Donald Trump

Moody’s cited rising debt, saying US had repeatedly failed to end the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and interest.

Moody’s Ratings has stripped the United States government of its top credit rating, citing successive governments’ failure to stop a rising tide of debt.

On Friday, Moody’s lowered the rating from a gold-standard Aaa to Aa1. “Successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,” it said as it changed its outlook on the US to “stable” from “negative”.

But, it added, the US “retains exceptional credit strengths such as the size, resilience and dynamism of its economy and the role of the US dollar as global reserve currency.”

Moody’s is the last of the three major rating agencies to lower the federal government’s credit rating. Standard & Poor’s downgraded federal debt in 2011, and Fitch Ratings followed in 2023.

In a statement, Moody’s said: “We expect federal deficits to widen, reaching nearly 9 percent of [the US economy] by 2035, up from 6.4 percent in 2024, driven mainly by increased interest payments on debt, rising entitlement spending, and relatively low revenue generation.’’

Extending President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, a priority of the Republican-controlled Congress, Moody’s said, would add $4 trillion over the next decade to the federal primary deficit, which does not include interest payments.

The White House adopted an aggressive tone towards Moody’s after the ratings agency downgraded the US credit rating.

White House communications director Steven Cheung reacted to the downgrade via a social media post, singling out Moody’s economist, Mark Zandi, for criticism. He called Zandi a political opponent of Trump.

“Nobody takes his ‘analysis’ seriously. He has been proven wrong time and time again,” Cheung said.

A gridlocked political system has been unable to tackle the huge deficits accumulated by the US. Republicans reject tax increases, and Democrats are reluctant to cut spending.

On Friday, House Republicans failed to push a big package of tax breaks and spending cuts through the Budget Committee. A small group of hard-right Republican lawmakers, insisting on steeper cuts to Medicaid and President Joe Biden’s green energy tax breaks, joined all Democrats in opposing it, a rare political setback for the Republican president.

More than a trillion dollars worth of investments were pledged during the US president’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates this week.

The US is preparing to lift decades-long sanctions on Syria, and could be close to a nuclear deal with Iran.

Previous US presidents might have been expected to make a stop in Egypt, Jordan or Israel.

But notably Trump’s deal-making tour did not include those countries.

So, are the Gulf nations now in sync with the US on some of the biggest challenges in the region?

And is Trump re-shaping the Middle East or is it the Gulf states that will dictate future US foreign policy?

Presenter: Dareen Abughaida

Guests:

Giorgio Cafiero – CEO at Gulf State Analytics, a geopolitical risk consultancy

Hassan Barari – Professor of international affairs at Qatar University

Alon Pinkas – Former ambassador and consul general of Israel in New York and a columnist at the Independent

A recent United States ambassador to Ukraine has published an opinion column explaining her decision to resign her post, and criticising President Donald Trump for siding with Russia over Ukraine.

On Friday, former diplomat Bridget Brink published an article in the Detroit Free Press, a newspaper in her home state of Michigan, expressing concern about current US foreign policy.

The US has long been an ally of Ukraine, and since 2014, it has provided the war-torn country with military assistance, as it fends off Russia’s attempts at invasion and annexation.

But Brink wrote that there has been a shift since President Trump returned to office for a second term in January.

“I respect the president’s right and responsibility to determine U.S. foreign policy,” she wrote.

“Unfortunately, the policy since the beginning of the Trump administration has been to put pressure on the victim, Ukraine, rather than on the aggressor, Russia.”

Brink pointed out that her time at the US Department of State included roles under five presidents, both Democrat and Republican. But she said the shift under the Trump administration forced her to abandon her ambassadorship to Ukraine, a position she held from 2022 until last month.

“I cannot stand by while a country is invaded, a democracy bombarded, and children killed with impunity,” she said of the situation in Ukraine.

“I believe that the only way to secure U.S. interests is to stand up for democracies and to stand against autocrats. Peace at any price is not peace at all ― it is appeasement.”

Brink’s position as ambassador has spanned much of the current conflict in Ukraine. After annexing Crimea and occupying other Ukrainian territories starting in 2014, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022. Brink assumed her post that May.

But the slow-grinding war in Ukraine has cost thousands of lives and displaced many more. While campaigning for re-election in 2024, Trump blamed the war’s eruption on the “weak” foreign policy of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden.

He also pledged to end the war on his first day back in office, if re-elected. “I’ll have that done in 24 hours. I’ll have it done,” Trump told one CNN town hall in 2023.

Since taking office, however, Trump has walked back those comments, calling them an “exaggeration” in an interview with Time Magazine.

Still, his administration has pushed Ukraine and Russia to engage in peace talks, as part of an effort to end the war. How those negotiations have unfolded under Trump, however, has been the source of scrutiny and debate.

Ukraine and its European allies have accused Trump of sidelining their interests in favour of his one-on-one negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They also have criticised Trump and his officials for seeming to offer Russia concessions even before the negotiations officially began.

On February 12, for instance, his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told an international defence group in Brussels that Ukraine may never regain some of its occupied territory.

“We must start by recognising that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” he said, adding that membership in the NATO military alliance was also unlikely. “Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.”

Trump has gone so far as to blame Ukraine’s NATO ambitions as the cause of the war, something critics blast as a Kremlin talking point.

Amid the negotiations, the relationship between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has grown increasingly testy. Already, during his first term, Trump faced impeachment proceedings over an alleged attempt to pressure Zelenskyy by withholding military aid.

During his second term, though, Trump upped the ante, calling the Ukrainian president a “dictator” for not holding elections, something prohibited under Ukraine’s wartime laws.

One public display of frustration came in the White House on February 28, when Trump shouted at Zelenskyy, calling him “disrespectful” during a gathering with journalists.

The US president also used the appearance to defend his warm relationship with Russia’s president. “ Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump told Zelenskyy.

The shouting match led to a brief suspension of US aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

In the months since, their two countries have agreed to a deal that would establish a joint investment fund that would allow Washington access to Ukraine’s mineral resources — a long-desired Trump goal.

The US president has voiced concern about the amount of money invested in Ukraine’s security, with Congress appropriating more than $174bn since the war began in 2022. He has also argued that a US mining presence would help deter foreign attacks in Ukraine.

But peace between Russia and Ukraine has remained elusive. Talks between the two warring parties on Friday ended after less than two hours, though they did agree to an exchange of 1,000 prisoners each.

