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Egypt Independent
an hour ago
- Business
- Egypt Independent
Trump's trade deals are stalling out at the worst possible time
CNN — With just a week and a half remaining of a 90-day pause on President Donald Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs, the White House is running out of time to negotiate its long-promised trade deals that could bring some certainty to an increasingly uneasy economy. But with just two trade frameworks inked and dozens to go before the July 9 deadline, that timeframe appears increasingly unlikely — just as America's economy might be taking a turn for the worse. For months, the Trump administration has said deals are imminent, working with 18 key partners to lower trade barriers while hundreds of other countries wait in line to get out from under the burden of higher tariffs. But the timeframe continues to shift. 'I've made all the deals,' Trump said in a Time interview in late April, saying trade negotiations with foreign partners were nearly complete. 'I've made 200 deals.' More than two weeks later, Trump acknowledged that hundreds or even dozens of deals aren't possible on such a short timeframe — a point he reiterated Friday at a press briefing at the White House. 'You know, we have 200 countries,' Trump said. 'We can't do that. So at a certain point, over the next week and a half or so, or maybe before, we're going to send out a letter. We talked to many of the countries, and we're just going to tell them what they have to pay to do business in the United States. And it's going to go very quickly.' That notion of establishing new tariffs for countries that can't or won't reach a deal with the United States has been floating around for over two months, but the timeline keeps getting pushed back. On April 23, Trump said his administration would 'set the tariff' for countries that fail to negotiate new terms in the following few weeks. On May 16, Trump said that 'at a certain point, over the next two to three weeks … we'll be telling people what they'll be paying to do business in the United States.' Meanwhile, the United States remains in active negotiations with its key trading partners. But those deals have been promised for months, too, with little to show for it. On June 11, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said a flood of deals was coming. 'You're going to see deal after deal, they're going to start coming next week and the week after and the week after. We've got them in the hopper,' he told CNBC. On Thursday, Lutnick told Bloomberg 10 deals would be announced imminently. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent stand as President Donald Trump signs executive orders. Nathan Howard/Reuters But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also said Thursday that 'the deadline is not critical,' a point that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent emphasized to Fox Business on Friday: Bessent said he thinks trade negotiations could be 'wrapped up' by Labor Day, providing a more relaxed framework for inking deals than the previously prescribed July 9 deadline. Meanwhile, Trump made clear Friday that trade policy could continue to grow more aggressive. In a social media message Friday, he said that the United States was pulling out of trade talks with Canada because of its digital services tax and that the administration would set a new tariff for its northern neighbor within the next week. And Bessent told CNBC Friday that about 20 countries could return to their 'Liberation Day' tariff rate starting on July 9, while others would receive longer windows to negotiate. He didn't name the countries that would receive the higher levies, but some nations' tariffs were set as high as 50% before Trump hit pause. 'The idea that uncertainty will be resolved early this summer appears to be completely dead,' Justin Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan, told CNN. 'This means tariff aggression is not dead. That's probably not super surprising but some of us allowed ourselves moments of optimism.' The economy may be starting to turn The problem with the perpetually pushed-back tariff timetable is that the economy could really use some deals right about now. After several months of strong economic news but incredibly weak consumer sentiment, America is starting to see those trends reverse: The vibes are on the rebound, but evidence is mounting that the economy is getting worse. Consumer sentiment climbed 16% this month, the University of Michigan said in its latest survey released Friday. Although consumer sentiment remains weak, the stock market is at an all-time high, which could give Americans a confidence boost. But that's not translating into spending. Consumer spending unexpectedly fell in May for the first time since January, the Commerce Department reported Friday. In real terms, consumer spending has now fallen so far in 2025. Inflation is ticking higher, job growth is slowing and retail sales are sinking. That's a concern, because consumer spending makes up two-thirds of America's economy. 'Households are anxious about what tariff-induced price hikes will do to their spending power, while concerns about the robustness of the jobs market are on the rise,' said James Knightley, chief US economist for ING, in a note to clients Friday. 'Equity markets have recovered and are at all-time highs, but house prices nationally are starting to come under downward pressure.' Many mainstream economists argue that the low inflation of the spring that helped boost consumer sentiment represents a calm before the summer storm, when they expect prices to rise as companies finish selling off inventories of products they had brought to the United States before Trump imposed tariffs. Friday's inflation report showed that the changeover to higher-tariff goods may have already begun to happen. 'Higher prices from tariffs may be starting to work their way through the economy,' said Robert Ruggirello, chief investment officer at Brave Eagle Wealth Management. Although tax cuts from Trump's sweeping domestic policy agenda could help mitigate higher prices from tariffs, Trump's trade war continues to risk retaliation from American's key trading partners. Higher tariffs from foreign countries could slow the US economy, risking a recession. 'Trading partners taking retaliatory action could have a lasting impact on US output and, accordingly, public finances,' said Michel Nies, an economist at Citi. That's why trade deals are so urgent: America's economy remains strong, but cracks are forming. Tariffs are a big reason why. More delays will generate more uncertainty. And those good vibes could turn bad pretty quickly. CNN's Matt Egan contributed to this report.
