CNN
 — 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s international envoy, held high level talks with Ukrainian and European officials in Paris at a summit Thursday aimed at bolstering Ukraine’s defenses against Russia’s unrelenting invasion.

Ukrainian and US officials had an “excellent exchange” with their British, French and German counterparts, an Elysée source said following the talks, with the meetings in Paris providing “a very strong strategic opportunity.”

Ukraine and the three European countries stressed their shared support for Trump’s efforts to bring about a rapid end to the war, according to the source.

More meetings will take place next week in London in the same format, the source added. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce would not say whether Rubio would attend the discussions.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday’s talks marked “a day of diplomatic mobilisation,” in a post on social media.

“Today, we engaged in a positive and constructive discussion on how to achieve both a ceasefire and a comprehensive, lasting peace,” Macron said.

Zelensky thanked Macron for his leadership and for the work in Paris by representatives from the attending countries, in a post on social media.

“It is important that we hear each other, refine and clarify our positions, and work for the sake of real security of Ukraine and all (of) our Europe,” he said.

Elsewhere, Trump told reporters Thursday that the United States would be “hearing” from Russia “this week” on the US proposal for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

“We’re going to be hearing from them this week, very shortly, actually, and we’ll see. But we want it to stop. We want the death and the killing to stop,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump added that while he is not a “big fan” of Zelensky, he does not hold the Ukrainian leader responsible for the war.

“I don’t hold Zelensky responsible, but I’m not exactly thrilled with the fact that that war started. That was a war that would have never started if I were president,” Trump told reporters.

If Trump’s pledge to end the war in a day was far-fetched, the hope to secure a full truce by Easter – this weekend – also looks likely to fail. Russia has ramped up its strikes on Ukraine in recent weeks, despite Washington’s overtures to Moscow.

For Ukraine’s European allies, the summit offered a chance to gauge the Trump administration’s thinking on the war in Ukraine. Kyiv and its allies have been alarmed by Trump’s and Witkoff’s parroting of Kremlin talking points, and may have viewed the talks as a chance to disrupt and dislodge those perceptions.

After meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin for a third time last week, Witkoff told Fox News that any peace deal in Ukraine will center on the “so-called five territories,” referring to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Russia annexed in 2014, and the four mainland Ukrainian regions Russia has occupied since its full-scale invasion in 2022, having previously suggested Ukraine may have to cede them under a truce.

Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, told CNN Tuesday that Witkoff “with all due respect… may be inadvertently trying to push pro-Russian narratives.”

Despite its ambitious pledges, the Trump administration has struggled to broker a lasting peace deal between the warring countries, and has been accused of using mostly sticks in its dealing with Ukraine while saving its carrots for Russia.

After the White House briefly cut weapons supplies and intelligence sharing to Ukraine in March, Kyiv swiftly agreed to the US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire.

Following separate talks with Russian and Ukrainian officials later that month, the White House said both had agreed to the ceasefire on energy infrastructure and in the Black Sea – only for the Kremlin to announce it would only implement the agreement when sanctions imposed on its banks and exports are lifted.

The Center for Countering Disinformation, a Ukrainian think-tank, has pointed out that the supposed truce has done little to constrain Russia’s aggression. In the 22 days after the truce, the Russian army killed nearly 2.5 times more Ukrainians than during the same period before it was announced, the Center said in an update Tuesday.

In a sign of growing irritation with Moscow, Trump last week said that “Russia has to get moving,” but provided no deadlines or ultimatum if it did not.

While the Paris summit was underway, Kirill Dmitriev, a top Russian negotiator, claimed that many countries are trying to “disrupt” Russia’s dialogue with the US. He said Putin’s latest meeting with Witkoff was “extremely productive,” but that the dialogue was taking place in “very difficult conditions – constant attacks, constant disinformation.”

London
CNN
 — 

The European Central Bank cut its main interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point Thursday, citing growing trade tensions after US President Donald Trump’s tariffs sparked a global trade war.

While the 20 countries that use the euro have built up “resilience against global shocks,” the “outlook for (economic) growth has deteriorated owing to rising trade tensions,” the ECB said in a statement.

The central bank is one of a number of global economic and financial players to warn that tariffs could weigh on economies and hurt everyone from major corporations to regular people. Similar warnings have been issued by the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and others.

Speaking to reporters, ECB President Christine Lagarde said: “Disruptions to international commerce, financial market tensions and geopolitical uncertainty are weighing on business investment. As consumers become more cautious about the future, they may pull back on spending.”

The ECB’s rate cut to 2.25%, which was widely expected, is the seventh in the past year.

Yael Selfin, chief economist at consultancy KPMG, said the trade war – which has featured a flurry of tariffs, pauses, new tariffs and more delays – could lead to a pile-up of products as trade flows get snarled.

“The outfall of the trade disruptions could create a global glut of manufactured goods, which could see goods prices fall into deflationary territory this year,” Selfin added.

In contrast to the ECB, the US Federal Reserve held rates steady at its most recent policy meeting in March, and officials, including Chair Jerome Powell, have hinted that trade uncertainty will keep rates on hold awhile longer.

On Wednesday, Powell told a Chicago audience that Trump’s moves represent “very fundamental policy changes” and gave his starkest warning to date on the effect of tariffs on the US economy, the world’s largest.

Trump contrasted the approach of the two central banks on social media Thursday, ripping into Powell for holding rates.

“Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always TOO LATE AND WRONG, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete ‘mess!’” Trump wrote. “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

But Lagarde, in her press conference Thursday, rallied behind Powell: “I have a lot of respect for my esteemed colleague and friend Jay Powell.”

