Unpacking Trump’s Issue With the E.U. as He Threatens 50% Tariff

In a sharp escalation of trade negotiations with the European Union (E.U.), Trump took to social media on Friday and announced that he is “recommending a straight 50% tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025.”

“The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on TRADE, has been very difficult to deal with,” Trump claimed. “Their powerful trade barriers, VAT taxes, ridiculous corporate penalties, non-monetary trade barriers, monetary manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans companies, and more, have led to a trade deficit with the U.S. of more than $250,000,000 a year, a number which is totally unacceptable. Our discussions with them are going nowhere!”

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As he has said elsewhere, Trump went on to add: “There is no tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States.”

The U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Fox News that he hopes Trump’s tariff threat renews negotiations with the E.U., which he maintains have been moving at a slower pace compared to others.

“I would hope this would light a fire under the E.U,” he said. “The E.U. has a collective action problem here. It’s 27 countries but they’re being represented by this one group in Brussels. Some of the feedback I’ve been getting is that the underlying countries don’t even know what the E.U. is negotiating on their behalf.”

Trump’s initial April 2 “Liberation Day” tariffs included a blanket 10% tariff on nations doing business with the U.S., plus additional “reciprocal” tariffs for some. The E.U. was hit with a 20% reciprocal tariff.

In response, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive arm, issued a strong statement, calling the move “a blow to the world economy,” and vowing that the E.U. would issue countermeasures.

“We are in this together. If you take on one of us, you take on all of us. Europe stands together for our businesses, for our workers and for all Europeans,” she said, before highlighting her eagerness to move from “confrontation to negotiation.”

The E.U. voted to retaliate on some of Trump’s tariffs, but such discussions were halted when Trump announced a 90-day pause on most “reciprocal” charges. While the 90-day pause, set to expire on July 9, has offered the E.U. a reprieve, Trump’s threat to enforce a 50% tariff starting June 1 has once again spiked tensions and the markets have responded negatively.

Some hours after Trump’s announcement on Friday, Maroš Šefčovič, Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security at the E.U., posted on X that he had engaged in discussions with Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, and the U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

“The E.U.’s fully engaged, committed to securing a deal that works for both. E.U. remains ready to work in good faith,” Šefčovič said, before reiterating the E.U.’s stance that negotiation is preferred over confrontation. “E.U.-U.S. trade is unmatched and must be guided by mutual respect, not threats.”

However, amid fears of a U.S.-E.U. trade war, Šefčovič concluded on a defiant note: “We stand ready to defend our interests.”

The E.U. is one of Washington’s top commercial partners, and is the largest trading bloc in the world.

Later in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump defended his announcement, complaining about the E.U.’s business dealings and citing the U.S. goods trade deficit with the E.U., which was $235.6 billion in 2024, according to U.S. Commerce Department data.

“I’m not looking for a deal,” Trump told reporters. “We’ve set the deal—it’s at 50%.”

Europe reacts to the prospect of a 50% tariff

Europe’s political and business leaders alike have reacted to the news, prepping for what may lie ahead.

Hakan Samuelsson, the CEO of Volvo Cars, which is based in Sweden, told Reuters that the tariffs would limit the company’s ability to sell some of its vehicles in the U.S.—such as the ones made in Belgium—and said that its customers would have to pay a large part of the cost increases. “I believe there will be a deal soon. It could not be in the interest of Europe or the U.S. to shut down trade between them,” he said, expressing hope that negotiations will move forward in a positive way, despite the tariff threat.

Micheál Martin, the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister), wrote on X that he found Trump’s announcement “enormously disappointing” and emphasized that he believes “tariffs are damaging to all sides.”

“A negotiated outcome is the best possible result for both sides, as well as for global trade,” Martin said. “The E.U. has been engaging in good faith in that process.”

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told reporters that Germany would back the E.U. in “defending Europe” through negotiations that allow Europe access to the U.S. market. “I think such tariffs help no one, but would lead to economic development in both markets suffering,” Wadephul said.

France’s Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade Laurent Saint-Martin emphasized in a televised interview that the trade war needs “de-escalation,” echoing sentiments he had previously expressed via social media.

“Trump’s new threats of tariff increases are not helping during the negotiation period between the European Union and the United States,” Saint-Martin wrote on X. “We maintain the same line: de-escalation but are ready to respond.”

A tense history between Trump and the E.U.

Trump’s tariff threat comes after years of him highlighting dissatisfaction with trade between the U.S. and the E.U.

During his first term, Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from the E.U., Canada, and Mexico, which at the time brought the U.S. to the brink of a trade war. In 2018, when asked about the tariffs, Trump said that “nobody treats us much worse than the European Union” and argued the bloc was “formed” to “take advantage of” the U.S.

During the first few months of Trump’s second term in the White House, tensions have grown, both as a result of his tumultuous trade policies and his geopolitical moves in regards to the Russia-Ukraine war.

