Madagascar Courts UAE Investment to Offset US Tariff Threat
Madagascar is seeking to boost investments from the United Arab Emirates to spur growth in its tourism and energy sectors, a partnership that's become more urgent as its faces steep tariffs from the US.
President Donald Trump in April threatened a 47% reciprocal tariff — one of the world's highest — on the Indian Ocean island nation, before replacing it with a 10% universal levy. He's given most countries until July 8 to strike a deal or risk reinstatement of the tariffs.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Carbon Capture Efforts Slow as Trump Targets Clean Energy Projects
Since U.S. President Donald Trump took office, the number of applications for carbon capture projects has nosedived, signaling a slowdown in the efforts to commercialize the relatively new technology to remove carbon from the air. Since the Trump Administration signaled it would be axing clean energy subsidies and tax credits, the nascent carbon capture sector, led by some of the biggest U.S. oil firms, has faced increasing uncertainty about the viability of many a result, the application process for Class VI wells, which are used to inject carbon dioxide (CO2) into deep rock formations, has stalled this year. The number of submitted Class VI applications plummeted by 55% to just four in the first quarter of 2025, compared to an average of nine applications per quarter over the last two years, according to data from Enverus Intelligence Research. The January-March quarter saw the fewest applications submitted in three years—since the first quarter of 2022, Enverus said in a report last no Class VI permits were approved in the first quarter of 2025, compared to three approvals in the fourth quarter of 2024 under the Biden Administration. At the end of 2024, Enverus expected about 40 approvals to go through this year. Now it sees only 14 Class VI wells approvals. The revised expectation is 'mostly attributed to updated approval times from Class VI regulators while they wait on applicants for responses to notices of deficiency and requests for additional information during the review process,' said Brad Johnston, an analyst at Enverus Intelligence Research. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) aims to review complete Class VI applications and issue permits when appropriate within approximately 24 months. However, the waiting time was about 30 months as of 2023, also due to a rush of applications at the time. Several U.S. states have requested – and received – the so-called Class VI well primacy, or primary enforcement authority delegated by the EPA, to issue permits. These include North Dakota, Wyoming, West Virginia, and Louisiana, with Texas moved into the Proposed Rulemaking Phase in the EPA's approval process for state primacy. A 2 million metric ton per annum (mtpa) carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Louisiana has recently received a draft permit from the state's Department of Energy and Natural Resources. This was the first such permit issued since the state obtained Class VI primacy over a year ago, Enverus said. But overall, lengthy permitting times and the many unknowns regarding clean energy incentives and tax credits under the Trump Administration have cooled enthusiasm about carbon capture technology among U.S. companies. One notable exception was Occidental, which is pursuing direct air capture (DAC) technology that is different from carbon capture and storage. In a first-of-its-kind approval in April, Occidental and its subsidiary 1PointFive received Class VI permits from the EPA to sequester carbon dioxide from their STRATOS DAC facility, currently under construction in Ector County, many carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects reached the end of the road after U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright terminated last week 24 awards to projects, primarily CCS and decarbonization initiatives. The Department of Energy found that 'these projects failed to advance the energy needs of the American people, were not economically viable and would not generate a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.' The awards to projects would have used $3.7 billion in taxpayer-funded financial assistance by DOE. 'While the previous administration failed to conduct a thorough financial review before signing away billions of taxpayer dollars, the Trump administration is doing our due diligence to ensure we are utilizing taxpayer dollars to strengthen our national security, bolster affordable, reliable energy sources and advance projects that generate the highest possible return on investment,' said Secretary Wright. Under Secretary Wright's memo on responsible financial assistance, DOE evaluated each of these 24 awards and 'determined that they did not meet the economic, national security or energy security standards necessary to sustain DOE's investment.' In response, the Carbon Capture Coalition, which includes companies and conservation policy organizations, said that the cancellation of the projects 'is a major step backward in the nationwide deployment of carbon management technologies.' 'Moves like this risk ceding America's energy and technological leadership to other nations,' the coalition added. The tax credit for carbon capture remains, for now, but some analysts say it's not enough to help the industry take off. The $85 per metric ton tax credit 'is and continues to be insufficient to justify widespread deployment of post-combustion carbon capture', Rohan Dighe, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie, told the Financial Times. The limitations to transferability of the credits after 2027 will also kill many small projects, Brenna Casey, a carbon capture associate at BloombergNEF, told FT. The carbon capture market could soon reach a point in which only the oil majors could afford to be active in it. But even majors such as ExxonMobil have conditioned their investments in low-carbon energy solutions on favorable policy and regulation. At the end of 2024, Exxon said it is pursuing up to $30 billion of low-emission opportunities between 2025 and 2030, but 'execution of these opportunities is contingent on the right policy and regulation as well as continued technology and market development.' By Tsvetana Paraskova for More Top Reads From this article on
