Week in Review

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Week in Review

04/19/2025

For the week 4/14-4/18

[Posted 3:30 PM ET, Friday]

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Edition 1,356

Secretary of State Marco Rubio made some curious statements in France today, saying the U.S. would “move on” if a way to end the war in Ukraine can’t be found soon, as first reported by AFP.

“We need to figure out here, now, within a matter of days, whether this is doable in the short term, because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on,” Rubio said.

The comments came after a meeting of U.S. officials including Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff with Europeans in Paris this week, where they indicated the aim to secure a full ceasefire in Ukraine within weeks, according to reports.

Rubio also said the UK, France, and Germany could help “move the ball” to get a resolution, saying the European countries were “very helpful and constructive with their ideas.”

It was not clear from Sec. Rubio’s remarks whether he meant that the United States would merely abandon its effort to reach a 30-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine or abandon Washington’s commitment to Ukraine altogether.

But his remarks clearly expressed the opinion of President Trump, and Trump’s frustration at not being able to reach a ceasefire, but as I spell out below, and as has been the case for months, Kyiv is not going to accept a deal that requires it give up territory and de-militarize, as well as not seek to join NATO.

Rubio didn’t criticize either Ukraine or Russia in his statements, but he’s ratcheting up pressure on both sides to end the war and his statements appeared intended to inject urgency into European efforts to prod Volodymyr Zelensky toward compromise.

This afternoon, President Trump said a deal needs to get done “quickly.”  He said he saw “enthusiasm” from both sides to reach agreement.  Well, enthusiasm from Vladimir Putin to get sanctions relief, and his ceasefire terms.

As for the Kilmar Abrego Garcia situation, discussed in depth below, former Republican Rep., and one-time acting Speaker, Patrick McHenry said early in the week, appropriately, “take the L”....take the loss and move on, Mr. President. The American people want to see due process...period.  We are not going to live in a nation where people can unilaterally be deported without a hearing.

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Over the weekend, President Trump said that there are no exceptions to tariffs and no escape from them, adding to the confusion over conflicting information whether carve-outs announced Friday were temporary for smartphones, PCs, and other personal tech devices imported from China.

“NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook,’ Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday.  “There was no Tariff ‘exception’ announced on Friday,” he said.  Tech products imported from China are still subject to existing 20% levies imposed as part of Trump’s fentanyl emergency he said.

Customs and Border Protection late Friday had issued updated guidance in a document titled “Reciprocal Tariff Exclusion for Specified Products,” listing smartphones, PCs, chips, and other tech products. That update was celebrated on Wall Street as an important exception in Trump’s escalating trade war with China.

The ruling granted a reprieve for Apple and other consumer electronics makers, with more than 80% of Apple products assembled in China, according to data from Evercore ISI.  Apple CEO Tim Cook has courted close relations with Trump amid the tariff push.

Stock markets across the world thus opened higher on Monday on word the Chinese-made smartphones and other electronics devices would escape the tariffs of up to 145%.  But the rollback, issued at the weekend, may end up being short-lived after President Trump said these goods were simply being moved into a different tariff “bucket.”  U.S. officials said these items would be subject to a “semiconductor tariff” – an important tax hitting the microchips that power billions of electronics devices and are central to the global economy, with Trump expected to reveal more details soon.

Sunday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told ABC that tech exemptions are temporary and chip sector tariffs are coming.  U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CBS tech imports had simply moved to a different category of potential tariffs to be handled separately from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs.  White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said the official policy is “no exemptions, no exclusions.”

The tech exemptions excluded 20 categories of products from levies Trump imposed in his April 2 executive order, which mandated the 10% on almost all U.S. imports and set higher rates on imports from some countries.  Trump later boosted the level of these “reciprocal” tariffs on China to 125% (145% total), and issued a 90-day pause on tariffs above 10% for other countries.

A CBS News/YouGov poll found 74% of Americans see Trump’s tariffs as benefiting the wealthy, and 71% see them helping large corporations, while only 32% said small business. Fifth-three percent of respondents think the economy is getting worse.

Wedbush tech bull Dan Ives wrote Sunday that the back and forth on the tech exemptions was just another example of the “mass uncertainty, chaos, and confusion,” adding that it is “dizzying” and creating unwelcome chaos for companies trying to plan their supply chain, inventory, and demand.

President Trump, when asked last week by reporters how he would make decisions in the coming week, responded: “Instinctively, more than anything else.  You almost can’t take a pencil to paper, it’s really more of an instinct than anything else.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“President Trump is taking exception to the idea that his Administration is offering exceptions to his punishing tariffs.  That’s the story after a confusing weekend that offers more lessons in the arbitrary nature of Trump trade policy.

“Late Friday his own Customs and Border Protection (CBP) department issued a notice listing products that will be exempt from Mr. Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs that can run as high as 145% on goods from China....

“The CBP notice takes the tariff rate on these products down considerably.  Barron’s calculates that the exceptions cover $385 billion in 2024 imports. That includes $100 billion from China, or 23% of U.S. imports from that country. The tariff rate falls to 20% on the newly exempted Chinese exports.

“The press spent Saturday reporting this without cavil from the White House.  We weighed in with a WSJ.com editorial on Saturday afternoon, noting that this meant a big reprieve for powerful tech companies, though not for small manufacturers.

“But on Sunday morning Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said tariffs on electronic goods would go up again in the future, though he offered no details.  Mr. Lutnick hasn’t been the most reliable voice on the Administration’s plans, so that was taken with some caution.

“Finally Mr. Trump jumped in late Sunday afternoon.  ‘NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’ for the unfair Trade Balances, and Non Monetary Tariff Barriers, that other Countries have used against us, especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst!’ he wrote.  ‘There was no Tariff ‘exception’ announced on Friday.  These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket.’’

“Mr. Trump blamed the press for reporting the exceptions that his own CBP had announced, albeit in stealth fashion at 10:36 p.m. Friday.  And he announced that his Administration is taking a ‘look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN’ for potential tariffs.

“So what happened and what’s the real policy? Who knows?....

“These CBP exemptions would be good news for consumers who were otherwise facing much higher prices for smartphones that are a staple of modern life. How would you like a $2,400 iPhone?  But after Mr. Trump’s broadside, tech companies and electronics firms are left wondering who will get reprieves.

“Perhaps Mr. Trump doesn’t like that exceptions are a tacit admission that tariffs will make American companies less globally competitive, especially in the artificial intelligence race. That explains the exemptions for ASML’s chip-making equipment and Nvidia’s graphic processing units.  Mr. Trump first makes U.S. companies less competitive, then he and his Administration pick exceptions worthy of help to remain competitive.  Politicians, not success in the marketplace, pick business winners and losers.

“Exemptions would also undermine the Administration’s legal justification that his tariffs are needed to meet a national ‘emergency.’  Imports of glassware and umbrellas from China are an emergency but imports of electronics aren’t?

“All of this exposes the political nature of tariffs. Some industries benefit but others don’t. Too bad if you make shoes, or clothing, or thousands of other consumer products that must pay the tariffs but lack the political or market clout to win exemptions.  Too bad, too, if you’re a small manufacturer that relies on a component from China but can’t afford a K Street lobbyist.

“Welcome to the new tariff economy, where you still pay onerous taxes, endure punishing regulation, and now must also navigate the political minefield of arbitrary tariffs.”

--Rich Lowry / New York Post

“Judging by the results, the United States should be the last country that wants to re-order the world economy. 

“We’ve thrived in recent decades, while other advanced democracies have fallen behind.

“If we’ve gotten ‘ripped off’ as President Donald Trump and supporters of the trade war like to say, the supposed thieves have gained little and the purported victim has continued to march ahead.

“That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t seek to change unfair trade practices, and to gain more independence from Chinese supply chains.

“Yet, it’s foolish to disrupt willy-nilly a system that has ourselves at the apex, and getting stronger rather than weaker.

“We’ve been outpacing the rest of the advanced world since the early 1990s.

“As The Economist magazine noted in a cover story last year, ‘In 1990 America accounted for about two-fifths of the overall GDP of the G7 group of advanced countries; today it is up to about half.’

“We roughly doubled the gap in our per-person output over Europe and Japan across those decades.

“Since 2020, we grew three times as fast as the G7. Overall, whereas we were 21% of global GDP in 2012, now we are 26% - right about where we were in 1980.

“Our labor productivity has skyrocketed compared to other developed economies, and we spend more on R&D as a percentage of GDP than any other country except South Korea and Israel.

“Countries that had allegedly figured out a powerful mercantilist alternative to our free market have stagnated.

“Germany was once hailed as a model of industrial policy; its GDP hasn’t grown since 2019, and manufacturing has declined for years.

“Japan was once the object of fear and envy for its industrial policy; it’s been a low-growth economy for more than three decades now.

“Canada, too, was considered an alternative model, but its national income per capita was 80% of ours not too long ago and is now about 70%.

“Rather than overtaking the United States in GDP, meanwhile, China has ceded ground in recent years, and has an output per person that isn’t even a third of ours.

“According to The Economist: ‘Average wages in America’s poorest state, Mississippi, are higher than the averages in Britain, Canada and Germany.’

“Hasn’t our manufacturing sector been devastated?

“As The Financial Times notes, our manufacturing output has actually increased since 1990....

“The aim of the Trump tariffs is to increase employment in one sector of the economy at the expense of the rest of the economy, which is inherently a bad deal.

“The sweep of the tariffs means that they are poorly designed to achieve even this particular goal, since the price of steel, aluminum and other inputs that manufacturers use will go up.

“One estimate is that Trump’s first-term steel and aluminum tariffs resulted in roughly 75,000 fewer manufacturing jobs for this very reason.

“The normal impulse is to want to change the rules in the middle of the road when you are losing, not when you are winning the race....

“Trump has talked about accepting ‘a little disturbance’ with his new tariff regime.

“The danger is that we will simply have less economic growth than we would have had otherwise – since the president isn’t rescuing an economic basket case, but changing what’s been a winning formula.”

