Category: 2. World

• Ruling however allows the levies to stay in place through mid-October
• US president vows to fight back

WASHINGTON: A US appeals court has ruled that many of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which have upended global trade, were illegal — but allowed them to remain in place for now, giving him time to take the fight to the Supreme Court.

The 7-4 ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday affirmed a lower court’s finding that Trump had exceeded his authority in tapping emergency economic powers to impose wide-ranging duties.

But the judges allowed the tariffs to stay in place through mid-October — and Trump swiftly made clear he would put the time to use.

The appeals court “incorrectly said that our Tariffs should be removed, but they know the United States of America will win in the end,” he said in a statement on his Truth Social platform lashing out at the ruling.

He added that he would fight back “with the help of the United States Supreme Court”. The decision marks a blow to the president, who has wielded duties as a wide-ranging economic policy tool.

It could also cast doubt over deals Trump has struck with major trading partners such as the European Union, and raised the question of what would happen to the billions of dollars collected by the United States since the tariffs were put in place if the conservative-majority Supreme Court does not back him.

Friday’s case, however, does not deal with sector-specific tariffs that the Trump administration has also imposed on steel, aluminum, autos and other imports.

‘Diplomatic embarrassment’

Since returning to the presiden­cy in January, Trump has invoked the International Emergency Econo­mic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on almost all US trading partners, with a 10-percent baseline level and higher rates for dozens of economies.

He invoked similar authorities to slap separate tariffs hitting Mexico, Canada and China over the flow of deadly drugs into the United States.

The Court of International Trade had ruled in May that Trump overstepped his authority with across-the-board global levies, blocking most of the duties from taking effect, but the appeals court later put the ruling on hold to consider the case.

Friday’s ruling noted that “the statute bestows significant authority on the President to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency, but none of these actions explicitly include the power to impose tariffs, duties, or the like, or the power to tax”.

It added that it was not addressing if Trump’s actions should have been taken as a matter of policy or deciding whether IEEPA authorises any tariffs at all.

Instead, it sought to resolve the question of whether Trump’s “reci­procal” tariffs and those imposed over trafficking were authorised, with the document noting: “We conclude they are not.”

In a supplementary filing just hours before the appeals court released its decision, Trump cabinet officials argued that ruling the global tariffs illegal and blocking them would hurt US foreign policy and national security.

“Such a ruling would threaten broader US strategic interests at home and abroad, likely lead to retaliation and the unwinding of agreed-upon deals by foreign-trading partners,” wrote Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. He added that they could also “derail critical ongoing negotiations” with partners.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, meanwhile, warned that suspending the effectiveness of tariffs “would lead to dangerous diplomatic embarrassment”.

Several legal challenges have been filed against the tariffs Trump invoked. If these tariffs are ultimately ruled illegal, companies could seek reimbursements.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2025

The 25th SCO Summit is scheduled to be held in Tianjin, China, from August 31 to September 1, 2025. This much-awaited summit needs to be seen in the context of not only what China is doing but also the geopolitical alignment that India might be seeking. The last time PM Modi of India attended an SCO summit in person was in 2022. The 2023 SCO Heads of State Summit was held virtually, with PM Modi chairing it.

One of the reasons that brings Modi back to SCO and most importantly, to China, the host country, is the 50% tariff snub it got from President Trump. India considered this American act as unjust and irresponsible. Unjust because China is the largest importer of Russian oil, yet it is not sanctioned, but India was. So the diplomatic response by India was in line with how it chose to serve its national interest. We will not be told whom we can buy from and from whom we cannot, said India, thus laying the ground for seeking strategic autonomy. Modi heads to China, understanding the geopolitical weight of the SCO. If India won’t export to the US, it will seek alternative markets of the SCO and BRICs as well as access to their resources and the energy reserves.

India’s refusal to join BRI is based on the fact that such an action would undermine its sovereignty. CPEC is the flagship project of BRI, and India fears that joining BRI might legitimise Pakistan’s claim over the disputed Kashmir territory that India claims and Pakistan holds. If India is seeking a broad geopolitical alignment, which means mending its relations with China despite the territorial and land disputes with it, then the circle of this broad geopolitical alignment will not be complete unless India considers mending its relations with Pakistan as well.

Events shape geopolitical trends. The upcoming Head of States SCO Summit is one such event that will definitely contribute to accelerating the geopolitical trend of the demise of American primacy. This SCO summit is unique in the sense that twenty countries are participating in it – the largest number to have ever participated in an SCO summit. This is the beginning, and with every subsequent year, the number of countries attending may rise. Both SCO and BRICS and their membership are likely to become bigger and larger as their attractive economies suck in more and more countries of the Global South.