In her op-ed column, Brink was clear that she held Russia responsible for the ongoing aggression.

“Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, it has done what can only be described as pure evil: killed thousands of civilians, including 700 children, with missiles and drones that hit their homes and apartments in the dead of night,” she wrote.

She added that Europe has not experienced “violence so systematic, so widespread and so horrifying in Europe since World War II”.

Brink warned that, if the US did not stand up to Russia, a domino effect could occur, paving the way for military assaults on other countries.

“If we allow Putin to redraw borders by force, he won’t stop with Ukraine,” she wrote. “Taken at his word, Putin’s ambition is to resurrect an imperial past ― and he can’t do that without threatening the security of our NATO allies.”

Washington, DC – Three days, three countries, hundreds of billions of dollars in investments and a geopolitical shift in the United States’s approach to the region: Donald Trump’s trip to the Middle East has been eventful.

This week, the United States president visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in the first planned trip of his second presidency, after attending Pope Francis’s funeral last month.

Trump was visibly gleeful throughout the trip as he secured investments, criticised domestic political rivals and heaped praise on Gulf leaders. The word “historic” was used more than a few times by US officials to describe the visits.

With Trump returning to the White House, here are five key takeaways from his trip:

A rebuke of interventionism

Addressing an investment summit in Riyadh, Trump promoted a realist approach to the Middle East — one in which the US does not intervene in the affairs of other countries.

He took a swipe at neoconservatives who oversaw the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as he lauded Gulf leaders for developing the region.

“This great transformation has not come from Western intervention or flying people in beautiful planes, giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs,” he said.

“The gleaming marbles of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neo-cons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities.”

Trump built his political brand with his “America First” slogan, calling for the US to focus on its own issues instead of helping — or bombing — foreign countries.

But his words at the investment summit marked a stern rebuke of the neo-cons who dominated Trump’s Republican Party a decade ago.

“In the end, the so-called nation-builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves,” Trump said.

Israel sidelined, but no Gaza solution

It is rare for US presidents to travel to the Middle East and not visit Israel, but Trump omitted the US ally from his itinerary as he toured the region.

Skipping Israel was seen as a reflection of the deteriorating ties between the US administration and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This week’s trip also came in the context of several moves perceived as evidence of the US marginalising Israel. The US has continued to hold talks with Israel’s rival Iran, announced a ceasefire with the Houthis in Yemen, and conducted unilateral negotiations to release Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, a US citizen, from Hamas captivity.

Moreover, while touring the Gulf, Trump did not use his remarks to prioritise the establishment of formal diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which had been a top goal during his first term.

It remains unclear how Trump’s decisions will affect the “special relationship” between the two allies, but experts say it is becoming increasingly apparent that the US no longer views the Middle East solely through the lens of Israel.

“Is it a tactical problem for Netanyahu and the entire pro-Israel lobby? I think it is,” Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University, said of Trump’s shift.

“It does throw a wrench in the machinery because it is a president who is showing openly daylight with Israeli decision-making, and not just in rhetoric, but acting on it — leaving Israel out of the process.”

With that chasm emerging, some Palestinian rights advocates had hoped that the US president’s trip to the region would see Washington pursue a deal to end Israel’s war on Gaza.

But as Trump marvelled at the luxurious buildings in the Gulf, Israel intensified its bombardment to destroy what’s left of the Palestinian territory.

No ceasefire was announced, despite reports of continuing talks in Doha. And Israel appears to be pushing forward with its plan to expand its assault on Gaza as it continues to block aid for the nearly two million people in the enclave, leading to fears of famine.

United Nations experts and rights groups have described the situation as a genocide.

But despite preaching “peace and prosperity” for both Israelis and Palestinians, Trump made no strong push to end the war during this week’s trip.

On Thursday, Trump suggested that he has not given up on the idea of depopulating Gaza and turning it over to the US — a proposal that legal experts say amounts to ethnic cleansing.

“I have concepts for Gaza that I think are very good. Make it a freedom zone,” he said. “Let the United States get involved, and make it just a freedom zone.”

Lifting Syria sanctions

In a move that surprised many observers, Trump announced from Riyadh that he will offer sanction relief to Syria, as the country emerges from a decade-plus civil war.

Trump also met with interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and described him as a “young, attractive guy”.

A wholesale lifting of sanctions was not expected, in part because of Israel’s hostility to the new authorities in Syria. Israeli officials often describe al-Sharaa, who led al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria before severing ties with the group, as a “terrorist”.

But Trump said he made the decision to lift the economic penalties against Syria at the request of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” the US president said.

The White House said on Wednesday that Trump had a list of requests for al-Sharaa, including establishing diplomatic relations with Israel and deporting “Palestinian terrorists”.

Removing US sanctions, which had been imposed on the government of former President Bashar al-Assad, is likely to be a boost for the new Syrian authorities, who are grappling with an ailing economy after years of conflict.

“Lifting sanctions on Syria represents a fundamental turning point,” Ibrahim Nafi Qushji, an economist, told Al Jazeera.

“The Syrian economy will transition from interacting with developing economies to integrating with more developed ones, potentially significantly reshaping trade and investment relations.”

A carrot and a stick for Iran

In Saudi Arabia, Trump declared that he wants a deal with Iran — and he wants it done quickly.

“We really want them to be a successful country,” the US president said of Iran.

“We want them to be a wonderful, safe, great country, but they cannot have a nuclear weapon. This is an offer that will not last forever. The time is right now for them to choose.”

Trump warned Iran that, if it rejects his “olive branch”, he would impose a “massive maximum pressure” against Tehran and choke off its oil exports.

Notably, Trump did not threaten explicit military action against Iran, a departure from his previous rhetoric. In late March, for instance, he told NBC News, “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing.”

Iran says it is not seeking nuclear weapons and would welcome a stringent monitoring programme of its nuclear facilities.

But Israel and some hawks want the Iranian nuclear programme completely dismantled, not just scaled back.

US and Iranian officials have held multiple rounds of talks this year, but Tehran says it has not received an official offer from Washington. And Trump officials have not explicitly indicated what the endgame of the talks is.

US envoy Steve Witkoff said last month that Iran “must stop and eliminate” uranium enrichment, but days earlier, he had suggested that enrichment should be brought down to civilian energy levels.

Several Gulf countries, including the three that Trump visited this week, have welcomed the nuclear negotiations, as relations between Iran and its Arab neighbours have grown more stable in recent years.

