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In the global banking world, a week that began with high anxiety is ending in both relief and trepidation.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen assured lawmakers during testimony on Thursday that the U.S. banking system “remains sound,” even as tough questions remain about banking supervision and problems that may yet be undetected, perhaps on the credit side of banking ledgers, some analysts have suggested.
A group of 11 major banks agreed on Thursday to deposit a combined $30 billion in San Francisco’s First Republic Bank to rescue it from liquidity problems. The bank has the third-highest rate of uninsured U.S. deposits (The Hill). Some experts do not think the groups’ plan will completely put to rest emerging questions about the banking system (The Wall Street Journal), but the goal was to demonstrate private sector confidence in the smaller, struggling bank and allow depositors to withdraw funds seamlessly, if they chose, as The New York Times describes in a dissection of how the plan came together in 48 hours.
Credit Suisse based in Zurich received a $54 billion lifeline on Wednesday from Switzerland’s Central Bank to forestall possible panic that analysts worried might cause a run on banks in Europe and elsewhere. And depositors in collapsed Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank on Monday were able to access 100 percent of their funds no matter how much they’d insured, thanks to the intervention of the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Treasury Department.
The upshot: Bank stocks began to recover on Thursday, a sign of stabilizing confidence (NBC News).
Although Yellen sought to reassure the Senate Finance Committee, she acknowledged that authorities stepped in to backstop even uninsured deposits at insolvent Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank due to the threat of “systemic risk” — the possibility of unstoppable contagion and panic — that merited exceptions to the FDIC’s $250,000 cap on federally insured deposits. A reported 94 percent of SVB’s deposit accounts were above the FDIC limit.
Is that exception now the norm for everyone? Should it be? A bank “only gets that treatment” if regulators determine it meets certain criteria, Yellen told Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). As a result, depositors at other banks may not be guaranteed similar protections (CNBC). To merit that exception requires a two-thirds majority vote of the boards of the Federal Reserve, the FDIC and the Treasury secretary in consultation with the president (NBC News).
Yellen said inflation remains the administration’s top economic concern even as prices have fallen slightly. February’s 6 percent level is still well above the central bank’s 2 percent target. The Fed had been expected, before the emergence of stressed and failing banks, to continue its assertive strategy of higher interest rates in order to slow the economy and bring down prices.
Fed watchers and market analysts are of mixed minds about whether the Federal Open Market Committee, which meets next week, should continue raising rates in March or pause for a time to assess economic and financial data.
“They should definitely pause,” Joe LaVorgna, chief economist with SMBC Nikko Securities America Inc., told CNBC when asked Tuesday what the Fed should do next. “Right now, what’s happening is these small- and medium-sized banks are scrambling for deposits. Wait. See if things evolve. … Go five weeks. See what happens. You can reevaluate in May.”
Related Articles
CNBC: One year after the first rate hike, the Fed stands at a policy crossroads.
MarketPlace: “Financial conditions” are closely watched by the Fed — and at the moment, very complicated.
The Wall Street Journal: Why top Washington officials chose to rescue SVB and Signature Bank depositors.
CNBC: Credit Suisse this morning London time shed another 5 percent as traders digest emergency liquidity.
The New York Times: The European Central Bank on Thursday raised interest rates half a point, becoming the first major central bank to set monetary policy amid banking worries that gripped markets this week.
LEADING THE DAY
➤ ADMINISTRATION
The Monday approval of a massive oil-drilling project in Alaska has put Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in a difficult position, The Hill’s Zack Budryk writes, pitting her against many of the environmental groups that saw her as a top ally and underlining the White House’s ultimate authority.
Haaland has also been in the news this week after signaling her support for a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The road has been at the center of a decades-long battle between the largely Indigenous people of King Cove — who say it will provide lifesaving access to a Cold Bay runway — and environmental groups who say a road will harm the refuge. At the same time, the administration said it is withdrawing a land-swap deal that would have allowed the road, after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided in November with environmental groups. Haaland said that rather than continue the legal battle, she would launch a review process to examine different options for a land swap that would be needed to construct a road between the two communities.
