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Tesla Inc. chief Elon Musk’s wealth has slipped below $300 billion for the first time since November as the indiscriminate fallout from President Donald Trump’s tariffs punishes even those closest to him.

Musk lost $4.4 billion on Monday after Tesla stock extended losses, taking his total fortune to $297.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That followed a $31 billion hit across Thursday and Friday last week. So far this year, Musk has lost $134.7 billion.

Musk was the sixth biggest loser on Bloomberg’s list of the world’s 500 richest people on Monday. Overall, the index fell $271 billion – its third-worst day ever.

The slump in Musk’s fortune is a continuation of a stunning reversal. Tesla shares surged after Trump’s election, propelling Musk’s fortune to record highs. Since then, his role as a high-profile Trump adviser has made Tesla a target for protests and vandalism at home and abroad. The billionaire CEO’s polarizing behavior and social media activity are alienating would-be buyers and leading owners of Tesla cars to distance themselves from his politics and the company’s damaged brand.

The company’s shares have fallen more than 50% since the record high in mid-December.

Over the weekend, Musk said he hopes for a “zero-tariff” system between the US and Europe that would effectively create “a free-trade zone.” His brother, Kimbal, on Monday criticized the tariffs as a “structural, permanent tax on the American consumer.”

“Even if he is successful in bringing jobs on shore through the tariff tax, prices will remain high and the tax on consumption will remain the form of higher prices because we are simply not as good at making all things,” Kimbal Musk, a Tesla board member, said in a post on X. 

Global temperatures hovered at historic highs in March, Europe’s climate monitor said on Tuesday, prolonging an extraordinary heat streak that has tested scientific expectations.

In Europe, it was the hottest March ever recorded by a significant margin, said the Copernicus Climate Change Service, driving rainfall extremes across a continent warming faster than any other.

The world meanwhile saw the second-hottest March in the Copernicus dataset, sustaining a near-unbroken spell of record or near-record-breaking temperatures that has persisted since July 2023.

Since then, virtually every month has been at least 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than it was before the industrial revolution when humanity began burning massive amounts of coal, oil and gas.

March was 1.6C (2.9F) above pre-industrial times, prolonging an anomaly so extreme that scientists are still trying to fully explain it.

“That we’re still at 1.6C above preindustrial is indeed remarkable,” said Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London.

“We’re very firmly in the grip of human-caused climate change,” she told AFP.

Contrasting extremes

Scientists warn that every fraction of a degree of global warming increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, heavy rainfall and droughts.

Climate change is not just about rising temperatures but the knock-on effect of all that extra heat being trapped in the atmosphere and seas by greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane.

Warmer seas mean higher evaporation and greater moisture in the atmosphere, causing heavier deluges and feeding energy into cyclones, but also affecting global rainfall patterns.

March in Europe was 0.26C (0.47F) above the previous hottest record for the month set in 2014, Copernicus said.

It was also “a month with contrasting rainfall extremes” across the continent, said Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which runs the Copernicus climate monitor.

Some parts of Europe experienced their “driest March on record and others their wettest” for about half a century, Burgess said.

Elsewhere in March, scientists said that climate change intensified an extreme heatwave across Central Asia and fuelled conditions for extreme rainfall which killed 16 people in Argentina.

Persistent heat

The spectacular surge in global heat pushed 2023 and then 2024 to become the hottest years on record.

Last year was also the first full calendar year to exceed 1.5C: the safer warming limit agreed by most nations under the Paris climate accord.

This represented a temporary, not permanent breach, of this longer-term target, but scientists have warned that the goal of keeping temperatures below that threshold is slipping further out of reach.

Scientists had expected that the extraordinary heat spell would subside after a warming El Nino event peaked in early 2024, and conditions gradually shifted to a cooling La Nina phase.

But global temperatures have remained stubbornly high, sparking debate among scientists about what other factors could be driving warming to the top end of expectations.

The European Union monitor uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its climate calculations.

