Trump Trade War Results In Record $12 Billion Surge In Customs Revenues
Sometimes, especially when stocks are tumbling, bond yields are soaring and the dollar looks like it is about to lose its reserve currency (and be replaced by what: the yuan? the euro? the turkish lira?), it is easy to forget what is the driving motive behind Trump’s trade war. And in a nutshell, it is this chart: US debt which at $37 trillion is unsustainable, and which is growing at a pace which everyone – not just the bipartisan CBO, but also the Fed, the IMF, Elon Musk, the shoeshine boy, literally everyone – knows for a fact is catastrophically unsustainable.
But while everyone knows something has to be done to avoid a devastating catastrophe, until Trump came along nobody would dare do a thing to change the current status quo for the obvious abovementioned reasons: any attempt to restructure or even modestly adjust US debt-funded “growth”, which transforms roughly $1 trillion of debt every 100 days into less than $200 billion of economic output…
… would lead to tumbling stocks, soaring bond yields and the dollar trading like it’s the Turkish lira. Kinda like right now.
But the US had to start somewhere, and Trump did that amid the now familiar howls of terror from market participants (how dare Trump do something that trades long-term viability for short-term pain), the co-opted mainstream media and of course establishment economists, all of whom agree something must be done… just not this and not now.
Still, with nothing to lose, the 2nd term president has started off on a path of doing something, and while nobody knows where and how it all ends, we have some good news: it is starting to bear fruit, in the form of a huge surge in customs revenues.
According to today’s Daily Treasury Statement, on April 22, the US collected a record $11.7 billion in “customs and certain excise taxes”…
… the biggest one day haul on record. To be sure, this is not a “one-day collection”, but rather is a monthly accrual and is more indicative of the monthly total (which stands at about $15.4 billion).
But hHowever one looks at it, the amount is certainly impressive and is double the previously monthly total, and about six times greater than the pre-Trump 1.0 monthly total in the $2BN ballpark. And this is just the start: once more layered tariffs start being collected, the monthly customs revenue will double again, rising to $25bn, $30bn, and so on… numbers which start to matter in the grand scheme of things.
In other words, while one can rage against Trump’s policies and mean tweets, he is the only one who is doing something to prevent an outcome which everyone agrees will be catastrophic… but because it is “some time in the future” as opposed to pain right now, everyone would much rather have the next generation of Americans foot the bill and deal with the catastrophic fallout. Or, one can do something about it, and while it will take much, much more than even the above stunning doubling in customs collections, the chart above represents what America has long needed: a painful start in the right – and sustainable – direction.
It is Earth Day 2025, the central religious holiday of the environmental left, and the theme this year is “Our Power, Our PlanetTM.” That “TM” trademark symbol is both a reality and a joke. It is a reality in that the organizers of Earth Day actually found it appropriate to trademark “Our Power, Our PlanetTM.” The joke: It is a theme supremely vacuous, reflecting the rock-bottom analytic quality of their thinking. Do they actually believe that anyone would plagiarize something so infantile?
Alwaysdeterminedtocontrolthelives of billions of peoplearound the globe — the Earth Day crowd specializes in making demands driven by endless falsehoods — the central admonition this year is a tripling of global renewable electricity generation by 2030. Global renewable electricity generation in 2023 was about 9,000 terawatt-hours, an amount triple that of the 2003-2004 period. Accordingly, another tripling in less than five years is preposterous, in that the expansion of renewable electricity generation — already fantastically expensive (see below) — necessarily would take place in regions and sites increasingly unsuitable for such power production. The best sites are used first; in economic jargon, there are enormous scale diseconomies characterizing the renewables industry as it expands.
This is despite the massivesubventions and favoritismbestowed upon renewable electricity — wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, and a few others — in particular in the developed economies. It is therefore not very surprising that renewable electricity generation has grown; if we subsidize something heavily, we will get more of it.
Accordingly, the claim that renewable power is “cheap” is propaganda; if renewable electricity is so cheap, why does it need massive subsidies and guaranteed market shares and all the rest? The answer is obvious: Renewable power is not cheap, in particular when we add the cost of backup generation needed to prevent service interruptions caused by the inherent unreliability of wind and solar power.
