Flagship

Trump’s steel tariffs aimed at China

US President Donald Trump’s expected 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum shook global markets as countries weighed how to respond. The price of aluminum rose on the London Metal Exchange, and shares of South Korean steelmakers took a hit while their American counterparts gained. Trump was expected to officially order the tariffs Monday or Tuesday; Mexico and Brazil, two top steel importers to the US, are taking a wait-and-see approach to the duties. But analysts said China is the top target: Beijing doesn’t export much aluminum and steel directly to the US, but it dominates the global market and exports heavily to countries like Canada and Mexico, which in turn sell to the US, The New York Times wrote.

China could probe more US tech firms

Large tech companies are in the crosshairs of the US and China’s escalating economic conflict. In the wake of tit-for-tat tariffs, Beijing is building a list of US firms to target with antitrust investigations, including Apple and Broadcom, with the aim of pressuring US President Donald Trump’s influential Silicon Valley allies, The Wall Street Journal reported. Chinese officials “want to come to the table to negotiate and need something to play with,” a Shanghai-based analyst said. And Biden-era export controls on China’s chip sector are hitting the global semiconductor industry harder than expected, Nikkei Asia reported, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company now taking an “extremely cautious approach” toward its Chinese customers.

Hamas suspends hostage release

Hamas postponed the release of more Israeli hostages in Gaza, accusing Israel of violating a tenuous ceasefire already imperiled by Donald Trump’s proposals for the enclave. Both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of ceasefire violations, but the latest move “comes against a backdrop of US and Israeli leaders taking increasingly hardline positions” over the future of the strip, The Guardian wrote. Hamas’ announcement came shortly after Trump said that Palestinians will not have the right to return to Gaza under his widely condemned plan to take over the enclave. Egyptian officials told Reuters that Hamas no longer trusts US guarantees, and has postponed ceasefire talks until Washington’s commitment to the current deal is made clear.

BYD’s new smart EV is less than $10,000

Tesla’s Chinese rival BYD unveiled an electric vehicle priced under $10,000 Monday, potentially triggering a new price war in China. BYD, China’s biggest EV maker, also announced that an advanced self-driving system called God’s Eye will be installed in most of its models. BYD’s CEO said driver assistance is “no longer an unattainable luxury, but an essential tool” like seatbelts and airbags. The company has fueled a domestic price war in the last few years, and its new rollouts could further challenge Tesla, which is already hamstrung by China’s regulatory hurdles. One local expert compared BYD’s moves to Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, which upended global markets with its claims of building advanced technology at a fraction of the cost.

McDonald’s international sales rise

McDonald’s reported a surprise increase in global sales at the end of 2024, partly driven by easing of boycotts related to the war in Gaza. The Middle East market helped fuel the rebound; sales had previously taken a hit as customers in the region and other Muslim-majority countries like Indonesia and Malaysia targeted the American fast-food chain over its perceived pro-Israel stance. Discounts in Japan and China also helped McDonald’s international business. In the US, though, sales dropped following an E. coli outbreak and as customers spent less money per visit. Low-income diners and families are still feeling price pressures, leading to sluggish January sales: “The industry is still seeing a fair bit of headwind,” its chief financial officer said.

Baltic states ditch Russian grid for EU

The Baltic states have ditched Russia’s electricity grid and connected to Europe’s supply. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania celebrated the change in a ceremony Sunday, a move “steeped in geopolitical and symbolic significance,” Euronews reported. The three were Soviet states, ruled from Moscow until 1990, and remained connected by 16 power lines to Russia and Belarus. The relationship of the now-NATO members with their old colonial ruler has been difficult since independence — complicated further by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Over recent years, connections to the European Union grid have been steadily added, literally and figuratively tying them to the Western sphere of influence.

Trump: Stop making cents

US President Donald Trump told the Treasury Sunday to stop producing one-cent coins. Scrapping the penny has been proposed for decades: President Barack Obama said in 2013 that its continued survival was “a good metaphor for some of the larger problems” of government. The pennies cost three cents each to produce, and most are given out as change and immediately lost, meaning more must be minted for future change. An estimated 240 billion of them are lying around in the US, The New York Times reported last year. Other countries have taken similar measures. Canada ended its one-cent coin in 2012, and some years the UK doesn’t bother minting twopence coins, because no one uses them.

Trump’s moves reflect global trends

Donald Trump’s expansionist ambitions and his moves to cement power are reflective of worrying geopolitical trends, two experts argued. Like incumbent governments in India, Hungary, and El Savador, the US under Trump is heading toward “competitive authoritarianism,” Harvard University professor Steven Levitsky wrote in The Atlantic. Under this model, democratic elections are fiercely contested, but the ruling party abuses its power and “systematically tilts the playing field against the opposition.” And Trump’s determination to acquire territory like Greenland and Canada mirrors Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping’s interest in empire, marking an age of “neoimperialism,” the Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman wrote: “The implications are bleak for the current international system.”

Sri Lanka blames monkey for blackout

Sri Lanka’s government blamed an hourslong nationwide blackout on a monkey that broke into an electrical substation. Power began gradually being restored Sunday night, with critical infrastructure given priority. A plant security guard cast some doubt on the energy minister’s claims about the monkey — “monkeys jump into the power station very often,” the guard told the Sri Lankan Daily Mirror — but such an incident is possible because the underlying issue is Sri Lanka’s old and poorly maintained electrical grid. The Mirror quoted an unnamed engineer saying the grid is “in such a weakened state that frequent islandwide power outages may be expected” if even one power line is disturbed, including by a primate.

Sotheby’s holds debut Saudi auction

Sotheby’s debut auction in Saudi Arabia exceeded $17 million in sales, in a sign of strength for the Gulf’s high-end art market. The auction house, which is backed by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, offered pieces from Arab and Western artists, ranging from Picasso to Banksy, and memorabilia like a signed Michael Jordan jersey. “The offerings were as diverse as the crowd” that saw veteran art aficionados and new collectors rub shoulders, Bloomberg wrote. The event was seen as a test for the kingdom’s art scene, and follows “a recent wave of arts-related momentum” in the region, including a Guggenheim museum in Abu Dhabi coming later this year, Arabian Gulf Business Insight wrote.

Feb. 11:

• TSMC holds its first-ever board meeting in the US.
• Midterm campaigning starts in the Philippines.
• Government offices, schools, and many companies close in Japan as the country celebrates National Foundation Day.

Pablo Picasso’s portrait of a mystery woman was discovered underneath the surface of one of his iconic Blue Period artworks. Using infrared and X-ray imaging, art historians revealed the presence of the “ghostly woman” beneath a 1901 painting of his friend Mateu Fernández de Soto, which is going on display at London’s Courtauld Gallery next week. Like other struggling artists, Picasso reused canvases, but he painted directly on top of the woman, without cleaning the canvas. The woman’s identity will likely remain unknown forever, the gallery’s deputy head told The Times, but she resembled the many “melancholic women” in Parisian cafes that Picasso painted after he arrived in the French capital as a 19-year-old “restless” artist.

The South African government is considering ways for Elon Musk’s companies to invest in the country without complying with the nation’s Black empowerment rules, three people familiar with the matter told Semafor.

South African officials are discussing how Musk’s companies could sidestep rules that would require at least 30% of any South African operation to be owned by Black locals.