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Fear of ‘Palestine’ on American campuses

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Classes were cancelled at Columbia University, dozens of protesters were arrested at New York University and Yale, and Harvard’s doors were closed to the public on Monday as some of the most prestigious US universities sought to defuse campus tensions over the Gaza war.

More than 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators camped out on Columbia’s campus were arrested last week. Following the intervention at Columbia, similar camps were set up at universities across the country.

According to the Associated Press (AP), a camp set up by students at New York University attracted hundreds of protesters throughout the day on Monday. School officials said they warned the crowd to disperse, then called police when the ‘scene became disorganised’ and the university learned of ‘frightening slogans and several anti-Semitic incidents’. In the evening, the police began making arrests.

Tensions were also high on Monday at Columbia, where campus gates were closed to anyone without a school ID and protests erupted both on and off campus.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators called for the university to withdraw its support for Israel and criticised the school’s response to the war.

Republicans call on Columbia provost to resign

Representative Kathy Manning, a Democrat from North Carolina who visited Columbia with three Jewish members of Congress, told reporters after meeting with students from the Jewish Law Students Association that there was a “huge encampment of people” taking up about a third of the green space.

Manning said after leaving the school’s Morningside Heights campus that she “saw signs calling for the destruction of Israel”, while Columbia administrators announced on Monday that classes at the Morningside campus would offer online options for students whenever possible, citing security as a top priority.

In a message to the school community on Monday, University President Minouche Shafik said he was “deeply saddened” by the events on campus.

“In order to calm the anger and give us all a chance to think about the next steps, I am announcing that all classes will be held virtually on Monday,” Shafik wrote, adding that students who do not live on campus should stay away.

In a letter sent on Monday, Republicans in the US House of Representatives from New York called on Shafik to resign, arguing that he had failed to provide a safe learning environment in recent days as “anarchy engulfed the campus”.

On Sunday, Elie Buechler, rabbi of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative at Columbia, sent a WhatsApp message to about 300 Jewish students advising them to go home until the campus was safer for them.

New England Patriots owner suspends donations to Columbia

Robert Kraft, owner of the American football team the New England Patriots, has announced that he is withdrawing his support for Columbia University because of its “treatment of Jewish students and faculty” during pro-Palestinian protests on the New York campus.

The announcement by Kraft, a Columbia alumnus and major donor, adds to the pressure on the university, whose chancellor is facing calls from members of Congress to resign.

“I am deeply saddened by the hatred that continues to grow on campus and in our country. I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff, and I am reluctant to support the university until corrective action is taken,” Kraft said in a statement through the Foundation Against Antisemitism.

The businessman donated $3 million to build the Kraft Centre for Jewish Student Life in 2000 and has given millions more since then.

Harvard administrators ban pro-Palestinian group

As Harvard Yard closed to the public on Monday, a sign at the entrance stated that structures such as tents and tables could only enter the yard with prior permission. “Students who violate this policy will be subject to disciplinary action,” the sign read, as security guards checked people’s school IDs.

On the same day, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee announced that the university administration had suspended its group. In the suspension notice provided by the student organisation, the university wrote that the group’s demonstration on 19 April violated school policy and that the organisation had previously been placed on probation but had failed to attend required training.

The Palestine Solidarity Committee said in a statement that they were suspended for “technical reasons” and that the university refused to provide them with a written explanation of university policy when asked.

“Harvard has repeatedly shown us that Palestine is the exception to the rule of free speech,” the group said in a statement.

Dozens arrested at Yale

At Yale, police officers arrested about 45 protesters and charged them with trespassing on campus, New Haven police spokesman Christian Bruckhart said. All were later released with promises to appear in court, Bruckhart said.

The protesters set up a tent on Beinecke Plaza on Friday and demonstrated over the weekend, demanding that Yale end its investments in defence companies that do business with Israel.
Yale President Peter Salovey told the campus community on Sunday that university officials had spoken with the protesting students on several occasions about the school’s policies and guidelines, including permission to speak and access campus grounds.

School officials said they gave the protesters until the end of the week to leave Beinecke Plaza.

They said they warned the protesters again Monday morning that they could face disciplinary action, including arrest and suspension, before police took action.Bruckhart said that after Monday’s arrests at Yale, a large group of protesters regrouped and blocked a street near campus.

