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US President Donald Trump expanded his offensive against trading partners on Tuesday, threatening 25 percent tariffs on imported cars, and similar or higher duties on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors.Trump has announced a broad range of levies on some of the biggest US trading partners since taking office in January, arguing that they will help tackle unfair practices — and in some cases using the threats to influence policy.He recently pledged 10 percent duties on all goods coming from China, and 25 on steel and aluminum imports.At his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, he told reporters that tariffs on the automobile industry will “be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” with specifics to come around April 2.Asked about threatened tariffs on pharmaceuticals and chips, Trump said: “It’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll go very substantially higher over (the) course of a year.”He added he wanted to give affected companies time to bring their operations to the United States, saying that he had been contacted by major firms that “want to come back”. The president also said that Washington’s trading partners could avoid being taxed by investing in factories in the United States. “We want to give them time to come in,” he said. “When they come into the United States and they have their plant or factory here, there is no tariff. So we want to give them a little bit of a chance.”Experts have warned it is often Americans who end up paying the cost of tariffs on imports, rather than foreign exporters.About 50 percent of the cars sold in the United States are manufactured within the country. Among imports, about half come from Mexico and Canada, with Japan, South Korea and Germany, also major suppliers.- Asia cautious -Trump’s tariffs threats have been cautiously received in Asia, home to some of the main US suppliers of the potentially affected industries. Yoshimasa Hayashi, Tokyo’s top government spokesman, told reporters “with regard to automobile tariffs, we have raised the issue with the US government, taking into account the importance of Japan’s auto industry.”Japan will first take appropriate action while carefully examining the specific details of the measures,” he added.Taiwan, a global powerhouse in semiconductor production that Trump has accused of stealing the US chip industry, also remained cautious.”The scope of products subject to tariffs has not yet been clarified. We will continue to monitor the direction of US policies and assist Taiwan’s industries,” Taipei’s economic ministry said in a statement.The island’s government had previously said it would boost investment in the United States as it sought to head off Trump’s duties.Meanwhile a spokesperson for Malaysia’s semiconductor industry, which accounts for around 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, told AFP on Wednesday the United States would be “slapping themselves” with the new tariffs.Malaysia has long been a chip manufacturing hub for many US semiconductor companies.”If we (Malaysia) ship these products back to the US, it will only increase the cost of components back to the US,” Malaysia Semiconductor Industry Association president Datuk Seri Wong Siew Hai said.- EU visit -Trump said he was pleased to see the EU “reduce their tariffs on cars to the level we have.””The EU had 10 percent tax on cars and now they have a 2.5 percent tax, which is the exact same as us… If everybody would do that, then we’d all be on the same playing field,” he said.”The EU has been very unfair to us. We have a trade deficit of $350 billion, they don’t buy our cars, they don’t take our farm products, they don’t take almost anything… and we’ll have to straighten that out,” he added.The US trade deficit in goods with the EU was over $235 billion in 2024, according to Commerce Department data. On the other hand, the United States had a trade surplus of $109 billion with the EU in services in 2023, the last year with consolidated data, according to European Commission data. The European Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, Maros Sefcovic, arrived in Washington on Tuesday and will meet with Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative nominee Jamieson Greer.

Four British women who have accused notorious influencer Andrew Tate of rape said Wednesday they were “concerned” by reports the US government was petitioning Romania to ease his travel restrictions.American and British dual-citizen Tate faces several charges in Romania including trafficking of and sexual relations with minors, as well as money laundering and organising a criminal group, all of which he denies.According to the Financial Times, US President Donald Trump’s administration brought up his case with Romanian authorities last week, calling for Bucharest to return the passports of both Tate and his brother Tristan.Romanian prosecutors allege that former kickboxer Tate, 38, his brother, 36, and two women set up a criminal organisation in early 2021 in Romania and in Britain, and sexually exploited several victims. The brothers say they are innocent.The four women, who are bringing a civil case against Tate at the High Court in the UK accusing him of rape and coercive control between 2013 and 2016, urged Washington not to get involved.”We hope that the Romanian and the UK authorities will be left alone to do their jobs,” the alleged victims said in a statement, saying any relaxation of the travel restrictions would allow the brothers to flee justice.Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said Tuesday the United States has “not made any requests” over the brothers’ “legal situation”.But Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu confirmed Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell raised Tate’s case with him at the Munich Security Conference last week, Romanian media reported. The victims’ UK lawyer, Matthew Jury, said he found “the development, if true, equally bizarre and outrageous”.”It would be embarrassing for the UK government and a complete abdication of its responsibility to the victims if it stands by and lets this continue,” said Jury, adding the women were “absolutely distraught”.Andrew Tate moved to Romania years ago after first starting a webcam business in the UK.He lept to fame in 2016 when he first appeared on the UK’s “Big Brother” reality television show, but was removed after a video emerged showing him attacking a woman.He then turned to social media platforms to promote his often misogynistic and divisive views on how to be successful.A Romanian court has granted a British request to extradite the Tates, but only after legal proceedings in Romania have concluded.Robert Jenrick, the UK’s shadow foreign secretary, Tuesday said the Tate brothers “must face our justice system”.