Meanwhile, China has suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to choke off supplies of components central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world.

Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system.  Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors.

If factories in Detroit and elsewhere run out of powerful rare earth magnets, that could prevent them from assembling cars and other products with electric motors that require these magnets.

At the same time, the administration took steps to impose levies on Chinese vessels docking at U.S. ports, threatening to shake up global shipping routes and further escalate the trade war.

The proposal follows a months-long investigation ordered by the Biden administration into whether Chinese shipbuilding threatens U.S. national security.  The plan also hits non-Chinese shipbuilders, adding a levy to any vehicle carriers not made in America calling at U.S. ports.

Despite the above, President Trump called on China to reach out to him in order to kick off negotiations.

“The ball is in China’s court. China needs to make a deal with us.  We don’t have to make a deal with them,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday, reading what she said was a statement Trump dictated.

As for trade talks with the European Union, little progress was made this week.  The EU’s trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, is said to have left Monday’s meeting in Washington with little clarity on the American stance.  The uncertainty around Trump’s chaotic tactics, replete with delays, retreats, new threats and sudden exceptions and trial balloons, hasn’t helped.

The EU is working on a proposal that would serve as a possible retaliatory tactic if negotiations with the U.S. fail to produce a satisfactory outcome.

President Trump on Truth Social:

“The United States is taking in RECORD NUMBERS in Tariffs, with the cost of almost all products going down, including gasoline, groceries, and just about everything else. Likewise, INFLATION is down. Promises Made, Promises Kept!”

Oil is down largely because of fears of global demand destruction, Mr. President.   But the price of gasoline, which was $3.11 for regular as a nationwide average on Inauguration Day, finished the week at $3.16.  [President Trump is also talking about $1.98 gas in three states.  The lowest states today are Mississippi and Tennessee at $2.69 per gallon.]

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Trump, Elon, cont’d....

--As Chris Mergerian of the Associated Press observed about President Trump and his inclination to act unilaterally since he returned to office in January:

“He installed himself as chair of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing arts to overhaul programming at Washington’s premier cultural institution. He issued an order to purge ‘improper ideology’ from the Smithsonian Institution’s network of museums. He punished law firms associated with his opponents. He directed the Justice Department to investigate former officials who crossed him during his first term.

“When Trump decided to remove regulations on household water efficiency – he wants more water flowing in showers – his executive order said the normal public comment period ‘is unnecessary because I am ordering the repeal.’

“ ‘What the president ends up having is what he wants, which is everyone’s attention all of the time,’ (presidential historian Tim) Naftali said.”

--A federal judge on Tuesday said she will require the Trump administration to produce records and sworn answers about the U.S. government’s attempts, or lack thereof, to return a Maryland resident who was apprehended by immigration authorities and illegally sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

“To date nothing has been done,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis told a lawyer for the Justice Department.  “Nothing.”

Judge Xinis left open the possibility of a contempt ruling against the Trump administration, marking another escalation in the legal showdown with the White House.  The case has widespread implications, with Justice Department lawyers arguing that the judge lacks the authority to force them to coordinate with the Salvadoran government to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

“It’s going to be two weeks of intense discovery,” Xinis told Justice Department attorneys at the hearing.

The Trump administration has repeatedly bucked Xinis’ orders to provide information about what it is doing to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, 29.  Monday, President Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele met in the White House, where Trump and administration officials repeated unsubstantiated claims that the sheet-metal apprentice who fled El Salvador as a teenager has ties to a transnational gang.

“There is never going to be a world in which this is an individual who’s going to live a peaceful life in Maryland, because he is a foreign terrorist and a MS-13 gang member,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday.  Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have disputed the claims, and he appears to have no criminal record in the United States or El Salvador.

Xinis said the discovery will move fast, adding that she is normally accommodating about lawyers’ vacations and other appointments.  “But not this time.”

“We have to give process to both sides, but we’re going to move,” Xinis said. “There will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding.”

At the White House meeting, President Bukele said he would not return Abrego Garcia.

“Of course I’m not going to do it,” Bukele said when asked by reporters.

Edward Luce / Financial Times

“At around noon on 14 April, 2025, America ceased to have a law-abiding government. Some would argue that had already happened on 20 January, when Donald Trump was inaugurated. On Monday, however, Trump chose to ignore a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling to repatriate an illegally deported man. He even claimed the judges ruled in his favor.  The U.S. president’s middle finger to the court was echoed by his attorney-general, secretary of state, vice-president and El Salvador’s vigilante president Nayib Bukele. The latter is playing host to what resembles an embryonic U.S. gulag.

“In terms of clarifying moments, Trump’s meeting with Bukele compares with his dressing down of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky in late February. Zelensky was berated for being insufficiently thankful for U.S. military aid and for failing to wear a suit. A tieless Bukele, by contrast, got royal treatment.  Trump’s team nodded when Bukele said he would not consider returning the wrongful deportee, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. All baselessly agreed that Garcia was in fact a terrorist.  The Oval Office drama offered a civics lesson to the world: America’s government pays greater respect to a foreign strongman than its own Supreme Court.

“Trump knows how to deliver gripping television. He was also making history.  The official position of the world’s oldest constitutional republic is that the courts should have no say in who its executive deports and on what grounds. Foreign travelers to the U.S. should beware.  They can be detained without recourse.  Americans should too. Trump casually told Bukele he may need to build more supermax jails for ‘homegrown’ deportees, which means U.S. citizens....

“That the Whtie House will not release details about its Bukele prison contract is also informative.  Grift and authoritarianism go hand in hand.  America’s busiest expos nowadays are those specializing in border security, drones and paramilitary gear.  El Salvador is now a hotspot of shadowy vigilantism. In that respect, the U.S.-El Salvador relationship is threatening to become two-way. Among those angling for deportation contracts are Erik Prince, the former chief executive of the mercenary group Blackwater....

“Now (Trump) is unleashing the investigative dogs on critics. The latest targets include a former federal officer, Chris Krebs, for having ‘falsely...denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen.’  The media is also in his sights.  On Sunday, Trump issued a torrent of threats against CBS for running interviews critical of him....

“In Russia, dissent can cost critics their business licenses, liberty and even their lives. It seems a matter of time before other less besieged western legal systems hear petitions by U.S. citizens for asylum.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“Mr. Abrego Garcia is being held under an agreement in which the Administration is paying El Salvador $6 million to house migrants this year. Since the Supreme Court has ordered efforts to facilitate his return, continuing to pay El Salvador for his detention could violate that order.

“The larger problem is that Mr. Abrego Garcia was deported without due process. The Administration first said he was sent to the Salvadoran mega prison because of an ‘administrative error,’ but it has since suspended the staff attorney who made that court filing.

“Mr. Abrego Garcia ‘was not mistakenly sent to El Salvador.  He is an illegal alien from El Salvador,’ White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told Fox News.  ‘In 2019 he was ordered deported.  He [has] a final removal order from the United States. These are things that no one disputes. Where is he from?  El Salvador. Where is he a resident and citizen of? El Salvador. Is he here illegally?  Yes. Does he have a deportation order?  Yes.’

“That’s not the whole story.  Mr. Abrego Garcia’s presence in the U.S. was also subject to an immigration judge’s 2019 withholding order, which prevents a migrant from being deported to a particular country, which in his case was El Salvador because he was at risk of harm from a criminal gang.

“The Supreme Court’s unsigned opinion specifics that the lower court’s order ‘properly requires the Government’ to ‘ensure that [Mr. Abrego’s] case is handled as it would have had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.’  That means with respect for due process.  The immigration judge’s order forbade Mr. Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador, and the Administration has not challenged the existence of that order.

“Mr. Trump would be wise to settle all of this by quietly asking Mr. Bukele to return Mr. Abrego Garcia, who has a family in the U.S.  But the President may be bloody-minded enough that he wants to show the judiciary who’s boss.  If this case does become a judicial showdown, Mr. Trump may assert his Article II powers not to return Mr. Abrego Garcia, and the Supreme Court will be reluctant to disagree.

“But Mr. Trump would be smarter to play the long game.  He has many, much bigger issues than the fate of one man that will come before the Supreme Court.  By taunting the judiciary in this manner he is inviting a rebuke on cases that carry far greater stakes.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) met Thursday in El Salvador with Abrego Garcia.  The senator arrived in the country Wednesday and initially his attempts to meet the man had failed.

But on Thursday, he shared an image of himself seated at a table with a man he identified as Abrego Garcia and said they’d had the chance to speak.

President Bukele suggested Thursday evening that his government was in no rush to send him back, writing on X, “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.”

--David Graham / The Atlantic

“In December, Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker asked Donald Trump about his threats of revenge during the campaign. He demurred.  ‘I’m not looking to go back into the past. I’m looking to make our country successful,’ he said.  ‘Retribution will be through success.’

“Believe it or not, this statement turns out to have been not entirely honest.

“During the first two months of his presidency, the prevailing theme of Trump’s White House was the Elon Musk-led attempt to drastically cut federal agencies. The purge is incomplete – the U.S. DOGE Service continues to seek cuts at more agencies, and litigation has slowed or blocked some of the cuts – but we seem to have already moved into the next stage: revenge.

“Trump took one of his most chilling steps toward retribution last week, when he directed the government to investigate two officials in his first administration.  Chris Krebs, who headed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Miles Taylor, who was chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. The reasons Trump is out to get these two men are clear enough.  Krebs, whose work focused on election security, was fired for refusing to say that fraud tainted the 2020 presidential; as I wrote back in November of that year, Trump targeted him ‘not because he did a bad job, but because he did too good a job and said so.’  Taylor wrote a notable anonymous New York Times op-ed about administration officials resisting Trump, then published a book unmasking himself and worked to organize Republican opposition to Trump.

“One might be tempted to think that Trump’s new orders rely on pretexts to target the duo, but they don’t even really bother. They’re pretty straightforward about the reason. Trump is starting with a conclusion that the two men did something wrong and demanding the government work backwards to find some evidence to support it.

