Gold Climbs as Rising Geopolitical and Trade Tensions Aid Havens
Bullion climbed as much as 0.8% in Asia after Ukraine staged a dramatic series of drone strikes across Russia on Sunday, hitting airfields as far away as eastern Siberia. Around the same time, Moscow launched one of its longest attacks against Kyiv, ahead of crucial peace talks this week.
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CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Trump remade the global trading system. He's just getting started
President Donald Trump has remade the global trading system. He's just getting started. Trump's 'reciprocal' tariff regime went into effect just after midnight, solidifying the new world order fueled Trump's long-standing – and oft-doubted – aspiration to reorient seven decades of global commerce. But the days leading up to this moment provide a window into a president who advisers tell CNN is increasingly emboldened, confident and unyielding in his belief that his unprecedented use of tariffs for, well, just about everything, hasn't carried any downside. It's a view corporate executives, foreign leaders and a veritable phonebook worth of economists would hotly dispute, citing an array of warning signs in underlying economic data, earnings calls and geopolitical maneuvering. Trump is unbowed and set to aggressively expand his imprint on a new global system of trade in the weeks ahead. 'Tariffs are his Swiss Army Knife – there's isn't a single thing that cross his desk that can't be solved by their utility,' a senior administration official told CNN. 'I think the experience of the last few months has proven that approach correct – and probably made the Swiss Army Knife more of a Swiss Army chainsaw.' Trump's reciprocal tariffs are now in place, as are tariff-laden bilateral trade frameworks with countries that make up roughly 60% of the world's gross domestic product. Steel, aluminum, copper, auto and auto parts sector tariffs are active as well. Soaring sector-based levies on semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, lumber, critical minerals, aircraft, poliysilicon and trucks are in process and will be rolled out in the coming weeks. The exact dates appear almost entirely up to Trump and his trade teams. The actual rates for those sector tariffs? Same, but by all accounts, only moving upward by the week with Trump recently setting the level for chips and semiconductors at 'approximately 100%' and threatening up to 250% for pharmaceuticals. The official was relaying the observation about Trump's all-purpose use of tariffs on steroids at roughly the same time the Swiss president, who had scrambled to Washington in a last-ditch effort to avoid Trump's soaring new tariff rate on her country, was departing the capital Wednesday without a deal in hand. It was a rather colorful – if telling – coincidence. World leaders and their trade teams scrambled to cut deals to ease new rates, only to be rebuffed. Business leaders or their highly-paid Washington sherpas insisted there were clear opportunities to secure exemptions and carveouts but have discovered there would be no easy path. 'Trump is always listening, always taking offers,' one lobbyist. 'But yesterday's price is not today's price based on my sense of things – he wants big numbers, big commitments, big demonstrations of success.' Hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate pledges and investment commitments have served as Trump's most coveted elements of bilateral trade framework, officials say. Trump has specifically cited those commitments as a way countries could 'pay down' the threatened tariff rates. Trump's advisers have formulated plans to utilize those commitments to shore up US supply chain weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The structure, while still very much a work in progress and subject to some dispute between the US and counterparts, serves as an innovative and certainly unprecedented vehicle to address national security concerns in critical industries and products, officials say. Trump's view of the investment commitments is framed in a somewhat different manner. 'If you look at Japan, we're taking in $550 billion, and that's like a signing bonus that a baseball player would get. They give a signing bonus of a million dollars, or $2 million or $20 million, or whatever the hell they give today,' Trump said this week on CNBC. 'So I got a signing bonus from Japan of $550 billion. That's our money. It's our money to invest, as we like.' In other words, Trump wants exactly what Apple CEO Tim Cook provided in the Oval Office on Wednesday with the announcement of a new commitment to invest $100 billion in US jobs and suppliers. The customized glass and 24-karat gold statuette that Cook theatrically unveiled in the middle of the announcement didn't hurt either. Trump, just hours before he and Cook appeared together in the Oval Office, slapped 25% tariffs on India for their purchases of Russian energy. That levy, should it go into effect in three weeks, would raise US tariffs on all imports from India to 50% - one of the highest levels world-wide. The underlying reason for Trump's escalation, despite the predicate of depriving Putin's war machine of critical cashflow, was India's refusal to drop nearly all of its tariffs to US producers, multiple officials told CNN. Punishing tariffs on India, where Apple has a significant manufacturing footprint, would seem to be a major problem for a CEO like Cook. But White House officials made clear that in the near term, existing exemptions on specific technology products meant Apple wouldn't take a hit in the near term. Trump, in an unexpected announcement during the event, made clear those exemptions would stand for the long term, too. 'We're going to be putting a very large tariff on chips and semiconductors, but the good news for companies like Apple is, if you're building in the United States, or have committed to build, without question, committed to build in the United States, there will be no charge,' Trump said. There are no shortage of questions about the final shape of the trillions in investment commitments outlined in corporate pledges and the trade frameworks with foreign counterparts. There is significant technical and legal work ahead on the bilateral frameworks, which were in many cases revised and reshaped by Trump's own hand in Oval Office sit downs and are now subject to some dispute in foreign capitals. But Trump's advisers hardly seem concerned about their ability to finalize the terms in the months ahead. 'The method to hold countries and the companies in these countries to their commitments is, of course, the tariffs,' the senior administration official said.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Royal Ballet and Opera caves in to pro-Palestine activists and halts Israel show
