AFP USA

They’re booing the American national anthem, canceling holidays in the United States, and boycotting American products: Canadians are responding to US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats with anger and patriotic spending.”What Donald Trump is doing to Canada, I find it completely disgusting,” says Huguette Beaudoin.Wandering the aisles of a Montreal supermarket, the 80-year-old stops to look closely at the label on a box of onion soup to determine whether it was made in the United States.For her, like many others, buying American products is now out of the question — even if it means going without certain items. “We have to react,” she says.Trump, who roared back into the White House this month, had announced sweeping tariffs of 25 percent on Canadian imports to begin Tuesday, accusing Ottawa of not doing enough on illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling.Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday said the US levies would be paused for 30 days after he promised Trump he would tighten the border with the United States, appoint a “Fentanyl Czar” and crack down on money laundering. But he had initially announced retaliatory tariffs, urged Canadians to buy local and consider vacationing within Canada instead of the United States.His comments appear to have been taken to heart, with several people in multiple cities who spoke to AFP before the pause was announced saying they would do just that. Pamela Tennant, who lives in Ontario, had been planning a trip to South Carolina in March but changed her mind, annoyed by the American president’s attacks — including his oft-repeated threat to make Canada the 51st US state.”I’m afraid that Americans will end up believing what Trump says,” she told AFP. “He considers us a bad neighbor. He tells the whole world that we are bad people and that we have taken advantage of them,” but it is “all lies.”- Boos -On social media, lists of American products to boycott began circulating widely. Several provinces — including Ontario, which sells almost Can$1 billion worth of US booze annually through its government-run retail stores and to 18,000 local restaurants and bars — said they would immediately stop selling American beer, wine and spirits in protest.”We didn’t start this fight, but we’re going to win this fight,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Monday.The boycott will have an effect on American producers and companies, but Canada remains “a relatively small market” for them, and so it will be “above all symbolic,” commented Julien Frederic Martin, an economics professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM).On the other hand, Canadian tourists choosing to go elsewhere “could have a significant economic effect” for American states such as Maine, Florida, California and Arizona, according to Lorn Sheehan, a professor who specializes in tourism at Dalhousie University.The United States is the top vacation destination for Canadians and, in 2023, more than 25 million trips were made to the United States for work, leisure or shopping.Canadian sports fans have also expressed their anger, booing the US national anthem at a Toronto Raptors’ home NBA game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday.Boos were also heard during “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a National Hockey League game on Saturday between the Minnesota Wild and the Ottawa Senators.”There has always been a latent anti-Americanism in Canada but, with Trump, it has soared,” said Guy Lachapelle, a professor at Concordia University.The current boycott, he added, is directed “not so much against the United States, but more towards the American president.”

The gates at a Johannesburg LGBTQ clinic called OUT have been closed for more than a week and HIV prevention and treatment services suspended for its 6,000 clients.The lights are also off at the University of the Witwatersrand’s HIV project, a leader in the provision of services to sex workers in South Africa, a country with one of the largest HIV-positive populations in the world.They are among the several South African HIV/AIDS healthcare providers that have been confused, angry and scrambling for survival since US President Donald Trump issued a 90-day freeze last week on Washington’s foreign aid.”Short-term, I hope that some money can flow so that medium- and long- term, we can make other plans,” said Dawie Nel, the director at OUT, whose Engage Men’s Health clinic in Johannesburg has a note fixed to the gate that announces it is “temporarily closed”.South Africa is one of the largest recipients of funds from the US HIV/AIDS response programme called PEPFAR, a project launched in 2003 and now paused by the funding freeze.PEPFAR accounts for 17 percent of the country’s HIV budget, ensuring some 5.5 million people receive anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment, according to the health ministry.”The US is a totally unreliable partner,” said Nel. “The system is very volatile and chaotic.”OUT’s services identify around four to five cases of HIV a day along with other sexually transmitted diseases, he said.It had been banking on $2 million in US funds to continue until September to provide its 2,000 clients with HIV treatment and another 4,000 clients with the preventative drug PrEP.