“This decision does not foreclose further consideration of a land exchange to address the community’s concerns, although such an exchange would likely be with different terms and conditions,” a brief by the Interior Department states, adding that the Trump-era deal was made with procedural flaws and did not assess how a road could damage locals’ subsistence lifestyle and the region’s natural habitat (The Anchorage Daily News and The Washington Post).
CNN: Biden is expected to designate Avi Kwa Ame in Nevada as the largest national monument of his presidency next week. The president previously announced his commitment to protecting the area, which is a sacred site for Fort Mojave and other Native American tribal nations.
The Biden administration is ramping up pressure against the popular video sharing app TikTok, threatening to ban the app if the Chinese-based ByteDance doesn’t sell its stakes. As The Hill’s Rebecca Klar and Ines Kagubare report, the demand, confirmed by TikTok late Wednesday, marks the latest escalation in U.S. governmental pressure over the app over potential security risks critics on both sides have raised based on the app’s ties to China. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, who is scheduled to testify before a House panel next week, said divesting wouldn’t solve any security concerns, and the company has doubled down on its ongoing plans to monitor and separately store U.S. user data instead.
The Washington Post: Governments around the world have moved to ban or restrict TikTok amid security fears.
The Wall Street Journal: TikTok CEO’s message to Washington: A sale won’t solve security concerns.
The New York Times: TikTok could be a hard sell to potential buyers.
Biden unveiled his March Madness bracket on Thursday as Vice President Harris rooted for Howard University, her alma mater, against the University of Kansas during a first-round NCAA men’s basketball game while she and her husband, Doug Emhoff, were in Des Moines, Iowa (ESPN and The Hill). The president’s bracket was promptly busted when the University of Arizona went down to an underdog Princeton team (The Hill).
➤ POLITICS
Democrats in Republican-leaning Louisiana are trying to buck expectations for a third consecutive cycle in this year’s open gubernatorial race as term-limited Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) prepares to leave office, writes The Hill’s Amee LaTour. A divided Republican field is raising Democrats’ hopes of clearing the all-party primary on Oct. 14 and making it to the November general election, but they acknowledge they face several challenges to maintaining the governorship.
“I don’t think anyone thinks that it’s going to be an easy task,” said Richard Carbo, Edwards’s former deputy chief of staff and 2019 campaign manager. “[Y]ou just have the headwinds of national politics and the Republican leaning of the state that are working against you. But … the governor showed how to defy those odds[.]”
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are dialing up the pressure on Biden on Social Security, writes The Hill’s Aris Folley, as the White House keeps up attacks on the party over proposed reforms to the program.
The Senate on Thursday advanced a bill to repeal the authorizations for use of military force (AUMFs) for the Iraq and Gulf wars, from 2002 and 1991, respectively. The bill advanced in a 68-27 procedural vote, surpassing the 60 votes needed to proceed. A final vote could happen as soon as next week “to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Iraq war. The bill was co-sponsored by Sens. Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.). Young said the repeal would “arrest the trend of giving away our war powers to an unchecked executive” (The Hill).
Heading into 2024, former President Trump and his allies believe they have found a weak spot on which to attack Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R): opportunism. Trump has hit the Florida governor, who is widely expected to run for president, on his past stances on Ukraine, Social Security and ethanol. DeSantis has become more isolationist on Ukraine than he was when Russia annexed Crimea during the Obama presidency, and while in Congress, he voted for a nonbinding measure that would have raised the retirement age to 70.
As The Hill’s Niall Stanage writes in The Memo, the question remains whether these attacks will undercut DeSantis’s image as a fiercely conservative figure, or whether GOP primary voters will be willing to overlook past inconsistencies so long as the Florida governor is now aligned with their views.
The Hill: DeSantis says he prevented “Faucian dystopia” with Florida’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Decision Watch Calendar ( spring officially begins on Monday): Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) says he will decide if he’ll be a 2024 presidential candidate in 45 to 60 days (The Washington Examiner). DeSantis has said he’ll decide at some point after the Florida legislative session adjourns on May 5 (The Hill). New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) has said he’ll decide whether to run, as he predicts other potential candidates will, “by this summer” (PBS). Former Vice President Mike Pence said last month that he would decide “by the spring” (NBC News). “I’m confident that we’ll have better choices than my old running mate come 2024,” he added. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) has no firm timeline for a potential campaign announcement while he’s on a “listening tour” of the country into the spring (The Hill).