The cost estimates (Table 1b) from the Energy Information Administration for electricity generation with alternative technologies are as follows, in year 2024 dollars per megawatt-hour, including the $132.65 per megawatt hour cost of that backup generation. Combined-cycle natural gas generation: $44.95. “Ultra-super critical” coal: $92.98. Nuclear: $99.31. Photovoltaic solar: $173.72. Onshore wind: $177.93. Offshore wind: $286.29. Unconventional power is not competitive.
Ignore also the propaganda that renewable power is “clean,” an assertion that ignores the attendant environmentaldamage: heavy-metal pollution, wildlife destruction, noise and flicker effects, massive land use and degradation of vistas, landfill problems, and on and on.
The Earth Day “tripling” nostrum is justified with the usual mindless assertion that a “climate crisis” is upon us. That is false. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Sixth Assessment Report (Table 12.12) concedes implicitly that there is no such crisis, as every predicted adverse effect of increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases is driven by one scenario, ”representative concentration pathway 8.5.” IPCC notes (p. 238) that “the likelihood of high emissions scenarios such as RCP8.5 … is considered low…” In reality, RCP8.5 is essentiallyimpossible.
There is little trend in the number of “hot” days since 1895; eleven of the twelve years with the highest number of such days occurred before 1960. (This is because standard textbook atmospheric physics predicts not an increase in average highs, but instead an increase in average lows.) The U.S. Climate Reference Network data show no temperature trend over the available 2005–2023 reporting period. Global mean sea level has been increasing at about 3.3 mm per year since satellite measurements began in 1993, or about thirteen inches over the course of a century, an outcome very unlikely to prove a “crisis.”
The arctic sea ice has been declining, but the degree to which anthropogenic GHG emissions are the cause is wholly unclear. There is no long-term trend in the Antarctic sea ice. U.S. tornado activity for shows an no trend since 1950. The data for the period since 1970 for strong tornadoes show a downward trend. Tropical cyclones and accumulated cyclone energy show no trend since satellite measurements began in the early 1970s.
The number of U.S. wildfires shows no trend since 1985. Wildfire acreage has increased, but that has nothing to do with GHG emissions; it is the result of perverse forest management practices, for the most part in government forests. Global acreage burned declined sharply for 1998-2015, and by about eighteen percent for the period 2003-2015 as reported by NASA. The Palmer Drought Severity index shows no trend for the United States since 1895. There is no global drought trend over the last 120 years, and for 1950-2020 the trend is downward (Figure 2). U.S. flooding over the past century is uncorrelated with increasing GHG concentrations. IPCC in the AR6 reports low confidence (p. 1568) in the purported responsibility of atmospheric GHG concentrations for changes in the magnitude or frequency of floods at the global scale. Populations of polar bears have been increasing sharply. The available data do not support the ubiquitous assertions about the dire impacts of declining pH levels in the oceans.
The leftist opposition to fossil fuels has nothing to do with environmental quality or climate issues or any of the other rationalizations repeated ad nauseam. It is instead a central component of the fundamental anti-human core of left-wing environmentalism, a stance that studiously ignores the relationship between fossil fuel use and human flourishing. In 1990, the late Alexander King, cofounder of the Club of Rome in 1968, argued in the context of the use of DDT to control malaria:
My own doubts came when DDT was introduced for civilian use. In Guyana, within two years it had almost eliminated malaria, but at the same time, the birth rate had doubled. … My chief quarrel with DDT in hindsight is that it has greatly added to the population problem.
Tens or hundreds of millions of the world’s poor have died from malaria as a direct result of the multination ban on the use of DDT, driven by falseassertions about its harmful effects on various bird species, promulgated from the very first Earth Day in 1970. Then there was the observation made in 1971 by Michael McClosky, the former executive director of the Sierra Club, during an Ethiopian famine:
The worst thing we could do is give aid…. the best thing would be to just let nature seek its own balance and to let the people there just starve.
For left-wing environmental ideologues, humans are nothing more than environmentally destructive mouths to feed without moral standing. (The Nazi term was “useless eaters.”) Nor, implicitly, do humans have the intelligence, inventiveness, and ingenuity to solve problems. Au contraire: Simply because of the laws of large numbers, some substantial numbers of people are and will be geniuses.
I return, as I have so many times, to the wisdom of Dogbert: “You can’t save the earth unless you’re willing to make other people sacrifice.” That is the true theme of all Earth Days, yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever.
