AFP USA

German sportswear giant Adidas on Tuesday warned that US President Donald Trump’s tariffs will increase prices for its products in the United States, and the hardline trade policies could dent its ongoing recovery.The firm makes a large chunk of its goods in Asian countries that Trump has singled out for running hefty trade surpluses with the United States, including China, which is facing the highest US levies.CEO Bjorn Gulden said Adidas had reduced its exports from China to the United States “to a minimum”, but added that the group was still “somewhat exposed to those currently very high tariffs”. “What is even worse for us is the general increase in US tariffs from all other countries of origin,” he said, adding that they “will eventually cause higher costs for all our products for the US market”.He said it was “currently impossible” to work out by how much prices might rise or conclude what impact this might have on consumer demand.Adidas’s shares were down around one percent in early afternoon trade on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.Beyond China, Adidas also makes products in countries including Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh. The North American market accounted for around a fifth of the group’s sales last year. – Kanye crisis -The US tariffs are set to deal a hefty blow to the company just as it was getting back on its feet following a torrid period triggered by the end of its lucrative tie-up with US rapper Kanye West.The group developed the popular Yeezy line of trainers with West but halted the collaboration in late 2022 after the rapper sparked anger with anti-Semitic outbursts online. Adidas was robbed of a vital revenue stream and left saddled with a mountain of Yeezy trainers, which it had to offload at knockdown prices, leading it to slump to its first annual net loss in over three decades in 2023.But it has turned a corner under Gulden, who has focused on promoting Adidas’s classic trainers. The company logged a better-than-expected net profit of 428 million euros ($488 million) from January to March, with sales rising to 6.1 billion euros.Gulden said that, after such a strong performance, the group would typically hike its outlook but had decided against doing so due to the tariff uncertainty.The group stuck to its guidance, predicting operating profit of 1.7 billion to 1.8 billion euros for the year.However, the CEO added that Adidas recognised that there were “uncertainties that could put negative pressure on this later in the year”.The affects of US tariffs in the second quarter “should not be huge”, he said, but added that the “impact will then come in (the third quarter) for the US market”.The sports outfitter would try to compensate for the uncertainty in the United States by “delivering even better results in the rest of the world”, Gulden added.

German sportswear giant Adidas on Tuesday warned that US President Donald Trump’s tariffs will increase prices for its products in the United States, and the hardline trade policies could dent its ongoing recovery.The firm makes a large chunk of its goods in Asian countries that Trump has singled out for running hefty trade surpluses with the United States, including China, which is facing the highest US levies.CEO Bjorn Gulden said Adidas had reduced its exports from China to the United States “to a minimum”, but added that the group was still “somewhat exposed to those currently very high tariffs”. “What is even worse for us is the general increase in US tariffs from all other countries of origin,” he said, adding that they “will eventually cause higher costs for all our products for the US market”.He said it was “currently impossible” to work out by how much prices might rise or conclude what impact this might have on consumer demand.Much of Adidas’s production is based in Asian countries including Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh. The United States is a major market for Adidas and last year the group made over a fifth of its sales there.The US tariffs have dealt a hefty blow to the company just as it was getting back on its feet following a torrid period triggered by the end of its lucrative tie-up with US rapper Kanye West.The group developed the popular Yeezy line of trainers with West but halted the collaboration after the rapper sparked anger with anti-Semitic outbursts online, robbing Adidas of a key revenue stream.From January to March, Adidas reported that its net profit more than doubled to 428 million euros ($488 million), beating analyst expectations, as sales rose to 6.1 billion euros.Gulden said that, after such a strong performance, the group would typically hike its outlook but had decided against doing so due to the tariff uncertainty.The group stuck to its guidance, predicting operating profit of 1.7 billion to 1.8 billion euros for the year.However the CEO added that Adidas recognised that there were “uncertainties that could put negative pressure on this later in the year”.

