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S&P 500 closed down 3.45%, cutting into 9.5% surge that came on Wednesday after president paused many of his global tariffs
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U.S. stocks plunged on Thursday, giving up more than half of their historic gains from the previous day as President Donald Trump’s trade war continues to cause confusion.
The S&P 500 had lost 5% in midday trading, ending that day down 3.45%, cutting into the 9.5% surge that came on Wednesday after the president paused many of his global tariffs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down 2.54%. and the Nasdaq composite fell 4.31%.
UBS strategist Bhanu Baweja wrote in a report that Trump had blinked, “but the damage isn’t all undone.”
This comes after the president 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.
Markets surged, and social media exploded with accusations that the president had orchestrated a reverse “pump and dump” scheme with allegations of insider trading and market manipulation floated.
A top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official told staff this week to start planning for the agency’s splintering.
Several parts of CDC — mostly those devoted to health threats that aren’t infectious — are being spun off into the soon-to-be-created Administration for a Healthy America, the agency official told senior leaders in calls and meetings.
The directive came from Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s chief medical officer, according to three CDC officials who were in attendance. They declined to be identified because they weren’t authorized to talk about the plans and fear being fired if they were identified.
Read more:
The Supreme Court says that the Trump administration must facilitate the return to the U.S. of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador and incarcerated.
Full story to come…
Mike Bedigan reports.
Trump’s sudden announcement Wednesday that he was temporarily pausing his tariff plan caught the world – as well as most of his allies and administration – by surprise.
The announcement has given foreign leaders some relief, with a new deadline of July 8 now fixed so that trade deals with affected countries and the U.S. can be negotiated. It follows days of chaos in the global markets, with stocks on such a roller coaster that even billionaire business owners were getting the jitters.
Here’s what you need to know about what’s going on:
Alex Woodward reports:
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is denying Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s request to reply to the government’s latest filing in his case, after the Trump administration raised two new pieces of evidence.
In making their argument to stop the court from ordering Trump to return the wrongly deported Maryland father who is sitting in El Salvador’s mega prison, government attorneys claimed they have “been informed” that El Salvador has its “own legal rationales for detaining members of criminal associations and foreign terrorist groups like MS-13.”
The government contends that Abrego Garcia is a member of the transnational gang, based on spurious evidence, and which his attorneys and family have flatly rejected.
The government also stated that a Justice Department’s lawyer’s recent arguments in court “do not reflect the position of the United States.” That official was placed on leave after insufficiently defending the administration.
But, in a single-line entry on the docket, Roberts won’t allow Abrego Garcia’s team to respond to those claims in a new filing. It’s not typical for the court to grant permission for what’s called a “sur reply,” but Roberts’s brief entry is the first time the public has heard from the court since it allowed Trump to keep Abrego Garcia imprisoned while they consider next steps.
The court could rule at any time on whether Trump must bring him back to the United States.
Simon Walters writes:
When, in 1974, President Richard Nixon was forced to resign after lying about a break-in involving planting listening devices at his Democrat rivals’ Watergate Hotel HQ during his re-election campaign, it became the biggest scandal in political history. Now, Donald Trump has found himself in the middle of a political storm that could prove as damaging: Tariffgate.
As markets opened on Wednesday, Trump posted on his TruthSocial platform: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” Hours later, he issued an abrupt U-turn on the reciprocal tariffs he announced on his “Liberation Day” at the start of the month, declaring a “90-day pause” on tariffs for all countries except China.
Read more:
A federal judge on Thursday said she will halt the Trump administration from ending a program that allowed hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to temporarily live in the United States.
Read on…
He blinked. Not since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 has an American president engaged in such a high-risk, high-stakes game of chicken with the future of his nation and the world.
In that lost age of American leadership, John F Kennedy faced down the Russians – and won. This week, Donald J Trump tried to face down China, the European Union and, most foolhardy of all, the capital markets. He lost.
Trump may or may not have thought himself playing some grandiose global poker match – but, in any case, he folded. He is left with what remains of his credibility in shreds, an unwelcome reputation as being even more unpredictable than previously assumed (a perversely awesome achievement), and the two largest economies in the world remain locked in something even worse than a trade war.
Read more:
A group of 77 Democrats has called on the White House to commit to a May 30 deadline for Elon Musk to finish in his unprecedented role inside the government, arguing the DOGE billionaire must step down by then under federal law.
In a letter to the president, led by Rep. Greg Casar of Texas, the lawmakers alleged that Musk had used his position as a so-called “special government employee” to enrich himself while slashing billions from the federal government and impacting key services.
Josh Marcus reports.
It’s a good question and CNN’s Kasie Hunt put it to Trump White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, who appears to have taken over from Howard Lutnick as the administration official never not on TV.
Watch below:
And over on Fox News, Jesse Watters reiterates the point that Trump has to do this fast if he’s going to do it at all — the president is up against the clock.
Alex Woodward reports on how lawmakers are calling for an investigation into whether members of the government engaged in insider trading.
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