“The Krebs order is particularly Orwellian.  As he uses the power of the federal government to try to punish someone for voicing his opinion, Trump alleges that Krebs’ conduct ‘both violates the First Amendment and erodes trust in Government, thus undermining the strength of our democracy itself.’”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“President Trump campaigned on ending lawfare and the ‘weaponization’ of the federal government, but he’s siccing it now on his perceived enemies by name, ordering federal investigations and potentially prosecutions. This is a broken promise, an abuse of power, and another twist down the spiral of politicized law enforcement.

“In a pair of extraordinary executive memoranda Wednesday, Mr. Trump directed federal agencies to open inquiries into two former officials who worked in his first Administration.  One of these men is sympathetic, and the other isn’t. But by picking targets first, publicly announcing them, and only then looking for misdeeds and evidence, Mr. Trump is doing precisely what Democrats did to him.

“Mr. Trump’s first target is Chris Krebs, who led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, until two weeks after the 2020 election.  Mr. Trump fired him because Mr. Krebs and his agency kept knocking down claims of phantom voter fraud.  Mr. Trump hasn’t forgotten, and he’s now turning the fantasy that he really beat President Biden into a revenge narrative.  His order claims Mr. Krebs ‘falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen.’....

“Mr. Trump’s order tells the departments of Justice and Homeland Security to ‘review Krebs’ activities’ and ‘identify any instances where Krebs’ conduct appears to have been contrary to suitability standards for Federal employees.’  Without citing evidence of concrete wrongdoing, Mr. Trump seems to be telling government lawyers to read every email Mr. Krebs ever sent to see if they can nail him for something.

“A similar colonoscopy awaits Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at Homeland Security. Mr. Trump says Mr. Taylor ‘stoked dissension by manufacturing sensationalist reports on the existence of a supposed ‘resistance’ within the Federal Government.’  True enough.

“Mr. Taylor wrote under the guise ‘Anonymous’ while enouncing the President to great media fanfare, which isn’t honorable conduct.  If his writings included classified information, that’s a discrete inquiry.

“But what Mr. Trump wants is an open-ended ‘review’ of his ‘activities’ and ‘conduct,’ with recommendations for ‘remedial’ action.  ‘I think he’s guilty of treason, if you want to know the truth,’ Mr. Trump told the press, ‘but we’ll find out.’

“What will this fishing expedition produce? Who knows. But it’s tainted from the start. The message Mr. Trump is sending, to former and current advisers, is one of intimidation. Cross him, and you’ll get put into the wringer. And good luck finding a lawyer in D.C., given the President’s campaign against big firms that have employed his political opponents.

“On Jan. 20, Mr. Trump signed an executive order to end the ‘weaponization’ of government.  At this point he should rescind it as false advertising.”

Kathleen Parker / Washington Post...a conservative....

“One of the horrors of aging for the collagen-deprived is a thinning epidermis and the bruising consequences of casual contact with previously benign surfaces. Donald Trump’s skin is as thin as a rat’s ear. So thin-skinned is the U.S. president, he has resorted to investigating and punishing his critics, letting the word ‘treason’ tumble from his pouting lips.

“What would explain such a fragile ego in the world’s most powerful man?  His appetite is never sated, and his intolerance for criticism makes him immune to humility.  Trump may be physically large and perhaps enjoys towering over smaller mortals.  But his recent acts of retribution toward those who have criticized or disagreed with him show that he’s like the bullied kid who takes a weapon to school.”

As Ms. Parker points out, Trump wants to celebrate his birthday, June 14, with a military parade – which happens to coincide with the Army’s 250th anniversary.

“Recall that Trump is the guy who received five military deferments during the Vietnam War and who once said that avoiding STDS (sexually transmitted diseases) was his ‘personal Vietnam.’  I can’t fathom why any war veteran would support him.

“If the parade pans out, it would be a first in U.S. history.

“The closest any president has come to parade-like behavior on his birthday was Dwight D. Eisenhower, a World War II general and war hero whose 63rd birthday party was also a fundraiser for the Republican Party.  It took place in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and included a big-tent production by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.  At 6:14 p.m., Eisenhower’s entourage of three cars entered Hershey Stadium and drove around the track. As the president and his wife, Mamie, stood by a table at one end of the stadium, the crowd sang ‘Happy Birthday.’

“Granted, no other president could claim a military anniversary as an excuse to salute himself.  But don’t think for one minute that this parade won’t be about Trump.  Everything is about him.”

--From the Washington Post: “U.S DOGE Service employees have inserted themselves into the government’s long-established process to alert the public about potential federal grants and allow organizations to apply for funds, according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive situation.

“The changes to the process – which will allow DOGE to review and approve proposed grant opportunities across the federal government – threaten to further delay or even halt billions of dollars that agencies usually make in federal awards, the people said. The moves come amid the Trump administration’s broader push to cut federal spending and crack down on grants that DOGE and other officials say conflict with White House priorities.

“DOGE employees have made changes to grants.gov, a federal website that has traditionally served as a clearinghouse for more than $500 billion in annual awards and is used by thousands of outside organizations, the people said. Federal agencies including the Defense, State and Interior departments have historically posted their grant opportunities directly to the site.  Nonprofits, universities and local governments respond to these grant opportunities with applications to receive federal funding for activities that include cancer research, cybersecurity, highway construction and wastewater management.

“But a DOGE engineer recently deleted many federal officials’ permissions to post grant opportunities, without informing them that their permissions had been removed, the people said.  Now the responsibility of posting these grant opportunities is poised to rest with DOGE – and if its employees delay those postings or stop them altogether, ‘it could effectively shut down federal-grant making,’ said one federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal operations.

“Agency officials have been told that the grants.gov site has been under systems maintenance.  They have been instructed to email their planned grant notices to grantreview@hhs.gov, an inbox at the Department of Health and Human Services that is being monitored by DOGE, the people said.”

--Meanwhile, about 22,000 Internal Revenue Service employees have signed up for the Trump administration’s latest resignation offer. The ensuing exodus could weaken the agency’s ability to collect taxes.  A new memo also outlines the agency’s plans to reduce its workforce to between 60,000 to 70,000 employees, down from roughly 100,000.  Notices of “reductions in force” will start going out this week, specifying that “taxpayer services and compliance will need to be trimmed.”

And if this is not chaotic enough, President Trump is replacing the acting IRS commissioner that he appointed just three days earlier, continuing the upheaval at the agency.

Gary Shapley, who had already been working at the Treasury Department, moved into the top IRS job on Tuesday.  Republicans, including Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), cheered Shapley’s appointment.

Trump tapped Billy Long, a former Republican congressman from Missouri, to run the agency.

Long becomes the fifth person to hold the job this year!

--A long sliver of federal land along the U.S.-Mexico border that President Trump is turning over to the Department of Defense would be controlled by the Army as part of a base, which could allow troops to detain any trespassers, including migrants, U.S. officials told the Associated Press.

The transfer of that border zone to military control – and making it part of an Army installation – is an attempt by the Trump administration to get around a federal law that prohibits U.S. troops from being used in domestic law enforcement on American soil.

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Wall Street and the Economy

A Wall Street Journal survey of 64 academic and business economists from April 4 to 8, after Trump announced a baseline duty of 10% on imports and larger, “reciprocal” tariffs on countries on April 2, which the president dubbed Liberation Day, but before Trump’s announcement on April 9 of a 90-day suspension in the reciprocal tariffs while retaining the 10% baseline tariff and ratcheting duties up to 145% on China, which then retaliated, found the economists slashing estimates for growth while raising them for inflation and unemployment.

Economists expect U.S. gross domestic product after inflation to expand just 0.8% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier according to the survey’s estimate. That is down from a forecast of 2% GDP growth in January.

They also increased their estimated probability of recession in the next 12 months to 45%, up from 22% in January.

Economists now see consumer prices rising 3.6% in December 2025 from a year earlier, up from 2.7% in January, though the forecast for 2026 remains little changed at 2.6%, suggesting tariffs are expected to cause a one-off rise in the price level rather than sustained inflation.  And they see the year-end unemployment rate at 4.7%, versus their 4.3% forecast in January.

The Word Trade Organization sharply cut its forecast for global merchandise trade from solid growth to a decline on Wednesday, saying further U.S. tariffs and spillover effects could lead to the heaviest slump since the height of the Covid pandemic.

The WTO said it expected trade in goods to fall by 0.2% this year, down from its expectation in October of 3.0% expansion.  It said its new estimate was based on measures in place at the start of this week.

“I’m very concerned, the contraction in global merchandise trade growth is of big concern,” WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told reporters in Geneva.

The head of the WTO said her greatest fear was that the economies of China and the U.S. were decoupling from one another.

The WTO estimates that merchandise trade between them will fall by 81% - a drop that could have reached 91% without recent exemptions for products such as smartphones.

“A decoupling could have far reaching consequences if it were to contribute to a broader fragmentation of the global economy along geopolitical lines to two isolated blocks,” Okonjo-Iweala said.

In this scenario, global GDP could shrink by 7% in the long term, which the director-general described as “significant and substantial.”

The WTO is forecasting a recovery of 2.5% in 2026.

So then on Wednesday in remarks to the Economic Club of Chicago, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell offered no rosy scenarios for the economy, instead projecting a “strong likelihood” that consumers would face higher prices and that the economy would see higher unemployment as a result of tariffs applied in the short run.  Tariffs are “likely to move us further away from our goals...probably for the balance of this year,” he said

Powell was repeating what he’s said before: The central bank will wait to assess how inflation and employment are shaking out. To investors, it also suggests that interest rate cuts are not imminent. 

Powell emphasized the “very fundamental policy changes” occurring this year, including tariffs that are “significantly larger than anticipated.”

“There isn’t a modern experience for how to think about this,” Powell said.  Businesses and consumers, he added, “are saying in surveys that they’re experiencing incredibly high uncertainty.”

“As that great Chicagoan Ferris Bueller once noted, ‘Life moves pretty fast,’” Powell said.  “For the time being, we are well positioned to wait for greater clarity before considering any adjustments to our policy stance.”

