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Few politicians talk about violence as much as Donald Trump. In early April, when the former president held his first rally since wrapping up the Republican nomination in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he came onto the stage flanked by uniformed sheriffs. America, he argued, is being overwhelmed by murderous foreigners deliberately sent by hostile governments seeking to empty their prisons at home. Gang members, Mr Trump claimed, are “hiding in bushes, actually, they say”. Overall, he argued, crime rates are “only going in one direction and it’s going to be very bad”.
Unfortunately for Mr Trump, but happily for most Americans, what data there are suggest that most crime is indeed only going in one direction—down. In March the fbi released (partial) national data showing that violent crime of all sorts dropped in cities, suburbs and rural areas alike in the final quarter of 2023. That confirmed what city-level data were already indicating by the middle of last year: that the wave of violence that started almost everywhere across America in the summer of 2020 (when Mr Trump was still president) had crested in most places in 2022. Murder, both the most damaging and the most reliably counted of all crimes, is now heading back towards pre-pandemic levels.
Last year, according to data published by the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which represents police chiefs in the United States and Canada, in the 69 American police departments covered, the total number of murders declined by roughly 10%. More recent data gathered from police departments by ah Datalytics, a private analysis firm, suggest that the total has continued to drop so far this year (see chart 1). In some big cities, such as Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, the size of the falls has been especially striking. The firm’s figures also suggest that even the flood of car theft that swelled last year may have begun to ebb slightly.
Chart: The Economist
Explaining why crime falls or rises is tricky. The best explanation for this fall, says Jeff Asher, of ah Datalytics, is simply the end of the pandemic. Most murders in America are the result of arguments that escalate to gunfights, typically between young men. When the virus was spreading, schools and other public services closed, and so more youngsters were pushed onto the streets. Higher levels of stress may have led to more arguments. Now things are somewhat back to normal. Added to that are a few policy changes. For example, many cities have invested plentiful federal money in “violence interrupters” who try to identify and de-escalate fights before they turn into shootings.
Will lower crime help Joe Biden win re-election? Certainly, it is better than the opposite. But the gains are likely to be limited. Polling suggests much of the public thinks crime is still rising. One of the bigger problems Mr Biden has is that police officers are generally conservative, and many are backing Mr Trump, who they think will let them continue to do their job the way they always have.
In the past few years, Republicans in general have enthusiastically hugged cops. For example, earlier this month Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, signed a law that criminalises “harassment” of police officers and bans civilians from “carrying out extra-judicial investigations against law enforcement”. Mr Biden, by contrast, is at least rhetorically committed to police reform. “It is a bit of a danger zone” for the president, says Neil Gross, a professor at Colby College in Maine.
Chart: The Economist
The irony is that Mr Trump’s approach seems more likely to generate crime. Under Mr Biden trust in the police has risen among Democrats (see chart 2). When police are trusted, crimes are solved, and crime rates tend to fall. When trust is destroyed—by, say, a police killing—crime rises.
Among the places that saw a rise in the murder rate last year was Memphis, Tennessee. That city was shaken up last January when a young, unarmed and innocent man, Tyre Nichols, was brutally beaten to death by plainclothes officers from a “tactical squad” who had stopped his car. Murders in Memphis have edged down this year. But last month Republicans in the state overturned a city-level ordinance intended to end such unwarranted stops. If Mr Trump wins the election, he may get more violence to talk about. ■
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BERLIN, GERMANY – FEBRUARY 24: Robert Habeck, chancellor candidate of the German Greens Party, speaks to the media the day after German parliamentary elections on February 24, 2025 in Berlin, Germany. The Greens came in fourth place with 11.6% of the vote, down 2.9% from the previous election. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images
U.S. President Donald Trump will “buckle under pressure” and alter his tariff policies if Europe bands together, acting German economy minister Robert Habeck said Thursday.
“That is what I see, that Donald Trump will buckle under pressure, that he corrects his announcements under pressure, but the logical consequence is that he then also needs to feel the pressure,” he said during a press conference, according to a CNBC translation.
“And this pressure now needs to be unfolded, from Germany, from Europe in the alliance with other countries, and then we will see who is the stronger one in this arm wrestle,” Habeck said.
