Trump 'Ambushes' Ramaphosa, Israeli Embassy Staff Killed in Washington, US Bond Warning
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Another Oval Office confrontation. President Trump repeats the conspiracy theory of white genocide in South Africa against the country's president. Two people working for Israel's embassy have been shot and killed in Washington, D.C. And making memories make money. How the popularity of Formula One has started a collector's market.

Let's start with a roundup of our top stories. US President Donald Trump confronted South Africa's leader Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office, repeating a conspiracy theory that there was a white genocide in the country. In an impromptu press briefing scheduled by the White House, the US President claimed that white farmers were being killed in the country. Here is part of the exchange.

But you do allow them to take land. No, no, no, no. You do allow them to take land. Nobody can take land. And then when they take the land, they kill the white farmer. And when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them. No, there is quite... Nothing happens to them.

The episode was described by Ramaphosa's aides as an ambush and that the US claims are not true. No land has been seized by South Africa since apartheid ended, whilst killings of farmers have been falling over the last 20 years. President Ramaphosa pushed back in the meeting.

I'm sorry I don't have a plane to give you. I wish you did. I would take it. If your country offered the United States Air Force a plane, I would take it. Okay. But coming back to this issue, which I really would like us to talk about, and talk about it very calmly, we were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around a table and talk about them. Will there be problems?

In February, President Trump froze almost all aid to Pretoria, claiming that it persecuted white Africana farmers. Now the rand weakened as the discussion between Trump and Ramaphosa became more heated.

The U.S. Defense Department has formally accepted a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar to temporarily serve as the new Air Force One. It's one of the biggest foreign gifts ever given to the U.S. government and has raised ethical and security concerns.

A Bloomberg investigation has also found that President Trump has more than doubled his net worth since the beginning of his second presidential election campaign. The U.S. president is now worth roughly $5.4 billion.

Two Israeli embassy workers have been shot dead in Washington, D.C. The shooting happened last night near the Capital Jewish Museum, just steps away from an FBI office. The motive is still unclear, but police say that a suspect is now in custody and shouted, free, free Palestine, while being detained.

Washington, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith gave this statement. Officers located one adult male and one adult female unconscious and not breathing at the scene. D.C. Fire and EMS responded and despite all life-saving efforts, both victims succumbed to their injuries. Washington, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith speaking there as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, called the attack a depraved act of anti-Semitic terrorism.

Now, President Trump has reportedly told European leaders that Vladimir Putin is not ready to end the war because he thinks that Russia is winning. The Wall Street Journal says that the U.S. president conceded that a ceasefire was unlikely at this stage. It comes as the U.K. urges G7 allies to further sanction Russian oil to put pressure on Moscow.

JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon says that he can't rule out the US economy will fall into stagflation. The head of America's largest bank says the country faces huge risks from geopolitics, from deficits and from price pressures. I just think there's a chance that things will, you'll have stagflation. So I'm not saying it's going to happen. I don't want the reader to say he's predicting that I'm not, but we have to be prepared for something like that.

JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon there in an exclusive Bloomberg interview. Both the Fed and Wall Street are waiting to see how uncertainty and tariffs hit the economy. But meanwhile, of course, U.S. bond investors are pushing back against President Donald Trump's tax

cut plan. Now, yesterday, yields on benchmark 30-year Treasuries hit 5.1%, just shy of a two-decade high, sparking declines in US stocks and the dollar. Audrey Goh is head of asset allocation at Standard Chartered Wealth Management, saying that 10-year Treasury yields could also be on the rise in the near future.

Our bias is still for maybe some near-term upside in terms of yield, maybe towards 4.75% perhaps, where the 10-year yield is concerned, over the next one to a month. Even when that will spike and break up of maybe year-to-date highs for that matter, that will probably allow the Fed to tilt a bit more dovishly and start delivering rate cuts. And therefore, that should then pressure yields towards our forecast of around 4.4% to 4.25% where the 10-year U.S.-born yield is concerned.