There is this old quote that a common enemy brings the adversaries together. In the changing geopolitical structure of the world, the US is likely to stand out not as the common enemy but as a losing global hegemon that may be left stranded because it fails to get its act together. Already, SCO and BRICs together hold 35% of the total share of the global output, which is 8% more than the 27% of the same output that G-7 countries hold.

Global North was considered the core, and Global South was the gap. But given this difference in share of the global output by the countries of the Global South, the rich core of the global economy seems to be gradually shifting towards the Global South. Demographically as well, the US represents 4.5% of the world’s population while China, Russia and India combined represent almost 40% of the world’s population. What SCO and BRICS member countries can initiate as a geopolitical trend is similar to a geopolitical trend that the US initiated after World War II.

Within a week of the Allied forces victory, the US cancelled its Land-Lease Program for Britain and replaced it with a loan on commercial terms that Britain could not afford. The US action clearly suggested that a rising power was capitalising on the demise and loss of status of a declining power. Whatever indignity was left for Britain to suffer, as a declining power, was completed when, in 1956, the Anglo-French invasion was undertaken to retake the Suez Canal, which was nationalised by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. President Eisenhower of the US didn’t like Britain’s idea of undertaking the invasion of a strategically important zone without prior consultation. Britain’s global aspirations ended when it was forced to withdraw its forces. Post Suez Canal withdrawal, the geopolitical trend of Britain’s decline and demise as a great power reached its culminating point.

Currently, there is no Land-Lease agreement between the existing three great powers and India as a rising power. What the major powers in SCO and BRICS can do is understand that there can be differences but not disputes, that there can be competition but not conflict. The US Achilles heel is based on misunderstanding this concept. It has become too powerful to resist the temptation of projecting its power in all the negative ways. India is the only country in the world that has been subjected to 50% tariffs, which is an act that is both humiliating and provocative. By imposing huge tariffs on India, all that the US has done is push India into the Russo-Sino orbit.

Two days after the end of the SCO summit, China celebrates its victory over Japan in a victory day parade. There is also a Modi-Putin Summit scheduled in India later this year. India will also act as the host nation for BRICS in 2026. So, there are many opportunities for one-on-one meetings between these leaders of the Global South.

As the world travels down the geopolitical road, the US stands out as a great power that is a borrower and under $35 trillion in debt, which is way more than the annual output of its goods and services. The tariffs and the sanctions that it has imposed is already bringing together 60% of the world’s population that holds 38% of the world’s GDP. The world is witnessing a change. The SCO Summit and similar events showcase that change. It is not only the aspiration for change but also how that change is brought about, which is more important.

No change can be brought about unless the leaders of great powers create conditions for that change to be put into practice. Under the changing geopolitical conditions, the onus lies with India not only to mend its ways with China but also with Pakistan. If this is done, the road ahead can only be one of regional peace and prosperity.

An Israeli airstrike killed the prime minister of the Houthi rebel-controlled government in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, the Houthis have said.

Ahmed al-Rahawi was killed in a strike in Sana’a on Thursday along with a number of ministers, the rebels said in a statement on Saturday. Other ministers and officials were wounded, the statement added without providing further details.

The head of the group’s supreme political council, Mahdi al-Mashat, said: “We promise to God, to the dear Yemeni people and the families of the martyrs and wounded that we will take revenge.”

He warned foreign companies to leave Israel “before it’s too late”.

The premier was targeted along with other members of his Houthi-controlled government during a “routine workshop held by the government to evaluate its activities and performance over the past year”, the Houthi statement said.

Thursday’s Israeli strike took place as the rebel-owned television station was broadcasting a speech by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the secretive leader of the rebel group, in which he was sharing updates on the latest Gaza developments and vowing retaliation against Israel. Senior Houthi officials used to gather to watch al-Houthi’s prerecorded speeches.

The strike that killed the prime minister targeted a meeting for Houthi leaders in a villa in Beit Baws, an ancient village in southern Sana’a, three tribal leaders told the Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared repercussions.

On Thursday, the Israeli military said that it “precisely struck a Houthi terrorist regime military target in the area of Sana’a in Yemen”. The military had no immediate comment on Saturday’s announcement of the prime minister’s killing.

“Yemen endures a lot for the victory of the Palestinian people,” al-Rahawi said after an Israeli strike last week on an oil facility owned by the country’s main oil company, which is controlled by the rebels in Sana’a, as well as a power plant.

On 22 August the Houthis had launched a ballistic missile toward Israel that its military described as the first cluster bomb the rebels had launched at it since 2023.

The prime minister hailed from the southern province of Abyan, and was an ally to the former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh. He allied himself with the Houthis when the rebels overran Sana’a and much of the north and centre of the country in 2014, initiating the country’s long-running civil war. He was appointed as prime minister in August 2024.