Its records go back to 1940, but other sources of climate data — such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons — allow scientists to expand their conclusions using evidence from much further in the past.

Scientists say the current period is likely the warmest the Earth has been for the last 125,000 years.

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President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that new negotiations were in the works aimed at getting more hostages released from Hamas captivity in Gaza.

“We’re working now on another deal that we hope will succeed, and we’re committed to getting all the hostages out,” Netanyahu told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump for his part said: “We are trying very hard to get the hostages out. We’re looking at another ceasefire, we’ll see what happens.”

Netanyahu added that “the hostages are in agony, and we want to get them all out.”

The Israeli leader, seated next to Trump, highlighted an earlier hostage release agreement negotiated in part by Trump’s regional envoy Steve Witkoff that “got 25 out.”

Netanyahu’s visit follows the collapse of Israel’s six-week truce with Palestinian group Hamas, whose militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 that triggered the Israeli invasion of Gaza.

The fragile ceasefire ended with Israel’s resumption of air strikes on Gaza on March 18.

The recent truce had allowed the return of 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom were dead, in exchange for the release of some 1,800 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

The prime minister and his government maintain — against the advice of most hostage families — that increased military pressure is the only way to force Hamas to return the remaining hostages, dead or alive.

Of the 251 hostages abducted during Hamas’s October 7 attack, 58 remain in captivity in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead.

On another issue, after staying silent of late on his much-criticized idea of the United States taking over Gaza and displacing its two million people, Trump plugged it again on Monday.

“I think it’s an incredible piece of important real estate, and I think it’s something that we would be involved in,” Trump said.

Trump has repeatedly spoken of Gaza, which the Palestinians want as part of a future state of their own, as a business opportunity for America, saying Gaza could be transformed into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Countries around the world and in particular Arab nations have rejected this proposal vehemently, including Egypt and Jordan, where Trump has suggested the Palestinians of Gaza be sent to live.

“But you know, having a peace force like the United States there, controlling and owning the Gaza Strip would be a good thing, because right now … all I hear about is killing and Hamas and problems,” Trump said.

He added: “And if you take the people, the Palestinians, and move them around to different countries, and you have plenty of countries that will do that, and you really have a freedom, a freedom zone.”

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U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he would like the war in Gaza to stop, as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.

Trump said work was ongoing to free hostages held by Hamas, but said securing the release of all the hostages was “a long process.”

Israel launched the war after Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities.

Asked if he would deliver on his promise during his campaign for president to end the war in Gaza, Trump said: “I’d like to see the war stop, and I think the war will stop at some point, that won’t be in the too-distant future.”

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, becoming the first foreign leader to personally plead for a reprieve from stinging US tariffs that have shaken the world.

Netanyahu and Trump are also set to discuss Gaza, where a short-lived US-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas has collapsed, and growing tensions with Iran.

Trump greeted Netanyahu outside the West Wing and pumped his fist, before the two leaders — both wearing dark suits, red ties and white shirts — went inside for a meeting in the Oval Office.

A planned press conference between the two leaders was canceled at short notice without explanation in an unusual move. During his last visit, Netanyahu and Trump both spoke to reporters in the Oval and then held a press conference.

The Israeli premier’s visit is his second to Trump since the US president returned to power and comes at short notice — just days after Trump slapped a 17 percent tariff on Israel in his “Liberation Day” announcement last week.

Trump refused to exempt the top beneficiary of US military aid from his global tariff salvo as he said Washington had a significant trade deficit with Israel.

Netanyahu said on his way to Washington on Sunday that they would discuss “the hostages, achieving victory in Gaza, and of course the tariff regime that has also been imposed on Israel.”

“I’m the first international leader, the first foreign leader who will meet with President Trump on a matter so crucial to Israel’s economy,” he said in a video statement.

“There is a long line of leaders who want to do this. I believe this reflects the special personal relationship and the unique bond between the United States and Israel, which is so vital at this time.”