Stocks fell hard on his comments, an expected June cut in interest rates seemingly not in the cards.

Powell also addressed the ongoing debate in Congress about taxes, spending and deficit reduction.  While policymakers are right to focus on lowering the debt, progress ultimately will require bipartisan agreement to shift the conversation from domestic discretionary spending, which is a declining percentage of federal spending, he noted, and focus on entitlements (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) and interest on the debt.

“We’re running very large deficits at full employment, and this is a situation that we very much need to address,” Powell said. 

“So much of the dialogue that the politicians offer is about domestic discretionary spending, which is not the issue,” he added.

President Trump weighed in on Truth Social early Thursday:

“The ECB [European Central Bank] is expected to cut interest rates for the 7th time, and yet, ‘Too Late’ Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always TOO LATE AND WRONG, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete ‘mess!’  Oil prices are down, groceries (even eggs!) are down, and the USA is getting RICH ON TARIFFS.  Too Late should have lowered Interest Rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now.  Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

Addressing reporters later in the Oval Office, Trump reemphasized his intent to fire Powell, whose term doesn’t run out until next year.  Powell has consistently said he will not resign and that he will serve out his term.   The Supreme Court may have something to say about the matter as it addresses a case involving executive power and whether Trump could indeed replace Powell sooner.

We did have some important economic news this week.  A report on March retail sales was strong, as expected, up 1.4%, 0.5% ex-autos, as consumers rushed to buy items before any price increases from tariffs.  March industrial production fell 0.3%.  And housing starts in the month came in sharply below consensus, a 1.324 million annualized pace, down from a prior revised 1.459 million.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer for first-quarter growth is -2.2%.

Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 6.83%.

Europe and Asia

Europe has a major concern.  China for years presented an economic challenge for the EU.  Now, it could become an economic disaster.

It produces a vast array of artificially cheap goods – heavily subsidized electric vehicles, consumer electronics, toys, commercial grade steel and more – but much of that trade was destined for the voracious U.S. marketplace.

But with many of those goods now facing a mammoth wall of tariffs, fear is rising that more products will be dumped in Europe, weakening local industries in France, Germany, Italy and the rest of the EU.

Meanwhile, as alluded to above, the European Central Bank cut interest rates on Thursday to offset the economic blow of tariffs, lowering its key interest rate to 2.25% to 2.5%, its seventh cut in eight meetings, taking borrowing costs to their lowest level since early 2023.

“The economic outlook is clouded by exceptional uncertainty,” ECB President Christine Lagarde said in a press conference.  She said the “major escalation in global trade tensions” will weigh on growth, including hitting exporters, an engine of Europe’s economy.

The move increases the gap between rates in Europe and the U.S. to over 2 percentage points, the widest in two years.

Wednesday, Eurostat released the inflation data for the eurozone in March, 2.2%, down from 2.3% in February.  A year earlier, the rate was 2.4%.  Ex-food and energy, the figure was 2.5%, down from 2.6% the month prior and 3.1% a year ago.

Headline Inflation....

Germany 2.3%, France 0.9%, Italy 2.1%, Spain 2.2%, Netherlands 3.4%, Ireland 1.8%.

Separately, industrial production in the euro area in February rose 1.1% compared with January, and up 1.2% year-over-year.

Turning to Asia...China reported first-quarter GDP rose a solid 5.4%, same as the prior quarter and above consensus of 5.1%.  The surprising strength in early 2025 was thanks to consumer subsidies and a rush of export shipments to beat tariffs, although an impasse with Donald Trump over the trade war is darkening the outlook and fueling calls for stimulus.

March industrial production rose 7.7% year-over-year, retail sales in the month were up 5.9% Y/Y, fixed asset investment year-to-date was up 4.2% Y/Y, and the March unemployment rate fell to 5.2% from 5.4% prior. [All the preceding courtesy of the National Bureau of Statistics]

But the above is all before the trade war. 

March exports rose 12.4% versus a year ago, far above market forecasts of 4.4% and accelerating sharply from a 2.3% rise in the January-February period.  It marked the fastest increase in overseas sales since last October, signaling anticipated frontloading before the latest U.S. tariffs took effect.  For the first quarter, exports rose 5.8% compared to the same period in 2024. 

Exports rose to the U.S. (4.5%), Japan (2.8%), the EU (3.7%), while falling to Russia (-6.3%), South Korea (-1.7%) and Australia (-4.6%). [General Administration of Customs]

Imports in March fell 4.3% Y/Y.

Japan reported on March inflation, 3.6% vs. 3.7% in February; ex-food and energy 2.9% vs. 2.6% prior.

March exports were up 3.9% year-over-year, imports up 2%.  February industrial production rose 0.1% Y/Y.

Street Bytes

--Stocks resumed their downtrend this week, the Dow Jones falling 2.7% to39142, the S&P 500 losing 1.5% and Nasdaq 2.6%.  The lack of visibility on earnings and the economy is remarkable.  Lots of earnings news, regardless, the next two weeks in particular.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 4.19%  2-yr. 3.80%  10-yr. 4.32%  30-yr. 4.80%

The bond market was normal this week, acting as a safe haven again, the yield on the 2- and 10-year each declining 15 basis points.

--OPEC cut its forecast for oil demand growth just days after a surprise decision to boost output, citing the impact of U.S. tariffs on the global economy and crude consumption.

The Vienna-based cartel now expects demand to rise by 1.3 million barrels a day this year and 1.28 million barrels a day the next, compared with previous projections of 1.45 million barrels and 1.43 mbd, respectively

“Oil demand is forecast to be supported by strong air travel demand and healthy road mobility,” it said on Monday.  “However, this forecast is subject to uncertainties surrounding global economic developments amid the new trade tariffs announced by the U.S.”

The cartel’s oil demand forecast remains notably more optimistic than others in the industry.

The International Energy Agency slashed its forecasts for global oil demand this year, and in its first detailed assessment of 2026 predicted a persistent supply surplus.

The IEA chopped 2025 demand growth by a hefty 300,000 barrels a day – or almost a third to 730,000 barrels a day, according to its monthly report on Tuesday.  Half of the reduction was concentrated in the U.S. and China.

Consumption growth will be even slower in 2026, at 690,000 bd, due to “a fragile macroeconomic environment” and the rising popularity of electric vehicles, the Paris-based agency said.

You can see that the IEA is a whopping 600,000 barrels a day less in its projection than OPEC.

--We had more earnings reports from the big banks...Goldman Sachs led things off on Monday, reporting first-quarter profit that beat analyst expectations as tumultuous markets proved a double-edged sword. The bank’s trading business boomed, benefiting from market swings, while revenue from investment bankers’ advisory work declined.

Goldman’s stock and bond traders took advantage of volatile markets, which can create opportunities for making big bets.  Revenue from fixed-income securities, currencies, and commodities – known together as FICC – rose 61% from last quarter, or 2% from a year earlier, while equities revenue jumped 27% from a year ago.

Last week, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley also posted strong first-quarter trading numbers.

Goldman said investment banking fees fell 8% from the same period in 2024 as advisory revenue dropped 22%.

GS reported $4.74 billion of profit, or earnings per share of $14.12, on revenue of $15.06 billion in the first quarter.  The Street was at $12.33 on revenue of $14.77bn.

Goldman CEO David Solomon said Goldman’s economists’ growth expectations for the U.S. had fallen meaningfully, to 0.5% from more than 2%.

“The prospect of a recession has increased with growing indications that economic activity is slowing down around the world,” he said. “Our clients, including corporate CEOs and institutional investors, are concerned by the significant near-term and longer-term uncertainty that has constrained their ability to make important decisions.”

Solomon added: “Markets will likely continue to be volatile until we have further clarity.”

Tuesday, Citigroup reported its profit surged in the first quarter as its traders, like Goldman, reaped a windfall from volatile markets that fueled client activity.

Citi’s markets revenue rose 12% to $6 billion in the quarter, surpassing its earlier expectations for a mid-single digit percentage gain.  Equity revenue surged 23%, buoyed by more client activity.

Fixed income revenue, a major driver of Citi’s markets business, jumped 8% to $4.5 billion.

The bank’s net income rose to $4.1 billion, or $1.96 per share for Q1, which compared with $3.37 billion, or $1.58 per share, a year ago.

Citi is still in the process of trying to fix longstanding regulatory problems.

Bank of America also reported Tuesday, a first-quarter rise in profits and revenue driven by robust trading results.

CEO Brian Moynihan said in a statement that “our business clients have been performing well” and “consumers have shown resilience.”

At the same time he acknowledged “we potentially face a changing economy in the future” – a nod to the uncertainties ahead as some of Trump’s more aggressive tariffs are still in question.  His CFO told reporters the bank’s research team doesn’t see a recession happening.

Total sales and trading revenue for the country’s second-largest bank was up 9% from the year-ago period to $5.66 billion, its highest quarterly haul in more than a decade.  BofA’s revenue just from trading equities was up 17% to $2.2 billion, reaching the highest ever for one quarter.

Total profits came in at $7.4 billion, 11% higher than a year ago and exceeded consensus.

But Bank of America set aside $1.48 billion in credit provisions for potential future losses, more than 12% than it set aside a year ago.

--China ordered its airlines not to take any further deliveries of Boeing Co. jets as part of the tit-for-tat trade war.

Beijing has also asked that Chinese carriers halt any purchases of aircraft-related equipment and parts from U.S. companies, according to reports.

The Chinese government is also considering ways to provide assistance to airlines that lease Boeing jets and are facing higher costs.

--Given the turbulence caused by U.S. tariffs over the past two weeks, Ryanair could buy the Chinese-made Comac C919 as an alternative to its long-favored American-made Boeing 737, senior aviation analysts have predicted.

Ryanair has previously been linked with potential deals in China and its boss Michael O’Leary stoked speculation with recent comments reported in the aviation press that “the Chinese are basically building a f---king A320” – the Airbus-built carrier which is the world’s most popular single-aisle aircraft.

