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US President Donald Trump has threatened to broaden his trade war by unveiling reciprocal tariffs Thursday, the latest among sweeping measures targeting allies and competitors alike.Trump’s fresh salvo, which he said would hit “every country,” could bring a broad tariff hike on emerging market economies and add to inflation fears domestically, analysts warn.- What are reciprocal tariffs? -Tariffs are taxes imposed on goods imported from another country.As for reciprocal tariffs — during election campaigning, Trump promised: “An eye for an eye, a tariff for a tariff, same exact amount.””Every country will be reciprocal,” Trump said Sunday. He was due to hold a news conference offering more details on Thursday afternoon.Analysts expect reciprocal tariffs mean hiking rates on imports to match the level that other countries apply to US products.Matching this based on specific products would likely raise the United States’ average tariff rate by around two percentage points, said Goldman Sachs analysts in a recent note. Doing so to match the average tariff imposed by countries raises the US rate by a smaller amount, the note added.But taking a product-focused approach has its complexities.While Washington has relatively low average tariffs at a 2.7 percent rate in 2022, it has higher rates in “very politically sensitive” areas such as apparel, sugar and pick-up trucks, said Cato Institute’s Scott Lincicome.Similarly, including non-tariff barriers like regulations in the calculus would add to complications.- Who will be impacted? -Reciprocal tariffs may open the door to “a broad tariff hike” on emerging market economies who have high duties on US products, JPMorgan analysts expect.If officials go by average tariff rates applied on all products, countries like India or Thailand — which tax imports at higher average rates than the United States does — could be more affected.Trump has previously slammed India as a “very big abuser” on trade and this week, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC that India had high tariffs that lock out imports.Lincicome cautioned that high tariffs are often also imposed by poorer countries, who use them as a tool for revenue and protection as they have fewer resources to impose non-tariff barriers like regulatory protectionism.Goldman Sachs estimates that “there should be no effect on countries with free trade agreements like Mexico, Canada, and (South) Korea, limiting the overall impact” if Washington took a country-based approach to reciprocal tariffs.- What are the complications? -It remains unclear if Trump views reciprocal tariffs as an alternative to a universal tariff of between 10 and 20 percent that he floated on the campaign trail — or a separate policy.One risk is that the Trump administration could use “reciprocal tariffs” to address non-tariff issues, said Goldman Sachs in a note. In particular, he could consider value-added taxes (VATs) when deciding how much to adjust tariffs. Doing so stands to raise the average effective tariff rate by another 10 percentage points, Goldman analysts added.Such a move might also be a response to high European Union VATs, JPMorgan said.- What is the goal? -“One of the objectives is to create uncertainty as a negotiating tactic, but uncertainty is a tax on doing business,” Jeffrey Schott, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, earlier told AFP.Unpredictability surrounding tariffs, retaliation and non-trade issues all contribute to a situation that weighs on US and foreign firms, he said.In the case of allies like Europe, Schott said, US objectives in negotiation could involve “economic and geopolitical priorities, including Ukraine.”They could include finding a better resolution of the situation in Ukraine, which has been fighting off a Russian invasion since 2022, but also to expand US exports in key sectors like liquefied natural gas (LNG).- Two-way street? -When it comes to its average general tariff rate, the United States stands around the middle among wealthy, industrialized countries, said Cato’s Lincicome.”Should Trump’s system be based on average tariff rates, then ‘true’ reciprocity would require US tariff rate reductions on goods from dozens of countries,” he added in a recent report.

