EU trade deal possible, says US President
To press for what Mr Trump views as better terms with trading partners and ways to shrink a huge US trade deficit, his administration has been negotiating trade deals ahead of an 1 August deadline, when duties on most US imports are due to rise again.
"We're very close to India, and we could possibly make a deal with (the) EU," President Trump said during an interview aired on Real America's Voice, when asked which trade deals were on the horizon.
Mr Trump's comments come as EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič is headed to Washington for tariff discussions, while an Indian trade delegation arrived in Washington on Monday for fresh talks.
"(The) European Union has been brutal, and now they're being very nice. They want to make a deal, and it'll be a lot different than the deal that we've had for years," he added.
Asked about the prospects of a deal with Canada, which like the EU, is readying countermeasures if talks with the US fail to produce a deal, Mr Trump said: "Too soon to say."
His comment was in line with the assessment of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who said earlier that a deal that works for Canadian workers was not yet on the table.
Mr Trump also said he would probably put a blanket 10% or 15% tariff on smaller countries.
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Irish Examiner
35 minutes ago
- Irish Examiner
O'Leary: Boeing will have to pay the tariffs on Ryanair's aircraft deliveries should the sector be impacted by US-EU trade war
Ryanair Holdings chief executive Michael O'Leary has said that the airline will not be on the hook to pay any additional tariffs on the aircraft it has ordered as it has entered into a fixed-price agreement with Boeing which leaves the US airplane-manufacturer paying any additional charges. Last week, the EU finalized a second list of countermeasures to target US goods worth €72bn including Boeing aircraft, automobiles and bourbon if it decides to retaliate against Donald Trump's tariff policy. Ryanair is one of Boeing largest customers in the EU and is expecting to take delivery of 29 new aircraft from the company well ahead of the summer season next year. Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said their agreement with Boeing means the manufacturer will have to pay tariffs if they get imposed by the EU but he thinks it is probably unlikely. "There's fair evidence that Trump always chickens out when it comes to tariffs, so I suspect August 1 will get delayed again. There is increasing confidence, I think, in the States, that commercial aircraft, which were exempt under 1979 Congress legislation from tariffs, will be exempt again. "The risk we face is that the Europeans, though, will slap on reciprocal tariffs on commercial aircraft. We think that's probably unlikely, and that ultimately the Americans and the Europeans will come to an agreement, but it will be delayed in September, October of this year. In our agreement with Boeing, Boeing pays any tariffs,' he said. Mr O'Leary was speaking as Ryanair Holdings reported an after tax profit of €820m during the first quarter of its latest financial year - which runs from April to June - compared to an after tax profit of €360m during the same period last year representing a 128% increase. This was driven by a 21% increase in average fares and a 4% increase in passenger traffic to 58m over the three month period. Total revenue for the three months stood at €4.34bn, a 20% increase year-on-year, with the airline's operational costs only increasing 5% to €3.42bn. However, Mr O'Leary said that the quarter was 'not quite as strong as it looks' as back in the period April to June 2023 the airline saw €660m in profit during the quarter before a large fall last year. He cited the early Easter holidays in 2024 and the airline's boycott of certain online travel agents (OTAs) as a reason for the low profit last year. He added that the majority of the fare increase so far this year was probably down to the demand around Easter holidays as well as the recovery in OTA bookings. In the second quarter of this year, the airline is forecasting fares will go up about 7% with Mr O'Leary saying they will be 'recovering the 7% decline we had last year'. In its outlook for the rest of the financial year, Ryanair said it expects traffic to grow by just 3% to 206m due to heavily delayed Boeing deliveries. It expects modest unit cost inflation during this year as the delivery of new airplanes, advantageous fuel hedging and cost control measures, offset increased air traffic control charges and higher environmental costs. While the summer season is expected to be strong, Ryanair is expecting fare increases during the second quarter to be lower than the first quarter. However, the final outcome for the first half of the year is heavily dependent on the strength of close-in August and September bookings. The company is confident that the 29 remaining Gamechangers in its 210 orderbook will deliver well ahead of the summer season next year. 'Boeing continues to expect MAX-10 certification in late 2025 and we're planning for the timely delivery of our first 15 MAX-10 deliveries in Spring 2027, with 300 of these very fuel efficient aircraft due to deliver by March 2034,' the airline said. However, the airline noted that European short-haul capacity will remain constrained for the next five years to 2030 as airplane manufacturers Boeing and Airbus are 'well behind on aircraft deliveries'. Despite these issues, Ryanair believes that it has the capacity to grow passenger traffic to 300m by 2034. Ryanair Holdings is the larger group of companies which owns Ryanair, Buzz, Lauda Europe, as well as Malta Air.
