Keir Starmer says Britain will redouble efforts to secure a better trade deal with America after Donald Trump imposed a baseline 10% tariff on all British exports to the US. The EU was hit with a 20% levy, while China was slapped with 34%, taking its total, including the 20% imposed earlier this year, to 54%. Trump said his “Liberation Day” would “forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn”. Hungary has said it is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court, hours after Benjamin Netanyahu, who is sought under an ICC arrest warrant, arrived for a state visit. Viktor Orbán invited the Israeli PM as soon as the warrant was issued last November, saying the ruling would have “no effect” in his country. Record numbers of Britons are going to the gym. A new high of 11.5 million people aged 16 or over now have memberships, up 1.6 million since 2022. Gen Z are thought to be driving the boom, says The Guardian, as they choose toning their abs over drinking in the pub. Sad.

Is there method in Trump’s madness?

Donald Trump has promised his “Liberation Day” tariffs will unleash a new “golden age” for the US, says The Wall Street Journal. He couldn’t be more wrong. This war on globalisation will result in higher costs for American consumers and businesses: tariffs are import taxes, and “when you tax something you get less of it”. Without competition from abroad, American firms will become less dynamic and innovative. And retaliatory tariffs from other countries will hammer US exports, which currently account for a whopping 41% of S&P 500 firms’ revenues. Crucially, Trump’s tariff “onslaught” also represents a massive opportunity for China, which will do everything it can to bring American allies – notably South Korea, Japan and Europe – even deeper into its trading orbit.

But the truth is that America’s economic system does need a complete overhaul, says Juliet Samuel in The Times. Other countries use dollars as a “piggy bank”, buying US Treasury bonds as a safe place to store cash: China alone has some $3trn worth; the rest of the world another $4trn. Washington has definitely benefited from this de facto reserve currency status, primarily because it can borrow “seemingly without limit”. But it has also inflated the value of the dollar to the point where American exporters are being priced out. “Products made using dollars and priced in dollars are just too expensive.” Fixing this imbalance is, in theory, the strategy behind Trump’s trade war: under the so-called “Mar-a-Lago Accord”, he will start with tariffs on everyone, then offer relief to governments willing to “gradually deflate the dollar” by slowly selling off their Treasury bonds and opening their markets to US goods. Those that don’t play ball will get whacked with even higher tariffs and escalating fees on their Treasury holdings. Tearing up the global economic system is a big gamble, to put it mildly. But there’s method in the madness.