US President Donald Trump painted Elon Musk as his enforcer-in-chief Tuesday, hailing the tech billionaire’s zeal in implementing the blizzard of executive orders the president has issued since returning to office.In a joint interview broadcast on Fox News, the two men spent substantial time singing the other’s praises and dismissing concerns that Trump is overstepping his executive powers.Trump has signed scores of executive directives in the past three weeks, many of which have been challenged in the courts as potentially unconstitutional. Billionaire Musk, who was Trump’s top donor during his 2024 presidential campaign, was tasked with leading the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with the declared goal of rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse” in federal spending. “One of the biggest functions of the DOGE team is just making sure that the presidential executive orders are actually carried out,” Musk told Fox News.In the interview, Trump insisted his policies — including a wholesale onslaught on federal institutions — should be implemented without delay and said Musk was instrumental in pushing them forward.”You write an executive order and you think it’s done, you send it out, it doesn’t get done. It doesn’t get implemented,” Trump said.He added that Musk and the DOGE team have now become an enforcement mechanism within the federal bureaucracy to enact his administration’s agenda without anyone standing in their way — or else risk losing their jobs.”And some guy that maybe didn’t want to do it, all of a sudden, he’s signing it,” Trump said.- ‘The will of the people’ -The Fox interview was broadcast just hours after Trump signed a sweeping executive order that sought to extend and consolidate direct White House control over federal regulatory agencies. The order, which is likely to face legal challenges, would force agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to submit regulatory proposals to the White House for review. “For the Federal Government to be truly accountable to the American people, officials who wield vast executive power must be supervised and controlled by the people’s elected President,” the executive order states.Musk found humor in his role as Trump’s executor, describing himself as a “technologist” and donning a T-shirt that read “Tech Support” for the interview. Musk waved off criticism that he was acting as if he were the US president, saying none of Trump’s cabinet members were elected and that he views his role as facilitating Trump’s agenda.”The president is the elected representative of the people, so it’s representing the will of the people,” Musk explained.”And if the bureaucracy is fighting the will of the people and preventing the president from implementing what the people want, then what we live in is a bureaucracy and not a democracy.” – President Elon? -Musk’s prominent role in the Trump administration has led to public questioning of who is really in charge at the White House, though the Republican leader was quick to dismiss rumors of bad blood between the two.”Actually, Elon called me,” Trump said. “He said, ‘You know, they’re trying to drive us apart.’ I said, ‘Absolutely.'”But Trump expressed confidence that Americans will not be fooled by alleged efforts to strain ties between him and Musk.”I used to think they were good at it,” Trump said, referring to the media. “They’re actually bad at it, because if they were good at it, I’d never be president.””The people are smart,” he went on. “They get it.”

