Iran-Israel war: Russia cannot be an 'objective mediator' says the European Union
04:23
16/06/2025
At least 30 Palestinians killed in new shootings near food distribution centers
Middle East
16/06/2025
Explosions heard across Tehran after Israeli military warns residents of Iranian capital to evacuate
Middle East
16/06/2025
Israel alone 'cannot facilitate regime change', US involvement would be essential
Middle East
16/06/2025
Will Donald Trump get involved in Iran?
Middle East
16/06/2025
Heightened Israel-Iran escalation: Fearing Trump's wrath, will the G7 fizzle out as a 'damp squib'?
Middle East
16/06/2025
Israel says Tehran residents to 'pay the price and soon' after Tel Aviv, Haifa attacks
Middle East
16/06/2025
What will be the G7's position regarding the war between Iran and Israel?
Middle East
16/06/2025
Iran is seriously considering closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz
Middle East
16/06/2025
Will Israel's defence system hold in the face of Iran's airstrikes?
Middle East
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Fashion Network
41 minutes ago
- Fashion Network
Tariff 'stacking' adds another headache for US importers
That's because Hamer's 30% tariff was stacked on top of existing tariffs, including a tariff on Chinese steel products that varies depending on the amount of steel used in a fixture. When U.S. President Donald Trump adds a new tariff the old ones don't go away. Some companies will pay far more because of a phenomenon called tariff stacking, the latest complication for U.S. importers trying to navigate Trump's on-again, off-again trade war. The reality for many U.S. businesses is that their tariff bills are often far higher than the headline number touted in trade talks. Tariff stacking applies to any country exporting to the U.S., but the most extreme cases tend to be with China, where the U.S. has accumulated a long list of sometimes hefty existing tariffs, implemented under different provisions of U.S. trade law. The latest twist is an announcement that the two sides have agreed to a 55% tariff, but that's in part only an estimate of what the average pre-existing tariffs were. Hamer isn't sure what his tariff total will be now, but he figures it couldn't get much worse. 'Hopefully this will bring the (tariff) number down - and some of the clients who've been sitting on the sidelines will go ahead and place orders,' he said, 'because it's been all over the map.' Hamer is searching for suppliers outside China to avoid his stacked tariffs. He's checked Mexico and is planning a trip to India next month as part of the effort. In the meantime, he is passing through all the tariffs. "The customers pay the tariff," said Hamer. "When it comes in, we say, 'Here's the tariff bill.'" Many businesses are still hoping for a reprieve from President Donald Trump's trade war. Federal courts, including the U.S. Court of International Trade, have ruled that Trump's imposition of tariffs exceeded his authority. A federal appeals court is considering the administration's appeal to that ruling, and the tariffs remain in effect while that plays out, a process expected to take months. Some are counting on tariff exemptions, a popular tool used by companies during the first Trump administration to get goods imported without the taxes. Michael Weidner, president of Lalo Baby Products in Brooklyn, is one of them. 'We believe there should be an exemption for baby products,' he said. 'Same with toys.' The Trump administration has said it will resist creating such carve-outs. And even during the last trade war, it was a complex process. For instance, Lalo imports a 'play table' from China that happens to be classified under a customs category that was subject to a 25% tariff under a part of trade law that aims to fight unfair trade practices. So Weidner has been paying 55% tariffs on those, thanks to stacking. Trump campaigned on a vow to use tariffs to pull manufacturing back to U.S. shores and collect revenue to help fund a major tax cut. His battle with China quickly spiraled into a conflagration with the U.S. imposing a 145% across-the-board tariff that shut down much of the trade between the world's two largest economies. The agreement to curb the tariffs is part of a larger effort to negotiate individual deals with most of the U.S.'s trading partners. On Wednesday, a White House official said the 55% figure represents a sum of a baseline 10% 'reciprocal' tariff Trump has imposed on goods from nearly all U.S. trading partners; 20% on all Chinese imports because of punitive measures Trump has imposed on China, Mexico and Canada associated with his accusation that the three facilitate the flow of the opioid fentanyl into the U.S.; and finally pre-existing 25% levies on imports from China that were put in place during Trump's first term. 'It sounds like that's the way he's thinking of the baseline - 55% - at least for some products," said Greta Peisch, a trade lawyer at Wiley Rein in Washington. Ramon van Meer's business selling filtered shower heads from China may yet survive the trade war, though he's not certain. That depends entirely on whether he can can manage the multiple tariffs placed on his $159 shower heads, which became a viral sensation on Instagram. When the Trump administration trimmed tariffs on China to 30% in May, van Meer's tariff bill was actually 43%. That's because the 30% tariff was stacked on top of an existing 13% tariff. It's an improvement over the 145% tariffs slapped on Chinese imports in April, when he halted shipments entirely. 'At least I can afford to pay it,' said van Meer, chief executive of Afina, based in Austin, Texas, referring to his latest calculations. "And I don't have to raise the price by that much."
