トランプ氏、国家安全保障会議の複数の高官を解雇
[３日 ロイター] - トランプ米政権の国家安全保障会議（ＮＳＣ）の少なくとも６人の高官が解雇または異動となったことが関係筋の話で明らかになった。
解雇の理由は不明だが、一部は身元調査で問題が見つかったと告げられたという。
ある関係者は、機密情報のメディアへの漏えいに対する懸念も背景にあったと述べた。別の関係者２人は、国際問題への積極介入姿勢がトランプ氏の側近らの意向に沿わないと見なされた人物が解雇の対象になったとの見方を示した。
トランプ氏は２日に極右の陰謀論者ローラ・ルーマー氏と面会しており、その際にルーマー氏はトランプ氏に忠実でない複数のＮＳＣ高官を解雇するよう進言した。
ルーマー氏は「トランプ氏と面会し、調査結果を伝えることができて光栄だ」とＸに投稿した。
同氏の提案と解雇との関連は明らかではなく、２人の情報筋によると、一部の解雇は面会の前に決定されていたという。
トランプ氏は３日、大統領専用機内で記者団に対し、複数のＮＳＣ高官が解雇されたと述べたが、詳細な説明は避けた。また、ルーマー氏が政権の要職に数人を推薦したことを明らかにしたが、今回の解雇とは関係ないと述べた。
ＮＳＣを率いるウォルツ大統領補佐官（国家安全保障担当）は、民間の通信アプリ「シグナル」を使って機密情報をやり取りしていたことなどで批判を受けている。
２人の情報筋によると、トランプ大統領は側近に対し、ウォルツ氏に腹を立てていることを繰り返し非公式に表明しており、ウォルツ氏は更迭寸前だった。しかし、ウォルツ氏の地位は今のところ安全なもようという。
私たちの行動規範： トムソン・ロイター「信頼の原則」, opens new tab
Erin Banco
トムソン・ロイター
Erin Banco is a national security correspondent focusing on the intelligence community. She covers everything from the wars in Ukraine and Gaza to U.S. covert operations overseas. She previously worked at POLITICO as a national security reporter. Banco has a long history covering the Middle East region, from Cairo to Baghdad to Aleppo where she's reported on the Arab Spring and its aftermath, including the civil war in Syria and the rise of ISIS. Her 2017 book, Pipe Dreams, focuses on the development of the oil and gas industry in the northern Kurdistan region of Iraq. Banco attended The University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she majored in Arabic and journalism. She earned a master's in public administration from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in 2014.
Gram Slattery
トムソン・ロイター
Gram Slattery is a White House correspondent in Washington, focusing on national security, intelligence and foreign affairs. He was previously a national political correspondent, covering the 2024 presidential campaign. From 2015 to 2022, he held postings in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Santiago, Chile, and he has reported extensively throughout Latin America.
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The Independent
3 days ago
- The Independent
Death, violence and endless delay: Inside Africa's most troubled energy project
Campaigners have demanded the UK government pull its funding for a natural gas mega project in Mozambique – alleging that it breaches Britain's human rights and environmental obligations. The project in question is a $20 billion (£15bn) liquified natural gas (LNG) development located in the Cabo Delgado region of Mozambique. The project, called Mozambique LNG, has been halted since 2021 after violence from an Isis-backed group led to 183 contractors being trapped in a hotel for two days, with 10 people killed when apparently trying to escape, including British national Philip Mawer. In all, the ongoing insurgency in the area has resulted in an estimated 6,000 deaths since the conflict began in 2017, with some 600,000 people displaced. In a letter seen by The Independent, campaign group Oil Change International (OCI) argues that the violence and other issues over the protection of the project makes a potential $1.15bn investment by UK Export Finance, a department of the UK government untenable. Continuing to finance the project is also not compatible with environmental commitments made in 2021 to no longer finance fossil fuels abroad, OCI argues. A tale of violence, delay and legal action was never meant to be the story of Mozambique's foray into natural gas, after some 180 trillion cubic feet of gas was discovered off the country's coast in 2010. In 2016, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected 34 per cent GDP growth for Mozambique by 2021. However, actual economic growth was around 2.5 per cent. TotalEnergies, the French energy firm, is currently in the process of trying to re-start the project by the middle of this year. 'The security situation has improved," CEO Patrick Pouyanne told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Gas conference earlier this month. Pouyanne's ambitions received a big boost in March when the US Export-Import Bank re-approved financial support worth $4.7bn for the project, boosting TotalEnergies' hopes of restarting the project. But the future of Mozambique LNG remains up in the air, with the British export credit agency still considering whether to recommit to its $1.15bn pledge – having joining with 33 countries, including the US, to sign a pledge to end public finance for fossil fuel projects abroad while hosting the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021. According to OCI campaigner Adam McGibbon, if the UK pulls out of the deal then the entire financial arrangement is expected to collapse. 'We know of at least one major bank involved in the deal that has said they will also pull out if the UK does,' he says. The legal letter sent by OCI argues that the funding of the LNG project in Mozambique goes against the UK's obligations under international law to promote human rights in business both domestically and abroad. The letter highlights the UN's Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which state that companies and nations must ensure that human rights are respected in relation to business operations. A UK Export Finance spokesperson said: 'UK Export Finance is currently in talks with project sponsors and other lenders regarding the latest status of the LNG production project in Mozambique. 'We take reports of alleged human rights infringement extremely seriously and are looking further into the matters.' 