Benjamin Zycher is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Early OpenAI Investor: The Chilling Reason Why U.S. Must Win AI Race Against China
Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla has issued a grave warning, declaring that the United States is in a do-or-die AI race against China, with the specter of worldwide communist ideology looming if America falters. Khosla cautioned that failing to lead in AI could allow China’s authoritarian regime to impose its oppressive vision globally.
“There’s another kind of risk I worry about even more” Khosla told X interviewer Mario Nawfal. “China can use AI in cyber warfare or physical warfare on the battlefield, but the one I worry about even more is the economic power that AI will give a nation that moves fast and wins the race.”
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: OPENAI’S EARLIEST INVESTOR —THE REAL AI THREAT ISN’T WAR, IT’S INFLUENCE
Forget missiles. The most powerful weapon China could wield with AI is influence.@vkhosla:
“One you have economic power, I think it’s trivially easy by 2030 to imagine China providing free doctors to the whole planet, free tutors to every child on the planet, and using, essentially, free goods and services to spread their political philosophy.”
Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems and later became one of OpenAI’s earliest backers through his venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, went a step further by China’s possession of powerful AI a potentially deadly threat to the world.
“The biggest risk is AI in Chinese hands—or any bad hands. The more powerful the entity, the bigger the risk,” the Indian-American technologist said. “If somebody used a nuclear weapon, it’s verifiable. AI, when used, may not be verifiable.”
.@vkhosla: “The biggest risk is AI in Chinese hands.”
“If somebody used a nuclear weapon, it’s verifiable. AI, when used, may not be verifiable.”pic.twitter.com/z1azm2xsgo
President Donald Trump has made it a key priority for the U.S. to dominate AI.
In January, Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” aimed at solidifying U.S. dominance in AI by revoking what his administration deemed restrictive policies from President Joe Biden’s 2023 AI Executive Order. Trump’s order rescinded Biden’s framework, which emphasized oversight, risk mitigation, and equity, including requirements for companies to share safety test results with the government and address AI’s potential for discrimination.
Instead, Trump’s directive prioritizes deregulation, calling for AI systems free from “ideological bias or engineered social agendas” to boost innovation, economic competitiveness, and national security. It mandates a 180-day AI Action Plan, led by key advisors like AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks, to streamline policies and eliminate bureaucratic hurdles.
Trump has promoted a $500 billion joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank, which he described as “the largest AI infrastructure project in history.” The initiative aims to construct a nationwide network of data centers across the United States.
“China is a competitor and others are competitors. We want it to be in this country,” Trump said at the White House announcement, joined by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison.
“We have to get this stuff built,” the president added. “They have to produce a lot of electricity and we’ll make it possible for them to get that production done very easily at their own plants.”
Round Two! Trump Slams Zelensky For Rejecting Crimea Proposal For Peace
Trump vs. Zelensky Round Two? Tensions initially looked to have cooled after the Zelensky-Vance-Trump February 28 verbal blow-up and showdown at the Oval Office (see clip below), but the spat is heating up once again, and is fast getting personal.
President Trump has slammed President Zelensky in a Wednesday post on Truth Social, saying of the Ukrainian leader, “if he wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired”… and “He can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country.”
The fiery denunciation appears in direct response to Zelensky the day prior rejecting Washington demands that Ukraine be ready to formally recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea. Trump continued, “It’s inflammatory statements like Zelenskyy’s that makes it so difficult to settle this War. He has nothing to boast about!“
The White House has this week been making it clear that the United States is ready to walk away from the peace process if it doesn’t have willing partners. All of this pressure seems aimed squarely at Kiev, given also Vice President Vance’s Wednesday remarks while in India.
“We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process,” Vance told the press pool while on the trip. “The only way to really stop the killing is for the armies to both put down their weapons, to freeze this thing and to get on with the business of actually building a better Russia and a better Ukraine.” Freezing the war now would certainly give Russian forces a huge advantage, given the immense territory in the East they now hold.
Trump in the fresh social media post further demanded that now is the time to “GET IT DONE” – referring to achieving a lasting settlement. And he coupled this with another swipe at Zelensky, saying the man has “no cards to play” – which has been a US admin theme going back to February.