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The key dynamics shaping a busy month of primaries: From the Politics Desk
Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team's latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail. We may be entering the summer of an off-year, but June is still shaping up to be a big election month. Steve Kornacki breaks down what to watch in the New Jersey, Virginia and New York City primaries in the coming weeks. Plus, Scott Wong talks to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries about his 'more is more' strategy for taking on President Donald Trump — and whether Democrats' message is breaking through. Sign up to receive this newsletter in your inbox every weekday here. — Adam Wollner Have a question for the NBC News Politics Desk about Trump's 'big, beautiful bill,' this month's elections or anything else happening on the world of politics? Send your questions to politicsnewsletter@ and we may answer them in a future edition of the newsletter. The next three weeks will bring primaries in the three most closely watched races of 2025. Here are the key dynamics to watch: New Jersey: Both parties will nominate gubernatorial candidates in the Garden State on June 10. Barring a complete shock, this will serve as a coronation for Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who was already leading by wide margins in the polls when President Donald Trump endorsed him several weeks ago. The Democratic contest isn't as clear-cut, but there is a favorite: Rep. Mikie Sherrill has separated herself from the six-candidate field in the most recent polling and enjoys strong backing from the state's still-powerful (though probably not as much as before) county political machines. The combination of Trump's surprising strength in New Jersey last year and Gov. Phil Murphy's unexpectedly close re-election in 2021 has Democratic leaders apprehensive about their November prospects. Many concluded that Sherrill, a Navy veteran who flipped a GOP-held district to win her House seat in 2018, would be their most electable option. Worth keeping an eye on, though, is a pair of mayors. Jersey City's Steve Fulop is portraying his candidacy as a war against political bossism and has aligned with local anti-establishment candidates. And Newark's Ras Baraka will try to couple support from Black voters (over 20% of the primary electorate) with appeal to the party's broader progressive base, especially after his high-profile arrest at an ICE detention facility. But both have lagged in polling and their overlapping appeal to progressives only complicates each other's path. Once the matchup is set, the general election will feature a clash of two long-term trends. On the one hand, New Jersey has only elected a governor from the party that controls the White House once in the last nine races — an ominous harbinger for the GOP. But it also hasn't handed the same party power in Trenton for three straight elections since 1961 — a feat Democrats are trying to pull off this year. Something will have to give. Virginia: On June 17, Virginia Democrats and Republicans will officially set their slates for the fall. Both gubernatorial nominations are already settled: Lt. Gov. Winsome Earl-Sears for the Republicans and Rep. Abigail Spanberger for the Democrats. And the general election picture already looks clearer in Virginia than in New Jersey. Polling has consistently shown Spanberger — who, like Sherrill, flipped a Republican seat en route to Congress in 2018 — ahead of Earl-Sears. And in 11 of the last 12 gubernatorial races, Virginians have sided against whichever party controlled the White House at the time. New York City: And then there's the mayoral primary in the Big Apple on June 24, the city's first with a ranked-choice voting system. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is the front-runner on the Democratic side, but the two most recent polls show Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani emerging from the crowded field as his main competition. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has tapped into support from voters who tend to be younger, college-educated and progressive. He also runs significantly better with white voters than nonwhite voters. While certainly large, Mamdani's coalition is not broad enough demographically to win the primary — at least not yet. But his rapid rise presents some interesting potential scenarios. If Mamdani ends up toppling Cuomo, the former governor could still run in the general election anyway, on the ballot line of a party he just created. It's a move that his father, Mario Cuomo, tried back in 1977, after he fell short in the Democratic mayoral primary. There's also the leftist Working Families Party, which also has its own general election ballot line. Its leaders have indicated they have no plans to let Cuomo have that line even if he wins the Democratic primary. More recently, the party formally recommended that voters rank Mamdani as their top choice in the Democratic primary. If Mamdani misses narrowly in the Democratic primary, could he still run this fall as the WFP's candidate? Would someone else? On top of all of this, New York City Mayor Eric Adams is still officially running. He's bypassing the Democratic primary but has ballot lines of his own for the general election. Few think Adams can actually win in November, but his potential to grab a sizable chunk of votes could make a third-party bid more enticing for another candidate. In the chaotic opening weeks of President Donald Trump's second administration, Democrats debated whether to push back on every norm-shattering executive action, or pick and choose their spots and hope Trump would prove to be his own worst enemy. That debate has been settled, with Democrats aggressively taking on Trump in the courts, in the streets and on social media. At the center of that messaging strategy is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who privately has been urging his members to be more visible in their districts and on digital media, and has stepped up his own activity in recent weeks. Rather than his regular, once-a-week news conference in the Capitol, Jeffries now holds as many as three press briefings with reporters each week in Washington. He is also making weekly appearances on popular podcasts outside the traditional political media circuit, including those hosted by Stephen A. Smith, Tony Kornheiser, Jon Stewart, Katie Couric and Scott Galloway. 