International Trade

Walmart has reached a $1 trillion market valuation, a first for the big-box retailer.

The company’s shares hit a high on Tuesday morning trade as the stock continues to soar on the news of a new CEO and looming trade negotiations with India, where the Arkansas-based company maintains a large presence both in supply chain and domestic markets within India. The stock was up 2.1 percent from the market open in midday trading.

Walmart, which has 11,000 stores in 19 countries, joins a slate of nine corporate giants in the so-called trillion dollar club, including Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, and Microsoft, among others. Amazon is the only other retailer that has broken the barrier and is now valued at $2.6 trillion.

Trade deal bump

On Monday, United States President Donald Trump announced a trade deal with India that would slash tariffs to 18 percent from 50 percent and that impacts Walmart, which has strategically shifted supply chain operations to India and away from China.

On Tuesday, in an interview with CNBC, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that the White House is still ironing out the details of the deal, but that still hasn’t slowed Walmart’s stock from popping on the looming deal.

“We have an announcement of an India deal, but still no timeline about when it comes into effect and whether the secondary tariffs, the 25 percent linked to India’s purchase of Russian oil, when those would be removed, so I think there’s still a lot of questions,” economist Rachel Ziemba, founder of Ziemba Insights, told Al Jazeera.

While there are limited details on the specifics of the deal, markets are responding to tariffs likely to come down.

“Markets are, of course, forward-looking. I think this sort of reinforces a view in the marketplace that incremental tariffs will be less this year,” Ziemba said.

The big box retailer jumped from 2 percent of its global exports coming from India in 2018 to 25 percent in 2023, according to a Reuters review of import data in 2023. Walmart hopes to source $10bn in goods from India by next year.

At the time, the company also decreased its percentage of goods from China to 60 percent from 80 percent.

Walmart did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

The Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), a lobby for exporters, said the cut in US tariffs will significantly boost Indian exports, including textiles and apparel, putting them on par with Asian peers, such as Vietnam and Bangladesh.

According to data from ImportYeti, a platform that tracks import contracts for major companies, Walmart’s biggest import areas are in home fabrics, apparel and toys.

“Those are the products facing the highest tariffs, while consumer electronics and other categories have largely been shielded. If the India–US deal becomes a reality, it would put tariffs on Indian goods entering the US at roughly the same level as those from Southeast Asia, making that supply-chain realignment more attractive. You also highlight the importance of the Indian market,” Ziemba added.

While the trade deal is in focus, Walmart has also invested significantly in India domestically, as well, and holds an 80 percent stake in India’s e-commerce giant Flipkart.

C-suite changes

The surge also comes concurrently with a shake-up in the C-suite. On Monday, John Furner took over as Walmart’s chief executive, succeeding longtime CEO Doug McMillion who announced his retirement late last year.

Furner, who started at the company in a job stocking shelves, has climbed up the ladder. Most recently, he served as the CEO of Walmart US, where he focused on key initiatives driving growth, including curbside pick-up. Prior to that, he served as the CEO of Sam’s Club, Walmart’s wholesale chain.

Furner’s appointment comes as the company grows as an e-commerce giant and intends to double down in AI tech, healthcare services, e-commerce, and hybrid options with its brick-and-mortar footprint.

“As AI rapidly reshapes retail, we are centralizing our platforms to accelerate shared capabilities, freeing up our operating segments to be more focused on and closer to our customers and members,” Walmart said in a statement last month.

“Walmart is masterful at brick-and-mortar retail and remains highly competitive with Amazon. I love that because it shows consumerism is still alive and well. Five years ago, the narrative was the fall of the mall and the decline of retail. This confirms the opposite. Walmart also has a clear strategy for retaining consumers and managing the customer experience,” Brett Rose, CEO and founder of United National Consumer Suppliers (UNCS), a distributor that focuses on excess inventories, which it provides to more budget-friendly retailers, told Al Jazeera.

The tech-centric focus comes as e-commerce has grown for the company, which reported a 28 percent jump in e-commerce sales compared with the previous quarter. Walmart is slated to release its next earnings report on February 19.

