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Delta Air Lines withdrew its full-year profit forecast Wednesday and shelved some planned capacity hikes, pointing to a weakening demand outlook amid recession worries and whipsawing trade wars.The company is among the first to report its quarterly results since President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement of major tariffs on US trading partners that has roiled global markets.The big US carrier’s first-quarter profits edged above those in the year-ago period, but executives said they were adjusting strategy to fly fewer planes due to a more meager consumer environment in light of shifting tariff dynamics.”With broad economic uncertainty around global trade, growth has largely stalled,” said Delta Chief Executive Ed Bastian. “In this slower-growth environment, we are protecting margins and cash flow by focusing on what we can control.”Bastian expressed confidence in Delta’s ability to navigate a downturn during a conference call with analysts.The call also touched on travel trends with neighbors Mexico and China, and the impact of tariffs on its dealings with plane maker Airbus.Delta will shelve plans to increase travel capacity in the second half of 2025, which is now projected as flat compared with last year, Bastian said.Profits for the first quarter were $240 million, 18 percent above the year-ago level on a two percent rise in revenues to $14 billion.On Wednesday, the company projected second-quarter revenues of between negative two percent and positive two percent, while profits of between $1.70 and $2.30 per share. Delta isn’t confirming 2025 projections due to the current uncertainty, saying it “will provide an update later in the year as visibility improves.”Company officials said there has been “significant” deterioration in bookings from Canada to the United States while the performance from Mexico has been “mixed.” There has not yet been a big pullback in travel to the United States from Europe or other international markets. But Delta garners only about 20 percent of its international travel revenues from outside the United States, limiting the impact of a pullback, company officials said. Delta executives said they were hopeful a trade agreement between the United States and Europe could remove the threat of tariffs on Airbus planes ordered by the airline.Airbus has “been a great partner,” Bastian said. “But the one thing that you need to know we’re very clear on is that we will not be paying tariffs on any aircraft deliveries we take,” he said.”If you start to put a 20 percent incremental cost on top of an aircraft, it gets very difficult to make the math work,” he said.While the United States has an overall trade deficit with Europe, Europe is by far a net importer in the aircraft and assorted goods category, Delta officials said.Shares of Delta jumped 18.6 percent, with markets rallying aggressively after Trump announced he would suspend new tariffs on countries besides China.

Federal judges in New York and Texas temporarily blocked the Trump administration on Wednesday from deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members without a court hearing.The US Supreme Court on Monday lifted a lower court order barring the deportation of undocumented Venezuelan migrants using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA), but said they must first be given an opportunity to legally challenge their removal.The New York and Texas cases were the first to appear before the federal courts since the ruling by the Supreme Court on the use of the AEA to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.President Donald Trump invoked the AEA, which has only previously been used during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, to round up alleged Tren de Aragua members and summarily expel them last month to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.The White House alleges that Tren de Aragua is closely linked to the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and is “perpetrating an invasion” of the United States.Attorneys for several of the deported Venezuelans have said their clients were not members of Tren de Aragua, had committed no crimes and were targeted largely on the basis of their tattoos.In New York, District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, an appointee of president Bill Clinton, issued a temporary restraining order barring the deportation of two Venezuelan men, identified only by their initials, until they receive a court hearing.In Texas, District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, a Trump appointee, issued a similar temporary restraining order in a case brought by three Venezuelans also identified only by their initials.- ‘Irreparable injury’ -In his order, Rodriguez noted that the Supreme Court had ruled that anyone subject to removal under the AEA must first receive notice and an opportunity to appear in court.The immediate removal of the three individuals would cause them “irreparable injury,” the judge said, and if they were “erroneously removed” it was unlikely they could be returned to the United States.The US Supreme Court is currently considering the case of a Salvadoran man who was wrongfully deported last month on the same day as the alleged Tren de Aragua members.A district court has ordered that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, be returned to the United States and an appeals court has upheld the decision.The Trump administration, in asking the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court’s order, called it a “demand that the United States let a member of a foreign terrorist organization into America.”The White House insists that Abrego Garcia, who is married to a US citizen, is a member of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 but has not produced any credible evidence in court.Abrego Garcia had been living in the United States under protected legal status since 2019, when a judge ruled he should not be deported because he could be harmed in El Salvador.