In Oklahoma, the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City has created a schism in the charter school movement with its application for the nation’s first openly religious charter school. The Hill’s Lexi Lonas reports that activists and policy experts supportive of charter schools, in general, are divided over the virtual religious charter application currently under consideration by the Oklahoma charter school board, with a meeting on the subject set for Tuesday. Charter school advocates have struggled for years to convince skeptics that the privately run, publicly paid-for institutions are equivalent to government-run schools.
“We don’t think that you can have a religious charter school in place because charter schools are public schools and public schools cannot teach religion,” Nina Rees, president of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, told The Hill this week. “So right now, as public schools, this is not a door that can be opened.”
IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES
➤ INTERNATIONAL
French President Emmanuel Macron, who has long sought to raise his country’s retirement age from 62 to 64 despite intense public opposition and recent strikes, raised the pension age on Thursday with an executive decision that did not go to a parliamentary vote. Macron triggered Article 49.3 of the French Constitution, which grants the government executive privilege to push through controversial pension reforms without a parliamentary vote. However, the move gives the opposition the right to immediately call a confidence vote and risks further inflaming the protest movement after months of demonstrations across the country, where the issue is seen as especially controversial (France 24).
“This reform has all the ingredients to boost votes for parties on the radical right,” Bruno Palier, a political scientist at French university Sciences-Po, told Reuters.
CNN: Protests erupt as French government forces through higher retirement age.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will travel to Russia next week to hold talks with President Vladimir Putin, the two countries said on Friday, as Beijing touts a plan to end the Ukraine war that has received a lukewarm welcome on both sides. Xi’s Monday to Wednesday trip comes after China in February published a 12-point plan for “a political resolution of the Ukraine crisis” (Reuters).
Breaking with other NATO members, Polish President Andrzej Duda on Thursday announced his country will transfer four of its MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine in the coming days and plans to send others as well. This makes Poland the first country to offer jets to Kyiv, to help further prevent Russia from securing air superiority over Ukraine. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Poland’s decision did not change the Biden administration’s position on supplying Ukraine with aircraft (Axios and The New York Times).
“It doesn’t change our calculus with regard to the F-16,” Kirby told reporters Thursday. “It’s not on the table right now.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meanwhile alluded to the heavy costs of U.S. fighter jets speaking to reporters on a visit to Niger (Al Jazeera).
“I think it’s a mistake to get focused on any particular weapons system at any given time,” Blinken. “Individual partner countries will, again, make their own decisions about what they can provide, when they can provide it, and how they provide it.”
The Hill: What to know about the United Nations report outlining Russian war crimes.
The New York Times: Ukraine burns through ammunition in Bakhmut, risking future fights.
CNN: Chinese-made drone, retrofitted and weaponized, downed in eastern Ukraine.
Japan and South Korea on Thursday took cautious steps to repair their years-long rocky relationship when the leaders of the two countries met in Tokyo for their first summit in 12 years. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida welcomed South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at the prime minister’s official residence, kicking off a trip aimed at demonstrating that the countries want to work more closely together and with the U.S. to counter the looming geopolitical, economic and military threats posed by China and North Korea. Still, questions remain about whether the countries can move past thorny issues stemming from Japanese colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula in the 20th century (The Washington Post).
“It was a big step toward normalizing Japan-Korea relations,” Kishida said after the meeting, adding that he wanted to open a “new chapter.”
South China Morning Post: How better South Korea-Japan ties could weaken a China-centric supply chain.
Nikkei Asia: Japan lifts chipmaking export controls on South Korea.
CBS News: North Korea launches intercontinental ballistic missile ahead of South Korea-Japan summit.
Deutsche Welle: German chancellor visits Japan to ramp up security ties.
OPINION
■ Social Security needs fixing. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be painful, by The Washington Post editorial board. https://wapo.st/3Fxf8j7
■ Fifty years after the Endangered Species Act, our fight against extinctions is only beginning, by Robin Ganzert and Jon Paul Rodríguez, opinion contributors, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3TmpxDS
WHERE AND WHEN
Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.