Blindsided Europeans warned Thursday that a “dirty deal” between US President Donald Trump and Moscow on ending the Ukraine war was doomed to fail — insisting they and Kyiv must have a seat at the negotiating table.Meeting NATO partners the day after Trump revealed he had agreed to start peace talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth denied it meant a betrayal of Kyiv’s three-year war effort.But Trump’s move stunned European allies — several of whom openly called his strategy into question.German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejected any “dictated peace” and his defence minister called it “regrettable” that Washington was already making “concessions” to the Kremlin. In a blunt address to reporters at NATO talks in Brussels, EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas insisted that no deal “behind our backs” could work, as she accused Washington of “appeasement” towards Russia.”We shouldn’t take anything off the table before the negotiations have even started because it plays to Russia’s court and it is what they want,” she said. “Any quick fix is a dirty deal,” she said. “It will just simply not work.”- ‘No betrayal’ -After a 90-minute phone call with Putin, his first since returning to power, Trump said he expected to meet the Russian leader in Saudi Arabia for Ukraine peace talks — sparking fears Kyiv would be frozen out.That came after his administration poured cold water on Ukraine’s goals of reclaiming all its territory and pushing to join NATO’s protective umbrella.”There is no betrayal there. There is a recognition that the whole world and the United States is invested and interested in peace,” Hegseth said at NATO. “That will require both sides recognising things they don’t want to,” added the US Defense Secretary. Trump, who has been pushing for a quick end to the war, denied that Ukraine was being excluded from direct negotiations between the two nuclear-armed superpowers.The Kremlin said both leaders had agreed the “time has come to work together,” insisting it wanted to organise a face-to-face meeting promptly and that broader European security should be on the agenda.  After speaking to Putin, the US president called Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and shared details of his talks with the Kremlin leader.Ukraine’s defence minister Rustem Umerov told Kyiv’s NATO backers “we’re continuing, we’re strong, we’re capable, we’re able, we will deliver”.Zelensky is set to meet US Vice President JD Vance at a security conference in Munich on Friday to kick off negotiations.It will be the latest in a flurry of high-level meetings after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent held talks in Kyiv on Wednesday on granting Washington access to Ukraine’s rare earth deposits in return for security support. – ‘Overwhelming share’ -Trump’s outreach to Putin had been broadly expected, but the quick pace of his peace push has left heads spinning after three years of staunch Western support for Kyiv. Kyiv’s European backers are terrified that Trump could force Ukraine into a bad peace deal that will leave them facing an emboldened Putin — while fronting the lion’s share of costs for post-war security.Hegseth Wednesday laid out a string of US expectations to halt the conflict, saying it was not realistic for Ukraine to regain all its land or become a NATO member.He also said Europe must now start providing the “overwhelming share” of aid to Ukraine and that the United States would not deploy troops as a security guarantee under any deal. In a statement on Wednesday, the foreign ministers of key European powers including Germany, France, Poland and Britain said “Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiations.”Throughout Russia’s war on Ukraine since 2022 it has been a mantra for Western powers that there should be no decisions taken on Ukraine’s future without Kyiv.NATO chief Mark Rutte on Thursday said it was crucial that Kyiv was “closely involved” in any talks about what happens in Ukraine. Britain’s defence minister John Healey echoed that message.”There can be no negotiation about Ukraine without Ukraine, and Ukraine’s voice must be at the heart of any talks,” he said.Rutte insisted that any potential peace deal had to be “enduring”, pointing to similar comments made earlier by Hegseth. Russia’s ally China meanwhile said it was “happy” to see the United States and Russia “strengthen communication”. 