Netanyahu met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Sunday night soon after his arrival, according to his office.

The Israeli premier also met Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday.

Trump told reporters on Sunday that “We’re going to talk about trade, and we’re going to talk about the obvious subject.”

“There’s a lot of things going on with the Middle East right now that have to be silenced,” he added.

Attack on paramedics

Israel’s war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack, and the fate of the Israeli and US hostages still held in Gaza will be a major subject of discussion.

Israel resumed intense strikes on Gaza on March 18, and the weeks-long ceasefire with Hamas that the United States, Egypt and Qatar had brokered collapsed.

Trump has so far backed Israel to the hilt, accusing Hamas of failing to release the hostages.

The United States has also brushed off an incident in which 15 medics and rescuers were killed by Israeli forces last month in Gaza, sparking international condemnation.

Israel’s army chief on Monday ordered a “deeper” investigation into the attack.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron said Monday he had organized a call to Trump with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan during a visit to Cairo, with the leaders also calling for an immediate return to the truce.

The leaders also insisted that the Palestinian Authority alone must be in charge of the post-war governance of the Gaza Strip — rejecting Trump’s plan for the US to “own” the enclave after the war.

On Iran, Trump has been pressing for “direct talks” with Tehran on a new deal to curb the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.

But Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghai said Tehran’s proposal for indirect negotiations was “generous, responsible and wise.”

There has been widespread speculation that Israel, possibly with US help, might attack Iranian facilities if no agreement is reached.

Netanyahu arrived direct from a visit to Hungary where Prime Minister Viktor Orban pulled his country out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) because the court issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli leader over the Gaza war.

Both leaders also spoke by phone with Trump on Thursday.

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Russia, whose economy is heavily dependent on oil, energy, and mineral exports to the world, is staring at a crisis should oil prices continue to plummet the way they are currently. Moscow has sounded the alarm as oil prices dropped to as low as $60 per barrel on Monday. Russia’s Urals Oil dipped further – nearly reaching $50 per barrel as the oil markets faced extreme turbulence.

The reason – Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which have sent global markets, including that of oil, into a free fall. To add to the misery, China, the world’s second-largest economy, also announced retaliatory measures to target Washington.

The oil and gas sector is the largest contributor of cash flow in the Russian federal budget. In March alone, the revenue from the key sector fell by more than 17 per cent compared to the same month a year ago. This is before April’s unending downward spiral after Trump’s tariff order.

Responding to a question on falling oil prices and its impact on the Russian economy, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “Of course this indicator is very important for filling the budget. Our authorities are very closely monitoring the situation, which is currently extremely turbulent, tense, and emotionally charged. We aim to take measures in order to minimise the consequences of this economic storm.”

According to a Bloomberg report, on Friday, Russia’s Urals oil was trading at a low of $52 per barrel at Primorsk, a port in the Baltic Sea . It fell even further on Monday, inching its way towards the $50 per barrel mark.

Trillions of dollars have been lost across global markets in under 72 hours and investors are seriously concerned of a possible recession in the making.

WTI Crude or Texas crude, which is the US benchmark for American oil, is also at a low of $60 per barrel, while the Brent Crude prices internationally fell to $64 per barrel.

Meanwhile, President Trump doubled down on his stance, saying, “Oil prices are down…there is no Inflation”. He also outrightly rejected economists’ concerns of a possible recession.

In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, President Trump wrote, “Oil prices are down, interest rates are down (the slow moving Fed should cut rates!), food prices are down, there is NO INFLATION, and the long time abused USA is bringing in Billions of Dollars a week from the abusing countries on Tariffs that are already in place.”