The House will convene at 11 a.m. for a pro forma session.
The Senate meets at 8:45 a.m. for a pro forma session.
The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9 a.m. Biden will welcome Leo Varadkar, Taoiseach of Ireland, to the White House at 10:30 a.m. for a bilateral meeting. Biden will head to the Capitol for the Friends of Ireland Caucus St. Patrick’s Day luncheon at noon. The president will host Varadkar for a White House reception at 5 p.m. Biden will depart the White House for Delaware at 7:35 p.m.
Vice President Harris at 8:30 a.m. will host Taoiseach Varadkar for breakfast at the Naval Observatory along with second gentleman Doug Emhoff and visiting guest and Varadkar’s partner, Matthew Barrett. Harris and Emhoff will attend the 5 p.m. shamrock presentation and reception in honor of Varadkar in the East Room.
The secretary of State concludes travel to Niger and returns to Washington.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will travel to Chicago to tour Tablets Pharmacy at 9:30 a.m. local time to speak about administration efforts to lower prescription drug prices, including insulin. He’ll be accompanied by Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) and local leaders. Becerra and Jackson at 11 a.m. will visit Kennedy-King College to participate in a roundtable discussion about mental health and the national crisis of substance abuse.
Economic indicator: The University of Michigan will report at 10 a.m. on U.S. consumer sentiment, drawing on preliminary data for March.
ELSEWHERE
➤ HEALTH & PANDEMIC
Pregnancy deaths surged to the highest rate in nearly 60 years, new data shows, exacerbating a years-long trend that has made the U.S. the most high-risk place among wealthy countries to give birth. The National Center for Health Statistics said Thursday that the number of people who died during pregnancy or shortly after rose 40 percent to 1,205 in 2021. The increase pushed the maternal mortality rate to 33 deaths per 100,000 live births, the highest since 1965. The racial disparities in the data are stark; the maternal mortality rate among Black women rose to 2.6 times the rate among white women in 2021.
A separate report by the Government Accountability Office has cited COVID-19 as a contributing factor in at least 400 maternal deaths in 2021, accounting for much of the increase (The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times). Officials say the 2022 maternal death rate — there were 733 maternal deaths, according to preliminary data, though the final number is likely to be higher — is on track to get close to pre-pandemic levels. But those numbers aren’t great: The rate before COVID-19 was the highest it had been in decades (CBS News).
“From the worst to the near worst? I wouldn’t exactly call that an accomplishment,” Omari Maynard, whose partner died after childbirth in 2019, told CBS News.
CNN: The maternal death rate rose sharply in 2021, and experts worry the problem is getting worse.
The Hill: Coverage gains for Black and Hispanic people during pandemic could be lost with end of public health emergency.
The Atlantic: The rogue theory that gravity causes irritable bowel syndrome.
CNN: Just 39 minutes of lost sleep could impact your child’s health, study shows.
A third insulin drug company, French drugmaker Sanofi, on Thursday said it will cap the out-of-pocket cost of its popular insulin drug called Lantus at $35 per month for people with private insurance. The change will take effect Jan. 1, 2024. Sanofi follows in the price-cutting footsteps of Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. The three companies make up about 90 percent of the insulin market in the United States (NBC News).
The Atlantic: This week, an international team of virologists, genomicists and evolutionary biologists may have found crucial data from genetic samples, which appear to link the COVID-19 pandemic’s origin to raccoon dogs that were illegally sold at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China.
The World Health Organization on Thursday released its 28-day COVID-19 update through March 12, finding nearly 4.1 million new cases of COVID-19 globally (a decrease of 40 percent since Feb. 13) and 28,000 reported deaths from the virus in the same period, a drop of 57 percent compared with the previous 28 days. In total since the outset of the pandemic through March 12, more than 6.8 million people around the world who contracted COVID-19 died as a result, according to WHO.
Information about the availability of COVID-19 vaccine and booster shots can be found at Vaccines.gov.
Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 1,706 for the most recent week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Data is reported on Fridays.)
THE CLOSER
And finally … Applause, applause for this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners! Happy St. Patrick’s Day, which we’re celebrating with a puzzle.