--United Airlines reported it swung to a profit in the first quarter as revenue hit a record high, sending shares surging 4% on the news, though the stock has lost nearly a third of its value so far in 2025 through Tuesday’s close.  The company called it its best Q1 results in five years.

The Chicago-based carrier posted first-quarter revenue of $13.2 billion, up 5% year-over-year and above consensus. Adjusted net income of $302 million, or 91 cents per share, compared to a loss of $50 million, or 15 cents per share, a year earlier, and also topped the Street’s estimates.

Premium cabin revenue rose 9.2% in the quarter, business revenue grew 7.4% and basic economy revenue increased 7.6% from the year-ago quarter. International travel was also strong.

The results come amid an uncertain economic environment for airlines.  Last week, Visual Approach Analytics warned that air travel could face “demand destruction” as a result of the Trump administration’s tariff policies, and rival carrier Delta withdrew its full-year outlook, citing “current uncertainty.”

But United maintained its full-year guidance and said it expects “resilient earnings” in the second quarter and full fiscal year, despite the macroeconomic challenges. UAL sees full year 2025 earnings of $11.50 to $13.50 a share.  But it gave a recession scenario and under that it sees full year EPS of $7 to $9 a share.

The airline said advance bookings over the past two weeks have been stable, with premium cabin bookings up 17%, and international bookings up 5% year-over-year.

UAL did say it planned to reduce off-peak flying on lower-demand days.

--TSA checkpoint numbers vs. 2024

4/16...110 percent of 2024 levels
4/15...83
4/14...95
4/13...126
4/12...84
4/11...104
4/10...117

--Netflix stock climbed in after-hours trading Thursday after the company delivered first quarter earnings that beat expectations on both the top and bottom lines and also reiterated full-year revenue guidance.

Netflix reported revenue of $10.54 billion in Q1, a 13% year-over-year jump and better than consensus of $10.50 billion. The company had guided to $10.42bn.

Earnings per share of $6.61 also beat analyst estimates of $5.68.

The company guided to revenue for the current quarter above Wall Street expectations, forecasting Q2 revenue of $11.04 billion, compared to estimates of $10.88bn.

For the full year 2025, the company reiterated its prior forecast of $43.5 billion to $44.5 billion revenue growth and operating margins of 29%.

But Thursday marked the first report without subscriber numbers as the company focuses on driving greater engagement and top-line growth.

At the end of 2024, the company had 301.6 million global subscribers. Netflix said in its fourth quarter shareholder letter it will disclose subscriber data in the future “as we cross key milestones.”  The company added 41 million global subscribers last year.

--Shares in computer chip makers slumped Wednesday after late Tuesday, Nvidia said tighter U.S. government controls on exports of computer chips used for artificial intelligence will cost it an extra $5.5 billion.

The company, which announced Monday that it will produce its AI super computers in the United States for the first time, said the government told it that its H20 integrated circuits and others of the same bandwidth would be subject to the controls for the “indefinite future.”

In a regulatory filing, it said the government said the controls addressed risks that the products “may be used in or diverted to, a supercomputer in China.”

Nvidia shares opened down 7% Wednesday.  Rival chip maker AMD dropped 7% as well.

CEO Jensen Huang was then seen in China on Thursday.

--Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. kept its growth outlook for 2025 on expectations of AI revenue doubling, suggesting the world’s biggest chipmaker is confident it can ride out a U.S.-China trade war.

TSMC still expects mid-20% growth this year, mirroring a goal set in January.  And it stuck with a capital spending projection of $38 billion to $42 billion for 2025, despite unveiling in March an additional $100 billion of U.S. investment – an outlay hailed as a win by President Trump.

CEO C.C. Wei stressed that demand – particularly for high-end chips critical to developing AI – has remained resilient.  That may help assuage investors who’ve struggled through a turbulent few days, with the U.S. restrictions on the export of Nvidia chips to China and a disappointing report from ASML Holding NV helped trigger Wednesday’s selloff.

TSMC’s decision to stick with its targets also reflects how the chipmaker – by far the dominant producer of advanced chips for the world – enjoys more leverage than many of its peers.

--The antitrust trial against Meta Platforms Inc. started this week, after CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stand on Monday in a case he had long sought to sidestep. The tech giant faces off against President Trump’s antitrust officials in a challenge that threatens the $1.3 trillion empire Zuckerberg built.  The trial is expected to last eight weeks.

The Federal Trade Commission alleges that Meta’s leading social media platform, Facebook, became a monopoly in the market for “personal social networking” in part by buying up potential rival social media startups such as Instagram and WhatsApp.

Buying smaller rival social media companies, the FTC claims, was part of a “buy-or-bury strategy” to block fair competition.  The FTC will likely ask the judge overseeing the case to force Meta to sell Instagram and WhatsApp if it wins.

Meta has argued that the FTC misidentified the market in which Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp compete because it left out TikTok, YouTube, X, and LinkedIn.  Its lawyers have also noted that the FTC approved the Instagram and WhatsApp purchases more than a decade ago.

Zuckerberg said Meta is involved in “the general idea of entertainment and learning about the world and discovering what’s going on.”

In March, Zuckerberg offered the head of the FTC $450 million, according to the Wall Street Journal, well short of the $30 billion demanded by the FTC.  He eventually increased it to $1 billion, according to the Journal, but FTC boss Andrew Ferguson wouldn’t accept anything lower than $18 billion.

Zuckerberg reportedly had been lobbying President Trump to settle the case before the trial began. And he’s been a heavy contributor to Trump causes, such as the Inauguration.

--UnitedHealth Group lowered its annual profit forecast on Thursday as elevated demand for healthcare-related services from patients is expected to keep medical costs high for the remainder of the year.

Shares of the company cratered 20% at the opening (finishing down 22%), as the forecast cut also dragged down shares of health insurers CVS Health and Humana, among others.

Higher expenses tied to patient claims in government-backed Medicare plans for older individuals and changes in enrollment to Medicaid plans have weighed on the industry for more than a year.

Costs related to the company’s Medicare Advantage business were far above the planned 2025 increase and were consistent with the elevated levels in 2024, the company said.

UNH now expects 2025 adjusted profit per share to be between $26 and $26.50 per share, compared with its prior forecast of $29.50 to $30 per share, a big cut.

[Accused killed Luigi Mangione was indicted on federal charges Thursday for allegedly assassinating UNH CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan last Dec. 4. Earlier this week the feds revealed they’d seek the death penalty.]

--Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday reported first-quarter revenue and profit above expectations, driven again by strong sales of its cancer treatments including multiple myeloma medicine Darzalex.

J&J’s quarterly sales stood at $21.89 billion, up 2.4% from a year ago and above analysts’ forecasts of $21.56 billion.

On an adjusted basis, the company earned $2.77 per share in the quarter, 2.2% higher than the previous year and above the Street’s estimate of $2.59.

Darzalex, a blood cancer therapy launched in 2015, brought in first-quarter sales of $3.24 billion, up 20% from the previous year.

Sales of the drugmaker’s blockbuster psoriasis treatment Stelara fell more than 33% to $1.63 billion in the first quarter.  Close copies of Stelara launched in Europe, Canada and few other markets last year, while biosimilar rivals in the U.S. launched this year.

J&J also raised its annual sales forecast by $700 million at the midpoint while lowering its profit outlook, saying it reflects the impact of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration and dilution from its $1.46 billion deal to buy neurological drugmaker Intra-Cellular.

--Eli Lilly shares soared 14% Thursday with the announcement that a daily pill for people with Type 2 diabetes may work as well as the popular injectable drugs Mounjaro and Ozempic, that aid in weight loss, according to results of a clinical trial.

The GLP-1 class of drugs that have become blockbusters because of their weight-loss effects are expensive, must be kept refrigerated and must be injected. A pill that produces similar results has the potential to become far more widely used.

--Global sales of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles rose 29% year-on-year in March, helped by growth in China and Europe, while EV growth in North America was hampered by President Trump’s stance towards emissions standards and uncertainties around tariffs, data showed on Tuesday.

U.S. tariffs on car imports may force some of the country’s automakers which produce in neighboring Mexico to readjust prices, or more their production, Rho Motion data manager Charles Lester said.  About 39% of EVs sold in the U.S. are imported, and around a quarter of locally made EVs use imported batteries, he added.

Chinese counter-tariffs, meanwhile, could affect Tesla’s U.S.-made models, leading to an almost doubling in prices of its Model S and Model X cars sold in China, Lester said.

In the United States and Canada, EV sales rose 12% to 0.2 million in March.

--Ford Motor may raise prices of its new vehicles in May if the Trump tariffs are not eased, Automotive News reported on Wednesday, citing a memo to dealers.

--The Los Angeles Times had a piece on Canadian travelers canceling their trips to Palm Springs, the cause clear; Canadians felt disrespected enough by the Trump administration that they voiced their disapproval with their dollars.

The Canadian air carriers Flair Airlines and WestJet ended their seasonal service between Vancouver and Winnipeg to Palm Springs International Airport earlier than planned this spring.

One manager of vacation rental properties in Palm Springs told the Times that Canadians often book stays of one to three months a full year in advance.

“But when it comes to rebooking for next year? They’re just declining,” said Kenny Cassady.  “It’s going to be most noticeable come next season.”

Laura Mezzacapo, manager for the Vancouver-based travel agency The Travel Group, said that at this time of year, travel agents with her company would be busy booking spring break and summer vacations to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Palm Springs.

But since mid-February, U.S. bookings have plummeted.  Corporate bookings, she said, are down 70% to 80%, with clients opting for Mexico.

“We feel disrespected,” she said of Canadians.  “We’ve been your biggest ally. We’ve fought wars with you. We took your planes on 9/11. We love traveling to your country. We buy your products. And then you treat us like you don’t need us for anything.”

And she’s right.

--Global wine production and consumption fell in 2024 to their lowest in decades, as extreme weather and high prices weighed on the sector, the International Organization of Vine and Wine, known as the OIV, said on Tuesday.