Egypt Independent
an hour ago
- Business
- Egypt Independent
Elon Musk isn't happy with his AI chatbot. Experts worry he's trying to make Grok 4 in his image
Musk was not pleased. 'Major fail, as this is objectively false. Grok is parroting legacy media,' Musk wrote, even though Grok cited data from government sources such as the Department of Homeland Security. Within three days, Musk promised to deliver a major Grok update that would 'rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge,' calling on X users to send in 'divisive facts' that are 'politically incorrect, but nonetheless factually true' to help train the model. 'Far too much garbage in any foundation model trained on uncorrected data,' he wrote. On Friday, Musk announced the new model, called Grok 4, will be released just after July 4th. The exchanges, and others like it, raises concerns that the world's richest man may be trying to influence Grok to follow his own worldview – potentially leading to more errors and glitches, and surfacing important questions about bias, according to experts. AI is expected to shape the way people work, communicate and find information, and it's already impacting areas such as software development, healthcare and education. And the decisions that powerful figures like Musk make about the technology's development could be critical. Especially considering Grok is integrated into one of the world's most popular social networks – and one where the old guardrails around the spread of misinformation have been removed. While Grok may not be as popular as OpenAI's ChatGPT, its inclusion in Musk's social media platform X has put it in front of a massive digital audience. 'This is really the beginning of a long fight that is going to play out over the course of many years about whether AI systems should be required to produce factual information, or whether their makers can just simply tip the scales in the favor of their political preferences if they want to,' said David Evan Harris, an AI researcher and lecturer at UC Berkeley who previously worked on Meta's Responsible AI team. A source familiar with the situation told CNN that Musk's advisers have told him Grok 'can't just be molded' into his own point of view, and that he understands that. xAI did not respond to a request for comment. Concerns about Grok following Musk's views For months, users have questioned whether Musk has been tipping Grok to reflect his worldview. In May, the chatbot randomly brought up claims of a white genocide in South Africa in responses to completely unrelated queries. In some responses, Grok said it was 'instructed to accept as real white genocide in South Africa'. Musk was born and raised in South Africa and has a history of arguing that a 'white genocide' has been committed in the nation. A few days later, xAI said an 'unauthorized modification' in the extremely early morning hours Pacific time pushed the AI chatbot to 'provide a specific response on a political topic' that violates xAI's policies. As Musk directs his team to retrain Grok, others in the AI large language model space like Cohere co-founder Nick Frosst believe Musk is trying to create a model that pushes his own viewpoints. 'He's trying to make a model that reflects the things he believes. That will certainly make it a worse model for users, unless they happen to believe everything he believes and only care about it parroting those things,' Frosst said. What it would take to re-train Grok It's common for AI companies like OpenAI, Meta and Google to constantly update their models to improve performance, according to Frosst. But retraining a model from scratch to 'remove all the things (Musk) doesn't like' would take a lot of time and money – not to mention degrade the user experience – Frosst said. 'And that would make it almost certainly worse,' Frosst said. 'Because it would be removing a lot of data and adding in a bias.' A Grok account on X is displayed on a phone screen. Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/Shutterstock Another way to change a model's behavior without completely retraining it is to insert prompts and adjust what are called weights within the model's code. This process could be faster than totally retraining the model since it retains its existing knowledge base. Prompting would entail instructing a model to respond to certain queries in a specific way, whereas weights influence an AI model's decision-making process. Dan Neely, CEO of Vermillio which helps protect celebrities from AI-generated deepfakes, told CNN that xAI could adjust Grok's weights and data labels in specific areas and topics. 