After 100 days of political chaos and economic shock that have sent his approval ratings tumbling, Donald Trump hopes to regain the unqualified adulation of his supporters Tuesday at one of his bread-and-butter events: a public rally.To mark the symbolic milestone in his second term, the Republican US president is visiting the site of one of his last campaign events, in Michigan, a battleground state that swung his way in November’s election.”The first time, I had two things to do — run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” he said in an interview with The Atlantic magazine, referring to advisors and cabinet members whom he considered incompetent or disloyal lieutenants in his first term.”And the second time, I run the country and the world,” he crowed, adding “I’m having a lot of fun.”Many of the former real estate tycoon’s voters remain behind Trump.”He knows what he’s doing,” Karen Miner, a 57-year-old wine store owner in Reno, Nevada, told AFP.- ‘No equal’ -“So far, I’m very satisfied with the job he’s doing,” said Frank Tuoti, a 72-year-old retired machinist from New Hampshire. But he concedes that the tariff instability has made him “a little concerned about the economy.”Trump on Monday railed against predecessor Joe Biden’s economic policy, boasting on his Truth Social platform that he would reverse the country’s fortunes.”The USA lost Billions of Dollars A DAY in International Trade under Sleepy Joe Biden. I have now stemmed that tide, and will be making a fortune, very soon,” the president wrote.Trump’s chief spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said a Tuesday morning press briefing will focus on the economy, after one on Monday that addressed the administration’s migration policies.”No one does it better than President Trump. There is no equal, it’s not even close,” Tom Homan, who oversees the mass deportation program fiercely criticized by opponents and rights groups, told reporters at the White House.Now surrounded exclusively by loyalists, Trump since January 20 has unleashed in terms of tariffs, foreign policy — and political revenge.In the grand entrance hallway of the White House, he has moved a portrait of Barack Obama, America’s first Black president, to make way for a painting of himself surviving an assassination attempt.And in the Oval Office, the Republican with notoriously brash style and taste has filled the historic room with golden ornaments.- Sinking approval rating -Pushing the limits of presidential power, the Republican has already signed over 140 executive orders.In the process, he has called birthright citizenship into question, attacked universities and law firms, rolled back environmental policies, entrusted his mega-billionaire ally Elon Musk with dismantling large parts of the federal bureaucracy, and launched a protectionist trade offensive against much of the world — before partially retracting it.Many of his executive orders have been blocked by judges, with whom the executive branch has engaged in an unprecedented bout of arm wrestling.Trump, whose political career was built on deepening divisions, cannot claim the high approval ratings that generally accompany the first 100 days of a US president.Opinion polls have been unanimous in noting a particularly sharp slide in his approval ratings, fueled by concern about tariffs and his attacks on the institutional order.According to a poll published Sunday by the Washington Post and ABC News, only 39 percent of Americans approve of how Trump is conducting his presidency.With the exception of Bill Clinton and now Trump, US presidents dating back to Ronald Reagan have had an approval rating topping 50 percent after their first 100 days in office, according to the Pew Research Center.Trump called the polls “Fake News” in a Truth Social post on Monday.”We are doing GREAT, better than ever before,” he boasted.- ‘Too far’ -Fully 64 percent of respondents said Trump is “going too far” in his efforts to expand presidential powers.It is impossible to know how long Trump, who at 78 is the oldest US president ever elected, will maintain his frenetic pace.He has shown signs of impatience. He promised on the campaign trail to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours, but has grown frustrated with the complicated diplomacy involved. Reminded in a recent interview with Time magazine that he often said he would end the war on “day one,” the former reality TV star responded: “Obviously, people know that when I said that, it was said in jest.”

The United States has lost seven multi-million-dollar MQ-9 Reaper drones in the Yemen area since March 15, a US official said Monday, as the Navy announced a costly warplane fell off an aircraft carrier into the Red Sea.Washington launched the latest round of its air campaign against Yemen’s Huthis in mid-March, and MQ-9s can be used for both reconnaissance — a key aspect of US efforts to identify and target weaponry the rebels are using to attack shipping in the region — as well as strikes.”There have been seven MQ-9s that have gone down since March 15,” the US official said on condition of anonymity, without specifying what caused the loss of the drones, which cost around $30 million apiece.The US Navy meanwhile announced the loss of another piece of expensive military equipment: an F/A-18E warplane that fell off the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in an accident that injured one sailor.A tractor that was towing the F/A-18E — a type of aircraft that cost more than $67 million in 2021 — also slipped off the ship into the sea.”The F/A-18E was actively under tow in the hangar bay when the move crew lost control of the aircraft. The aircraft and tow tractor were lost overboard,” the Navy said in a statement.The carrier and its other planes remain in action and the incident is under investigation, the Navy added. No details of recovery work were released.- Weeks of heavy strikes -It is the second F/A-18 operating off the Truman to be lost in less than six months, after another was mistakenly shot down by the USS Gettysburg guided missile cruiser late last year in an incident that both pilots survived.The Truman is one of two US aircraft carriers operating in the Middle East, where US forces have been striking the Huthis on a near-daily basis.The military’s Central Command said Sunday that US forces have struck more than 800 targets and killed hundreds of Huthi fighters, including members of the group’s leadership, as part of the operation.Huthi-controlled media in Yemen said Monday that US strikes hit a migrant detention center in the movement’s stronghold of the capital Saada, killing at least 68 people.Then early Tuesday, rebel channel Al-Masirah reported two strikes on Bani Hashish, northeast of the capital, citing the local governorate. The Iran-backed Huthis began targeting shipping in late 2023, claiming solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, which has been devastated by Israel’s military after a shock Hamas attack in October of that year.Huthi attacks have prevented ships from passing through the Suez Canal — a vital route that normally carries about 12 percent of the world’s shipping traffic.The United States first began conducting strikes against the Huthis under the Biden administration, and President Donald Trump has vowed that military action against the rebels will continue until they are no longer a threat to shipping.

