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The Liberian-flagged tanker Ice Energy, chartered by the US government, takes Iranian oil from Iranian-flagged Lana (formerly Pegas) as part of a civil forfeiture action off the shore of Karystos, on the Island of Evia, Greece, in May 2022.
US may target Iranian tankers
The potential impact? Washington previously ordered two such operations in 2023, under the Biden administration, but this prompted Iran to seize foreign ships, including one chartered by Chevron Corp, which increased crude prices. Today, however, prices are under $75 a barrel, so trimming Iran’s exports, possibly by 750,000 barrels per day, would have less of an effect. Cutting Iranian production would allow for increased production from Iraq, and potentially from Russia, which also sells to the Chinese market. Iran reaps annual oil revenues of $50 billion, mostly from sales to China.
Why do it, and will it work? Trump sees the plan as a means of exerting “maximum pressure” against Tehran to damage its nuclear program. The strategy depends, however, on allied nations chipping in to inspect the vessels. There are currently 115 signatories to the Initiative, most of whom are also facing the specter of US tariffs on April 2. We’ll be watching which ones the US approaches for cooperation – and whether Trump will be willing to give concessions in return.
Trump makes a speech from the Oval Office.
Are Trump’s massive government layoffs permanent?
The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported on Thursday that US employer layoffs surged by 245% last month — the largest spike since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In February alone, 172,017 jobs were cut, with over a third stemming from the Department of Government Efficiency, which slashed 62,242 positions across 17 agencies.
However, whether all these firings will be permanent remains uncertain. While DOGE continues its job cuts, many agencies have begun reversing course, reinstating employees — sometimes just days after their dismissal. On Tuesday, the Office of Personnel Management revised its previous directive, which had instructed agencies to terminate probationary employees (those with less than two years in their roles). The update clarified that individual agencies would have the final say on personnel decisions. Meanwhile, independent review boards, judges, and lawmakers from districts with large government workforces are challenging the layoffs. It is unclear how many more employees might ultimately be reinstated.
Regardless, the first two months of the year saw a total of 221,812 job cuts — the highest since the 2009 financial crisis. The report comes amid growing concerns about the labor market and broader economy, as Trump pushes forward with plans for tariffs, government downsizing, and stricter immigration policies.
President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the US Capitol on March 4, 2025.
Is the Trump revolution off to a good or bad start?
Does Donald Trump’s revolutionary start make the grade?
On Tuesday, America once again celebrated the great presidential tradition called “marking your own homework,” also known as the Joint Session of Congress address. You didn’t need to sit through all 99 minutes of Trump’s peroration to know that he gave himself an A++ on his first six weeks in office.
“We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years, or eight years, and we are just getting started,” Trump said, causing half the room to explode in applause while the other side sat and waved little paper signs of protest.
The thundering braggadocio of the speech came across with all the subtlety of a revving Harley-Davidson on the Vegas Strip, but give Trump this: He promised radical change, and he has overdelivered. Bigly. Too many politicians promise roses and deliver thorns.
Trump is doing what he has always done: go over the top. His biggest win so far has been the southern border, where his policies have brought illegal migration to a crashing halt. Democrats blew that issue and paid the price. With over 100 executive orders and 400 executive actions, public brawls with world leaders, a pivot into the open claws of Vladimir Putin, and the daily grumblings of his imperialist appetite for land expansion, the transition to Trump has been a transformation of Washington. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue looks more like Fury Road in the “Mad Max” series, complete with a chain-saw-wielding sidekick.
Democrats look helpless, trying to choke down one half-digested policy—cancel USAID, cut off US intelligence to Ukraine, buy Gaza — as another one is jammed down their throats. You could give their entire party a political Heimlich maneuver, and they still wouldn’t be able to catch their breath.
Trump’s Deal Chaos
The rapid-fire, jump-cut scenes of Trump interventions — 25% tariffs on everything from Canada … except energy … and wait … not on cars for a month … or agriculture … or now … BREAKING NEWS today with Trump suspending tariffs for Mexico and Canada on anything that falls under the USMCA, but only until April 2 — might as well come with those photosensitivity warnings you see before shows that include flashing lights: Ladies and gentlemen, the barrage of conflicting policy announcements may cause Democratic seizures.