Once shunned and now eagerly courted by the West, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stood by Donald Trump’s side at a huge rally and also been lauded by the US president as a “total killer”.Modi’s political ascent was marred by allegations of his culpability in India’s worst religious riots this century, and his tenure has dovetailed with rising hostility towards Muslims and other minorities.Supporters revere Modi’s tough-guy persona, burnished by his image as a steward of India’s Hindu majority faith and myth-making that played up his modest roots.”They dislike me because of my humble origins,” he said in rallies ahead of 2019 elections, lambasting his opponents.”Yes, a person belonging to a poor family has become prime minister. They do not fail to hide their contempt for this fact.”Modi was born in 1950 in the western state of Gujarat, the third of six children whose father sold tea at a railway station.He was an average student but his gift for rousing oratory was first seen as a keen member of a school debate club and his participation in theatrical performances.The seeds of his political destiny were sown at the age of eight when he joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a hardline nationalist group.Modi dedicated himself to its cause of promoting Hindu supremacy in constitutionally secular India, even walking out of his arranged marriage soon after his wedding at the age of 18. Remaining with his wife — whom he never officially divorced — would have hampered his advancement through the ranks of the RSS, which expected senior cadres to stay celibate.- Deadly riots -The RSS groomed Modi for a career in its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which grew into a major force through the 1990s. He was appointed chief minister of Gujarat in 2001 but the state was rocked by sectarian riots the following year, sparked by a fire that killed dozens of Hindu pilgrims.At least 1,000 people were killed in the ensuing violence, most of the victims Muslims.Modi was accused of both helping stir up the unrest and failing to order a police intervention.He later told a BBC reporter that his main weakness in responding to the riots was not knowing “how to handle the media”.A probe by India’s top court eventually said there was no evidence to prosecute Modi, but the international fallout saw him banned from entering the United States and Britain for years.However, it was a testament to India’s changing political tides that his popularity only grew at home.He built a reputation as a leader ready to assert the interests of Hindus, who he contended had been held back by the secularist forces that ruled India almost continuously since independence from Britain. – ‘Friend of mine’ -Critics have sounded the alarm over a spate of prosecutions directed at Modi’s political rivals and the taming of a once-vibrant press.India’s Muslim community of more than 200 million people is also increasingly anxious about its future.Modi’s rise to the premiership was followed by a spate of lynchings targeting Muslims for the slaughter of cows, a sacred animal in the Hindu tradition.But Western democracies have sidestepped rights concerns in the hopes of cultivating a regional ally that can help check China’s assertiveness.He has taken credit for India’s rising diplomatic and economic clout, claiming that the country has become a “vishwaguru” — a teacher to the world — under his watch.He is now looking to rekindle his cosy friendship with Trump when he meets the US president at the White House on Thursday.Modi assiduously courted Trump during his first term and the two share much in common.Both campaigned on promises to promote the interests of their countries’ majority communities over minorities and both pursue critics doggedly.The pair heaped praise on each other in a joint appearance at a stadium in Houston in 2019, touting a close, personal alliance in front of tens of thousands of Indian-Americans.Some 50,000 people attended the event — dubbed “Howdy, Modi!” — and it was billed as the largest gathering by a foreign leader in the United States other than the pope.The following year Modi invited Trump before a cheering crowd of more than 100,000 people to inaugurate the world’s largest cricket stadium in his home state of Gujarat.Modi also took Trump and wife Melania on a guided visit of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram.”He’s great. He’s a friend of mine,” Trump told a podcast hosted by stand-up comedian Andrew Schultz last year.”On the outside he looks like he’s your father. He’s the nicest. Total killer.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will try to rekindle his bromance with Donald Trump — and avoid the US president’s wrath on tariffs and immigration — when they meet on Thursday at the White House.Modi will hold a joint press conference with Trump, the White House said — a rare move from the Indian leader, who is a prolific social media user but seldom takes questions from reporters.He will also hold a one-on-one meeting with tech billionaire Elon Musk, whose aggressive efforts as Trump’s right-hand man to overhaul the federal bureaucracy have alarmed critics. The latest in a series of foreign leaders beating an early path to the Oval Office door since the Republican’s return to power, Modi shared good relations with Trump during his first term.The premier has offered quick tariff concessions ahead of his visit, with New Delhi slashing duties on high-end motorcycles — a boost to Harley-Davidson, the iconic American manufacturer whose struggles in India have irked Trump.India also accepted a US military flight carrying 100 shackled migrants last week as part of Trump’s immigration overhaul, and New Delhi has vowed its own “strong crackdown” on illegal migration.India’s top career diplomat Vikram Misri said last week that there had been a “very close rapport” between the leaders, although their ties have so far failed to bring a breakthrough on a long-sought bilateral trade deal.Modi was among the first to congratulate “good friend” Trump after his November election win.For nearly three decades, US presidents from both parties have prioritized building ties with India, seeing a natural partner against a rising China.But Trump has also raged against India over trade, the biggest foreign policy preoccupation of his new term, in the past calling the world’s fifth-largest economy the “biggest tariff abuser.”Former property tycoon Trump has unapologetically weaponized tariffs against friends and foes since his return.