“What you need to look at is that Walmart has successfully become a marketplace, not as big as Amazon, but big enough to give it a run for its money,” said Rose.

United States President Donald Trump has announced the launch of a strategic minerals stockpile.

The stockpile, called Project Vault, was announced on Monday. It will combine $2bn of private capital with a $10bn loan from the US Export-Import Bank.

It is the latest move by the White House to invest in rare-earth minerals needed in the production of key goods, including semiconductor chips, smartphones and electric car batteries.

The aim is to “ensure that American businesses and workers are never harmed by any shortage”, Trump said at the White House.

The move to develop a strategic stockpile is the latest in a slew of efforts by the Trump administration to take control of the means of production for critical rare-earth materials to limit reliance on other countries, particularly China, which has held up its exports to gain leverage in negotiations with Trump.

Here’s a look at some of the investments the US government has made in this space.

What are the investments?

In 2025, the Trump administration acquired equity stakes in seven companies by converting federal grants into ownership positions. Among the investments is a 10 percent stake in USA Rare Earth, which plans to build rare-earth element and magnet production facilities in the US.

The project is supported by $1.6bn in funding allocated under the CHIPS Act, legislation passed during the administration of former Democratic President Joe Biden, aimed at reducing dependence on China for semiconductor manufacturing.

USA Rare Earth announced the investment last week and expects commercial production to begin in 2028.

The US government also acquired a roughly 10 percent stake, valued at about $1.9bn, in Korea Zinc to help fund a $7.4bn smelter in Tennessee through a joint venture controlled by the US government and unnamed US-based strategic investors, who would then control about 10 percent of the South Korean firm.

The venture will operate a mining complex anchored by two mines and the only operational zinc smelter in the US. Construction is set to begin this year, with commercial operations expected to start in 2029.

In October, the government announced a $35.6m investment to acquire a 10 percent stake in Canadian-based Trilogy Metals to support the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects (UKMP) in Alaska. The investment backs the development of critical minerals, including copper, zinc, gold, and silver, in Alaska’s mineral-rich northwest Ambler mining district.

Also in October, the US announced a 5 percent stake in Lithium Americas as part of a joint venture with General Motors (GM) to fund operations at the Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada. The project will supply lithium for electric vehicles and has attracted significant interest from the Detroit-based automaker.

In August, the White House acquired an almost 10 percent stake in Intel. The government’s investment in the semiconductor chip giant was an effort to help fund the construction and expansion of the company’s domestic manufacturing capabilities.

In July, the White House announced a 15 percent investment in MP Materials, which operates the only currently active rare-earth mine in the US, located in California. The largest federal stakeholder in the investment is the Department of War, then called the Department of Defense, which committed $400m.

The US is also reportedly exploring an 8 percent share in Critical Minerals for a stake in the Tranbreez rare-earths deposit in Greenland, underscoring Trump’s unsolicited attempts to acquire the Danish self-governed territory, the Reuters news agency reported.

Amid news of Trump’s stockpile plan, sector stocks are mixed. MP Materials and Intel are up 0.6 percent and 5 percent, respectively. Others finished out the day trending downwards. Lithium Americas is down 2.2 percent. Trilogy metals is down almost 2 percent, USA Rare Earth is down by 1.3 percent, and Korean Zinc finished down 12.6 percent.

Is this unusual?

The government buying equity stakes in large companies is unusual in US history, but not unprecedented.

During the 2008 financial crisis, the US government temporarily acquired equity stakes in several major companies through the Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP). In 2009, TARP provided federal assistance to General Motors, ultimately leaving the government with a more than 60 percent ownership share. This intervention began in the final months of the administration of former President George W Bush. The government fully sold its stake in GM in 2013.

Through TARP, the government also acquired a 9.9 percent stake in Chrysler, which it exited in 2011.

The programme extended beyond car makers to the financial sector. The US government took a more than 73 percent stake in GMAC (General Motors Acceptance Corporation, now Ally Financial), exiting its ownership in 2014. It also acquired nearly 74 percent of the financial services insurance giant AIG, selling its remaining stake in 2012, and took a 34 percent stake in Citigroup, which it fully exited by 2010.

