A major outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday disrupted a large portion of the internet, taking down apps, websites and online tools used by millions of people around the world, before services were eventually restored.
From banking apps and airlines to smart home devices and gaming platforms, the hours-long breakdown revealed how much of modern life depends on cloud’s infrastructure.
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Here is what we know:
What happened and what caused the AWS outage?
At about 07:11 GMT, Amazon’s cloud service experienced a major outage, meaning some of its systems stopped working, which disrupted many popular apps and websites, including banks, gaming platforms and entertainment services.
The problem started in one of AWS’s main data centres in Virginia, its oldest and biggest site, after a technical update to the API – a connection between different computer programmes – of DynamoDB, a key cloud database service that stores user information and other important data for many online platforms.
The root cause appears to have been an error in the update that affected the Domain Name System (DNS), which helps apps find the correct server addresses. A DNS works like the internet’s phone book, turning website names into the numeric IP addresses that computers use to connect to servers.
Because of the DNS issue, apps could not find the IP address for DynamoDB’s API and were unable to connect.
As DynamoDB went down, other AWS services also began to fail. In total, 113 services were affected by the outage. By 10:11 GMT, Amazon said that all AWS returned to normal operations, but there was a backlog “of messages that they will finish processing over the next few hours”.
At the time of publication, Downdetector, a website that tracks internet outages based on user reports, was still showing problems with platforms such as OpenAI, ESPN and Apple Music.
A cloud is a way of storing and using data or programmes over the internet instead of on your computer or other physical storage devices.
When people say something is “in the cloud”, it means the files, apps or systems are running on powerful computers (called servers) in data centres owned by companies like Amazon (AWS), Google or Microsoft, not on your personal device.
In this case, AWS allows companies to rent computing power and storage. It supplies the technology that runs websites, apps and many online services behind the scenes.
One of AWS’s core services is DynamoDB, a database that stores important information for companies, such as customer records. On Monday, Amazon reported that customers were unable to access their DynamoDB data.
AWS is the biggest cloud service provider in the world.
Cloud outages are not rare, but they have become more noticeable as more companies rely on these services every day.
“The fallout impacted people across a number of different spheres,” Joshua Mahony, the chief market analyst at Scope Markets, told Al Jazeera. [But] of course this kind of comes with the territory with tech companies; the key is they can resolve it quickly, and it doesn’t cost them a lot of money.”
He said Amazon would likely weather the storm from the incident.
“You’re looking at something that is relatively contained,” he said. “Amazon Web Services has cornered 30 percent of the market alone. Their users are not going to suddenly jump ship. Their businesses are deeply ingrained.”
Which services and apps went down?
The outage affected dozens of websites, including Snapchat, Pinterest and Apple TV, according to Downdetector.
Other communication apps were also affected including: WhatsApp, Signal, Zoom and Slack; gaming services such as Roblox, Fortnite and Xbox; and places like Starbucks. Etsy also experienced issues.
In the United States, people were having issues with financial apps too, including Venmo.
Some users said their Ring doorbells and Alexa speakers stopped working, while others could not access the Amazon website or download books on their Kindles.
The language app Duolingo and creative tool Canva were among those reporting errors on their websites, and several media organisations were hit, including the Associated Press news agency, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Banks, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and AI firm Perplexity also reported issues, along with US airlines Delta and United.
Why did so many major apps go offline at once?
When AWS had its outage, it was not just Amazon’s tools that were affected. Thousands of other companies that use AWS for storage, databases or web hosting were also hit. These companies include many major apps that rely on AWS to run key parts of their systems.
“Whenever we see these headlines, the first thought that goes through everybody’s mind, that sends a shiver up the spine, is, ‘Is this one of those cyberattacks? Is this a military or intelligence-led thing that has led to this disruption?’ And in this case, it’s not,” Bryson Bort chief executive of the cybersecurity company Scythe told Al Jazeera.
“In fact, most of the time, it isn’t. It’s usually human error.”
How did Amazon respond?
AWS acknowledged the outage and said engineers were “immediately engaged” to fix the problem.
AWS said it worked on “multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery”. It also reported that the main issue had been fully resolved, though some users continued to face minor delays as systems recovered.
The company also said it would publish a detailed post-event summary explaining what happened.
An aerial view of an Amazon Web Services Data Center, known as US East 1, in Ashburn, Virginia [Jonathan Ernst/Reuters]
The White House has launched an aggressive public relations campaign promoting a narrative of economic strength during the first six months of United States President Donald Trump, with claims of his policies fueling “America’s golden age”.
But an Al Jazeera analysis of economic data shows the reality is more mixed.
Trump’s claims of his policies boosting the US economy suffered a blow on Friday when the latest jobs report revealed that the country had added a mere 73,000 jobs last month, well below the 115,000 forecasters had expected. The only additions were in the healthcare sector, which added 55,000 jobs, and the social services sector added 18,000.
US employers also cut 62,075 jobs in July — up 29 percent from cuts in the month before, and 140 percent higher than this time last year, according to the firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, which tracks monthly job cuts. Government, tech, and retail sectors are the industries that saw the biggest declines so far this year.
It comes as this month’s jobs and labour turnover report showed an economic slowdown. There were 7.4 million open jobs in the US, down from 7.7 million a month before.
The Department of Labour on Friday released downward revisions to both the May and June jobs reports, significantly changing the picture the White House had previously painted.
“For the FOURTH month in a row, jobs numbers have beat market expectations with nearly 150,000 good jobs created in June,” the White House said in a July 3 release following the initial June report.
The Labor Department had reported an addition of 147,000 jobs in June. On Friday, it sharply revised down that number to just 14,000. May’s report also saw a big downgrade from 144,000 to only 19,000 jobs gained. Trump has since fired the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs data, alleging that the data had been manipulated to make him look bad.
Even before the revisions, June’s report was the first to reflect early signs of economic strain tied to the administration’s tariff threats, as it revealed that job growth was concentrated in areas such as state and local government and healthcare. Sectors more exposed to trade policy – including construction, wholesale trade, and manufacturing – were flat. Meanwhile, leisure and hospitality showed weak growth, even in peak summer, reflecting falling travel demand both at home and abroad.