President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday disbanded the authors of the United States’ premier climate report, a move scientists said threatens to derail a critical assessment mandated by Congress and vital to the nation’s preparedness against global warming.In an email sent to contributors of the Sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA6), the administration said the report’s “scope” was being “reevaluated” and informed participants they were being “released from their roles,” with no timeline offered for potential reengagement.The decision follows mass firings earlier this month at the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), the federal body overseeing the congressionally required report, and marks the latest flashpoint in Trump’s sweeping efforts to reshape the federal government, particularly in the realm of science.Rachel Cleetus, a senior policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and a former author on NCA6’s chapter on coastal impacts, blasted the move as reckless and politically motivated.”Today, the Trump administration senselessly took a hatchet to a crucial and comprehensive US climate science report by dismissing its authors without cause or a plan,” Cleetus said in a statement. “Trying to bury this report won’t alter the scientific facts one bit, but without this information, our country risks flying blind into a world made more dangerous by human-caused climate change.”The White House did not respond to a request for comment.Other authors also took to social media to confirm they had received identical notices, expressing frustration and alarm over the unprecedented disruption of the scientific process.Since returning to office, Trump has embarked on an aggressive overhaul of federal institutions, firing thousands of civil servants, including climate scientists and public health experts. It has also steered agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Institutes of Health away from climate and environmental research.The disruption of NCA6 comes at a perilous time: global temperatures have begun to breach 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above preindustrial levels, according to recent international analyses, fueling worsening wildfires, droughts, floods, and storms across the United States.The National Climate Assessment, first published in 2000, is a cornerstone of US government climate understanding, synthesizing input from federal agencies and hundreds of external scientists. Previous iterations have warned in stark terms of mounting risks to America’s economy, infrastructure, and health if greenhouse gas emissions are not curtailed.While not directly prescriptive on policy, the reports have served as critical guideposts for lawmakers, businesses, and local governments planning climate resilience measures.Under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, the federal government is legally obligated to deliver the climate assessment to Congress and the president. It remains unclear whether the administration’s actions will ultimately delay, compromise, or cancel the report entirely.

Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro accused Washington Monday of committing a crime in the case of a two-year-old girl separated from her migrant parents, who were deported from the United States without her.The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said the girl was placed in foster care to protect her from her parents, who it claimed were members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua drug gang.”This is a crime whichever way you see it, taking a two-year-old girl away from a migrant mother just because she is a migrant and a Venezuelan,” Maduro said Monday during his weekly television program.”And accusing her without evidence of being a member of a criminal gang, and using it as an excuse to steal her child, is a crime under any international law,” the president added.In a statement earlier Monday, the foreign ministry in Caracas denounced “the abduction by US authorities of the young Venezuelan Maikelys Antonella Espinoza Bernal, aged two” and called for her immediate return to her parents.Under US President Donald Trump, the DHS has carried out a crackdown on immigration, deporting thousands of primarily Latin American migrants that it says are undocumented and cancelling the legal status of others.The administration has said that many of those it has deported are members of criminal gangs, including Tren de Aragua, but has provided limited evidence to back that claim. Lawyers and family members of many deportees deny the allegations.The DHS did not say where it deported the girl’s parents to, but Venezuela believes her father was among about 250 men sent to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison for the country’s most violent criminals.In a statement Saturday, the DHS claimed the father, Maiker Espinoza-Escalona, was a Tren de Aragua “lieutenant” who “oversees homicides, drug sales, kidnappings, extortion, sex trafficking and operates a torture house.”The girl’s mother, Yorely Escarleth Bernal Inciarte, “oversees recruitment of young women for drug smuggling and prostitution,” the DHS said.It said the girl was “taken off the deportation flight manifest for her safety and welfare. The child remains in the care and custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and is currently placed with a foster family.”The department branded both parents “criminal illegal aliens” and said their expulsion had been approved by a judge.Tren de Aragua has been designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the Trump administration, which has paid El Salvador millions of dollars to lock up nearly 300 deported migrants it claims are criminals and gang members.At least one of them, Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was found to have been wrongly deported, but both Trump and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele have washed their hands of his case.Last week, Venezuelan prosecutors said they were investigating the “forced disappearance” of a citizen detained in the United States in January, but whose whereabouts are now unknown.