- ‘Trump’s anger’ -Modi “has prepared for this, and he is seeking to preempt Trump’s anger,” said Lisa Curtis, the National Security Council director on South Asia during Trump’s first term.The Indian premier’s Hindu-nationalist government has meanwhile obliged Trump on another top priority: deporting undocumented immigrants.While public attention has focused on Latin American arrivals, India is the third-biggest source of undocumented immigrants in the United States after Mexico and El Salvador.Indian activists burned an effigy of Trump last week after the migrants on the US plane were flown back in shackles the whole journey, while the opposition accused Modi of weakness.One thing Modi is likely to avoid, however, is any focus on his record on the rights of Muslims and other minorities.Trump is unlikely to highlight an issue on which former president Joe Biden’s administration offered gentle critiques.Modi is the fourth world leader to visit Trump since his return, following the prime ministers of Israel and Japan, and the king of Jordan.Modi assiduously courted Trump during his first term. The two share much in common, with both campaigning on promises to promote the interests of their countries’ majority communities over minorities and both doggedly pursuing critics.In February 2020, Modi invited Trump before a cheering crowd of more than 100,000 people to inaugurate the world’s largest cricket stadium in his home state of Gujarat.Trump could visit India later this year for a scheduled summit of the Quad — a four-way grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.dk-sct-mlm-gle/sco

Donald Trump’s defence chief denied Thursday the US president was betraying Ukraine by opening talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as blindsided European powers insisted they and Kyiv must have a seat at the table.Trump on Wednesday stunned European allies by agreeing to launch negotiations with Moscow on ending the nearly three-year Ukraine war, in his first publicly announced phone call with Putin since returning to power.The US president revealed he expected to meet Putin in Saudi Arabia for Ukraine peace talks, in an extraordinary thaw in relations that sparked fears Kyiv would be frozen out. That came after his administration poured cold water on Ukraine’s goals of reclaiming all its territory and pushing to join NATO’s protective umbrella.”There is no betrayal there. There is a recognition that the whole world and the United States is invested and interested in peace,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said ahead of a meeting with his NATO counterparts in Brussels. “That will require both sides recognising things they don’t want to.”Trump, who has been pushing for a quick end to the war, denied that Ukraine was being excluded from the direct negotiations between the two nuclear-armed superpowers.The Kremlin said the talks with Putin lasted nearly one-and-a-half hours and that both leaders agreed the “time has come to work together”.After speaking to Putin, the US president then called Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and shared details of his talks with the Kremlin leader.Zelensky is set to meet US Vice President JD Vance at a security conference in Munich on Friday to kick off negotiations.It will be the latest in a flurry of high-level meetings after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent held talks in Kyiv on Wednesday on granting Washington access to Ukraine’s rare earth deposits in return for security support. – No ‘dictated peace’ -Trump’s outreach to Putin had been broadly expected, but the quick pace of his peace push has left heads spinning after three years of staunch Western support for Kyiv. Kyiv’s European backers are terrified that Trump could force Ukraine into a bad peace deal that will leave them facing an emboldened Putin — while fronting the lion’s share of costs for post-war security.German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejected any “dictated peace” and his defence minister said it was “regrettable” Washington was already making “concessions” to the Kremlin. “In my view it would have been better to speak about a possible NATO membership for Ukraine or possible losses of territory at the negotiating table,” German defence minister Boris Pistorius said. Hegseth on Wednesday laid out a string of US expectations to halt the conflict, saying it was not realistic for Ukraine to regain all its land or become a NATO member.He also said Europe must now start providing the “overwhelming share” of aid to Ukraine and that the United States would not deploy troops as a security guarantee under any deal. In a statement on Wednesday, the foreign ministers of key European powers including Germany, France, Poland and Britain said “Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiations.”Throughout Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine since 2022 it has been a mantra for Western powers that there should be no decisions taken on Ukraine’s future without Kyiv.NATO chief Mark Rutte on Thursday said that it was crucial Kyiv is “closely involved” in any talks about what is happening in Ukraine. Britain’s defence secretary, John Healey, echoed that message, warning “there can be no negotiation about Ukraine without Ukraine, and Ukraine’s voice must be at the heart of any talks.”Rutte insisted that any potential peace deal had to be “enduring”, pointing to similar comments made earlier by Hegseth. Russia’s ally China meanwhile said it was “happy” to see the United States and Russia “strengthen communication”. 

