Kristi Noem’s ‘overdue’ sacking, Trumponomics, and a gravity hoax
Welcome to our press review of events in the United States. Every Wednesday I look at how the Swiss media have reported and reacted to three major stories in the US – in politics, finance and science.
Make sure you’re wearing lead boots on August 12 – that’s when Earth is going to lose gravity for seven seconds, according to a viral rumour doing the rounds on social media based on a “leaked” NASA document. Swiss public broadcaster RTS looked into how this story became so popular.
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Last week, after months of controversy, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem became the first Senate-confirmed member of Trump’s cabinet to be fired this term – a dismissal that was “overdue”, reckoned the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ).
“In the end, Kristi Noem apparently became an unacceptable problem for Donald Trump,” wrote Blick on Friday. The previous day Trump had thanked Noem for her work and highlighted her “numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!)”. But despite the praise, Blick said Trump was reportedly “anything but satisfied” with Noem recently. The paper then listed some of the scandals Noem had got caught up in, including killing a puppy and a $220 million (CHF170 million) advertising contract.
But the final straw, according to Swiss public radio SRF, was last week’s hearings in Congress, which addressed, among other issues, the fatal shooting in January of two US citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis (see previous press review). Noem was criticised when she quickly accused the two citizens of being engaged in “domestic terrorism”. SRF noted on Friday that she “has not retracted this description. There has also been no apology”.
“The nomination of Noem as a cabinet member was a misjudgement by President Trump,” said the NZZ in an editorial. “He assigned the eccentric loyalist the responsibility for implementing his migration policy – the most important domestic issue of his presidency. Once in office, she seemed unleashed. Immigration police officers were given practically free rein to meet their arrest quotas. Trump tolerated this – until chaos erupted in Minneapolis.”
Trump said Noem would become a “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas”, a new security initiative that he said would focus on the Western Hemisphere. Noem will be replaced as Secretary of Homeland Security by Republican Congressman Markwayne Mullin, who is to work “hand in hand”, according to the NZZ, with Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan.
“Americans want a firm migration policy, but the Noem variant went too far for them, as polls clearly show,” the NZZ said. “That is why more than a change of style is needed at the head of the Department of Homeland Security, especially if Trump wants to achieve his migration policy goals.”
- ‘Kristi Noem’s dismissal was overdue’External link – NZZ editorial (German, paywall)
- ‘The many scandals of Kristi Noem’External link – Blick (German)
- Donald Trump fires Kristi NoemExternal link – Le Temps (French)
Are the tariffs so beloved of US President Donald Trump creating a new economic world order? Economists are divided, says Swiss public broadcaster SRF.
Trump is sticking to his tariff policy, SRF reported on Tuesday – despite the Supreme Court ruling that he is overstepping his authority (see previous press review). “Companies are responding by withholding capital, redirecting it, or investing in completely different products than initially planned,” it said, citing a survey by consultants EY in January which found that eight out of ten Swiss CEOs had changed their investment plans.
“But adjusting investments is part of business,” SRF added. Economic historian Tobias Straumann from the University of Zurich explained there had been periods of extensive tariffs throughout history – the US also pursued an aggressive protectionist course at times, for example in the second half of the 19th century. “What’s new, however, is the humiliating rhetoric of the US president and his strikingly abrasive manner,” Straumann told SRF.
Another familiar pattern is that entrepreneurs are reacting quickly to new tariffs, just as they did before the turn of the 20th century. Today, Trump is calling for additional investment from foreign trading partners such as Switzerland, SRF said. “The tone and approach are different, but the result – foreign investment – is the same,” it said.
Straumann also sees a certain continuity in the political course the US has taken. “It’s about digesting the rise of China, and that requires the US to reorient itself, to shift its focus in terms of foreign and economic policy,” he said, explaining that this process began years ago, under the administration of Barack Obama.
But other historians and economists are speaking of a new world order. One of them is Harald Preissler, capital market strategist at Zurich-based financial institution Bantleon. He finds the development worrying because old certainties are dissolving. “Who is friend, who is enemy, who is good, who is bad, who is right-wing, who is left-wing – all of this is currently being renegotiated,” he told SRF.
Many countries have now realised that they need to become more independent of the US – economically, technologically, politically and militarily, he said. “This means that we’re now seeing new fiscal programmes all over the world.” Countries are going into debt in order to be able to afford their economic independence.
SRF concluded that fiscal policy was currently providing short-term tailwinds for the economy, but in the medium term it would also bring inflation and, in the longer term, the question of whether countries would be able to sustain their debt.
- EY studyExternal link (German)
No, gravity is not going to disappear for a few seconds this summer, Swiss public broadcaster RTS reassured its readers. The viral hoax was based on a fake NASA document, it explained.
“A persistent rumour, amplified by social media, claims that the Earth’s gravity will be suspended for seven seconds on August 12, 2026,” RTS reported on Saturday. How did this story become so popular? RTS looked at a piece of nonsense that is tied up with a genuine astronomical phenomenon.
For several months, videos that look like trailers for Hollywood disaster films have been flooding TikTok and Instagram. The reason is that on August 12 the Earth will apparently briefly lose its gravity, “sending people hurtling through the air”, RTS explained. The alleged source of this prediction is a secret document from US space agency NASA code-named “Project Anchor”, which is said to have budget of $89 billion (CHF69 billion). The cause is said to be the intersection of two gravitational waves from black holes.
RTS pointed out that American fact-checking website Snopes had debunked the rumour, which was “invented on an Instagram account specialising in fictional stories, potentially aided by artificial intelligence tools to generate its stories”. For its part, NASA has formally denied the existence of any such project or threat, RTS added.
“As for gravitational waves, if they do exist, they are vibrations of space-time so minute that extraordinarily sensitive instruments are needed to detect them. They have no power to ‘cancel out’ the gravity of a planet,” it explained.
Just to be sure, RTS double-checked with Jean-Paul Kneib, director of the astrophysics laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). “For gravity to disappear, the Earth itself would have to disappear. There is no physical mechanism that could make the Earth disappear for seven seconds and then magically make it come back,” he said.
So no need to cancel your plans on August 12. What definitely is happening on that date, however, is a total solar eclipse, which will pass over the Arctic, Greenland, Iceland, the Atlantic Ocean, northern Spain and the extreme northeastern part of Portugal.
- Debunking of the rumourExternal link – Snopes
The next edition of ‘Swiss views of US news’ will be published on Wednesday, March 18. See you then!
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