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Georgia’s black Republicans have a battle plan for 2024

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On the last Sunday of Black History Month there was real energy in Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. Between gospel songs that made even your agnostic correspondent feel something spiritual, a trio of children reminded the congregation of the church’s political prominence. Martin Luther King junior was baptised there and preached there until he died. Over the years church members became lawmakers, and today a little girl told parishioners, with a grin, that Georgia’s first black senator is their pastor. Sitting behind her Raphael Warnock, one of two Peach State Democrats who helped flip control of the Senate in early 2021, reached out for a fist-bump as cheers erupted in the pews.

The night before a very different set of black Georgians had come together. In a converted downtown warehouse the Georgia Black Republican Council held its first-ever masquerade ball. Ranchers and representatives took to the stage to give Trumpian speeches. Women dressed in red sequinned gowns and fur stoles nibbled at fried chicken while chatting about their plans to get friends to break with tradition and vote Republican in November.

At roughly 30%, Georgia has the highest share of black voters of any battleground state. Over the past two decades an influx of black people into metro-Atlanta made Georgia the only Deep South state that Democrats can compete in. In 2020 Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win there since 1992. But with a Biden-Trump rematch looming, Democrats fear they are losing ground with their most loyal voting bloc.

In the decade to 2023 the share of black men who identified as Democrats fell from 80% to 62% nationwide. For women it dropped from 84% to 74%. Black youngsters are particularly unenthused about Mr Biden. Republicans in Georgia see an opportunity. The governor’s race in 2022 was the first time that both candidates actively chased black voters. Stacey Abrams spent $100m courting them while Brian Kemp, who ultimately beat her, deployed black surrogates, campaigned at black-owned businesses and stressed his record of appointing black judges. In December a group of Democratic strategists published a report warning that even the slightest drop in black turnout this year could hand Donald Trump a victory in the state.

Georgia’s black Republicans think three issues can sway their brethren: education, crime and immigration. Mesha Mainor, a state representative who left the Democratic Party in July to become a Republican, says that black pupils suffer disproportionately from failing public schools. Last year Atlanta’s white high-school graduation rate was 12 percentage points above the black one. On March 20th the state Senate passed a bill to give families $6,500 vouchers for private-school tuition. She thinks Republicans’ crusade for school choice should help them pick up voters of all political stripes.

Angry about the border

On crime black communities tend not to favour liberal policies—and Georgia Republicans plan to capitalise on that. For the past year Atlanta has been divided over a plan to build a $90m police-training facility dubbed “cop city” by protesters. Notably, a black councilwoman proposed it, the city’s black mayor has endorsed it and an Emory University survey from last year found that a minority of black residents opposed it. Jalen Johnson, a deputy sheriff and city commissioner in Albany, Georgia, says he can’t remember a single time he has delivered a death notification to a white family. Republican tough-on-crime policies, he says, resonate more when it’s always “black boys getting shot”. He notes that during Mr Trump’s presidency there was also real progress on prison reform.

Days after a Venezuelan immigrant was arrested for killing a nursing student in Athens in late February, Kelly Loeffler, who lost her Senate seat to Mr Warnock three years ago, convened a meeting at a renowned Atlanta soul-food restaurant. Over dinner black panellists spoke about how resentful they feel about Mr Biden’s policies towards people who cross the southern border illegally. Black Georgians have watched loved ones go to jail for dealing marijuana, one said, while migrants who break the law by sneaking into America walk free and are even rewarded with government and non-profit aid. They hope to drum up that same anger in black Democrats in this cycle.

The swing state’s black electorate still leans overwhelmingly left. But the young black Georgians who have converted to the conservative cause are bent on evangelising. A band of college women at the masquerade ball said they will no longer tolerate candidates taking their votes for granted. For some it was Ms Abrams, a prominent black Democrat who ran for Georgia’s governor twice, who taught them that they, too, have a voice in politics. When they thought about it, they realised they were being played by their party.

“A lot of times it started with a brother,” says Michaelah Montgomery, a 25-year-old who grew up during Barack Obama’s presidency and now runs the Atlanta chapter of an organisation called BLEXIT. “We all trusted him because he looked like us and spoke at our church.” But that is no longer enough. If there is one thing that she and the Democratic strategists worried about losing Georgia can agree on, it is that Mr Biden will have to spend bigger and work harder to get the black vote this year. The days of the token fish fry are over.

Economics

ECB members say inflation job nearly done but tariff risks loom

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Guests and attendeess mingle and walk through the atrium during the IMF/World Bank Group Spring Meetings at the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2025.

Jim Watson | Afp | Getty Images

After years dominated by the pandemic, supply chains, energy and inflation, there was a new topic topping the agenda at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meetings this year: tariffs.