“This isn’t like 2008, when there was an urgent need to shore up critical companies. There’s a much more measured approach here. They [the US government] want these investments to generate returns, and they need to be seen as good investments in order to attract other forms of capital,” Nick Giles, senior equity research analyst at B Riley Securities, an investment banking and capital markets firm, told Al Jazeera.

During the Great Depression, the government bought stakes in several large banks. Before that, at the turn of the 20th century, it bought an equity stake in the Panama Railroad Company, which was responsible for building the railway that would be used during the construction of the Panama Canal. That equity stake was attached to a specific project rather than a more open-ended challenge, such as foreign dependence on critical minerals.

“There may not be a defined end date, but they’re clearly looking to make a return, and it sends an important signal that more is coming. I don’t think they [the government] are going to let this fail,” Giles added.

Political divide on the approach

Interest in providing funds to critical mineral projects was shared by Trump’s predecessor, Biden, who brought in the CHIPS Act for that purpose. Biden was focused on providing grants for projects rather than buying equity stakes.

Trump’s approach to buy stakes is actually more aligned with progressive Democrats than with members of his own party. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has long been a proponent of the US government buying equity stakes in companies.

In August, after the White House bought an equity stake in Intel, Sanders applauded the move.

“Taxpayers should not be providing billions of dollars in corporate welfare to large, profitable corporations like Intel without getting anything in return,” Sanders said at the time.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a Republican known for his libertarian stances, called ownership a “terrible idea” and referred to it as a “step towards socialism” on CNBC. North Carolina’s Thom Tillis likened the Intel investment to something that countries like China or Russia would do.

For Babak Hafezi, professor of international business at the American University, the investments are a step to remove any reliance on China.

“Without domestic control and resiliency in both extraction and production, we are dependent on China, which extracts nearly 60 percent of global rare-earth minerals and produces 90 percent of it. This creates a major global chokepoint, and China can use this chokepoint as a means to dictate American Foreign policy via supply chain limitations,” he said.

“Thus, establishing free and open markets for US consumption is critical to remove any dependency.”

Modi’s government presents annual budget, focusing on sustaining growth despite volatile financial markets and trade uncertainty.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has unveiled its annual budget, aiming for steady growth in an uncertain global economy rocked by recent tariff wars.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the budget for the 2026-2027 financial year in Parliament on Sunday, prioritising infrastructure and domestic manufacturing, with a total expenditure estimated at $583bn.

India’s economy has so far weathered punitive tariffs of 50 percent imposed by United States President Donald Trump over New Delhi’s imports of Russian oil. The government has sought to offset the impact of those duties by striking deals, such as its trade agreement with the European Union.

Despite the past year’s challenges, the Indian economy has remained one of the world’s fastest growing.

The budget for the new financial year, which starts on April 1, projects gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the range of 6.8 to 7.2 percent, according to the government’s annual Economic Survey presented in Parliament. It is a shade softer than this year’s projected 7.4 percent but still outpaces estimates by global institutions such as the World Bank.

To keep growth strong, the government said it will spend 12.2 trillion rupees ($133bn) on infrastructure in the new fiscal year, compared with 11.2 trillion rupees ($122bn) last year. It will also aim to boost manufacturing in seven strategic sectors, including pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, rare-earth magnets, chemicals, capital goods, textiles and sports goods while stepping up investments in niche industries like artificial intelligence.

Despite plans to prop up growth with state spending, the government is aiming to bring down the federal government debt-to-GDP ratio from 56.1 percent to 55.6 percent in the next financial year and the fiscal deficit from its current projected level of 4.4 percent of GDP to 4.3 percent.

Sitharaman offered no populist giveaways, saying New Delhi would focus on building resilience at home while strengthening its position in global supply chains, marking a departure from last year’s budget, which wooed the salaried middle class with steep tax cuts.

