China hits back against Trump’s tariffs

Good morning. In today’s newsletter:

• China retaliates against Trump’s tariffs

• Microsoft poaches DeepMind staff behind AI podcast feature

• Bangladesh rewrites its past

Beijing has retaliated against Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports from China with duties of its own but limited their scope in a possible attempt to avoid a full-blown trade war.

China will impose tariffs of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent on US liquefied natural gas, coal, crude oil and farm equipment. Beijing will also impose tariffs on some car imports from the US and additional export controls on five rare metals. The measures will take effect on February 10.

China’s new tariffs target about $14bn of goods, Citigroup analysts said — less than 10 per cent of total imports from the US in 2023, the last year for which there was full data.

China also announced yesterday it had revived antitrust investigations into US tech giants Google and Nvidia, while considering a new probe against Intel.

The investigations “may be part of the retaliatory measures”, made by Beijing in response to Trump’s new tariffs against the country, said Liu Xu, a researcher at the National Strategy Institute of Tsinghua University. Xu added that the probes could be used as a tool in trade negotiations. Here’s what else we know about China’s moves.

• More on Trump’s tariffs: The US president’s crackdown on tariff-free access for small goods could threaten the business models of Chinese ecommerce groups Shein and Temu while benefiting Amazon, analysts said.

For more coverage of global trade, sign up for Alan Beattie’s weekly Trade Secrets newsletter here if you’re a premium subscriber, or upgrade your subscription. Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: South Korea and Philippines report January inflation data. Indonesia publishes fourth-quarter GDP.

• Results: Toyota, Nomura, Novo Nordisk, Uber and Disney report earnings.

• China: Financial markets reopen after the lunar new year holiday.

• Delhi state legislature elections: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party is hoping to recapture the capital city, which it has not won for over 27 years. (Associated Press)

Have questions about the Modi government’s plans to reinvigorate the Indian economy? Send them to us and we’ll answer them in a special weekend edition of the newsletter. Hit reply or email firstft@ft.com.

Five more top stories

1. Microsoft’s artificial intelligence head Mustafa Suleyman has poached his former colleagues at Google DeepMind who built its popular podcast-generating feature, as the rival companies race to build lucrative applications from the cutting-edge technology. The feature, “Audio Overviews”, allows users to transform text into audio that has the style of an engaging conversational podcast.

2. FBI agents are suing the Trump administration to prevent it from publicly naming staff involved in an investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021 amid an intensifying crackdown against the president’s perceived enemies. They allege that a justice department attempt to identify those involved in the probes risked putting them and their families in “immediate danger of retribution”.

3. Alphabet’s revenues undershot estimates in the fourth quarter as the search giant’s cloud business grew slower than expected. The Google parent also revved up its spending on data centres as it competes with Silicon Valley rivals in the artificial intelligence race.

4. Apollo Global Management chief executive Marc Rowan says a wave of partnerships between alternative and big asset managers will shake up Wall Street. He said companies such as Apollo could create co-branded investment funds or “massive managed accounts” with traditional asset managers that would widen investors’ ownership of unlisted assets.

5. Exclusive: Citigroup will continue to allow most employees to work remotely at least two days a week in a move that puts it out of step with some rivals and the Trump administration. Here’s why chief executive Jane Fraser described flexible in-office work requirements as a competitive advantage.

News in-depth

Barely half a year after Bangladesh’s student-led revolution overthrew Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, the interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus is rewriting the country’s official history. School textbooks printed by his government have revised the country’s independence narrative and challenged the cult of personalty that was built around Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the late father of Sheikh Hasina. But Yunus’s team faces a range of obstacles in this effort to remake the country.

We’re also reading . . . 

• ‘Fair’ algorithms: Simply adding a human review process to automated systems doesn’t make tricky trade-offs disappear, writes Sarah O’Connor.

• The Big Read: Have America’s industrial giants lost their way by measuring success only in financial terms?

• Market Insight: Shifts in the global economic and financial order are making the concept of the “global south” less effective, writes Mohamed El-Erian.

Chart of the day

Chinese manufacturers say they will speed up efforts to move production to other countries to circumvent US tariffs, after Donald Trump announced a new trade offensive against Beijing. Chinese companies have already been diversifying their trade in recent years, and China’s share of US imports has fallen markedly since Trump introduced tariffs in his first term in office.

Take a break from the news . . . 

Weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic have curbed the obesity crisis, but have they killed the joy of food? Ajesh Patalay explores what a world of tiny appetites means for modern dining.