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Bloomberg
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- Bloomberg
India Expects Further Talks With US After Trump's 25% Tariff
India expects US trade negotiators to visit the country later this month to continue talks on a bilateral deal, an official in New Delhi said, after President Donald Trump hit the South Asian nation with a 25% tariff. The US team is scheduled to be in India on Aug. 25, the official told reporters on Friday, requesting anonymity to discuss the matter.
WIRED
a few seconds ago
- WIRED
Palantir Is Extending Its Reach Even Further Into Government
Aug 1, 2025 6:30 AM Palantir has become one of the few winners in the Trump administration's cost-cutting efforts, offering other contractors a lifeline while consolidating its own reach and power. Photograph:President Donald Trump's administration has dramatically expanded its work with Palantir, elevating the company cofounded by Trump ally Peter Thiel as the government's go-to software developer. Following massive contract terminations for consulting giants and government contractors like Accenture, Booz Allen, and Deloitte, Palantir has emerged ahead. Now the data analytics firm is partnering with those companies—offering them a lifeline while consolidating its own power. Palantir has become one of the few winners in the Trump administration's cost-cutting efforts, receiving more than $113 million in federal spending since the beginning of the year, according to The New York Times. Palantir's US government revenue has grown by more than $ 370 million compared to this time last year, according to the company's most recent quarterly earnings report. Before making remarks at last week's AI Summit in DC, Trump thanked a variety of cabinet secretaries and tech leaders, including Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar. 'We buy a lot of things from Palantir,' Trump said. 'Are we paying our bills? I think so.' Instead of replacing these more traditional contractors, Palantir's software is becoming the core tool deployed by them in government systems, placing Palantir in a newly central role. The White House itself is thrilled by this partnership: 'The Trump Administration has high-standard [sic] when spending American's hard-earned tax dollars—which is why agencies have partnered with Palantir, a top-tier American company renowned for their longstanding history of innovation, results, and increasing government efficiency,' says White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers. Palantir did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In April, WIRED reported that Palantir was working alongside IRS engineers to build what sources called a 'mega API,' which would unify all data across the agency. An API, or application programming interface, enables applications and databases to exchange data and possibly compare it against other interoperable datasets. Once completed, this mega API could become the 'read center of all IRS systems.' Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracted Palantir for $30 million to track self-deportations in April. The company has also won federal contracts more recently, like a $795 million award from the Pentagon in May to expand its Maven Smart System program. The total contract ceiling for the Army's Maven program is now $1.3 billion. This growth comes as some of the companies Palantir has chosen to partner with have lost billions in government contract cuts. In April, defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced plans to cut $5.1 billion in IT consulting contracts with companies including Accenture, Booz Allen, and Deloitte. In a memo announcing the cuts, Hegseth said that the Pentagon would be forced to bring more of its IT work in-house. 'These contracts represent non-essential spending on third party consultants to perform services more efficiently performed by the highly skilled members of our DoD workforce using existing resources,' Hegseth wrote. Palantir's partnerships with these companies vary, but each one makes it easier for Palantir to extend the reach of its software and AI technology across the federal government. With Accenture's government branch, Palantir will train and certify at least 1,000 Accenture workers on its Foundry software as well as its AI tech, according to an Accenture press release The companies also said that together they could create 'a 360-degree view' of government agency budgets, something the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has sought to build and use to review federal spending. (Palantir partnered with Accenture before in 2022, but this is the first partnership to focus on US government clients.) 'We are teaming up with Accenture Federal Services to accelerate AI across the U.S. Government, working to address federal agencies' highest-priority operational challenges,' Palantir posted to X last month. "What makes this partnership so uniquely powerful is Accenture's expertise working with the federal government and our ability to bring commercial capabilities to government solutions, combined with Palantir's deep experience in government software," Julie Sweet, chair and CEO of Accenture, said in a press release. 