Trump accused of ‘market manipulation’ after abrupt U-turn on reciprocal tariffs: Live updates
Donald Trump urged the world to “be cool” on Wednesday as his sweeping import taxes took effect, crashing global markets and sending shockwaves through the U.S. economy.
Minutes after trading began on Wall Street, he declared: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!”
But hours later, the president performed an extraordinary U-turn, pausing and reducing tariffs on most nations for 90 days while increasing levies on imports from China to 125 percent.
Markets surged. White House officials – who just one day earlier said Trump would never back down – claimed “this was his strategy all along” and “the art of the deal” at work.
Social media exploded with accusations that the president had orchestrated a reverse “pump and dump” scheme: driving stock prices down only to buy them up before they rose again.
Democratic Senator Adam Schiff is already calling for an investigation into market manipulation or insider trading.
Asked by a reporter about when he arrived at the decision to pause the tariffs, Trump gave a muddled answer.
“For a period of time,” he said initially, before continuing: “I would say this morning. Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about it. Fairly early this morning.”
Watch: Republican senator admits he doesn’t know Trump’s ‘endgame’
Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, normally a MAGA stalwart, confesses that the president has lost him on this one.
Kash Patel replaced as interim head of the ATF by secretary of the Army
The Trump administration has abruptly replaced FBI Director Kash Patel as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll has been named interim head of ATF while continuing to lead the Army, a person familiar with the matter told The Independent.
It’s an unusual dual position that Patel was similarly in when he was tapped to lead both the FBI and ATF in February.
Here’s Ariana Baio with more on the thinking behind the move and on Driscoll.
Breaking: EU pauses tariff retaliation for 90 days ‘to give negotiations a change’
The European Union (EU) has just announced it will put its own countermeasures against Donald Trump’s tariffs on hold for three months “to give negotiations a chance”.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement on X: “We took note of the announcement by President Trump. We want to give negotiations a chance.
“While finalising the adoption of the EU countermeasures that saw strong support from our member states, we will put them on hold for 90 days.”
Voices: MAGA is in meltdown – but the adolescent bad-mouthing has to stop
Here’s Sean O’Grady’s take on Musk’s spat with the aforementioned Peter Navarro this week as the tariff tension boiled over into public view.
Elon Musk’s DOGE ‘auditors’ set to be audited by federal Government Accountability Office
The tech billionaire’s controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked by Trump with stripping back excess spending from the federal government, is reportedly being audited by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The GAO – a non-partisan, independent agency that works for Congress – has been investigating DOGE since last month, according to sources and records reviewed by Wired.
The audit is understood to be specifically targeting DOGE’s access to and use of sensitive government data.
Mary Papenfuss reports.
Trump accidentally phoned former official HR McMaster – then abused him when he realized who was on the line
I’m going to leave Oliver O’Connell to tell this story below. It’s a doozy.
These billionaires were firmly behind Trump and Republicans – until the tariffs were announced
The likes of Elon Musk, Jamie Dimon and Bill Ackman have all had to eat their words this week after previously expressing confidence in the president’s plans for the economy.
Here’s Mike Bedigan.
House Republicans scuttle MAGA budget vote after Mike Johnson fails to win over holdouts
In amongst all the excitement yesterday, the House speaker backed down and canceled plans to vote on a Republican budget resolution acting as the vessel for major parts of Trump’s agenda.
The Republican had set up votes Wednesday on a budget resolution authored by his peers in the Senate as the GOP moves on to the next step of the reconciliation process.
But Johnson, who can suffer just three defections among his caucus before a vote fails, is still reportedly facing more than a dozen likely or potential “no” votes from the GOP herd if the vote goes ahead.
A rule vote, the first hurdle for the legislation, did pass on Wednesday afternoon with the thinnest of margins, 216-215.
But it became clear after Johnson and House leadership left open a preceding vote for more than an hour that he and his Republican colleagues did not have the votes to advance the Senate framework.
Here’s John Bowden on what the speaker had to say for himself and what happens next.
Reaction: Schumer denounces ‘government by chaos’ as trade advisers scramble to defend policy disaster
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer attempted to speak for all of Planet Earth yesterday as he reacted with withering exasperation to Trump’s inevitable rowback in the face of intensifying market pressure.
The president’s economic advisers Peter Navarro and Howard Lutnick, two of the key faces of the tariff debacle, were meanwhile forced to face the music, insisting that the “golden age” Liberation Day was supposed to welcome is still happening, just not right now.
“You can feel it,” Lutnick insisted.
Perhaps only U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer – who was being grilled by Congress when Trump announced the pause on Truth Social and did not appear to have been briefed – had a worse day.
Financial markets rebound in relief over Trump tariff pause
The U.S. benchmark S&P 500 index closed 9.5 per cent higher on Wednesday in response to Trump’s U-turn and the relief continued into Asian trading on Thursday with Japan’s Nikkei index surging more than 8 per cent, while even Chinese markets like the CSI 300 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index showed gains.
The UK’s FTSE 100 has since soared by more than 6 percent when stock markets opened in London.
You can follow all the latest market reaction with Tara Cobham below.
Source: independent.co.uk
