International Trade

The visit comes as the UK and US prepare to sign a landmark technology agreement aimed at boosting cooperation between the two countries.

United States President Donald Trump has arrived in the United Kingdom for his second state visit, describing it as a “great honour” to be hosted by King Charles III at Windsor Castle.

The US president landed at the London Stansted airport on Tuesday evening, where new UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper was among those greeting him as he stepped off Air Force One.

Trump, accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump, is expected to stay overnight at Winfield House, the official residence of the US ambassador in Regent’s Park, before travelling to Windsor Castle on Wednesday for a ceremonial welcome and a state banquet.

Thousands are expected to protest during his stay, though he has no public-facing engagements planned.

Speaking to reporters before landing, Trump said: “My relationship is very good with the UK, and Charles, as you know, who’s now King, is my friend. It’s the first time this has ever happened where somebody was honoured twice. So, it’s a great honour.”

The visit comes as the UK and US prepare to sign a landmark technology agreement aimed at boosting cooperation between the two countries’ multi-trillion-dollar tech sectors.

Trump is expected to be joined by a delegation of US executives, including Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, Sky News reported that BlackRock plans to invest $700m in British data centres as part of a series of announcements tied to the state visit.

The UK was the first country to sign a bilateral trade agreement with the Trump administration in May. Under that deal, Washington pledged to reduce tariffs on aluminium and steel from 25 percent to zero, though the changes have yet to take effect.

Trump has hinted at possible tariff relief for UK steel ahead of talks with Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Chequers, the prime minister’s country residence, on Thursday.

“I’m there also on trade. They want to see if they can refine the trade deal a little bit. We’ve made a deal, and it’s a great deal, and I’m into helping them,” Trump said.

Great Britain is set to roll out the red carpet for Donald Trump this week, honouring the president of the United States with something no other American leader has ever received: a second state visit.

Trump is set to arrive in London late on Tuesday for a visit that coincides with tough trade negotiations between the US and many of its key trading partners, including the United Kingdom. During his stay, both countries plan to announce several deals on technology and civil nuclear energy, and British leaders hope to finalise an agreement on metal tariffs.

Trump and his wife, Melania, will be treated to royal pageantry throughout their two-day stay, including a ceremonial welcome from King Charles at Windsor Castle. The British government is confident that royal soft power will appeal to Trump’s sense of flamboyance.

Before setting off on Tuesday, Trump said he was looking forward to meeting with his friend, King Charles III, whom he described as an “elegant gentleman”.

The president said being welcomed for a second state visit was a first, and noted how it was planned for Windsor Castle, rather than Buckingham Palace.

“I don’t want to say one is better than the other, but they say Windsor Castle is the ultimate,” the president added, noting that much of his trip will be focused on trade.

The state visit will include a glittering banquet and a procession in a horse-drawn carriage. For his part, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hopes Trump’s visit will offer a measure of distraction from simmering speculation about his leadership amid plummeting approval ratings and high-profile resignations.

Lord Mandelson’s recent sacking as UK ambassador to the US, following new revelations concerning his friendship with child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has already cast a diplomatic pall over Trump’s visit. The president’s own links to Epstein have also generated plenty of headlines in recent weeks.

When and where

Trump will officially be welcomed to the UK on Tuesday evening by US Ambassador Warren Stephens, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Viscount Hood, the king’s lord-in-waiting. On Wednesday morning, the royal activities will begin, with a formal greeting by the king and Queen Camilla, along with Prince William and Princess Catherine, at Windsor Castle. Later that day, he will enjoy a royal salute at the castle and a flypast from the Red Arrows and the carriage procession.

The president will then be treated to lunch with the extended royal family before laying a wreath at Queen Elizabeth II’s tomb in St George’s Chapel.

On Wednesday night, Trump will be the guest of honour at a formal state banquet at the castle.

The president will bid farewell to the royals on Thursday morning before he meets Starmer.

Trade tops agenda

Starmer will host Trump at Chequers, his country residence, on Thursday to discuss various matters, including security in Ukraine. Starmer’s ultimate aim, however, is to ensure that Trump makes good on his promise to lower tariffs on steel and aluminium.

The UK was the first country to sign a bilateral trade agreement with the Trump administration in May. Under that deal, the US planned to reduce tariffs on aluminium and steel from 25 percent to zero, but that has not happened yet.

“When it comes to steel, we will make sure that we have an announcement as soon as possible,” Business Secretary Peter Kyle told the BBC on Sunday. Other ministers have expressed optimism that a deal on base metals can be secured during Trump’s visit.

The two countries are also expected to sign a multibillion-dollar deal to develop small nuclear projects, which could, in some cases, help to power new artificial intelligence data centres. On Monday, Starmer announced a joint US-UK project to build a fleet of small modular reactors.

“The UK-US relationship is the strongest in the world,” a representative from Starmer’s office told reporters. “This week, we are delivering a step change in that relationship.”

Investment deals?

A major talking point will be a new potential technology partnership, involving enhanced US investment in the UK and greater British cooperation with Silicon Valley on AI and quantum computing.

That had been Lord Mandelson’s priority and something he described in his outgoing letter to embassy staff last week as his “personal pride and joy” that he claimed would “help write the next chapter of the special relationship” between the US and the UK. Mandelson’s permanent replacement has yet to be named, but James Roscoe is serving as interim ambassador to the US.

Nvidia, OpenAI and Google are expected to announce investment deals as part of the partnership, according to the Reuters news agency. Meanwhile, the British government recently secured 1.25 billion pounds ($1.7bn) in private investment pledges from PayPal and Bank of America.

Elsewhere, private equity firm Blackstone plans to invest 100 billion pounds ($136bn) into British assets over the next decade, with a focus on physical infrastructure. The investment will be part of a previously announced $500bn package of investment into Europe.

Why is this trip significant?

This is Trump’s second visit to the UK in the last two months, following his trip to Scotland in July, but this week marks his second state visit, which no other US president has ever enjoyed. In 2019, Trump was hosted for a state visit by Queen Elizabeth II.

The timing is not ideal. Mandelson was sacked as the UK’s ambassador to the US on September 11, after emails were published that revealed he urged Epstein to fight for early release from prison in 2008.

Trump’s friendship with Epstein has also exposed him to damaging scrutiny, including from his support base. Democrats in the House of Representatives recently released a birthday letter he allegedly wrote to Epstein in 2003, which Trump has denied writing.

For his part, Starmer hopes the pomp of a state visit will offer cover for his own domestic challenges, including criticism about him proscribing the Palestine Action group as a “terror organisation”.

Following missteps on welfare reform, a slapdash cabinet reshuffle and poor economic growth, several lawmakers are increasingly questioning Starmer’s judgement, especially with Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK party surging ahead in the polls.

Starmer’s main goal will be to champion any wins secured during Trump’s visit.

But the president’s stay will also face challenges as local protests are expected in opposition to Trump’s stay at Windsor Castle.

The prime minister will also try to convince Trump that Russia’s incursion of 20 drones into Polish airspace last Wednesday was not an accident, as Trump has suggested.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski rejected that theory on September 12 during a news conference in Kyiv. “We don’t believe in 20 mistakes at the same time,” he said.

Finally, Starmer’s spokesperson said there would also be announcements on deepening cultural ties, including promoting basketball in the UK and developing partnerships between heritage and art institutions.

The United States and China have reached a framework agreement to transfer TikTok’s ownership to US control.

Officials from both countries made the announcement on Monday.

The short-form video app was set to be banned in the US by Wednesday if its owner ByteDance did not agree to sell the company to a US-based operation or if the US did not extend a pause of the ban, which the White House has already done three times, most recently in June. 

US President Donald Trump applauded the deal, which will be confirmed when he discusses it with his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping on Friday.

“A deal was also reached on a “certain” company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Monday.

“The relationship remains a very strong one!!!”

The White House declined to outline the terms of the deal, which was negotiated during trade talks between the two countries in Madrid. The two-day meeting, which wrapped up on Monday, was the latest in a slew of negotiations that began in May.

“We’re not going to talk about the commercial terms of the deal. It’s between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters.

Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who was also part of the trade delegation in Madrid, said China wanted concessions on trade and technology in exchange for agreeing to divest from the popular social media app.

“Our Chinese counterparts have come with a very aggressive ask,” Bessent said, adding, “We are not willing to sacrifice national security for a social media app.”

