Can Meg O'Neill deliver Woodside's $100b gamble?
Travelling with him were entrepreneurs and visionaries who also happened to be some of the world's most powerful business titans. Among them were Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Tesla's Elon Musk, Amazon's Andy Jassy and OpenAI's Sam Altman. Also present was Meg O'Neill, the 54-year-old chief executive of Woodside Energy.
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Perth Now
12 minutes ago
- Perth Now
Trump might meet with Putin as soon as next week
US President Donald Trump plans to meet in person with Russian President Vladimir Putin as early as next week, according to media reports. Trump plans to meet with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the New York Times reported, citing two sources. The newspaper added that the plans were disclosed in a call with European leaders on Wednesday. The White House did not immediately respond to the report but earlier on Wednesday Trump acknowledged that he spoke with European leaders after US envoy Steve Witkoff's "highly productive" meeting with Putin in Russia. The meeting came two days before a deadline set by Trump for Russia to agree to peace in Ukraine or face new sanctions. Trump has been increasingly frustrated with Putin over the lack of progress towards peace and has threatened to impose heavy tariffs on countries that buy Russian exports. A White House official said that while the meeting had gone well and Moscow was eager to continue engaging with the United States, secondary sanctions that Trump has threatened against countries doing business with Russia were still expected to be implemented on Friday. No details were provided. "My Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, just had a highly productive meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Great progress was made!" Trump said in a post on Truth Social. "Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come." A Kremlin aide earlier on Wednesday said Witkoff held "useful and constructive" talks with Putin on Wednesday. The two met for around three hours on a last-minute mission to seek a breakthrough in the 3.5-year war that began with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said the two sides had exchanged "signals" on the Ukraine issue and discussed the possibility of developing strategic cooperation between Moscow and Washington, but declined to give more details until Witkoff had reported back to Trump. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he believed pressure had worked on Russia and Moscow was now more amenable to a ceasefire. "It seems that Russia is now more inclined to a ceasefire. The pressure on them works. But the main thing is that they do not deceive us in the details – neither us nor the US," Zelenskiy said in his nightly address. Writing separately on the X social media platform, Zelenskiy said he had discussed Witkoff's visit to Russia with Trump, adding that he had reiterated Ukraine's support for a just peace and its continued determination to defend itself. "Ukraine will definitely defend its independence. We all need a lasting and reliable peace. Russia must end the war that it itself started," Zelenskiy said, adding that European leaders had joined the call with Trump. Trump took a key step toward punitive measures on Wednesday when he imposed an additional 25 per cent tariff on imports from India, citing New Delhi's continued imports of Russian oil. No similar order was signed for China, which also imports Russian oil. The new measure raises tariffs on some Indian goods to as high as 50 per cent — among the steepest faced by any US trading partner.
ABC News
12 minutes ago
- ABC News
Donald Trump says he wants to stop Vladimir Putin's 'war machine' but his sanctions–tariffs combo could backfire
Donald Trump is searching for a way to end the bloodshed in Ukraine and the US president's latest plan involves combining two of his favourite punishments: more sanctions, more tariffs. This time, it's where they're going — far from the front lines — that's important. And some analysts are warning it could backfire. After weeks of bluster, things got real on Wednesday with an executive order for an additional 25 per cent levies on all US imports from India. Combined with the 25 per cent "reciprocal" tariff announced last week, it becomes a 50 per cent tariff on a country Trump said was fuelling the "war machine" by buying billions of dollars of Russian oil. The White House has flagged more announcements in the coming days. Trump is trying to dig an economic hole around Moscow so big it forces his counterpart there, Vladimir Putin, back to the negotiating table. It's a simple strategy. Measures designed to hurt Russia's finances that have been in place for years will effectively be expanded to include those who line the Kremlin's pockets. India and China have already been singled out for what's known as secondary sanctions. Combined with new tariffs, like those announced on Wednesday, the US could end up being the one that pays the price. Russia has already been subjected to a multitude of penalties imposed by Western governments, including Australia, and their allies, before and after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Moscow's banks are blocked from accessing global financial markets. Oligarchs' assets abroad are frozen. Many countries have shunned trade. All this was designed to stop Putin's ability to fund his military. And yet, more than three years later, it continues to fight. It's become clear that ending the war will take something more. That's where the US president's new plan comes in. India's external affairs ministry released a statement on Wednesday calling the extra tariffs "extremely unfortunate" and warning the country would "take all actions necessary to protect its national interests". Michael O'Kane is a senior partner at London's Peters&Peters law firm and the co-founder of the Global Sanctions website, which tracks the latest developments in this space. He's sceptical about the effectiveness of secondary sanctions, because the West "continually underestimates Russia's ability to pivot and evade any new measures that are being put in place". "And I don't see any reason why that isn't going to continue." One of the main ways the Kremlin does this is by exporting its oil via a so-called "shadow fleet" of ships. It's estimated this force comprises around 1,400 aging tankers that supply a black market of exports and evade the West's naval net with flags of convenience and convoluted ownership structures. "We now have an under-the-radar network of vessels, agents and brokers who are engaged in this activity," O'Kane says. "The two main buyers are India and China, and they are hugely complex, enormous economies where there's a great deal of difficulty in putting some kind of stranglehold on them." Trump's sanctions/tariffs combination will have different repercussions for China, India and Russia, but experts say the US will be affected too. India's new 25 per cent levies are set to begin in 21 days, while previously announced 25 per cent tariffs will come into effect on