Beyond putting its work in some of the world’s poorest countries in doubt, US President Donald Trump’s sudden move to shut down USAID has left many of its thousands of employees in shock and despair.Promising to slash federal spending, Trump’s government has put almost all of the more than 10,000 employees at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on leave and promised to shut down the organization.One employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, sobbed in a conference call involving current and former USAID staff with journalists.”We’re not being treated like humans right now,” she said.”I am just bewildered that the approach has been like this,” she said. “I’m so concerned about the direction of this country.” Another worker spoke of their commitment to the cause of USAID, which operates a wide array of humanitarian and development programs around the world and is one of the primary tools of US soft power.”We literally have focused our life on this USAID mission,” she said, adding that her family had been working in the sector “for decades now.””You don’t have a home to go to. And you have a mission that you believe in and that you’ve supported for decades, and it’s just the rug’s pulled (from) under you,” she said.There is “a great deal of heartache and anger,” said one former USAID employee. – ‘Utter confusion’ -Trump and his allies allege the agency is rife with “fraud,” but have provided little proof of the accusations.USAID’s budget of more than $40 billion is mandated by Congress, with its programs ranging from governance to life-saving food assistance.The agency has, over the years, faced criticism in the aid sector for its overhead costs and questions on whether some of its programs achieve their objectives.The former USAID employee spoke of how their colleagues “dedicated their lives to serving others on behalf of the American people.””Right now, they are facing utter confusion and outright malignment from their leadership,” she said. Others spoke of the toll the uncertainty has taken on their mental health.”I have been physically sick probably for the past week, stressed, anxious, not sleeping,” one said.”We definitely all see this as sort of the tip of the iceberg for what the country is going through right now,” he added, asserting he was “more determined than ever.”Much of USAID’s staff is based abroad, and there was little clarity on what fate awaited them.A brief message on the USAID website, which informed staff they would be placed on leave and that arrangements were being made to fly overseas staff back “within 30 days” was all that they had to go on, said staff members. Case-by-case exceptions would be considered “based on personal or family hardship, mobility or safety concerns, or other reasons.” That message left many unclear on what happens next.”We are unsure if Secretary (of State Marco) Rubio and President Trump are going to abandon us overseas or abandon us when we land on American soil,” said one worker. “Our employer, the United States government, is not honoring their duty of care to us.”Each of these families are going to arrive homeless, jobless, and insuranceless within a matter of days or possibly even hours of stepping foot on American soil,” she concluded.- ‘Catastrophic’ -Beyond their own disrupted lives, staff said they were alarmed at the consequences on USAID’s massive portfolio of projects, some of them in the world’s poorest countries. “There are real life consequences happening right now because of this chaos,” said one worker, calling the Trump administration’s claim that waivers were in place for life-saving assistance a “sham.””This is resulting in massive humanitarian consequences everywhere for refugees globally who rely on our food assistance to stay alive when they have no means for their own livelihoods,” said another. They pointed to aid programs for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, where full rations of food assistance for one million refugees were due to run out at the end of the month.Provisions would end completely by April, they said.”For Sudanese refugees, what is happening is that organizations are already saying, sorry, you can’t get your food assistance this month,” said one worker, adding that water and sanitation services to 1.6 million people were also being cut.”This is going to affect all of us. It is. The ripple effects are going to be catastrophic everywhere.”

