Trump comes out on top with EU tariffs deal, proving haters wrong and leaving some Europeans stunned



President Donald Trump set to work in April on radically transforming how trade is conducted internationally, unveiling a sweeping list of new tariffs targeting scores of nations — friendly and adversarial nations alike — that have long imposed higher fees on the U.S. than the U.S. has placed on them in return.

Trump has in the months since received a lot of flak from liberals at home and abroad over this campaign to end the trend of foreign nations ripping off America. There have, for instance, been legal challenges, condemnations by Democrats and even some Republicans, threats of retaliation, and constant media chatter about economic doom.

'It's a big deal. It's a huge deal. It will bring stability.'

Trump has, however, surmounted the opposition, proven the haters wrong, and repeatedly come out on top.

The president's latest victory — announced in the ancestral homeland of his mother just days after striking a favorable trade agreement with Japan — is likely his most consequential to date.

Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen jointly announced in Turnberry, Scotland, on Sunday that they struck a deal.

Per the terms of the agreement, the EU will buy $750 billion worth of energy over the next three years; invest $600 billion in the U.S. in addition to what it is already investing; open member countries to tariff-free American exports; and purchase "a vast amount" of American military equipment at a value that has yet to be determined.

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Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

The U.S. will, in return, impose a 15% import tariff on most European goods — half of the rate Trump planned to impose on Aug. 1 in the event the deal fell through and 12.5% less than the tariff currently imposed on European automotive exports to the United States.

"I think it's great that we made a deal today instead of playing games," Trump told von der Leyen.

"I think it's the biggest deal ever made. Thank you very much."

Von der Leyen, who in 2021 claimed that Trump's first term may have "permanently damaged" democracy, said, "We have a trade deal between the two largest economies in the world. It's a big deal. It's a huge deal. It will bring stability. It will bring predictability that's very important for our businesses on both sides of the Atlantic."

RELATED: Business spending reaches near 30-year high under Trump: 'It's the real deal'

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Von der Leyen later noted that Trump is "a tough negotiator, but he is also a dealmaker."

While von der Leyen said that the 15% tariff might be a "challenge for some," she emphasized that the deal ensures continued access to the American market while Europe simultaneously diversifies to other regions of the world and taps new markets.

'It is a dark day.'

"The European Union is going to open its 20 Trillion dollar market and completely accept our auto and industrial standards for the first time ever," noted Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

"Today is a historic day for U.S. trade and will strengthen our relationship with the European Union for decades to come."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent praised Trump, stating that the president "is the world’s great negotiator, and the American people are the beneficiaries."

A number of national leaders from the 27 EU member states who will have to sign off on the deal expressed optimism, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who said she considered it a "positive." German Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed the agreement, noting in a statement, "It is good that Europe and the U.S. have agreed and avoid unnecessary escalation in transatlantic trade relations."

Others weren't so keen.

French Prime Minister François Bayrou suggested on X that "it is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, brought together to affirm their common values and to defend their common interests, resigns itself to submission."

"It is obvious to me that this is not an agreement," said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. "It wasn't a deal that President Donald Trump made with Ursula von der Leyen — it was Trump eating von der Leyen for breakfast. This is what happened."

Orbán suggested that Trump's deal with the United Kingdom was far better and that von der Leyen was a "featherweight," reported Euractiv.

Trump has now secured critical trade deals with China, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Britain, and Vietnam.

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Macron's office initially denies authenticity of video showing French president's manhandling by his geriatric wife



Video went viral early Monday appearing to show 72-year-old Brigitte Macron manhandling her former student and now husband, French President Emmanuel Macron, just before they deplaned in Hanoi, Vietnam. The president's office initially denied the video's authenticity.

The footage has not only prompted an evolving explanation from the French president but also debate online both over what qualifies as abuse and over the nature of the Macrons' controversial relationship.

In the video, captured by the Associated Press, the 47-year-old president can be seen in the open doorway of the landed plane speaking to his wife. Mrs. Macron seemingly throws her hands into the president's face, impressing upon him a momentary look of shock. Realizing he is in full view of the public below, Mr. Macron smiles, steadies himself, and waves.

After getting his bearings, Mr. Macron turns to exit the plane, offering his elderly wife his arm. She elects instead to rely on the railing, then descends the stairs beside her husband.

'It was a moment of togetherness.'

Macron's office initially denied the authenticity of the images, but when it became clear that denial was a losing strategy, Mr. Macron told reporters that the altercation was all in fun, reported Le Monde.