“I look forward to being able to help Ukraine, and Russia, get out of this Complete and Total MESS, that would have never started if I were President!” – Trump concluded in the post.
Trump is clearly not happy in the wake of Zelensky’s Tuesday remarks wherein he asserted that Ukraine will not legally recognize Russia’s occupation of Crimea under any circumstances,
“There is nothing to talk about. This violates our Constitution. This is our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine,” Zelensky told reporters.
But Trump is now calling this out as essentially BS – saying that no, this is the very thing in question that must be talked about if the war is to end. On a practical level, Russia is never going to give up Crimea regardless, given it has long been the historic home of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea fleet, and has an overwhelming Russian-speaking population.
This was “Round One”…
.@VP: “Do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?”@POTUS: “You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards … You’re… pic.twitter.com/iTYyAmfuCJ
Will Zelensky respond to this latest dressing down by Trump? His PR handlers are likely urging him not to. The last time this happened in the wake of Zelensky’s visit to the White House, the US cut off weapons supplies and intelligence-sharing to Kiev for several days. But this spat and sparring could blow up further yet. Zelensky expressed hope that he could meet with Trump while in Rome for the Pope’s funeral on Saturday, but this is now looking less likely.
The Trump administration has found itself in a dispute with Harvard University. It began when the President’s team sent several Ivy League universities a list of changes they expected the schools to make.
The move is part of a new right-wing strategy which recognizes that we currently live under a vague, necessarily politicized system of civil rights law and aims to begin interpreting civil rights laws in ways more in line with the values and social aims of the right.
By threatening to withhold federal funds, the administration was able to get schools like Columbia University to agree to enact changes like banning masks, granting campus police more powers, and appointing an administrator to oversee the Middle East Studies Department with the authority to crack down on rhetoric about Israel that the administration considers antisemitic.
Harvard, however, refused to abide by the administration’s demands. As a result, Trump froze a little over $2 billion in federal funds going to the school last week and announced plans to freeze an additional $1 billion earlier this week—all while threatening to withhold all $9 billion the Ivy League school receives from the federal government each year if they refuse to agree to the President’s demands.
The showdown is largely being framed as either a battle to protect academic freedom from an authoritarian president or an overdue effort to rescue one of the nation’s oldest universities from the radical far-left administrators leading it off course.
But as politicians, pundits, and university officials battle over which characterization is accurate and, therefore, what ought to happen next, few are paying any attention to one of the more outrageous details that this dispute has brought attention to: that taxpayers are being forced to send $9 billion a year to one of the wealthiest colleges in the world.
The $9 billion figure comes from several federal programs—including education initiatives, student aid, research grants, student loan guarantees, and funding for the university’s affiliated hospitals.
Much of this funding is composed of multi-year grants and contracts, but the annual figure does, indeed, tend to land around $9 billion.
And that’s just Harvard. Zoom out, and you’ll find that those same federal programs are forcing the over-taxed, heavily-indebted, inflation-rattled American public to send well over $100 billion to colleges and universities every single year.
Conservatives and free-market advocates are right to point out whenever the topic of student debt forgiveness is brought up that such a program is, in effect, a wealth transfer from poorer, working-class Americans without college degrees to their better-off, frequently white-collar, college-educated counterparts. But the same is true for all programs that transfer tax dollars to colleges and universities.
Beyond being blatantly unjust, the federal money pouring into higher education is the main factor behind the exploding cost of college in recent decades. In the name of making college more affordable, the federal government effectively took over the student loan market in the US and—primarily by extending government loan guarantees—expanded the level of lending far beyond what private lenders were willing to provide.
That created significantly more demand for college, which jacked up the price. Then, the artificially high prices forced even more students to turn to loans to afford school, which required more government loan guarantees, which made prices even higher, meaning more loans were needed, and on and on. All the while, the government has started and expanded direct federal spending programs on education that have only fueled the affordability death spiral.
This has been terrible for every non-wealthy student or family straining to pay for a college degree, and all the people who could not afford to go to college at all who are still forced to fund all the government subsidies causing this mess. But, it’s important to understand, this setup has been great for the universities who have gotten to enjoy filling their campuses with cartoonishly lavish buildings and resort-level accommodations, while bloating their administrations with diversity officers, sustainability directors, and other ideological positions.