That was Standard Chartered's Audrey Goh speaking there. Investor sentiment towards Treasury took a big hit after Moody's ratings stripped the US of its top credit grade last week, of course, late last week, and also dipped further yesterday after that 20-year bond overhaul

auction that drew surprisingly tepid demand. House Republican leaders, though, have now released a new version of the bill, the tax and spending bill, featuring a higher deduction limit for certain taxes in a bid to try to garner more support and to actually get a swift resolution to the Trump tax plan to try to get it through Congress before they go on recess break.

Meanwhile, speaking of government, here in the UK, the government has hinted that it will U-turn on a signature benefit cut for pensioners. Changes to the winter fuel allowance were originally introduced in the autumn budget. They were to try to fill this so-called £22 billion black hole in the public finances flagged by the Chancellor. But speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that he now wants more pensioners to be eligible and that he would reconsider pensions.

the thresholds for subsidies. As the economy improves, we want to take measures that will impact on people's lives and therefore we will look at the threshold, but that will have to be part of a fiscal event. The Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, speaking there as Bloomberg reports that the policy has been widely blamed for the Labour Party's collapsing poll ratings and poor performance in May's local elections.

So those are some of our top stories for you this hour. Let's get to the markets. So Wall Street is now increasingly concerned around the ballooning deficit. Of course, the Republican tax bill is fast approaching, actually. They've been talking late into the night in Washington, D.C., about this. U.S. stocks tumbled with rising yields. There was also this weak 20-year auction last night, which was quite

a red flag. 30-year yields jumped 12 basis points yesterday. They briefly touched 5.1% this morning. Let's have a look at 10-year Treasury yields then because those two have been moving somewhat. They are down actually a basis point this morning at 459. Okay, so some pressure may be easing at the moment. Looking at the dollar, we are weaker 10...

one-tenth of 1%, three sessions of losses, gold also rising, and Bitcoin this morning has also hit a fresh record high. So, Bitcoin now up 2.8%, $111,000 above that mark for Bitcoin. So, those are the markets.

Now, coming up in just a moment, we will bring you the latest when it comes to Washington, D.C., and a fatal shooting of two people outside a museum overnight. And we'll also talk about what happened in the Oval Office. Some parallels, of course, to what happened with Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky when he went to the Oval Office with South Africa's president. But before we get on to that, you know, lots of very serious news.

Something a bit lighter caught my eye today too. Formula One memorabilia. Apparently there is a boom beginning in this. On Saturday in Monaco, RM Sotheby's is putting up for sale Michael Schumacher's 2001 Ferrari. This is the one that won the major trophies for him in F1. It's estimated...

to be sold for around 15 million euros. That's almost $70 million. Bloomberg Pursuit's Hannah Elliott has been writing all about this. Why is there this booming memorabilia market? Of course, it's to do with the focus and the TV shows that have been made about F1, which in turn has triggered huge popularity for the sport in the US. And it follows this wave of very high-profile auctions that we've already seen in April. Ayrton Senna...

His McLaren Honda Formula One helmet sold for almost a million dollars. And apparently there are plenty more of these sort of keepsake sales. There's even one in Lake Como over the weekend. So lots of people want this old gear from, well, driving legends.

Now, let's turn our attention then to what happened in the Oval Office yesterday. President Trump staging another ambush of a world leader, playing a video for President Cyril Ramaphosa that claimed to show a genocide against white farmers in South Africa. Joining us now to discuss is Bloomberg Senior Editor for US Government and Economics, Bill Ferries. Bill, good morning. Welcome to the program. Thanks for your time. How damaging is it for

for South Africa to have this unfounded accusation by the US administration. Is there any merit in this accusation whatsoever? Well, I think South Africa, I think the government wants to get ahead of as much as it can at this point of Trump's remarks, his claims about a genocide taking place because they don't want it to take hold. And there is a real threat that trade ties could be impacted if this belief really gets a better grip.

You know, in terms of the reality of the claim, I mean, this has been widely debunked. I mean, of course, black South Africans were largely stripped of the right to even own land during the apartheid and colonial era. That was lifted on the return to democracy. But white people still own more than 70 percent of the rural land in South Africa. But when you're talking about crime, violent crimes,

It's a country with a high violent crime rate, but, of course, the victims are almost overwhelmingly young black men. Last year, according to the government data, there were 55 murders that took place on farms.