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned countries Wednesday against closer alignment with China on trade, as he defended President Donald Trump’s move to remake the world’s biggest economy through market-shaking tariffs.Bessent told a summit of bankers in Washington that economies potentially eyeing closer ties with Beijing over the US shift may want to think twice, saying “that would be cutting your own throat.””They just keep producing and producing, dumping and dumping, and it’s going somewhere,” he added.Bessent’s remarks came hours after Trump’s fresh tariffs on dozens of countries — including many US allies — kicked in, and shortly after Beijing unveiled equally steep counter tariffs.Trump’s latest action took new US tariffs on Chinese products this year to a staggering 104 percent, piling atop earlier duties.Shortly after the levies took effect, US government bonds saw a sharp sell-off, despite usually being seen as a safe financial asset in uncertain times, as investors priced in a likely US recession and sought to cover losses on equity markets.For now, Bessent said he is gearing up for talks with around 70 partners, adding that Trump could probably reach tariff deals with US allies.”And then we can approach China as a group,” he added.The Treasury chief stressed that Trump’s country-specific tariff levels are “a ceiling” if governments did not retaliate, suggesting Trump would hold off from further hikes if he did not face pushback.Bessent said China chose to escalate the situation.Despite financial market upheaval, he added that the US economy remained “very solid” and in “pretty good shape.”- ‘Main Street’s turn’ -Bessent also said the Treasury Department would work on reforms involving bank regulation.”Wall Street has grown wealthier than ever before, and it can continue to grow and do well,” he told the American Bankers Association’s Washington Summit.”But for the next four years, the Trump agenda is focused on Main Street. It’s Main Street’s turn,” Bessent added, referring to smaller businesses, investors and institutions.”For too long, financial policy has served large financial institutions, at the expense of smaller ones. No more,” the former hedge fund manager added.The Trump administration has been pursuing an economic policy, including tariffs, with a stated aim of transforming the US economy by boosting domestic industrial sectors and pushing for deregulation.Bessent flagged the need as well to ensure that Trump’s tax cuts from his first presidency did not expire, saying this would help support the economy.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday during a visit to Panama that the United States does not seek war with China, but will counter what he called the threats it poses in the Americas.Hegseth made the remarks in a speech to a regional security conference a day after visiting the US-built Panama Canal, which President Donald Trump has threatened to seize because of what he calls China’s excessive influence over the waterway.The United States says it is a threat to its national security and the region as a whole for a Hong Kong company to operate ports at either end of the canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific, and through which five percent of all global shipping passes.”We do not seek war with China. And war with China is certainly not inevitable. We do not seek it in any form,” the secretary said.”But together, we must prevent war by robustly and vigorously deterring China’s threats in this hemisphere,” the former Fox News anchor said in his speech.Hegseth asserted that China-based companies are capturing land and infrastructure in strategic sectors like energy and telecommunications, and that China has too large a military presence in the hemisphere. “Make no mistake, Beijing is investing and operating in this region for military advantage and unfair economic gain,” Hegseth said.Panama, under pressure from the Trump administration to reduce alleged Chinese influence in the waterway, has accused the Hong Kong firm that runs the ports at either end of the canal of failing to meet its contractual obligations and pushed for it to pull out of the country.On Wednesday that firm, Panama Ports Company, rejected an audit that said it had failed to pay $1.2 billion due under its concession.A Panamanian audit released this week said it found “many breaches” of the concession awarded to Panama Ports Company (PPC), a subsidiary of Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison.PPC denied the finding, saying any suggestion it “has failed to pay approximately $1,200 million balboas ($1.2 billion) to the Panamanian State is absolutely contrary to reality.”- ‘Significant investments’ -Panama has denied US assertions that China exercises undue control over the waterway, but faced with Trump’s repeated threats to seize the canal, launched the audit in January.The United States built the more than century old canal and handed it over to Panama in 1999.PPC won the concession to operate one port on the Pacific side and another on the Atlantic side in 1997, and then renewed for another 25 years in 2021.Panama state comptroller Anel Flores concluded that Panama did not receive $1.2 billion it was owed under the contract, adding that PPC benefited from many tax exemptions and had irregularities in a previous audit.But the company said on Wednesday that it has more than met its contractual obligations, having made “significant investments that exceed $1,695 million balboas” — which it said was confirmed by authorities in a 2020 audit.CK Hutchison last month announced a deal to offload 43 ports in 23 countries — including its two on the Panama Canal — to a consortium led by US asset manager BlackRock for $19 billion in cash.A furious Beijing has since announced an antitrust review of the deal.