"My wife and I were squabbling, we were rather joking, and I was taken by surprise,," said Mr. Macron, adding that the physicality was overblown and it has now "become a kind of planetary catastrophe, and some are even coming up with theories."

He suggested further that this was the latest of a number of videos that have been misinterpreted online.

"For three weeks ... there are people who have watched videos and think I shared a bag of cocaine, that I had a fight with the Turkish president, and that now I'm having a domestic dispute with my wife," said Macron. "None of these are true."

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Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images

One of the videos to which Mr. Macron was likely referring showed him tucking away a white object while seated next to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz while en route to Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 9. Critics concluded that the white object was a bag of cocaine. French officials suggested it was just a crumpled tissue.

Macron's office said of the incident on the plane in a statement obtained by CNN, "It was a moment when the president and his wife were unwinding one last time before the trip began, playfully teasing each other. It was a moment of togetherness."

'He preferred to spend his time talking with the teachers.'

Even though Mr. Macron and his office ultimately confirmed that the footage was genuine, CNN still insinuated it was being misinterpreted for the purposes of "disinformation."

Some critics online discussed whether the incident was indicative of a toxic or abusive relationship.

Normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck, for instance, suggested that "if you're in a relationship where someone puts hands on you, LEAVE. It's not normal and there's no excuse for it. People who love and respect you don't hit you."

Other critics suggested the incident might be just the latest insight into a relationship that started in 1993 when then-Brigitte Auziere, a 39-year-old high school teacher, fell for a 15-year-old boy who was a classmate of her daughter Laurence. Auziere supervised the drama club the boy was a member of.

Mr. Macron's former sports teacher told Bloomberg, "At 15, Macron had the maturity of a 25-year-old," adding, "He preferred to spend his time talking with the teachers rather than his classmates."

Mrs. Macron's family discovered her affair with the minor in 1994, prompting disgust and fury.

The age of consent in France is 15.

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Klaus Schwab stepping down as World Economic Forum chair after investigation, collapse of globalist dream



Klaus Schwab's days as chairman are numbered at the World Economic Forum, the technocratic globalist organization he founded in 1971 that hosts an annual conference of supposed elites in Davos, Switzerland.

Schwab told the WEF's board of trustees and staff in a letter on Tuesday seen by the Financial Times that he was beginning a year-long process of stepping down, having already stepped down as the organization's executive chairman last May.

The shake-up in Davos comes between the American-led unrealization of Schwab's proposed "great reset" of capitalism and in the wake of a probe into allegations of discrimination at the WEF.

Toxic workplace

Days after his previous title-drop, the Wall Street Journal published a damning report claiming — on the basis of internal complaints, email exchanges, and interviews with current and past WEF employees — that "under Schwab's decades-long oversight, the forum has allowed to fester an atmosphere hostile to women and black people in its own workplace."

The report noted that at least six female employees were allegedly "pushed out or otherwise saw their careers suffer" when pregnant or coming back from maternity leave. Other women claimed that senior managers had sexually harassed them.

'That was the most disappointing thing.'

"It was distressing to witness colleagues visibly withdraw from themselves with the onslaught of harassment at the hands of high-level staff, going from social and cheerful to self-isolating, avoiding eye contact, sharing nightmares for years after," said Farid Ben Amor, a former media executive who worked at the WEF before resigning in 2019.

Former staffers who worked closely with Schwab told the Journal that the problems went all the way to the top, alleging that the founder "made suggestive comments to them that made them uncomfortable."

The Journal also indicated that black employees complained about managers using racial slurs as well as about allegedly being passed over for promotions. When one employee filed a lawsuit in New York last year claiming the WEF was "hostile to women and black employees," the WEF settled the lawsuit on undisclosed terms.

Cheryl Martin, head of the Center for Global Industries at the WEF, said, "That was the most disappointing thing, to see the distance between what the Forum aspires to and what happens behind the scenes."

The WEF, which routinely lectures the world about racism, the supposed "gender gap," sexism, climate change, and other perceived moral failings, characterized the Journal's report as "inaccurate," stating, "We are an organization that upholds the highest standards of governance, while working to address the most pressing challenges of our time with our high-performance teams, our diverse and global outlook, and an environment that values innovation, inclusion, and well-being."

Tom Clare, legal counsel for the WEF, suggested that the report painting the WEF as a degenerate organization led by hypocrites was both defamatory and illustrative of the Journal's "steady decline."

Toothless investigation

In the wake of the Journal's indications that those keen to control the world were unable to control themselves, the WEF had the law firm Covington and Burling — whose members recently had their security clearances suspended by President Donald Trump — investigate the claims of workplace discrimination and harassment, reported the Financial Times.