He then singled out China, saying it is them who really are to blame, along with past leaders in the US, who “allowed for this to happen”. On Truth Social, he wrote, “This is despite the fact that the biggest abuser of them all, China, whose markets are crashing, just raised its Tariffs by 34%, on top of its long term ridiculously high Tariffs (Plus!), not acknowledging my warning for abusing countries not to retaliate. They’ve made enough, for decades, taking advantage of the Good OL’ USA! Our past “leaders” are to blame for allowing this, and so much else, to happen to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Donald Trump, had on Wednesday (US time-zone), announced reciprocal tariffs on nations that tariff the US, in addition to a 10 per cent tariff on the entire world. Since then global stock markets are experiencing an irrecoverable free fall, as are the oil or crude markets, as well as commodities markets.
 

On April 2, US President Donald Trump threw a gauntlet to the world and the post-1945 US-constructed global order with across-the-board and significant country-specific tariffs. The tariff rates were higher than what was anticipated even by Trump’s key business supporters in the US. Markets reacted negatively worldwide, falling 10% in America. The US Federal Reserve is now expected to hold back on any interest rate cuts, anticipating an inflationary impact. Analytical comments are comparing the disruption to, potentially, the Great Depression of the 1930s.

While there is global anger and anxiety, most countries have so far refrained from retaliatory action, though they have asserted their right to do so. China, however, is among the few that have already declared matching reciprocal tariffs of 34% on imports from the US. Only, it exports far more than it imports. Beijing’s aim is more to impose political pain on Trump by cutting back supplies from his supporters, particularly in the US agriculture belt.

A Divided World

Voices in the European Union are divided, with the European Commission articulating the need for retaliation, though many leading countries, including Germany and France, are currently undergoing their own political instability and transition. They have thus preferred a cautious approach and negotiations to bring down the rates rather than getting into competitive escalation. Canada and Mexico, already targets of specific tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, were spared the April 2 across-the-board 10% tariffs. No doubt, these were on account of enforcement difficulties that would arise given the deep supply chain integration under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) finalised in Trump’s first term.

The Prime Minister of Singapore, meanwhile, in an address to his country, declared the current global order dead and warned of the need to prepare for adjustments. He said smaller countries would be left with little bargaining power if, in the next phase, trade agreements are negotiated bilaterally rather than through multilaterally agreed rules and norms.

Growing Republican Control

There are many lessons that other countries will need to draw as the US veers away from globalisation of trade and production, precipitated by imbalances flowing from China’s misuse of WTO (World Trade Organization) provisions, which has concentrated as much as 32% of global manufacturing in the country through subsidies and forced technology transfers. We should expect continued policy unpredictability from the US as the impact of its measures is assessed for domestic political and economic gain. There are divisions among parties and businesses about the right approach, and deep polarisation in US society. Already, protests against government policies have begun.

Nonetheless, Trump’s core base remains with him, due to which Republicans have not yet come out in any effective or large-scale opposition. Also, with Republicans in control of both houses of the US Congress, the system of checks and balances envisaged in the US Constitution is not entirely in place at present. Courts and their decisions are being politically challenged through non-cooperation or threats of impeachment. Persons with radical right-wing views are seen as having outsized influence on personnel and policy decisions, with one such figure, Laura Loomer, seen as being responsible for the recent firing of several National Security Council officials, as well as of Timothy Hugh, the Director-General of the US National Security Agency.

The February Meeting

India, no doubt, has to weigh its own response carefully. The US is its largest trading partner at $200 billion, with a $45 billion surplus being in India’s favor. In the past, several countries, including China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, and many in Europe, grew due to substantial access to the US market. The same opportunity will not be available for some time now, given the current political climate in the US around trade and distribution of production. It would be important to work out a bilateral, multi-sectoral free trade agreement to get around the new US tariffs and gain market access beyond competitors. The 54% overall tariffs on China and 46% on Vietnam suggest possibilities for competitive advantage, against the 26% tariffs Indian products face. Following the Indian Prime Minister’s meeting with Trump in Washington DC on February 13, both countries announced an agreement to work towards a trade agreement and complete its first tranche by the fall of this year. Negotiations have commenced, with a visit of the Indian Commerce Minister to the US, and, subsequently, of an Assistant US Trade Representative to India.

