Flagship

Trump pledges new tariffs

US President-elect Donald Trump pledged additional tariffs on goods from China, as well as new penalties for imports from neighbors Canada and Mexico. He said the tariffs — which targeted Washington’s three biggest trading partners — would be the first of “many” executive orders he would issue upon entering office, and that they were aimed at targeting illegal drug smuggling and immigration into the US. The announcement is the opening salvo in what experts say could be a costly trade war, upending global supply chains and likely accelerating inflation in the US. Trump made trade a central plank of his election campaign, arguing tariffs would protect jobs and ultimately raise tax revenues.

China-EU trade tensions

European Union and Chinese negotiators made limited progress on a deal to replace the bloc’s tariffs on China-made electric vehicles, but momentum was undone by each threatening additional penalties on the other. A senior European Parliament member said last week that a deal was close, but Reuters and Bloomberg cited sources saying nothing was imminent. At the same time, EU officials circulated a draft proposing visa bans and asset freezes on Chinese companies and individuals for supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine, RFE/RL reported, while Beijing said it would widen an investigation into EU subsidy programs. The stakes are high, the Beijing-based research firm Trivium noted: A deal “could lay the groundwork for… cooperation against the threat of US protectionism.”

China hacker group targets US, Asia

A Chinese hacker group alleged to have close ties to Beijing was blamed for huge hacks of telecoms firms in the US and Asia. The cybersecurity firm Trend Micro said this week that the hackers, called Salt Typhoon, infiltrated organizations and networks across 13 countries, most of them in Asia, but also nations including Brazil and South Africa. The announcement came after the heads of the biggest US telecoms companies met at the White House to discuss how to expel the hackers from their networks, where they are believed to have been lurking for over a year. The Salt Typhoon attack is the “worst telecom hack in our nation’s history — by far,” one US senator told The Washington Post.

Trump charges dropped

The US special counsel investigating Donald Trump moved to drop charges against the president-elect for subverting the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents. The applications to dismiss the charges cap a unique period in US history in which a former president faced federal criminal charges, spurring a Supreme Court ruling that said occupants of the White House enjoy some immunity from prosecution. Trump’s myriad legal problems had been a centerpiece of Democrats’ ultimately unsuccessful campaign against him. He still faces a litany of legal issues at the state level, but his return to the Oval Office means judges will need to resolve questions over his presidential immunity if any of the cases are successful.

Israel-Hezbollah truce close

Israel is poised to approve a ceasefire with Hezbollah today. Hezbollah began attacking Israeli outposts immediately after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, forcing the evacuation of some 60,000 Israelis from towns near the Lebanese border. Israel later launched a ground offensive into Lebanon and an aerial barrage aimed at destroying the Lebanese group, with a ceasefire finally coming into view following Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah’s leader in September. The US- and France-brokered 60-day truce would bring some much-needed respite to Lebanon, which has been hammered by the war: Some 3,750 people have been killed, and more than a million displaced. The UN called for a wider, “permanent ceasefire,” encompassing Lebanon, Israel, and Gaza.

New weapons revelation in Ukraine

The UK supplied Ukraine with dozens more Storm Shadows cruise missiles than had previously been disclosed, Bloomberg reported. Ukraine used the missiles to strike targets inside Russia for the first time last week, part of a sharp escalation in the war ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The revelations came shortly before an emergency meeting between NATO countries and Kyiv due today in response to Moscow’s recent use of an intermediate-range ballistic missile in eastern Ukraine. Kyiv is seeking commitments for more weapons from NATO countries ahead of Trump’s accession: He has said he wants to quickly end the war, which Ukraine fears would mean it having to give up territory.

Brazil leaks expose coup plans

Leaked audio recordings showed how close Brazil came to a coup that would have kept former President Jair Bolsonaro in power after he lost the 2022 election. “It will be either a civil war now or civil war later. We have a justification now for civil war,” an army colonel said in one recording, according to The Associated Press. Shortly after leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s inauguration, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters — egged on by the former president — stormed the country’s Supreme Court, presidential palace, and Congress. In response, Brazilian authorities jailed dozens, and barred Bolsonaro from running for office for eight years.

Semafor has announced Carlyle Co-Chairman David Rubenstein, Citadel Founder & CEO Ken Griffin, former US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, and KKR Co-Chairman Henry Kravis as Co-Chairs of the World Economy Summit on Apr. 23-25, 2025.

Their participation reflects the extraordinary prestige of this unique event in Washington, DC, which brings together US Cabinet officials, global finance ministers, central bankers, and Fortune 500 CEOs for conversations that cut through the political noise to dive into the most pressing issues facing the world economy.

Nigeria’s surprising growth

Nigeria’s economy grew by almost 3.5% in the last quarter, surpassing expectations as its services industry expanded at its fastest pace in nearly two years. The figures represent a reprieve for President Bola Tinubu, who has struggled to stabilize the economy after cutting costly fuel subsidies on which many Nigerians relied. However Tinubu said the growth figures showed “much work” still needed to be done. Surging fuel prices have added to already-high inflation, sparking mass protests. They have also forced thousands to find other ways to move around: More than 100,000 cars that formerly ran on gasoline have been converted to run on natural gas.

HIV infection rates drop

The number of new HIV infections has dropped rapidly across the world, although rates must fall still faster to meet UN targets of ending AIDS as a public-health threat by 2030. According to a study in the Lancet HIV Journal, the number of new infections in the world dropped by a fifth in the 2010s, while the number of deaths caused by the disease fell by 40%. Preventative treatments are credited with bringing down infection rates — notably in Africa, by far the worst affected continent — while recent new vaccines have raised hopes the disease may finally be eradicated. “Africa is excited, women are excited, we have waited long for this,” a health care worker told The New York Times.

13-year-old wins cricket contract

A 13-year-old became the youngest player to be awarded a contract in the Indian Premier League, the world’s richest cricket tournament. Vaibhav Suryavanshi — the son of a farmer who later had to seek employment as a nightclub bouncer and public toilet warden — is already representing India, a global cricketing behemoth, in under-19 competitions and impressed scouts in the country’s national youth championships: One cricket official told The Indian Express that Suryavanshi, a left-handed batsman, “will play for India in the future for sure.” His contract with the Rajasthan Royals will help him along that path: The team’s head coach is the Indian cricketing legend, Rahul Dravid.

• France’s National Assembly will debate and vote on an EU trade deal with the South American bloc, Mercosur.
• US President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming immigration czar will meet with National Guard troops along the country’s border with Mexico.
• Chefs in Paris gather for the World Egg Mayonnaise championships, organized by the Association de Sauvegarde de l’Oeuf Mayo.

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The proportion of the speed of sound that Boom Supersonic’s demonstrator aircraft reached on a recent test flight, tying its own record. There have been no faster-than-sound commercial aircraft since Concorde’s final flight in 2003, but even then it was uneconomic, because it was banned from flying over land thanks to its loud sonic boom. The new aircraft should make a much quieter noise — “akin to the closing of a car door” to someone on the ground, Gizmodo reported, so “the sonic boom will become a sonic thump” — and the company hopes that once this is demonstrated, regulators may change the rules.

Freedom: Memoirs 1954-2021, by Angela Merkel. The former German chancellor’s autobiography, published today, follows Merkel from her youth in marginalized East Germany through her ascent to become Europe’s most powerful politician. Throughout the 700-page tome, Merkel shows she “has few regrets,” El País wrote. Buy it from your local bookshop.