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The Grand Egyptian Museum Is Finally Open. (Well, Mostly.)

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I was drawn to the outskirts of Cairo by the colossal complex in the desert — a towering site that arose over decades, built at unimaginable expense, with precisely cut stones sourced from local quarries; a set of buildings whose construction, plagued by extraordinary challenges, spanned the reigns of several rulers; a collective cultural testament, the largest of its kind, teeming with royal history.No, I’m not referring to Giza’s famous pyramids. I came to see the Grand Egyptian Museum.Approaching the museum’s main entrance. (The plaza contains an obelisk that is elevated on a granite base, allowing for views of the cartouche — an oval containing a royal name in hieroglyphics — of Ramses II.)Hieroglyphic motifs and translucent stone adorn the building’s exterior.A pyramidal entryway leads to the grand atrium.There is perhaps no institution on earth whose opening has been as wildly anticipated, or as mind-bogglingly delayed, as the Grand Egyptian Museum outside Cairo. Its construction has been such a fiasco — mired by funding lapses, logistical hurdles, a pandemic, nearby wars, revolutions (yes, plural) — that it begs comparison to that of the pyramids that lie just over a mile away on the Giza Plateau.(The 4,600-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza, built from around 2.3 million stone blocks and without the use of wheels, pulleys or iron tools, took about 25 years to build, by some estimates. So far, the Grand Egyptian Museum has taken more than 20.)Planned openings have come and gone since 2012. (Even The Times got it wrong; our list of 52 Places to Go in 2020 prematurely referred to the “fancy new digs for King Tut and company.”) In time, frustrations bubbled over for would-be visitors, many of whom had planned vacations around the new museum. “I have canceled two trips to Cairo because of anticipated opening dates and then delays,” one traveler wrote on the museum’s Instagram page this year. “I have wanted to visit since I was a child and the promise of the museum and constant delays is ruining that experience for so many people.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Has Mixed Emotions Toward Japan

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    The president at turns praises and criticizes Japan, a U.S. ally that decades ago stirred his anger over the unequal balance of trade and his penchant for tariffs.This month in the White House’s Rose Garden, as he held up a placard showing the global wave of tariffs he wanted to impose, President Trump paused to fondly recall a fallen friend.“The prime minister of Japan, Shinzo, was — Shinzo Abe — he was a fantastic man,” Mr. Trump said during the tariff announcement on April 2. “He was, unfortunately, taken from us, assassination.”The words of praise for Mr. Abe, who was gunned down three years ago during a campaign speech, did not stop Mr. Trump from slapping a 24 percent tariff on products imported from Japan. But they were unusual, nonetheless, coming from a president who has had few nice things to say these days about other allies, particularly Canada and Europe.Now, Japan will be one of the first countries allowed to bargain for a possible reprieve from Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs, many of which he has put on hold for 90 days. On Thursday, a negotiator handpicked by Japan’s current prime minister is scheduled to begin talks in Washington with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others.Japan’s place at the front of the line reflects the different approach that Mr. Trump has taken toward the nation. While the president still accuses it of unfair trade policies and an unequal security relationship, he also praises it in the same breath as a close ally, an ancient culture and a savvy negotiator.“I love Japan,” Mr. Trump told reporters last month. “But we have an interesting deal with Japan where we have to protect them but they don’t have to protect us,” referring to the security treaty that bases 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Investors Seeking Safety Look to German Government Bonds

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    Germany has long taken flak from Wall Street and financial capitals around Europe for the extreme fiscal conservatism that has kept the country’s debt levels low. But as global markets convulsed this week, investors rewarded Germany’s caution by snapping up its government bonds, which are known as bunds.Investors have reeled after President Trump imposed 10 percent tariffs on nearly every trading partner, temporarily rescinded even higher “reciprocal” tariffs hours after they came into effect and steadily ratcheted up tariffs on China to well above 100 percent.The resulting tumult hit U.S. assets hard, including Treasuries and the dollar, normally considered haven assets. That sent investors seeking other places for safety, such as gold, the Swiss franc and German bunds.The 10-year yield on German bunds, which moves inversely to prices, fell to 2.56 percent, near its lowest level in more than a month. That is notable relative to the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield, arguably the most important interest rate in the world, which has soared higher. On Friday, the 10-year U.S. yield was around 4.5 percent, climbing nearly half a percentage point in one week, a huge move in that market.Germany’s strict limits on government borrowing have given the country a stellar AAA credit rating. But last month, lawmakers decided that the next government could abandon the borrowing limit and take on trillions of euros in fresh debt to bolster the country’s military and crumbling public infrastructure. Germany’s export-driven economy is also heavily exposed to tariffs, given the large amount of trade its automakers and other industrial companies do with the United States.The prospect of extra borrowing and a slowing economy had begun to put pressure on German bunds. But the turmoil elsewhere in recent weeks prompted investors to turn back to the country’s debt as a source of safety.This week, Germany’s expected next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, also announced the blueprint for his government, which included an economic plan to jump-start the ailing German economy. And ahead of its planned borrowing binge, Germany benefits from low debt relative to the size of its economy, at about 60 percent of gross domestic product. By comparison, U.S. debt is about 120 percent of the size of its economy.It was “very striking” that in a moment of stress German bunds were acting as the “haven of choice” instead of U.S. Treasuries, said Sander Tordoir, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, a research institute.“There does seem to be a real safety premium now being place on German government debt,” he said. More