Meanwhile, outside of the E.U., Trump has had some success with his trade deals. Trump said on Truth Social on Friday that the U.S. dealings with the United Kingdom are “working out well for all.” This comes after the U.S. and the U.K. announced a trade agreement on May 8, one which Trump hailed for its “reciprocity and fairness.”

Progress was made between the U.S. and China earlier this month when both nations agreed to drastically reduce tariffs on each other for an initial 90-day period, which came into effect on May 14.

source https://time.com/7288483/trump-european-union-tariff-threat-trade-war-concerns/

When Policymakers Ignore Economists’ Warnings the Results Have Historically Been Catastrophic

History regularly shows that basing economic policy upon ideology, hunches, and gut instinct, rather than on sound economic analysis, is a recipe for disaster. When policymakers have ignored well-established economic principles and instead tried to upend the status quo without good reason, the results have been catastrophic. 

That bodes poorly for President Donald Trump’s tariff policy, which experts warn will both raise prices and lead to an economic slowdown as other economies impose reciprocal tariffs on American exports. Given the historical experience it is worrying to hear economists argue that Trump’s tariffs have raised the odds of stagflation—heightened inflation and recession—to a level not seen in the last half century. Whether he backs off from tariffs or doubles down, the damage to domestic and international confidence in the U.S. may have already been inflicted.

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Policymakers have been falling prey to the lure of ignoring sound economics for centuries.

In 1787, right after the ratification of the Constitution, the U.S. government charted the Bank of the United States. The brainchild of Alexander Hamilton, the Bank carried out some of the functions of a modern central bank, such as managing the money supply and undertaking a rudimentary form of macroeconomic policy and bank regulation. Founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who were initially skeptical of the Bank, eventually warmed to the idea as it reached the end of its 20-year charter in 1811. Unfortunately, a divided Congress was unable to pass a renewed charter and, without a charter, the Bank was forced to close. 

Read More: Why Economists Are Horrified by Trump’s Tariff Math

Five years—and one major panic—later, Congress passed, and President Madison signed a bill establishing a new Bank of the United States, known to historians as the Second Bank of the United States. The Bank’s second incarnation, run by Nicholas Biddle, scion of a prominent Philadelphia family and Princeton valedictorian, was even more sophisticated and effective than the first. Like today’s Federal Reserve, the Bank undertook a basic form of countercyclical monetary policy, stimulating the economy when it was slowing and restraining it when it was overheated. This contributed to a period of relative financial stability and robust economic growth during the turbulent early years of the country .

When the Second Bank’s charter was due to expire in 1836, Congress saw the Bank’s merits and, at its request, passed a recharter bill in 1832.

Unfortunately for the Bank, the recharter bill ran into opposition from one of President Trump’s heroes, President Andrew Jackson. Jackson understood that the Bank had helped promote economic growth, but he opposed the Bank and personally disliked Biddle. Jackson, a frontiersman with limited formal education and a reputation as a dueler and a brawler, had a deep mistrust of those he viewed as entrenched elites—including the educated, refined Biddle—not unlike many of Trump’s followers today.

Jackson disregarded sound economic reasoning, common sense, and the entreaties of Bank supporters and vetoed the recharter bill. Congress lacked the votes to override the veto, the Bank’s charter lapsed, and it soon disappeared from the scene. The absence of the Bank’s restraining hand on the rest of the banking system allowed individual banks to overissue bank notes, which fueled inflation. This lack of restraint left the U.S. vulnerable to boom-bust financial crises, which plagued the country for the remainder of the century. 

Policy blunders like the one Jackson made were not limited to the U.S. or to the 19th century. In the 50 years before World War I, many countries adopted the gold standard, under which they fixed the exchange rate between their currency and gold. This meant that they were limited in the amount of money they could print by the stock of gold they held, in theory creating a stable money supply but dramatically limiting the scope of what policymakers could do to help the economy during recessions. Nowhere did the gold standard develop a more distinguished pedigree than in Britain, which established it in the 1700s and maintained it almost continuously until World War I. 

Most countries suspended the gold standard during the War but returned to it afterward. 

In Britain, in 1925, Winston Churchill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British equivalent of the Secretary of the Treasury), decided that it was time to rejoin the gold standard at the exchange rate that had prevailed before World War I. Economists, however, raised concerns about the prospect. Because of high inflation during the War, returning to gold at the old exchange rate overvalued the British pound, which risked decimating Britain’s export industries, forcing employers to impose huge wage cuts, and impoverishing British workers.

The argument against the return to gold was made by the most famous economists of the day, Sweden’s Gustav Castel and Britain’s John Maynard Keynes. Keynes even made his case in person at a private dinner party hosted by Churchill shortly before the return. 

Read More: Tariffs Don’t Have to Make Economic Sense to Appeal to Trump Voters

Yet, Churchill decided to ignore them, not because of any particular economic reasoning or evidence, but because of nostalgia, British pride, and his traditionalist ideology. Many British policymakers believed a return to gold was a return to the 19^th century heyday of the British Empire. After Churchill announced the move, the Economist echoed these sentiments, writing that “The war, with its temporary interruption of our mutual affairs, is over. ” Great Britain had “the honor to pay” debts in their “accustomed manner.”