The administration also claimed that native-born workers accounted for all job gains since January. That assertion is misleading as it implies that no naturalised citizens or legally present foreign workers gained employment.
However, it is true that employment among foreign-born workers has declined – by over half a million jobs – claims that native-born workers are replacing foreign-born labour, are not supported by the jobs data.
Jobs lost in sectors with high foreign-born employment, including tech, have been abundant, driven by tariffs and automation, particularly AI. In fact, recent layoffs in tech have been explicitly attributed to AI advancements, not labour displacement by other groups.
Companies including Recruit Holdings — the parent company of Indeed and Glassdoor, Axel Springer, IBM, Duolingo and others have already made headcount reductions directly attributed to AI advancements.
Wage growth
The pace of rise of wage growth, an indicator of economic success, has slowed in recent months. That is partly due to the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates steady in hopes of keeping inflation stable.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, wages have been outpacing inflation since 2023, after a period of declining real wages following the COVID pandemic.
Wage growth ticked up by 0.3 percent in July from a month prior. Compared with this time last year, wage growth is 3.9 percent, according to Friday’s Labor Department jobs report.
Earlier this year, the White House painted a picture that wage growth differed between the era of former President Joe Biden and now under Trump because of policy.
“Blue-collar workers have seen real wages grow almost two percent in the first five months of President Trump’s second term — a stark contrast from the negative wage growth seen during the first five months of the Biden Administration,” the White House said in a release.
However, Biden and Trump inherited two very different economies when they took office. Biden has to deal with a massive global economic downturn driven by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump, on the other hand, during his second term, inherited “unquestionably the strongest economy” in more than two decades, per the Economic Policy Institute, particularly because of the US economy’s rebound compared with peer nations.
Inflation
Inflation peaked in mid-2022 during Biden’s term at 9 percent, before falling steadily because of the Federal Reserve’s efforts to manage a soft landing.
A July 21 White House statement claimed, “Since President Trump took office, core inflation has tracked at just 2.1 percent.” On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett said “inflation is cooling” in a post on X.
However, the Consumer Price Index report, which tracks core inflation – a measure that excludes the price of volatile items such as food and energy – was 2.9 percent in the most recent report and overall inflation was at 2.7 percent in June.
Prices
The most recent Consumer Price Index report, published July 15, shows that on a monthly basis, prices on all goods went up in June by 0.3 ,percent which is 2.7 percent higher from this time last year.
Grocery prices in particular are up 2.4 percent from this time last year and 0.3 percent from the prior month. The cost of fruits and vegetables went up 0.9 percent, the price of coffee increased by 2.2 percent and the cost of beef went up 2 percent.
New pending tariffs on Brazil, as Al Jazeera previously reported, could further drive up the cost of beef in the months to come.
Trump has pointed to falling egg prices in particular as evidence of economic success, after Democrats attacked his administration over their price in March. He has even gone so far as to claim that prices are down by 400 percent. That figure is mathematically impossible – a 100 percent decrease would mean eggs are free.
During the first few months of Trump’s term egg prices surged, and then dropped due to an outbreak of, and then recovery from, a severe avian flue outbreak, which had been hindering supply – not because of any specific policy intervention.
In January, when Trump took office egg prices were $4.95 per dozen as supply was constrained by the virus. By March, the average egg price was $6.23. But outbreak and high prices drove away consumers, allowing farmers with healthier flocks to catch up on the supply side. As a result, prices fell to an average of $3.38. That would be a 32 percent drop since the beginning of his term and a 46 percent drop from their peak price – far from the 400 percent Trump claimed.
Trump also recently said petrol prices are at $1.98 per gallon ($0.52 per litre) in some states. He doubled down on that again on Wednesday. That is untrue. There is not a single state that has those petrol prices.
According to Gasbuddy, a platform that helps consumers find the lowest prices on petrol, Mississippi at $2.70 a gallon ($0.71 per litre) has the cheapest gas, and the cheapest petrol station in that state is currently selling gas at $2.37 ($0.62 per litre).
AAA, which tracks the average petrol price, has it at $3.15 per gallon ($0.83 per litre) nationwide, this is up from the end of January when it was $3.11 ($0.82 per litre).
While petrol prices have gone down since Trump took office, they are nowhere close to the rate he has continually suggested. In July 2024, for instance, the average price for a gallon of petrol nationwide was $3.50 ($0.93 per litre).
GDP
On Wednesday, the White House said that “President Trump has reduced America’s reliance on foreign products, boosted investment in the US”, citing the positive GDP data that had come out that morning.
That is misleading. While the US economy grew at a 3 percent annualised rate in the second quarter, surpassing expectations, that was a combination of a rebound after a weak first quarter, a drop in imports – which boosted GDP, and a modest rise in consumer spending.
The data beneath the headline showed that private sector investment fell sharply by 15.6 percent and inventories of goods and services declined by 3.2 percent, indicating a slowdown.
Manufacturing
The administration recently highlighted gains in industrial production, pointing to a boost in domestic manufacturing. Overall, there was a 0.3 percent increase in US industrial production in June. That was after stagnating for two months.
There have been isolated gains, such as increases in aerospace and petroleum-related sectors—1.6 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively.
But production of durable goods — items that are not necessarily for immediate consumption— remained flat, and auto manufacturing fell by 2.6 percent last month as tariffs dampened demand. Mining output also decreased by 0.3 percent.
According to the Department of Commerce’s gross domestic product report, manufacturing growth among non-durable goods has slowed. While there was a 1.3 percent increase, that’s a decline from 2.3 percent in the previous quarter.
This could change in the future, as several companies across a range of sectors have pledged to increase US production, including carmaker Hyundai and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, which just pledged a $50bn investment over the next five years.
Trade deals and tariffs
In April, the White House replaced country-specific tariffs with a 10-percent blanket tariff while maintaining additional levies on steel, cars, and some other items. It then promised to deliver “90 trade deals in 90 days.” That benchmark was not met. By the deadline, only one loosely fleshed out deal — with the United Kingdom — had been announced. As of 113 days later, the US has announced comparable deals with just a handful more countries and the European Union. The EU deal still needs parliamentary approval.