It has also been great for the politicians and government bureaucrats who have gained leverage over the schools educating the next generation and the scholars and intellectuals currently researching topics relevant to those running our federal government.
In other words, federal higher education policy is best understood as one big government-run scam that’s enriching and empowering a small group of ideological administrators and bureaucrats at our expense. It is, in that way, no different from the healthcare system—through which schools like Harvard are also receiving money through their hospitals.
That is the big unspoken truth at the core of this debate about what the Trump administration is doing with Harvard. A president like Trump can exert control over the internal policies of these universities because of how unnecessarily reliant they are on government money. And widespread pushing of highly unpopular progressive dogmas in classrooms and professional scholarship can only happen at this large a scale because of how—and how much—higher ed and academia are subsidized in modern America.
There is only one genuine and permanent solution to these problems. Halt all federal funding—direct and indirect—for these “private” colleges and universities.
As long as these schools rely on politicians to fund their operations, they will always be politicized. There is no escaping that. And, on the other side, even if Trump is totally victorious and gets Harvard to capitulate on everything, there is functionally nothing stopping the next Democrat to win the presidency from reversing everything Trump did.
Education and genuine scholarship are too important to entrust to the whims of politicians and government bureaucrats. Research and scholarship that is actually valuable does not require forcing people to fund it against their will.
And the American people cannot afford to keep sending a significant portion of their money to the well-off and well-connected. These problems are extensive, but the solution is straightforward: stop forcing us to fund these universities.
Boeing CEO Confirms China Halted Orders; Goldman Notes “Improved Earnings Results” For Planemaker
Boeing reported first-quarter results that Goldman analysts described as “improved,” but the real headline this morning isn’t the earnings—it’s CEO Kelly Ortberg’s CNBC interview, in which he revealed that China has halted aircraft deliveries.
In a televised interview with CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, CEO Ortberg stated that Chinese airlines had “in fact stopped taking delivery of aircraft due to the tariff environment.” He noted that the aviation giant would begin marketing the commercial jets to other carriers if deliveries were prolonged.
“We’re working with our customers right now, we’re not going to wait too long,” Ortberg said in the interview, adding, “We’ll give the customers an opportunity if they want to take the airplanes. That’s what we’d prefer to do. But if not, we’re going to remarket those airplanes to people who want them.”
Aircraft rejected by Chinese airlines (read: here) could be headed to Air India Ltd. Bloomberg noted that through the end of March, the airline had accepted 41 737 Max jets built initially for Chinese airlines.
Boeing CFO Brian West told investors that Chinese customers represent about 10% of the commercial backlog. He noted that if tariff impacts expand beyond China, then additional problems could arise for the planemaker.
The possible tariff fallout comes as the struggling planemaker prepares to lift the 737 Max and 787 models in the coming months. The CEO was adamant about not letting trade war woes “derail the recovery” of Boeing.
In an earlier earnings release, Boeing confirmed that plane production would soon rise as first-quarter results showed earnings and cash consumption improvements.
Goldman analysts, including Noah Poponak, gave clients a first look at the earnings report, commenting that the results showed improvement.
Bottom line: BA 1Q25 results show improvement in the business. Commercial aircraft production rate plan commentary was held, defense margins are positive, services margins beat, and free cash is ahead of consensus and guidance. Yesterday the company announced the sale of portions of Digital Aviation Solutions, at a multiple higher than its own, which will help accelerate balance sheet deleveraging.
Details: Revenue of $19.50bn is in line with FactSet at $19.46bn, and up 18% yoy. Core EPS of $(0.49) compares to consensus at $(1.18) and our $(0.83), driven primarily by revenue and margin at BDS. The BCA segment operating income of $(537)mn compared to our estimated $(406)mn. BDS margin of 2.5% is above our (4.0)% estimate. The BGS margin of 18.6% is 80bps above our estimate and up 40bps yoy. 1Q25 free cash flow is $(2.3)bn, ahead of us and consensus at $(3.7)bn. The company still expects to reach a rate of 38/month on 737 and 7/month on 787 this year.
1Q25 Results:
Poponak remained “Buy” rated on Beoing shares with a 12-month $213 price target:
Our 12-month price target of $213 is derived from targeting a 4.25% free cash flow yield on 2026E free cash, discounted back one year at 12%. Key risks: (1) the pace of air traffic growth, (2) supply chain ability to ramp-up production, and (3) contract operating performance within the defense segment.