One thing is certain: The volatility is causing seizures in the markets, which are whipsawing up and down.
But if Trump gets to grade himself, maybe it’s time for a more objective report card. Let’s use two criteria: Trump as a dealmaker and Trump as a manager.
The Platonic ideal of Trump, taken from his ghostwritten book, “The Art of the Deal,” is that he is the greatest dealmaker in history. Want to end the war in Ukraine? Easy-peasy. That should take 24 hours. Well, that deal, whatever it was supposed to be, never materialized.
Trump is now trying to hustle a mineral deal out of Ukraine by shaking down President Volodymyr Zelensky in public, falsely claiming that Ukraine started the war and that Zelensky is the dictator. Trump says that he and his pal Vladimir Putin (“We had to go through the Russian hoax together”) are trying to pin Zelensky down for peace. The president claims the US has given $300 billion in aid to Ukraine, when it is actually $175 billion—and much of that going to US companies. Still, he’s demanding a $500 billion rare earth mineral deal as compensation and the key to a peace deal. “And they shall beat their swords into … Promethium, and their spears into Scandium,” to twist the old biblical saying.
In any case, that deal also fell through after he and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelensky in a stunning public press conference last Friday in the Oval Office. But it is the substance of the deal, not just the politics, that is also in question. Does Ukraine really have rare earth materials that could be worth that kind of money? Is there really a big prize here? Not according to expert Javier Blas, who wrote in Bloomberg that “Ukraine has no significant rare earth deposits other than small scandium mines.” He points out that the US Geological Survey also doesn’t confirm that Ukraine has any rare earth reserves. “Simply put, ‘follow the money’ doesn’t work here,” Blas writes. “At best, the value of all the world’s rare earth production rounds to $15 billion a year … That’s equal to the value of just two days of global oil output. Even if Ukraine had gigantic deposits, they wouldn’t be that valuable in geo-economic terms.”
So, even if Trump gets the mineral deal, what’s it worth? It is a political win at best, but at the expense of ditching US allies in Europe, letting down Ukraine, and handing Putin a massive victory.
Is that a good deal?
Trump’s Tariff-ization
What about tariffs? So far, the tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China have proven to be an economic downer, and now Trump is rolling them back, fudging, and shifting as the trade war escalates. States like Kentucky that export to Canada are getting hurt. Prices are going up. The premier of Ontario is threatening to put 25% tariffs on electricity exports to three northern US states. Is this the deal people wanted?
And even if tariffs do bring back some US jobs in the long run, which is very possible, Trump has made the United States an unreliable trading and security partner. Who wants to sign a trade deal with him now, knowing he could rip it up or change his mind at any moment? What company wants to invest in long-term deals if there is no promise of stability? Do NATO countries still trust that the US would be a backstop? A deal today is gone tomorrow.
Perhaps this is all just the grinding gears of change. It’s only been 45 days, after all. Maybe the radical surgery Trump and Elon Musk are performing on the sclerotic body of the US government is needed and will make things more efficient. But so far, that has not been the case.
For now, inflation is back up, prices are up, allies are fleeing, and the markets are down. And this is just the start. It could get worse.
All this got me thinking about Clayton Christensen, the great thinker I had the chance to interview years ago. Back in 1997, he wrote the seminal book “The Innovator’s Dilemma” about how disruption happens, but he may just as well have been writing about what Trump and Musk are doing domestically and internationally today.
“Many think of management as cutting deals and laying people off and hiring people and buying and selling companies,” Christensen wrote. “That’s not management, that's dealmaking. Management is the opportunity to help people become better people. Practiced that way, it’s a magnificent profession.”
By that measure, we are clearly in the dealmaking phase of the Trump presidency. And the marks on that, so far, are not good. His big win on illegal immigration and Musk’s hacksawing of government must be measured against the chaos around the economy, the tanking markets, and the rise in inflation. Trump’s foreign policy deals have been a calamity for US allies, from the abandonment of Ukraine, the alienation of the EU, and the threats to and tariffs on Canada and Mexico, not to mention the pitch to take over Gaza. Russia is the big winner so far, so if that’s on the scorecard, you get the Cyrillic version of an A. Otlichnyy!
