Latest news with #US28
Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Has Trump created an opportunity for the euro to displace the US dollar?
Others, conscious that the US relies on foreign capital inflows to fund its yawning (and rapidly growing) government deficits and debt and enable the government and US citizens to live beyond their means, won't view the apparent crack in the value of the dollar and the US markets' status as the world's safe haven quite as positively. In the near term, the weaker US dollar also means the inflationary impacts in the US of Trump's trade war on the rest of the world will be exaggerated. A strong dollar, by making imports cheap in US dollar term, would muffle the impact on inflation. 'European leaders have recognised the window of opportunity opened by America's self-destructive trade policies.' The likely effects of Trump's war is reflected in this week's downgrading of the outlook for global and US growth by the World Bank, which sees global growth slowing from 2.8 per cent last year to 2.3 per cent and growth in the US economy halving from 2.8 per cent to 1.4 per cent. That outlook, if it eventuates, would provide even less reason to invest in the US and would result in an even greater reduction in demand for US dollars. Does that provide an opportunity for the euro? Perhaps, albeit not one that could be easily or quickly realised. The dollar has reined supreme as the world's reserve currency in the post-war era and still does. Even though the degree of dominance has been waning in recent years, it still accounts for about 58 per cent of central bank reserves – it was above 70 per cent in the early years of this century and was still above 60 per cent five years ago – and about 55 per cent of trade invoicing is denominated in dollars. The euro ranks second on both counts, with a 30 per cent or so share of reserves and a similar share of trade financing. The challenge for the Europeans, if they want to challenge the dollar's status, is that, while they might have the 'next best' currency, they lack some of the foundations that would make it the reserve currency. Loading They do have a floating exchange rate, no capital controls, an independent and respected central bank and an independent and respected judicial system. They don't have deep and liquid capital markets nor a single economy that is growing consistently and strongly, nor do they have current account deficits to expand the supply of euros – the European Union consistently runs current account surpluses (and hence is a major target for Trump's tariffs). The European capital markets are fragmented and shallow – European companies rely on banks rather than markets as their primary source of funding – and the condition of the underlying economies varies considerably. The closest thing the EU has to a US Treasury bond is a Germany bund but, where the US Treasury market has about $US28 trillion ($43 trillion) of securities on issue, the market for bunds is only about €1.8 trillion (about $3.2 trillion). That market, thanks to the historic decision to reform the country's 'debt brake' in order to use debt-financing for what might be a €600 billion increase in military spending, will grow, but it would still remain small relative to the Treasury market. Loading What could the EU do to create a deeper bond market? It could issue eurobonds, or debt raised on behalf of all its members and backed by all their economies. It has toyed with that idea for decades and, indeed, created a eurobond facility of up to €800 billion to help member countries recover from the pandemic, although those bonds are supposed to progressively mature and disappear by 2058. Germany has historically been opposed to the issuance of collective EU debt. It's strict fiscal discipline means it can borrow more cheaply than other EU members and pay lower interest rates on its debt. With eurobonds, it would pay more and effectively be subsidising the rest of the EU. The prize for the EU as a whole – a greater share of world reserves, a more stable currency in stressful times, cheaper funding generally and therefore greater economic growth and the geopolitical benefits from having a reserve currency – is, however, worth striving for. The EU could do more trade in euros – it buys a lot of energy but pays for it almost exclusively in US dollars, for instance – it could issue a digital euro to facilitate global transactions, and it could integrate its economies and policies more deeply. It could also do as the US Federal Reserve Board has done in financial crises, and create permanent swap lines with its major trading partners to provide euro liquidity in moment of stress. That would bolster confidence in the currency. It is improbable that the euro could displace the dollar as the world's reserve currency in anything other than the truly long term. Loading It could, however, increase its share of global reserves and transactions and share some of the dollar's 'exorbitant privilege' – the ability to borrow cheaply without any real limits, the haven status in a crisis, the ability, if they ever transpired, to run trade deficits without any fear of a balance of payments crisis, and, above all, the enhanced geopolitical authority the EU has always sought. European leaders have recognised the window of opportunity opened by America's self-destructive trade policies – it's been a growing topic of conversation in Europe since Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs announcement – but have also acknowledged the complexities and obstacles to taking advantage of it. Still, small but important steps could be taken, with eurobond issuance at the forefront and, with the EU members committed to ramping up their defence spending in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, this could be an instance where, thanks to Trump and Vladimir Putin, opportunity and need start to converge.
