Meeting Sir Keir Starmer at the White House, Donald Trump reported that America was working towards a trade deal with Britain “where the tariffs wouldn’t be necessary”. Regarding peace talks in Ukraine, the British prime minister said he wanted to see a durable agreement “to stop [Vladimir] Putin coming back for more”. “I think he’ll keep his word,” said Mr Trump, of Mr Putin. On Friday Mr Trump will meet Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Earlier, Mr Trump said he would impose 25% tariffs on all Mexican and Canadian goods from March 4th, citing their failure to curb drug trafficking, particularly fentanyl, into America. He will also add a 10% duty on Chinese imports, doubling a tariff imposed earlier this month. China urged Mr Trump to address trade concerns through dialogue.
Tencent, a Chinese tech firm, launched a new artificial-intelligence model, Hunyuan Turbo S. It claims the model is faster than DeepSeek’s R1, which in January triggered a market selloff, hitting chipmakers like Nvidia. Investors feared that more efficient AI models would reduce chip demand. Tencent’s move underscores intensifying rivalry in China’s AI sector.
Mexico said it handed over 29 cartel operatives to America, where they will face drug-trafficking charges. Reportedly among them is Rafael Caro Quintero, a Sinaloa cartel founder. In 2013 he was released on a technicality from a Mexican prison, where he was serving a sentence for murder. The extradition announcement came as Mexican and American officials met to hammer out a security agreement.
Austria’s three main centrist parties agreed to form a coalition government, excluding the hard-right Freedom Party (FPO), which won the most votes in September’s election. The government, Austria’s first three-party coalition since the 1940s, could take office next week, depending on a vote among the members of the NEOS party. Herbert Kickl, the leader of the FPO, dismissed it as a “coalition of losers”.
Andrew and Tristan Tate left Romania for America on a private jet after prosecutors lifted a travel ban. Andrew, a social influencer, is popular in alt-right online spaces. The pair are under investigation for human trafficking and money laundering, charges they deny. Romanian prosecutors say the case remains open. They also face sexual misconduct allegations in Britain, which they deny.
Japan’s birth rate fell to a record low in 2024, with fewer than 721,000 babies born out of a population of about 123m—a 5% drop from the previous year—marking a ninth straight year of decline. Deaths outnumbered births more than two to one. A drop in marriages since the pandemic has contributed to the decline, despite government efforts to reverse the trend.
Figure of the day: $42bn, TSMC’s planned capital expenditures for 2025, a 41% increase from the previous year. Read the full story.
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