She added that it is imperative that central banks stay independent of government influence or intervention, noting that any country that wants to join the eurozone must demonstrate that it can uphold that independence in law and in practice.

“For us, here, the independence of central banks is fundamental,” she said.

This story has been updated with additional information and context.

Washington
CNN
 — 

President Donald Trump on Thursday ratcheted up his criticism against Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, calling for his “termination” for not cutting interest rates quickly enough. His comments come one day after the central bank chief delivered a stark warning about the effect of Trump’s sweeping tariffs on the economy.

Trump’s first comments on Powell came early in the day, in a social media post. But the president continued ripping into the Fed chief later Thursday, in an Oval Office meeting, piling on political pressure for Powell to lower interest rates.

Ahead of an expected rate decision Thursday by the European Central Bank, Trump lashed out at the Fed leader, saying the US central bank is lagging behind. The ECB later announced it is cutting interest rates for the seventh time in the past year.

“Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always TOO LATE AND WRONG, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete ‘mess!’ Trump wrote. “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

His comments come after Powell on Wednesday said at an event in Chicago that the Trump administration has brought “very fundamental policy changes,” including sweeping tariffs that are “significantly larger than anticipated.” He said such changes are unlike anything seen in modern history, putting the Fed in uncharted waters and on a path to confront a challenge it hasn’t seen in decades.

But Powell’s words weren’t unlike those of other Fed officials in recent weeks. Most have said Trump’s tariffs are likely to push up inflation and unemployment. Powell has carried out the Fed’s monetary policy by making decisions that are dependent on economic data in striving for the central bank’s dual mandate of maximum employment and stable prices. The ECB, which only focuses on price stability, also has a data-driven approach like the Fed.

“Let me just say very squarely, I have a lot of respect for my esteemed colleague and friend Jay Powell. We have a steady solid relationship amongst central bankers,” ECB President Christine Lagarde said Thursday in a news conference after the central bank announced its latest policy move. “I think that relationship is decisive in order to have a solid financial infrastructure on which to ensure there is financial stability.”

Meanwhile, some billionaires, such as Ray Dalio, have taken criticism of Trump’s tariffs a step further, saying the US economy might be in or near a recession already.

Powell was first appointed as Fed chair by Trump in 2018 and was later reappointed by President Joe Biden in 2022. His current term ends in May 2026.

Trump has on several occasions threatened to remove Powell from his post, and criticism of his Fed head stretches back to 2018, when Powell took the reins of the world’s most powerful central bank.

The Fed raised interest rates a handful of times that year over worries that a historically tight job market could spur higher inflation. In 2019, Trump even called Powell “the enemy.” In March 2020, Trump told reporters he had the “right to remove (Powell) as chairman” and that “he has, so far, made a lot of bad decisions, in my opinion,” after markets tanked amid the pandemic. But he also praised Powell for cutting rates to zero to prevent an economic collapse.

Trump doubled down on his criticism of Powell while taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon.

“I don’t think he’s doing the job. He’s too late. Always too late. A little slow and I’m not happy with him. I let him know it,” Trump said. “And if I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast, believe me.”

“We have a Federal Reserve chairman that’s playing politics,” he said, adding that the Fed not cutting interest rates “plays right into (Europe’s) hands.”

“The Fed really owes it to the American people to get interest rates down, that’s the only thing he’s good for,” Trump said. “I think at some point he will. He’s going to have a lot of political pressure, you know they are political also and I think there’s a lot of political pressure for him to lower interest rates.”

The Fed declined to comment on Trump’s latest remarks.

But Trump’s desire to fire Powell is at odds with the view of his own Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent. Earlier this week, Bessent told Bloomberg in an interview that “monetary policy is a jewel box that’s got to be preserved.”

During his confirmation hearing in January, Bessent told congressional lawmakers that the Fed should remain independent. Doing away with it would not only rattle investors who are already anxious about Trump’s tariffs, but it could destroy the central bank’s credibility, which it needs to fight inflation. That’s as important as ever, with economists expecting tariffs to lead to higher prices. Countries with independent central banks generally have lower inflation.

For his part, Powell has pointedly noted that removing a Fed chair is “not permitted under the law,” and has said he intends to serve out the remainder of his term.

However, that legal protection, which comes as a result of the Fed’s status as an independent government institution, may be an open question. Trump has fired two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission, also a long-independent agency, arguing that their “continued service on the FTC is inconsistent with my administration’s priorities,” according to a Wall Street Journal report of a letter Trump sent to them.

On Wednesday, Trump fired two Democrats on the three-member board of the National Credit Union Administration, a federal insurer and regulator of credit unions. Todd Harper, one of the officials dismissed by Trump, said in a post on LinkedIn that his firing “is wrong.”

“It violates the bipartisan statutory framework adopted by Congress to protect credit union members and their deposits. The Trump Administration’s attack also undermines the independence, balance and important work of the NCUA,” Harper wrote. “If a President can fire an NCUA Board member at any time, how will we maintain public trust in our nation’s financial services regulatory system?”

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is expected to revisit a case that could severely weaken the Fed’s independence.

The 1935 case, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, established precedent over how much power a sitting US president has in removing agency heads. The case involved William Humphrey, “an aggrieved conservative commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, who was fired by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 over policy differences,” the Brookings Institution wrote in a 2018 analysis.

Humphrey died shortly after his dismissal, but his executor sued for damages. The Court ruled in favor of the executor, saying the Constitution does not say the president has the “illimitable power of removal.” In February, the Trump administration said the case should be overturned.

In addition to the FTC firings, Trump also fired a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board and another person serving on the Merit Systems Protection Board who identifies as a Democrat — both who have sued for their jobs back. Chief Justice John Roberts asked both sides to submit briefs last week.