Rapper A$AP Rocky was found not guilty of two counts of felony assault at the conclusion of a trial in Los Angeles on Tuesday.The musician, who has two children with singer Rihanna, had faced more than two decades in prison if he had been convicted of the alleged attack on a former friend in Hollywood in 2021.There was commotion in the courtroom as the jury’s verdict was read out, with the Grammy-nominated hip hop star, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, hugging people in relief as he was declared not guilty.During the weeks-long trial, prosecutors said Mayers had shot a nine-millimeter semi-automatic weapon during a confrontation with Terell Ephron, also known as A$AP Relli, on November 6, 2021, in the heart of Hollywood, grazing Ephron’s hand.Mayers, 36, had insisted he had been carrying only a harmless prop gun.The two had previously been friends, and had both been part of A$AP, a rap collective from New York, but had fallen out because other members of the group felt Mayers’ commercial success had made him arrogant.Ephron told the jury he had been lured to a parking garage for an encounter that was partially caught on grainy surveillance video.He claimed that after the two exchanged words, Mayers pulled a gun from his waistband, put it toward Relli’s stomach and said, “I’ll kill you right now.”Ephron said two bullets were fired, with one of them grazing his knuckles.Defending attorney Joe Tacopina said the weapon was “absolutely nothing more than a prop gun… a starter gun, a blank gun, a fake gun. It’s used in pop movies and music videos.”Describing Ephron as “a criminal and a perjurer,” Tacopina said seven police officers searched the scene of the shooting hours later but found neither shell casings nor a weapon. Yet, after officers left, Ephron returned to the scene and discovered a pair of nine-millimeter shell casings he said he had picked up from the street where he was shot at, Tacopina said.Neither side was able to produce the gun they said had been used on the night.- ‘Extortion’ -Tacopina said the whole story of a shooting had been manufactured to extort money from his wealthy and successful client.Speaking after the verdict, Tacopina told reporters the jury had seen through the “mirage of a case.””I’ve always said this was an extortion. The extortion played out live in court,” he said.”The district attorney should look long and hard at prosecuting Terell Ephron.”Tacopina paid tribute to Mayers and Rihanna, whom he described as “the greatest people.”There was no immediate reaction from either Mayers or Rihanna, who had been in court frequently during the trial. A$AP Rocky shot to fame in the first half of the last decade with two mega-selling albums: “Long. Live. A$AP” and “At. Long. Last. A$AP.” In 2019, he was given a suspended prison sentence in Sweden after a fight, in an affair that caused diplomatic tensions between Stockholm and Washington, pushing then-president Donald Trump to intervene.

An asteroid that could level a city now has a 3.1-percent chance of striking Earth in 2032, according to NASA data released Tuesday — making it the most threatening space rock ever recorded by modern forecasting. Despite the rising odds, experts say there is no need for alarm. The global astronomical community is closely monitoring the situation and the James Webb Space Telescope is set to fix its gaze on the object, known as 2024 YR4, next month.”I’m not panicking,” Bruce Betts, chief scientist for the nonprofit Planetary Society told AFP. “Naturally when you see the percentages go up, it doesn’t make you feel warm and fuzzy and good,” he added, but explained that as astronomers gather more data, the probability will likely edge up before rapidly dropping to zero.2024 YR4 was first detected on December 27 last year by the El Sauce Observatory in Chile.Astronomers estimate its size to be between 130 and 300 feet (40–90 meters) wide, based on its brightness. Analysis of its light signatures suggests it has a fairly typical composition, rather than being a rare metal-rich asteroid.The International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), a worldwide planetary defense collaboration, issued a warning memo on January 29 after the impact probability had crossed one percent. Since then, the figure has fluctuated but continues to trend upward.NASA’s latest calculations estimate the impact probability at 3.1 percent, with a potential Earth impact date of December 22, 2032.That translates to odds of one in 32 — roughly the same as correctly guessing the outcome of five consecutive coin tosses.The last time an asteroid of greater than 30 meters in size posed such a significant risk was Apophis in 2004, when it briefly had a 2.7 percent chance of striking Earth in 2029 — a possibility later ruled out by additional observations.Surpassing that threshold is “historic,” said Richard Moissl, head of the European Space Agency’s planetary defense office, which puts the risk slightly lower at 2.8 percent.- Webb observations in March -“It’s a very, very rare event,” he told AFP, but added: “This is not a crisis at this point in time. This is not the dinosaur killer. This is not the planet killer. This is at most dangerous for a city.”Data from the Webb telescope — the most powerful space observatory — will be key in better understanding its trajectory, said the Planetary Society’s Betts.”Webb is able to see things that are very, very dim,” he said — which is key because the asteroid’s orbit is currently taking it out towards Jupiter, and its next close approach will not be until 2028.If the risk rises over 10 percent, IAWN would issue a formal warning, leading to a “recommendation for all UN members who have territories in potentially threatened areas to start terrestrial preparedness,” explained Moissl.Unlike the six-mile-wide (10-kilometer-wide) asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, 2024 YR4 is classified as a “city killer” — not a global catastrophe, but still capable of causing significant destruction.Its potential devastation comes less from its size and more from its velocity, which could be nearly 40,000 miles per hour if it hits.If it enters Earth’s atmosphere, the most likely scenario is an airburst, meaning it would explode midair with a force of approximately eight megatons of TNT — more than 500 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb.But an impact crater cannot be ruled out if the size is closer to the higher end of estimates, said Betts.The potential impact corridor spans the eastern Pacific, northern South America, the Atlantic, Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and South Asia — though Moissl emphasized it is far too early for people to consider drastic decisions like relocation.The good news: there’s ample time to act. NASA’s 2022 DART mission proved that spacecraft can successfully alter an asteroid’s path, and scientists have theorized other methods, such as using lasers to create thrust by vaporizing part of the surface, pulling it off course with a spacecraft’s gravity, or even using nuclear explosions as a last resort.

