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Nikki Haley became the first woman to win a Republican presidential primary on March 3rd, when she earned 63% of the roughly 2,000 votes cast in the District of Columbia. Donald Trump’s campaign quickly sent out a press release knocking Ms Haley for being “crowned Queen of the Swamp by the lobbyists and DC insiders”. Mr Trump is busy creating a new Republican establishment anyway.
Ms Haley notched up a second win, in Vermont, on March 5th, but that came amid an avalanche of defeats. Fifteen states and one territory held primaries, with 854 of the 1,215 delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination up for grabs. Known as Super Tuesday, the typically important day proved unusually sleepy. As expected, Mr Trump dominated, as he has throughout the primary process. The front-runner won every Super Tuesday primary but Vermont’s.
Before Ms Haley dropped out of the race on Wednesday morning, Mr Trump wrote that many of her supporters were “Radical Left Democrats” but he “would further like to invite all of the Haley supporters to join the greatest movement in the history of our Nation”. Ms Haley declined to endorse Mr Trump, who is now running unopposed and will soon officially clinch the delegates needed to become the party’s presumptive nominee.
Mr Trump did receive an endorsement from Mitch McConnell, the veteran Republican leader in the Senate and one of the last prominent holdouts. But the former president was already flexing his influence over the national party before Super Tuesday. The Republican National Committee (RNC), a 168-member body, is convening in Houston on March 7th and 8th, and merging the institution with Mr Trump’s campaign will be at the top of the agenda. Ronna McDaniel, the RNC’s chair since 2017, will finish her two-year term early after Mr Trump grew dissatisfied. Mr Trump has picked Michael Whatley, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, to replace her. Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, is expected to join as co-chair. And Chris LaCivita, a top campaign official, will oversee day-to-day operations at the national committee.
Last month Ms Haley criticised these moves as premature, but presidential campaigns always integrate with the national committee eventually. “Of course he’s going to take over the building and the party,” says Sean Spicer, who worked at the RNC before joining the Trump administration. “It unifies the effort. You don’t need people swimming against the stream.”
Mr Trump was able to move faster than usual because he remains extremely popular with Republicans, and even his critics could see that only he could win the nomination. Both organisations will now co-ordinate strategy and spending that could pass $1bn. The committee traditionally focuses on get-out-the-vote operations and could take on some campaign expenses. Then there are Mr Trump’s legal bills, which continue to mount as he fights multiple criminal indictments.
Henry Barbour, a longtime committeeman, sought to pass a resolution preventing the RNC from picking up a legal tab that could run into tens of millions of dollars. He said ahead of the Houston meeting that the effort could not muster enough support even to come up for a vote by the full committee, though Mr LaCivita has said that Mr Trump will not rely on the RNC funds for legal liabilities.
A Trumpified RNC today does not guarantee one in perpetuity. The institution typically shrinks as it comes under financial pressure after presidential elections, and many Trump appointees will depart. The newly installed chair and co-chair will be up for re-election next year. Their successors will be chosen by RNC members, who generally support Mr Trump, but Republicans who have witnessed such transitions before say they can be unpredictable.
The presidential candidate will have greater influence over the future of the party by wading into congressional races. More than 90% of Trump-endorsed candidates won their primaries in 2022, and his endorsement remains potent in 2024. A Republican pursuing a US Senate seat in Montana dropped out days after Mr Trump endorsed his rival. A House Republican strategist declines to share details on discussions with the Trump campaign, but says Mr Trump wants to see the party’s majority grow: “He’s definitely a team player.”
Even a Trump loss in 2024 would not necessarily diminish the appetite for Trump-aligned populists in the future. “That is where the energy is in the party,” says Alex Conant, a Republican operative. “I expect it will remain that way for a while regardless of what happens to Trump.”
Mr Trump’s strength among primary voters should surprise no one, but some of the party’s money men have shown less enthusiasm. Many donors preferred Ms Haley or Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor whose $168m effort ended after the Iowa caucuses. Last year was the RNC’s worst fundraising year, adjusting for inflation, since 1993—and its Democratic rival brought in over $30m more. The DNC started 2024 with more than $21m cash on hand compared with just over $8m for the RNC.
Money is not all that matters. Hillary Clinton spent nearly twice as much as Mr Trump in 2016 and still lost. But in a close race, any extra advantage could decide the outcome. Mr Trump is a potent small-dollar fundraiser, but he appears to know he will need more billionaires onside.
The Club for Growth, an influential anti-tax group that fell out with Mr Trump in recent years, has begun to reconcile with him lately. Jeff Yass, a billionaire trader, gave the group’s Super PAC $10m as it sought a Trump alternative. He later donated to the Super PAC for Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor. On March 1st Mr Trump called Mr Yass “fantastic”.
Whether Mr Trump can win over donors—and more moderate Republicans—may depend on how he adapts his tone in the coming months. Most presidential nominees undergo a shift after securing their base, adopting a more moderate message during the general election. Mr Trump has been notably more circumspect on abortion and other social issues than his Republican rivals. But his broader strategy is unlikely to change: hammering Mr Biden for his handling of immigration and the economy while pointing to increasing chaos around the world.
“Winning campaign messaging requires a few key ingredients: being simple, compelling and able to draw a clean contrast against the opposition,” says Rob Lockwood, a former RNC strategist. “Biden’s political prospects are primarily haunted by his record,” and Mr Trump can point to four years in office that polls suggest many voters recall fondly.
Mr Trump still faces the challenge of healing wounds within his own party. After Iowa, he opted for a unifying message. A week later in New Hampshire, visibly annoyed, he departed from his script and delivered a lengthy personal attack on Ms Haley. As the results came in on Super Tuesday, Mr Trump said: “We want to have unity, and we’re going to have unity, and it’s going to happen very quickly.” ■
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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.
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.”
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.”
“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?”
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.”
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.”
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.
“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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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.