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    China Censors Hashtags Mentioning ‘104%,’ the Size of Trump’s Tariffs

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    Chinese censors appeared to be carefully curating public discussion about the U.S. tariffs that took effect on Wednesday. They promoted criticism of the United States, while seemingly playing down the specifics of how President Trump’s move would effectively increase import taxes on Chinese goods to 104 percent.On Weibo, a popular social media platform, several hashtags that used the number 104 — such as “104 tariff rate” or “America to impose 104 percent tariff on Chinese goods” — returned an error message that said: “Sorry, the content of this topic is not displayed.”But other hashtags that focused more squarely on mocking the United States, or on touting China’s strengths, were allowed to trend — and in fact were explicitly initiated by state media. “America is fighting a trade war while begging for eggs” was one popular hashtag started by CCTV, China’s state broadcaster. “China does not provoke trouble but is never afraid of it” was another.State media outlets adopted a similarly swaggering tone in their coverage. Several opinion pieces in the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, declared that China had learned from years of trade frictions to diversify and shore up its economy. “In Chinese people’s genes, we never fear any risks, challenges, difficulties or contradictions, and can regard all kinds of external pressure as the driving force for our own progress,” one piece said.Other pieces did not directly reference the tariffs but still touted the strengths of the Chinese economy. A front-page article in the People’s Daily laid out steps that the government would take to promote employment for fresh graduates.Mr. Xi himself has not publicly addressed the new tariffs. But on Wednesday afternoon, Chinese state media published his first public remarks since the latest escalation in the trade war, saying that he had met with his innermost circle of top officials on Tuesday and Wednesday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Global Leaders Rush to Woo Trump, Hoping to Sway Him on Tariffs

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    Dozens of foreign governments were trying to appeal to the president to have steep tariffs rolled back, but the president and his advisers have indicated negotiations could be difficult.President Trump’s plan to impose sweeping tariffs on most of America’s trading partners has governments across the globe racing to schedule phone calls, send delegations to Washington and offer up proposals to lower their import taxes in order to escape the levies.On Monday, European officials offered to drop tariffs to zero on cars and industrial goods imported from the United States, in return for the same treatment. Israel’s prime minister was expected to personally petition Mr. Trump on Monday in meetings at the White House. Vietnam’s top leader, in a phone call last week, offered to get rid of tariffs on American goods, while Indonesia prepared to send a high-level delegation to Washington, D.C., to “directly negotiate with the U.S. government.”Even Lesotho, the tiny landlocked country in Southern Africa, was assembling a delegation to send to Washington to protest the tariffs on its exports to the United States, which include denim for Calvin Klein and Levi’s.Mr. Trump and his advisers have given mixed signals on whether the United States is willing to negotiate. On Sunday, Mr. Trump said that the tariffs would remain in place until U.S. trade deficits disappeared, meaning the United States is no longer buying more from these countries than it sells to them. But the administration still appeared to be welcoming offers from foreign nations, which are desperate to try to forestall more levies that go into effect on Wednesday.On Monday, as markets recoiled for a third day and Mr. Trump threatened even more punishing tariffs on China, the president said that “negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately.”“Countries from all over the World are talking to us,” the president wrote on Truth Social on Monday morning. “Tough but fair parameters are being set. Spoke to the Japanese Prime Minister this morning. He is sending a top team to negotiate!”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Is Defiant as Tariff Moves Roil Markets a Second Day

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    Two days after President Trump announced his expansive global tariffs, the United States confronted wide-ranging and painful blowback, as China retaliated against American goods and markets plummeted again on worries of a persistent, damaging trade war.No portion of the global economy appeared unscathed as the world braced for Mr. Trump to begin imposing his nearly across-the-board taxes on imports Saturday, marking the first salvo in a potentially costly trade conflict that the president has vigorously defended.China, which Mr. Trump has already hit with 20 percent tariffs, announced plans to retaliate. Beijing promised to impose a 34 percent tariff on American goods next week, including on agricultural products. China calibrated its tariffs to match Mr. Trump’s decision to add a 34 percent tax to Chinese imports.The tit-for-tat delivered a huge blow to financial markets, as Wall Street reckoned with the rising odds of an escalating global trade standoff. By the closing bell, the S&P 500 had fallen by almost 6 percent, pulling it closer into a bear market, a widely used Wall Street term for a decline of at least 20 percent from its peak. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 5.8 percent, pushing it into bear market territory.As China took aim at the United States, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director general of the World Trade Organization, warned on Friday against a “cycle of retaliatory measures that lead to further declines in trade.” In the United States, Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, struck his own downbeat note over the unpredictable trajectory of the economy.“While uncertainty remains elevated, it is now becoming clear that the tariff increases will be significantly larger than expected,” Mr. Powell said. “The same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Is Set to Unveil Expansive Global Tariffs

