Flagship

US trading partners hit back

Beijing ratcheted up tensions with the US as the world’s two biggest economies pummeled each other with tariffs in a fast-escalating trade war. China vowed to “fight to the end” after US President Donald Trump threatened additional 50% duties on Chinese goods if Beijing did not withdraw its reciprocal levy: Though China cannot match Washington’s tariffs like-for-like, it has a chokehold over key supply chain bottlenecks. The European Union, too, is readying “a full spectrum of countermeasures,” Bloomberg reported, including potentially taxing Silicon Valley giants, and other major American trading partners are exacting pressure in other ways: Canada has matched US auto tariffs and launched an advertising campaign across the border against Trump’s trade policy.

Markets rebound after tariff fears

Asian and European stocks rebounded after a disastrous few days in which analysts warned US President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs would spark a global recession. Shares in Hong Kong, Sydney, and Tokyo all closed higher on Tuesday, while European markets opened up, though analysts warned that gains would likely be short-lived and any positivity was misplaced. “Trump has given little signs of scaling back protectionism, and there is a risk that markets are again erring on the side of optimism,” ING economists argued. A Financial Times columnist went further, arguing that a brief selloff of US Treasury bonds, otherwise a haven asset, pointed to shares having further to fall: “Markets seem likely to remain in meltdown.”

Tariffs won’t bring US factories back

Washington’s tariffs will not bring back American manufacturing, but could make other countries reroute trade to avoid a newly protectionist US, a prominent writer argued. The US traditionally sought to reduce trade barriers, Michael Schuman noted in The Atlantic, lowering the cost of goods worldwide and boosting weaker economies. But a decades-long political shift encapsulated by Trump’s tariffs means many now see trade as “the source of all ills.” A trade war will hurt the US most, Schuman said, as other countries lower barriers with each other: China, South Korea, and Japan already agreed to boost economic links. Tariffs will not “make other countries respect the United States,” he argued. “But they can make them move on without it.”

Stock swings upend planning

The recent stock market meltdown has upended global investment and retirement planning. China’s middle class was already grappling with a dire domestic property market, and is wary of investing in global equities while the dollar is no longer seen as safe given the uncertainty surrounding US trade policy, the South China Morning Post reported. US investors, meanwhile, are sitting on a record pile of cash, with little appetite for buying stocks in light of tariff-induced volatility, The Wall Street Journal noted: “If I try and catch this falling knife,” one said, “I’m just going to get cut over and over and over on the way down.” The Journal’s advice: “Stifle the urge to check your portfolio’s value.”

Iran and US to hold talks

Washington and Tehran will hold nuclear talks on Saturday, with US President Donald Trump warning Iran will be “in great danger” if no accord is reached. Despite several rounds of indirect talks with the Biden administration to revive a key nuclear deal Trump pulled out of in his first term, Tehran and Washington were unable to resurrect the 2015 agreement for Iran to ship out 97% of its enriched uranium in return for sanctions relief. This week’s talks come at a perilous moment, The New York Times reported, as Israeli attacks have depleted Iran’s air defenses. A nuclear watchdog warned earlier this year that Iran had rapidly accelerated its production of enriched uranium.

Uranium set to run out

Known uranium deposits will run out by 2080 if demand for nuclear energy continues to grow, industry bodies said. Several countries have pledged to triple nuclear capacity by 2050, tech firms view the once-controversial technology as a clean way to power data centers, and it is increasingly seen as a reliable source of low-carbon energy. But it takes 10-15 years to get a new mine running, uranium firms warn, and reserves are concentrated. There are other reasons for the West to feel a sense of urgency despite the far-off deadline: Russia’s Rosatom commands a significant share of the global nuclear market, OilPrice.com reported, and is responsible for more than half of reactors under construction worldwide.

US seeks control of global minerals

Washington is pressing for preferential access to minerals worldwide. The US is close to a deal with the Democratic Republic of Congo that would see American companies receive greater access to lithium and other resources in exchange for backing the Kinshasa government against rebels, following efforts to gain access to minerals in Greenland and Ukraine. Rare earths and other key minerals are crucial to the energy transition and the data centers that power artificial intelligence, and the White House is locked in competition with China to win them. Beijing, though, is not sitting back: It is tightening export controls on several rare earths, of which it is the world’s largest producer, as well as seeking access to Latin American and African supplies.