Contrary to the administration’s claims, tariffs do not pressure foreign exporters — they are paid by US importers and ultimately are likely to be passed on to US consumers. Companies, including big box retailer Walmart and toymaker Mattel, have announced price hikes as a direct result. Ford, for example, raised prices on three Mexico-assembled models due to tariff pressures.
To protect their own economies, many countries have pivoted their trade policies away from the US. Brazil and Mexico recently announced a new trade pact.
The White House and its allies continue to defend tariffs by highlighting the increased revenue they bring to the federal government, which is true. Since Trump took office, the US has brought in more than $100bn in revenue, compared with $77bn in the entire fiscal year 2024. The price of imports for consumers has only risen about 3 percent, but many expect that will change as the import taxes are passed on to consumers.
The White House did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
United States inflation rose last month to its highest level since February as President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs push up the cost of a range of goods, including furniture, clothing, and large appliances.
Consumer prices rose 2.7 percent in June from a year earlier, the Labor Department said on Tuesday, up from an annual increase of 2.4 percent in May. On a monthly basis, prices climbed 0.3 percent from May to June, after rising just 0.1 percent the previous month.
Worsening inflation poses a political challenge for Trump, who promised during last year’s presidential campaign to immediately lower costs. The sharp inflation spike after the pandemic was the worst in four decades and soured most Americans on former President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy. Higher inflation will also likely heighten the US Federal Reserve’s reluctance to cut its short-term interest rate, as Trump is loudly demanding.
The central bank is expected to leave its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent range at a policy meeting later this month.
Trump has insisted repeatedly that there is “no inflation”, and because of that, the central bank should swiftly reduce its key interest rate from its current level. Yet Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said that he wants to see how the economy reacts to Trump’s duties before reducing borrowing costs. Minutes of the central bank’s June 17-18 meeting, which were published last week, showed only “a couple” of officials said they felt rates could fall as soon as the July 29-30 meeting.
Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation increased 2.9 percent in June from a year earlier, up from 2.8 percent in May. On a monthly basis, it picked up 0.2 percent from May to June. Economists closely watch core prices because they typically provide a better sense of where inflation is headed.
The uptick in inflation was driven by a range of higher prices. The cost of gasoline rose 1 percent just from May to June, while grocery prices increased 0.3 percent. Appliance prices jumped for the third straight month. Toys, clothes, audio equipment, shoes, and sporting goods all got more expensive, and are all heavily imported.
“You are starting to see scattered bits of the tariff inflation regime filter in,” said Eric Winograd, chief economist at asset management firm AllianceBernstein, who added that the cost of long-lasting goods rose last month, compared with a year ago, for the first time in about three years.
Winograd also noted that housing costs, one of the biggest drivers of inflation since the pandemic, have continued to cool, which is holding down broader inflation. The cost of rent rose 3.8 percent in June compared with a year ago, the smallest yearly increase since late 2021.
“Were it not for the tariff uncertainty, the Fed would already be cutting rates,” Winograd said. “The question is whether there is more to come, and the Fed clearly thinks there is,” along with most economists.
Trump has imposed sweeping duties of 10 percent on all imports, plus 50-percent levies on steel and aluminium, 30 percent on goods from China, and 25 percent on imported cars. Just last week, the president threatened to hit the European Union with a new 30 percent tariff starting August 1.
He has also threatened to slap 50 percent duties on Brazil, which would push up the cost of orange juice and coffee. Orange prices leapt 3.5 percent just from May to June, and are 3.4 percent higher than a year ago.
Overall, grocery prices rose 0.3 percent last month and are up 2.4 percent from a year earlier. While that is a much smaller annual increase than before the pandemic, it is slightly bigger than the pre-pandemic pace of food price increases. The Trump administration has also placed a 17-percent duty on Mexican tomatoes.
Powell under fire
The acceleration in inflation could provide a respite of sorts for Powell, who has come under increasingly heavy fire from the White House for not cutting the benchmark interest rate.
The Fed chair has said that the duties could both push up prices and slow the economy, a tricky combination for the central bank since higher costs would typically lead the Fed to hike rates while a weaker economy often spurs it to reduce them.
Trump on Monday said that Powell has been “terrible” and “doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.” The president added that the economy was doing well despite Powell’s refusal to reduce rates, but it would be “nice” if there were rate cuts, because people would be able to buy housing a lot easier.”
Last week, White House officials also attacked Powell for cost overruns on the years-long renovation of two Fed buildings, which are now slated to cost $2.5bn, roughly one-third more than originally budgeted. While Trump legally cannot fire Powell just because he disagrees with his interest rate decisions, the Supreme Court has signalled, he may be able to do so “for cause,” such as misconduct or mismanagement.
Some companies have said they have or plan to raise prices as a result of the tariffs, including Walmart, the world’s largest retailer. Carmaker Mitsubishi said last month that it was lifting prices by an average of 2.1 percent in response to the duties, and Nike has said it would implement “surgical” price hikes to offset tariff costs.
But many companies have been able to postpone or avoid price increases, after building up their stockpiles of goods this spring to get ahead of the duties. Other companies may have refrained from lifting prices while they wait to see whether the US is able to reach trade deals with other countries that lower the duties.
United States President Donald Trump’s big tax and spending bill has faced backlash from both Democrats and fiscal hawks in his own party. But one proposal that has received rare bipartisan support from the start — eliminating taxes on tips.
The Senate bill passed on Tuesday, which mirrors the House bill passed last month, would deliver this campaign promise from Trump and had also been proposed by his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
The House plan lets workers deduct all reported tips from their taxable income, while the Senate version sets limits — $18,500 for individuals or $25,000 for joint filers — and phases it out for higher earners. The tax break would expire at the end of 2028.
If this bill passes, filers could deduct some or all of those tips starting in 2026.
Economists forecast that cutting tax on tips could increase the federal deficits by $100bn over the next decade.
Many restaurant workers continue to earn the federal tipped minimum wage, or subminimum wage, of just $2.13 per hour nationally. It is slightly higher in places like New York at $3.55 per hour. The law assumes that tips will bridge the gap to reach the $7.25 federal minimum wage.