- ‘Left behind’ -Around 14 percent of South Africans, around 8.45 million people, were HIV positive in 2022, according to government statistics, one of the highest rates in the world.After a slow response to its AIDS crisis that cost more than 2.5 million lives, the country today has one of the world’s biggest HIV treatment programmes.”The PEPFAR-fund freeze will take South Africa and the world back in terms of the gains we have made in our response to HIV,” the Treatment Action Campaign’s Anele Yawa said in a statement.”People are going to be left behind in terms of prevention, treatment and care.”Since the freeze was announced, a waiver for humanitarian aid, including life-saving treatments, has been issued but many organisations are unclear whether it applies to them.The Wits University’s Reproductive Health and HIV Institute has posted on its Facebook page that its Key Population Programme clinics for sex workers and transgender people were “closed until further notice”.The implications of the USAID stop order were being reviewed “and mitigation plans are being developed and deployed”, Wits Health Sciences dean Shabir Madhi said in a statement.- ‘Undue suffering’ -South Africa’s government has vowed to make up the difference in HIV funding by reallocating budgets for “key priorities”.But what those priorities should even be “is difficult to say unless we have a more informed decision from the Americans”, Munya Saruchera, director of the African Centre for Inclusive Health Management at Stellenbosch University, told AFP.The country may however be able to leverage its presidency of the G20 this year to “lead the Africa bloc into collective discussions with Western countries” to secure resources, he said.The retreat in foreign aid spending by the United States, the world’s largest foreign aid donor, “creates opportunities for other countries like China”, said Craig Lasher, senior policy fellow for health advocacy group Population Action International.But prolonged delays in filling funding gaps will pose “undue suffering” to health service workers and the communities they support, Lasher said. “The longer they last, the more difficult it will be to rebuild the programmes,” he warned. 

China has made good on its threats to retaliate in the escalating trade war with the United States, imposing tariffs on American imports of energy, cars and machinery parts. That came just minutes after a 10 percent tariff hike on Chinese goods, announced by US President Donald Trump on Saturday, came into effect.Here’s the state of play in the rocky US-China trade relationship:- How much trade is at stake? -Trade between China and the United States, the world’s two largest economies, is vast, totalling more than $530 billion in 2024.Sales of Chinese goods to the United States over the same period totalled more than $400 billion, second only to Mexico.China is the dominant supplier of goods from electronics and electrical machinery to textiles and clothing, according to the Peterson Institute of International Economics (PIIE). But a yawning trade imbalance — $270.4 billion last year — has long raised hackles in Washington.So has China’s vast state support for its industries, sparking accusations of dumping, as well as its perceived mistreatment of US firms operating in its territory.China’s economy remains heavily reliant on exports to drive growth despite official efforts to raise domestic consumption, making its leaders reluctant to change the status quo.- What happened during Trump’s first term? -Trump stormed into the White House for his first term in 2016 vowing to get even with China, launching a trade war that imposed significant tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods.China responded with retaliatory tariffs on US products that particularly affected American farmers.Key US demands were greater access to China’s markets, broad reform of a business playing field that heavily favours Chinese firms, and a loosening of heavy state control by Beijing.After long, fraught negotiations the two sides agreed what became known as the “phase one” trade deal — a ceasefire in the nearly two-year trade war.Beijing agreed under that agreement to import $200 billion worth of US goods, including $32 billion in farm products and seafood.However, in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic and a US recession, analysts say Beijing fell well short of that commitment.”In the end, China bought only 58 percent of the US exports it had committed to purchase under the agreement, not even enough to reach its import levels from before the trade war,” the PIIE’s Chad P Brown wrote.