The Times of Israel is liveblogging Wednesday’s events as they happen.

WASHINGTON — US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warns trading partners that any retaliation to the barrage of new tariffs from the White House will only result in further escalation.

“My advice to every country right now is, do not retaliate,” Bessent tells Fox News. “Sit back, take it in, let’s see how it goes. Because if you retaliate, there will be escalation. If you don’t retaliate, this is the high watermark.”

Hamas has rejected the latest Israeli proposal for the release of hostages and a truce in, two officials from the Palestinian terror movement tell AFP.

“Hamas has decided not to follow up on the latest Israeli proposal presented through the mediators” says one of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, and accusing Israel of “blocking a proposal from Egypt and Qatar and trying to derail any agreement.”

US President Donald Trump has unveiled a raft of punishing tariffs targeting countries around the world including some of its closest trading partners, in a move that risks sparking a ruinous trade war.

The tariffs include a 17 percent duty on Israeli products imported to the United States. Israel sought to prevent the move with the directive that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich signed Tuesday to immediately scrap all remaining tariffs on American imports.

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden against a backdrop of US flags, Trump slaps the most stinging tariffs on China and the European Union on what he calls “Liberation Day.”

“For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” Trump says.

Trump reserves some of the heaviest blows for what he called the “nations that treat us badly,” including 34 percent on goods from superpower rival China, 20 percent on key ally the European Union and 24 percent on Japan.

But the 78-year-old Republican — who holds up a chart with a list of levies — says that he is “very kind” and so is only imposing half the amount that those countries tax US exports.

For the rest, Trump says he will impose a “baseline” tariff of 10 percent, including Britain.

An audience of cabinet members, as well as workers in hard hats from industries including steel, oil and gas, whoop and cheer as Trump says the tariffs will “make America wealthy again.”

“This is Liberation Day,” Trump says, adding that it would “forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks by phone this evening with Talia Herkin, the mother of hostage Maxim Herkin, expressing his commitment to returning her son and the 58 other captives still held by the Hamas terror group in Gaza.

Netanyahu “expressed the commitment of........

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