Here’s who aced some Irish-themed trivia: Catherine Hicks, Luther Berg, Tim Bazanec, Richard Fanning, William D. Moore, Bill Grieshober, Jaina Mehta, Randall S. Patrick, Pam Manges, Mary Anne McEnery, Paul Harris, Richard E. Baznik, Ki Harvey, Patrick Kavanagh, Terry Pflaumer, Robert Bradley and Steve James.
They knew that during Biden’s upcoming visit to Northern Ireland, he will mark the anniversary of the April 10, 1998, signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
Delia Barry, an 83-year-old Irish widow, is a social media celebrity after she created 1920s-style hand-knit sweaters used to costume stars in this year’s Oscar-nominated film “The Banshees of Inisherin.”
The New York Times on Wednesday published an Irish-themed recipe for colcannon, or mashed potatoes with kale or cabbage, a dish that likely started its historic life as cál ceannann in Gaelic.
St. Patrick’s Day blarney begins with St. Patrick, a priest who was not an officially canonized saint. He never rid Ireland of snakes (or pagans) and started life as Maewyn Succat. Thus, the answer we were looking for was “all of the above.” Senate votes to advance bill to repeal Iraq war authorizations Republicans aim to boost oil, gas in energy package
Stay Engaged
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World
Donald Trump’s 104% tariffs on China – and other levies on ‘worst offenders’ – in effect this morning
Published
1 hour agoon
April 9, 2025By
admin
Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on what he calls “the worst offenders” come into effect at 5am UK time, with China facing by far the biggest levy.
The US will hit Chinese imports with 104% tariffs, marking a significant trade escalation between the world’s two largest superpowers.
At a briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Donald Trump “believes that China wants to make a deal with the US,” before saying: “It was a mistake for China to retaliate.
“When America is punched, he punches back harder.”
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0:54
White House announces 104% tariff on China
After Mr Trump announced sweeping levies last week – hitting some imported goods from China with 34% tariffs – Beijing officials responded with like-for-like measures.
The US president then piled on an extra 50% levy on China, taking the total to 104% unless it withdrew its retaliatory 34% tariff.
China’s commerce ministry said in turn that it would “fight to the end”, and its foreign ministry accused the US of “economic bullying” and “destabilising” the world’s economies.
More on China
Related Topics:
‘Worst offender’ tariffs also in effect
Alongside China’s 104% tariff, roughly 60 countries – dubbed by the US president as the “worst offenders” – will also see levies come into effect today.
The EU will be hit with 20% tariffs, while countries like Vietnam and Cambodia see a 46% levy and 49% rate respectively.
The UK was not included on this list, and instead saw a “baseline”, worldwide 10% tariff on imported goods in effect from last Saturday.
At the weekend, Sir Keir Starmer promised the government was ready to “shelter British businesses from the storm”.
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2:03
What’s going on with the US and China?
Since the tariffs were announced last Wednesday, global stock markets have plummeted, with four days of steep losses for all three of the US’ major indexes.
As trading closed on Tuesday evening, the S&P 500 lost 1.49%, the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.15%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.84%.
According to LSEG data, S&P 500 companies have lost $5.8tn (£4.5tn) in stock market value since last Wednesday, the deepest four-day loss since the benchmark was created in the 1950s.

Global stock markets have been reeling since Trump’s tariff announcement last week. Pic: AP
Read more:
What China could do next as Trump’s tariff war ramps up
Chancellor to hold tariff crisis talks with top City executives
Trump signs coal orders
Meanwhile, the US president signed four executive orders to boost American coal mining and production.
The directives order:
• keeping some coal plants that were set for retirement open;
• directing the interior secretary to “acknowledge the end” of an Obama-era moratorium that paused coal leasing on federal lands;
• requiring federal agencies to rescind policies transitioning the US away from coal production, and;
• directing the Department of Energy and other federal agencies to assess how coal energy can meet rising demand from artificial intelligence.
Read more:
The good, the bad and the ugly in Trump’s coal plans
At a White House ceremony, Mr Trump said the orders end his predecessor Joe Biden’s “war on beautiful clean coal,” and miners “will be put back to work”.