The Age
a day ago
- Business
- The Age
Has Trump created an opportunity for the euro to displace the US dollar?
Others, conscious that the US relies on foreign capital inflows to fund its yawning (and rapidly growing) government deficits and debt and enable the government and US citizens to live beyond their means, won't view the apparent crack in the value of the dollar and the US markets' status as the world's safe haven quite as positively. In the near term, the weaker US dollar also means the inflationary impacts in the US of Trump's trade war on the rest of the world will be exaggerated. A strong dollar, by making imports cheap in US dollar term, would muffle the impact on inflation. 'European leaders have recognised the window of opportunity opened by America's self-destructive trade policies.' The likely effects of Trump's war is reflected in this week's downgrading of the outlook for global and US growth by the World Bank, which sees global growth slowing from 2.8 per cent last year to 2.3 per cent and growth in the US economy halving from 2.8 per cent to 1.4 per cent. That outlook, if it eventuates, would provide even less reason to invest in the US and would result in an even greater reduction in demand for US dollars. Does that provide an opportunity for the euro? Perhaps, albeit not one that could be easily or quickly realised. The dollar has reined supreme as the world's reserve currency in the post-war era and still does. Even though the degree of dominance has been waning in recent years, it still accounts for about 58 per cent of central bank reserves – it was above 70 per cent in the early years of this century and was still above 60 per cent five years ago – and about 55 per cent of trade invoicing is denominated in dollars. The euro ranks second on both counts, with a 30 per cent or so share of reserves and a similar share of trade financing. The challenge for the Europeans, if they want to challenge the dollar's status, is that, while they might have the 'next best' currency, they lack some of the foundations that would make it the reserve currency. Loading They do have a floating exchange rate, no capital controls, an independent and respected central bank and an independent and respected judicial system. They don't have deep and liquid capital markets nor a single economy that is growing consistently and strongly, nor do they have current account deficits to expand the supply of euros – the European Union consistently runs current account surpluses (and hence is a major target for Trump's tariffs). The European capital markets are fragmented and shallow – European companies rely on banks rather than markets as their primary source of funding – and the condition of the underlying economies varies considerably. The closest thing the EU has to a US Treasury bond is a Germany bund but, where the US Treasury market has about $US28 trillion ($43 trillion) of securities on issue, the market for bunds is only about €1.8 trillion (about $3.2 trillion). That market, thanks to the historic decision to reform the country's 'debt brake' in order to use debt-financing for what might be a €600 billion increase in military spending, will grow, but it would still remain small relative to the Treasury market. Loading What could the EU do to create a deeper bond market? It could issue eurobonds, or debt raised on behalf of all its members and backed by all their economies. It has toyed with that idea for decades and, indeed, created a eurobond facility of up to €800 billion to help member countries recover from the pandemic, although those bonds are supposed to progressively mature and disappear by 2058. Germany has historically been opposed to the issuance of collective EU debt. It's strict fiscal discipline means it can borrow more cheaply than other EU members and pay lower interest rates on its debt. With eurobonds, it would pay more and effectively be subsidising the rest of the EU. The prize for the EU as a whole – a greater share of world reserves, a more stable currency in stressful times, cheaper funding generally and therefore greater economic growth and the geopolitical benefits from having a reserve currency – is, however, worth striving for. The EU could do more trade in euros – it buys a lot of energy but pays for it almost exclusively in US dollars, for instance – it could issue a digital euro to facilitate global transactions, and it could integrate its economies and policies more deeply. It could also do as the US Federal Reserve Board has done in financial crises, and create permanent swap lines with its major trading partners to provide euro liquidity in moment of stress. That would bolster confidence in the currency. It is improbable that the euro could displace the dollar as the world's reserve currency in anything other than the truly long term. Loading It could, however, increase its share of global reserves and transactions and share some of the dollar's 'exorbitant privilege' – the ability to borrow cheaply without any real limits, the haven status in a crisis, the ability, if they ever transpired, to run trade deficits without any fear of a balance of payments crisis, and, above all, the enhanced geopolitical authority the EU has always sought. European leaders have recognised the window of opportunity opened by America's self-destructive trade policies – it's been a growing topic of conversation in Europe since Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs announcement – but have also acknowledged the complexities and obstacles to taking advantage of it. Still, small but important steps could be taken, with eurobond issuance at the forefront and, with the EU members committed to ramping up their defence spending in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, this could be an instance where, thanks to Trump and Vladimir Putin, opportunity and need start to converge.
