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Stock markets plunge over Trump recession fears
00:31:12
There's confusion over the president's policy on tariffs
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Nick Miles
This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles and in the early hours of Tuesday, the 11th of March, these are our main stories. Stock markets have closed down sharply in the United States amid concern over President Trump's tariffs and refusal to rule out recession. President Zelensky is in Saudi Arabia, which is hosting the first significant peace talks since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And we hear from our correspondent in Lebanon about Syrians who fled across the border after a wave of sectarian killings. Also in this podcast, one, I was gobsmacked, but two, I was fuming. The British couple given a hefty fine after reporting a migrant who secretly hitched a lift on top of their car. Let's start this podcast. In the United States, President Trump ran his election campaign on promises to fix the economy. But early into his presidency, two things have been having a huge impact on the markets, uncertainty and tariffs. Both have been in abundance since he took office less than two months ago. And it was his refusal to rule out a recession in the United States that seems to have been the last struggle draw with the stock markets falling particularly heavily. Michelle Fleury is our New York business correspondent and I asked her which stocks were down. I think the question should be what isn't down? It's been such an ugly day here on Wall Street. The tech heavy NASDAQ led the declines, down 4%. In terms of individual stocks, you had Tesla, the electric carmaker of which Elon Musk is obviously closely associated with, that was down 15%. And if you go back to its high in December, it's now down more than 50% since then. There were also sharp falls on the S&P 500, down nearly 3%. That's the sort of broad based major index of companies here in America. And then there were sharp falls on the Dow. I mean, it was an ugly day. And all of this sparked by doubts about Donald Trump's trade policies and what it means for the prospect of recession here in America. So, Michelle, what did these falls mean for the wider economy? For a layperson, I mean, I think what it is showing is that there is an increasing recognition that Donald Trump and his cabinet are serious about bringing back U.S. jobs and manufacturing to the U.S. and using tariffs to do so and that they will tolerate a degree of economic pain. This is something that I think financial markets, but also that the broader public is not necessarily used to until you're seeing the reaction to that through the mechanism of share prices. That that essentially is what's happening is people are internalizing that message. The problem you have is that if consumers start to hold back spending because they're feeling nervous, and if businesses start to wait and see and hold back hiring people or sort of increasing production, that then can lower growth. And that sort of fuels the kind of fears we've seen this week on Wall Street. And briefly, Michelle, in terms of the Trump administration, what does it need to do now to help the markets recover? Well, I mean, currently, not just Donald Trump, but whether it's Howard Lucknick, the commerce secretary, or the treasury secretary, Scott Benson, they're saying they're willing to tolerate some pain. So the question is how much before they feel they have to act. All of this against the backdrop of a potential looming government shutdown, because, of course, those negotiations are happening right now in Washington as well. Michelle Fleury, well, the US Is still locked in battles over tariffs with its neighbour Canada. And the next prime minister, Mark Carney, has vowed he will win the trade war. Ontario, Canada's richest and most populous province, has addressed the tariffs directly and announced a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to the U.S. here's Ontario's Premier, Doug Ford. We will apply maximum pressure to maximize our leverage. That's why today we're moving forward with a 25% surcharge on electricity exports for the 1.5 million American homes and businesses that Ontario powers, homes and businesses in Minnesota, Michigan and New York. This surcharge will cost families and businesses in these states up to $400,000 each and every single day. On an average, this will add around $100 per month to the bills of hardworking Americans. Let me be clear. I will not hesitate to increase this charge if necessary. If the United States escalates, I will not hesitate to shut the electricity off completely. That was Ontario's premier, Doug Ford. Now to the latest from the ground in the Ukraine conflict and from the conference rooms where peace talks are due to place in Saudi Arabia. First to Ukraine itself, where dozens of people were killed as hundreds of Russian airstrikes hit across the country again at the weekend. This after the Americans cut military aid to Ukraine and stopped sharing intelligence information. On Monday, loud sirens were heard in many parts of Ukraine. Our defense correspondent, Jonathan Beale is in Kiev and has spent time with members of the 96th Anti Aircraft Missile Brigade. Ukraine is still getting some intelligence, enough to raise the alarm before another Russian attack. But defending its towns and cities will be more difficult without American support. This mobile air defense unit still managed to down a Russian drone over the weekend. We met near Kyiv as