Narendra Modi visits Washington as Trump threatens new tariffs

Good morning and joyful Friday. Donald Trump is internet hosting Narendra Modi on the White Home. Extra on their assembly beneath, 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 underneath method. 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. Nevertheless, analysts and folks briefed on the journey mentioned Modi would search to placate a president who has beforehand known as India a “tariff king” and “huge abuser”.

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

Their assembly befell 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 elements in levies on US exports and home value-added taxes.

Simply moments in the past, Trump mentioned India would “be buying quite a lot of our oil and gasoline” as he appeared alongside Modi on the White Home. The US president mentioned he and Modi would additionally focus on commerce and that the 2 nations had some “very huge 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 the moment and over the weekend:

• Financial knowledge: 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 high tales

1. Alibaba’s chair has mentioned it should present know-how for Apple’s synthetic intelligence-capable iPhone fashions bought in China. The high-profile partnership comes after a high Chinese language regulator final yr indicated that Apple wanted to companion with an area firm to win approval to launch its AI options in China. Here’s what we know about the agreement.

• ByteDance: US non-public 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 corporations’ entry to the very best chips.

2. China’s army workouts round Taiwan have turn out to be so intensive that they will 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 reduce out of US-Russia peace negotiations on Ukraine. Greater than half a dozen senior European officers informed the FT they expected Trump to tell them they must pay for Ukrainian reconstruction and deploy troops there to keep up a peace deal during which they’d not be concerned.

4. Unique: Arm plans to launch its personal chip this yr after securing Meta as considered one of its first clients, 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 greatest clients.

5. India’s Adani Group has determined to tug out of its $440mn wind energy tasks in Sri Lanka after the brand new authorities in Colombo launched a evaluation 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 had been signed by their predecessors.

The Huge Learn

In just below a decade, Indonesia has turn out to be the world’s largest producer of nickel, the metallic essential to the vitality transition due to its use in batteries for electrical autos. 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 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 economic system and worldwide enterprise.

We’re additionally studying . . . 

• Shareholder capitalism, the Japanese method: An obsession with the UN’s SDGs permits corporations 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: Huge 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 development surged final yr 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 mentioned.

Take a break from the information . . . 

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