The Age
26-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
The Trumps are monetising the presidency like never before. But where is the outrage?
When Hillary Clinton was US first lady, a furore erupted over reports that she had once made $US100,000 from a $US1000 investment in cattle futures. Even though it had happened a dozen years before her husband became president, it became a scandal that lasted weeks and forced the White House to initiate a review. Thirty-one years later, after dinner at US President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos agreed to finance a promotional film about first lady Melania Trump that will reportedly put $US28 million ($43 million) directly in her pocket – 280 times the Clinton lucre and in this case from a person with a vested interest in policies set by her husband's government. Scandal? Furore? Washington moved on while barely taking notice. The Trumps are hardly the first presidential family to profit from their time in power, but they have done more to monetise the presidency than anyone who has ever occupied the White House. The scale and the scope of the presidential mercantilism have been breathtaking. The Trump family and its business partners have collected $US320 million in fees from a new cryptocurrency, brokered overseas real estate deals worth billions of dollars and are opening an exclusive club in Washington called the Executive Branch charging $US500,000 apiece to join, all in the past few months alone. Just last week, Qatar handed over a luxury jet meant for Trump's use, not just in his official capacity but also for his presidential library after he leaves office. Experts have valued the plane, formally donated to the Air Force, at $US200 million, more than all the foreign gifts bestowed on all previous American presidents combined. And Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before taking office in January. Access was openly sold based on how much money they chipped in – not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Trump personally. By conventional Washington standards, according to students of official graft, the still-young Trump administration is a candidate for the most brazen use of government office in American history, perhaps eclipsing even Teapot Dome, Watergate and other famous scandals. 'I've been watching and writing about corruption for 50 years, and my head is still spinning,' said Michael Johnston, a professor emeritus at Colgate University and author of multiple books on corruption in the United States. Yet a mark of how much Trump has transformed Washington since his return to power is the normalisation of moneymaking schemes that once would have generated endless political blowback, televised hearings, official investigations and damage control. The death of outrage in the Trump era, or at least the dearth of outrage, exemplifies how far the president has moved the lines of accepted behaviour in Washington. Loading Trump, the first convicted felon elected president, has erased ethical boundaries and dismantled the instruments of accountability that constrained his predecessors. There will be no official investigations because Trump has made sure of it. He has fired government inspectors general and ethics watchdogs, installed partisan loyalists to run the Justice Department, FBI and regulatory agencies and dominated a Republican-controlled Congress unwilling to hold hearings. As a result, while Democrats and other critics of Trump are increasingly trying to focus attention on the president's activities, they have had a hard time gaining any traction without the usual mechanisms of official review. And at a time when Trump provokes a major news story every day or even every hour – more tariffs on allies, more retribution against enemies, more defiance of court orders – rarely does a single action stay in the headlines long enough to shape the national conversation. Paul Rosenzweig, who was a senior counsel to Ken Starr's investigation of president Bill Clinton and later served in the George W. Bush administration, said the lack of uproar over Trump's ethical norm-busting has made him wonder whether longstanding assumptions about public desire for honest government were wrong all along. 'Either the general public never cared about this,' he said, or 'the public did care about it but no longer does.' He concluded that the answer is that '80 per cent, the public never cared' and '20 per cent, we are overwhelmed and exhausted'. 'Outrage hasn't died,' Rosenzweig added. 'It was always just a figment of elite imagination.' The White House has defended Trump's actions, brushing off questions about ethical considerations by saying that he was so rich that he did not need more money. 'The president is abiding by all conflict of interest laws that are applicable to the president,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. 'The American public believes it is absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency. This president was incredibly successful before giving it all up to serve our country publicly.' But saying that he is abiding by all conflict of interest laws that are applicable to the president is meaningless since, as Trump himself has long noted, conflict of interest laws are not applicable to the president. Moreover, he has not given it all up; in fact, he is still making money from his private business interests run by his sons, and independent estimates indicate that he has hardly sacrificed financially by entering politics. Forbes estimated Trump's net worth at $US5.1 billion in March, a full $US1.2 billion higher than the year before and the highest it has ever been in the magazine's rankings. The president's sons scoff at the idea that they should limit their business activities, which directly benefit their father. Donald Trump Jr has said that the family restrained itself during his father's first term only to be criticised anyway, so it made no sense to hold back any more. 'They're going to hit you no matter what,' he said last week at a business forum in Qatar. 'So we're just going to play the game.' There have been some burgeoning signs of public pushback in recent days. The gift of the Qatar plane seemed to break through to the general audience in a way that other episodes have not. A Harvard/CAPS Harris poll released last week found that 62 per cent of Americans thought the gift 'raises ethical concerns about corruption', and even some prominent right-wing Trump supporters like Ben Shapiro and Laura Loomer voiced objections. Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who campaigned with Trump last year, expressed misgivings this week during a podcast with Shawn Ryan, a right-wing influencer, who mentioned all the Trump family business deals that seemed to coincide with the president's recent trip to the Middle East. 'That stuff kind of worries me,' Ryan said. 'Well, it seems like corruption, yeah,' Carlson agreed. But while several dozen demonstrators protested outside Trump's golf club the other night, Democrats are split about how much to focus on Trump's profit making, with some preferring to concentrate on economic issues. Senator Christopher Murphy has been leading the charge in the other direction, making floor speeches and leading news conferences denouncing what he calls 'brazen corruption'. 'It is unlikely he is going to be held accountable through traditional means,' Murphy said in an interview. 'There are going to be no special counsels; there's going to be no DOJ action. And so it's really just about public mobilisation and politics. If Republicans keep paying a price for the corruption by losing special elections throughout the next year, maybe that causes them to rethink their complicity.' Trump had long promised to 'drain the swamp' in Washington after years of corruption by other politicians. When he first ran for president in 2016, he excoriated the Clintons for taking money from Saudi Arabia and other Middle East monarchies with an obvious interest in currying favour in case Hillary Clinton won the presidency. But that money went to the Clinton Foundation for philanthropic purposes. The money Trump's family is now bringing in from the Middle East is going into their personal accounts through a variety of ventures that The New York Times has documented. Johnston said the Trumps represented 'an absolute outlier case, not just in monetary terms' but also 'in terms of their brazen disregard' for past standards. 'While we might disagree as to the merits of policy, the president and figures in the executive branch are expected to serve the public good, not themselves,' he said. Trump made a nod at those standards in his first term by saying he would restrict his family business from doing deals overseas. But since then, he has been convicted of 34 felony counts for falsifying business records and held liable in civil court for fraud while the Supreme Court has conferred immunity on him for official acts. In his second term, Trump has dispensed with self-imposed ethical limits. Loading 'He's not trying to give the appearance that he's doing the right thing any more,' said Fred Wertheimer, founder of Democracy 21 and a long-time advocate for government ethics. 'There's nothing in the history of America that approaches the use of the presidency for massive personal gain. Nothing.' Congressional Republicans spent years investigating Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, for trading on his family name to make millions of dollars, even labelling the clan the 'Biden Crime Family'. But while Hunter Biden's cash flow was a tiny fraction of that of Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump and Jared Kushner, Republicans have shown no appetite for looking into the current presidential family's finances. 'The American public has had to inure itself to the corruption of Donald Trump and his presidency because the president and his Republican Party have given the American public no choice in the matter,' said J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former appeals court judge who has become a critic of Trump. Trump evinces no concern that people funnelling money into his family coffers have interests in government policies. Some of the crypto investors who attended his dinner on Thursday night acknowledged that they were using the opportunity to press him on regulation of the industry. According to a video obtained by the Times, he reciprocated by promising guests that he would not be as hard on them as the Biden administration was. One guest at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, that night was Justin Sun, a Chinese billionaire who became one of the largest holders of the $TRUMP meme coin after buying more than $US40 million worth, earning him a spot in an even more exclusive private VIP reception with the president before the dinner. The US Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023 accused Sun of fraud, but after Trump took over the agency put its lawsuit on hold even as it dropped other crypto investigations. As for Bezos and Qatar, each has reason to get on Trump's good side. In his first term, Trump, peeved at coverage in The Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos, repeatedly pushed aides to punish Bezos' main company, Amazon, by drastically increasing its US Postal Service shipping rates and denying it a multibillion-dollar Pentagon contract. Trump also had denounced Qatar as a 'funder of terrorism' and isolated it diplomatically. He has not targeted either Bezos or Qatar in his second term. The president has not hesitated either to install allies with conflict issues in positions of power. He tapped a close associate of Elon Musk as the administrator of NASA, which provides Musk's SpaceX with billions of dollars in contracts. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who previously worked as a lobbyist for Qatar, signed off on the legality of Qatar's aeroplane gift. Zach Witkoff, a founder of the Trump family crypto firm World Liberty Financial, and son of Steve Witkoff, the president's special envoy, announced a $US2 billion deal in the United Arab Emirates, just a couple of weeks before his father and Trump travelled there for a presidential visit. Wertheimer said the accumulation of so many conflicts put Trump on the all-time list of presidential graft. 'He's got the first 10 places on that,' he said. 'He's in the hall of fame of ripping off the presidency for personal gain.' But he said the public would eventually grow upset. 'I think that's going to catch up with him. It's going to take some time, but it's going to catch up with him.'
