President Trump says he'll set unilateral tariff rates within weeks

Euronews

a day ago

US President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he would send letters to trading partners in the next week or two, outlining unilateral tariff rates.
'We're going to be sending letters out in about a week and a half, two weeks, to countries, telling them what the deal is,' Trump said at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
'At a certain point, we're just going to send letters out. And I think you understand that, saying this is the deal, you can take it or leave it,' he added.
This would put Trump ahead of his tariff deadline, as the president previously paused so-called 'reciprocal' duties for 90 days until 8 July. The higher rates are set to kick in on the 9th.
Trump told reporters at the Kennedy Center that a delay to the deadline is unlikely, although US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previously suggested there may be some flexibility.
"It is highly likely that those countries - or trading blocs as is the case with the EU - who are negotiating in good faith, we will roll the date forward to continue the good-faith negotiations," Bessent told the House Ways and Means Committee. "If someone is not negotiating, then we will not."
The US has thus far only managed to secure a trade framework with the UK, as well as clinching a tariff deal with China.
Trump was nonetheless upbeat about negotiations on Wednesday.
"We're rocking in terms of deals," he said. "We're dealing with quite a few countries and they all want to make a deal with us."
Following talks in London, Trump said on Wednesday that magnets and rare earths would be supplied up front by China and that the US would allow Chinese students into its colleges and universities.
The president added that a 55% tariff would be applied to Chinese imports. A White House official, who was not authorised to discuss the terms publicly, said the 55% was not an increase on the previous 30% tariff on China because Trump was including other pre-existing import taxes. Specifically, the president was tallying up his 10% baseline tariff, the 20% fentanyl trafficking levy and a 25% pre-existing tariff on China.
In May, the US agreed upon a trade framework with the UK, which allows US goods to be fast-tracked through customs and reduces trade barriers on a number of products. The framework lowers US duties on British steel, aluminum and cars, although there are some knots to work out, meaning the specifics of the deal could arrive later than the 9 July deadline.
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Wednesday that a deal with the European Union will likely be among the final trade agreements concluded by the United States.
'I'm optimistic that we can get there with Europe. But Europe will be probably [at] the very, very end,' Lutnick told CNBC.
In May, Trump threatened a 50% tariff on EU goods coming to the US, although he later said he would hold off on this threat until 9 July. The president originally placed a 20% so-called 'reciprocal' levy on EU goods, but this duty was lifted during the 90-day pause window.
Disney and Universal sued popular artificial intelligence image-generator Midjourney on Wednesday.
This is the first time major Hollywood companies have taken legal action against a maker of generative AI technology that could upend the entertainment industry.
The copyright lawsuit in a Los Angeles federal court claims Midjourney pirated the libraries of the two Hollywood studios to generate and distribute 'endless unauthorized copies' of their famed characters, such as Darth Vader from the Star Wars franchise and the Minions from 'Despicable Me'.
'Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism. Piracy is piracy, and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology does not make it any less infringing," the companies state in the complaint.
The studios also say the San Francisco-based AI company ignored their requests to stop infringing on their copyrighted works and to take technological measures to halt such image generation.
Midjourney didn't respond to a request for comment but its CEO David Holz addressed the lawsuit in a weekly conference call with users on Wednesday after someone asked if it would endanger the tiny startup's future.
'I can't really discuss any ongoing legal things because the world isn't cool like that, but I think Midjourney is going to be around for a very long time,' Holz said. "I think everybody wants us to be around.'
In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Holz described his image-making service as 'kind of like a search engine' pulling in a wide swath of images from across the internet. He presented the process as a form of creative inspiration, rather than plagiarism.
'Can a person look at somebody else's picture and learn from it and make a similar picture?' Holz said. 'Obviously, it's allowed for people and if it wasn't, then it would destroy the whole professional art industry, probably the nonprofessional industry too. To the extent that AIs are learning like people, it's sort of the same thing and if the images come out differently then it seems like it's fine.'
The lawsuit against Midjourney comes as a number of other AI companies have sought to make inroads into Hollywood and the video game industry, providing AI tools that can aid filmmakers and game developers generate new videos, synthesise voices and edit footage.
A movie industry group, the Motion Picture Association, said in a statement on Wednesday that 'strong copyright protection is the backbone of our industry' and it supports a 'balanced approach to AI that both protects intellectual property and embraces responsible, human-centred innovation'.
The Recording Industry Association of America, a music publishing group fighting its own legal battles against firms that make AI-generated music, endorsed the lawsuit as a 'critical stand for human creativity and responsible innovation'.
Major AI developers don't typically disclose their data sources but have argued that taking troves of publicly accessible online text, images and other media to train their AI systems is protected by the 'fair use' doctrine of American copyright law.
At the same time, many big tech companies are increasingly looking to make licensing deals to pay for the content their AI systems need.
The studios' case joins a growing number of lawsuits filed against developers of AI platforms in San Francisco and New York.
Meanwhile, the first major copyright trial of the generative AI industry is underway in London, pitting Getty Images against Stability AI, maker of an image-generating tool that competes with Midjourney.