Before the budget presentation, Modi on Thursday said the nation was “moving away from long-term problems to tread the path of long-term solutions”.

“Long term solutions provide predictability that fosters trust in the world,” he said.

Modi’s government has struggled to raise manufacturing from its current level of contributing under 20 percent of India’s GDP to 25 percent to generate jobs for the millions of people entering the nation’s workforce each year.

It has also seen a sharp decline in the value of the rupee, which has recently weakened to all-time lows after foreign investors sold a record amount of Indian equities. Those sales have added up to $22bn since January last year.

“Overall, this is a budget without fireworks – not a big positive, not a big negative,” Aishvarya Dadheech, founder and chief investment officer at Mumbai-based Fident Asset Management, told the Reuters news agency.

Danish company will replace Hong Kong-based firm, CK Hutchison, after Trump claimed strategic waterway was controlled by China.

Danish firm Maersk will temporarily operate two ports on the Panama Canal after a court ruled that contracts given to a Hong Kong firm were unconstitutional.

The Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) announced the changes on Friday, a day after the Central American country’s Supreme Court invalidated port contracts held by Hong Kong-based firm CK Hutchison.

The court ruling followed repeated threats from United States President Donald Trump that his country would seek to take over the waterway he claimed was effectively being controlled by China.

According to the court ruling that annulled the deal, CK Hutchison’s contract to operate the ports had “disproportionate bias” towards the Hong Kong-based company.

On Friday, the AMP said port operator APM Terminals, part of the Maersk Group, would take over as the “temporary administrator” of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on either end of the canal.

Maersk takes over from the Panama Ports Company (PPC) – a subsidiary of CK Hutchison Holdings – which has managed the ports since 1997 under a concession renewed in 2021 for 25 years.

The canal, an artificial waterway, handles about 40 percent of US container shipping traffic and 5 percent of world trade. It has been controlled by Panama since 1999, when the US, which funded the building of the canal between 1904 and 1914, ceded control.

Washington on Friday welcomed the decision, but China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Beijing “will take all measures necessary to firmly protect the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of Chinese companies”.

For its part, PPC said the ruling “lacks legal basis and endangers … the welfare and stability of thousands of Panamanian families” who depend on its operations.

Tens of thousands of workers dug the 82km- (51-mile-) passageway that became the Panama Canal, allowing ships to pass from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic without having to travel around the northernmost or southernmost ends of the Americas.

Panama has always denied Chinese control of the canal, which is used mainly by the US and China.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived in China this week with a large delegation of businesspeople and cultural figures.

He received a warm welcome from Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But the visit got a frosty reception from the White House, with United States President Donald Trump calling Starmer’s trip “dangerous”.

What prompted Trump’s remarks? And how important was the British prime minister’s visit?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Will Hutton – Political economist

Andy Mok – Senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization

Steve Tsang – Director of the China Institute at SOAS University of London

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has hailed several new trade agreements, pledging to further diversify Ottawa’s partners while saying he “expects” the United States to respect his country’s sovereignty.

Carney discussed the trade deals during a meeting on Thursday with provincial and territorial leaders.

“Our country is more united, ambitious and determined than it has been in decades, and it’s incumbent on all of us to seize this moment, build big things together,” Carney said, as he hailed 12 new economic and security accords reached over the last six months.

His comments come amid ongoing frictions with the administration of US President Donald Trump, which has previously pushed to make Canada a “51st state”.

Carney highlighted in particular a new agreement with China to lower trade levies. That deal prompted a rebuke last week from Trump, who threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on Canada.

In the face of Trump’s accusations that Canada would serve as a “drop-off port” for Chinese goods, Carney clarified that Ottawa was not seeking a free-trade agreement with Beijing.

But on Thursday, he nevertheless played up the perks he said the agreement would offer to Canada’s agriculture sector.

“Part of that agreement unlocks more than $7bn in export markets for Canadian farmers, ranchers, fish harvesters and workers across our country,” Carney said.

Carney added that Ottawa would soon seek to advance “trading relationships with global giants” including India, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the South American trade bloc Mercosur.