they once again prepared to protect their skies. This team relies on old Soviet and Ukrainian made equipment. Hidden away elsewhere are the more sophisticated US Air defense systems. Yaroslav, the battery commander, tells me President Trump's decision will hurt. We haven't felt it yet, he says, but I think we will feel it. It'll be more difficult. His comrade Oleksandr says, obviously I'm upset. We were counting on continued U.S. support. It's not just quality, but quantity, too. U S made armor helped spearhead Ukraine's surprise Kursk offensive last year. Seizing Russian territory was meant to be a bargaining chip, but Kursk is fast becoming a burden. Ukraine's losing territory and without US support and supplies is. It'll only get worse. Yehor Cherniyev is the Deputy Chairman of Ukraine's Defence and Intelligence Parliamentary Committee. The cost of this is the lives of our soldiers. And when we will face with this situation, when we will not be able to repair it, it will mean that we will lose more and more soldiers without the equipment on the battlefield. Ukraine is still hoping that President Trump will reverse his decision, but it also now knows it can no longer rely on U.S. support. Jonathan Beale let's move on to the diplomacy now with our State Department correspondent Tom Bateman, who's flown to JEDDAH with the U.S. secretary of State, Marco Rubio. What can we expect from the talks there? What's clear from Marco Rubio, and as you say, I spoke to him just before we landed here in Jeddah on the plane, was that this is about the Americans trying to sit down with the Ukrainians and see basically if they will say yes to what Mr. Trump wants and remember the context, because this comes just 10 days after Mr. Zelensky, President Zelensky was ejected from the White House after his humiliation by Mr. Trump and the vice president, J.D. vance. He was told he was ungrateful and disrespectful. He had tried to argue his corner and basically say that a ceasefire with President Putin without American backed security guarantee would amount effectively to a capitulation. And they'd been there before that Mr. Putin had broken such promises. The Americans, though, have put the pressure on intensely since then. Remember, they've withdrawn US military assistance, they've withdrawn some intelligence sharing. And now the sense I got from Mr. Rubio is that they're coming here to, in their words, see if the Ukrainians are ready to move forward with what President Trump wants, which is a process towards a quick truce with Moscow. So I think they're going to sort of scope out where the Ukrainians red lines are, the that they are prepared to make. And they would then he said at some point in the future, go to the Russians with those, see what the Russian demands and red lines are, see how big the gap is and in his words, see if that gap can be bridged. And what about the scope for a US Pause in the aid being reversed? He was asked about that repeatedly. I mean, I asked him first of all, if and reflecting some of the comments from Poland over the weekend that saw the withdrawal of military support, as in the words of Poland's prime minister, appeasing a barbette. Now, Mr. Rubio said that what was happening here was President Trump was, in his words, using all the tools at his disposal to make both sides, that is the Ukrainians come to the table and, you know, move forward with this process in terms of whether or not they will reinstate that military assistance. I think it will very much depend on the outcome of the talks on Tuesday. I mean, Mr. Rubio said that, but he sounded quite positive and said he was hopeful for a good meeting and that he hoped he would have something to announce at the end of it. Tom Bateman in Jeddah. And if you've got some questions about the situation with Ukraine, Russia and the involvement of President Trump and European leaders, we would love to hear from you and get some answers from our correspondents. No question is too big or too small. Send us an email globalpodcastbc.co.uk and if you'd like to record your question as a voice note, we'd love to hear it. At least 6,000 Syrians have crossed into Lebanon following mass violence against the Alawite community over the weekend. The Syrian interim president and former rebel leader Ahmed Al Shara has announced an investigation into the reported death of more than a thousand people, most of them Alawites. And that is the community. The deposed president Bashar al Assad comes from ita. Helen Hansen is a project coordinator for the medical charity MSF or Doctors Without Borders. She was in the town of Jiza Al Shugar and sent us a voice note on the situation there. Yesterday. I was in the MSF supported hospital Jaisal Shougur. They've been working around the clock for the last few days, receiving 107 patients due to bullet wounds, shrapnel and other violent trauma, including 13 who did not survive. Personally, I saw patients who were recovering from surgeries due to injuries in their abdomen and chest, arms and legs, and some were hit several places. The BBC's Karine Taube has been at the border between Lebanon and Syria, where thousands of Alawites have sought refuge. She visited a shelter full of refugees. People here are among thousands of Syrians who had to flee their houses and their towns in the coastal areas of Syria and come into Lebanon. They told us they came without any belongings, in fear for their safety, safety for their security. They heard about what was happening around them. A lot of stories were circulating. Some of them experienced firsthand some of the events