Good morning.
Donald Trump has fired the opening salvo of his trade war, imposing tariffs on China on Tuesday that prompted instant retaliation from Beijing and fears about the global economic repercussions.
Having pulled back at the 11th hour from the brink of an economic conflict with Canada and Mexico, delaying threatened duties on the two countries for another month, Trump went ahead with US tariffs of 10% on China, which then itself swiftly announced an antitrust investigation into Google.
China’s finance ministry also announced 15% tariffs on coal and liquefied natural gas, and 10% on crude oil, farm equipment, large-displacement vehicles and pickup trucks from the US.
What could be the impact on ordinary Americans? Economists have warned Trump’s tariff plans risk raising prices for millions of Americans just weeks after he pledged, upon taking office, to “rapidly” bring them down.
How much does the US trade with China? China is the US’s third-largest trading partner, behind Mexico and Canada, making up 11.3% of total trade and more than $50bn for November last year alone.
Progressive Democrats accuse Trump and Musk of ‘a plutocratic coup’
Progressive lawmakers condemned Trump and Elon Musk yesterday, pointing to the attempted shuttering of the foreign aid agency USAid and the accessing of the treasury department’s federal payment system as the markings of a “constitutional crisis”.
After Musk declared that he was working to shut down USAid, Democratic members of Congress tried to enter the agency’s Washington headquarters but said they were turned away on the orders of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). USAid staffers were also locked out of the building on Monday, as the White House confirmed plans to merge the agency with the state department.
The administration is also weighing executive actions to dismantle the education department as part of Musk’s efforts, the Wall Street Journal reports.
What have the lawmakers said about Musk’s behavior? The senator Elizabeth Warren said it “threatens the privacy and economic security of every American”. The congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez described it as “a plutocratic coup”, and the congresswoman Ilhan Omar said “this is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like”.
Trump’s suggestion of trading rare metals for Ukraine support criticized as ‘very selfish’ by German chancellor
Trump has said he wants to negotiate an agreement with Ukraine in which Kyiv guarantees supplies of rare earth metals, key elements used in electronics, in exchange for aid.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, had floated such an idea last October as part of his “victory plan” for ending the war with Russia. “We’re telling Ukraine they have very valuable rare earths,” Trump said on Monday. Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, criticised Trump’s demand, saying “it would be very selfish”.
A dire shortage of infantry troops and supply routes coming under Russian drone attacks are adding to the pressure on Ukrainian forces in Pokrovsk, where decisive battles in the nearly three-year war are playing out.
How is the Trump administration approaching Ukraine? Its policy remains unclear. US shipments of weapons into Ukraine were briefly paused in recent days before resuming over the weekend as the Trump administration debated its policy towards Kyiv, Reuters reports.
How swift is Russia’s advance? Russian forces advanced 430 sq km (166 sq miles) into Ukrainian territory in January and are headed towards the logistics hub of Pokrovsk, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War.
In other news …
The Senate confirmed Chris Wright as energy secretary, after Trump nominated the fracking executive for the post. The vote yesterday was 59-38.
The Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, who seized the city of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo last week, have declared a unilateral ceasefire starting today.
The actor Nicolas Cage reiterated his warning against the use of artificial intelligence in the film industry, saying “robots cannot reflect the human condition for us”.
The exponential rise in microplastic pollution over the past 50 years may be reflected in increasing contamination in human brains, according to a study in the journal Nature Medicine.
Stat of the day: Brazilian police kill more than 6,000 people a year – now grieving mothers are banding together
Police in Brazil kill more than 6,000 people every year, with the victims mostly young black men from low-income communities caught in the crossfire of the state’s indiscriminate war on crime. Now, grieving mothers are acting as paid researchers in a pioneering project at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), which aims to design a nationwide policy of institutional support for relatives of victims of state violence. Known as “scholarship mums”, they say their goal is to provide support to those left behind.
Don’t miss this: Guardian readers’ favorite brutalist buildings
Modernist architecture enthusiasts hope The Brutalist, the film nominated for 10 Oscars about a fictional architect, will help revive interest in 20th-century brutalist heritage – and stimulate people to protect buildings under threat from demolition. People shared their most-loved brutalist structures with the Guardian.
Climate check: Greenland ice sheet cracking more rapidly than ever, study shows
The Greenland ice sheet – the world’s second largest – is cracking more rapidly than ever before as a response to climate breakdown, a study published in Nature found. Using commercial satellite imagery, researchers found that wedge-shaped tears in the glacier significantly increased in size and depth over the five years. Most surprising was “how fast this was happening”, the lead author said.
Last Thing: Daisy the ‘AI granny’ drives scammers crazy
Daisy, an AI bot created by computer scientists to combat fraud, has one simple task: to waste the time of scammers. “You know, back in my day we didn’t have all this technology. Everything was much simpler. What about you, dear?” she asks one exasperated fraudster.
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