The US House of Representatives voted almost unanimously Monday to make it a federal crime to post “revenge porn” — whether it is real or AI-generated — sending the bill to President Donald Trump’s desk for approval.The Take it Down Act passed in a 409-2 vote, and would criminalize the non-consensual publication of intimate images, while also mandating their removal from online platforms, Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said. In March, the president vowed to sign the bill into law during a joint session of Congress.”I look forward to signing that bill into law. Thank you,” Trump said. “And I’m going to use that bill for myself too if you don’t mind, because nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody.”House approval of the bill follows its unanimous passage in the Senate in February, an advancement that Johnson called “a critical step in fighting” the growing online problem. Deepfakes often rely on artificial intelligence and other tools to create realistic-looking fake videos. They can be used to create falsified pornographic images of real women, which are then published without their consent and proliferate.First Lady Melania Trump endorsed the bill in early March and said in a statement Monday that the bipartisan passage “is a powerful statement that we stand united in protecting the dignity, privacy, and safety of our children.”Some US states, including California and Florida, have already passed laws criminalizing the publication of sexually explicit deepfakes.Critics voiced concern that the Congress bill grants authorities increased censorship power.The Electronic Frontiers Foundation, a nonprofit focused on free expression, posted a statement Monday saying the new legislation gave “the powerful a dangerous new route to manipulate platforms into removing lawful speech that they simply don’t like.” “President Trump himself has said that he would use the law to censor his critics,” they added. 

US President Donald Trump’s top federal prosecutor in Washington has accused Wikipedia of allowing “information manipulation” and disseminating propaganda, according to a letter seen by AFP on Monday.The allegations by Edward Martin, which echoed years of conservative criticism directed at the online encyclopedia, threaten to jeopardize Wikipedia’s tax-exempt status.”Wikipedia is permitting information manipulation on its platform, including the rewriting of key, historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States,” Martin wrote in the letter to Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that runs the platform.”Masking propaganda that influences public opinion under the guise of providing informational material is antithetical to Wikimedia’s ‘educational’ mission.”The four-page letter, sent last week, demanded responses by May 15 to a dozen questions about the Wikimedia Foundation’s operations.Among them were requests for detailed information about its editorial practices to ensure transparency and accountability, trust and safety measures, and steps taken to prevent foreign influence operations.The Wikimedia Foundation did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.”Hey Wikipedia: you can run but you can’t hide!” Martin wrote on the platform X at the weekend, without mentioning the letter.In his letter, Martin said he was seeking to determine whether Wikipedia’s activities were in violation of its tax-exempt status –- a probe that is typically handled by tax authorities at the Internal Revenue Service.The letter appears to be part of a sweeping Trump administration campaign to target media outlets, think tanks and research organizations long accused by conservative campaigners of pushing a liberal political agenda.Elon Musk, Trump’s billionaire ally, has previously called for the defunding of Wikipedia and offered to give the organization a billion dollars if they changed their name to “Dickipedia.”Martin, a controversial Trump loyalist, is the interim US attorney for the District of Columbia and the president’s pick to serve in that role full time.But Democratic lawmakers have sought to block his appointment for his links to the January 6, 2021 insurrection that saw a violent mob attacking the US Capitol and for failing to disclose his frequent appearances on Russian media in mandatory disclosure forms to the Senate.”It is well-documented that Ed Martin is a Donald Trump loyalist who has embraced a Nazi sympathizer and attacked law enforcement who kept lawmakers and staff safe during the January 6 insurrection,” Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said earlier this month.”The 150 undisclosed appearances Martin has made on Russian state media as recently as April of last year — as Russia was actively bombing Ukraine — raises further serious questions about whether he has the temperament to serve as US Attorney.”