Since the Max jet crashes and Covid, Boeing shares have been trading in a tight range.
CEO Ortberg outlined Boeing’s turnaround efforts in a press release: “Our company is moving in the right direction as we start to see improved operational performance across our businesses from our ongoing focus on safety and quality.”
Amid yesterday’s equity meltup, ETFs accounted for 34% of the overall tape (vs an YTD avg 28%) as the desk skewed better to buy driven by a mix of domestic, international and sector exposures.
However, the action was not uniform, because unlike recent weeks which have seen aggressive equity ETF selling/shorting offset by a surge in ETF buying, yesterday the flows were flipped.
As Goldman ETF specialist Chris Luccas writes, over the past few weeks, Goldman has seen demand for spot-exposure (GLD), across a wide range of clients, triggered by the broader outperformance and a conduit to manage uncertainty. However, yesterday’s price action appeared to be release valve after the S&P cemented its 3rd best session in the past 2 years.
Cutting to the chase, it was an outsized session for GLD as the fund concluded the session as the 3rd most-traded ETF (which is unusual GLD) and witnessed its 3rd largest notional trading session since its inception in 2004. Volumes were notable on the desk as Goldman skewed (much) better to sell (mostly long sales) across spot (GLD) and the miners complex (GDX, GDXJ), with supply accelerating into the latter half of the session. As shown in the chart below, within primary market flows, GLD registered a -$1.3bn outflow (its largest daily outflow since the record 2011 slam when tremendous SNB intervention set a ceiling for gold that lasted nearly a decade) and GDX faced a -$200mm redemption (its worst daily outflow in the past 12 months).
With regard to price action, spot performance versus S&P was at one of its widest measures in the past 5 years..
The ETF slam goes to show just how much easier it is to push the gold price around using paper instead of physical, but it also suggests that such bursts of selling may be limited. As Goldman notes, while gold ETF AUM is at highs, the amount of gold held by ETFs as an aggregate is below levels witnessed in 2020. Record AUM in GLD has been entirely a function of price appreciation versus subscriptions (even though inflows have been robust on the year).
Meanwhile, as regular readers are well aware, while occasional gold ETF liquidations are inevitable, the ETF sectors has a lot of catching up to do with the actual price, as shown in the next chart mapping aggregate ETF holdings vs spot price. As such, while liquidation days like yesterday (and today) are to be expected, it is inevitable that the ETF bid will eventually appear.
Finally, there was good news for gold bulls: while the overbought selloff – driven by ETF liquidations – in the last 2 days was remarkable and at 4% was one of the worst 2-day drops on record, physical demand out of China appeared like clockwork the moment China came online, and helped push gold about $40 higher in the span of minutes, and about $100 higher compared to this morning’s lows.
Expect much more of the same as China’s population increasingly allocates its net worth into the yellow metal as we discussed yesterday.
Topline: Every journey starts with a single step, but the cost of each step isn’t usually $935,000.
That’s how much New York State will spend to repair each of the 77 stairs leading up the grand entrance to the Capitol building in Albany after ignoring the maintenance for over a decade. The cost gradually rose from $17 million in 2014 to $72 million today.
Key facts: Inspectors closed off public access to the granite Eastern Approach staircase in 2014 after finding rusted steel supports and load-bearing bricks so loose they could be removed by hand, according to the New York Times. A study commissioned by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo estimated the repair bill at $17 million.
Cuomo never appropriated the money, except for $120,000 for urgent repairs in 2016. When Gov. Kathy Hochul finally set aside funding in 2022, the cost had risen to $41 million.
This February, New York State announced it had hired Louis C. Allegrone, Inc to repair the steps at a cost of $72 million. Only one other company submitted a bid, according to the New York Post, which also found internal documents showing the administration was at one point prepared to spend over $80 million on the stairs.
The Post was unable to learn why the cost more than quadrupled from the 2014 estimate. A spokesperson told the Post that “By law, we cannot comment further while the procurement process is ongoing.” Opinion writer Andrea Peyser noted, “I’m not aware of any statute that forbids overtaxed citizens from learning how public officials rob them blind.”