The Republican-controlled US Senate was expected Thursday to approve vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary, despite major concerns from both political parties and many in the medical and scientific communities.Kennedy squeaked through a crucial preliminary vote last week by the Senate Finance Committee, setting up the vote by the full upper chamber, which is controlled by US President Trump’s Republicans.The 71-year-old nephew of the assassinated president John F. Kennedy is expected to win approval as Republicans yet again back Trump and his latest cabinet pick. The vote is expected around 10:30 am (1530 GMT).An environmental lawyer by trade with no medical background, Kennedy has spent years professing conspiracy theories linking vaccines and autism, and most recently spread misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines.His nomination has faced vocal opposition from both parties, with Republicans particularly eying his past support for abortion, his record suing big business and his 2023 run for president as a Democrat.Nine months ago, Trump was calling Kennedy “one of the most Liberal Lunatics ever to run for office.”Beyond vaccines, Democrats point mainly to sexual misconduct allegations, Kennedy’s suggestion that Covid-19 was designed to spare Jews, his linking of school shootings to anti-depressants and bizarre incidents involving dead animals.Last year 77 Nobel prize winners sent an open letter to the Senate opposing his nomination and warning he could place the public’s health “in jeopardy.””He’s a frightening man, (a) dangerous man, and I think he’ll do harm,” said Paul Offit, head of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.Critics accuse Republicans of being negligent.”They are looking the other way. They are choosing to pretend like it is in any way believable that RFK Jr. won’t use his new power to do exactly the thing he has been trying to do for decades — undermine vaccines,” said Democratic Senator Patty Murray.The Republican-controlled Senate has so far approved all of Trump’s cabinet nominations over howls of protest from Democrats who have attacked the candidates’ lack of experience and, in some cases, questioned their patriotism. On Wednesday it gave the green light to Tulsi Gabbard as Trump’s choice to lead the intelligence services, despite criticism over her inexperience and past support for US adversaries Russia and Syria.Gabbard’s success was seen as another powerful demonstration of Trump’s iron grip on his party, after he pushed through a slate of some of the most contentious cabinet nominees in modern history.The president proposed a defense secretary accused of sexual assault, an attorney general suspected of trafficking a minor for sex, and an FBI chief alleged to be motivated by political revenge. All were also widely criticized for their lack of experience.Only the suspected sex trafficker — former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz — has so far been rejected by the Senate.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will try to rekindle his bromance with Donald Trump — and avoid the US president’s wrath on tariffs and immigration — when they meet on Thursday at the White House.Modi will also hold a joint press conference with Trump, the White House said — a rare move from the Indian leader, who is a prolific social media user but seldom takes questions from reporters.The latest in a series of foreign leaders beating an early path to the Oval Office door since the Republican’s return to power, Modi shared good relations with Trump during his first term.The premier has offered quick tariff concessions ahead of his visit, with New Delhi slashing duties on high-end motorcycles — a boost to Harley-Davidson, the iconic American manufacturer whose struggles in India have irked Trump.India also accepted a US military flight carrying 100 shackled migrants last week as part of Trump’s immigration overhaul, and New Delhi has vowed its own “strong crackdown” on illegal migration.India’s top career diplomat Vikram Misri said last week that there had been a “very close rapport” between the leaders, although their ties have so far failed to bring a breakthrough on a long-sought bilateral trade deal.Modi was among the first to congratulate “good friend” Trump after his November election win.For nearly three decades, US presidents from both parties have prioritized building ties with India, seeing a natural partner against a rising China.But Trump has also raged against India over trade, the biggest foreign policy preoccupation of his new term, in the past calling the world’s fifth-largest economy the “biggest tariff abuser.”Former property tycoon Trump has unapologetically weaponized tariffs against friends and foes since his return.