“TikTok’s divestment agreement not only keeps the app running in the US, but is also expected to help de-escalate a tense trade standoff and lay groundwork for further trade talks between the US and China,” Maria Pechurina, director of international trade at Peacock Tariff Consulting, told Al Jazeera. “Both US and Chinese delegations explicitly linked the fate of TikTok to progress on tariff reductions and related trade concessions during their conversations in Madrid.”

The deal comes despite the US pushing other nations to impose tariffs on China over purchases of Russian oil, which Bessent said was discussed briefly with the US’s Chinese counterparts.

Experts warn to be wary of the deal being set until Xi and Trump speak on Friday.

“It’s important to note that the Chinese often see the signing of a deal as the beginning, and not the end, of any negotiations. The devil would lie in the details behind the optics. Also expect much haggling on important details that may take years,” Usha Hayley, a professor of international business at Wichita State University who specialises in Chinese industry, told Al Jazeera.

“The deal, when reached, would reflect the convergence of technology, national security, and geopolitics,” said Hayley. “TikTok sits at the centre of US concerns about data access, influence over public discourse, and Beijing’s reach into global tech. Washington is stating that the US views digital platforms as strategic assets, not private businesses.”

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

The looming ban

Trump proposed banning TikTok during his first term as US president, signing two executive orders in August 2020 that were aimed at restricting the app.

In April 2024, under then-President Joe Biden, the White House signed a law formally banning TikTok unless it sold its US operations. The ban was supposed to take effect on January 19, the last day of the Biden administration. Biden said he would not enforce the ban and said that he would leave that decision to the next administration.

Two days before the January deadline, on January 17, the Supreme Court stepped in to weigh in on TikTok’s challenge to the law and upheld the law. The app went dark briefly before the ban was paused during the early days of Trump’s subsequent presidency.

The pause was initially for 90 days and was later extended multiple times throughout the year.

The cultural importance to Trump

TikTok’s cultural relevance has grown significantly in recent years, serving both as a tool for organising and activism, and as a platform to reach the public, particularly young voters. In April 2024, the pro-Trump videos on TikTok were nearly double those supporting Biden, who was then the Democratic nominee, the New York Times reported, citing TikTok’s internal data.

Trump’s broader use of newer media was widely cited as a factor in his 2024 election victory. His campaign regularly engaged with right-leaning podcasts and influencers — such as Joe Rogan and Theo Von — to reach conservative audiences. It also targeted disillusioned men, who were drawn to influencers promoting traditional notions of masculinity, often conflated with conservative viewpoints.

A Pew Research Center study from November found that news influencers — defined as those who discuss “current events and civic issues” and have at least 100,000 followers across any social media platform – are more likely to lean conservative. A separate report from Pew in February found that news influencers posted more content supporting Trump than former Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s 2024 election opponent: 28 percent for Trump versus 24 percent for Harris.

TikTok’s role in spreading far-right narratives is not limited to US politics. The platform has reportedly influenced German state elections, contributing to the rise of far-right leaders, and has similarly affected far-right candidates in Poland, Sweden, and France.

New York, USA – Next week, the United States Federal Reserve will hold a two-day policy meeting to decide whether to lower interest rates.

The meeting follows a months-long pause in rates and comes amid heightened pressure on the central bank.

US President Donald Trump recently dismissed Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook on allegations of mortgage fraud, which she is contesting in court, and has escalated his loud and repeated criticism of Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

The Fed, which emphasises its independence from political influence, will weigh new economic data as it considers its next move. The benchmark interest rate has remained at 4.25 percent – 4.50 percent since December.

So far, the Fed has held rates steady, saying the stance preserves flexibility to respond to economic shocks tied to shifting trade policy. But many economists now believe a rate cut is imminent.

They point to signs of a cooling labour market and tariff-related pressure on inflation as factors that could support lowering rates, not political pressure.

“I think that the Fed has made it pretty clear that they’re going to cut rates in September, and the market certainly expects that,” Daniel Hornung, policy fellow at Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research and former deputy director of the National Economic Council, told Al Jazeera.

CME FedWatch, which tracks the probability of Fed policy moves, puts the likelihood of a quarter of one percentage point cut at 94.5 percent, echoing research from JPMorgan last month.

“For Fed Chair Jerome Powell, the risk management considerations may go beyond balancing employment and inflation risks, and we now see the path of least resistance is to pull forward the next cut of 25 basis points to the September meeting,” Michael Feroli, chief US economist at JP Morgan, said at the time.

Prices jump

Consumer prices rose 0.4 percent in August from the previous month, the sharpest increase in seven months, according to the Labor Department’s consumer price index (CPI) report released on Thursday.

The gain followed a 0.2 percent rise in July. Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast a 0.3 percent monthly increase in core CPI.

Energy costs climbed 0.7 percent, fueled by a 1.9 percent jump in gasoline. Airfares climbed 5.9 percent, apparel prices rose 0.5 percent, shelter increased 0.4 percent, grocery prices were up 0.6 percent, and restaurant meals rose 0.3 percent.

Some goods saw particularly steep increases. Coffee prices jumped 3.6 percent on the month as Brazil, the world’s top coffee exporter, redirected shipments away from the US following new tariffs.

The Producer Price Index (PPI), which tracks prices businesses receive for goods and services, showed coffee up nearly 7 percent from July and more than 33 percent over the past year.

There is a comparable phenomenon with beef, for which the US relies heavily on Brazil.  CPI data showed a 2.7 percent increase, while the PPI measured a 6 percent monthly rise and a 21 percent yearly increase.

Overall, the PPI slipped 0.1 percent, suggesting some businesses are absorbing tariff costs rather than passing them to consumers. Service prices fell 1.7 percent, driven by a 3.9 percent decline in margins for machinery and vehicle wholesalers, which offset a 0.1 percent increase in goods prices. That came after wholesale inflation was revised higher to 0.7 percent in July, which was well above economists’ forecasts.

Even so, companies are beginning to warn that they cannot continue absorbing higher costs. In recent weeks, Campbell’s Co, which makes Campbell’s Soup and Goldfish crackers, and Procter & Gamble have both said they plan to raise prices on consumer goods in the months ahead as tariff pressures persist.

Labour market tumbles

The US labour market, a key factor in the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions, has cooled sharply.

Approximately 263,000 people submitted initial jobless claims last week, the most in four years, Department of Labor data released on Thursday showed.

On Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised down job gains over the past few months, as well as between April 2024 and March 2025, when the US economy added 911,000 fewer jobs than had been previously reported.

All of that is echoed by poor jobs numbers last week. In August, the economy added only 22,000 jobs, with gains concentrated in healthcare (which added 31,000 jobs) and social assistance (which added 16,000). The unemployment rate climbed to 4.3 percent, the Labor Department reported.

Revisions showed July job growth slightly stronger at 79,000, up from 73,000, while June was cut from a modest gain to a loss of 13,000.

“The recent job numbers were really, especially the revision of the earlier numbers, were really kind of problematic for the economy,” Michael Klein, professor of International Economic Affairs at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, told Al Jazeera.

Job openings and turnover also declined, leaving more unemployed workers than available positions for the first time since April 2021.

A report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas highlighted the strain, noting a 39 percent jump in job cuts between July and August. Private payroll growth slowed as well, according to the ADP National Employment Report, which showed just 54,000 jobs added, down from 106,000 the prior month.

Competing forces

Typically, high inflation prompts higher interest rates, which discourage borrowing and spending and help rein in prices.

“The Fed is in a very difficult position right now because there is both a weakening labour market and evidence of higher inflation. Typically, if the Fed is facing a weaker labour market, it would want to lower interest rates. And if it’s facing higher inflation, it would want to raise interest rates. But we’re in a situation now where there are countervailing forces,” Klein said.

The labour market is already weighing on consumer spending. Rising layoffs and slower hiring have made shoppers cautious, and the latest consumer confidence index shows plans to buy big-ticket and discretionary items are slipping.

With Trump’s shifting tariffs and hardline immigration policies, businesses are stuck in a “wait-and-see” mode, increasing uncertainty.

“We are seeing immigration and tariff policies that have the simultaneous effect of raising prices and slowing growth in the labour market,” Hornung said.

The Supreme Court has scheduled to hear the case in November, lightning fast by its typical standards.

The United States Supreme Court has granted an unusually quick hearing on whether President Donald Trump has the power to impose sweeping tariffs under federal law.

The justices said on Tuesday that they will hear arguments in November, which is lightning fast by the typical standards of the nation’s highest court.

The small businesses and states that challenged the tariffs in court also agreed to the accelerated timetable. They say Trump illegally used emergency powers to set import taxes on goods from almost every country in the world, nearly driving their businesses to bankruptcy.