The results were disastrous. The British economy was sluggish compared with those in the U.S. and Europe during the 1920s. GDP in the U.S. and Europe grew by between 40% and 50% during the decade prior to the Great Depression; meanwhile, the British economy grew by less than 20% and was characterized by contemporaries as being in “the doldrums.” British workers, faced with wage cuts, launched a general strike in 1926 that lasted nine days, and Britain’s coal miners went out on strike for several months. Keynes’ revenge came in the form of a pamphlet entitled: The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill. Despite the damage, British officials kept their country on the gold standard until 1931, when they were forced off by a financial crisis. 

Today, Trump threatens to make a mistake in the mold of Jackson’s choice to veto the recharter of the Second Bank of the United States and Churchill’s decision to return to the gold standard.

Like these earlier decisions, Trump’s fixation on tariffs comes mostly from his own prejudices, not from any sound economic theory. He venerates late 19th century America with its high tariffs, which he claims helped propel the U.S. to wealth—despite historians dismissing this flawed understanding of the past. He has also arbitrarily decided that he does not want the U.S. to run a trade deficit with any country. 

Yet, economists have warned that this makes no sense. If the U.S. runs a surplus with one trading partner and an equally sized deficit with another, our overall trade will be in balance. To put it in everyday terms: it is perfectly fine to run a deficit with your grocer, as long as your credit with your employer is large enough to pay your bill.  

The lesson of the past is that ignoring experts and stubbornly persisting in his new tariff regime will prove catastrophic for the economy. Unlike previous policymakers, Trump still has a chance to avoid doubling down on his blunder. It might be optimistic to expect that Trump will back down on tariffs, although the 90-day pause he enacted on tariffs with China does give him an opening to do so—but he should. As John Maynard Keynes once said: “When I am wrong, I change my mind—what do you do?”

Richard S. Grossman is the Andrews professor of economics at Wesleyan University and the author of WRONG: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn from Them (Oxford).

source https://time.com/7282108/when-policymakers-ignore-economists-warnings/

The D.C. Jewish Museum Shooting Was Inevitable. The Time to Act on Antisemitism is Now

The warning signs were everywhere. The potential for violence was unmistakable. And yet, somehow, two young innocent people are dead.

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, a young couple, were murdered as they walked out of a Young Diplomats event hosted by the American Jewish Committee at the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday night. They had their whole lives ahead of them—set to be engaged in Jerusalem next week.

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As Elias Rodriguez—the suspect who has since been charged with first-degree murder and other crimes—was taken into custody, he shouted: “Free, free Palestine.” It’s a chant we have heard time and again across America in the past 18 months. Not just at political events but in front of synagogues, schools, hospitals, and cultural institutions that only have one thing in common—they have a connection to the Jewish community.

And so it doesn’t come as a surprise that the suspect was allegedly involved with a range of radical causes; Anti-Defamation League (ADL) researchers have connected Chicago resident Rodriguez, with a high degree of certainty, to a manifesto with the heading “Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home.” It confirms what we suspected. This wasn’t random violence. This was targeted antisemitism. This was an attack, not just against the D.C. Jewish community, but against all Jewish Americans—and indeed all Americans. What is so infuriating and sad is that, in many ways, it was only a matter of time that a murderous incident such as this would happen.

The data has been staring us in the face.

Read More: The Rise of Antisemitism and Political Violence in the U.S.

Last year was the worst for antisemitic incidents since ADL began tracking over four decades ago. We recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents across the United States—an increase of 5% from 2023, which was itself a record-setting year. That includes a 21% increase in violent assaults. This represents an 893% increase over the past decade.

Just six weeks ago, the home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was firebombed as his family slept after celebrating the first Passover seder. The suspect then called 911 and referred to Shapiro as a “monster” and blamed him for Palestinian deaths in the Israel-Hamas war. That alleged perpetrator reportedly then admitted to authorities that he had “hatred” for Shapiro and would have attacked him with his hammer if he had the chance.

Just six months ago, the FBI arrested Forrest Pemberton of Gainesville, Fla., following a traffic stop during which they allegedly found multiple firearms in his rideshare vehicle. Authorities say he intended to travel to the south Florida offices of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel advocacy group, with the intent of harming people there, possibly in a suicide attack. 

That same week, FBI agents in Fairfax, Va., arrested an Egyptian citizen and George Mason University student, Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan. According to the criminal complaint, Hassan operated several pro-ISIS and Al Qaeda accounts that promoted violence against Jews. He reportedly was planning a mass casualty attack at the Israeli consulate in New York City.

And a day does not go by when we do not witness a terrifying act. Jewish children bullied in public spaces. Jewish students confronted on college campuses. Jews harassed as they walk to synagogue. Jewish businesses and homes vandalized with red triangles, swastikas, or political slogans. Or Jewish people assailed and mocked over social media with unrelenting fervor. 