'The Qatar of Africa' Observers at the time the gas was discovered off the coast of Mozambique suggested that the country – one of the world's poorest – could transform into the 'Qatar of Africa'. A number of massive projects aiming to ship the gas around the world in the form of LNG were soon proposed. TotalEnergies' Mozambique LNG project stands out for its sheer size, with the $20bn in financing a figure roughly the same size as Mozambique's entire GDP. The 65 trillion cubic feet of gas it was expected to deliver is the equivalent of six years of current EU gas demand. But in March 2021, the 'force majeure' declaration was made, which enables parties to renege on an agreement due to unforeseen external circumstances. It came after Islamist insurgents captured swathes of territory in the Cabo Delgado region, and at least 1,400 people were left killed or missing presumed dead. Earlier this year French authorities began investigating TotalEnergies over potential corporate manslaughter, after survivors and relatives of victims of the event accused the energy giant of failing to protect its workers. In a statement shared with The Independent, a spokesperson for TotalEnergies said that they will ' cooperate with this investigation', but that 'the company categorically rejects' the accusations. 'Mozambique LNG's teams provided emergency assistance and mobilised their resources to evacuate more than 2,500 people (civilians, employees, contractors, and subcontractors) from the site where the Mozambique LNG project is located at the time of the attacks,' the spokesperson said. But some say the need to resettle people so that the land can used for the project has aided recruitment for the insurgents. 'The local population is being deprived of jobs, in a scenario where pressure on land is increasing, where people are losing access to land, losing access to natural resources,' wrote local analyst Joao Feijo earlier this year. 'The discontent that is created here is very great and this kind of discontent is capitalised on by these violent groups. Many individuals joined this group because they had no other alternative,' he added. Signs of discontent can be found in villagers claiming that they have not been sufficiently compensated for giving up land that most rely on for subsistence farming, according to evidence collected by local NGO Justica Ambiental, after Mozambique LNG was given rights to 6,625 hectares of land to build its liquefaction terminal. 'We agreed that the company would take our areas, but when they took our areas – the forests and fields – and they didn't want to pay us, they denied it,' said Neto Agostino Paulo resident of Macala Village, in footage captured by Justica Ambiental in summer 2024. Fellow Macala villager Adija Momade Sumail Nkabwi said: 'The company came here to lie to us that they were going to compensate us for our property that they had occupied, leaving us with false expectations'. The spokesperson for TotalEnergies told The Independent that prior to the force majeure announcement, 89 per cent of compensation payments had been paid within six months of the signing of compensation agreements, and 66 per cent were paid within 90 days. 'The Force Majeure situation has prevented the full implementation of the relocation and compensation process and has slowed down the exercise,' they said. 'Drill baby, drill' For OCI's Adam McGibbon, the violence and displacement witnessed in Cabo Delgado is a 'classic example of the resource curse': The phenomenon where resource-rich countries with abundant natural resources ironically end up with a multitude of problems. Nigeria and Angola – both oil-rich countries plagued by corruption and inequality – are oft-cited examples of countries to have suffered this fate in Africa. At the same time, it has also been said that given the low living standards of countries like Mozambique, any opportunity to bring in billions of dollars of foreign investment is a good thing. Some, like former Irish President Mary Robinson, have argued that African nations should be allowed to extract natural gas to develop. But there are growing concerns that the economic benefits originally conceived in Mozambique LNG might not ever materialise, even if the project goes ahead as planned. For all the talk of ' Drill baby, drill ' coming from Donald Trump in the White House right now, the prospects of a major new LNG production terminal are much weaker than in 2020. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and subsequently shut off pipeline gas flows to Europe, planned new LNG facilities in the US and Qatar have driven up projections of global LNG capacity. An increase of nearly 50 per cent is currently on the horizon, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). This ' LNG glut ', as the IEA describes it, is exacerbated by renewables continually beating targets in Europe and Asia, as well as a global push for 'energy security' that did not exist in 2020, and which is making governments less inclined to rely on expensive liquefied gas imports for energy. 'If and when TotalEnergies' Mozambique LNG project gets off the ground, it will be adding further supply into a market characterised by oversupply and lacklustre demand,' says Simon Nicholas, from IEEFA, a think tank. 'This can hardly be a surprise: There is a long history in Sub-Saharan Africa of fossil fuel projects doing nothing to boost development in the host country.' If global gas markets are oversupplied, there is a risk that Mozambique LNG will become a 'stranded asset', which will plummet in value – or even become a liability for Mozambique. Even a 'moderate-paced transition' away from fossil fuels globally would lead to Mozambique seeing gas revenues of just 20 per cent of what they would be in a slow-paced transition, a report from the think tank Carbon Tracker has found. The authors described countries looking to exploit oil and gas assets for the first time as making a 'significant gamble'. 