The justices also agreed to hear a separate challenge to Trump’s tariffs brought by a family-owned toy company, Learning Resources.

Two lower courts have found that most of the tariffs were illegally imposed, though a 7-4 appeals court has left them in place for now.

The levies are part of a trade war instigated by Trump since he returned to the presidency in January, which has alienated trading partners, increased volatility in financial markets and driven global economic uncertainty.

Trump has made tariffs a key foreign policy tool, using them to renegotiate trade deals, extract concessions and exert political pressure on countries. Revenue from tariffs totalled $159bn by late August, more than double what it was at the same point a year earlier.

The Trump administration asked the justices to intervene quickly, arguing the law gives him the power to regulate imports and that the country would be on “the brink of economic catastrophe” if the president were barred from exercising unilateral tariff authority.

The case will come before a court that has been reluctant to check Trump’s extraordinary flex of executive power. One big question is whether the justices’ own expansive view of presidential authority allows for Trump’s tariffs without the explicit approval of Congress, which the US Constitution endows with the power to levy tariffs.

Three of the justices on the conservative-majority court were nominated by Trump in his first term.

Impact on trade negotiations

US Solicitor General D John Sauer has argued that the lower court rulings are already impacting those trade negotiations. Treasury might take a hit by having to refund some of the import taxes it has collected, Trump administration officials have said. A ruling against the tariffs could even hamper the nation’s ability to reduce the flow of fentanyl and efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, Sauer argued.

The administration did win over four appeals court judges who found the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, lets the president regulate importation during emergencies without explicit limitations. In recent decades, Congress has ceded some tariff authority to the president, and Trump has made the most of the power vacuum.

The case involves two sets of import taxes, both of which Trump justified by declaring a national emergency: the tariffs first announced in April and the ones from February on imports from Canada, China and Mexico.

It does not include his levies on foreign steel, aluminium and autos, or the tariffs Trump imposed on China in his first term that were kept by former President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

Trump can impose tariffs under other laws, but those have more limitations on the speed and severity with which he could act.

India’s finance minister calls for greater collaboration in ‘cybersecurity’ and ‘defence’ between the two countries.

Israel and India have signed a bilateral investment agreement to expand mutual trade during far-right Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich’s trip to the South Asian country, which deepened its ties with Israel under Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The agreement, signed in New Delhi by Smotrich and Indian Minister of Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman, aims to boost trade and investment flows between the two countries. Sitharaman stressed the need for greater collaboration in “cybersecurity, defence, innovation and high-technology”.

The deal marked “an important strategic step for our joint vision”, said Smotrich, who has been sanctioned by several Western countries for his links to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“The agreement reached today between Israel and India reflects our economic growth, innovation and mutual prosperity,” he wrote on X.

“This agreement will open new opportunities for investors in both countries, strengthen Israeli exports, and provide businesses with the certainty and tools to grow in one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing markets.”

India’s Ministry of Finance described the deal as a “historic milestone”, adding that it will foster cooperation in “fintech innovation, infrastructure development, financial regulation, and digital payment connectivity”.

Bilateral trade stood at $3.9bn in 2024, while current mutual investments are worth about $800m, according to official figures. But the bulk of the trade between the two countries is in the domain of defence and security, with New Delhi being Israel’s largest weapons buyer.

Last year, Indian firms also sold Israel rockets and explosives during Israel’s war on Gaza, an Al Jazeera investigation revealed.

The agreement comes as New Delhi moves closer to Israel, even as Israel faces growing political isolation over its genocidal war on Gaza. India was one of the first countries to reach out to Israel after the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel led by Hamas, condemning it as “an act of terror”.

Indian authorities have cracked down on pro-Palestine protests, even criminalising them in some cases, while allowing pro-Israel rallies.

India still supports the so-called two-state solution for the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but it has abstained from several United Nations resolutions that have been critical of Israeli rights violations against Palestinians.

In 2024, India also abstained from a UN General Assembly vote calling for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent” ceasefire in Gaza.

Indians make up the largest group of foreign students in Israel, while Israeli construction companies have sought permission to hire up to 100,000 Indian workers to replace Palestinians whose permits were revoked after Israel launched its brutal war on Gaza in October 2023.

India has also refused to condemn Israel’s war on Iran, and declined to support the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) condemnation of Israeli attacks. But after United States President Donald Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on India, which took effect late last month, New Delhi this month signed an SCO declaration that condemned the US-Israeli bombing of Iran.

India has also moved to mend its ties with rival China, in a setback for years of US policy using New Delhi as a counterweight to Beijing.

China and India should be partners, not rivals, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Modi on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tianjin.

Canadian PM Carney also announced a fund of $5 billion in Canadian dollars ($3.6bn US) to help firms in all sectors hurt by tariffs.

Canada will waive a requirement that 20 percent of all vehicles sold next year be emissions-free, part of an aid package designed to help companies deal with damage done by tariffs from United States President Donald Trump.

Prime Minister Mark Carney made the announcement on Friday.

The 20 percent target was mandated by the Liberal government of then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2023.

Carney, Trudeau’s successor, said waiving the rule would help the industry deal with punitive US measures that are also targeting the steel and aluminium sectors.

“This will provide immediate financial relief to automakers at a time of increased pressures on economic competitiveness,” Carney told a televised press conference.

Ottawa will also launch an immediate 60-day review to reduce costs linked to the EV sales requirement.

The Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association welcomed the move, saying the push for mandates imposed unsustainable costs on companies and threatened investment.

Carney said it was too soon to draw any conclusions about whether Ottawa should lift the 100 percent tariffs it imposed on Chinese-made electric vehicles last year. China on Friday prolonged a probe into imports of canola from Canada, one of the world’s leading suppliers.

Carney, who won an April election on the need to diversify the economy away from the US, said Ottawa would set up a new fund worth $5 billion Canadian dollars ($3.6bn US) with flexible terms to help firms in all sectors affected by tariffs.

The US measures are “causing extreme uncertainty that is holding back massive amounts of investment”, he said.

Ottawa will introduce a new policy to ensure the federal government buys from Canadian suppliers and is also introducing a new biofuel production incentive, with more than $370 million Canadian dollars ($267m US) for farmers to address immediate competitiveness challenges.

Carney did not mention specific new aid for the steel and aluminium sectors. When pressed, he said companies could apply for help from existing funds.

Tech giant fined for third time in a week after being hit with multimillion-dollar penalties in US and France.

The European Union has imposed a penalty of 2.95 billion euros ($3.45bn) on Google for favouring its own advertising services, marking the fourth time the tech giant has been fined in its decade-long fight with the bloc’s competition regulators.

The European Commission accused Google of distorting competition in the 27-nation bloc after investigating a complaint from the European Publishers Council, moving to rein in the tech firm despite threats of retaliation from United States President Donald Trump.

EU competition chief Teresa Ribera had originally planned to hand out the fine on Monday, but delayed her move after meeting opposition from EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic over concerns about the potential impact on US promises to lower tariffs on European cars under a trade deal agreed in July.

The Commission said Google favoured its own online display technology services to the detriment of rivals and online publishers and that it has abused its market power from 2014 until today.

“Google abused its dominant position in adtech, harming publishers, advertisers, and consumers. This behaviour is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” Ribera said on Friday.

Regulators had been probing Google over adtech since 2021 and in 2023 recommended the company sell part of its ad services to ensure fair competition.

Google, a subsidiary of US tech giant Alphabet, criticised the EU decision and said it would challenge it in court.

Lee-Anne Mulholland, the firm’s global head of regulatory affairs, said it required “changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money”.

“There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before,” she added.

Ribera said Google had to come forward with a “serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest”, warning that failure to do so would invite “strong remedies”.

The company has 60 days to inform the Commission how it plans to comply with this order.

The fine was the third imposed on the giant in a week. A US federal jury on Wednesday ordered Google to pay about $425m for gathering information from smartphone app use, even when people opted for privacy settings.

The same day, France’s data protection authority fined the search giant 325 million euros ($378m) for failing to respect the law on internet cookies.

More than 20 leaders from non-Western nations gathered in Tianjin, China over the weekend for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, which concluded on Monday, and at which President Xi Jinping set out his vision for a global economic order with the Global South at its centre.

Against the backdrop of new global tariffs imposed by United States President Donald Trump, Xi told delegates: “We must continue to take a clear stand against hegemonism and power politics, and practise true multilateralism.”