- How did things change under Biden? -Joe Biden, whose presidency was bookended by Trump’s two terms in office, did not roll back the increases imposed by the Republican but took a more targeted approach when it came to tariff hikes.Under Biden, Washington expanded efforts to curb exports of state-of-the-art chips to China, part of a broader effort to prevent sensitive US technologies being used in Beijing’s military arsenal.His administration also used tariffs to take aim at what it called China’s “industrial overcapacity” — fears the country’s industrial subsidies for green energy, cars and batteries could flood global markets with cheap goods.Biden ordered tariffs last May on $18 billion worth of imports from China, accusing Beijing of “cheating” rather than competing.Under the hikes, tariffs on electric vehicles quadrupled to 100 percent, while the tariff for semiconductors surged from 25 percent to 50 percent.- What happens next? – Beijing’s new tariffs will come into effect on Monday.Tariffs of 15 percent will be imposed on imports of coal and liquefied natural gas from the United States.Crude oil, agricultural machinery, big-engined vehicles and pickup trucks face 10 percent duties.China is a major market for US energy exports and, according to Beijing customs data, imports of oil, coal and LNG totalled more than $7 billion last year.By following through with the levies, Trump has shown tariff threats were serious and not an opening gambit in negotiations.The mercurial magnate has also tied tariffs to the fate of Chinese-owned social media app TikTok — warning of retaliation if a deal cannot be struck to sell it.Trump has ordered an in-depth review of Chinese trade practices, the results of which are due by April 1.Analysts say that could serve as a “catalyst” for even more tariffs on Chinese imports.However, the strong riposte has left little doubt that Beijing will push back against measures it has long viewed as unfair.China said on Tuesday it had filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over the “malicious” levies, although that is unlikely to bring change in the short term.Separately, its State Administration for Market Regulation announced a probe into US tech giant Google over violations of anti-monopoly laws.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will meet President Donald Trump on a visit to the United States this week, top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Tuesday.”If circumstances permit, he will visit the United States from February 6-8 and hold (his) first face-to-face Japan-US summit meeting with President Trump in Washington DC,” Hayashi said.”Through this visit we hope to build a strong relationship of trust with the new US administration and take the US-Japan alliance to new heights,” he added.The Nikkei business daily reported that Ishiba wants to discuss increasing imports of US shale gas with Trump — chiming with the president’s pledge to “drill, baby, drill”.Ishiba is also expected to discuss a bid by Nippon Steel to buy US Steel blocked by previous president Joe Biden, according to public broadcaster NHK.Citing national security concerns, Biden blocked Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion acquisition of US Steel last month, a highly unusual move that irked officials in Tokyo.Ishiba intends to ask Trump to visit Japan at the earliest opportunity, local media reported.Ishiba held a brief telephone call in November with then-president-elect Trump, and had reportedly unsuccessfully sought to meet with him before his inauguration in January.However, Trump in December hosted Akie Abe — the widow of Japan’s assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe — for a private dinner with Melania Trump at their Florida residence.Last week, Ishiba stressed the importance of close ties with the United States for regional stability.”As the balance of power in the region undergoes a historic change, we must deepen Japan-US cooperation further, in a concrete manner,” Ishiba told parliament.Tokyo must also “continue to secure the US commitment to the region, to avoid a power vacuum leading to regional instability”, he added in a policy speech.His comments underscored jitters over China’s military build-up in the Asia-Pacific and Trump’s “America First” policies, which may include demanding that allies such as Japan shoulder a larger proportion of defence costs.Japan and the US are key defence allies and each other’s top foreign investors.Also in December — ahead of Ishiba — Masayoshi Son, head of Japanese tech investor SoftBank, stood beside Trump to announce a $100 billion investment in the United States.Son also attended Trump’s inauguration, followed by an announcement that SoftBank would lead a $500 billion project called Stargate to build AI infrastructure in the United States along with cloud giant Oracle and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.Then on Monday evening, Son and OpenAI chief Sam Altman met Ishiba, and discussed extending “Stargate into Japan”, Son told reporters afterwards.”We want to create the cutting-edge AI infrastructure — what I mean by that is the world’s biggest, cutting-edge AI data centres,” Son said, without giving further details.