As far as grading the management of the United States? Helping people become better people? The report card on the magnificent profession reads: More work needs to be done. Fast.
Supreme Court orders release of foreign aid funds
The terse, unsigned ruling was issued by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett together with the court’s three liberal justices. It upholds an earlier order by US District Judge Amir Ali, now tasked with craftingcompliance requirements for paying the money. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the dissenting justices,said he was “stunned” by the decision, arguing that it rewarded “judicial hubris” and imposed a significant financial burden on taxpayers.
What was the lawsuit about? The dispute arose from US President Donald Trump's Jan. 20 executive order imposing a 90-day freeze on all foreign aid to ensure “alignment” with his foreign policy objectives. The orderprompted aid organizations to sue, alleging that the freeze exceeded presidential authority and violated federal law.
What could this mean for other lawsuits? Eurasia analyst Noah Daponte-Smith says, “The SCOTUS ruling yesterday was more of a procedural than a substantive matter. That said, this is the second time that the court has allowed lower-court injunctions against Trump’s actions to go into effect, which may be an indication of how it will rule once substantive issues reach the court.”
“It is also notable that Barrett — a Trump appointee — sided with Roberts and the three liberal justices, suggesting that a 6-3 conservative majority is by no means unified on the questions of executive authority that the DOGE cases involve.”
President Donald Trump talks with Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization Plenary Session at the NATO summit in Watford, Britain, in December 2019.
Mexico, Canada get tariff reprieve
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump announced a one-month tariff reprieve on all Mexican and Canadian goods governed by the USMCA, as well as potash,until reciprocal tariffs are imposed worldwide on April 2.Canada supplies 80% of US potash, a critical component of fertilizer. The decrees follow Wednesday’s one-month tariff reprieve for America’s Big 3 automakers: Stellantis, Ford, and General Motors.
What will be tariff-free? According to senior administration officials, 50% of goods entering the US from Mexico and 38% of goods from Canada would qualify. Some Canadian energy products will still be subject to a 10% tariff, and some Mexican products, like computers, will still face a 25% tariff.
How have Canada and Mexico responded? Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum had not imposed tariffs but was set to announce them Sunday if no deal was reached.
Canada’s initial set of tariffs on $30 billion in American goods imposed on Tuesday will remain. A second wave of $150 billion set to take effect after 20 days has reportedly been suspended until April. Ontario Premier Doug Ford also said that Canada would be imposing a 25% tariff on electricity exports starting Monday, regardless of whether tariffs would be lifted. Canadian provinces have also removed US-made alcohol from store shelves and barred American firms from procurement contracts, and there is no sign that this measure will be reversed.
Why did Trump change course? Trump said “I wasn’t even looking at the market” but major stock indexes plummeted this week, as investors were spooked by the uncertainty. In the Oval Office, Trump said “This is about companies and countries that have been ripping off our country and they won’t be ripping off our country anymore.”
Trump’s reprieve on Mexico specifically mentioned actions taken to stem the flow of illegal aliens and fentanyl into the US. This contrasts with his conversation Wednesday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in which Trump claimed Canada’s efforts on fentanylwere insufficient to drop US tariffs.
But the US president has citedother reasons for tariffs on Canada, including accusing the country of not allowing US banks to operate there and falsely claiming that the US “subsidizes” Canada to the tune of $200 billion a year. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick alsoaccused Canada of having a “national tariff” on US products because it has a 5-15% federal-provincial sales tax.Graphic Truth: Who’s most vulnerable in the North American trade war?
This week, Donald Trump fired the opening shots in a new North American trade war, slapping 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, America’s top two trade partners.
Both countries responded in kind, but by the numbers at least, the US has significantly more leverage in this showdown. That’s because the economies of Canada and Mexico are vastly more dependent on exports to the US than the US is on exports in the other direction.