A survey cited by the White House and conducted by a fintech firm found that 83 percent of restaurant workers support a no-tax-on-tips policy. Trump’s plan has been endorsed by the National Restaurant Association.
“The inclusion of the No Tax on Tips and No Tax on Overtime provisions recognises the value of our dedicated workforce. More than two million tipped servers and bartenders stand to benefit, while the overtime measure rewards the commitment of over 13 million hourly team members across the sector,” Michelle Korsmo, president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association, told Al Jazeera in a statement.
The bill at the surface promises to put more money in the pockets of servers, bartenders, and other tipped workers. But it has been criticised by worker-centric advocacy groups and restaurant workers themselves, who caution against embracing it too quickly because it also comes with cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, which workers in the restaurant industry disproportionately rely on.
“That is like one of like the biggest fears I have right now. I rely on SNAP myself. I rely on Medicaid. At one point, I didn’t have insurance because of the whole sub-minimum wage, ” Jessica Ordenana, a server at a Chili’s Restaurant in Queens, New York told Al Jazeera.
According to One Fair Wage, about 66 percent of tipped workers in the US don’t earn enough to pay federal income tax, so eliminating tax on tips wouldn’t help the majority of restaurant workers.
To put this in perspective, a worker earning $2.13 per hour, working 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, would earn just $4,430.40 annually. Employers are legally required to make up the difference if tips don’t bring workers to $7.25/hour, totalling $15,078 per year. Federal income taxes must be paid by those who make more than $14,600 annually. Many workers still fall short due to inconsistent schedules and unreliable tipping.
Work requirements complications
Restaurant tipped workers overwhelmingly rely on services like SNAP and Medicaid, and will now face new work requirements to get them.
For instance, the “One Big Beautiful Bill” includes a Medicaid work requirement that obligates able-bodied adults aged 19 to 64 to work at least 80 hours per month to remain eligible.
For many restaurant workers, this is simply not feasible. Not because of unwillingness, but because their hours depend on consumer demand.
According to Harvard Kennedy School’s The Shift Project, which studies workplace trends, one in five service sector workers reported having not as many hours as they would like and saw a 34 percent fluctuation in the number of hours week to week.
“I’m actually having a hard time at Chili’s because they went from giving me my full like four or five days a week, to now just one day a week. It really varies week to week,” Ordenana said.
“When I ask for another day on the schedule [the manager] tells me, yeah, yeah sure. And then they don’t even put me on the schedule. So last week, I didn’t work at all,” Ordenana said.
Demand for eating out has started to slump as Americans tighten purse strings in the face of a slowing economy and uncertainty over the impact of Trump’s tariffs.
Consumer Price Index data showed that spending on eating out was flat for three months from February to April and has started to decline heading into the middle of the year.
Consumer spending is projected to drop by 7 percent over the middle of the year, according to KPMG’s Consumer Pulse report.
As a result, One Fair Wage estimates that 45 percent of restaurant workers currently enrolled in Medicaid could lose their health insurance because of the possible downturn in hours because of slumping demand.
“More tipped restaurant workers would lose their Medicaid than would gain small tax benefits. This is not the right solution,” Saru Jayaraman, founder of the advocacy group One Fair Wage told Al Jazeera.
“Why are these workers on Medicaid to begin with? Because they earn a sub-minimum wage and can’t afford to take care of themselves.”
SNAP benefits face a similar threat. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, forecasts that the tax bill could lead to as many as 11 million people, including restaurant workers, losing access to critical benefits. The House bill would cut $300bn from SNAP over the next 10 years and the Senate bill would cut $211bn.
“Those cuts have to come out of benefits or eligibility. There is just no way that cuts to administrative costs, to streamline waste, fraud, and abuse, or whatever the talking points are about thinking. Those are benefits to eligible people. To achieve that kind of savings, you have to cut benefits to people. There’s no way around it. And that’s devastating,” Ed Bolen, director of SNAP State Strategies at Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told Al Jazeera.
Nationwide, 18 percent of restaurant workers rely on SNAP benefits, including Ordenana.
“How am I going to eat? How am I gonna survive? How am I going to pay rent? And then on top of that, I might lose benefits? How is this happening in America?” Ordenana asked rhetorically.
Canada had approved a 3 percent digital tax last year in June, and the first set of payments is due on Monday.
United States President Donald Trump has announced that the US is immediately ending trade talks with Canada in response to the country’s digital services tax on technology companies, marking a clear escalation of pressure tactics.
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday, called the Canadian tax a “direct and blatant attack on our country” and said, “Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately.”
He added, “We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”
Canada had approved the Digital Services Tax Act on June 20, 2024, and it came into force shortly after on June 28. Under this, Canada will charge a tax of 3 percent on the digital services revenue a firm makes from Canadian users above 20 million Canadian dollars ($14.6m) in a calendar year.
Businesses have been calling for a pause, saying it would increase the cost of providing services, as well as risk drawing the wrath of the US government. But the Canadian federal government so far has refused and is proceeding with the plans. The Canadian Revenue Authority is set to start collecting the tax on Monday and will cover revenue retroactively from 2022.
Last week, Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne suggested to reporters that the digital tax may be negotiated as part of broader, ongoing US-Canada trade discussions, Bloomberg News reported. Those discussions seemed to have been going well, and a trade deal was expected in July. Now, the status of that deal is unclear.
Carney’s office issued a brief statement on Friday saying, “The Canadian government will continue to engage in these complex negotiations with the United States in the best interests of Canadian workers and businesses.”
‘Escalation’
“This is definitely escalation from Trump,” said Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of research and strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. “But we have seen this tactic before. Canada will need to work behind the scenes to find an off-ramp without giving in to his demands,” she said.
“Digital tax is also part of Trump’s negotiations with the European Union [which has similar levies]. Canada will need to coordinate with the EU and other partners as it contemplates its response,” Nadjibulla added.
Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Al Jazeera that while Trump’s declaration was unfortunate, it was “not surprising”, adding that it would also act as a scare tactic for the European Union, with whom the US is still negotiating its trade deal.
