NEW YORK – President Donald Trump is on the verge of hitting America’s three biggest trading partners with sweeping tariffs, a far more aggressive use of his favorite economic weapon than anything he did during his first term. The looming import taxes on Mexico, Canada and China will be a major test of Trump’s unorthodox use of tariffs, which he’s described as “the greatest thing ever invented.”

It’s an enormous gamble, arguably a bigger one than any economic policy Trump enacted during his four-plus years in the White House. And this strategy has the potential to upend the thing many voters care about the most: the economy and the cost of living. But Trump’s tariffs pose a big risk: They could backfire, lifting already-high consumer prices at the grocery store, rocking the shaky stock market or killing jobs in a full-blown trade war.

“This may be the biggest own-goal yet,” Mary Lovely, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told CNN in a phone interview. “This is a huge gamble. It’s a recipe for slowing down the economy and increasing inflation.” The Wall Street Journal went a step further, publishing a scathing op-ed on Saturday titled: “The Dumbest Trade War in History.” The op-ed argued that Trump’s justification for an “economic assault” on Canada and Mexico “makes no sense” and warned the strategy could end in disaster.

Trump views tariffs as an almost magical negotiating tool, a powerful way to gain leverage over friends and allies. He has argued that tariffs are necessary to address major concerns, including the trade deficit, illegal immigration and the flow of illicit drugs. Trump and his supporters often point out, correctly, that tariffs during his first term did not cause problematic inflation. But those were different tariffs, applied in a very different world at a very different time. Trump set in motion tariffs on USD 1.4 trillion of imported goods on Saturday. That’s more than triple the USD 380 billion worth of foreign goods that were hit with tariffs during Trump’ first term, according to estimates from the Tax Foundation.

The White House has argued Trump’s tariffs won’t spell trouble for the US economy, but some economists and trade experts are deeply concerned because these levies are aiming at America’s closest neighbors, Canada and Mexico. (CNN)

NEW YORK  –  Justin Baldoni has published a website amid a battle over allegations of what happened on the set of his and Blake Lively’s film, It Ends With Us. The website contains Baldoni’s amended complaint and a timeline of events related to the case.The two stars played a couple in the hit film, which came out last year, but have since become embroiled in an increasingly bitter legal dispute.Lively, 37, sued Baldoni, 41, in December, accusing him of sexual harassment and a smear campaign. Baldoni is counter-suing Lively and her husband, the actor Ryan Reynolds, on claims of civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy.Baldoni is also suing the New York Times for libel. Both parties strongly deny the claims.

A trial date has been set for the hearing of the claims between the stars. The website was published last Saturday, and is called Lawsuit Info. It contains two legal documents related to the case: Baldoni’s latest court filings against Lively and Reynolds, and a 168-page document entitled “timeline of relevant events” related to the dispute and the production of the film. The latter includes alleged text message exchanges between him and Lively. It comes after Baldoni amended his lawsuit, accusing Lively of giving the New York Times advance access to her civil rights complaint. Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, told BBC News that Baldoni amended his lawsuit due “to the overwhelming amount of new proof that has come to light”. “This fresh evidence corroborates what we knew all along, that due to purely egotistical reasons Ms Lively and her entire team colluded for months to destroy reputations through a complex web of lies, false accusations and the manipulation of illicitly received communications,” Freedman continued. A New York Times spokesperson told BBC News that Baldoni’s legal filings were “rife with inaccuracies” about the newspaper, “including, for example, the bogus claim that The Times had early access to Ms Lively’s state civil rights complaint”.

They added that Baldoni’s lawyers were “[basing] their erroneous claim on postings by amateur internet sleuths, who, not surprisingly, are wrong”. BBC News has reached out to Lively’s representatives for comment. Last month, Baldoni released out-takes from a romantic scene in It Ends With Us, which he says is evidence that Lively’s allegations of sexual harassment are unfounded. However, she responded by saying the footage of the pair filming a slow dance is “damning” and corroborates her claims. It Ends With Us was released last summer, and became a TikTok sensation.