World
In the idyllic Cognac region of southern France, Trump’s tariffs threaten a centuries-old way of life
Published
1 hour agoon
April 9, 2025By
admin
The impact of Trump’s tariffs is reaching deep into every economy.
We travelled into the French rural heartland, heading for Cognac – the home of French brandy.
It is only half the size of Surrey but its exports to America are worth €1bn a year and that trade is now severely threatened.
The first buds are out on the vines of Amy Pasquet’s vineyard.
An American, she has married into the industry and with her French husband owns JLP Cognac.
She knows more than most the bond brandy has formed between their two countries that goes back to the war.
Tariffs latest: Follow live updates
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Ms Pasquet said: “A lot of the African-American soldiers had really loved their experience here and had brought back the cognac. And I think that stayed because this African-American community truly is a community. and they want to drink like their grandfather did.”
The ties remain with rappers like Jay Z’s love for cognac.
However, Ms Pasquet adds: “There’s also this other community of people who have been drinking bourbon for a long time, love bourbon, but find the prices just outrageous today. So they want to try something different.”

Amy Pasquet owns JLP Cognac with her husband
JLP’s products were served at New York’s prestigious Met Gala.
They were preparing to launch new product lines in the US. But now that’s in doubt.
It is hard being an American in France now, Ms Pasquet says.
Her French neighbours are appalled by what US President Donald Trump is doing.
She continues: “They’re like, okay, America’s forgotten how close France and America are as far as (their) relationship is concerned. And I think that’s hurtful on both sides. I think it’s important to remember that the US is many things, and not just this one person, and there are millions of inhabitants that didn’t vote for him.”

A fresh challenge for a centuries-old tradition
Making cognac takes years, using techniques that go back centuries. In another vineyard we met Pierre Louis Giboin whose family have been doing it for more than 200 years.
In a cellar dating back to the French Revolution, barrels of oak sit under thick cobwebs, ageing the brandy.
The walls are lined with a unique black mould that thrives off the vapours of cognac.
They have seen threats come and go over those centuries, wars, weather, pestilence. But never from a country they regard as one of their oldest allies and best of customers.
Read more:
What China could do next as Trump’s tariff war
How tariffs will affect your money
Could Trump’s tariffs tip the world into recession?

Pierre Louis Giboin’s cellar dates back to the French revolution
Mr Trump’s tariffs, says Mr Giboin, now threaten a way of life.
“It’s at the end of like very good times in the Cognac region. It’s been like 10 years when everything’s been perfect, we have good harvest, we sell really easily all the stock, but now I mean it’s the end.”
Ms Pasquet and Mr Giboin are unusual.
Most cognac makers sell their produce through the drink’s four big houses, Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier.
Some have been told the amounts they can sell have been drastically reduced.
Independents though like them must find new markets if the tariff threat persists.
Confusion away from the chaos
Outside in the dappled light of a Cognac evening Mr Giboin and I toast glasses of pineau – the diluted form of cognac drunk as an aperitif.
In this idyllic corner of France, a world away from Washington, Mr Trump’s trade war on Europe simply makes no sense.
“He’s like angry against the whole world and the way he talks like that Europe the EU was made against the US to cheat on the US. It’s just crazy to think like this,” Mr Giboin says.
It’s not just what Mr Trump’s done. It’s how Europe now strikes back that concerns the French. And it’s not just in Cognac where they’re concerned
France exports more than €2bn worth of wine to America.
In the heart of the Bordeaux wine region, Sylvie Courselle’s family have been making wine since the 1940s at their Chateau Thieuley vineyard.
It’s bottling season but they can’t prepare the wine headed for America while everything is up in the air.
Showing me the unused reels of US labels for her wine she told me she was losing sleep over the uncertainty.
Later she was meeting with her American distributors.
Gerry Keogh sells Ms Courselle’s wine across the US.
He says the entire industry is reeling

Sylvie Courselle with distributers

The Chateau Thieuley vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region
“I think it’s like anything. You don’t really believe it’s happening. And even when you’re in the midst of it, it was kind of like 9/11.
“You’re like… This is actually happening. It’s unbelievable. And when you start seeing the repercussions from the stock market, et cetera, and how it’s impacting every level, it’s quite shocking.”