that were happening in Syria. Others heard about them and were very afraid, so they had to flee. They told us they think that they are at the moment being targeted because of their religious identity, because they are Alawites and the new people in power in Syria consider them as pro Assad while they completely dismiss this and they consider that they are being targeted just because they are Alawites. People I spoke to told me they can't see themselves going back to Syria anytime soon. Currently, they live in big fear. And they told me they needed real guarantees in order to think about going back home. Karine Torbay, a British couple, are appealing against a fine of almost $2,000. After reporting a migrant stowaway to police, Joanne and Adrian Fenton drove home to England from France and then discovered a man hidden in a storage rack on their car. They called the police, but received the fine anyway. Charlotte Gallagher has more. The moment Adrian and Joanne Fenton's stowaway emerged from the back of their motorhome last October, the couple had no idea the man had climbed inside a nylon bike rack cover before they crossed the Channel. It was only when they arrived home and began unpacking that they saw a pair of trainers poking out. After offering him a bottle of water, the young man told them he was 16 years old and from Sudan. Police were called and the Fentons assumed the surprises were over. But then an email arrived from the Home Office telling them they'd been fined for failing to check that no clandestine entrant was concealed in the motorhome. Joanne Fenton says she was astonished. One, I was gobsmacked, but two, I was fuming, you know, to receive a fine on something that we had phoned the police up, we'd informed and done everything possible to be safe and to get fined 1500 pound. No, too angry. Zoe Jacob is an immigration lawyer and says it's an unusual case. The way that the legislation is drafted in relation to ships coming into the UK is that there is a statutory excuse, a defense for individuals who are the captains of those ships. If somebody is a stowaway Arguably, if discretion was being applied in this case, there's a strong argument to say that the situation is akin to a stowaway. Therefore, discretion would have been applied in the couple's favour. The Fentons are now planning to appeal against the fine, saying the penalty only encourages people in a similar situation not to call the police and let stowaways abscond. Charlotte Gallagher, still to come in this podcast. It's kind of her power as well to try and get things done. Optimism is a superpower. Yeah. A classic movie character inspired by a classic book takes to the stage as clueless. The musical lands. The Trump administration has confirmed its slashing funding of its overseas aid agency, USAID by 83%, closing the vast majority of its programs. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, wrote on his personal account on X that it was an overdue and historic reform. Elon Musk, who's in charge of cutting back government spending, described it as a tough but necessary decision. Former USAID officials have warned that it could lead to destabilization overseas and threats to U.S. national security. We've been speaking to some of those people impacted by the cuts, like those living with hiv. Mike Elvis Tusubira in Kampala, Uganda, is one of them. He takes antiretroviral drugs. When you are HIV positive, you are affected psychologically, economically, and when it comes to me myself, I'm living in a stereo discontent couple, where my wife is HIV negative and I'm positive, so my partner is also having HIV preventive drugs like pep. My family is also affected seriously because from the Trump announcement or the directives, which just came abruptly without warning, we had no enough drugs at home. And right now my family is actually in a crisis. Well, Celia Hatton has been speaking to Andrea Tracy, a former USAID official and advisor to the US Special Envoy for Sudan under the Biden administration. She's created the Sudan Mut Aid Coalition, a fund for private donations to emergency response rooms in Sudan. A grassroots network of activists who stayed on the front lines to respond to the crises in their neighbourhoods. The way that they're going about this is so destructive and so dangerous on so many levels. We're nervous, we're scared, we're worried about people dying because of this stoppage, because there's no sort of system to pick it up. There's not enough money that any other donor has that can pick up what was, generally speaking, from one country to the next. Around 40 to 45% of the budgets were being held by USAID, so we're looking at just massive, massive stoppages of life saving activities. There's a famine happening in parts of northern Darfur and in parts of the Nuba Mountains that is not being addressed. And in Khartoum, there's a growing cholera outbreak in White Nile spreading to River Nile, southern Kordofan, Khartoum. The situation is incredibly disconcerting. You were just in Darfur last month, I understand. Can you paint a picture for us, Explain what you saw when you were there and how these potential aid cuts might affect that situation. I saw desperation. It was bleak. People, they don't have any opportunities for sustaining their own living. There were children with weapons and I kept thinking to myself, are they being forced into, you know, are they child soldiers? And I genuinely feel like people were trying to band together and make it work, but with a complete lack of resources coming in, it's just incredibly difficult for them to