MIT students call on administration to speak out against warMIT junior Prahlad Iyengar, who is studying electrical engineering, was among the students who set up a tent camp on the school’s campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Sunday night, AP reported.The student said they were calling for a ceasefire and protesting what they described as MIT’s “complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza”.

“MIT hasn’t even called for a ceasefire, and that’s absolutely our demand,” Iyengar said.

Inspired by the protests at Columbia University, students at MIT, as well as at Tufts University and Emerson College, set up pro-Palestinian encampments.

Hundreds of students set up tents on campuses in Cambridge, Medford and Boston on Sunday night to protest the Israeli-Hamas war.

AMERICA

US tariffs on steel and aluminum set to impact $150 billion market

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The 25% tariff on steel and aluminum products imposed by US President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday is expected to create upward pressure on prices for approximately $150 billion worth of imports, negatively impacting the profits of American automakers and other companies.

The US imports about one-fifth of the steel it consumes. More than 20% of this import by weight comes from Canada, followed by Brazil at 16%, and the European Union at 7%, with Japan ranking seventh at 4%. Canada is also the largest supplier of aluminum to the US.

Because the direct cost of tariffs falls on importers, this will mean higher costs, especially for manufacturers in the US auto industry.

US-based Wolfe Research anticipates the 25% tariff will drive the price of steel products up by as much as 16% above the 2024 average. Aluminum prices, which are already trending upward, are expected to nearly double.

Nomura Securities research analyst Anindya Das estimates the impact on automakers’ fiscal 2025 operating profits from a 10% increase in steel and aluminum prices compared to the 2024 average. According to this analysis, American players Ford Motor and General Motors will face a hit of approximately 3% to 4% if they cannot pass on their costs through higher prices.

Toyota Motor will experience a smaller decline of 0.5%, while the impact on Subaru, which conducts a large portion of its production in North America, will be around 2%.

Some parts manufacturers affiliated with Toyota bring steel from Japan for use in their US production facilities, and there have been calls for the company to cover the higher costs resulting from the tariffs.

A Toyota executive stated, “Tariffs are a factor outside their control, so we will respond appropriately.”

Japan has pushed to be exempted from the tariffs. “Steel and aluminum products from Japan do not harm the national security of the US,” Cabinet Chief Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters on Wednesday. “On the contrary, high-quality Japanese products are difficult to substitute and are necessary to make the US manufacturing sector more competitive, and greatly contribute to US industry and employment,” he added.

According to EU-based Global Trade Alert, the tariffs announced by the Trump administration last month cover a total of 289 categories, excluding overlaps between the steel and aluminum lists. These items, which also include kitchen and sporting goods, accounted for approximately 4.5% of the US total last year, with $151 billion in imports.

China was the largest importer at $35 billion, followed by Mexico at $30.6 billion, the EU at $20.3 billion, and Canada at $17.1 billion. Japan ranked seventh at $7 billion. When EU members were counted as separate countries instead of a single bloc, 27 economies had exposures exceeding $500 million.

To avoid tariffs, steel and aluminum exports previously destined for the US may be sold in other markets instead. Jakob Stausholm, CEO of Anglo-Australian iron ore miner Rio Tinto, said last month that selling aluminum in other markets such as Europe was an option.

Tadashi Imai, chairman of the Japan Iron and Steel Federation and president of Nippon Steel, recently stated that the biggest concern is that the tariffs “contribute to the market collapse caused by China’s excessive exports.”

With China’s economy declining, steelmakers are selling products at low prices elsewhere that cannot be absorbed by the domestic market. If they face higher barriers in the US, these goods could flow to other countries.

The US is also the world’s largest exporter of scrap iron and steel, and rising scrap prices leaving the country are likely to reverberate in the global market.

A representative from Japanese aluminum manufacturer UACJ said, “The short-term impact will be small, but it could be larger in the long term.”

Although the company generally produces products for the US domestically, it imports some products with special requirements from Japan in small quantities. According to UACJ, starting alternative production in the US could take three to four years.

Other companies are turning to completely different materials. Coca-Cola stated last month that it would switch some packaging from aluminum to plastic if the tariffs came into effect.

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Trump signs order for ‘strategic crypto reserve’

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US President Donald Trump, in a move aimed at revitalizing the digital assets sector, has signed an executive order authorizing the federal government to stockpile cryptocurrency assets seized through law enforcement agencies.