Tariffs on Canadian goods are bad for both the US and Canada as they increase the cost for businesses and ultimately consumers, experts say.
Canada is the second-largest trade partner for the US after Mexico, and last year, it bought $349.4bn of US goods and exported $412.7bn, according to US Census Bureau data. Canada has already been hit by Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium, as well as some auto parts and cars. The Canadian economy has started to slow down, and unemployment is at a high 7 percent.
In an emailed statement to Al Jazeera, Candace Laing, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said that while “some last-minute surprises should be expected” as negotiations approach deadlines, “our position on the Digital Services Tax has been consistent, but primarily for the reason that it’s self-defeating in nature”.
“That said, it’s a pivotal time for Canada-US relations. The tone and tenor of talks has improved in recent months, and we hope to see progress continue,” Laing said.
Employers in the United States have slowed hiring even though they added a solid 139,000 jobs in May.
While that was higher than the forecast of 133,000 jobs, it was lower than the 147,000 hires in April, Labor Department data released on Friday showed. It also sharply revised downward the data for March and April by 95,000 jobs.
The US Labor Department said the biggest gains were in the healthcare industry which added 62,000 jobs; followed by the leisure and hospitality sector which added 48,000, 30,000 of which were in food services.
The social services sector followed suit, adding about 16,000 jobs. The federal government contracted 22,000 jobs.
Industries including manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing showed little change as tariff anticipation spending slowed.
The unemployment rate held steady at 4.2 percent. Wages ticked up slightly. The average wage grew by 15 cents or 0.4 percent.
“The job market is steadily but surely throttling back. Monthly job gains are moderating, and most telling, the gains are being consistently revised lower, and not by a little bit. Indeed, after revision, monthly job gains appear to be closing in on 100,000,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told Al Jazeera.
“It [the jobs report] does signal the job market and economy are increasingly fragile as the fallout from the global trade war intensifies.”
Private payrolls also tumbled this month, according to payroll firm ADP in a report on Wednesday, which showed the US economy added only 37,000 jobs, the lowest in two years. Unlike the Labor Department report which lags by a few weeks, this report is more immediate.
“After a strong start to the year, hiring is losing momentum,” Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, said in a release.
What was particularly notable about the ADP report was the set of industries with net job losses. The manufacturing sector recorded a net loss of 3,000. Natural resources and the mining industry lost 5,000. Those losses in the goods-producing sectors were offset by a job gain of 6,000 in construction.
The only substantive gains were in the leisure and hospitality sector, a notoriously low-paying sector, which added 38,000, according to ADP. Financial services followed in the gains, adding 18,000 jobs. However, those gains were offset by losses, including in education and health, which cut 13,000 jobs. The trade and transportation and utilities sector cut 4,000 jobs.
Last month, the ADP report showed 62,000 jobs were added, in stark contrast to the Labor Department’s 147,000, because it is considered a more immediate measure.
Job openings and labour turnover
On Tuesday, the job openings and labour turnover survey or JOLTS report, which captures data at a significant lag to the Labor Department and ADP, showed there were 7.4 million open jobs in April, up roughly 191,000 from the month before.
But just because jobs are open does not mean they are being filled, according to Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
“I think that reflects some cautiousness on the part of both employers and workers,” Gould told Al Jazeera.
While job openings in sectors like trade, transportation and utilities increased, hiring actually decreased.
This comes as major employers have implemented hiring slowdowns and freezes across sectors.
American Airlines reportedly put in place a hiring freeze for flight attendants in April amid uncertainty in the travel market. The financial services company T Rowe Price slowed down its hiring. And amid a slowdown in research grants, universities have put in place hiring freezes, most recently Johns Hopkins University, which currently has 600 National Institutes of Health-funded medical research projects under way.
Hiring for small businesses declined in May by 4.4 percent compared with this time last year, according to Homebase, a payroll service provider for more than 150,000 small businesses accounting for roughly 3.8 million workers.
To forecast what to expect in the jobs market moving forward, EPI’s Gould suggests a close watch on key indicators including housing starts and factory orders, which indicate that manufacturers and construction companies will need to cut jobs if trends continue.
“Some of the government data [like the jobs and JOLTS report] takes a lot longer to sort of see trouble to catch that turning point and you might see it in the other measures a little bit faster, but there’s also a lot of volatility in them,” Gould said.
In April, residential home construction declined by 0.9 percent, the third straight month of declines, suggesting a pullback that indicates both builders and consumers are wary about building new homes and making improvements. At the same time, orders for goods made in US factories fell by 3.7 percent in April, according to the Census Bureau.
United States President Donald Trump is expected to announce the framework of a trade deal between the US and the United Kingdom on Thursday, according to people familiar with the plan.
On Wednesday, Trump said he was preparing to announce “a major trade deal with representatives of a big and highly respected country”. In a post on Truth Social, he promised it would be the “first of many”.
Investors have been waiting for Trump to ease his global trade war amid fears that prolonged uncertainty over tariffs could inflict serious damage to the world’s biggest economies.
An agreement with the UK would mark Trump’s first trade deal since he imposed tariffs on dozens of countries on April 2, a move he called “liberation day”. Separately, Trump has introduced bespoke tariffs on certain US imports, including cars and steel.
Trump has long accused other countries of exploiting the US on trade, casting his tariffs as necessary to bring jobs back to the US. He also wants to use tariffs to finance future tax cuts.
US President Donald Trump holds a letter from Britain’s King Charles as he meets with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, on February 27, 2025 [File: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters]
What could be in a US-UK trade agreement?
At the moment, most imports from the UK to the US face a blanket 10 percent tariff. The UK, like other countries, has also been hit with 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminium exports to the US, as well as a 25 percent tariff on cars and car parts.
The broad outline of a proposed deal has been clear for some time – significant reductions in US tariffs on steel and cars, with an expectation that Trump’s 10 percent general tariff will remain in place.
The UK would then be expected to reduce its own 2 percent digital services tax on US tech firms and its 10 percent tariff on car imports, and varying duties on US agricultural goods.
However, Jonathan Haskel, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, told the BBC: “Deals are limited and short-term and partial, just covering a few items. Trade agreements are broad-based and long-term.”
