THE SPRAWLING al-Hol camp in north-eastern Syria is part of a network of prisons holding tens of thousands of detainees and family members from Islamic State’s jihadist “caliphate”, which was smashed by America and its allies in 2019. Western securocrats have long worried that prisoners might break out and wreak bloody havoc, in Syria and abroad. Such fears have intensified given the turmoil after the fall of Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, in December.
There could scarcely be a worse time for the Trump administration to order, as it did on January 24th, an immediate halt to almost all aid work—at al-Hol and around the world—pending a 90-day review to ensure foreign assistance aligns with America First principles. The only exceptions were aid for Israel and Egypt (mostly military) and “emergency food aid”. Waivers could subsequently be issued on a case by case basis.
Chart: The Economist
America is by far the world’s largest aid donor, spending $68bn in fiscal 2023, the most recent year. The US accounts for about 40% of all humanitarian assistance provided by governments. The announcement of an abrupt cutoff of much of this money hit humanitarian agencies like an earthquake. American-funded projects wobbled and some risked collapse.
The affected work included the distribution of antiretroviral drugs for people infected with HIV under a scheme known as PEPFAR, credited with saving some 26m lives since 2003; medical services for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh; mine-clearing in South-East Asia; reconstruction of bombed-out energy infrastructure in Ukraine; pro-democracy work in Russia’s near-abroad; and much more.
“Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?” the state department said.
Among the casualties were groups working at al-Hol, home to about 40,000 Islamic State (IS) fighters and their relatives, among them European women who married combatants and bore their children. The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which controls north-eastern Syria, is in charge of security at the camps. But aid workers speak of a free-for-all within. Women loyal to IS hold sway with guns and train a new generation of ideologues. The perimeter is pierced by tunnels, allowing weapons in and inmates out. Killings are commonplace. Children are sold as fighters. “It’s more an IS base than a prison,” says a Western researcher.
Blumont, the American firm that manages al-Hol (and a smaller camp called Roj) under a state department contract, says its teams left the camps when they received the stop-work order, and arranged for other groups to provide “very much reduced basic services”. Some humanitarian groups said they were issuing termination letters for their staff. On January 27th Blumont received a 14-day waiver and said its staff returned the next day.
Amid chaos and an outcry that countless lives were at risk, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, later widened exemptions to include “life-saving humanitarian assistance”. This includes “medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance, as well as supplies and reasonable administrative costs.” Programs would not be funded if they involved abortion, family-planning, transgender surgeries or other aid deemed not to be life-saving.
Even with this concession, aid groups say confusion abounds. “Does work on clean water count as life-saving aid?” asked an official in one large ngo. Some projects were being closed because of the uncertainty. The status of PEPFAR is unclear.
Waivers apparently still need to be issued case-by-case. Whether the government has the staff to process them quickly is another question. Few of the state department’s political appointees have yet arrived. USAID, the main American development agency, has furloughed hundreds of senior staff and contractors. One spoke of a “sad and apocalyptic” atmosphere.
The state department says the full halt was necessary because “it is impossible to evaluate programs on autopilot”, arguing that those running them have little incentive to give details if the money keeps flowing. It claims to have already saved about $1bn, halting things such as the delivery of condoms to Gaza, sex education globally and clean-energy programmes for women in Fiji. The department offered no details to support its $1bn estimate.
Al-Hol offers just one example of how stopping work suddenly for such dubious reasons is an avoidable act of self-harm. “Without aid, it’s difficult to maintain the security of the camps,” says Ali Rahmoun, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the SDF. “The jihadists won’t just be a problem for Syria but for the region and even Europe.”
Americans would be in danger, too. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old US army veteran, rammed his Ford pickup into a crowd in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, killing 14. He was killed by police. In his vehicle they found IS’s black flag. ■
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This June may be the most harried for the Supreme Court’s justices in some time. On top of 30-odd rulings due by Independence Day, the court faces a steady stream of emergency pleas. Over 16 years, George W. Bush and Barack Obama filed a total of eight emergency applications in the Supreme Court (SCOTUS). In the past 20 weeks, as many of his executive orders have been blocked by lower courts, Donald Trump has filed 18.
Johnson & Johnson manufacturing facility in Wilson, North Carolina.
Courtesy: Johnson & Johnson
Data from the New York Federal Reserve shows a majority of companies have passed along at least some of President Donald Trump’s tariffs onto customers, the latest in a growing body of evidence indicating the policy change is likely to stretch consumers’ wallets.
In May, about 77% of service firms that saw increased costs due to higher U.S. tariffs tariffs passed through at least at least some of the rise to clients, according to a survey conducted by the New York Fed that was released Wednesday. Around 75% of manufacturers surveyed said the same.
