AFP USA

US President Donald Trump’s administration has begun laying off probationary employees as it moves to the next stage of its plans to aggressively shrink the federal workforce.The US Department of Veteran’s Affairs was one of the first departments to publicly confirm the layoffs, announcing in a statement that it dismissed more than 1,000 probationary employees on Thursday in non “mission critical” positions. “The dismissals announced today are part of a government-wide Trump Administration effort to make agencies more efficient, effective and responsive to the American People,” it said in a statement. Although the exact number of federal employees affected is unclear, more than 200,000 recently hired workers are currently serving out their probationary period, according to the most recently available government data.The Trump administration directed agency heads to terminate most trial and probationary staff — who have fewer civil service protections — US media reported Thursday.An employee who was laid off from her job at the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) told AFP on condition of anonymity that she had been fired during a video call to which close to 100 employees had been invited. The employee, and several other participants, were still serving out their probationary periods. All were told they were being let go for performance purposes. Shortly after the call ended, the employee received a letter from acting OPM director Charles Ezell confirming she had been fired. Her access was cut off less than an hour later. Spokespeople for OPM and the White House press offices did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Thursday’s actions follow a White House push — led by OPM — to shrink the number of government workers by offering them eight months’ pay to resign. The email with the resignation offer, titled “Fork in the Road,” also noted that those who did not accept risked being let go in future culls. More than 65,000 federal employees accepted the buyout offer from OPM, the White House said. One employee at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) who spoke with AFP reported accepting the OPM’s offer to resign out of concern for otherwise being fired.”This was my dream job,” said the employee, who was not on probation but who had been at HUD for less time — and thus had less job security — than many other colleagues. “It just became very clear to me that the writing is on the wall,” the employee said. “I might as well take the best cushion I have to put myself in the best situation to take the time I need to find a new position.”A HUD spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The Associated Press said Thursday its reporter was barred from a White House event for the third day straight, in a mushrooming row over its refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”After being denied access to Oval Office events twice, the agency said it was barred again on Thursday, this time from a news conference with President Donald Trump and visiting Indian leader Narendra Modi.Editor-in-chief Julie Pace called the decision “a deeply troubling escalation” in the administration’s stance against the agency and a “plain violation” of AP’s protected free speech rights.”This is now the third day AP reporters have been barred from covering the president… an incredible disservice to the billions of people who rely on The Associated Press for nonpartisan news,” she said in a statement to AFP. The agency first had a reporter blocked from covering an Oval Office signing on Tuesday, it said, because it did not “align its editorial standards” with Trump’s executive order renaming the body of water.The reporter for the 180-year-old media organization was again prevented from attending an Oval Office event on Wednesday — the swearing in of new Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.In a style note last month, AP said Trump’s executive order “only carries authority within the United States.”Asked about the restriction, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday the Trump administration was guarding against media “lies.”She noted that the US secretary of interior had officially designated the new name, and that Google and Apple had made the changes on their popular map applications used in the United States.”It is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America. And I’m not sure why news outlets don’t want to call it that, but that is what it is,” Leavitt said.The White House Correspondents’ Association called AP’s exclusion from the Modi event “outrageous and a deeply disappointing escalation.” “The attempted government censorship of a free press risks a chilling effect on journalists doing their job without fear or favor on behalf of the American people,” the group’s president Eugene Daniels said in a statement.”This is a textbook violation of not only the First Amendment, but the president’s own executive order on freedom of speech and ending federal censorship.”