France 24
an hour ago
- France 24
What's not being discussed at G7 as Trump shapes agenda
The G7 gathering has been carefully planned to ensure US President Donald Trump agreed to attend at all and Canada is keen to avoid a public dust-up. Official agenda items are the global economic outlook and energy security, with organizers naming priorities as critical mineral supply chains and AI adoption, as well as "international peace and security." Last year's Group of Seven summit in Italy, when Joe Biden was US president, ended with a joint declaration promising better ties with Africa, action on poverty, and determination to tackle "the triple crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss." Such subjects are almost totally absent at the G7 talks this year in order to placate Trump, said John Kirton of the G7 Research Group at the University of Toronto. "There's no point in putting them on the agenda if the Americans will just refuse to discuss them. And if you put too many of them on, Trump wouldn't even come," he said. Kirton added that the schedule was also crowded out by crises from Ukraine to the Middle East, with G7 nations increasingly concerned with defense spending rather than development aid. For the G7 -- founded 50 years ago by the world's leading economies at the time -- such a lurch in priorities poses major questions about the club's purpose and future. But, for the Trump administration, the group is just returning to its original function of promoting global economic stability and growth. "Canada knows its audience and if it wants a unified outcome of this year's G7 leaders summit then it should stick close to traditional G7 values while avoiding controversial topics," said Caitlin Welsh of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'Retreat' from world problems The impact on the ground has alarmed many campaigners who say the G7 reduction of foreign aid is hitting millions of world's poorest, threatening food supplies, water, education and health. "The G7's retreat from the world is unprecedented and couldn't come at a worse time," said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar. 'Rather than breaking from the Trump administration's cruel dismantling of USAID and other US foreign assistance, G7 countries like the UK, Germany and France are instead following the same path." Oxfam calculated that G7 nations, which provide three-quarters of all official development assistance, are cutting aid by 28 percent between 2024 and 2026. No joint communique is expected at the end of the summit on Tuesday to avoid the potential failure for all members to agree on the text. But there is one way that the non-US members of the G7 are fighting back -- discreetly. An unexpected item on the agenda is to "boost collaboration to prevent, fight and recover from wildfires." The wildfire issue "allows us to talk about climate change without saying it directly because we know that unfortunately not everyone likes it," a Canadian official speaking anonymously told AFP. Both Canada and the United States are increasingly affected by major forest fires -- worsened by climate change -- including blazes that burnt down swathes of Los Angeles earlier this year. Professor Kirton said the wildfires agenda tactic was "clever rather than sneaky." "They saw wildfires as a point of entry, and one that would work with Donald Trump." Kirton highlighted that wildfires are currently causing damage across the US states of North and South Carolina, both Trump heartlands. "That's getting into his MAGA base," he said.
Euronews
an hour ago
- Euronews
IDF military campaign may last for weeks, former Israeli official says
Israel and Iran exchanged a barrage of airstrikes on Monday, the fourth day of fighting in an escalating conflict that began after an unprecedented Israeli attack on Tehran last week. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the aerial attack targeting Iran's nuclear, missile, and military complex that his forces carried out early Friday was an operation to "roll back" the Iranian threat to Israel's survival. According to a former Israeli spokesperson, Eylon Levy, the current Israeli campaign may go on longer than expected. Speaking in an interview with Euronews, Levy said, "We are likely to be looking at several weeks at least of Israeli military action because the Iranian regime's nuclear program is massive." "Let's remember the Iranian Regime hasn't built one or two reactors to develop uranium for medical isotopes or civilian energy. It built its nuclear facilities often underground; Fordow is under a mountain because it's part of a nuclear weapons programme." Levy added that Iran began the war with 360 ballistic missile launchers. Israel has destroyed one-third of them, he said. "It started with 2,000 ballistic missiles. Most of them are still intact. So this is going to take Israel time to neutralise the regional threat of the Iranian regime, but so far, Israel has been working very quickly," Levy explained. As of Monday afternoon, at least 220 people have been killed across Iran by Israeli strikes, while the death toll from Iran's missile strikes in Israel was at least 24. As concerns about the conflict widening into a regional war grow, Iran has said it won't negotiate a ceasefire while under Israeli attack. But Levy believes Tehran is not in any position right now to dictate the terms of a negotiation. "Israel has killed the head of its military, the head of its air force, and the intelligence; it's taken out a third of its ballistic missile launchers, and it controls the skies of Iran, and it is bombing Iran's illegal nuclear weapons facilities at will," he said. "If the Iranian regime wants to peacefully dismantle the enrichment program it built in order to build nuclear weapons in order to destroy Israel, it is welcome to do so. But it's not going to get an unconditional ceasefire so that it can go back to dragging out time and holding fake negotiations while racing towards a nuclear bomb". Tehran accuses the United States of being complicit in Israel's attacks on the Islamic Republic, something Washington denies, despite conflicting statements from US President Donald Trump. During late Friday's emergency session at the United Nations Security Council, the US urged Tehran that it would "be wise" to negotiate over its nuclear programme. Germany has announced it is increasing security around Israeli and Jewish sites within its borders due to growing concerns about potential attacks from Iran. France has also put similar measures in place. Amichai Chikli, Israel's Minister for Diaspora Affairs, spoke to Euronews, warning that the threat to Jewish communities and Israeli embassies is now greater than ever. "It is obvious that after we managed to hit the top leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, they would want revenge and to hit Israeli embassies, [and] Jewish communities, and therefore we need to be much more alert than usual," Chikli said. "We are monitoring everything we can based on OSINT. And obviously we have security services who are working with foreign security services to make sure that embassies, Jewish community centres are being protected." The recent protests in Brussels have raised alarm for the safety of the Jewish community in Belgium. At least 75,000 people participated in the "red line" protests against Israel's actions in Gaza on Sunday. Chikli expressed his concerns regarding the violence and anti-Semitic sentiment visible during the march. "We are highly concerned about what's happening now in Belgium. We see violent demonstrations. We see signs of 'wanted people' against Jewish leaders, rabbis in the streets of Belgium and we've seen no condemnation. We've seen no action from the authorities in Belgium and we hope that we will be able to see more serious steps to protect the Jewish community in Belgium," Chikli said. In response to Israel's recent attack on Iran, EU leaders have called for restraint and diplomacy. The President of the European Commission reaffirmed Israel's right to defend itself and protect its citizens, while urging all parties to work towards a peaceful resolution.