Here is a look at that dependency, measured by looking at how much of Mexican and Canadian GDP comes directly from exports to the US, and vice versa.
The caveat: These are national-level numbers. At the state level, the picture changes a bit, with the economies of some individual US states way more dependent on Mexican or Canadian trade than the country as a whole is.
North Dakota, for example, derives about 10% of its GDP from exports to Canada alone. Michigan’s exports to Mexico and Canada combined account for 6% of its economy. New Mexico sends 70% of its exports to “old” Mexico.
We’ll look at that in more detail in an upcoming Graphic Truth. For now, here’s the (lopsided) picture at the national level.
Trump grants some tariff relief – but it’s temporary
US President Donald Trump gave America’s Big Three automakers a one-month tariff reprieve but expects them to use the time to shift production from Canada and Mexico to the United States. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the temporary exemption Wednesday after Trump held a call with the CEOs of Stellantis, Ford, and GM, at their request. Levitt also made it clear that, as of April 2, reciprocal tariffs will go into effect worldwide.
What are they? In a nutshell, Trump will slap tariffs on other countries that match the tariffs those countries place on the US.
Which countries would be most affected? India, Argentina, South Korea, and Brazil had the highest tariff regimes as of 2023. India recently cut levies on many US imports, including motorcycles, but still has tariffs on imported cars of up to 110%, leaving small exporters demanding further reductions from Delhi. Argentinian President Javier Milei recently praised Trump’s plan for reciprocal tariffs and said he wants to pursue a reciprocal trade pact, even if it means leaving the Mercosur trade pact with neighboring South American countries.
Will Trump reverse course? It’s possible but unlikely. Trump has long been a believer in tariffs. In his address to Congress on Tuesday evening, he said “Tariffs are not just about protecting American jobs. They’re about protecting the soul of our country.”
Is the US-Europe alliance permanently damaged?
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm, Sweden.
Is the transatlantic relationship permanently damaged by what we have seen during the last 10 days or so?
Well, there is no question that the last 10 days or so have been the worst by far for the transatlantic relationship in, well, modern recorded history. You can go through all of the details if you want. It started with the shameful vote in the UN General Assembly on the same day that was three years after the war of aggression that Russia started, where the United States turned around, lined up with Russia, and with primarily a bunch of countries that you would not normally like to be seen in the company of, in order to try to defeat the Europeans, and defeat the Ukrainians, and defeat the Japanese, and defeat the Australians, defeat all of the friends who have criticized the Russians.
It was truly shameful. It was defeated, needless to say, but it left deep marks there. And then it was downhill from there, with that particular week ending with the ambush in the Oval Office, with all of the details associated with that, with sort of a childish dispute about dress codes, and respect for whatever, and total disregard for the important issues that are at stake at the moment. And to that was added, the vice president seriously insulting the allies, primarily the British and the French, and then cutting of aid to Ukraine, including intelligence cooperation, which is unheard of, unheard of when it comes to these particular issues.
So, is damage permanent? Well, one would hope that... well, hope springs eternal, that there would be a way back. But this will be remembered for a long time to come. And the reaction in Europe, well, you have to keep a straight face if you are a political leader. And they do, they hope for the best, but they're increasingly preparing for the worst. What we might be heading into is Mr. Trump, President Trump lining up with President Putin in a deal that is essentially on Russia's term over Ukraine, then trying to force Ukraine into that particular deal, a repetition of Munich 1938.
Will that work? I think it's unlikely to work because the Ukrainians are determined to stand up for their country. And they have the support of the Europeans. Czechoslovakia in 1938 didn't have much support. So, whether it will work or not is debatable, but that is the direction in which things are heading at the moment. Can this be stopped or can the trajectory of things be changed? Let's hope. There's a flurry of meetings in Europe. There will be a lot of contacts across the Atlantic. There is a strong support for Ukraine in Europe, but then deep apprehensions of where we are heading. Further four years with President Trump. After that, (possibly) four to eight years with JD Vance. Well, well, there's a lot of thinking that needs to be done on this side of the Atlantic.