Investments, investments and more investments

Before entering politics, Trump was a real estate mogul who played up his celebrity persona as a mega-rich dealmaker. He appears to have brought that business mindset to the White House.

While in the wealthy Gulf region, Trump was in his element. He announced deals that would see Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE buy US arms and invest in American firms. According to the White House, Trump secured a total of $2 trillion in investments from the Middle East during the trip.

And his administration is framing the deals as a major political and economic victory for Trump.

“While it took President Biden nearly four years to secure $1 trillion in investments, President Trump achieved this in his first month, with additional investment commitments continuing to roll in,” the White House said.

“President Trump is accelerating investment in America and securing fair trade deals around the world, paving the way for a new Golden Age of lasting prosperity for generations to come.”

May 16 (UPI) — The United States and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to form an Artificial Intelligence alliance.

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced in a statement that the United States will launch a one-gigawatt AI data center, which in turn will be a part of a five-gigawatt “UAE-U.S. artificial intelligence technology cluster” in the UAE capital city of Abu Dhabi.

The cluster will manage the region’s computation needs that will operate under American-level security standards and be open to the distribution of new AI infrastructure that can serve on an international level.

A group will be formed between the countries within 30 days of its announcement and will “work together to make more efficient the process of inward investments into the United States by UAE Investment Funds,” which also involves UAE investment in American digital infrastructure.

“We are proud to announce the US-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick posted to X Thursday. “Together we will build the largest AI data center outside the United States, powered by American companies and high tech manufacturing.”

The deal was made public as President Donald Trump continues a trip through the Gulf region and stopped to visit a new AI campus in Abu Dhabi, where American-produced AI chips will computationally power the facility and become the largest project of its type anywhere outside the United States.

The Biden administration had set an “AI Diffusion Rule” in January, under which the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security added exceptions to the facilitation in regard to the export, reexport of transfer of “advanced computing” to ensure the tech ended up with “users in destinations that do not raise national security or foreign policy concerns.”

The Trump administration rescinded that rule Tuesday, a deregulation that now allows the federal government to make deals with other countries to decide how many American chips they would like to purchase.

“The Trump Administration will pursue a bold, inclusive strategy to American AI technology with trusted foreign countries around the world, while keeping the technology out of the hands of our adversaries,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Jeffery Kessler in a Tuesday press release.

A social media post has dragged former FBI director James Comey into a maelstrom of accusations from critics that he called for the assassination of United States President Donald Trump.

Comey, a fierce Trump critic, denied in a statement that the photo he took and shared on Instagram was a call for violence, adding that “I oppose violence of any kind.” He has since taken down the photo in question.

His rebuttal has, however, done little to calm Trump’s supporters, with the country’s Homeland Security Department and the Secret Service announcing on Thursday that they were investigating the incident.

Here’s a breakdown of what happened:

What did Comey Post?

Comey shared an Instagram photo on Thursday showing seashells on a beach arranged in the numbers “86 47”.

“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” his caption read.

Critics were quick to point out that the number “86” refers to old US slang that refers to “getting rid of” something, or “removing something”. The slang was highly in use in restaurants back in the 1930s, and usually signalled to waiters and customers that an item on a menu was sold out and could not be provided.

The “47”, they claim, refers to Trump’s current term in office as the 47th president of the US.

Comey, on the same day, took the photo down. In a separate Instagram post, the former intelligence boss explained that he took the photo while “on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message”.

“I didn’t realise some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind, so I took the post down,” he said.

The hashtag #8647 has previously, and as early as March, appeared on social media sites like TikTok among posters criticising Trump and calling for his removal. It has come to represent a silent code for opposing the president.

What have Trump’s allies said?

Trump’s supporters on social media channels have denounced Comey’s post, calling it a call for the president’s “assassination”.

Just James Comey causally calling for my dad to be murdered.

This is who the Dem-Media worships. Demented!!!! pic.twitter.com/4LUK6crHAT

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 15, 2025

President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr on Thursday said in an X post that Comey had “casually called for my dad to be murdered”, adding that the post was “demented”.

Grok, a conversational AI assistant on the Elon Musk-owned social media site, responding to comments from X users asking for clarification on the meaning of the numbers, said it was “basically a sneaky way of saying “get rid of Trump”. However, the assistant also added that the numbers do not “inherently mean assassinate Trump” but rather they imply “political removal”.

Speaking on Fox News, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said she did not accept that Comey was unaware of the violent interpretation of “86 47”. Gabbard said Comey “should be held accountable and put behind bars for this”.

Republican Congressman Andy Ogles said he sent a letter to US intelligence agencies calling for an investigation into Comey’s “disturbing” post to see if the former intelligence boss had violated two federal laws – threatening the president and interstate sharing of threatening communication.

Ogles also demanded confirmation on whether Comey still has access to classified material because of his previous role as FBI director.

“If Comey broke the law, he shouldn’t get a pass. He should be in handcuffs,” Ogles wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in an X post said the matter was already being investigated by US intelligence authorities.

“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump. DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately,” she posted.

FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed on X that his agency will aid the investigation and “provide all necessary support”.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair said Comey’s post was a call to “terrorists & hostile regimes to kill the President of the United States as he travels in the Middle East”.

“Any Democrat or Media Outlet who fails to condemn this clear Incitement of Violence is complicit and must be described as such.”

What is Comey and Trump’s past relationship?

Comey was appointed by former President Barack Obama. Before the 2016 election, Comey investigated Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers during her time as secretary of state. Many Democrats argue that this investigation, on the eve of the vote, cost her the election, in which Clinton was the party’s nominee against Trump.

But Comey also led the FBI’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections, and was fired in 2017 by Trump early in his first term in office.

Comey had testified to Congress that Russia did interfere in the 2016 elections. The administration’s official reason for firing him was that Comey was “ineffective”, referring to dissatisfaction with the Clinton investigation, which eventually ended without the politician being charged.

The major sticking point between Trump and Comey, according to analysts, was Comey’s focus on the Russia issue and his refusal to state in public that Trump and his Trump Organisation were not personally being investigated.

Comey began vocally criticising Trump following his dismissal, calling him “morally unfit” to be president and a threat to the norms of democracy in his 2018 memoir, A Higher Loyalty.

May 16 (UPI) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Thursday night that DHS and the Secret Service are investigating a since-deleted picture former FBI Director James Comey published online as a threat targeting President Donald Trump.