Sydney Morning Herald
26-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
The Trumps are monetising the presidency like never before. But where is the outrage?
When Hillary Clinton was US first lady, a furore erupted over reports that she had once made $US100,000 from a $US1000 investment in cattle futures. Even though it had happened a dozen years before her husband became president, it became a scandal that lasted weeks and forced the White House to initiate a review. Thirty-one years later, after dinner at US President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos agreed to finance a promotional film about first lady Melania Trump that will reportedly put $US28 million ($43 million) directly in her pocket – 280 times the Clinton lucre and in this case from a person with a vested interest in policies set by her husband's government. Scandal? Furore? Washington moved on while barely taking notice. The Trumps are hardly the first presidential family to profit from their time in power, but they have done more to monetise the presidency than anyone who has ever occupied the White House. The scale and the scope of the presidential mercantilism have been breathtaking. The Trump family and its business partners have collected $US320 million in fees from a new cryptocurrency, brokered overseas real estate deals worth billions of dollars and are opening an exclusive club in Washington called the Executive Branch charging $US500,000 apiece to join, all in the past few months alone. Just last week, Qatar handed over a luxury jet meant for Trump's use, not just in his official capacity but also for his presidential library after he leaves office. Experts have valued the plane, formally donated to the Air Force, at $US200 million, more than all the foreign gifts bestowed on all previous American presidents combined. And Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before taking office in January. Access was openly sold based on how much money they chipped in – not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Trump personally. By conventional Washington standards, according to students of official graft, the still-young Trump administration is a candidate for the most brazen use of government office in American history, perhaps eclipsing even Teapot Dome, Watergate and other famous scandals. 'I've been watching and writing about corruption for 50 years, and my head is still spinning,' said Michael Johnston, a professor emeritus at Colgate University and author of multiple books on corruption in the United States. Yet a mark of how much Trump has transformed Washington since his return to power is the normalisation of moneymaking schemes that once would have generated endless political blowback, televised hearings, official investigations and damage control. The death of outrage in the Trump era, or at least the dearth of outrage, exemplifies how far the president has moved the lines of accepted behaviour in Washington. Loading Trump, the first convicted felon elected president, has erased ethical boundaries and dismantled the instruments of accountability that constrained his predecessors. There will be no official investigations because Trump has made sure of it. He has fired government inspectors general and ethics watchdogs, installed partisan loyalists to run the Justice Department, FBI and regulatory agencies and dominated a Republican-controlled Congress unwilling to hold hearings. As a result, while Democrats and other critics of Trump are increasingly trying to focus attention on the president's activities, they have had a hard time gaining any traction without the usual mechanisms of official review. And at a time when Trump provokes a major news story every day or even every hour – more tariffs on allies, more retribution against enemies, more defiance of court orders – rarely does a single action stay in the headlines long enough to shape the national conversation. Paul Rosenzweig, who was a senior counsel to Ken Starr's investigation of president Bill Clinton and later served in the George W. Bush administration, said the lack of uproar over Trump's ethical norm-busting has made him wonder whether longstanding assumptions about public desire for honest government were wrong all along. 'Either the general public never cared about this,' he said, or 'the public did care about it but no longer does.' He concluded that the answer is that '80 per cent, the public never cared' and '20 per cent, we are overwhelmed and exhausted'. 'Outrage hasn't died,' Rosenzweig added. 'It was always just a figment of elite imagination.' The White House has defended Trump's actions, brushing off questions about ethical considerations by saying that he was so rich that he did not need more money. 'The president is abiding by all conflict of interest laws that are applicable to the president,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. 