The summit brought together some of the strongest emerging economies, including India and Russia, which, along with China, account for more than one-fifth of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Trilateral trade between China, India and Russia accounted for $452bn in 2023, up from $351bn in 2022, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC).

Seen as an alternative power structure to most US-led international institutions, the 10-member SCO includes much of Central Asia, Russia, China, India, Iran, Pakistan and Belarus, and represents about 43 percent of the world’s population and 23 percent of global GDP.

Beijing’s push for multilateralism is coming at a time of rising grievances with Washington, whose trade tariff policies have provided SCO members with common ground to work on.

Which countries buy the most from China?

China has a diverse range of trading partners.

Its largest buyer is the US, which imported $442bn or 12.9 percent of China’s total exports in 2023 – mainly consisting of electronics, machinery, consumer goods and telecommunications equipment.

Regionally, Asia is the main destination for China’s exports, accounting for $1.6 trillion of goods, with India alone receiving $120bn, or 3.1 percent of China’s total exports.

In Europe, China exported $819bn worth of goods, with the main destinations being Germany ($151bn), Russia ($110bn) and the UK ($95.3bn).

Which countries buy the most from India?

The US is also the largest buyer of Indian goods.

In 2023, the US bought goods worth $81.4bn, or 17.9 percent of India’s total exports, mostly medications and pharmaceutical products, followed by precious stones, machinery and textiles.

Regionally, Asia is also the main destination for India’s exports, accounting for $178bn of goods, with the UAE being India’s second largest destination for exports, at $31.4bn, or 6.9 percent of India’s total exports, mainly jewellery and refined petroleum.

The Netherlands is India’s third-biggest export market at $22.5bn, with refined petroleum being the largest export item, worth $15bn. China is India’s fourth-largest export market and second-largest in the Asia region.

On August 6, US President Donald Trump announced a 50 percent tariff on Indian imports, citing India’s continued purchase of discounted Russian crude oil as the primary reason.

In response, India expressed strong disapproval, calling the tariffs “unfair, unjustified, and unreasonable”, and reaffirmed its sovereign right to determine its energy policies independently. Despite the US pressure, India continued to import Russian oil, attracted by substantial discounts offered by Moscow.

Which countries buy the most from Russia?

Before the Ukraine war, Russia’s trading partners were much more diversified.

While China was its largest trading partner, accounting for 14.6 percent ($72.1bn) of Russian exports in 2021, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), Russia also had a broad range of European partners. The Netherlands was Russia’s second-largest partner, with 8 percent ($39.5bn) of total exports, followed by the US at 5.5 percent ($27.3bn).

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, heavy sanctions sharply reduced trade with many Western nations.

By 2023, China accounted for about one-third ($129bn) of Russia’s exports, followed by India at 16.8 percent ($66.1bn) and Turkiye at 7.9 percent ($31bn), according to the OEC, making the Asia region the bulk recipient of Russian goods, with more than three-quarters of Russia’s exports heading there.

What do China and Russia trade most?

In 2023, China exported $110bn worth of goods to Russia, led by machinery and transport equipment. According to the OEC, the top export items from China to Russia were cars.

That same year, Russia sold $129bn worth of goods to China – mostly mineral products, including oil and natural gas.

In recent years, Russia has run a trade surplus with China, mostly due to energy products, which make up nearly three-quarters of its exports.

What do India and Russia trade most?

India runs a major trade deficit with Russia, importing far more than it exports.

In 2023, Russia sold $66.1bn worth of goods to India, with energy products – primarily crude oil and natural gas – making up about 88 percent of these imports, much of which India buys at a discounted rate.

India’s exports to Russia are more diversified, totalling $4.1bn in 2023, with significant contributions from chemical products, machinery and metals.

What do China and India trade most?

India runs a major trade deficit with China, importing about seven times more goods by dollar value than it exports.

In 2023, China exported $125bn worth of goods to India, mainly machinery and chemical products, while India exported $18.1bn worth of goods to China, with oil and fuel-related products comprising the largest share of its exports.

US president recently imposed 50 percent tariff on Indian goods and denounced New Delhi for buying Russian oil.

United States President Donald Trump has criticised his country’s relationship with India as “very one-sided” and stated that New Delhi had offered to reduce tariffs on US goods to zero.

Trump castigated New Delhi for what he depicted as a slanted economic relationship and India’s purchases of Russian weapons and oil in a social media post on Monday, marking a further deterioration of ties between the two countries.

“What few people understand is that we do very little business with India, but they do a tremendous amount of business with us. In other words, they sell us massive amounts of goods, their biggest ‘client,’ but we sell them very little,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

“They have now offered to cut their Tariffs to nothing, but it’s getting late. They should have done so years ago,” he added.

New Delhi has yet to comment on Trump’s most recent remarks, and the US president has often made unfounded claims about other countries offering the US extravagant economic concessions amid the threat of high tariffs.

The post is the latest instance of Trump hitting out at India, previously seen as a partner of great significance as the US seeks to strengthen relationships with Asian nations sceptical of China’s growing regional power.

The US recently imposed tariffs as high as 50 percent on goods from India – among the highest announced by the Trump administration on scores of foreign nations – and criticised India for its purchase of Russian oil.

Trump’s tariff push has often been accompanied by exhortations to foreign leaders to buy more US products in areas such as energy and weapons manufacturing.

“India buys most of its oil and military products from Russia, very little from the US,” he said on Monday.

But India has pushed back against the severe tariffs imposed by Washington with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal recently stating that New Delhi “will neither bow down nor ever appear weak” in its economic relationships with other countries.

Trump’s aggressive efforts to reshape trade with the rest of the world, which he has depicted as one-sided and unfair to the US, could be pushing other countries into more collaborative relationships as they seek alternatives to an increasingly unpredictable US.

At a recent summit convened by China aimed at bolstering ties between non-Western nations, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Chinese President Xi Jinping that he is committed to improving their relationship.

A United States appeals court has declared President Donald Trump’s blanket tariff policy illegal, but it stopped short of pausing the wide-ranging import taxes altogether.

On Friday, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, DC, largely upheld a decision in May that found Trump had overstepped his authority in imposing universal tariffs on all US trading partners.

Trump had invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to justify the move, claiming that trade deficits with other countries constituted a “national emergency”.

But the appeals court questioned that logic in Friday’s ruling, ruling seven to four against the blanket tariffs.

“The statute bestows significant authority on the President to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency,” the court wrote.

“But none of these actions explicitly include the power to impose tariffs, duties, or the like, or the power to tax.”

The Trump administration is expected to appeal to the Supreme Court, and the appeals court therefore said his tariff policy could remain in place until October 14.

That was a departure from the May ruling, which included an injunction to immediately halt the tariffs from taking effect.

What is this case about?

The initial May decision was rendered by the New York-based US Court of International Trade, a specialised court that looks exclusively at civil actions pertaining to cross-border trade.

That case was one of at least eight challenges against Trump’s sweeping tariff policies.

Trump has long maintained that the US’s trading partners have taken advantage of the world’s largest economy, and he has depicted trade deficits – when the US imports more than it exports – as an existential threat to the economy.

But experts have warned that trade deficits are not necessarily a bad thing: They could be a sign of a strong consumer base, or the result of differences in currency values.

Still, on April 2, Trump invoked the IEEPA to impose 10-percent tariffs on all countries, plus individualised “reciprocal” tariffs on specific trading partners.

He called the occasion “Liberation Day“, but critics noted that the global markets responded to the tariff announcements by stumbling downward.

A few days later, as the “reciprocal” tariffs were slated to take effect, the Trump administration announced a pause for nearly every country, save China. In the meantime, Trump and his officials said they would seek to negotiate trade deals with global partners.

A new slate of individualised, country-specific tariffs was unveiled in July in the form of letters Trump posted to his social media account. Many of them took effect on August 1, including a 50-percent tariff on Brazil for its prosecution of a Trump ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Just this week, on August 27, India was also slapped with a 50-percent tariff as a result of its purchase of oil from Russia.

Mexico, Canada and China, meanwhile, have faced Trump’s tariff threats since February, with Trump leveraging the import taxes to ensure compliance with his policies on border security and the drug fentanyl.

What are the arguments?

US presidents do have limited power to issue tariffs in order to protect specific domestic industries, and Trump has exercised that power in the case of imported steel, aluminium and automobile products.

But in general, the US Constitution places the power to issue taxes, including tariffs, under Congress, not the presidency.

Lawsuits like Friday’s have therefore argued that Trump has exceeded his presidential authority in levying blanket tariffs.