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    President Trump is set to unveil his most expansive tariffs to date on Wednesday afternoon, when he will detail potentially punishing levies on countries around the globe, including America’s largest trading partners.Mr. Trump has promised for months to impose what he calls “reciprocal” tariffs, which the president says will correct years of “unfair” trade in which other countries have been “ripping off” America.“We helped everybody, and they don’t help us,” Mr. Trump said on Monday.Exactly how he plans to structure the new tariffs is not yet clear. The White House press secretary said Tuesday afternoon that Mr. Trump had decided on a course of action and that the new tariffs would go into effect immediately, but that he and his trade advisers were continuing to hash out details.The president has talked about basing a new tariff rate for countries on the tariffs they place on American products, as well as other trading practices that the Trump team deems unfair.Mr. Trump has also considered a flat 20 percent tariff on all trading partners. Such a levy would be aimed more at generating revenue to offset the tax cuts that he hopes to push through Congress.Either approach would be a significant escalation toward a trade war that Mr. Trump seems eager to unleash. Governments across the world have been preparing to hit back if the president raises tariffs, raising the potential for a destabilizing economic battle that drives up costs as Mr. Trump tries to force supply chains back to the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Want to Play a Game? Global Trade War Is the New Washington Pastime.

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    Two dozen trade experts gathered recently to simulate how a global trade war would play out. The results were surprisingly optimistic.The world’s biggest powers were deep in a trade war. Economic losses from the tariffs that President Trump had imposed on most of the world, along with global retaliation, were accumulating. Jobs were being lost, inflation was ticking up and the world was both frustrated with and anxious about the United States.While the stakes were real, the trade war was not. Instead, it was a simulation to better understand how a global trade fight might unfold.Last month, two dozen trade experts from the United States and other countries gathered at a Washington think tank to try to simulate what could happen if Mr. Trump moves ahead with his plan to impose punishing tariffs on America’s biggest trading partners.Teams representing China, Europe, the United States and other governments spent a day running between conference rooms, offering proposals to remove the tariffs and make trade deals to forestall economic collapse.The game, which took place at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan think tank focused on security issues, included think tank experts and former officials in the Trump and Biden administrations. The exercise was not aimed at predicting the future. Instead, by acting out what might happen, the participants were trying to reveal some of the dynamics that might be at play as Mr. Trump pursues an aggressive trade approach against allies and adversaries alike.In the last two months, Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, as well as levies on global steel and aluminum imports. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump is expected to announce a plan to raise tariff rates on other countries, and his 25 percent tariffs on cars and auto parts will go into effect on Thursday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Has Hinted at a Xi Visit. China Is Still Wondering What He Wants.

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    Chinese experts say Beijing is open to talks but is being stonewalled by the State Department and other official channels.President Trump fueled new speculation this week about a meeting with China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, when he told reporters that Washington needed to be cleaned up to prepare for a summit between the two leaders in the “not too distant future.”Mr. Trump provided no details, and China has said nothing publicly about any such meeting. The stakes of a visit would be high: President Trump has imposed 20 percent tariffs on China’s shipments to the United States, and may order another round next month. China wants to try to head off further escalations in the trade war that would set back its efforts to revive the country’s beleaguered economy, experts say.But before any summit can take place, China still needs answers to two pressing questions: What does Mr. Trump want? Who can Beijing talk to in Washington who Mr. Trump might listen to?To try to answer these questions, China sent scholars to the United States to take part in unofficial diplomatic talks last month with Trump administration officials and American foreign policy experts. China has grown concerned that the officials Beijing have been dealing with at the State Department and the National Security Council, who are outside Mr. Trump’s inner circle, are not conveying their messages to him, some of the scholars said.“We talk through the diplomatic channel. That’s the normal channel. But can that reach President Trump? Do those people we talked to really know what President Trump is thinking?” said Da Wei, the director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, who was among the scholars.China has also been publicly signaling its interest in talks. The Chinese commerce minister said earlier this month that he wrote a letter to the U.S. commerce secretary and U.S. trade representative inviting them to meet. And Chinese officials describing Beijing’s efforts to curtail the production of fentanyl last week urged the United States to return to dialogue.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More