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
An accuser's story suggests Trump might appear in the Epstein files
It was the summer of 1996 when Maria Farmer went to law enforcement to complain about Jeffrey Epstein . At the time, she said, she had been sexually assaulted by Epstein and his long-time partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. Farmer, then in her mid-20s, had also learned about a troubling encounter that her younger sister – then a teenager – had endured at Epstein's ranch in New Mexico. And she described facing threats from Epstein. Farmer said that when she discussed her concerns with the New York Police Department, then with the FBI, she also urged them to take a broader look at the people in Epstein's orbit, including Donald Trump , then still two decades from being elected president. She repeated that message, she said, when the FBI interviewed her again about Epstein in 2006. In interviews last week about what she told the authorities, she said she had no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Epstein's associates. But she said she was alarmed by what she saw as Epstein's pattern of pursuing girls and young women while building friendships with prominent people, including Trump and Bill Clinton . READ MORE Investigations like the ones that targeted Epstein often explore a wide range of tips, evidence, recollections and relationships, little of which ends up being used in court records or as the basis for criminal prosecution. Epstein's voluminous investigative file contains many records that have not been made public, but that became the focus of claims, long stoked by Trump's allies, that authorities might have covered up the involvement of other rich and powerful men. Now, after his attorney general and FBI director abruptly abandoned their earlier promises to reveal everything about the Epstein files and said, in effect, that there was nothing to see, Trump's ties to Epstein are under renewed scrutiny, leading to questions about what so-far-undisclosed appearances he might have in the investigative record. The story of Farmer's efforts to call law enforcement attention to Epstein and his circle shows how the case files could contain material that is embarrassing or politically problematic to Trump, even if it is largely extraneous to Epstein's crimes and was never fully investigated or corroborated. And it underscores the complexities of opening up to scrutiny all the leads that investigators pursued, the evidence they gathered and the interviews they conducted, little of which ever went before a judge or jury. Law enforcement agencies have not accused Trump of any wrongdoing related to Epstein, and he has never been identified as a target of any associated investigation. Trump last week called for relevant grand jury testimony in the prosecution of Epstein to be publicly released, and has repeatedly dismissed any notion that he has something to hide. Even if that testimony is released, it is unlikely to shed much light on the relationship between the two men, which did not figure prominently in Epstein's criminal cases. Farmer said she has long wondered how law enforcement agencies handled her complaints in 1996 and 2006. And she said she has been wondering in particular whether federal authorities did anything with her concerns about Trump. She said that he raised his name both times, not only because he seemed so close to Epstein but because of an encounter, which she has previously described publicly, that she said she had with Trump in Epstein's New York office. [ Ciarán O'Connor: Donald Trump could be swallowed up by an Epstein conspiracy he helped create Opens in new window ] The encounter with Trump, Farmer said, occurred in 1995 as she was preparing to work for Epstein. She said she told the authorities that late one night, Epstein unexpectedly called her to his offices in a luxury building in Manhattan, and she arrived in running shorts. Trump then arrived, wearing a business suit, and started to hover over her, she said she told the authorities. Farmer said she recalled feeling scared as Trump stared at her bare legs. Then Epstein entered the room, and she recalled him saying to Trump: 'No, no. She's not here for you.' The two men left the room, and Farmer said she could hear Trump commenting that he thought Farmer was 16 years old. After her encounter with Trump, Farmer said, she had no other alarming interactions with him, and did not see him engage in inappropriate conduct with girls or women. The White House on Friday night contested Farmer's account and cited Trump's long-ago decision to end his friendship with Epstein. 'The president was never in his office,' said Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, referring to Epstein. 'The fact is that the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep.' [ Maureen Dowd: Maga fans turn on Trump as he turns murky over Epstein files Opens in new window ] Farmer, an artist, worked for Epstein in 1995 and 1996, initially to acquire art on his behalf but then later to oversee the comings and goings of girls, young women and celebrities at the front entrance of his Upper East Side town house. In 1996, Farmer said she went to stay at Epstein's estate in Ohio in a complex developed by Leslie H Wexner, the chief executive of the company that owned Victoria's Secret. Epstein and Maxwell came that summer. Farmer said that after she was asked to give Epstein a foot massage, he and Maxwell violently groped her until she fled the room and barricaded herself in another part of the building. Farmer was an artist who did work on nude figures, and she also reported that partially nude photos she had of her two younger sisters were missing from a storage lockbox. Over the years, Farmer has been attacked by people who questioned whether she could be