Brazil, which chairs the 11-nation BRICS grouping that also includes Russia and China, called for closer cooperation Monday as the world deals with conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and trade wars under US President Donald Trump. Foreign ministers of the bloc met in Rio de Janeiro as Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a three-day truce with Ukraine, whose President Volodymyr Zelensky described the move as “a new attempt at manipulation.””We advocate diplomacy instead of confrontation, and cooperation instead of unilateralism,” Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira told the BRICS envoys in Rio.”The conflict in Ukraine continues to have a severe humanitarian impact, highlighting the urgent need for a diplomatic solution,” he added.Ministers from the bloc — which also includes Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates — met to hone their agenda ahead of a leaders’ summit on July 6 and 7.The group has traditionally been cautious in its comments about the Ukraine war, issuing calls for peace while steering clear of condemning Russia’s invasion.Russia is a founding BRICS member and its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, attended the Rio gathering.The meeting came at the start of what the United States has called a “critical week” for talks on ending the Ukraine war.Trump appeared to turn against Putin at the weekend after a meeting with Zelensky at Pope Francis’s funeral, saying he felt the Russian leader was “just tapping me along.”At the same time, the US president has been piling pressure on Kyiv to give up hopes of reclaiming Russian-annexed Crimea.- ‘Complete withdrawal’ from Gaza -Vieira on Monday also called for a “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from Gaza.”The resumption of Israeli bombings and the continuous obstruction of humanitarian aid are unacceptable,” he said.The ministers are expected to issue a final joint statement Tuesday in which they will call for respect for multilateralism and international market rules.Their meeting came at a critical moment for the world economy after the International Monetary Fund slashed growth forecasts over the impact of Trump’s sweeping tariffs.Since returning to the White House in January, the US leader has hit dozens of countries with a blanket 10 percent tariff, but China faces levies of up to 145 percent on many products.Beijing has responded with duties of 125 percent on US goods.Senior Chinese economic planner Zhao Chenxin said in Beijing Monday his country was on the “right side of history” in the face of what he called Washington’s “unilateralism and bullying.”- BRICS currency ‘premature’ -BRICS has expanded significantly since its 2009 inception as a group of four powers — Brazil, Russia, India and China — seeking an alternative platform to Western-led international organizations such as the G7.It now makes up nearly half of the world’s population, 39 percent of global GDP and weighs in on issues from Ukraine to Gaza to global trade.A BRICS challenge to the hegemony of the dollar was expected to feature high on the agenda being prepared for July.At a summit last year, BRICS members discussed boosting non-dollar transactions, eliciting a swift rebuke from Trump who threatened them with 100 percent tariffs if they undercut the US currency.Speaking to Brazil’s O Globo newspaper ahead of Monday’s meeting, Russia’s Lavrov said BRICS nations planned to “increase the share of national currencies in transactions” between member states, but said talk of transitioning towards a unified BRICS currency was “premature.”Vieira, whose country has so far been spared the worst of Trump’s trade ire, also denied any plans to create a new currency.Climate change is also expected to feature prominently in the ministers’ final statement.Brazil is the host of this year’s UN COP30 climate conference, which will take place in November in the Amazon city of Belem.

Amazon on Monday launched its first batch of Project Kuiper internet satellites, marking the start of its push to rival Elon Musk’s Starlink.The mission, called Kuiper Atlas 1, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 7:00 pm local time (2300 GMT), aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket that will carry 27 satellites into orbit.A previous attempt was scrubbed earlier this month due to bad weather.Project Kuiper, a subsidiary of the online retail giant founded by Jeff Bezos, is playing catch-up with Starlink — SpaceX’s sprawling network of internet satellites that has reshaped the sector and handed Musk significant geopolitical clout.The $10 billion initiative plans to deploy 3,200 satellites into low Earth orbit — the region of space up to 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) above the planet — with hopes of going live later this year.Pricing has not yet been revealed, but Amazon has pledged it will align with its reputation as a low-cost retailer.”Atlas V is on its way to orbit to take those 27 Kuiper satellites, put them on their way, and really start this new era in internet connectivity,” said ULA’s Caleb Weiss.With Monday’s launch, Amazon formally enters a crowded and fast-growing field that includes not just Starlink but other emerging players in the satellite internet race.SpaceX launched the first batch of Starlink satellites in 2019 and now boasts more than 6,750 operational units, serving over five million customers worldwide — by far the sector’s dominant force.Starlink has also provided crucial internet access in disaster and war zones, including Morocco after its devastating 2023 earthquake and on the frontlines in Ukraine’s war against Russia.Amazon plans to accelerate launches in the coming months and years, with more than 80 flights booked through United Launch Alliance (a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture), France’s Arianespace, Bezos’s own Blue Origin, and even Musk’s SpaceX.Its satellites will gradually join the swelling ranks of low Earth orbit, alongside Starlink, Europe’s OneWeb, and China’s Guowang constellation.The increasing crowding of this orbital neighborhood has sparked concerns about congestion, potential collisions, and disruptions to astronomical observations.The expanding role of private companies in space has also raised thorny political questions, especially as Musk’s influence stretches beyond business into politics and diplomacy.Musk has sent mixed signals on Starlink’s future role in Ukraine, where it remains vital to Kyiv’s war effort — a conflict that Musk ally US President Donald Trump has vowed to bring to an end.