According to a post on X by David Sacks, the White House’s crypto and artificial intelligence czar, under the executive order, the federal government will retain bitcoin assets seized by federal law enforcement, which will enter a “strategic bitcoin reserve.”

Sacks added that the reserve “will not cost taxpayers a single penny,” further authorizing the Treasury and Commerce departments to “develop budget-neutral strategies to acquire additional bitcoin, provided these strategies do not incur any additional costs on American taxpayers.”

Sacks wrote about bitcoin, “The reserve is like a digital Fort Knox. The early sale of Bitcoin has already cost US taxpayers over $17 billion in lost value. Now, the federal government will have a strategy to maximize the value of its holdings.”

The order also established a separate “US Digital Asset Stockpile” to include other cryptocurrencies seized by the government. Earlier this week, Trump hinted at the possibility of including tokens such as Ripple’s XRP, Solana, and Cardano, alongside bitcoin and ether, in what he termed the “Crypto Strategic Reserve,” causing the prices of these tokens to rise with investors’ hopes that the US government would enter the market as a major buyer of digital assets.

However, crypto prices fell immediately after Sacks’s post and recovered shortly thereafter. According to CoinGecko data, as of 4:45 PM (presumably local time, though unspecified), bitcoin was trading at approximately $88,000, down 2.8% from the previous 24 hours.

The creation of the reserve and stockpile is part of a broad shift in Washington towards policies aimed at benefiting the crypto industry. It comes ahead of a crypto summit to be held at the White House on Friday, which will be attended by leading figures in the digital assets world.

For supporters, the bitcoin reserve is a chance for the US to participate in the growth of the original cryptocurrency, and many in the market believe that the market is poised to climb higher as Trump pursues a crypto-friendly regulatory agenda.

Yet, there are still many questions about how the reserve and stockpile will operate. For example, some critics doubt that the federal government can cash in its bitcoin holdings without spooking other investors and triggering a sell-off.

Trump first promised to create a crypto reserve during a speech at a major bitcoin conference in July.

Sacks said, “I want to thank the President for his leadership and vision in supporting this cutting-edge technology and for his swift action in supporting the digital asset industry. His administration is truly moving at ‘technology speed’.”

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BlackRock to acquire Panama Canal ports in major deal

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New York-based asset management giant BlackRock announced on Tuesday that it will acquire two ports serving the Panama Canal from Hong Kong’s CK Hutchinson, as part of a larger $22.8 billion deal.

US President Donald Trump had threatened to regain control of the Panama Canal, believing that US ships were not being treated fairly due to Chinese influence. This deal could potentially alleviate those concerns.

The ports will be acquired by a consortium that includes BlackRock, as well as Global Infrastructure Partners and Terminal Investment Limited.

Hutchinson’s official statement said the deal was “completely unrelated to recent political news regarding the Panama Ports,” and that the deal was the result of a “fast” process.

BlackRock declined to comment further, but sources say the firm has informed both the White House and Congress about the deal.

According to the *Financial Times* (*FT*), CEO Larry Fink himself informed senior leaders in the Trump administration, including the president, to secure their support for the takeover, in order to overcome possible political obstacles.

A source added that the consortium would not have proceeded with its offer if it believed the US government would not support the deal.

The deal consists of two parts, one of which covers Hutchinson’s 90% stake in the ownership and operation of the Balboa and Cristobal ports in Panama.

This transaction will be conducted separately from the second part, which covers 43 ports in 23 countries, including Germany and the United Kingdom, and 80% of the shares will be sold. Hutchinson’s ports in China are not included.

The remaining 20% stake is held by PSA, a port operator owned by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek.

BlackRock did not provide an estimated closing date, likely due to the number of different regulators whose opinions will need to be sought. The deal is expected to be formally signed by April 2.

CK Hutchison, controlled by Hong Kong’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, and his family, has a portfolio consisting of ports, retail, telecom, and other infrastructure. Port operations account for approximately 9% of CK Hutchison’s total revenue of HKD 461.6 billion (USD 593.97 billion) in 2023.

Hutchison Ports, one of the world’s largest container terminal operators, has been managing the ports at both ends of the canal since 1997 under concessions from the Panamanian government.

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