“And we will work to renew our most important economic and security relationship with the United States through the joint review of the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement later this year,” he said, referring to the regional free trade agreement, which expires in July.

‘Respect Canadian sovereignty’

Carney’s pledge to diversify Canada’s portfolio of trade and security partners comes just eight days after he delivered an attention-grabbing speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

During the address, Carney warned that the “rules-based” international order was a fiction that was fading, replaced by “an era of great power rivalry”, where might makes right.

“We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically,” Carney told the audience in Davos.

“We knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”

He ultimately called for the so-called “middle powers” of the world to rally together in these unpredictable times.

The speech was widely seen as a rebuke to Trump, who has launched an aggressive tariff campaign on global trading partners, including Canada.

In early January, Trump also abducted the leader of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, in what critics describe as a violation of international law.

His pledge to “run” Venezuela was followed by a series of aggressive statements towards the self-governing Danish territory of Greenland, which he threatened to seize.

Those threats have sent shudders through the NATO alliance, which counts both the US and Denmark as members.

Since before the start of his second term, Trump has also pushed to expand US control into Canada, repeatedly calling the country a “state” and its prime minister a “governor”.

In response to Carney’s speech at Davos, Trump withdrew Carney’s invitation to join his so-called Board of Peace.

Carney, however, has publicly stood by his statements, dismissing US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s claims that he “aggressively” walked back his position during a private call with Trump.

In a separate exchange on Thursday, Carney was asked about reports that US officials had met with separatists seeking independence for the oil-wealthy province of Alberta.

The Financial Times reported that State Department officials have held three meetings ​with the Alberta Prosperity Project, a group that pushes for a referendum on whether the energy-producing western province should break away from Canada.

“We expect the US administration to respect Canadian sovereignty,” Carney replied.

“I’m always clear in my conversations with President Trump to that effect.”

It was built on democracy, open markets and cooperation – with America at the helm.

But the rules-based global order created after World War II is now under strain. Conflicts are rising. International rules are being tested. Trade tensions are escalating. And alliances are shifting.

At the centre of it all is US President Donald Trump.

In just a few short weeks, he’s captured Venezuela’s president, vowed to take control of Greenland, and threatened to slap tariffs on those who oppose him.

Meanwhile, China is presenting itself as a stable partner.

Many warn that the global order is starting to break apart.

British PM Keir Starmer’s China visit is the first by a UK leader in eight years and marks a thaw in frosty relations.

The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer has met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in the first trip of its kind by a British leader in eight years.

Starmer said before his trip that doing business with China was the pragmatic choice and it was time for a “mature” relationship with the world’s second-largest economy.

“I have long been clear that the UK and China need a long-term, consistent and comprehensive strategic partnership,” Starmer said on Thursday.

During their meeting, Starmer told Xi that he hopes the two leaders can “identify opportunities to collaborate, but also allow a meaningful dialogue on areas where we disagree”.

Xi stressed the need for more “dialogue and cooperation” amid a “complex and intertwined” international situation.

The meeting between the two leaders in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Thursday was due to last about 40 minutes, and will be followed by another meeting between Starmer and Chinese Premier Li Qiang later in the day.

Starmer is in China for three days and is accompanied by a delegation representing nearly 50 UK businesses and cultural organisations, including HSBC, British Airways, AstraZeneca and GSK.

The last trip by a UK prime minister was in 2018, when Theresa May visited Beijing.

Strengthening economic and security cooperation was at the top of the agenda during the Xi-Starmer meeting, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Katrina Yu.

“[Starmer] has the very big task of bringing this diplomatic relationship out of years of deep freeze, so the focus when he talks to Xi Jinping will be finding areas of common ground,” Yu said from Beijing.

China was the UK’s fourth-largest trading partner in 2025, with bilateral trade worth $137bn, according to UK government data.

Starmer is seeking to deepen those ties with Xi despite criticism at home around China’s human rights record and its status as a potential national security threat.

Besides business dealings, Starmer and Xi are also expected to announce further cooperation in the area of law enforcement to reduce the trafficking of undocumented immigrants into the UK by criminal gangs.