“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump,” she said online. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”

Comey had published the now-deleted photo to Instagram. It showed shells on a beach arranged to form the numerals “86 47.”

“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey had written in the caption.

The number 86 is widely used code in restaurants and the hospitality industry meaning an item is either sold out, no longer available or should be removed from a dish. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says it is slag meaning to eject, dismiss or remove.

The number 47 suggests Trump, who is the 47th president of the United States.

The president’s eldest child, Donald Trump Jr., published a screenshot of the deleted post to his X account, describing the image as “James Comey casually calling for my dad to be murdered.”

In a follow-up post on Instagram, Comey explained that he had assumed the shells conveyed a political statement but not one suggesting violence.

“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” he said. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that the FBI is aware of the post “directed at President Trump” and is in contact with the Secret Service.

“Primary jurisdiction is with SS on these matters and we, the FBI, will provide all necessary support,” he said.

UPI has contacted the Secret Service for comment.

Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, also described the image on X as Comey issuing “a call to action to murder the President of the United States.”

In an interview with Fox News, Gabbard said Comey should be jailed for it.

“I’m very concerned for the president’s life,” she said. “And James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this.”

Comey served as director of the FBI from 2013 until he was fired by Trump during his first term in 2017, during which his office investigated Russian interference into the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton‘s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

These are the key events on day 1,177 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Friday, May 16 :

Fighting

• Fighting continues along the 1,100km (683 mile) front line, where Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces captured two settlements located near Moscow’s long-term targets. Russia claimed to have taken Novooleksandrivka, a rural village near Pokrovsk, a logistics hub in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as well as the town of Torske, which is located near the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
• The Ukrainian military acknowledged that Novooleksandrivka had been under attack, but it did not mention Torske in its latest report.
• Oleksandr Syrskii, Ukraine’s top military commander, said on Telegram that Russia “has turned its aggression against Ukraine into a war of attrition and is using a combined force of up to 640,000 troops”.
• Ukraine lost its first F-16 fighter jet on Friday due to an “unusual situation on board”, but the pilot successfully ejected, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

Ceasefire

• Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian envoys will hold trilateral talks in Istanbul, although hopes are low for any breakthrough after Russia sent a lower-level delegation to the meeting than hoped. The meeting marks the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine since a meeting in 2022 also held in Istanbul.
• Turkiye will take part in two trilateral meetings on Friday as part of the renewed diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine, Turkish Foreign Ministry sources told the Reuters news agency.
• A meeting will take place between Turkish, US and Ukrainian officials and is scheduled to take place at 10:45am local time [07:45 GMT], followed by talks between Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian delegations at 12:30pm [09:30 GMT], the sources told Reuters.
• The Ukrainian delegation will now be led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov instead of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Thursday.
• “We can’t be running around the world looking for Putin,” Zelenskyy said after a meeting with Erdogan. “I feel disrespect from Russia. No meeting time, no agenda, no high-level delegation – this is personal disrespect. To Erdogan, to Trump.”
• US President Donald Trump said an agreement between Russia and Ukraine is not possible without him first meeting Putin. “I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

Senators accuse US President Donald Trump of engaging in ‘corruption of US foreign policy’ with defence deals.

A group of United States senators is trying to halt $3.5bn in weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar over concerns that the deals will personally benefit the family of US President Donald Trump.

Two “resolutions of disapproval” were submitted on Thursday in the US by Democratic Senators Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen, Brian Schatz and Tim Kaine, along with Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who often votes with Democrats.

The legislators also issued statements accusing President Trump, who is concluding a trip to the Middle East, of actively engaging in the “corruption of US foreign policy” over the timing of the sales and recent investment deals.

The Department of State this week approved the $1.6bn sale to the UAE of Chinook helicopters and equipment, F-16 aircraft components, and spare and repair parts to support Apache, Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters. Initial reporting cited the figure as close to $1.3bn, but the $1.6bn figure was used in a statement from the legislators. The lawmakers are also seeking to block $1.9bn in sales to Qatar of MQ-9B Predator drones and associated equipment, which was approved by the State Department in March.

The legislators accuse Trump of accepting favours in exchange for the deals, citing news from April that the Emirati investment firm MGX would use a stablecoin – a cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to another asset – issued by the Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial to finance a $2bn investment in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

The Trump family is reported to have made millions off niche cryptocurrencies like the $TRUMP “meme coin” since the president returned to the White House in January.

I know Trump’s crypto scams can seem hard to understand. So I went the Senate floor to break down the most outrageous one.

A foreign government is investing $2 billion in Trump’s coin to get favorable treatment from the Administration. A wild corruption.

Here’s how it works. pic.twitter.com/pxLSlZH2QN

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) May 13, 2025

In addition to business dealings, the senators also expressed fears that US weapons sent to the UAE could end up in the hands of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which is allegedly backed by the UAE and has played a critical role in Sudan’s civil war.

“The US should not be delivering weapons to the UAE as it aids and abets this humanitarian disaster and gross human rights violations,” Van Hollen said, citing Sudan’s civil war.

The senators also cited Qatar’s offer of a Boeing 747 jumbo for the president’s temporary use as Air Force One. The offer has drawn criticism from both Democrats and some Republicans because it would be the most expensive foreign gift ever exchanged between a foreign government and an elected US official.

“There’s nothing Donald Trump loves more than being treated like a king, and that’s exactly why foreign governments are trying to buy his favour with a luxury jumbo jet and investments in Trump’s crypto scams,” Murphy said in a statement.

When asked about the offer of the aircraft, Trump blamed Boeing’s lack of progress in building a new Air Force One and said he would be “stupid” to refuse a free plane.

“It’s not a gift to me, it’s a gift to the Department of Defense,” he said.

It is unclear when a vote will happen on the joint “resolutions of disapproval”, but the US political news outlet The Hill said that due to the nature of the bills, Democrats will likely force them to the floor of the Senate.

US President Donald Trump, who promised to end America’s foreign military campaigns, has paid a visit to US troops stationed in Qatar. Trump praised the US’s deadly arsenal, hit out at his predecessor and made fun of France.

Washington, DC – Justices at the US Supreme Court have questioned lawyers representing the administration of US President Donald Trump and those challenging his effort to end birthright citizenship in the country.

The hearing on Thursday represented the first time the top court in the United States has heard a case related to Trump’s January 20 order seeking to do away with the more-than-century-old policy, which grants citizenship to nearly all infants born on US soil, regardless of their parents’ legal status.