Elsewhere, outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he believed the latest tariff decisions by Trump were “fundamentally wrong,” according to a CNBC translation.
The measures are an attack on the global trade order and will result in suffering for the global economy, Scholz said.
On Wednesday, Trump imposed 20% levies on the European Union, including on the bloc’s foremost economy Germany, as he signed a sweeping and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy.
Germany is widely regarded as one of the countries likely to be most impacted by Trump’s tariffs, given its heavy economic reliance on trade.
This is a developing story, please check back for updates.
THESE DAYS are dire and dour for Democrats. But April 1st brought a brief reprieve—and not because of jokes. That was the day that the most expensive judicial election in American history in the battleground state of Wisconsin ended in a decisive triumph for the left-leaning candidate. It had drawn $100m of spending, including an estimated $25m from Elon Musk who also, perhaps unhelpfully, personally campaigned in the state. The same day, two special elections in Florida for vacant congressional seats took place in safe Republican districts. Although they did not win, Democrats improved their margins by 17 and 20 percentage points compared with the general elections held just five months ago. Cory Booker, a Democratic senator from New Jersey, staged a one-man protest on the floor of the Senate, excoriating President Donald Trump’s administration for 25 hours straight—a stunt, to be sure, but one that demonstrated proof of life in a party that supporters worried had gone limp.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a “Make America Wealthy Again” trade announcement event in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
Markets have turned their sights on how U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration arrived at the figures behind the sweeping tariffs on U.S. imports declared Wednesday, which sent global financial markets tumbling and sparked concerns worldwide.
Trump and the White House shared a series of charts on social media detailing the tariff rates they say other countries impose on the U.S. Those purported rates include the countries’ “Currency Manipulation and Trade Barriers.”
An adjacent column shows the new U.S. tariff rates on each country, as well as the European Union.
Chart of reciprocal tariffs.
Courtesy: Donald Trump via Truth Social
Those rates are, in most cases, roughly half of what the Trump administration claims each country has “charged” the U.S. CNBC could not independently verify the U.S. administration’s data on these duties.
It didn’t take long for market observers to try and reverse engineer the formula — toconfusing results.Many, including journalist and author James Surowiecki, said the U.S. appeared to have divided the trade deficit by imports from a given country to arrive at tariff rates for individual countries.
Such methodology doesn’t necessarily align with the conventional approach to calculate tariffs and would imply the U.S. would have only looked at the trade deficit in goods and ignored trade in services.
“The formula is about trade imbalances with the U.S. rather than reciprocal tariffs in the sense of tariff level or non-tariff level distortions. This makes it very difficult for Asian, particularly the poorer Asian countries, to meet US demand to reduce tariffs in the short-term as the benchmark is buying more American goods than they export to the U.S., ” according to Trinh Nguyen, senior economist of emerging Asia at Natixis.
“Given that U.S. goods are much more expensive, and the purchasing power is lower for countries targeted with the highest levels of tariffs, such option is not optimal. Vietnam, for example, stands out in having the 4th largest trade surplus with the U.S., and has already lowered tariffs versus the U.S. ahead of tariff announcement without any reprieve,” Nguyen said.
The U.S. also appeared to have applied a 10% levy for regions where it is running a trade surplus.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative laid out its approach on its website, which appeared somewhat similar to what cyber sleuths had already figured out, barring a few differences.
The U.S.T.R. also included estimates for the elasticity of imports to import prices—in other words, how sensitive demand for foreign goods is to prices—and the passthrough of higher tariffs into higher prices of imported goods.
“While individually computing the trade deficit effects of tens of thousands of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in each country is complex, if not impossible, their combined effects can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero. If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair,” the website reads.
This screenshot of the U.S.T.R. webpage shows the methodology and formula that was used in greater detail:
A screenshot from the website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative.
Some analysts acknowledged that the U.S. government’s methodology could give it more wiggle room to reach an agreement.
“All I can say is that the opaqueness surrounding the tariff numbers may add some flexibility in making deals, but it could come at a cost to US credibility,” according to Rob Subbaraman, head of global macro research at Nomura.
— CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger contributed to this piece.