Thursday. It means by the end of the month, New Delhi will face some of the highest levies on exports of all the US's trading partners. "With such obnoxious tariff rates, trade between the two nations would be practically dead," Madhavi Arora, an economist at Emkay Global, told the Reuters news agency. While that will hurt India more than the US, slapping new taxes on an important strategic partner could cause significant geopolitical consequences for Washington. "The United States security competition with China in the South China Sea and down into the Indian Ocean is a matter of significant concern to the White House," O'Kane says. "They need to have formidable allies. That's why we've seen this AUKUS arrangement being set up, it's all with the view of being able to contain China from a security perspective. "India plays an important role too, and it would seem to me as though taking action against India at this stage could undermine this effort." While India has begun to learn its fate, new US tariffs and secondary sanctions on China — a superpower with which it is currently locked in trade negotiations — haven't yet been revealed Beijing also welcomes Russia's oil, and immunity from Trump's wrath appears unlikely. Dr Patricia M Kim is a fellow at the Brookings Institution's Centre for Asia Policy Studies and John L Thornton China Centre. "It's hard to imagine Beijing would publicly side with Washington against Moscow or appear to bow to American pressure by cutting purchases of Russian oil," she says, adding any new tariffs announced by the White House would have consequences for Beijing and "deal a blow to Chian's export-driven sectors, especially those heavily reliant on the US market". "But it would hurt the US as well." Unlike its trade relationship with India, the US imports masses of cheap electronics and consumer goods from China's manufacturing hubs — all of which could become a lot more expensive for Americans already complaining about the cost of living. It also relies on rare earths from China, which accounts for almost 70 per cent of global production, to build things like planes, missiles and cars. Earlier this year, the US got a taste of how Beijing reacts to being targeted, when a suite of new tariffs were met with swift reciprocal measures. The world's two largest economies got into the ring, and while they've temporarily stopped throwing punches, the White House has hinted this week it may start again. Trump's new plan to try and put pressure on Russia may seem straightforward, but it could pave the way for a new reality after the guns fall silent in Ukraine, and some will find it frightening. Russia exploiting its new, lucrative black market. India cosying up to the Kremlin. And a disrespected China searching for new ways to punish a country that can't do without its wares.
Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Firing people can't save Trump from the US economy's unflattering reality
In response, a group of statistical agencies that goes by the name The Friends of the Bureau of Labour Statistics released its own, more factual, statement that read: 'This escalates the President's unprecedented attack on the independence and integrity of the federal statistical system. The President seeks to blame someone for unwelcome news,' it said. It's also worth noting that the group statement was issued by William Beach, who was McEntarfer's Trump-appointed predecessor at the bureau. It's hard to overstate what Trump has done. Imagine if Anthony Albanese decided to sack the nation's chief statistician because the latest inflation data was not what the government wanted. There would, rightly, be an outcry. Naturally, the Trump apologists have been out defending the indefensible, ignoring the fact that the bureau has always revised job numbers (up and down), no matter the occupant of the White House. Last year, while Joe Biden was still in office, the bureau revised its jobs figures between January and July down by 340,000. But the single largest downward revision came in March and April 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the number of jobs was cut by almost 925,000. Loading Revisions are part and parcel of what the Bureau of Labour Statistics does. Every month it updates its numbers as it receives more information. The monthly release, plus the revisions, are vital to policymakers (like the Federal Reserve) and investors so they can see how the economy is travelling in as close to real time as possible. Ever since he declared a record crowd at his 2017 inauguration, Trump and reality have been at odds. In the grand scheme of things, crowd size does not really matter. But using a Sharpie to extend the expected landfall of a hurricane, gutting agencies responsible for tracking climate change, and ignoring employment data have very real consequences. Economists and policymakers have, for years, been worried about the statistics coming out of nations where the political leaders meddle with the numbers. In Argentina during the 1990s, the government fired bureaucrats who released less-than-flattering inflation figures and began releasing their own (sound familiar?). Understandably, this made international investors wary and increase their premiums as protection. By 2001, the government was in a full-blown debt crisis and defaulted on $US93 billion of debt. Greece, Turkey, Russia and China have also tried to play fast and loose with statistics over the years. It got to such a point in the case of China that outside economists used electricity consumption or satellite pictures taken at night (to see artificial light) as a de facto measure of GDP because their trust in the official numbers was so low. As financial analyst Ned Davis told The Wall Street Journal, ' Your initial thought is, 'Are we heading toward what you see in Latin America or Turkey, where if the data doesn't look good, you fire someone, and then eventually stop reporting it?'' Just a few days before McEntarfer's sacking, Trump was saying how great the economy was travelling – and demanding the Federal Reserve cut interest rates because it was going so well. Of course, the GDP figures did not show that (growth is slowing while inflation, at 2.7 per cent, is above the Fed's 2 per cent target rate). But Trump couldn't admit that, so he told his own story. Loading Around the same time, the president claimed that his government had cut pharmaceutical prices by '1200, 1300, 1400, 1500 per cent. I don't mean 50 per cent, I mean 1400, 1500 per cent'. And he's the one who thought the Bureau of Labour Statistics was making up numbers. The problem with making up your own numbers, or installing people who will make the numbers show what you want, is that they will be at odds with the lived experience of voters. Just as Biden struggled to convince Americans that the cost of living was getting better while they could see the price of everyday essentials going up, saying the economy is great to people lining up for unemployment benefits has a short shelf life. There's an adage used by economists to describe the models they use to understand the economy: Put crap in, and you get crap out.