It was not immediately clear when the court would issue a ruling in the case, although an outcome could take weeks. It also remained unclear if the justices would address the underlying constitutionality of Trump’s order, or if they would only rule on the narrower question of whether lower federal court justices are empowered to block the implementation of the order nationwide.

Still, demonstrators and lawmakers who gathered outside of the Washington, DC courthouse said any ruling challenging birthright citizenship would corrode the national fabric of the US.

“We are here at the highest court in the land because a fundamental promise of America is under attack. And we are here to say not on our watch,” Ama Frimpong, the legal director of CASA, told those gathered in protest.

“All persons born in the US are citizens of the US,” Frimpong said.

Legal experts have also said a ruling limiting federal courts’ ability to order a “national” or “universal” injunction to block Trump’s executive actions would in and of itself be transformative.

“That question, in a normal sense, would already shake the legal foundation of the country: whether lower courts have the right to order nationwide injunctions,” said Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro from outside the courthouse.

“But it’s the second question that really people are focused on, and that is if Trump has the power to cancel birthright citizenship for the children born to undocumented immigrants and certain visa holders visiting the US,” she said.

“Now it is up to the justices whether they want to go in either of those directions.”

‘Catch me if you can kind of regime’

Over two hours of questioning, lawyers for the Trump administration, as well as those representing states and individuals who have challenged Trump’s order, addressed matters both of constitutional grandeur and legal minutia.

Solicitor General John Sauer began by laying out the Trump administration’s broad argument that the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, has been incorrectly interpreted since then. The amendment, Sauer argued, “guarantees citizenship to the children of former slaves, not to illegal aliens or temporary visitors”.

Trump also reiterated that position in a Truth Social post ahead of the hearing, saying birthright citizenship makes the US a “STUPID Country” that incentivises people to visit to have children.

Sauer also took aim at the three federal judges who have ruled in favour of separate lawsuits challenging the law’s constitutionality. Plaintiffs in those cases include 22 state attorneys general, immigrant rights organisations, and individuals affected by the rule. Sauer argued that the judges’ decisions should only apply to the plaintiffs in the cases, and not the entire nation.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether the broader constitutional question could be unpicked from the narrower question of the judges’ reach, saying the president’s order violates “by my count, four established Supreme Court precedents”.

That included the 1898 Supreme Court case, United States v Wong Kim Ark, which first established that the 14th Amendment applies to immigrants, she said.

Other justices questioned the implications of a scenario where the court ruled that the judges could not issue “national injunctions” in the case, without answering the underlying constitutional question.

Legal scholars have noted that this could create a situation where Trump’s end to birthright citizenship would not apply to states and individuals who successfully challenged his order in court. That would mean birthright citizenship – at least temporarily – would end in 28 other states if they do not launch their own challenges.

“Does every single person that is affected by this EO [executive order] have to bring their own suit?” Justice Elena Kagan questioned.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the Trump administration’s argument turns the US justice system into a “catch me if you can kind of regime”.

Under that, “everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights”.

The magistrate ruled that apprehended migrants may not have been aware they were crossing into a military zone.

A United States judge in the southwestern state of New Mexico has dismissed trespassing charges against dozens of migrants apprehended in a military zone recently created under President Donald Trump.

The military zone is one of two so far that the Trump administration has created along the US-Mexico border, in order to deter undocumented migration into the country.

Entering a military zone can result in heightened criminal penalties. As many as 400 cases have since been filed in Las Cruces, New Mexico, alleging security violations and crimes like trespassing on restricted military property.

But starting late on Wednesday and continuing into Thursday, Chief US Magistrate Judge Gregory Wormuth began issuing dismissals at the request of the federal public defender’s office in Las Cruces.

Wormuth ruled that the government had failed to demonstrate that the migrants knew they were entering a military zone.

“The criminal complaint fails to establish probable cause to believe the defendant knew he/she was entering” the military zone, Wormuth wrote in his orders dismissing charges.

The ruling is the latest legal setback for the Trump administration, as it seeks to impose stricter restrictions and penalties for undocumented immigration. But the president’s broad use of executive power has drawn the ire of civil liberties groups, who argue that Trump is trampling constitutional safeguards.

Establishing new military zones has been part of Trump’s strategy to reduce the flow of migration into the US.

Normally, the crime of “improper entry by an alien” carries fines or a prison sentence of up to six months. But trespassing on a military zone comes with steeper penalties than a typical border crossing, and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has warned of a possible combined sentence of up to 10 years.

“You can be detained. You will be detained,” Hegseth warned migrants. “You will be interdicted by US troops and border patrol working together.”

On April 18, the first military zone was unveiled, called the  “New Mexico National Defence Area”. It covered a stretch of about 274 kilometres — or 180 miles — along the border with Mexico, extending into land formerly held by the Department of the Interior.

Hegseth has said he would like to see more military zones set up along the border, and in early May, a second one was announced near El Paso, Texas. That strip was approximately 101km or 63 miles.

“Let me be clear: if you cross into the National Defense Area, you will be charged to the FULLEST extent of the law,” Hegseth wrote in a social media post.

Hegseth has previously stated that the military will continue to expand such zones until they have achieved “100 percent operational control” of the border.

Trump and his allies have frequently compared undocumented immigration to an “invasion”, and they have used that justification to invoke wartime laws like the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

In a court brief on behalf of the Trump administration, US Attorney Ryan Ellison argued that the new military zones were a vital bulwark for national security. He also rejected the idea that innocent people might be caught in those areas.

“The New Mexico National Defense Area is a crucial installation necessary to strengthen the authority of servicemembers to help secure our borders and safeguard the country,” Ellison said.

He noted that the government had put up “restricted area” signs along the border. But the public defender’s office in New Mexico argued that the government had not done enough to make it sufficiently clear to migrants in the area that they were entering a military zone.

In the US, the public defenders noted that trespassing requires that the migrants were aware of the restriction and acted “in defiance of that regulation for some nefarious or bad purpose”.

Despite this week’s dismissals, the migrants involved still face less severe charges of crossing the border illegally.

US president claims he has sealed deals worth $10 trillion during visits to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE.

President Donald Trump has hailed deepening ties between the United States and the United Arab Emirates and said that the latter will invest $1.4 trillion in the former’s artificial intelligence sector over the next decade.

