversity and abundance is essential – and requires constant work. It’s time for Congress to return to the seed business
From 1862 until 1923, US senators and members of Congress provided vast numbers of seeds to constituents. At its peak, the congressional seed distribution program delivered over 60m seed packets directly to farmers and market gardeners every year, helping introduce new varieties of everything from wheat and corn to oats, soybeans, flowers and vegetables. A century later, far fewer Americans till the soil for a living, but seeds remain central to our lives.
To understand the importance of seeds, try to imagine a morning without them. It would begin naked on a bare mattress, with no cozy sheets or pajamas, and there would be no fluffy towel to wrap up in after your shower. All of those things come from the seeds of the cotton plant. Stumbling wet into the kitchen, you would find no coffee, and no toast or bagel to go with it. There would be no eggs, no bacon, no cereal, no milk. All of those staples come from seeds or from livestock raised on seed crops. And if you thought you might console yourself with a chocolate bar, you can forget it. Cocoa powder, and the cocoa butter that makes it melt in your mouth, are both derived from seeds.
The administration has proposed no realistic settlement, leaving a void for Netanyahu. This is foolishness gone wild
When I wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian a few months ago, anticipating Donald Trump’s foreign policy regarding the Middle East, I made a big mistake.
I thought that there would be diplomacy involved, even if it was ill-conceived. Instead, the complete lack of diplomatic rendering in this administration’s foreign policy is already pointing in dangerous directions, especially regarding Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan and Egypt. Saudi Arabia, the sleeping giant that’s in a key position to provide a roadmap to a fair resolution for both Israelis and Palestinians, seems to be sitting on the sidelines now.
Donald Trump’s tariff plan could undermine the Brexit deal between the EU and the UK for trading arrangements in Northern Ireland, a highly sensitive agreement designed to maintain the 1998 peace pact.
As part of the president’s attempt to spur on a “rebirth” of the US, Trump has imposed a two-tier tariff rate on the island of Ireland – with a 20% tax on exports from the republic but a 10% rate on the UK, including Northern Ireland.
Ron Klain tells author Chris Whipple that Biden opted for Annie Leibovitz shoot at critical moment in campaign
In the aftermath of the disastrous debate against Donald Trump that ultimately ended his political career, Joe Biden skipped a White House meeting with the congressional Progressive caucus in favor of a Camp David photoshoot with the fashion photographer Annie Leibovitz, a new book says.
“You need to cancel that,” Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff and debate prep leader, told the president, as he advocated securing the endorsement of the group of powerful progressive politicians perhaps key to his remaining the Democratic nominee.
US president Donald Trump yesterday produced a chart of all the new tariffs he was announcing, affecting trade with countries across the world. Here is the list as he displayed it
The president displayed the top of his list from a podium in the White House Rose Garden, and later published a longer version. Note that the “tariffs charged to the USA” in Trump’s formulation include “trade barriers” so don’t necessarily align with the tariffs published by countries concerned.
French prime minister François Bayrou told reporters that Donald Trump’s tariffs marked “a catastrophe” for the global economy, and posed “an immense difficulty” for Europe.
Speaking on the margins of a meeting in the French Senate, he also said the move will be “a catastrophe for the US and for US citizens.”
Developing nations in south-east Asia, including wartorn and earthquake-hit Myanmar, and several African nations are among the trading partners facing the highest tariffs set by Donald Trump.
Upending decades of US trade policy and threatening to unleash a global trade war, the US president announced a raft of tariffs on Wednesday that he said were designed to stop the US economy from being “cheated”.
There were charts and scores, as if The Price Is Right had come to Washington. The big prize? A global trade war
It was Jeopardy!, or The Price Is Right, come to Washington.
On an unseasonably chilly day in the White House Rose Garden, Donald Trump stood with a giant chart listing which reciprocal tariffs he would impose on China, the European Union, the United Kingdom and other hapless contestants.
Influential podcast host and prominent Trump supporter criticizes administration for removal of gay makeup artist
Joe Rogan, the influential podcast host and prominent supporter of Donald Trump, has criticized the president’s administration over the deportation of a professional makeup artist and hairdresser to a prison in El Salvador, calling it “horrific”.
Andry José Hernández Romero, who is gay, had sought asylum in the US, telling officials he faced persecution because of his sexual orientation and political views. But US immigration officers argued the crown tattoos on his wrists were proof he was part of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang, despite Hernández Romero telling them he was not. Last month, he was flown from Texas to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, a facility that his lawyer said was “one of the worst places in the world”. His removal comes as the administration undertakes what Trump has pledged would be a mass deportation campaign.
Nasdaq futures tumbled 3.3% and in after-hours trade as $760bn was wiped from the market value of ‘Magnificent Seven’ technology leaders
Stocks dived and investors scrambled to the safety of bonds, gold and the yen on Thursday as Donald Trump unveiled a bigger-than-expected wall of tariffs around the world’s largest economy, upending trade and supply chains.
The technology sector was pummelled as manufacturing hubs in China and Taiwan faced new tariffs above 30%. In total, China now faces an eye-watering 54% in tariffs on its exports to the US.
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