Donald Trump’s threats of import tariffs have sent shockwaves through Canada, forcing businesses to question their dependence on the United States — a reassessment that is creating headaches for many sectors.”It was an absolute shock,” Matthew Holmes, vice president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, told AFP. “There’s an incredible anxiety that comes from the unpredictability and the uncertainty.””It got everybody talking in Canada about (how) we can’t trust this partnership anymore,” he added.Earlier this month US President Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports, then granted a 30-day reprieve.The pause, however, has done little to reassure Canadian businesses that send more than 75 percent of Canada’s exports to the United States, and who worry that a trade war would lead to a recession and hundreds of thousands of job losses.Canada must prepare for the tariffs by removing barriers to trade between provinces and diversify its export markets, Holmes said. “We need to be ready and have the infrastructure and relationships and start building those out now.”Otherwise, he said, Canadian businesses will be “really, really screwed.”- ‘No quick fix’ -According to a recent survey, nine out of 10 Canadians agree on the need to lessen Canada’s trade reliance on the United States.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently hosted a summit in Toronto that brought business leaders together to discuss ways of growing the Canadian economy, including removing internal trade barriers, diversifying export markets and boosting productivity.Provincial governments and business leaders, he told delegates, must “step up and push hard” to make Canada more competitive, while acknowledging that it has been easy to just sell to the country’s southern neighbor.But that may be easier said than done, according to Robert Gillezeau, an economics professor at the University of Toronto.”The two economies are extremely interconnected with over a trillion dollars in trade between the two countries,” he told AFP, pointing to their close proximity and “longstanding good relations” for how ties developed.”For some sectors, it’ll be a little bit easier” to disentangle from the United States, Gillezeau said.For others, “it’s going to be a mess,” he added. “You can’t just snap your fingers and take that integrated industry and have it work with someone else or have it become fully domestic… There is no quick fix.” The food industry is a case in point.”We’ve frozen our purchases of some American goods and we’re looking elsewhere for alternatives,” explains Mike Bono of Can-Am Food Services.But it is not possible for the company — which is one of the largest distributors of fruits and vegetables in Quebec and Ontario with nearly 3,000 customers including restaurants and hotels — to find substitutes for all of its American offerings.- Interprovincial trade barriers -The removal of interprovincial trade barriers was flagged in a report as a way to boost Canada’s economy as far back as 1940.Ottawa led efforts to dismantle them in 2017 but hundreds of exceptions were kept in an agreement signed by the provinces.Removing these barriers would improve productivity and increase Canadian GDP, but “would take a level of effort and coordination that we rarely see in the federation,” Gillezeau said.Internal Trade Minister Anita Anand, who wants to see these barriers abolished as soon as possible, believes that “in the face of Donald Trump’s repeated threats, we must choose Canada.”She explained that removing the barriers — such as alcohol sales restrictions, different labelling rules, varying professional licensing certifications, and independent dairy marketing boards in each province — could lower prices by 15 percent, boost productivity and inject up to Can$200 billion into the economy.Some are also calling for east-west oil and gas pipeline projects to be revived in order to lessen dependency on US infrastructure. Oil from western Alberta, for example, is currently shipped via a pipeline that dips into the United States before emerging in Ontario.