“I have absolutely no doubt that the relationship will only get bigger and better,” Trump said on Thursday at a meeting with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on the final leg of his three-country tour of the Gulf region that saw him strike a series of lucrative tech, business and military deals that he said amounted to $10 trillion.

Sheikh Mohammed said the UAE remained “committed to working with the United States to advance peace and stability in our region and globally”.

The deal with UAE is expected to enable the Gulf country to build data centres vital to developing artificial intelligence models. The countries did not say which AI chips could be included in UAE data centres. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had earlier been seen in conversation with Sheikh Mohamed and Trump.

The AI agreement “includes the UAE committing to invest in, build, or finance U.S. data centres that are at least as large and as powerful as those in the UAE,” the White House said.

Reporting from Doha in Qatar, Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra said such a deal had been “a national security concern” for Washington in the past. “But then they decided to change their mind under Trump, particularly when the UAE said that it was willing to invest $1.4 trillion,” he said.

Ahelbarra said the deal was a “significant step” for the UAE, positioning it as “the most important player in artificial intelligence, followed by Saudi Arabia”.

Before his departure for the UAE, Trump said in a speech to US troops at the Al Udeid Air Base southwest of Doha in Qatar that defence purchases signed by Qatar on Wednesday were worth $42bn.

Other agreements signed during Trump’s four-day swing through the Gulf include a deal for Qatar Airways to purchase up to 210 Boeing widebody jets, and a commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest $600bn in the US and to buy $142bn worth of US arms.

The tour also brought a flurry of diplomacy, with Trump saying in Qatar on Thursday that the US was getting close to securing a nuclear deal with Iran. On Tuesday, he said the US would remove longstanding sanctions on Syria.

Trump said he would probably return to Washington on Friday, although he said it was “almost destination unknown because they’ll be getting calls ‘Could you be here? Could you be there?’”

Trump had previously hinted that he could stop in Istanbul for talks on the Russia-Ukraine war.

Avelo Airlines, a Texas-based budget carrier, is facing backlash from both customers and employees over its decision to operate deportation flights under a new contract with the Trump administration.

Avelo, which has been struggling financially, signed a contract with the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last month to transport migrants to detention centres inside and outside the US, according to an internal company memo reviewed by the Reuters news agency.

On Monday, the airline flew its first flight under the deal from Arizona to Louisiana, data from flight-tracking services FlightAware and Flightradar24 showed.

Avelo plans to dedicate three aircraft to deportation operations and has established a charter-only base in Mesa, Arizona, specifically for these flights, according to the company memo.

The union representing Avelo’s flight attendants called the contract “bad for the airline”, and one customer has helped organise a petition urging travellers to boycott the airline.

US President Donald Trump has launched a hardline crackdown on undocumented immigration, including the deportation of Venezuelan migrants he accuses of being gang members to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Immigration authorities also detained and moved to deport some legal permanent US residents. Trump’s policies have triggered a rash of lawsuits and protests.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was deporting illegal aliens who broke the country’s laws. She called the protests “nothing more than a tired tactic to abolish ICE by proxy”.

“Avelo Airlines is a sub-carrier on a government contract to assist with deportation flights,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “Attacks and demonization of ICE and our partners is wrong.”

On defence

The airline on Wednesday confirmed its long-term agreement with ICE and said it was vital to Avelo’s financial stability. It also shared a statement from CEO Andrew Levy acknowledging that it is a “sensitive and complicated topic”, but saying that the decision on the contract came “after significant deliberations”.

The statement added that the deal would keep the airline’s “more than 1,100 crewmembers employed for years to come”.

Avelo said it will use three Boeing 737-800 planes in Mesa, Arizona.

“Flights will be both domestic and international,” the company said, declining to share more details of the agreement.

Avelo, which launched in 2021, was forced to suspend its most recent fundraising round after reporting its worst quarterly performance in two years.

In a message to employees last month, Levy said the airline was spending more than it earned from its customers, forcing it to seek repeated infusions of capital from investors.

“I realize some may view the decision to fly for DHS as controversial,” Levy wrote in the staff memo, which was reviewed by Reuters, but said the opportunity was “too valuable not to pursue”.

Widespread backlash

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents Avelo’s crew, has urged the company to reconsider its decision, which it said would be “bad for the airline”.

“Having an entire flight of people handcuffed and shackled would hinder any evacuation and risk injury or death,” the union said. “We cannot do our jobs in these conditions.”

The Trump administration has deported hundreds of migrants labelled as Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. Photos and videos have shown deportees in handcuffs and shackles.

Customers have also expressed outrage. Anne Watkins, a New Haven, Connecticut, resident, said she has stopped flying with Avelo. She and her co-members at the New Haven Immigrants Coalition have launched an online petition urging travellers to boycott the airline until it ends its ICE flight operations. The petition has garnered more than 38,000 signatures.

Watkins, 55, said the coalition also organised a vigil on Monday to mark the launch of Avelo’s deportation flights.

“Companies can decide to operate in wholly ethical and transparent ways,” she said. “Avelo is not choosing to do that right now.”

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, has threatened to review the state’s incentives for Avelo, which has received more than $2m in subsidies and tax breaks.

In California, Los Angeles resident Nancy K has co-founded a campaign called “Mothers Against Avelo”. She plans to lead weekly protests every Sunday in May at Hollywood Burbank airport, one of Avelo’s six operating bases.

SUPERMARKETS have told The Sun they have no plans to sell American beef, upping the stakes for politicians thrashing out the details of a UK-US trade deal.

Donald Trump and Keir Starmer announced the outline of an agreement last week that would allow up to 13,000 tons of US beef to be imported here tariff-free.

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That is the equivalent of one medium steak per Brit per year.

Currently the UK imports just £24million worth of beef a year, but Trump’s team have called the deal a $5billion opportunity.

However, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Lidl, Aldi, Iceland and The Co-op all said they have no plan to switch from UK and Irish farmers.

And the Government has said that imports of hormone-treated beef or chlorinated chicken will remain illegal.

Tesco boss Ken Murphy said this week that he had no plan to sell US beef.

He said: “We source 100 per cent Irish and British and for the foreseeable future that policy will be the same.”

Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons also said they don’t intend to change supply or animal welfare and food standards.

Budget pair Lidl and Aldi are also not budging on beef.

Aldi chief exec Giles Hurley said: “British farming is known for its high welfare, food safety and environmental standards — and we know how important that is to our customers.”