Latin America has emerged as a key battleground in US President Donald Trump’s confrontation with China, and the region is coming under pressure from Washington to choose a side.The Trump administration’s approach to China’s growing Latin American footprint — seen as a national security and economic threat — has so far been more stick than carrot.Trump has repeatedly threatened to “take back” the US-built Panama Canal if Panama doesn’t reduce Chinese influence in the strategic waterway, which handles 40 percent of US container traffic.China is also an indirect target of tariffs Trump has announced on steel and aluminum from allied countries such as Mexico.The White House says Chinese producers are abusing the USMCA North America free-trade treaty to “funnel” aluminum into the United States through Mexico, tariff-free.China has condemned a “Cold War mentality,” accusing the United States of using “pressure and coercion to smear and undermine” its Latin American investments.”There’s no doubt that the Trump administration sees China’s footprint in the Americas as a relevant threat to its national security and foreign policy interests,” Arturo Sarukhan, who was Mexico’s ambassador to Washington from 2006 to 2013, told AFP. “That’s what basically explains President Trump’s diplomatic bullying of Panama, his America First Trade Policy… and his threats to upend USMCA,” he said.- Entering US via backdoor -The United States for two centuries claimed Latin America as part of its sphere of influence. But China has been making inroads.Two-thirds of Latin American countries have joined Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure program and China has surpassed the United States as the biggest trading partner of Brazil, Peru, Chile and several other countries.In November, Beijing’s ambitions were on full display when Xi inaugurated a $3.5 billion, Chinese-funded megaport in Peru that will allow China to skirt North America in trading with South America.The Trump administration’s immediate concerns appear to be with Chinese influence closer to home, particularly in Panama and top US trading partner Mexico.Chinese investment in Mexico has soared since Trump’s first presidency when companies in sectors targeted by US tariffs moved part of their supply chains to Mexico.In a nod to Washington’s complaints that it had a free trade deal “with Mexico, not China,” President Claudia Sheinbaum announced plans to cut Chinese imports by boosting local production of cars, textiles and other goods.China is also deeply embedded in Panama’s economy, beyond the two ports operated by a Hong Kong company on the canal, which have raised hackles in Washington.Jason Marczak, senior director of the Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, described parts of Panama as being “inundated with Chinese displacing Panamanian local entrepreneurs.”There too, Washington’s pressure tactics appeared to pay off, with Panama pulling out of China’s Belt and Road program days after a visit by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.- ‘Into Beijing’s arms’ -Experts predict the rivalry to be tough in South America, where China has invested heavily in critical minerals including copper and lithium.Before coming to power in 2023, Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei, who wants a free trade agreement with the United States, vowed he would not “make deals with communists” in China.A year later, he was praising the world’s second-biggest economy as an “interesting” trade partner that asks for nothing in return.Brazil, for its part, maintains strong ties with Washington as well as Beijing — a fellow member of the expanding BRICS alliance of non-Western powers.Sarukhan, the former ambassador, says Trump’s threats and trolling of South American countries “could push them further into the arms of Beijing.”Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro, for example, announced plans to strengthen ties with China after being threatened with sanctions and trade tariffs for initially turning away US migrant deportation flights.But his attempts to rally a Latin American coalition opposed to Trump’s plans fizzled.”No country wants to be in the middle of an ‘us versus them’ global geostrategic battle. But when given the option, there’s a great alignment of US and Western values,” said Marczak. “And so the US investment is preferred.”