Jörg Kukies, Federal Minister of Finance, Germany, will join top global leaders at Semafor’s 2025 World Economy Summit, taking place April 23-25, 2025, in Washington, DC. As the first major gathering since the new US administration took office, the summit will feature on-the-record discussions with more than 100 CEOs.

Bringing together leaders from both the public and private sectors — including congressional leaders and global finance ministers — the three-day summit will explore the forces shaping the global economy and geopolitics. Across 12 sessions, it will foster transformative, news-making conversations on how the world’s decision-makers are tackling economic growth in increasingly uncertain times.

April 23-25 | Washington, DC | Learn More

Panama dispute widens

Panama, under pressure from the US, said it would file a criminal complaint against executives of a Hong Kong-listed firm that owns ports along the canal. Auditors for the Central American country accused CK Hutchison of wrongdoing and owing millions in dues, hours before US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was due to arrive for talks with the Panamanian president. US President Donald Trump has vowed to take control of the canal — including by military action if required — in response to what he says is Chinese dominance of the waterway, through which more than 5% of global maritime trade passes. In a sign of the ports’ geopolitical importance, last month Beijing scrapped their proposed sale to a US-led conglomerate, saying it would be a “historic mistake.”

US to end fluoride recommendation

The US Health Department will stop recommending water fluoridation. The new Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr is a longtime skeptic of fluoride, which he has linked to IQ loss, cancer, and other problems, and has urged states to follow Utah’s move last month to ban its use in public water systems. The evidence that fluoride harms health is weak — a 2022 UK government report declared it safe — but fears of the impact of ending fluoridation may also be overblown. The respected Cochrane research institute looked at the topic last year, and found that while water fluoridation significantly improved dental health until about 1975, the rise of fluoridated toothpaste means it now makes little difference.

Cairo’s new-build ghost towns

Egypt is building dozens of new cities to combat overpopulation, but so far they stand largely empty. Egypt is the Arab world’s most populous country, and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi thinks a high birth rate has caused its longstanding economic problems: There are lots of young people and not enough jobs or space. The high fertility rate is driven by religious conservatism but also a weak pension system that means people need children to support them in old age. For 10 years, the government has been building 40 new cities, including a new capital outside Cairo. But so far, few people have moved to live there, NZZ reported: New Cairo, built to house 5 million, has just 300,000 inhabitants.

• Two Russian cosmonauts and a US astronaut blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station.
• UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer answers questions from the House of Commons liaison committee.
• Sotheby’s unveils The Mediterranean Blue, a rare 10.3 carat diamond with an estimated value of $20 million, in Abu Dhabi.

The percentage by which global art sales fell last year, according to a report by Art Basel and UBS. In China — an economy gripped by slowing growth and tanking asset values — sales fell by almost a third to their lowest level since 2009, while transactions in the US, the biggest market, fell 9%. The second year of falling global sales indicates investors’ wariness of what many perceive as inflated valuations. “I can’t sugarcoat any of the findings,” an expert told Bloomberg. “It was tough in all of the big markets.”

Kafka’s Ape, the Baxter Theatre, Cape Town. This adaptation of Franz Kafka’s 1917 story Report to an Academy is “lively, fierce and frequently funny,” according to the Mail & Guardian, driven by a mesmerizing central performance by Tony Miyambo: An “emotionally raw and powerful outpouring that seemed to emanate from the very depths of his soul.” Buy tickets for Kafka’s Ape here.

President Donald Trump’s Federal Housing Finance Agency director is jettisoning executives and policies at breakneck speed, sparking chaos at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as his ultimate goal remains elusive even to Republicans, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller reported.

FHFA chief Bill Pulte’s shake-up of the firms risks elevating housing costs at an already precarious economic moment — while privatizing the firms, as some Republicans desire, carries its own risks.

“This is the beginning of the road for Fannie and Freddie,” Mueller wrote. “Where the road leads is less certain.”