'They will use the weights and labeling they have previously in the places that they are seeing (as) kind of problem areas,' Neely said. 'They will simply go into doing greater level of detail around those specific areas.' Musk didn't detail the changes coming in Grok 4, but did say it will use a 'specialized coding model.' Bias in AI Musk has said his AI chatbot will be 'maximally truth seeking,' but all AI models have some bias baked in because they are influenced by humans who make choices about what goes into the training data. 'AI doesn't have all the data that it should have. When given all the data, it should ultimately be able to give a representation of what's happening,' Neely said. 'However, lots of the content that exists on the internet already has a certain bent, whether you agree with it or not.' It's possible that in the future, people will choose their AI assistant based on its worldview. But Frosst said he believes AI assistants known to have a particular perspective will be less popular and useful. 'For the most part, people don't go to a language model to have ideology repeated back to them, that doesn't really add value,' he said. 'You go to a language model to get it to do with do something for you, do a task for you.' Ultimately, Neely said he believes authoritative sources will end up rising back to the top as people seek places they can trust. But 'the journey to get there is very painful, very confusing,' Neely said and 'arguably, has some threats to democracy.'
Egypt Independent
an hour ago
- Politics
- Egypt Independent
US did not use bunker-buster bombs on one of Iran's nuclear sites, top general tells lawmakers, citing depth of the target
Washington CNN — The US military did not use bunker-buster bombs on one of Iran's largest nuclear sites last weekend because the site is so deep that the bombs likely would not have been effective, the US' top general told senators during a briefing on Thursday. The comment by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, which was described by three people who heard his remarks and a fourth who was briefed on them, is the first known explanation given for why the US military did not use the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb against the Isfahan site in central Iran. US officials believe Isfahan's underground structures house nearly 60 percent of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile, which Iran would need in order to ever produce a nuclear weapon. US B2 bombers dropped over a dozen bunker-buster bombs on Iran's Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites. But Isfahan was only struck by Tomahawk missiles launched from a US submarine. The classified briefing to lawmakers was conducted by Caine, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. A spokesperson for Caine declined to comment, noting that he cannot comment on the chairman's classified briefing to Congress. During the briefing, Ratcliffe told lawmakers that the US intelligence community assesses that the majority of Iran's enriched nuclear material is buried at Isfahan and Fordow, according to a US official. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy told CNN on Thursday night after receiving the briefing that some of Iran's capabilities 'are so far underground that we can never reach them. So they have the ability to move a lot of what has been saved into areas where there's no American bombing capacity that can reach it.' An early assessment produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency in the day after the US strikes said the attack did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program, including its enriched uranium, and likely only set the program back by months, CNN has reported. It also said Iran may have moved some of the enriched uranium out of the sites before they were attacked. The Trump officials who briefed lawmakers this week sidestepped questions about the whereabouts of Iran's stockpile of already-enriched uranium. President Donald Trump again claimed Friday that nothing was moved from the three Iranian sites before the US military operation. But Republican lawmakers emerged from the classified briefings on Thursday acknowledging that the US military strikes may not have eliminated all of Iran's nuclear materials. But they argued that doing so was not part of the military's mission. 'There is enriched uranium in the facilities that moves around, but that was not the intent or the mission,' Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas told CNN. 