The appeals court decision also pointed out that the IEEPA does not give the presidency unchecked power.

“It seems unlikely that Congress intended, in enacting IEEPA, to depart from its past practice and grant the President unlimited authority to impose tariffs,” the ruling said.

The decision came in response to two lawsuits: one filed by the nonpartisan Liberty Justice Center, on behalf of five US small businesses, and the other by 12 US states.

Still, on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump appeared defiant, emphasising that his tariffs would remain in place despite the appeals court’s decision.

“ALL TARIFFS ARE STILL IN EFFECT! Today a Highly Partisan Appeals Court incorrectly said that our Tariffs should be removed, but they know the United States of America will win in the end,” he wrote.

He added that it was his view that tariffs “are the best tool to help our Workers”. He also implied he expected the Supreme Court to back him up in his appeal.

“If these Tariffs ever went away, it would be a total disaster for the Country. It would make us financially weak, and we have to be strong,” Trump said.

“Tariffs were allowed to be used against us by our uncaring and unwise Politicians. Now, with the help of the United States Supreme Court, we will use them to the benefit of our Nation.”

China’s top diplomat tells Brazil’s FM Mauro Vieira that Beijing-Brazil ties are at their ‘best in history’.

China is willing to strengthen coordination with Brazil to “resist unilateralism and bullying”, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has told his Brazilian counterpart Mauro Vieira.

Wang made the pledge to Vieira in a phone call, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday, as the government of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva considers retaliatory trade measures against the United States over President Donald Trump’s imposition of 50 percent tariffs on a range of Brazilian goods.

During the phone call, Wang told Vieira that the China-Brazil relationship “is at its best in history”, China’s state-run Global Times reported, quoting Wang.

Noting that the current international situation “is undergoing complex changes”, Wang also pledged China’s willingness to join hands with the BRICS trading block, to protect “the legitimate rights and interests” of developing countries.

BRICS, which includes emerging economies such as Brazil, is a China-led political and economic grouping that is seen as a counter to the Western-led APEC and G7 groups.

Beijing’s offer comes amid indications that Brazil is considering a coordinated response with China and India against punitive US trade measures.

According to Global Times, Wang also recalled Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Lula’s phone call two weeks ago in which the two leaders “forged solid mutual trust and friendship” in the building of a China-Brazil community “with a shared future”.

In May, Lula also travelled to China for a five-day state visit.

Beijing has worked in recent years to court Latin America as a way of countering Washington, which is historically the most influential major power in the South American region.

But China has surpassed the US as Brazil’s largest trading partner, and two-thirds of Latin American countries have also signed up to Xi’s Belt and Road infrastructure drive.

Brazil exports large quantities of soya beans to China, which, as the world’s largest consumer of the ingredient, relies heavily on imports for its supply.

Relations between the US and Brazil have been icy since Trump imposed a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian coffee and other goods, which took effect on August 6.

While Trump’s trade war has chiefly targeted countries that run a large trade surplus with the US, Brazil imports from the US far outweigh its exports, and Washington had a trade surplus of $28.6bn in goods and services with Brazil in 2024.

Trump has explained his economic hostility towards Brazil in terms of retribution for a so-called domestic legal “witch-hunt” against Brazil’s former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who is on trial for coup plotting.

Trump has called for charges against Bolsonaro – who he considers an ally – to be dropped and has imposed sanctions on Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes for overseeing the case against the former leader.

In recent days, Brazil has also complained after the US revoked the visa of Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski.

The ‘de minimis’ import tax exemption helped fuel home delivery and the rise of e-commerce in the US.

The US has suspended tariff exemptions for small delivery packages valued at $800 or less, ending a loophole that allowed more than one billion packages to enter the US last year without customs duties.

The loophole is due to end on Friday in the US, followed by a six-month transition period to a new tariff regime.

More than 30 countries, including Australia, Germany, Japan and Mexico, have suspended or partially suspended package shipments to the US in advance of the cost change.

Postal unions around the world say more clarity is needed about how the tariff will be calculated before they resume shipments to the US.

Global logistics giant DHL said it would not ship standard business parcels to the US until “unresolved” questions are answered regarding “how and by whom customs duties will be collected in the future”, and “how the data transmission to the US Customs and Border Protection will be carried out”.

A White House fact sheet released on July 30 stated that tariff rates on small packages will be calculated in one of two ways starting August 29.

The first option sets a flat rate of $80 to $200 per item, depending on the country of origin. The second option is based on the value of the package and the “reciprocal” tariff rate set by the White House for individual countries.

The flat rate will only be available for the next six months, after which all small packages will be subject to a tariff of 10 to 40 percent for most countries.

The White House set its “reciprocal” tariff rates in July for most trade partners, although negotiations are ongoing with key trade partners Mexico and China.

The administration of President Donald Trump says that tariffs are necessary to lower the US trade deficit, while ending the “de minimis exemption” – which lets people off on paying import tax on small items – will help slow the movement of narcotics posted across borders.

The de minimis exemption has been in place since the 1930s, but it played a critical role in the US economy after it was raised from $200 to $800 in 2015. The exemption on import tax on items valued less than $800 helped pave the way for international e-commerce by letting retailers ship directly to the customer.

Over the past decade, the number of packages crossing the US border each year rose tenfold from 129 million to 1.36 billion, according to US customs data.

The exemption also previously allowed Chinese e-commerce giants like Shein and Temu to avoid paying tariffs set on Chinese goods during Trump’s first term in office.

US tariff exemption on packages worth $800 or less due to end this week.

Mexico says it will suspend package shipments to the United States before the end of a tariff exemption for small-value packages.

The announcement on Wednesday follows similar moves by postal services from several European countries, including Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, and the United Kingdom, as they await  further details from the US government.

The “de minimis” exemption has allowed packages worth less than $800 to enter the US tariff-free since 2016, but the loophole is set to expire on Friday.

The change is expected to dent the business of Chinese e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu – which have evaded US tariffs by mailing directly to customers – but it has also created confusion for other US trade partners. Mexico said it will suspend shipments pending more details from Washington about new duties.

“Mexico continues its dialogue with US authorities and international postal organisations to define mechanisms that will allow for the orderly resumption of services, providing certainty to users and avoiding setbacks in the delivery of goods,” the government said.

Shipping giant DHL said “key questions remain unresolved, particularly regarding how and by whom customs duties will be collected in the future, what additional data will be required, and how the data transmission to the US Customs and Border Protection will be carried out.”

The White House announced plans to suspend the de minimis exemption for all countries on July 30, as part of US President Donald Trump’s wider trade war.

The exemption was previously suspended for China, Hong Kong, Mexico, and Canada due to concerns about the flow of fentanyl and other drugs over the US border.

A White House Fact Sheet released on July 30 said two schemes may be used to calculate tariffs for small packages.

The first is calculated based on the value of the package, while the second scheme sets a tariff of $80 to $200 per item.

Both rates are based on the blanket tariff set by the Trump administration for most US trade partners in August, ranging from 10 to 40 percent.

The White House has also imposed tariffs on individual sectors, such as semiconductors, steel and aluminium, vehicles and auto parts.

Mexico is still negotiating its tariff rate with the US, and has pledged to raise tariffs on Chinese goods and take tougher measures against drug cartels to secure a deal with Trump. Some goods, however, will still be covered by the 2020 free trade US-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Maputo, Mozambique – Down the main aisle of a bustling conference pavilion in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, Lucia Matimele stands surrounded by lush green leaves, peppers on the stalk, and bunches of ripe bananas.

“We have land, we have water, we have farmers!” she enthuses. “What we need is investment.”

Matimele is the director of industry and commerce for Gaza province, a region about 200km (125 miles) away that is one of the country’s main breadbaskets. She and her team packed up some of their most promising crops and joined thousands of others – from within and outside Mozambique – to exhibit their wares and make industry connections as the government works to promote economic growth and development in what has been a politically challenging year.

More than 3,000 exhibitors from nearly 30 countries are in Mozambique this week for the 60th annual Maputo International Trade Fair (FACIM) – the largest of its kind in the country. Tens of thousands are expected to attend the seven-day event, the government said.

Crowds of exhibitors and eager attendees gathered at the sprawling conference site on the outskirts of Maputo for day one of the event on Monday. A dozen pavilions are hosting local businesses, provincial industry leaders, such as Matimele, and regional and international companies looking to trade in or with Mozambique.