A US judge on Tuesday declined a request to temporarily block Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from firing federal employees and accessing agency data, a victory for President Donald Trump in his bid to shrink the government workforce.Fourteen Democratic-ruled states had filed suit last week contesting Musk’s legal authority but District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied their emergency request to pause his actions.”Plaintiffs have not carried their burden of showing that they will suffer imminent, irreparable harm absent a temporary restraining order,” Chutkan said.DOGE is a free-ranging entity run by Musk, the world’s richest person and Trump’s biggest donor. The billionaire has taken an assertive role in the new administration, with his agency aiming to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending.His plans have effectively shuttered some federal agencies, sent thousands of staff members home and sparked legal battles across the country.In their suit, the 14 states claimed that Musk and DOGE lacked statutory authority for their actions because he had not been formally nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.”(Musk) exercises virtually unchecked power across the Executive Branch, making decisions about expenditures, contracts, government property, regulations, and the very existence of federal agencies,” they said.In addition, Musk and DOGE have gained access to “sensitive data, information, systems, and technological and financial infrastructure across the federal government,” they added.The 14 states had sought to block DOGE from accessing the data systems of the Office of Personnel Management and the Departments of Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, Energy, Transportation and Commerce, and from terminating any of their employees.- ‘Considerable uncertainty’ -Chutkan, in her ruling, said “the court is aware that DOGE’s unpredictable actions have resulted in considerable uncertainty and confusion for Plaintiffs and many of their agencies and residents.”But the ‘possibility’ that Defendants may take actions that irreparably harm Plaintiffs ‘is not enough,'” she said.Musk’s cost-cutting spree has been met with legal pushback on a number of fronts and a mixed bag of rulings.A different federal judge last week lifted a freeze he had temporarily imposed on a mass buyout plan offered by the Trump administration to federal workers.In the mass buyout case, labor unions representing federal employees had filed suit to block the scheme masterminded by Musk to slash the size of government by encouraging federal workers to quit.In an email titled “Fork in the Road,” the more than two million US government employees were given an offer to leave with eight months’ pay or risk being fired in future culls.According to the White House, more than 75,000 federal employees signed on to the buyout offer from the Office of Personnel Management.Trump’s executive actions have been challenged in dozens of court cases and the White House has accused “judges in liberal districts” of “abusing their power” to block the president’s moves.The decisions have come from judges nominated by both Republican and Democratic presidents, including Trump himself during his first term.Chutkan, an appointee of Democratic former president Barack Obama, presided over the now-abandoned case against Trump on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The US Senate voted Tuesday to confirm Wall Street billionaire Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary, a key step towards the rollout of President Donald Trump’s “America First” trade agenda, which uses tariffs as a broad negotiation tool.Trump has threatened sweeping levies on US allies and competitors alike, looking to tariffs not only as a way to raise revenue but also pressure other countries to act on US priorities.Lutnick, who was chief executive of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, is a close ally of Trump’s and has been a defender of imposing tariffs on US imports.On Tuesday, he was confirmed by a vote of 51-45. A spokesman for Lutnick told AFP that he has stepped down from Cantor.He takes the helm at a department that advocates for US business interests and oversees an apparatus restricting the export of certain technology — including semiconductors — to adversaries, including China and Russia.The role will place him at the frontier of Washington’s tariff and trade agenda too, working with the US Trade Representative’s office.The Commerce Department is in charge of a nearly $53 billion program involving subsidies to stimulate the US chipmaking sector, which Lutnick earlier called an “excellent downpayment” despite stressing the need to review investments.During his confirmation hearing last month, Lutnick backed sweeping tariffs targeting countries rather than specific products and signaled a hawkish approach to Beijing.”We can use tariffs to create reciprocity, fairness and respect,” he told lawmakers.He also denied that tariffs would cause widespread inflation, despite economists’ concerns that duties could add to consumer costs in the short term and weigh on growth in the longer haul.The commerce secretary has a broad agenda to implement, and negotiations with some of the United States’ biggest trading partners to contend with.Trump has unveiled blanket duties of up to 25 percent on immediate US neighbors Canada and Mexico, threatening to snarl supply chains in key sectors like automobiles and setting off a flurry of negotiations.The levies, which Trump said were imposed over immigration and drug smuggling concerns, are due to take effect in early March after a month-long pause as talks continue.Separately, Trump also announced 25-percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from March 12, which officials said would pile atop the hefty rates threatened on Canada and Mexico.Looking ahead, Lutnick has signaled his willingness for broad “reciprocal tariffs” against US trading partners to start as early as April 2.These levies, which Washington said are aimed at correcting “long-standing imbalances” in trade, would be tailored to each country.Officials would consider both the tariffs countries impose on US goods as well as taxes seen as “discriminatory” — such as value-added taxes.