NASA will prioritize sending astronauts to Mars, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US space agency said Wednesday, shifting focus beyond a long-planned return to the Moon — but insisting both were achievable.Though NASA’s “Artemis” Moon mission was announced in Trump’s first term, he has since openly mused about heading straight to Mars, prompting concerns that China or others could fill the gap on the lunar surface.The notion has gained traction as Elon Musk — the world’s richest person and SpaceX chief who has long eyed a human mission to Mars — became a key Trump ally and advisor.”We will prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars,” businessman Jared Isaacman told the Senate committee overseeing his appointment.”And along the way, we will inevitably have the capabilities to return to the Moon and determine the scientific, economic and national security benefits for maintaining a presence on the lunar surface,” he said.Musk founded his successful space company with the idea of making humanity a multiplanetary species.Isaacman, an e-payments billionaire, is a close Musk ally who has flown to space twice with SpaceX as a private astronaut.He did not appear to view a bid for Mars as incompatible with the Artemis mission, telling senators he did not see any “tough trades here.””I absolutely want to see us return to the Moon,” he said, adding that he did not think NASA would have to make “a binary decision of Moon versus Mars, or Moon has to come first versus Mars.””I think we could be paralleling these efforts and doing the near impossible, which is exactly why the American taxpayers funded NASA in the first place,” he said.A “first step” would be a return to the Moon, he said, adding: “we should be doing both.”Texas Senator Ted Cruz underscored the strategic value of the Moon when it came to US national security back on Earth.”We must stay the course — an extreme shift in priorities at this stage would almost certainly mean a red moon, ceding ground to China for generations to come,” the Republican, whose state hosts NASA’s massive Johnson Space Center, told the hearing.”I am hard pressed to think of a more catastrophic mistake we could make in space than saying to Communist China, ‘the Moon is yours,'” Cruz continued.But Isaacman insisted both a moonshot and a Mars-shot were possible.”We can chart a course for Mars in line with the president’s vision to return to the Moon before the Chinese can get there,” he said.Isaacman has also reportedly intervened at the last moment to prevent NASA from suffering the deep cuts made at other agencies by Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

US President Donald Trump brushed off global market panic Wednesday after China and the European Union announced retaliatory tariffs, telling Americans to stay “cool” despite his spiraling trade war.Trump dug in after superpower rival Beijing slapped massive 84 percent levies on US goods, just hours after his latest salvo of tariffs took effect on dozens of trading partners around the world.”BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform following the Chinese and EU counterattacks.Trump sought to convince unnerved investors in a follow-up post that “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!”But Wall Street stocks remained highly volatile while European and Asian stock markets tumbled along with oil. A sharp sell-off in normally safe US government bonds set investors further on edge.Trump said world leaders were rushing to negotiate “tailored” deals with the United States, with Japan and South Korea among those sending delegations to Washington.”I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up kissing my ass,” Trump told a dinner with fellow Republicans on Tuesday night.But China doubled down, after Trump ramped up the duties he had originally prepared for Chinese goods on Wednesday to a giant 104 percent.Beijing had originally planned a 34 percent tariff on US imports but raised the toll to 84 percent in response.”The tariff escalation against China by the United States simply piles mistakes on top of mistakes,” the Chinese finance ministry said.- ‘Cutting your own throat’ -The European Union then launched its own counterattack, announcing measures targeting some US products from Tuesday in retaliation for American duties on global steel and aluminum exports.The 27-nation bloc, which Trump has accused of being created to “screw” the United States, will hit more than 20 billion euros’ worth of US products, including soybeans, motorcycles and beauty products.”These countermeasures can be suspended at any time, should the US agree to a fair and balanced negotiated outcome,” the European Commission said after EU member states approved the measures.Germany’s incoming leader Friedrich Merz urged Wednesday a “joint European response” to Trump’s tariffs as he unveiled a deal to form a coalition government.The fightback by Beijing and Brussels came despite repeated warnings by US officials to hold off.US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned countries at a banking summit Wednesday that aligning with Beijing “would be cutting your own throat.”But in yet another signal that Trump is ready to negotiate, Bessent added that the levels the US president announced on what he called “Liberation Day” last week were “a ceiling, if you don’t retaliate.”Trump believes his policy will revive America’s lost manufacturing base by forcing companies to relocate to the United States.The billionaire former property tycoon has particularly raged against China, accusing it of excess production and “dumping” inexpensive goods on other economies.