Relations between the UK and China have been frosty since Beijing launched a political crackdown in Hong Kong, a former British colony, following months of antigovernment protests in 2019.

London has also criticised the prosecution in Hong Kong of the pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who is also a British citizen, on national security charges.

Starmer’s trip to China comes as both Beijing and London’s relationship with the United States is under strain from President Donald Trump’s tariff war.

Trump’s recent threats to annex Greenland have also raised alarm among NATO members, including the UK.

One of the biggest trade deals in history has been struck by India and the European Union, months after United States President Donald Trump hit both with tariffs.

What’s in the agreement – and how much is driven by Washington’s unpredictable measures?

Presenter: Tom McRae

Guests:

Brahma Chellaney – Professor emeritus of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi

Remi Bourgeot – Associate fellow at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs in Paris

Dhananjay Tripathi – Senior associate professor in the Department of International Relations at South Asian University in New Delhi

China is showcasing itself as a solid business and trading partner to traditional allies of the United States and others who have been alienated by President Donald Trump’s politics, and some of them appear ready for a reset.

Since the start of 2026, Chinese President Xi Jinping has received South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo and Irish leader Micheal Martin.

This week, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer is on a three-day visit to Beijing, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is expected to visit China for the first time in late February.

Among these visitors, five are treaty allies of the US, but all have been hit over the past year by the Trump administration’s “reciprocal” trade tariffs, as well as additional duties on key exports like steel, aluminium, autos and auto parts.

Canada, Finland, Germany and the UK found themselves in a NATO standoff with Trump this month over his desire to annex Greenland and threats that he would impose additional tariffs on eight European countries he said were standing in his way, including the UK and Finland. Trump has since backed down from this threat.

China’s renewed sales pitch

While China has long sought to present itself as a viable alternative to the post-war US-led international order, its sales pitch took on renewed energy at the World Economic Forum‘s (WEF) annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this month.

As Trump told world leaders that the US had become “the hottest country, anywhere in the world” thanks to surging investment and tariff revenues, and Europe would “do much better” to follow the US lead, Chinese Vice Premier Li Hefeng’s speech emphasised China’s ongoing support for multilateralism and free trade.

“While economic globalisation is not perfect and may cause some problems, we cannot completely reject it and retreat to self-imposed isolation,” Li said.

“The right approach should be, and can only be, to find solutions together through dialogue.”

Li also criticised the “unilateral acts and trade deals of certain countries” – a reference to Trump’s trade war – that “clearly violate the fundamental principles and principles of the [World Trade Organization] and severely impact the global economic and trade order”.

Li also told the WEF that “every country is entitled to defend its legitimate rights and interests”, a point that could be understood to apply as much to China’s claims over places like Taiwan as to Denmark’s dominion over Greenland.

“In many ways, China has chosen to cast itself in the role of a stable and responsible global actor in the midst of the disruption that we are seeing from the US. Reiterating its support for the United Nations system and global rules has often been quite enough to bolster China’s standing, especially among countries of the Global South,” Bjorn Cappelin, an analyst at the Swedish National China Centre, told Al Jazeera.

The West is listening

John Gong, a professor of economics at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, told Al Jazeera that the recent series of trips by European leaders to China shows that the Global North is listening, too. Other notable signs include the UK’s approval of a Chinese “mega embassy” in London, Gong said, and progress in a years-long trade dispute over Chinese exports of electric vehicles (EVs) to Europe.

Starmer is also expected to pursue more trade and investment deals with Beijing this week, according to UK media.

“A series of events happening in Europe seems to suggest an adjustment of Europe’s China policy – for the better, of course – against the backdrop of what is emanating from Washington against Europe,” Gong told Al Jazeera.

The shifting diplomatic calculations are also clear in Canada, which has shown a renewed willingness to deepen economic ties with China after several spats with Trump over the past year.

Carney’s is the first visit to Beijing by a Canadian prime minister since Justin Trudeau went in 2017, and he came away with a deal that saw Beijing agree to ease tariffs on Canadian agricultural exports and Ottawa to ease tariffs on Chinese EVs.