trusted. She was not called to testify when Maxwell was prosecuted and convicted in 2021 of conspiring with Epstein to sexually exploit and abuse girls. (Her sister Annie did testify in the case about how Maxwell had massaged her bare chest after she had been invited to Epstein's estate in New Mexico.) But Farmer's mother said she remembered hearing in 1996 about the Trump encounter around the time it occurred, and that Maria Farmer had first gone to the FBI that year. Annie Farmer also said she remembered Maria sharing that she had told the FBI about Epstein and powerful people such as Trump and Clinton. In her first interviews with the New York Times in 2019, Maria Farmer said that before she talked to the FBI, she first spoke to the Precinct of the New York Police Department. Police records show that she had done that in August 1996. Law enforcement agencies have not released records of any FBI report Farmer made in 1996, but handwritten notes from the interview agents did with her a decade later match her account, including that '6th precinct told MF to call FBI'. The portions of those FBI records that have been released do not mention Trump, but much of the account remains redacted. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment. Epstein was indicted in 2006 and later pleaded guilty to two felony charges, including soliciting a minor, in a deal that avoided federal charges. In 2019, he was charged again, accused of trafficking dozens of girls, some as young as 14, and engaging in sex acts with them. He was later found dead in a jail cell, and officials have said he hanged himself. It is unclear whether federal investigators pursued a deeper examination of Trump's relationship with Epstein or whether the authorities documented what Farmer said she told them about Trump. Trump's friendship with Epstein has been captured in videos of them partying together and comments the men have made, and his name appears in some previously released case records, including Epstein's flight logs. Trump was quoted in 2002 as calling Epstein a 'terrific guy'. He has since said that he is 'not a fan' of Epstein, and has emphasised that he broke with him two decades ago. In recent years, Trump's allies have pressed for further release of federal files related to Epstein. But after initially promising full disclosure, Attorney general Pam Bondi suddenly backtracked this month, saying that a review of the case found nothing to indicate that anyone else should be charged. Amid a backlash from his supporters in recent days, Trump has assailed those still calling for more disclosure. After The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Epstein had received a sexually suggestive birthday greeting from Trump in 2003, Trump called the report a hoax and sued the news organisation . This article originally appeared in The New York Times .
Irish Independent
an hour ago
- Irish Independent
Michael O'Leary blasts Government's ‘smoke and mirrors' infrastructure plans while growth capped at Dublin Airport
Speaking as Ryanair announced a sharp rise in profits for the first quarter of its 2026 fiscal year to €820m, the airline boss slammed Government inaction to address the passenger cap at Dublin Airport. He questioned what he said will be 'smoke and mirrors' infrastructure plans from 'a government that wastes money'. The Government is expected to announce a €100bn infrastructure investment plan on Tuesday. "Here is infrastructure that is built and paid for that they won't allow us to use,' Michael O'Leary said. The Ryanair CEO said the coalition parties at promised urgent action to address the 2007 cap that restricts passenger numbers to 32 million but had failed to take any action. He accused the Minister for Transport Darragh O'Brien, who is reported to be consulting the attorney general on possible actions of 'dither, delay and indecision'. In the meantime Ryanair's growth is being moved to markets including Poland, he said. Meanwhile, Ryanair itself reported figures on Monday that showed net income more than doubled in the first three months of its new financial year to €820m. That was more than double the €360m in the same period last year but the numbers are flattered by a number of factors including the fall of Easter and big hit Ryanair took in 2025 after effectively blocking via unapproved online travel agents. The latest results are still up 24pc versus the same period in 2024, a better comparison, according to Michael O'Leary. That increase reflects a recovery in fares to the 2024 level combined with growth: with 4pc traffic growth, unit revenue per passenger up 15pc and unit costs up just 1pc. Despite volatile energy prices Ryanair's fuel hedging provided a significant cushion. Future growth prospects also improved with delivery of the last 29 long delayed Boeing 'Gamechanger' aircraft now expected by the end of this year for service in the summer of 2026 while the manufacturer's new 737 Max 10 model is expected to be certified later this year with the first 15 of those jets due to Ryanair in spring 2027. Ryanair has reduced the number of engineers it had posted to monitor activity in Seattle. "(Boeing's) Kelly Ortberg and Stephanie Pope are doing a great job,' Michael O'Leary said. Ryanair plans to add 300 of Boeing's mosr fuel-efficient Max 10 by 2034. He said said one positive of the Trump administration was a more supportive regulatory environment for manufacturers in the US that could benefit Boeing. On tariffs he said he does not expect new levies to be imposed in either direction on aircraft between the US and EU it would be Boeing, not Ryanair, that will pay. '(If it happens) Boeing pays the tariffs,' he said. Meanwhile, he predicted a further delay when the new August 1st deadline for an EU-US trade deal falls due. "We expect Trump will chicken out again,' he said.