Today’s announcement, he suggested, is more likely to be a deal and may amount to little more than a carve-out – exemptions on certain trade barriers that Trump introduced last month.
On Thursday morning, however, Trump said the agreement was “a full and comprehensive one that will cement the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom for many years to come”.
While both governments will likely present any agreement announced today as a significant win, it is essentially about returning to the status quo – removing the newly imposed tariff barriers.
It remains to be seen how much any agreement will contribute to both countries’ economic output.
What and how much do the US and UK trade?
In 2023, the UK had an overall trade surplus with the US. The UK reported a surplus of 71.4 billion pounds ($95bn) in goods and services. Most of that headroom came from services, however.
On the goods side, the UK exported 15.3 percent of its goods to the US in 2023 – amounting to roughly 60 billion pounds ($80bn).
Machinery and transport equipment accounted for the largest share, at 27 billion pounds ($36bn), ahead of chemicals at 14 billion pounds ($19bn).
On the flipside, the US exported $77.2bn of goods to the UK in 2023. Ten percent of all goods imported by Great Britain came from the US in that year, second only to Germany.
Machinery and transport equipment accounted for the largest share, worth nearly 20 billion pounds ($27bn), followed by fuel – amounting to 18.7 billion pounds ($25bn).
On the services side, the US exported $76bn in services – things like advertising and banking – to the UK in 2023, and imported $170bn in British services. These are unaffected by tariffs.
Could the US deal serve as a blueprint for other US negotiations?
Trump’s top negotiating officials have engaged in a flurry of meetings with trade partners since the president’s “liberation day” tariff announcement on April 2.
Although Trump delayed implementing “reciprocal” tariffs for most countries by 90 days on April 9, he did raise them for China to 145 percent. Beijing, in turn, slapped a 125 percent tariff on US goods.
The reciprocal tariffs, which varied from 10 percent to 39 percent, were designed to hit countries with which Washington has large trade deficits, or that impose heavy tariffs on US goods.
Though Britain was not among the countries hit with these reciprocal tariffs, today’s announcement could set a precedent for other bilateral trade deals.
On Tuesday, Trump said he would review potential trade agreements over the next two weeks to decide which ones to accept. Last week, he said that “we [already] have potential trade deals” with South Korea and Japan.
Following his 90-day reprieve, steep reciprocal tariffs are due to be imposed on US trade partners in early July, leaving country representatives racing to avoid a full-blown trade spat with the world’s number one economy.
What stage of talks has the US reached with other countries?
China
According to data from the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the total goods trade between the US and China stood at an estimated $582.4bn in 2024.
US exports of goods to China totalled $143.5bn while US imports from China totalled $438.9bn. The upshot is that America’s trade deficit with China was $295.4bn last year, 5.8 percent higher ($16.3bn) than in 2023.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet with China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng in Switzerland this weekend for talks, which may be the first step in resolving a trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
Meetings will take place in Geneva, and are expected to address reductions on broad tariffs, duties on specific products, export controls and Trump’s decision to end “de minimis” exemptions on low-value imports.
China’s commerce ministry said last week that it was “evaluating” an offer from Washington. The Geneva meeting will be the first between the two since the announcement of Trump’s trade tariffs in April.
On Tuesday, Bessent told Fox News that “we [the US and China] have a shared interest that isn’t sustainable. And 145 percent and 125 percent is the equivalent of an embargo. We don’t want to decouple. What we want is fair trade.”
Trump has accused China of manipulating its currency to make its exports cheaper. He has also slammed Beijing for adopting what he says are market-interfering practices, such as direct government support for Chinese companies, as well as tax breaks and preferential financing.
European Union
In 2023, the EU exported 502 billion euros worth of goods to the US and imported 344 billion euros of goods from America, amounting to a goods trade surplus in the EU’s favour of 157 billion euros ($177bn).
After Trump temporarily dropped his 20 percent reciprocal tariffs on the EU in April, the EU paused retaliatory duties on 21 billion euros ($24bn) of US goods until July 14, including on Harley-Davidson motorcycles, chicken and clothing.
Since then, Brussels has said it wants to increase US goods imports by 50 billion euros ($57bn) to address the “problem” in their trade relationship.
Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s top negotiator, recently told The Financial Times that the bloc is making “progress” towards striking a deal.
But Sefcovic suggested that the EU would not accept an indefinite 10 percent tariff on its exports as a fair resolution to trade talks. He added that his “ambition” was still to strike a “balanced and fair” deal with the White House.
He also said he wants his US counterparts to take into account US services which are exported to the EU.
The EU experienced a services trade deficit of 109 billion euros ($123bn) with the US in 2023 in terms of services. Brussels exported 319 billion euros ($361bn) in services to the US that year, while importing 427 billion euros ($483bn).
Taking this into account would bring the US overall trade deficit with the EU to about 50 billion euros ($57bn), he said.
The new $57bn US deficit could be closed quickly, Sefcovic added, with deals to purchase more US gas and agricultural products. Talks are currently continuing.
India
In the first three months of 2025, India exported $27.7bn of goods (mainly pharmaceutical and engineering products) to the US, while importing $10.5bn of goods (mainly aircraft and medical goods), meaning a US trade deficit of $17.2bn.
On Tuesday, Trump revealed that India had agreed to drop all tariffs on US imports “to nothing”. New Delhi has not yet issued an official statement confirming Trump’s remarks.
At a White House event alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump said, “India has one of the highest tariffs in the world. We are not going to put up with that. They have agreed to drop it to … nothing. They wouldn’t have done that for anybody else but me.”
According to Bloomberg, India has reportedly proposed eliminating tariffs on select US imports – including steel, car parts and pharmaceuticals – as part of ongoing bilateral trade talks with Washington.
India currently imposes tariffs on US imports ranging from 5 percent to 30 percent, depending on the product category.
A zero-tariff offer would apply on a reciprocal basis and would be limited to a specific volume of goods.
Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir – On Monday this week, Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir was a bustling tourist destination. Today, it’s a ghost town.
Suspected rebels killed at least 26 people on Tuesday in the picturesque tourist resort in the deadliest such attack in 25 years in Indian-administered Kashmir, raising fears of an escalation in India-Pakistan tensions.