'Huge economic costs' TotalEnergies has also structured its LNG deals in a way that activists have warned is disadvantageous to Mozambique, with revenues Mozambique set to come in the mid-2030s and 2040s, think tank IISD has said. This means that if the project does not see out its lifespan, TotalEnergies and other partners will have seen an outsize share of profits so far, with Mozambique losing out. Mozambique also faces 'substantial economic risks' related to investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS), a separate report from Columbia University found last year. ISDS are lawsuits where foreign investors sue countries where they have invested if they believe the government has violated the terms of the agreement. Mozambique's international investment agreements allow foreign investors to bypass the national judicial system in such disputes, the report found, while 'stabilisation clauses' protect investments from unexpected regulatory changes or new fiscal rules, potentially preventing Mozambique enacting new legislation to transition away from fossil fuels. 'What they have basically done is said Mozambique cannot invest in climate action without paying huge economic costs,' says Daniel Ribeiro, a Mozambican activist with Justica Ambiental. Such an arrangement is likely to 'only amplify social tensions in Cabo Delgado,' if little money is seen to reach local people while a Western company makes large profits, warns Ribeiro. Given the insurgency, delays, and economic concerns, it might seem the simplest thing for Mozambique to do would be to try and pull out of the deal. However, the country has racked up government debts since gas was discovered, using expected future gas revenues as collateral for borrowing. But expectations have not matched reality. The year 2016 also saw a corruption scandal rock the country after it was found that members of the Mozambican Government had secretly taken out loans for themselves from London-based banks, using assurances of future LNG gas revenues to do so. A 2023 report from Debt Justice found that the Mozambican government has been paying back some of those loans. Mozambique's external national debt more than doubled between 2010 and 2018, according to CEICC data, while Friends of the Earth has warned that potential corruption arising from the 'mere promises of LNG development' may have already cost the country more than any actual profit the project could generate for the country over its lifetime. For Ribeiro, who lives in the Mozambican capital of Maputo, the priority for the country should be investing in renewables and climate change adaptation. 'My main message is that the cost of climate change is going to be far greater than any profits from Mozambique LNG, and that should be the priority,' he says. The country is considered one of the most climate-vulnerable on the continent, exposed to extreme weather concerns including cyclones, droughts and floods. Cyclone Kenneth, which hit Cabo Delgado in 2019, caused damage estimated at $300m. But the Trump administration has a different idea about what is good for the country. Weeks before confirming its $4.7bn loan for Mozambique LNG, the US government shut down the USAID-backed Power Africa programme's operations in the country – with an emphasis on renewable energy – which has been leading efforts to boost energy access, in a country where only 40 per cent of the country's population has access to electricity. 'Cycle of death' The push to resume the Mozambique LNG project also comes despite the fact that the Islamist insurgency very much remains a threat. While insurgents no longer control full towns and villages, they have become more agile, and have stepped up the number of road blocks in recent weeks, according to local media. 'There are still believed to be several insurgency units of hundred or so people, and they still have the ability to make attacks and destabilise the area,' says Ribeiro. 'And every time they suffer losses, they continue to be able to recruit. Why? Because we are still not dealing with the economic and social drivers of the problem,' he adds. The EU is currently funding Rwandan troops to help protect the region - but this arrangement is also under threat due to accusations Rwanda has been supporting rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as allegations that the Mozambican government is using units trained by the EU for protest suppression. For Marisa Lourenço, an independent risk analyst in Southern Africa, the threat of violence is 'definitely still there' in Cabo Delgado. She believes that while TotalEnergies will be able to securely lock down its site on the coast, it remains unclear if doing so is worth the money. 'TotalEnergies can secure the site. But is the infrastructure cost worth it? Will it recoup its sunken costs? Probably not. TotalEnergies rushed into taking on this project, and I think it regrets it,' she believe. For Mozambique, meanwhile, it remains clear for Ribeiro that the best option is for the country to pull out of the project. 'Pulling out will cause a whole host of problems in the short term, but it will help us emerge from this cycle of death,' he says. So long as the project continues, the Western world can turn a blind eye to what is happening in Mozambique, by imagining that it is financially supporting the country, believes Ribeiro. But if the project fails, then the country can focus on other development pathways that actually benefit the people. 'It's like a chronic condition that keeps flaring up, for which there is no cure' he says. 'Sometimes you just need to take the bullet.'