'The American public believes it is absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency. This president was incredibly successful before giving it all up to serve our country publicly.' But saying that he is abiding by all conflict of interest laws that are applicable to the president is meaningless since, as Trump himself has long noted, conflict of interest laws are not applicable to the president. Moreover, he has not given it all up; in fact, he is still making money from his private business interests run by his sons, and independent estimates indicate that he has hardly sacrificed financially by entering politics. Forbes estimated Trump's net worth at $US5.1 billion in March, a full $US1.2 billion higher than the year before and the highest it has ever been in the magazine's rankings. The president's sons scoff at the idea that they should limit their business activities, which directly benefit their father. Donald Trump Jr has said that the family restrained itself during his father's first term only to be criticised anyway, so it made no sense to hold back any more. 'They're going to hit you no matter what,' he said last week at a business forum in Qatar. 'So we're just going to play the game.' There have been some burgeoning signs of public pushback in recent days. The gift of the Qatar plane seemed to break through to the general audience in a way that other episodes have not. A Harvard/CAPS Harris poll released last week found that 62 per cent of Americans thought the gift 'raises ethical concerns about corruption', and even some prominent right-wing Trump supporters like Ben Shapiro and Laura Loomer voiced objections. Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who campaigned with Trump last year, expressed misgivings this week during a podcast with Shawn Ryan, a right-wing influencer, who mentioned all the Trump family business deals that seemed to coincide with the president's recent trip to the Middle East. 'That stuff kind of worries me,' Ryan said. 'Well, it seems like corruption, yeah,' Carlson agreed. But while several dozen demonstrators protested outside Trump's golf club the other night, Democrats are split about how much to focus on Trump's profit making, with some preferring to concentrate on economic issues. Senator Christopher Murphy has been leading the charge in the other direction, making floor speeches and leading news conferences denouncing what he calls 'brazen corruption'. 'It is unlikely he is going to be held accountable through traditional means,' Murphy said in an interview. 'There are going to be no special counsels; there's going to be no DOJ action. And so it's really just about public mobilisation and politics. If Republicans keep paying a price for the corruption by losing special elections throughout the next year, maybe that causes them to rethink their complicity.' Trump had long promised to 'drain the swamp' in Washington after years of corruption by other politicians. When he first ran for president in 2016, he excoriated the Clintons for taking money from Saudi Arabia and other Middle East monarchies with an obvious interest in currying favour in case Hillary Clinton won the presidency. But that money went to the Clinton Foundation for philanthropic purposes. The money Trump's family is now bringing in from the Middle East is going into their personal accounts through a variety of ventures that The New York Times has documented. Johnston said the Trumps represented 'an absolute outlier case, not just in monetary terms' but also 'in terms of their brazen disregard' for past standards. 'While we might disagree as to the merits of policy, the president and figures in the executive branch are expected to serve the public good, not themselves,' he said. Trump made a nod at those standards in his first term by saying he would restrict his family business from doing deals overseas. But since then, he has been convicted of 34 felony counts for falsifying business records and held liable in civil court for fraud while the Supreme Court has conferred immunity on him for official acts. In his second term, Trump has dispensed with self-imposed ethical limits. Loading 'He's not trying to give the appearance that he's doing the right thing any more,' said Fred Wertheimer, founder of Democracy 21 and a long-time advocate for government ethics. 'There's nothing in the history of America that approaches the use of the presidency for massive personal gain. Nothing.' Congressional Republicans spent years investigating Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, for trading on his family name to make millions of dollars, even labelling the clan the 'Biden Crime Family'. But while Hunter Biden's cash flow was a tiny fraction of that of Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump and Jared Kushner, Republicans have shown no appetite for looking into the current presidential family's finances. 