Al-Rahawi is the most senior Houthi official to be killed since the US and Israel began their air and naval campaign in response to the rebels’ missile and drone attacks on Israel and on ships in the Red Sea. The US and Israeli strikes killed dozens of people. One US strike in April hit a prison holding African migrants in the northern Sadaa province, killing at least 68 people and wounding 47 others.

Ahmed Nagi, a senior Yemen analyst with the Crisis Group International, a Brussels-based thinktank, called the killing of the Houthi prime minister a “serious setback” for the rebels.

He said the escalation marks an Israeli shift from striking the rebels’ infrastructure to targeting their leaders, including senior military figures, which “poses a greater threat to their command structure”.

The Houthis launched a campaign targeting ships in response to the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, saying they were doing so in solidarity with the Palestinians. Their attacks over the past two years have upended shipping in the Red Sea, through which about $1tn of goods pass each year.

In May, the Trump administration announced a deal with the Houthis to end the airstrikes in return for an end to attacks on shipping. The rebels, however, said the agreement did not include halting attacks on targets it believed were aligned with Israel.

United States President Donald Trump has scrapped plans to attend an upcoming summit of the ‘Quad’ grouping in India amid deteriorating ties between Washington and New Delhi, US newspaper The New York Times (NYT) reported on Saturday.

Relations between the two countries have plummeted, with 50 per cent levies on many Indian imports into the US taking effect this week as punishment for New Delhi’s massive purchases of Russian oil; a part of US efforts to pressure Moscow into ending its war in Ukraine.

As ties between both nations deteriorate, NYT reported on Saturday that the breakdown in relations was caused after a phone call on June 17.

“After telling [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi that he would travel to India later this year for the Quad summit, Mr Trump no longer has plans to visit in the fall, according to people familiar with the president’s schedule,” the NYT reported, citing “interviews with more than a dozen people in Washington and New Delhi”.

The NYT mentioned how Trump’s repeated claims about having ended the recent brief conflict between India and Pakistan reportedly “infuriated” Modi. The paper added that the dispute “dates back more than 75 years and is far deeper and more complicated than Mr Trump was making it out to be”.

India blamed Pakistan for the April 22 Pahalgam attack without evidence, triggering a military escalation. On May 6–7, New Delhi launched air strikes that killed civilians, followed by a week-long missile exchange. A US-brokered ceasefire ended the war.

“During a phone call on June 17, Mr Trump brought it up again, saying how proud he was of ending the military escalation,” the NYT reported.

“He mentioned that Pakistan was going to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize, an honour for which he had been openly campaigning. The not-so-subtle implication, according to people familiar with the call, was that Mr Modi should do the same.”

It added that the “bristled” Indian premier told Trump that American involvement had nothing to do with the ceasefire and the conflict had been settled directly between India and Pakistan.

“Mr Trump largely brushed off Mr Modi’s comments, but the disagreement — and Mr Modi’s refusal to engage on the Nobel — has played an outsize role in the souring relationship between the two leaders, whose once-close ties go back to Mr Trump’s first term,” the report reads, adding that the two leaders have not spoken since the June 17 phone conversation and Trump has only doubled down on taking credit for the ceasefire.

Amid this dispute, India has grown closer to Beijing and Moscow. Modi is currently in Tianjin, China, for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s Council of Heads of State summit, where he is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“At its core, the story of Mr Trump and Mr Modi is about two brash, populist leaders with big egos and authoritarian tendencies, and the web of loyalties that help keep both men in power,” the NYT reported.

“But it is also the tale of an American president with his eye on a Nobel Prize, running smack into the immovable third rail of Indian politics: the conflict with Pakistan.”

Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Modi turned down an invitation from Trump to visit the White House after a G7 meeting in Canada, over concerns that he would set up a meeting with Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Asim Munir, who was visiting the US at the time.

Reporting the same, NYT said: “Modi declined an invitation from Mr Trump to stop by Washington before he flew home. His officials were scandalised that Mr Trump might try to force their leader into a handshake with Pakistan’s army chief, who had also been invited to the White House for lunch around the same time. It was another clear sign, a senior Indian official said, that Mr Trump cared little for the complexity of their issue or the sensitivities and history around it.”

The COAS carried out two visits to the US. The first, in June, saw him meet Trump at the White House for luncheon, making him the first sitting army chief to do so.

The field marshal termed his second visit to the US in just one-and-a-half months a “new dimension” in ties between Washington and Islamabad. During this trip, the COAS engaged in high-level interactions with senior political and military leadership, as well as members of the Pakistani diaspora.

Pakistan and the US also finalised a trade deal at the start of August, lowering tariffs to 19pc from the previously announced 29pc and helping develop Pakistan’s oil reserves while trade talks between the US and India have stalled.