'Together, we will harness the ever-growing power of AI to help the federal government succeed in its critical mission to modernize and reinvent its operations—with stronger data flows, transparency and resilience—to better serve warfighters, citizens and all its stakeholders.' Accenture did not immediately respond to a request for comment. While Palantir has become a major government contractor in its own right, partnering with contracting giants could enable the software company to scale at a much faster rate, leveraging long-standing relationships these larger contractors have with virtually every federal agency. 'It's actually a pretty savvy business decision on the part of both Palantir, then also what you would call a traditional, more legacy-oriented, like defense or just government contractors,' says Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law at George Washington University. 'If they're newer to certain areas and others have that footprint, that's how it would benefit Palantir.' Last week, Palantir and Deloitte announced a partnership that includes what they call the 'Enterprise Operating System' (EOS) to unify data across organizations. At government agencies like the Internal Revenue Service and reportedly at the Social Security Administration (SSA), Palantir is already working to combine agency datasets, allowing what were previously disparate datasets to communicate with one another more easily. "Deloitte shares Palantir's commitment to decisive action and a dedication to delivering meaningful, lasting results for commercial and government clients," said Jason Girzadas, Deloitte US CEO, said in a press release announcing the partnership. "Expanding our preferred relationship at this pivotal moment provides our clients with Palantir's latest advances in AI, combined with Deloitte's engineering scale and deep sector experience." Deloitte did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Palantir struck some of these deals prior to Trump taking office as well. In December of last year, Booz Allen partnered with Palantir specifically, working together on building out defense IT infrastructure. 'To have one company monopolize and become the gatekeeper of software in the government, to become an 'app factory,' for the government, in a sense, where they're in every agency, they're part of the defense complex and the intelligence complex, brings huge concerns regarding fairness, regarding competition, and puts Palantir in a very unique position that maybe has never existed,' says Juan Sebastián Pinto, a former Palantir employee and critic of the company.
Business Insider
a few seconds ago
- Business Insider
Africa's richest country hit with 30% US tariff after trade talks fail
South Africa is set to face a 30% tariff on its exports to the United States starting next week, after failing to secure a trade agreement before the deadline. South Africa will face a 30% tariff on exports to the U.S. as part of a broader trade adjustment policy. The tariffs, set to take effect next week, will impact automotive, agro-processing, steel, and chemical sectors. Negotiations to prevent the tariffs included $3.3 billion in proposed investments, which ultimately fell short. South Africa is set to face a 30% tariff on its exports to the United States starting next week, after failing to secure a trade agreement before a deadline imposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump. The tariffs, outlined in an executive order signed Thursday, will apply to dozens of countries, with rates ranging between 10% and 41%. The measures take effect in seven days as part of Trump's broader push to renegotiate trade relationships in favour of the U.S., Reuters reported. Pretoria had been negotiating for months to avert the tariff hike, proposing to buy U.S. liquefied natural gas and pledging $3.3 billion in investments into American industries. But those overtures fell short, even after a last-minute attempt to sweeten the deal. South African Trade Minister Parks Tau called the tariff escalation a direct threat to the country's export-driven sectors, particularly automotive manufacturing, agro-processing, steel, and chemicals. The U.S. is South Africa's second-largest bilateral trading partner after China. Key South African exports to the U.S. include vehicles, iron and steel products, and citrus fruits. Political tensions cloud trade talks Relations between South Africa and the United States have sharply declined since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January. The fallout reflects deeper strains in U.S.-South Africa relations. According to South African officials, trade negotiations were entangled with political frictions, most notably Washington's disapproval of South Africa's affirmative action policies, its land reform agenda, and its decision to bring a genocide case against Israel, a close U.S. ally, before the International Court of Justice. Trump, who has repeatedly criticised South Africa's policies, has falsely accused the government of forcibly seizing land from white farmers. In response, the South African government defended its stance, calling the land reform effort a constitutional measure aimed at addressing historical racial inequalities in land ownership dating back to apartheid. Officials also stressed that, contrary to international speculation, no land expropriations have occurred.