Office of General Services Commissioner Jeanette Moy later told the Albany Times Union that inflation, rising construction costs and worsening deterioration were all factors in the cost increase.
In reality, the deferred maintenance on the Eastern Approach stretches back even further than 2014. The New York Sun ran an article in 1924 claiming the staircase was nearing “complete ruin” and estimated repairs would cost $1 million, according to the New York Times.
Background: Oddly enough, this isn’t the only luxury staircase New Yorkers have funded recently. New York City shelled out $30 million for a 28-step staircase at Times Square 42nd Street subway station in 2022.
Summary: Given New York’s penchant for spending, it’s fitting that lawmakers will be unable to walk into the Capitol building without stepping on taxpayers’ wallets.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
Safaa Rashid was barely an adult in 2005 when an explosion ripped through the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing his 21-year-old cousin, a university student who was working part-time at an electrical goods shop in the city’s center. “A suicide bomber stormed the market and detonated his explosive belt, killing my cousin and dozens of innocent people in an instant,” said Rashid, now 38 and still living in Baghdad. “He was just at the beginning of his life.”
Safaa lost two other cousins that same year in blasts that were attributed to al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the armed group that would evolve into ISI, the Islamic State in Iraq (later just Islamic State), and is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in Iraq and abroad.
One of those who joined AQI’s campaign at the time was a young Syrian named Ahmed al-Sharaa, who later would reappear in his homeland under the name Abu Mohammed al-Jolani and last year successfully overthrew President Bashar al-Assad to become Syria’s new ruler.
Although Sharaa has since disavowed his time in al-Qaeda [in terms of public rhetoric at least], his possible presence at an Arab League summit in Baghdad next month has provoked outrage from victims of AQI and its successors, as well as dozens of MPs who are trying to prevent his attendance. “Jolani is the face of terrorism,” said Rashid.
“He must be held accountable – I lost three cousins to his group’s violence…how can someone like this be welcomed as if he were an honoured guest?”
‘Premature’ meeting?
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said last week that he had formally invited Sharaa to attend the upcoming summit, which is scheduled to be held in Baghdad on May 17. The two also met in Qatar last week for the first time since the overthrow of Assad.
Although the Iraqi government had been one of the few in the region to continuously maintain relations with Sharaa’s predecessor, Iraq like many other Arab states appears to be trying to integrate post-Assad Syria diplomatically, possibly hoping to end the instability unleashed by the country’s 13-year war.
But the extension of the invitation has outraged many. Iraqi media reported that at least 50 MPs from Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Hezbollah – two Iran-backed armed political factions that provided military support to Assad against Sharaa and other Syrian opposition groups – have filed criminal complaints in Iraqi courts against the Syrian president.
Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council has yet to take any official action and previously issued a statement saying that several complaint documents circulating on social media were fake and invalid.
Nevertheless, it has led Asaib Ahl al-Haq’s leader, Qais al-Khazali, to brand Sharaa’s invite “premature”, warning there could be a diplomatic incident between the “brotherly nations” should he be arrested. “In light of this, and in accordance with the principle of separation of powers, the decisions of the Iraqi judiciary must be adhered to and respected by all,” he wrote on X.
Abu Ali al-Askari, a senior Kataib Hezbollah figure, meanwhile described Sharaa as a “convict”.
Change of attitude
Sharaa travelled from Damascus to Baghdad in 2003 to join al-Qaeda shortly before the US-led invasion that toppled President Saddam Hussein. Though he has denied being close to the group’s leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, other outlets have claimed he quickly rose through the ranks to a senior position.
During the insurgency against US-led forces in Iraq, AQI was responsible for numerous sectarian atrocities across the country, triggered by the group bombing al-Askari Shrine in Samarra on 22 February 2006.
Zarqawi had earlier declared all-out war on Iraqi Shias, “wherever they are in Iraq”. Sharaa has argued his time in AQI was more about gaining fighting experience and defending Iraqis than building a caliphate or imposing al-Qaeda’s harsh variant of Islamic law.
“There was a massive Arab and Islamic response to the American intervention,” he told The Rest Is Politics podcast. He added that during his time in a range of US-run facilities, including the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, his attitude towards the conflict changed and he began to fall out with other al-Qaeda members over their support for overt sectarianism.