Iceland boss Richard Walker said there was no appetite for US beef from customers or supermarket suppliers.

He said: “Consensus is that even at a ten per cent tariff it’s a very price prohibitive option.”

The Co-op’s Matt Hood said: “We’re a long-term supporter of British farming, and the first national UK grocer to switch to 100 per cent British fresh and frozen own brand protein.”

The National Farmers Union said: “It’s brilliant to see supermarkets championing British beef. Consumers value its high standards in animal welfare.”

A government spokesman said: “This is a great deal as we have opened access to a huge American market, without weakening UK food standards on imports.”

Butty giant spreading

GREENCORE, the UK’s biggest sandwiches maker, announced it has agreed a £1.2billion takeover of rival Bakkavor to create a food-to-go giant.

It will see £4billion of revenues generated from selling pizzas, soups, salads and sushi to almost all of Britain’s supermarkets.

But workers fear job cuts after the firms said they would save at least £80million in costs a year after the deal.

GMB union national officer Eamon O’Hearn said: “The likelihood of site closures and drop in headcount confirms our worst fears — that hard-working production staff will be facing job losses.”

ITV’s not love sick with US

LOVE Island broadcaster ITV yesterday shrugged off any US tariff concerns as bosses highlighted its Studios arm made TV shows, not films.

President Trump has spooked Britain’s creative industry by slapping 100 per cent tariffs on movies “produced in foreign lands”.

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ITV yesterday said it did not “anticipate any direct impact”.

It came as the company toasted a return to growth for the Studios business, with ­revenue up one per cent at £386million after years of ­disruption from the Hollywood writers’ strike.

Speculation about a takeover of ITV or the Studios business continues to run rife, but insiders downplayed rumours.

The broadcaster, fresh from winning a Bafta for Mr Bates vs The Post Office, expects advertising revenue to be lower than last year, when companies spent big on ads during the Euros footie tournament.

Covid fraud axe

MINISTERS have scrapped a Covid fraud recovery unit and transferred investigations to the Insolvency Service — after realising even more taxpayer cash was being wasted.

Around £47billion was paid to firms as bounceback loans but there had been more than 100,000 cases of fraud and error.

The National Investigation Service received £38.5million in state funding but has secured just 14 convictions.

Trade minister Gareth Thomas said transferring the probes would “remove unnecessary waste and inefficiency”.

B&M goes Dutch

DISCOUNT chain B&M has hired a Dutch former Tesco executive in the latest sign of FTSE firms looking abroad for leadership.

Tjeerd Jegen, who recently led Europe’s biggest ebike maker Accell Group, has also worked at German clothing chain Takko Fashion and Dutch retailer Hema.

He led Tesco’s Malaysian business in 2010 and was its chief operating officer in Thailand before that.

B&M pushed out ex-boss Alex Russo after two profit warnings in as many months.

Baraka’s defence team say they will file a motion to dismiss trespassing charges pursued by the Trump administration.

Lawyers in the United States have said they will file a motion to dismiss trespassing charges directed at Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, following his arrest during a protest at an immigrant detention centre in New Jersey.

During a hearing in a New Jersey federal court on Thursday, Baraka’s defence team said that they believed he was being selectively prosecuted by the administration of President Donald Trump.

“We believe that the mayor himself was targeted here,” said Rahul Agarwal, one of Baraka’s lawyers.

“The mayor was invited into the facility on Friday,” Agarwal added, pointing out that Baraka was “outside the facility when he was ultimately handcuffed and detained”.

Baraka himself attended the hearing and spoke to supporters outside afterwards. On social media, he framed the criminal complaint as a sham.

“Today, the U.S. Attorney General’s office chose to move forward with a trial over trespassing charges at Delaney Hall. While the charges are unwarranted, we will fight this,” Baraka wrote. “This is bigger than me. It’s about all of us.”

The incident is the latest to underscore growing tensions between the Trump administration and local authorities who oppose his immigration crackdown.

Civil liberties groups have argued that the government is using its power to intimidate or coerce officials who do not align with its priorities on immigration.

The Trump administration’s complaint centres on the events of May 9, when lawmakers and protesters showed up at Delaney Hall, a new detention facility in Newark run by the private company GEO Group.

Baraka has long opposed the 1,000-bed facility, saying it lacks the proper permitting, and he has appeared outside its gates multiple times since its May 1 opening.

On the day of his arrest, Baraka joined three members of the US Congress — LaMonica McIver, Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez — who arrived unannounced “to conduct lawful congressional oversight” of the facility, according to their statements afterwards.

Agarwal said that Baraka was the only person arrested in the incident. Baraka has maintained that he was invited in to the facility and shared a video on social media on Wednesday that he says shows a guard opening the gate to allow him inside the premises.

“Mayor Baraka was at Delaney Hall to join a tour of the detention facility with a congressional delegation as part of their authorized oversight responsibilities,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a statement on the arrest of Baraka last week.

“Mayor Baraka — and lawmakers across New Jersey and the country — are being targeted by the Trump administration for refusing to be complicit with its ongoing violations of due process.”

However, the government’s criminal complaint alleges that Baraka entered and remained inside the private facility despite multiple warnings to leave. He faces up to 30 days in prison.

“We believe there’s clear evidence that the mayor was within the property,” Assistant US Attorney Stephen Demanovich told US Magistrate Judge Andre Espinosa.

Video of the incident shows an official behind the gate at Delaney Hall telling Baraka he must return outside because “you are not a congressmember”.

Judge Espinosa on Thursday told Baraka he needed to be processed by US Marshals Service after proceedings came to an end.

The Associated Press said the request sparked a moment of confusion in the courtroom. Baraka pointed out that he had already been processed after his arrest, but ultimately agreed to give his fingerprints and take a mugshot a second time.

“They’re trying their best to humiliate and degrade me as much as they possibly can,” said Baraka. “I feel like what we did was completely correct. We did not violate any laws. We stood up for the constitution of this country, the constitution of the state of New Jersey.”

Baraka is considered a leading candidate in the 2025 New Jersey governor’s race.

Republicans have proposed the remittance tax as part of a broader push to crack down on undocumented immigration.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has denounced a provision in a tax bill being considered in the United States Congress that would impose duties on remittances — a term used to describe the money people send abroad for non-commercial reasons, often as gifts to family and loved ones.

On Thursday, during her morning news conference, Sheinbaum addressed the tax bill directly, calling the remittances proposal “a measure that is unacceptable”.

