Manufacturing

Orders tumble by 3.7 percent after a rise in March when businesses increased purchases in anticipation of tariffs.

Orders from United States factories have tumbled in April after a surge in March when businesses had front-loaded purchases in anticipation of tariffs.

New orders for US manufactured goods dropped by 3.7 percent on a monthly basis, worse than economists had expected, according to Census Bureau data released on Tuesday.

Economists polled by the Reuters news agency expected a 3.1 percent drop. Dow Jones forecast a 3.3 percent drop. On an annual basis, however, factory orders rose by 2 percent.

April’s report is in sharp contrast to the 3.4 percent increase in March, which topped five straight months of increases.

Manufacturing, which accounts for 10.2 percent of the US economy, has been put under pressure by President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs. Trump sees the tariffs as a tool to raise revenue to offset his promised extension of tax cuts and to revive a long-declining industrial base, a feat that economists argued was impossible in the short term because of labour shortages and other structural issues.

Hardest hit sectors

Orders in the transportation sector fell 17.1 percent, led by a sharp drop in the commercial aircraft sector. Aircraft orders fell by 51.5 percent in April. Orders for motor vehicles, parts and trailers dropped 0.7 percent.

Electrical equipment, appliances and component manufacturing fell by 0.3 percent. But manufacturing for computers and other electronic products actually grew by 1 percent.

Machinery orders also rose 0.6 percent. Excluding transportation, which led the surge in March orders, orders fell 0.5 percent, matching March’s decline of non-transportation goods.

The government also reported that orders for nondefence capital goods excluding aircraft, a measure of business spending plans on equipment, decreased 1.5 percent in April rather than 1.3 percent as estimated last month.

Shipments of these so-called core capital goods fell by an unrevised 0.1 percent, or $1.8bn.

An Institute for Supply Management survey showed manufacturing contracted for a third straight month in May and suppliers took the longest time in nearly three years to deliver inputs to factories.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s salvo against Chinese students, promising to “aggressively revoke” their visas, is the latest move in heightening tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

Despite a temporary tariff truce reached between them earlier this month, divisions between Washington and Beijing remain wide, with recent ruptures over higher education, artificial intelligence (AI) chips and rare earth minerals.

Here’s all we know about how relations between China and the United States are worsening despite diplomatic efforts.

What did the US and China agree on tariffs?

A US-China trade spat escalated after Trump’s administration raised tariffs on Chinese goods to 145 percent earlier this year, with cumulative US duties on some Chinese goods reaching a staggering 245 percent. China retaliated with 125 percent tariffs of its own on US goods.

Under an agreement reached on May 12 following two days of trade talks in Geneva, tariffs on both sides were dropped by 115 percentage points for 90 days, during which time negotiators hope to secure a longer-term agreement. For now, the US has maintained a 30 percent tariff on all Chinese goods while Beijing has a 10 percent levy on US products.

In the weeks since the temporary reprieve, however, Washington and Beijing appear to have had only limited discussions.

On Thursday, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that trade talks between the US and China are “a bit stalled”, and may need to be reinvigorated by a call between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

In the meantime, the Trump administration has announced new, strict visa controls on Chinese university students and told US companies to stop selling their advanced chip software used to design semiconductors to Chinese groups.

Why is the US targeting Chinese students?

On Wednesday, Rubio announced that the US will “aggressively revoke” the visas of Chinese students studying in the country. He also pledged to ramp up scrutiny of new visa applicants from China and Hong Kong.

The Trump administration’s decision to carry out deportations and to revoke student visas is part of wide-ranging efforts to fulfil its hardline immigration agenda.

China is the second-largest country of origin for international students in the US, behind India. Chinese students made up roughly a quarter of all foreign students in the US during the 2023-2024 academic year – more than 270,000 in total.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised the decision to revoke visas, saying it “damaged” the rights of Chinese students. “The US has unreasonably cancelled Chinese students’ visas under the pretext of ideology and national rights,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said.

The Trump administration also banned Harvard University from enrolling any foreign students on May 22, accusing the institution of “coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”. That move has since been blocked by a US federal judge.

Still, the largest portion of foreign students at Harvard – almost 1,300 – are Chinese, and many top officials, including the current leader Xi Jinping, have sent their children to the Ivy League school.

How is the US taking aim at Chinese semiconductors?

On May 13, just after the end of trade talks in Geneva, the US Commerce Department issued guidance warning American firms against using Huawei’s Ascend AI semiconductor chips, stating that they “were likely developed or produced in violation of US export controls”. 

The move marked the latest in a series of efforts by the Trump administration to stymie China’s ability to develop cutting-edge AI chips. The tiny semiconductors, which power AI systems, have long been a source of tension between the US and China.

China’s Commerce Ministry spokesperson fired back against the guidance last week, accusing Washington of “undermining” the consensus reached in Geneva and describing the measures as “typical unilateral bullying and protectionism”.

Then, on May 28, the US government ramped up the row by ordering US companies which make software used to design semiconductors to stop selling their goods and services to Chinese groups, The Financial Times reported.

Design automation software makers, including Cadence, Synopsys and Siemens EDA, were told via letters from the US Commerce Department to stop supplying their technology to China.

Why is the US targeting Chinese semiconductors?

The US has been tightening its export controls on semiconductors for more than a decade, contending that China has used US computer chips to improve military hardware and software.

Chinese officials and industry executives deny this and contend that the US is trying to limit China’s economic and technological development.

In his first term as president, Trump banned China’s Huawei from using advanced US circuit boards.

Huawei is seen as a competitor to Nvidia, the US semiconductor giant which produces its own-brand of “Ascend” AI chips. In April, Washington restricted the export of Nvidia’s AI chips to China.

But Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, recently warned that attempts to hamstring China’s AI technology through export controls had largely failed.

How could China be affected by US measures?

The suspension of semiconductor sales will limit supplies for aerospace equipment needed for China’s commercial aircraft, the C919, a signature project in China’s push towards economic and transport self-reliance.

Christopher Johnson, a former CIA China analyst, told The Financial Times that this week’s new export controls underscored the “innate fragility of the tariff truce reached in Geneva”.

“With both sides wanting to retain and continue demonstrating the potency of their respective chokehold capabilities, the risk the ceasefire could unravel even within the 90-day pause is omnipresent,” he added.

Will China ease restrictions on rare earth minerals exports?

US officials had expected the Geneva talks to result in China easing its export restrictions on rare earth elements. So far, there have been few signs of that, however.

Rare earth minerals are a group of precious minerals required to manufacture a wide range of goods in the defence, healthcare and technology sectors.

Rare earth metals, which include scandium and yttrium, are also key for producing components in capacitors – electrical parts which help power AI servers and smartphones.

China processes some 90 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals and instituted export controls in April to counter Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April, triggering alarm among US companies.

Last week, for instance, Ford temporarily closed a factory in Chicago which makes utility vehicles after one of its suppliers ran out of a specialised rare earth magnet.

In most new cars, especially elevate vehicles (cars with robotic technology allowing them to “climb” over obstacles), these high-tech magnets are used in parts which operate brake and steering systems, and power seats and fuel injectors.

The restrictions on the supply of rare earth minerals provide Beijing with a strategic advantage in future negotiations, as it can limit supplies of crucial technologies for US industry.

US electronic design automation software makers were told via letters to stop supplies to China, the FT reported.

United States President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered US firms that offer software used to design semiconductors to stop selling their services to Chinese groups, the Financial Times has reported, citing people familiar with the move.

Electronic design automation software makers, which include Cadence, Synopsys and Siemens EDA, were told via letters from the US Commerce Department to stop supplying their tech, the report, which was published on Wednesday, said.

A spokesperson for the Commerce Department declined to comment on the letters but said it is reviewing exports of strategic significance to China, while noting that, “in some cases, Commerce has suspended existing export licenses or imposed additional license requirements while the review is pending”.

Shares of Cadence, which declined to comment, closed down by 10.7 percent, while shares of Synopsys fell by 9.6 percent.

Synopsys CEO Sassine Ghazi said in a call with analysts that the company had not received a letter, nor had it heard from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry (BIS) and Security, which enforces export controls.

“We are aware of the reporting and speculations, but Synopsys has not received a notice from BIS. So, our guidance that we are reiterating for the full year, reflects our current understanding of BIS export restrictions as well as our expectations for year-over-year decline in China. We have not received a letter,” Ghazi said.

After the market closed, Synopsys reaffirmed its revenue forecast for 2025. Its shares and those of Cadence bounced back 3.5 percent in trading after the close.

Siemens EDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The software of these firms is used to design both high-end processors as well as simpler products.

While the scope of the policy change described in the report was not immediately clear, any move to strip the software makers of their Chinese customers could deal a blow to their bottom line and to their Chinese chip design customers, which heavily rely on top-of-the-line US software.

“They are the true choke point,” said a former Commerce Department official, who added that rules restricting the export of EDA tools to China have been under consideration since the first Trump administration, but were ruled out as too aggressive.

Synopsys relies on China for about 16 percent of its annual revenue, while China accounts for about 12 percent of annual revenue for Cadence.

Synopsys, which partners with chip companies such as Nvidia, Qualcomm and Intel, provides software and hardware used for designing advanced processors.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge suggested the Trump administration was “manufacturing” chaos and said he hoped that “reason can get the better of rhetoric” in a scathing order in a case about government efforts to deport a handful of migrants from various countries to South Sudan.

In the order published Monday evening, Judge Brian Murphy wrote that he had given the Trump administration “remarkable flexibility with minimal oversight” in the case and emphasized the numerous times he attempted to work with the government.

“From the course of conduct, it is hard to come to any conclusion other than that Defendants invite a lack of clarity as a means of evasion,” the Boston-based Murphy wrote in the 17-page order.

Murphy oversees a case in which immigration advocates are attempting to prevent the Trump administration from sending migrants they’re trying to deport from the U.S. to countries that they’re not from without giving them a meaningful chance to protest their removal.

The judge said the men couldn’t advocate for themselves

In a hearing last week called to address reports that eight immigrants had been sent to South Sudan, Murphy said the men hadn’t been able to argue that the deportation could put them in danger.

But instead of ordering the government to return the men to the U.S. for hearings — as the plaintiffs wanted — he gave the government the option of holding the hearings in Djibouti where the plane had flown on its way to South Sudan as long as the men remained in U.S. government custody. Days later, the Trump administration filed another motion saying that Murphy was requiring them to hold “dangerous criminals in a sensitive location.”

But in his order Monday he emphasized repeatedly that it was the government’s “own suggestion” that they be allowed to process the men’s claims while they were still abroad.

“It turns out that having immigration proceedings on another continent is harder and more logistically cumbersome than Defendants anticipated,” Murphy wrote.

The government has argued that the men had a history with the immigration system, giving them prior opportunities to express a fear of being deported to a country outside their homeland. And the Trump administration has said that the men’s home — Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan — would not take them back.

The administration has also repeatedly emphasized the men’s criminal histories in the U.S. and portrayed them as national security threats.

The administration is relying on third countries

The Trump administration has increasingly relied on third countries to take immigrants who cannot be sent to their home countries for various reasons. Some countries simply refuse to take back their citizens being deported while others take back some but not all of their citizens. And some cannot be sent to their home countries because of concerns they’ll be tortured or harmed.

Historically that has meant that immigration enforcement officials have had to release people into the U.S. that it wants to deport but can’t.

But the Trump administration has leaned on other countries to take them. In the Western Hemisphere, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama have all agreed to take some people being removed from the U.S., with El Salvador being the most controversial example because it is holding people deported from the U.S. in a notorious prison.

The Trump administration has said it’s exploring other third countries for deportations.

Murphy said in his order that the eight men were initially told May 19 they’d be going to South Africa and then later that same day were told they were going to South Sudan. He noted that the U.S. government “has issued stark warnings regarding South Sudan.”

He said the men had fewer than 16 hours between being told they were going to be removed and going to the airport “most of which were non-waking hours” and “limited, if any” ability to talk to family or a lawyer. “Given the totality of the circumstances, it is hard to take seriously the idea that Defendants intended these individuals to have any real opportunity to make a valid claim,” the judge wrote.

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

Investors interpreted Trump’s comments to mean Nippon Steel had received his approval for its takeover of US Steel.

United States President Donald Trump has expressed support for Nippon Steel’s $14.9bn bid for US Steel, saying their “planned partnership” would create jobs and help the US economy.

Shares of US Steel soared 21 percent on Friday after Trump’s comments as investors interpreted the president’s post on Truth Social to mean Nippon Steel had received his approval for its long-planned takeover, the last major hurdle for the deal.

“This will be a planned partnership between United States Steel and Nippon Steel, which will create at least 70,000 jobs, and add $14 Billion Dollars to the US Economy,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Friday.

This week, the Reuters news agency reported that Nippon Steel has said if the merger is approved, it would invest $14bn into US Steel’s operations, including up to $4bn in a new steel mill.

Trump added that the bulk of that investment would occur in the next 14 months and said he would hold a rally at US Steel in Pittsburgh next Friday.

Nippon Steel said it applauded Trump’s decision to approve the “partnership”. The White House did not immediately reply to questions about the announcement.

US Steel share price kept rising after hours and reached $54, just shy of Nippon Steel’s $55-per-share offer price made in late 2023. While no details were released, investors expressed confidence that terms will be similar to those agreed in 2023. Investors said that eventually US Steel will no longer be publicly traded and they will receive a cash payout for their shares.

Politically controversial

The deal has been one of the most highly anticipated on Wall Street after it morphed into the political arena with fears that foreign ownership would mean job losses in Pennsylvania, where US Steel is based. It factored into last year’s election that saw Trump return to the White House.

Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick, who also called the deal a “partnership”, on Friday said it was a “huge victory for America and the US Steel Corporation”, that will protect more than 11,000 Pennsylvania jobs and support the creation of at least 14,000 more.

The last pieces of the deal came together surprisingly fast. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), which reviews deals for national security risks, told the White House this week that the security risks can be addressed, Reuters reported, moving the final decision to Trump’s desk.

Following an earlier CFIUS-led review, former President Joe Biden blocked the deal in January on national security grounds.

The companies sued, arguing they did not receive a fair review process. The Biden White House rejected that view.

The companies argued Biden opposed the deal when he was running for re-election to win support from the United Steelworkers union in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The Biden administration had defended the review as essential to protecting security, infrastructure and supply chains.

Trump also initially opposed the deal, arguing the company must be owned and operated in the US.

The United Steelworkers were against the deal as recently as Thursday when they urged Trump to block the deal despite the $14bn investment pledge from Trump.

For investors, including prominent hedge funds, the news spells relief after more than a year of waiting for a resolution. “There were huge high-fives all around today,” one recent investor said, adding, “We understood Donald Trump’s psyche and we played it to our advantage here.”

Investors said Trump appears to have won ground after the pledge for new investments was increased.

“This deal ensures that steelmaking will live on in Pittsburgh for generations,” another investor said.

Days earlier, Novo Nordisk cut its sales and profit forecast for first time since the launch of Wegovy four years ago.

Wegovy-maker Novo Nordisk has pushed out CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen over concerns the company is losing its first-mover advantage in the highly competitive obesity drug market.

Novo Nordisk announced the decision on Friday.

Days earlier, Novo Nordisk cut its sales and profit forecast for the first time since the launch of Wegovy four years ago, though Jorgensen had predicted a return to growth in its biggest market in the second half of this year.

Novo’s chairman, Helge Lund, tried to reassure analysts and investors on a call that the company’s strategy was intact and the plan for executing it had not changed.

He told the Reuters news agency that discussions to replace Jorgensen had occurred over the past few weeks. Novo said earlier that Jorgensen will remain in his role until a successor is found.

Under Jorgensen’s leadership, Novo Nordisk became a world leader in the weight-loss drug market, with skyrocketing sales of its Wegovy and Ozempic treatments.

Analysts and investors were unconvinced of the need to replace him.

“He was leading the company for eight years and was, in my opinion, extremely successful,” Lukas Leu, a portfolio manager at Bellevue Asset Management, told Reuters.

Danske Bank analyst Carsten Lonborg Madsen was similarly caught off guard.

“The way we know Novo Nordisk is that normally you have patience when you’re on the right track, and then you let things move in the right direction once you have the strategy right,” he said.

“It just feels like there’s something that has gone pretty wrong here,” he said on the call.

Novo’s shares have plunged since hitting a record high in June last year as competition, particularly from US rival Eli Lilly, makes inroads into its market share and as its pipeline of new drugs has failed to impress investors.

“The changes are made in light of the recent market challenges Novo Nordisk has been facing, and the development of the company’s share price since mid-2024,” Novo said in its statement.

Shares down

Jorgensen, at 58, has been CEO since 2017. He said in an interview with Danish broadcaster TV2 that he did not see the decision coming, and was only informed very recently.

Booming sales of Wegovy helped make Novo the most valuable listed company in Europe, worth $615bn at its peak in June last year, but its market value has halved to about $310bn.

Novo Nordisk’s share price fell on the news, trading 0.8 percent lower by 14:01 GMT after being 4 percent higher earlier in the day.

The shares are down 32 percent year-to-date and 59 percent from their all-time high.

Eli Lilly has seen US prescriptions for its Zepbound obesity shot surpass Wegovy since mid-March in its biggest market. Eli Lilly shares were up 2.6 percent after the news.

Camilla Sylvest, Novo’s head of commercial strategy and corporate affairs and a consistent presence alongside CEO Jorgensen, stepped down last month without citing a reason.

Former CEO of Novo Nordisk for 16 years and current chair of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Lars Rebien Sorensen, will join the board as an observer with immediate effect with the aim of taking a seat at the next annual general meeting, Novo said.

The company is controlled by the Novo Nordisk Foundation through its investment arm, which owns 77 percent of the voting shares.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — As a trade war sparked by President Trump’s tariffs stokes worry and uncertainty in the global economy, Puerto Rico sees an opportunity.

Government officials in the U.S. territory are jumping on planes to try to persuade international companies to relocate their manufacturing plants to the island, where they would be exempt from tariffs.

Any relocation would be a boost to Puerto Rico’s shaky economy as the government emerges from a historic bankruptcy and continues to struggle with chronic power outages. The island also is bracing for potentially big cuts in federal funding under the Trump administration, with federal funds accounting for more than half of Puerto Rico’s budget.

“The tariff issue is a controversial one, but for Puerto Rico, it’s a great opportunity,” said Gov. Jenniffer González.

Manufacturing remains the island’s biggest industry, representing nearly half of its gross domestic product. But the government wants to recapture Puerto Rico’s heyday, when dozens of big-name companies, especially in the pharmaceutical sector, were based here and kept the economy humming.

So far, officials have identified between 75 and 100 companies that might consider relocating operations to Puerto Rico given the ongoing trade war, said Ella Woger-Nieves, chief executive of Invest Puerto Rico, a public-private partnership that promotes the island as a business and investment destination.

The companies identified work in sectors including aerospace, pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

Officials also have welcomed site selectors to Puerto Rico and organized tours to show them the island’s infrastructure and emphasize that tariffs wouldn’t apply here.

“This is the moment to plant those seeds,” Woger-Nieves said.

She said officials with Invest Puerto Rico and various government agencies are expected to make nearly 20 more trips this year in a bid to attract more manufacturing. The government praised an executive order that Trump signed May 5 that aims to reduce the time it takes to approve construction of pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities in the U.S.

From needlework to chemicals

In the mid-1900s, needlework was one of Puerto Rico’s largest industries, employing about 7,000 workers who labored on handkerchiefs, underwear, bedspreads and other items, according to a 1934 fair competition code signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Manufacturing later shifted to chemicals, clothes and electronics. By the late 1970s, a growing number of pharmaceutical companies began moving their operations to Puerto Rico, lured by a federal tax incentive created in 1976 to help boost the island’s economic growth. However, in 1996, the U.S. government began phasing out the incentive, which had exempted the subsidiaries of U.S. companies operating in Puerto Rico from federal taxes on local profits.

From 1995 to 2005, overall manufacturing employment fell by nearly 30%, but employment in the sectors of pharmaceuticals, medicines and chemicals increased by at least 10%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Puerto Rico continues to lead U.S. exports of pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing, representing nearly 20% of total U.S. exports in 2020, according to the bureau.

In 2024, the island exported nearly $25 billion worth of goods, including $11 billion in vaccines and certain cultures; $7 billion worth of packaged medicaments; $1 billion in hormones; $984 million in orthopedic items; and $625 million worth of medical instruments, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

Sergio Marxuach, policy director and general counsel for the Center for a New Economy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, said the push to attract more companies makes sense, especially recruiting those in the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors.

“If I were advising the government, begin there, because you already have a footprint,” he said.

Marxuach noted that outside of those areas, Puerto Rico could have an advantage when it comes to national defense and security contracts, including the manufacturing of drones or underwater surveillance systems.

“They need a place to manufacture in scale,” he said, adding that doing so in a U.S. jurisdiction is key.

Puerto Rico’s government also is meeting with university officials to potentially change curriculums if needed to ensure students are graduating with the skills required by companies.

The Achilles’ heel

Puerto Rico touts its U.S. jurisdiction, tax incentives and skilled workforce as reasons international companies should relocate to the island.

But it cannot escape its well-known energy problems.

Chronic power outages continue to plague Puerto Rico, with two island-wide blackouts occurring, on Dec. 31 and April 16.

Crews are still repairing the power grid after it was razed by Hurricane Maria in September 2017, a powerful Category 4 storm. But the grid was already fragile from lack of maintenance and investment for decades.

“Puerto Rico needs more reliable energy for the economic growth to improve,” said Robert F. Mujica, executive director of a federal control board that oversees the island’s finances.

Woger-Nieves, of Invest Puerto Rico, said that when officials meet with company leaders, they explain the state of the island’s energy infrastructure and offer alternatives including cogeneration and renewables.

“Power doesn’t have to necessarily be an impediment,” she said.

Marxuach, with the Center for a New Economy, said Puerto Rico’s energy system is costly and inefficient, and he noted that alternatives can be expensive.

“Puerto Rico has to address some issues that actually create additional costs for investors to come here,” he said.

One of those costs is that any goods sent to the U.S. from Puerto Rico must by law be sent aboard a U.S.-flagged vessel with a U.S. crew.

Other challenges remain.

Currently, the short-term reaction of many CEOs and companies “is basically to wait and see” how the tariff war plays out, Marxuach said.

Trump has said that he wants to keep some tariffs in place, but he also has mentioned efforts to reach deals with trading partners. His team said Trump is using “strategic uncertainty” to his advantage.

Another problem is that relocating operations takes years, not months, and foreign competitors also are vying for the attention of international companies.

“We’re competing with Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, that have very advanced manufacturing facilities already,” Marxuach said. “It’s not a slam dunk.”

Coto writes for the Associated Press.

Carrara’s connection to anarchism began nearly 150 years ago, when anarchist ideals found fertile ground among the downtrodden workers in the marble quarries. Led by Alberto Meschi, Carrara’s quarrymen became the first in Italy to win a six-and-a-half-hour workday in the early 20th century. Anarchist circles and collectives emerged in nearly every town and neighbourhood across the Carrara region. In Gragnana, a village in the Apuan Alps, Italy’s oldest anarchist circle, “Errico Malatesta”, founded in 1885, still operates to this day.

“I’m one of those who love this town and want it to thrive,” says Rosmunda, who believes the town has been hard-hit by years of austerity policies, introduced by the government following the global financial crisis of 2008, and underinvestment.

Only a small part of marble-extraction profits now flow back to the municipality, and Carrara and surrounding villages have been left with inadequate social housing, stripped-down health and childcare services and failing public transport.

“It’s hard – there’s no social welfare, public services are falling apart,” Rosmunda says. “The wealth [from marble] stays in very few hands.”

Sculptor Chantal Stropeni adds: “Carrara is a paradox. There’s immense wealth – marble – and yet deep poverty, even among artists. To resist, we’ve formed a collective sculpture studio called Ponte di Ferro. There are 14 of us. We want to approach art differently – collectively. Carrara is a workshop: It’s easy to create here, but incredibly hard to see. The town is falling apart, and maybe that works in its favour: No one pays attention, no one asks questions.”

In the meantime, the mountains are disappearing – at a rate of 4 million to 5 million tonnes per year. The town is growing poorer. Automation has replaced many quarry jobs such as block cutting, drilling, splitting, chiselling and materials removal. Local jobs have dropped from 800 to about 600 in recent years.

But resistance in this region has a long legacy. “We’ve been fighting to reduce the impact of the extractive system – organising events, protests, talks and legal actions – for more than 30 years,” says Paola Antonioli, president of Legambiente Carrara, an Italian environmental nonprofit organisation. “Sure, the road is long. But something is shifting. Collective consciousness is beginning to awaken.”

This took on new strength in 2019 with the formation of Fridays for Future Carrara, which followed the example set by environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg and holds protests on Fridays in the town.

United States President Donald Trump is expected to announce the framework of a trade deal between the US and the United Kingdom on Thursday, according to people familiar with the plan.

On Wednesday, Trump said he was preparing to announce “a major trade deal with representatives of a big and highly respected country”. In a post on Truth Social, he promised it would be the “first of many”.

Investors have been waiting for Trump to ease his global trade war amid fears that prolonged uncertainty over tariffs could inflict serious damage to the world’s biggest economies.

An agreement with the UK would mark Trump’s first trade deal since he imposed tariffs on dozens of countries on April 2, a move he called “liberation day”. Separately, Trump has introduced bespoke tariffs on certain US imports, including cars and steel.

Trump has long accused other countries of exploiting the US on trade, casting his tariffs as necessary to bring jobs back to the US. He also wants to use tariffs to finance future tax cuts.

What could be in a US-UK trade agreement?

At the moment, most imports from the UK to the US face a blanket 10 percent tariff. The UK, like other countries, has also been hit with 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminium exports to the US, as well as a 25 percent tariff on cars and car parts.

The broad outline of a proposed deal has been clear for some time – significant reductions in US tariffs on steel and cars, with an expectation that Trump’s 10 percent general tariff will remain in place.

The UK would then be expected to reduce its own 2 percent digital services tax on US tech firms and its 10 percent tariff on car imports, and varying duties on US agricultural goods.

However, Jonathan Haskel, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, told the BBC: “Deals are limited and short-term and partial, just covering a few items. Trade agreements are broad-based and long-term.”

Today’s announcement, he suggested, is more likely to be a deal and may amount to little more than a carve-out – exemptions on certain trade barriers that Trump introduced last month.

On Thursday morning, however, Trump said the agreement was “a full and comprehensive one that will cement the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom for many years to come”.

While both governments will likely present any agreement announced today as a significant win, it is essentially about returning to the status quo – removing the newly imposed tariff barriers.

It remains to be seen how much any agreement will contribute to both countries’ economic output.

What and how much do the US and UK trade?

In 2023, the UK had an overall trade surplus with the US. The UK reported a surplus of 71.4 billion pounds ($95bn) in goods and services. Most of that headroom came from services, however.

On the goods side, the UK exported 15.3 percent of its goods to the US in 2023 – amounting to roughly 60 billion pounds ($80bn).

Machinery and transport equipment accounted for the largest share, at 27 billion pounds ($36bn), ahead of chemicals at 14 billion pounds ($19bn).

On the flipside, the US exported $77.2bn of goods to the UK in 2023. Ten percent of all goods imported by Great Britain came from the US in that year, second only to Germany.

Machinery and transport equipment accounted for the largest share, worth nearly 20 billion pounds ($27bn), followed by fuel – amounting to 18.7 billion pounds ($25bn).

On the services side, the US exported $76bn in services – things like advertising and banking – to the UK in 2023, and imported $170bn in British services. These are unaffected by tariffs.

Could the US deal serve as a blueprint for other US negotiations?

Trump’s top negotiating officials have engaged in a flurry of meetings with trade partners since the president’s “liberation day” tariff announcement on April 2.

Although Trump delayed implementing “reciprocal” tariffs for most countries by 90 days on April 9, he did raise them for China to 145 percent. Beijing, in turn, slapped a 125 percent tariff on US goods.

The reciprocal tariffs, which varied from 10 percent to 39 percent, were designed to hit countries with which Washington has large trade deficits, or that impose heavy tariffs on US goods.

Though Britain was not among the countries hit with these reciprocal tariffs, today’s announcement could set a precedent for other bilateral trade deals.

On Tuesday, Trump said he would review potential trade agreements over the next two weeks to decide which ones to accept. Last week, he said that “we [already] have potential trade deals” with South Korea and Japan.

Following his 90-day reprieve, steep reciprocal tariffs are due to be imposed on US trade partners in early July, leaving country representatives racing to avoid a full-blown trade spat with the world’s number one economy.

What stage of talks has the US reached with other countries?

China

According to data from the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the total goods trade between the US and China stood at an estimated $582.4bn in 2024.

US exports of goods to China totalled $143.5bn while US imports from China totalled $438.9bn. The upshot is that America’s trade deficit with China was $295.4bn last year, 5.8 percent higher ($16.3bn) than in 2023.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet with China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng in Switzerland this weekend for talks, which may be the first step in resolving a trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Meetings will take place in Geneva, and are expected to address reductions on broad tariffs, duties on specific products, export controls and Trump’s decision to end “de minimis” exemptions on low-value imports.

China’s commerce ministry said last week that it was “evaluating” an offer from Washington. The Geneva meeting will be the first between the two since the announcement of Trump’s trade tariffs in April.

On Tuesday, Bessent told Fox News that “we [the US and China] have a shared interest that isn’t sustainable. And 145 percent and 125 percent is the equivalent of an embargo. We don’t want to decouple. What we want is fair trade.”

Trump has accused China of manipulating its currency to make its exports cheaper. He has also slammed Beijing for adopting what he says are market-interfering practices, such as direct government support for Chinese companies, as well as tax breaks and preferential financing.

European Union

In 2023, the EU exported 502 billion euros worth of goods to the US and imported 344 billion euros of goods from America, amounting to a goods trade surplus in the EU’s favour of 157 billion euros ($177bn).

After Trump temporarily dropped his 20 percent reciprocal tariffs on the EU in April, the EU paused retaliatory duties on 21 billion euros ($24bn) of US goods until July 14, including on Harley-Davidson motorcycles, chicken and clothing.

Since then, Brussels has said it wants to increase US goods imports by 50 billion euros ($57bn) to address the “problem” in their trade relationship.

Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s top negotiator, recently told The Financial Times that the bloc is making “progress” towards striking a deal.

But Sefcovic suggested that the EU would not accept an indefinite 10 percent tariff on its exports as a fair resolution to trade talks. He added that his “ambition” was still to strike a “balanced and fair” deal with the White House.

He also said he wants his US counterparts to take into account US services which are exported to the EU.

The EU experienced a services trade deficit of 109 billion euros ($123bn) with the US in 2023 in terms of services. Brussels exported 319 billion euros ($361bn) in services to the US that year, while importing 427 billion euros ($483bn).

Taking this into account would bring the US overall trade deficit with the EU to about 50 billion euros ($57bn), he said.

The new $57bn US deficit could be closed quickly, Sefcovic added, with deals to purchase more US gas and agricultural products. Talks are currently continuing.

India

In the first three months of 2025, India exported $27.7bn of goods (mainly pharmaceutical and engineering products) to the US, while importing $10.5bn of goods (mainly aircraft and medical goods), meaning a US trade deficit of $17.2bn.

On Tuesday, Trump revealed that India had agreed to drop all tariffs on US imports “to nothing”. New Delhi has not yet issued an official statement confirming Trump’s remarks.

At a White House event alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump said, “India has one of the highest tariffs in the world. We are not going to put up with that. They have agreed to drop it to … nothing. They wouldn’t have done that for anybody else but me.”

According to Bloomberg, India has reportedly proposed eliminating tariffs on select US imports – including steel, car parts and pharmaceuticals – as part of ongoing bilateral trade talks with Washington.

India currently imposes tariffs on US imports ranging from 5 percent to 30 percent, depending on the product category.

A zero-tariff offer would apply on a reciprocal basis and would be limited to a specific volume of goods.

Several global automakers, including Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis, have joined Michigan-based General Motors and Volvo in suspending their respective annual financial guidance reports for investors amid growing tariff uncertainty.

The announcements on Wednesday came even as US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to soften the blow of the auto tariffs that he had imposed earlier this month.

“While we further assess the impact of the tariff policies on our North American operations, we look forward to our continued collaboration with the US administration to strengthen a competitive American auto industry and stimulate exports,” Stellantis board chairman John Elkann said in a statement.

Stellantis said it was “suspending its 2025 financial guidance … due to evolving tariff policies, as well as the difficulty predicting possible impacts on market volumes and the competitive landscape.”

This comes amid layoffs at Stellantis, a carmaker that houses 14 brands including Jeep, RAM Trucks, Dodge, Fiat, and Maserati. In April, it temporarily laid off 900 workers for two weeks and said at the time it was because of uncertainty about how Trump-imposed tariffs would affect its business.

Antonio Filosa, Stellantis’s chief operating officer for the Americas, said in a company-wide email that it would assess the medium- and long-term effects of these tariffs on its operations, but also have “decided to take some immediate actions”.

The company reported a 14-percent drop in its first-quarter sales to $40.7bn (35.8bn euros) in its first-quarter earnings report released on Wednesday.

Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest carmakers, reported big drops in their net profits over the same January-March period, before the US tariffs kicked in.

Mercedes cited “volatility with regard to tariff policies” that meant business development could not be reliably forecast. Mercedes’s net profit plunged almost 43 percent in the first three months of the year to $1.9 bn (1.73 billion euros)

Finance chief Harald Wilhelm said Mercedes still remains in a strong position, thanks to what he said was a strong position in profitable, top-end vehicles.

“This, combined with a healthy balance sheet, provides a solid foundation to navigate our company through a period of geopolitical uncertainties,” he said.

‘Towards the lower end’

About 40 companies worldwide, across industries, have pulled or lowered their forward guidance in the first two weeks of the first-quarter earnings season, an analysis by the news agency Reuters showed. On Tuesday, social media giant Snap declined to offer future guidance, saying it was seeing a slowdown in ad spending and raised doubts about advertising budgets due to tariff impact, sending its stock down 15 percent on Wednesday.

Before the tariffs, European automakers were already facing slowing sales of electric cars and stiff competition from local rivals, as well as from Chinese EVs, for which it is a key market. Volkswagen, a 10-brand group that includes Audi, Skoda and Porsche, said its net profit fell 40.6 percent to $2.49bn (2.19 bn euros).

For the rest of the year, the carmaker said that it expected business “towards the lower end” of its guidance, citing challenges including increased competition, more stringent emissions regulations and trade tensions.

Speaking on a call for analysts and investors, Volkswagen’s finance chief Arno Antlitz said that it was “too early to say” if Volkswagen would step up manufacturing in the US to circumvent any tariffs.

Volkswagen expects a profit margin of 5.5 to 6.5 percent for the coming year, but its guidance does not take into account changeable American tariffs.

“It’s highly difficult to give a projection for the full year,” Antlitz said.

UBS analyst Patrick Hummel wrote in a client note that the German group’s outlook did not “include any impact of US tariffs,” calling it “essentially a withdrawal of guidance”.

In the United Kingdom, luxury carmaker Aston Martin Lagonda announced that it was limiting shipments to the US, but it maintained its annual guidance as it reported a 13-percent drop in first-quarter revenue.

Easing some tariffs

Besides a 25-percent tariff on finished imported cars, the industry has also been affected by Trump’s 25-percent tariff on steel and aluminium.

Carmakers are also set to face new tariffs on foreign auto parts expected to take effect on May 3.

Trump’s new policy means that a company would not face both a 25-percent levy for an imported vehicle and 25-percent on steel or aluminium. The importer would pay the higher of the two levies, but not both, a US Commerce Department official said.

The other change is that companies that import parts for vehicles assembled in the US would be able to offset 3.75 percent of a vehicle’s list price in the first year and 2.5 percent in the second year.

But analysts believe that this reprieve won’t necessarily work in practice as automakers face the effect tariffs will have on their business.

“While this sounds good on paper (less bad then the original auto tariff slate), a US car with all US parts made in the US is a fictional tale not possible today and many factories/production hubs could take 4-5 years to build in the US … and this speaks to the massive frustration from the industry as the rules of the US tariff game are untenable in our view,” Wedbush Securities Dan Ives said in a note on Wednesday.

April 30 (UPI) — British warplanes have attacked Houthi targets in Yemen, joining ally the United States in its airstrikes targeting the Iran-backed militia.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement that the joint operation occurred Tuesday, targeting a cluster of buildings in Yemen identified as having been used by the Houthis to manufacture drones like those the rebels have been using to attack ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The targets were located about 15 miles south of the Houthi-controlled capital of Sanaa.

Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s were used in the strike, along with air refueling support from Voyager tankers. Paveway IV precision-guided bombs were dropped on the buildings, the ministry said, adding that only after “very careful planning had been completed to allow the targets to be prosecuted with minimal risk to civilian or non-military infrastructure.”

“As a further precaution, the strike was conducted after dark, when the likelihood of any civilians being in the area was reduced yet further,” it said. “All our aircraft subsequently returned safely.”

The United States has yet to comment on the operation, but its military has been conducting near-daily attacks against the Houthis since mid-March, when President Donald Trump ordered an expanded campaign against the rebels.

The Trump administration has been seeking — through military strikes and sanctions — to dismantle a military blockade the Houthis erected in mid-November 2023, a month after Israel launched a full-scale war against Hamas, another Iran-proxy militia, in Gaza.

The Houthis have attacked hundreds of ships transiting the important trade route, including U.S. military vessels, claiming they are standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people, tens of thousands of whom have been killed in Israel’s war.

Britain said its Tuesday attack in Yemen aligned with long-standing government policy put in place in response to the Houthis’ blockade.

London and Washington conducted multiple joint attacks in Yemen during the early months of the blockade.

Together with Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain, they launched Operation Prosperity Guardian in December 2023 in response to the Houthi maritime shipping attacks.

April 28 (UPI) — IBM announced Monday it plans to invest at least $150 billion over the next five years in American manufacturing to advance IBM’s mainframe and quantum computer systems.

“We have been focused on American jobs and manufacturing since our founding 114 years ago,” Arvind Krishna, chairman and CEO of International Business Machines Corp., said in a release. “And with this investment and manufacturing commitment, we are ensuring that IBM remains at the epicenter of the world’s most advanced computing and AI capabilities.”

The Poughkeepsie-based company said Monday its investment in the United States will help fuel the economy and accelerate the country’s role as a global computing leader.

IBM reported $14.54 billion last week in better-than-expected revenue in its first quarter above its projected $14.4 billion versus the same quarter last year which saw IBM’s net income narrow to a little more than $1.5 billion.

IBM officials said the company operates the “world’s largest fleet of quantum computer systems,” and will continue to build and assemble on American shores.

Meanwhile, its infrastructure division, which includes IBM’s mainframe computers, managed to to post nearly $2.90 billion in first quarter earnings beating its $2.76 billion mark.

The announcement arrived weeks after President Donald Trump unleashed sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs in a strategy the administration believes will boost U.S. manufacturing.

Trump, however, later exempted chips, computers, smartphone and other tech parts as a coalition of 12 states sued the Trump administration over its “illegal tariffs.”

In 2020, a team of Chinese scientists achieved what was described as “quantum supremacy” when a new type of quantum system was able to best the performance of a supercomputer at one task.

IBM says quantum computing signals “one of the biggest technology platform shifts and economic opportunities in decades,” and that it will “solve problems that today’s conventional computers cannot solve.”

Chipmaker company Nvidia, an IBM competitor, announced this month it would manufacture its new Nvidia AI supercomputer entirely in the United States in a similar push.

Former President Joe Biden in 2022 issued federal directives to “lay the groundwork for continued American leadership” regarding quantum computing.

On Monday, IBM’s CEO wrote that technology “doesn’t just build the future, it defines it.”

The chip is in early development and will undergo a series of tests before it will be deemed ready for customer use.

China’s Huawei Technologies is preparing to test its newest and most powerful artificial intelligence (AI) processor, as it hopes to replace some higher-end products of US chip giant Nvidia, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

Huawei has approached some Chinese tech companies about testing the technical feasibility of the new chip, called the Ascend 910D, the United States newspaper reported Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Chinese company is hoping that the latest iteration of its Ascend AI processors will be more powerful than California-based Nvidia’s H100, and is due to receive the processor’s first batch of samples as early as late May, added the report. Previous versions are called 910B and 910C.

The people interviewed indicate that the chip is in early development and will undergo a series of tests to evaluate its performance and prepare it for customer use.

Reuters news agency reported that Huawei plans to begin mass shipments of its advanced 910C artificial intelligence chip to Chinese customers as early as next month.

Huawei and its Chinese peers have struggled for years to build top-end chips that could compete with Nvidia’s products for training models, a process where data is fed to algorithms to help them learn to make accurate decisions.

Washington has cut China off from Nvidia’s most advanced AI products, including its flagship B200 chip, in the hopes of limiting China’s technological development, particularly advances for its military.

US authorities banned the sale of the H100 chip in 2022 before it was even launched.

Huawei has nonetheless succeeded, despite the US’s lead in the technology sector and its attempts to prevent Chinese development. The Shenzhen-based firm has developed some of the nation’s most promising alternatives to Nvidia’s AI chips, a key part of Beijing’s strategy to cultivate a self-sufficient semiconductor industry.

Despite being on a US trade blacklist for nearly six years, Huawei demonstrated its resilience against US restrictions by launching the high-end Mate 60 smartphone in 2023. Powered by a domestically produced processor, the phone’s introduction during then-Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s visit to Beijing shocked the US government.

Nvidia declined to comment while Huawei did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Canadian voters are going to the polls on Monday amid one of the most dramatic campaign transformations in years.

January polls indicated the Conservatives were headed for a certain victory, but the Liberals have since flipped the race upside down, although the competition has narrowed in recent days. Early voting has shattered records with more than 7.3 million ballots cast.

“It’s pretty clear the Liberals are going to win this now,” said Frank Graves, president and founder of Canadian polling firm EKOS Research. “That would have been utterly unthinkable at the beginning of this year.”

Last fall, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who was seen as a Trump-like figure, tapped into rising populism in response to an affordability crisis and inflation under longtime Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

But the tide turned when Trudeau stepped down earlier this year on January 6, paving the way for new Liberal leadership, and President Donald Trump entered his second term, threatening Canada’s economy with a trade war. Suddenly, Canadians unified around their national identity and against Trumpism.

Populism – the belief that power must be taken back from the corrupt elite and returned to the people – led to the Brexit referendum in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in the US. Graves co-authored a paper that found 34 percent of Canadians have a populist outlook. This election, Graves said, Canadians watched Trump re-enter office and asked themselves, “Do we want to go down this populist path?”

If the Liberals win, it means Canadian voters are standing up to Trump, he said. “It will definitely be a rebuke to Trump, and to the kind of populism that they see on display in his administration.”

How the race changed

A change in US leadership has had a dramatic impact on its neighbour to the north.

At the beginning of the year, Poilievre enjoyed unchallenged popularity. An election would be called sometime in 2025, and it seemed likely that he would face off against Trudeau, who had been in power for nine years and had become deeply unpopular.

Post-pandemic, incumbent leaders in Western democracies faced tough elections due to pandemic restrictions, rising inflation, which had reached as high as 8.1 percent in June 2022, unaffordable housing and political polarisation. Trudeau was no different.

Poilievre was seen as a Trump-like figure in Canada; he had tapped into a “northern populism” that was a smaller share of the electorate than in the US, but still a powerful force, Graves said. Poilievre made Trudeau his punching bag, taking aim at his unpopular policies, like Canada’s carbon tax.

The question of Trudeau’s leadership came to a head when Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland suddenly resigned. In a letter, she wrote that Trudeau was not up to the challenge of the incoming Trump “America First” economic nationalism and high tariffs. Trudeau had no choice but to resign, triggering a leadership race for the Liberals.

In Canada’s political system, Trudeau stepping down meant that the Liberals still held power, but the party had to elect a new leader to run in this year’s election.

While the party held a leadership race, Trump entered office and swiftly declared a 25 percent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico. At the same time, Trump made repeated comments that Canada should become the 51st state.

The Liberals’ leadership race took place within weeks of Trump taking office, and the turn of events helped move the party “beyond the unpopularity of the Trudeau government,” said Lisa Young, a political science professor at the University of Calgary.

With Canada’s sovereignty and economy under attack, the Liberals on March 9 elected Mark Carney, who was perceived to be smart on the economy after previously serving as governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis and governor of the Bank of England during Brexit and the pandemic.

Carney, elected in a landslide, channelled his popularity by calling a snap election for April 28, the shortest election period allowed by law.

Canada faces Trump’s trade war

Trump’s sudden tariffs have plunged Canada’s economy into uncertainty. More than 70 percent of the country’s exports go to the US, including automotive parts, lumber, agricultural products and steel.

“We are very dependent on the US,” said Sylvanus Kwaku Afesorgbor, associate professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario. “There could be a major economic recession in Canada, because our economy depends largely on the US economy.”

In March, the second-largest steel producer in Canada, Algoma Steel, announced layoffs as a direct result of Trump’s tariffs. The steel plant is the main employer in the close-knit city of Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, and the layoffs were felt deeply across the community. The Sault Ste Marie-Algoma district has been held by the Liberals since 2015, but last year, a steelworker dressed down Trudeau during a campaign stop. Since then, both Poilievre and Carney have made campaign stops in the city.

Afesorgbor said voters who are affected by tariffs, like steelworkers, will likely look at which party is offering a better economic cushion in case of job loss. They may ask themselves, “If there is an economic crisis because of the Trump tariffs, who will be in a better position to solve that?” He said it depends on how voters perceive each party leader’s ability to negotiate with Trump.

Afesorgbor said Canadian voters are “very particular” about the economy, and will choose the party they believe can handle a recession and Trump’s trade war. He said voters may perceive Mark Carney as the better candidate because of his record in the banking sector. “That has shifted a lot of support for the Liberals.”

Liberals take the lead

Trump’s policies towards Canada had more than just an economic impact. To many Canadians, it felt like a threat to their national identity.

“[The tariffs were] seen as an ally abandoning Canada, and then you add to it President Trump’s comments about making Canada the 51st state. So that sparked a wave of Canadian nationalism unlike anything that I’ve seen in my lifetime,” Young told Al Jazeera.

The outlook was not so sunny for Poilievre. “That has essentially shifted the terrain politically, because a substantial proportion of the electorate is suspicious of [Poilievre] being too similar to Trump,” she said.

Graves saw a “profound transformation” in the polls. In February, the Liberals and Conservatives were essentially tied, but in early March, the Liberals pulled ahead to a five-year high as Canadians asked, “How do we deal with this existential threat coming from Donald Trump?” Graves said.

The surge in national pride has pushed voters towards Carney, who was seen as a candidate who could steer Canada through the turmoil caused by Trump. “The Liberals became the place for planting our flag and saying, ‘We are going to remain a sovereign nation’,” Graves said.

Canadian voters set to rebuke Trump

If the Liberals win, as projected, it will signal that Canada is charting its own path relative to Trump, as opposed to electing Poilievre, who is seen as more conciliatory to Trump, Young said.

Graves said Americans should pay attention to Canada’s election, which has raised similar questions about identity and what path to take amid swelling populism. Instead of asking the question of which party to elect, Graves said Canadians are asking, “What kind of country do we want to be?”

“Underneath that question are some of the issues about, do we want to go down this populist path? I think Canadians are pausing and looking and saying, ‘No, maybe that’s not where we want to take our country,’” Graves said.

Graves noted that it’s uncommon for a Western democracy to turn against rising populism. “Americans might find this as a possible prescription to their future, if they don’t want to continue down the path they’re going,” he said.

As Apple grapples with United States President Donald Trump’s tariff war with China, it has laid out plans to move to Indian assembly of the majority of iPhones it sells in the US by the end of 2026, a move that would double its current output from the South Asian nation and away from China.

The tech giant produces in China 80 percent of the 60 million iPhones sold in the US and this is a key step that would help it mitigate some of the costs it faces amid rising tariffs on China.

The Financial Times first reported Apple’s plans on Friday.

Apple, a company worth more than $3 trillion, is reportedly engaged in discussions with manufacturers it works with in India, including Foxconn and the Tata Group to execute this plan, according to the news agency Reuters, which cited an unnamed source.

The tech giant has already expanded production in India to counter tariffs imposed during the first Trump administration. The Silicon Valley-based tech giant shipped $2bn worth of iPhones in March, accounting for roughly 600 tonnes of cargo from India to the US  — a record for both Tata and Foxconn, according to Reuters.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been pushing the country as a hub for global smartphone manufacturing. Earlier this year, the country removed import taxes for some components for mobile phone production – a boost for companies like Apple.

“If you’re charging import tax for intermediary goods, then you cannot actually be competitive versus somebody who does not. Their objective is to be as competitive as they can be to become the leading manufacturing hub,” Babak Hafezi, chief executive officer at Hafezi Capital, an international consulting firm, told Al Jazeera.

Apple has assembled roughly $22bn worth of iPhones in India during the 12-month period ending March 2025, a 60 percent increase from the year prior, per a Bloomberg report. Even with the growth, only 20 percent of the world’s iPhones are made in India.

Roadblocks

The shift in production will cost Apple. According to a Reuters report citing an unnamed source, manufacturing iPhones in India is 5-8 percent more expensive than in China.

“India will help, but it’s not moving the needle on China’s dependence for Apple. It will take years to make this move, as Apple is caught in the tariff storm,” Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities, told Al Jazeera.

Earlier this week, the tech outlet The Information reported that Chinese authorities have created roadblocks for Apple suppliers to move operations from China to India. They have delayed shipments or blocked equipment shipments without explanation. In some cases, Foxconn had export applications denied and others delayed up to four months.

“In terms of core iPhone production, it would take years to move a significant piece from China to India,” Ives added, referring to the phone’s components that are made in China and shipped to India to be assembled into the final product.

Ives also said Apple’s plans to move assembly for US phones completely to India could cost the company $30bn-$40bn.

There are concerns if India’s infrastructure can handle the surge in production, as well.

“They have massive amounts of infrastructure problems in terms of traffic and mobility, and all these different variables that make the cost of the production longer, which eventually cost more money for the company,” Hafezi added.

“You need secure, continuous, and productive infrastructure to maximise manufacturing as best as you can and be globally competitive,” he continued.

Apple’s move comes as the Trump administration has signalled a willingness to ease trade tensions between the US and China, amid concerns about the economic fallout from the tariff war.

On Friday, Trump claimed he had spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping but did not say when the two leaders last talked. In a TIME magazine interview conducted earlier this week, Trump said that his administration has been talking with Beijing to strike a tariff deal. China has denied any trade talks with the US.

But trade talks with India are under way. Earlier this week, US Vice President JD Vance met India’s Modi, during which Vance said the two countries made “good progress” amid an expected bilateral trade agreement.

The news of Apple’s shift to India comes in advance of Apple’s earnings report, which is slated to be released on Thursday.

As the United States and China engage in a trade war driven by steep tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump and counter levies by President Xi Xinping, one sector that could be deeply impacted – and in turn have a disproportionate impact on the health of Americans – is pharmaceuticals.

The US imports 75 percent of its essential medicines. The Trump administration has begun its investigation into imports of medications and the active ingredients needed to make them, saying a lack of that in the US poses a national security threat. It as also threatened sectoral tariffs – that could range from 7.5 percent to 100 percent – in addition to the 145 percent currently in place on China.

While pharmaceuticals have been exempt from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs thus far, it’s not clear how long that will last, especially with potential sectoral levies in the pipeline.

In the immediate term, there is some insulation between the looming escalated prices and what consumers will pay when they go to pick up their medication at their local pharmacy.

Unlike other goods, pharmaceutical prices for consumers are not subject to the same instantaneous market fluctuations. The complex supply chain across the pharmaceutical industry means that there is a lag between tariffs and the impact they might have on patients.

At the same time, there are stockpiles at nearly every step of the supply chain. Wholesalers have their own, as do pharmaceutical giants and even the federal government.

“A lot of these medications, especially ones that are, like, in pill forms, are pretty stable for a long time,” Bruce Y Lee, professor of health policy at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, told Al Jazeera.

In the short term, pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers can eat the spike in costs like they did during the COVID-19 pandemic. That gives pharmaceutical companies and trade groups time to plead with the administration to ensure exceptions from the tariffs continue.

India supplies about half of all generic drugs used in the US. However, it depends on China for 80 percent of its active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), the chemical compounds medications are made from.

One of the globe’s biggest pharmaceutical giants said it worries any tariff would drive up prices and hurt patient care.

In a shareholder meeting, Michel Demare, chairman of the board for AstraZeneca, said, “We still strongly believe that medicines should be exempted from any kind of tariffs because, at the end, it is just harming patients’ health systems and restricting health equity.”

AstraZeneca did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for further remarks.

Eli Lilly and Johnson and Johnson echoed similar concerns. In the last six months, all three companies have pledged multibillion-dollar investments to ramp up manufacturing as well as research and development in the US.

But pharma giants will be able to bite the cost only for so long. Falling stock prices for pharma giants mean that they will need to find other ways to raise the stock price to meet their fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders. Experts say they can do that by renegotiating drug prices higher, depending on the medication. That causes a downstream effect that will lead to higher insurance premiums across the board and higher prices for Americans who rely on these drugs daily.

“Demand for many pharmaceuticals is not flexible. This is not a consumer good,” Lee pointed out. “When you impose something that increases the cost, like the tariff, you can’t really change the demand … and will ultimately hurt patients”.

A socioeconomic divide

According to a report from the supply chain analytics company Exiger released last week, the US relies on China for as much as 80 percent of active pharmaceutical ingredients. For generic antibiotics, in particular, the dependence is much higher at 90 percent.

Because China disproportionately produces more generic drugs, which are 80 to 85 percent cheaper than their brand-name alternatives, tariffs on China will hurt low-income communities the hardest.

“If there’s a place where you save money, it is generic, and that’s exactly where the increases will be. Generic companies work on the slimmest margins, and they’re just not in a position to absorb [that],” Michael Abrams, partner at Numerof and Associates, a global healthcare consulting firm, told Al Jazeera.

Recent analysis from the financial services company ING found that even a 25 percent pharma tariff could force cancer patients to pay as much as $2,000 more for a 24-week supply.

Tariffs could force makers of generics to pull out of the US market altogether, says Tom Kraus, vice president of government relations for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) told Al Jazeera.

“Imposing tariffs on medications and their ingredients could force generic drug manufacturers with already slim profit margins to drop out of the US market for a given medication, resulting in drug shortages for American patients,” Kraus said.

About 90 percent of the medications prescribed in US pharmacies are generic or biosimilar (meaning ingredients that have similar effects), according to a report from the Association of Accessible Medicines published in February.

“It will cause a lot of reverberations throughout because someone’s going to have to pick up the tab. This will result in a smaller percentage of medication costs being covered by insurance companies, and thus this burden pushed to patients and consumers,” Lee added.

Americans are already struggling to meet the costs of healthcare as it is. One in three Americans say they cannot take medications they are prescribed because of the cost, and 11 percent of Americans say they cannot meet their healthcare costs, with a higher burden on Hispanic adults at 18 percent overall.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 7.7 percent of Americans are uninsured, meaning their medical costs are out of pocket. Even for those who do have insurance, public health experts believe that insurance premiums will increase if Trump moves ahead with pharmaceutical tariffs.

“They’re going to spread that out among anyone paying insurance as a whole. That’s the whole concept of insurance,” Lee said.

More expensive drugs are produced stateside or in Europe. Those could also get pricier. There is currently a 10 percent tariff in place impacting these drugs but that could go higher when country-specific tariffs, currently on pause, kick in.

Drugs that come out of Europe are more often the blockbuster brand-name medications. Zepbound, Eli Lilly’s weight loss medication, for instance, is made in Ireland. If tariffs kick in there, out-of-pocket costs for US patients on Zepbound could run as much as $1,086.37 for a one-month supply, in contrast to as low as $25 with insurance.

Supply chain strain

In February, the American Hospital Association (AHA), in a letter calling for tariff exceptions for pharmaceuticals, said it is worried that the levies would make existing supply chain strains worse.

“Despite ongoing efforts to build the domestic supply chain, the US healthcare system relies significantly on international sources for many drugs and devices needed to both care for patients and protect our healthcare workers. Tariffs, as well as any reaction of the countries on whom such tariffs are imposed, could reduce the availability of these life-saving medications and supplies in the US,” the trade group said in a letter to the White House. “US providers import many cancer and cardiovascular medications, immunosuppressives, antibiotics and combination antibiotics from China. For many patients, even a temporary disruption in their access to these needed medications could put them at significant risk of harm, including death.”

The AHA declined Al Jazeera’s request for additional comment.

“Healthcare has a very elaborate logistics chain, and obviously, it varies from product to product, but some of them are very complicated,” Abrams of Numerof and Associates added.

For instance, some APIs undergo two or three different processes and not all of them are in the same place before they even come to the US to be incorporated into the final product, he explained.

“When you take all these relationships and throw them up in the air and see how they come down, inevitably it leads to disruption in supply,” he continued.

There are more than 104 active drug shortages in the United States, including common antibiotics like amoxicillin. China is one of the world’s three biggest exporters of the drug, and the US is the largest importer.

Another concern about the US’s extreme reliance on China is that the country’s API market is only expected to grow by 7.8 percent over the next five years, according to the market research firm Modor Intelligence.

Washington’s call for action

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when trade essentially halted temporarily, there were concerns that the US did not have enough medications in its strategic reserve to handle a temporary halt. Both Republicans, such as Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and Democrats, such as former President Joe Biden have long called for less reliance on China for pharmaceuticals as a result.

“When you have supply chains that are not well diversified or dependent on just particular channels, then that supply chain is fragile and there’s risk,” Lee said.

There have long been suggestions from prominent Chinese voices, including economist Li Daokui, that have called on leadership in Beijing to reduce antibiotic exports to the US as a tool in a trade war.

But experts agree that Trump’s rapid approach does not give companies time to prepare and thus is putting patients at risk.

The ASHP told the White House in a February letter that tariffs “should be applied selectively and dovetail with other incentives to increase domestic production and promote a stable supply chain”.

“You can’t do it in the 18 months that you’re trying to get it done, OK? And it’s not even exactly a four-year undertaking either,” Abrams added.

Some companies have said they will bring more pharmaceutical manufacturing jobs stateside. Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche announced a $50bn investment in the US over the next five years, which will include funds to build research and development facilities and expand existing manufacturing operations.

Roche follows Novartis, which announced that it would invest $23bn over the next five years to expand its US infrastructure. That includes thousands of new jobs in seven facilities that will manufacture drugs and APIs.

But building and getting plants like these in production will not solve the immediate issue, according to ASHP.

“It is important to note that building new pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity will take several years. In the meantime, tariffs risk higher prices for those drugs that can pass increased costs to consumers, and shortages for generic drugs that can’t,” Kraus of ASHP continued.

The White House did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.