The Resistance Front (TRF), a little-known armed group that emerged in the region in 2019, claimed responsibility for the attack. In recent years, armed rebels who are demanding Kashmir’s secession from India, have largely spared tourists from their attacks. Tuesday’s killings have changed that.
Along the Liddar River, which winds through the picturesque valley, all the hotels have closed, and the shops stand shuttered. The town, which draws millions of visitors each year, has emptied almost overnight.
“I was so busy yesterday morning, I didn’t even have time to speak to anyone,” Mushtaq Ahmad, 45, a restaurant owner, tells Al Jazeera. By Wednesday, he had been forced to close his restaurant, and now believes the outlook is bleak.
“We are condemned forever. I don’t think the industry will recover now,” he says.
Another hotelier, Arshad Ahmad, says he had been overwhelmed by customers this year. Now, that has all changed.
“All my 20 rooms were booked for the next month,” he says. “But everything changed overnight. All my customers left early this morning. They were sad, frightened, and terrified – and rightly so.”
Among the dead at Baisaran meadow, Pahalgam, a beauty spot favoured by tourists, was local Kashmiri pony rider and guide Adil Hussain Shah, 29, who lost his life while trying to protect people.
Set amid panoramic mountains, women in colourful scarves and grey tweed pherans – long, traditional Kashmiri garments – stand outside the portico of Adil’s home in Pahalgam. Resting against the beams, they watch solemnly as representatives of India’s national television outlets and correspondents from major newspapers stream into this remote village.
“A woman whose father was killed told me that my brother confronted the terrorists and tried to reason with them not to kill innocents,” Adil’s brother, Naushad Shah, tells Al Jazeera at his home in Hapat Nar village in Pahalgam, where most of the people either work as pony riders or tourist guides, earning an income of up to $5 a day. “He tried to snatch their rifle and was trying to save the woman’s father, but he was shot in the head and shoulder,” his brother, Naushad Shah, told Al Jazeera.
Jammu and Kashmir’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah attended his funeral on Wednesday and praised his bravery.
“Terrorism has no religion. We have always taken care of tourists and have been their support in the high mountains. This tragedy will hit us in the worst ways,” Naushad says, crying.
A damaged food shack is pictured at the site of Tuesday’s attack on tourists in Baisaran near Pahalgam in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district, on April 24, 2025 [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]
A mass exodus
Amid the rising tension following the attack, which has prompted a strong response from India – including suspension of a key water-sharing treaty and the closure of the mainland border crossing to Pakistan – thousands of tourists across Kashmir have packed their bags and were seen rushing to the airport.
“I had come to Kashmir on April 21 and was planning to stay till the 28th, but now I am terrified and leaving for my home in Haryana,” 45-year-old Himani Sharma, who was staying at a hotel on the banks of Dal Lake in Srinagar city, tells Al Jazeera near the lake as she boards a taxi towards the airport with her family.
“My two kids and husband are scared.”
The Indian government issued an advisory instructing airlines to assist tourists in the face of a surge in prices for airfares, citing “an unexpected demand from tourists seeking to return to their homes” and waiving cancellation and rescheduling fees.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah wrote, “It’s heartbreaking to see the exodus of our guests from the Valley after Tuesday’s tragic terror attack in Pahalgam, but at the same time, we totally understand why people would want to leave.”
The situation is compounded by the shutdown of the national highway, the major road link between Kashmir and the rest of India, because of landslides on April 20 in the Ramban area, located 150km (93 miles) from the main city of Srinagar, that have destroyed part of the highway.
Abdullah said that while New Delhi is working to organise extra flights for people wishing to leave Kashmir, the highway between Srinagar and Jammu has been reconnected for traffic in a single direction.
“I have directed the administration to facilitate traffic between Srinagar & Jammu, allowing tourist vehicles to leave,” Abdullah wrote. “This will have to be done in a controlled and organised way because the road is still unstable in places, and we are also working hard to clear all the stranded vehicles. We will not be able to permit completely free movement of vehicles at the moment & we hope that everyone will cooperate with us.”
In Kashmir this week, people have come out in large numbers alongside regional politicians and trader guilds to protest against the killings.
In the southern district of Doda, mosques were blaring out their condemnations on loudspeakers on Wednesday. Many hotels and residents are offering free lodgings for stranded tourists and are waiving cancellation fees for those leaving the valley in distress.
Tourists wait near check-in desks at the airport in Budgam district, as they try to leave following an attack in Baisaran near south Kashmir’s Pahalgam, on April 24, 2025 [Stringer/Reuters]
But this untimely mass exit by tourists has come as a major blow to local people, many of whom rely on the tourism industry. Gulzar Ahmad Wani, 40, a taxi driver, earns up to $52 a day ferrying tourists from other parts of India to and from the three most popular resorts in Pahalgam.
“They are brought to us by travel agents. I generally make two back-and-forth rounds across three destinations in a day. One from 9am to 12noon, and the second from 1pm to 4pm,” he says.
Since the devastating attack, all his bookings have been cancelled, and the clients who had already arrived have now fled. Almost 90 percent of all tourist bookings in the region have now been cancelled, industry insiders say.
“What has happened is akin to pouring a vial of poison into the food that has just been prepared,” Wani says. “This was the peak tourist season, and we were expected to keep this momentum and earn a decent income this year.”
Wani shares a three-storey house with his siblings in Laripora, an idyllic village ringed by the majestic pine-covered forests in southern Kashmir. But the structure is 40 years old and crumbling.
He had applied for financial assistance under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, a federal government credit-linked subsidy scheme to facilitate access to affordable housing for low- and moderate-income residents.
“I had even been selected to receive the assistance. But unfortunately, it now seems that I cannot take it because I won’t be able to scrape together the rest of the money needed to build the house,” he says.
Kashmiri traders hold a candlelight vigil to denounce the attack on tourists in Pahalgam, on April 23, 2025 in Srinagar, India [Yawar Nazir/Getty Images]
Peak tourism season
According to official figures, more than 23 million tourists visited the Indian-administered region of Jammu and Kashmir in 2024, and this year, the figures had been expected to rise even higher. But tourism has suffered here before.