Adding to the challenges, now wine producers around the world are under threat from tariffs for sales into the United States, the world’s largest importer of wine by value.

Wine consumption fell 3.3% globally to an estimated 214 million hectoliters, the lowest since 1961, as inflation and reduced consumer spending power eroded demand.

Generational changes in consumer behavior and a fall in Chinese consumption, once a major driver, have also played their part in reducing wine drinking since 2018, the OIV said.

I didn’t know this, but a hectoliter is the equivalent of 133 standard wine bottles.

Foreign Affairs

Russia/Ukraine: Two Russian ballistic missiles slammed into the heart of the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Sunday, killing 35 people and wounding 117 in the deadliest strike on Ukraine this year, officials said.  It was the second deadly strike in just over a week to inflict heavy civilian casualties, the other in Kryvyi Rih.

President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded a tough international response against Moscow over the attack, which came with President Trump’s push to rapidly end the war struggling to make a breakthrough.

The leaders of Britain, Germany and Italy condemned the attack.  Trump, when asked about the Russian strike, said that it was terrible.

“I think it was terrible.  And I was told they made a mistake,” he said without elaborating further.  “But I think it’s a horrible thing.”

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, told the Kommersant newspaper on Monday that Moscow had targeted “a get-together of Ukrainian military chiefs with their Western counterparts” in Sumy.  He declined to comment on the civilian deaths.

It was not immediately clear what Trump meant when he said he had been “told” Russia “made a mistake” – a formulation that could also be interpreted as an attempt to make excuses for Moscow.

Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. general and Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, said that Russian forces had crossed “any line of decency” by targeting civilians in Sumy.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio also condemned what he described as a “horrifying Russian missile attack on Sumy.”

Dead bodies were strewn on the ground in the middle of a city street near a destroyed bus and burnt-out cars in a video Zelensky posted on social media.

“Only scoundrels can act like this, taking the lives of ordinary people,” Zelensky said, noting that the attack had come on Palm Sunday when some people were going to church.

German leaders said the attacks showed how Russian President Vladimir Putin responds to ceasefire proposals.

“These attacks show just what Russia’s supposed readiness for peace is worth,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on social media.

Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz told broadcaster ARD the attack on Sumy was “clearly a war crime... There is no greater example of perfidy: a targeted and planned war crime.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the attack as “barbaric,” adding: “Russia was and remains the aggressor, in blatant violation of international law.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “appalled at Russia’s horrific attack on civilians in Sumy.”

Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, said the missiles contained cluster munitions.  “The Russians are doing this to kill as many civilians as possible,” he said.

Zelensky’s request for Trump: Visit Ukraine before agreeing to a ceasefire with Russia.  “Please, before any kind of decisions, any kind of forms of negotiations, come to see people, civilians, warriors, hospitals, churches, children destroyed or dead,” Zelensky pleaded Sunday in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” which was recorded before the attack on Sumy City.

“Come, look, and then let’s – let’s move with a plan how to finish the war,” Zelensky said.  “You will understand with whom you have a deal. You will understand what Putin did. And we will not prepare anything. It will not be theater.”

Zelensky was also asked how he felt when Trump called him a “dictator” in a notably rancorous meeting late February at the White House. He replied, “I believe, sadly, Russian narratives are prevailing in the U.S.  How is it possible to witness our losses and our suffering, to understand what the Russians are doing, and to still believe that they are not the aggressors, that they did not start this war?  This speaks to the enormous influence of Russia’s information policy on America, on U.S. politics, and U.S. politicians.”

--The Russians attacked more than a half dozen other Ukrainian cities Sunday, injuring at least seven from drone attacks in Odessa, Zelensky said.

In just the past two weeks, “the Russian army has used nearly 2,800 aerial bombs, over 1,400 attack drones...and nearly 60 missiles of various types, including ballistic ones,” Zelensky said.  “Only real pressure on Russia can stop this. Tangible sanctions are needed against the sectors that finance Russia’s killing machines...I thank everyone around the world who understands this and supports our defense.”

Late Wednesday, a massive drone attack on the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, killed three, including a child, and wounded dozens, officials said Thursday.

Local authorities said the drones caused widespread damage to civilian infrastructure, including an educational institution, a dormitory, a gymnasium and multiple residential buildings.

President Zelensky pleaded with allies to provide more air defense weapons.

--Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“President Trump offered his proposal for a 30-day cease-fire between Ukraine and Russia in early March, and Ukraine quickly accepted.  Vladimir Putin’s latest nyet came Sunday in the form of another missile strike against civilians in the Ukrainian city of Sumy....

“The Sumy attack followed one last month that struck a playground in the city of Kryvyi Rih, killing 20.  The dead included nine children. Video shows first responders rushing to help a boy in an orange coat and blue Velcro sneakers.  The three-year-old died in the hospital the next day.  Ninth graders Alina Kutsenko and her friend Danylo Nikitskyi were also killed in the strike.

“Asked about the Sumy attack on Monday in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump called it ‘Biden’s War.’  He blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as well as Mr. Putin for continuing the fighting, though Russia is doing the bombing....

“Mr. Trump and his chief negotiator Steve Witkoff keep saying Mr. Putin wants peace.  President Trump’s 30-day cease-fire proposal has now been on the table for longer than the cease-fire would have lasted. The peace Mr. Putin seems to want is the peace of the grave for Ukrainians.”

--President Trump on Truth Social:

“The War between Russia and Ukraine is Biden’s war, not mine.  I just got here, and for four years during my term, had no problem in preventing it from happening.  President Putin, and everyone else, respected your President!  I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS WAR, BUT AM WORKING DILIGENTLY TO GET THE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION TO STOP.  If the 2020 President Election was not RIGGED, and it was, in so many ways, that horrible War would never have happened.  President Zelensky and Crooked Joe Biden did an absolutely horrible job in allowing this travesty to begin. There were so many ways of preventing it from ever starting. But that is the past.  Now we have to get it to STOP, AND FAST. SO SAD!”

--Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper, “It is not easy to agree on the key components of a settlement.  They are being discussed,” when asked if Moscow and Washington had agreement on some aspects of a possible peace deal.

“We are well aware of what a mutually beneficial deal looks like, which we have never rejected, and what a deal looks like that could lead us into another trap,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov said that Russia’s position had been set out clearly by President Putin in June 2024, when Putin demanded Ukraine must officially drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia.

“We’re talking about the rights of the people who live on these lands. That is why these lands are dear to us.  And we cannot give them up, allowing people to be kicked out of here,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov praised Trump’s “common sense” and for saying that previous U.S. support of Ukraine’s bid to join the NATO military alliance was a major cause of the war in Ukraine.

But Russia’s political elite, he said, would not countenance any moves that led Russia back towards economic, military, technological or agricultural dependence on the West.

The globalization of the world economy, Lavrov said, had been destroyed by sanctions imposed on Russia, China, and Iran by the administration of former President Joe Biden.  [Reuters]

This is all you need to know.  No NATO, give up the four territories entirely, and Ukraine needs to de-militarize.  Lavrov spelled out the talking points that Russian negotiators will keep hammering home.

The aforementioned Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg last Friday, as President Trump urged the Russian leader to “get moving” on a ceasefire.

--The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War wrote Sunday: “Russian forces are in a self-perpetuating cycle, where poorly trained infantry killed or injured in failed assault attempts are replaced with similarly poorly trained infantry, who are again sent into doomed assaults... Ongoing milblogger [Ed. military blogger] complaints about the Russian military’s conduct of the war in Ukraine reinforce ISW’s assessment that Russian tactics will degrade Russia’s manpower and materiel resources and contribute to slowing Russian advances along the frontline,” ISW added.

--President Trump said the U.S. and Ukraine would sign a deal on critical minerals next Thursday, in a step expected to keep Kyiv in good favor as the White House seeks to broker a quick ceasefire deal with Russia, despite Sen. Rubio’s comments.  While meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Oval Office, Trump added, “And I assume they’re going to live up to the deal.”

--Four Russian journalists have been convicted of extremism in a closed-door trial and jailed for working with an anti-corruption group founded in 2011 by the late opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, a ruling that drew widespread condemnation from rights groups.

The case highlighted the perils of working as an independent journalist in Russia amid the Kremlin’s intensified crackdown on freedom of expression since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The four journalists were charged for associating with the Anti-Corruption Fund, which Navalny founded and the Kremlin outlawed, labeling it an extremist group.  Each of the four was sentenced to 5 ½ years in prison, Russian state news agencies reported.  The journalists had pleaded not guilty, saying they were merely doing their jobs.

---

Israel/Gaza: Israeli troops have taken over about a third of the Gaza Strip in renewed military action, declaring security zones in swaths of the north and south while pushing out their populations as part of a new strategy to ratchet up pressure on Hamas.

After relying mainly on airstrikes and tactical raids for the first year and a half of the war, Israel is now seizing land and threatening to hold it indefinitely as it presses Hamas to release the hostages still held in Gaza.

Since Israel renewed its ground assault in Gaza in mid-March, more than 30% of the enclave has come under Israeli military control, an Israeli official said.  Much of the movement has been in the south, where Israel carved out a new security corridor encircling the border city of Rafah and warning the area would become part of Israel’s security buffer.

Before moving in, Israel informed Egypt, which borders Rafah, that it intended to keep the area for the long term as a buffer with Rafah completely cut off from cities to the north, Egyptian officials said.  Israel also said it planned to expand security zones around Gaza City in the north, the officials said.

Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israeli troops will remain in the buffer zones they have created even after any settlement to end the war.

“Unlike in the past, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized,” Katz said in a statement following a meeting with military commanders.

“The IDF will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and the communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza – as in Lebanon and Syria.”

--An Israeli air strike destroyed part of al Ahli Arab Hospital, the last fully functional hospital in Gaza City.  Witnesses said the strike destroyed the intensive care and surgery departments of the hospital.

The IDF said it targeted the hospital because it contained a “command and control center used by Hamas.” No casualties were reported, according to Gaza’s civil emergency service.