We have an antisemitism crisis in this country. This ancient hatred festers on both sides of the political spectrum. It is incubated and grown in the cesspools of social media. It is fueled by people who excuse antisemitism as merely “anti-Zionism,” who dismiss our outrage as an attempt to serve another agenda, and contort themselves into pretzels as they claim a right to free speech – even as that speech crosses the line into incitement to violence, antisemitism and harassment.

And it has consequences.

Read More: ‘It’s a Nightmare’: 3 Rabbis Discuss the Israeli Embassy Aides Killed in Washington, D.C.

When antisemitic rhetoric is normalized, tolerated, or amplified in our public discourse, it creates an environment where violence against Jews becomes not just probable but inevitable. When society allow lies about the Jewish state committing genocide to run rampant, when prominent voices dismiss inciteful rhetoric such as “glory to the martyrs” or “globalize the Intifada” as youthful free expression, and when the public somehow confuses being anti-Hamas with being anti-Palestinian, it has consequences.

Social media platforms deserve more scrutiny as well. In the aftermath of the attempted pogrom against Jewish sports fans in Amsterdam last November, Hasan Piker, one of the most-watched streamers on Twitch, spent hours seemingly minimizing the attack. Earlier this month, the rapper Kanye ‘Ye’ West streamed a new song called “Heil Hitler” and promoted it on X where it racked up millions of views.

In times like these, we need allies to stand with the Jewish community. Where are the voices of those who claim to fight hatred in all its forms? Where are those who speak out against other bigotries but remain silent when Jews are targeted? This silence is deafening. Stop excusing it. Stop looking the other way.

This attack must serve as a wake-up call for our nation to deal once and for all with this rising tide of hate.

This moment demands moral clarity. It requires all Americans, regardless of political affiliation, to condemn antisemitism without qualification or deflection. It requires leaders in government, academia, business, and civic life to take concrete action against hate. It requires each of us to speak out when we witness antisemitism in any form.

Every antisemitic statement left unchallenged, every double standard applied to Jews and the Jewish state, every instance of minimizing Jewish pain—all of it contributes to this environment where such violence is possible.

Yaron and Sarah deserved better. They deserved to live. They deserved to celebrate their impending engagement. They deserved a future. Instead, they became victims of the oldest hatred. We owe it to their memory to ensure no more lives are lost to antisemitism. We owe it to every Jew to create a society where attending a Jewish event doesn’t make you a target.

The time for action is now. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

source https://time.com/7288245/jewish-museum-shooting-dc-antisemitism-time-to-act/

There is No Justification for Antisemitism

On Feb. 25, 1996, two young American Jews, Sarah Duker and Matthew Eisenfeld, were killed by the bomb of a Hamas terrorist in the streets of Jerusalem. They were students at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, where I was teaching at the time, on a year studying in Israel. They were about to be engaged.

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Yesterday, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky were shot and killed on the streets of Washington, DC. They were about to be engaged.

There are moments that crystallize fears. Hatred of Jews is always a concern of Jews, one that history unstintingly supports. But in the fraught time since Oct. 7, 2023, the sense of dread has deepened. Thirty years apart, these two events remind us that no single reason or justification has ever been required to hate or to kill Jews.

Statistics are chilling but faceless. According to the FBI’s 2023 Hate Crime Statistics, 68% of all religion-based hate crimes were committed against Jews. Jews are less than 2% of the population.  

It is when hatred passes for normal that the chill enters the collective psyche of the decent. As a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Divinity School in 2023, I witnessed some Harvard students chant “globalize the intifada.”

Yesterday’s murder was done, according to the shooter, for a “free Palestine.”

Causality is tricky. There is no direct line between the protests on the campuses of Columbia, Harvard, Berkeley, UCLA and other institutions to the gunman. But causality is also real. You cannot give free rein to racism and be shocked when African Americans are assaulted. And you cannot post swastikas on campus and expect Jews will remain exempt from harm. The combination of shocking statements about Jews has spread across the ideological spectrum. We have heard antisemitic claims in both left “progressive” spaces and on right-wing talk radio—often echoing conspiratorial bile that Jews have seen for centuries.

You might think that witnessing the same hatred espoused by Jihadists and shared by avatars of ultra conservatism and ultra progressivism, one would know that it is conspiracy and hate, not truth, that animates antisemites. We hear Candace Owen claim Judaism is “pedophile-centered” and believes in “child sacrifice” in vitriolic alignment with Roger Waters, who places Jewish stars next to dollar signs and tells Jews to go back to Eastern Europe. Different flags, same hate. The protean hatred of Jews is always justified, and never justifiable.  

The night Milgrim and Lischinsky were killed, I was at West Point, speaking to the Jewish cadets who were graduating. I told them about the confluence between the Jewish tradition and the country they have sworn to serve. What they know is what Americans in general need to understand: an assault against Jews is an assault against the foundation of our nation. This murder strikes horribly at the lives of two people and those who love them, of course. But it also strikes a blow at the institutions and ideals of the United States. It is no mistake that the liberty bell has a verse from Leviticus and the Statue of Liberty enshrines the words of a Jewish poet. As we learned long ago, from the days of the exodus, as the poet Heinrich Heine said, freedom speaks with a Hebrew accent. And those who hate what it represents begin—but never end—with the Jewish people.

