Happy Wednesday and welcome to your wrap of the key business and political headlines from around the world.
First up, US President Donald Trump’s new 10% global tariffs have come into effect despite claims he would bring in a higher rate, the BBC reported.
The US Supreme Court struck down many of his trade levies on Friday (local time), which prompted the President to announce a 10% global rate, only for him to say the following day that the rate would be 15%.
The new charge is being applied under the 1974 Trade Act, which allows the President to impose the tax for 150 days without congressional approval.
However, official documents show the levy has come into effect at the lower rate.
A White House official told Reuters that work is underway to update the charge, but there was no indication of when that might be.
There’s a range of views on the new levy, with ING Bank investment analyst Carsten Brzeski telling the BBC that in terms of uncertainty, “we’re back to where we were last year”.
"The risk of a real, fully-fledged tariff war – trade war – escalation is clearly higher than last year," he said.
But Wall Street’s main indices were all in the black overnight, suggesting that investors were looking through the changes.
BRI Wealth Management head of investment Toni Meadows told CNBC that investors have “bigger issues to deal with”, such as AI.
The new US global trade tariff has come into effect.
In other news, Reuters has an exclusive story reporting that Iran is close to a deal with China to purchase anti-ship cruise missiles just as the United States deploys a vast naval force near the Iranian coast ahead of a possible strike.
According to six people with knowledge of the negotiations, the deal for the Chinese-made CM-302 missiles is near completion, although no delivery date has been finalised.
The projectiles have a range of close to 300km, are designed to evade defences, and their deployment would enhance Iran’s ability to strike US naval forces, weapons experts said.
The White House did not directly address the negotiations between Iran and China over the missile system when asked by Reuters. An official said the President has been very clear that the US would either make a deal with Iran over its nuclear programme or “we will have to do something very tough like last time”.
Staying with world news headlines, today marks four years since Russia invaded Ukraine.
In a show of support, more than a dozen senior European officials headed to Kyiv to mark the anniversary of the conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced Ukrainians, and created geopolitical instability, Associated Press reported.
At a makeshift memorial in Kyiv’s central square, where thousands of small flags and portraits show photos of fallen soldiers, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on US President Donald Trump to visit and witness Ukraine’s suffering.
“Only then can one truly understand what this war is really about,” Zelenskyy said.
In a separate post on social media, he said his country had withstood the onslaught by a bigger and better-equipped army.
“Looking back at the beginning of the invasion and reflecting on today, we have every right to say: 'we have defended our independence, we have not lost our statehood',” adding that Russia has not achieved its goals.
Russian President Vladimir Putin made no mention of the anniversary.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In business news, Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) said it was reviewing a revised takeover bid from Paramount Skydance but revealed no details about what had been put on the table, The Guardian reported.
WBD, in a statement, said it would update shareholders following the board’s review. “The Netflix merger agreement remains in effect, and the board continues to recommend in favour of the Netflix transaction.”
WBD last week gave Paramount seven days to put forward its “best and final” offer for the company, as Netflix has remained in the box seat to acquire its streaming business and studios for US$82.7 billion. Paramount, which is pursuing a hostile $108.4b ($181b) takeover of the whole company, has now sweetened its previous deal.
If WBD’s board deems that the Paramount offer is superior, Netflix will have four days to improve its previous bid. If it fails to better what Paramount has put forward, Netflix will receive a $2.8b breakup fee that Paramount has agreed to fund.
Netflix is in the boxseat to acquire WBD.
Also in business news, Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has inked another massive computer chip deal, this time with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), CNBC reported.
Meta said the multiyear deal involved procuring up to six gigawatts of the company’s graphics processing units for artificial intelligence data centres. It also includes a performance-based warrant for Meta to acquire about 10% of AMD.
The announcement is critical for AMD, which is far behind Nvidia in the AI chip market.
AMD’s stock climbed 7% on the news. Meta’s shares were slightly lower and Nvidia’s shares were flat.