According to reports, following a broad understanding on the approach to be taken, the two sides will now get down to detailed, sector-specific discussions. If a first tranche is indeed successfully concluded, we can expect a Trump visit to India later this year for a Quad Summit. In that case, there will be pressure on both systems to generate more positive opportunities for cooperation.

Room To Wiggle

In January 2023, in the Biden era, the US and India had launched a major new Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), seeking to deepen cooperation in AI, quantum technology, cyberspace, 6G, biotechnology, semiconductors, defence and space. The aim was to work on co-development of technologies, leading to production-sharing and, subsequently, sectoral trading facilitation. The semiconductor space saw some progress with the announcement of new US investments in India, while in defence, things moved forward with the launch of INDUS-X (India-US Defense Acceleration Ecosystem). In the space sector, a decision was taken, inter alia, to launch a joint mission to the International Space Station. The current Trump administration, while walking away from many Biden-era initiatives, has, notably, kept the essence of iCET, though with a rebranded name: ‘TRUST’, which stands for Transforming the Relationship Using Strategic Technologies. This means there is potential for continued deepening of technology partnerships to mutual advantage and creating new opportunities for promoting sector-focused trade.

Despite the tremendous disruption being caused by the latest US tariffs and trade policies, America will want to retain its status as the leading global economic and technology player. While it has taken measures against countries across the board, including its key allies and partners, such as Japan and various European countries, it has identified China as its main economic, technological and military challenge globally, one with the intent and capability to replace the US in the international system. US policymakers and businesses recognise that they need a partnership with India’s 1.4 billion people as well as with its tech-human capital to take on the China challenge. Therein will lie the opportunity for India, despite all the uncertainty and upheaval currently.

(The author is a former Indian ambassador to the US, France and Israel)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

A US jury has ordered oil giant Chevron to pay $745 million for polluting marshland near New Orleans and subsequently failing to rehabilitate the affected area. The sentence was handed down Friday by a jury in Pointe a la Hache in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, a marshy area southeast of New Orleans.

Contacted by AFP on Sunday, Chevron’s lead trial attorney Mike Phillips said the company “will appeal this verdict to address the numerous legal errors that led to this unjust result.”

Plaquemines authorities sued Chevron following its takeover of another oil behemoth, Texaco, in 2001. They accused Texaco of violating an environmental protection law adopted in 1978 in Louisiana. 

The text stated that “exploration and production sites shall be cleared, revegetated, detoxified, and otherwise restored as near as practicable to their original condition upon termination of operations to the maximum extent practicable.”

But the lawsuit alleged Chevron and Texaco did not fulfill their obligations. 

Local authorities also accused the group of worsening the effects of the tides by degrading the marshes that could protect against rising sea levels. 

The jury awarded Plaquemines $575 million for the loss of part of its land, now permanently under water, $161 million for pollution, and $9 million over the abandonment of equipment. 

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US President Donald Trump said Sunday that China would have agreed to a deal on the sale of TikTok if it were not for the tariffs imposed by Washington on Beijing last week.

Trump on Friday extended the deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a ban in the United States, allowing 75 more days to find a solution — a day after imposing additional 34 percent duties on all Chinese imports.

“The report is that we had a deal, pretty much for TikTok, not a deal, but pretty close, and then China changed the deal because of tariffs. If I gave a little cut in tariffs, they’d approve that deal in 15 minutes, which shows you the power of tariffs,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.

The hugely popular video-sharing app, which has more than 170 million American users, is under threat from a US law passed last year that orders TikTok to split from its Chinese owner ByteDance or get shut down in the United States.

Trump had insisted his administration was near a deal to find a buyer for TikTok and keep it from shutting down that would involve multiple investors, but gave few details.

ByteDance, while confirming that it was in talks with the US government towards finding a solution, warned that there remained “key matters” to solve.

“An agreement has not been executed” and whatever was decided would be “subject to approval under Chinese law,” the company added.

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