'The American public has had to inure itself to the corruption of Donald Trump and his presidency because the president and his Republican Party have given the American public no choice in the matter,' said J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former appeals court judge who has become a critic of Trump. Trump evinces no concern that people funnelling money into his family coffers have interests in government policies. Some of the crypto investors who attended his dinner on Thursday night acknowledged that they were using the opportunity to press him on regulation of the industry. According to a video obtained by the Times, he reciprocated by promising guests that he would not be as hard on them as the Biden administration was. One guest at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, that night was Justin Sun, a Chinese billionaire who became one of the largest holders of the $TRUMP meme coin after buying more than $US40 million worth, earning him a spot in an even more exclusive private VIP reception with the president before the dinner. The US Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023 accused Sun of fraud, but after Trump took over the agency put its lawsuit on hold even as it dropped other crypto investigations. As for Bezos and Qatar, each has reason to get on Trump's good side. In his first term, Trump, peeved at coverage in The Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos, repeatedly pushed aides to punish Bezos' main company, Amazon, by drastically increasing its US Postal Service shipping rates and denying it a multibillion-dollar Pentagon contract. Trump also had denounced Qatar as a 'funder of terrorism' and isolated it diplomatically. He has not targeted either Bezos or Qatar in his second term. The president has not hesitated either to install allies with conflict issues in positions of power. He tapped a close associate of Elon Musk as the administrator of NASA, which provides Musk's SpaceX with billions of dollars in contracts. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who previously worked as a lobbyist for Qatar, signed off on the legality of Qatar's aeroplane gift. Zach Witkoff, a founder of the Trump family crypto firm World Liberty Financial, and son of Steve Witkoff, the president's special envoy, announced a $US2 billion deal in the United Arab Emirates, just a couple of weeks before his father and Trump travelled there for a presidential visit. Wertheimer said the accumulation of so many conflicts put Trump on the all-time list of presidential graft. 'He's got the first 10 places on that,' he said. 'He's in the hall of fame of ripping off the presidency for personal gain.' But he said the public would eventually grow upset. 'I think that's going to catch up with him. It's going to take some time, but it's going to catch up with him.'
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
EU ramps up trade war with counter-tariffs on US goods
The European Union will impose counter tariffs on 26 billion euros ($A45 billion) worth of US goods from April, the European Commission says, ramping up a global trade war in response to blanket US tariffs on steel and aluminium. The EU executive said, however, that it remained open to negotiations and considered higher tariffs in no one's interest, while the UK called the US move "disappointing" and vowed to keep its retaliation options open. US President Donald Trump's increased tariffs of 25 per cent on all steel and aluminium imports took effect on Wednesday as prior exemptions, duty free quotas and product exclusions expired. We deeply regret this US tariffs imposed on are are bad for business, and even worse for Europe takes strong but proportionate remain ready to engage in dialogue ↓ — Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) March 12, 2025 The European Commission said it would end its suspension of tariffs on US products on April 1 and its tariffs would be fully in place by April 13. "The countermeasures we take today are strong but proportionate. As the United States are applying tariffs worth $US28 billion ($A45 billion) we are responding with countermeasures worth 26 billion euros," European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen told reporters. "The EU must act to protect its consumers and business." Trump said his taxes would help create US factory jobs, but von der Leyen said: "Jobs are at stake. Prices will go up. In Europe and in the United States." "Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business, and even worse for consumers." The suspended tariffs apply to products ranging from boats to bourbon to motorbikes, and the EU said it would now start a consultation to pick other product categories. The new measures will target about 18 billion euros in goods, with the overall objective to ensure the total value of the EU measures corresponded to the increased value of trade affected by the new US tariffs, the EU said. "In the meantime we will always remain open to negotiations," von der Leyen said. "We firmly believe that in a world fraught with geo-economic and political uncertainties, it is not in our common interest to burden our economies with such tariffs. We are ready to engage in a meaningful dialogue." The proposed target products include industrial and agricultural products, such as steel and aluminium, textiles, home appliances, plastics, poultry, beef, eggs, dairy, sugar and vegetables. In Britain, which is no longer in the EU, Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said he was disappointed by the tariff hikes while adding the UK was negotiating a wider economic agreement with the US. "I will continue to engage closely and productively with the US to press the case for UK business interests," Reynolds said, adding the UK would keep all options open and not hesitate to respond in the national interest.