Last weekend, the president of the Red Cross described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “hell on earth” and warned that its field hospital will run out of supplies within two weeks.

“We are now finding ourselves in a situation that I have to describe as hell on earth... People don’t have access to water, electricity, food, in many parts,” Mirjana Spoljaric told Reuters at the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva.

No new humanitarian supplies have entered the Palestinian enclave since Israel blocked the entry of aid trucks on March 2, as talks stalled on the next stage of a now broken truce.  Israel resumed its military assault on March 18.

Israel claims 25,000 aid trucks had entered Gaza in the 42 days of the ceasefire and that Hamas had used the aid to rebuild its war machine, an allegation Hamas denies.

Medical charity MSF said Wednesday Gaza had become a “mass grave.”

Defense Minister Katz warned the war will soon escalate with “tremendous force,” and the humanitarian blockade will be extended if Hamas does not quickly release hostages.

Iran: U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff appeared to backtrack on comments he made Monday that Tehran could be allowed to enrich uranium at a low level in a new nuclear deal with the Trump administration.  The National Security Council and Witkoff’s spokesman didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on his apparent change of position.

“Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program,” Witkoff posted on Tuesday.

Earlier, prior to the talks, last Saturday in Oman, Witkoff had told the Wall Street Journal, “where our red line will be, there can’t be weaponization of your nuclear capability.”

Iran insisted during the talks that it is already meeting the “weaponization” standard because it hasn’t built a bomb. 

Tehran and the U.S. will hold more negotiations over the coming week, Iranian state television reported at the end of the first round of talks since President Trump returned to the White House.

Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi “briefly spoke in the presence of the Omani foreign minister” at the end of the talks, marking a direct interaction between the two nations locked in decades of tensions.

Iran is seeking a lifting of sanctions, but it remains unclear just how much Iran will be willing to concede.

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“President Trump has put Steve Witkoff in charge of diplomacy with Russia, Ukraine, Gaza and Iran, and that may be more than a one-man de facto State Department can handle. This week Mr. Witkoff made a mistake on Iran that he had to walk back a day later.

“Mr. Witkoff, a longtime presidential pal, emerged from his round of indirect talks with Iran enthusiastic about a deal on its nuclear program. He suggested on Fox News on Monday that Iran didn’t need to enrich uranium more than 3.7%.

“But that isn’t Mr. Trump’s position. It was Barack Obama’s position in 2015.  President Trump has said Iran must verifiably dismantle its nuclear program.  Mr. Obama let Iran retain its enrichment capacity.  The 3.7% level sounds low, but it’s two-thirds of the way to enriching fuel to weapons grade.

“Leaving such a capacity, along with the centrifuges to enrich further, means Iran could ramp up enrichment at any time, perhaps after Mr. Trump leaves office.  Even the threat of restarting enrichment would give Tehran leverage over a U.S. government that wants to avoid a diplomatic or military showdown.

“If Iran won’t give up enrichment, it’s a signal that the mullahs don’t really want to abandon their nuclear ambitions.  At the very least it’s a blunder for Mr. Witkoff to offer concessions to the Iranians when the two sides have barely begun talks.

“On Tuesday Mr. Witkoff seemed to clarify his Fox comments, writing on X.com that ‘any final arrangement must set a framework for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East – meaning that Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.’

“That’s the right policy. Axios reports that Mr. Trump held a White House meeting on Tuesday on the Iran talks with his senior advisers.  We don’t know if Mr. Witkoff’s X.com post was a result of that meeting, but we hope so.

“Iran has a long history of lying about its nuclear plans and facilities that makes trust in its promises impossible.  If Iran is really willing to abandon its nuclear program, it must be willing to give up uranium enrichment.”

--Separately, the U.S. military said it had destroyed a fuel terminal in Yemen during its latest strikes against the Iran-backed Houthis, Thursday, the death toll now at 74.

China: As President Xi Jinping toured Southeast Asia, he told Malaysia’s leader Wednesday that China will be a collaborative partner and stand with its Southeast Asian neighbors in the wake of global economic shocks.

“In the face of shocks to global order and economic globalization, China and Malaysia will stand with countries in the region to combat the undercurrents of geopolitical...confrontation, as well as the counter-currents of unilateralism and protectionism,” Xi, who was on a state visit to Malaysia as part of his Southeast Asia tour, said in remarks at a dinner with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

“Together we will safeguard the bright prospects of our Asian family,” he added.

Xi started the week of diplomacy off with a visit to Vietnam on Monday, signaling China’s commitment to global trade, just after President Trump upended the global economy with his latest tariffs moves.  He ended the trip in Cambodia.

Xi’s visit in the region let’s China show it is a “responsible superpower in the way that contrasts with the way the U.S. under President Donald Trump presents to the whole world,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEA-Yusof Ishak Institute. [South China Morning Post]

“There are no winners in a trade war, or a tariff war,” Xi wrote in an editorial jointly published in Vietnamese and Chinese official media. “Our two countries should resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and cooperative international environment.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“There’s no small amount of chutzpah in China’s claim as a free-trading nation, but that’s the opening the Trump trade shock is presenting.  Heretofore these countries have looked at China with ambivalence, and Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia all have territorial disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea.

“They welcome the U.S. as a counterbalance to China, but that requires access for exports to the U.S. market.  Vietnam and Malaysia wanted to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership with the U.S. and other democracies that excluded China before Mr. Trump blew up that pact in his first term.

“If the U.S. closes itself off from these countries, China quickly will become the main game in town despite the drawbacks. Southeast Asian economies are still developing, with hundreds of millions of people in poverty. Their leaders can’t wait forever to make trading and investment arrangements while Mr. Trump figures out what his tariff policy is. Trade and diplomatic ties that develop now won’t be easy to unwind in the future.

“If Mr. Xi’s regional diplomacy succeeds, it will be because Mr. Trump has made the Chinese leader’s job that much easier. Chalk this up as another cost of the U.S. trade war.”

Random Musings

--Presidential approval ratings....

Gallup: New numbers...44% approve of President Trump’s job performance, while 53% disapprove.  37% of independents approve (Apr. 1-14).  Prior split, 43-53, 35.

Rasmussen: 51% approve, 47% disapprove (April 18).

A new CBS News poll, conducted April 8-11, had President Trump with a 47% approval rating, 53% disapproving.

The survey found 44% approved of Trump’s handling of the economy and 40% approved of his handling of inflation, both down 4% from March 30.

On tariffs, 91% of Republicans said Trump has a clear plan on tariffs and trade [emphasis mine.] I’m Republican, but there can’t be this many idiots, in response to the question, not tariffs in general.  Only 43% of independents and 16% of Democrats said the same.

--Karl Rove / Wall Street Journal

“We aren’t 100 days into Donald Trump’s second term and many Americans are already exhausted. They’ve had way too much thrown at them.

“Voters made crystal clear what they sought during the 2024 election. They wanted prices to come down and the economy revved up. The Southern border had to be closed, our military strengthened and a strong leader installed in the Oval Office.

“Some of that we’re getting, especially regarding the border.  Other things – the rebuilding of the military – appear to be in the works.

“But on the key issue of the economy, Americans aren’t happy.  Mr. Trump’s campaign promise to break inflation has been replaced by a fixation on raising tariffs, which nearly three-quarters of Americans expect to hike prices.  We’re also confused: Is the goal getting trading partners to lower their tariffs on U.S. goods and services?  Or replacing our income tax with high tariffs on foreign goods?

“It isn’t only inflation and tariffs.  Every week the White House throws its weight behind a new issue that went largely or entirely unmentioned during the campaign.  Rename the Gulf of Mexico! Acquire Greenland!  Take back the Panama Canal! Make Canada the 51st state!  Americans find themselves asking, ‘Where did that come from?’

“Message discipline has never been Mr. Trump’s strength.  He doesn’t avoid drama; he relishes creating it....

“His policies will almost certainly continue to be a mixture of deliberately planned, well-executed ideas and those concocted on the fly....

“(There’s) something shocking about this White House to an old-school politico like me: It doesn’t spend much time drawing attention to the president’s successes.  Rather than patiently explaining his actions and why they’re good for Americans the president and his advisers move from one thing to another, seemingly at random. I still don’t understand why the president has yet to visit the Southwest border, the site of his greatest policy success to date.

“There’s way too much retribution.  Most of the president’s revenge attempts will end badly for him. Republicans could rue the day they set a new justification for retaliation from Democrats.

“One of the more unusual aspects of the Trump presidency is that it often helps parties in foreign countries that oppose him....

“April 30 will be 100 days since Mr. Trump’s inauguration. It’ll be marked by a slew of polls on what Americans think of his second term.

“We already know the country remains highly polarized.  Democratic and Republican true believers are locked in.  It’s the 15% to 20% of voters who didn’t like their choices last year that matter most.  Mr. Trump started with 50.5% approving, 44.3% disapproving in the RealClearPolitics polling average a week after he was sworn in. Those RCP numbers went upside down March 13 and today stand at 46.9% approving, 50.3% disapproving, a nearly 10-point margin shift in the wrong direction.  My hunch is things will get worse before they get better.

“That won’t matter for Mr. Trump’s ardent fans. For them, the past eight weeks have been exhilarating. But in the non-MAGA world – which includes independents and Republicans – the start of Mr. Trump’s second term has been exhausting.”

--A man who authorities said scaled an iron security fence early Sunday (2:00 a.m.), eluded police and broke into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion where he set a fire, had planned to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) with a hammer if he found him, according to court documents released Monday.

The fire left significant damage and forced Shapiro, his family and guests to evacuate the building. The man was arrested later in the day, facing charges including attempted homicide, terrorism, aggravated arson and aggravated assault, authorities said.

Cody Balmer, a very scary looking dude, walked an hour from his home to the governor’s residence, and during the police interview, “Balmer admitted to harboring hatred towards Governor Shapiro,” according to a police affidavit, but it wasn’t noted why.