Trump lashed out at news of the deal, threatening 100 percent trade tariffs on Canada if the deal goes ahead.

In a statement last weekend on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that Carney was “sorely mistaken” if he thought Canada could become a “‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States”.

The meeting between Carney and Xi this month also thawed years of frosty relations after Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in late 2018 at the behest of the US. Beijing subsequently arrested two Canadians in a move that was widely seen as retaliation. They were released in 2021 after Meng reached a deferred agreement with prosecutors in New York.

In Davos, Carney told world leaders that there had been a “rupture in the world order” in a clear reference to Trump, followed by remarks this week to the Canadian House of Commons that “almost nothing was normal now” in the US, according to the CBC.

Carney also said this week in a call with Trump that Ottawa should continue to diversify its trade deals with countries beyond the US, although it had no plans in place yet for a free-trade agreement with China.

Filling the void

Hanscom Smith, a former US diplomat and senior fellow at Yale’s Jackson School of International Affairs, told Al Jazeera that Beijing’s appeal could be tempered by other factors, however.

“When the United States becomes more transactional, that creates a vacuum, and it’s not clear the extent to which China or Russia, or any other power, is going to be able to fill the void. It’s not necessarily a zero-sum game,” he told Al Jazeera. “Many countries want to have a good relationship with both the United States and China, and don’t want to choose.”

One glaring concern with China, despite its offer of more reliable business dealings, is its massive global trade surplus, which surged to $1.2 trillion last year.

Much of this was gained in the fallout from Trump’s trade war as China’s manufacturers – facing a slew of tariffs from the US and declining demand at home – expanded their supply chains into places like Southeast Asia and found new markets beyond the US.

China’s record trade surplus has alarmed some European leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, who, in Davos, called for more foreign direct investment from China but not its “massive excess capacities and distortive practices” in the form of export dumping.

Li tried to address such concerns head-on in his Davos speech. “We never seek trade surplus; on top of being the world’s factory, we hope to be the world’s market too. However, in many cases, when China wants to buy, others don’t want to sell. Trade issues often become security hurdles,” he said.

India and the European Union have agreed on a huge trade deal creating a free trade zone of two ‌billion people, European ​Commission President Ursula ‍von der Leyen and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have said.

In a post on X during her visit to New Delhi on Tuesday, von der Leyen said the two parties were “making history today”.

“We have concluded the mother of all ​deals. ‌We have created a free trade zone of two ‌billion people, with ‌both sides ⁠set to benefit,” she added.

Modi said the landmark agreement, following nearly two decades of on-and-off ​negotiations, had been reached, hailing its benefits before a meeting with von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa.

“This deal will bring many opportunities for India’s 1.4 billion and many millions of people of the EU,” he said.

The deal will cover about 25 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP), Modi said, adding that India will get a boost in sectors including textiles, gems and jewellery, and leather goods.

The trade pact comes amid a push by Brussels and New Delhi to open up new markets in the face of tariffs imposed by the United States and Chinese export controls.

It will pave the way for ‍India, the world’s most populous nation, to open up its huge, protected market to free trade with the 27-nation EU, its biggest trading partner.

The EU views India as an important market for the future, while New Delhi sees Europe as an important potential source of technology and investment.

The formal signing of the deal will take ‌place after legal vetting, expected to last five to six months, the Reuters news agency reported, quoting an Indian government official aware of the matter. The official said the deal was expected to be implemented within a year.

EU exports ‘expected to double’

The EU said it expected its exports to India to double by 2032 as a result of the deal.

Bilateral trade between India and the EU in goods has already grown by nearly 90 percent over the past decade, reaching 120 billion euros ($139bn) in 2024, according to EU figures. Trade in services accounts for a further 60 billion euros ($69bn), EU data shows.

Under the agreement, tariffs on 96.6 percent of EU goods exports to India would be eliminated or reduced, EU officials said. The deal would save up to 4 billion euros ($4.74bn) a year in duties on European products, officials said.