- Bond worries -But the trade war is also heightening political tensions between the world’s two largest economies.China warned tourists on Wednesday to “fully assess the risks” before travelling to the United States.US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth then warned against Chinese “threats” as he visited Panama, whose canal is at the center of a row between Beijing and Washington.Many business experts and economists meanwhile question how quickly, if ever, Trump’s bid to relocate industries to the United States could happen — and warn it could reignite inflation and trigger a recession.The escalating trade war has wiped off trillions of dollars in market value since last week.Wall Street’s main indexes were mixed in volatile morning deals while European stock markets were down around three percent in afternoon trading.Tokyo’s Nikkei index closed almost four percent lower.The dollar fell against major currencies while oil prices fell below $60 a barrel, their lowest level in four years.In a major red light for economists, government bond yields — essentially the interest countries pay to borrow money — rose in the United States, Japan and Britain.burs-dk/sms

US President Donald Trump’s trade war boiled over on Wednesday as China and the European Union adopted retaliatory tariffs against US goods, fuelling fresh market volatility.Trump’s latest salvo of tariffs came into effect on dozens of trading partners earlier Wednesday.”BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform following the Chinese and EU counterattacks.In one of the most serious tests of China-US ties in recent decades, Trump ramped up the duties he had originally prepared for Chinese goods, finally raising them to 104 percent after Beijing said it would retaliate.Beijing initially planned to impose a 34 percent tariff on imports of US products from 1601 GMT on Wednesday, but the finance ministry said it would now raise the toll to 84 percent after Trump hiked his tariff.”The tariff escalation against China by the United States simply piles mistakes on top of mistakes (and) severely infringes on China’s legitimate rights and interests,” the ministry said.Washington’s moves “severely damage the multilateral rules-based trade system”, it added.China also said it would blacklist six American artificial intelligence firms, including Shield AI and Sierra Nevada Corp.The European Union announced measures targeting more than 20 billion euros’ worth of US products, including soybeans, motorcycles and beauty products, starting April 15.The levies are in retaliation for US duties on global steel and aluminium exports imposed last month.”These countermeasures can be suspended at any time, should the US agree to a fair and balanced negotiated outcome,” the European Commission said after EU member states approved the measures. “The EU considers US tariffs unjustified and damaging, causing economic harm to both sides, as well as the global economy,” it added.The EU is still working on a response to the 20 percent levy that took effect on Wednesday.- ‘Cutting your own throat’ -US officials have warned nations against retaliating.”I think what a lot of people are missing here is that the levels that were put out last Wednesday are a ceiling, if you don’t retaliate,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at a US banking summit Wednesday.Bessent warned countries that aligning with Beijing “would be cutting your own throat” as China is guilty of excess production and “dumping” inexpensive goods on other economies.Trump believes his policy will revive America’s lost manufacturing base by forcing companies to relocate to the United States.”This is a GREAT time to move your COMPANY into the United States of America, like Apple, and so many others, in record numbers, are doing,” Trump posted on Truth Social, adding “DON’T WAIT, DO IT NOW!”But many business experts and economists question how quickly — if ever — this could take place and warn it could reignite inflation.- Markets mixed -The escalating trade war has wiped off trillions of dollars in market value since last week as investors fear that the trade war will spark a recession.After some respite on Tuesday, stock markets were rattled on Wednesday.Wall Street’s main indexes were up in early morning deals while European stock markets were down around three percent in afternoon trading.Tokyo’s Nikkei index closed almost four percent lower.The dollar fell against major currencies while oil prices fell below $60 a barrel, their lowest level in four years.Government bond yields — essentially the interest countries pay to borrow money — rose in the United States, Japan and Britain, among other countries.The Bank of England warned of risks to “UK financial stability” from increased geopolitical tensions, including the fallout from the US tariffs.Italy is preparing to cut its 2025 growth forecast in half, to 0.6 percent from 1.2, a government source said, while Spain is also set to downgrade its outlook.Trump has said his government was working on “tailored deals” with trading partners, with the White House saying it would prioritise allies such as Japan and South Korea, which were hit with tariffs of 24 percent and 25 percent, respectively.His top trade official, Jamieson Greer, told the Senate that Argentina, Vietnam and Israel were among those who had offered to reduce their tariffs. Trump told a dinner with fellow Republicans on Tuesday night that countries were “dying” to make a deal.”I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up kissing my ass,” he said.Trump also said the United States would announce a major tariff on pharmaceuticals “very shortly”, prompting a sell-off in shares of pharmaceutical companies.burs-oho-lth/js