President Donald Trump sniped at Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky Tuesday and effectively blamed him for Moscow’s invasion — even as he said he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks.Trump increased pressure on Zelensky to hold elections — echoing one of Moscow’s key demands — and chided the Ukrainian for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia.The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance towards Russia in a shift that has alarmed European leaders.”I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian reaction.”Today I heard, ‘oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years… You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” he said.Zelensky had earlier Tuesday criticised the US-Russia talks for excluding Kyiv, saying efforts to end the war must be “fair” and involve European countries, while postponing his own trip to Saudi Arabia.The Ukrainian leader’s comments appeared to incense Trump, who proceeded to launch a series of attacks on Zelensky, who has led Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s February 2022 invasion.Asked whether the United States would support demands that Russia wanted to force Zelensky to hold new elections as part of any deal, Trump began by criticising what he said were the Ukrainian’s approval ratings. “They want a seat at the table, but you could say… wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since we’ve had an election,” said Trump.”That’s not a Russian thing, that’s something coming from me, from other countries.”Zelensky was elected in 2019 for a five-year term, but has remained in office as Ukraine is still under martial law.- ‘Power to end this war’ -European leaders are increasingly fearful that Trump is giving too many concessions to Russia in his pursuit of the Ukraine deal that he promised to seal even before taking office.But Trump insisted that his only goal was “peace” to end the largest land war in Europe since World War II.Trump said he was “much more confident” of a deal after the talks, adding: “They were very good. Russia wants to do something. They want to stop the savage barbarianism.””I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going very well,” Trump said.The US leader added that he was “all for” European peacekeepers in Ukraine if he can strike a deal to end the war. “If they want to do that, that’s great, I’m all for it,” he said. “I know France was willing to do that, and I thought that was a beautiful gesture,” added Trump, saying that Britain had made a similar offer.The United States would not have to contribute “because, you know, we’re very far away.”Trump stunned the world when he announced last week that he had spoken to Putin, and that the two leaders had agreed to start peace talks and to travel to meet each other in Moscow and Washington.The US president then said they would hold a first meeting, most likely also in Saudi Arabia.Although no date has been announced, when asked if he would met Putin before the end of the month, Trump said “probably.”

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he has ordered the firing of all remaining US attorneys nominated by his predecessor Joe Biden.”Over the past four years, the Department of Justice has been politicized like never before,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.”Therefore, I have instructed the termination of ALL remaining ‘Biden Era’ U.S. Attorneys,” he said.”We must ‘clean house’ IMMEDIATELY, and restore confidence,” Trump added. “America’s Golden Age must have a fair Justice System – THAT BEGINS TODAY!”It is standard practice for an incoming president to replace the federal prosecutors, known as US attorneys, nominated by their predecessor.There are 93 US attorneys, one for each of the 94 federal court districts in the country. Two districts share a US attorney.US attorneys are the top federal law enforcement officer in each district.A number of US attorneys nominated by Democrat Biden resigned following Trump’s November election victory in anticipation of being replaced.The Justice Department, which Trump has accused of unjustly prosecuting him, has been the target of a sweeping shakeup since the Republican took office and a number of high-ranking officials have been fired, demoted or reassigned.Among those sacked were members of the office of special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two now-abandoned criminal cases against Trump.The acting US attorney for the powerful Southern District of New York, a Trump appointee, resigned last week after being asked by the Justice Department to drop corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.