- ‘Trump’s anger’ -Modi “has prepared for this, and he is seeking to preempt Trump’s anger,” said Lisa Curtis, the National Security Council director on South Asia during Trump’s first term.The Indian premier’s Hindu-nationalist government has meanwhile obliged Trump on another top priority: deporting undocumented immigrants.While public attention has focused on Latin American arrivals, India is the third source of undocumented immigrants in the United States after Mexico and El Salvador.Indian activists burned an effigy of Trump last week after the migrants on the US plane were flown back in shackles the whole journey, while the opposition accused Modi of weakness.One thing Modi is likely to avoid, however, is any focus on his record on the rights of Muslims and other minorities.Trump is unlikely to highlight an issue on which former president Joe Biden’s administration offered gentle critiques.Modi is the fourth world leader to visit Trump since his return, following the prime ministers of Israel and Japan and the king of Jordan.Modi assiduously courted Trump during his first term. The two share much in common, with both campaigning on promises to promote the interests of their countries’ majority communities over minorities and both doggedly pursuing critics.In February 2020, Modi invited Trump before a cheering crowd of more than 100,000 people to inaugurate the world’s largest cricket stadium in his home state of Gujarat.Trump could visit India later this year for a scheduled summit of the Quad — a four-way grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

For the first time in nearly two years of war, soup kitchens in famine-stricken Sudan are being forced to turn people away, with US President Donald Trump’s aid freeze gutting the life-saving schemes.”People will die because of these decisions,” said a Sudanese fundraising volunteer, who has been scrambling to find money to feed tens of thousands of people in the capital Khartoum.”We have 40 kitchens across the country feeding between 30,000 to 35,000 people every day,” another Sudanese volunteer told AFP, saying all of them had closed after Trump announced the freezing of foreign assistance and the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).”Women and children are being turned away and we can’t promise them when we can feed them again,” she said, requesting anonymity for fear that speaking publicly could jeopardise her work.Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a war between its regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.In addition to killing tens of thousands of people and uprooting over 12 million, the war has pushed five areas of the country into famine and nearly 25 million people into acute food insecurity.In much of Sudan, community-run soup kitchens are the only thing preventing mass starvation and many of them rely on US funding.”The impact of the decision to withdraw funding in this abrupt manner has life-ending consequences,” Javid Abdelmoneim, medical team leader at Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman, told AFP.”This is yet another disaster for people in Sudan, already suffering the consequences of violence, hunger, a collapse of the healthcare system and a woeful international humanitarian response,” he added.- ‘People are dying’ -Shortly after his inauguration last month, Trump froze US foreign aid and announced the dismantling of USAID.His administration then issued waivers for “life-saving humanitarian assistance”, but there have so far been no signs of this taking effect in Sudan and aid workers said their efforts were already crippled.In what the United Nations has decried as a global “state of confusion”, agencies on the ground in Sudan have been forced to halt essential food, shelter and health operations.”All official communications have gone dark,” another Sudanese aid coordinator told AFP, after USAID workers were put on leave this week.The kitchens that have survived “are stretching resources and sharing as much as they can”, he said.”But there’s just not enough to go around.”As one of the few independent organisations still standing in Sudan, MSF said it had been fielding requests from local responders to quickly step in.However, “MSF can’t fill the gap left by the US funding withdrawal,” Abdelmoneim said.The United States was the largest single donor to Sudan last year, contributing $800 million or around 46 percent of funds to the UN’s response plan.The UN estimates it currently has less than 6 percent of the humanitarian funding needed for Sudan in 2025.Over 8 million people are on the brink of famine in Sudan, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.Famine is expected to spread to at least five more areas of Sudan by May, before the upcoming rainy season is likely to make access to food all the more difficult across the country.- Money running out -The hunger crisis is already much worse than figures show, according to the UN, with a lack of access to data preventing official famine declarations including in Khartoum.Now, the situation is likely to deteriorate further.In tandem with Trump’s decisions, the US-funded early warning system for famines, FEWS Net, has also gone offline. That has raised fears that simply tracking the rapidly worsening famine in Sudan will be made harder.”What’s most devastating is that so much was promised,” the aid coordinator said.According to several volunteers, aid agencies had already distributed millions of dollars worth of food, healthcare and shelter assistance — based on US funding pledges — when Trump cut operations.”That means that some local response is already paid for, for now,” the coordinator continued.”The fear is what’s coming next. They have the money now, but what about next month? How many will go hungry then?”Across the country, volunteers in soup kitchens are burning through their last few weeks of funding — terrified of what will happen when it runs out.”It was already not enough, but at least people were getting something,” the soup kitchen fundraiser told AFP.”Now things are going from bad to worse. People are malnourished, pregnant women are dying for lack of healthcare, there’s no semblance of life anymore.”