The IMF set the tone by kicking off the week with the release of its latest economic forecasts, which cut growth outlooks for the U.S., U.K. and many Asian countries. While economists, central bankers and politicians have been engaged in panels and behind-the-scenes talks, many are attempting to work out whether trade tensions between China and the U.S. are — or perhaps are not — cooling.

Policymakers from the European Central Bank that CNBC spoke to this week broadly stuck a dovish-leaning tone, indicating they saw interest rates continuing to fall and few upside risks to euro zone inflation. However, all stressed the current high levels of uncertainty, the need to keep monitoring data, and the high risks to the growth outlook — sentiments also echoed by Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey in his interview with CNBC on Thursday.

These were some of the main messages from ECB members this week.

Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank president

On inflation and monetary policy:

“We’re heading towards our [inflation] target in the course of 2025, so that disinflationary process is so much on track that we are nearing completion. But we have the shocks, you know, and the shocks will be a dampen on GDP. It’s a negative shock to demand.”

“The net impact on inflation will depend on what countermeasures are eventually taken by Europe. Then we have to take into account the [German] fiscal push by the defense investments, by the infrastructure fund.”

“We have seen successive movements, you know, announcement [of U.S. tariffs], and then a pause, and then some exemptions. So we have to be very attentive… Either we cut, either we pause, but we will be data dependent to the extreme.”

Watch CNBC's full interview with ECB president Christine Lagarde

On market moves:

“When we had done our projections, we anticipated that… the dollar would appreciate, the euro would depreciate. It’s not what we saw. And there have been some counter-intuitive movements in various categories.”

“The German market has obviously been shocked in a positive way by the program soon to be put in place by the German government, with a commitment to defense, with a commitment to a big fund for infrastructure development.”

Klaas Knot, The Netherlands Bank president

On tariff uncertainty:

“If I look back over the last 14 years, in the initial days of the pandemic I think that was comparable uncertainty to what we have now.”

“In the short run, it’s crystal clear that the uncertainty that is created by the unpredictability of the tariff actions by the U.S. government works as a strong negative factor for growth. Basically, uncertainty is like a tax without revenue.”

On the inflation impact:

“In the short run, we will have lower growth. We will probably also have lower inflation. As we also see, the euro is appreciating as energy prices have also come down. So together with the sort of negative factor uncertainty in the short run, it’s crystal clear that it will accelerate the disinflation.”

It's 'crystal clear' that tariffs could hit growth in the short term, ECB's Knot says

“But in the medium term, the inflation outlook is not all that clear. I think there are still these negative factors. But in the medium term, you might get retaliation. You might get the disruption of global value chains, which might also be inflationary in other parts of the world than the U.S. only. And then, of course, we have the fiscal policy coming in in Europe. So this is actually a time in which you need projections.”

On a June rate cut and market pricing for two more ECB rate cuts in 2025:

“I’m fully open minded. I think it’s way too early to already take a position on June, whether it would be another cut. It will fully depend on these projections.”

“I would need to see a more structured analysis of the impact on the inflation profile ahead of us, and only then can I say whether the market is pricing fair or whether I don’t.”

Robert Holzmann, Austrian National Bank governor

On the need to wait for more data and news on tariffs:

“We have not seen this uncertainty now for years… unless the uncertainty subsides, by the right decisions, we will have to hold back a number of our decisions, and hence, we don’t know yet in what direction monetary policy should be best moved.”

“Before looking at data in detail, the question is, what kind of political decisions will be taken? Is it that we will have some tariff increases? Is it that we will have strong tariff increases? Is it that we will have retribution by high counter tariffs?”

We have not seen this much uncertainty for years, Austrian central bank governor says

On the ECB’s April rate cut:

“I think there’s a broad consensus [on rates]. But of course, at the margin, people differ.”

“My assessment is that at this time, it wasn’t clear yet to what extent [tariff] countermeasures were being taken. Because with countermeasures in Europe, prices may have increased. Without countermeasures, quite likely the price pressure is downward. And for the time being, we don’t know yet the direction.”

On the direction of interest rates:

“I think if the recent noises about an arrangement [on trade] were to be true, in this case, quite likely it is more towards the downside than the upside with regard to prices. But this can be changed with different decisions and the result of which, we may even imagine in [the] other direction. For the time being, no, it will be down.”

“There may be further cuts this year, but the number is still outstanding.”

Mārtiņš Kazāks, Bank of Latvia governor

On opportunity from tariffs:

“With all this uncertainty and vulnerability, this is also the time of opportunities for Europe.”

“It’s a time for Europe to grasp all the aspects of being an economic superpower and becoming a really fully-fledged political and geopolitical superpower, and this requires doing all the decisions that in the past, were not carried out fully.”

“This requires political will, political guts to make those decisions, and to strengthen the European economy and assert its place in a global world.”