--Two top advisors for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were suspended Tuesday and escorted out of the Pentagon Tuesday after an internal investigation into alleged leaks to the media, Reuters and Politico reported.

Deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Hegseth adviser Dan Caldwell were identified as the two.  “The leaks under investigation include military operational plans for the Panama Canal, a second carrier headed to the Red Sea, Elon Musk’s controversial visit to the Pentagon and pausing the collection of intelligence to Ukraine,” Politico reported.

--The Trump administration acted quickly on Monday to punish Harvard University after it refused to comply with a list of demands from the federal government that the school said were too onerous.

On Monday, Harvard became the first university to refuse to comply with the administration’s requirements, setting up a showdown between the federal government and the nation’s wealthiest university.  By the evening, federal officials said they would freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants to Harvard, along with a $60 million contract.

Other universities have pushed back against the administration’s interference in higher education.  But Harvard’s response, which called the Trump administration’s demands illegal, marked a major shift in tone for the nation’s most influential school, which has been criticized in recent weeks for capitulating to Trump administration pressure.

A letter the Trump administration sent to Harvard on Friday demanded that the university reduce the power of students and faculty members over the university’s affairs; report foreign students who commit conduct violations immediately to federal authorities; and bring in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is “viewpoint diverse,” among other steps.  The administration did not define what it meant by viewpoint diversity, but it has generally referred to seeking a range of political views, including conservative perspectives.

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“The Trump Administration on Monday froze $2.2 billion in funds to Harvard after the university refused to surrender to its sweeping demands.  Few Americans will shed tears for the Cambridge crowd, but there are good reasons to oppose this unprecedented attempt by government to micromanage a private university.

“Stipulate that the feds have a duty to enforce civil-rights laws, and Harvard failed to protect Jewish students during anti-Israel protests. But the university agreed to strengthen protections for Jewish students in a legal settlement with Students Against Antisemitism, which praised it for ‘implementing effective long-term changes.’

“The Trump Administration nonetheless demanded last week that Harvard accede to what is effectively a federal receivership under threat of losing $9 billion.  Some of the demands are within the government’s civil-rights purview, such as requiring Harvard to discipline students who violate its discrimination policies.  It also wants Harvard to ‘shutter all diversity, equity and inclusion’ programs, under ‘whatever name,’ that violate federal law.

“But the Administration runs off the legal rails by ordering Harvard to reduce ‘governance bloat, duplication, or decentralization.’  It also orders the school to review ‘all existing and prospective faculty...for plagiarism’ and ensure ‘viewpoint diversity’ in each department, field, or teaching unit.’

“These reforms may be worth pursuing, but the government has no business requiring them.  Its biggest overreach is requiring ‘viewpoint diversity,’ which it doesn’t define.  Does this mean the English department must hire more Republican faculty or Shakespeare scholars?  An external monitor will decide such questions....

“In a better world, Harvard and all colleges would be less dependent on Washington for money.  But Republicans can’t seem to muster the courage to reform the student-loan program, such as capping graduate loans, which would force universities to shrink administrative bloat and politicized departments.

“In any case, much of the federal money Harvard receives supports medical research and affiliated hospitals including Boston Children’s. Harvard could fund some, though not all, of such research with its $53 billion endowment, but there are sure to be casualties from the Administration’s hostage-taking, including perhaps cancer patients.

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government may not use federal benefits or funds to coerce parties to surrender their constitutional rights. This is what the Administration is doing by demanding Harvard accede to ‘viewpoint diversity.’

“The Administration is also overstepping its authority by imposing sweeping conditions on funds that weren’t spelled out by Congress...

“Congress can pass a law to advance Mr. Trump’s higher-ed reforms... But the Administration can’t unilaterally and retroactively attach strings to grants that are unrelated to their purpose.  President Trump has enough balls in the air without also trying to run Harvard.”

Wednesday, the administration threatened to stop international students from attending Harvard, further escalation.

--The Supreme Court announced on Thursday it will weigh in on the Trump administration’s arguments to end the Constitution’s birthright citizenship protection, which says that persons born in the United States are citizens.

Signed on his first day in office, Trump’s order would curb birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil to parents without permanent legal status, a sweeping restriction that multiple judges have found is inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s long-standing interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.

--President Trump on Truth Social:

“Almost every week, 60 Minutes, which is being sued for Billions of Dollars for the fraud they committed in the 2024 Presidential Election with their interview of Failed Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris, mentions the name ‘TRUMP’ in a derogatory and defamatory way, but this Weekend’s ‘BROADCAST’ tops them all.  They did not one, but TWO, major stories on ‘TRUMP,’ one having to do with Ukraine, which I say is a War that would have never happened if the 2020 Election had not been RIGGED, in other words, if I were President and, the other story was having to do with Greenland, casting our Country, as led by me, falsely, inaccurately, and fraudulently.  I am so honored to be suing 60 Minutes, CBS Fake News, and Paramount, over their fraudulent, beyond recognition, reporting.  They did everything possible to illegally elect Kamala, including completely and corruptly changing major answers to interview questions, but it just didn’t work for them. They are not a ‘News Show,’ but a dishonest Political Operative simply disguised as ‘News,’ and must be responsible for what they have done, and are doing.  They should lose their license!  Hopefully, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as headed by its Highly Respected Chairman, Brendan Carr, will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior. CBS is out of control, at levels never before, and they should pay a big price for this.  MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

What a weak man. 

--Meanwhile, White House physician Sean Barbabella offered a report on President Trump’s status following his annual checkup last Friday.

In a glowing memo released Sunday, the president was deemed to be in “excellent health” and “robust” neurological condition, with virtually no health ailments.

Barbabella said Trump is 6-foot-3 and weighs 224 pounds, suggesting that he’s lost a significant amount of weight since his first term.  Back in 2019, Trump’s doctor said that he weighed 243 pounds.  He does indeed look like he’s lost a few pounds.

After the physical, Trump bragged to reporters: “I felt I was in very good shape.  Good heart. I took a cognitive test. I don’t know what to tell you other than I got every answer right.”

“I think it’s a pretty well-known test.  I’ve taken the test four times. I’ve got nothing wrong,” he said, referring to the Montreal Cognitive Assessment.  “That’s what the American people want.  Biden refused to take it.  Kamala refused to take it.”

--According to data released on Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rates of autism spectrum disorder among U.S. children reached a record level in 2022, continuing a recent trend of increasing prevalence.

At 16 monitoring sites in 14 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, prevalence of the disorder among 8-year-olds in 2022 was 32.2 per 1,000, or 1 in every 31.  That was up from 1 in 36 in 2020 and 1 in 44 in 2018, according to researchers in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Rates ranged from about 1 in 103 8-year-olds being diagnosed in one south Texas county, to about 1 of every 21 in a suburban county near Philadelphia and roughly 1 in 19 near San Diego, California.

Differences in prevalence over time and across sites can reflect differing practices in autism screening and diagnosis and availability of services, the researchers said.

A co-author of the study, Walter Zahorodny of Rutgers University, said, “The true or actual rate of autism is more likely to be closer to what this report has identified in California or Pennsylvania.  California in particular has a longstanding and excellent program for screening and early intervention.”

“The problem is there’s not a lot of research that gives us a strong indication for what is driving the rise,” Zahorodny said.

The CDC study was not designed to identify possible causes of any increase in prevalence.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  has long promoted a debunked link between vaccines and autism and last week set a September deadline for the National Institutes of Health to determine the cause behind the rise in autism rates.

In remarks Wednesday, Kennedy said autism was preventable while directly contradicting researchers within his own agency on a primary driver behind rising rates of the condition in young children.

Blaming environmental risk factors for the uptick, he accused the media and the public of succumbing to a “myth of epidemic denial” when it came to autism. He also called research into the genetic factors that scientist say play a vital role in whether a child will develop autism “a dead end.”

“Genes don’t cause epidemics,” Kennedy said. “You need an environmental toxin.”

--The number of measles cases in Texas rose another 20 to 561, as of April 16, 58 hospitalized, two deaths.

--At least 300 National Weather Service employees are expected to take the latest federal buyout offer by a Thursday deadline, “departures the agency’s top official told employees could leave many forecast offices around the country with half the meteorologists they need to properly monitor extreme weather threats,” as reported by the Washington Post.  This is a huge deal.

--The San Diego area had a 5.2 earthquake on Monday and it was rather touching to see the elephants at the San Diego Zoo form a protective circle around the herd’s calf.  They are No. 2 on the All-Species List (behind Dog) for a reason.   

---

Pray for the men and women of our armed forces...and all the fallen.  Our thoughts and prayers for the families of the two Marines who perished in a vehicle crash while deployed near the Mexico border on Tuesday. A third service member is in serious condition after the accident, which occurred near Santa Teresa, New Mexico, officials at Northern Command announced.

All three Marines were assigned to Joint Task Force Southern Border, which began operating along the border just last month.

Slava Ukraini.

God bless America.

---

Gold $3328...was at another record high earlier in the week, $3350+
Oil $64.68

Bitcoin: $84,600 [3:00 PM ET, Friday]

Regular Gas: $3.16; Diesel: $3.57 [$3.67 - $4.05 yr. ago]

Returns for the week 4/14-4/18

Dow Jones  -2.7% [39142]
S&P 500  -1.5% [5282]
S&P MidCap N/A
Russell 2000  N/A
Nasdaq  -2.6% [16286]

Returns for the period 1/1/25-4/18/25

Dow Jones  -8.0%
S&P 500  -10.2%
S&P MidCap  -12.1%
Russell 2000  -15.7%
Nasdaq  -15.7%...yes, the same as Russell

Bulls 25.9
Bears 35.2

Hang in there.  Happy Easter!

Brian Trumbore

***After 26 years, StocksandNews is rebooting, with a new site on the way.  I’ve been told disruptions will be minimal, but no guarantees.  Maybe in about three weeks you’ll see the revised format which will be designed to draw more eyeballs.

Such a move costs money, sports fans.  Any support is greatly appreciated.

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