They know the crisis is far from over and could now escalate.
“We feel stuck in the middle of this commercial war and we don’t have the weapons to fight, I think,” Ms Courselle said.
It is, she says, very stressful.

Gerry Keogh

The histories of America and France have been intertwined for centuries through revolutions against tyranny and two wars fighting for liberty.
America used to call France its oldest ally, but under Mr Trump it is now being as turned on, as France, along with the rest of Europe, finds itself in what many would argue is a reckless and unjustified trade war.
It is all doing enormous harm to relations between the US and its European allies.
How Europe now decides to retaliate will help determine the extent of that damage.
UK
Pupils and teachers voice fears over ‘staggering’ decision to remove specialist police officers from London schools
Published
1 hour agoon
April 9, 2025By
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London schools are at risk of “increased violence” and “gang exploitation” following the decision to remove specialist police officers, headteachers have told Sky News.
Education leaders are “urging” the Metropolitan Police to reconsider a decision to transfer 371 safer schools officers into neighbourhood policing teams next month.
Teachers warn pupils will be at “greater risk” of violence as a result – and some students told Sky News they were worried “more knives” and “more drugs” would be brought into schools.
Safer schools officers were introduced into London schools in 2009, where they help de-escalate peer-on-peer conflict and prevent youth involvement in crime.
In a letter obtained by Sky News, a group of 15 headteachers from secondary schools in northeast London have written to the Met Police warning that “without the support of safer school officers, vulnerable students may become prey to exploitation and, in turn, perpetrators of crime”.
Sam Jones, chair of The Waltham Forest Secondary Heads group, which wrote the letter, said teachers were “extremely concerned” about the withdrawal of safer school officers and they had not been consulted about the decision.

Sam Jones is the chair of The Waltham Forest Secondary Heads group
Mr Jones told Sky News that the decision was “very misguided”.
“We think that it will increase in violence, potentially increase bullying and weapons-related incidents,” he said.
Safer schools officers are a “key deterrent when it comes to gang recruitment and county lines issues,” he added.
“I think this is a huge backward step.”
Knife crime hit a record high of 16,521 offences in London in the year ending September 2024 – an 18% increase from the previous year, according to the Office for National Statistics.
A Sky News survey of secondary school teachers in England revealed almost one in five had seen pupils with knives in schools.
Students from Footsteps Trust in London said the removal of officers could make schools more violent.
“There will be more knives,” Tyrelle, 14, told Sky News. “There will be fighting, there will be drugs coming into school and no one will be there to actually stop it.”
“If anything happens outside of school you can tell them [the safer school officer] and let them know,” he added.

Tyrelle believes the Met’s decision means there will be more knives in schools
Another pupil, Mikolej, 15, said having an officer in their school had been a “good thing” that had helped young people “speak more to police officers outside of school”.

Mikolej said having an officer in school had helped young people
Chris Hall, headteacher of Footsteps Trust, told Sky News it was “quite staggering” that no one in education was consulted about the decision.
He said the school-based officers had been “very, very, valuable assets” who had helped familiarise “young people with the police in the most positive way”.

Chris Hall, the headteacher at Footsteps Trust, said the lack of consultation was ‘staggering’
“I would 100% ask them [the Met] to re-consider,” Mr Hall said.
Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy echoed calls for the police force to think again, telling Sky News she hoped the force would “sit down with all of us so that we can work together on this”.
In a letter to headteachers, the Met said the changes will come into effect from 2 May and that the decision was “not made lightly”.
The force said the changes aimed to improve their presence in the community.
Read more:
More children than ever are not in school
Headteacher ‘received murder threat’
Police called to primary school after pupil caught with knife
Glen Pavelin, frontline policing commander for neighbourhoods, said: “Although officers will no longer be based in schools, they will join local policing teams where they will retain strong relationships with schools to ensure that any incidents of reports of knife crime can be dealt with quickly.
“Officers will also work with local organisations and other youth-based establishments to safeguard young people, prevent victimisation and reduce crime and anti-social behaviour beyond schools.”
The Met Police announced last week it will cut 1,700 officers and staff to plug a £260m budget shortfall.
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