The American firm, which conducted its review in conjunction with the Swiss firm Homburger, indicated in a summary of its assessment that it "did not find the forum had committed any legal violations" and "did not substantiate" the misconduct allegations against Schwab.

'Now after the turmoil of the last months, is to recover our sense of mission.'

While the external investigators were unable or unwilling to find proof of guilt, Børge Brende, president and CEO of the WEF, indicated that there was nevertheless an internal desire to make some minor changes.

Brende reportedly noted in an email that the board committee overseeing the law firms' investigation identified "leadership and management issues ... that do not meet our established standards." In addition to affirming the organization's alleged "commitment to a workplace where all employees feel valued and respected," the leadership promised additional training for managers.

Great reset

Schwab is apparently convinced that the WEF has yet to recover its "sense of mission," saying as much in his April 1 letter to trustee board members, including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva, failed U.S. presidential candidate Al Gore, and Tharman Shanmugaratnam, president of Singapore.

"I am deeply convinced that in today's special context the forum is more important and relevant than ever before," wrote Schwab. "It is also financially very well equipped thanks to successful financial management since its beginning. What is essential now after the turmoil of the last months, is to recover our sense of mission."

The WEF told the Financial Times that Schwab's departure should be completed by January 2027.

Schwab reportedly suggested it was personally significant that he made his announcement on April 1, as it marked the 55th anniversary of the day he began working on the concept of a "global village" — a term coined several years earlier by Canadian intellectual Marshall McLuhan.

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This Truthsgiving, I'm thankful for European settlement



Cranks come out of the woodwork ahead of every holiday to tell the masses they're celebrating the wrong thing or wrong to celebrate anything at all. Cynical liberal publications dutifully spin off the cranks' latest insights, which are inevitably just old envies and prejudices repackaged for new audiences.

We're told Christopher Columbus is genocidal; the Fourth of July is a celebration fit only for jingos, sexists, and racists; Christmas is environmentally ruinous; and Father's and Mother's Days are hurtfully exclusionary to the reality-averse. Thanksgiving enjoys no exemption.

In its ritual exhibition of late-November ingratitude, the Nation ran a two-stage article by failed Democratic congressional candidate Chase Iron Eyes and Sioux chef Sean Sherman explaining why Americans should either "decolonize" Thanksgiving or replace it with "Truthsgiving."

It is critical to decolonize the day, Sherman suggested, because Thanksgiving's roots are "intertwined with colonial aggression." His preferred decolonized substitute apparently has blessed roots that managed to grow for millennia without absorbing blood from the intertribal wars, slavery, and human sacrifice the Americas were home to prior to European settlement.

According to Sherman, decolonization "means centering the Indigenous perspective and challenging the colonial narratives around the holiday (and every other day on the calendar)." It also apparently means "resisting the dominance of colonial influences."

A decolonized Thanksgiving is apparently one where we racialize our gratitude, resist the urge to give thanks for the myriad gifts handed down to us from settlers from Britain and Europe, and adopt a "clearer lens" to see that anything capable of inspiring pride in post-17th-century America isn't worth celebrating.

Iron Eyes underscored in his argument for canceling Thanksgiving that we can be thankful so long as we're thankful to the right people. "Give thanks to the Native nations who created the world that we inherit today," he wrote.

Iron Eyes' talk of inheritance and Sherman's call for selective remembrance prompted me to think about the world we actually inherit this Truthsgiving and those to whom we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude but are now asked to discount.

More than for property rights, the free market, and the wheel, this Truthsgiving I'd like to express my gratitude to the decentered settlers for their gift of the written word and a functional alphabet, which enable cranks to air their grievances but also preserve Indian languages and traditions for the benefit of future generations.

I am thankful for the settlers' science — the European origin of which the late sociologist Rodney Stark noted was the result of Abrahamic peoples' belief in a rational God whose creation was likewise rational and therefore replete with discernible truth — which has extended Indian and European lives alike and provided us with dominion over a wilderness once worshipped.

I am thankful for the salvific faith settlers brought over to the New World, which not only affirms human beings' inviolable dignity, the eternal love of God, and the promise of life after death but has informed the culture, customs, and ethic that have helped make America the envy of the world.

I am thankful for the imported rule of law, which spares us all from the tyranny of chieftains and the impulses of the mad mob.

I am also thankful for a society prototyped overseas that is so accommodating and tolerant as to put up, year after year, with blood libels and putdowns from its many beneficiaries.

Iron Eyes concluded his argument with, "Let's tell a different story by dropping the lie of Thanksgiving and begin a Truthsgiving."