The Royal Ballet and Opera has caved in to pro-Palestine activists and cancelled a planned production in Israel. A 2026 run of Tosca in partnership with the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv will no longer go ahead because of pressure from staff. It comes after Daniel Perry, a 'queer dance artist' and alumnus of a £48,000-a-year dance school, pulled out a Palestinian flag during a curtain call at the Royal Opera House last month. The Royal Opera, part of the newly combined Royal Ballet and Opera (RBO), which receives public funding from the Arts Council, condemned the stunt at the time as inappropriate and contrary to its commitment to political neutrality. Following the on-stage protest on July 19, the RBO faced internal pressure from staff, who demanded the cancellation of the Tosca production. Credit: @sydcas/X Almost 200 staff signed a letter to Sir Alex Beard, the RBO's chief executive, calling the curtain call protest an 'act of courage and moral clarity'. The letter demanded that the RBO 'withholds our productions from institutions that legitimise and economically support a state engaged in the mass killing of civilians'. Announcing that the production would be cancelled, Sir Alex said: 'I am appalled by the crisis in Gaza and recognise the deep emotional impact this has had across our community and wider society. 'On this issue, we acknowledge and respect the full range of views held by our staff, artists and audiences.' He added that following Mr Perry's on-stage stunt, which Oliver Mears, the director of the Royal Opera House, attempted to end by snatching at the Palestinian flag, the RBO would review its stance on political messaging. Sir Alex added: 'The events at the curtain call on July 19 were without precedent. We have reflected carefully and reviewed our internal protocols. We always endeavour to act with integrity and compassion. 'We want our stage to remain a space for shared cultural appreciation, free from individual political statements.' Sir Alex went on to refer to Ukraine, saying: 'Our support for Ukraine was aligned with the global consensus at the time. As the world's geopolitics have become more complex, our stance has changed to ensure that our actions reflect our purpose and values.' The RBO has not confirmed whether this means that further pro-Palestine protests will be tolerated, or if pro-Ukraine messaging will be limited to ensure neutrality. The RBO's decision has been welcomed by pro-Palestine activists. Artists for Palestine, which has lobbied for cultural institutions to sever ties with Israel, said: 'This is a welcome breakthrough for institutional accountability – and a victory for grass-roots organising. Across the cultural sector too many institutions, faced with genocide, have opted for silence or worse.'The RBO staff's open letter is an essential ethical uprising against this refusal to speak out.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Solve the daily Crossword
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
Trump may meet Putin ‘next week,' Kremlin says
President Trump may meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin 'next week,' according to a top Kremlin aide, coming a day after the Kremlin head met with the president's special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow. 'Russia confirms Putin-Trump summit may happen next week and summit preparations are ongoing. This can be a historic meeting. Dialogue will prevail,' Putin's envoy for investment and economic cooperation Kirill Dmitriev said in a Thursday post on the social media platform X. Another top Putin aide, Yuri Ushakov, echoed the possibility of the meeting with the two leaders next week, the first huddle by a U.S. president with the Russian leader since 2021. 'At the suggestion of the American side, an agreement was essentially reached to hold a bilateral meeting at the highest level in the coming days, that is, a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump,' Ushakov, Putin's foreign policy adviser, said on Thursday. Ushakov said Witkoff raised the possibility of a trilateral meeting between Putin, Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, during the envoy's sit-down with Russian officials, although the Kremlin said the summit would just be between Trump and Putin. Neither side has confirmed the date or location of the potential meeting, brought up as part of the Trump administration's push to end the over three-years long Russia-Ukraine war. 'We have many friends willing to help us organi[z]e events of this kind. The President of the United Arab Emirates is one such friend,' the Kremlin quoted Putin saying on Thursday. 'I think we will make a decision eventually, and that country would be an appropriate place for a meeting.' The potential meeting between Trump and Putin will only happen if the president 'feels' the Russian leader is 'committed' to ending the war in Eastern Europe, according to the White House. 'The president has obviously been frustrated. We see Vladimir Putin not willing to engage in proper diplomacy with the president. Good phone calls are one thing, but if they're followed up with no action, that's going to be a problem,' White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said during his Thursday morning appearance on NewsNation. 'The President is going to be holding Ukraine and Russia both accountable and making sure that they end this war once and for all,' he added. Witkoff's meeting with Russian officials in Moscow on Wednesday 'went well.' 'The Russians are eager to continue engaging with the United States. The secondary sanctions are still expected to be implemented on Friday,' a senior U.S. administration official said on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Trump said on Wednesday that Witkoff had a 'highly productive' meeting with Putin. 'Great progress was made! Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies. Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come,' the president said on Truth Social. During a call with Zelensky, European leaders, including Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump raised the idea of meeting with Putin in the coming weeks, a source familiar with the matter told The Hill. Trump, who has been critical of Putin in recent weeks as Russia's military has continued its attacks on various Ukrainian cities, penned an executive order on Wednesday, after Witkoff's meeting with Putin, upping the tariffs on India by 25 percent over the country's purchases of Russian oil. The import tax, which is set to kick in in three weeks, would bring India's tariff total to 50 percent.