Old-school gas stoves, generous showerheads, delicate light bulbs.Since his return to the White House, President Donald Trump has sought to reverse environmental standards for many household appliances, using a familiar refrain: it was better before.”I am hereby instructing Secretary Lee Zeldin to immediately go back to my Environmental Orders, which were terminated by Crooked Joe Biden, on Water Standards and Flow pertaining to SINKS, SHOWERS, TOILETS, WASHING MACHINES, DISHWASHERS, etc.,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday.The 78-year-old billionaire has for years complained about modern showerheads, saying they slow the flow of water.”You turn on the shower, if you’re like me, you can’t wash your beautiful hair properly,” Trump said in 2020. During his first term, Trump reversed federal regulations limiting water flow on a number of appliances, only to see them reinstated by Democrat Joe Biden.And during his election campaign, Trump also accused Democrats of wanting to ban gas stoves and gasoline or diesel-powered automobiles, framing it as a freedom issue for Americans.- ‘I always look orange’ -And the former reality TV star also frequently rails against LED light bulbs, which have been gradually replaced by incandescent bulbs over the past decade.”I’m not a vain person… but I look better under an incandescent light than these crazy lights that are beaming down on us,” Trump said in 2019. “I always look orange.”In his Truth Social post on Tuesday, Trump announced that he would sign an executive order to return “to the common sense standards on LIGHTBULBS, that were put in place by the Trump Administration, but terminated by Crooked Joe.”Andrew deLaski, head of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, ASAP, which advocates for energy efficiency standards for everyday items, called Trump’s concerns outdated.”Today, there’s a huge array of modern, efficient products that are top performers,” he said.According to ASAP, LED bulbs “lower energy costs for households and businesses, and reduce pollution.”Similarly, “showerhead standards save consumers money on their water and energy bills and help protect the environment,” the group says.- MAGA -But the crusade of the Republican leader, a notorious climate skeptic, seems to have less to do with environmental or economic considerations and more with yearning for times past.Since he entered US politics in 2015, the billionaire has used nostalgia as a powerful electoral tool.”Donald Trump seems to understand, and perhaps himself be susceptible to, these nostalgic appeals,” said Spencer Goidel, a political science professor at Auburn University in Alabama.The researcher, who has studied nostalgia in politics, drew a parallel with people’s musical tastes.”Most Americans think the best era of music was the era in which they were in young adulthood,” he said.People tend to remember the outstanding songs and forget the bad ones.”In society, the same is true. The great men and women of history are immortalized. The mediocre, sometimes corrupt or incompetent, men and women are forgotten,” added Goidel.It’s hardly surprising, then, that politicians are seizing on nostalgic sentiment, because “crafting a future-oriented message is difficult.””It’s much easier to argue we should return to the way things were,” the researcher said.Trump’s signature slogan “Make America Great Again” taps into the same idea.While nostalgia is not inherently Democratic or Republican, it “is associated with racist and sexist attitudes, authoritarian attitudes, and voting Republican.”According to Goidel’s research, “people with higher levels of nostalgia are more supportive of a strong man breaking laws and institutions, as well as greater support for political violence.”

Two men convicted of murder, including one who spent more than 25 years on Death Row, were executed by lethal injection in the southern US states of Florida and Texas on Thursday.James Ford, 64, was sentenced to death in Florida in 1999 for the 1997 murders of Greg and Kimberly Malnory, who were parents of a young toddler and worked with the killer at a turf farm in the town of Punta Gorda.He was executed at 6:19 PM (2319 GMT), the state’s department of corrections said in a statement.According to court documents, Ford shot Greg Malnory, 25, in the head and slit his throat. His 26-year-old wife was raped, bludgeoned and shot.Their bodies were discovered by an employee of the sod farm the next day.The couple’s 22-month-old daughter spent more than 18 hours strapped in a car seat in their pickup truck before being found. She was covered in mosquito bites and her mother’s blood, according to court documents.Ford was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, rape and child abuse.Ford’s attorneys sought to halt his execution on the grounds that although he was 36 at the time of the murders, he had the mental age of a 14-year-old.A 2005 US Supreme Court decision barred the execution of people younger than 18 when they committed their crimes.The Florida Supreme Court rejected Ford’s argument last week and he filed a last-ditch appeal to the US Supreme Court, which denied his application for a stay of execution without comment.Richard Tabler, 46, was put to death later Thursday for the 2004 murders of a strip club owner, Mohamed Amine Rahmouni, and another man, Haitham Zayed, in the city of Killeen, Texas.Tabler also confessed to killing two teenage dancers at the club, aged 16 and 18, but was never tried for their deaths.Tabler was pronounced dead after apologizing in his final statement to the families of his victims.”There is not a day that goes by that I don’t regret my actions,” he said, according to a statement from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. “If you feel that this is what you need to get you closure, I pray it helps you have that closure.”Tabler had abandoned his appeals against the death sentence.Ford and Tabler were the fourth and fifth US Death Row inmates put to death this year — after executions in Alabama, South Carolina, Texas.There were 25 executions in the country last year.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the country’s 50 states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.Three states — Arizona, Ohio and Tennessee — that had paused executions have recently announced plans to resume them. President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and on his first day in the White House he called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

President Donald Trump’s plan for “reciprocal tariffs” on US trading partners are set to spark a flurry of negotiations that could bring reductions in levies — but analysts warn that it also risks painful retaliation.”This is every country, and essentially, when they treat us fairly, we treat them fairly,” Trump told reporters.What are the details of his plan and what consequences could they bring? – 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.””It doesn’t matter whether it’s strategic competitors like Communist China or allies like the European Union or Japan or Korea,” a White House official told reporters Thursday.”Every one of those countries is taking advantage of us in different ways, and the president characterizes this as a lack of reciprocal trade,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.Reciprocal tariffs could mean hiking rates on imports to match the level that other countries apply to US products, and officials said the levies will be imposed country by country.But besides considering the tariff rates other countries impose on US goods, Trump’s plan will also look into non-tariff factors like value-added taxes (VATs).- When will they be imposed? -For now, Trump’s memo calls for the commerce secretary and US trade representative, in consultation with the treasury chief and others, to study the issue and propose remedies.Trump’s commerce secretary nominee Howard Lutnick said Thursday that tariffs could start as soon as April 2, after studies on the issue were completed.The White House official told reporters that the administration will begin by examining countries that have the highest trade deficits or most egregious imbalances with the United States.The process could take weeks or months, and tariffs could be invoked under legal authorities involving national security, unfair trading or emergency economic powers.”So far, it seems more like an invitation to negotiate,” said Mercatus Center senior research fellow Christine McDaniel.- Who may be hard-hit? -Reciprocal tariffs might open the door to a broad tariff hike on emerging market economies who have high duties on US products, JPMorgan analysts expect.The White House referred to countries like Brazil and India as it unveiled the latest tariff plan.It pointed to the United States’ ethanol tariff at 2.5 percent while Brazil charges an 18 percent rate on US ethanol exports, for example.Officials also took aim at the European Union over its 10 percent tariff on imported cars in contrast to the United States’ 2.5 percent levy — and Trump called the bloc “absolutely brutal” on trade.But analysts have pointed out that the United States has higher tariffs on other products such as light trucks.- What are the complications? -Using reciprocal levies to address non-tariff issues like VATs could raise the average effective tariff rate notably, Goldman Sachs analysts earlier said. Analysts at the Tax Foundation noted that “VATs are border-adjusted, meaning they rebate tax on exports and impose tax on imports.” “Despite the appearance of subsidizing exports and punishing imports, however, a border-adjusted VAT is trade neutral,” they said in a Wednesday report.This could prove tricky in negotiations.Maurice Obstfeld, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), warned that other countries could retaliate if Trump doubled down on various levies.”The more major countries retaliate, the more other countries will be tempted to join in,” he told AFP.US tariff hikes would also result in higher costs for importers.- What is the goal? -Obstfeld of PIIE said Trump’s policy appears to be aiming to get countries to “discriminate in favor of the United States.””Suppose that Brazil drops its tariffs on US autos, but keeps its tariffs the same on all foreign autos” for example, he added.Analysts also note that the threat of tariffs creates uncertainty as a negotiating tactic. This contributes to a situation that ultimately weighs on American and foreign businesses.The White House on Thursday did not rule out a separate “one-size-fits-all” levy down the road.

