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Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden pile pressure on Binyamin Netanyahu

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CHUCK SCHUMER, the majority leader of the US Senate and America’s highest-ranking Jewish official, is fond of noting that his surname derives from the Hebrew word shomer, or guardian. Although his primary obligation is to America, he likes to say, he also feels a duty to live up to his name and act as a guardian of the people of Israel. Mr Schumer made this familiar point during a speech on March 14th, but his remarks on the Senate floor about Binyamin Netanyahu were anything but ordinary.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel,” Mr Schumer said during a 44-minute speech. “I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel.”

Presidents and secretaries of state have criticised Israel over the course of its 75-year relationship with the United States, typically on discrete issues for limited periods. Yet the de facto political leader of America’s Jews calling for political change in Jerusalem is a watershed moment, even as Mr Schumer stressed that “Israel has the right to choose its own leaders, and we should let the chips fall where they may.” It reflects a crisis of confidence.

Joe Biden, who often goes out of his way to avoid criticising American allies publicly, said the following day that Mr Schumer gave a “good speech”. (The president, however, fell short of fully endorsing it by only allowing that “many Americans” shared the majority leader’s concerns.) Mr Schumer’s Republican counterpart in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, called his remarks grotesque and hypocritical—the starkest example yet of the growing partisan gap on how to manage relations with the Jewish state.

What effect could Mr Schumer’s comments have on Israeli politics? Mr Netanyahu has not yet reacted, though his Likud party shot back in a statement that “Israel is not a banana republic.” Benny Gantz, a member of Mr Netanyahu’s war cabinet but a rival minister likely to replace him if elections were held, said Mr Schumer’s remarks were a mistake. In Washington earlier this month Mr Gantz met senior members of the Biden administration. A Gantz government would no doubt make the relationship easier, though unlike Mr Biden he is not keen on a two-state solution, so relations would still be far from simple.

“Israelis of all political views are coexisting in the same bubble of trauma, insecurity, fear and worry. It makes them all incapable of hearing anybody or anything else,” says Martin Indyk of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank, and a former US ambassador to Israel. “They are largely oblivious to the suffering of the Palestinians and seemingly uncaring about the rift with the United States, Israel’s only reliable friend in this crisis.”

The greater immediate impact of Mr Schumer’s remarks is likely to be on the debate over Israel in America. The Senate leader and the president are among the most pro-Israel Democrats in American history, but many on the party’s left wing are deeply critical of the country’s government. Mr Biden initially kept his criticism of how Israel has conducted this war private. Recently he has been openly critical while refusing to use his leverage, such as by withholding military support, or backing UN resolutions condemning Israel.

Mr Schumer’s comments have given Mr Biden cover to take a tougher stance. But Aaron David Miller, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, another think-tank (and a veteran negotiator of would-be Middle East peace deals), does not expect major changes to Mr Biden’s “passive-aggressive” approach just yet. The only way for Mr Biden to resolve the political, moral and policy conundrums that Israel’s assault on Gaza has produced, Mr Miller reckons, is for the images coming out of Gaza to change. Mr Biden may get tougher, “but I don’t see it happening now, particularly given the fact that for the first time in weeks, there may be some openings on the ground” as Israel permits more humanitarian assistance and sends negotiators to Qatar.

However, if an Israeli assault on Rafah, where some 1.4m Palestinian civilians are sheltering, produces massive casualties, Mr Biden’s tone could become much more critical, much faster. “Whatever happens,” adds Mr Indyk, “pressure is now an overt part of the US-Israel relationship.”

Economics

Trump is losing the confidence of business leaders, billionaire investor Bill Ackman says

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Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, speaks during an interview for an episode of “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations,” in New York on Nov. 28, 2023.

Jeenah Moon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman said that America was heading toward a self-inflicted “economic nuclear winter” as a result of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policy rollout.

“By placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby launching a global economic war against the whole world at once, we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner,” Ackman, who had endorsed Trump during the elections, wrote on social media platform X.

Trump’s latest tariffs, signed into effect Wednesday, set a 10% baseline levy on all imports, hitting over 180 countries and hammering global markets.

China faces the highest tariffs, with the Trump administration having imposed 54% in duties since January. Beijing has retaliated with 34% tariffs on all goods imported from the U.S.

U.S. equities capped off a vicious week for investors last Friday, down 9.08%, according to data from FactSet, as Trump’s moves stoke fears of a global economic slowdown. J.P. Morgan lifted the odds for a U.S. and global recession to 60% by the end of the year, up from 40% previously.

“Business is a confidence game. The president is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe,” Ackman said.

“The consequences for our country and the millions of our citizens who have supported the president — in particular low-income consumers who are already under a huge amount of economic stress — are going to be severely negative. This is not what we voted for,” the hedge fund manager said.

Trump has the opportunity to call for a timeout for any negotiations to resolve any “unfair” tariff deals.

“Alternatively, we are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down,” he said.

In a separate tweet, Ackman also took potshots at U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. “He profits when our economy implodes. It’s a bad idea to pick a Secretary of Commerce whose firm is levered long fixed income,” Ackman said, adding that it is an “irreconcilable conflict of interest.”

On Sunday, Lutnick told CBS that the Trump administration will remain steadfast in its reciprocal tariffs against key trading partners even in the face of a global stock rout.

The U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

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Economics

Texas looks set to pass America’s biggest school-voucher scheme

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GREGG ABBOTT was playing retribution politics before it was cool. Two years ago the governor of Texas named his top policy priority: a sprawling school-voucher bill that would give parents $10,000 each year if they sent their children to private schools, opting out of the public system. He wants choice “not just for millionaires” but for the state’s nearly 6m schoolchildren, one of every nine in America. But after failing to get his bill passed he went on the attack and backed primary challenges to Republicans who had voted against it, knocking most of them out of the legislature. Now Austin’s politicos are betting vouchers will pass. On April 3rd the bill made it out of committee. Mr Abbott is planning a “Texas-sized party” to celebrate its becoming law.

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Economics

How Donald Trump’s tariffs will probably fare in court

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WITH AMERICA still reeling from the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump on around 180 countries, a conservative organisation has filed a lawsuit challenging an initial round of tariffs the president announced in February—and doubled in March—on Chinese imports. The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), which counts Charles Koch, a right-wing billionaire, among its supporters, argues that Mr Trump lacked the authority to impose these levies. Similar lawsuits against the broader tariff blitz of April 2nd could yet scuttle the boldest—and most destructive—move of Mr Trump’s second term.

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