China said Tuesday it would impose tariffs on imports of US energy, vehicles and equipment, firing a return salvo in an escalating trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.US President Donald Trump on Saturday announced sweeping measures against major trade partners Canada and Mexico, with goods from China hit with an additional 10 percent tariff on top of the duties they already endure.Minutes after they came into effect, Beijing unveiled levies of 15 percent on imports of coal and liquefied natural gas from the United States, while crude oil, agricultural machinery, big-engined vehicles, and pickup trucks face 10 percent duties.China is a major market for US energy exports and according to Beijing customs data, imports of oil, coal and LNG totalled more than $7 billion last year.But that is dwarfed by China’s imports from more friendly powers such as Russia, from which it purchased $94 billion-worth last year.Beijing said the measures were in response to the “unilateral tariff hike” by Washington.The US decision, China said, “seriously violates World Trade Organization rules, does nothing to resolve its own problems, and disrupts normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States”.With that in mind, Beijing said it would file a complaint with the WTO over the “malicious” levies.Alongside its tariffs, China announced a probe into US tech giant Google and the addition of US fashion group PVH Corp. — which owns Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein — and biotech giant Illumina to a list of “unreliable entities”.Beijing also unveiled fresh export controls on rare metals and chemicals including tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, and molybdenum, used in a range of industrial appliances.”I think the retaliation is not aggressive, as China only targets some US products, in response to the US tariff on all China’s exports to the US,” Zhang Zhiwei of Pinpoint Asset Management said in a note.”This is likely only the beginning of a long process for the two countries to negotiate”- Canada, Mexico deals -Trump has said his tariffs aimed to punish countries for failing to halt flows of illegal migrants and drugs including fentanyl into the United States.But he said Monday that he planned a call with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in the next 24 hours.Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had both earlier struck last-minute deals with Trump to tighten border measures against the flow of migrants and fentanyl into the United States, leading to a 30-day pause on threatened tariffs.Asian equities spiked Tuesday on news of the paused tariffs, and hopes that similar negotiations could relieve the levies against the world’s number-two economy provided extra optimism. However, traders pared some of those gains as China unveiled its measures.Markets had slumped Monday as Trump’s threat of sweeping levies on imports from Canada and Mexico sparked fears of a global trade war.The president said that after “very friendly” talks with Sheinbaum he would “immediately pause” the tariffs on Mexico, and that his counterpart had agreed to send 10,000 troops to the US-Mexico frontier.- ‘Not a trade war’ -Tensions appeared higher between the United States and Canada — but after two calls with Trudeau, Trump said on Truth Social that the prime minister had “agreed to ensure we have a secure Northern Border, and to finally end the deadly scourge of drugs like Fentanyl”.Trudeau said Canada would deploy nearly 10,000 frontline officers to help secure the border, list drug cartels as terrorists, appoint a “Fentanyl Czar” and crack down on money laundering.It was not clear the real extent of the changes on the Canadian border, given that authorities said in December they already had 8,500 personnel deployed.Canada, China and Mexico are the United States’s three biggest trading partners.The White House said earlier there had been a “heck of a lot of talks” over the weekend.”This is not a trade war, this is a drug war,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC, complaining that “the Canadians appeared to have misunderstood the plain language”.However, US government figures show that only a minimal quantity of drugs enter via Canada.- 51st state? -Ottawa had vowed to respond strongly to the tariffs.Canadians have booed the US national anthem at sporting events, cancelled holidays in the United States and boycotted American products.Its most populous province Ontario on Monday banned US firms from bidding on tens of billions of dollars in government contracts — and dumped a deal with Trump ally Elon Musk’s Starlink.Trump has upped the pressure recently by calling Canada’s existence into question — once again advocating on Monday for it to become the 51st US state.A political crisis in the Canadian government over Trump’s tariff threats led to Trudeau announcing last month that he would resign. Canadians now face elections as early as April.Mexico has meanwhile been under heavy pressure to secure its border with the United States as Trump vows a massive crackdown on undocumented migrants.burs-oho/je/dan