In 2019, when Article 370, which previously granted autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir state, was revoked, a major clampdown on Kashmiris by the Indian government took place, with police and paramilitary forces deployed in large numbers to prevent protests. People were jailed under strict pre-trial laws, the internet was suspended and government critics were subsequently arrested on “terrorism” charges. Tourism figures dropped off and continued to be flat throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
In recent years, however, numbers were rising again – backed by promotional campaigns by the Indian government.
Pahalgam is one of Indian-administered Kashmir’s most popular tourist destinations, with breathtaking landscapes perfect for photography, trekking, pony rides, fishing, river rafting and nature walks. It is surrounded by vast alpine meadows and pine forests with multiple lakes.
The place is also politically significant for New Delhi as it serves as a base camp for the annual Amarnath Yatra, one of the holiest pilgrimages for Hindus in India. Every year, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims pass through the high meadows for more than a monthlong pilgrimage.
The area has also long been a favourite Bollywood filming location, and features in classics such as Betaab, after which one of the nearby valleys too is named.
With its efforts to restore tourism, however, the Indian government has come in for accusations of trying to suggest that Kashmir had returned to a state of normalcy. One parliamentarian even called tourism a “cultural invasion” and accused the government of politicising tourism in a region where critics can still be arrested using draconian laws under which a person can be held in detention for lengthy periods of time without a trial.
India’s decision to host a G20 tourism meeting in 2023 in Kashmir was also criticised by Fernand de Varennes, UN special rapporteur on minority issues, as “seeking to normalise what some have described as a military occupation by instrumentalising a G20 meeting and portraying an international ‘seal of approval’.”
Given its significance in the region, the area is heavily patrolled by the army, paramilitary troops, and local police.
There are multiple security checkpoints at entry points, and during the annual Hindu pilgrimage, which is set to begin on July 3, security is heightened through the use of drones, surveillance equipment, and road checks. Against that backdrop, Tuesday’s attack has shocked locals and visitors alike.
“In a scenario where normal life is heavily under surveillance, it is the government that has to be held accountable. This incident has hurt the locals most; we are in grief,” a local handicraft shopkeeper in the main city of Srinagar tells Al Jazeera, requesting anonymity.
People carry the body of Vinay Narwal, a navy officer, who was killed in Tuesday’s attack near Pahalgam in south Kashmir, for his ‘last rites’ in Karnal in the northern state of Haryana, India, on April 23, 2025 [Bhawika Chhabra/Reuters]
‘Taking us back to the 1990s’
Mir Imaad was taking pictures of the vibrant tulip buds adorning his hotel in Pahalgam on Tuesday when he noticed helicopters whirring overhead. He says the unusual activity caused him to suspect that something must be amiss. “Then, someone brought a female visitor who had been lodging at our hotel back to her room. Her husband had been killed in the attack,” the 31-year-old hotelier tells Al Jazeera.
By the next day, thousands of fear-stricken tourists had packed up their belongings and begun racing to the airport in taxis through the highways flanked on both sides by sprawling mustard fields.
Meanwhile, mass cancellations by tourists have put about 500 hotel owners in Pahalgam in a fix. Imaad has paid out $2,400 in refunds, and others are doing the same.
“We hired skilled professionals over the last few years. Our chefs and the staff overseeing the catering are among the best in the region,” says Imaad. “This hotel was built in 1938 and had a huge reputation to which we had to live up. But now we are confronted with the staff that simply doesn’t want to be here. I don’t know what will happen now.”
Economic experts also believe the news of the attack on Tuesday will discourage direct investment into Kashmir. “The precursor for good economic activity is how much good news is coming out of the state,” says Ejaz Ayoub, a Srinagar-based economist. “When tourism increases, a sense of positivity towards investment increases. In the last three years, the investment ratio in the region’s GDP has increased – albeit marginally.”
But Ayoub also believes that the tourist exodus will not undermine the region’s economy in the way it is being projected in the mainstream Indian media.
“Tourism’s overall contribution to our GDP is marginal. The hotel industry [in this region] earns $324m annually, which accounts for only 1 percent of our GDP. When considering the trickle-down effect through the secondary and tertiary sectors, which includes tour operators or individuals associated with the gig-economy like the ponywallas, the figure can expand to $720m. But that’s still very little compared to agriculture’s contribution.”
Ayoub, however, said the damage to tourism will affect the collection of a form of indirect tax called Goods and Services Tax (GST). “Indirect taxation decreases due to lower trade volumes,” he added.
Tourists silhouetted sit on the bank of Dal lake on April 24, 2025, near Srinagar, Kashmir, India [Yawar Nazir/Getty Images]
‘Anxious about the future’
Abdul Wahid Wani, 38, a pony-ride operator, was one of the first people to reach the bloody scene to look for survivors on Tuesday after a friend in the police alerted him to the tragedy.
He climbed the scree-laden path leading to Baisaran meadow, where the carnage took place. Since the route is rugged and uphill, only pony ride operators like Wani can carry people up to the beauty spot.
“I couldn’t have lifted all the injured survivors myself,” he explains. So, he shot a video of the scene and shared it on a WhatsApp group with hundreds of his fellow ponywallas, as they are called. “Some of them arrived quickly,” Wahid says. “That’s how we rescued them.”
The videos, which went viral all over India, now form the crucial evidence that police are relying on as part of their probe into the incident.
But while he is locally being hailed as a hero, Wani is plagued with anxiety about how he will earn a living from now on. On Thursday, the flights landing in Srinagar were nearly empty while the airport itself was packed with the panicked tourists looking to catch the first flight on their way out.
Some Indian nationals have even put their plans to visit the Valley on hold. “I was planning to come this year. But now, I won’t,” said Bhaskar Bhatt, who lives in New Delhi.
In the current season, which Wani described as the “best”, he was earning up to $11 a day, a decent income in this area.
“I could afford to get my children to study at a private school,” he said. Wani has two daughters aged 14 and 11, and a son who is seven years old.
“I don’t want my children to suffer from the lack of education that I have. I don’t want them to have a hardscrabble life as a pony operator.”