Iraqi Telegram accounts linked to pro-Iran groups have posted documents they say further implicate Sharaa in AQI’s actions, though they also suggested Sharaa was released from an Iraqi prison for lack of evidence.
Former ISIS terrorist Jolani who is now president of Syria was released from prison just days before the first colour revolution protests in Syria (March 3, 2011.)
He was arrested on May 14, 2005, by U.S. occupation forces in Iraq and held at Camp Bucca.
The Islamic Dawa Party, which held the prime ministership during the bulk of the AQI and ISI insurgency, also warned against inviting Sharaa to Iraq. Though they did not mention the prime minister by name, they said that anyone invited to the Arab League conference should have a “spotless” legal record both at home and abroad.
In a statement on Sunday, they also drew comparisons with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the outstanding arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court over the war in Gaza.
“The same should be done in Iraq towards those who have committed heinous crimes against its people, whatever the excuses, out of respect for Iraqi blood and in loyalty to the martyrs who gave their lives for the nation’s dignity and honour,” said the party.
‘A significant step’
Although many of Syria’s neighbours have tried to rebuild links with the country following Assad’s defeat, much of the international community has continued to be wary, not least after the recent outbreak of sectarian violence on the country’s west coast.
The violence in Latakia, which erupted after attacks by Assad loyalists on pro-government forces, has seen widespread killings of hundreds of members of the Alawi religious minority by armed groups. Sharaa condemned the killings and has sought to calm tensions through dialogue, but the attacks have again raised the spectre of sectarian violence and drawn parallels with the Sunni-Shia bloodshed that devastated Iraq in the mid-2000s.
Not everyone has opposed diplomatic meetings with Sharaa. A number of MPs have emphasised the need for dialogue between the two countries after decades of violence.
Khamis al-Khanjar, an MP and head of the Azem Alliance, welcomed the meeting in Qatar between Sudani and Sharaa. “This meeting represents a significant step toward enhancing Arab cooperation and promoting the principles of dialogue and joint action to address current challenges, rebuild bridges of trust and integration among our peoples, and serve the security and stability of our region,” he wrote on social media.
But with the pain of decades of bloodshed still fresh in the mind of many in Iraq, and with AQI’s descendents still wreaking havoc in parts of the country, the visit is likely to trigger further outcry.
“Inviting Sharaa to visit Baghdad just returned painful memories for victims’ families,” said Rashid. “Many of whom are still waiting for justice nearly two decades after the worst years and al-Qaeda attacks post-2003.”
Xiaomi To Delay First SUV Release After Fatal Accident
Xiaomi has postponed the launch of its first electric SUV, the YU7, following a fatal accident involving its flagship EV—a setback in its high-stakes bid to challenge Tesla and BYD, according to Bloomberg.
Originally set to debut in June or July, the YU7’s release has been quietly shelved with no new date confirmed, according to sources familiar with the matter. The company also canceled plans to unveil the SUV at this week’s Shanghai auto show and pushed its investor day to June from late April.
The delay complicates Xiaomi’s $10 billion electric vehicle gamble, which Chairman Lei Jun has called his final startup venture. With just one EV on the road so far, breaking into the SUV segment was seen as a critical step in scaling its presence in China’s fiercely competitive auto market.
Xiaomi declined to comment, though a Weibo post after Bloomberg’s report insisted the original June-July timeline “remains unchanged.”
Bloomberg writes this morning that the crash has triggered a police investigation and intensified scrutiny of the company’s EV technology. Three women died in the high-speed accident.
The incident sparked widespread debate over Xiaomi’s assisted-driving features, battery safety, and overall vehicle reliability. In response, Chinese regulators have summoned over a dozen automakers to tighten rules around autonomous-driving systems.
“The problem with the way self-driving features have been sold is it’s caused people to think that they can be less attentive to the way the car is actually performing,” said Bill Russo, CEO of Automobility Ltd., at the Shanghai auto show. “You still need to monitor the car. I think that’s what we’re going to hear more of — regulators trying to step in to make sure we’re not calling it autopilot or full self-driving.”
Despite EVs being central to Xiaomi’s future—especially as its smartphone business faces headwinds—the company’s stock has slid over 20% since mid-March. This comes even after Xiaomi raised its 2025 EV delivery target to 350,000 vehicles following its fastest revenue growth since 2021.