'We are in a 'more is more' environment. These aren't ordinary times, and they require an extraordinary response,' Jeffries said in a phone interview with NBC News on Tuesday, one of roughly two dozen digital media interviews he has participated in since February. After suffering a bruising defeat in the last presidential election and still years out from the next one, Democrats are without a clear national leader. And the party's base has displayed a hunger for a new and younger generation of voices to take charge. That has opened the door for Jeffries, 54, to assume an even bigger role in the party, even as he is still coming into national prominence and — less than three years removed from succeeding Nancy Pelosi as House Democrats' leader — not yet a household name. The flood-the-zone strategy is a marked change for a politician with a reputation for being cautious and calculated. But if that game plan pays off and Democrats manage to win control of the House in next year's midterm elections, Jeffries would be the favorite to become speaker — and the party's most powerful member in Washington. 'He's meeting the moment,' Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., an influential progressive in the party, told NBC News in an interview. 'And that's why I say he's, right now, the leader of the Democratic Party.' Read more from Scott → 👀 With friends like these: Days after his White House send-off, Elon Musk slammed the GOP's massive bill for Trump's agenda as a 'disgusting abomination.' Read more → ✂️ Rescissions: The White House sent congressional leaders a request to claw back $9.4 billion in approved spending, codifying DOGE cuts to USAID, NPR and PBS, among other areas. Read more → ⏱️ Clock's ticking: Trump's ambitious plan to broker dozens of trade deals with some of the United States' closest trading partners has begun to show cracks, with his 90-day pause for most country-specific tariffs winding down in just over a month. Read more → 🔵 Succession: Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas officially jumped into the race to be the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, setting up a generational battle to succeed the late Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin also set the special election to fill the seat previously held by Connolly for Sept. 9. ⚖️ In the courts: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka is suing interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba, alleging she violated his constitutional rights and defamed him when he was arrested at a federal immigration detention center last month. Read more → ➡️ Phase two: Democratic attorneys general from California, Massachusetts and New Jersey laid out their plans for the next phase of the legal battle against Trump in an interview with NBC News. Read more → 🌀 Just kidding: Acting Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator David Richardson was joking when he said he was not aware of the upcoming hurricane season, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. Read more → Follow live politics updates → That's all From the Politics Desk for now. Today's newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner. If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at politicsnewsletter@ And if you're a fan, please share with everyone and anyone. They can sign up here. This article was originally published on
CNN
34 minutes ago
- CNN
Analysis: How Trump's DOGE cuts package could put GOP in a bind
DOGE isn't dead, both President Donald Trump and Elon Musk assured last week as Musk said goodbye to the Trump administration. But the already dicey effort Musk led could soon become even more so. That's because the White House is now asking Congress to sign off on some of the cuts that the Department of Government Efficiency sought to make unilaterally. And the first set of cuts the White House has sent over to Capitol Hill epitomizes the dilemmas that lay ahead for Republicans. The dollar amount – $9.4 billion – is a tiny fraction of the federal budget, and the administration appears to be targeting low-hanging political fruit. But polling suggests the votes could still be tough ones. The idea is to make the cuts more permanent by having Congress pass what's known as a 'rescissions' package. This would codify the DOGE cuts into law, so that they can't be reversed by the next administration or overturned by the courts. Musk and fiscal conservatives have pushed for this, aiming to put a more lasting stamp of approval on cuts that have failed to live up to Musk's billing and could ultimately prove to be even less than meets the eye. The effort is also important as many of the same Trump allies have balked at the price tag of the president's 'Big Beautiful Bill' and want evidence that the administration is serious about spending cuts. Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday afternoon that the House had received the White House's request and vowed to put it on the floor for a vote 'as quickly as possible.' A lot will depend on how it's received and whether it passes. Such legislation needs only a majority of both chambers, meaning Republicans have the votes if they keep their side in line. 