OpenAI chief Sam Altman signed a deal with tech giant Kakao in South Korea on Tuesday as the US firm seeks new alliances after Chinese rival DeepSeek shook the global AI industry.Kakao, which owns an online bank, South Korea’s largest taxi-hailing app, and a messaging service, announced a partnership allowing them to use ChatGPT for its new artificial intelligence services, joining a global alliance led by OpenAI amid intensifying competition in the sector.”We’re excited to bring advanced AI to Kakao’s millions of users and work together to integrate our technology into services that transform how Kakao’s users communicate and connect,” said Altman.”Kakao has a deep understanding of how technology can enrich everyday lives,” he added.Kakao’s CEO Shina Chung said the company was “thrilled” to establish a strategic collaboration with OpenAI.Altman’s company is part of the Stargate drive announced by US President Donald Trump to invest up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the United States.But AI newcomer DeepSeek has sent Silicon Valley into a frenzy, with some calling its high performance and supposed low cost a wake-up call for US developers.”Highly Aware”At a closed meeting with South Korean AI developers, Altman admitted OpenAI “hasn’t found a strategy yet” to respond to DeepSeek. When asked by an executive of Wrtn Technologies — a Seoul-based AI firm — about his plans for addressing the rise of open-source models such as DeepSeek, Altman said there is “definitely room for open source”.”We haven’t figured out a strategy yet, but we want to do more,” he added. Altman seems “quite nervous internally but it appears OpenAI is indeed highly aware of, and influenced by, DeepSeek’s impact”, said Kim Jang-hyun, a data science Professor at Sungkyunkwan University.. “With South Korea being a country known for its high loyalty, frequent usage, and tech-savvy user base,” OpenAI might use the country as “a testing ground before expanding globally”, Kim told AFP. Also on Altman’s agenda were meetings with two top South Korean chipmakers, Samsung and SK hynix, both key suppliers of advanced semiconductors used in AI servers.Altman met with SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won and SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung in Seoul to discuss collaboration on AI memory chips, including high bandwidth memory (HBM), and AI services.He is also expected to meet with Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Jae-yong later Tuesday. Jaejune Kim, executive vice president of Samsung’s memory business, said last week that the company was “monitoring industry trends considering various scenarios” when asked about DeepSeek.DeepSeek’s performance has sparked a wave of accusations that it has reverse-engineered the capabilities of leading US technology.OpenAI warned last week that Chinese companies are actively attempting to replicate its advanced AI models, prompting closer cooperation with US authorities.OpenAI says rivals are using a process known as distillation in which developers creating smaller models learn from larger ones by copying their behaviour and decision-making patterns — similar to a student learning from a teacher.The company is itself facing multiple accusations of intellectual property violations, primarily related to the use of copyrighted materials in training its generative AI models.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet President Donald Trump on Tuesday, as Israel and Hamas say they are ready for negotiations on a new phase in their fragile Gaza ceasefire.Netanyahu, the first foreign leader to visit the White House since Trump returned to power last month, will discuss the truce’s future and efforts to end the Gaza war.Hours before their meeting, Netanyahu’s office said Israel would send a delegation to the Qatari capital Doha later this week for negotiations.”Israel is preparing for the working-level delegation to leave for Doha at the end of this week in order to discuss technical details related to the continued implementation of the agreement,” the office said in a statement following meetings in Washington between Netanyahu and Trump’s advisors, including Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.Hamas has said it is ready to negotiate the second stage of the ceasefire, mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States.The next phase aims to secure the release of remaining hostages and lay out steps toward ending the war, which has devastated the Palestinian territory of 2.4 million people.- ‘No guarantees’ -The war broke out after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.Trump has repeatedly touted a plan to “clean out” Gaza, calling for Palestinians to move to neighbouring countries such as Egypt or Jordan, despite all those parties strongly rejecting his proposal.Before leaving for Washington, Netanyahu said Israel’s wars with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and its confrontations with Iran had “redrawn the map” in the Middle East.”But I believe that working closely with President Trump we can redraw it even further, and for the better,” he said.The White House meeting promises to be a crucial one for a region shattered by war since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel.Netanyahu hailed the fact he would be the first foreign leader to meet Trump since his January 20 inauguration as “testimony to the strength of the Israeli-American alliance.”The Israeli prime minister had tense relations with Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden over the growing death toll in Gaza, despite Biden’s steadfast maintenance of US military aid.But Trump, who has claimed credit for sealing the ceasefire after 15 months of war and prides himself on his dealmaking ability, will be pushing Netanyahu to stick to the agreement.He is also expected to lean on Netanyahu to accept a deal to normalise relations with Saudi Arabia, something he tried to do in his first term.Trump said Sunday that talks with Israel and other Middle Eastern countries were “progressing” — but then warned less than 24 hours later that there that were “no guarantees that the peace is going to hold.”