Reuters
3 days ago
- Reuters
Morning Bid: Trump-Musk bust-up smolders
LONDON, June 5 (Reuters) - What matters in U.S. and global markets today Donald Trump's hotly anticipated meetings with the leaders of the world's two other biggest economies ended up being sideshows compared to his online bust-up with billionaire backer Elon Musk. It's Friday, so today I'll provide a quick overview of what's happening in global markets and then offer you some weekend reading suggestions away from the headlines. Today's Market Minute * White House aides scheduled a call between Donald Trump and Elon Musk for Friday, Politico reported, after a huge public spat that saw threats fly over government contracts and ended with the world's richest man suggesting the U.S. president should be impeached. * U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping confronted weeks of brewing trade tensions and a battle over critical minerals in a rare leader-to-leader call on Thursday that left key issues to further talks. * China has signalled for more than 15 years that it was looking to weaponise areas of the global supply chain, a strategy modelled on longstanding American export controls Beijing views as aimed at stalling its rise. The scramble in recent weeks to secure export licences for rare earths shows China has devised a better, more precisely targeted weapon for the trade war. * By any measure, the recent resilience of U.S. stocks is remarkable, with Wall Street powering through numerous headwinds to erase all its tariff-fueled losses and move into positive territory for the year. Reuters columnist Jamie McGeever explains why the rally may still have some juice left in it. * There are some tentative early signs that weak thermal coal prices are starting to boost import demand among Asia's heavyweight buyers China and India. Read Reuters Columnist Clyde Russell to find out more. Trump-Musk bust-up smolders For markets trying to navigate everything from creeping signs of labor market weakness to the latest European Central Bank easing, the spat between the U.S. president and the world's richest man proved more than a distraction. It remains to be seen if it overshadows the May payrolls report later on Friday. The extraordinary sparring match drew in other major political and business figures and included potentially seismic accusations and threats. In turn, the share price of Musk's Tesla .TSLA plummeted almost 20% at one point, dragging Wall Street stock indexes and crypto tokens deep into the red. The public feud appeared to cool off somewhat overnight and allowed stock futures to regain some lost ground. But the fact that the spat overshadowed the other major events of the day was another marker of this administration's unpredictability. The substance of the row was over Trump's "one big beautiful" fiscal bill that Musk thinks is a "disgusting abomination" due to the amount of spending. The bill, which has yet to be passed by the Senate, is expected to add $2.4 trillion to the U.S. debt over the next decade, based on CBO estimates. The vast bulk of this will likely be incurred over the next four years. In the background, the call between Trump and China's President Xi Jinping delivered no breakthroughs in the trade row apart from warmer words and an agreement to resume talks. The Oval Office meeting with Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz was relatively positive about trade and diplomatic issues. Earlier in the day, the ECB cut rates again as expected and suggested that there may be a pause at its next meeting and that it could be near the end of its easing cycle now that 'real' inflation-adjusted rates are back near zero. The euro hit a six-week high on Thursday regardless, although it gave back those daily gains today. Rising weekly U.S. jobless claims, meantime, cast a shadow over today's release of the May employment report. Consensus forecasts are for a slowdown in payroll growth to 130,000. Treasury yields , which ebbed and flowed all day on the conflicting signals from the trade meetings and stock gyrations, are back hovering at the week's lows ahead of the jobs report. Even though Federal Reserve officials continue to signal caution about the uncertain outlook ahead, markets are now priced for a resumption of Fed cuts by September. Into the already confusing mix, the Treasury released its annual report on potential currency manipulation overseas, adding Switzerland and Ireland to its watchlist, which already includes China, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam. The list likely carries more heft than usual amid multiple tense trade negotiations. Markets assume the U.S. may pressure other countries to let their currencies appreciate versus the dollar as part of deals to avert severe tariffs being re-imposed next month. The Swiss National Bank responded on Friday by saying it would intervene in currency markets where necessary to keep inflation on track. Intervention to cap a super-strong franc has been a critical monetary tool