In fact, more than 30% of manufacturers and roughly 45% of service firms passed through all of the higher cost to their customers, according to the New York Fed’s statics.
Price hikes happened quickly after Trump slapped steep levies on trading partners, whether large or small. More than 35% of manufacturers and nearly 40% of service firms raised prices within a week of seeing tariff-related cost increases, according to the survey.
Trump announced in early April that he would impose “reciprocal” tariffs on more than 180 countries and territories, sending the stock market into a tailspin. But Trump soon rolled back or paused those levies for three months, unleashing the equity market to claw back most of its initial losses.
July deadline
Companies and investors alike are now looking to a July 9 deadline for the return of those suspended tariffs, coping in the meantime with continued confusion regarding to trade policy. The U.S. has already announced one trade deal with the United Kingdom, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender said this week that the Trump administration is “close to the finish line” on some other agreements.
The New York Fed’s survey is the latest in a salvo of data releases and anecdotal reports that have shown companies’ willingness to pass down cost increases despite pressure from Trump not to do so.
Nearly nine out of 10 of the 300 CEOs surveyed in May said they have raised prices or planned to soon, according to data released last week by Chief Executive Group and AlixPartners. About seven out of 10 chief executives surveyed in May said they plan to hike prices by at least 2.5%.
Corporate executives have been careful in how they speak about the impact of Trump’s policies on their business, especially when it comes to trade, to avoid getting caught in the president’s crosshairs. Last month, for example, Trump warned Walmart in a social media post that the retailer should “eat the tariffs” and that he would “be watching.”
Consequently, survey data and anonymous commentary offer insights into how American business leaders are discussing the tariffs behind closed doors.
“The administration’s tariffs alone have created supply chain disruptions rivaling that of Covid-19,” one respondent said in the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing survey published Monday.
Another respondent said “chaos does not bode well for anyone, especially when it impacts pricing.” While another pointed to the agreement between the U.S. and China to temporarily slash tariffs, they said the central question is what the landscape will look like in a few months.
‘Hugely distracting’
“We are doing extensive work to make contingency plans, which is hugely distracting from strategic work,” this respondent said. “It is also very hard to know what plans we should actually implement.”
Responses to the ISM service sector survey released Wednesday revealed a similar focus on the uncertainty stemming from controversial tariffs.
“Tariffs remain a challenge, as it is not clear what duties apply,” one respondent wrote. “The best plan is still to delay decisions to purchase where possible.”
A store closing sign is displayed as customers shop during the last day of a store closing sale at a JOANN Fabric and Crafts location in a shopping mall following the company’s bankruptcy in Torrance, California on May 27, 2025.
Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images
The U.S. economy contracted over the past six weeks as hiring slowed and consumers and businesses worried about tariff-related price increases, according to a Federal Reserve report Wednesday.
In its periodic “Beige Book” summary of conditions, the central bank noted that “economic activity has declined slightly since the previous report” released April 23.
“All Districts reported elevated levels of economic and policy uncertainty, which have led to hesitancy and a cautious approach to business and household decisions,” the report added.
Hiring was “little changed” across most of the Fed’s 12 districts, with seven describing employment as “flat” amid widespread growth in applicants and lower turnover rates.
“All Districts described lower labor demand, citing declining hours worked and overtime, hiring pauses, and staff reduction plans. Some Districts reported layoffs in certain sectors, but these layoffs were not pervasive,” the report said.
On inflation, the report described prices as rising “at a moderate pace.”
“There were widespread reports of contacts expecting costs and prices to rise at a faster rate going forward. A few Districts described these expected cost increases as strong, significant, or substantial,” it said. “All District reports indicated that higher tariff rates were putting upward pressure on costs and prices.”
There were disparities, though, over expectations for how much prices would rise, with some businesses saying they might reduce profit margins or add “temporary fees or surcharges.”
“Contacts that plan to pass along tariff-related costs expect to do so within three months,” the report said.
The report covers a period of a shifting landscape for President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
In early May, Trump said he would relax so-called reciprocal tariffs against China, which responded in kind, helping to set off a rally on Wall Street amid hopes that the duties would not be as draconian as initially feared.
However, fears linger over the inflationary impact as well as whether hiring and the broader economy would slow because of slowdowns associated with the tariffs.
Tariffs were mentioned 122 times in Thursday’s report, compared to 107 times in April.
Regionally, Boston, New York and Philadelphia all reported declining economic activity. Richmond, Atlanta and Chicago were among the districts reporting better growth.
In New York specifically, the Fed found “heightened uncertainty” and input prices that “grew strongly with tariff-inducted cost increases. Richmond reported a slight increase in hiring despite Trump’s efforts to trim the federal government payroll.