do so. It's a desperate situation for them. It's not at all a concert response in terms of humanitarian assistance. We're talking about life saving aid keeping people going that the US government has been supporting and just cutting that off, sort of punishing people who are vulnerable and in a terrible position because there's a system that needs to be altered or reformed is not a commensurate response. Andrea Tracy now to a situation that unfolded off the coast of England as a tanker, the US registered Stena Immaculate, which was carrying jet fuel for the US government, appears to have been hit by a container ship whilst at anchor so long has collided with tanker Stena Immaculate in the outer anchorage. Both vessels are abandoning. That was a message from the Coast Guard. There were reports of multiple explosions and a huge fireball. 37 people were brought ashore. And the Coast Guard has now ended the search for one person missing from the container ship. Jet fuel is now leaking into the water. And a leading bird conservation charity, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, says it's extremely concerned about the impact on bird life. Esme Stallard is our climate and science reporter. What's very important here is the type of fuel that's on board and that's because they behave in different ways. So sometimes when we think of oil spills, potentially images of birds covered in sort of this piece lack oil or the sea covered in it spring to mind that is crude oil. That's not what we're dealing with here. And that's important because they dissipate differently, as we've just heard. So jet oil, kerosene can evaporate very quickly, which means it doesn't hang around in the environment for as long. But that's not to say that it doesn't potentially pose harm to the natural environment. And that's because the fumes can be quite toxic. So on a small scale, we're not excited expecting it to potentially kill fish. But obviously this could be quite a significant spill and as that enters the water column, it can be toxic to aquatic organisms. There's also concern obviously for nearby nature reserves if it was to wash up. And actually we have had a statement from the rsp. I'm going to read you elements of it here. Dave O'Hara, who's a senior site manager RSPB Bempton Cliffs, which is a nearby nature reserve, said as details continue to emerge, our first thoughts are for the safety of everyone on board. But this incident is close to Bempton Cliffs, home to the biggest gannet colony in England. Naturally, we are extremely concerned about the potential of a leak from the tanker. Now, there's obviously been a very quick response from the UK Coast Guard and they said to us as part of that response that we're also looking at counter pollution activity to try and prevent that oil dissipating too far into the sea. But one thing to point out about Jet A1 fuel oil or kerosene is that it is very, very difficult to see. It will be a sheen like look on the surface. It won't be, as I mentioned, like crude oil. It won't be thick and black, which could potentially make the cleanup operation fairly difficult. Esme Stallard Just over two months ago, a series of wildfires engulfed parts of Los angeles. More than 16,000 homes and businesses were destroyed and 29 people died. Well, the BBC has spoken to survivors and experts to find out what went wrong and what may happen next. Emma Vardy sent this report from Los Angeles. All your memories gone. It's all burned. It's all ash. This was not a typical fire, as Dr. Sarah Tripanya found out. It was rapid and fast moving. You literally can see the flames getting huge and burning down the hill. My neighbors next door grew up in the Palisades and he kept saying to us, you need to calm down because this type of fire happens in this area and in order for it to hit our houses, it would have to burn down the town. But the fire did destroy most of the town. Dr. Trapania lost her home and so did thousands of others. Wildfires happen regularly in California, but rarely in winter and not like this. Eight months of drought meant the ground was tinder dry. High winds fanned the flames. I'm a climate scientist. I work at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Scientists like Dr. Ben Hamlington say global warming made the fires worse. I didn't think we were on the front line of climate change. Otherwise I wouldn't have bought a house here. I feel kind of like a terrible climate scientist buying a house and putting my family in a place that was so at risk. But in reflection, when it happened, it kind of makes sense, right? This is how we expect climate change to play out. The way that it's going to express and affect people is through events like this that are going to increase in how severe they are, how often they happen, and then where they happen. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said there are not enough firefighters in LA county to address separate fires of this magnitude. Here's Freddie Escobar, president of United Firefighters of Los Angeles. Nobody wanted this. It's unfortunate that it's taken this disaster to address the issues that we've been saying for decades that the Los Angeles Fire Department is a woefully understaffed fire department, and we're asking our leaders to make it a priority. The mayor's office says it has increased the fire department's budget to record amounts and delivered the first rays that firefighters have seen in years. Louisiana county and many fire victims are suing the local power company, Southern California Edison, for allegedly starting one of the fires. Lawyer Gerald Singleton represents more than 1,600 people who lost homes and loved ones in the fire that began in Altadena. There's actually several videos, but one in particular shows the fire starting. You see a couple of instances where there are flashes and then you see the arcing going down to the ground and the fire starting. We also have witnesses who saw the exact same thing. Power lines have started wildfires in the past, so in high winds, electricity companies cut off the supply. Edison told the LA Times it didn't turn off power to the transmission lines because the wind speed did not exceed a threshold of between 60 and 80 miles an hour. Over the last decade, wildfires are estimated to have cost Edison around $10 billion in settlements, fines and damages. Southern California Edison says its heart goes out to everyone affected by the wildfires and that safety is its top priority. It says that the cause of the Eaton wildfire remains under investigation and it's exploring every possibility, including the possibility that SCE's equipment was involved. The insurance industry's total bill could reach $40 billion, and many fear the disaster will make it much harder to get Home insurance in the future. For those who remain, learning how to live alongside the dangers posed by climate change will be key to avoiding similar tragedy in the years ahead. Emma Vardy. It is 250 years this year since the birth of the literary giant Jane Austen. And two centuries later, her legacy continues to inspire other artists, writers, and readers. The hit film Clueless, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, was inspired by Jane Austen's book Emma, and now it has been transported to the London stage in the form of a musical. The writer and director of Clueless, the film and the book, Amy Heckeling, spoke to Nuala McGovern, along with the songwriter Katie Tunstall, who's written the musical score. Nuala started by asking Amy how Jane Austen's Emma inspired her to write the lead character of Clueless, Cher Horovitz. There's a quote by Jane Austen which I love, which she said, she's making a character which she thinks nobody but herself will like much. And it just blows my mind that she would think that, but she just went ahead with it because she was obviously enjoying it. And that's how I felt with making this character who was just. You couldn't burst her bubble because that's just so such a fun idea. So that's Cher Horowitz, who's in the center of it. What else would you say about her, apart from her eternal optimism? Well, in the first line of Emma, she says there's very little to distress or vex her. Things don't get to her. And so it's kind of her power as well to try and get things done. Optimism is a superpower. Yeah. Also, I noticed on your guitar, as is Katie, which is just, you know, just one of the lines, of course, that we have with this. Amy comes to you saying, write some music for me. How does that work? Well, actually, I had been working with Glenn Slater, who wrote the lyrics, and he's brilliant. And so we were looking for somebody to write original music, and he told me he had worked with Katie on something that didn't happen, but he thought that she was amazing. And he gave me some tapes to listen to, and I just thought, yeah, yeah, totally. And I truly, totally had faith that she would pull this off. Amazingly, I didn't know how amazing, though. I really thought I knew it all, as if I thought I'd help a friend in need. Yeah, right. I was reading Amy, have you. You've probably seen this about yourself at some point that. That you created. It was like proto feminist films. And I suppose musicals now as well, that the female character has the power or the female relationships are very much a focal point. Would you agree with that? Oh, I don't know. Because I was always feeling like any, like, female power or whatever in any of my films sort of had to be, like, hidden when you're telling it to the studio, really. They figure that's a limited audience, that the male audience was the box that you wanted to check as far as younger men, older men, younger women, older women. And that was the, like, golden box. I've been surprised by how many men have told me that this is one of their favorite films. They love the film. Oh, that's so cool. There was a lot of men in the audience when I was there. Some of them finishing the. Or beginning to laugh before the lines were finished. Yeah, yeah, because they know him. New girl that died in your hair. That's new Girl, performed by Emma Flynn from Clueless the Musical. You also heard Katie Tunstall performing the song Clueless, which she wrote for the show. The musical is on in London's west end until the 27th of September. And that's about it from us for now. But there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. But before we go, an apology and a correction thanks to those of you who've been in touch to point out an error in our previous edition. Our correspondent in Kyiv, James Waterhouse, mistakenly said Russia was being helped by South Korean troops and ammunition. He, of course, meant North Korea. It happens to the best of us and we are very grateful to all our correspondents in the field working so hard and in such difficult circumstances to bring us all the latest. Now, if you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcastbc.co.uk you can also find us on X@BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Zabihullah Kourouche and the producer was Stephen An Apprentice. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles. And until next time, goodbye.