- Unrest in West Bank -Witkoff — who met Netanyahu on Monday over terms for the second phase of the truce — said however that he was “certainly hopeful” the truce would stick.Trump’s sudden floating of a plan to move people out of Gaza — which he describes as a “demolition site” — has added uncertainty to an already tense and difficult situation.Trump said the plan could be temporary or permanent, but the mass displacement of civilians from Gaza was strongly rejected by Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinians and ceasefire mediator Qatar.Under the Gaza ceasefire’s ongoing 42-day first phase, Hamas is to free 33 hostages in staggered releases in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.Four hostage-prisoner exchanges have already taken place, and militants have freed 18 hostages so far in exchange of some 600 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.The truce has also led to a surge of food, fuel, medical and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, as well as allowing displaced Gazans to return to the territory’s north.Hamas’s attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. Israel’s retaliatory response has killed at least 47,518 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN considers these figures as reliable.Israel has turned its focus to the occupied West Bank and an operation it says is aimed at rooting out extremism that has killed dozens.On Tuesday, the military said its forces killed an assailant who fired on troops near the city of Jenin in the West Bank.burs-jd/dv

China on Tuesday said it would probe US tech giant Google over violations of anti-monopoly laws after Washington slapped 10 percent levies on Chinese goods.Beijing’s State Administration for Market Regulation said the US tech giant was “suspected of violating the Anti-Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China”.It has “launched an investigation into Google in accordance with the law” as a result, the administration said in a statement.It did not provide further details about the allegations against Google.The US tech behemoth’s core search engine and many of its services are blocked in mainland China, where US internet titans have long struggled with doing business due to the “Great Firewall” that blocks politically sensitive content.Google in 2011 abandoned its Chinese-language search engine in the mainland and transferred it to Hong Kong.By 2014, China blocked the last remaining way to access Google’s email service Gmail.Beijing also said Tuesday it would add US fashion group PVH Corp. — which owns Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein — and biotech giant Illumina to a list of “unreliable entities”.The move would “safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, in accordance with relevant laws”, China’s commerce ministry said in a statement.”The above two entities violate normal market transaction principles, interrupt normal transactions with Chinese enterprises, and take discriminatory measures against Chinese enterprises,” it added.China in September said it was investigating PVH for an “unreasonable” boycott of cotton from its Xinjiang region, where Beijing is accused of widespread rights violations.AFP has reached out to all three firms for comment.The United States on Saturday announced sweeping measures against major trade partners, with goods from China facing an additional 10 percent tariff on top of existing duties.Trump said the measures aimed to punish countries for failing to halt flows of illegal migrants and drugs including fentanyl into the United States.

China said Tuesday it would slap tariffs on imports of US energy, vehicles and equipment, firing a return salvo in an escalating trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.US President Donald Trump on Saturday announced sweeping measures against major trade partners including Canada and Mexico, with goods from China facing an additional 10 percent tariff on top of the duties they already endure.Just minutes after those tariffs came into effect, Beijing said it would impose levies of 15 percent on imports of coal and liquefied natural gas from the United States.On Tuesday it unveiled 10 percent tariffs on imports of crude oil, agricultural machinery, big-engined vehicles, and pickup trucks.The new measures were in response to the “unilateral tariff hike” by Washington over the weekend, Beijing said.That US move, China said, “seriously violates World Trade Organization rules, does nothing to resolve its own problems, and disrupts normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States”.With that in mind, Beijing said it would file a complaint with the WTO over the “malicious” levies.Alongside its tariffs, China announced a probe into US tech giant Google as well as adding US fashion group PVH Corp. — which owns Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein — and biotech giant Illumina to a list of “unreliable entities”.Beijing also unveiled fresh export controls on rare metals and chemicals including tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, and molybdenum, used in a range of industrial appliances.- Canada, Mexico deals -Trump has said his tariffs aimed to punish countries for failing to halt flows of illegal migrants and drugs including fentanyl into the United States.But he said Monday that he planned a call with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in the next 24 hours.Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had both earlier struck last-minute deals with Trump to tighten border measures against the flow of migrants and fentanyl into the United States, leading to a 30-day pause on threatened tariffs.Asian equities spiked Tuesday on news of the paused tariffs, and hopes that similar negotiations could relieve the levies against the world’s number-two economy provided extra optimism. However, traders pared some of those gains as China unveiled its measures.Global stock markets slumped Monday as Trump’s threat of sweeping levies on imports from Canada and Mexico sparked fears of a global trade war.Trump said that after “very friendly” talks with Sheinbaum he would “immediately pause” the tariffs on Mexico, and that his counterpart had agreed to send 10,000 troops to the US-Mexico frontier.- ‘Not a trade war’ -Tensions appeared higher between the United States and Canada — but after two calls with Trudeau, Trump said on Truth Social that the prime minister had “agreed to ensure we have a secure Northern Border, and to finally end the deadly scourge of drugs like Fentanyl”.Trudeau said Canada would deploy nearly 10,000 frontline officers to help secure the border, list drug cartels as terrorists, appoint a “Fentanyl Czar” and crack down on money laundering.It was not clear the real extent of the changes on the Canadian border, given that authorities said in December they already had 8,500 personnel deployed.Canada, China and Mexico are the United States’s three biggest trading partners.The White House said earlier there had been a “heck of a lot of talks” over the weekend.”This is not a trade war, this is a drug war,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC, complaining that “the Canadians appeared to have misunderstood the plain language”.However, US government figures show that only a minimal quantity of drugs enter via Canada.- 51st state? -Ottawa had vowed to respond strongly to the tariffs.Canadians have booed the US national anthem at sporting events, cancelled holidays in the United States and boycotted American products.Its most populous province Ontario on Monday banned US firms from bidding on tens of billions of dollars in government contracts — and dumped a deal with Trump ally Elon Musk’s Starlink.Trump has upped the pressure recently by calling Canada’s existence into question — once again advocating on Monday for it to become the 51st US state.A political crisis in the Canadian government over Trump’s tariff threats led to Trudeau announcing he would resign. Canadians now face elections as early as April.Mexico has meanwhile been under heavy pressure to secure its border with the United States as Trump vows a massive crackdown on undocumented migrants.The US president — who has said that the word “tariff” is the “most beautiful word in the dictionary” — is going even further in his second term on the levies than he did in his first.He has insisted that the impact would be borne by foreign exporters without being passed on to American consumers, despite most experts saying the contrary.But the billionaire 78-year-old did acknowledge as he returned from a weekend at his Florida resort Sunday that Americans might feel economic “pain”.burs-oho/je/fox

OpenAI chief Sam Altman inked a deal with tech giant Kakao in South Korea on Tuesday as the US firm seeks new alliances after Chinese rival DeepSeek shook the global AI industry.Kakao, which owns an online bank, South Korea’s largest taxi-hailing app and KakaoTalk, announced a partnership allowing them to use ChatGPT for its new artificial intelligence services, joining a global alliance led by OpenAI amid intensifying competition in the sector.Altman’s company is part of the Stargate drive announced by US President Donald Trump to invest up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the United States.But AI newcomer DeepSeek has sent Silicon Valley into a frenzy, with some calling its high performance and supposed low cost a wake-up call for US developers.”We’re excited to bring advanced AI to Kakao’s millions of users and work together to integrate our technology into services that transform how Kakao’s users communicate and connect,” said Altman.”Kakao has a deep understanding of how technology can enrich everyday lives,” he added.Kakao’s CEO Shina Chung said the company was “thrilled” to establish a “strategic collaboration” with OpenAI.Also on Altman’s agenda were meetings with two top South Korean chipmakers, Samsung and SK hynix, both key suppliers of advanced semiconductors used in AI servers.Altman met with SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won and SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung in Seoul to discuss collaboration on AI memory chips, including high bandwidth memory (HBM), and AI services.He is also expected to meet with Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Jae-yong later Tuesday. Jaejune Kim, executive vice president of Samsung’s memory business, said last week that the company was “monitoring industry trends considering various scenarios” when asked about DeepSeek.DeepSeek’s performance has sparked a wave of accusations that it has reverse-engineered the capabilities of leading US technology, such as the AI powering ChatGPT.OpenAI warned last week that Chinese companies are actively attempting to replicate its advanced AI models, prompting closer cooperation with US authorities.OpenAI says rivals are using a process known as distillation in which developers creating smaller models learn from larger ones by copying their behaviour and decision-making patterns — similar to a student learning from a teacher.The company is itself facing multiple accusations of intellectual property violations, primarily related to the use of copyrighted materials in training its generative AI models.