So we mourn, once again, for the savage brutality of an ancient hatred. But as a Rabbi and a Jew, I do not only mourn—I also warn: What begins with the Jewish people never ends with us. It ends with the collapse of the values that a bullet cannot kill but cowardice can: those of freedom, of equality, of tolerance and of goodness. On the streets of the capital last night, the gunman was aiming at those as well.

source https://time.com/7288153/no-justification-for-antisemitism/

The Weirdest Things Podiatrists Have Removed From Feet

Dr. Jeffrey Hurless still remembers the young patient who showed up for a podiatry appointment complaining about a large blister on the bottom of his big toe. The sore spot was red, swollen, and painful—and the boy and his mother had no idea what had caused it. As the patient reclined in an exam chair, Hurless began to deroof the blister, which means removing its top layer of skin. Then the surprise hit. Literally.

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“I’m working on this boy’s foot pretty close to my face, probably a foot away, and I’m gently going a little deeper, and then a little deeper,” recalls Hurless, a podiatrist and foot and ankle surgeon at Neuhaus Foot & Ankle in Nashville. “All of a sudden, a plastic toothpick literally shot out of his foot under such pressure that it went over my right shoulder and hit the wall behind me.”

Everyone in the exam room erupted into cheers: Good riddance to the interloper! At first, the boy was stumped by the toothpick’s presence. Then he remembered: he had stepped on something a few days ago, but didn’t know what it was.

Hurless lives for moments like this: They make the podiatrist’s daily schedule interesting, a welcome distraction from the more routine foot warts and bunions. (Ask him about the time he borrowed a hammer from his hospital’s janitor to remove a massive nail that had pierced a patient’s boot and gone into their foot bone.) “It’s a common issue that we see, and actually, I quite enjoy it,” he says. “Every foreign object is unique, and it’s very rewarding to get them out—both for the patient and myself.”

We asked podiatrists which foreign objects are most likely to get stuck in your foot—and which cases are permanently lodged in their memories.

The weirdest things podiatrists see

At Northern Illinois Foot and Ankle Specialists, Dr. Patrick McEneaney encounters more foreign bodies than people would expect. He’s removed fragments of fine china plates, fishing hooks, knitting and sewing needles, metal shavings, injection needles, and much more from patients’ feet. Other podiatrists at his practice report removing bullet fragments, a golf tee, a chicken drumstick, earrings, porcupine quills, gravel, and even a dead mouse. (A small one, McEneaney clarifies, that had burrowed into an open wound on the patient’s foot.)

Recently, McEneaney treated a patient who was suffering from mysterious foot pain; an ultrasound and MRI revealed inflammation but no objects. After three rounds of antibiotics, McEneaney decided to do exploratory surgery and ended up spotting a piece of hair out of the corner of his eye. “It was this long, kind of bristly hair, so I saved it and I said to the patient, ‘What hair is this?’ He goes, ‘That’s a skunk.’” It turned out the man was an animal catcher with the local animal control, and his unit had been getting frequent calls to assist with skunks.

Read More: Put Your Shoes Back On. Here’s the Problem With Going Barefoot

Dr. Julie Schottenstein, a podiatrist who runs the Schottenstein Center in South Florida, sees patients with foreign bodies in their feet on a weekly basis. In Florida, people are “barefoot all the time,” she points out, and there are countless threats lurking on the sand and in the ocean. She’s removed at least seven sea urchin spines, for example, which can be venomous and cause localized soft tissue death, which means she often needs to take the patient into the operating room to clean all the bacteria out of their feet, disinfect the wound, and remove dead or contaminated tissue. That helps prevent infection, but she still starts them on an antibiotic to ensure they recover smoothly.

Palm fronds are a common culprit, too. “There’s a spike that comes out of several of the palms here that can impale the foot,” says Schottenstein, who calls herself “the foreign body queen.” “It’s very sharp, and it can go deep into the foot.” They can also be quite large: “You’re like, how are you walking around with this in your foot?”

It might sound more innocuous, but “hair splinters”—from humans or animals—can be equally painful. Picture a coarse dog hair capable of piercing the skin. Schottenstein often asks patients: “Do you have an animal?” If their answer is yes, she takes it a step further: What kind? Wire-haired dogs, like schnauzers and terriers, are especially likely to land their owners in the podiatrists’ office. Their fur is similar to tiny needles with “sharp, tapered ends that really hurt,” she says.

Foreign-object removal 101

The first rule of foreign objects: If you think you have something in your foot, don’t attempt to remove it at home. Digging around by yourself is never the answer. “People try to do their own ‘bathroom surgery’ and handle it themselves, but then it starts getting red and hot and swollen, and [the object] gets deeper,” McEneaney says. “They develop a pocket of pus, and sometimes those need to be drained surgically.”