Young engineers deployed across the US government as part of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have triggered alarm throughout Washington’s security establishment. Never before has a group of unvetted and inexperienced outsiders gained such access to the nerve center of the US government, according to security experts.The campaign, led by Musk’s DOGE team, began at the Treasury Department when they took control of the US government’s payment system — a move justified as monitoring public spending. From there, it expanded into an unprecedented cost-cutting initiative, with software engineers spreading across federal agencies, taking control of computer systems.They have disrupted and in some cases effectively shuttered organizations such the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Department of Education, and the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages much of the government’s infrastructure and building portfolio.”In the span of just weeks, the US government has experienced what may be the most consequential security breach in its history,” wrote Bruce Schneier, a security technologist at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Davi Ottenheimer of Inrupt, a data infrastructure company, in Foreign Policy.The situation is particularly critical at the Bureau of Fiscal Services, the Treasury unit managing all federal payments -— a crucial chokepoint of the US economy. An internal report by an outside contractor warned that the access given to the DOGE team “poses the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau has ever faced.”The computer systems in question rank among the world’s most complex and sensitive. Yet DOGE is staffed primarily with individuals connected to Musk’s companies and young tech professionals in their 20s -— virtually none of whom have been vetted, or have government experience. As for Musk himself — who is unelected — there are concerns about his conflicts of interest, as his companies hold several major government contracts, and whether access to sensitive data will give his business empire an even greater advantage.Meanwhile, senior government workers with decades of system expertise have been blocked from buildings and sidelined by DOGE teams, raising concerns among those who understand the intricate vulnerabilities of government technology.The consequences are already emerging. At the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s HR department, reports indicate DOGE-associated individuals connected an unauthorized server to the network and are using AI software on US citizens’ personal data — in violation of federal privacy laws.The blitz on government has sparked numerous lawsuits, forcing some retreat from DOGE, with a Trump official on Wednesday acknowledging to a judge that a staffer should not have had full system access.In another security slip-up, according to The New York Times, the CIA sent an unclassified email listing all employees hired by the spy agency over the last two years to comply with cost-cutting efforts spearheaded by DOGE.- Too much power -Security experts Schneier and Ottenheimer are especially troubled by the removal of career officials who managed security measures. “The Treasury’s computer systems have such an impact on national security that they were designed with the same principle that guides nuclear launch protocols: No single person should have unlimited power,” they wrote. Making changes to critical financial systems “traditionally requires multiple authorized personnel working in concert,” they said.Musk, who frequently posts on the social platform he owns, X, dismisses government workers as either inept or politically compromised — a “deep state” aligned with Democrats and opposed to Trump. The risk of mistakes has alarmed cybersecurity experts, including Michael Daniel, former White House cybersecurity coordinator under Barack Obama and current head of the Cyber Threat Alliance.”The Chinese, the Russians, other intelligence services -– they put their A-teams on projects that target the US government, and they will exploit any opportunity they have,” Daniel warned. “This assumption that obviously everybody that works for the federal government is stupid and incompetent, and it’s so simple that it doesn’t even matter who you put on the job… that’s just incorrect.” “With government systems, things are not necessarily obvious on the surface. And it takes experience to understand what some of those issues are.”Meanwhile, security experts note that China and Russia, which have long targeted these sensitive systems, could weaponize mistakes and vulnerabilities made in one afternoon for years to come.If “cybersecurity is not top of mind in every step of the integration, you potentially open the door for foreign intelligence services and sophisticated cyber criminals to find a way through,” Eric O’Neill, former FBI operative and strategist for cybersecurity specialty firm NeXasure, told AFP.