Kanye West and his wife Bianca Censori have split, reports said Thursday, capping two weeks of controversy for the rapper whose once-stellar career has descended into chaos.The pair have separately sought legal advice over a divorce, entertainment website TMZ said, while the Daily Mail reported the 30-year-old architect has agreed to a $5 million payout.The reports come just days after the couple caused a stir with a jaw-dropping red carpet appearance in which Censori paraded naked on the arm of her entrepreneur husband.The viral stunt at the Grammy Awards sparked concerns that the 47-year-old rapper and music producer was coercing his wife, who has frequently been seen semi-nude during their two years of marriage.Days later, West — who now calls himself Ye — went on a days-long rant on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.He called himself a “Nazi” and said he had “dominion over” his wife.”I don’t make her do nothing she doesn’t want to but she definitely wouldn’t have been able to do it without my approval,” he wrote in one unpunctuated all-caps post.The account went dark at the end of last week, though it was not clear if it had been pulled by X or voluntarily shut down.West’s Yeezy.com website was yanked this week after it began selling nothing but T-shirts with a swastika on the front.E-commerce provider Shopify said it had removed the site because the retailer had “violated our terms.”On Thursday the URL showed only the apparently handwritten message “Yeezy stores coming soon.”The New York Post said West’s Nazi T-shirt stunt had tipped Censori over the edge.”She’s had enough,” the outlet quoted a source as saying. “The swastika shirt was the last straw. She told him that’s not who she is, and that she can’t be associated with that.”She doesn’t want any part of that circus. He believes that she’ll come back to him, he’s saying that she’s just mad at him, but right now she’s told him that she’s completely done.”The Hollywood Reporter, however, quoted right-wing agitator Milo Yiannopolous, who it said was a rep for the couple, denying the split.”Ye and Bianca are in Los Angeles, about to enjoy Valentine’s Day together. Announcements about their private life will come from them directly, not unsourced rumor in the tabloid press,” he told the outlet.West — who has previously spoken of living with bipolar disorder, but now says he is autistic — was formerly married to reality TV star Kim Kardashian.The couple, who divorced in 2022, have four children.

Since Russia’s invasion three years ago, the United States and its allies have insisted that no decisions on Ukraine can take place without Ukraine. Donald Trump, in a single phone call to Vladimir Putin, shattered that.Trump also called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who acknowledged it was “not very pleasant” that Trump spoke first to the Russian leader and pleaded for US-Ukraine joint efforts before any negotiations.But Trump has hailed a new spirit of cooperation with Putin, speaking of holding a summit with him in Saudi Arabia, as Russia trumpeted the call as a turning point from the international isolation over its invasion of Ukraine.”This is a major reversal. It looks like the US is going from being a major backer of Ukraine to trying to play more the role of neutral arbiter,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.Former president Joe Biden said he saw little reason to speak to Putin after the Russian leader defied his warnings and invaded Ukraine in February 2022 in a war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. Ukrainians grumbled that Biden was too slow in decisions on weapons that could have given them a battlefield advantage. With Trump’s return, “Ukraine is now focused not on winning but on not losing the war,” Bergmann said.- ‘Much bigger’ than Ukraine -Russia has long sought direct negotiations with the United States about Ukraine. Before the invasion, Russia urged security guarantees including a rejection of Ukraine’s aspirations to enter NATO, the transatlantic alliance built on collective security guarantees.The Biden administration saw Russia’s stance as a red herring, noting that Putin after the invasion rejected Ukraine’s historical legitimacy. The Biden team said Ukraine should eventually — but not immediately — enter NATO.Setting a different tone, Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said it was unrealistic for Ukraine to enter NATO or regain all its land.Speaking before meeting NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Hegseth denied any “betrayal” of Ukraine and said the United States was “invested and interested in peace.”But David Salvo, a Russia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said to expect Moscow to inject “poison pills” in any negotiations with the United States, perhaps making demands on the positioning of US forces in Europe.”That’s the fallacy that many Washington run into. They think Ukraine is just about Ukraine for the Russians. But it’s not — it’s much bigger than that,” he said.”Russia is trying to impose maximalist terms on the US not just about Ukraine, but also about the European security architecture,” he said.- A ‘quick fix’? -US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday called Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga. The State Department said Rubio voiced a commitment to “Ukrainian independence and stability” but notably did not say sovereignty or territorial integrity, points repeatedly stressed by the Biden team.Sybiga, on a visit to Paris, accused Russia of seeking another Yalta, referring to the summit by Soviet, US and British leaders on dividing up the post-World War II map.Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, pointing to her country’s long history with Russia, warned against a “quick fix” and said Putin “has no intention to stop his expansionist pursuit.””He will enter talks, enjoy the limelight and take whatever he possibly can without making any genuine concessions,” she wrote on social media.But Bill Taylor, who served twice as the top US diplomat in Ukraine including during Trump’s first term, said that direct US involvement could help avoid a pitfall of diplomacy a decade ago overseen by France and Germany.The Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015, which had attempted to stop earlier fighting in Ukraine, put at the negotiating table Russian-backed separatists.”In this upcoming negotiation, it will be the role of the United States to make it very clear where the responsibility for this war lies and how to end it — it is on, in the first instance, the entity that started the war, which is Russia,” he said.He said it would be crucial to involve Ukraine and give it leverage. He pointed to Vice President JD Vance’s meeting Friday in Munich with Zelensky as a positive sign.”If the Americans can play a role in bringing this war to an end in a just and lasting way, we should do that,” Taylor said.

Newly confirmed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday accused US institutions of “stealing the health of our children” and suggested they should meet the same fate as USAID, which President Donald Trump’s administration is working to slash.On his first day in office, RFK Jr. — who has spent decades sowing distrust in vaccines and questioning basic scientific facts — credited divine intervention for his rise to power and immediately fueled concerns that critical health agencies could soon come under attack.At his White House swearing-in ceremony, following a 52-48 Senate confirmation vote largely along party lines, Kennedy grew emotional recalling his first visit to the Oval Office in 1962.He also lavished praise on Trump, saying 20 years of prayers to solve chronic childhood diseases were answered when “God sent me President Trump,” whom he called a “man on a white horse.”Kennedy argued that while USAID was founded by his uncle, slain president John F. Kennedy, with noble intentions, it has since become a “sinister propagator of totalitarianism.” He backed Trump’s recent actions at the humanitarian agency, adding, “we want to do the same thing with the institutions that are stealing the health of our children.”Before the 2024 election, Kennedy vowed to blow up the “corrupt” Food and Drug Administration and called for cuts to the National Institutes of Health, accusing it of overemphasizing infectious diseases at the expense of chronic disease research.- Environment crusader to anti-vaxxer – RFK Jr. was once a celebrated environmental lawyer who sued Monsanto and accused climate-change deniers of being traitors. But for the past two decades he has promoted conspiracy theories linking childhood vaccines to autism and even questioning whether germs cause disease.During heated confirmation hearings, Democrats pointed to Kennedy’s lucrative consulting fees from law firms suing pharmaceutical companies as conflicts of interest. They also highlighted allegations of sexual misconduct and his claims that antidepressants fuel school shootings.Yet it was his shift toward Republican positions — particularly on abortion rights, which he once supported but has since signaled a willingness to restrict — that won over conservatives wary of his liberal past.Ultimately, only one Republican opposed him: former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a childhood polio survivor. Democrats were united in opposition.”I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles,” said 82-year-old McConnell.Kennedy dismissed the criticism, claiming his views were mischaracterized and insisting he was simply advocating for “common sense” policies.”Vaccines should be tested, they should be safe, everyone should have informed consent,” he said.- Make America Healthy Again -Kennedy found firmer footing with his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda — a play on Trump’s MAGA slogan — emphasizing the need to tackle chronic disease by holding the food industry accountable.Such ideas have broad appeal, though experts question how he will implement them given his fraught relationship with scientific evidence.Kennedy launched an independent presidential bid in 2024, making headlines with bizarre revelations, including claims of recovering from a parasitic brain worm and once decapitating a dead whale.Last year, 77 Nobel Prize winners signed an open letter opposing his nomination, while some of his harshest critics came from within his own family.His cousin Caroline Kennedy, a former diplomat, accused him of being a “predator” who led younger relatives toward drug addiction.”This is a disaster waiting to happen—and it will happen,” Paul Offit, a leading vaccine expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia told AFP.Democratic Senator Patty Murray accused Republicans of willful ignorance.”They are choosing to pretend it’s even remotely believable that RFK Jr. won’t use his new power to do exactly what he’s spent decades trying to do — undermine vaccines,” she said, warning he could fire the government’s vaccine advisory committee, which determines which shots must be covered by insurance.