'My understanding is most of it's still there. So we need a full accounting. That's why Iran has to come to the table directly with us, so the (International Atomic Energy Agency) can account for every ounce of enriched uranium that's there. I don't think it's going out of the country, I think it's at the facilities.' 'The purpose of the mission was to eliminate certain particular aspects of their nuclear program. Those were eliminated. To get rid of the nuclear material was not part of the mission,' GOP Rep. Greg Murphy told CNN. 'Here's where we're at: the program was obliterated at those three sites. But they still have ambitions,' said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. 'I don't know where the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium exists. But it wasn't part of the targets there.' '(The sites) were obliterated. Nobody can use them anytime soon,' Graham also said. Air Force Gen. Dan Caine leaves following a closed briefing on the situation in Iran for members of the US Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 26. Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters Weapons expert and professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies Jeffrey Lewis told CNN that commercial satellite images show that Iran has accessed the tunnels at Isfahan. 'There were a moderate number of vehicles present at Isfahan on June 26 and at least one of the tunnel entrances was cleared of obstructions by mid-morning June 27,' Lewis said. 'If Iran's stockpile of (highly enriched uranium) was still in the tunnel when Iran sealed the entrances, it may be elsewhere now.' Additional satellite imagery captured on June 27 by Planet Labs show the entrance to the tunnels were open at the time, according to Lewis. This image from Planet Labs provided by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey shows the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Research Center on June 27. Planet Labs The preliminary DIA assessment noted that the nuclear sites' above ground structures were moderately to severely damaged, CNN has reported. That damage could make it a lot harder for Iran to access any enriched uranium that does remain underground, sources said, something that Graham alluded to on Thursday. 'These strikes did a lot of damage to those three facilities,' Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat, told CNN on Thursday night. 'But Iran still has the know-how to put back together a nuclear program. And if they still have that enriched material, and if they still have centrifuges, and if they still have the capability to very quickly move those centrifuges into what we call a cascade, we have not set back that program by years. We have set it back by months.' Caine and Hegseth on Thursday said the military operation against Fordow went exactly as planned but did not mention the impacts to Isfahan and Natanz. CNN's Manu Raju contributed to this report.
Egypt Independent
2 hours ago
- Business
- Egypt Independent
Investment Minister urges petrochemical companies to bolster partnerships with Egypt
'Egypt is working on developing several major petrochemical projects that will contribute to securing the needs of the local market and exporting the surplus,' Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade Hassan Al-Khatib said. Khatib was speaking during a roundtable event focused on the mining and petrochemical industries, held in Shanghai with the participation of representatives of major companies and investors to discuss partnership opportunities and increase investment flows between Egypt and China. Highlighting the strategic importance of the petrochemical sector for Egyptian industry, given its pivotal role in supporting a series of supplementary industries, Khatib said, noting that Egypt is working on an ambitious program to expand this sector and increase local production, which would contribute to cutting the import bill and increasing exports. As for the mining sector, the minister shed light on the government's reforms to create an investment-friendly environment. According to Egypt's Vision 2030, this sector is one of the main pillars of economic diversification and long-term growth, the minister said, noting that the government seeks to create more jobs, promote technology transfer, and optimize the use of mineral resources. Khatib said that the Egyptian government is moving forward with structural reforms in the petrochemical and mining industries, in support of the state's efforts towards a more resilient, diversified and sustainable economy. He called on international companies to build stronger partnerships with Egypt and contribute to the implementation of major projects under-construction in Egypt, to achieve mutual interests and promote sustainable growth.