Global vulnerability an opportunity for Europe, says ECB's Kazāks

On market reaction to tariffs:

“So far it seems to be relatively orderly … but if one looks at the spillovers to Europe, the financial markets are working more or less fine, we haven’t seen spreads exploding or anything like that.”

“But in terms, however, of the macro scenarios, this uncertainty is extremely elevated in the sense that, given the possible outcomes, the multiple scenarios and their probabilities are very similar with the baseline [tariff] scenario.”

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Economics

Trump insists bond market tumult didn’t influence tariff pause: ‘I wasn’t worried’

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US President Donald Trump speaks during a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister of Norway Jonas Gahr Store in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2025.

Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images

President Donald Trump denied that an aggressive bond market sell-off influenced his decision earlier this month to hold off on aggressive “reciprocal” tariffs against U.S. trading partners.

“I wasn’t worried,” Trump said in a Time magazine interview during which he was asked about financial market tumult after his April 2 “liberation day” announcement.

In the decree, Trump slapped 10% across-the-board duties against all U.S. imports and released list of tariffs against dozens of other nations. The extra levies were based on trade deficits the U.S. had against the respective countries and raised fears about inflation, a potential recession and disruption of long-held trade agreements.

Markets recoiled following the release. Treasury yields initially headed lower but quickly snapped higher. The 10-year yield rose half a percentage point in just a few days, one of its quickest moves ever, as investors also ditched stocks and the U.S. dollar.

Ultimately, Trump issued a 90-day stay on the reciprocal tariffs to allow time for negotiation. But he said it wasn’t because of the market tumult.

Pres. Trump to TIME: Would consider it a total victory if U.S. still has 50% tariffs in a year

“No, it wasn’t for that reason,” Trump told Time in the interview from Tuesday that was published Friday. “I’m doing that until we come up with the numbers that I want to come up with. I’ve met with a lot of countries. I’ve talked on the telephone. I don’t even want them to come in.”

Yields have since moved lower, with the 10-year most recently around 4.28%, about a quarter percentage point higher than its recent low. Trump had said when he made the decision to hold off that the bond market had gotten the “yips.”

“The bond market was getting the yips, but I wasn’t. Because I know what we have,” he said. “I know what we have, but I also know we won’t have it for long if we allowed four more years of the gross incompetence. This thing was just running — it was running as a free spirit. This was — this was the most incompetent president in history.”

Though negotiations over tariffs are ongoing, Trump added that he would consider it a “total victory” even if the U.S. has levies as high as 50% still in place a year from now.

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Economics

Bank of England chief focused on tariff ‘growth shock’

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Bank of England governor: We're seeing the uncertainty effect of tariffs

The Bank of England is focused on the potential impact of U.S. tariffs on U.K. economic growth if there is a slowdown in global trade, the central bank’s governor Andrew Bailey said Thursday.

“We’re certainly quite focused on the growth shock,” Bailey told CNBC’s Sara Eisen in an interview at the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings.

Going into its May 8 monetary policy meeting, the central bank will consider “arguments on both sides” around the impact of tariffs on growth and domestic supply constraints on inflation, Bailey said.

“There is clearly a growth issue we start with, with weak growth … but a big question mark is how much of that is caused by the weak demand, how much of it is caused by a weak supply side,” he continued.

“Because the weak supply side, of course, unfortunately, has the sort of the upside effect on inflation. So we’ve got to balance those two. But I think the trade issue is now the new part of that story.”

Inflation could be pulled in either direction by wider forces, with a redirection of trade exports into other markets being disinflationary, but a retaliation on U.S. tariffs by the U.K. government — which he stressed did not appear likely — pushing up inflation.

Bailey added that he did not see the U.K. as being close to a recession at present, but that it was clear economic uncertainty was weighing on business and consumer confidence.

IMF downgrade

The IMF earlier this week downgraded its 2025 growth forecast for the U.K. to 1.1% from 1.6%, citing the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, higher borrowing costs and increased energy prices.

However, economic forecasting remains mired in uncertainty as countries engage in negotiations with U.S. officials over Trump’s swingeing universal tariff policy, currently on pause. The U.S. has imposed 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos and a 10% levy on other British exports.

U.K. policymakers have expressed hopes of reaching a trade deal with the White House, with U.S. Vice President J. D. Vance saying there is a “good chance” of an agreement.

Bailey told CNBC on Thursday that he would be “very encouraged if the U.K. does make a deal,” but that its economy was very open and services-oriented, so it would still be impacted by a wider slowdown in growth or trade.

He also noted that inflation would increase from the current 2.6% in the coming readings due to effects from markets such as energy prices and water bills, but that the bump up would be “nothing like what we saw a few years ago.”

The Bank of England held interest rates at 4.5% at its March meeting, before Trump shocked the world with the scale of his tariff announcement.

Markets now see the BOE slashing rates to 4% by its August meeting.

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