There are signs the world is losing faith in the dollar

Published

7 months ago

April 25, 2025

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First he took the US on a collision course with China. Then he came for the rest of the world.

He crashed into the financial markets and now Donald Trump has been gently tapping on the brakes all week.

The world’s economic policymakers have been on quite the journey over the past few months.

Many of them will have felt a little queasy as they got off the plane in Washington DC for the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) annual spring meetings.

This was their opportunity to talk. To strategise, strengthen alliances and figure out their next move.

Rachel Reeves was in the mix. While all the focus has been on a US-UK trade deal – and she is due to meet her US counterpart on Friday – the chancellor was also here to meet her G7 and G20 allies.

Countries across the world are eager for Mr Trump to reduce his tariffs but they are also looking to each other, reflecting on how the world might look in the future and whether the US is a reliable long-term partner.

That much was obvious from a conversation with Paschal Donohoe, Ireland’s finance minister and president of the Eurogroup.

He told Sky News that Ireland, a highly US-orientated economy, was diversifying.

That being said, he was “more optimistic than some” that a high level of trade integration would prevail well into the future.

“What I think is very possible is the structure of that globalisation could begin to change,” he said.

That changing structure might include a rejection of China’s decades-long model of export-led growth.

Since joining the World Trade Organisation in 2001, China has been pumping out cheap goods into the world economy, making far more than it consumes at home.

Poor countries across the world have taken a similar approach to development but the US Treasury secretary said on the sidelines of the IMF on Wednesday that it was “absurd” for multilateral institutions to continue treating China like a developing economy.

He called for a “rebalancing”.

There is a recognition among world leaders that some of Mr Trump’s grievances are reasonable.

They believe his approach is the wrong one but in interviews they are now talking about the negative consequences of trade imbalances and globalisation – the impact on communities and the undercutting of wages.

That wasn’t the case just a few months ago.

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Ms Reeves took it one step further. On Wednesday, the Treasury announced plans to tackle the dumping of cheap goods into the UK – no doubt aimed at China.

She announced a review of the customs’ treatment of low-value imports.

Currently goods valued at £135 escape the duty. The US has already taken action.

In an interview with Sky News, she said she was acting in the “national interest” but she is also looking for common ground with the Americans, as she seeks a deal that secures a reduction in tariffs.

Speaking to US media on Thursday, she reiterated her shared concerns: “I absolutely understand the concerns the United States have about imbalances in trade in the global economy, particularly when it comes to China that runs large, persistent trade surpluses with countries around the world, including the US and indeed including the United Kingdom.”

The IMF too. While the Fund sharply downgrades global growth forecasts, it shied away from openly criticising the US president.

Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, spoke of an erosion of trust between countries, and “concerns about the uneven distribution of gains from economic integration, its impact on the international division of labour, supply chain security, and global imbalances”.

So, Mr Trump has got policymakers to shift their priorities.

At the very least, he has brought a long-simmering issue to the boil. The world is thinking differently about China now.

The US is also showing signs that it’s thinking differently. After a bruising showdown with the bond markets, Mr Trump has rowed back on his liberation day tariffs.

The administration has softened its language, saying it wants reform and to work with institutions.

The president said tariffs could come down substantially on China.

However, a lot of damage has already been done – not only his erratic tariffs policy, but also his attack on institutions, including the US Federal Reserve.

The world is now thinking differently about the US too, as are the markets.

Investors normally dive into US assets – government debt and the dollar – during times of turmoil, but Mr Trump’s pronouncement has caused traders to do the opposite.

There are signs that the world is losing faith in the US’ ultimate safe haven status.

US

‘Deeply ashamed’ former US treasury secretary Larry Summers quits public life over links to Jeffrey Epstein

Published

8 hours ago

November 18, 2025

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'Deeply ashamed' former US treasury secretary Larry Summers quits public life over links to Jeffrey Epstein

Former US treasury secretary Larry Summers has said he is stepping back from public life as emails showed he continued to communicate with Jeffrey Epstein after the paedophile financier pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.

Mr Summers, a former president of Harvard University, kept in touch with Epstein after the billionaire financier pleaded guilty in 2008, emails released last week showed.

The Harvard professor said in a statement sent to the university’s student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, and other media outlets on Monday that he wanted to “rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me”.

“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognise the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr Epstein,” he said.

Epstein took his own life in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges he sexually abused and trafficked underage girls.

In an email that year, Mr Summers asked Epstein for guidance in relation to a woman with whom he was trying to start a relationship.

In the message, Mr Summers wrote: “I said what are you up to. She said ‘I’m busy’. I said awfully coy u are.”

Epstein, who often wrote with spelling and grammatical errors, replied: “You reacted well.. annoyed shows caring. , no whining showed strentgh.”

Their correspondence was among thousands of Epstein emails published by the US House of Representatives.

When asked about the emails last week, Mr Summers said in a statement that he has “great regrets in my life” and that his association with Epstein was a “major error in judgement”.

The emails showed many in Epstein’s vast network of wealthy and influential friends continued to stay in touch long after his 2008 guilty plea.

Mr Summers, a Democrat who served as treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001 under former US president Bill Clinton and National Economic Council director under former US president Barack Obama, would continue to teach, he said.

