Donald Trump has said he “appreciates” President Zelenskyy’s renewed pledge to work with him on a peace deal – and that Russia has sent “strong signals” it’s also ready for a truce.
The US president made the comments during a marathon address to Congress in which he talked up his actions so far and set out priorities for the future.
“We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in 4 years, 8 years – and we are just getting started,” the president said.
But it in a highly divided Congress, Democrats registered their dissent with stone faces, placards calling out “lies” and one member’s ejection.
Mr Trump said he’d received an “important letter” from the Ukrainian leader saying he would work under his leadership to reach a peace deal.
“The letter reads Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer,” Mr Trump said.
“I appreciate that he sent this letter. Just got it a little while ago,” he added.
The president told a packed House chamber that Moscow had also indicated that they were ready for peace.
He said: “Simultaneously, we’ve had serious discussions with Russiaand have received strong signals that they are ready for peace. Wouldn’t that be beautiful?”
Longest speech
However, the majority of Mr Trump’s speech in the Capitol in Washington DC focussed on domestic issues.
Image: Democrats held protest signs during the speech. Pic: Reuters
At one hour and 39 minute, it was the longest annual address a president has delivered to Congress, breaking Bill Clinton’s record of one hour and 28 minutes.
Mr Trump lauded his nascent second stint in the White House and said he’d taken “unrelenting action” that had already achieved more than some administrations manage in years.
The president began his speech by proclaiming “America is back!” – prompting enthusiastic chants of “USA”.
Mr Trump said “the American Dream is surging – bigger and better than ever before”.
However, his remarks were met with jeers from Democrats and the House speaker called on the serjeant-at-arms to eject representative Al Green for refusing to stay quiet. Mr Green had stood up and shouted at Mr Trump, gesturing toward the president with his cane.
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Congressman ejected during Trump speech
Other Democrats waved paddles with statements including “false” and “Musk steals”. Some wore blue and yellow in solidarity with Ukraine.
With vice president JD Vance sat behind him, Mr Trump reeled off a list of his actions since he started his second term in January.
Among others, he mentioned rolling back the Paris climate accords, removing the “tyranny” of diversity policies, leaving the World Health Organization and the naming of the ‘Gulf of America’.
“Our country will be woke no longer,” he declared.
There was also a special mention for Elon Musk’s government efficiency department, DOGE, which has controversially cut thousands of jobs already.
President Trump claimed the billionaire’s efforts were saving the country billions by cutting waste and fraud.
Image: Elon Musk stood to receive applause for his work with DOGE. Pic: Reuters
Mr Musk was there in person, unusually in a suit, and stood to acknowledge the applause from the mass of Republicans in the chamber.
“Thank you very much, we appreciate it,” Mr Trump told him.
He said the US had been “ripped off for decades by every country on earth” and that tariffs were also about “protecting the soul of our country”.
The president has claimed previously they are in response to the three countries not doing enough to halt the flow of powerful drugs such as fentanyl.
In response, China’s US embassy tweeted ominously: “If war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.”
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‘Whatever they tariff us, we will tariff them’
The president also said he would “make America affordable again” and that President Biden hadn’t done enough to control inflation.
“Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control – and we are working hard to get it back down. A major focus of our fight to defeat inflation is rapidly reducing the cost of energy,” he added.
Illegal immigration also took up a chunk of his record-breaking speech.
The president repeated his well-worn pledge to clamp down on people entering through the southern border and reverse what he called “insane open-border policies”.
To another burst of applause, he said he had designated some South America gangs as “terrorist” organisations.
Greenland and the Panama Canal also got a mention.
The president said America intended to reclaim the famous shipping passage – which it relinquished control over in 1999 – and repeated his ambition to own the vast Danish territory.
Image: First lady Melania Trump also got a warm welcome. Pic: Reuters
Image: Pic: Reuters
Addressing Greenlanders, he said: “We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America.”
“We need Greenland for national security and even international security,” he said. “And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it… and I think we’re going to get it, one way or the other.”
Image: DJ Daniel was made a ‘Secret Service agent’. Pic: AP
First lady Melania Trump watched the speech from on high in the gallery, with guests also including the family of the firefighter killed during the assassination attempt last summer, and a man recently freed from a Russian jail.
There was also a heart-warming moment where a child recovering from brain cancer was summoned to stand up.
Wearing a police uniform, 13-year-old DJ Daniel was lifted into the air in disbelief by his dad as President Trump told him: “I am asking our new Secret Service director, Sean Curran, to officially make you an agent of the United States Secret Service. Thank you, DJ.”
Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.
The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.
The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.
While the UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.55% and the continent’s STOXX Europe 600 index was down 2.67% as of 5.30pm, it was American traders who were hit the most.
All three of the US’s major markets opened to sharp losses on Thursday morning.