Egypt Independent
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Egypt Independent
Israeli forces kill 15-year-old Palestinian boy after settlers attack West Bank towns, officials say
Jerusalem CNN — Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian teenager in the West Bank on Wednesday, Palestinian health authorities said, as settler violence against Palestinians surged in the occupied territory. The military shot 15-year-old Rayan Tamer Hawshiya in the neck, the Ministry of Health in Ramallah said, after troops raided Al Yamoun, near Jenin. Residents in the northern town reported 'heavy Israeli gunfire,' according to the minstry. The Israeli military said that 'terrorists hurled explosive devices at IDF forces' in Al Yamoun on Wednesday, adding that no IDF injuries were reported. 'Afterward, the forces identified terrorists approaching them while holding additional explosives,' the military told CNN. 'The forces responded with fire, and hits were identified.' Separately, a 66-year-old Palestinian woman died from injuries after Israeli police shot her in the head in occupied East Jerusalem, according to local media reports. Zahia Joudeh al-Obeidi 'succumbed to her wounds' after Israeli police stormed Shuafat refugee camp, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. Israeli police said they launched an investigation into the circumstances of the death of an 'East Jerusalem resident,' adding that the resident was 'pronounced dead' by medical officials upon arrival at Shuafat checkpoint. The killings came on the heels of a spate of attacks in the West Bank town of Kafr Malik, where Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian homes and vehicles in what one Israeli opposition politician called a 'violent Jewish pogrom.' Several people were killed and wounded, according to Palestinian and Israeli authorities. Rayan Tamer Hawshiya, aged 15, was killed by Israeli forces in a town near Jenin, in northern West Bank, officials say, where violence against Palestinians has spiraled in recent months. Hawshiya Family The details of the deaths in Kafr Malik are unclear. The Palestinian foreign ministry said the settlers opened fire on Palestinian residents, while Israeli authorities said there was a firefight between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli security forces. At least three Palestinians were killed and several were wounded, according to Palestinian officials. The Israeli military said 'several' people were killed in the central town, but did not specify whether they were Palestinian or Israeli. Israel has ramped up military operations in the West Bank, displacing thousands of Palestinians and razing entire communities as it targets what it says are militants operating in the territory. Last year, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the state 'must deal with the threat (in the West Bank) just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents.' He later warned that the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have fled their West Bank homes would not be allowed to return. Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of inflicting 'massive, deliberate displacement of Palestinian civilians' and making 'much of the territory unlivable' in violation of international law. Israeli settlers have also increased attacks on Palestinian communities and their properties, according to the United Nations' human rights office. Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 947 Palestinians, among them 200 children, in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, between October 7, 2023 and June 12, the UN reported on June 20. Between October 7, 2023 and June 26, at least 39 Israeli civilians have been killed in the West Bank, according to Israeli government officials. Israel has occupied the West Bank since seizing the territory from Jordan in 1967. In late May, the Israeli government approved the largest expansion of Jewish settlements in the area in decades. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, 'Stripped of basic dignity' In Kafr Malik, social media video geolocated by CNN showed residents panicking as a fire consumed a home and a loud pop rang in the distance. Another video showed a parked car in flames as a resident attempted to extinguish it with a water hose. The IDF said security forces were deployed to the scene after 'dozens of Israeli civilians' had set properties on fire. On arrival, the IDF said, the security forces were met with gunfire and rocks hurled by what it described as 'terrorists' and they returned fire. 'Hits were identified, and it was later reported that there were several individuals injured and fatalities,' the IDF said, adding that five Israelis were arrested. Israeli opposition politician Yair Golan condemned the settler attack, saying: 'What happened this evening in Kafr Malik was a violent Jewish pogrom – dozens of rioters set fire to homes and vehicles, and assaulted Palestinians and security forces.' Palestinian women walk past a charred vehicle, as they survey the destruction wrought Israeli settlers in the West Bank village of Kafr Malik, on Thursday. Ilia Yefimovich/Shortly after the violence in Kafr Malik, there was another settler attack close to the nearby village of Taybeh, according to the Israeli rights organization B'Tselem, which shared footage of masked men torching a parked car. Three people were injured and three cars were set on fire, it said. A third settler attack took place around Jericho, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, which said eight people were injured due to smoke inhalation after a house was set on fire. Mourners carry the bodies of young Palestinians who were killed by Israeli settlers in Kafr Malik. The UN has warned that there is 'no respite' for communities there. Ammar Awad/Reuters A UN official warned there has been 'no respite' for Palestinian people in the northern West Bank, where he accused Israel of imposing 'systematic forced displacement' on refugee communities in 'violation of international law.' 'Out of the spotlight of the regional escalation, camps in the northern West Bank have faced ongoing destruction, with dozens of buildings demolished in the last twelve days,' Roland Friedrich, the director of affairs for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, posted on X on Wednesday. 'Even now, Israeli security forces are continuing to demolish homes and buildings in Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams camps. Stripped of basic dignity, many families have not even been able to save their belongings ahead of anticipated bulldozing.'
