For the past few days, investors, foreign leaders, and members of Congress have gradually gotten more and more frantic about the Trump administration's huge tariffs. The White House, meanwhile, projected equanimity. 'They feel like everything is going according to plan,' an adviser told Politico. And then, suddenly, the plan' if there ever was one'changed. This afternoon, President Donald Trump announced a partial pivot on social media. On the one hand, he ratcheted up tariffs on China to 125 percent. On the other hand, he announced that he was reducing tariffs on 'more than 75' other countries to 10 percent for the next 90 days. In an odd wrinkle, this appears to also mean new tariffs on Canada and Mexico, which will now be subject to a 10 percent rate, having been previously exempted from this round of tariffs'though they will still be subject to a 25 percent tariff imposed earlier. The simplest way to read this is that Trump has blinked. I've written previously that Trump, despite his obsession with strength, almost always folds. He's actually not much of a negotiator at all, and can be induced to back down pretty easily. Bill Ackman, the activist investor and Democrat turned Trump cheerleader, has spent the past few days freaking out on X about 'a self-induced, economic nuclear winter.' Today, trying to save some dignity for himself and perhaps for the president, he posted, 'This was brilliantly executed by @realDonaldTrump. Textbook, Art of the Deal.'...

Jared Isaacman, billionaire, CEO and nominee to become the next NASA administrator, faced questions on April 9, 2025, from members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation during his confirmation hearing for the position. Should the Senate confirm him, Isaacman will be the first billionaire ' but not the first astronaut ' to head NASA. Perhaps even more significant, he will be the first NASA administrator with significant ties to the commercial space industry. As a space policy expert, I know that NASA leadership matters. The head of the agency can significantly shape the missions it pursues, the science it undertakes and, ultimately, the outcome of America's space exploration. Though he found early success in business, Isaacman also had a love for aviation. In 2009, he set a record for flying around the Earth in a light jet, beating the previous record by more than 20 hours. While remaining CEO of Shift4, Isaacman founded another company, Draken International. The company eventually assembled the world's largest fleet of privately owned fighter jets. It now helps to train U.S. Air Force pilots....

One of the largest federations of unions and several former officials of the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration have raised concerns about the possibility that Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency could potentially gain access to sensitive information shared with OSHA and the Department of Labor by whistleblowers at the centibillionaire's companies. While Musk serves as a 'special government employee' in the Trump administration, SpaceX, Tesla, and The Boring Company are the subject of more than 50 ongoing workplace health and safety cases opened by OSHA in the past five years, according to a public database maintained by the agency. OSHA sits within the Department of Labor, where DOGE operatives have been working since at least March 18. In a memo shared exclusively with WIRED, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), which is currently suing the Trump administration over DOGE's access to records at the Department of Labor, says they believe that the news reports and OSHA cases in its memo allegedly illustrate 'gross mistreatment and even abuse of workers' at Musk companies in five different states. In the memo, the union federation alleges that as Musk attempts to exert 'unilateral control' over the federal government through DOGE, 'his record as a boss should be of concern to every worker in America.'...

In the years after Nato was formed in 1949, its US and European members had a collective approach to defence with clear goals in common, largely built around the protection of western Europe against the Soviet Union. Throughout this era, the US and Europe both relied on the stability of the international system by creating international cooperation on shared dilemmas. European security and US-led Nato security are no longer one and the same. Certainly, recent statements from US leaders that the US will prioritise empowering Europe to own responsibility for its own security has made for tough listening in Europe. For some, this may be an overdue opportunity to fundamentally rework the transatlantic security relationship. For others, such statements are worryingly set against the backdrop of Trump's pro-Russia stance, with Trump's demands sounding sinister at best. From its establishment by 12 states on April 4, 1949, until the end of the cold war era, Nato was focused on one big thing: deterring Soviet aggression. Ultimately, Nato had one job, one enemy, one threat, one theatre and one instrument of power....