'We are intending to be strategic, work with Congress, see what they're willing to do, and if they pass this, we'll send up many more,' Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought told Fox News on Tuesday. But doing that is no small task. Spending cuts are often popular in theory but much less so in practice, when you get into specific things that will be taken away. Musk's and DOGE's efforts quickly fell out of favor with the American public, with polls showing both have become rather unpopular and Musk's efforts to impact a high-profile state Supreme Court election in Wisconsin falling flat. It's not difficult to see this legislative effort struggling and Trump – who has always talked much more about cutting spending than actually doing it – getting cold feet. Let's take a look at what's in the first rescissions package, and how it could test Republicans politically. The White House is aiming to make good on a long-standing conservative push to end federal funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS. This accounts for $1.1 billion of the rescissions package, according to Johnson's office Tuesday. But just because conservatives have been pushing this for a long time doesn't mean it's popular. A March Pew Research Center poll showed Americans supported continuing the funding rather than ending it, 43% to 24%. (About one-third of Americans offered no opinion.) Republicans and Republican-leaning voters were more in favor of the cuts, but even there it didn't seem to be a huge priority. While 44% wanted to end the funding, 19% – 1 in 5 – wanted to continue it. And past polling suggests this could be even more unpopular than those numbers suggest, depending on how the cut is sold. A 2017 Quinnipiac University poll, for instance, asked about the prospect of eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Americans back then said it was a 'bad idea,' 70% to 25%. Getting 7 in 10 Americans to align on any given issue is difficult, but this one did the trick. This could also be a hurdle for some key Republican votes in the Senate and the closely divided House. Some Republicans from rural areas could worry this would decimate key news and educational programming in their areas. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, for instance, wrote an op-ed last month hailing public broadcasting and warning the administration against cuts. She called it an 'invaluable resource that saves lives in Alaska.' She noted some local stations in Alaska rely on the funding to operate – for as much as 30% to 70% of their budgets – at relatively low cost to taxpayers. Indeed, as CNN's Brian Stelter noted in April, the annual budget of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is about $535 million, or $1.60 per taxpayer. That makes it a tiny drop in the bucket when it comes to budget-cutting – but one the people who rely on the programming could quickly notice, particularly if it suddenly disappears. The Pew survey found about 1 in 5 American adults say they regularly get news from both NPR and PBS. It's a group that skews toward Democratic-leaning Americans, but still includes about 1 in 10 Republican-leaning ones. The lion's share of the money in the first rescissions package ($8.3 billion, according to Johnson's office) deals with what it calls 'wasteful foreign aid spending.' That gets to a key target of Musk and DOGE: the US Agency for International Development (USAID). And Republicans – including former USAID cheerleaders like Secretary of State Marco Rubio – have largely been in lockstep against this funding. This one is a little more complicated, politically. One the one hand, Americans generally think we send too much money overseas. A February KFF poll showed 58% of Americans said the United States spends 'too much' on foreign aid. But people also vastly over-estimate the amount of money involved. The same poll showed the average person estimated foreign aid was 26% of the budget; the actual number is about 1%. When the pollster told respondents about the actual figure, the percentage who said the government spends 'too much' dropped from 58% all the way down to 34%. Among Republicans – the group most critical of foreign aid – it dropped from 81% to 50%. We've also seen that Americans generally don't like the idea of ending most or all foreign aid. A March Pew poll showed Americans opposed ending 'most' USAID programs, 45% to 35%. The gap was similar in a March Reuters/Ipsos poll that asked about shuttering USAID. And a February CNN poll conducted by SSRS showed Americans said Trump shutting down entire government agencies like USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was a 'bad thing,' 53% to 28%. The rescissions package doesn't seem to go that far. Based on what OMB teased on social media Tuesday, it instead focuses on programs that might sound ridiculous to some. The administration has often misstated what these programs actually do, but many of them are obscure-sounding. They involve things like cultural programs in foreign countries and often things like DEI, gender equity and LGBTQ issues. And there, the administration could be on more solid ground. A Pew survey, for instance, showed that just 34% of Americans support foreign aid for 'art and cultural activities.' But some of the measures could test public support. For instance, the administration said it's requesting a rescission for $135 million in funding to the World Health Organization, which polls suggest is relatively popular. According to OMB, that includes money for circumcision, vasectomies and condoms in the African country of Zambia – part of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program. PEPFAR is popular. And the Pew survey showed 83% of Americans support using foreign aid for 'providing medicine and medical supplies to developing countries.' Ultimately, the GOP's ability to sell these cuts – and feel confident voting for them – will depend in large part on whether Americans just see them broadly as cuts to obscure foreign aid programs, or if they view them as relatively modest investments in important programs. The real drama could come if the White House asks for more significant USAID cuts on programs beyond the ones they've cited in their talking points – programs that account for a much larger chunk of that 1%. The administration has struggled, for instance, to account for its changes to PEPFAR, which reports indicate have jeopardized the war against AIDS in Africa. The administration seems to view these initial rescissions cuts as the most politically palatable. But even they could test lawmakers' tolerance for signing off on DOGE's work – and could determine whether Republicans in Washington will press forward in actually voting on cuts.