The former Facebook employee behind a scathing book about parent company Meta will testify Wednesday before US senators keen to establish whether the social networking giant ever collaborated with the Chinese government.Former global policy director Sarah Wynn-Williams will allege the company explored breaking into the lucrative Chinese market by appeasing Beijing’s government censors.”I witnessed Meta work ‘hand in glove’ with the Chinese Communist Party to construct and test custom-built censorship tools that silenced and censored their critics,” Wynn-Williams will say, according to testimony made public by the Senate committee.”When Beijing demanded that Facebook delete the account of a prominent Chinese dissident living on American soil, they did it. And then lied to Congress when asked about the incident in a Senate hearing,” she will add.Meta communications director Andy Stone told AFP Wynn-Williams’ testimony was “divorced from reality and riddled with false claims.””While (Meta CEO) Mark Zuckerberg himself was public about our interest in offering our services in China and details were widely reported beginning over a decade ago, the fact is this: we do not operate our services in China today,” he added.The company’s family of apps is currently blocked in China.Of particular interest at Wednesday’s hearing, headed by Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, is that Wynn-Williams contradicts what Zuckerberg has stated under oath during past congressional hearings.Wynn-Williams’s book, “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism,” was released on March 11 and became a bestseller despite Meta winning an arbitration court order barring the author from promoting the work or making derogatory statements about the company.Her book recounts working at the tech titan from 2011 to 2017 and includes claims of sexual harassment by longtime company executive Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican and ally of President Donald Trump who took over as head of Meta’s global affairs team this year.Meta took the matter to arbitration, contending the book violates a non-disparagement contract signed by Wynn-Williams when she worked with the company’s global affairs team.”The measure of how important these truths are is directly proportional to the ferocity of Meta’s efforts to censor and intimidate me,” Wynn-Williams will tell Senators.”Careless People” ranks second on a New York Times bestseller list of nonfiction books, with another title highly critical of Meta close behind.”The Anxious Generation,” which paints a dark picture of social media’s effect on children, is currently fourth on the Times bestseller list, a year after its release.

China announced Wednesday massive retaliatory tariffs on US goods, sharply escalating a trade war started by President Donald Trump and fuelling fresh panic in global markets.Trump’s latest salvo of tariffs came into effect on dozens of trading partners earlier Wednesday, including punishing duties of 104 percent on imports of Chinese products.Beijing originally planned to respond with a 34 percent tariff on imports of US products from 1601 GMT Wednesday, but the finance ministry said it would now raise the toll to 84 percent after Trump dramatically hiked his own duties on imports from China.”The tariff escalation against China by the United States simply piles mistakes on top of mistakes (and) severely infringes on China’s legitimate rights and interests,” the ministry said.Washington’s moves “severely damage the multilateral rules-based trade system”, it added.In a separate statement, Beijing’s commerce ministry said it would blacklist six American artificial intelligence firms, including Shield AI and Sierra Nevada Corp.Trump did not immediately react to the Chinese counterattack but he called on companies to start relocating to the United States to avoid tariffs.”This is a GREAT time to move your COMPANY into the United States of America, like Apple, and so many others, in record numbers, are doing,” the US president said on his Truth Social platform. He urged: “DON’T WAIT, DO IT NOW!”Trump believes his policy will revive America’s lost manufacturing base by forcing companies to relocate to the United States.But many business experts and economists question how quickly — if ever — this can take place and warn it could reignite inflation.- Recession fears -The escalating trade war has wiped off trillions of dollars in market value since last week as investors fear that the trade war will spark a recession.After some respite on Tuesday, stock markets were in panic mode again, with Tokyo’s Nikkei index closing almost four percent lower on Wednesday.Paris and Frankfurt sank four percent in afternoon trading while London was down 3.5 percent. US equities were expected to open with more losses.The Bank of England warned of risks to “UK financial stability” from increased geopolitical tensions, including the fallout from the US tariffs.Italy is preparing to cut its 2025 growth forecast in half, to 0.6 percent from 1.2, a government source said, while Spain is also set to downgrade its outlook.Central banks in India and New Zealand cut interest rates to boost their economies in the face of tariffs.Oil prices fell below $60 a barrel, their lowest level in four years.Government bond yields — essentially the interest countries pay to borrow money — rose in the United States, Japan and Britain, among other countries.