US President Donald Trump inked plans Thursday for sweeping “reciprocal tariffs” that could hit both allies and competitors, in a dramatic escalation of an international trade war that economists warn could fuel inflation at home.Since taking office, Trump has announced a broad range of tariffs targeting some of America’s biggest trading partners, arguing that they would help tackle unfair practices — and in some cases using the threats to influence policy.Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said Thursday he had decided to impose reciprocal duties, telling reporters that US allies were often “worse than our enemies” on trade.”Whatever countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them,” Trump added.In particular, he called the European Union “absolutely brutal” in trade ties with Washington.The levies would be tailored to each US trading partner and consider the tariffs they impose on American goods, alongside taxes seen as “discriminatory,” such as value-added taxes (VATs), a White House official said on condition of anonymity.With the memo Trump signed Thursday, officials including the US trade representative and commerce secretary will propose remedies on a country-by-country basis.Trump’s commerce secretary nominee Howard Lutnick said Thursday that studies should be completed by April 1, and the president could start tariffs as early as April 2.Washington will begin by examining economies with which the United States has its biggest deficits or “most egregious issues,” the White House official added.”This should be a matter of weeks, in a few months,” the official said.- Inflation fears -Ahead of Trump’s Oval Office comments, Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro told reporters: “Major exporting nations of the world attack our markets with punishing tariffs and even more punishing non-tariff barriers.”Besides the EU, the White House also flagged differences in certain US tariff levels with India and Brazil, while noting Japan’s “high structural barriers.”Cost-of-living pressures were a key issue in the November election that saw Trump return to power, and the Republican has promised to swiftly reduce prices.But economists caution that sweeping tariffs on US imports would likely boost inflation, not reduce it, in the near term and could weigh on growth eventually.Trump acknowledged Thursday that US prices “could go up” due to tariffs, but he expressed confidence that they would ultimately ease.- ‘Unfair’ treatment -The White House official said the United States has been “treated unfairly,” saying a lack of reciprocity is a reason behind the country’s “persistent annual trade deficit in goods” which topped $1 trillion last year.One issue US officials pointed out was the EU’s 10 percent tariff on American autos, while the United States charges only 2.5 percent.But Sean Bray, policy director of Tax Foundation Europe, noted that the United States might have higher levies on other products, like a 25 percent rate on light truck imports.Trump also criticized “certain areas of Europe” for a VAT tax of about 20 percent, although some analysts have challenged the characterization that VATs provide unfair trade advantages.Trump’s announcement came shortly before he met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington, and the US president has since said he expected “wonderful trade deals” with India.Analysts have warned that reciprocal duties could bring a broad tariff hike to emerging market economies such as India and Thailand, which tend to have higher effective tariff rates on US products.Countries like South Korea that have trade deals with Washington are less at risk, analysts believe.New Delhi offered some quick tariff concessions ahead of Modi’s visit, including on high-end motorcycles.Christine McDaniel, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, told AFP that Trump does not appear constrained by World Trade Organization norms.His memo forces countries to renegotiate tariff schedules with Washington, she said, adding that this could turn out well if others come to the table.”But if countries refuse, and the US raises its tariffs, then it is bad for the US” as American importers will face higher prices, said McDaniel, a former official in George W. Bush’s administration.