“It would result in double taxation, since Mexicans living in the United States already pay taxes,” she said.

She added that her government was reaching out to other countries with large immigrant populations to voice concern about the US proposition.

“This will not just affect Mexico,” she said. “It will also affect many other countries and many other Latin American countries.”

According to World Bank data from 2024, India is the top recipient of international remittances, with $129bn coming from abroad, followed by Mexico with more than $68bn.

In Mexico, in particular, experts estimate that remittances make up close to 4 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).

But a far-reaching tax bill championed by US President Donald Trump includes language that would impose a 5-percent excise tax on remittances sent specifically by non-citizens, including visa holders and permanent residents.

That bill would affect nearly 40 million people living in the country. US citizens, however, would be exempt from the remittance tax.

Trump has led a campaign to discourage immigration to the US and promote “mass deportation” during his second term in office, as part of his “America First” agenda.

Proponents of that platform say taxing remittances would serve as clear deterrence to immigrants who come to the US looking for better economic opportunities for themselves and any loved ones they hope to support back home.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration think tank, told The Associated Press news agency that he believes barriers to remittances can help curb undocumented immigration to the US.

“One of the main reasons people come here is to work and send money home,” Krikorian said. “If that’s much more difficult to do, it becomes less appealing to come here.”

Under the bill being weighed in the House of Representatives, the 5-percent tax would be paid by the sender and collected by “remittance transfer providers”, who would then send that money to the US Treasury.

But President Sheinbaum and other leaders have called on Republicans in Congress to reconsider that provision, given the unintended consequences it could create. Sheinbaum even suggested that the tax could be seen as unconstitutional in the US.

“This is an injustice, apart from being unconstitutional,” she said on Thursday. “But in addition, it is the tax on those who have the least. They should charge taxes to those at the top, not those at the bottom.”

Critics of the measure point out that remittances can help stabilise impoverished areas abroad, thereby limiting the likelihood of undocumented migration from those areas.

Additional barriers to sending remittances could create economic setbacks for those communities, not to mention make the process more difficult for US citizens who are exempted from the proposed tax.

Still, even if the tax bill is defeated or the provision on remittances removed, the Trump administration has signalled it plans to move forward with other measures designed to discourage migrants from sending funds abroad.

On April 25, Trump posted on his media platform, Truth Social, a list of “weekly policy achievements”.

On the final page, the top bullet point under “international relations” was “finalizing a Presidential Memorandum to shut down remittances sent by illegal aliens outside the United States”. Trump called the document a “MUST READ”.

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, will have to start raising prices later this month due to the high cost of tariffs, executives have warned in a clear signal that United States President Donald Trump’s trade war is filtering through to the US economy.

As a bellwether of US consumer health, Walmart’s explicit statement on Thursday is also a signpost for how the trade war is affecting companies as Walmart is noted for its ability to manage costs more aggressively than other companies to keep prices low.

Walmart’s shares fell 2.3 percent in morning trading after it also declined to provide a profit forecast for the second quarter, even as the company’s US comparable sales surpassed expectations in the first quarter.

Net sales rose 2.5 percent to $165.6bn, a hair shy of estimates, while same-store sales were up 4.5 percent. Walmart’s quarterly adjusted profit was 61 cents per share, ahead of the analyst consensus for 58 cents per share.

Many US companies have either slashed or pulled their full-year expectations in the wake of the trade war, as consumers stretch their budgets to buy everything from groceries to essentials at cheaper prices. But Walmart’s statement will resonate nationwide, as roughly 255 million people shop in its stores and online weekly around the world, and 90 percent of the US population lives within 10 miles of a Walmart.

US shoppers will start to see prices rise at the end of May and certainly in June, Walmart’s Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said in a CNBC interview. On a post-earnings call with analysts, he said the retailer would also have to cut back on orders as it considers price elasticity.

As the largest importer of container goods in the US, Walmart is heavily exposed to tariffs, and even though the US and China reached a truce that lowered levies for imports on Chinese goods to 30 percent, that’s still a high cost to bear, executives said.

“We’re very pleased and appreciative of the progress that has been made by the administration to bring tariffs down … but let me emphasise we still think that’s too high,” Rainey said on the call, referring to the tariff cuts negotiated over the weekend.

“There are certain items, certain categories of merchandise that we’re dependent upon to import from other countries and the prices of those things are likely going to go up, and that’s not good for consumers,” he added.

Other retailers also said they would be boosting prices. German sandal maker Birkenstock on Thursday said it plans to raise prices globally to fully offset the impact of the US tariff of 10 percent on European Union-made goods.

US consumer sentiment ebbed for a fourth straight month in April, signaling watchful purchasing, while the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted for the first time in three years during the first quarter, fanning worries of a recession.

Narrow margins

Walmart’s CEO Doug McMillon said the retailer would not be able to absorb all the tariffs’ costs because of narrow retail margins, but was committed to ensuring that tariff-related costs on general merchandise – which primarily come from China – do not drive food prices higher.

To mitigate the impact, Walmart is working with suppliers to substitute tariff-affected components, such as replacing aluminium with fibreglass, which is not subject to tariffs.

Despite these efforts, McMillon noted that adjusting costs is more challenging in cases where Walmart imports food items like bananas, avocados, coffee, and roses from countries such as Costa Rica, Peru, and Colombia.

Analysts said Walmart was better positioned than rivals, as its scale enables it to lean on its suppliers and squeeze out efficiencies to shield customers from tariffs, but only so much.

“There will likely be some demand destruction from tariffs; a complete wreck is unlikely,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.

Walmart on Thursday kept its annual sales and profit forecast intact for fiscal 2026, but withheld second-quarter operating income growth and earnings per share forecasts, citing a “fluid operating environment … [which] makes the very near term exceedingly difficult to forecast at the level and speed at which tariffs could go up”.

The United States and China have surprisingly agreed to a dramatic de-escalation in their trade war.

Under the agreement, the world’s two largest economies have paused their respective tariffs for 90 days.

That breaks an impasse which has brought much of the commerce between the two nations to a halt.

Critics say the talks in Geneva did not appear to yield any meaningful concessions. The two sides aim to reach a broader deal, but this takes too long to negotiate.

Also in this episode, we examine whether the US-UK trade pact will deliver real benefits, or is it symbolism over substance?

Also, Senegal is capitalising on its energy wealth to change its fortunes.