Another Lopsided Hostage Deal, Court Strikes Down Trump Tariffs, Elon Musk Is Out

A coincidence of events last week showed that Britain is retreating—foolishly, incomprehensibly—while Germany is rising. Our feature story this morning, “Britain Surrenders While Germany Advances,” by Richard Palmer, contrasts Britain signing away one of its last foreign military bases while Germany opened its first foreign base since the Second World War. It is just as biblical prophecy would lead us to expect.

[BRIEF]

Another lopsided hostage deal: Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, released a new ceasefire proposal for Israel and Hamas yesterday. The proposal would halt fighting for 60 days. On what terms? Israel receives 10 living hostages and 18 bodies—in exchange for releasing 125 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences, 1,111 Gazan detainees arrested after Oct. 7, 2023, and the bodies of 180 Gazans. Hamas would still hold 30 hostages, including 10 who are alive, to continue bargaining with.

After weeks of stonewalling, Hamas is interested in this deal. Why the change? One source told Israel’s Channel 12 that Hamas is feeling “unprecedented pressure” after losing control of humanitarian aid networks.

• This is fascinating. Israel had recently begun distributing aid to Gazans outside of the United Nations and through an ngo. Hamas generally manipulates UN-backed aid programs, stealing the food and selling it to their people to fund their operations. As the Wall Street Journal put it, “Hamas sustains its rule with a flow of salaries and patronage, which depend on its profitable control of aid. Ending that could transform the war, so Hamas fights the new aid plan to keep control.”

This simple move—giving aid directly to the people who need it—starves Hamas of crucial funding for its survival. It is yet another means by which Israel could press toward its goal of finishing off this genocidal terrorist cult once and for all.

Yet the Trump administration sees Hamas’s despair as a deal-making opportunity.

Israel was on the verge of defeating Hamas when the U.S. pushed its first ceasefire deal in January. Back then, Gerald Flurry said that “President Trump betrayed Israel.” After 600 days since October 7, Israelis are increasingly desperate to end the war by bringing their hostages home at any cost. Thus, Benjamin Netanyahu may feel he has little choice but to succumb to the pressure from America again. In a democracy, if the will of the people is broken, there is only so much a leader can do.

Court strikes down Trump tariffs: America’s trade deficit is a national emergency. The covid-19 lockdowns proved this to the world. Four decades of increasing dependence on imports and the resulting hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing has created unacceptable vulnerabilities and supply disruptions. Yet the Court of International Trade is not about to let President Trump declare a crisis.

In a sweeping ruling yesterday, the U.S. trade court blocked most of President Trump’s tariffs, saying that the Constitution gives Congress exclusive authority to regulate commerce. It is true. Under normal circumstances, Congress would enact the tariffs. It has not done so, so Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to unilaterally impose his “liberation day” tariffs until he considered the threat posed by the trade deficit resolved. This act has been used to justify several executive actions in the past that you could view as abuse, yet the court hasn’t stepped in. But here it brings the president’s efforts to rectify trade imbalances to a standstill.

Analysts at Rabobank believe this court decision may worsen America’s trade wars, however, by emboldening America’s trade partners. President Trump was using the threat of tariffs to negotiate better trade deals with nations worldwide. But foreign nations are less likely to make trade concessions if they see that the U.S. judiciary can overturn the president’s decision. Bible prophecies in Deuteronomy 28, Isaiah 23 and Ezekiel 4 indicate that trade wars are about to get far, far worse.

Elon Musk is out: I hope it is as he insists: simply the end of his 130 days of service as a special government employee. But the circumstances of his leaving doge make it feel worse—like the flickering out of any hope of America avoiding bankruptcy.

I was genuinely excited about Musk’s promise after November’s election to slash $2 trillion from the federal budget and reduce the number of agencies from 400 to 99. It was an absurd, impossible promise—but Musk has built several multibillion-dollar companies by accomplishing absurd, impossible things. If anyone could do it, he could.

He couldn’t. Bad news for all. As the Telegraph headlined, “If Even Elon Can’t Slash Spending, Western Economies Are Doomed.”

The timing looks bad. On cbs’s Sunday Morning this week, Musk expressed disappointment over Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” for undermining efforts to reduce government spending and for actually swelling the budget deficit. He said, “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful. But I don’t know if it can be both.” This certainly put Musk at odds with President Trump, who pushed hard for the spending bill.

Reuters suggests this criticism contributed to Musk’s exit:

His “off-boarding will begin tonight,” a White House official told Reuters late Wednesday, confirming Musk’s departure from government. … His departure was quick and unceremonious. He did not have a formal conversation with Trump before announcing his exit, according to a source with knowledge of the matter, who added that his departure was decided “at a senior staff level.”

Regardless of whether Musk has fallen out with the president, he speaks the truth: America’s overspending is leading to bankruptcy. doge was a genuine effort to prevent that catastrophic outcome. The government insists its work will continue. But the declivitous reduction in its ambitions—from trillions to billions in cuts—and now the disappearance of its visionary and capable founder, foreshadow America’s inevitable default.

IN OTHER NEWS

Israel kills Hamas Gaza chief: Even amid all the pressure on Israel to end its Gaza offensive, Netanyahu announced yesterday that Hamas’s chief in Gaza, Mohammed Sinwar, is dead. After a series of assassinations, the terrorist group’s leadership is in ruins. If only Israel were permitted to finish the job.

Germany overtook Japan to become the world’s largest creditor nation, data released by Japan on Tuesday shows. This means that German businesses and individuals own shares in foreign companies, invest in factories and other projects abroad, and loan money to foreign governments and businesses. This global dominance is no accident. Richard Palmer has written an article describing why this directly fulfills Bible prophecy.

Replacing the dollar? Europe has new motivation to strengthen its military and economy: Doing so could enable the euro to replace the dollar as the world reserve currency. This is the analysis of the European Central Bank’s president, and the subject of our In Brief.

China posturing on the Paracels: China deployed two state-of-the-art bombers to the Paracel Islands, Cliff Lilangan reports. The nation continues to assert its control over the region and to use its navy to aggressively project power.

America’s shipbuilding industry is on its deathbed, our In Brief reports. The U.S. relies overwhelmingly on foreign vessels for its shipping needs. Expect this reality to come back to bite us.