- Drug makers next? -Trump has said his government was working on “tailored deals” with trading partners, with the White House saying it would prioritise allies such as Japan and South Korea, which were hit with tariffs of 24 percent and 25 percent, respectively.His top trade official, Jamieson Greer, told the Senate that Argentina, Vietnam and Israel were among those who had offered to reduce their tariffs. Vietnamese goods were hit with one of the highest tariffs, at 46 percent. Trump told a dinner with fellow Republicans on Tuesday night that countries were “dying” to make a deal.”I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up kissing my ass,” he said.The European Union, whose goods were hit with a 20 percent tariff, is working on response that could be presented next week.A Chinese government white paper released on Wednesday emphasised that the Beijing and Washington could still resolve their differences “through equal-footed dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation”.Trump on Tuesday said the United States was “taking in almost $2 billion a day” from global tariffs.He also said the United States would announce a major tariff on pharmaceuticals “very shortly”, prompting a sell-off in shares of pharmaceutical companies.Residents in Beijing expressed fears over the escalating trade war.”I hope that everyone can sit down and reconcile and talk, and then put things out step by step, rather than irrationally escalate them,” Yu Yan, a lawyer, told AFP.In the United States, consumers also voiced worries over rising prices.At a supermarket in New York, mother-of-two Anastasia Nevin told AFP she was “just trying to get by. It’s tough”, adding that she was in “survival mode”.burs-oho-lth/js

President Donald Trump’s punishing tariffs on countries around the world, including a 104 percent increase in duties on China, bear the fingerprint of Peter Navarro, a Harvard-trained economist who has long warned against a rising Beijing.Saying Washington’s trade deficit was a sign of unfair competition, Trump announced blanket 10 percent tariffs on countries and territories around the world last week, including islands inhabited only by penguins.And nearly 60 economies face higher duties, including the over 100 percent tax on Chinese imports that took effect Wednesday after tit-for-tat tariffs between Beijing and Washington.Navarro has advised Trump since before the 2016 presidential election, when candidate Trump vowed to crack down on unfair trade practices he argued have destroyed American jobs and left once-mighty US cities a shadow of their former selves.The economist’s works include the documentary film, “Death by China: how America lost its manufacturing base,” connected to his 2011 book showing China as a serial trade cheater, subsidizing export-oriented industries and manipulating its currency. The consequences, including a harsh deindustrialization of the United States, demand a tough response to China, or the “Dragon,” Navarro argued. Navarro has since emerged as one of the president’s most loyal aides, a controversial figure who defended Trump’s campaign to deny the results of the 2020 presidential election that put Joe Biden in the White House.- Jail term -Navarro, who will be 76 in July, has faced censure and ridicule from his political opponents and fellow Republicans alike, as a backlash builds against Trump’s tariffs within his own party.The former university lecturer served a four-month sentence in prison last year for actions stemming from the former president’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Navarro was convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to appear for a deposition and refusing to supply documents to the committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters.And in 2020, Navarro clashed with top health expert Anthony Fauci over the Covid-19 pandemic, with the Trump administration official defending the use of an anti-malarial drug against the coronavirus.Billionaire and major Trump backer Elon Musk called Navarro “dumber than a sack of bricks” on Tuesday after the trade advisor said the Tesla boss relies mostly on imported parts to make his electric cars.Musk also dubbed him “Peter Retarrdo” and said Navarro “should ask the fake expert he invented, Ron Vara” — referring to a fictional pundit Navarro quoted in a series of books and a policy memo, using an anagram of his own name.Earlier, Senator Ted Cruz — a staunch Trump loyalist — warned that the United States could be on its way to an economic “bloodbath” after markets crashed on the back of Trump’s tariff announcement.- ‘Visionary’ -Navarro was named to Trump’s team soon after the 2016 election and quickly labeled a “visionary” by the American president. But his appointment spurred immediate unease at Beijing and many observers have seen his standing within the Trump universe as a proxy for the administration’s stance on trade.Under Navarro’s guidance, Trump threatened to pull out of the landmark North American Free Trade Agreement during his first term and demanded renegotiation of the trade relationship.Canada and Mexico eventually agreed to the replacement “USMCA” deal with new wording to boost US jobs.That was after Trump signed an executive order formally ending US participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership in one of his first official acts as president in January 2017.Long affiliated with the Democratic Party, which historically has been more protectionist of the two major US parties, Navarro received a doctorate in economics from Harvard.Born to a saxophonist father and secretary mother, he was raised by his mother after the two divorced in Bethesda, Maryland, an upscale suburb of the nation’s capital.