According to his website, he teaches several economics courses at the prestigious US university, where he was president for five years from 2001.

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He is also a director of the school’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government and serves on the board of OpenAI.

Sky News has contacted Harvard University for comment.

Current US President Donald Trump called on Sunday for all the files to be released, a change of tack after he earlier dismissed the matter as a “hoax” perpetrated by the Democrats.

Mr Trump is one of a number of high-profile figures, who have been referenced in some of the documents.

The president has consistently denied any involvement or knowledge about Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.

The White House has said the “selectively leaked emails” are an attempt to “create a fake narrative” to smear Mr Trump.

The House of Representatives will vote on Tuesday on forcing the release of the documents.

On Monday, US attorney general Pam Bondi said she ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate Epstein’s ties to Mr Trump’s political enemies, including Mr Clinton.

US

Most advanced US aircraft carrier arrives close to Venezuela as Donald Trump administration builds-up forces

Published

1 day ago

November 17, 2025

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The most advanced US aircraft carrier has travelled to the Caribbean Sea in what has been interpreted as a show of military power and a possible threat to Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro regime.

The USS Gerald R Ford and other warships arrived in the area with a new influx of troops and weaponry on Sunday.

It is the latest step in a military build-up that the Donald Trump administration claims is aimed at preventing criminal cartels from smuggling drugs to America.

Since early September, US strikes have killed at least 80 people in 20 attacks on small boats accused of transporting narcotics in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean.

Mr Trump has indicated that military action would expand beyond strikes by sea, saying the US would “stop the drugs coming in by land”.

The US government has released no evidence to support its assertions that those killed in the boats were “narcoterrorists”, however.

The arrival of the USS Gerald R Ford now rounds off the largest increase in US firepower in the region in generations.

With its arrival, the “Operation Southern Spear” mission includes nearly a dozen navy ships and about 12,000 sailors and marines.

Rear Admiral Paul Lanzilotta, who commands the strike group, said it will bolster an already large force of American warships to “protect our nation’s security and prosperity against narco-terrorism in the Western Hemisphere”.

Admiral Alvin Holsey, the US commander who oversees the Caribbean and Latin America, said in a statement that the American forces “stand ready to combat the transnational threats that seek to destabilise our region”.

Government officials in Trinidad and Tobago have announced that they have already begun “training exercises” with the US military that are due to run over the next week.

The island is just seven miles from Venezuela at its closest point.

The country’s minister of foreign affairs, Sean Sobers, said the exercises were aimed at tackling violent crime in Trinidad and Tobago, which is frequently used by drug traffickers as a stopover on their journey to Europe or North America.

Venezuela’s government has described the training exercises as an act of aggression.

They had no immediate comment on Sunday regarding the arrival of the USS Gerald R Ford.

The US has long used aircraft carriers to pressure and deter aggression by other nations because its warplanes can strike targets deep inside another country.

Some experts say the Ford is ill-suited to fighting cartels, but it could be an effective instrument of intimidation to push Mr Maduro, who faces charges of narcoterrorism in the US, to step down.

Mr Maduro has said the US government is “fabricating” a war against him.

The US president has justified the attacks on drug boats by saying the country is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels, while claiming the boats are operated by foreign terrorist organisations.

US politicians have pressed Mr Trump for more information on who is being targeted and the legal justification for the boat strikes.

Elizabeth Dickinson, the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for the Andes region, said: “This is the anchor of what it means to have US military power once again in Latin America.

“And it has raised a lot of anxieties in Venezuela but also throughout the region. I think everyone is watching this with sort of bated breath to see just how willing the US is to really use military force.”

US

Marjorie Taylor Greene ‘open to moving forward’ after row with Donald Trump

Published

1 day ago

November 17, 2025

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Marjorie Taylor Greene 'open to moving forward' after row with Donald Trump

Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has said she is ready to mend relations with Donald Trump after a high-profile row between the pair.

The former MAGA ally had accused the president of “coming after me hard” over her efforts to get more Jeffrey Epstein files released.

But writing on X on Sunday, she said forgiveness was a “major part” of her Christian faith.

“I’m here to show how it’s possible to settle our differences and move forward as Americans,” she wrote. “That’s why I’m always willing to go on shows with different viewpoints.

“I truly believe in forgiveness and I am open to moving forward with the President.”

A day earlier, Ms Greene said she was facing threats after a barrage of criticism from Mr Trump – who has called her “wacky”, a “traitor” and a “ranting lunatic”.

Ms Greene claimed “a hotbed of threats” were “being fuelled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world”.

However, her attempt to build bridges appears to have fallen flat.

Mr Trump said on Truth Social on Sunday night that she was trying to portray herself as a victim and “nobody cares about this Traitor to our Country!”

The row began when a petition to vote on the full release of the Epstein files received enough signatures – including Ms Greene’s – to bring it to a vote in the House of Representatives.

Despite his attacks, Trump said on social media on Sunday that “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide…”

High-profile figures, including Mr Trump, have been referenced in some of the documents.

The president has called the Epstein files a “hoax” by the Democrats and has consistently denied any involvement or knowledge about Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.

The White House has said the “selectively leaked emails” are an attempt to “create a fake narrative” to smear Mr Trump.

Epstein took his own life in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges.