Economy

Canberra says restrictions will be lifted following a ‘rigorous science and risk-based assessment’.

Australia has announced that it will lift tough restrictions on beef imports from the United States, removing measures singled out for criticism by US President Donald Trump.

Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said the government would remove the biosecurity restrictions after a “rigorous science and risk-based assessment” found the risks were being managed on the US side.

“Australia stands for open and fair trade – our cattle industry has significantly benefitted from this,” Collins said in a statement.

Australia, which has some of the world’s toughest biosecurity measures, has until now not accepted beef from cattle raised in Canada and Mexico but slaughtered in the US.

Canberra lifted a ban on beef from cows raised and slaughtered in the US, introduced in response to an outbreak of mad cow disease, in 2019.

The move comes after Trump called out Australia’s restrictions on US beef in his April 2 “Liberation Day” announcement of sweeping tariffs on dozens of countries.

“Australia bans – and they’re wonderful people and wonderful everything – but they ban American beef,” Trump said.

“They won’t take any of our beef,” Trump added.

“They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers and you know, I don’t blame them but we’re doing the same thing right now starting at midnight tonight, I would say.”

Australia, which exports about 70 percent of its beef, is among the main suppliers of red meat to the US, but consumes little US beef.

Australia exported about 26,000 tonnes of beef and veal to the US in the first three weeks of July, according to government statistics.

Meat & Livestock Australia, a producer-owned company that supports the local beef industry, said the changes would have a minimal effect on the market.

“The potential for US beef to be imported into Australia in large volumes is minimal, given the high demand for beef in the US, the low US cattle herd, the strength of the Australian dollar, our competitive domestic supply, and most importantly Australians’ strong preference for high-quality, tasty and nutritious Australian beef,” the company said.

“In fact, demand for Australian beef in the US continues to grow. In June 2025, exports to the US rose 24 percent year-on-year, despite a 10 percent tariff introduced in April.”

Analysts expect a turnaround in future quarters as the automaker bets on robotaxi expansions.

Tesla has reported its biggest decline in quarterly revenue in more than a decade as CEO Elon Musk’s political activity weighs on the electric carmaker brand’s reputation.

Revenue fell to $22.5bn for the April-June quarter from $25.5bn a year earlier, according to its earnings report, which Tesla released after the closing bell on Wall Street. Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $22.74bn, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Revenue from car sales declined by 16 percent. Tesla attributed the revenue dip to a decline in vehicle deliveries. Earlier this month, it reported a 14 percent decline in car deliveries in the second quarter.

Investors are worried about whether Musk will be able to give enough time and attention to Tesla after he locked horns with United States President Donald Trump by forming a new political party this month. Weeks earlier, he had promised that he would cut back on government work and focus on his companies.

Musk’s connections to the Trump administration and layoffs across the US government when he headed the Department of Government Efficiency weighed on its US reputation. Meanwhile, the billionaire’s endorsements of the far-right AfD party in Germany have affected the brand’s reputation in Europe.

A series of high-profile executive exits, including last month of a longtime Musk confidant who oversaw sales and manufacturing in North America and Europe, is also adding to the concerns.

The company reported a second straight quarterly revenue drop, despite rolling out a much-awaited refreshed version of its best-selling Model Y SUV that investors had hoped would rekindle demand.

Much of the company’s trillion-dollar valuation hangs on its bet on its robotaxi service – a small trial of which started in Austin, Texas, last month – and developing humanoid robots. On Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that Tesla has been in talks with the state of Nevada about introducing robotaxi services there.

Analysts believe that this will keep the automaker on pace for growth in future quarters.

“We are at a ‘positive crossroads’ in the Tesla story: Musk is laser focused as CEO, Robotaxi/autonomous expansion has begun, demand stabilisation has begun especially in China, and Tesla is about to embark on an aggressive AI-focused strategy that, we believe, will include owning a significant piece of xAI,” Dan Ives, an analyst at the financial services company Wedbush Securities, said in a note provided to Al Jazeera.

xAI is Musk’s AI firm which also makes the chatbot Grok.

“While near-term and this quarter the numbers are nothing to write home about, we believe investors are instead focused on the AI future at Tesla, with a motivated Musk back driving Tesla’s future,” Ives said.

Tesla’s stock closed the trading day in positive territory, up by 0.1, but has tumbled in after-hours trading, down by 0.3 percent.

Brussels, Belgium – Just before the summer lull hits Brussels, the European Union and China will hold a top-level summit in Beijing on Thursday, commemorating 50 years of diplomatic ties.

The mood before the meeting on Thursday, however, has not been particularly celebratory but, rather, tense with low expectations for any concrete bilateral deals. The summit which was meant to be a two-day affair, was also condensed into a single day’s event by Beijing earlier this month, citing domestic reasons.

A series of trade disagreements, particularly over market access and critical rare earth elements, and geopolitical tensions, primarily Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, have marred EU-China relations.

Gunnar Wiegand, the former managing director for Asia and the Pacific at the European External Action Service (EEAS) and currently a distinguished fellow at the Indo-Pacific Program of the German Marshall Fund’s  Brussels Office, told Al Jazeera that the EU’s current partnership with China is complex.

“The EU views China as a partner for global challenges, an economic competitor when it comes to developing new technologies and also a systemic rival because of Beijing’s governance system and its influence on global affairs,” he said, adding that the question of whether China is also a threat to European security has come up over the last few years in the context of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

Who is attending the summit?

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa will visit China on Thursday, seeking to address these disputes at the summit.

“This Summit is an opportunity to engage with China at the highest level and have frank, constructive discussions on issues that matter to both of us. We want dialogue, real engagement and concrete progress,” Costa said in a statement in advance of the summit.

The EU leaders will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday morning, and Premier Li Qiang will co-chair the 25th summit between the two parties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told reporters in Beijing on Monday.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson added that after 50 years of EU-China development, their ties “can cope with the changing difficulties and challenges”.

Is Russia’s war in Ukraine on the agenda?

According to EU officials, discussions with President Xi on Thursday morning will focus on global affairs and bilateral relations, followed by a banquet lunch.

However, the Russia-Ukraine war is likely to arise because of Beijing’s close ties with Moscow, which has been a thorny issue for Brussels.

“You can expect the EU addressing Russia’s war in Ukraine,” a senior EU official told reporters in Brussels on July 18. “China, of course, talks to us often about core issues. Well, this is a core issue for Europe. It’s an issue fundamental to European security,” the official added.

In an address to the European Parliament earlier this month, von der Leyen also accused China of “de facto enabling Russia’s war economy”.

Brussels has sanctioned several Chinese companies for facilitating the supply of goods which are used for weapons production in Russia, and on July 18, the EU also slapped sanctions on Chinese banks for the first time, for reportedly financing the supply of such goods.

China has rejected such accusations and warned of retaliations. Beijing has also reiterated that its position on the Ukraine war is all about “negotiation, ceasefire and peace”.

But according to an article by the South China Morning Post, during a meeting with the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, in early July, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing did not want to see Russia lose the war in Ukraine, since the United States would then focus on China.

Wiegand said Europe should have no illusions.

“For China, having good and close relations with Russia is of utmost importance to increase its own strength in the global context. They will not sacrifice this relationship,” he said.

“This is the most important negative factor which has impacted the overall [EU-China] relationship,” he added.

Besides the Ukraine war, EU officials in Brussels said, the 27-member bloc will also discuss tensions in the Middle East and other security threats in Asia.

How difficult will trade discussions be?

Another contentious issue between Brussels and Beijing is trade. This is likely to be central to the summit’s agenda in the afternoon with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, followed by a dinner, EU officials involved in planning the summit told reporters in Brussels on July 18.

China is the EU’s third-largest trading partner, but the two have recently been squabbling over a series of trade issues, including 45 percent European tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) and Beijing’s control of rare earth minerals, which are vital for chip making and producing medical devices.

In her speech at the European Parliament earlier this month, von der Leyen accused Beijing of “flooding global markets with subsidised overcapacity – not just to boost its own industries, but to choke international competition”.

The EU has a trade deficit with China of more than 300 billion euros ($352bn) as of 2024. EU exports to China amounted to 213 billion euros ($250bn), while EU imports from China amounted to 519 billion euros ($609bn), according to figures from the European Commission.

EU officials say Chinese companies are benefitting from massive government subsidies and, due to sluggish demand for goods locally, cheap Chinese goods like EVs are being shipped to the EU instead.

To protect European interests, Brussels has begun taking action and imposed tariffs of up to 45 percent on Chinese EVs last October. The bloc also barred Chinese companies from medical devices tenders in June, among other trade barriers, after concluding that European firms were not being granted access to Chinese markets.

The EU is also concerned about Beijing’s export controls on rare earth minerals.

At the Group of Seven summit in Canada in June, von der Leyen accused China of “blackmail” and said, “No single country should control 80-90 percent of the market for essential raw materials and downstream products like magnets.”

“The present situation is not sustainable. We need rebalancing … China benefits from our open market but buys too little,” a senior EU official told reporters in Brussels before the summit. “Trade access is limited and export controls are excessive. We will go there [to Beijing] with a positive and constructive attitude … but China has to acknowledge our concerns.”

In her speech at the European Parliament in July, the European Commission president said the 27-member bloc is “engaging with Beijing so that it loosens its export restrictions” on rare earth minerals.

Wiegand said while trade negotiations have been ongoing, achieving common ground or any trade deal at the summit this week looks unlikely.

“There is a constructive tone [from the EU] when it comes to ‘de-risking’, not ‘de-coupling’ from China. The Chinese, however, don’t like the term ‘de-risking’. They think it is disinformation. But it is simply the process of reducing trade vulnerabilities by diversifying and improving our own capacities,” he said.

How does China view trading relations with the EU?

China wants the EU to view their trading partnership “without emotion and prejudice”, according to the Foreign Ministry.

He Yongqian, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, told a news conference in Beijing on Monday that China hopes that Brussels will also “be less protectionist, and be more open”.

In an email statement to Al Jazeera before the forum, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce to the EU (CCCEU) said it hopes the summit will “address critical challenges, including market and investment barriers faced by Chinese companies in the EU”.

“Recent EU measures, such as the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) and International Procurement Instrument (IPI), have disproportionately impacted Chinese firms in clean tech, high-tech, and medical devices. We urge constructive dialogue to ensure fair treatment,” CCCEU noted.

Will human rights be discussed at the summit?

EU-China relations have also been icy over human rights issues. In 2021, Brussels slapped sanctions on Chinese officials over reported human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region.

Beijing denied these allegations and retaliated by sanctioning EU lawmakers. The tit-for-tat sanctions were accompanied by a halt in bilateral dialogues between the European Parliament and the National People’s Congress (NPC) of China.

Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s China director, told Al Jazeera that on the 50th anniversary of EU-China diplomatic relations, there is “little to celebrate” when it comes to talking about human rights in China in 2025.

“Amnesty International has regularly documented serious and widespread human rights violations, from arbitrary detention and persecution in the Uighur region, for which no official has been held to account; to assaults on the rule of law and the chipping away of civil and political freedoms in Hong Kong, despite international treaties guaranteeing those rights; to the systematic use of national security legislation to target rights defence and criticism, at home and increasingly abroad. The EU, at least on paper, has also come to similar conclusions,” she said.

“At the summit, the EU’s leadership needs to ensure that those words become action and use every tool at their disposal to create positive human rights change for people – not more empty promises at the negotiating table or the speaker’s podium,” she added.

While China lifted some of its sanctions in April this year and hinted at resuming political dialogues between the European Parliament and the NPC, the 2021 EU sanctions remain in place. The bloc said last week that it had “not observed changes in the human rights situation in China/Xinjiang”.

“Promoting and protecting human rights is important to the EU. We will raise the EU’s concern on the deterioration of rights in Xinjiang, Tibet, and other regions,” an EU official said.

Will the issue of US tariffs arise?

The meeting between the EU and China comes amid US President Donald Trump’s global tariff war, which both Brussels and Beijing are trying to navigate.

Trump has announced imposing a tariff of 30 percent on goods EU imports from August 1, and Brussels has been holding trade negotiations with Washington, seeking to strike a trade deal.

China and the US agreed to slash tit-for-tat heavy tariffs for 90 days in May. That suspension expires on August 12. In June, the US said it would impose 55 percent tariffs on Chinese goods, down from the 145 percent Trump had imposed in April. In return, Beijing said, it will impose a 10 percent tariff on goods it imports from the US, down from 125 percent. But trade negotiations are ongoing.

Earlier this year, some analysts in Brussels hinted that tariff tensions with Washington could improve Brussels-Beijing trade ties.

The CCCEU also told Al Jazeera that with US tariffs looming, “China and the EU share a responsibility to uphold free trade and multilateralism while mitigating external pressures” and pushed Brussels to improve its business environment for foreign companies and enhance supply chains.

But in the run-up to the summit, expectations remain low.

“It is quite clear the US tariff issue is an over-encompassing issue … we are negotiating with the US at present. It is clear that there is a need to find and engage with other actors worldwide due to the impact of US tariffs,” a senior EU official told reporters in Brussels before the summit.

“But with China, we are certainly not agreeing to compromise on our values,” the official stressed.

Wiegand also pointed out that Europe’s economic relationship with the US is stronger than that with China since they are also NATO allies.

“With Russia’s war in Ukraine threatening Europe, Brussels will not be pushed closer to Beijing,” he said.

“But as Brussels negotiates tariffs with Washington, certainly there will be an important China dimension in the finalisation of a deal with the US administration.”

President Trump announced a trade framework with Japan on Tuesday, placing a 15% tax on goods imported from that nation.

“This Deal will create Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs — There has never been anything like it,” Trump posted on Truth Social, adding that the United States “will continue to always have a great relationship with the Country of Japan.”

The president said Japan would invest “at my direction” $550 billion into the U.S. and would “open” its economy to American autos and rice. The 15% tax on imported Japanese goods is a meaningful drop from the 25% rate that Trump, in a recent letter to Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, said would be levied starting Aug. 1.

Early Wednesday, Ishiba acknowledged the new trade agreement, saying it would benefit both sides and help them work together.

With the announcement, Trump is seeking to tout his ability as a dealmaker — even as his tariffs, when initially announced in early April, led to a market panic and fears of slower growth that for the moment appear to have subsided. Key details remained unclear from his post, such as whether Japanese-built autos would face a higher 25% tariff that Trump imposed on the sector.

But the framework fits a growing pattern for Trump, who is eager to portray the tariffs as win for the U.S. His administration says the revenues will help reduce the budget deficit and more factories will relocate to America to avoid the import taxes and cause trade imbalances to disappear.

The wave of tariffs continues to be a source of uncertainty about whether it could lead to higher prices for consumers and businesses if companies simply pass along the costs. The problem was seen sharply Tuesday after General Motors reported a 35% drop in its net income during the second quarter as it warned that tariffs would hit its business in the months ahead, causing its stock to tumble.

As the Aug. 1 deadline for the tariff rates in his letters to world leaders is approaching, Trump also announced a trade framework with the Philippines that would impose a tariff of 19% on its goods, while American-made products would face no import taxes. The president also reaffirmed his 19% tariffs on Indonesia.

The U.S. ran a $69.4-billion trade imbalance on goods with Japan last year, according to the Census Bureau.

America had a trade imbalance of $17.9 billion with Indonesia and an imbalance of $4.9 billion with the Philippines. Both nations are less affluent than the U.S. and an imbalance means America imports more from those countries than it exports to them.

The president is set to impose the broad tariffs listed in his recent letters to other world leaders on Aug. 1, raising questions of whether there will be any breakthrough in talks with the European Union. At a Tuesday dinner, Trump said the EU would be in Washington on Wednesday for trade talks.

“We have Europe coming in tomorrow, the next day,” Trump told guests.

The president earlier this month sent a letter threatening the 27 member states in the EU with 30% taxes on their goods to be imposed starting on Aug. 1.

The Trump administration has a separate negotiating period with China that is currently set to run through Aug. 12 as goods from that nation are taxed at an additional 30% baseline.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he would be in the Swedish capital of Stockholm next Monday and Tuesday to meet with his Chinese counterparts. Bessent said his goal is to shift the American economy away from consumption and to enable more consumer spending in the manufacturing-heavy Chinese economy.

“President Trump is remaking the U.S. into a manufacturing economy,” Bessent said on the Fox Business show “Mornings With Maria.” “If we could do that together, we do more manufacturing, they do more consumption. That would be a home run for the global economy.”

Boak writes for the Associated Press.

A group of business leaders submitted paperwork on Wednesday for a ballot measure that would repeal Los Angeles’ gross receipts tax, delivering some financial relief to local employers but also punching an $800-million hole in the city budget.

The proposed measure, called the “Los Angeles Cost of Living Relief Initiative,” would strip away a tax imposed on a vast array of businesses: entertainment companies, child care providers, law firms, accountants, healthcare businesses, nightclubs, delivery companies and many others, according to the group that submitted it.

Backers said that repealing a tax long reviled by the business community would help address the city’s economic woes, creating jobs, allowing businesses to stay in the city and making the economy “more affordable for all Angelenos.”

“This initiative is the result of the business community uniting to fight the anti-job climate at City Hall,” said Nella McOsker, president and CEO of the Central City Assn., a downtown-based business group.

McOsker, one of five business leaders who signed the ballot proposal, said city officials have “ignored the pleas of small- and medium-sized businesses for years.” As a result, scores of restaurants and other establishments, including the Mayan Theater, are closing, she said.

The filing of the ballot proposal immediately set off alarms at City Hall, where officials recently signed off on a plan to lay off hundreds of city workers in an attempt to balance this year’s budget. The city’s business tax generates more than $800 million annually for the general fund — the part of the budget that pays for police patrols, firefighters, paramedic response and other core services.

“Public safety is almost exclusively paid for by the general fund,” said City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, in an email to The Times. “This measure is an assault on public safety. Proponents of this measure will be directly responsible for cutting police or fire staffing in half if it passes.”

McOsker, asked about L.A.’s financial woes, said the city had a $1-billion shortfall this year and still succeeded in balancing the budget. She is the daughter of City Councilmember Tim McOsker, who sits on the five-member budget committee.

The proposed measure is backed by executives and board members with various groups, including the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Greater San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce and VICA, the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.

VICA president Stuart Waldman said the city’s economy has faltered amid a spate of increased taxes, higher city fees and new regulations. The most recent, he said, is the ordinance hiking the minimum wage for hotel employees and workers at Los Angeles International Airport to $30 per hour by 2028, which was approved by the City Council over objections from business leaders.

“We’re usually playing defense,” said Waldman, who also signed the ballot proposal. “We’ve decided the time has come to play offense.”

The business tax proposal is part of a larger ballot battle being waged this year between businesses and organized labor.

Last month, a group of airlines and hotel industry organizations turned in about 140,000 signatures for a proposed ballot measure aimed at overturning the newly approved hotel and LAX minimum wage. L.A. County election officials are currently verifying those signatures.

Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel employees, responded with its own package of countermeasures. One would require a citywide election on the construction or expansion of hotels, sports stadiums, concert halls and other venues. Another would hike the minimum wage for all workers in the city, raising it to the level of hotel and airport employees.

Two other measures from Unite Here take aim at companies that pay their CEOs more than a hundred times their median employee in L.A., either by forcing them to pay higher business taxes or by placing limitations on their use of city property.

The ongoing ballot battle is “escalating in ways that are reckless and disconnected from the real work of running a city,” said Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who heads the council’s budget committee. Yaroslavsky, in a statement, said the fight is “unproductive and needs to stop.”

“We just closed a billion-dollar budget gap, and basic services are already severely strained,” she said. “You don’t fix that by removing one of our largest revenue sources with no plan to replace it. We have to fix what is broken and that requires working together to offer real solutions.”

Josué Marcus, spokesperson for the Los Angeles City Clerk, said proponents of the latest ballot measure would need to gather about 140,000 valid signatures for it to qualify. The next city election is in June 2026. McOsker, for her part, said she believes that state law sets a lower threshold — only 44,000 — for measures that result in the elimination of taxes.

Industry leaders have long decried L.A.’s business tax, which is levied not on profits but on the gross receipts that are brought in — even where an enterprise suffers financial losses.

Former Mayor Eric Garcetti argued for eliminating the tax more than a decade ago, saying it puts the city’s economy at a competitive disadvantage. Once in office, he only managed to scale it back, amid concerns that an outright repeal would trigger cuts to city services.

Organizers of the latest proposal said it would not rescind business taxes on the sale of cannabis or medical marijuana, which were separately approved by voters.

US officials are ‘optimistic’ that an agreement could be imminent.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said that negotiations between the European Union and the United States over a long-running trade dispute are making progress.

Speaking in Berlin on Wednesday ahead of a dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron, Merz said, “We have been hearing in the last few minutes that there could possibly be decisions,” referring to ongoing talks aimed at avoiding steep tariffs on European goods.

The United States has threatened to impose a 30 percent tariff on EU exports if no agreement is reached by August 1.

But hopes for a breakthrough rose this week after reports that both sides are close to a deal that would set a 15 percent tariff rate on EU goods – a compromise similar to a recent agreement between the US and Japan.

Macron said that European leaders and the European Commission had been in “constant contact” to coordinate their response to the US pressure.

He added: “We want the lowest possible tariffs, but also to be respected as the partners that we are.”

US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent echoed the optimism, telling Bloomberg Television that the talks were “going better than they had been”, and that progress was being made.

Further discussions between EU Commissioner for Trade Maros Sefcovic and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also took place on Wednesday, while officials from the European Commission briefed EU member states following the latest round of discussions.

Diplomats say the recent deal between Washington and Tokyo has increased pressure on Brussels to accept a compromise, even if reluctantly.

“The Japan agreement made clear the terms of the shakedown,” an EU diplomat told the Financial Times. “Most member states are holding their noses and could take this deal.”

If finalised, the EU-US deal could include some exemptions, such as for aircraft, medical devices and alcoholic beverages, according to the newspaper.

However, the European Commission, which leads trade policy for the EU, has already prepared a plan to hit back with more than $100bn in tariffs if talks collapse.

It comes as EU exporters have already been facing a 10 percent tariff on goods sent to the US since April, on top of pre-existing levies.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has unveiled its new artificial intelligence action plan, which includes a strategy it says will boost the US standing in AI as it competes with China for dominance in the rapidly growing sector.

The White House released the 25-page “America’s AI Action Plan” on Wednesday.

It includes 90 different policy proposals that the administration says will increase AI tools for allies around the globe. It will also promote production of new data centres around the US. It will scrap federal regulations that “hinder AI development”, although it is not clear which regulations are in question.

In a statement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the plan will “ensure America sets the technological gold standard worldwide, and that the world continues to run on American technology”.

The president is expected to announce a series of executive orders which will outline key parts of the plan around 5pm in New York (21:00 GMT).

“We believe we’re in an AI race … and we want the United States to win that race,” White House AI czar David Sacks told reporters on Wednesday.

The White House says the plan will “counter Chinese influence in international governance bodies” and also will give the US more control over exports of AI technology.

However, the administration did not offer any details on how it plans to do that.

The plan outlined by the Trump administration will also include a framework to analyse models built by China to assess “alignment with Chinese Communist Party talking points and censorship”.

Free speech in the spotlight 

The plan says that it will also uphold free speech in models that will allow systems to be “objective and free from top-down ideological bias” for organisations wanting to do business with the federal government.

A senior White House official said the main target was AI models that consider diversity and inclusion, according to The Wall Street Journal, which, experts say, signals the concern is the government’s perceived liberal bias as opposed to an overall bias.

“The government should not be acting as a Ministry of AI Truth or insisting that AI models hew to its preferred interpretation of reality,” Samir Jain, vice president of policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

“The plan is highly unbalanced, focusing too much on promoting the technology while largely failing to address the ways in which it could potentially harm people.”

Conservatives have long accused AI chatbots of having a liberal bias, comparable to their comments on legacy media for providing critical coverage of the administration. However, it comes as users of GrokAI, former Trump ally and right-wing tycoon Elon Musk’s AI platform, have accused it of having a right-wing lean. Musk’s X AI is part of a $200m package with the Pentagon that has other AI companies, including OpenAI.

Building out data centres

A key focus of the new plan will be to build out new data centers for AI technology as the industry rapidly expands. The administration said that will include streamlining permits for new centre development and the energy production facilities used to power these data centres.

The plan sidesteps environmental concerns that have been a major criticism of the AI industry. AI “challenges America to build vastly greater energy generation than we have today”, the plan said.

AI data centres have been tied to increased power consumption and, in turn, greenhouse gas emissions. According Google’s 2024 sustainability report, there was a 48 percent increase in power greenhouse gas emissions since 2019 which, it says, will only become more prevalent.

“This result was primarily due to increases in data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions. As we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging due to increasing energy demands from the greater intensity of AI compute, and the emissions associated with the expected increases in our technical infrastructure investment,’ the report said.

The streamlining of permits also comes as the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to reverse its scientific determination that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health. That change would remove the legal framework that climate regulations are based on, the Reuters news agency has reported, citing two unnamed sources.

The reversal would remove the “endangerment finding”, making it easier for the EPA to undo legislation limiting greenhouse gas emissions on energy-producing facilities, including those used to power AI data centres.

The administration has created environmental review exceptions for data centre construction and will allow expanding access to federal lands for AI development.

“AI will improve the lives of Americans by complementing their work — not replacing it,” the plan says.

It, however, comes as employers across the country scrap jobs because of AI. Earlier this month, Recruit Holdings, the parent company of Indeed and Glassdoor, cut 1300 jobs which it directly attributed to AI.

In June, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that AI is doing 30 to 50 percent of the company’s workload. In February, the tech giant laid off 1,000 employees.

Analysts say the plan looks promising for investors in the AI sector.

“This is a watershed moment in the AI revolution, and Trump recognises this AI arms race between the US and China. A big step forward,” Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities, told Al Jazeera.

As of 4pm in New York (20:00 GMT), stocks of AI-focused companies had mixed results. NVIDIA was up 2.1 percent; Palantir up 3.6 percent, Oracle up 1.5 percent and Microsoft was up 0.3 percent. On the other hand, Google’s parent company Alphabet was down 0.5 percent.

Details about the agreement, which US President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social, are limited

United States President Donald Trump said he has reached a trade deal with the Philippines, charging it 19 percent tariff rate for goods it exports to the US, while US goods will pay zero tariffs.

The president announced the new agreement on Tuesday on his social media platform Truth Social shortly after his meeting with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr at the White House.

“We concluded our Trade Deal, whereby The Philippines is going OPEN MARKET with the United States,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform after welcoming Marcos to the White House.

The 19 percent tariff rate was just below the 20 percent threatened by Trump earlier this month, but above the 17 percent rate set in April when Trump announced what he called reciprocal tariff rates for dozens of countries. It matches the 19 percent rate announced for Indonesia and bests Vietnam’s slightly higher rate of 20 percent.

The US had a deficit of nearly $5bn with the Philippines last year on bilateral goods trade of $23.5bn.

Marcos, the first Southeast Asian leader to meet Trump in his second term, told reporters at the start of the meeting that the US was his country’s “strongest, closest, most reliable ally”.

Trump said the two Pacific allies would also work together militarily but gave no details.

Philippine Assistant Foreign Secretary Raquel Solano said last week that trade officials have been working with US counterparts seeking to seal a “mutually acceptable and mutually beneficial” deal.

Protesters gathered near the White House as Marcos arrived, demanding the Philippine leader address the pleas of Filipino Americans and migrant workers who have made multiple requests for support amid US immigration raids.

Trump underscored the importance of the US-Philippine military relationship, saying, “They’re a very important nation militarily, and we’ve had some great drills lately.”

Marcos, who arrived in Washington on Sunday, met with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday. During his trip, he will also meet US business leaders investing in the Philippines. Philippine officials say Marcos planned to stress that Manila must become economically stronger if it is to serve as a truly robust partner to the US in the Asia Pacific region.

Looming pressure on China

During the Oval Office event, Trump said he may visit China for a landmark trip “in the not-too-distant future” and noted the Philippines had distanced itself from Beijing after his election last November.

“The country was maybe tilting toward China, but we un-tilted it very, very quickly,” Trump said.

The US president has sought to lower tensions with Beijing in recent weeks after pausing a tit-for-tat tariff war that has upended global trade and supply chains. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday he would meet with Chinese officials in Sweden next week.

No comment was immediately available from Marcos, who did not speak to reporters before leaving the White House grounds.

GM’s profit tumble in second quarter comes a day after Jeep maker Stellantis says it expected a $2.7bn loss in the first six months of the year.

Auto giant General Motors has reported a 35 percent drop in second-quarter profits, including a $1.1bn hit from United States-imposed tariffs but confirmed its full-year forecast.

GM’s results released on Tuesday still topped analyst estimates, but the US carmaker cautioned that profits in the second half of 2025 would be lower than in the first.

The company pointed to sales growth in North America, where new and revamped trucks and sport utility vehicles sold briskly with solid pricing. GM was among the carmakers that benefitted from a surge in demand this spring from consumers who wanted to beat the US tariffs and their higher prices.

Profits overall fell 35.4 percent to $1.9bn year-on-year while revenues dipped 1.8 percent to $47.1bn.

The US imposed 25 percent tariffs on imported finished cars in early April, a move that affected major GM manufacturing operations in Mexico, Canada and South Korea. Car companies have also faced tariffs on imported steel, aluminium and auto parts.

The tariff hit in the second quarter reflected that there were “minimal mitigation offsets”, GM said in a slide presentation.

The Detroit, Michigan-based company’s outlook for a weaker second half of 2025 reflects “seasonally lower” volumes, increased spending on vehicle launches and the presence of two quarters with a tariff hit compared with just one in the first half of the year.

GM expected annual operating income of $10bn to $12.5bn after notching $6.5bn in the first half of the year.

Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson described the hit to profitability in the first quarter as “the peak of the tariff impact for us”, telling CNBC in an interview that mitigation efforts should enable a partial recovery in profit margins later in the year.

Shifting manufacturing

GM expected to mitigate “at least” 30 percent of the tariff hit through “manufacturing adjustments, targeted cost initiatives and consistent pricing”, according to a slide.

Jacobson said it would take 18 to 24 months to implement capital projects to adjust GM’s manufacturing footprint.

In June, GM announced spending of $4bn over two years to expand production at plants in Michigan, Kansas and Tennessee, making use of unused capacity in its home market as President Donald Trump’s tariffs penalise imports of finished vehicles.

The June announcement included steps to produce the Chevrolet Equinox and Chevrolet Blazer in the US. The two vehicles are currently assembled in Mexico.

GM has so far not shifted manufacturing from South Korea, home to production for the Chevrolet Trax, a popular compact SUV that is priced affordably.

Jacobson told CNBC the Trax has stayed profitable even with the hit from the tariff on imported autos.

“We haven’t made any long-term decisions about Korea yet, mainly because there is a lot of uncertainty about that,” Jacobson said.

Trump has set an August 1 deadline to reach broad trade deals with numerous countries, including South Korea, which faces a 25 percent tariff if there is no deal.

“We’re optimistic that the US and Korea can find common ground,” Jacobson said. “We know the auto industry is important to both sides in those conversations.”

GM’s stock tumbled on the lacklustre earnings report. It is down 6.6 percent for the day as of 11:30am in New York (15:30 GMT).

GM’s newly reported hit comes a day after carmaker Stellantis announced it expected a $2.7bn loss in the first six months of the year because of Trump’s imposed tariffs. Stellantis, the owner of brands including Fiat and Jeep, will disclose its final results for the first half of the year on July 29.

Stellantis stock is down 0.3 percent since the market opened on Tuesday and had increased more than 2.4 percent over the past five days.

Zohran Mamdani campaigned for the Democratic nomination for New York mayor on the promise that he would make the largest city in the United States an affordable one.

The 33-year-old Democratic socialist proposed plans that would transform the city – including a free bus programme and freezing rent increases on rent-stabilised apartments – paid for by a heightened income tax for millionaires and an increase in the corporate tax rate.

Those promises catapulted him to ultimately win the mayoral primary 12 points ahead of his next closest competitor, Andrew Cuomo, who had been endorsed by the likes of former President Bill Clinton.

McKayla Lankau, a 25-year-old tech worker, had canvassed for Mamdani’s campaign. She lives in Bushwick, a Brooklyn neighbourhood which Mamdani won by a 79-point margin, and said housing was among the many economic policies that emboldened her to vote for Mamdani.

“I believe that if people are living a better life in a more affordable community, we all will, and Zohran’s campaign fulfilled that from my perspective,” said Lankau.

As the cost of living rises and US President Donald Trump continues a rightward march as he shapes political discourse, many voters feel Democratic leaders have offered little more than symbolic gestures and strongly worded statements.

Mamdani, a three-term state assembly member, presented something different– a campaign centred around grassroots organising over big donors, detailed policies over vague slogans, and the kind of charisma and gravitas that defined other change candidates like Barack Obama’s successful presidential bid in 2008 or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s surprise win of the House of Representatives in 2018.

Affordability was central to Mamdani’s message – and it resonated. But Mamdani also faces another side of New York – the ultra-wealthy investor class. They are the ones who have made New York City known as the epicentre of global finance and commerce. They are a powerful force to be reckoned with, and they are not happy.

“They are mad that they lost, and they’re used to getting their way. They’re used to setting the rules…. Mamdani ran a transparent, clear campaign and New Yorkers showed up in droves to support it,” political strategist Adin Lenchner of Carroll Street Campaigns told Al Jazeera.

Some investors and lenders are threatening to pull out of deals amid fears of new taxes and regulations. Michael Comparato, a managing director at Benefit Street Partners, said he walked away from a $300m hotel investment in New York. “The financial capital of the world could be in the hands of a socialist. Hard to fathom,” he posted on LinkedIn. Comparato did not respond to requests for comment.

While Democratic socialism – an ideology that believes in shifting power from corporations to workers within the framework of a capitalist democracy – is different from socialism, that sentiment echoed across the city’s financial power players.

Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said he was “gravely concerned” about Mamdani’s rise, warning that the city would become “economically unviable”. He pledged to support a more “centrist” candidate. Pershing Square, his firm, declined to comment.

“The fear isn’t about economics, I think it’s about power,” Lenchner said. “That doesn’t mean the policy is unsound. I think affordability is economic growth.”

Mamdani’s funding proposals are ambitious but not unprecedented. He would raise the city’s corporate tax rate to 11.5 percent – matching New Jersey next door – up from the current corporate tax rate of up to 7.25 percent. Fortune 500 firms like Johnson & Johnson and Prudential Financial base their headquarters in New Jersey despite its higher rate. Mamdani’s campaign estimates this would generate $5bn annually.

Historically, higher rates haven’t driven business away. In the late 1990s, private sector employment grew at an annualised pace of 2.6 percent, while wages and private sector salaries increased by 9.6 percent.

“I think there’s a lot of exaggeration here on the part of the wealthy investor class on how much this is going to economically harm New York,” Daniel Wortel-London, professor of history at Bard College and author of The Menace of Prosperity: New York City and the Struggle for Economic Development, told Al Jazeera.

Mamdani also proposes a new tax of an additional 2 percent on individuals earning more than $1m. That is projected to raise another $4bn annually. Today, earners who make $1m already pay a combined federal, state and local tax burden of about 46 percent (37 percent of that is the federal income tax set by the federal government).

Currently, the marginal local rate for someone making $40,000 (3.82 percent) is nearly identical to a millionaire’s (3.88 percent), due to New York City’s flat local tax structure for anyone making more than $50,000 annually.

Still, Mamdani can’t unilaterally change tax policy. Any adjustments would require approval from Governor Kathy Hochul. Wortel-London says that shared priorities between Mamdani and Hochul – such as expanding childcare – could create opportunities for collaboration, including on free bus service proposals that would also need state buy-in.

The state already raised personal income taxes on millionaires in 2021 under then-Governor Cuomo, pushing rates to 46 percent (when state, local and federal income taxes are combined), the highest in the country.

Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital and a former Trump White House communications director, warned in a podcast with journalist Katty Kay that Mamdani’s platform could accelerate the migration of wealthy residents to states like Florida. Scaramucci did not reply to a request for comment.

To an extent that is true, according to the Citizen Budget Commission, a New York-based nonpartisan think tank. Because of the millionaire migration, the city missed out on $2bn of tax revenue that ended up going elsewhere.

As per the data, the net negative migration for the highest income earners was highest in 2020 and 2021 – when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak and could have been a major contributing factor behind the move, as was the case all over the country with people moving out of cities – and began trending back towards historical rates in 2022.

With the exception of that period, high-income earners did not leave at a significantly higher rate before or after.

However, just because millionaires are moving out doesn’t mean that new ones aren’t moving in. According to a Henley & Partners report, New York has gained more new millionaires than any other city in the world – up 45 percent from 2014 to 2024.

“Most high earners really don’t relocate just to avoid taxes. They certainly don’t really relocate across the country. Most high-earners are staying in the city for prestige or their family or a culture. I think there have been scares before. We’ve seen it when [former Mayor] Bill de Blasio got in. They were also worried about tax hikes, and they didn’t leave in droves,” Wortel-London said.

Rather than courting the ultra-wealthy, Mamdani’s economic pitch is aimed at small businesses, which employ the majority of New Yorkers. He plans to appoint a “Mom-and-Pop Tsar” to cut red tape, streamline permits, reduce fees and fines (including not charging first-time offenders), and increase funding for small business support agencies by 500 percent. His platform promises to cut business fees in half.

How realistic are the plans?

Nowhere is Mamdani’s message more resonant than in housing. As rents skyrocket, nearly half of New Yorkers say they’ve considered leaving the city, according to the think tank, the 5boro Institute.

His campaign promised to freeze rent increases on rent-stabilised units, which account for about 28 percent of New York’s housing stock, which is important to voters like Lankau, who currently lives in one. These are typically buildings built before 1974 with six or more units. While some newer buildings opt in, they do so in exchange for tax breaks.

Under the current law, rent increases are approved annually by the city’s Rent Guidelines Board, an independent panel appointed by the mayor. Mayor Eric Adams, the incumbent, approved a combined 9 percent hike in his first three years in office, followed by another 4.5 percent earlier this month. If elected, Mamdani would appoint new members to this board and seek to reverse course.

But the proposal has drawn criticism. The New York Apartment Association (NYAA) – a pro-landlord group that backed Cuomo – says a freeze could worsen the city’s housing shortage. Landlords, they argue, may choose to leave apartments vacant rather than perform costly repairs that can’t be recouped through rent increases due to a 2019 law. As a result, tens of thousands of rent-stabilised units are currently vacant.

“Freezing rents will just accelerate the distress and physical decline of these buildings,” NYAA CEO Kenny Burgos told Al Jazeera.

Mamdani’s platform doesn’t currently include a proposal to address these vacancies or to cap rent increases on market-rate apartments directly.

But to elevate pressure on the housing market, which does indirectly impact the cost of market-rate apartments, the campaign has proposed building 200,000 new affordable units over 10 years – tripling the city’s current pace. His housing plan also includes overhauling zoning laws, eliminating parking minimums, and supporting mixed-use development.

“I think those two, hand in hand, [freezes on rent-stabilised units and plans to build more housing] would be the kind of holistic programme that would make New York more affordable,” Lenchner said.

It remains unclear whether Mamdani would adopt policies proposed by Brad Lander, the third-place primary finisher who endorsed him. Lander had proposed converting some city-owned golf courses into housing. Lander did not respond to a request for comment.

Mamdani also wants to raise the city’s minimum wage to $30 per hour by 2030 – up from $16.50. A Cornell University study estimates a true living wage in New York would be $28.54, meaning Mamdani’s proposal would exceed that. It would also tie future increases to inflation and productivity metrics.

Even so, the gap between “living” and “comfortable” is wide. A SmartAsset study found that a New Yorker would need to earn $66 per hour to live comfortably. Mamdani hopes to relieve some of that pressure through policies like universal childcare, free bus service and a public grocery store option.

The city-run grocery store plan would start with one location in each borough to address food deserts. Much similar to city-owned hospitals or public housing, it would not replace the private sector but augment it. Regardless, this proposal has sparked backlash from John Catsimatidis, the Republican megadonor and owner of Gristedes, a local grocery store chain. He threatened to close his stores if Mamdani wins.

Catsimatidis, who donated over $500,000 to Republicans this year, according to Federal Election Commission records, did not respond to a request for comment.

Grocery costs remain politically sensitive. The latest Consumer Price Index shows grocery prices are up 2.4 percent over last year.

Mamdani also wants to make city buses permanently free. He championed a successful pilot programme in the State Assembly, which boosted weekday ridership by 30 percent and weekend ridership by 38 percent. Making that permanent would require cooperation from state leaders and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which is state-run, and might require some concessions on his part.

“The kind of momentum and energy behind this campaign makes a powerful case in arguing before Albany to make those kinds of investments, giving him that kind of public mandate to pressure state lawmakers to move this kind of proposal forward,” Lenchner said.

This, however, comes as the MTA is under additional pressure from the federal government. The US Department of Transportation recently threatened to withhold funding over New York’s congestion pricing plan, a toll on cars entering parts of Manhattan during peak hours, designed to fund transit improvements.

The political calculus

Like any mayor, Mamdani wouldn’t govern in a vacuum. He’d have to navigate complex City Council dynamics, work with borough presidents and contend with powerful interest groups.

Democrats have struggled across the country because they have such a broad coalition, suggesting little conviction on policy positions which has turned off their base. Even if Mamdani’s proposals are seen as more “radical”, he enters negotiations with a clear starting point and non-negotiables – something Republicans mastered a decade ago when they embraced it and Democrats still have not figured out, Lenchner suggested.

“It’s hard to think in recent memory of a campaign that spoke with such clarity about its objectives, about its convictions, about its moral clarity, and about its practical policy objectives,” Lenchner added.

To win in November, he’ll need to expand his coalition, particularly among Jewish and Black voters where he underperformed.

In a city still defined by finance, Mamdani will also have to show he can hold Wall Street accountable without alienating it. His campaign appears to be trying. The Partnership for New York City – a business group representing more than 300 top firms – hosted a meeting between Mamdani and executives, at the campaign’s request, which according to reporting from the outlet The City, went well and attendees left feeling that he was “willing to listen” and “find solutions to the city’s challenges that will work for all” but they were sceptical if he was genuine.

Mamdani’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The move gives US Treasury a chance to recommend replacement, at time that US President Donald Trump is reshaping global economy.

Gita Gopinath, the No. 2 official at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will leave her post at the end of August to return to Harvard University, the IMF has said.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva will name a successor to Gopinath in “due course”, the financial institution said in a statement on Monday.

Gopinath joined the fund in 2019 as chief economist, the first woman to serve in that role, and was promoted to first deputy managing director in January 2022.

No comment was immediately available from the United States Department of the Treasury, which manages the dominant US shareholding in the IMF. While European countries have traditionally chosen the IMF’s managing director, the US Treasury has traditionally recommended candidates for the first deputy managing director role.

Gopinath is an Indian-born US citizen.

The timing of the move caught some IMF insiders by surprise, and appears to have been initiated by Gopinath.

Gopinath, who had left Harvard to join the IMF, will return to the university as a professor of economics.

Her departure will offer the US Treasury a chance to recommend a successor at a time when President Donald Trump is seeking to restructure the global economy and end longstanding US trade deficits with high tariffs on imports from nearly all countries.

She will return to a university that has been in the Trump administration’s crosshairs after the school rejected demands to change its governance, hiring and admissions practices.

Georgieva said Gopinath joined the IMF as a highly respected academic and proved to be an “exceptional intellectual leader” during her time, which included the pandemic and global shocks caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Gita steered the Fund’s analytical and policy work with clarity, striving for the highest standards of rigorous analysis at a complex time of high uncertainty and rapidly changing global economic environment,” Georgieva said.

Gopinath has also overseen the fund’s multilateral surveillance and analytical work on fiscal and monetary policy, debt and international trade.

Gopinath said she was grateful for a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to work at the IMF, thanking both Georgieva and the previous IMF chief, Christine Lagarde, who appointed her as chief economist.

“I now return to my roots in academia, where I look forward to continuing to push the research frontier in international finance and macroeconomics to address global challenges, and to training the next generation of economists,” she said in a statement.

The Shadowserver Foundation and Eye Security would not disclose which firms were affected.

A sweeping cyber espionage operation targeting Microsoft server software has compromised about 100 different organisations over the weekend.

Two of the organisations that helped uncover the attack announced their findings on Monday.

On Saturday, Microsoft issued an alert about “active attacks” on self-hosted SharePoint servers, which are widely used by organisations to share documents and collaborate within others. SharePoint instances run off of Microsoft servers were unaffected.

Dubbed a “zero-day” because it leverages a previously undisclosed digital weakness, the hacks allow spies to penetrate vulnerable servers and potentially drop a backdoor to secure continuous access to victim organisations.

Vaisha Bernard, the chief hacker at Eye Security, a Netherlands-based cybersecurity firm which discovered the hacking campaign targeting one of its clients on Friday, said that an internet scan carried out with the Shadowserver Foundation had uncovered nearly 100 victims altogether – and that was before the technique behind the hack was widely known.

“It’s unambiguous,” Bernard said. “Who knows what other adversaries have done since to place other backdoors.”

He declined to identify the affected organisations, saying that the relevant national authorities had been notified.

The Shadowserver Foundation confirmed the 100 figure and said that most of those affected were in the United States and Germany and that the victims included government organisations.

Another researcher said that, so far, the spying appeared to be the work of a single hacker or set of hackers.

“It’s possible that this will quickly change,” said Rafe Pilling, director of threat intelligence at Sophos, a British cybersecurity firm.

A Microsoft spokesperson said in an emailed statement that it had “provided security updates and encourages customers to install them”.

It was not clear who was behind the ongoing hack. The FBI said on Sunday it was aware of the attacks and was working closely with its federal and private-sector partners, but offered no other details. Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre said in a statement that it was aware of “a limited number” of targets in the United Kingdom. A researcher tracking the hacks said that the campaign appeared initially aimed at a narrow set of government-related organisations.

Potential targets

The pool of potential targets remains vast. According to data from Shodan, a search engine that helps to identify internet-linked equipment, more than 8,000 servers online could theoretically have already been compromised by hackers.

Those servers include major industrial firms, banks, auditors, healthcare companies and several US state-level and international government entities.

“The SharePoint incident appears to have created a broad level of compromise across a range of servers globally,” said Daniel Card of British cybersecurity consultancy, PwnDefend.

“Taking an assumed breach approach is wise, and it’s also important to understand that just applying the patch isn’t all that is required here.”

On Wall Street, Microsoft’s stock is about even with the market open as of 3pm in New York (19:00 GMT), up by only 0.06 percent, and has gone up more than 1.5 percent over the last five days of trading.

When United States President Donald Trump unveiled his steep “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries in April, economists issued warnings of catastrophic economic harm.

So far, their fears have not materialised.

The US economy – the single biggest driver of global growth – has defied expectations across numerous metrics, with inflation staying low, employment and consumer spending remaining robust, and the stock market reaching record highs.

Still, even if the limited fallout from Trump’s tariffs has taken some analysts by surprise, economists warn that the US and global economies may just be experiencing the calm before the storm.

Dozens of US trade partners, including close allies such as South Korea and Japan, are facing tariffs of 25 percent to 40 percent unless they seal trade deals with the Trump administration by an August 1 deadline.

“When you start to see tariffs at 20 or more, you reach a point where firms may stop importing altogether,” Joseph Foudy, an economics professor at the New York University Stern School of Business, told Al Jazeera.

“Firms simply postpone major decisions, delay hiring, and economic activity declines,” Foudy added.

“The uncertainty around trade in that sense is as costly as the actual tariff rates.”

Even countries that are able to hammer out a deal in time are likely to face significantly higher duties.

Trump’s preliminary agreements with Vietnam and China, announced in May and early July, respectively, stipulate minimum tariff rates of 20 percent and 30 percent.

On Friday, the Financial Times reported that Trump was pushing for a tariff of 15-20 percent on the European Union, which is the US’s single largest trading partner and is facing a 30 percent duty from August 1, in any deal reached with the bloc.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has warned that Trump’s mooted 30 percent tariff would “disrupt essential transatlantic supply chains, to the detriment of businesses, consumers and patients on both sides of the Atlantic”.

‘Harm growth’

“In my view, the few tariff agreements that have been reached represent nontrivial changes in US trade policy and so will harm growth, so even if much less extreme than threatened, will matter,” Steven Durlauf, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, told Al Jazeera.

Economists widely agree that the impact of tariffs implemented so far has not been fully felt, as many businesses built up their stockpiles of inventories in advance to mitigate rising costs.

Under the existing measures – including a baseline 10 percent duty on nearly all countries, and higher levies on cars and steel – the effective average US tariff rate currently stands at 16.6 percent, with the rate set to rise 20.6 percent from August 1, according to The Budget Lab at Yale Department of Economics.

Even if Trump does not sharply hike tariffs on August 1, economists expect inflation to rise at least somewhat in the coming months, with higher prices in turn likely to drag on growth.

In an analysis published last month, BBVA Research estimated that even the current level of US tariffs could reduce global gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.5 of a percentage point in the short term, and by more than 2 percentage points over the medium term.

“It is too soon to expect big effects on prices in the US, as there was a large increase in exports to the US in anticipation of higher tariffs, and firms are waiting to see where things will end up in terms of tariffs that affect them. So, not surprising, we have seen limited effects so far,” Bernard Hoekman, director of Global Economics at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, told Al Jazeera.

“But if the US does what it has indicated it wants to do – raise average tariffs to the 20-30 percent level – there will be a much larger impact.”

Trump and his allies have repeatedly dismissed economists’ warnings about his tariffs, pointing to the steady stream of positive data to make the case that the economic consensus is flawed.

“The Fake News and the so-called ‘Experts’ were wrong again,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in response to a recent report from his Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) that found prices of imported goods fell by 0.1 percent from December to May.

“Tariffs are making our Country ‘BOOM.’”

The CEA report’s methodology drew criticism from some economic analysts, with the National Taxpayers Union saying it failed to take account of stockpiling by importers and covered a period that was “way too short to draw any definitive conclusions”.

Despite the strong headline figures on the US economy, economists have also pointed to warning signs in the data.

In a note last week, Wells Fargo economists Tim Quinlan and Shannon Grein pointed out that discretionary spending on services in the US fell 0.3 percent in the year up to May, indicating potential economic storm clouds ahead.

“That is admittedly a modest decline, but what makes it scary is that in 60+ years, this measure has only declined either during or immediately after recessions,” Quinlan and Grein said.

Durlauf, the University of Chicago professor, said the Trump administration had little cause to see the relative health of the economy up until now as a vindication of its economic plans.

“First, there is widespread belief that tariff threats will not be realised in actual agreements. Second, the effects of tariffs on prices and output take some time to work through the system,” Durlauf said.

“There is no sense that the absence of large effects on real activity and inflation, so far, in any way vindicate claims of the Trump administration.”

Seoul, South Korea – When Sideny Sim had a chance to visit the United States on business several years ago, it was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream.

Like many South Koreans, Sim had long admired the US as a cultural juggernaut and positive force in the world.

These days, Sim, a 38-year-old engineer living near Seoul, feels no such love towards the country.

As US President Donald Trump threatens to impose a 25 percent tariff on South Korea from August 1, Sim cannot help but feel betrayed.

“If they used to be a country that was known to be a leader in culture, the economy and the perception of being ‘good,’ I feel like the US is now a threat to geopolitical balance,” Sim told Al Jazeera.

South Korea and the US share deep and enduring ties.

South Korea is one of Washington’s closest allies in Asia, hosting about 28,000 US troops as a bulwark against North Korea.

The US is home to a larger South Korean diaspora than any other country.

But with the return of Trump’s “America First” agenda to Washington, DC, those ties are coming under strain.

In a Pew Research Center survey released earlier this month, 61 percent of South Koreans expressed a favourable view of the US, down from 77 percent in 2024.

Like dozens of other US trading partners, South Korea is facing severe economic disruption if it cannot reach a trade deal with the Trump administration by the August deadline.

The Asian country, which is a major producer of electronics, ships and cars, generates more than 40 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) from exports.

In addition to sending a letter to South Korean President Lee Jae-Myung outlining his tariff threats, Trump earlier this month also claimed that Seoul pays “very little” to support the presence of US Forces Korea (USFK).

Trump’s comments reinforced speculation that he could demand that the South Korean government increase its national defence spending or contributions to the costs of the USFK.

After Trump last week told reporters that South Korea “wants to make a deal right now,” Seoul’s top trade envoy said that an “in-principle” agreement was possible by the deadline.

With the clock ticking on a deal, the uncertainty created by Trump’s trade policies has stirred resentment among many South Koreans.

Kim Hyunju, a customer service agent working in Seoul, said that although her company would not be directly affected by the tariffs, Trump’s trade salvoes did not seem fair.

“It would only be fair if they are OK with us raising our tariffs to the same level as well,” Kim told Al Jazeera, adding that the Trump administration’s actions had caused her to feel animosity towards the US.

“I can’t help but see the US as a powerful nation which fulfils its interests with money and sheer power plays,” Kim said.

“I’ve always thought of the US as a friendly ally that is special to us, especially in terms of national defence. I know it is good for us to maintain this friendly status, but I sort of lost faith when Trump also demanded a larger amount of money for the US military presence in our country.”

Kim Chang-chul, an investment strategist in Seoul, expressed a more sanguine view of Trump’s trade policies, even while acknowledging the harm they could do to South Korean businesses.

“The US tariff policy is a burden for our government and businesses, but the move really shows the depth of US decision-making and strategy,” Kim told Al Jazeera.

“Trump wants South Korea to be more involved in the US’s energy ambitions in Alaska. It’s part of the US pushing for geopolitical realignment and economic rebalancing.”

Earlier this year, the US held talks with South Korean officials about boosting US exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to South Korea, a major LNG importer.

Keum Hye-yoon, a researcher at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP), said it has been difficult for a US ally like South Korea to make sense of Trump’s comments and actions.

“When Trump cites ‘fairness’ in his tariff policy, it’s based on unilateral expectations of improving the US trade balance or restoring economic strength to certain industries,” Keum told Al Jazeera.

“As allies like South Korea share supply chains with the US and work closely with its companies, disregarding these structures and imposing high taxes will likely create burdens on US businesses and consumers as well.”

While Trump’s most severe tariffs have yet to come into effect, South Korean manufacturers have already reported some disruption.

South Korea’s exports dropped 2.2 percent in the first 20 days of July compared with a year earlier, according to preliminary data released by Korea Customs Service on Monday.

Kim Sung-hyeok, the head of research at the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) Labour Institute, said exporters in the auto, steel, semiconductor and pharmaceutical sectors had been especially affected.

“As exports in these fields decreased considerably since the tariff announcements, production orders in domestic factories have declined,” Kim told Al Jazeera.

“Some automotive and steel production lines have closed temporarily, while other manufacturing sites have closed altogether. Voluntary resignations and redeployments have become rampant in some of these workplaces.”

Kim said small companies may face the brunt of the tariffs as they are not capable of “moving their manufacturing plants to the US”, or “diversifying their trade avenues outside of the US”.

“And as major companies face a general decline in exports, these small companies will consequently face a shortage in product delivery volume that will cause employment disputes,” he said.

The Korea Development Institute estimated in May that the number of employed South Koreans would increase by just 90,000 this year, in part due to the economic uncertainties, compared with a rise of 160,000 last year.

Even before Trump’s arrival on the political scene, US-South Korea relations had gone through difficult periods in the past.

In 2002, two South Korean middle-school girls were killed when they were struck by a US Army armoured vehicle.

After the American soldiers involved in the incident were found not guilty of negligent homicide by a US military court, the country saw an explosion in anti-US sentiment and nationwide protests.

In 2008, nationwide protests took place after the South Korean government decided to continue importing US beef despite concerns about the risk of Mad Cow Disease.

More recently, President Lee, who was elected in June, has emphasised the importance of maintaining positive relations with China, Washington’s biggest strategic rival and competitor.

The KIEP’s Keum said the US-South Korea relationship has evolved into a partnership where the US has become a “conditional ally”, where “economic interests take precedence over traditional alliance”.

“The US is increasingly demanding South Korea to cooperate in its containment strategy of China among its other socioeconomic policies,” she said.

Keum said that South Korea will need to seek out alternative markets and diversify its exports to mitigate the fallout of Trump’s agenda.

“South Korea also doesn’t need to act alone. The country can seek joint action with countries such as EU members, Japan and Canada to come up with joint responses to the current predicament,” she said.

White House features crypto industry leaders investigated by the government, as critics highlight Trump’s personal business interests.

Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump has signed into law new cryptocurrency legislation that advocates say represents a watershed moment for the industry.

Speaking from the White House on Friday, the US president hailed the GENIUS Act, which establishes regulations and consumer protections for stablecoin, a type of cryptocurrency whose value is linked to a fixed currency or commodity.

The signing capped what Trump dubbed “crypto week”, as a total of three cryptocurrency bills made their way through the US legislature.

In the end, only the legislation related to stablecoin landed on Trump’s desk

Two other bills — one that would bar government-issued digital currencies and another that would more clearly define regulatory classifications for cryptocurrency products — were sent from the US House of Representatives on Thursday to the Senate, where they have yet to undergo a vote.

Still, Trump hailed Friday’s bill-signing ceremony as “a giant step to cement the American dominance of global finance and crypto technology”.

Industry advocates have said bills like the GENIUS Act will help to make cryptocurrency more mainstream in the US. They say a lack of regulatory clarity has hindered wider public adoption of digital currencies.

But critics have voiced concern about the Trump family’s close ties to the crypto industry, including its stake in World Liberty Financial, a company that launched its own stablecoin, USD1.

They highlight the fact that the recent flurry of Republican-led legislation does not address whether a president can hold interests in cryptocurrency, leaving an opening for corruption.

Democrats also criticised the GENIUS Act for creating an inadequate regulatory framework that could pose longterm financial risks and open the door for major corporations to issue their own private cryptocurrencies.

Still, speaking on Friday, Trump pledged to continue his embrace of the crypto industry, including by furthering his pitch to create a national “crypto reserve”.

Trump also framed his administration as a hard pivot away from the policies of former President Joe Biden, who took a more aggressive approach to investigating cryptocurrency-related crimes.

Since taking office for a second term in January, Trump ended several Biden-era cryptocurrency investigations and suspended a special Department of Justice enforcement team.

Some of the cryptocurrency leaders previously investigated by the US government were in the audience at the White House.

“You’ve come a long way since the Biden administration, when they had no idea what you were all talking about, and half of you were under arrest for no reason whatsoever,” Trump told them at the signing ceremony.

He addressed certain industry leaders by name, including Brian Armstrong, Chris Pavlovski and twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, all of whom faced probes from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigations under Biden.

“Let me say the entire crypto community, for years you were mocked and dismissed and counted out,” Trump said.

“You were counted out as little as a year and a half ago, but this signing is a massive validation.”

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is going off air in May 2026, a decision hailed by United States President Stephen Colbert, a frequent target of the comedian.

The announcement by CBS on Thursday that it will cancel the show comes against the backdrop of a looming merger between its parent company Paramount with Skydance Media.

It also comes only days after the comedian called out Paramount for its $16m settlement with Trump. Trump, in a lawsuit, had alleged that 60 Minutes, the flagship news magazine at CBS, doctored an interview during the 2024 presidential campaign with his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris.

Colbert, a longtime critic of the president, called the network’s decision to settle “a big fat bribe” because of the pending merger, which needs approval from the Department of Justice and is valued at $8bn.

“I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired,” the president wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

“His talent was even less than his ratings,” he added, before going after Colbert’s other two rivals, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, saying that they are next, without evidence.

Contrary to the president’s claims, Colbert is performing well — his is the highest rated show in late night television — averaging 2.42 million viewers in the second quarter of 2025.

The cancellation also ended the tenure of the long-running late-night franchise, replacing the Pat Sajak show in 1993, and was first hosted by David Letterman.

Financial pressures

“This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,” CBS said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

CBS previously cancelled another late-night show, After Midnight, hosted by comedian Taylor Tomlinson, after a two-year run.

Experts believe there is merit to that argument.

“The reality is the business of late night is not going anywhere that justifies the enormous salaries that this talent is paid and the costs that these productions have. Ultimately, if you’re producing late night, it is mostly going to be consumed on YouTube,” Andrew Rosen, founder of the media strategy firm Parqor, told Al Jazeera.

The show reportedly costs $100m to produce annually and loses about $40m in revenue, according to reporting from the outlet Puck.

“They’ve [CBS] just maxed out the model for as long as they can and for a variety of reasons that I think probably have more to do with the economics of the merger with Skydance than they do with Trump,” Rosen added, referring to Paramount’s efforts to cut costs as it focuses to merge with Skydance.

On Wall Street, Paramount’s stock is up 0.2 percent as of 1pm in New York (17:00 GMT).

Political timing

The announcement of the cancellation of the show comes as the Department of Justice considers the merger. Economics apart, the move is also being seen as political in nature.

“The timing of it raises a lot of questions. To me, it is the politics of it, especially for broadcast legacy media,” Rodney Benson, professor, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, told Al Jazeera.

The Trump White House has gone after news organisations and their parent media companies for what the administration says is coverage that is partisan in nature, including the $16m lawsuit that Paramount settled with Trump. In December, Disney-owned ABC News settled a defamation suit with a $15m donation to Trump’s library and issued a public apology over inaccurate on-air comments. There have also been cuts to public media and use of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to threaten the future of their broadcasting licenses.

“Broadcast networks are regulated by the FCC. They have to have their licences renewed, and they can be, the government can go after them for what they define as news distortion. They’ve already raised that,” Benson added.

Democrats have called out the network for the cancellation of the show and alleged political reasoning.

“CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump — a deal that looks like bribery,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said on social media platform X formerly known as Twitter.

“Long-term financial trends could underlie this, but the timing suggests that if it was just financial, then they would have wanted to wait a bit, the optics are just horrible, so there must have been some pressure,” Benson added.

Skydance, the company set to acquire Paramount, is led by David Ellison, who is the son of Larry Ellison, the Oracle CEO and a close Trump ally.

In April, David Ellison attended a UFC fight with the president alongside former confidante Elon Musk, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy and Ted Cruz, among others.

Skydance is also reportedly in talks to acquire The Free Press, an outlet that has been seen as right-wing and friendly to the president. In the last few days, it has published pieces called “Happy Independence Day, NPR” when US Congress voted to scrap public media funding and accusing NPR of liberal bias; and another “The Epstein Files Are Just a Sideshow” as the president rails against releasing files related to deceased sex offender Jeffery Epstein, who Trump has been pictured with.

Indian tax authorities and market regulator are considering widening their probe of United States trading giant Jane Street Group to investigate it for tax evasion in addition to an earlier charge of price rigging in the Bombay Stock Exchange’s benchmark Sensex, according to media reports.

The tax evasion charge comes on the heels of market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), seizing 48.43 billion rupees ($570m) and banning four Jane Street-related entities from operating in the market for alleged price manipulation in the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

SEBI’s order has roiled the Indian markets, raising questions about regulator surveillance and investor protection in the world’s largest options trading market. Trading in India’s weekly equity index options has slumped by a third on the ban on Jane Street, the Reuters news agency reported on Thursday.

Trading of equity options lets investors buy or sell a stock at a predetermined price and date. As the Indian market rapidly grew to handle more than half of all global options trades, retail investors entered the market too.

Questions of price manipulation have dogged this rapid rise but remained vacuous until a New York court case in April 2024, where Jane Street alleged that its rival, Millennium Partners, had stolen its algorithms that helped it make in the Indian options market. A whistleblower, Mayank Bansal, then made presentations to SEBI showing Jane Street’s trading patterns. Bansal had agreed to speak to Al Jazeera about his interaction with SEBI on the matter, but then backtracked.

On July 3, in a detailed interim order, the regulator said that “by preponderance of probability, there is no economic rationale that can account for this sudden burst of large and aggressive activity … other than the intent to manipulate the price of securities and index benchmark”.

SEBI has alleged that Jane Street accumulated large long positions in stocks that are a part of the NSE’s Bank Index and built large short positions in index options at the start of trade. Around market closing time, it would reverse its trades in the cash and futures segments, pushing down the index and earning large profits in the options segment.

This activity was blurred by its offshore entities making some of these trades.

“Lawyers [can] push back with SEBI on jurisdiction-related issues, but when underlying [Indian] securities are issued, SEBI can take action,” Joby Mathew, managing partner at the law firm Joby Mathew and Associates and a former legal officer at SEBI, told Al Jazeera.

Jane Street has disputed SEBI’s findings and has hired lawyers to represent it before SEBI in the case. It has deposited the 48.43 billion rupees ($563m) of allegedly ill-gotten gains in an account pending the investigation and final report.

“Such processes typically take eight to 24 months,” especially in “complex manipulation cases”, Sumit Agarwal, a former SEBI officer and cofounder of Regstreet Law Advisors, told Al Jazeera in an emailed response.

But the investigation can only be part of a broader questioning of Jane Street and the regulator’s role in identifying and curbing such trades sooner and protecting retail investors.

‘Highly speculative and volatile’

As India’s options market grew, retail investors were drawn to it, enticed by the growing volumes, the prospect of quick gains and less fettered trades than the equities market, where a rapidly rising stock could hit circuit breakers, leading to a halt in trading to prevent manipulation.

Mathew says his clients from the options trading segment range from students to award-winning cardiologists who may not have a refined knowledge of the market but were sold on the idea by traders or social media influencers. Most ended up losing money.

Deven Choksey, managing director at the Mumbai-based stock brokerage KR Choksey Shares and Securities, says retail investors form nearly half the Indian options market, while Jane Street and other sophisticated institutions form a little more. “It’s like a bullock cart facing a race car. Their meeting is bound to cause accidents.”

If Jane Street is found to have manipulated the market, its earnings would have come through losses for retail investors.

Bhargavi Zaveri, a financial regulations researcher formerly at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy and currently a doctoral researcher at the National University of Singapore, says retail investors have made losses in the options segment, but the total amount is not clear.

Identifying and compensating investors can be hard in such cases. So even if the final order goes against Jane Street and the 48.43 billion rupees fine goes into an investor protection fund, it may be hard to distribute it onwards to retail investors who incurred losses. The best protection may be to stem irregular trades early, experts say.

“SEBI has a surveillance system and they can well monitor the markets in a timely way.,” says Choksey.

SEBI’s interim order is based on trades made by Jane Street between January 1, 2023 and March 31, 2025, a period in which retail investors may have incurred substantial losses, going by SEBI’s estimates.

Regstreet’s Agarwal says, “SEBI’s own 2024 consultations flagged expiry day options as highly speculative and volatile.”

India has fortnightly expiry dates for options, which is when they have to be settled. That is when Jane Street allegedly manipulated prices.

In a February 6 letter, SEBI told Jane Street, “The above trading activity prima facie appears to be fraudulent and manipulative.” But it did not issue its order curbing Jane Street until July 3.

SEBI’s recent measures limiting weekly expiries, tightening spreads and higher margins “reflect a push for greater protection” for retail investors, Agarwal says.

But the best way to protect retail investors would be to have them trade separately from proprietary trading firms in the options segment, Choksey points out.

“India is unique … and in no market will you see so many retail investors. So, SEBI must create product differentiation by customer segment.” to protect retail investors Chiksey says.

Challenges in proving manipulation

In an internal email, Jane Street reportedly told employees it was using “basic index arbitrage trading” and called SEBI’s allegations “extremely inflammatory”. It has hired Mumbai-based law firm, Khaitan and Co, to represent it before SEBI.

Proving price manipulation involves showing intent, which can be hard, and experts are divided on whether a SEBI investigation will be able to demonstrate that. “Trading to incur losses makes no sense, and so it indicates manipulation,” says Mathew, the former legal officer.

But NUS’s Zaveri says it is not so clear. “I think three problems are being conflated here. One, the size of the options segment being manifold the underlying cash segment. Two, that retail investors have made losses on the options segment, which I’m not sure have been quantified. Three, Jane Street arbitraged between an illiquid cash and highly liquid options segment.”

According to her, the three occurrences may not prove the intent to manipulate.

Under Indian law, proving manipulation is challenging and “Jane Street can argue its expiry day trades were legitimate index arbitrage recognised by regulators, making a manipulation finding difficult without clear intent evidence,” Regstreet’s Agarwal says.

Any action by SEBI could affect Jane Street’s reputation. Last month, an investigation by Bloomberg found that Jane Street cofounder Robert Granieri was duped into funding weapons for an attempted coup to overthrow the government in South Sudan.

If SEBI’s final order lays out any action against Jane Street, “they may well have to disclose it in their filings, which will affect them elsewhere in the world”, says Mathew.

Medan, Indonesia – After graduating from university with a law degree two years ago, Andreas Hutapea assumed he would not have much difficulty finding a stable career.

In reality, Hutapea found himself facing one rejection after another.

Hutapea first failed to make it through Indonesia’s notoriously difficult civil service exams, which lead to a job for only about 3 percent of applicants, and was similarly unsuccessful in his bid to become a trainee prosecutor.

Before law school, Hutapea had dreamed of joining the army, but he could not meet the height requirement.

Eventually, with his money running out, Hutapea left the student accommodation he was renting to move back in with his parents, who run a simple shop selling oil, eggs, rice and other groceries.

Hutapea has been working at his parents’ shop, in a town on the outskirts of Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, ever since.

“I open the shop for them in the morning, sit there throughout the day serving customers and then help close at night,” Hutapea, who graduated from high school in 2020, told Al Jazeera.

“My parents don’t pay me a wage for my work, but I can’t blame them for that. They are giving me free food and lodging.”

Hutapea is far from alone in his struggles to find stable, well-paying work.

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in Asia.

About 16 percent of the more than 44 million Indonesians aged 15-24 are out of work, according to government statistics – more than double the youth unemployment rate of neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam.

In a survey published by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore in January, young Indonesians expressed far more pessimistic attitudes about the economy and the government than their peers in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Only about 58 percent of Indonesian youth said they were optimistic about the government’s economic plans, according to the survey, compared with an average of 75 percent across the six countries.

In February, some of this angst spilled onto the streets when university students formed the Indonesia Gelap, or Dark Indonesia, movement to protest government plans to trim spending on public services.

Economists point to a range of factors for the high rate of jobless youth in Southeast Asia’s largest economy, from rigid labour laws that make hiring difficult to poor wages that fail to attract capable workers.

“Many people choose to be outside the labour market rather than having to work for a salary below expectations,” Adinova Fauri, an economist at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Indonesia, in Jakarta, told Al Jazeera.

“Good jobs are also not widely available, so people turn to the informal sector, which has lower productivity and protection.”

Indonesia, which is home to more than 280 million people, has long struggled with chronic youth unemployment.

While still high compared with the rest of the region, governments have, through the years, made some progress in getting more young people into work – as recently as a decade ago, one-quarter of young Indonesians were estimated to be without a job.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, a retired army general who oversaw crackdowns on the 1998 student protests that precipitated the fall of former President Soeharto, has acknowledged the need to create more jobs, establishing task forces to tackle unemployment and negotiate on trade with United States President Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, Prabowo hailed the beginning of “a new era of mutual benefit” for Indonesia and the US, after Trump announced a deal to lower tariffs on Indonesian goods from 32 to 19 percent.

Though older adults are less at risk of being unemployed – Indonesia’s overall jobless rate is about 5 percent – much of the work that is available is unstable and poorly compensated.

About 56 percent of the Indonesian workforce is employed in the informal sector, according to 2024 figures from the Bureau of Statistics, leaving millions in vulnerable conditions and without social security protections.

“The decline in the open unemployment rate does not necessarily reflect good performance in the labour market,” Deniey Adi Purwanto, a lecturer at the Department of Economics at IPB University in Bogor, told Al Jazeera.

“The quality of jobs and informal employment are still major problems.”

But for young people, the mismatch between the number of job seekers and jobs is particularly severe.

“Firstly, graduates of secondary and tertiary education do not always match the needs of the labour market, and there is also a high proportion of informality,” Purwanto said.

“Indonesia has a very large number of young people, so the pressure on the labour market is much higher.

“We also have rapidly increasing levels of secondary and higher education,” he added.

“Many young college graduates avoid informal or low-paid jobs, so they choose to wait for suitable jobs, which leads to unemployment.”

Purwanto said there was also a lack of effective vocational training and apprenticeship programmes in Indonesia, compared with neighbours such as Vietnam or Malaysia.

“In Malaysia, for example, there are more industry-university linkage schemes and graduate employability programmes,” he said.

Stark regional disparities in Indonesia, which is made up of some 17,000 islands, compound the problem, with young people in remote and rural areas finding it especially difficult to access good jobs.

This is particularly true in areas outside the island of Java, which is home to the capital Jakarta and more than half of Indonesia’s population.

Hutapea experienced this firsthand when he moved back with his parents, who live about two hours out of Medan.

Despite having a law degree, Hutapea, who is desperate to no longer work in his parents’ shop, has found job opportunities thin on the ground.

Hutapea, who also has a side gig setting up sound systems for weddings and parties, recently attended an interview for a job replenishing banknotes in ATMs.

But even though he thought the interview went well, he never heard back from the recruiter.

For Hutapea, who completed some of his law school modules during the summer holidays so he could graduate a year early, it is hard not to feel like his efforts have not been in vain.

“I didn’t want to be a burden to my parents, who were paying all my university fees,” Hutapea said.

“But look at me now.”

Advocates hope House bills will bring decentralised currency into US mainstream as Trump pushes ‘crypto week’.

The United States House of Representatives has passed three bills related to cryptocurrency, sending one directly to US President Donald Trump and the other two to the US Senate.

The votes by the Republican-controlled chamber come amid a wider push by the Trump administration to make the US the “crypto capital of the world”, in what the president has dubbed “crypto week”.

Trump and his family’s emphasis on the largely unregulated crypto industry has also raised concerns it could be used to mask corruption and foreign influence.

The bill that will go directly to Trump is called the GENIUS Act. It sets initial guardrails and consumer protections for a cryptocurrency known as stablecoins, which are tied to “stable” assets like the US dollar to reduce their volatility.

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said during debate on Thursday that the bill will “ensure American competitiveness and strong guardrails for our consumers”.

“Around the world, payment systems are undergoing a revolution,” he said.

The legislation passed in the Senate and by a 308-122 vote in the House. It garnered bipartisan support in both chambers.

A second bill would create a new market structure for cryptocurrency. It passed by a slimmer margin of 294-134 and will need to go to the Senate, where lawmakers could craft a new version.

That legislation aims to provide clarity for how digital assets are regulated, mostly by defining what forms of cryptocurrency should be treated as commodities regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and which are securities policed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Commodities are typically considered goods that can be traded or sold, while securities, like stocks and bonds, typically refer to partial ownership of an asset.

A third bill, passed by a narrower 219-210 margin, would prohibit the US from offering what’s known as a “central bank digital currency”, essentially a government-issued form of digital cash. It will also head to the Senate.

Trump’s crypto interests

Cryptocurrencies, which are unmoored from any central government authority, have exploded in popularity since first emerging in 2009.

But experts have said US operations have been curtailed by unclear laws governing the industry. Advocates have said the bills passed on Thursday could help to hearken in more mainstream adoption.

Still, Democrats critical of the GENIUS bill accused Republicans of fast-tracking the passage, while failing to address Trump and future presidents’ interests in cryptocurrency.

For example, a provision in the bill bans members of Congress and their families from profiting off stablecoins. That prohibition does not extend to the president and his family.

Trump’s family holds a significant stake in World Liberty Financial, a crypto project that launched its own stablecoin, USD1. Trump reported earning $57.35m from token sales at World Liberty Financial in 2024, according to a public financial disclosure released in June.

A meme coin linked to him has also generated an estimated $320m in fees, though the earnings are split among multiple investors.

“No one should be surprised that these same Republicans’ next order of business is to validate, legitimise, and endorse the Trump family’s corruption and efforts to sell the White House to the highest bidder,” Representative Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services panel, said amid the flurry of votes on Thursday.

Since taking office, Trump has also proposed creating a cryptocurrency “national reserve” and has suspended Department of Justice investigations related to cryptocurrency.

Some Democrats also criticised the GENIUS bill for creating what they called an overly weak regulatory framework that could pose longterm financial risks.

They also say the legislation opens the door for major corporations to issue their own private cryptocurrencies.

Brazilian president says that Donald Trump was elected to lead the US, not to be ‘the emperor of the world’.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said that his country will not take instructions from the United States after US President Donald Trump threatened Brazil with 50 percent tariffs and called for an end to the trial of right-wing ally Jair Bolsonaro.

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, President Lula said that the tariffs have no “logic” but that he does not believe there is a “crisis” in relations between the US and his country as of yet.

“For me, it was a surprise, not only the value of that tariff, but also how it was announced, the way it was announced,” Lula said. “We cannot have President Trump forgetting that he was elected to govern the US, not to be the emperor of the world.”

The US president’s heavy-handed approach to economic relations with other countries has chafed foreign leaders such as Lula, who has expressed frustration at what he sees as Trump’s efforts to dictate terms to Brazil on matters of trade and domestic judicial proceedings.

Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil who has close ties with Trump and his family, is currently on trial for alleged efforts to mount a coup and reverse Lula’s victory over him in the 2022 election.

Trump, who also faced legal trouble stemming from his efforts to remain in office after losing an election, has called the trial a “witch hunt” and demanded that it come to an end. He has recently done the same for another right-wing ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“The judiciary branch of power in Brazil is independent. The president of the republic has no influence whatsoever,” Lula said, stating that Bolsonaro “is not being judged personally”, but “being judged by the acts he tried to organise a coup d’etat”.

The US has also warned Brazil that it will be penalised with higher tariffs if it continues its work as a leading member of BRICS, a coalition of developing economies that have sought to promote alternatives to the US-backed global financial system.

Trump has attacked the group for “anti-Western priorities” and threatened higher tariffs for any countries involved with the bloc.

In Latin America, where the US has a long history of heavy-handed involvement in the domestic affairs of various nations, Trump’s threats and blunt use of US economic leverage have sparked anger.

“Brazil is to take care of Brazil and take care of the Brazilian people, and to take not to take care of the interests of the others,” Lula said.

“Brazil will not accept anything imposed on it. We accept negotiation and not imposition.”