The film is based on a best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover. In it, Lively plays a woman who finds herself in a relationship with a charming but abusive boyfriend, played by Baldoni. The 45-year-old author has said her inspiration was the domestic abuse endured by her mother. (BBC/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  –  The Trump administration has given billionaire Elon Musk’s deputies access to the federal payments system that controls the flow of trillions of dollars in government funds every year, US media report. Reports suggest incoming Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has granted access to members of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – which is not a government department, but a team within the administration – to sensitive personal information of millions of Americans. The division handles payments of nearly $6 trillion for programmes like Social Security, pays government salaries, and distributes money allotted by Congress. The White House and the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The access to the payment system was granted last Friday, the same day when a longtime Treasury official named David Lebryk was put on administrative leave and suddenly retired, the New York Times reported. The newspaper said Mr Lebryk had strongly resisted allowing “Musk’s lieutenants into the department’s payment system, which sends out money on behalf of the entire federal government”.

Musk, who is not officially a government employee, has been given extremely broad leeway by President Donald Trump to slash federal spending. He helped set up Doge in order to carry out this effort, bringing allies from his private companies and Silicon Valley to assist the process. Tom Krause, a Silicon Valley executive, is reported to be among the team working at Treasury. Typically, only a handful of Treasury employees work on the payments system. “To put it bluntly, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically-motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy”,  US Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, wrote in a letter to Bessent. “I am concerned that mismanagement of these payment systems could threaten the full faith and credit of the United States”,  he wrote. Meanwhile, the federal workforce has been grappling with the multiple executive orders signed by Trump since taking office. Employees have received letters from the Office of Personnel Management asking them to report their colleagues who are attempting to “disguise” diversity efforts, as well as an offer to take paid resignations — an offer many employees view with suspicion.

Agencies have scrambled to pull down references to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as transgender and LGBT individuals from their websites in order to comply with the executive orders. DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programmes aim to promote participation in workplaces by people from a range of backgrounds. Their backers say they address historical or ongoing discrimination and underrepresentation of certain groups, including racial minorities, but critics argue such programmes can themselves be discriminatory. Last Saturday, the website for the United States Agency for International Development, which distributes billions in aid around the world, appeared to stop working. (BBC/PBS)

RIYAD  –  Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa has arrived in Saudi Arabia and met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) on his first foreign trip since being named president of the transitional government earlier this week. The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) showed al-Sharaa meeting MBS – Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader – after the Syrian president had first been greeted by the Deputy Governor of the Riyadh Region Prince Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Abdulaziz after he landed at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Sunday. Al-Sharaa was accompanied for the talks in Riyadh by Syria’s foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani. After the meeting, al-Sharaa said that the meeting with MBS had shown that Saudi Arabia had “a genuine desire to support Syria in building its future”. The Syrian president added that his meetings in Riyadh had included plans for cooperation in the fields of energy, technology, education, and health.

Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid said al-Sharaa chose Riyadh as his first destination to “make sure that Saudi Arabia knows and realises the importance that this new Syria puts it under”. Al-Sharaa led the Syrian opposition in overthrowing the regime of longtime President Bashar al-Assad on December 8, after a lightning advance across the country. Since then, the new Syrian administration has sought to gain regional and international legitimacy and to have damaging Western sanctions on Syria removed. However, concerns over al-Sharaa’s past membership of al-Qaeda have tempered support from some quarters, even as Syria’s new leadership emphasises regional integration and protections for religious and ethnic minorities.

During a visit to Damascus last week, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said his country was engaged in an active dialogue with Europe and the United States to help lift economic sanctions imposed on Syria. Bin Javaid said al-Sharaa’s visit intended to remind Saudi officials of that promise and obtain all possible help in rebuilding Syria’s infrastructure, government and institutions. Additionally, the trip to Riyadh symbolises a “seismic shift in the country’s alignment and future relations” away from the toppled President Bashar al-Assad’s allegiance to Iran and Russia. Last month, al-Sharaa told Al Arabiya TV that Saudi Arabia “will certainly have a large role in Syria’s future”, pointing to “a big investment opportunity for all neighbouring countries”. Sunday’s trip comes after al-Shibani, Syria’s foreign minister, also travelled to Riyadh last month.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani visited Damascus last Thursday, becoming the first Arab leader to do so since the overthrow of al-Assad. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: Syria’s newly appointed President Ahmed al-Sharaa meets Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Reuters)