used over the past decade and may need to be tapped again now that Swiss inflation has returned negative just as the SNB's key interest rate is set to return to zero in June. Elsewhere, China's yuan slipped against the dollar while falling to a near two-year low versus its major trading partners on Friday as the Trump-Xi call fell short of many expectations. Stock markets overseas were mixed on Friday as Wall Street remained on edge and the U.S. jobs report loomed. In the euro zone, first-quarter GDP was revised higher to show twice the growth originally estimated: 0.6% quarter-on-quarter, leading to an annual rate of 1.5%. India's central bank cut key rates by a larger-than-expected 50 basis points to 5.5%, its steepest cut in five years. It also slashed its cash reserve ratio - funds that banks are required to hold - by 100 bps to 3% in a surprise move aimed at boosting lending and speeding up policy transmission. In single stocks, Tesla shares recovered around 5% in Frankfurt on Friday, having closed down 14% in New York yesterday amid the Trump-Musk spat. It lost about $150 billion in market value yesterday, which caused the erstwhile member of the 'Magnificent Seven' megacaps to drop to ninth in the list of most-valuable firms behind Broadcom and Berkshire Hathaway. Broadcom's shares (AVGO.O), opens new tab, however, fell 4% in extended trading overnight as its forecast-beating earnings seemed to underwhelm the Street. In Bank of America's weekly tally of fund flows, U.S. stocks saw outflows of $7.5 billion, the third week of exits, while European shares saw inflows of $2.6 billion, the eighth week of inflows. Weekend reading suggestions * 'BLUE BONDS': European countries should seize the moment to boost the size and liquidity of jointly-issued euro sovereign debt, and a solution could be to replace a proportion of the stock of national bonds with senior Eurobonds, or 'blue bonds'., opens new tab So says a 'working document' from Peterson Institute senior fellow and former IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard in a paper jointly written with Citadel's Angel Ubide. * NUCLEAR BLIND SPOTS: United Nations nuclear watchdogs appear to have lost track of some critical elements of Iran's nuclear activities since U.S. President Donald Trump ditched a 2015 deal that imposed strict restrictions and close supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Reuters Francois Murphy and John Irish report on key blind spots that include not knowing how many centrifuges Iran possesses or where the machines and their parts are produced and stored. * OCEAN ECONOMY: Trade in the global 'ocean economy', opens new tab hit as much as $2.2 trillion in 2023, about 7% of total world trade, but this trade is increasingly threatened by climate change and environmental problems, the United Nations trade and development arm UNCTAD showed in a report this week. The ocean economy grew faster than the world economy at large in the five years to 2020 and an estimated 100 million jobs depend on it. * 'TRUMP DOCTRINE': The emerging foreign policy under President Donald Trump resembles a 'look the other way' doctrine, opens new tab or a 'none of our business' doctrine, argues former George W. Bush State Department official Richard Haass on Project Syndicate. "The U.S. sought to change the world, annoying some and inspiring others. Those days are gone, in some ways for better, but mostly for worse. The US has changed. It is coming to resemble many of the countries and governments it once criticized." * MAGNETIC FEW: A small team in China's Ministry of Commerce decides the fate of the global auto industry, one rare earth magnet export permit at a time. China holds a near-monopoly on rare earth magnets, a key component in electric vehicle motors, and it added them to an export control list in April as part of its trade war with the United States. Reuters' Laurie Chen and Lewis Jackson show how it falls to the Bureau of Industrial Security and Import and Export Control, part of China's Ministry of Commerce, to review export permits for the rare earth magnets, vital for car motors, wind turbines and even U.S. F-35 fighter jets. * FINANCE AND AI: Artificial intelligence advances in the financial sector, opens new tab offer enhanced data analysis, risk management and capital allocation, but there are problems too, according to a paper on CEPR's VoxEU website. As AI systems become more widespread, they introduce challenges for regulators tasked with balancing the benefits of innovation with the need for financial stability, market integrity, consumer protection and fair competition. * DRONE ATTACK: Ukraine's 'Operation Spider's Web', opens new tab last weekend used smuggled drones to attack bomber aircraft deep inside Russia, and the 'remarkable event' could affect the future of conflict, argues Council on Foreign Relations fellow Michael Horowitz. The attack "clearly shows that even targets deep in a country's territory could now be at risk". * IMF EUROPE: The case for