Standing before delegates and businesspeople at the opening ceremony, Mozambican President Daniel Chapo focused on the need to ensure a good environment for foreign investors, while also building an inclusive and sustainable local economy.

“Mozambique has a geostrategic location, with ports, development corridors and various other potentialities; vast resources, mineral, natural, agricultural, tourist, and above all a humble, hard-working, friendly and welcoming people,” Chapo said in Portuguese, highlighting the country’s “unique opportunities” for international partners.

But at home, he affirmed, “economic independence starts with agriculture workers, farmers, the youth, women – all of us together”.

With that in mind, the government, with financing from the World Bank, has instituted a new $40m Mutual Guarantee Fund to help finance small and medium enterprises in the country. It will provide credit guarantees to at least 15,000 businesses and aims to assist mainly women and young people, the president said.

“One of the concerns we hear repeatedly at all the annual private sector conferences is the difficulty in accessing financing,” Chapo said while launching the fund at FACIM on Monday.

“We know that high interest rates have been almost insurmountable barriers for small- and medium-sized businesses, which represent the heart of the national business fabric, hence the creation of this fund, specifically dedicated to this group of companies, because they are responsible for 90 percent of the dynamism of our economy, generating income mainly for young people.”

He added: “This instrument is not just a financial mechanism, it is a bridge to the recovery of the Mozambican economy.”

‘We can feed our people best’

Mozambique has “ample resources”, the World Bank says, including arable land, abundant water sources, energy, mineral resources and natural gas deposits.

However, its gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2025 is projected to be just 3 percent (it was 1.8 percent in 2024 and 5.4 percent in 2023).

Experts point to a raft of challenges facing the Southern African nation: for years it was besieged by a $2bn “hidden debt” corruption scandal that implicated senior government officials; it is still recovering from post-2024 election protests that affected tourism; and it faces an ongoing rebellion by armed fighters in the northern Cabo Delgado province, home to offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) reserves.

The armed rebellion has halted TotalEnergies’ $20bn LNG project, and, with it, put added strain on the region’s finances and near-future economic prospects, noted Borges Nhamirre, a Mozambican researcher on security and governance with the Institute for Security Studies.

“The economy of Mozambique was prepared for the next 20, 30 years to rely on natural resources … But now the most recent problem is the insurgency in the northern part of the country. So that affects the economy of Mozambique deeply,” Nhamirre said.

“And unfortunately, Mozambique did not diversify the source of revenues, did not invest in other sectors like agriculture, industry, manufacturing – relying mostly on natural gas,” he added.

“Mozambique needs to bet on producing its own food,” the researcher said, noting that it is not affordable to keep importing when the country has the potential to feed itself. “The land for agriculture is there, water is there. So, the problem is just mentality and a bit of capital.”

At her booth in one of the pavilions at FACIM, Matimele has similar thoughts. “We can feed our people best,” she said, surrounded by fresh produce from small farms in Gaza province. Across the aisle from her, another booth boasts supplies from the province of Tete: grains, seafood, vegetables, livestock; while throughout FACIM, businesses are selling locally sourced items, including coffee and honey.

In Gaza, Matimele says, people farm rice, bananas, cashews and macadamias, much of which they send abroad to countries such as South Africa and Vietnam – and she would like to increase exports and reach new places.

The challenge for them is not production, but processing and distribution, she says.

“We need big industry getting into this business,” Matimele said, adding that small farmers need guarantees that what they produce will be sold and not go to waste.

“FACIM helps us by giving us a secure market,” she explained.

Without funding, ‘you will get stuck’

For other observers, FACIM’s focus this year on investment and the Mutual Guarantee Fund are a step in the right direction, especially for small business owners in the agricultural sector.

“Agriculture is our main resource. It employs millions of people and feeds millions more,” said Rafael Shikhani, a Mozambican historian and researcher. Yet, there remains a longstanding “problem” with the sector, he noted from Maputo.

“[Historically], we have had so many breakups in that [agriculture] cycle,” he said, highlighting the 1977-92 civil war, and in the midst of that, a severe drought that hit the country from 1982 to 1984. “It was a sort of disruption to production,” he said, one that has had ripple effects.

Current challenges facing Mozambican agriculture, the researcher said, include a lack of capital for farming, as well as some people preferring to take an easier route by importing food from neighbouring South Africa to sell locally instead of growing it from scratch.

“In many areas, the funding is a key motivation,” Shikhani said. “If you don’t have funds, you can [still] start a very nice business, but there will be a certain way you will get stuck – you’ll need equipment, you’ll need to pay people, you’ll need a truck, you’ll need to put up a fence; for whatever, you will need money.”

That is where the Mutual Guarantee Fund could come in handy.

“More investment in agriculture is good,” Shikhani said. It will also help the sector evolve from individuals farming small plots of land to small and medium-sized farming businesses that make more informed choices about “the type of land, where you farm, and how you exploit your land”.

For analyst Nhamirre, the way the Chapo government goes about tackling the country’s most pressing economic issues will go a long way in determining the outcome.

But he remarks that external factors, such as the armed rebellion in the north and internal governance issues, will also play a part.

“There are internal things that the government needs to do well … The people are still very frustrated,” he said, pointing to the past year’s post-election violence, saying there is a chance protests may flare up again.

Meanwhile, Shikhani looks at the issue through a historian’s lens. “There is a cycle of crisis: if there is an economic crisis, it leads to a political crisis, and it leads to social unrest. If you deal with economics and you feed people, there will be no more social unrest, and there will be no political crisis. So, you start with economics,” he said.

“Give people food, give people jobs, give people hope – they will work and make money.”

At her booth in FACIM, Matimele and her team stand ready in matching red shirts emblazoned with the words: “Gaza, the route of progress” in Portuguese. Ahead of them is a week of networking that they hope will lead to more – more food, more jobs, more hope.

“Investment is the right way to follow,” said the provincial industry chief. “If we have investment, we can solve all the issues.”

Walmart’s second-quarter results are showing that United States consumers across the spectrum are still flocking to the retailer’s stores despite economic headwinds, but its shares have dipped as the company’s margins ebbed and inventory costs rose.

The world’s largest retailer has scooped up market share from rivals as wealthier consumers frequent the store more often, worried about the effects of tariffs on prices, the company’s results on Thursday showed.

That has fueled an 85 percent surge in the stock over the last year-and-a-half that some analysts say has made its valuation too lofty.

Shares were down 4 percent in midday trading in New York, as its second-quarter profit was lower than expected, registering Walmart’s first earnings miss in more than three years.

Investors also focused on Walmart’s gross margins for the quarter, which fell short of their expectations, even though the company raised its fiscal year sales and profit forecasts.

Overall gross margins were about flat at 24.5 percent versus 24.4 percent last quarter, missing consensus estimates of 24.9 percent, according to brokerage DA Davidson.

“Expectations were high for a margin beat and we didn’t get that, so we’re getting a little bit of a pullback on the stock,” said Steven Shemesh, RBC Capital Markets analyst.

Still, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based chain’s results showed it has continued to benefit from growing price sensitivity among Americans, earning revenue of $177.4bn in the second quarter. Analysts on average were expecting $176.16bn, according to LSEG data. Adjusted earnings per share of 68 cents in the second quarter fell short of analyst expectations of 74 cents.

Consumer sentiment has weakened due to fears of tariffs fueling higher inflation, hitting the bottom lines of some retail chains, but Walmart’s sales have remained resilient. Companies have been able to withstand paying those import levies through front-running of inventories, but as those products are sold, the next shipments are pricier, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said.

“As we replenish inventory at post-tariff price levels, we’ve continued to see our cost increase each week,” he said on a call with analysts, noting those costs will continue rising in the second half of the year. The effects of tariffs have so been gradual enough for consumer habits to change only modestly.

Walmart had warned it would increase prices this summer to offset tariff-related costs on certain goods imported to the US, a move that drew criticism from President Donald Trump. Consumer-level inflation is increasing modestly, while wholesale inflation spiked in July to its fastest rate in more than three years.

According to an S&P Global survey released on Thursday, input prices paid by businesses hit a three-month high in July, with companies citing tariffs as the key driver. Prices charged by businesses for goods and services hit a three-year high, as companies passed along costs to consumers. A day earlier, rival Target warned of tariff-induced cost pressures.

Walmart got a boost from a sharper online strategy as more customers relied on home deliveries. Its global e-commerce sales jumped 25 percent during the second quarter, and Walmart said one-third of deliveries from stores took three hours or less.