Instead, schedule an appointment with a podiatrist—and don’t be embarrassed. Foot doctors have seen it all. Hurless usually starts appointments by taking a thorough history, which can help rule out a number of possible reasons why someone’s feet hurt. Then he does an exam, often using a magnifying glass to identify a tiny break in the skin that could have served as an entrance point. After that, he takes an X-ray, which will often (but not always) provide a sense of the object’s size and location. From there, he typically uses a scalpel blade, which allows him to gently shave down layers of skin and isolate the object, followed by a tweezers-like fine forcep to grab the foreign body and pull it out.

Read More: How to Deal With Sweaty Feet

About 10% of the time, Hurless detects signs of an infection and puts the patient on an oral antibiotic. Generally, though, most people recover fine at home with Epsom salt soaks, a daily bandage change, and applying antibiotic ointment. “It’s like you would treat any other wound while it heals,” he says.

Not all foreign objects need to be removed. McEneaney recalls taking an X-ray of an older man’s ankle and saying: “Hey, you’ve got a BB in your foot.” The patient was well aware: “That’s from where my brother shot me when I was 8,” which was more than 50 years prior. Hurless, similarly, once had a patient who’d had a piece of a drill bit in her foot for 20 years. “If a foreign object is deep and it’s not bothering somebody, I say don’t mess with it,” he says.

The two groups at highest risk

Kids often complain of foot pain—but have no memory of what they might have stepped on while dashing around the yard. Young children, in particular, aren’t always able to communicate their pain well. “I have times when kids are limping and the parents are like, ‘I think they hurt their knee or their ankle,’” McEneaney says. “No, they stepped on something.”

Schottenstein once treated an 18-month-old who had a chicken bone stuck in his foot; a construction worker had discarded it, and the parents didn’t realize it had ended up inside their toddler’s foot.

Read More: The Health Benefits of Wearing Shoes in the House

People with diabetes are also at increased risk, because they can develop diabetic peripheral neuropathy, which means their nerves are damaged from elevated blood sugar levels. They might not be able to feel anything on or in their feet. McEneaney recalls a patient who showed up with—much to the man’s surprise—a 2.5-inch nail that had penetrated his heel bone. “The only reason he came in was because his wife was yelling at him because there was blood on the white carpet in the living room,” McEneaney says. The patient didn’t seek treatment for two weeks, by which point he had developed an infection.

Hurless, meanwhile, once had a patient who gave himself insulin injections and then dropped the needles onto his bathroom carpet. “He came in one day with an issue, so I told my medical assistant to take an X-ray of his foot,” he says. “He had at least 20 of those needles in there.” The man’s feet were so numb, he never had a clue.

How to keep your feet safe

There’s an easy way to protect yourself from most foreign objects: Wear shoes, especially outside. Even if it’s nice out. “Don’t walk around barefoot,” McEneaney stresses. You also shouldn’t wear sandals when you’re doing lawn work, because they don’t provide enough coverage, which means you could end up with a splinter or some other painful intruder.

Keep your floors as tidy as possible, and if you break a glass in your house, go overboard cleaning. People usually manage to collect all the big pieces, Hurless says, but miss some of the tiny shards, which a podiatrist will later discover because it’s wedged into their foot. “People do a cursory vacuum, and they sweep real quick, but you’ve gotta go really far away,” he says. “When glass shatters, it goes a long distance.”

It’s also helpful to get in the habit of doing regular foot inspections. Clean your feet every time you come back in after spending time outside, Schottenstein advises, and at night, sit on the edge of your bed with a flashlight and hand mirror and look over the soles of your feet closely. “The answer is surveillance,” she says. “It should be a habit, just like brushing your teeth.”

source https://time.com/7287613/objects-found-in-feet-podiatrists/

What to Know About Escalating U.S.-South Africa Tensions as Trump Hosts Ramaphosa at White House

After months of escalating tensions between the U.S. and South Africa, President Donald Trump is meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday.

Prior to the meeting, President Ramaphosa expressed hopes of reaching a trade deal with the U.S., which could serve to mend damaged ties between the two countries.

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“Whether we like it or not, we are joined at the hip and we need to be talking to them,” Ramaphosa said in a filmed interview shared on May 16. “We want to come out of the United States with a really good trade deal… and consolidate good relations between our two countries.” The South African leader added that the war in Ukraine, as well as the Israel-Hamas war, will also be discussed.

The meeting comes at a pivotal time, as since returning to the White House for his second term, Trump has strongly criticized Ramaphosa’s governing of South Africa, claiming there has been a “genocide” of white farmers. Ramaphosa’s government denies those allegations.

There’s a history between Trump and Ramaphosa, as this is not the first time there has been friction. In 2018, during his first term, Trump received criticism from the South African government after posting what South African officials referred to as “false information” via social media about “the large scale killing of farmers” in the country. Trump asked then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to “closely study” the situation, following a report from Fox News citing that the “South African government is now seizing land from white farmers.”

