Donald Trump said America would not give Ukraine security guarantees “beyond very much” as the countries prepared to sign a minerals deal. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, will probably meet Mr Trump on Friday to finalise the agreement. It commits the countries to the idea of creating a joint fund to manage investments into Ukraine. It appears to have steered away from America’s initial brazen, extractive demands.
Mr Trump also said that he planned to impose a 25% tariff on imports from the European Union. During the first cabinet meeting of his second term, which Elon Musk attended, the president accused the bloc of being “formed in order to screw the United States”. Mr Trump said the levies would apply to “cars and all other things”.
Nvidia’s net income rose by 80% year on year, to $22bn, in the quarter ending in January. The American chipmaker’s strong earnings beat analysts’ expectations, as did its sales forecast, of $43bn, for the current quarter. Shares in Nvidia tumbled in January after DeepSeek, a Chinese firm, released its latest AI models, which were developed with fewer chips. The stock has since mostly recovered.
A group led by the founding family of Seven & i, 7-Eleven’s parent company, abandoned efforts to buy out the Japanese convenience-store chain because they could not secure financing. The firm’s shares fell by 10.5% after the announcement. The failed attempt gives Alimentation Couche-Tard, a Canadian rival, another chance to bid for Seven & i, which rejected its $38bn offer in September.
Hamas returned the bodies of four hostages to Israel, which is set to free around 600 Palestinian prisoners. Israel had delayed their release because of what it described as cruel treatment of the hostages. With the exchange, Hamas and Israel will have completed the first phase of a fragile ceasefire. The second is due to begin this weekend.
Eli Lilly, a drugmaker, said it plans to invest $27bn over five years to open four manufacturing plants in America. Lilly’s boss, David Ricks, said he hoped the Trump administration would extend the corporate-tax cuts that the president, who has threatened tariffs on pharmaceuticals, imposed during his first term. Earlier this week Apple also tried to get into Mr Trump’s good books when it said it would invest $500bn in America over the next four years, though much of that spending was already planned.
Iran has accelerated its production of highly enriched, near-weapons grade uranium, according to a confidential report from the UN’s nuclear watchdog. On February 8th Iran had 278kg of Uranium enriched up to 60%, up from 182kg in November. The fuel could be converted to 90% weapons-grade material within days.
Figure of the day: 120, the number of public schools in Texas that teach mariachi, the most Mexican of music genres. Read the full story.
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