Among the products that would have tariffs all or mostly eliminated were machinery, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Tariffs on cars would gradually reduce to 10 percent with a quota of 250,000 vehicles a year, officials said, while EU service providers would gain privileged access to India in key areas such as financial and maritime services. Tariffs on EU aircraft and spacecraft would be eliminated for almost all products.

Tariffs would be cut to 20-30 percent on EU wine, 40 percent on spirits, and 50 percent on beer, while tariffs on fruit juices and processed food would be eliminated.

“The EU stands to gain the highest level of access ever granted to a trade partner in the traditionally protected Indian market,” von der Leyen said on Sunday. “We will gain a significant competitive advantage in key industrial and agri-good sectors.”

Last-minute talks on Monday had focused on several sticking points, including the impact of the EU’s carbon border tax on steel, sources familiar with the discussions told the AFP news agency.

Talks on the India-EU trade deal were launched in 2007, but for many years made little progress. However, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine led to the relaunch of talks in 2022, while United States President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff policy spurred rapid progress in negotiations.

India and the EU also announced the launch of a security and defence partnership, similar to partnerships the EU has with Japan and South Korea, as von der Leyen said Brussels and New Delhi would grow their strategic partnership further.

The moves come as India, which has relied on Russia for key military hardware for decades, has tried to reduce its dependence on Moscow by diversifying imports and pushing its domestic manufacturing base, while Europe is doing the same with regard to Washington.

The EU-India deal comes days after Brussels signed a key pact with the South American bloc Mercosur, following deals last year with Indonesia, Mexico and Switzerland. During the same period, New Delhi ​finalised pacts with the United Kingdom, New Zealand and ‌Oman.

Carney has been under pressure from the opposition to lower prices of food and other essentials for lower-income people.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced a multibillion-dollar package as part of a series of measures aimed at lowering the costs of food and other essentials for low-income families.

On Monday, Carney announced a five-year 25 percent boost to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) credit that starts this year.

The GST credit, which is being renamed the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit, will provide additional, significant support for more than 12 million Canadians, Carney said in a statement.

The government will also provide a one-time top-up equivalent to a 50 percent increase this year to eligible residents.

“We’re bringing in new measures to lower costs and make sure Canadians have the support they need now,” Carney said.

The measures would cost the government 3.1 billion Canadian dollars ($2.26bn) in the first year and between 1.3 billion Canadian dollars ($950m) and 1.8 billion Canadian dollars ($1.3bn) in each of the following four years, he told reporters at a news conference, according to the Reuters news agency.

While overall consumer price inflation in Canada has eased and came in at 2.4 percent for December, “food price inflation remains high due to global and domestic factors, including supply chain disruptions, higher US tariffs from the trade war and climate change/extreme weather”, Tony Stillo, director of Canada Economics at Oxford Economics, told Al Jazeera.

The government is also setting aside 500 million Canadian dollars ($365m) from the Strategic Response Fund to help businesses address the costs of supply chain disruptions without passing those costs on to Canadians, and will create a 150 million Canadian dollar ($110m) Food Security Fund under the existing Regional Tariff Response Initiative for small and medium enterprises and the organisations that support them.

Changing landscape

“The global landscape is rapidly changing, leaving economies, businesses, and workers under a cloud of uncertainty. In response, Canada’s new government is focused on what we can control: building a stronger economy to make life more affordable for Canadians,” Carney said.

The new measures were unveiled on the day Parliament resumes after its winter break.

Opposition parties have urged Carney to reduce prices of daily goods, especially as sections of the economy have come under pressure from United States President Donald Trump, who has slapped 35 percent tariffs on the country as well as separate tariffs on steel, aluminium and lumber, leading to job losses in those sectors.

Over the weekend, Trump escalated his threats and said he would impose a 100 percent tariff on Canada if it makes a trade deal with China. Carney has been working on diversifying Canada’s exports away from the US, its biggest trading partner and to which nearly 80 percent of its exports went last year, including by increasing business with other markets like China.