South African officials said that Trump’s assessment of the issue was a “narrow perception” which only sought “to divide” their nation and “remind” them of their colonial past.

Meanwhile, thus far during Trump’s second term, Elon Musk—who leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—has joined Trump as a vocal critic of the South African government. Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and still holds citizenship. In February, the Tesla CEO directly addressed Ramaphosa in a post on X, saying: “Why do you have openly racist ownership laws?”

In early May, Musk’s AI bot Grok was found to be posting about “white genocide” in South Africa, in response to unrelated posts and requests. The issue was said to be resolved within hours, and Musk’s company has since stated that the issue was due to an unauthorized change to the bot’s prompts from a rogue employee, adding that the system would be updated to address the problem.

Here’s what to know about the escalating tensions between the United States and South Africa:

White farmer “genocide” allegations

Trump has alleged a genocide is being committed against white South Africans, something which Ramaphosa has vehemently denied. In a video posted on X on May 16, the South African President said: “We all know as South Africans, both black and white, that there is no genocide here… The false stories that have been perpetrated, we all know are not true, are not a reflection of who we are.”

Ramaphosa also said: “During our working visit to the U.S. we will be advancing a proudly South African message.”

Trump Administration officials greeted over 50 Afrikaners, descendants of mainly Dutch colonial settlers who arrived in South Africa in the 1600s, on May 12 as they arrived in the United States as refugees. These were the first official refugees to arrive in the U.S. under the Trump Administration, after the President suspended all refugee admissions on his first day in office.

Speaking to reporters about the arrival, Trump said they had “essentially extended citizenship” so that the Afrikaners could “escape the violence.” Trump told reporters: “We’re supposed to have a G20 meeting there [in South Africa], I don’t know how we can go unless that situation is taken care of. It’s a genocide that’s taking place, that you people don’t want to write about.”

Responding to a TIME reporter as to why Afrikaners were being accepted into the U.S. but not other refugees, Trump said: “Farmers are being killed… They happen to be white, but whether they’re white or black makes no difference to me. But white farmers are being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated in South Africa.”

South Africa previously held a G20 meeting in February, but the U.S. was noticeably absent. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio opened up about the decision via social media, saying: “I will NOT attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg. South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change.”

He added: “My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism.”

Meanwhile, in February, a South African court ruled that claims of a white genocide were “clearly imagined” after blocking a wealthy benefactor’s donation to the white supremacist group Boerelegioen.

The Trump Administration expels South African Ambassador from the U.S.

In March, Rubio expelled the South African Ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool, calling him “a race-baiting politician who hates America” and hates the President. Rasool had previously said that Trump was leading a white supremacist movement in the U.S. during a webinar.

Ramaphosa responded to the expulsion, calling it regrettable, but added that he was “working on straightening out” the tension.

Rasool returned to South Africa to a sea of supporters welcoming him at the airport. Speaking upon his arrival, he said: “A declaration of persona non grata is meant to humiliate you. But when you return to crowds like this, and with warmth… then I will wear my persona non grata as a badge of dignity.”

Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Addressing Egregious Actions of The Republic of South Africa”

In February, Trump signed an Executive Order pausing all foreign aid to South Africa after claiming that land belonging to white South Africans was being confiscated and they were being treated unfairly.

The Executive Order cited the South African Expropriation Act of 2024, enacted in January 2025, saying it enabled Ramaphosa’s government “to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.”

Trump’s statement continued: “This Act follows countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.”

In response, the South African government said: “It is of great concern that the foundational premise of this order lacks factual accuracy and fails to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid.”

The statement referred to the U.S. resettlement programme for Afrikaners as “ironic,” describing the South African group as one of the most economically-privileged in the country.

The Expropriation Act allows private land seizures by the government without compensation, raising concerns from Afrikaners about land possibly being taken by the state. In South Africa, roughly three-quarters of private land is white-owned. White people make up an estimated 8% of the country’s population, whilst only 4% of privately-owned land is owned by black South Africans, despite them making up an estimated 80% of the population.

Trump Administration rebukes South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel

The Trump Administration disagreed with South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which accused Israel of committing genocide against the people of Gaza in the Israel-Hamas war.

In Trump’s Executive Order that cut aid to South Africa, the President said: “South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.”

South Africa filed its case accusing Israel of genocide in December 2023, saying it was “gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants.”

Ramaphosa’s government filed evidence for their case in October 2024.

source https://time.com/7287435/united-states-south-africa-conflict-trump-ramaphosa-white-house-meeting/

Trump’s Pause on Infrastructure Funding Impacts More than Just Highways

The Trump administration is shamelessly (and successfully) attacking civil rights protections under the guise of “DEI.” In response, universities, organizations, and companies are changing their policies to protect themselves from the president. Though seldom talked about, this crusade against DEI will also impact our very neighborhoods, in particular America’s infrastructure.