Shoppers adjust to higher prices

McMillon expects current shopping habits to persist through the third and fourth quarters. He noted middle- and lower-income households are making noticeable adjustments in response to rising prices, either by reducing the number of items in their baskets or by opting for private-label brands. This shift has not been seen among higher-income households, which Walmart defines as those earning over $100,000 annually.

Walmart expects annual sales to grow in the range of 3.75 percent to 4.75 percent, compared to its prior forecast of a 3 percent to 4 percent increase. Adjusted earnings per share are expected in the range of $2.52 to $2.62, compared to its previous range of $2.50 to $2.60.

Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said the company is looking at more possible financial outcomes than before because of trade policy talks, uncertain demand, and the need to stay flexible for future growth. Based on what it saw in the second quarter, Walmart expects the impact on margins and earnings from the higher cost of goods to be smaller in the current quarter than it previously thought, Rainey said.

“Broad consumer and macro trends remain favourable to Walmart, especially in the shape of consumers wanting to maximise bang for their buck,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of retail consultancy GlobalData.

Walmart’s total US comparable sales rose 4.6 percent, beating analysts’ estimates of a 3.8 percent increase. The company noted strong customer response to over 7,400 “rollbacks,” its term for discounted prices, with 30 percent more rollbacks on grocery items.

Average spending at the till rose 3.1 percent from an increase of 0.6 percent last year, but growth in customer visits fell to 1.5 percent from 3.6 percent in the year-earlier period. Walmart logged 40 percent growth in marketplace sales, including electronics, automotive, toys, and media and gaming.

Two-thirds of what Walmart sells in the US is domestically sourced, executives had said last quarter, which gave it some insulation from tariffs compared to competitors.

India and China have agreed to step up trade flows and resume direct flights in a major diplomatic breakthrough, as the two most populous nations try to rebuild ties damaged by a 2020 deadly border clash and amid US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable foreign policy.

The two rivals also agreed to advance talks on their disputed border during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s two-day visit to India.

The rebuilding of India-China ties coincides with friction between New Delhi and Washington, following the recent imposition of steep tariffs on India by the Trump administration.

So why did India and China decide to mend their ties, and what steps were taken to address their border dispute?

What specific points were agreed?

Discussions covered a range of issues related to withdrawing tens of thousands of troops that both countries have amassed along their Himalayan border, boosting investment and trade flows, hosting more bilateral events, and enhancing travel access.

The Asian neighbours agreed to reopen several trading routes – namely the Lipulekh Pass, Shipki La Pass and Nathu La Pass. An expert group will also be established to explore “early harvest” steps (i.e. mini-agreements that can be implemented quickly before the conclusion of a more complex deal) to improve border management, a move India had previously opposed.

In the past, India was keen to avoid a situation where China secured partial gains up front, but where its territorial integrity concerns remained unresolved. India’s opposition has accused the government of ceding territory to China.

Elsewhere, China has reportedly agreed to address India’s concerns over its export curbs on fertilisers, rare earth minerals and tunnel-boring machines, according to Indian media reports.

But Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning, when asked about Indian media reports on the lifting of export controls, said she was not familiar with the media reports.

“As a matter of principle, China is willing to strengthen dialogue and cooperation with relevant countries and regions to jointly maintain the stability of the global production and supply chain,” she said in a media briefing on Wednesday.

New Delhi and Beijing also agreed to resume direct flights between the two countries, enhance river-sharing data and drop certain visa restrictions for tourists, businesses and journalists.

Who said what?

During his two-day trip, Wang Yi held meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, encounters that will pave the way for Modi’s first visit to China in seven years at the end of August.

“Stable, predictable, constructive ties between India and China will contribute significantly to regional as well as global peace and prosperity,” Modi posted on X after his meeting with Wang.

Meanwhile, Doval said that China and India had achieved a “new environment” of “peace and tranquillity”. He added that “the setbacks that we faced in the last few years were not in our interest”, and “delimitation and boundary affairs” had been discussed.

A readout from China’s Foreign Ministry said Wang told Doval that “the stable and healthy development of China-India relations is in the fundamental interests of the two countries’ people”.

The two sides “should enhance mutual trust through dialogues and expand cooperation”, Wang said, and should aim for consensus in areas such as border control and demarcation negotiations.

Looking ahead, Modi is scheduled to travel to China at the end of this month to take part in the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation – his first visit to the country since June 2018.

Why did relations sour in the first place?

Relations between the two countries plummeted in 2020 after security forces clashed along their Himalayan border. Four Chinese soldiers and 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the worst violence in decades, freezing high-level diplomatic relations.

The chill in relations after the deadly Ladakh clash – the first fatal confrontation between India and China since 1975 – also affected trade and air travel, as both sides deployed tens of thousands of security forces in border areas.

Following the border tensions, India imposed curbs on Chinese investments in the country. Months later, New Delhi banned dozens of Chinese apps, including TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, citing security concerns.

But despite the soaring tensions, the bilateral trade between the two countries did not see a drastic drop, and in fact, New Delhi’s imports from Beijing have grown to more than $100bn from $65nb in the financial year 2020-2021 as the country’s electronics and pharma industries heavily rely on raw materials from China.

On Monday, Wang said, “The setbacks we experienced in the past few years were not in the interest of the people of our two countries. We are heartened to see the stability that is now restored on the borders.”

For his part, Modi emphasised the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity on the border and reiterated India’s commitment to a “fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question”, his office said in a statement on Tuesday.

Why did the two sides decide to mend ties?

The geopolitical disruption caused by Donald Trump’s trade wars has helped create an opening for Asia’s leading and third-largest economies to try to mend their diplomatic and economic relations.

Indeed, the improvement in ties has accelerated since Trump increased tariffs on both countries earlier this year – particularly India, which had been pursuing a closer relationship with the United States in a joint front against China.

Moreover, India and the US have been haggling over free trade agreements for months, with Trump accusing India of denying access to American goods due to higher tariffs. China has also been locked in months-long trade negotiations with the US.

China and India increased official visits and discussed relaxing some trade restrictions and easing the movement of citizens since Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan, Russia last October. In June, Beijing even allowed pilgrims from India to visit holy sites in Tibet while India issued tourist visas to Chinese nationals in a sign of improving ties.

But Trump’s decision to declare a 25 percent “reciprocal” tariff on India in June over the country’s imports of Russian oil – and his move a week later to raise it again to 50 percent – have hastened dramatic diplomatic realignment. Even the US’s close allies – South Korea and Japan – have not been spared by Trump’s tariffs.

Top Trump officials have accused India of funding Russia’s war in Ukraine, with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday accusing India of “profiteering”.

But China’s imports of Russian oil are even larger than India’s. And on August 12, the US extended a tariff truce on Beijing for another 90 days – staving off triple-digit tariffs. In turn, New Delhi has accused Washington of double standards over its tariff policy.

Suhasini Haidar, an Indian journalist writing in the newspaper The Hindu, said that the rationale behind the US sanctions on India is “dubious”. “The US has itself increased its trade with Russia since Trump came to power,” she wrote.

US Treasury Secretary Bessent, however, has defended Washington’s decision not to impose secondary sanctions against China, saying Beijing “has a diversified input of their oil”. Beijing’s import of Russian oil, he said, went from 13 percent to 16 percent while India’s went from less than one percent to over 40 percent.

Trump’s claim that he secured a ceasefire between India and Pakistan has further caused anger in India, which has refused to give credit to the US president for the May 10 ceasefire that stopped the five-day war between the nuclear-armed neighbours. Trump’s hosting of the Pakistan Army’s General Asim Munir has not helped the cause, either.

US-India relations have frayed despite Modi cultivating personal ties with Trump, particularly during his first term. The Indian prime minister was Trump’s first guest in his second term in February, when he coined the slogan “Make India Great Again” (MIGA), borrowing from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) base. “MAGA plus MIGA becomes a mega partnership for prosperity,” Modi said.

But Trump’s repeated attacks on India have poured cold water on “the partnership”, with Indian foreign policy experts fearing the ties are headed towards uncharted territory.

“At risk is three decades of India’s economic ascent, and its careful positioning as an emerging power, shaped in the shadow of US strategic backing,” wrote Sushant Singh, a lecturer in South Asian studies at Yale University, in the Financial Times. “Trump has shredded India’s road map; it could be replaced by strategic drift, realignment or eventual rapprochement.”

The turbulence in India-US ties has forced New Delhi to repair ties with its adversary China, which supplies military equipment to Pakistan and took the side of Islamabad during the recent war.