closer European economic integration, opens new tab has become more compelling as external challenges multiply, according to Alfred Kammer, director of the International Monetary Fund's European Department. Stressing the need for the completion of the single market, Kammer said capital markets integration has been too slow and that cross-border flows have been frustrated by persistent fragmentation. "If history is a guide, Europe can turn adversity to advantage." * ALPINE TRUSTS: Liechtenstein is examining tightening control of scores of Russian-linked trusts abandoned by their managers under pressure from Washington. Reuters' John O'Donnell and Oliver Hirt cite sources in reporting that the country, one of the world's smallest and richest, is home to thousands of low-tax trusts, hundreds with links to Russians. Chart of the day Supply chain stress ticked up in May, data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said on Thursday. The bank noted that its Global Supply Chain Pressure Index for May rose to 0.19 from -0.28 in April, only the second time it stood in positive territory this year and the highest reading since the 0.20 seen in August of last year. Although the index remains subdued compared to the post-pandemic surge, growing concerns about the impact of the tariff war - particularly the impact of China's restrictions on rare earth and minerals exports on the global auto industry - will ensure policymakers keep a close eye on these pressures for any signs of re-emerging inflation. Today's events to watch * U.S. May employment report (8:30 AM EDT), April consumer credit (3:00 PM EDT); Canada May employment report (8:30 AM EDT) Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, opens new tab, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
Trump aides ‘to broker peace talks' with Elon Musk after feud
Update: Date: 2025-06-06T07:45:00.000Z Title: Donald Trump Content: US president told Politico, 'Oh it's OK,' and, 'It's going very well, never done better,' when asked about his public breakup with billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the news outlet reported on Thursday. White House aides have scheduled a call on Friday with Musk to broker a peace, Politico reported. On Thursday, Trump and Musk escalated their disagreement about the US budget bill into a big public argument on social media. When asked about Musk's criticism of his 'Big, Beautiful Bill', the US president told reporters: Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will any more. Trump also said he was 'very disappointed in Elon'. In return, Musk published a flurry of posts that stepped up his feud with the president and went on to claim that without him Trump would have 'lost the election' before bemoaning what he called 'such ingratitude'. Meanwhile, a district judge in Boston has blocked the Trump administration's ban on Harvard's international students from entering the United States after the Ivy League university argued the move was illegal. Harvard had asked the judge, Allison Burrough, to block the ban, pending further litigation, arguing Trump had violated federal law by failing to back up his claims that the students posed a threat to national security. More on both of these stories in a moment, but first, here are some other key developments: Musk also suggested Trump should be impeached and that JD Vance should replace Trump, warning that Trump's global tariffs would 'cause a recession in the second half of this year' and claimed Trump was in the Jeffrey Epstein files. The White House described the Epstein assertions as an 'unfortunate episode', in a statement to CNN. Meanwhile, Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump ally and Elon Musk critic, suggested there were grounds to deport the tech billionaire, who has US citizenship. Bannon told the New York Times: 'They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately.' Poland's foreign minister poked fun at Musk late on Thursday, returning to a social media spat from March after the Tesla and SpaceX boss spectacularly fell out with Trump. Warsaw's top diplomat Radoslaw Sikorski found himself embroiled in an extraordinarily public clash with Musk and US secretary of state Marco Rubio in March after he said Ukraine may need an alternative to the Starlink satellite service. Trump's pick to be the next US surgeon general has repeatedly said the nation's medical, health and food systems are corrupted by special interests and people out to make a profit at the expense of Americans' health. Yet as Casey Means has criticised scientists, medical schools and regulators for taking money from the food and pharmaceutical industries, she has promoted dozens of health and wellness products – including specialty basil seed supplements, a blood testing service and a prepared meal delivery service – in ways that put money in her own pocket. A review by The Associated Press found Means, who has carved out a niche in the wellness industry, set up deals with an array of businesses.