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Passed in 2021, the bipartisan Infrastructure Law represented the largest investment in infrastructure in U.S. history. The law sought to repair our nation’s highways and byways, and to do so in a way that began to address the racial inequality they reinforced.

President Trump paused funding for the law on Day One of his administration for this reason. As his Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy characterized later, the law “pushed a radical social and environmental agenda on the American people.” Yet President Trump has also called for a massive expansion of highway construction, raising the real danger that, without protections in place, a new wave of infrastructure will repeat old patterns of destruction.

The so-called “agenda” Secretary Duffy spoke of was one that rightly recognized two truths about our nation’s infrastructure: that it was built both to connect us—to family, community, and opportunity—and divide us. This history remains with us today, and we risk repeating it.

Read More: How Trump Is Trying to Undo the Inflation Reduction Act

An instance in South Carolina serves as a prime example. In 2019, nine-year-old Amira Johnson sat at her kitchen table in Sandridge, S.C., and wrote a letter to her state’s transportation department. She was trying to protect something most fourth graders don’t have to worry about: her great-grandmother’s home. It had been in her family for generations, part of a historically Black community founded by formerly enslaved people.

But South Carolina’s plan to build a four-lane roadway, cutting through Sandridge, threatened to erase all of it: Homes, businesses, churches, and histories. “My great-grandma is 79 years old and has no business moving,” Johnson wrote. “If you were me, you would be mad because they are taking away your homes. Be fair for once in your life.”

Despite pleas from Johnson and others in Sandridge, the four-lane roadway is moving forward. And Sandridge is the latest Black community poised to be devastated by America’s approach to transportation.

Virtually every state has its version of this story.

For too long, we have treated transportation as if it exists outside of politics and justice. Highways, roads, and transit routes are more than lines on a map—they are tools of opportunity and weapons of exclusion. They reflect our values, and for decades, they’ve sent a painful message to Black communities: You are disposable.

This story is as old as the interstate system itself. The 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act, passed just two years after Brown v. Board of Education outlawed segregation in public schools, laid the groundwork for the physical reshaping of American cities. Instead of fulfilling Brown’s promise of racial inclusion and integration, highways became a tool of resistance to civil rights—concrete weapons used to demolish Black neighborhoods and re-segregate cities under the guise of progress. In the mid-1950s, Alfred Johnson, the executive director of the American Association of State Highway Officials, held the view that “the urban Interstates would give them a good opportunity to get rid of the local ‘n—rtown.’”⁠

In Birmingham, Ala., city officials used Interstates 59 and 65 to recreate the racial boundaries first imposed by Jim Crow zoning laws. After courts struck down those zoning ordinances, local leaders—led by notorious segregationist “Bull” Connor—turned to infrastructure to enforce the color line.

In Indianapolis, the creation of the I-65/I-70 Inner Loop displaced 17,000 people—most of them Black—and obliterated 8,000 homes and businesses. Ironically, city officials justified the destruction by pointing to the economic decline that years of redlining had caused. First, they starved Black neighborhoods of investment; then they bulldozed them in the name of “revitalization.”

The damage doesn’t stop with highways. Public transportation, too, has been used to marginalize Black communities. Systems once segregated by local law remain so by brick-and-mortar barriers justified with dog whistles like “public safety.” Bus routes were rerouted or eliminated altogether. Investments favored trains serving white suburbs over buses used by Black and low-income riders. The result: sprawling transportation deserts in Black neighborhoods, where residents are cut off from jobs, healthcare, and education.

Even today, some predominantly white communities lobby against extending public transportation—not because they don’t need it, but because they don’t want certain people to enter their neighborhoods. These choices—past and present—compound racial inequality. They leave people like Johnson’s great-grandmother, who has done everything right—raised her family, cared for her home, contributed to her community—facing displacement with nowhere to go.

The effects of poor transportation policy are not theoretical. They show up in jobless rates, health disparities, educational gaps, and shortened life expectancies.

Now, we’re at a crossroads again. America’s infrastructure is crumbling beneath our feet. From disintegrating highways to crater-filled roads, the need to rebuild is seen everywhere. The collapse of the Key Bridge in Maryland is just one stark and tragic example. Not to mention, funding for a law meant to repair it has been put on pause, along with provisions that require state transportation agencies to consider racial equity in their planning decisions.

As we rebuild our infrastructure, we must reorient our thinking. We can choose to continue down a road that sacrifices Black communities and other communities of color in the name of efficiency. Or we can use this opportunity to do something better. That means repairing the harm done to communities like Sandridge by stopping destructive projects from happening in the first place and reinvesting in what was taken—affordable housing, public transit, walkable streets, and meaningful access to jobs, schools, and services.

It means realizing that racial justice and transportation planning are not separate issues.

Amira Johnson understood this, even at nine years old, and wanted to solve the problem. The Trump Administration understands this too, but they don’t want to solve the problem. They could not care less if a new highway flattens another Black neighborhood. The rest of us must care enough to stop them.

source https://time.com/7287364/trump-infrastructure-funding-pause-essay/