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Stocks plunge over Trump tariffs

Markets plunged Thursday after US President Donald Trump’s drastic tariffs ignited fears of wider economic turmoil. The S&P 500 notched its biggest drop since 2020 as investors came to terms with the scope of Trump’s assault on global trade. Commodity prices slumped, and the dollar wiped out all of its post-election gains. “This administration is very comfortable clobbering the stockholding class,” Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal wrote. Apple, which relies on overseas production, lost more than $300 billion in market value, its largest single-day wipeout ever. The trade salvo led economists to slash their growth projections for the US — some now predict a recession this year — and hike inflation forecasts.

Countries vow tariff retaliation

US President Donald Trump’s reshaping of the global economy sparked rancor, fear, and threats of retribution from some of the world’s largest economies. France’s president called on European companies to pause US investments, and Canada said it would match Washington’s 25% tariffs on auto imports. China and the European Union both vowed to retaliate, while Japan and India took a less antagonistic approach. What’s perhaps most disconcerting for companies and corporations is that even those who tried to cozy up to Trump weren’t spared: “The basic barter system that has driven the Trump administration’s policies so far seems to have broken down,” Semafor’s Liz Hoffman wrote. Trump, though, said Thursday that he is open to tariff negotiations.

SE Asia hit hard by tariffs

US President Donald Trump’s surprisingly harsh tariffs on Southeast Asia threaten the region’s role as the world’s alternative to Chinese manufacturing. Vietnam, hit by one of the steepest rates at 46%, has been a top beneficiary of companies’ supply chain shifts away from China owing to tensions between Beijing and Washington. Vietnam makes half of Nike’s shoes, is home to an Intel chip assembly plant, and has become an Apple hub: Multinational companies are now facing the prospect of losing such “safe havens.” Southeast Asia was caught off guard by the tariff blitz; unlike his anti-China tirades, Trump had not previously railed against the region, a Singapore economist noted. “And then bam…”

A US-China ‘hard decoupling’

US President Donald Trump’s punishing new tariffs targeting China imperil chances of a larger deal that would cool tensions between the superpowers, analysts said. The spiraling trade war, in which China now faces average US tariffs of at least 65%, could trigger a “hard decoupling,” the Financial Times reported, which would push Beijing to shift its economic focus from manufacturing to domestic consumption. It could also derail US-China talks over a sale of TikTok’s US operations ahead of a Saturday deadline. But the tariffs are a “golden opportunity” for China to beat America at its own game, a Shanghai-based professor argued: With US tariffs impacting nearly every government, more countries could look to China as an alternate trading partner.

SK braces for verdict on Yoon’s fate

South Korea is bracing for turmoil ahead of a Friday court ruling that will decide whether to permanently remove impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol from office over his botched declaration of martial law in December. Mass protests have broken out since Yoon’s impeachment, and the verdict comes at a critical time for the country as its interim leaders scramble to respond to steep US tariffs. A security clampdown in Seoul on Friday will see schools close, 14,000 cops mobilized, and vendors discouraged from selling items that could be used as weapons. More than 90,000 people applied for 20 public courtroom seats, illustrating intense interest in a case that “will reshape the future of South Korea’s democracy,” a Seoul-based lawyer wrote.

Microsoft halts data center projects

Microsoft is halting plans for data centers around the world. The delayed development of sites in Indonesia, the UK, Australia, and the US suggests the tech giant is taking a harder look at its investments for the server farms that power artificial intelligence, Bloomberg reported. It’s not clear whether the pullback reflects diminished demand for the data centers or merely construction challenges, but there is growing skepticism over the billions Big Tech is pouring into AI infrastructure. Alibaba’s chairman recently predicted data center construction may exceed demand: “I start to see the beginning of some kind of bubble.”

Putin’s AI distrust could cost Russia

Moscow is falling behind on artificial intelligence, which will cost it militarily, a defense scholar argued. Russia is ranked below Luxembourg and Ireland on AI capacity, Arthur McFarlane wrote in the Financial Times, held back by sanctions but also by President Vladimir Putin’s distrust of technology — he doesn’t own a smartphone. AI is increasingly vital to military hardware, especially with the growth of autonomous weapons, meaning a capability gap will grow between the European and Russian militaries. Further restricting Moscow’s access to chips could deter future aggression, McFarlane argued, and have another potential upside: “If people around Putin can be convinced of the seismic scale of his AI blunder, discontent could grow — perhaps even to the point of destabilisation.”

Carlos Cuerpo, Spain’s Minister of Economy, Trade, and Business, 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 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

Russia accused of ‘ecocide’

Ukraine is engaging in a rare legal effort to hold Russia accountable for environmental war crimes. Beyond the human cost, the ongoing three-year war has ravaged the country’s ecology, The New York Times wrote: Explosive residue from artillery shells has contaminated soil, thousands of square miles of forest have burned, and the destruction of a massive dam has dried up farmland. The devastation has prompted Ukrainian authorities to collect evidence that Russia has committed “ecocide” in more than 240 cases in the country’s courts and the International Criminal Court. While it’s unlikely that Russians will ever be prosecuted in person, advocates say the evidence could strengthen Ukraine’s compensation claims for the estimated $85 billion in environmental damage.

China’s sovereign green bond

China plans to launch a green bonds program, at a time when similar offers elsewhere are stuttering. Investors buy such bonds from governments with the provision that the money is used on environmentally friendly projects, such as renewable energy or pollution reduction. Global issuance rose from $41 billion in 2014 to $700 billion last year, but growth may be slowing. So far, 2025 has seen purchases down a third year-on-year outside China, particularly driven by the US, which is beating a retreat from climate finance under President Donald Trump, Bloomberg reported: Sales are lower than at any point since 2015. Beijing’s sovereign green bond will be listed in London, banking on Europe’s still strong demand for environmental products.

Statisticians estimate Modigliani ‘sleepers’

Statisticians have estimated that there are between 20 and 120 unattributed Amedeo Modigliani paintings in circulation. The 20th-century Italian painter achieved little success in his lifetime, and would swap paintings for meals or sell them for pittances. That changed after his death: His Nu couché painting sold for $170 million. But his works were often unsigned and forgeries abound, resulting in many “sleeper” paintings in circulation that are purportedly by Modigliani but unconfirmed. Two researchers used a statistical technique often used in population studies, cross-referencing several incomplete registries of Modigliani works to estimate the number unregistered alongside the 488 known. The authors said this technique could work with any artist who has two or more registries of their works.

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April 4:

• The US publishes March jobs figures.
• India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Sri Lanka.
• 50th anniversary of the founding of Microsoft by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Centre Pompidou’s Paris Noir exhibition gives credence to Paris’ overlooked status as “one of the great Black diasporic cities,” The Guardian’s Jason Okundaye wrote. Featuring more than 400 works and paraphernalia from generations of Black artists who left the US, Caribbean, and Africa to seek artistic refuge in Paris, the exhibition “is a beautiful sense of the Black Atlantic,” wrote Okundaye, who edits a Black culture newsletter. Le Monde’s art critic struck a more somber note, arguing that the Pompidou’s recognition of Black artists was long overdue, and that the number of surprising discoveries in Paris Noir demonstrates “an art world that is much less free of social and racial stereotypes than it claims to be.”

One option that Republicans are floating to bring Rep. Elise Stefanik back into their House leadership fold: an elevated version of an existing lower-profile job, Semafor’s Kadia Goba reported.

“We can’t give her a gavel. We can’t give her one of the elected positions. So we want to bring her back in to have a seat at the leadership table,” Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., who replaced Stefanik as conference chair this year, told Semafor, adding that leaders agree “she’s so valuable.”