Amid Trump’s trade war, New Delhi and Beijing have joined forces to improve trade and people-to-people contact.

The new developments may also boost relations between members of the BRICS bloc – with India and China being the group’s founding members, along with Brazil, Russia and South Africa. India and China will host the 2026 and 2027 BRICS summits, respectively. Trump has also railed against BRICS nations, warning the member nations against challenging the US dollar.

United States President Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 300 percent on semiconductor imports, with exemptions for foreign companies that commit to manufacturing in the US.

Trump has cast the proposed tariff as a way to drive investment to the US, but experts say it could also disrupt global supply chains and even penalise companies already making chips in the US.

What are the details of Trump’s plan?

Few details have been released since Trump announced plans for a 100 percent tariff at a White House event on August 7.

The US president said exemptions would be given to companies that build research or manufacturing facilities in the US, but tariffs could be applied retroactively if they failed to follow through on their planned investments.

“If, for some reason, you say you’re building, and you don’t build, then we go back, and we add it up, it accumulates, and we charge you at a later date, you have to pay, and that’s a guarantee,” Trump told reporters.

On Friday, Trump told reporters on board Air Force One that more details would be announced soon and that the tariff could be much higher than previously suggested.

“I’ll be setting tariffs next week and the week after, on steel and on, I would say chips – chips and semiconductors, we’ll be setting sometime next week, week after,” Trump said en route to Alaska to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I’m going to have a rate that is going to be 200 percent, 300 percent,” he added.

Why does Trump want to impose tariffs on chip imports?

Trump wants to impose a tariff on chips for several reasons, but the main one is to re-shore investment and manufacturing to the US, said G Dan Hutcheson, the vice chair of Canada’s TechInsights.

“The primary goal is to reverse the cost disadvantage of manufacturing in the US and turn it into an advantage. It’s mainly focused on companies that are not investing in the US,” Hutcheson told Al Jazeera.

“Exclusions are negotiable for entities that align with his goal of bringing manufacturing back to the US.”

More broadly, the tariff is also intended to address the US dependence on imported semiconductors and buttress Washington’s position in its ongoing rivalry with China, another chip-making powerhouse.

Both issues are bipartisan concerns in the US.

The Trump administration earlier this year launched a Section 301 investigation into alleged unfair trade practices in China’s semiconductor industry, and a Section 232 investigation into the national security implications of US reliance on chip imports and finished products that use foreign chips.

Who will be impacted by the tariff?

Foreign tech giants that have already invested in the US, including the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and South Korea’s Samsung, would likely not be affected by the tariff.

It is less clear how the measure could affect other companies, including chip makers in China, where companies face barriers to US investment from both US and Chinese regulators.

Yongwook Ryu, an assistant professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, said the tariff could be used as leverage by the US as it negotiates the rate of its so-called “reciprocal tariffs” on China.

The US has imposed blanket tariffs of 10-40 percent on most trade partners since August 7, but negotiators are still hammering out a comprehensive trade deal with Beijing.

“My view is that while the reciprocal tariffs are generally aimed more at addressing the US trade deficit problem and re-shoring manufacturing back to the US, product-specific or sectoral tariffs [like semiconductors] are aimed at serving the strategic goal of strengthening US technological hegemony and containing China,” Ryu told Al Jazeera.

What is the value of US chip imports each year?

The US imported about $40bn in chips in 2024, according to a report by the American Enterprise Institute, citing United Nations trade data.

Imports mainly came from Taiwan, Malaysia, Israel, South Korea, Ireland, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Mexico and China, but experts say this data does not capture the full picture of chip flows in and out of the US.

Chips can cross borders multiple times as they are manufactured, packaged, or added to finished goods.

Chris Miller, the author of Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology, estimates that another $50bn worth of chips entered the US in 2024 via products like smartphones, auto parts and home appliances from countries like China and Vietnam.

Miller also estimates that a “substantial portion” of US chip imports are manufactured in the US before being sent overseas for packaging – a labour-intensive process – and then re-imported.

“Many of the chips imported from key trading partners like Mexico, Malaysia and Costa Rica are likely actually manufactured by US firms like Texas Instruments and Intel, which have manufacturing in the US but often have their test and assembly facilities abroad,” Miller told Al Jazeera.

Why is the tariff a concern for the global chip industry?

Trump’s tariff plans have injected further uncertainty into an industry already grappling with his administration’s sweeping efforts to reorder global trade.

“It’s unclear whether the US government has the capacity to effectively enforce this and… there’s not really any guidance in terms of what these tariffs are actually going to look like,” Nick Marro, the lead analyst for global trade at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told Al Jazeera.

The White House has yet to provide details on whether the tariff will apply to chips originally made in the US and chips contained in finished products.

If the latter were included in the tariff plans, the fallout would extend to industries like electronics, home appliances, automobiles and auto parts. 

Miller said that it would be consumers in the US and elsewhere who would be among those most affected by the tariff. 

“Initially, it appears that most costs would be paid by companies via lower profit margins, though in the long run, consumers will pay the majority of the cost,” he said.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says in Yerevan that ‘governance in the Caucasus region must remain Caucasian’.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian that a planned corridor linking Azerbaijan with its exclave would be under Armenian control, days after Iran said it would block the project included in a United States-brokered peace accord that puts a potential Washington presence on its doorstep.

“Roads passing through Armenia will be under the exclusive jurisdiction of Armenia, and security will be provided by Armenia, not by any third country,” Pashinyan said at a meeting with Pezeshkian in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Tuesday. He added that the corridor would open new economic perspectives between the two countries, and could offer a rail route from Iran to the Black Sea coast through Armenia.

The land corridor, dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP), is part of a deal signed this month in Washington between former foes Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Under the agreement, the US will hold development rights for the proposed route, which would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave bordering Iran and Turkey.

“Governance in the Caucasus region must remain Caucasian – outsourcing the resolution of Caucasus issues to extra-regional forces will complicate it,” Pezeshkian said during his visit on Tuesday. “Iran’s position has always been to reject any changes to international borders in the Caucasus region.”

Iran has long opposed the planned transit route, also known as the Zangezur corridor, fearing it would cut the country off from Armenia and the rest of the Caucasus while bringing potentially hostile foreign forces close to its borders.

Since the deal was signed on August 8, Iranian officials have stepped up warnings to Armenia, saying the project could be part of a US ploy “to pursue hegemonic goals in the Caucasus region”.

The proposed corridor has been hailed as beneficial by other countries in the region, including Russia, with which Iran has a strategic alliance alongside Armenia.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought a series of wars since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a region in Azerbaijan that had a mostly ethnic Armenian population at the time, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan Baku took control of the territory in a military operation in 2023, leading to an exodus of the ethnic Armenian population.

Armenia last year agreed to return several villages to Azerbaijan in what Baku described as a “long-awaited historic event”.

New US tariffs covering 407 products will take effect immediately.

The United States Commerce Department is set to hike steel and aluminium tariffs on more than 400 products including wind turbines, mobile cranes, bulldozers and other heavy equipment, along with railcars, furniture and hundreds of other products.

The government agency announced the new development on Tuesday.

The department said 407 product categories are being added to the list of “derivative” steel and aluminium products covered by sectoral tariffs, with a 50 percent tariff on any steel and aluminium content of these products.

The department is also adding imported parts for automotive exhaust systems and electrical steel needed for electric vehicles to the new tariffs.

A group of foreign automakers had urged the department not to add the parts, saying the US does not have the domestic capacity to handle current demand.

The new tariffs take effect immediately and also cover compressors and pumps.

“Today’s action expands the reach of the steel and aluminum tariffs and shuts down avenues for circumvention – supporting the continued revitalisation of the American steel and aluminum industries,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Jeffrey Kessler.

Steelmakers including Cleveland-Cliffs had petitioned the administration to expand the tariffs to include additional steel and aluminium auto parts.

Since returning to the presidency, Trump has imposed a 10 percent tariff on almost all US trading partners, alongside varying steeper levels on dozens of economies such as the European Union and Japan.

Certain sectors have been spared from these countrywide tariff levels, but instead were targeted under different authorities by even higher duties.

Some businesses have already had to raise prices because of increased tariffs. On Tuesday, on the heels of its earnings report, Home Depot said it would need to raise prices on imported goods that it sells.

“There will be modest price movement in some categories,” Home Depot Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail said on a Tuesday conference call.

Other brands that have recently announced price increases include the world’s largest consumer goods company, Procter and Gamble, which last month said it would need to raise prices on a quarter of the goods it produces.