Flagship

Trump proposes China tariffs

US President Donald Trump said he favored imposing a blanket 10% tariff on goods imported from China, indicating that early hopes of a rapprochement may be misplaced. Beijing criticized Trump’s proposal, with a top official arguing against protectionism — which China itself practices by restricting access to Western firms such as banks and tech firms. Still, some analysts were upbeat: Trump’s proposed tariffs were lower than those he suggested against US allies, and his rhetoric has been less harsh than it was during his first term. “You can sense there is cautious optimism,” a Shanghai-based academic told the Financial Times, while a prominent US political scientist said “we’ll be surprised on the upside” in terms of an improvement in ties.

Europe scrambles over Trump

European leaders are scrambling to respond to US President Donald Trump’s return. The European Commission has formed an unofficial “Trump task force,” The New York Times reported, preparing for possible US changes to trade and foreign policies, and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen played up the EU’s value as a route into other global markets in a speech at Davos. The head of the European Central Bank warned that the EU must “be prepared” for tariffs. And the leaders of France and Germany will meet today to discuss how the bloc should position itself on Ukraine and the Middle East given the uncertainty of Trump’s position on both.

Trump critics mount opposition

Critics of US President Donald Trump fired their opening shots at his agenda. Attorneys general from 22 states — all Democrat-led — filed a lawsuit to block Trump’s executive order ending the US practice of birthright citizenship, while a union representing federal government employees sued him over another executive order making it easier to fire career civil servants. Trump is making his own legal moves: His administration reassigned several senior Justice Department officials as part of efforts to “reshape the agency,” The Washington Post reported. Separately, the bishop presiding over an interfaith prayer service urged Trump, who was in the first row, to “have mercy” on immigrants and LGBTQ+ people; the president responded by calling her “nasty” and demanding an apology.

How Trump is shifting geopolitics

US President Donald Trump’s rise to power underscores a new era of competition between great powers, analysts said. Whereas the post-World War II international order was built around promises to “create a more equal and law-abiding world,” The Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign-affairs correspondent wrote, countries such as the US, China, and Russia were now “returning to an older model in which powerful countries impose their will.” At the World Economic Forum, the conservative scholar Walter Russell Mead told an audience of business executives and government officials that the Davos consensus of liberal internationalism was “losing.” The risks of this shift in mindset are significant: “Fear of a great power war could be making one more likely,” a foreign-policy expert argued in World Politics Review.

Rise of the rented AI chip

Artificial-intelligence-driven demand for computing power is creating a new industry. While big firms can buy in directly — TikTok plans to spend $12 billion on AI chips this year to power its growth, and Google will back AI firm Anthropic with another $1 billion — startups can’t afford the outlay, leading to the rise of “GPUs as a service,” IEEE Spectrum reported. Companies broker deals between customers who need compute and institutions or individuals who have processing power lying idle, so the users can rent the chips they need rather than owning their own data farm. The process is efficient, using existing units without building new ones, and allows companies to reduce infrastructure investment costs.

Brazil fires on the rise

The area of wilderness burned in Brazil rose by 79% last year as a result of a historic drought and an increase in forest clearing by cattle ranchers. In total, more than 30 million hectares — an area larger than Italy — were consumed. Brazil, which this year hosts the COP30 climate conference, has vowed to crack down on Amazon deforestation. However attempts to eradicate illegal farming have failed as global demand for Brazilian beef has increased. The loss of moisture from forest clearing could in turn accelerate deforestation. Experts warn there are few quick solutions: “Once a forest is hit by fire, it takes years and years to recover,” the head of a Brazilian NGO told The Guardian.

South Africa’s economic optimism

South Africa’s beleaguered economy is showing signs of recovery, its central bank governor said. Growth this year in Africa’s biggest economy could be close to 2%, hardly a breakneck pace but a distinct improvement following years of relative stagnation. The election of a coalition government which includes a pro-business party was one of the key enablers of the turnaround, Governor Lesetja Kganyago told Reuters at Davos, leading to reforms in transport and energy infrastructure and a rethinking of the immigration system. But he said global risks, notably the accession of US President Donald Trump, could threaten the recovery by pushing inflation beyond the central bank’s target level.

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Alcohol industry relies on big drinkers

The alcohol industry is increasingly reliant on the heaviest drinkers for its profits. A fifth of adults account for 90% of sales in the US, research suggests, and that share is growing as alcohol consumption in the rich world declines, thanks to health concerns, government measures, and higher prices. Washington plans to add cancer warnings to alcohol packaging and lower the recommended daily limit, likely squeezing the industry further. This pattern is not unique to the drinks industry: Just 5% of UK gamblers account for 70% of the betting industry’s revenues, according to 2021 research. A drinks company spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that the industry would prefer to “be less reliant on just a small group.”

Chinese farms dominate caviar

A Chinese city best known for its giant pandas is becoming a hub for global caviar exports. Salt-cured sturgeon eggs have been an international delicacy since Russian aristocrats fled the Bolshevik Revolution for France, taking caviar with them, but the sturgeon is at risk of extinction in its traditional Caspian Sea home thanks to overfishing. Yaan city in Sichuan has built a huge sturgeon-farming industry, with more than 700,000 in 274 giant pools: It takes eight to 15 years for a sturgeon to reach breeding maturity. Chinese fish farms produce 60% of the world’s caviar, with one fishery alone responsible for 60 tons a year. As a result, Sichuan restaurants are increasingly serving caviar with everything, Nikkei reported.

F1’s first woman chief engineer

A US Formula 1 team appointed the first female race engineer in the sport’s history. Haas’ appointment of Laura Muller — who will work with race-winning driver Esteban Ocon — follows that of Carine Cridelich as the team’s head of strategy. Although Formula 1 has in the past vied to integrate women into the sport, progress has stalled, with the last female driver taking part in a Grand Prix more than 30 years ago. In all, five women have started a race in the competition’s 75 years. Haas hopes Muller’s appointment will turn around its poor record on the track. “It’s not like I chose Laura because she’s female. We just don’t care,” team principal Ayao Komatsu told the BBC. “What matters is work.”

• Ireland’s Parliament is expected to elect Micheál Martin as prime minister.
• Britain’s Princess Anne visits South Africa to inaugurate a World War I memorial.
• Paris Men’s Fashion Week opens.

The share of all US restaurants that serve Mexican food, underscoring both the cuisine’s growing popularity and the prevalence of the Latino population across the country. According to data from Pew Research, more than 85% of US counties have at least one Mexican restaurant: Almost 40 million people in the US trace their ancestry to Mexico. However US President Donald Trump has threatened to deport many of them, recently expanding immigration authorities’ capabilities to arrest migrants in schools and churches.

The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck, by David Spiegelhalter. This book by the former president of the UK’s Royal Statistical Society is “a masterful examination of how to understand, measure and communicate uncertainty,” according to Nature: Spiegelhalter reminds readers that uncertainty is not a fact about the world, but about our own ignorance and knowledge of the world, and his work displays a “great ability to translate complex statistical concepts into accessible language.” Buy The Art of Uncertainty from your local bookstore.

Joe Biden’s White House homeland security team urged Trump’s team to focus on a number of major threats that include Iran’s plots against dissidents and current and former US officials, Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant scooped.

Liz Sherwood-Randall, Biden’s top homeland security adviser, briefed the incoming Trump team headed by Stephen Miller on seven top priorities.