Image: The S&P 500 is set for its worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. File pic: AP
By 8.30pm UK time (3.30pm EST), The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.7%, the S&P 500 opened with a drop of 4.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.6%.
Compared to their values when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the three markets were down around 5.6%, 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively, according to LSEG.
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Worst one-day losses since COVID
As Wall Street trading ended at 9pm in the UK, two indexes had suffered their worst one-day losses since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The S&P 500 fell 4.85%, the Nasdaq dropped 6%, and the Dow Jones fell 4%.
It marks Nasdaq’s biggest daily percentage drop since March 2020 at the start of COVID, and the largest drop for the Dow Jones since June 2020.
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5:07
The latest numbers on tariffs
‘Trust in President Trump’
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN earlier in the day that Mr Trump was “doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term”.
“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump,” she told the broadcaster, adding: “This is indeed a national emergency… and it’s about time we have a president who actually does something about it.”
Later, the US president told reporters as he left the White House that “I think it’s going very well,” adding: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”
He later said on Air Force One that the UK is “happy” with its tariff – the lowest possible levy of 10% – and added he would be open to negotiations if other countries “offer something phenomenal”.
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How is the world reacting to Trump’s tariffs?
Economist warns of ‘spiral of doom’
The turbulence in the markets from Mr Trump’s tariffs “just left everybody in shock”, Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions in Boston, told Reuters.
He added that the economy could go into recession as a result, saying that “a lot of the pain, will probably most acutely be felt in the US and that certainly would weigh on broader global growth as well”.
Meanwhile, chief investment officer at St James’s Place Justin Onuekwusi said that international retaliation is likely, even as “it’s clear countries will think about how to retaliate in a politically astute way”.
He warned: “Significant retaliation could lead to a tariff ‘spiral of doom’ that could be the growth shock that drags us into recession.”
It comes as the UK government published a long list of US products that could be subject to reciprocal tariffs – including golf clubs and golf balls.
Running to more than 400 pages, the list is part of a four-week-long consultation with British businesses and suggests whiskey, jeans, livestock, and chemical components.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that the US president had launched a “new era” for global trade and that the UK will respond with “cool and calm heads”.
It also comes as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a 25% tariff on all American-imported vehicles that are not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
He added: “The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over. This is a tragedy.”
Tanking stock markets, collapsing world orders, devastating trade wars; economists with their hair ablaze are scrambling to keep up.
But as we try to make sense of Donald Trumps’s tariff tsunami, economic theory only goes so far. In the end this surely is about something more primal.
Power.
Understanding that may be crucial to how the world responds.
Yes, economics helps explain the impact. The world’s economy has after all shifted on its axis, the way it’s been run for decades turned on its head.
Instead of driving world trade, America is creating a trade war. We will all feel the impact.
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PM will ‘fight’ for deal with US
Donald Trump says he is settling scores, righting wrongs. America has been raped, looted and pillaged by the world trading system.
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But don’t be distracted by the hyperbole – and if you think this is about economics alone, you may be missing the point.
Above all, tariffs give Donald Trump power. They strike fear into allies and enemies, from governments to corporations.
This is a president who runs his presidency like a medieval emperor or mafia don.
It is one reason why since his election we have seen what one statesman called a conga line of sycophants make their way to the White House, from world leaders to titans of industry.
The conga line will grow longer as they now redouble their efforts hoping to special treatment from Trump’s tariffs. Sir Keir Starmer among them.
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President Trump’s using similar tactics at home, deploying presidential power to extract concessions and deter dissent in corporate America, academia and the US media. Those who offer favours are spared punishment.
His critics say he seeks a form power for the executive or presidential branch of government that the founding fathers deliberately sought to prevent.
Whether or not that is true, the same playbook of divide and rule through intimidation can now be applied internationally. Thanks to tariffs
Each country will seek exceptions but on Trump’s terms. Those who retaliate may meet escalation.
This is the unforgiving calculus for governments including our own plotting their next moves.
The temptation will be to give Trump whatever he wants to spare their economies, but there is a jeopardy that compounds the longer this goes on.
Image: Could America’s traditional allies turn to China? Pic: AP
Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian prime minister who coined the conga line comparison, put it this way: “Pretty much all the international leaders I have seen that have sucked up to Trump have been run over. The reality is if you suck up to bullies, whether it’s global affairs or in the playground, you just get more bullying.”
Trading partners may be able to mitigate the impact of these tariffs through negotiation, but that may only encourage this unorthodox president to demand ever more?
Ultimately the world will need a more reliable superpower than that.
In the hands of such a president, America cannot be counted on.
When it comes to security, stability and prosperity, allies will need to fend for themselves.
And they will need new friends. If Washington can’t be relied on, Beijing beckons.
America First will, more and more, mean America on its own.