Instead, let's drop the lie that European settlement wasn't, at least in the long run, an absolute blessing and acknowledge that the imperfect cast of characters responsible for the society we've inherited don't need our condemnation or praise but rather our understanding and thanks.

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Italian prime minister says illegal aliens from Africa 'threaten the future of Europe' as migrants begin blocking roads on beleaguered Mediterranean island



Thousands of illegal aliens have flooded the Sicilian island of Lampedusa over the past several days, prompting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to threaten "extraordinary measures" to curb future maritime attacks on her nation's sovereignty. Meloni has also called on other European nations to both help "stop departures" from Africa and eject those who have been turned down for asylum.

What's the background?

Lampedusa is an island that lies between Malta and North Africa with a native population of only 6,000 full-time residents and a migrant center designed to accommodate no more than 400 people. Inside a three-day period last week, the island was overwhelmed by well over 8,500 illegal aliens, reported the Guardian.

Sky News suggested the number of illegal newcomers had reached over 11,000 as of Sunday. Many of the migrants appear to be military-age men.

The migrants departed North Africa by way of the Sunni Muslim nation of Tunisia, then proceeded towards Italy via a flotilla comprising over 120 rickety iron boats.

The surge appears to have been the result of a bottleneck in Tunisia's ports caused by rough seas, which prevented human traffickers from launching at intervals as planned, according to Italian authorities.

Filippo Mannino, the island's mayor, stressed that Lampedusa is in crisis and has reached a tipping point, reported Reuters.

Locals rose up over the weekend in protest of plans to build a tent city on the island.

"We hate to see people suffering and have always been there to pull bodies from the sea or provide food and clothing," said Girgia Pirotta, a resident of the island. "But we can’t live like this anymore. These people deserve respect, and so do we."

It's not just citizens who are vexed by the situation.

Claudine Nsoe, a migrant from Cameroon, complained to the press about the living conditions on the island where she and thousands of others disembarked illegally, calling into question the quality of the food and lack of shelter.

Having not immediately gotten their way — which is to access mainland Europe — multitudes of other unwelcome guests reportedly broke out of the reception area and began blocking roads and issuing demands.

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The United Nations refugee agency indicated Italy and the rest of Europe should cave to the migrants' demands for relocation.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh said, "It's imperative to move people off the island because the resources there, the capacity is so limited."

Saltmarsh appeared far less concerned about the impact of the invasion on the native population than about the trauma migrants may be experiencing, reported Reuters.

Meanwhile, Tunisia appears more than happy to continue seeing off the fleets of migrant vessels bound for European shores.

The Guardian noted that the European Union has struck deals with the North African nation in hopes of stemming the tide, going so far as to pledge $1.1 billion in financial aid and to refitting 17 vessels for Tunisian authorities to use in search and rescue operations. However, President Kais Saied has done very little; unsurprising granted his previous indication that Tunisia would not be Europe's border guard.

Off, out, and no more

Meloni visited the island Sunday with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, just after thousands of migrants had been ported to Sicily and mainland Italy.

The Italian prime minister made clear illegal aliens "threaten the future of Europe," stressing, "It is an epochal challenge for Europe."

Meloni told the press, "If anyone thinks that this crisis we are facing could be just resolved within Italian borders, it would be a very big mistake, because this problem involves everyone and needs to be tackled by everyone."

"I continue to say that we will never resolve it by talking only about redistribution [of migrants] – the only way to resolve it is to stop departures," added Meloni.

Von der Leyen indicated Sunday that the EU would explore "options to expand existing naval missions in the Mediterranean or to work on new ones."

Additionally, the German politico indicated those not granted asylum would be deported and human traffickers would face a crackdown.

"We will decide who comes to the European Union and under what circumstances, not the smugglers," said von der Leyen. "Irregular migration is a European challenge and it needs a European answer, so we are in this together."

Notwithstanding assurances from the head of the European Commission, France and Germany have reportedly vowed not to take migrants who touch down in Italy, according to ABC News.

According to Italy's Interior Ministry, roughly 126,000 illegal aliens have landed in Italy this year, nearly double what the Mediterranean nation saw last year. Put in perspective, every month so far this year, tens of thousands more illegal aliens have stolen into the United States.

Transport Minister Matteo Salvini said, "The boat landings at Lampedusa are the symbol of a Europe that's not there, that's so distracted it leaves countries to their own" devices, reported ABC News.

Former British politician and Brexiteer Nigel Farage said, "The invasion of Lampedusa in the last few days spells catastrophe for the EU and for us. ... These young men must be sent back, or millions more will come."

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