Many of those are expected to be white farmers, but they don't break it down by race. But that's compared to more than 27,000 murders that took place elsewhere. So there's certainly a problem of violence. I think one interesting thing about these claims being made by the Trump administration is that has really united South Africans politically behind this government. This is a government that has Afrikaners in the cabinet.

that has AfriConner support in the business community. So it's a widely debunked claim, but one that President Trump continues to hold on to.

And yet, Sylvain Ramaphosa was still optimistic about President Trump, despite it being a trap, South Africa opting to engage with the U.S. Will President Trump actually go to the G20? That's another question, because that's being held in South Africa. He was optimistic. I think he took the lesson from that kind of blow up with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump just a month or two ago.

He said Ramaphosa came out of the meeting, said he still thinks that Trump will participate in the G20, that he doesn't want to hand off the presidency of the G20 to an empty chair. So I think that still remains to be seen. And I think he's really he really wants to focus on these trade ties and find a way to get

passed this. We heard this from the South African delegation. They said, OK, essentially, the U.S. got this out of their system. Now we want to talk about trade and the G20. Trade is very important to South Africa with the U.S. And so we'll have to see how that plays out when this reciprocal tariff

period kind of wraps up in potentially about 40 days. Yeah, absolutely. Bill, thank you so much for being with me this morning and discussing what happened in the Oval Office. Bloomberg Senior Editor Bill Ferries, thank you so much for your time.

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Now, two members of the Israeli embassy staff have been fatally shot outside a museum in Washington, D.C., overnight. We've learned this just within the past few hours. Bloomberg's EMEA News Director Roslyn Matheson is with us. What exactly do we know about this incident so far, Ros? Well, as you say, what we know is that last night a young couple from the Israeli embassy, apparently they were a couple who were about to go back to Israel to become immigrants.

We're at the museum in Washington for the evening and we're fatally shot by a single suspect who was reported to have shouted free Palestine in the aftermath and has now obviously been shot.

And you can see immediately the condemnation that's come across the aisle in Washington over this. I mean, you can see Donald Trump saying this seems to have been an anti-Semitic event. You can see the Democrats saying same and the mayor of Washington, D.C. also. So an immediate rallying around the Israeli community there, the Jewish community there.

in D.C. in the aftermath of this shooting. They said they are investigating further. They don't know whether this has broader links to anything or whether this was someone acting just on their own. But obviously it comes at a time when not just in the U.S., but obviously in the Middle East as well. You know, there's a lot of tension still over what's happening in Gaza and what are the next steps by Israel.

Yeah, absolutely. Rising tensions, as you say. There are, have been now, dozens of aid trucks that apparently have been let into Gaza for the first time in 80 days. And yet tensions in the West Bank. Israeli soldiers mistakenly fired warning shots at a large group of diplomats from the EU, from the UK, from China and a number of other countries in the West Bank. So there is rising tension between Israel and other countries.

Well, that's right. As you say, there was this incident yesterday where there was a large diplomatic group, it seemed to be, going through the West Bank. The Israeli authorities say that this group wandered into an area they weren't supposed to. It was an active area and therefore the Israeli soldiers fired warning shots at them, which means they fired over their heads. So there was obviously no injuries.

But it did raise criticism from a number of countries for doing so. And it comes, as you see, really a level of concern in Europe and beyond.

over the situation in Gaza, where, as you say, about 90 aid trucks seem to have now gone in. But that's after many weeks of no aid going in whatsoever and a lot of concern about the level of hunger inside Gaza and the humanitarian crisis that's going on there. And, of course, the Israeli government is saying they're now trying to prevent hunger

but it's noting that Benjamin Netanyahu was the one who stopped aid into Gaza, of course, some weeks ago. And the question is, where does this all go in terms of the concern from Europe and the US? But does it change the tone, particularly from the US?

This is Bloomberg Daybreak Europe, your morning brief on the stories making news from London to Wall Street and beyond. Look for us on your podcast feed every morning on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts. You can also listen live each morning on London DAB Radio, the Bloomberg Business App and Bloomberg.com.

Our flagship New York station is also available on your Amazon Alexa devices. Just say Alexa, play Bloomberg 1130. I'm Caroline Hepke. And I'm Stephen Carroll. Join us again tomorrow morning for all the news you need to start your day right here on Bloomberg Daybreak Europe.

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