Narendra Modi visits Washington as Trump threatens new tariffs

Good morning and completely happy Friday. Donald Trump is internet hosting Narendra Modi on the White Home. Extra on their assembly under, plus:

• Apple’s AI partnership with Alibaba

• Europe’s response to US-Russia talks on Ukraine

• How Indonesia grew to become the ‘Opec of nickel’

Narendra Modi’s assembly with Donald Trump on the White Home is below manner. The Indian prime minister is hoping to fend off US motion on tariffs and migration.

India billed Modi’s go to as a heat assembly of like-minded leaders. Nonetheless, analysts and folks briefed on the journey stated Modi would search to placate a president who has beforehand referred to as India a “tariff king” and “massive abuser”.

Whereas India shouldn’t be a prime world exporter, it has excessive common tariffs and ranks tenth amongst international locations with which the US has a deficit.

Their assembly happened hours after Trump ordered his commerce advisers to provide you with “reciprocal” tariffs on US commerce companions. An evaluation by Capital Economics discovered that India could be the toughest hit by the president’s plan if it components in levies on US exports and home value-added taxes.

Simply moments in the past, Trump stated India would “be buying quite a lot of our oil and fuel” as he appeared alongside Modi on the White Home. The US president stated he and Modi would additionally focus on commerce and that the 2 international locations had some “very massive commerce offers to announce within the very close to future”.

Follow our live blog for updates on Modi’s assembly with Trump.

Right here’s what else we’re conserving tabs on at present and over the weekend:

• Financial information: Singapore and Malaysia report fourth-quarter GDP.

• Munich Safety Convention: The annual convention specializing in worldwide safety challenges begins, working till Sunday.

• Center East: In Gaza, Hamas is because of free three Israeli hostages in return for dozens of Palestinian prisoners on Saturday, as a part of a ceasefire take care of Israel.

How properly did you retain up with the information this week? Take our quiz.

5 extra prime tales

1. Alibaba’s chair has stated it can present expertise for Apple’s synthetic intelligence-capable iPhone fashions bought in China. The high-profile partnership comes after a prime Chinese language regulator final 12 months indicated that Apple wanted to associate with a neighborhood firm to win approval to launch its AI options in China. Here’s what we know about the agreement.

• ByteDance: US personal fairness teams have invested billions of {dollars} in data centres serving the TikTok owner, in a dealmaking frenzy now threatened by a US crackdown on Chinese language firms’ entry to the most effective chips.

2. China’s army workouts round Taiwan have change into so in depth that they’ll quickly be used as a “fig leaf” to hide an assault on the island, in accordance with the highest US army commander within the Indo-Pacific. Talking on the Honolulu Protection Discussion board, navy Admiral Samuel Paparo additionally warned about rising co-operation between China, Russia and North Korea, describing it as an “emerging axis of autocracy”.

3. European officers are reeling from being lower out of US-Russia peace negotiations on Ukraine. Greater than half a dozen senior European officers advised the FT they expected Trump to tell them they must pay for Ukrainian reconstruction and deploy troops there to take care of a peace deal during which they might not be concerned.

4. Unique: Arm plans to launch its personal chip this 12 months after securing Meta as one in all its first prospects, in a radical change to the SoftBank-owned group’s enterprise mannequin of licensing its blueprints to the likes of Apple and Nvidia. The transfer may additionally upend the balance of power in the $700bn semiconductor industry, placing Arm into competitors with a few of its largest prospects.

5. India’s Adani Group has determined to tug out of its $440mn wind energy initiatives in Sri Lanka after the brand new authorities in Colombo launched a evaluate of the tariffs agreed for the deal. Adani’s withdrawal comes as governments in each Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have began to re-examine power projects with the conglomerate that have been signed by their predecessors.

The Large Learn

In just below a decade, Indonesia has change into the world’s largest producer of nickel, the steel essential to the vitality transition due to its use in batteries for electrical automobiles. The south-east Asian nation now controls extra of the world’s provide of nickel than Opec did of oil on the cartel’s peak within the Nineteen Seventies — then about half of worldwide crude oil output. How Indonesia makes use of this newfound energy is going to be crucial for the world financial system and worldwide enterprise.

We’re additionally studying . . . 

• Shareholder capitalism, the Japanese manner: An obsession with the UN’s SDGs permits firms to create a smokescreen, writes Leo Lewis.

• ‘Steroid Olympics’: Donald Trump’s son has backed a proposed sports activities occasion for athletes using performance enhancing drugs.

• Synthetic intelligence: Large Tech is transferring on from final month’s DeepSeek shock, writes Richard Waters. What does the speedy return to equilibrium say concerning the investment case for AI?

Chart of the day

China’s coal plant building surged final 12 months to the highest level in almost a decade, conflicting with President Xi Jinping’s promise that carbon emissions would peak earlier than 2030, researchers have stated.

Take a break from the information . . . 

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